I live in the same region (across the border) and have never seen ANY crab or lobster products. That stuff is hard to get around here. The only store that sold Pro-Mix even discontinued selling it. Midwesterners need to remember that there are organic gardeners everywhere!
Word on that! I tried to find Promix or Sunshine around here, and couldn't find it anywhere. And I didn't want to pay the shipping costs to get it. So I just used some of my spent FFOF, and mixed it with a lot of sphagnum peat moss, and all my other amendments. I just bought 10 bags of compost from Lowes yesterday. I'm getting ready to plant some veggies. A lot of my neighbors jumped the gun out here because we had unseasonably warm weather a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad I didn't join them. Several of my neighbors are complaining that their plants are dying. I bet last nights raging hail storm didn't help. My plants are going in the ground this weekend. I need to start my own home-made compost bin. Although it isn't expensive at all to buy, it would cost even less, or nothing at all, to make my own.
Word x2! I found one bale of Sunshine mix here and the cost was absolutely ridiculous, and it didn't even include shipping of any kind. Luckily, I found worm castings here that are moderately priced but they are wiggle worm brand. The weather has definitely been crazy. When I was working in the garden a couple weeks ago I was tempted to plant, but something told me there was still a little chill to be had. Turns out I was right. Even though I waited, I'm still getting an early start. This weekend seeds will be sown and vegetables will be grown. I had to wait until the second week of May last year.
Pearl, I'm not sure which one of the pics shows this plant, so I'll just say in general my belief is that major yellowing that starts in week 6 (for an 8 week plant) is ok, but much earlier than that, like start of week 5, and I'd be thinking about adding a little more nitrogen to the soil--next time around. I might top dress with some EWC or make a tea like you're doing, but in general I don't try to chase the plant with many adjustments after week 4 of flowering. I'm skeptical of being able to change things that fast in a mature organic plant. I also think a lot of this timing stuff is strain specific and I have never run Critical. I love a good organic fade, but it's a challenge to get it timed so the plant looks like fall peak foilage right when you are ready to chop. I understand some people completely disagree with this and want it green to the end, but not me...
I don't think I've ever even seen a cannabis plant that had perfectly green foliage at chop time. Every plant I've ever seen had yellow, kind of droopy, leaves at harvest time. I'm sorry y'all can't actually see what I'm talking about. It's the light. =/ I pulled two of the yellow leaves off. They were barely hanging on so I didn't even really have to pull them, just touch them. the cola on that critical is swelling up nicely. You can't really tell it in the pics I took today though. The next time I take pics, I'll put my hand up next to the cola. It's about the width of four knuckles.
We're brewing some tea now, baby...YEAH!!! @jerry: After looking at the plant again today, the cola is more like three knuckles. But that's still pretty good since it has about 3 weeks to go.
Hey Ms. Pearl, You're going for a fungal dominant tea...yes? (fungus=phosphorus, bacteria=nitrogen) See ya...
I'm starting out very low key, very simple. 1 cup ewc, 1 cup humus, and 1 tbs of molasses. *crosses fingers*
Hey Ms. Pearl, Here's a quote from LD: LumperDawgz If you're using earthworm castings then you're good to go and your compost teas will be balanced across the entire micro-herd - bacteria, fungai, nematodes, protozoa, et al. Bacteria is very easy to grow in a compost tea. Fungai don't increase in numbers but what they can do is to increase in length. It's no uncommon to have 100,000 fungai strands up to 6' in length in 1/4 tsp. of the tea. The best way to get the fungai up and running is the addition of kelp meal, (Maxicrop works well too) and most importantly the liquid fish products that are produced by enzymes (fish hydrosylate). You do not want to us the standard 'Alaska Fish Emulsion' or related products. You won't have any problem finding it - look for the words 'enzyme' and/or 'hydrosylate' If you're trying to make a fungai tea then leave the molasses out of the mix. The carbohydrates feed the bacteria which consume the food and explode by reproducing and limiting the foods needed by the fungai. Even when you do use molasses you only want to add 1 tsp. per 5 gallons of water Here's a 'kind of' or maybe it's a 'sort of' guide for brewing for specific microbial goals. Assuming that you're using an aquarium heater in your tank and you're running the tea at 70F, then a high(er)-fungal tea will be ready in about 12 hours. That is when the fungai have increased in length by huge numbers. At 18 hours the bacteria are definitely dominating the culture in the tank. Bacteria will dominate until you hit about 36 hours and then the protozoa are up and running and the bacteria have faded substantially for lack of food. If you're batching out a tea for use as a soil drench then you're probably best to use it around 15 hours - again assuming that you have the water temperature under control. Aquarium heaters are chump-change. If you're wanting to brew a batch of compost tea to use to wipe out (once and for all) powdery mildew then I would be spraying the tea after 12-14 hours. With the addition of the fish enzyme product, kelp (or some kind of seaweed product) and pure humic acid you'll end up with some major levels of fungai from the earthworm castings. End quote. So, the key to a fungal dominant tea is mainly the timing of the brew...12-14 hours. It helps to eliminate the molasses (which you can't do for this brew) and add some kelp meal (maybe you can still do if you have any). It's really hard to mess up with this stuff, but applying a bacterial dominant tea during flowering is counter-productive because of all the nitrogen the bacteria exude. So, add some kelp meal if you have it, and don't let it brew longer than about 14 hours @ 80-85F and you'll be all set. HTH See ya...
