I'm a little behind on starting this journal, so I'm going to list my setup followed by photos. SOIL: 1cf FF Lightwarrior 1.5cf FFoF 1cf Organic Potting Soil (Locally Produced) .5cf Ancient Forest Humus 2 x 5gal bags Mother Earth Chunky Perlite 1 cup Happy Frog Fruit & Flower 1/2 cup Organicare 5/8/6 +8%Ca Dry Fert 3 Cups Dolomite Lime WATER: I water about 2 times/week. I don't want to overwater my plant and suffocate the roots. It is currently potted in a 2 gallon SMART POT. These pots are great! They allow the soil to get oxygen, air prune roots promoting more root growth, and they allow the soil temperature to stay at a level that it likes. SuperThrive Root Excelurator CalMag (as needed) Liquid Karma (as desired) pH 6.7 TEMPS: 70F - 88F I used frozen 1/2 gal bottles to lower the temps during the day, by placing them in front of the passive intake. Current temps are ~82F without any heat reduction measures. LIGHT: Currently Vegging under a 90W Sunshine Systems UFO. I am keeping the light ~3-4inches above the canopy for maximum efficiency. This little baby was germinated in Rapid Rooters. The seed popped after ~ 4 days. CURRENT AGE: ~3 Weeks from Seed Germination
After having a few nitrogen issues, and seeing some necrosis on lower fan leaves, I repotted the plant into the soil mixture listed above. Since then I have had no nutrient issues. I am not currently feeding any fertilizer to the plant via watering. I water with 6.7pH and Superthrive/Root Excelerator/CalMag/Liquid Karma every third watering. 8/13 - Topped my girl today. (Feminized seed, although I know that doesn't always guarantee it'll be female; sensimilla) Started LST'ing her using velcro tie downs that stick quite nicely to the cloth sides of the Smart Pot. Also, watered with straight pH 6.7 water, no additives. Approx 1.5 cups of water.
Update: Just replaced my 3x 4" axial fans running inline (supposedly 85cfm ea) with a Vortex 4" 177cfm fan. Definitely getting negative pressure now, and temps have dropped a few degrees to 82F.
Nice set up LC, Welcome to Grasscity and the organic forums/journals and a public thanks for the rep and the kind words. Looking forward to seeing your grow play out. chunk
Thanks Chunk I have a long way to go to reach the knowledge that you, LumperDawgz, and a number of others here in the organic section possess. I've got a few books coming and a lot of reading to do. My box (2' x 3' x 5') should be completed soon and I plan on cloning the BW mother and running a SCROG setup of (2) plants in 5gal Smart Pots on a strictly organic diet. It'll be running under a 250w or 400w HPS for flower (Still pondering MH or a mogul based 200w (actual CFL wattage, not equivalent) for vegging and keeping electric costs down) since my experience with LED is that they SUCK for flowering. Time to start learning to brew my own microbe rich compost teas!! Hope that'll make my babies that much happier.
So, it's been a few days since I've posted an update. My blue widow plant is growing well, and putting out a good amount of new growth. She is being LST'd to high hell, and is developing a nice wide even canopy. I have noticed the tips of the new leaves at the top of the plant lightening in color, and becoming bright green. Not quite sure if it's a pH issue (When I started adding humic acid to the feeding, I was a lazy bastard and didn't pH up my water, it was ~6.4 without using any pH up/down) and Mg is getting locked out, or there is a deficiency. My soil is pretty solid, so I'm going to say I messed up the pH and locked it out somehow. Epsom salts were recommended by someone else as an organic option for supplementing Mg. I still have some Botanicare Cal/Mag left from back when I grew in hydroponics. Will that harm my microbial soil buddies? Anyone else care to share their supplements for Mg deficiencies? Solutions to other micronutrient deficiencies? I've been looking at *Earth Juice Microblast* (Earth Juice Microblast) as a simple feed fix to cover a broad range of micronutrients. Has anyone ever used this/recommend it? GC wont let me upload the pics since I posted them in the sick plants forum. The can be found here: http://forum.grasscity.com/sick-plants-problems/888470-upper-leaves-turning-light-green.html
You mean like this ? : Just copy the "link location" of the pic you want to put here and then paste that jargon into the "insert image" spot of your post
New updates: So, I'm trying my hand at brewing AACT's for my plants. Here's my first attempt. Recipe: 2 gal water 1/4 cup Dr. Earth Alfalfa Meal 1/4 cup Dr. Earth Kelp Meal 1/4 cup Azomite 1 1/2 tbs Organic Blue Agave Nectar 1/2 cup Worm Castings 1/4 cup Fish Hydrolysate 1 tbs Humic Acid Brewer: 5 gal bucket Eco Air Commercial 3 pump 2 x air stones 2 x air pump filter bags (1 for using as a teabag, and the other for straining before feeding) I put the ingredients in one of the filter bags and brewed it for 24 hours. Afterwards I diluted it with water a a 1:1 ratio water:tea. We'll see how it goes. I have high hopes that I'll see good results.
