Jon's Dedicated Fruity Pebble Cookies Grow Plus The Mystery Plant

[Emilya Green]

My BP is fine! Research is calming for those who do it, but I appreciate your concern.

Chelated nutrients are not organic, so how does this below make sense if it's the chelated nutrients that require specific pH of water?

Also, you were the one comparing them:



You seem to be confused about the word "obfuscation," but I have no need to convince you that you are right. I just want others to realize that what you post on the topic is nothing but your opinion.

shhhhh... calm down! I'm done.
Anyone can scroll back and see that I said what needed to be said. I promise I won't talk about you on my thread like you did me. Let's get you off to bed old man. I'll bet it's time for that beautyrest.

 

[farside05]

I promise I won't talk about you on my thread like you did me.

He didn't talk about you. He posted research you challenged him to find. He didn't even mention your name.

Let's get you off to bed old man. I'll bet it's time for that beautyrest.

Then you have to get personal. Who's attacking who.

 

[Jon]

Happy Birthday Jon!

Thanks Em!

 

[Jon]

Happy Birthday Jon!

Thanks BK!

 

[StoneOtter]

Trying Something New

Here you go @Azimuth, you dig the impromptu experiments, you get the tag. Lol. I'm calling this one the "on the plant bud wash." I was watering the Zkittlez, who dries out really fast in the 3 gal. pot. She sits in the yard up on a solid metal folding chair by day, to soak up the sun. To water her, all I do is drive my ass over to her with the hose, set the nozzle to "shower," and water away. The shower setting creates a nice hollow column of water which is easily controlled and altered to provide more or less water pressure. Good hose nozzle, props to stepdad on that one.

Anyway, as I water I see what I always see and try my best to remove each morning. Takes about five minutes. I remove any little bugs which got stuck in a mess of trichomes and died there overnight. This happens. I hate them. They don't seem to do much to hurt the plant, nothing I can see, but they are quite an eyesore and you wouldn't want to smoke them. My method of removing the dead ones (they're tiny) was to simply grab them with my fingertips one at a time. Pain in the ass. But then I started thinking about the rain. Like, the fact that it does. And when it does, buds growing outside get wet. I have never heard an outdoor grower say that rain destroyed his trichomes.

So, I tried, on one bud, an on-the-plant wash. I set the power of the shower to the appropriate level (pretty lowish, but solid) and spray washed the entire bud top to bottom. I chose one that had three dead bugs on it I could see. When I was done the bud was pristine. Then, after the picture with the water spots, I tapped off the leaves so that there wouldn't be drops of water on leaves to focus the sun like a magnifying glass and burn holes in them (yes, when I foliar spray I do it at lights out). I'm going to check it after it's all dry and compare to the bud next door and if they look the same the plant gets a shower.

Here's the picture right after I was done the spraying:

on the plant wash.jpg

• Jon
• May 11, 2022

And here's the result a few minutes after tapping/shaking off the excess water. Pretty clean looking.

washed bud.jpg

• Jon
• May 11, 2022

Of course, now I'm wondering, does anyone else do this? Is there a reason not to? Anyone?

I've heard of people winning with this method. Especially easy ones like aphids.

Jon, the light is reflecting perfectly on the front glass of your phone camera and the e sensor(film) is picking it up at the angle and moment you snapped.?

You are trying to fool the good folks

Where's the value in that?

In my grows my los soil will change ph and some sativa's will get leaves that curl down on the tips early on. I take a half teaspoon of fast acting dolomite lime and mix it in a half quart of ro water. From that "sweet water" I pull 10 ml off and add it to a gallon of ro water and water normally for a few cycles until the curl goes away.
I have no idea of the math but this is what happens. Apparently the coco breaks down over time and changes ph. The dolomite lime brings it back.

 

[Jon]

Friday the 13th


On a different note, sometimes we talk about my actual plants here too. Today on this rather omen-esque day, I thought we should have a moment to just come together and enjoy a sunrise - a sunrise is one of life's most beautiful moments. I don't think a consensus on that one should be too much of a stretch. How about a Zkittlez sunrise?

Z at sunrise.jpg

• Jon
• May 13, 2022

Our little Zkittlez is starting to look like she has real buds. I much prefer this look to the white pistil cotton ball look, lol. And suddenly our little plant is becoming not so little. We may hit two ounces on her after all the way these colas are rapidly bulking up. Here she is enjoying the morning sun on day 51. My last Zkittlez auto from Barney's Farm went 71 days. So I am using that as my "should be ready around then" reference point for this grow. That would put us about three weeks out on this girl. Maybe. Maybe not. I would think longer if anything.

