Growing Without Bloom Nutes By Farside05

My Glue beans seem to be glued as well :laughtwo: First one looks like it didn’t germinate and looks hollowish, and 2nd GG bean this haven’t crack’d.

But I’ll be following riight behind ya :surf:
 
An interesting little tidbit from Colorado State University. I'll drop it here for further reference.

Is chlorine harmful to plants?​

Many water providers add chlorine to drinking water to keep it clean for human consumption. Chlorine prevents bacterial growth in water distribution systems. Many residents use chlorinated water to irrigate their lawn and garden. If chlorine is added to drinking water to kill bacteria, what impact does it have on beneficial soil microorganisms? Does it kill beneficial organisms in compost piles, too? Researchers have found that chlorinated drinking water may kill a number of microorganisms in soil or a compost pile. However, their reproduction rate is so rapid that populations rebound in a short time. Under normal conditions, chlorinated water will not threaten microorganism populations. Microorganisms reproduce rapidly. In one study, researchers continuously applied highly chlorinated water to soil for 126 days. Two days after they stopped, the soil microorganism populations reached pre-treatment levels at all depths of soil.

Why does chlorine have little impact on soil?​

One reason chlorinate water has little impact is that chlorine binds to soil particle surfaces. This immobilizes chlorine and reduces its ability to kill microorganisms. The organisms in the topmost surface of soil or a compost pile may be affected after irrigation but as the water moves downward little chlorine remains. In one study, researchers found that water chlorinated at 5 parts per million killed organisms only in the top half inch of soil. Organisms deeper than one half inch were thriving.

How much chlorine is in our drinking water?​

The amount of chlorine in drinking water is quite low. In order to kill soil microorganisms to 6 inch soil depth, water containing 65 parts per million of chlorine was required in one study. Drinking water usually contains much lower chlorine levels. For example, Colorado Springs Utilities water contains between 0.05 to 0.90 parts per million of chlorine, 70 times below the threshold level.
 
More on the same topic...

Chlorine, Chloramine and Plants – Everything You Need to Know​

You have probably heard that chlorine in tap water is harmful to plants. Some cities have switched to using chloramine in tap water and that is also a concern for plants because it is much harder to remove before watering indoor plants.
What is the difference between chlorine and chloramine? Will they harm your plants? How can you remove them from tap water? These are all good questions gardeners should be able to answer and in this post I will help you do just that.
Chlorine, Chloramine and Plants – Everything You Need to Know

Chlorine in Tap Water​

Chlorine is added to municipal tap water to kill microbes and make the water safe to drink, but chlorine can also be toxic to plants. As with all toxicity, dose makes the poison. At low levels chlorine will not be toxic, in fact it is a required nutrient of plants. At high levels it becomes toxic.
The key question is, are the levels in tap water toxic to plants?

Chloramine in Tap Water​

Chlorine is effective at killing microbes but it does not work for very long. Some municipalities have now switched to chloramine instead. Chloramine treatment adds both chlorine and ammonia to the water, which forms chloramine. Treatment plants that use chloramine, also flush their systems with chlorine from time to time.
About 25% of municipalities in North America now use chloramine. Here is a list for Canada.
The key question here is the same, are the levels in tap water toxic to plants?

Toxic Level of Chlorine for Plants​

A lot of greenhouse horticulture uses municipal water and chlorine toxicity is a concern for them. They have determined that levels under 150 ppm are not a concern for toxicity, in potted ornamental plants. Hydroponics might be different.

Levels of Chlorine in Tap Water​

The World Health Organization suggests using no more than 5 ppm (mg/L) of chlorine in drinking water. “Most people will smell or taste the chlorine at higher concentrations.” The Center for Disease Control suggests a limit of 4 ppm.
Most municipalities in North America have values below 4 ppm.

Levels of Chloramine in Tap Water​

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) suggests a limit of 4 ppm for chloramine. Most municipalities in North America have values below this level.