Plant updates - So my baby is looking a bit strange. The new growth is brown-ish, and some new leaves are twisting and looking malformed. I am unsure as to the problem and could use some suggestions. I have never run into this before, but I'm a bit of a newbie in the organic/soil department. I'm guessing it's a deficiency, but I'm not sure of the cause. Help! The stem growth is very thick, but the leaves are not very happy. Also I had removed a number of fan leaves over time, to provide direct light to the side branches. I know some people are for this and some are very against removing fan leaves. Opinions? Suggestions?
hey LC, I don't know if you're still looking at microblast... I'm not absolutely sure but it's derived from azomite or rock dust, that contains your micro nutrients. It is simply a liquid form of the rock dust. Not exactly organic because it's mineral, but i guess it's closer to it than your superthrive, cal-mag, and excelurator. no worries thought they all work... as far as your current issue, I don't exactly know. are your plants getting micronutrients? it is a bit early for serious micronutrient deficiency imo but other things (ph, nute burn) could set it off. it looks kind of like an iron deficency, are you keeping up with the cal-mag? after skimming your page briefly I see that you added fish hydrolysate to your AACT.. I don't think fish hydrolysates should be added to AACT's, So cut that out of the mix next time. I'm no aact expert but I'm fairly sure that's a no-no. also stop cutting fan leaves off at this point... you need all the leaves you can get to pull through this... But I think it should be fairly simple a matter of flushing the hydrolysate out thoroughly, it's some hot shit! Real good though especially during 1st 3 weeks of bloom (2-3-1) also, that's a bit of a hot brew there. im pretty sure per 2 gallons you can use less kelp, ewc, and other meals in there, by just feeding them with sugars and oxygenating they will populate your water without it being overly steeped in nutrients. If you're seeing the humic acids clump up in there some silica should 'dissolve' it effectively.
The list of ingredients used in my AACT is derived from scouring other recipes and suggestions from the likes of Chundaddyo and LumperDawgz. Lumper specifically said not to use -fish emulsion- because the refining can multiply heavy metals. He and many others said to used the fish hydrosalate. Honestly, the plant was looking like that prior to adding the tea. I'm pretty sure now that it's a magnesium problem brought on by pH fluctuation. I fucked up my pH of the feed water. I was using 8 drops pH down in a half gallon instead of a full gallon. I retested all my water pH adjusts the other day and with 8 drops it was pH ~5.0, WAY too low for soil. Recalculated my 1/2 gal feed mix pH process and with 3 drops pH down gives me ~6.7 pH. I added straight water + epsom salts @ 1tsp per gallon for the mag deficiency. I don't want to simply blast it with calmag for fear of locking out other nutrients. Also, I retrained it, with the tops spread out filling the outer edge of the pot. Kinda looks like an octopus now. Also, repotted it and used a salt removing soil flush (FF Bushdoctor Sledgehammer) to try and flush any excess salts out of the soil, in case that was part of the issue. She has been repotted now, into a 3 gal Smart Pot with new soil. Hopefully these measures will help her pick back up.