were you also a member of Over Waterers Anonymous? lol Even tho my last soil mix was a bit funky....it definitely held moisture a lot more than what I was used to with bagged soils. Too moist, and too much watering and I ended up with a bit of a fungus gnat problem. Where did you get all your other tea recipes and the such? The "SST" thread? I think Im gonna do water only since Im such a newbie to organic...but kinda wanna be prepared for later flowering when a tea or top dress may help things reach their potential. Im planning for a decently long veg since Im ScrOGing and going with LED, so a few boosts later in the process may be in line for me. Oh yea....looking super sweet! What kinda training did you do? Topping, super cropping? looks like a pretty level canopy
JDS - oh ok that explains why your tent is not overflowing with canna! On the PH thing, yes now you know how hard it is chasing your tail. The promix has a lot of peat moss in it and is meant to be mixed with other ingredients to make a proper soil, one of those ingredients will or should be limestone/crab meal of some sort which helps buffer the PH. Peat by itself is not a good growing medium as its too acidic as you already found out. Now that you mixed a proper soil you've put all the PH up/down stuff away right? That stuff is for the hydro people, it won't work in a living soil. Actually its counter productive in that it will kill the micro organisms in the soil we need to grow plants with. Guano top dress?? How did you mess up with that? I've added a little into my mix and have added a little into a ACT in the past but not in the last year or so. Should be OK (there's much better). I guess your PH was whacked after that and you over compensated .... Better to top dress with malted barley and or kelp and or neem.
Believe me, Jerry, I don't want this. I put the hard work in to build a golden soil just so I didn't have to deal with this. But I can't dismiss the results I am seeing with acidifying the water. The water I am now using is this: Chloride: 3.4 mg/l Nitrate as N: <0.1 mg/l Nitrate as NO3: <0.45 mg/l Sulfate: 77 mg/l Total Alkalinity: 200 (CaCO3) mg/l TDS: 276 mg/l pH: 7.55 Calcium: 57,000 µg/l Magnesium: 24,000 µg/l Iron: <50 µg/l Manganese: <71 µg/l Potassium: 1300 µg/l Sodium: 22,000 µg/l I cooked the soil from another water source: Chloride: 5.2 mg/l Nitrate as N: 0.21 mg/l Nitrate as NO3: 0.94 mg/l Sulfate: 5.3 mg/l Total Alkalinity: 102 (CaCO3) mg/l TDS: 95 mg/l Calcium: 20,000 µg/l Magnesium: 11,000 µg/l Iron: <50 µg/l Manganese: <20 µg/l Potassium: <500 µg/l Sodium: 5,800 µg/l The soil of my pH when it was done cooking was 7.0. On the rapitester which I know all of you hate but it might be the only damn thing working in my garden these days. Based on conversations with another member here, my suspicion is that watering the soil for two months during the cook brought the pH up to the ceiling of acceptability. After 6 weeks in the pot the pH rose to about 7.2 on the rapitester, which I know everyone hates, but it might be the only damn thing working in my garden these days. Acidifying the water showed some results, but then I switched from the first water source to the second and the problems returned. Using more citric acid solved the problem. The change I saw was leaves going from drawn in and droopy to returning to sky position. It took some time for the soil to register a drop in pH, on the rapitester.... but now it is in the 6.5 to 6.8 range and the plants are looking better. So that's my experience. RO water out here is not an option. I gotta work with I got. I think the best way to handle this, at the moment, for the future, is to not use the OSF or crab meal. I will get my soil tested after this travesty sinks 100 yards before the dock and report back. I will let you all know. The pH could only be part of the problem, or it could be a symptom of another problem, like salt build up in the root base, maybe? I don't know, but I do know the plants that showed the first signs were the biggest ones that where getting the most water. That's why I thought I was over watering (but deep inside had a hard time believing that), but then the rest of the plants started to catch up to the decline. I don't want to be right or wrong, I just want to know what is happening. Right now I am observing leaves under a microscope and it looks like I have some mite eggs and I found one critter and thought I trapped him under the microscope slides, but he got away. But he doesn't look like a russet mite or a broad mite, but I am seeing those eggs. So I could be having several problems right now. Like the plants were lacking serious vigor due to pH and the vigor has returned, but maybe this leaf loss was dues to these itty bitty mites feasting on my hard work. So on to the next problem. Just waiting for the second shoe to drop kick my nads up into my neck.
