Emmie's 6 Plant, True Living Organic, LED Grow Journal

Exciting things are happening!!!
As predicted, the new lights produced a tremendous growth spurt and at the distance of 18-19 inches I could see no adverse effects on the top most leaves. In about 24 hours of the new stronger light, two of the plants drained their containers and I am surprised that I didn't hear the sucking sounds from way up in my bedroom. The rest of the plants will be dry tomorrow morning.
Wow!
Joyce alerted me this morning that this was going on and I took the afternoon off to come home to deal with this. It is time to up-pot... my buffer has vaporized.
I have been preparing containers all afternoon and got Wappa and Super Cheese up-potted to their final 3 gal containers, and started preparing the room for 6 of the larger trays.
Here are the girls all decked out in their new digs, showing off their fancy bark mulch soil protection. Taking advantage of the added real estate, the LST was enhanced at the 4 main kolas and a few growth tips in the middle needed the wack-a-mole treatment so as to keep enhancing the need for lessor nodes to rise up.
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Tomorrow I will up-pot the rest of them, but I do want them to use up their water before I do. I plan on vegging till the 15th, and then I am going to flip to 12/12.

As promised, today these two have been watered completely with Emmie's rocket fuel, taking several hours to completely saturate the soil, merging the old with the new. Since Emmie's batch of Fermented Dandelion extract is about a year and a half old right now, it is very alcoholic and therefore acidic, and to keep the microlife happy, the last bit of water added to the containers was neutral pH spring water, so as to offset any wild pH swing that the nutes may have caused.

The roots were about what I expected; they had not really started to wrap yet, and I could see a good mesh of roots laterally all through the rootball, that even dry held together quite well during the transplant. Upon inspection I found the reason for the few lost leaves, settling in the last container had caused a few voids which caused air pruning of some of the bigger roots within the rootball. I have yet to find a happy medium where I manually compress the soil as I am packing the container - too tight and it restricts root growth and too loose and this happens.

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I want to show off my bug/fly catcher in its protected cover. We don't have a bug problem yet, but it is best to be prepared, so I replaced the fly paper inside. With this guard around it , it is actually hard to accidentally come in contact with the nasty sticky stuff, and it makes it easy to neatly install anywhere in the tent.

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Now for the details on the container builds:
At the very bottom of each container I sprinkled 2 tbls of Blood Meal. On top of that I added 2 cups of composted steer manure. Then I added supersoil to the point that the old rootball would sit at the right height. The old rootball was plopped in and then around the outer edge 2 tbls of 5-5-5 all purpose was sprinkled in. The next layer was a 50/50 mix of supersoil and new RO101 with a teaspoon of Great White mixed in, and this brought the level up halfway up to the top. The next layer was another mix of 50/50 soils along with another 50% worm castings. This brought the level to about an inch from the top and then I sprinkled another 2 tbls of blood meal across the entire top, including the old rootball's area in the center.
Then along the sides at NSE&W I created spikes of pure nutrients for the roots and the microlife to find. One of these spikes was a veg spike that was described earlier in this journal. The other 3 spikes were specifically designed for flowering and in proportions that don't upset the pH balance in the soil. I make up a tub of Flower Spike mix for every few runs, right out of The Rev's book.
It consists of:
1 cup Feather meal
1/4 cup bulb food 3-8-8
1/4 cup soft rock phosphate
1/2 cup steamed bone meal
1/2 cup high N bat guano
1 cup kelp meal
1 tbls oyster shell flour
1 tbs Azomite powder

Next watering I will prepare another strong VEG AACT compost tea full of new microlife as we prepare for bloom. These plants should double in size before then if all goes well.

I hope all of your gardens are thriving!
Be well my friends.
Em
 
Just a slight bit of burning showing about 4 hours after watering with the rocket fuel, but nothing to get alarmed about. It is instructive to see just how fast the plant can indicate that it feels the heat and how it presents. This little bit of tip burning is just in the upper new growth of the main kolas, indicating when it happened. The lower leaves remain unaffected. Also, Wappa was the only one affected in this way and Super Cheese seems to have liked it.
Also note the little bit of cupping going on up here... I think the lights may be just a bit too close at 17-18 inches.
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Hi Emmie, just got caught up from page one. Thank you for all of your contributions around the community and I hope there is a chair left for me for the grow.
 
Emilya said:
Great to have you here Archiweedies! Thanks for all the likes!
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I like nice plants and I cannot lie! Those other growers can deny!

Haha sorry couldn’t resist. I love your sense of humor and how handy you are!
Question: you’ve mentioned adding cal mag and I’m curious if you are supplementing specifically for the LED’s and if so why not add it as an amendment? Cheers!
 
