So what would you do differently next time (other than the new soil)? Bigger pot?
Carmen's Winter Autos With ViparSpectra XS1500 Pro!
- Thread starter Carmen Ray
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Indeedy. I would deffo go for the 7 Gal, and I would top dress and feed calmag. I can't wait for Gee to see. I can't wait to see his roots! I'm excited. This is absolutely not at all what I expected.
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I had a critical look at the Parmesan auto. The buds are getting nice and fat but they are also clumping together in places. I removed a lot of leaf matter to open up the canopy. I was concerned that the lack of air movement would lead to mould or rot.
That should open things up a bit!
Looking heavenly Happy Birthday! 
Thirvnrob
Well-Known Member
Beautiful!Back to this grow. Here are some trichome readiness shots for today.
Gelato auto 1 is closer to harvest than yesterday!
ViparSpectra
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Better later than never.
Happy birthday
And Congrats on the harvest
Happy birthday
And Congrats on the harvest
Gee64
Well-Known Member
1st of all....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! Sorry I missed it, I was travelling all day yesterday.And the moment you've all been waiting for, dem roots!
Never has my flabber been so ghasted! (stolen line from Disney or somewhere). There were nothing but feeder roots, jam packed into that grow bag. This plant had taken up the whole bag with nothing but feeder roots! I think it was a hungry plant because it ran out of food!
The colors in that Gelato are awesome Carmen!
Great birthday decoration colors
.As for the rootball, did you have much for water roots growing into the swick that were on the outside of the bottom of the bag?
I suspect my bags will be full of feeder roots as well, as the plant wouldn't have grown without food and it can't get food from water.
I "think" the problem lies with the huge mat of water roots not allowing moisture up to the feeder roots very well. I would like to say more testing is needed but I am starting to think Living Soil requires natures rules, so top watering is better.
I don't think I will revisit swicking or try Siping unless a break through worthy of trying formulates in my head. I use drippers so watering isn't a chore, the timer does it and all I do is adjust the timer as the plants require. The massive explosion of growth was already gifted to me when I started using cloth pots. I only get detriment from bottom watering.
As for pot size, yeah those are pretty small pots for a seed grow. Clones would do better but thats a photo period thing. I can pull it off in 7gal pots with a lot of TLC but 10gals are where it starts to get bullet proof. If you practice until you get your brix over 12, when the plant no longer requires soil carbon, you can reduce your carbon volume in your pots and replace that volume with supersoil. Then you would get more mileage from a small pot.
Disclaimer: I use full strength flower soil right from the uppotting of the solo, and quite often I plant seeds directly into 10gal pots of flower soil, so if you go with veg soil 1st, you may need bigger pots, mine have a lot of nutes in them. If you go with flower soil from seed you need to manage things a bit differently or the babies suffer.
Here is a pic I posted in GeeSpot yesterday. It's 4 Durbans planted directly into 10gal pots.
They are 23 days old and have been topped twice each already so as long as you water diligently, (@Emilya Green taught me years ago) planting directly into 10 gallon pots is easy.
As for going directly into flower soil, the trick is extra calcium. It opens the soil up which allows air in and air is 78% nitrogen, which veg requires more of. So flower soil works excellently if you manage it properly.
I just brixed the front left one on it's 1st set of 3 prongers from down bottom, the 2nd set of leaves that it grew. They were hanging in the soil so they had to come off.
They brixed at 7, which is excellent for bottom leaves on a baby, and the calcium line was perfectly fuzzy, so they do well sprouting in big pots. Watering is the trick.
I hear that autos do best without being uppotted (never grown an auto so my knowledge is all rumor based) so if you want to avoid uppotting, I hope this post helps.
Happy 18th Birthday!!!!
(again)
Finally caught up everything looks great @Carmen Ray
Also, Happy belated Birthday and I can tell your soul is like your avatar. Free Spirited
Also, Happy belated Birthday and I can tell your soul is like your avatar. Free Spirited
Do you think a wicking rope fed into the soil rather than relying on the cloth/wick interface would prevent that?
Are you using a standard wet-dry cycle or keeping the soil moist as it
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Thank you!1st of all....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! Sorry I missed it, I was travelling all day yesterday.
