Jon's New Pared Down Setup Soil Grow: 3 Photo & 1 Auto With New Dedicated Auto Rig

[DeeBoy]

Update
Grow/Veg Day 12
First Closeups of the Girls!!

My damn Phillies game got postponed due to Covid, so I guess I'm stuck with you guys. Lol. So I thought I'd take the opportunity and introduce y'all to the ladies properly. They were all looking pretty happy, so I snapped closeups of each one and here they are. You'll have to forgive me if I post pictures every three to five days for a while. It's important to me to document the whole grow, but early veg in particular, when the ladies are most vulnerable. Plus it's three new strains to me and I need to have a record of what they look like as they progress. Anyway, a couple things about this week.....

- Monday was the first nutrient application. It's Wednesday. If there was any issue with that first nute application I would see it by now. No negative anything.
- After speaking with Emilya, my path to how to feed twice a week when watering basically daily became clear. Here's the schedule for week one including projection through the end of the week -
M - First nute application for GTH and Chunkadelic. Hulkberry is a few days behind the others so she will start next Monday. Slurricane got zero cuz she's going into living soil.
T - Water
W - Only weekly application of mono-silicic acid on all four plants.
TH - Water
F - Second of the two weekly feedings of nutrients for GTH and Chunkadelic.
S - Water
SU - Water
- Worthy of note is that the concentration of the mono-silicic acid is 1 DROP per HALF GALLON. I did the math five times to be sure, and the smallest measuring increment I'm capable of creating/measuring is a drop. YES, a drop is an actual official measurement, google it. I had to. You can check my math if you like. Keep in mind that you cannot measure half a drop. Their recommended concentration is .3 ml./10 L. Go ahead and try and convert that into something you can measure. I'm pretty good at math, and it took me a while to figure it out. But when I did I got the 1 drop per half gallon. First, that's hilarious. Second, that's CONCENTRATED. And interestingly, 1 damn drop of this stuff in a half gallon makes the water foamy upon application. Just a tiny bit, but noticeably. I didn't expect that and was momentarily taken aback. But I trusted my math skills and went with it. I guess I'll know soon enough if I'm overdoing it.
- The environmental conditions you see in the photo is pretty much where I've kept them by day, by night it gets about 4 degrees cooler. Going for a little bit drier of a veg this time - 50-60% versus 60-70%.
- The par at plant level is now 520. Just measured. It's the same everywhere due to the immense and even footprint of the light. Very consistent. This is maybe a bit high for early veg, but so far I don't see any negative response. In fact, the Chunkadelic is prays and asks for more. The others are basically sitting at perfectly horizontal to the ground or a little up. We're going with it. For the first weeks we just let the plants grow up naturally into the light and they get more par as they grow.

That's as succinct as I can be. Lol.

So ladies and gentlemen, these are the ladies:

- Ghost Train Haze
- Hulkberry
- Slurricane
- Chunkadelic
- Environmental conditions

Enjoy!

Looking great!

 

[BubbaKush909]

Jon I'm growing in a couple of things. The hydro store sells plastic buckets I already had and they're supposedly 5 gal, but they're quite a bit smaller to my eye than regular 5 gal buckets. Meantime I ordered 5 and 7 gal bags upon your recommendation, and the 5 gal bags hold a lot more dirt than the alleged 5 gal buckets. The 4 oldest are in the buckets and I'm too far along imo to transplant again, but everything new is going into 5 gal bags. This is why I grew in 2 liters lol. I could get 30 of them easily in a 2' x 4' space with 2 400w cfm's blasting them all with light. I think I could do the same with 2 of my 1000W LED's, but the buckets and bags take up so much space I now have 4 lights and can barely accommodate 5 plants. With by lights the lumens fall off quickly when you're not directly under them. I put the Gold Leaf photo into a 7 gal bag. Luckily everyone is getting lots of sunlight, but from now on I'm not growing more than 4 at a time. I think 4 would fit my setup perfectly. With 7, I'd be in trouble right now if I didn't have sunlight as an option.