Chlorination Toxicity in Plants from Tap Water​

Given the above values it becomes clear that neither chlorine nor chloramine in drinking water will be toxic to indoor potted plants. The CDC agrees with this statement for both chlorine and chloramine. The University of Nebraska found no harm from chloramines.
When eight different bedding plants and nine shrub species were sprayed repeatedly with 100 ppm chlorine dioxide, there was no significant damage to plants. In another study, chlorine had no effect on the growth of radish and lettuce.

One study found that chloramines caused root browning in hydroponically grown lettuce plants.
Some specialty plant groups, like African violets, report problems with chloramine, but the data is anecdotal.
Pool water has higher levels of chlorine and can harm plants.

Chlorine Toxicity in Soil and Compost​

Since chlorine is used to kill microbes, will it also harm the microbes living in soil or compost piles?
Chlorine tends to bind to clay particles and once it does this, it is much less toxic to microbes. Soil and compost piles contain huge amounts of microbes. When the water initially hits, it will kill some microbes, but they quickly repopulate. Any effect that does occur is short lived.
“In one study, researchers continuously applied highly chlorinated water to soil for 126 days. Two days after they stopped, the soil microorganism populations reached pre-treatment levels at all depths of soil.”
This is just one example of how quickly microbes grow in soil and why adding things like biostimulants, humic acids and mycorrhizal fungi have no effect.


Chlorine and Aquatic Plants

Chlorine and chloramine are of much more concern in ponds and aquariums since aquatic organisms have very low toxicity levels for chlorine. It is not clear to me, how this chlorine affects aquatic plants that are mostly submersed. Since all of their leaves are immersed in the water you can expect them to pick up more chlorine than plants with their roots in water or in soil but I found no evidence chlorinated tap water is an issue.
Fish and other aquatic life have very low toxic levels for chlorine. Topping up a pond with water should not be a problem. It is probably best to keep fish out of a newly filled pond for a week or so.

Removing Chlorine and Chloramine from Water​

Both chlorine and chloramine can be removed from water by boiling. Removing half of the chloramine (half-life) takes 30 minutes, while doing the same for chlorine takes 2 minutes.
Chlorine will also offgas from water just by letting it sit, but chloramine does’t in any reasonable period of time . The latter can be filtered out with a special charcoal filter.

The Bottom Line​

Contrary to popular concerns, neither chlorine or chloramine from municipal tap water is a concern for plants, provided the World Health Organization Recommendation of less than 5 ppm, is followed.
The many reports on social media of plants being harmed by chlorination are based on anecdotal information and could be the result of all kinds of issues. The symptoms of chlorine poisoning, browning of leaf edges, can be caused by numerous things including improper watering and over use of fertilizers. This is a good example of why anecdotal information is of little use in trying to understand the science.

Chlorinated tap water is safe for both indoor plants and gardens.
 
An explanation of "Bro Science" aka anecdotal evidence and why its so hard to combat.

Anecdotal Evidence – Not Worth The Screen It’s Displayed On​

Anecdotal evidence is everywhere in our daily lives. Most new products depend on it to make sales and most commercials use it to convince you to buy. In gardening, it is a very common way for people to get information about a problem. Go to any gardening social media site and ask about curing something. A dozen people will come back with different cures that they have tried – and THEY ALL WORK!
Baloney!
Why is anecdotal evidence not worth much? Why do we believe it so much? Good questions to ask if you are trying to understand why we have so many garden myths.

