Cbdhemp808's Comparison Grow - HI-BISCUS SIP Bucket Vs. Nursery Pot

[StoneOtter]

 

[Gee64]

I need to re-read your other reply, but... are you saying it would feed the soil microbes, which would then feed the upper roots?

It will feed the soil microbes and myco will pick which roots get to eat it.

That's what I was originally thinking I'd do with the SIP... top fertigation. And the reservoir is just for catching/recycling the runoff. Would it hurt to pH the fert water, so that the deep roots can also make use of it?

If you use organic inputs for ph'ing it won't hurt except that after prolonged use the ph' ing additives may build up in your soil which if you recycle can start to cause grief. Myco will lose it's ability to do the ph'ing once it builds up.

Here is a video on brix and it talks about fungals too. All of them.

Thomas Dykstra has scienced brix and it's effects on both pests and fungals more than anyone, and Glen Rabenberg is a phenomenal organic scientist. If you youtube search Soilworks LLC you will find a bunch of excellent videos and the old fellars really dummy it down into english that we can understand.

 

[Gee64]

In all Dr Dykstra's years he has never encountered fungal attacks in plants at 10 brix or higher. He's done thousands of tests.

For what it's worth, I've always grown high brix, (for years now) and never encountered fungals and only got thrips once when my light died and I had to use a small light for 3 weeks until the replacement arrived. Low light crashed my brix.

 

[cbdhemp808]

If you use organic inputs for ph'ing it won't hurt except that after prolonged use the ph' ing additives may build up in your soil which if you recycle can start to cause grief. Myco will lose it's ability to do the ph'ing once it builds up.

I'm guessing that my fert water is already in a good pH range, but if it needed adjusted, I would just change the ratio of the ferts.

In all Dr Dykstra's years he has never encountered fungal attacks in plants at 10 brix or higher. He's done thousands of tests.

Thanks, I'll watch the video. Has he done any work specifically with cannabis bud rot? How about in an outdoor warm, wet tropical setting?

For what it's worth, I've always grown high brix, (for years now) and never encountered fungals and only got thrips once when my light died and I had to use a small light for 3 weeks until the replacement arrived. Low light crashed my brix.

Are you growing outdoors, and what's your climate like?

 

[cbdhemp808]

DAY 17 of flower

I rearranged the plants on the deck so the comparison plants are in the most light-exposed and airflow-exposed part of the deck. I did some final pruning of small internal branches, to increase airflow and favor the main bud sites. The SIP rez is down to 1" now. The nursery POT is still a bit too heavy to fertigate.

 

[Gee64]

I'm guessing that my fert water is already in a good pH range, but if it needed adjusted, I would just change the ratio of the ferts.

Perfect!

Thanks, I'll watch the video. Has he done any work specifically with cannabis bud rot? How about in an outdoor warm, wet tropical setting?

That I don't know, but he's pretty knowledgeable on the subject.

Are you growing outdoors, and what's your climate like?

I grow both in and out. Both my grows go thru my perpetual Geespot room in my signature. I have 1 big one really close to harvest growing in LOS.

I'm spoiled, I live on the outer edge of a desert where it transitions into a protected grasslands ecological reserve.

Lots of breeze, 35% RH and blue skies at least 300 days a year. Summer highs hit 110F every summer for sure, but 117F and 118F were my last 2 summer maximums.

We pay in the winter when it drops to -5F to -25F.

Rattlesnakes and cactii in the ecological reserve which starts literally over my fence. I'm the last house in the desert lol.

I'm getting pretty good at snake wrangling. Every summer a few get thru the rattlesnake fencing and into the yard.

 

[cbdhemp808]

I'm spoiled, I live on the outer edge of a desert where it transitions into a protected grasslands ecological reserve.

I gotta laugh... you are in the opposite climate I am in! I would expect you may never see bud rot outdoors, no matter what you do! Am I wrong?

 

[Gee64]

I gotta laugh... you are in the opposite climate I am in! I would expect you may never see bud rot outdoors, no matter what you do! Am I wrong?

Not here but I grew up on Vancouver Island and grew a lot of outdoor weed there. Bud rot is part of the game.