Re your nute schedule, are you really going to water or feed every day? Are you feeding/watering until runoff? I can't imagine my plants emptying a 5gal bag in a day... what am I missing?

 

[Jon]

Jon I'm growing in a couple of things. The hydro store sells plastic buckets I already had and they're supposedly 5 gal, but they're quite a bit smaller to my eye than regular 5 gal buckets. Meantime I ordered 5 and 7 gal bags upon your recommendation, and the 5 gal bags hold a lot more dirt than the alleged 5 gal buckets. The 4 oldest are in the buckets and I'm too far along imo to transplant again, but everything new is going into 5 gal bags. This is why I grew in 2 liters lol. I could get 30 of them easily in a 2' x 4' space with 2 400w cfm's blasting them all with light. I think I could do the same with 2 of my 1000W LED's, but the buckets and bags take up so much space I now have 4 lights and can barely accommodate 5 plants. With by lights the lumens fall off quickly when you're not directly under them. I put the Gold Leaf photo into a 7 gal bag. Luckily everyone is getting lots of sunlight, but from now on I'm not growing more than 4 at a time. I think 4 would fit my setup perfectly. With 7, I'd be in trouble right now if I didn't have sunlight as an option.

Re your nute schedule, are you really going to water or feed every day? Are you feeding/watering until runoff? I can't imagine my plants emptying a 5gal bag in a day... what am I missing?

The watering every day is only for maybe another week until they're big enough to start normal watering. No, at this point there's no point to water to runoff, they're still basically seedlings. But once I begin normal watering, I water to runoff every single time. No exceptions. 10-20% runoff. All the way through the end of the grow. My understanding is that proper watering means watering to the point of some degree of runoff each and every time.

No, I am feeding twice a week for now while they get watered every day. Once they're on "normal" watering they'll get nutes every other watering, with the mono-silicic acid tucked into a normal watering once weekly.

What I meant was that autos develop a big enough root ball to fill a five gallon pot if you grow and water them effectively. I was trying to convey that the idea that you don't need more than a three to grow an auto and if you use a bigger pot you're wasting soil that will go unused - that idea is complete bullshit. It's wrong. Not true. I already proved it. So all I was suggesting to you is try growing an auto in a larger pot if you want to end up with bigger buds. Don't necessarily cap it at a 3 gallon pot as many who grow autos do.

Hope that clears things up.

 

[Vegan4life]

Subbed... Cute girls you have there...

 

[Jon]

Since I switched in mid grow I didn’t know what to expect, but the new growth in the buds is green and lush. I’m growing autos in a 3x3 tent. My 4 plants are small but full of buds. I was hoping for a 1/2 pound, I think I have a chance…

