There is a crack in everything...

SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
Bisphenol a or some other chemical leeching out of the drum?

I notice the same thing with tap water and my 5 gal bucket but I attributed it to change in temp and change in concentration of disolved gasses. We need a chemist to chime in, but I'd say when the media cant buffer the wrong pH water (high or low) that becomes an issue that cant (or at least would be very difficult to) be corrected by changing the pH of water. I do wonder if you would benifit for pH'ing to 7, just to get things moving in the right direction?

Please let us know if the acid fert has an impact on sip res pH.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
I'm going to keep throwing out any data I have, to see if anything lines up with others experiences...

The local hydro store I've been going to stopped carrying one of the dry nutes I use in my blend, so I decided to try another dry time release brand. I still had some of the old mix ingredients, so I up-potted half of the seedlings using the old mix, and half using the new mix. I'm surprised that I just noticed this, but all of the girls I have left are in the new mix. That could be entirely a coincidence, but I'll list the ingredients of both sets:

Everything started with a mix of Fox Farms Ocean Forest and Happy Frog Potting soil. Then they each got additional worm castings, bat guano, and Great White.

The old mix was 1/4 strength each of:

Fox Farms Marine Cuisine
Happy Frog Fruit and Flower
Dr. Earth's Acid Lovers mix
Dr. Earth's Rose mix

The new mix was:

Earth Juice Rainbow Mix Pro, 50/50 grow and bloom.

The Old Mix was 4 plants that were all boys or hermies, the New Mix was 3 girls and one boy/hermie (I'm not sure which it was). Like I said, could be a strange coincidence, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

As a side note, I did the same comparison with two Jack Herer clones in 7 gallon pots, and at 6 weeks into flower they both are showing some deficiencies, but completely different issues. Neither has hermied. Too little data, but I'll mention that the Jack in the Old Mix is doing better in every way than the one in the New Mix.
 
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Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
Please let us know if the acid fert has an impact on sip res pH.
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Just to be clear, the high acid fert is a dry time release kind that is added to the soil, I have not added any nutes directly to res on my SIP --although I have been adding "down" to it, to bring it into a better range and that has definitely been making the plant happy.

So I don't expect that the ferts will impact the res water pH, since the water seems to wick in one direction. It might be impacting the soil pH, but I have yet to test that. I suppose next time I set up a SIP I can pack the soil in the wick with a bunch of high acid ferts and see if that helps neutralize the water as it wicks up... something to thing about after I get a soil pH tester,
 
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SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
Humanrob said:
Just to be clear, the high acid fert is a dry time release kind that is added to the soil, I have not added any nutes directly to res on my SIP --although I have been adding "down" to it, to bring it into a better range and that has definitely been making the plant happy.

So I don't expect that the ferts will impact the water pH, since the water seems to wick in one direction. It might be impacting the soil pH, but I have yet to test that. I suppose next time I set up a SIP I can pack the soil in the wick with a bunch of high acid ferts and see if that helps neutralize the water as it wicks up... something to thing about after I get a soil pH tester,
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Cool, thanks for the clairification, I've never done sip, successfully. I wasn't thinking how little sense it would make to top dress something unless you watered through and leached it.

So rather than increasing in the soil mix to begin with or inserting as a band some where in the pot? Does the wick ever dry out in a sip under normal operarion? If it cycles wet to damp even? Maybe a band at the top of the wick?

Sorry for all the "out loud" thinking.

Edit, I begining to question the results I'm getting with the cheap probe I got.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
Cool, thanks for the clairification, I've never done sip, successfully. I wasn't thinking how little sense it would make to top dress something unless you watered through and leached it.

So rather than increasing in the soil mix to begin with or inserting as a band some where in the pot? Does the wick ever dry out in a sip under normal operarion? If it cycles wet to damp even? Maybe a band at the top of the wick?

Sorry for all the "out loud" thinking.

Edit, I begining to question the results I'm getting with the cheap probe I got.
Click to expand...
Sips are a big topic, and there are a range of types of SIPs with varied purposes; some are just a way of controlled continuous watering, others are intending to reap the benefits of both soil and hydro by allowing (or encouraging) the roots to grow into the res so the plant develops what we've been calling "water roots" (not sure if that's a real term). Anyway, I do the latter, so I never let my res get below 1/3 so that the water roots never dry up. For every rule I've read, I've read someone else who ignores it -- like I've read never let the wick dry completely and then I've read about people who regularly do. So, I can really only tell you about the way I do it.

The 'band' that you mention is part of the design, often referred to as a trench, I dig a channel into the soil near the bottom of the pot and *fill* it with dry time release ferts. The plant accesses these for the entire run. If the sip is set up well (and you have a source of good neutral pH water) all you do is keep refilling the res through the whole run. That's the beauty of it... when it works as intended.

