How not to be a salt farmer or a wasteful grower tips

Gee64 said:
I had to take a drive to Alberta and grab a case for "Personal Consumption"

Start drivin'!🤣

The cold is the key. Anything cinstantly below -20 until it's in the still comes out like a greeny, goldy, cherry, or dark walnutty colored taffy that is beautiful.

Me either, what proof is it?
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It’s 192 proof or 96% by volume
 
Lil sunflower love

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Free show on green, wish I knew dogs were allowed beforehand :)

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Buds forming nicely albeit a little hungry so got fed again.

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Another silly tip that actually helps with bugs at times. Find a spider in and around your place, don’t kill him. Put him in the garden, many will run away but some will stay and take advantage of your pest problem…
 
budnoob3 said:
Another silly tip that actually helps with bugs at times. Find a spider in and around your place, don’t kill him. Put him in the garden, many will run away but some will stay and take advantage of your pest problem…
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I've found that pest problems tend to be symptomatic of a less than healthy plant. That's not to say that pests can't attack a healthy plant but pests, like most things in nature, will attack the weakest opponent they can find. Plants all have particular defense mechanisms they've evolved over the eons. Weakened plants can't put up as good a defense as healthy plants.

Obviously removing the pests is the priority but I also look at the plant for signs of early deficiencies or stress.
 
Trump said:
I've found that pest problems tend to be symptomatic of a less than healthy plant. That's not to say that pests can't attack a healthy plant but pests, like most things in nature, will attack the weakest opponent they can find. Plants all have particular defense mechanisms they've evolved over the eons. Weakened plants can't put up as good a defense as healthy plants.

Obviously removing the pests is the priority but I also look at the plant for signs of early deficiencies or stress.
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True, but I’ve found that for outdoors even the healthiest of plants can and will get attacked albeit not as badly.
 
Agree with you 100% @Trump
 
Gee64 said:
I find that no matter how high my brix are, grasshoppers still take a bite.
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Keep David Carradine and Radames Pera out of my garden please :)
 
budnoob3 said:
Pruning and defoliating are two completely different things but I digress, it’s an exercise in futility with many folks…
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Curious how you define pruning and defoliating.

From reading your posts its evident you believe defoliation is detrimental to cannabis. I'd like to understand how you arrived at this conclusion. I've read most of your posts in this thread. Some I agree with completely. Some not so much.

There are many plants that use defoliation techniques to improve yields. Many fruits and vegetables are defoliated to improve yields. Cotton is also defoliated close to harvest but moreso to ease the harvesting process and keep wet leaves from staining the cotton fibers.

Not saying your conclusions are wrong. Just curious what scientific evidence you might have that shows this vs assumptions through direct observations or correlations.

Here's a study in defoliation in regard to grasslands and how grazing affects their growth along with the plant processes that happen when plants are defoliated. It's a long read but has some nuggets of information that are invaluable to your pruning/defoliation scheme.

 
Trump said:
Curious how you define pruning and defoliating.

From reading your posts its evident you believe defoliation is detrimental to cannabis. I'd like to understand how you arrived at this conclusion. I've read most of your posts in this thread. Some I agree with completely. Some not so much.

There are many plants that use defoliation techniques to improve yields. Many fruits and vegetables are defoliated to improve yields. Cotton is also defoliated close to harvest but moreso to ease the harvesting process and keep wet leaves from staining the cotton fibers.

Not saying your conclusions are wrong. Jjust curious what scientific evidence you might have that shows this vs assumptions through direct observations or correlations.
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I’ve only been playing in the garden 45 going on 46 years and growing 420 15 going on 16 years. Mostly observation on my part as well and the basic knowledge of photosynthesis and how it happens. Plants are remarkably resilient and will still do great things even when we beat the crap out of them up to a certain point. When I really got into testing all the different methods circa 2012 I did a lot of comparison grows with clones, and hands down my bud formation and density were always the best when I let most of the fan leaves stay until they died off on their own. The exception of course being some defoliation to allow airflow and light penetration. It’s not a difficult test to do, just grow a couple clones taken from same part of plant at same time using same soil, feeding, etc. go about your regular defoliation on one and minimal on the other while taking same number of clones from each plant along the way from similar areas. Harvest at same time and you’ll see what I’m talking about. As I said before, flowers/fruits do not produce their own energy - mainly sugar. You will never see a gardener defoliating their tomato plants, etc, you’d be hard pressed to find one that could keep a straight face if asked why they’re not defoliating their fruit/vegetable plants. Fan leaves produce the exudates that feed the roots and the nutrients help deliver that food back up the roots and stems to feed your flowers, fruits and veggies. Your putting a governor on your engine and cutting your horse power when you go extreme with the defoliation in a nutshell.
 
I test brix levels almost every day. Defoliation lowers brix. It's math actually. Less leaves producing sugars lowers the sugar content of the plant. If yield is your concern then yes, defoliation can yield more. It won't automatically, but it can. If quality is your goal then defoliation is your enemy. Once photosynthesis lowers beyond a certain threshold bugs and disease run rampant, but above that threshold they disappear, so there is that.

Brix only applies to organically grown plants, synthetic plants don't produce as much sugars which is why they are prone to bugs and mildews, so if you use synthetics then defoliation is far less detrimental.
 
budnoob3 said:
Your putting a governor on your engine and cutting your horse power when you go extreme with the defoliation in a nutshell.
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I've watched many comparison grows using extreme defoliation as a technique and can confirm that, done right, it can certainly increase dry yields. Why would this be if the Ferrari got a Toyota engine swapped into it, to use your analogy? Mostly because the processes that happen are much more complicated than most of us understand. The study I linked in the previous post is a good example of this. What seems like a common sense thing many times is counter to what we think is happening.

I understand your explanations and how you could come to those conclusions. I am guilty of the same things.

I've been cultivating cannabis for over 30 years, started in the early 90's, both personally and on a commercial level. I had the luxury of having testing facilities at my disposal along with getting to watch comparisons live. I still get surprised by things that I was taught early on that are not true and things I observed and came to conclusions on that I learned later were completely wrong. In my early days of cultivation all of my knowledge was based on hippy grower knowledge that was passed to me. When cultivation became legal I got to work in more controlled environments with degreed professionals that I could tap into so my cultivation knowledge base consists of anectdotal knowledge culled from years of observation and scientific knowledge.

What I've learned comparing both is that my early knowledge was based on the same principles you use to gather your conclusions. Some of that early knowledge was refuted early on pretty easily once I was in a more science based environment. Some of it proved to be accurate. Almost all the science based information proved to be true hence why I rely more on scientific information rather than anectdotal observations. Can science be wrong? Certainly. Scientific hypotheses are refuted every day but the percentage right from wrong in science is markedly less than in anectdotal observations.

Everyone should do what they think is right when growing but try and back up those observations with scientific information to confirm what you think you are seeing. Not only will you be surprised at how assumption can be a dangerous thing but how quickly your grow skills will improve after you've cleared away the inconsistencies you are using as fact.
 
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