Veg, Day 40
I can't find it now, but this morning I had a chance to sit with the plants for a while since I had the day off after a travel day, and I did spot the first emerging pistil (95% sure) on T. All the plants are on a 24 hour wet/dry cycle now, and by noon I was greeted with this:
I hate it when they yell at me like that, so I took a leap of faith on T, and I up-potted the tribe to 10 gallon GeoPots
Also, Bob was a bad boy overnight, and I found a dropped male flower with its associated mess all over a leaf. As a result, he was summarily banished to the little 2x2.5 Gorilla love tent and put on 12/12 with his very own reddish LED. He didn't do a lot of damage since there are not a whole lot of pistils out at the moment, but I won't freak if in the end I see a seed or two in places I have not pollinated. I knew better, and should have moved him yesterday... oops. I will spray everyone tonight with a lacto/silicate foliar so as to kill any pollen that might be laying around.
So the containers were built so as to do 2 side by side experiments. First, the Andesite:
Mineral Complex returns the essential minerals and trace elements from volcanic rock dust to your soil in a slow, natural release. Its broad spectrum of mineral content improves plant production and nutrient/water uptake while reducing the effects of environmental stress factors (drought, pests, diseases, etc.) on plant health.
M&M and Red have Andesite in their soil. T does not have Andesite. My eventual goal with this is to be able to grow a one hit Hawaiian super strain in my containers.
Next, the Vulx. The first task was to weigh my soil to see how much Vulx to add. My supersoil is a fairly heavy soil as far as potting soils go. This rich and very active soil totally ate up Nan, who was chopped up and added back to that soil not even 3 weeks ago. This amazing soil weighed in at 3.8 lbs per gallon. Since this was above the minimum range and barely in the upper range for mixing Vulx, I reverted to the 5% rule and I added 87g / gallon and mixed it in very well. Here is the pile of Vulx on top of the 3 1/2 gallons of supersoil that went in the bottom third of my container. I mixed it by hand, and it definitely changed the "feel" of that soil... it is going to be interesting to see what happens.
Our smallest female, M&M has Vulx. Red and Tara do not.
The containers were built via my usual method. There is a thin layer of composted steer manure at the bottom, followed by the supersoil, amended as per the notes above. On top of the supersoil I put a generous helping of Great White Myco powder, and the 1gal rootball was sat on top. Two gallons of FFOF/ROOTS101 mix were added, and then another sprinkling of Great White along with 1 tbl of 5-5-5 general purpose. One more gallon of base soil, and then a thin layer of earthworm castings. Another gallon of base soil, and then a thin sprinkling of blood meal, and another gallon of base soil. Then at 3 points near the outer edge I drilled a hole and using a funnel I poured in a vertical spike of raw flowering nutrients. I have this premixed and in a bin for this purpose, and I don't have it in front of me right now what all is in it, but it has been fully documented in previous journals.
Since the base soil has been dry and inactive for quite a while, watering was done with Realgrower's Recharge at the highest rate, and each plant easily took 1 gallon of this amazing tea.
The tent was cleaned out, the veg table removed and the plants were installed on the floor. The light has been raised to the height it will need to be after stretch, and the power has been turned up to 175w per side whereas I am measuring 25,000 LUX across the canopy.
Lastly, I pruned a little bit on M&M, further widening the canopy. Trunk size is already very impressive, and I can only imagine the trees that are going to be produced in these 10 gallon containers. We are looking at at least the next 2 weeks in veg, settling into these new containers, and we will reevaluate at that point, but I am confident the tent will be full by then. The no vacancy sign is lit... we are at full capacity.