Z becoming a real plant.jpg

• Jon
• May 13, 2022

 

[Jon]

I've heard of people winning with this method. Especially easy ones like aphids.

Jon, the light is reflecting perfectly on the front glass of your phone camera and the e sensor(film) is picking it up at the angle and moment you snapped.?

I don't like that kind of statement at all! It's obvious no one is here to fool anyone. There's no value in that.

Morning @StoneOtter - it certainly made the buds look cleaner. Shows how much dust and such collects on them that you're unaware of cuz you really can't see it's there until you clean them. And they dried out real fast and no problem. I don't see any issues with doing it. I'm going to shower her weekly. Now I wish I could do the tent plants that way. I really dig it. It's so easy.

You're referring to the reflection I mentioned in the tent shot? Yeah, I don't know photography language enough to know the answer to the question you're asking, lol. But Shed explained why it's there a couple pages back and his explanation made sense to me. I think you two are saying the same thing but not sure. It's a cool accident though.

 

[Jon]

Morning @Jon! How do you apply the frass in your soil grows? Just mix it in to start?

How did emptying the tent and raising the lights go?

Missed this one @BubbaKush909! The frass and bokashi and myco and Geo or any of that all goes either mixed into the soil in the case of pot prep or top dressed in the case of feeding during growing. When I top dress I try to mix the stuff down into the soil a couple inches, or as deep as the root ball will allow me to, then water. The teas seem to have a more immediate effect than the top dresses, they're more long term than the teas, least it seems to me by observation.

You have seen the rest. Lol. Late response, sorry.

 

[BubbaKush909]

Missed this one @BubbaKush909! The frass and bokashi and myco and Geo or any of that all goes either mixed into the soil in the case of pot prep or top dressed in the case of feeding during growing. When I top dress I try to mix the stuff down into the soil a couple inches, or as deep as the root ball will allow me to, then water. The teas seem to have a more immediate effect than the top dresses, they're more long term than the teas, least it seems to me by observation.

You have seen the rest. Lol. Late response, sorry.

Morning Jon! No problem lol you and @Bill284 have answered all my questions. Well, almost all.

The water-only soil I intend to use in my batch is already so light and airy and has lots of perlite. After all the years growing in perlite all I can think of is what a pain it is rinsing it initially and for me, getting rid of it. Which is a long way of saying I'm not thrilled about the idea of adding more perlite to the mix, nor buying some.

But then I started to realize that as best I can tell without perlite you have no layers lol

I've decided I'll create my soil in smaller batches and layer it in without extra perlite. If I'm still not happy with the results I'll reconsider, but this should be a big upgrade to what I'm doing now. I'm armed with frass, bokashi, great white & seaweed extract.

Regarding the pH or don't pH, wow! My head is spinning. Our water here is really hard, it consistently tests above 9 pH. Since I'm organic it's probably ok to use as is but I've been pH'ing down with pretty good results so I'm reluctant to change, especially in the middle of a grow. So for now at least I'm going to continue what I've been doing.

Today my package will be 4 days late if it arrives. Fingers crossed!!

Have a great day everyone!

 

[Jon]

Morning Jon! No problem lol you and @Bill284 have answered all my questions. Well, almost all.

The water-only soil I intend to use in my batch is already so light and airy and has lots of perlite. After all the years growing in perlite all I can think of is what a pain it is rinsing it initially and for me, getting rid of it. Which is a long way of saying I'm not thrilled about the idea of adding more perlite to the mix, nor buying some.

But then I started to realize that as best I can tell without perlite you have no layers lol

I've decided I'll create my soil in smaller batches and layer it in without extra perlite. If I'm still not happy with the results I'll reconsider, but this should be a big upgrade to what I'm doing now. I'm armed with frass, bokashi, great white & seaweed extract.

Regarding the pH or don't pH, wow! My head is spinning. Our water here is really hard, it consistently tests above 9 pH. Since I'm organic it's probably ok to use as is but I've been pH'ing down with pretty good results so I'm reluctant to change, especially in the middle of a grow. So for now at least I'm going to continue what I've been doing.

Today my package will be 4 days late if it arrives. Fingers crossed!!

Have a great day everyone!

@BubbaKush909 - yeah, I imagine a few others may have spinning heads as well for one reason or another. I thought it was a decent ride. I've seen better rollercoasters though.

