InTheShed Grows Inside & Out: Jump In Any Time

[farside05]

Thanks! So potassium silicate liquid is already broken down into the two components when you use it? Then why does it precipitate out a bucket of nutes where MSA doesn't?

From Dyna-Gro's FAQ's

"How do I mix Pro-Tekt with Nutrients and Additives.

Pro-TeKt is introduced first into the mixing tank/container then add ¾ of the intended volume of water. Finally, add the other nutrients and top off with the remaining volume of water. Because a very high pH is required to keep Pro-TeKt concentrate in solution, it is important to fully dilute it before adding other Dyna-Gro nutrient solutions which have low pH. Mixing the two concentrates without first diluting them will turn Pro-TeKt into a lump of silica gel!"

Personally I fill my 1 gal container and forcefully inject the silica additive via syringe and blunt needle 1st. Then I add my other products afterwards in the same manor. I've never had an issue with precipitate or gelling. As long as you're not mixing 2 concentrates before adding water, it shouldn't be an issue. Most precipitation problems in nutrient solutions are from mixing high concentrations of Sulfates and Phosphates with Calcium. That's why you see a lot of Part A and Part B solutions. You'll typically see the Calcium in Part A, and the Phosphates and Sulfates in Part B. At more diluted concentrations, they don't precipitate out, but if they put both in the same bottle as a concentrated fertilizer, boom. That's why you can't make a concentrated stock solution from Mega Crop. Their site says you can somewhere in the FAQ's, but that's BS. Every time I tried it I got clumpy shit at the bottom after a day. I wasted over 500g of powder on that failed expiriment.

 

[West Hippie]

From Dyna-Gro's FAQ's

"How do I mix Pro-Tekt with Nutrients and Additives.

Pro-TeKt is introduced first into the mixing tank/container then add ¾ of the intended volume of water. Finally, add the other nutrients and top off with the remaining volume of water. Because a very high pH is required to keep Pro-TeKt concentrate in solution, it is important to fully dilute it before adding other Dyna-Gro nutrient solutions which have low pH. Mixing the two concentrates without first diluting them will turn Pro-TeKt into a lump of silica gel!"

Personally I fill my 1 gal container and forcefully inject the silica additive via syringe and blunt needle 1st. Then I add my other products afterwards in the same manor. I've never had an issue with precipitate or gelling. As long as you're not mixing 2 concentrates before adding water, it shouldn't be an issue. Most precipitation problems in nutrient solutions are from mixing high concentrations of Sulfates and Phosphates with Calcium. That's why you see a lot of Part A and Part B solutions. You'll typically see the Calcium in Part A, and the Phosphates and Sulfates in Part B. At more diluted concentrations, they don't precipitate out, but if they put both in the same bottle as a concentrated fertilizer, boom. That's why you can't make a concentrated stock solution from Mega Crop. Their site says you can somewhere in the FAQ's, but that's BS. Every time I tried it I got clumpy shit at the bottom after a day. I wasted over 500g of powder on that failed expiriment.

Thanks for this write up , I did experience the gel from pro-tekt that’s why I went to MSA . My 20 gallon reservoir would gel every time I used pro-tekt , now I can finish using !

 

[farside05]

Thanks for this write up , I did experience the gel from pro-tekt that’s why I went to MSA . My 20 gallon reservoir would gel every time I used pro-tekt , now I can finish using !

Can we ask what you mixing process/order was when you had issues?

 

[West Hippie]

Can we ask what you mixing process/order was when you had issues?

Always silica first but I had mc which requires longer mixing !

 

[Virgin Ground]

Some of those look like lacewings. Hard to tell from the photo but the shape is right.
Probably there eating aphids and other bugs.


Nice plants. Haven't seen them for a bit.

 

[InTheShed]

Personally I fill my 1 gal container and forcefully inject the silica additive via syringe and blunt needle 1st. Then I add my other products afterwards in the same manor. I've never had an issue with precipitate or gelling. As long as you're not mixing 2 concentrates before adding water, it shouldn't be an issue.

But if they are just monosilicic acid and potassium already split apart in the water in the bottle, why the precipitation?

I did experience the gel from pro-tekt that’s why I went to MSA . My 20 gallon reservoir would gel every time I used pro-tekt

The one time I forgot to use it first, I added it at the end and the same thing happened!

Some of those look like lacewings. Hard to tell from the photo but the shape is right.
Probably there eating aphids and other bugs.

