OK, so this is a test I'm running. Started today. This is my 2nd full scale grow op Location: Outdoors, Las Vegas, NV (desert) - despite what people think about Las Vegas' weather, it's not always super hot and dry - we actually get cool winds from the NorthWest and there are 2 good factors for an outdoor grow here - LOTs of sunlight and wind For this test I am using 4 seeds total - (2) Acapulco Gold and (2) Red Dragon For the soil I am splitting the seeds separately into 4 (5 gallon) buckets - I'm gonna skip the whole "nursery thing" because I tend to see drastic changes with transplant shock and I noticed quicker germination when they are just left alone to grow outside BUCKET 1 LOCATION: on the side of the house in the shade SOIL: Dr. Q's Filthy Rich (Organic) FERTILIZER: Placed at the 75-85% level, Hi-Yield Super Phosphate and Hi-Yield CottonSeed Meal (7-1-1) - Placed at the 95-100% (top soil level) is Dr. Q's Triple Play (7-7-7) SOIL AMENDER: Mary Jane Minerals (in top soil) (70 trace minerals and elements) SEED: Red Dragon / Auto-Feminized / Auto-Flowering BUCKET 2 LOCATION: on the side of the house in the shade SOIL: FoxFarm Ocean Forest (Organic) FERTILIZER: Placed at the 75-85% level, Hi-Yield Super Phosphate and Hi-Yield CottonSeed Meal (7-1-1) - Placed at the 95-100% (top soil level) is Dr. Q's Triple Play (7-7-7) SOIL AMENDER: Mary Jane Minerals (in top soil) (70 trace minerals and elements) SEED: Red Dragon / Auto-Feminized / Auto-Flowering BUCKET 3 LOCATION: in the back of the house facing the sun for the majority of the day, it catches the sun setting in the West SOIL: Dr. Q's Filthy Rich (Organic) FERTILIZER: Placed at the 75-85% level, Hi-Yield Super Phosphate and Hi-Yield CottonSeed Meal (7-1-1) - I left out the Dr. Q's Triple Play (7-7-7) SOIL AMENDER: Mary Jane Minerals (in top soil) (70 trace minerals and elements) SEED: Acapulco Gold / Auto-Feminized / Auto-Flowering BUCKET 4 LOCATION: in the back of the house facing the sun for the majority of the day, it catches the sun setting in the West SOIL: FoxFarm Ocean Forest (Organic) FERTILIZER: Placed at the 75-85% level, Hi-Yield Super Phosphate and Hi-Yield CottonSeed Meal (7-1-1) - I left out the Dr. Q's Triple Play (7-7-7) SOIL AMENDER: Mary Jane Minerals (in top soil) (70 trace minerals and elements) SEED: Acapulco Gold / Auto-Feminized / Auto-Flowering Today (4-9-2014) is day 1 in what I plan to be a 7 week (70 day) cycle - This time there will be no transplanting as I have opted to place seeds in the top soil of a 5 gallon bucket to avoid transplant shock. I will keep you guys posted with pics starting with germination. I have certain theories regarding how the plant grows, the roots grow down while the plant grows up so it may be beneficial to create a soil/fert mix in a layer cake style... so as the roots grow they will reach more and more nutrients - I will start only by MISTING the top layer of soil to keep it damp. I'm not going to go into full blown watering them until they are about 5 inches in height with strong leaves - once I start watering them fully, all that goody goody yum yum stuff will start mixing in the soil - Once it hits the flowering stage much later I am going to give it some FoxFarm Beasty Bloom (0-50-30 i think) - I am very excited and I'll keep you guys posted
Hi Maktown. No big deal but I was just wondering since you posted this in the Organic forum - are you trying to do an organic grow or does this not really matter? Again - just curious. j
I Would Go With Foxfarm Everytime, I Bet On Acplc. Gold, But Your Whole Setup Sounds Good.. Your Females And Hopefully They Are, Will Yield Big.. Spaceman Charlie..
Acapulco Gold "Auto-Feminized" how is that possible? isn't that a landrace sativa? not trying to shit on your thread.. just wondering how they can call it Acapulco Gold. good luck w/ your run dude..