One thing that came up in a recent thread (and I have not verified) is that cannabis sends water seeking roots down, and nutrient seeking roots up and out. It makes some sense, since the "top soil" layer is the most recently composted and probably the richest soil. At any rate, this impacted the way some folks have set up their sip, adding the dry nutes to the top 1/3 of the pot instead of the bottom. Since we theoretically never water from the top down during the run, this layer would not over-power the soil below it.

SIPs can be a confusing topic because there are so many designs, and with so many people (with varying degrees of understanding how they work) DIY'ing their own, there is a wide variety of success and failure rates with them.
 
SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
Humanrob said:
Sips are a big topic, and there are a range of types of SIPs with varied purposes; some are just a way of controlled continuous watering, others are intending to reap the benefits of both soil and hydro by allowing (or encouraging) the roots to grow into the res so the plant develops what we've been calling "water roots" (not sure if that's a real term). Anyway, I do the latter, so I never let my res get below 1/3 so that the water roots never dry up. For every rule I've read, I've read someone else who ignores it -- like I've read never let the wick dry completely and then I've read about people who regularly do. So, I can really only tell you about the way I do it.

The 'band' that you mention is part of the design, often referred to as a trench, I dig a channel into the soil near the bottom of the pot and *fill* it with dry time release ferts. The plant accesses these for the entire run. If the sip is set up well (and you have a source of good neutral pH water) all you do is keep refilling the res through the whole run. That's the beauty of it... when it works as intended.

One thing that came up in a recent thread (and I have not verified) is that cannabis sends water seeking roots down, and nutrient seeking roots up and out. It makes some sense, since the "top soil" layer is the most recently composted and probably the richest soil. At any rate, this impacted the way some folks have set up their sip, adding the dry nutes to the top 1/3 of the pot instead of the bottom. Since we theoretically never water from the top down during the run, this layer would not over-power the soil below it.

SIPs can be a confusing topic because there are so many designs, and with so many people (with varying degrees of understanding how they work) DIY'ing their own, there is a wide variety of success and failure rates with them.
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LOL at the last statement. Gardening techniques vary so much in general, hpa, dwc, I try to pay attention to them all, but I miss key points or confuse between methods often.
Thanks for the summary on how you approach it.

I am going to attempt a trench fertilizer band when I do final transplant non sip, recycled soil. I was anticipating it would leach out, but also wanted to get that benifit (if there is one) of the nutrients being "denser" at the top, rather than when using a liquid fert and top watering, they will have a tendency to saturate the bottom of the container.

FWIW In colorado the arid climate i think is one reason that has encouraged several actual farmers to use sip, or sip like irrigation for large outdoor mj grows. So no doubt it works.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
I am going to attempt a trench fertilizer band when I do final transplant non sip, recycled soil. I was anticipating it would leach out, but also wanted to get that benifit (if there is one) of the nutrients being "denser" at the top, rather than when using a liquid fert and top watering, they will have a tendency to saturate the bottom of the container.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I'm following your plan, but I look forward to seeing how it works out :)
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
Back on the hermie topic, here's another possibly random observation... I think the vast majority of my hermies were from plants in small pots -- mostly 1 and 2 gallon with some 3 gallon. These have been test runs, and now I realize it was a mistake but I was keeping the nutes strong and lights intense to try and peak out/test the bud potential, and I'm wondering if that combined with limited root space caused the plants to stress out and hermie?

I'll just keep throwing things at the wall and see if anything sticks.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
I am going to attempt a trench fertilizer band when I do final transplant non sip, recycled soil. I was anticipating it would leach out, but also wanted to get that benifit (if there is one) of the nutrients being "denser" at the top, rather than when using a liquid fert and top watering, they will have a tendency to saturate the bottom of the container.
Click to expand...
As far as this goes, I think I'm doing something similar to what you're contemplating. Ever since running SIPs I've been trying to find non-sip grow set-ups that are as close to "add water only" as possible -- or at least as low maintenance as possible. To that end the closest I've come is when I up-pot, mixing dry time release ferts into the bottom 1/3 of the soil in the pot, and then mildly augmented soil in the top 2/3's of the new pot (fabric pots, btw). The plant just came out of a 1 gallon that was just soil, so the roots hit similar soil but as they grow they tap into the richer soil below.

There is some run-off of nutes into the tray, but I figure most of that is reabsorbed when the water wicks back up into the pot. If there is extra water in there that does not wick up I save it and add it to the next watering. When I flip to flower (at this point usually after 6 weeks of veg) I top dress with a mix of fresh soil with more dry time release ferts mixed in. So far the results are working for me and the work-put-in to buds-coming-out ratio is great.
 
