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cbdhemp808
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I don't have one. How much do those jobbies cost, how do you use the thing, and what's involved in raising the brix level?
Cbdhemp808's Comparison Grow - HI-BISCUS SIP Bucket Vs. Nursery Pot
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Gee64
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$23 in Canada from The Zon, so 35% cheaper for U.S.
Simple to use. Pop off a leaf, roll it into a ball, mash it up, and squeeze a drop out onto the prism under the plastic flap, then look into it like a telescope, and it will give you a brix reading, but equally as nice is that if the line indicating your brix level in the eyepiece is crisp and precise then calcium is low. If it's fuzzy then calcium levels in the plant are good.
Other than adequate light and all the required trace minerals, brix is really raised by 5 components. Calcium, Phosphorus, oxygen, carbon, and microbes/fungii.
The things you need to boost photosynthesis.
Sips are notorious for too wet in LOS, so that restricts oxygen, and without adequate top watering calcium all sinks to the reservoir below the feeder roots which from my limited experience all form in the top half of the pot.
Under 10 brix and fungals are a real threat, and under 13 brix and pests will start moving in. They come in according to brix levels. Different pests like different low sugar levels.
6 and under and the plant doesn't create enough sugars to create secondary metabolites, which are the plants defense/immunity system, so below 6 and she's pretty much doomed unless you get lucky and nurse her back before bugs and fungals show up.
Is the soil surface in the SIP crusty when dry?
How about the cloth pot's soil surface too?
Crusting soil up top is a key indicator of low soil calcium.
Gee64
Well-Known Member
Here is a chart of what bug groups like which brix levels.
I was thinking humidity and airflow as a cause for Overwatering.
I Can admit, after Much review, that it DOES look like Septoria. Thank you for that!
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cbdhemp808
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Cool. I just ordered this one for $15, 42% off Black Friday...
very cool!
I'm feeding Ca and P. Oxygen in the root zone? ...should be good w/ the SIP domes providing air. I'm using a lot of worm castings and also use myco when up-potting. Looks like worm castings are 20-30% carbon.
My SIP soil mix is 1/3 coco, 1/3 compost soil, and 1/3 worm castings. Also a good amount of perlite. I think there's high soil oxygen with this mix. Good point on the top watering... I am now incorporating that when fertigating the SIP.
My SIP is also using 3 domes with lots of air vent holes.
Pest have never really been a problem in my grow.
No.
No. Plastic nursery pot, not cloth.
I have a sense that the susceptibility to bud rot and leaf mold isn't a brix issue, but we'll find out. These two plants are very healthy.
Gee64
Well-Known Member
OK there's no short answer so grab a coffee lol.
Yes, oxygen in the root zone. Sips quite often make LOS too wet. The carbon in the soil holds water and LOS tends to be a carbon heavy soil.
Oxygen and air share the same passages in soil so too much of one displaces the other.
Soil carbon and CO2, aka atmospheric carbon, are 2 very different things. Related for sure, but serve very different purposes.
Soil carbon is microbe food and a pre-cursor to humates, and atmospheric carbon is for photosynthesis.
Soil carbon is also the water reservoir in your mix. Soil carbon absorbs up to 4 times it's weight in water.
When you water LOS what you are really doing is recharging the water content of the carbon.
So 1/3 coco and 2/3 composted organic matter. That's a lot of organic matter, which is carbon heavy. Oxygen may me restricted.
A cheapo dollar store soil moisture probe will tell you. It's an eye opening experience, especially for Sippers using LOS. Most find they are too wet. By most I mean 100% so far.
Probe everywhere in the pot. There's a pretty good chance you will find dry spots. Microlife won't flourish in the dry spots. Check different depths too.
, top watering is key to taking the high calcium content in the EWC and rinsing it down into the pot below. Calcium is 2 things in LOS. It's a nutrient, but it's also a soil conditioner. It's double positive charge runs your cation exchange and also supplies soil tilth (fluffs the soil).
The extra space caused by the fluffing between soil particles is/are your air/water passages.
It's your main soil conditioner. It also keeps magnesium in check.
When Ca gets low, Mg gets high in it's ratio to Ca. Every excess Mg molecule in the ratio will lock onto one nitrogen molecule.
The nitrogen is still there, it's just unavailable to the plant, so your nitrogen levels go up in the LOS when Ca is low, even though the N is unavailable, and your carbon to nitrogen ratio is what dictates the physical health of the microbes and myco.
You need about a 20:1 C:N ratio to have microbes healthy enough to reproduce and at 30:1 they really get robust.
Calcium cycling in the soil via top watering is what keeps Mg and N from locking onto each other and causing nitrogen to get too high in the soil. That's why using CalMg quite often causes the nitrogen clawing in leaves.
Because the Mg to N attraction is electrical, Ca works on contact, releasing all excess N at once.
So low calcium can lead to both Mg and N getting locked out. That's why young plants quite often show MG deficiencies in there first 2 or 3 sets of leaves. It takes a few waterings for Ca to become homogenous throughout the soil and get Mg in check. It's also how CalMg greens up a plant. It makes N available again. If you suspect an N deficiency, check Ca 1st.