Extra perlite or not? I gotta defer to Bill on that. I see your points all around, and I don't see why you can't do it this way, it's basically the same thing, but that's just to these inexperienced eyes, so I suggest the Sensei. I can tell you that I always add it to everything soil, and here's why: I use perlite #3. It's the second biggest granules (rocks, lol) you can get. In Happy Frog, Ocean Forest, and Sohum (the ones I can speak to from experience) there's plenty of perlite as is imho. But it's all #1 or #2 at best. It's small. It's going to retain water and keep the soil wet more so than with the big stuff. So I mix in a gallon of #3 to each seven gallon pot, so 6 soil/1 perlite. About 3/4 of a gallon (measuring a gallon of perlite using an empty gallon starter pot) for a five gallon pot. It massively improves drainage. Btw - if rinsing perlite is a pain in the ass, here's two things to do....1. get better quality perlite when you buy it. The better the quality, the less the dust in the bag. Simple as that. I use Mother Earth, it's amazing. Two: use the starter pot that serves as the measuring device which is just a small plastic pot with holes in the bottom, and rinse the perlite in your sink in that. It's as easy as it gets. Another Idea: You might consider getting just a small bag of the big stuff, and using just the big stuff #3 or #4 for the perlite layering but not mix any extra in to the general soil mix itself? That might work well and accomplish the same goal, not sure. Again I would run that idea past Bill.

Look, don't worry about that Ph discussion or let it throw you. I think it's safe to say that if what you are already doing regarding ph is working for YOU, then continue to do what works FOR YOU. Who cares what anyone or any science says? You are a better gauge of what works for your plants then any white paper or research study, and at the end of the day, learning how to read your plants is what growing good weed is all about. One day in the not too distant future, when I am finally a GOOD grower, I will be able to do everything I do now without the use of a single instrument or gauge, and grow awesome plants start to finish just using my eyes, nose, and fingers.

Happy Friday BK!

 

[BubbaKush909]

Believe me I know perlite Jon! Probably gone through 100lbs of the #@3. It's so delicate just shipping it creates a lot of dust. I still have the large collander I used to rinse it outside with the garden hose back in the day. With this soil, NOTHING retains water! I want it to retain more if possible, not less. I have to spread the watering out over an hour just to super slowly try to get it to absorb moisture. The next day they feel light as a feather again. Well the 3 gal bags do, the 5's take 2 days.

Almost hate to bring up pH again but...

I've just planted my outdoor garden and flowers. I'm already giving them 10-15 gals of water every other day. I either set the water out or use a conditioner to neutralize the chlorine, but I'm also pH'ing down to 6ish. Am I wasting my pH down? I'm all for skipping unnecessary work and saving money.

 

[Jon]

Believe me I know perlite Jon! Probably gone through 100lbs of the #@3. It's so delicate just shipping it creates a lot of dust. I still have the large collander I used to rinse it outside with the garden hose back in the day. With this soil, NOTHING retains water! I want it to retain more if possible, not less. I have to spread the watering out over an hour just to super slowly try to get it to absorb moisture. The next day they feel light as a feather again. Well the 3 gal bags do, the 5's take 2 days.

Almost hate to bring up pH again but...

I've just planted my outdoor garden and flowers. I'm already giving them 10-15 gals of water every other day. I either set the water out or use a conditioner to neutralize the chlorine, but I'm also pH'ing down to 6ish. Am I wasting my pH down? I'm all for skipping unnecessary work and saving money.

Fair enough BK, I didn't realize you were such a perlite guy. Ok, then I got nothing for you on the perlite, you'll figure it out. Lol.

I also got nothing on the the ph. I choose to stay out of that fray. For me it's this easy: if the grow is organic, I don't ph, and if the grow uses chemical nutes, I do. That's it. I don't care what the science or anyone says, look at my plants. They are obviously 100% healthy 99% of the time for almost the entirety of my grows now. That tells me at a minimum that whatever I'm doing is bearing the kind of results I want. if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Emilya Green]

I've just planted my outdoor garden and flowers. I'm already giving them 10-15 gals of water every other day. I either set the water out or use a conditioner to neutralize the chlorine, but I'm also pH'ing down to 6ish. Am I wasting my pH down? I'm all for skipping unnecessary work and saving money.

Try it on one and see what happens. Please report back with your findings.

 

[Jon]

Try it on one and see what happens. Please report back with your findings.

Yeah, that, and also @BubbaKush909, if you are going to bother Ph-ing the outdoor grow, please do me a favor and ph to 6.3 instead of 6-ish if you don't mind. Thanks.

 

[Emilya Green]

Does the fact that it's illegal change the pH requirements? Does the fact that it's indoors?

Let's say I grow two clones outside in commercial soil and use only nutrient water that is under 6 and over 7 pH. If they turn out fine will you say it's because I didn't grow them inside?