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SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
Humanrob said:
I think I might have overdone the UV lights...
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Why? Amber while still showing its putting on size?

what light? Duration?

more frequent up pots would probably help me. Pulled a couple males today and they are ready to up put, I was hoping to procrastinate a week. I may have to have larger than the 4+ gal pots this time too with the longer veg.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
Why? Amber while still showing its putting on size?

what light? Duration?

more frequent up pots would probably help me. Pulled a couple males today and they are ready to up put, I was hoping to procrastinate a week. I may have to have larger than the 4+ gal pots this time too with the longer veg.
Click to expand...
I've been playing with "lizard lights" for a couple of years... honestly I can't say they've done any good. The first grow I ever did was with compact fluorescents, and the first time I used a CFL-like lizard bulb I thought I could keep it at a similar distance, that was totally wrong. I *cooked* a poor Green Crack, burned it so badly it stunted and never properly finished.

In more recent grows I've run them for 15-60 minute periods, usually two a day depending on the strain and the layout of my lights. I have noticed that not all plants react the same to them. I had four strains in a tent once, and one was a Jack Herer, and it finished in about 6.5 weeks -- the other strains took a more predictable 8 weeks. That's happening again, and this time I have a friend who picked up a clone from the same dispensary as I did, we are both growing with COB lights, and his is on a normal 8 week track -- and he doesn't use UV lights. So it seems that Jack is sensitive to UV.


You are breeding? And you up pot after you flip to 12/12?
 
SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
Humanrob said:
I've been playing with "lizard lights" for a couple of years... honestly I can't say they've done any good. The first grow I ever did was with compact fluorescents, and the first time I used a CFL-like lizard bulb I thought I could keep it at a similar distance, that was totally wrong. I *cooked* a poor Green Crack, burned it so badly it stunted and never properly finished.

In more recent grows I've run them for 15-60 minute periods, usually two a day depending on the strain and the layout of my lights. I have noticed that not all plants react the same to them. I had four strains in a tent once, and one was a Jack Herer, and it finished in about 6.5 weeks -- the other strains took a more predictable 8 weeks. That's happening again, and this time I have a friend who picked up a clone from the same dispensary as I did, we are both growing with COB lights, and his is on a normal 8 week track -- and he doesn't use UV lights. So it seems that Jack is sensitive to UV.


You are breeding? And you up pot after you flip to 12/12?
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I have used the agromax 25/75, i did find similar to you that it can easiky damage plants and found Icould get more consistent results with it further away. I had run it for 15-20 minutes every hour for the middle 6-10 hours of the day. I stopped using the agromax after changing the t5 lamps in my hybrid cob (6 2ft overdriven t5s and 12 cxb3590s) to the agromax 10k finisher with uv. I run the t5s for the middle 6-10 hrs depending on flower or veg. In my water cooled light I incorporated about 10w of 2 different uv 380 and 395nm.

I stopped with the full on uv lamp because though I believe it can help, ultimately it was adding to the environmental stress and the 10k finisher seems like a less risky option. The main reason I went with the uv led on the water cooled light is so I was legal for the 16 oz party cup.

Based on some reading I am beginning to think the use of uv for the whole cycle may be less of an advantage due to the increased stress and possibly adding the last few weeks would provide same benifit but with less risk?

I have settled on a 2 week transition, usually I stop at 11/13 (light/dark) this time Im stoping at 13/11, the arduino handles the timing so I just input the parameters veg on off time, how many veg days, how many days to transition over and how may hours of daylight at the end of transition. I like to be in final pots before the transition period but have transplanted with fingernail sized preflowers (about 2 weeks after)

2 chucks on last run was my first try, went well considering so no, not breeding, but looking to make my own seeds. One was a cross and one was a backcross when I do it again I will clone so I can be more selective. Had good germ rate, a twin on the cross and unique 1st leaf structure on the backcross. Heres my journal
https://www.rollitup.org/t/boxed-wine-cabinet-and-cabrenet.933703/page-5#post-14154234
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
Another grow wrapping up. I popped 9 seeds, had 2 that hermied from first showing sex, and 4 were boys. So I was left with 3 girls, 3 different strains. The first to come down was the Willamette Valley Pineapple, the sweetest fruitiest smelling plant I've ever grown. Next was the Double Diesel, which was a strange plant I have little hope for, but it seemed to be all female.

