Droughting and its medicinal effects in cannabis

[Azimuth]

Gotta say, I'm hesitant to agree on the no PH in DWC. And 7.5 is way out of the ideal range for hydro.

I think he meant he doesn't check pH in his PPK system, and that was one of the things he disliked in DWC.

 

[nivek]

ditto @Rexer

two ideas for a hempy drought

1, plug the hole and add extra water and let it drought , possibly, as normal

2, drill a hole in the bottom of the bucket and hand water somehow correctly to mimic droughting, somehow

i think i like 2 better,,

anyhow,, my last wee one in veg sexed for me yesterday,, so,, i have three sets of identical twins in veg at the moment,, two full on sativas and one blueberry

the first sativa, a MAma thai/thai stiCK cross,, 'mack',, ready for flower in a week or two,, beauty plants too

btw,, if y'all have read much else of dr Caplan,, you might have read about how much he stresses that plants in flower need so much 'less' nutrients than in veg, and obviously the last 11 days there is no new nutes at all

he actually has two other studies along with droughting study,, one on optimal nutrient levels for veg, and the other on optimum nutrient levels for flower

interesting because i have grown everyone of the best plants of my life in the last year or so and so noticed how much better they grew after i cut back on the nutes

that and a lower ph, in the 5.5 to 5.6 range cured near all my plant ailments

not the bugs and mildew issues i had tho,, however, i emptied my indoor grow rooms this summer and did a thuro clean and rest period

thrilled to say that at the moment i have no bug or mildew issues at all, touch wood

weeks of flowering time to go before any attempts at anything here

karma sent friends

 

[Rexer]

I think #2 would be better if you were looking to do an extended drought as described in the study (which I better).
How long at end of flower do you wait before needing to fertigate? And how much does your res at the bottom hold?

Thanks @Azimuth, that makes more sense lol

 

[Maritimer]

Ahoy there!
New Years Jingle for thought.

Give your pains a treat!
Run yer plants in peat!
Bubblers

 

[Azimuth]

So, the follow up question for Hempy/hydro is this:

If we agree that there is something positive going on in the soil plants that the plant is reacting to after its normal watering interval (say after day 4 of a normal 2-3 day watering cycle), even though it is not observable until day 9, is there some advantage to prolonging a low watering period in hydro (i.e. some just not enough) to pick up this additional response, or are 2 days after the magic moisture level is reached sufficient?

I'm going to assume that in hydro mediums you'd reach the LWA after maybe 3 or 4 days in which case you miss out on the 4 extra days of time that @nivek references as being important.

Maybe a better way to ask is what percentage of the benefit occurs after day 8 in soil? Is there a significant enough benefit to the first 8 days to try duplicating in hydro (in this example the 8 days in soil to get to LWA is more like 4 in hydro)?

 

[Azimuth]

Ahoy there!
New Years Jingle for thought.

Give your pains a treat!
Run yer plants in peat!
Bubblers

I'm actually moving away from a peat based mix in favor of aged leaf mold.

 

[nivek]

How long at end of flower do you wait before needing to fertigate? And how much does your res at the bottom hold?

my understanding of the one study i found, the posted one, is that the drought is begun so that the end of the drought is the end of flowering,, a final watering to bring moisture levels back up, which i also understand, happens very quickly, then a harvest

my res in my hempy pots holds a bit over a liter, quart, and that lasts two days max with a full plant in there,, third day it's wilting,, i usually fert every third day and give a cup full of quite diluted fert the night before a main fert

another thing to remember , for me, is that a plant nearing the end of flower uses less water naturally anyway, so that must be accounted for as well

 

[nivek]

So, the follow up question for Hempy/hydro is this:

If we agree that there is something positive going on in the soil plants that the plant is reacting to after its normal watering interval (say after day 4 of a normal 2-3 day watering cycle), even though it is not observable until day 9, is there some advantage to prolonging a low watering period in hydro (i.e. some just not enough) to pick up this additional response, or are 2 days after the magic moisture level is reached sufficient?

I'm going to assume that in hydro mediums you'd reach the LWA after maybe 3 or 4 days in which case you miss out on the 4 extra days of time that @nivek references as being important.

Maybe a better way to ask is what percentage of the benefit occurs after day 8 in soil? Is there a significant enough benefit to the first 8 days to try duplicating in hydro (in this example the 8 days in soil to get to LWA is more like 4 in hydro)?

i will find it in there, the study, next read attempt,, but it states in there that after two days, the plant starts to recognize that something is amiss

which i guess means that plants get that 'something is amiss' feeling near every time before a watering, but then it gets water and the feeling goes away

 

[Azimuth]

my understanding of the one study i found, the posted one, is that the drought is begun so that the end of the drought is the end of flowering,, a final watering to bring moisture levels back up, which i also understand, happens very quickly, then a harvest

And why this final watering? It would seem you would have gone a fair ways to getting the plants dry which you're going to do right after you cut before curing anyway.