Anecdotal Evidence – What Is It?​

I thought this was a simple question before I started to research it. There are a lot of different definitions so I will just come up with one of my own which tries to encompass and simplify many of the others.
Anecdotal evidence is an observation someone has made which has lead them to a conclusion or a belief.
In the gardening world it usually takes the form of: I did ABC, and noticed that DEF happened. Based on this observation I believe that GHI is correct. An example that I just read on a Face Book site is; “I put crushed egg shells under my hosta, and it stopped the slugs from eating my hosta leaves.”
No further details are given. We don’t know the changes in weather that took place, the type of hosta, the location, how the number of holes were counted, or how much damage there was before the egg shells were added. We don’t even know how the egg shells were crushed or placed on the soil. We really do not know anything, and in most cases, even the person making the claim can not answer any of these questions. This was simply an observation – I use that term loosely – at one point in time.
But ….. it was enough to convince this person that egg shells = no slug damage.
Science, government and industry does not really care about gardening and almost no funding is available for scientific studies about gardening. As a result much of our information comes from anecdotal evidence.
Anecdotal evidence is NOT scientific evidence, and in almost every case, the observation does NOT logically lead to the conclusion reached.
In the egg shell example, there are several other possible explanations that are just as logical given the evidence. A toad could have moved into the area and eaten the slugs. Or, the egg shells might have been added just when the garden went into a hot and dry session, in which case slugs go underground (ref 2) to wait it out.

Anecdotal Evidence vs Scientific Fact​

Given a choice between anecdotal evidence and scientific fact, many people believe the anecdotal evidence.
I discussed DEET in DEET – Is It Safe? It has been used for 55 years with no health issues. Most government bodies consider it safe. And yet people refuse to believe the science. Anecdotal evidence recently showed that it might cause autism – it doesn’t. It might cause brain damage – it doesn’t. But people are ignoring the science in favor of some vague anecdotal evidence.
Why is anecdotal evidence believed so strongly?
Michael Shermer (ref 1), put it this way. “we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool.” ie you die.
This may be true for something like DEET, but why do people believe egg shells keep slugs away?
For the person who tries egg shells, on their own, without any information from others, it becomes a predetermined beleif. They would only try it if they had some confidence that egg shells will work. Why try the experiment if you don’t believe it will work? Once they have this belief – results would have to be very negative to destroy the belief.
When someone sees statements in social media saying egg shells work, they also start forming the belief. We trust people. Why would anyone say egg shells work, when they don’t work? That’s not logical. So if a stranger says they work – they must work. Now that the belief is set in the mind, it is difficult to reverse.
Brain research has shown that we create a new belief easily. Our brains are designed to work on patterns, and patterns rely on us having beliefs. We function better if we believe something, than having a void. We would rather have a false belief, than no belief at all. Once a belief is formed, we are very reluctant to change it.
The average person sees more statements on a daily basis that are based on anecdotal evidence than ones based on scientific evidence. So their beliefs are mostly based on anecdotal evidence.

Anecdotal Evidence is Illogical​

Someone responded to a social media question about keeping slugs from eating the hostas, by reporting that crushed egg shells work. They have tried them and they no longer have a slug problem.
Sounds very convincing and believable.
I asked them for more information on how they did their test. What kind of hosta was used? What kind of control was used? The reply was no surprise to me: “My testing was not that scientific – it is just an anecdotal observation”.
Let me describe my own anecdotal evidence about a different garden problem. I have a viburnum that for three years running got demolished by viburnum beetle larvae. I had to do something. In spring the following year, I took out my lawn chair, sat down in front of the bush, and had a beer – a Canadian of course. I warned the shrub not to get eaten again.
It worked! In fact it worked so well that I had no problems for the next 4 years.
Do you believe my anecdotal evidence? Probably not. Why not? Because you can use common sense to conclude that there was no cause and effect here. Drinking beer can’t possibly keep the beetle from laying eggs.
What if my anecdotal evidence was a bit different. Instead of drinking the beer, I poured the beer onto the shrub, and that kept the beetle from laying eggs.
Now that is a bit more believable. After all, beer is used in all kinds of garden home remedies so it must have some powers. Maybe the beetle doesn’t like the taste of the beer? And then there is all of the pseudo scientific mumble jumble I could invent to convince you. Are you a believer now?
What if my anecdotal evidence went like this. I made a special concoction containing beer, Epsom salts, bone meal, and a dash of Ivory soap. Poured it on the shrub and it worked!
Now I have most of the people on social media convinced that it must work. The concoction is so complex few people can use logic to argue against it. The evidence is clear – it worked.
Why is this last example of anecdotal evidence so much more convincing?
It is important to understand that humans are not very logical thinkers. Most people read, and then either believe or don’t believe. When asked why they made the choice they did, most can’t explain it logically. Most people base their conclusion on their former beliefs – which don’t need an explanation.