Then came the LSD, which I've grown before and loved... and it hermied. And not just a little bit, it had both male flowers and 'nanners', and some of the lower branches had so many seeds I just tossed them entirely. The seeds were full size but still green, so I'm thinking they were about 4 weeks old, which means the other two were in the tent with pollen for that long and no doubt will have some random seeds.

I'm also growing 3 from clones, 2 are down, 1 still going, but they show no signs of boy-ness. If the last clone proves to have no boy parts when I'm trimming, then I'll probably just give up on growing from seeds and only grow clones moving forward. I hate walking away from this without understanding what the cause actually is, but I'm only doing one indoor per year, so I have no time or space to fuck around anymore.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
Does anyone know if poorly stored seeds -- specifically stored in too warm a climate -- might cause them the plant to hermie?

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure this out...
 
SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
Had a thought about why you may not be seeing the same issues with clones, kind of relates to when plant reaches sexual maturity. Assuming clones are from regular non feminized stock of moms that have been vegging and have shown sex. This would mean that those cloes start at sexual maturity and might be less chace for sexual ambiguity? Pretty sure I posted here about my plan to prune everything 4 nodes up, also plan to severly limit flower growth under the canopy. Resulting in larger plants than Im used to handling and Im still getting used to tent life, had to add 2nd circulation fan to help with humidity issues but tic for tac its alot easier to keep environment in chck than in my cabinet.
Best of luck.
 
Humanrob

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
Had a thought about why you may not be seeing the same issues with clones, kind of relates to when plant reaches sexual maturity. Assuming clones are from regular non feminized stock of moms that have been vegging and have shown sex. This would mean that those cloes start at sexual maturity and might be less chace for sexual ambiguity? Pretty sure I posted here about my plan to prune everything 4 nodes up, also plan to severly limit flower growth under the canopy. Resulting in larger plants than Im used to handling and Im still getting used to tent life, had to add 2nd circulation fan to help with humidity issues but tic for tac its alot easier to keep environment in chck than in my cabinet.
Best of luck.
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Interesting theory about the clones, it does make me wonder. I've thought about putting aside everything I'm using from pots to nutes, even to the 55 gallon drum I fill for watering, and trying one more run with fresh seeds. I've got a lot of seeds, I don't mind tossing the ones I've made, but I'm a cheap bastard and I hate to throw away the ones I've paid for. Next winter indoor is a long way away, so I have too much time to think about this. hahaha

It sounds like our pruning goals are similar, from now on I'm looking for fewer larger branches and buds. I've found that the way I scrog I try to fill the screen, and that type of trimming encourages a lot of smaller buds. I would not be surprised if in the end that method would produce more overall weight than fewer larger buds, but the time and effort to trim all those small buds is not worth it to me.

These pictures are from slightly different times in the grow, but roughly I'm moving from;

the scrog (this pic is from this morning, it'll come down this weekend)
04.24.18_3x3last-week.jpg

(This is from almost a week ago, so they have fattened up some since this was taken)
04.18.18_gg4-bic.jpg

To something more like mainlining...
04.05.18_2x4seedlings.jpg
04.08.18_2x4lsd-bic.jpg

...and then through longer veg times, I want to get the colas bigger than those. I'm finding a lot has to do with the strain, genetics can limit the cola-size-potential. I could be wrong, but from my experience strains like Chernobyl and GSC will never produce massive colas.
 
blowincherrypie

blowincherrypie

Well-Known Member
Humanrob said:
Interesting theory about the clones, it does make me wonder. I've thought about putting aside everything I'm using from pots to nutes, even to the 55 gallon drum I fill for watering, and trying one more run with fresh seeds. I've got a lot of seeds, I don't mind tossing the ones I've made, but I'm a cheap bastard and I hate to throw away the ones I've paid for. Next winter indoor is a long way away, so I have too much time to think about this. hahaha

It sounds like our pruning goals are similar, from now on I'm looking for fewer larger branches and buds. I've found that the way I scrog I try to fill the screen, and that type of trimming encourages a lot of smaller buds. I would not be surprised if in the end that method would produce more overall weight than fewer larger buds, but the time and effort to trim all those small buds is not worth it to me.

These pictures are from slightly different times in the grow, but roughly I'm moving from;

the scrog (this pic is from this morning, it'll come down this weekend)
View attachment 4126528

(This is from almost a week ago, so they have fattened up some since this was taken)
View attachment 4126529

To something more like mainlining...
View attachment 4126526
View attachment 4126527

...and then through longer veg times, I want to get the colas bigger than those. I'm finding a lot has to do with the strain, genetics can limit the cola-size-potential. I could be wrong, but from my experience strains like Chernobyl and GSC will never produce massive colas.
Click to expand...
sounds right to mebongsmilie
 
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