Living Organics in an Urban Wasteland (CBD Crew)

First! how's it goin blackwolf? Looks light you are set up for success! I'll grab a chair.

 

Pretty good man! The weather is slightly warmer than it has been recently out here in CO (at least in my area). I hear we are due for a snow storm tonight tho.

I had the sig thing figured out at one point lol. But I have since lost that info. Gandalf hooked it up last time so maybe he or somebody else will come chime in.

 

Good stuff man, welcome!
 
Couple of thoughts on your supplies.....
 
Cottonseed meal is one of those things you just avoid at all costs if you can.  Benefits outweighed by risks, and whatnot.  Here's a quote from LD:
 
Cotton isn't a food crop and as such it isn't subject to many rules - the cotton industry accounts for just under 30% of all pesticides, herbicides and fungicides used in the USA. Once the cotton is harvested and the seeds have been removed, through a complete and total miracle by an Act of Congress, the seeds are now magically a food crop. The oil is pressed from the seeds, sold to food manufacturers and distributed as fry oil (Ymmm! Good eats!). The leftover is cottonseed meal.
 
There are several strains of Bacillus thuringiensis.... each one is toxic to a specific subset of insects. This Cornell website (http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/24d-captan/bt-ext.html) describes it: "B.t. aizawai (B.t.a.) is used against wax moth larvae in honeycombs; B.t. israelensis (B.t.i.) is effective against mosquitoes, blackflies and some midges; B.t. kurstaki (B.t.k.) controls various types of lepidopterous insects, including the gypsy moth and cabbage looper. A new strain, B.t. san diego, has been found to be effective against certain beetle species and the boll weevil. In order to be effective, B.t. must be eaten by insects in the immature, feeding stage of development referred to as larvae. It is ineffective against adult insects. Monitoring the target insect population before application insures that insects are in the vulnerable larval stage. More than 150 insects, mostly lepidopterous larvae, are known to be susceptible in some way to B.t. "
 
Lepidoptera is an order of insects including moths and butterflies.  I'm not certain BT will help with any of the common indoor MJ pests.... other than Thrips and maybe Whiteflies.  It would depend what strain of BT is in your product.
 
Liquid Karma appears to be BioAg's TM7.... with some kelp meal and fish hydrolysate added.  Not that those are bad things, I own all 3 of those.... but you may be able to make your own much more cheaply.  And that would give you the option of using just 1 of those things (like kelp meal) without having to use both of the others (particularly humic/fulvic acids).
 
Eagle 20..... I'm not going to complain, or give you a lot of crap.  Just worried for your health a bit, so I'm attaching some stuff from the EPA that you can choose to read or not read, about the active ingredient: myclobutanil.  Here's a link as well: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/cleared_reviews/csr_PC-128857_10-Feb-86_010.pdf  Note the discussions of testicular lesions and testicular atrophy.  Its primary side effects are reproductive.
 
Clonex..... Here (https://www.igrowhydro.com/Propagation/Clonex-MSDS.pdf) is the MSDS on Clonex.  98% water.  1.2% hydroxyethyl cellulose (gelling/thickening agent)..... and .3% Indole butyric acid (IBA).  That's .3% active ingredient.
 
If you were to make your own cloning solution out of just Aloe and Kelp, you'd get IBA, IAA (indole acetic acid), and NAA.  These are the three most common rooting compounds in commercial agriculture.  Not to mention you'd be getting Salicylic acid, saponins, Plant Growth Regulators (PGRs), Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR), amino acids, vitamins, etc.
 
For your signature link..... click on your name on the very top black(ish) bar..... then click My Profile.  Once you're there, on your right should be "Edit My Profile."  Click that.  Then on the left hand bar click "Signature."
 
Copy and paste this...remove the *** at each end, and replace the red text with what you want it to say...
[url***="http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-grow-journals/1285602-living-organics-urban-wasteland-cbd-crew.html"]Type what you want here[/***URL]
 
But here's the deal... I never had luck copy and pasting it..... so just paste it there for reference.  Then you have to re-type it yourself.... letter for letter.  For some reason copy and paste doesn't work.  And it's best to do it from a computer, not your phone app.
 
 
Hope I didn't just overwhelm you bro.... looking forward to seeing your grow. I too struggle with a highly urban environment.

 

 
Great man!  AACTs are very powerful tools against PM.  By spraying the leaves and stems with aerobic fungi, you are making almost impossible for the anaerobic fungi (PM) to set up shop.  Aerobic eat the anaerobic.  Here's a tip from LD on making an AACT specifically to fight PM:
 
What works best is a hi-fungal tea and the best source for this is thermal compost. Earthworm castings are a wonderful humus source but they're definitely high-bacterial in nature. You can increase the fungi colonies prior to making an AACT by a couple of simple processes.

Take 1 cup of earthworm castings and add 2 tablespoons of baby oatmeal and let it sit in a covered bowl for a week or so until it's covered with white fungi strands. Another way is to add 2 oz. of fish hydrolysate to 1 gallon of water and add enough of this mix to your earthworm castings (again about 1 cup) until it can barely hold together. You don't want it soaking - just enough liquid to barely form a ball. Let it sit like the oatmeal deal - in a few days you'll have massive fungi colonies.