 

[Gee64]

Like I said, I'm pretty spoiled. High VPD and 25% RH for 2 months in the winter are my evils now. Too dry is way better than too wet

 

[cbdhemp808]

Not here but I grew up on Vancouver Island and grew a lot of outdoor weed there. Bud rot is part of the game.

Yeah, I could understand that for sure. I actually visited my brother there a very long time ago, and stumbled upon his weed patch... the plants must have been 8 ft tall. He and his wife and baby were living out in the forest near Qualicum Beach.

 

[Gee64]

Yeah, I could understand that for sure. I actually visited my brother there a very long time ago, and stumbled upon his weed patch... the plants must have been 8 ft tall. He and his wife and baby were living out in the forest near Qualicum Beach.

I have family in Qualicum Beach. I grew up 15 miles away from there.

What Island are you on? I've been to Maui. Stayed in Kihei for a couple weeks and explored most of Maui. It's beautiful. The snorkelling was unbelievable.

 

[cbdhemp808]

What Island are you on?

 

[cbdhemp808]

DAY 18 of flower

I fertigated the nursery POT. The SIP is still too heavy to fertigate. I found my pH pen, but it needs to be calibrated, so I need to buy more calibration packets.

The CBD pheno I have in the flower house is an interesting comparison to the two HI-BISCUS plants. The CBD plant is in the same kind of SIP bucket, with the same kind of soil, and it's way more robust, with big leaves, no leaf spot mold, and with nicely developing colas. In comparison, my HI-BISCUS pheno is a relatively delicate, small plant, but with amazing bud rot resistance.

Here's some photos from 2023 when I first grew HI-BISCUS. Note, almost the very same day of flower as today. 5 gal nursery pot. The buds are noticeably more developed, which I attribute to the springtime sun.

[April 27, 2023] HI-BISCUS (50/50 hybrid), 19 days in flower. Of all the plants in the flower house, she seems to be the most susceptible to leaf mold. I have been spraying them with peroxide solution w/ a few drops of Bronner's soap, as needed. They're doing great.

[April 10, 2023, HI-BISCUS in flower, in a 5 gal pot.]

 

[cbdhemp808]

I watched it... it's a convincing video. And now I'm worried that my greenhouses, especially when the roofs are dirty, and especially this time of year, aren't letting in enough sunlight. My greenhouse roofs get dirty very fast, and they're a real pain in the ass to clean, especially the veg house with the plastic greenhouse film. The flower house with the polycarbonate roof is a lot easier to clean than the greenhouse film. I can get maybe 2 or 3 months of relatively clean before the gunk returns.

I have read that foliar feeding is commonly used to increase brix, for example feeding aerated compost tea.

 

[Gee64]

I watched it... it's a convincing video. And now I'm worried that my greenhouses, especially when the roofs are dirty, and especially this time of year, aren't letting in enough sunlight. My greenhouse roofs get dirty very fast, and they're a real pain in the ass to clean, especially the veg house with the plastic greenhouse film. The flower house with the polycarbonate roof is a lot easier to clean than the greenhouse film. I can get maybe 2 or 3 months of relatively clean before the gunk returns.

I have read that foliar feeding is commonly used to increase brix, for example feeding aerated compost tea.

Brix is all based on adequate light and all minerals being available. Both light and minerals are foundational in the brix equation so with inadequate levels of either it's tough to get to 13 or 14.

With adequate light and minerals it's easy, as it's just adjustments on the 5 parts. Carbon, oxygen, calcium, phosphorus, and microbes/fungii.

So cleaning your greenhouse will really have a big effect. I'm sure your minerals are just fine. Even if you're already high brix cleaning the windows will give you a noticeable boost in sugars.

As for foliars, that's entirely up to you. They work but they are a hack.

If you build you're soil correctly you don't need foliars. Every time a plant completes a lap of nutes in, thru, photosynthesized, turned into sugars, and exudated back down to the microbes, the next lap will be a bit better because it starts with that sugar boost from the 1st lap, so when that lap finishes, the next lap starts with even more sugars, and brix climbs lap by lap.