I know several members of the growing community that choose to add cal/mag as a supplement to their Super-Soil grows! I don't speak Super Soil or No Till but I know it happens! LOL. If it works then work it!
 
I have never had a grow, organic or synthetic, soil or hydro, where at least a couple of the plants in the room didn't need extra magnesium. Most of the DIY supplements that I make include molasses in their makeup so as to add magnesium into the mix and in addition I make up a very potent calcium phosphate/molasses mix out of eggshells that is an improvement on the calmag+ that can be commercially acquired in several different forms. Emmie's DIY CalMagPhos+ From Eggshells
Since so many of our plants end up needing calmag supplements, I generally start giving it to all of my plants in mid veg and continue giving it right up till two weeks before the end of bloom.
It seems that the modern growing world has developed a new myth... that LED grows now require calmag. lol. LED's simply seem to create intense activity within the plants and the plants are probably more active than under regular light. Plants outdoors in the bright sunlight also have more nutritional needs than a typical indoor garden plant. I believe that the added needs for magnesium in LED gardens has more to do with the much more intense and focused light of LEDs causing more metabolic activity in the plant than in a standard light grow, so ALL needs, not just magnesium are intensified in these gardens.
Anyway, to answer your question... yes, I use a lot of calmag and molasses. It's not just magnesium I am supplementing either, it is also potassium and phosphorus.
 
Emilya said:
I have never had a grow, organic or synthetic, soil or hydro, where at least a couple of the plants in the room didn't need extra magnesium. Most of the DIY supplements that I make include molasses in their makeup so as to add magnesium into the mix and in addition I make up a very potent calcium phosphate/molasses mix out of eggshells that is an improvement on the calmag+ that can be commercially acquired in several different forms. Emmie's DIY CalMagPhos+ From Eggshells
Since so many of our plants end up needing calmag supplements, I generally start giving it to all of my plants in mid veg and continue giving it right up till two weeks before the end of bloom.
It seems that the modern growing world has developed a new myth... that LED grows now require calmag. lol. LED's simply seem to create intense activity within the plants and the plants are probably more active than under regular light. Plants outdoors in the bright sunlight also have more nutritional needs than a typical indoor garden plant. I believe that the added needs for magnesium in LED gardens has more to do with the much more intense and focused light of LEDs causing more metabolic activity in the plant than in a standard light grow, so ALL needs, not just magnesium are intensified in these gardens.
Anyway, to answer your question... yes, I use a lot of calmag and molasses. It's not just magnesium I am supplementing either, it is also potassium and phosphorus.
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Ahh egg-cellent article Emmie! Thank you for the always well-worded reply. I have witnessed firsthand mag deficiency in past grows and it always happens week three or four of flower. Last cycle I ran FFOF with a capful of Osmocote Plus(not organic) and RO water. Didnt get the mag def. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have checked my water companies water report. I have very high calcium in the tap water and adding cal/mg on past grows might have actually been locking mag out.

Anyways, I am now a student of LOS and I can see I have only got my toes wet. Cheers! :Namaste:
 
HiddenGrow said:
Those lights are going make those girls dance :cheer: I am excited for their progress.
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Hi HiddenGrow! Thanks for following along! The girls are indeed dancing, and I am very impressed with their reactions to these lights.

I up-potted the other 4 plants yesterday. It took all day to build those containers and in a classic mad scientist move, I have turned even that into another experiment. Here is what we are looking at in this one:

If you have looked into using supersoil, you know that the recommendation is always to use the potent stuff only at the bottom of the container and to use your base soil in the top. Emilya is stubborn and always thinks she can push any envelope, so I ignored that cautionary warning up to this point in this grow. I used supersoil to fill my beer cups. I also used it exclusively to fill my 1gal containers.

As a result, I did see adverse reactions from my plants. Although growth was rapid, I believe that it could have been even more so if I had followed the rules. I have had some complaints from the girls and I justified it as normal reactions to layers and spike zones, but I believe now that these reactions were more than that.