That's root air, not air in between soil particles that allows the microbes to breath, and as part of their soil process, to attach O2 molecules to the plant food they create.
If anything the plant requires isn't attached to an O2 molecule the plant can't recognize it as food and won't intake it.
That's how overwatering kills plants. It suffocates the aerobic microbes and the plant starts to starve.
It does leave the anaerobic microbes behind, alive and well. They generally promote disease.
That's an excellent indicator of adequate brix
.Ok, my bad. For some reason I thought it was cloth. I was wondering why the pot wasn't kicking the Sip's ass.
Plastic pots promote water roots, cloth pots promote feeder roots. Water roots are great for synthetics, feeders for LOS.
My 10gal cloth pots are completely filled with feeder roots. There are no long white roots circling anywhere, only fine feeder roots. Like a 10 gallon feather duster.
They likely are healthy, but now with a refractometer you will know for sure and be able to monitor calcium.
When checking brix it's important to do it late in the day. 10 hours into the day at least.
Plants build sugars all day long and at night they send all excess sugars, usually about half, down thru the roots to feed the microlife. You want to measure your daily maximums.
It's also very important to tell us the new swear words you invent trying to get juice from a leaf
. If you can't squeeze a drop out with your fingers, place the rolled up leaf between 2 quarters and squish it with channel locks or vice-grip pliers.
The microbes eat the sugars, which are very carbon dense, and breathe in O2 and out CO2. CO2 is heavier than air so it sits on or just above the soil surface waiting for a plant to eat it.
So soil carbon eventually becomes atmospheric CO2. The carbon cycle. Carbon sequestering.
The husk of the used soil carbon molecule becomes a humate after the microbes/fungii are done eating it. That carbon lattice humate is a large part of your cation exchange.
The exchange runs on electricity, and Ca is the main supplier of the electricity in the soil. That's why you always mix Ca 1st with synthetics. It sets the charge so other inputs don't lock onto each other.
I'm not saying you have any of these issues, it's just info on what carbon and calcium are capable of. They are both dual purpose. Food and conditioners.
With LOS, the state of your soil conditioning is intimately tied to the health of your plant so it's good to have an idea of what's actually going on down there.
Being where you are, high brix is critical for survival. Outdoors in your location, it's truly The Law of the Jungle, where only the strong survive.
I'm really enjoying your comparison, thanks for sharing it with us
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Gee64
Well-Known Member
If you have or go get a soil moisture probe, there's 2 things you need to know.
One is that you need to scrub the entire probe with soap and a scrubber before using to get the machining grease off, and the other is to never leave it in the soil.
Stick it in, let it sit for 5 seconds or so for the needle to settle, then take your reading and remove it. If you accidentally leave it in the soil you will need to run some steel wool or emery cloth over it to get the scaling off. Scrub it again with soap after steel wooling it.
One is that you need to scrub the entire probe with soap and a scrubber before using to get the machining grease off, and the other is to never leave it in the soil.
Stick it in, let it sit for 5 seconds or so for the needle to settle, then take your reading and remove it. If you accidentally leave it in the soil you will need to run some steel wool or emery cloth over it to get the scaling off. Scrub it again with soap after steel wooling it.
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cbdhemp808
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I would say my soil mix is more on the soilless end of the spectrum of living organic soil (LOS), at a full 1/3 coco. Also the worm castings come from my own worm bins where I used coco for the medium. The other 1/3 is a compost soil, but it's a soil that's heavy on the minerals and light on the organic matter.
You lost me there. Yes, air permeates a good, lose soil, like what I'm using. This is how the oxygen in the air reaches the roots throughout the container. When I water, the water soaks in very quickly.
Are you saying that some other process is producing oxygen in the soil?
Yep, I knew that.
Is the carbon itself the food, or is it the decomposed organic matter that they are eating? Yes, I knew that plants breathe in CO2 and use it, and they release O2.
But coco is inert, so even though it's wicking up the water and holding it, that's not because of its carbon content, correct?
My SIP is really good at wicking up from the reservoir. I found the rez empty again today, but obviously there was still some water being held above the rez. I top-fertigated with 1 gal and got just a slight amount of runoff. The ferts were solution grade langbeinite (K, Mg, S), solution grade Ca, a bit of high-N liquid fert, and some soaked seabird guano (P) and kelp powder (Fe, etc.).
Again, the compost soil component of my mix is very light on the organic matter... it's mainly mineral soil.
If the plants were suffering, I'd be suspect of various things. But they are looking very good... good leaf color. The problem right now is lack of sunlight, due to tall vegetation around my greenhouse... I'm working on removing. They are getting some good morning light now, at least. The sun is at a low angle at this time of year. My veg house gets much better sun than the flower house.
I think I may have one of those lying around somewhere. BUT, what I do is weigh the container on my very accurate bathroom scale, if I'm unsure how much water is in the container.