You should be able to get 8 ounces from 4 autos. I averaged about 2 ounces a plant on my first run of nine. Taking out the flarf I finished up with a little over 16 ounces from the 9 plants of good looking, fully trimmed buds. I thought that was....meh. I thought it should have been WAY more. And it really should have been. I believe it's possible and not that difficult to average 3 ounces per auto. In my opinion, that takes using a five gallon pot, and raising the plant relatively stress free for the whole grow, plus letting it go long enough and not harvesting too early. And I mean with or without training. Just my opinion. The Sour Apple I have now I'll be surprised if it doesn't end up at 3 ounces. And with the perpetual auto rig I now have going, I'm letting the Chunkadelic (Day 13) who is in with the photos for now in the tent, grow straight up by herself too. Until a plant proves me wrong (lol) that's my new "thing" with the autos - just let them grow the way they grow, no training, yes to nutes, yes to occasional but very minimal defoliation, and that's about it. By growing them on 18/6 I have a constant option to start a plant in the tent as I am now and move it to the auto rig either when it's big enough or when the photos flip to 12/12. I also have the auto AFTER the Chunkadelic up and going - another Sour Apple, who is on Day 3. I'm not including her in the grow journal cuz she's just the next auto up after the Chunkadelic finishes. By using the auto rig and using 18/6 I am shooting for at LEAST a harvest a month, if not every three weeks. Mostly they'll be one auto harvests, but it'll be relatively constant. Fill in the time gaps while the five month photo grow matures. It also gives me the opportunity to try different autos one at a time and see how they grow and such, which will help to narrow down what I want to grow again if anything. So far I've grown or am growing 12 autoflowers, totaling six different strains. Of all those, the only ones I would grow again (so far) are the Dutch Passion Cinderella Jack auto and the Humboldt Seed Company Sour Apple auto. Still, that's two that I now KNOW are good. So we're making progress. Lol. Anyway I'm pulling for you. The one other thing I'll share with you is that I found up until a good ways into budding, every auto I've grown so far has needed very consistent Cal Mag applications included in your nutes. I was giving it to them with at least every other watering, and sometimes every watering. Under LEDs they seem to really eat that up and whenever I didn't replenish it consistently I started to have problems. For what it's worth. They seem to need more than the photos, generally speaking. Just my experience.

 

[Diatomacious]

Now you got me worried

Garden gnome I installed is looking good

Hanging in there for the porn shots

 

[DeeBoy]

You should be able to get 8 ounces from 4 autos. I averaged about 2 ounces a plant on my first run of nine. Taking out the flarf I finished up with a little over 16 ounces from the 9 plants of good looking, fully trimmed buds. I thought that was....meh. I thought it should have been WAY more. And it really should have been. I believe it's possible and not that difficult to average 3 ounces per auto. In my opinion, that takes using a five gallon pot, and raising the plant relatively stress free for the whole grow, plus letting it go long enough and not harvesting too early. And I mean with or without training. Just my opinion. The Sour Apple I have now I'll be surprised if it doesn't end up at 3 ounces. And with the perpetual auto rig I now have going, I'm letting the Chunkadelic (Day 13) who is in with the photos for now in the tent, grow straight up by herself too. Until a plant proves me wrong (lol) that's my new "thing" with the autos - just let them grow the way they grow, no training, yes to nutes, yes to occasional but very minimal defoliation, and that's about it. By growing them on 18/6 I have a constant option to start a plant in the tent as I am now and move it to the auto rig either when it's big enough or when the photos flip to 12/12. I also have the auto AFTER the Chunkadelic up and going - another Sour Apple, who is on Day 3. I'm not including her in the grow journal cuz she's just the next auto up after the Chunkadelic finishes. By using the auto rig and using 18/6 I am shooting for at LEAST a harvest a month, if not every three weeks. Mostly they'll be one auto harvests, but it'll be relatively constant. Fill in the time gaps while the five month photo grow matures. It also gives me the opportunity to try different autos one at a time and see how they grow and such, which will help to narrow down what I want to grow again if anything. So far I've grown or am growing 12 autoflowers, totaling six different strains. Of all those, the only ones I would grow again (so far) are the Dutch Passion Cinderella Jack auto and the Humboldt Seed Company Sour Apple auto. Still, that's two that I now KNOW are good. So we're making progress. Lol. Anyway I'm pulling for you. The one other thing I'll share with you is that I found up until a good ways into budding, every auto I've grown so far has needed very consistent Cal Mag applications included in your nutes. I was giving it to them with at least every other watering, and sometimes every watering. Under LEDs they seem to really eat that up and whenever I didn't replenish it consistently I started to have problems. For what it's worth. They seem to need more than the photos, generally speaking. Just my experience.

Thanks Jon! I really messed up on the calmag early on, but it's in every watering now. 3 are getting close. A week maybe, but probably 2.

