I've thought on this too, but always when I'm super high, and only as a hypothetical. What I want to try with a little plant indoors is experiment with "sanitizing" a soilless mix with heat that will kill most life in the soil, then culture it with a microorganism product (EM1 etc). This way there wouldn't be any pest eggs or overwintering buggers at least at the start. Curious what would happen anyway. Lol, back to that morning joint If kept inside, will there eventually be life besides micros in the soil?
they wrap their beds in plastic to slow down evaporation from the sides of the fabric containers which reduces water usage drastically. in my opinion “100% eradication” is a flawed approach in a living soil system. any attempt to “nuke” pests will invariably unbalanced beneficial populations as well. if you’re having consistent issues despite the methods you mentioned it may be worth considering those issues (mites, pm, etc) as symptoms of an underlying problem. environment, soil structure, water purity, cultivation practices, fertilizers, ‘cides of any kind, fungal:bacterial ratio of your soil biology, etc. sanitizing/pasteurizing soil for your living soil application is a huge waste of time and money. the pathogenic bacteria and fungi you wish to avoid are often the first to repopulate a sterile environment, taking advantage of the lack of competition to reproduce rapidly. EM1 is a very narrow collection of yeast and bacteria species, and cannot rebuild a functioning, balanced soil microbiome alone. any bottled microbe product is going to represent a limited selection of species. broad collections of microbes must be made in contact with healthy, balanced soil (like healthy woods or pasture) or inoculated with a product like that. most commercial compost is not even up to the task, usually containing huge bacterial populations with no fungi, protozoa, or microarthripods to be found. IMO collections in the KNF style are even limited by the microbial food stocks used (rice, sugar, etc). it’s a good idea to use multiple inoculant sources to try and diversify the microbes present in a container mix. in my experience the path to low maintenance, productive, pest and disease resistant plants lies in increasing biodiversity and supporting microbial and insect life rather than extinguishing it. if you are starting from a place of intense infestation horticultural oil is an appropriate tool to “knock back” the pest population in sync with the insect’s life cycle. combine with timed releases of beneficial predators and apply a microbial inoculate to all plant surfaces to coat the plant in a protective layer of beneficial bacteria and fungi.
Any idea what might be happening here? Figuring either light or Nute burn too small degree. Not affecting grows by any means in truth it looks like a wonderful forest all in all but showing a bit of this here and there. Probably about one week into flower with first run soil.. Running a fluence spider 2i light that is proving a bit tricky to dial in.. Currently at 80 percent strength 8 inches above the canopy
@frostchaser do you have a circulation fan blowing air over the canopy between the light and the tops of the plants?
Maybe we can split-buy a pack for the next crop. Not sure if we're gonna grow the MMS gear again, but maybe we can trade some seeds or something, I don't got much, but I have some.
Any reason I shouldn't use tall prairie grass from my yard for an initial mulch? I have wheat straw, too, but I want to start working with as much as I can from my own property.
I think this was directed towards me? I believe that outfit I mentioned is using more sophisticated techniques than what you have described. I have seen the outside of their facility in Vegas. I’m sure it could be measured in acres. They post videos of their rooms almost weekly. This would make it extremely difficult to hide pest damage. If they were merely using techniques to control pest damage I think this would be evident in the videos. They even use cover crops/living mulch that spider mites would love to infest. I believe they are using one or all of these methods: CO2, UVB, O3. CO2 is capable of completely eradicating some of the worst pests we face such as spider mites. (PDF) Modified Atmosphere Treatments as a Potential Disinfestation Technique for Arthropod Pests in Greenhouses UVB is also a well documented technique with high mortality rates. Section 3 of this study discusses this and includes several citations. Environmental Engineering Approaches toward Sustainable Management of Spider Mites There is a company out of the Netherlands that makes UV lights specifically for the purpose of pest and microbial eradication. I was surprised to see a rave review from Serious Seeds. https://cleanlightglastuinbouw.nl/?lang=en Ozone generators are widely used in commercial pest control. It’s difficult to find hard scientific data. Maximum Yield has a couple articles on this. Very high levels of O3 must be used, it’s production usually involves UVB light. If any or all of these methods are being employed it’s likely occurring in a quarantine room. Afterwards, a cover crop is planted, stacking functions its used as an indicator crop to see if the beds are indeed 100% eradicated of pests. Slick. The CO2 method requires very high levels. What I “think” they may be doing is using the CO2 created from the beds themselves. The sides are wrapped in plastic to facilitate this process. The bottom and top of the beds may also get wrapped in plastic when the plants enter the quarantine room. Perhaps this pushes CO2 levels high enough alone? This company is worth 100’s of millions of dollars and I’m sure you bump into a PhD around every corner. This doesn’t happen with a bottle of horticultural oil in one hand and “microbial inoculant” in the other. I can guarantee “control” of pests is not the objective. They likely have a “zero tolerance” policy towards pests and have protocols and standard operating procedures to make this reality. RD
@ElRanchoDeluxe hi! i remember you from icmag many years back. hope all is well! i was replying to your post, yes. the plastic wrap is for nothing more than preventing moisture loss. the amount of gallons h2o saved per bed over the course of a cycle is substantial and that makes dollars and sense for huge operations like we’re discussing. living soil in a sterile room is contradictory. if you put living soil into a sterile environment the environment is no longer sterile. if you sterilize living soil then it’s no longer living. co2 will kill all aerobic organisms at extremely high ppm, but those levels can only be maintained for short bursts. human beings cannot survive in those conditions either. larger operations than that have been and are managed by biological practices. i wouldn’t take any advice from maximum yield.
damn woulda been an easy fix lol. that’s a badass light. i’ve yet to use an LED lamp so i can’t speak specifically to it, but my train of thought was high light intensity, higher metabolism, hotter/dryer canopy, reduced transpiration, nutrient cycling problems, lockouts. do you have a grow thread where i could see your soil mix and garden set up?
yes.. not sure how to link it up But just updated it and it is under my name. I would love for you to have a look at it and let me know what you think. Appreciate it
Dont go into great detail about the recipe on the journal.. Followed the mofo mix on the lighter side of recommendation and subbed half of the crab for oysrer and added 1/2 cup alfalfa per ft
You might want to clean up that under growth a bit too. Right about now I’ll go in there and “ lift her skirt “ a bit lol. Just remove some of the smaller sucker branches that are down at the soil level and any of the big fan leaves that are drooping down and touching the soil. They are not worth keeping and are vectors for pests.
I’ve used that quite a bit, and I really like it! As long as you or anyone else ( neighbors, county sprayers) hasn’t sprayed any pesticides in many ( many) years you should be ok. Remember, the aminopyralids in a lot of pesticides can remain active in your soil for quite a long time. Some can have half lives of over 500 days!
Will do tomorrow. Going to chop down most of the cover crop that's not already dying and will eliminate the bottom quarter of the plants or so. Any thoughts towards whatever is showing on the leaves?
I'd like to know what you figure out with this, Frost - as this is what I saw with my last grow, too, both during early Veg and then mid-flower. Admittedly for me the issue during flower was likely too small of a pot; but still, the symptoms are similar enough I'd like to see what you find out!
Got some advice from rancho.. Gonna start implementing tomorrow. Here is hoping but all in all still looking great just dont want it to get worse...