how many gallons of water pearl? thats about what i do for my teas with around 3 gallons of water. but instead of cups i just do a handful of each. i dont use molasses cause i dont have any lol
I know...I caught that post late last night. I don't know how i didn't find it before. I have two younger plants going though. I can use this tea on those, right? They have several weeks to go.
Hey Ms. Pearl, The brewing and application of ACT teas is relatively new to me as well, so don't take this as gospel, but here's my opinion on it: (please note the vague language ) During the first 3 weeks of flowering, it probably wouldn't hurt things too much to apply a bacterial tea (nitrogen). The plant is in a stretch phase during that period, and probably the worst that could happen is your inter-nodal spacing might increase. After 3 weeks the plant settles into bud production, and the application of a bacterial tea at that time might cause the budz to "foxtail" and send out new-growth runners from the main bud. I hate it when that happens! So, if you've brewed a tea, and you're sure it's bacterial, use your best judgement as to what plants to apply it to. If you have any doubts about it, then just pour it on some outdoor shrubbery and start over to brew a fungal dominant tea for your flowering girlz. It's not like you have a lot invested in a bucket of brew, except some time. That probably wasn't much help, but it's the best I could offer with my limited experience. See ya...
Well, I'm even less experienced than you. So I'll take your word for it for the time being. I think I could use this tea on the two younger plants, and I have a couple of other outdoor plants (not cannabis) that could use it. I'll just brew a new batch. Just to be safe.
i dont really measure exactly how much water i use i just fill a 5 gallon bucket about halfway, sometimes a 1/3 so it might me 2-2.5 gallons of water. I always make more than i need and you can dilute it with more water if you wanted to make it go a little further i guess. I only use a gallon or two to water my pot plants then dilute the rest and water my vegetable garden with. im sure you cant under or over do it too much with AACT
Hiya Pearl!! I ducked in to check you out. Your girls are looking real nice! I was wondering some of the same things about tea and the times when the different organisms are in charge. Soooo for me to learn in these threads!! Cant wait to see more pics!
don't know much about history don't do much aact didn't know that old kentucky's got a famous place in the history of pot.... hey Pearl, didja see this thread about the new book on kentucky's cornbread mafia? http://forum.grasscity.com/marijuana-news-usa/1037805-new-book-out-cornbread-mafia-thse-who-like-read-about-weed.html#post14478640 I had no idea you guys had such a place in cannabis history. Congrats! I dl'd the book and will probably inhale the whole thing in the next week or so...it looks pretty good, at least to someone like me who has been to Marion County and who likes bourbon, but who was clueless on the history....
Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the Cornbread Mafia. It's a kind of know people who know people and things kind of thing, if ya know what I mean. I never talk about it because I've sort of been programmed not to over so many years. I haven't read the book yet, but I plan to. Right now I'm reading Heart of Dankness about an LA Times writer's experiences with cannabis. I'm only three chapters in, just bought it yesterday. I can't really give it a critique other than the writing is excellent. After you've finished it, let me know how you liked the story about our own little country mob.