Is This Your Homework Larry? Seedsman Skunk #1 In Soil

Ok I have been slacking here a bit. Hitting that late winter depression, Seasonal affective Disorder, but staying somewhat balanced thanks being active at work.

A few days ago the plants were given a watering with some coconut water, fresh blended aloe, fresh blended potato sprouts, and some magnifical.

Overall the plants health is looking good. I will give a good photo update soon, just not now since I am at work.

In the mean time I have been reading the The Ideal Soil V2. We discussed clay and the addition of it earlier in this journal I believe. There is a lot to clay and it’s addition is critical to the soil, and I think my soil is no exception. It has a direct relation to the CEC of soils and the availability of nutrients. I should have all the nutrients I ever need in the soil but they may not have been available.

Here is a little excerpt from that document:


EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES USING COLLOIDAL CLAY MEDIA - Recent studies have shown that the clay fraction of the soil may serve as a source of nutrients. As evidence of this possibility, experiments carried out to date using nutrients adsorbed on the clay and thus not water soluble show that such can be (a) removed by soil microorganisms using them as a source of energy, as the ammonium ion, for example, is oxidized to nitrates; (b) used by soil microorganisms in their regular metabolic
processes for growth, as calcium, for example, is taken by legume bacteria (Rhizobia); and (c) taken up by plants for their regular growth processes in quantities related to the supply which is determined either by the total clay or by the degree of saturation of the clay with the respective nutrient ions. [emphasis added]
The Colloidal Clay Fraction of Soil as a Cultural Medium by Wm. A. Albrecht and T. M. McCalla, American Journal of Botany, Vol. 25, No. 6 (Jun., 1938), pp. 403-407

So, to me, adding that small amount (few pounds) of clay may be extremely important as I look to improve my soil. Now, this soil with the latest clay addition is not exactly in use. It’s my soil storage and compost bin. But I started my current plants in it and they were pretty happy until they got too big for the pots.

My main grow bins were top dressed with some of the soil and clay mix but not enough to make a huge change in nutrient exchanges

Now, I do have clay in my rock dusts, but the direct addition into the soil at higher concentrations could be the improvements needed.

Something I will continue to keep an eye on. I have massive amounts of local clay I can tap into
 
Lowded118 said:
Good luck with the winter bud it was -37 at site today but at 3pm I could feel the sun's rays she's getting some power finally!
There's some neat stuff in soil and the plants that use it. Millions of years of trial and error :nerd-with-glasses:
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Yeah it was -31 or so this morning. 5 am start with that wind and chill was not fun lol. But it’s been sunny, and I welcome the suns energy to give me some vitamin D.

Almost time to head home. Might bust out the camera and get some good shots of the plants at week 2 of flower.
 
Well I snapped off 3 photos with my camera before the battery died. The bud shots with the macro lens with extension tube shots will have to wait.

I did take a few with the phone to give you an updated idea on their development.

Don’t have high hopes for quantity with this liberty haze but I sure would like it to taste good.
liberty haze

liberty haze

Barney’s Farm. Short veg, no training, right into flower.


Skunk1 leaves not looking great, not going to get much off this, sensitive mofo.
Skunk1

Skunk1

Seedsman Seeds. Week 2 of flower.


The CB Dream is in beast mode. Praying to the light hard. Thick stems. Stretching. Big nugs starting. This is cool as I want to experiment with this one for meds.
CB Dream

CB Dream

Crop King Seeds. Strong plant and very happy in week 2 of flower.


Then we have the Crown Royale. I can only hope all 25 tops can produce. It’s a happy plant and doing well.
Crown Royale

Crown Royale

Crop King Seeds. Week 2
 
Agemon said:
looking forward too seeing some pics with the added toys!
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You and me both. Wife has been asking me why I haven’t used my extension tubes yet, she got them for me as a gift months ago.

Had to wait for something exciting to shoot, bud development qualifies. Battery is charged, so hopefully I have the energy later to do some photos.
 
Pjs420 said:
I think it was @bobrown14 who made a comment about a significant increase when he switched to the autopots... maybe he can correct me if I’m wrong lol... I just need to find somewhere to keep the reservoir.
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Autopot kicked my yields and quality up and issues to the curb.

I use RO water in the RES. I have a dedicated filter just for the Autopot system

I have 2 setups
1 = 7.5gal largest ones
2 = 4 gal. These work great even for flowers but the plants will be smaller since smaller container.