Foliars cut into the middle and create extra sugars which boosts the lap, but now you need to keep doing them regularly or when you stop you get a drop.

So a foliar as a one time primer is free, but if you are going to use them regularly then you will need to use them regularly.

Personally I refrain from ever spraying anything other than RO water on my leaves. Foliars reduce light intake by leaving residue on the leaves, and in flower forget it.

So if you need them to escape bugs, then sure.

But if you don't need them then it's because your in better soil. Better soil is better.

There's a Canadian product now available in the U.S. called Gaia Green General Purpose 4-4-4 and another Gaia Powerbloom 2-8-4. They are dry organic ammendments. They are really simple to use and produce high brix without foliars. I get 22lb bags for $60 CDN.

It's cheaper than bug sprays and fungicides.

All you really need tho is prilled dolomite, bone meal, hydrolysed fish ferts, and EWC. And of course a refractometer and water probe. Using these will get you higher brix than the Gaia system, but the Gaia system will get you brix 18-20 no problem. Add a pinch of high P bat guano and it'll go up to 21 or 22.

People scoff at the water stik but it's important. Oxygen is controlled by the presence of water, and oxygen is one of the 5 pieces for high brix, and so far 100% of the growers I've convinced to try the water stik has found out they water too often. Myself included.

More than that tho, with a refractometer and a water stik you have 2 very basic cheap tools that will very quickly take your brix up. No guessing. One tells you when to water, the other tells you how your calcium is, and if what your doing is working.

You're definitely right when you say some strains are more resistant. When it comes to brix some strains can photosynthesize more so they can also brix higher.

It would be cool to see if your more resistant strains are the ones that naturally brix higher.

 

[cbdhemp808]

It would be cool to see if your more resistant strains are the ones that naturally brix higher.

So here's a weird thing... the HI-BISCUS will likely be super bud rot resistant, as it was in my 2023 grow, but once again it has proven to be not very resistant to the leaf spot molds. Doesn't that pretty much imply that brix is not involved in the bud rot resistance? Some strains/phenos just produce a lot more resin that others, and some produce specific terpenes that may be involved in fungal resistance. That's what seems to be going on with HI-BISCUS.

On another subject, I noticed that my two young clones in veg, both in SIPs, have persistent water in their reservoirs. So, they are at that phase where the roots have not yet developed to the point where they can suck the water out of the upper soil fairly quickly, as I see with the plants in SIPs that are now in flower. I think this further proves that, when I see the rez level going down with my older plants, it's not just due to wicking—it's due to wicking that only happens when the upper roots are drinking down the water in the upper soil.

 

[cbdhemp808]

DAY 20 of flower

I top-fertigated the SIP plant to runoff. I've removed more vegetation around the greenhouse, so more light is getting in, but I've got more work to do on that.

Sadly it looks like the major branch on the SIP plant that had stem rot, which I attempted to remove, isn't going to make it. If the bud sites are still droopy tomorrow, I'm likely going to remove the branch.

 

[cbdhemp808]

All you really need tho is prilled dolomite, bone meal, hydrolysed fish ferts, and EWC.

I use organic Down to Earth ferts, and no animal byproducts (except guano), in my custom super soil mix. I also use my own fresh worm castings, high-quality coco coir, and perlite. Probably my best grow to date was my CBD #9 pheno, May 2024, in a 10 gal black plastic nursery pot, with plenty of overhead springtime sun (and a much cleaner roof). No stress training... just a simple, natural grow. Here she is...

I wrote this after harvesting...

I just harvested my CBD #9, which is a 10% CBD variety of Cherry Blossom (THC < 1%). I would say this is a 50/50 hybrid, indica dominant. I have never had my single pheno tested for terps, however I've seen a terpene profile that shows high amounts of myrcene and pinene, but not terpinolene. I've done multiple harvests of this plant over the past few years, and there's always some bud rot. This time I grew in a 10 gal. pot (instead of 5 or 7 gal), for the first time, and the plant grew very tall and I topped at 8 ft. to fit in the greenhouse. The top buds were some of the best buds I've ever harvested – big and dense. Basically zero bud rot in those top colas. There was some bud rot, especially lower down, but it was very isolated. ...I was kind of blown away.