Wappa and SuperCheese were packed into their final containers again using supersoil throughout. The last 4 were packed differently, following the rules, and I hope, being a little smarter. Already this morning, seeing the quick bounceback from the transplant, I am convinced that the tried and true advice given over the years to mix soil types is the better way, and we will see over the next couple of months whether it has a difference in the overall quality of the grow. Here is how I packed these last 4 containers:
  1. On the floor of the container I first sprinkled 2 large tbls of Blood Meal.
  2. Next layer was 3 cups of composted steer manure.
  3. Then, the supersoil. This filled almost 1/3 of the container and I packed it in up to the point where sitting the old rootball on top of it, the plant was at proper height.
  4. Along the edges of the container, 2 tbls of General Purpose Fert 5-5-5 was sprinkled for the expanding roots to find.
  5. Now a special mix. 1 cup of supersoil, 4 cups of base soil [roots organic 101] and 1tsp of Great White. This mix with the myco to enhance root growth covers 2/3 of the old rootball.
  6. Then, special mix #2 which consisted of 1 cup of supersoil, 2 cups of base soil and 2 cups of earthworm castings. This brings the level right up to the top of the old rootball.
  7. Two more tbls of Blood Meal was sprinkled on the top of the entire surface.
  8. One veg spike and 3 flowering spikes were drilled at the compass directions and filled top to bottom, right at the edge of the container.
  9. Bark mulch was then placed on the top in as thick of a layer as could be supported in the container, roughly 1 to 1 1/2 inches.
This was all watered properly so as to merge all of the soil layers and the old rootball. Half of the watering was with the aforementioned rocket fuel, the other half was with spring water.

I suspect that these last 4, because of these details, will be more robust than the first two. Time of course, will tell. The girls are between 38 and 48 days old and here is a quick pick of the girls this morning, loving their new lights:
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Hey Emilya nice update and look forward to watching your science experiment unfold!:ganjamon:
So I am curious if you have any experience with underwatering a plant? I have a couple that I was very patient, too patient really, and as a result growth has been slow and bouncing back from it took a solid week. I believe I underwatered becUse the leaves felt like paper, and were drooping. They weren’t necessarily wilting though. Does that all add up?
I hesitate to add photos in your journal as some folks aren’t okay with that but the plants in question are on my 4x8 journal.
I was all pumped to have a great run and then I set myself back a week or more. I envy how fast your plants are vegging.
 
Archiweedies said:
Hey Emilya nice update and look forward to watching your science experiment unfold!:ganjamon:
So I am curious if you have any experience with underwatering a plant? I have a couple that I was very patient, too patient really, and as a result growth has been slow and bouncing back from it took a solid week. I believe I underwatered becUse the leaves felt like paper, and were drooping. They weren’t necessarily wilting though. Does that all add up?
I hesitate to add photos in your journal as some folks aren’t okay with that but the plants in question are on my 4x8 journal.
I was all pumped to have a great run and then I set myself back a week or more. I envy how fast your plants are vegging.
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Hi Archi... usually underwatering accompanies watering too often, and that results in pooling of water in the bottom of the container, that upsets the lower roots. This will cause some very sickly looking leaves and without having looked at your journal yet, I would guess that what you show there is consistent with this problem.
Contrast this with if I underwatered my plants with either of the other two possibilities, first where I simply walk away and let them go dry for an extended period of time. This will eventually cause a dramatic wilting of the trunk and eventually death. This is very easy to see and if caught in time, easy to recover from. I had a seedling early in this run that exactly this happened to.
The other way to underwater is to only give a small amount of water each time, but letting the container dry somewhat between waterings. This would be the gardener who determined by ESP that the plants were asking for exactly 1.0 liters of water, every three days in a 5 gallon container. This paltry and arbitrary amount of water would only soak into the soil for a few inches and then it would be gone, never reaching the lower roots. The top roots (the spreaders) would thrive, the lower roots (the feeders) would not.
I will check out your 4x8 journal and see if I can confirm that one of these three conditions existed. :)
 
Yes Archie, after looking over that journal I can see how the well meaning advice from the other posters, mainly those advocates of starting in large containers, had led you astray. Your watering practices up until the point that you were advised that it was time to drench, were probably able to be improved on. Now you know... :)
 
Edna said:
Just wanted to say hi em, and the girls are looking beautiful! I love the way the pictures look with those new lights. They sure seem to be liking them. What kind of leds if you don’t mind me asking ? Hope all is well :) cheers
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I have taken a chance and bought some new name lights off of Ebay. The first small one that I bought was so impressive that I went ahead and bit on their largest lights so far, the 3000w model. At $108 USD and a 3 year warranty, it seemed like a good deal. So far, the grow room results are confirming that.
 
Glad to hear your lights are living up to your expectations. If they continue to do well I'll have to get some for my next grow. I don't know if my vipraspectres 450's have enough power for flowering but they do a nice job vegging.
 
Thank you for your help Emilya, I appreciate you looking through the journal.
This plant has so many lessons to teach us. I am a bit conflicted about starting container sizes. I know how you feel about upcanning and I’ve not read one bad word of advice from you yet.
Doc Bud, another extremely respected member of the community, has advised that seeds be started in one gallon containers.
I know you start smaller and get them drinking every 24 hours before transplant. I am fairly comfortable in solos. I think I need more time with these new pots to get used to the weight when they are thirsty.
 
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