OK so this is an update for today... I'm going to save time on typing by abbreviating things like this: OF = FoxFarm Ocean Forest soil FR = Dr. Q's Filthy Rich Soil note: both soils are organic RD = Red Dragon strain/seeds/plant MW = Maui Waui strain/seed/plant AG = Acapulco Gold strain/seed/plant MJM = Mary Jane Minerals, a special fert and soil amender containing 70 trace minerals and elements 777 = I put Triple Play fertilizer in it, it's called Triple Play and the bag is marked 7-7-7 because that's the amount of N-P-K in the fert -777 = I didn't put Triple Play fert in it. Okay so I originally started by planting 4 plants out of the seeds I received... as listed in my first post on page 1 I am running multiple experiments here: to determine whether or not these plants grow better in direct sunlight or in a shaded area - locations are (1) in the backyard where the sun hits it from the time it gets over the roof of my house until the sun sets and (2) on the side of the house where's there's a brick wall and it's shaded most of the day to determine which soil produces bigger plants, OF or FR and if it affects their growth in any way such as development speed to determine which ferts produce the best results to determine whether or not these plants grow better in a solid black bucket... or a mesh basket - i got the mesh basket idea after seeing another grow op on the net where a guy was using a mesh laundry basket and that plant was much larger than the other plants There are now 10 plants for this experiment: plants 1-4 were planted on 4/9/2014 (not germinated) - this is listed on my first post plants 6-10 were germinated starting on 4/9/2014 for 3-4 days in a small cup of water in a dark closet and planted on 4/15/2014 – 1 – Location: backyard (sunlight) strain: RD soil: FR layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, +777 on top – 2 – Loc: backyard (sunlight) strain: AG soil: OF layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, -777 – 3 – Loc: side of the house (shaded) strain: AG soil: FR layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, -777 – 4 – Loc: side of the house (shaded) strain: RD soil: OF layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, +777 on top – 5 – Loc: side of the house (shaded) strain: RD soil: FR layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, -777 – 6 – Loc: side of the house (shaded) strain: MW soil: FR layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, -777 – 7 – Location: backyard (sunlight) strain: MW soil: FR layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, -777 this is one of 2 planted in a 3-4 gallon size small mesh basket (actually a waste basket I got from the 99¢ store) , all others were planted in solid black 5 gallon planting buckets – 8 – Location: backyard (sunlight) strain: RD soil: OF layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, -777 – 9 – Location: backyard (sunlight) strain: MW soil: FR layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, -777 – 10 – Location: backyard (sunlight) strain: RD soil: FR layer caked with cottonseed meal and super phosphate, -777 Today is 4/20/204 and here are interesting notes: in plants 1-4, saw my first little green leafs on 4/17 EXCEPT on the 2 that had 777 added to the top soil, I OBVIOUSLY made a mathematical error because the cottonseed meal (further down in the bucket) had Nitrogen AND the 777 had nitrogen, might have burned those 2 babies... only time will tell today 4/20, plants 5, 7, 8, started showing green leafs in an effort to SAVE plants 1 and 4 which had 777... i added MJM to amend the soil and hopefully reduce the amount of Nitrogen in the soil - these were SHOWERED (on the nozzle dial) to mix in the MJM with the top soil where the seedling lies whether or not they are planted in shade or soil (at this point) doesn't seem to matter although the ones in the shade seem slightly less "disturbed"... keep in mind they are also in an alley as opposed to a wide open backyard so there's less wind and sunlight
You should look at the ingredients contained in your "organic" nutrients - sorry man. Those damn fertilizer companies are scam artists. Ammonium Phosphate, Super Phosphate and others in your regime are not organic, are very strong products and are detrimental to healthy, living soil. Good luck though! J
Jerry is right..... they call Triple Play an "organic-based" fertilizer.... very misleading. Besides the Ammonium phosphate (which is highly unstable, and I doubt they actually used it, but I digress)..... also worth noting is the iron sucrate, manganese sucrate, and zinc sucrate in the Triple Play. Basically that means those minerals (iron, manganese, and zinc) are bound to a sucrose (or other carbohydrate) molecule. This makes them very hard to chelate, and very unavailable to your plant. Here is a link to a Colorado State study comparing the biological availability of various Zinc sources (http://digitool.library.colostate.edu///exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/L2V4bGlicmlzL2R0bC9kM18xL2FwYWNoZV9tZWRpYS84Nzk2MQ==.pdf). Zinc sucrate was found to be only 1% water soluble, and had the lowest Relative Availability Coefficient (RAC) of all 6 Zinc sources studied. Zinc sulfate and Zinc EDTA (avoid!!!) were found to have the highest RACs. Triple Play also contains "Mycorrcin" which are apparently not mycorrhizae, but "signaling molecules"...... sounds like sales fluff to me. And they say they put in 3.2% leonardite as a "natural soil PH adjuster." WOW.... never heard of using leonardite (basically brown coal) as a PH adjuster...... Another thing to note, is that I highly doubt your Cottonseed Meal is organic. Cotton receives over 26% of all of the pesticides used in the United States. This is "acceptable" because cotton is not considered (by the magic of Congress) a food crop. However, the cottonseed meal and cottonseed oils are frequently used in food production..... go figure? Finally, I guess I'll take a look at "Hi-Yield Triple Phosphate." (I'm thinking you got all these from Star Nursery, huh?) According to the MSDS, it's just "Dolomatic Limestone" and monoammonium phosphate. Well we know all about dolomite lime..... Let's look at monoammonium phosphate (MAP). Here is a description from the International Plant Nutrition Institute: The process for manufacturing MAP is relatively simple. In a common method, a one to one ratio of ammonia (NH3) and phosphoric acid (H3PO4) is reacted and the resulting slurry of MAP is solidified in a granulator. The second method is to introduce the two starting materials in a pipe-cross reactor where the reaction generates heat to evaporate water and solidify MAP. An advantage of producing MAP is that lower quality H3PO4 can be used compared with other P fertilizers that often require a more pure grade of acid. Neither sounds like an organic process....... and they use low-grade phosphoric acid.... sweeeeeeeeeeet
WOW.... I wanted to do a separate post for this one...... Mycorrcin is a patented product.... Here is the manufacturer description: BioStart Mycorrcin is powered by signal molecule technology. Mycorrcin contains a combination of fermentation extracts, enzymes and signal molecules to activate indigenous populations of beneficial soil microbes including mycorrhizal fungi. Mycorrcin can be used to activate new root activity, mycorrhizal fungi, remedy compaction, repair soil aggregate, increase calcium and phosphate uptake and increase brix. The MSDS lists only one ingredient. It says Mycorrcin is 50% Pseudomonas putida, the first patented organism in the world. WOW..... you GMO-hating and Monsanto-trashing people should react virulently to that news lol. It is used in bio-remediation, to help biodegrade things like oil, styrofoam, naphthalene, toluene, etc. I don't see any evidence it will do any of the things BioStart claims it will do. Maybe they are just relying on the extracts and enzymes that aren't listed in the MSDS (is that allowed?)...... but if so, would you really want to use a product that has mystery ingredients, and makes wild claims with no basis to support them? And would you really want to support a company that pioneered patenting living organisms???