I thought of that, but they didn't seem to fly (which is how I knew they weren't fungus gnats). And I read that they are weak flyers if they even fly at all. And they look like this:

Which look pretty much like mine.

Also, having something eating the roots could explain the yellowing leaves in the absence of any apparent nute insufficiencies

Also, root aphids might even explain the browning curled leaves on my Jack Herer 1.1 and, to a lesser extent, the Candida I harvested. The damage can look like this:

Compare to my Jack Herer:

Nice plants. Haven't seen them for a bit.

Thanks! They haven't seen you either.

 

[farside05]

But if they are just monosilicic acid and potassium already split apart in the water in the bottle, why the precipitation?

I'm done playing researcher for the day. Still haven't been to bed. But I'd say that there is a high likelihood it's the non-soluable, non-bioavailable part of Potassium Silicate. Remember MSA is 100% bioavailable whereas only 47% of the Silicon in Potassium Silicate is bioavailable (post 29782). So dissolved Potassium Silicate is more than MSA and Potassium, there's a non-bioavailable kind of Silica in there too (53%).

 

[InTheShed]

I'm done playing researcher for the day. Still haven't been to bed. But I'd say that there is a high likelihood it's the non-soluable, non-bioavailable part of Potassium Silicate. Remember MSA is 100% bioavailable whereas only 47% of the Silicon in Potassium Silicate is bioavailable (post 29782). So dissolved Potassium Silicate is more than MSA and Potassium, there's a non-bioavailable kind of Silica in there too (53%).

That'll do! Thanks farside and crawl under that cool new bedspread and get some sleep.

 

[farside05]

A little chemistry showing that a common nutrient salt (Calcium Nitrate) dissolved in water splits into the two ions of Calcium and Nitrogen.

 

[TwelveCoffee]

Hey Sensei Shed how’s your day treating you today?!

 

[InTheShed]

Hey Sensei Shed how’s your day treating you today?!

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster with the root aphid identification and the search to get rid of them, but I'm hopeful that the grow will still pan out well! Thanks for checking in Coffee, how's your day going?

 

[TwelveCoffee]

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster with the root aphid identification and the search to get rid of them, but I'm hopeful that the grow will still pan out well! Thanks for checking in Coffee, how's your day going?

Sorry to hear about that I didn’t see that post what have you discovered? It went alright still got all my fingers haha! My aunt was telling me the clone I gave her is in flower kinda proud to hear it’s a clone of the grand daddy im growing.

 

[InTheShed]

Sorry to hear about that I didn’t see that post what have you discovered?

It starts with the pics I posted earlier here and HappyHaz ID'd them in a heartbeat. Then it was a search to figure out what to do to kill the bastards!

My aunt was telling me the clone I gave her is in flower kinda proud to hear it’s a clone of the grand daddy im growing.

Sweet! Nice to be able to pass them along to folks who see them to harvest.

 

[TwelveCoffee]

It starts with the pics I posted earlier here and HappyHaz ID'd them in a heartbeat. Then it was a search to figure out what to do to kill the bastards!

Sweet! Nice to be able to pass them along to folks who see them to harvest.

Happy you guys were able to figure it out yes I’m more surprised she didn’t start anything earlier she had a male last year so lots of seeds, I think I gave it to her late may early June can’t remember. She has one of those aero garden things to start seeds and holy roots lol

 

[smokesbetter]

Damn it 4 pages behind and all that looking up woods and learning stuff i WILL forget before I get to grow again ><><> sure glad you all will be here ! Good god I never heard of root aphids , Can you spray that plastic grass lawn you have alot of bugs may help keep out some predictors ?

 

[InTheShed]

Tuesday update with odds and ends and bugs with the bends! Okay well not technically the bends but it's poetry.

Let's start out with what I did for the Summer Grow plants this morning. I decided to start with hydrogen peroxide because I've used it before for other root issues with pretty good results.

I took a gallon of nutes, poured them in a watering can, and added 16oz of H2O2. When I started to water the Trainwreck I got no bubbles on the soil's surface, so I added another 16oz of H2O2:

20220816_080927 TW H2O2 bubbles.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 16, 2022

Trainwreck hydrogen peroxide bubbles

Bubbles galore! I did the same for the Purple Urkle but got fewer bubbles:

20220816_083603 PU H2O2 bubbles.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 16, 2022

Purple Urkle hydrogen peroxide bubbles

While those drained for about 30 minutes (it doesn't take long for the hydrogen peroxide to break down into hydrogen and water) I mixed up a new batch of nutes for the plants because the nutes they just got were diluted by 25%. After mixing I added @Sierra Natural Science 209 at .5 Tbs/gallon. I know that @BooWho2 recommends it, and even presciently mentioned back in June that the label includes root aphids!