I would seriously look @ the 4gal system if you haven't bought it yet.

You need to add a 2" layer of clay balls in the btm of each pot then the soil goes on top.



I use RO water and anything other than water I water in from the top. Say a tea or something.

BTW - Autopot makes a system that uses bags instead of hard pots. Not sure of the size of the bags.

The 4gal system should work great - I went to the XL system at the beginning. Go big or go home. Plants outgrow my space most of the time. The 4gal they do not.

I've mixed in the 4gal with the XL pots in the same grow space. XL plants grow to ceiling and beyond the 4gal grow about perfect 4-5' tall. Less yields if thats a thing.

Here's the 4gal system I bought. It's got a bigger res and larger hoses and filters on the res as well. You can purchase the FlexiTank separately if you wanna go bigger. They make large FlexiTanks or you can sub in a hard rain barrel no problems the fittings are hose size. 3/4" I think.

What I noticed for gnats is the Autopot system the water is in the btm so the top of the pot the soil is pretty dry for an inch or so. Enough that I haven't seen a gnat in a VERY long time. Mites are the only pest I get and spinosad kicks them to the curb until I slack off.


For clay I add in Paramagnetic Rock Dust - @ cups to a cubic foot of soil (7gal). That's good for years.

Clay in nature is where lots of the nutrients and minerals are stored. They are locked up in the clay until acidic rain water helps to break them down.

The clay has the rockdusts as part of its makeup. Can bypass the breakdown process needed for clay and just add the rock dust in. I use glacial rock dust and Brix Blend Basalt. Ground to fine powder @ 1 cup each per cubic foot. Also add in 1 cup of Oyster shell flour and 1 cup gypsum.

This is good for YEARS of use. Now all I add in is some EWC compost and malted barley ground fine at flip to flower.

Love you red clover. Chop and drop or let it die back. good for the soil. Excellent actually.

Your plants look A LOT better now than they did before flip. Maybe the drain holes helped.
 
bobrown14 said:
Autopot kicked my yields and quality up and issues to the curb.

I use RO water in the RES. I have a dedicated filter just for the Autopot system

I have 2 setups
1 = 7.5gal largest ones
2 = 4 gal. These work great even for flowers but the plants will be smaller since smaller container.

I would seriously look @ the 4gal system if you haven't bought it yet.

You need to add a 2" layer of clay balls in the btm of each pot then the soil goes on top.



I use RO water and anything other than water I water in from the top. Say a tea or something.

BTW - Autopot makes a system that uses bags instead of hard pots. Not sure of the size of the bags.

The 4gal system should work great - I went to the XL system at the beginning. Go big or go home. Plants outgrow my space most of the time. The 4gal they do not.

I've mixed in the 4gal with the XL pots in the same grow space. XL plants grow to ceiling and beyond the 4gal grow about perfect 4-5' tall. Less yields if thats a thing.

Here's the 4gal system I bought. It's got a bigger res and larger hoses and filters on the res as well. You can purchase the FlexiTank separately if you wanna go bigger. They make large FlexiTanks or you can sub in a hard rain barrel no problems the fittings are hose size. 3/4" I think.

What I noticed for gnats is the Autopot system the water is in the btm so the top of the pot the soil is pretty dry for an inch or so. Enough that I haven't seen a gnat in a VERY long time. Mites are the only pest I get and spinosad kicks them to the curb until I slack off.


For clay I add in Paramagnetic Rock Dust - @ cups to a cubic foot of soil (7gal). That's good for years.

Clay in nature is where lots of the nutrients and minerals are stored. They are locked up in the clay until acidic rain water helps to break them down.

The clay has the rockdusts as part of its makeup. Can bypass the breakdown process needed for clay and just add the rock dust in. I use glacial rock dust and Brix Blend Basalt. Ground to fine powder @ 1 cup each per cubic foot. Also add in 1 cup of Oyster shell flour and 1 cup gypsum.

This is good for YEARS of use. Now all I add in is some EWC compost and malted barley ground fine at flip to flower.

Love you red clover. Chop and drop or let it die back. good for the soil. Excellent actually.

Your plants look A LOT better now than they did before flip. Maybe the drain holes helped.
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Love it when you stop by. Lots to digest here.

Probably a good thing too, I was going to go to the 7 gal but I can’t have plants bigger than 4 or 5 feet. So I will look at 4 gallons.