Maybe the answer is the post watering brings it back up to a known moisture level, but the one at the end of draught is much more variable?

But, unless it was at a level that was drier than what you'd typically start curing at, it would seem you could move the drying/curing process along by several days at least.

 

[nivek]

And why this final watering? It would seem you would have gone a fair ways to getting the plants dry which you're going to do right after you cut before curing anyway.

Maybe the answer is the post watering brings it back up to a known moisture level, but the one at the end of draught is much more variable?

But, unless it was at a level that was drier than what you'd typically start curing at, it would seem you could move the drying/curing process along by several days at least.

my guess would be to bring the moisture levels back up to allow the curing process to happen naturally, and equally

the drying and curing for the study samples was identical for both samples

edit,, and the study stated that after the final watering,, the droughted plant 'did' return to the same moisture levels as the not droughted plants

 

[Krissi Carbone]

I can not say where I learned about PPK.. that's a no-no here. But yes, a concept created by DELT9NSX around 2008.
It's a hybrid system that is both top fed via pulse pump and bottom fed via passive wick. I'm a simple guy and with his recipe I've been running 4 plants since 2008, on the same 20 lbls of NPK and 20 lbs of Calcium. No bonzai root hormoans or bud blast crap. NPK&Ca 600ppms. NOTHING ELSE> There is no requirement for PH checking drove me crazy in DWC, only use PH meter to be sure starting RO water (best with RO) is in range of 10ppms (+/- 10 ppms) PH is usually about 7.5. Heat is less of a grow room issue because O2 is drawn down thru the media/root ball when auto top irrigated. Setting up and balancing takes some getting used to but not very complicated.

Volume rez>control rez>pump rez>plant.. recycling on timers generally 1 QT / plant every 1-1.5 hours..

ditto @Rexer

two ideas for a hempy drought

1, plug the hole and add extra water and let it drought , possibly, as normal

2, drill a hole in the bottom of the bucket and hand water somehow correctly to mimic droughting, somehow

i think i like 2 better,,

anyhow,, my last wee one in veg sexed for me yesterday,, so,, i have three sets of identical twins in veg at the moment,, two full on sativas and one blueberry

the first sativa, a MAma thai/thai stiCK cross,, 'mack',, ready for flower in a week or two,, beauty plants too

btw,, if y'all have read much else of dr Caplan,, you might have read about how much he stresses that plants in flower need so much 'less' nutrients than in veg, and obviously the last 11 days there is no new nutes at all

he actually has two other studies along with droughting study,, one on optimal nutrient levels for veg, and the other on optimum nutrient levels for flower

interesting because i have grown everyone of the best plants of my life in the last year or so and so noticed how much better they grew after i cut back on the nutes

that and a lower ph, in the 5.5 to 5.6 range cured near all my plant ailments

not the bugs and mildew issues i had tho,, however, i emptied my indoor grow rooms this summer and did a thuro clean and rest period

thrilled to say that at the moment i have no bug or mildew issues at all, touch wood

weeks of flowering time to go before any attempts at anything here

karma sent friends

Awesome @nivek I'm with @Rexer And thanks @Azimuth for the clarification

Ahoy there!
New Years Jingle for thought.

Give your pains a treat!
Run yer plants in peat!
Bubblers

and how many bubblers did we have today lol

So, the follow up question for Hempy/hydro is this:

If we agree that there is something positive going on in the soil plants that the plant is reacting to after its normal watering interval (say after day 4 of a normal 2-3 day watering cycle), even though it is not observable until day 9, is there some advantage to prolonging a low watering period in hydro (i.e. some just not enough) to pick up this additional response, or are 2 days after the magic moisture level is reached sufficient?

I'm going to assume that in hydro mediums you'd reach the LWA after maybe 3 or 4 days in which case you miss out on the 4 extra days of time that @nivek references as being important.