I used the SNS 209 product on all of my plants during my summer grow last year and they were relatively bug free. I am currently using it on the four plants I’m growing right now And so far so good with all of them. The 209lists root aphids on the label but I’ve seen other products that are for leaf aphids (and they may contain peppermint oil vice rosemary oil?). Just a thought.

They both got another gallon of 5.0g/gallon equivalent. I'll let you know how they do, and thanks to @HappyHazmat88 for identifying those bugs for me!

Moving on, you may remember that a month ago I mentioned that I would test two mixes of citric acid to see if I could pinpoint the cause of the browning leaves on both the Jack Herer 1.1 and Candida. Here is the original post, and here's what I was going to do:

They will get sprayed daily, one with citric acid/yucca extract and one with citric acid/dish soap. I'll report back in a week with results

Okay, it's been more than a week but I wanted to see if there were longer-term effects, so I sprayed until I ran out of the yucca batch (about 10 days) and waited.

Here they were on Monday:

20220815_081727 CD-1 clones citric acid test.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 15, 2022

Candida clones

20220815_081749 CD-1 clones citric acid test.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 15, 2022

Candida clones

There is some leaf damage on both, but that is a result of them being totally root bound:

20220815_081808 CD-1 clones citric acid test roots.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 15, 2022

Candida clone root bound

20220815_081843 CD-1 clones citric acid test roots.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 15, 2022

Candida clone root bound

So I can't blame the citric acid spray (safe even in the sun) for my earlier leaf troubles. Was it a ProMix pH issue, or root aphids on those as well?

On Sunday when there was no one to disturb with the smell, I tried to see how much moisture my ground up MC had absorbed, so I took 10g of it:

20220813_133322 10g wet MC.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 15, 2022

and stuck it in the toaster oven at 225ºF. Even 2 hours later it hadn't dried out. It was a kind of sludge:

20220813_155208 hot sludge MC.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 15, 2022

And I had to abort the project because my wife was coming home! It really stunk up the whole house and I needed time to clear the air. Oh well, I'll try it again another time now that I know how long it's going to take to cook off the water.

Lastly, here are the Candida perlite cuttings from July 31st:

20220814_174055 CD-1 perlite cuttings.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 15, 2022

Candida

I planted the one with the most roots:

20220814_175545 CD-1 perlite clone planted.jpg

• InTheShed
• Aug 15, 2022

Candida

It shall be my new mother plant. I may keep the solo cup versions around if I can think of another test to run on them without having to transplant. Ideas?

I hope your week is going well and you're staying safe out there! Thanks for checking in.


Quotes:

Happy you guys were able to figure it out yes I’m more surprised she didn’t start anything earlier she had a male last year so lots of seeds, I think I gave it to her late may early June can’t remember. She has one of those aero garden things to start seeds and holy roots lol

Roots in water are really crazy! Best kind of root porn.

Damn it 4 pages behind and all that looking up woods and learning stuff i WILL forget before I get to grow again ><><> sure glad you all will be here ! Good god I never heard of root aphids , Can you spray that plastic grass lawn you have alot of bugs may help keep out some predictors ?

LOL! The one place without bugs is the turf. I still have a lot of plants in the ground though, decorative and fruiting.

 

[Carmen Ray]

After mixing I added @Sierra Natural Science 209 at .5 Tbs/gallon. I know that @BooWho2 recommends it, and even presciently mentioned back in June that the label includes root aphids!

Do you know what the main ingredients in that product are? I can't find them listed on the website. In South Africa we don't have the same products so I always have to look for something similar under a different name.

It shall be my new mother plant. I may keep the solo cup versions around if I can think of another test to run on them without having to transplant. Ideas?

Nice roots on that clone.

 

[BooWho2]

@Carmen Ray - here is a pic of the label. It's essentially rosemary oil mixed with water and a soap for surfactant. I'll bet you could create it yourself if you wanted.

 

[Carmen Ray]

@Carmen Ray - here is a pic of the label. It's essentially rosemary oil mixed with water and a soap for surfactant. I'll bet you could create it yourself if you wanted.

Thank you Boo!

 

[Grand Daddy Black]

Priceless discussion regarding the root aphids!

The Summer girls look great, especially sans the yellow leaves.

The silica discussion was making me scratch my bald spot, so I'll just stick with Stout MSA!

Have a great day on purpose Shed.