When I top water, I'm sure water is getting everywhere in the container, because the mix is so porous. I dump most of a gallon of fert-water on the top, and it comes up to the rim of the bucket then sinks in in seconds.
Thanks... lots of info packed in there. I knew Ca was necessary in my fertigation, but didn't really know why, especially with regard to its relationship with Mg and N. I'm using a solution grade organic calcium carbonate powder...
Calcium is 2 things in LOS. It's a nutrient, but it's also a soil conditioner. It's double positive charge runs your cation exchange and also supplies soil tilth (fluffs the soil).
The extra space caused by the fluffing between soil particles is/are your air/water passages.
It's your main soil conditioner. It also keeps magnesium in check.
When Ca gets low, Mg gets high in it's ratio to Ca. Every excess Mg molecule in the ratio will lock onto one nitrogen molecule.
The nitrogen is still there, it's just unavailable to the plant, so your nitrogen levels go up in the LOS when Ca is low, even though the N is unavailable, and your carbon to nitrogen ratio is what dictates the physical health of the microbes and myco.
You need about a 20:1 C:N ratio to have microbes healthy enough to reproduce and at 30:1 they really get robust.
Calcium cycling in the soil via top watering is what keeps Mg and N from locking onto each other and causing nitrogen to get too high in the soil. That's why using CalMg quite often causes the nitrogen clawing in leaves.
Because the Mg to N attraction is electrical, Ca works on contact, releasing all excess N at once.
So low calcium can lead to both Mg and N getting locked out. That's why young plants quite often show MG deficiencies in there first 2 or 3 sets of leaves. It takes a few waterings for Ca to become homogenous throughout the soil and get Mg in check. It's also how CalMg greens up a plant. It makes N available again. If you suspect an N deficiency, check Ca 1st.
(it seems maybe the 38.0% is a typo... maybe they meant 3.8%)
They say use 1/2 tsp per 10 gal of soil. I'm using about 1/4 tsp in my fert water.
BTW, I'm fairly new to the fertigation requirements of the SIP... prior I was using 10 gal nursery pots... 10 gal of LOS. So, I wasn't fertigating as often. Now I feel like I need to be careful and thorough, otherwise the SIP plant won't be getting optimal nutrients.
Hmm, you lost me there again. All of the soil medium in the SIP has roots in it. The reservoir has the deep roots, and the rest has the feeder roots. My SIP has a large "R zone," which is what I call the area where roots can reach the saturated medium in the reservoir. That medium is special in my SIP, and is composed of 1/3 the overall mix, 1/3 coir, and 1/3 perlite.
I don't know about microbes inhabiting this R zone, which is an ebb and flow situation. But the soil above must have plenty of living microbes. Again, my soil is very porous. Air is permeating from the surface, but also down the fill tube into the air space of the domes, and in/out of the drain tube. I view this ambient air as subject to pressures that control it's flow into the soil. At the microscopic scale, the soil particles have lots of air space between them. So, I see the air in the domes, leaving through the side and top vent holes, as permeating the soil all around and above.
I wonder what would happen if I put a stopper on the fill tube and drain tube, after fertigating? As the reservoir level dropped over time, a slight vacuum would be created that would pull air from the surface.
OK, what you are talking about is roots absorbing nutrients w/ O2 attached to them. Roots are also doing respiration of O2, yes? I understand also that if the respiration is blocked, then nutrient metabolism is blocked... the plant is starved.
My 10 gal squat nursery pots did very well, but I was tired of mixing up so much soil by hand. I was using my custom LOS. I gave up on my DIY fabric pots, 15 gal, because they became clogged and I didn't want the hassle of unclogging them.
I'm looking forward to testing!
When checking brix it's important to do it late in the day. 10 hours into the day at least.
Plants build sugars all day long and at night they send all excess sugars, usually about half, down thru the roots to feed the microlife. You want to measure your daily maximums.
It's also very important to tell us the new swear words you invent trying to get juice from a leaf
...I'm gonna need to study this some.I view this particular mixture I'm using as sort of a hybrid coco/LOS. It's really 2/3 coco with lots of worm castings.
In a future mix, I might reduce the worm castings some, as well as the coco.
I've grown many plants here, in the same soil and same pots, and some will show more natural resistance to leaf mold and bud rot, while others will show less. I've flowered different strain/phenos at the same time, right next to each other, and one will succumb to bud rot and I'll lose the harvest, while another will show no bud rot to speak of. I'm guessing these differences are not due to brix... what do you think?
This is why I began my quest for mold resistance strains (see my signature), and began focusing on terpenes. Everyone knows that sativas are naturally more fungus/mold resistant, and I attribute this to high terpinolene and pine terpene content. So far I'm not a believer that the resistance is due to a sativa's more open bud structure. Like you say, the Law of the Jungle is eat or be eaten, and those botrytis spores don't care if a bud is more open or not.
I'm really enjoying your comparison, thanks for sharing it with us
Thanks for your excellent input, and I'm looking forward to the brix test!