Add this as your humus source for your AACT along with the regular items (kelp, alfalfa meal, molasses, etc) and bubble away!
 
 
 
Also.... almost everything organic gardeners use to fight mites also fights PM.  Neem meal and crab meal in the soil mix both help get the plant's Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) going from day 1.  Liquid Silica is one of the first and best things to help prevent PM.  So is neem oil.  A neem meal & kelp meal tea will help kill anaerobic spores on your leaves.  EM-1 lactobacillus culture kills PM.  Lavender teas help fight PM.  All good choices.
 
Kelp Meal is the best!  Kelp meal is simply solar-dried kelp, chopped up and bagged.  Liquid kelp is powdered kelp reconstituted. To make powdered kelp they add potassium hydroxide to kelp meal.  Potassium hydroxide is the same stuff they use to cremate bodies, leaving behind only the elements.  That's what happens to the kelp, all the elements remain.  But you don't want just the elements (rich though kelp is in elements)... you want the alginic acid, the mannitol, the abscisic acid, the brassinosteroids, the IAA, the IBA, the gibberelins, amino acids, cytokinins, etc.  Those all get broken down by potassium hydroxide.
 
So here is LD's cloning method:
 
LD's Stupid Easy Cloning Method - almost organic even. Close enough for many.

Buy RapidRooters or one of the knock-offs. Doesn't matter 'cause they're all made at a single factory in Springfield, Oregon. They're made from cellulose from the wood products industry. "Waste not - want not" - Grandma Dawgz

Make a kelp & alfalfa meal tea. On this one either dilute the standard recipe by 50% with pure water or, more logically perhaps, start with 1/2 the material for usual recipe that makes 5 gallons.

To each gallon of diluted tea, add 1/4 cup of aloe vera juice/extract/gel/whatever, 1 tsp. of Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt and soak the RapidRooters in this for a few minutes. Remove and you want to press out the excess water/tea. You want it a bit more hydrated than they were when they arrived at your home. You'll figure that part out.

As far as rooting gel, liquid, powder, water, honey - whatever (redux) just use what you're comfortable with. It's a discussion I can't do any more. 

Put in a tray with the 8" dome, spray the inside of the dome, leave the cuttings alone, spray the inside on a regular basis when needed. You want a solid beading of water on as much of the surface of the dome. You're looking for high humidity on this part.

Dat's it.

LD
 
and some further explanation......
 
Here are the components and why they're used:

1. Aloe Vera: Salicylic acid is a plant compound which has been used as a rooting agent for over 120 years in the nursery industry. This is the compound that's found in Willow trees which you might have run across in posts on rooting a cutting

2. Kelp: Kelp contains the natural forms of rooting compounds that you find in commercial products, compounds like Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA), 4-Chloroindole-3-acetic acid and Phenylacetic acid which are auxins (hormones - all auxins are hormones but not all hormones are auxins). These compounds perform different functions as far as facilitating root development, i.e. IAA creates the actual root sites on the cutting's shaft whereas IBA causes root elongation. All of these are in soluble form and are in an organic form vs. the versions found in Clonex, Dip-n-Grow, Olivia's, whatever.

3. Honey: Honey contains a slew of enzymes, amino acids and also contain compounds which function as a biofungicide exactly like Aloe Vera extracts.
 
Also for reference..... LD's Kelp/Alfalfa tea recipe was 1 cup of alfalfa meal and 1/4 cup of kelp meal per 5 gallons of water.  Aerate for 24-36 hours.  If you can't aerate it, just shake it up ever couple hours.
 
 
Shit... I hate seeing things go in the trash lol.  I'm not saying it had to be trashed... just want you to be aware how much pesticide is probably present on it, and probably not buy any more.  If you want to trash it though, I understand.  I might trash it too.... or donate it.
 
Yeah, I don't think the BT will be very useful indoors.  Check what strains of BT are in it, just for curiosity.  It may be effective against gnats.  But yeah, I can definitely see the uses outside against caterpillars.

 

sub'd
 
cool setup man..
you seem to have everything worked out well..
 
best of luck with your run.
 
totally agree about the gnats.. a few aren't bad but left unchecked they can do damage in numbers. (especially to clones and seedlings)
too many growers brush them off as if they aren't a big deal.

 

The strain BT israelensis does kill gnats!  See if that is what is in your BT product

 

Ya know I think I have some gnat damage on some leaves :/ little holes thru leaves in spots... I've seen the fuckers here and there and didn't give it too much thought. I've been watering with Gnatrol occasionally. Maybe I should up the dosage a bit and be a little more adamant with my IPM spraying.

 

 
Yeah if they are damaging leaves, then it's verging on trouble.  Top dressing with a few spoonfuls of neem meal is a great move.... that alone will usually kill them.  Neem meal tea soil soak works.  Lavender teas work.... and wouldn't contribute any nutrients, so wouldn't cause nute burn.