My botanical teas were from nettle plants growing in a cow pasture near my house. Really huge spread of nettle bushes, loaded with nutrients I'm sure. Just put in a 5 gallon buckets with enough water to cover plant matter. Leave for about a week stirring everyday. I've found it will start to take on the smell of fresh cow manure itself once ready. As for training I did some experimenting with the 3. One I topped/lst/super cropped, One I topped/lst, and one I only lst'd. there's a picture of the supercrop.I split the second node down the middle with a razor blade at about 2 months. I'm interested to see which has the best yield.
I sincerely hope you get your problems straightened out. I'd get on the mites ASAP - they are the bane of cannabis gardeners everywhere. Perseverance & a solid IPM plan means everything. J
Is it OK if I do not have rock dust in my soil mix? Do I need it eventually? Or do I need to put it in before cooking the soil?
by rights you want it in the soil mix - when you mix and certainly before you plant. A soil is really not a soil without it. This thread may help or at least give you some insight as to why we use it - http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1111289... j
OK thanks.. I'm replacing it with Azomite since I couldn't find the rest. It's ok right? And I've left you a pm just that you didn't reply ..
oh man another long post eaten by the Ether. Azomite is different than "true" stone dusts in that it originates from old volcanic ash. It is an Aluminosilicate in nature and some folks believe that the high levels of Aluminum (heavy metals) can be released into the soil and then taken in by plants in the high humic soils such as we build. I'm not a chemist or a geologist or a scientist - I'm a roofer so I can only go by what I've read. I've used it myself and have not seen any negative results if that means anything. Ideally a basalt or granite stone dust is more desirable but I've no doubt the Azomite will work - it's just that it's not a stone dust, it's a clay dust. Take a look in here, too, you might find what you need in this thread. IMO it's a good resource for locating goods. Sourcing Organic Soil Mix Components - http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1277064...
When I called the stone yard they said they didn't have basalt, they had trap rock. I looked it up and it's just a different word for the same thing. Point being; don't expect them to know what they are talking about. It was $3 per bucket for 3/8" crushed stone and rock dust.
Build a taller fence man, your neighbors are liking your buds!! You have a little more time how long have they been flowering??
its an 8ft fence, they've been in flower about a month anywhere from 4-6 weeks left I'd imagine, was thinking next year I might bury my smartpots in the ground which are 20" tall, that saves almost 2ft
Hey buds and budlettes, I'm going down the back stretch and just wanted to share... a lot of yellow leaves and leaf curl. This strain does this every time! I'm not worried... here's another bud shot. I'm very close to harvest here. yummy yum yum - this is Krystalica, my 5th round in no-til, going to re-mix my soil next round as the soil is very crusty on the surface after several runs, getting some compaction.
Morning Bird I was thinking - if you don't want to use crab or oyster, etc in your mix perhaps using Pro Mix as part of your base would be a valid option. These folks have already added (just) enough lime to balance the pH of the Pro Mix pretty perfectly - they're huge enough to have the equipment to have this pretty much down pat with no additional input needed on your end. For what it's worth, my first organic soil mixes used Pro Mix with no additional need for any liming agents on my end with great success. These days I don't use liming agents either because I use leaf mold instead of peat, although there is a mess of lobster shells in the mix. J
I was thinking of top dressing my plants with ground malt and kelp instead of brewing the teas. Will half tbsp of each every two weeks be sufficient? I'm growing in 5 gal buckets.
That should be OK - I water in about a 1/4 cup of malted barley to a gallon of water. I do that sometimes every other watering. What I do is put enough malted barley that will fit into my coffee grinder and grind to fine and add into the gallon of water and top drench. Pretty easy .... you of course can just top amend but I would probably do like 1 heaping tbs or a small handful.. you're not going to hurt your plant with too much so go spendy and throw some in there. You will get immediate result next morning all plants will be thanking you and the beer gods.
The reason I was going easy on it, I don't want that stuff to burn my plants (not sure if that's possible but better safe than sorry). Thanks!