Is there any reason one couldn't foliar MBP tea+aloe and get the same results? Would be great for bottom watering setups if it did.
I wanted to touch on another component of my IPM program too, I've been using saponins derived from Ritha nut husks (soap nuts) along with the aloe vera waterings. Saponins repel and deter a broad range of plant pests and are being studied for a wide range of uses in agriculture / horticulture. Give this paper a read and some of the footnotes too. Novel advances with plant saponins as natural insecticides to control pest insects Saponins are a class of secondary plant metabolites with diverse biological properties. They occur in a great number of plant species (mainly Angiosperms), both wild plants and cultivated crops. Triterpenoid saponins are mostly found in dicotyledonous species, while many of the major steroidal saponins are synthesized by monocots, such as members of the Liliaceae, Dioscoraceae and Agavaceae families. Many legumes contain saponins, such as soybeans, beans, peas, tea, spinach, sugar beet and quinoa, oats, capsicum peppers, aubergine, tomato seed, alliums and asparagus. Saponins possess clear insecticidal activities: they exert a strong and rapid-working action against a broad range of pest insects that is different from neurotoxicity. The most observed effects are increased mortality, lowered food intake, weight reduction, retardation in development and decreased reproduction. According to the main hypotheses in literature, saponins exert a repellent/deterrent activity, bear digestive problems, provoke insect moulting defects or cause cellular toxicity effects. As a con-sequence these interesting plant components open new strategies to protect crops in modern agriculture and horticulture with integrated pest management (IPM) programs against pest insects, either by spraying, or by selecting high-saponin varieties of commercial crops. Here's a download of the full text pdf.
Lmao! I just read this article! I would be most grateful if you would be willing to share your preparation/application of the soap nuts! I have been wanting to make a horizon herbs order. P-
A post from my private journal: Take a handful (about a 1/4-1/2 cup) of the Ritha half shells and stuff them down the neck of a gallon jug like an Arizona tea jug. Fill the jug up with hot tap water and let it steep overnight. Strain the mixture and let the shells dry to reuse. I use 1-2 cups of the tea with water in a watering can for a drench right over the beds. About a cup /ga with neem and/or karanja for foliars. I don't think you can overdo it and don't necessarily get each application exactly the same. You'll find that you can get several gallons of tea from each handful of soap nuts. Each time you reuse them, give the jug a shake to make sure they're still "foamy". You can also use horse chestnuts for saponins if you have those trees available to you. The saponins are in the nuts rather than the husks on those particular trees. I know that horse chestnut trees are quite common in North America if you care to wild harvest them.
I've never tried it but I don't see why you couldn't do it. You might think about including FA in your foliar mixture,
Thank you Chunk! I'm going to try this out! I meant to say I wanted to place an order at mountain rose herbs, not horizon lol. Already have spring planting on the brain I guess lmao. Om shanti! P-
Alright boys have at me. I fucked these plants up badly the 2nd/3rd week w/ overfeed, overwater, rootbound, poor soil pre-transplant and so on. It's possible this soil mix is still a little hot as well as its first run, may be undercooked and I made the mix. But how are these looking considering they almost all died (health-wise. i know they are disorderly as shit lol)? Excess nitrogen here still maybe? I've done light pruning, LST, topping/fimming. Experimenting w/ each. I tried to "table-top" the faster growers to even out the canopy starting early. 4 diff strains, reg seed. The smallest plant was in the worst shape of these 4 survivors and still looks sad. It's nigh miraculous any are alive but they seem to be thriving now. I have them on water only and rarely doing that as the soil retains super well. I figure I will just leave them going as if the soil is imbalanced it should help clear that up. Then leave a better soil composition for the next run, yes?
My thoughts..... From what I can get from your post. I WOULDNOT be doing water only at this time. Water only if for ( in my mind) soil that is totally living and cycling. From what I read in your post your soil is not. ( I could be wrong) Start adding beenie bacteria and fungus. I have many differ t manufactures of Bernie’s I use, and I use a lot. And look at the amendments at the very very very beginning of this thread and try to use them. It took my garden about 4 cycles of lots of beenies and following amendments before I went to water only. Yep yer right Let em go and see what happens!!
They kinda look overwatered, you said your soil retains ''super well'', what kind of aeration do you have in your soil? It might be too heavy, other than that they look pretty good...you'll see it's suprising how hard it is to kill one of these plants. I've left males dry out in the dark for weeks and suddenly spring back to life once brought back into the grow room.
Is there a reason you don’t just prepare a batch of soil on the first page and take cuts? The true learning curve for NT is best learned using a true and tried mix.
Some of the amendments were unavailable. The mix is very close to it though. I couldn't get basalt for example but got "volcanic rock powder" and glacial rock dust which must be very close. Stuff like that. Also, because I asked about the mix both here and elsewhere and had various people suggest slight alterations, which made sense to me. I asked about the schedule of that mix too, and had a bunch of people say it was too intense. A lot of people said fulvic acid was not necessary for example. Basically what I've found online asking questions about all this is that everyone suggests something different LOL. Or sometimes I'll think stuff like "Wait, how can they know I should do water only right now/add x or y amendment, if they have no idea what's in my mix?" etc. Out of all those answers I've settled somewhere in the midst of them.
Perlite and a small bit of biochar, I didn't want to go with perlite but oh well. I split the mix with a buddy and he didn't jive with the idea that it wasn't optimal so i had to compromise. Also, we're lacking worms in the pots right now which doesn't help either. There's probably worms in some pots but not all.
@Notillerson they look fine whats your temps rh? do you have a fan on them? how far is the light, its 600hps? Sometimes my babys look like that when I blast them with too much light. I know you topped them too so they are getting bushy right now. I think they are good though look at those monster leaves.