 

 
Yeah post some pics... maybe we can figure it out.  TBH I haven't tried cloning yet lol.... just saved the LD cloning recipe because I plan to clone sometime in the next month or two.  Actually I've cloned friends' plants, but they took care of the clones, not me.  They were just showing me the methods of taking them.  But there are plenty of experienced cloners in here.... tell us more about your methods (previous methods) and get some pics up.... we'll get to the bottom of it.
 
LD is incredible.  When I knew I wanted to commit to this grow-style (organic).... after about 1 month of mucking around the Organic section, I decided to read every single LD post lol.  The search function won't return all of them, but it returns 40 pages, which is enough for me lol.  Then I read another 40 pages of LD2 posts.  Yeah, I pretty much just regurgitate LD posts lol.  Then I read Jerry's Obsession.... it flows better and is far more personal, whereas reading LD's posts (disconnected from the thread he replied to).... is very impersonal and reads more like a sarcastic textbook lol.  But there's so much knowledge.  I'm just good at assimilating it and recalling it lol.
 
Yeah man, once you own the basic organic stuff.... everything is based on those same ingredients.  So unlike chemical MJ growing....
 
The aloe I recommend you get.  It has great stuff..... maybe the best is the Salicylic acid, which helps so much with root growth.  If you've ever heard of using willow bark to stimulate rooting, the compound they are referring to is Salicylic acid.  Aloe has almost twice as much salicylic acid as willow.
 
Aloe is also a tremendous surfactant, meaning it helps a foliar spray cover the entire leaf... coating it.  This maximizes absorption, instead of the foliar beading up and rolling off the leaf.  This is due to Aloe's high Saponin content.
 
On top of all that, here are the other goodies it contains:
 
Amino Acids

Aloe Vera contains the following Amino Acids: Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Valine, And Tryptophan, Alanine, Arginine, Asparagine, Cysteine, Glutamic Acid, Glycine, Histidine, Proline, Serine, Tyrosine, Glutamine, and Aspartic Acid.

Enzymes

Those include the following: Amylase, Bradykinase, Catalase, Cellulase, Lipase, Oxidase, Alkaline Phosphatase, Proteolytiase, Creatine Phosphokinase and Carboxypeptidase.

Micro & Micro Nutrients

These include Vitamins A, C, E and B2, B3, B5, B6 and B12 in addition to Choline, Calcium, Magnesium, Zinc, Manganese, Chromium, Selenium, Copper, Molybdenum, Boron, Iron, Potassium, Phosphorus and Sodium.

Lingnins & Polysaccharides

They include: Galactose, Xylose, Arabinose, Acetylated Mannose and Acemannan.
 
 
When you get the Aloe juice/gel/powder..... you want stuff that has either no preservatives or Citric Acid as a preservative.  Not sodium benzoate.  When I make aloe juice at home from my aloe plant, I use Citric acid to preserve it, because fresh aloe degrades very quickly.  A good store-bought aloe product is Lily of the Desert.  buildasoil.com has Aloe powder 200X..... 1 ounce for $22.  What that means is.... you take that 1 ounce of powder, add 199 ounces of water, and you get 200 ounces of Aloe Juice (1 gallon is 128 ounces, for comparison).  The recipe called for 1/4 cup of aloe... that's 2 ounces.  So it'll last a while lol
 
Bonide Thuricide is 15% BT Kurstaki.... that's the strain that attacks lepidoptera (moths and butterflies).  So no luck there.
 
No worries man.... just trying to repay to the GC community some of the help I got / am getting lol

 

Shit u got me all scared now gandalf lol. Neem cake is goin down today!!! Hopefully it doesn't increase N toxicity lol

 

Along w/apple cider vinegar, more mulch, and mo sticky traps.

 

I knew I forgot something.... the fish hydrolysate.  Unlike the aloe.... I don't really feel the hydrolysate is as necessary.  Don't get it if you don't want to.  I definitely saw that advice about kick-starting a fungal AACT with baby oatmeal, without the fish hydrolysate being part of it.  That's something he added later, and as such, obviously isn't necessary.  So just use the EWC and oatmeal like the first part said..... here's another posts that goes a bit more in depth:
 
Take 1 cup of EWC and you want them 'damp' (not wet). Pick-up some baby oatmeal (dry) at the grocery store.

Mix 2 tbsp. of this powdered oatmeal with the EWC and put it into a large Ziplock bag. Leave it semi-open. Aerate it a few times a day.

In a few days you should see long white strands. If they're blue strands - dump it. You only want white strands. Let them grow until it looks like a piece of food you forgot in your refrigerator.

Add your other ingredients and aerate for 18 hours or so. Depends on the size of air pump that you're running.

HTH

LD

 

 
lol didn't mean to scare you.... just told you in your thread how killer your plants look! lol
 
But yeah, as blackwolf and AW have said, it can get out of hand in a hurry.  Seeing a few is ok, but seeing damage on your plants... if I were you I'd do something (like you are).  But no reason to fret much.... gnats are fairly easy to kill.... relative to mites and PM anyway