I hate Monsanto. And I never want to ingest a GMO. But....I was a bioengineering major for a couple years and I see the benefits of modifying organisms, but only for the applications of prosthetics and correcting some of the shit we fucked up (styrofoam, spilled oil, basically any petrolium product.) However, transparency is a giant issue for me. Patenting is also a fucked up idea, especially living organisms. If I'm going to utilize a GMO, I want there to be long-term studies before it's marketed. I also want everything about it to be listed on some type of label. Long-term studies would probably only show negative outcomes from utilizing GMOs. Especially with their current method of inserting the genetic material. It's a double-edged sword.
Thank you all for the info... There were only 2 plants that had Triple Play in them and I will no longer use it AT ALL... those 2 plants still have yet to show any green babies... The Triple Play was marketed as organic and was even found in the organic aisle So, I am a little confused as you are saying the super phosphate is inorganic and bad for the plants? The cottonseed meal is organic and they are made by the same company "Hi Yield"... I've seen good results from that in Grow Op 1
So what would you guys suggest for nutes/fert/plant food???... because I don't see too many TOTALLY organic sources of fert with high numbers (not counting nitrogen because if that's high I'm screwed)...... i also planned on putting BEASTY BLOOM once it hits flowering mode... that produces great results and I believe is made by FoxFarms
Hi-Yield has some misleading advertising for sure, and it could be that even the grow store employees (not the brightest bulbs to be found) were fooled. Triple-Play is "organic-based"..... make of that what you will.... the sucrate compounds aren't horrible, I was just pointing out that they aren't very bio-available. So the two issues are the GMO bacterium (P. putida) and the ammonium phosphate. Secondly.... I was a bit off on the phosphate product..... I thought you had "Hi-Yield Triple Super Phosphate", but I guess you have "Hi-Yield Super Phosphate".... not Triple lol. Superphosphate is produced by treating Rock Phosphate with Sulfuric Acid. It not approved for use in organic crop production because of the acid wash. It's not "bad for plants" per se...... it is bad for soil microbes, which in turn, is bad for plants indirectly. And for the cottonseed meal..... is this what you have? (http://www.fertilome.com/product.aspx?pid=590faff6-0f10-449d-8244-ad0d2aa96326) It's sooooo misleadingly labeled..... it says "Slow Release, All Natural Organic Nitrogen"..... they're using "organic" almost like a chemist, not like a gardener.... they mean that it's not a synthetic source of nitrogen.... it's from a plant, so it's "organic".... but it's not "Approved for Organic Food Production" because of the pesticides.....
Don't even think about NPK numbers. You want alfalfa meal, kelp meal, dandelions, stinging nettles, horsetail ferns, beets, etc. These will be your fertilizers. Get whatever ones you can easily..... especially kelp meal, make sure you try to find that.... check farm/feed stores, or horse supply stores.... Beastie Bloomz by Fox Farm is not organic. It too contains ammonium phosphate, as well as monopotassium phosphate (which I am not currently sure if this is organic-approved or not.... but the ammonium phosphate isn't). Also.... we're not telling you to change your program if you don't want.... just tryin to let you know what's organic and what's not.
Good stuff G. OP, like Gandalf said, we aren't trying to be down on you or your garden. What I do have a problem with is misleading fertilizer companies. That really bugs the hell out of me. I just wanted to bring it up because if you are interested in really gardening organically then there are much more effective products and methods. Again, please don't take me the wrong way - I'm not trying to tell you how to garden. Stick around and set a spell... Welcome to the Organics forum. J