Anecdotal Evidence – Not Worth The Screen It is Displayed On​

There are many reasons why anecdotal evidence is not worth much, and I will look at a couple of them.
People are poor observers. Our preconceived ideas cloud our judgement. We can’t remember what we saw. This is made very clear when people are asked to describe a previous event. If the evidence does not include some kind of numerical values – like counting holes in leaves – the observation is not very reliable.
People are biased by their former beliefs – I discussed this above.
People don’t use controls. This is my biggest complaint about anecdotal evidence. It almost always lacks a control. It is not that hard to use two hostas, growing in the same garden, with the same amount of shade, watering and size. Put egg shells under one and not the other. Count holes before and after adding the egg shells.
If someone explained this experiment, and presented data for the number of holes they found, it would be much more believable. Some of the human bias has been removed. Quite a few variables such as temperature, precipitation and time of year have been removed by using a control.
It still would not be scientific evidence, since the number of plants used is not statistically significant, and there are too many other variables that need to be excluded, but it would be a huge step in the right direction.
Consider my anecdotal evidence for the Viburnum bush. If I had included a control, one bush treated, and another not treated, there is a very good chance I would have found my treatment was no more effective than doing nothing – which is in fact what really happened. The problem just went away on its own, until this year.
Without a proper control – most observations are of little value except in helping someone design a proper experiment with a good control.
Next time you read something about gardening, the environment, food, government, health or any other aspect of your life, check for and understand the control. If it is not described – don’t believe the conclusion.
By the way – egg shells do not work, no matter how many people say they do.
 
Finally got around to installing the new fan in the auto tent. Good thing I just always buy 2 and replace them both at the same time even though 1 may still be working. Experience tells me the 2nd failure is not far behind. Low and behold, I open the tent this AM and the second fan was a goner too. Both are now replaced.


The 3 older autos got a drink (7ml each of all the FN Nute® products). Lights dialed up from 11k lux to 15k.


Not much going on with the photos. Yield won't be great. Never is this time of year for me since the office is only 65-68 degrees in the winter. My electric bill is already $400 a month so I sacrifice yield instead of adding another $75 to add more supplemental heat. The quality looks good though. Dense and sugar coated.


 
Been reading about chlorine and chloride as I’m using tap water (its very sft here in Fin) on my dwc.
Chlorine evaporates from the water in 24-72hrs so that wont matter in hydro, but Chloride wont. Chloride can be filtered for a bit, but wont remove all of it.
But the ppm amount they add Chloride in our tap water is still quite low (at least in Fin) so tap water can be used for DWC growing.
Not sure if the article claimed that Chloride blocks micro organism and beneficial bacteria to spread. …As some some ppl tends to claim that only RO can be used for succesful DWC growth. - Due the water hardness or chloride.
 
An explanation of "Bro Science" aka anecdotal evidence and why its so hard to combat.

Anecdotal Evidence – Not Worth The Screen It’s Displayed On​

Anecdotal evidence is everywhere in our daily lives. Most new products depend on it to make sales and most commercials use it to convince you to buy. In gardening, it is a very common way for people to get information about a problem. Go to any gardening social media site and ask about curing something. A dozen people will come back with different cures that they have tried – and THEY ALL WORK!
Baloney!
Why is anecdotal evidence not worth much? Why do we believe it so much? Good questions to ask if you are trying to understand why we have so many garden myths.