The colors in that Gelato are awesome Carmen!
As for the rootball, did you have much for water roots growing into the swick that were on the outside of the bottom of the bag?
I suspect my bags will be full of feeder roots as well, as the plant wouldn't have grown without food and it can't get food from water.
I "think" the problem lies with the huge mat of water roots not allowing moisture up to the feeder roots very well. I would like to say more testing is needed but I am starting to think Living Soil requires natures rules, so top watering is better.
I don't think I will revisit swicking or try Siping unless a break through worthy of trying formulates in my head. I use drippers so watering isn't a chore, the timer does it and all I do is adjust the timer as the plants require. The massive explosion of growth was already gifted to me when I started using cloth pots. I only get detriment from bottom watering.
As for pot size, yeah those are pretty small pots for a seed grow. Clones would do better but thats a photo period thing. I can pull it off in 7gal pots with a lot of TLC but 10gals are where it starts to get bullet proof. If you practice until you get your brix over 12, when the plant no longer requires soil carbon, you can reduce your carbon volume in your pots and replace that volume with supersoil. Then you would get more mileage from a small pot.
Disclaimer: I use full strength flower soil right from the uppotting of the solo, and quite often I plant seeds directly into 10gal pots of flower soil, so if you go with veg soil 1st, you may need bigger pots, mine have a lot of nutes in them. If you go with flower soil from seed you need to manage things a bit differently or the babies suffer.
Here is a pic I posted in GeeSpot yesterday. It's 4 Durbans planted directly into 10gal pots.
They are 23 days old and have been topped twice each already so as long as you water diligently, (@Emilya Green taught me years ago) planting directly into 10 gallon pots is easy.
As for going directly into flower soil, the trick is extra calcium. It opens the soil up which allows air in and air is 78% nitrogen, which veg requires more of. So flower soil works excellently if you manage it properly.
I just brixed the front left one on it's 1st set of 3 prongers from down bottom, the 2nd set of leaves that it grew. They were hanging in the soil so they had to come off.
They brixed at 7, which is excellent for bottom leaves on a baby, and the calcium line was perfectly fuzzy, so they do well sprouting in big pots. Watering is the trick.
I hear that autos do best without being uppotted (never grown an auto so my knowledge is all rumor based) so if you want to avoid uppotting, I hope this post helps.
Happy 18th Birthday!!!!
(again)
The thing about the roots of my Gelato plant, is that there were no water roots. I found that quite remarkable and unexpected.
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- #1,032
Thank you Tok
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- #1,033
much better now
thank you Otter!Looking heavenly Happy Birthday!
Hi Rob
thank you!Thank you ValerieBetter later than never.
Happy birthday
And Congrats on the harvest
- Thread starter
- #1,034
Time flies. Thank you for birthday and harvest wishes!
Some random bud pics of the Gelato auto 2 and Parmesan auto plants.
Gee64
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure Shed. I used a couple of different wicks, one was kind of a hempy synthetic and one was that big soft fluffy wool that is almost like velour.
Both ended up with roots clogging them but the hempy fibre one was worse.
Some connected to a pad under the pot, which worked better but lost connection frequently and required priming from above, and some straight into the pot which worked great but clogged up with roots chasing the water below.
Then I switched to perlite and ended up with all thick smooth water roots at the bottom.
I haven't dissected those rootballs yet but my symptoms were identical to Carmens, overwatered looking plants that had dry soil in the pot, so I would guess I will see similar results in my rootball.
I never let my soil dry out. It stays steamy 24/7 and only dries if I don't up my timing.
When I first started swicking I weighed my pots. They got about 40% heavier switching from drippers to swicks.
I do from time to time flood my soil gently to full saturation but only to prime it for a tea to ensure the tea gets everywhere as the flooding drains out the bottom, and I only tea them once or twice unless I run into trouble.
I think swicking in perlite could really really really grow a beauty with synthetics. Delivery to that many water roots that easy with the stability of soil seems like it could work, but really I know almost nothing about synthetics so I may be way off base.