 

[Jon]

Phototown Update
Grow/Veg Day 17
Beginning of Week 2 of Nutrients

17 days in and so far so good. No deficiencies, no over-anything, no light issues, no environmental issues, no Ph issues, no nutrient-related issues. Damn, there's a lot of issues to keep track of. Lol.

Today was the beginning of week 2 of nutrients, here's their deal on nutes for the week:

Ghost Train Haze - Fox Farms feeding schedule week 2 at recommended dosage
Slurricane - FF feeding schedule week 2 at recommended dosage (we are going to use the FF feeding schedule to make sure she is adequately nuted until she fills out the one and gets transplanted to the Sohum in the five, at which point we will discontinue nutrients)
Hulkberry - FF feeding schedule week 2 at recommended dosage
Chunkadelic Auto - Canna nutrients feeding schedule for autos week 2 at recommended dosage

Here's their deal on environmental conditions, watering schedule, and Ph:

Ave. Temperature: Day 76-80/Night 68-72
Ave. Humidity Range: 45-60% depending on outside conditions
Ph: I now am measuring Ph with each watering for each plant for the entirety of the grow. Like one should, and like I never have religiously on my previous grows. I have Ph Up and Down now, and they are exceedingly easy to use. Today was the first Ph'ed day, as it was the first day nutes got mixed with tap water instead of bottled water. My tap water is Ph'ed around 7-7.1, a bit high. With the 2nd week FF nute mix, the Ph after mixing was around 6.5, which is exactly where I want it. With the Canna nutes, as they tell you, it may be necessary to Ph correct your feed, and indeed it is with my tap water. When I tested the mix it was almost 7.6. WAY too high. Three small drops of Ph Down brought it down to around 6.5-6.6, which is what I went with. Our Ph target for the grow is 6.5.
Light/Par: They are obviously on 18/6 and the girls are at 560 par at the top of the little plants. The idea is to let them grow up into more par and move the light as little as possible. Unless they start to beg, in which case we can always lower it. But so far the nodal development and lack of stretch is making me happy and apparently them as well. Only the Chunkadelic begs for more light at this level, which is maybe not surprising considering autos generally speaking seem to be light whores.
Watering: We are real close to watering completely normally and to runoff, and to checking pot weight each watering. No longer are we watering with a sprayer. It's doubtful they will need watered every day this week. But likely four or five times. So the watering schedule for the week is as follows, with any pauses necessary on clean watering days....
M - Nutes
T - Clean water with mono-silicic acid application
W - Clean water
TH - Clean water
F - Nutes
S - Clean water
SU - Clean water
Intangibles: When it gets to be more than 95 degrees outside there's nothing I can do to keep the temperature below 78-80. It takes the 8000 btu AC unit on full cool and full fan and set to it's lowest setting, 62 degrees, to maintain 78-80 from around 3 pm to 6 pm on days when it gets that hot. That's only happened a few times. It's not a big deal, but just letting y'all know how the outside affects the ambient temperature inside the tent at it's worst. Very dealable, no problem, especially in veg. I may add a second smaller unit for budding depending on the weather, when I'll need it to be cooler and I will likely never want the buds to see 80 degrees. Also - mixing Canna nutes is no more or less difficult than mixing Fox Farms nutes. Ie, both are pretty damn easy. I really like that the Canna mixtures so far are almost clear. The Slurricane is getting big as fast as the Chunkadelic. Those two lead the pack in size so far. Obviously the Hulkberry is smaller cuz she's about four days behind. The first three out are working hard on their third node, Hulkberry on her second.

The girls all seem real happy so far. Here's how they look as they stand on Day 17. This picture was taken about half an hour after watering so they're still a tiny bit droopy:

- Group shot
- GTH
- Slurricane
- Chunkadelic Auto
- Hulkberry

Have a good grow week everyone!

 

[Diatomacious]

Looking good man (love the color)... you got a good teacher this time.

I really like that the Canna mixtures so far are almost clear.