I'm just asking where you get your information. Is that so wrong or accusatory? Lots of folks don't pH their nutrients in soil and grow very lovely plants in containers indoors. Are they all lucky? What about major greenhouse suppliers? Do they know something?

What about all the folks I have helped here? Have my 56,000+ posts left a trail of destruction behind?

Oh, also, can I water an organic grow with nothing but 7.6 water? I only ask because the high pH of the water will take over the pH of the system, making the roots unable to use the nutrients in the soil.

I find it rude to leave questions unanswered. Let's calmly take these one at a time to see what your questions imply as to your personal knowledge of the subject matter.

Does the fact that it's illegal change the pH requirements? Does the fact that it's indoors?

Surely these are not serious questions. PH has nothing to do with either of those parameters, and I am surprised you would cheapen your argument so, by asking them.

Let's say I grow two clones outside in commercial soil and use only nutrient water that is under 6 and over 7 pH. If they turn out fine will you say it's because I didn't grow them inside?

Hypothetical. What if? Again, you make your argument sound silly by posing such inane questions.

I'm just asking where you get your information. Is that so wrong or accusatory?

Since there are no papers specifically addressing the issues we are talking about, I get my information through hard work, experiments and analysis of my results. These conclusions are carefully documented and presented as research work via my voluminous journals on this forum. The frustrating thing to me is that you give ZERO creedence to this work or my honest intellectual pursuit of the subject matter. In your mind, unless there is a university study on it, it is not science and you use this to discredit anything that I say. This my friend, is intellectually unfair, yet you base this lack of scientific credibility as your primary reason to refute the things I have learned.

Lots of folks don't pH their nutrients in soil and grow very lovely plants in containers indoors. Are they all lucky? What about major greenhouse suppliers? Do they know something?What about all the folks I have helped here?

Lots of folks use nutrients that are available within a much larger pH range than others. By their choice of nutrients they have avoided some of the pitfalls of not pH adjusting. Call that luck or good planning. Not everyone is that lucky and we see it every day here with troubleshooting calls. Major greenhouses, of course they have worked to find shortcuts that work, including a nutrient system that is easy to work with. But that said, have you ever seen a hydroponic greenhouse who didn't have constant pH control as one of their primary concerns? You did get lucky, and found a double buffered fake soil that allows you to be unconcerned about your pH. Good for you. Not everyone is that fortunate.

Have my 56,000+ posts left a trail of destruction behind?

Yes, you have helped lots of folks find an easier way to grow pot and you have convinced a large group of people that it is best to do what you are doing. The problem is that there is a trail of destruction left behind and now years into this people are once again confused about the subjects of flushing and the need to adjust pH and even whether it is the pH of the soil they need to be concerned with or the pH of their fluids. I bet we get 3 trouble posts a week from people confused about just these issues. Guess what the number 1 question is that diagnosticians ask, when trying to figure out these problem grows? PH Funny, since according to you, this doesn't matter in a buffered medium. The sheer frequency of these problem cases easily disproves the universality of your premise.

Oh, also, can I water an organic grow with nothing but 7.6 water? I only ask because the high pH of the water will take over the pH of the system, making the roots unable to use the nutrients in the soil.

This last one is a hoot, and shows a lack of understanding of the organic feeding cycle. First, yes, you can water an organic grow with water anywhere from 9-4 pH. The microbes won't care and will keep on doing what they do. The roots don't care about the high pH either, they deal directly with microbes and pH has very little to do with their ability to feed.

Maybe you are confusing a grow with organic soil but using synthetic nutes, and thinking this would be an organic grow, as compared to the artificial mediums that you use. The problem is with the chelation of the nutes. If the nutes are designed to break apart and become available to the plants between 6.2-6.8, then that is where you need the pH to be, and your 7.6 pH water could make many of your nutes totally invisible to the plant.

 

[Jon]

Jack Herer Auto

I had to check out the Jack and defol her a little, as that had not been done once in her life to this point, so I had to remove her from the tent. Boy I'm glad I did. We have some work to do on Jack.

In the pictures I'm wondering if you guys will see it as I did. What I see is a plant asking for nutes. I see a paling beginning to happen. I see it happening evenly and generally around the entire plant. I removed several lower leaves that were already being cannibalized too. I also see a plant asking me for CalMag in addition to a general feed. I don't see any "specific" feed needs other than calmag, just MORE of the feed she's getting. I see a plant that has used up whatever small amount of magic was in the spent soil/Sohum blend she's in and now needs a little help.

What do you guys see, please, if anyone wishes to offer anything?