So for my limited trials with swicking and the soil I use, it comes down to I need feeder roots that stay moist, and I need the moisture to come from above to pull the calcium in the EWC down. I can't figure that one out without top watering, so I may as well stick with drippers.
I do water my babies by hand until I have roots poking out the bottoms, then the drippers get turned on. Dripping is far more passive so calcium has a harder time falling out the bottom of the pot.
When I get it all right, the combination of drippers and 4 10 gallon pots in my tent let me know when to adjust my dripper times.
When it comes to VPD,If I can't hold humidity up its time for more drips, if I can't get it down it's too many drips, so that part is easy to follow.
It's all remotely monitored wirelessly so I can tweak it even if I'm travelling.
I think if I went to a hard pot sip that living soil may perform better, I think, but only better than swicking.
My problem is already that my plants get too big too quick. I was just hoping that swicking would be even less work than remote monitoring.
Did I ever mention that I'm lazy?
And I'm definitely not knocking Sipping or Swicking, it just doesn't work on my soil, and I have 6 years of science into where my soil is at and it's all about brix, so someone else may have to figure it out.
It really intrigues me tho. My pomegranate tree and fig tree both work off of yarn wicks and bottom watering and they both love it. The tree roots don't grow into the wicks. I do top water them every couple weeks. Trees drink a lot more tho so it may be more condusive to them. They don't hesitate to crack into an aquifer in the wild.
I do think if I were to use CalMag from above that maybe the weed plants may not chase the water thru the wicks. I think they are chasing calcium as it's supposed to be in the ground water, not the water itself, but just a guess.
But that would throw my soil balance off for the system I use.
Sorry for yet another long post but if someone else wants to pick it up from here, thats where I'm at with it.
for all the detail Gee! You may be a lazy grower but you're certainly not a lazy poster. It's interesting that you had the same issue with ropes into the soil that you did with the pads, which seems to indicate that when given an abundance of water, cannabis roots will go off in search of more.
Not sure if you're interested, but I did a rootopsy of my 5 gallon soil-over-perlite SWICK and posted it here. It seemed to be all water roots since the soil above never got damp. I think the airgap between soil and reservoir was greater than the wicking power of the perlite.
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Hehehe, that was my objective with swicking. I wanted a low budget, semi-automated irrigation system so that I could leave them for a few days now and then.
Although your painstaking attention to detail with your extensive experiments would indicate the very opposite of a lazy grow style Gee!
I wonder if they would do that if the plant was top watered and swicked at the same time. Perhaps with an optimal moisture gradient and no lack of calcium, the plants may not do that. I mean look at @PerkPot's grow! Perkie is a new grower with no expectations either way, and they delivered a beautiful harvest off their swicks #stillcurious.
Gee64
Well-Known Member
Thats a good rootopsy Shed
It's interesting that you had the same issue with ropes into the soil that you did with the pads, which seems to indicate that when given an abundance of water, cannabis roots will go off in search of more.
Not sure if you're interested, but I did a rootopsy of my 5 gallon soil-over-perlite SWICK and posted it here. It seemed to be all water roots since the soil above never got damp. I think the airgap between soil and reservoir was greater than the wicking power of the perlite.
Thanks. I think its that large matt of roots at the bottom that blocks moisture from the top half, but thats just a guess.
I shaved the water roots off the outer bottom of 1 plant and left them on the second plant. They grew right through the bag and into the perlite tubs.
The one what got shaved developed hundreds of root tips poking through the sides of the pot after the shave, and the one I didn't shave developed no root tips poking through the sides of the pot.
Oddly enough the one that never got shaved is going to yield a fair bit more. In about 18 days I will harvest them both and we can compare the 2 rootballs to both each other and to yours.
They are only 2gal pots and they were clones so the tap root off the trunk may look different.
SSgrower
Well-Known Member
I have learned to go from "glass" of h2o & h2o2 to a 3-5 gal bag and it's great, I still use solo's if I need "time" to receive freight or packages for the grow. Cheers Gee SSgrower1st of all....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! Sorry I missed it, I was travelling all day yesterday.
The colors in that Gelato are awesome Carmen!
As for the rootball, did you have much for water roots growing into the swick that were on the outside of the bottom of the bag?