Wish they all were clear... hard to measure a liquid you can't see through to the exact tenth of a ml (not to mention a hundredth).

 

[Emilya Green]

Ph target for the grow is 6.5.

Again, I would like to make a suggestion. In a fox farm grow it seems very important to carefully adjust the incoming fluid pH, water and water with nutes, to 6.2-6.3 pH. This allows the system to slide through the entire 6.2-6.8 range as the soil dries out, giving each nute maximum mobility in its turn as the pH drifts. By adjusting to 6.5, you still get an upward drift after watering, and your usable part of the range is shortened to 6.5-6.8, and you miss out on many of the heavier elements that are more mobile at the lower part of the range. All will look fine until around week 5, when FF grows tend to get a molybdenum deficiency if they haven't been pH adjusted to the low end all along. Some will attribute this weird dying off of your upper sun leaves in mid to late bloom as senescence, but it is not. This deficiency is cumulative and repeatable... I saw it over and over again during my FF years and it drove me crazy until I figured it out. PH is a range, not one single number. Use the entire range.

 

[Jon]

Again, I would like to make a suggestion. In a fox farm grow it seems very important to carefully adjust the incoming fluid pH, water and water with nutes, to 6.2-6.3 pH. This allows the system to slide through the entire 6.2-6.8 range as the soil dries out, giving each nute maximum mobility in its turn as the pH drifts. By adjusting to 6.5, you still get an upward drift after watering, and your usable part of the range is shortened to 6.5-6.8, and you miss out on many of the heavier elements that are more mobile at the lower part of the range. All will look fine until around week 5, when FF grows tend to get a molybdenum deficiency if they haven't been pH adjusted to the low end all along. Some will attribute this weird dying off of your upper sun leaves in mid to late bloom as senescence, but it is not. This deficiency is cumulative and repeatable... I saw it over and over again during my FF years and it drove me crazy until I figured it out. PH is a range, not one single number. Use the entire range.

Again, I would like to thank you for your suggestion. As usual it is accompanied by a real reason that makes complete sense. In this case, it also happens to be something that is painfully easy to adjust to. 6.2-6.3 is my new target range. You're basically telling me that I need the Ph in that range to pick up the heavier elements that I will miss by adjusting to a higher number each time, correct? And that otherwise the problem won't show until late veg when I definitely do NOT want issues? Got it I think. We can't be having molybdenum deficiencies now can we? And yes, it's always a range, which I learned by watching my PH pen change during testing. It goes up or down til it slows way down and the numbers in the hundredths are just slowly inching to change. I pretty much wait until it takes several seconds for the number to change and I have used this as my "point of stabilization," ie, ok, this is what this water is. But if you test you easily see that it never really settles on one specific number, it's always a changing range.

Senescence. Second time I've heard that term. I thought it meant just the process of getting older. Aging, basically. But the way I've heard the term used in this forum by various people has me wondering if I understand that properly. Any help?

Thank you Emilya.

 

[Jon]

Looking good man (love the color)... you got a good teacher this time.


Wish they all were clear... hard to measure a liquid you can't see through to the exact tenth of a ml (not to mention a hundredth).

Yeah, there's this really knowledgeable girl who seems to be pretty willing to share her expertise. Interesting chick. Smart. Well spoken. Knows her shit about growing. I'm very pleased and happy that she is willing to spend the time she does with me. I can't really remember her name. Starts with an E I think. I assume this is the teacher to whom you refer. I will stop WAY short of saying she's my teacher, cuz that implies that I'm some kind of special project to her. Not the case. This girl helps EVERYONE. It's crazy. She should get paid. Lol.