The reservoir has been in my thoughts too. I can get my hands on a few 45 gallon plastic drums built to hold a much heavier liquid, for free. I was going to grab one of those for my reservoir, with another to capture rain water.

I have that white hydro grow rock that I planned on using for the bottom few inches rather than the clay balls but that’s because I already have 2 new bags of it from my initial soil build. Was going to use it for aeration and micro homes for soil organisms.

I have sent off a request for information to a soil testing facility. Before I mess with my soil any further we are going to find out exactly what’s going on. What’s the CEC? The concentration of primary and secondary nutrients? Blah blah blah. Been working on reading “The Ideal Soil V2” and it’s sinking in.

The sand I added to combat the gnats seems to have choked out the clover. Either that or it’s dying from natural causes. Regardless, if I go to the autopots I may not plant any other cover crop. An inch or two of sand on top of the autopots and call it a day.

The plants look much better. I made multiple adjustments so I can’t nail down any one particular reason but, I am happy that they are happier.

So once this grow is done, we should have a soil report and an autopot system, and we can work on my best grow yet.
 
Agemon said:
Can't wait to see what you can do with those. I struggled with the ones I got and returned them, next time I'll go with the canon parts not the zon cheapies.
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I am excited but was struggling when I had two or three tubes on at once. I will play around with it but, hopeful I can get some better trich shots now
 
Pterostychus said:
Sk#1 is a heavy smoke ... you'll have fun if you can stay awake lol
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lol had to try it at least once. I was going to make most of it into cobs. From the looks of it I will be smoking a LOT of Crown Royale and not so much Skunk or Liberty Haze. The CB Dream is mostly going to oil or tincture.

Gotta admit too, that a part of me wanted to grow Skunk for the smell. Allowing me to identify that particular aspect of other genetics.
 
Just got the info back from a lab in British Columbia. About $70 for a full soil analysis and report. I am going to do that this week, send it off for analysis.

I will take 2/3 of a cup of my soil in the Storage bin, and 1 and 1/3 of a cup of soil from my grow bins, mix together for a close representation of my soil. There is very little difference between the two but, let’s be accurate.

Then I can stop randomly adding shit hoping it’s helpful.
 
UrbanAchiever said:
I am excited but was struggling when I had two or three tubes on at once. I will play around with it but, hopeful I can get some better trich shots now
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That's all I wanted them for too. I can get just about everything else with my other lenses. I think a better camera may be what I need though. I mean if 16 mp is only getting me so much in focus when I crop then I would think a better resolution will get me better closeups too, even if only cropping on the computer. Of course I haven't set up for a real shoot in a while.

I guess that'll be happening sooner than later!
 
Urb - plats looking stunning. So healthy. Gonna be some frosty goodness any second now. woohoo. I think this is my favorite time of the flower cycle.

For the AP system - you can use the white rocks. I use both clay balls and the rocks.

The rocks are great for aeration too. I use the larger size.

With the autopot system there is a mesh screen that keeps all the dirt and roots in the container. It goes in the btm of the pot, then rocks/clay then soil.

If you need to keep vertical height @ 4-5' I'd go with the 4gal pot size and use your free water res.

Hook it up
Dial it down.
In a little green plant
we grow uptown.

Was at the dentist today and was singing:

Tweezers gleaming in the moon lighty night.

While to doc was testing out dental floss on me.

It's the simpler things in life. lol o_O

Note to self:
ask for gas.
 
Great stuff Bob. I will go ahead with the 4 gal.

Ugh I gotta go to the dentist soon. Been putting it off.

Still have a few gnats but I suspect they may be coming from the holes I drilled or maybe the edges of the bins, despite my focus on putting extra sand on the edges. Not enough to be an issue though.

I still think they are demanding calcium and magnesium, mostly the skunk 1.

Yesterday I put a half tablespoon of bat guano, a tablespoon of kelp meal, teaspoon of insect frass, and a small handful of horsetail fern into about a gallon of water. Bubbled that overnight just to let it soak. Just finished adding that mixture to 4 gallons of water, a tablespoon or so of homemade calcium phosphate, and about half a dose of magnifical. The ph was around 6.8 before I slow watered the bins.

We are around day 17 of flower. Going to say April 15th is harvest day, 8 weeks. These are indica leaning hybrids, except the Liberty haze.
 
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