Now I've got the same pheno in flower, in a 5 gal SIP, and this one is looking like a little Christmas tree (not topped). Here's a photo from Nov. 16, when she was just starting to flower. Now the colas are really forming well on the stem and all branches. This plant is in the same soil, same amount of soil, and same conditions as the HI-BISCUS plants in the SIP and nursery pot; however, she's showing little to no leaf mold.

 

[Gee64]

I use organic Down to Earth ferts, and no animal byproducts (except guano), in my custom super soil mix. I also use my own fresh worm castings, high-quality coco coir, and perlite. Probably my best grow to date was my CBD #9 pheno, May 2024, in a 10 gal black plastic nursery pot, with plenty of overhead springtime sun (and a much cleaner roof). No stress training... just a simple, natural grow. Here she is...

I wrote this after harvesting...



Now I've got the same pheno in flower, in a 5 gal SIP, and this one is looking like a little Christmas tree (not topped). Here's a photo from Nov. 16, when she was just starting to flower. Now the colas are really forming well on the stem and all branches. This plant is in the same soil, same amount of soil, and same conditions as the HI-BISCUS plants in the SIP and nursery pot; however, she's showing little to no leaf mold.

Wow she has beautiful shape. Hopefully your refractometer shows up soon and give you some direction.

Does your green house have fans and vents?

 

[Gee64]

So here's a weird thing... the HI-BISCUS will likely be super bud rot resistant, as it was in my 2023 grow, but once again it has proven to be not very resistant to the leaf spot molds. Doesn't that pretty much imply that brix is not involved in the bud rot resistance? Some strains/phenos just produce a lot more resin that others, and some produce specific terpenes that may be involved in fungal resistance. That's what seems to be going on with HI-BISCUS.

On another subject, I noticed that my two young clones in veg, both in SIPs, have persistent water in their reservoirs. So, they are at that phase where the roots have not yet developed to the point where they can suck the water out of the upper soil fairly quickly, as I see with the plants in SIPs that are now in flower. I think this further proves that, when I see the rez level going down with my older plants, it's not just due to wicking—it's due to wicking that only happens when the upper roots are drinking down the water in the upper soil.

Your water stik will answer all these questions. Not to sound negative, because it's entirely possible that your plants are already high brix, but... Too wet crashes brix.

It causes high nitrogen content in the tissue, and that's an invitation for bugs and pathogens.

Too wet also means that oxygen is restricted, so again brix crash, and so far every SIP grow in LOS that I've encountered has been too wet and most SIP growers start the conversation by saying, "Sure I'll check, but these plants are gorgeous so I'm gonna say that brix isn't the issue" and then they check and find a reading lower than 14, and usually a 7-9 AND more importantly that calcium is barely registering.

So they dry down, water in a dose or 2 of calmag and some fish ferts and for quite a few that alone raises brix to a 14 or 15. Some even higher.

It's free and effective to get your moisture levels into the high brix zone.

As for brix itself, that high carbon sugar makes both the plant and the pot healthier and secondary metabolites, which are your defense mechanisms, shoot thru the roof.

So all those mold resistant terpenes she is known for are far more abundant.

Do an old guy a favor and dig out that water stick, steel wool it so it's accurate with soapy water, dry it clean, and go poke around.

Don't water either pot until the water stik says you need to. (Water Stik was the brand name of my 1st meter about 25 years ago)

I own 6 of them, all different brands, and they all read each pot the same, so they are consistant and accurate regardless of what Bro Scientists say.

I wish I had actual experience with fungal issues and brix so I would know myself if it works, but I don't, which if I'm being honest, is my main reason for suggesting all this to you. I'm full of curiosity and you are a LOS grower with experience and a fungal problem, so it's really easy for you to raise brix and find out.

It certainly can't hurt and if brix is already high, at least your $17 for the refractometer will allow you to avoid any future calcium deficiencies and also if you make a change, brix levels will tell you if it boosted photosynthesis or not.

Cleaning the green house windows will also really help. That alone could be your culprit. Do you get a better grow after each cleaning?