Maybe a better way to ask is what percentage of the benefit occurs after day 8 in soil? Is there a significant enough benefit to the first 8 days to try duplicating in hydro (in this example the 8 days in soil to get to LWA is more like 4 in hydro)?

i guess there is no actual documentation on those first 8 days as as study refered only to that 9th day..again, I'll go with a higher amount than we probably are taking into account when we think about how the plant very early realizes things are not right

maybe throwing on additional time in Hydro would be an idea...I myself know nothing of it as I'm solely in tuned with soil but I know Rex and others will offer better advice on your how to ideas

my understanding of the one study i found, the posted one, is that the drought is begun so that the end of the drought is the end of flowering,, a final watering to bring moisture levels back up, which i also understand, happens very quickly, then a harvest

my res in my hempy pots holds a bit over a liter, quart, and that lasts two days max with a full plant in there,, third day it's wilting,, i usually fert every third day and give a cup full of quite diluted fert the night before a main fert

another thing to remember , for me, is that a plant nearing the end of flower uses less water naturally anyway, so that must be accounted for as well

last bit is a good note!!! A lot of people forget that

i will find it in there, the study, next read attempt,, but it states in there that after two days, the plant starts to recognize that something is amiss

which i guess means that plants get that 'something is amiss' feeling near every time before a watering, but then it gets water and the feeling goes away

Bingo Sir

 

[Krissi Carbone]

And why this final watering? It would seem you would have gone a fair ways to getting the plants dry which you're going to do right after you cut before curing anyway.

Maybe the answer is the post watering brings it back up to a known moisture level, but the one at the end of draught is much more variable?

But, unless it was at a level that was drier than what you'd typically start curing at, it would seem you could move the drying/curing process along by several days at least.

Because you have pulled out what you are going to pull out of her oil wise and the last part would be to give it a shot to finish bulking it if has more time...we know that adding moisture will plump the buds again and do no harm to the work we just did building up those oils in the trichomes

 

[Rexer]

my understanding of the one study i found, the posted one, is that the drought is begun so that the end of the drought is the end of flowering,, a final watering to bring moisture levels back up, which i also understand, happens very quickly, then a harvest

my res in my hempy pots holds a bit over a liter, quart, and that lasts two days max with a full plant in there,, third day it's wilting,, i usually fert every third day and give a cup full of quite diluted fert the night before a main fert

another thing to remember , for me, is that a plant nearing the end of flower uses less water naturally anyway, so that must be accounted for as well

What I would propose then is a gradual decrease in the reservoir of 25% or so per fertigation the week of the attempted drought in hempy? Obviously those numbers should be adjusted (they were guesses), but that combined with a watchful eye on the LWA, may just be the combination sought after?
I leave it open to the floor for thoughts

 

[Krissi Carbone]

What I would propose then is a gradual decrease in the reservoir of 25% or so per fertigation the week of the attempted drought in hempy? Obviously those numbers should be adjusted (they were guesses), but that combined with a watchful eye on the LWA, may just be the combination sought after?
I leave it open to the floor for thoughts

You know I'm not the girl for advice here but I am certainly happy listening and learning

 

[Azimuth]

Because you have pulled out what you are going to pull out of her oil wise and the last part would be to give it a shot to finish bulking it if has more time...we know that adding moisture will plump the buds again and do no harm to the work we just did building up those oils in the trichomes

Sure, but the bulking at this point is mostly water weight which you are then going to turn around and directly offload in the next step after harvest.

 

[Rexer]

You know I'm not the girl for advice here but I am certainly happy listening and learning

Me too!

I think there is a way to do it in the manner that Nivek is seeking (which might be the better method of completely duplicating the drought in the studies). It would most likely require some math to do the calculations based upon the duration one fertigation lasts, to align with the sought after number of days for a 50% wilt.

 

[Azimuth]

What I would propose then is a gradual decrease in the reservoir of 25% or so per fertigation the week of the attempted drought in hempy? Obviously those numbers should be adjusted (they were guesses), but that combined with a watchful eye on the LWA, may just be the combination sought after?
I leave it open to the floor for thoughts

But, unless the reservoir went dry for some period, a simple lesser amount wouldn't initiate the response.

Maybe add an extra dry day between waterings to put the plant on notice?

 

[nivek]

What I would propose then is a gradual decrease in the reservoir of 25% or so per fertigation the week of the attempted drought in hempy? Obviously those numbers should be adjusted (they were guesses), but that combined with a watchful eye on the LWA, may just be the combination sought after?
I leave it open to the floor for thoughts

swell indeed,, putting that down as option number three,, tho i like it more than option one,, so i am promoting your option to option number two and my original option number two will be promoted to option number one

many thanks

 

[Azimuth]

swell indeed,, putting that down as option number three,, tho i like it more than option one,, so i am promoting your option to option number two and my original option number two will be promoted to option number one

many thanks

 

[nivek]

But, unless the reservoir went dry for some period, a simple lesser amount wouldn't initiate the response.

Maybe add an extra dry day between waterings to put the plant on notice?

yes,, watering is key to any hempy theory,, imo

perhaps watering one side only, then the other next watering,, one can not saturate the whole plant with any amount of water during the drought, imo