Anecdotal Evidence – What Is It?​

I thought this was a simple question before I started to research it. There are a lot of different definitions so I will just come up with one of my own which tries to encompass and simplify many of the others.
Anecdotal evidence is an observation someone has made which has lead them to a conclusion or a belief.
In the gardening world it usually takes the form of: I did ABC, and noticed that DEF happened. Based on this observation I believe that GHI is correct. An example that I just read on a Face Book site is; “I put crushed egg shells under my hosta, and it stopped the slugs from eating my hosta leaves.”
No further details are given. We don’t know the changes in weather that took place, the type of hosta, the location, how the number of holes were counted, or how much damage there was before the egg shells were added. We don’t even know how the egg shells were crushed or placed on the soil. We really do not know anything, and in most cases, even the person making the claim can not answer any of these questions. This was simply an observation – I use that term loosely – at one point in time.
But ….. it was enough to convince this person that egg shells = no slug damage.
Science, government and industry does not really care about gardening and almost no funding is available for scientific studies about gardening. As a result much of our information comes from anecdotal evidence.
Anecdotal evidence is NOT scientific evidence, and in almost every case, the observation does NOT logically lead to the conclusion reached.
In the egg shell example, there are several other possible explanations that are just as logical given the evidence. A toad could have moved into the area and eaten the slugs. Or, the egg shells might have been added just when the garden went into a hot and dry session, in which case slugs go underground (ref 2) to wait it out.

Anecdotal Evidence vs Scientific Fact​

Given a choice between anecdotal evidence and scientific fact, many people believe the anecdotal evidence.
I discussed DEET in DEET – Is It Safe? It has been used for 55 years with no health issues. Most government bodies consider it safe. And yet people refuse to believe the science. Anecdotal evidence recently showed that it might cause autism – it doesn’t. It might cause brain damage – it doesn’t. But people are ignoring the science in favor of some vague anecdotal evidence.
Why is anecdotal evidence believed so strongly?
Michael Shermer (ref 1), put it this way. “we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool.” ie you die.
This may be true for something like DEET, but why do people believe egg shells keep slugs away?
For the person who tries egg shells, on their own, without any information from others, it becomes a predetermined beleif. They would only try it if they had some confidence that egg shells will work. Why try the experiment if you don’t believe it will work? Once they have this belief – results would have to be very negative to destroy the belief.
When someone sees statements in social media saying egg shells work, they also start forming the belief. We trust people. Why would anyone say egg shells work, when they don’t work? That’s not logical. So if a stranger says they work – they must work. Now that the belief is set in the mind, it is difficult to reverse.
Brain research has shown that we create a new belief easily. Our brains are designed to work on patterns, and patterns rely on us having beliefs. We function better if we believe something, than having a void. We would rather have a false belief, than no belief at all. Once a belief is formed, we are very reluctant to change it.
The average person sees more statements on a daily basis that are based on anecdotal evidence than ones based on scientific evidence. So their beliefs are mostly based on anecdotal evidence.

Anecdotal Evidence is Illogical​

Someone responded to a social media question about keeping slugs from eating the hostas, by reporting that crushed egg shells work. They have tried them and they no longer have a slug problem.
Sounds very convincing and believable.
I asked them for more information on how they did their test. What kind of hosta was used? What kind of control was used? The reply was no surprise to me: “My testing was not that scientific – it is just an anecdotal observation”.
Let me describe my own anecdotal evidence about a different garden problem. I have a viburnum that for three years running got demolished by viburnum beetle larvae. I had to do something. In spring the following year, I took out my lawn chair, sat down in front of the bush, and had a beer – a Canadian of course. I warned the shrub not to get eaten again.
It worked! In fact it worked so well that I had no problems for the next 4 years.
Do you believe my anecdotal evidence? Probably not. Why not? Because you can use common sense to conclude that there was no cause and effect here. Drinking beer can’t possibly keep the beetle from laying eggs.
What if my anecdotal evidence was a bit different. Instead of drinking the beer, I poured the beer onto the shrub, and that kept the beetle from laying eggs.
Now that is a bit more believable. After all, beer is used in all kinds of garden home remedies so it must have some powers. Maybe the beetle doesn’t like the taste of the beer? And then there is all of the pseudo scientific mumble jumble I could invent to convince you. Are you a believer now?
What if my anecdotal evidence went like this. I made a special concoction containing beer, Epsom salts, bone meal, and a dash of Ivory soap. Poured it on the shrub and it worked!
Now I have most of the people on social media convinced that it must work. The concoction is so complex few people can use logic to argue against it. The evidence is clear – it worked.
Why is this last example of anecdotal evidence so much more convincing?
It is important to understand that humans are not very logical thinkers. Most people read, and then either believe or don’t believe. When asked why they made the choice they did, most can’t explain it logically. Most people base their conclusion on their former beliefs – which don’t need an explanation.