I suspect my bags will be full of feeder roots as well, as the plant wouldn't have grown without food and it can't get food from water.
I "think" the problem lies with the huge mat of water roots not allowing moisture up to the feeder roots very well. I would like to say more testing is needed but I am starting to think Living Soil requires natures rules, so top watering is better.
I don't think I will revisit swicking or try Siping unless a break through worthy of trying formulates in my head. I use drippers so watering isn't a chore, the timer does it and all I do is adjust the timer as the plants require. The massive explosion of growth was already gifted to me when I started using cloth pots. I only get detriment from bottom watering.
As for pot size, yeah those are pretty small pots for a seed grow. Clones would do better but thats a photo period thing. I can pull it off in 7gal pots with a lot of TLC but 10gals are where it starts to get bullet proof. If you practice until you get your brix over 12, when the plant no longer requires soil carbon, you can reduce your carbon volume in your pots and replace that volume with supersoil. Then you would get more mileage from a small pot.
Disclaimer: I use full strength flower soil right from the uppotting of the solo, and quite often I plant seeds directly into 10gal pots of flower soil, so if you go with veg soil 1st, you may need bigger pots, mine have a lot of nutes in them. If you go with flower soil from seed you need to manage things a bit differently or the babies suffer.
Here is a pic I posted in GeeSpot yesterday. It's 4 Durbans planted directly into 10gal pots.
They are 23 days old and have been topped twice each already so as long as you water diligently, (@Emilya Green taught me years ago) planting directly into 10 gallon pots is easy.
As for going directly into flower soil, the trick is extra calcium. It opens the soil up which allows air in and air is 78% nitrogen, which veg requires more of. So flower soil works excellently if you manage it properly.
I just brixed the front left one on it's 1st set of 3 prongers from down bottom, the 2nd set of leaves that it grew. They were hanging in the soil so they had to come off.
They brixed at 7, which is excellent for bottom leaves on a baby, and the calcium line was perfectly fuzzy, so they do well sprouting in big pots. Watering is the trick.
I hear that autos do best without being uppotted (never grown an auto so my knowledge is all rumor based) so if you want to avoid uppotting, I hope this post helps.
Happy 18th Birthday!!!!
(again)
Gee64
Well-Known Member
Yes I tok use solo's to "stunt" the timelines when needed. I find that it makes it easier to grow from seed in small pots if you can squeeze the first 30 days out of a solo, but the plants don't seem to be near as healthy compared to the ones that grow uninhibited.
Clones, on the other hand, can grow and finish quite well in small pots. Especially if you grow the mother in a big pot to get bigger thicker cuts. They veg faster, usually 2 weeks is enough.
A lot of my methods are purely to get the best end product. I don't care about yield as I always have enough in storage.
How I grow isn't for everyone as I have no space limitations. When you get a plant to seed properly in its final container you learn a lot about what a plant will do when it has no boundaries, and then you can cater to its wants, not needs, and a lot of things about plants start to make sense.
Ultimately it wants to photosynthesize sugars every day, and always make more sugar today than it did yesterday.
It also always wants a bit more phosphorus today than it wanted yesterday.
Phosphorus is like dump trucks inside the plant. It starts in the soil and by the time it gets into the plant its got other nutes attached by static cling. The phosphorus moves into the plant and the plant eats the nutes off it. If the plant requires phos it will eat it, but mostly it sends it back down in the exudates to get another load of nutes, so you can see that as the plant grows it both needs and uses a little bit more phos every day.
Trapping a seedling in a solo fixes timeline issues really well, but it depletes the plants lifetime accumulation of phosphorus, so when you get into flower you see issues pop up because you don't have enough dump trucks. If your not moving enough phosphorus your brix are low and bugs are a real threat, and as the plant gets bigger but phosphorus doesn't keep up, your sugar content gets watered down and brix drop.
I'm not ever telling people how they should grow, just how a plant wants to grow, and the reasons and science behind why, so when things go bad they can analyze it.
So if you use solo's but later in flower your yield could have been better, or mites move in, now you know why and you can consider that knowledge in your next art piece
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