So I gave her a full dose of nute feed and hit her with a special blend along with that of the Blue Planet Cal Mag Pro and a shot of Easy Weed seaweed supplement. This should have a greening up effect on her after a couple days. I may get a few spots from the BP, it's awfully hot, but that's okay. I use it for emergency greening. Lol. I really kind of do though, and it's been effective for me in that regard when necessary. Generally speaking I stay off it as much as possible.

Here's the plant and a bud closeup. The buds look fine. This should be an easy and quick fix. I hope.

 

[Emilya Green]

Jack Herer Auto

I had to check out the Jack and defol her a little, as that had not been done once in her life to this point, so I had to remove her from the tent. Boy I'm glad I did. We have some work to do on Jack.

In the pictures I'm wondering if you guys will see it as I did. What I see is a plant asking for nutes. I see a paling beginning to happen. I see it happening evenly and generally around the entire plant. I removed several lower leaves that were already being cannibalized too. I also see a plant asking me for CalMag in addition to a general feed. I don't see any "specific" feed needs other than calmag, just MORE of the feed she's getting. I see a plant that has used up whatever small amount of magic was in the spent soil/Sohum blend she's in and now needs a little help.

What do you guys see, please, if anyone wishes to offer anything?

So I gave her a full dose of nute feed and hit her with a special blend along with that of the Blue Planet Cal Mag Pro and a shot of Easy Weed seaweed supplement. This should have a greening up effect on her after a couple days. I may get a few spots from the BP, it's awfully hot, but that's okay. I use it for emergency greening. Lol. I really kind of do though, and it's been effective for me in that regard when necessary. Generally speaking I stay off it as much as possible.

Here's the plant and a bud closeup. The buds look fine. This should be an easy and quick fix. I hope.

yes, she seems a little hungry. I am curious to see what the recent feeding will do.

 

[Jon]

yes, she seems a little hungry. I am curious to see what the recent feeding will do.

Thanks for that reply Em! I hope that's all it is. Usually when it's not spots or brown tips or something that obviously says I need X, I find it's often as simple as I want more. I read her like that, we'll see what happens.

 

[Bill284]

Jack Herer Auto

I had to check out the Jack and defol her a little, as that had not been done once in her life to this point, so I had to remove her from the tent. Boy I'm glad I did. We have some work to do on Jack.

In the pictures I'm wondering if you guys will see it as I did. What I see is a plant asking for nutes. I see a paling beginning to happen. I see it happening evenly and generally around the entire plant. I removed several lower leaves that were already being cannibalized too. I also see a plant asking me for CalMag in addition to a general feed. I don't see any "specific" feed needs other than calmag, just MORE of the feed she's getting. I see a plant that has used up whatever small amount of magic was in the spent soil/Sohum blend she's in and now needs a little help.

What do you guys see, please, if anyone wishes to offer anything?

So I gave her a full dose of nute feed and hit her with a special blend along with that of the Blue Planet Cal Mag Pro and a shot of Easy Weed seaweed supplement. This should have a greening up effect on her after a couple days. I may get a few spots from the BP, it's awfully hot, but that's okay. I use it for emergency greening. Lol. I really kind of do though, and it's been effective for me in that regard when necessary. Generally speaking I stay off it as much as possible.

Here's the plant and a bud closeup. The buds look fine. This should be an easy and quick fix. I hope.

Good Afternoon Jon.
How did yesterday go?
Are you looking like the Jher, a little light around the gills.
Birthdays aren't what they used to be at our age, we are only a couple months apart.
But back to the task at hand.
I'd give her a tea of Frass & Bokashi , get those microbes lending a hand.
Then follow up with a bit of molasses next available day?
If it were coco hehe.

Advil and water I hear is good the day after.
Take care my friend.

Stay safe
Bill

 

[Jon]

Good Afternoon Jon.
How did yesterday go?
Are you looking like the Jher, a little light around the gills.
Birthdays aren't what they used to be at our age, we are only a couple months apart.
But back to the task at hand.
I'd give her a tea of Frass & Bokashi , get those microbes lending a hand.
Then follow up with a bit of molasses next available day?
If it were coco hehe.

Advil and water I hear is good the day after.
Take care my friend.

Stay safe
Bill

Hi @Bill284, how you doing today? The birthday - yeah, we are old. I went out to dinner with my parents, booked a haircut for Molly (she's there now, I'll post a pic when she gets back!), and watched my Sixers get booted from the playoffs. Had a beer at dinner though. Whoo hoo!

Thanks for the tips, the tea is an excellent idea didn't think of it. She's already getting molasses all the time now.