Anecdotal Evidence – Not Worth The Screen It is Displayed On​

There are many reasons why anecdotal evidence is not worth much, and I will look at a couple of them.
People are poor observers. Our preconceived ideas cloud our judgement. We can’t remember what we saw. This is made very clear when people are asked to describe a previous event. If the evidence does not include some kind of numerical values – like counting holes in leaves – the observation is not very reliable.
People are biased by their former beliefs – I discussed this above.
People don’t use controls. This is my biggest complaint about anecdotal evidence. It almost always lacks a control. It is not that hard to use two hostas, growing in the same garden, with the same amount of shade, watering and size. Put egg shells under one and not the other. Count holes before and after adding the egg shells.
If someone explained this experiment, and presented data for the number of holes they found, it would be much more believable. Some of the human bias has been removed. Quite a few variables such as temperature, precipitation and time of year have been removed by using a control.
It still would not be scientific evidence, since the number of plants used is not statistically significant, and there are too many other variables that need to be excluded, but it would be a huge step in the right direction.
Consider my anecdotal evidence for the Viburnum bush. If I had included a control, one bush treated, and another not treated, there is a very good chance I would have found my treatment was no more effective than doing nothing – which is in fact what really happened. The problem just went away on its own, until this year.
Without a proper control – most observations are of little value except in helping someone design a proper experiment with a good control.
Next time you read something about gardening, the environment, food, government, health or any other aspect of your life, check for and understand the control. If it is not described – don’t believe the conclusion.
By the way – egg shells do not work, no matter how many people say they do.
We are currently experiencing this on a massive scale with vaccination resistance.
:(
 
How do yours fail? One of mine locked up and the motor overheated. Kinda scary since it was right up against the tent.
That's how ProfessorFlora's exhaust fan quit. Almost a fire!
I woke up at around 7am, got the kids ready and thought I'd go and check the drying buds in the grow room. When I went in the room I noticed that it was oddly quite so I opened up the veg tent which was soaking wet on the inside. The extractor fan wasn't working and when I went and touched it, it was really hot. Like too hot to touch hot.
Not good and lucky I checked when I did as I then went out for the entire day with the kids.
 
And G Glues looks like they just bout to jump into full-veggie-mode :surf: My glues comming two week behind!

Did they unstick?

What you lost in weight you made up for in frost. Winter win in my book!

Interested in seeing what the next round brings. I know I'll be more diligent with the training. Both strains are big stretchers.

We are currently experiencing this on a massive scale with vaccination resistance.
:(

I'm not vaxed. My mother got Gillian Barre from the swine flu vax back in the 70's. It is also a rare side effect of J&J's vaccine. Ruined her life for her remaining 40 yrs. I have half her DNA and therefore fear I'm at a higher risk for a Gillian Barre reaction. Maybe all that counts as anecdotal evidence...

How do yours fail? One of mine locked up and the motor overheated. Kinda scary since it was right up against the tent.

I've had one that seized and got real hot. Three others that just ceased to function and we're room temp.

That's how ProfessorFlora's exhaust fan quit. Almost a fire!

Hence why I replace them in pairs anymore.
 
While replacing fans this AM I made an observation. I had assumed that the Genesis and Comfort Zone fans I have used were made by the same manufacturer and identical, just different branding. The Genesis always seemed a bit quieter and turning less RPM but I wrote it off as the Comfort Zones were in a confined space in a closet while the Genesis tent is in an open room. Probably just an acoustic thing, right? No, the fans are not the same. Although they are both 6" fans, the Genesis fan blades have more surface area.
 
I love when the pace starts to quicken. Even the little girl is starting to get it going. Remember that back left plant, who got part of her tap root torn off during the transplant? Didn't seem to bother her one bit. She still is leading the pack.

 
Back
Top Bottom