 

[Jon]

Again, I would like to make a suggestion. In a fox farm grow it seems very important to carefully adjust the incoming fluid pH, water and water with nutes, to 6.2-6.3 pH. This allows the system to slide through the entire 6.2-6.8 range as the soil dries out, giving each nute maximum mobility in its turn as the pH drifts. By adjusting to 6.5, you still get an upward drift after watering, and your usable part of the range is shortened to 6.5-6.8, and you miss out on many of the heavier elements that are more mobile at the lower part of the range. All will look fine until around week 5, when FF grows tend to get a molybdenum deficiency if they haven't been pH adjusted to the low end all along. Some will attribute this weird dying off of your upper sun leaves in mid to late bloom as senescence, but it is not. This deficiency is cumulative and repeatable... I saw it over and over again during my FF years and it drove me crazy until I figured it out. PH is a range, not one single number. Use the entire range.

Here's a sidebar, unrelated to the grow for you. Have you ever considered starting an online pot growing consultation business? I've never seen one. They probably exist somewhere. But I would bet if you spent enough time doing what you do (going way out of your way to help people you don't even know) you'd quickly have a ton of subscribers. The help you're giving me for free I would gladly pay a monthly fee for, and if your business was targeted at new growers you'd be full of monthly subscribers or whatever very quickly. LOTS of people would be willing to pay you to have an educated guide sort of thing. Someone they'd have as a "go to" person. For $25/month or something? Especially someone who knows their stuff and expresses it as clearly as you do. Just tossing it out there. Look at how many people in here could use your help, lol. I can see all kinds of avenues, with a relatively simple online business and a really good website, for you to make some real coin from your expertise. Hell, you didn't get a masters degree to be poor, right? (not saying you are, I have no idea, lol, you get the point). I was a VP of a recruiting firm and am very well versed in marketing and sales and such. Based on my experience, it seems like it might be a viable idea. Just two cents or crap against the wall to see what sticks. Everyone is always happy to ask and accept help from you, but rarely do I see anyone just talk to you. That's kind of where I'm coming from. You seem to like to help people, and you obviously have a vast bank of knowledge. Not to mention your own hands on experience, so it isn't as if you'd need to "establish" your credibility - that would happen quickly as someone scrolled your website and saw your plants. Anyway, just something to think about. For what it's worth.

 

[Emilya Green]

Here's a sidebar, unrelated to the grow for you. Have you ever considered starting an online pot growing consultation business? I've never seen one. They probably exist somewhere. But I would bet if you spent enough time doing what you do (going way out of your way to help people you don't even know) you'd quickly have a ton of subscribers. The help you're giving me for free I would gladly pay a monthly fee for, and if your business was targeted at new growers you'd be full of monthly subscribers or whatever very quickly. LOTS of people would be willing to pay you to have an educated guide sort of thing. Someone they'd have as a "go to" person. For $25/month or something? Especially someone who knows their stuff and expresses it as clearly as you do. Just tossing it out there. Look at how many people in here could use your help, lol. I can see all kinds of avenues, with a relatively simple online business and a really good website, for you to make some real coin from your expertise. Hell, you didn't get a masters degree to be poor, right? (not saying you are, I have no idea, lol, you get the point). I was a VP of a recruiting firm and am very well versed in marketing and sales and such. Based on my experience, it seems like it might be a viable idea. Just two cents or crap against the wall to see what sticks. Everyone is always happy to ask and accept help from you, but rarely do I see anyone just talk to you. That's kind of where I'm coming from. You seem to like to help people, and you obviously have a vast bank of knowledge. Not to mention your own hands on experience, so it isn't as if you'd need to "establish" your credibility - that would happen quickly as someone scrolled your website and saw your plants. Anyway, just something to think about. For what it's worth.

Actually, you have hit on my master plan. I have done well in the business/financial world but I am looking to retire by 45, which is only 2 years away. I am going to release a book teaching my methods and my observations of the evolution of the online cannabis world, and I will put out my shingle for my mobile consulting business. Based actually on a friend who runs an aquarium/fish/coral store, where he makes a killing going around and maintaining and cleaning tanks for rich people, I think I can make this work. He has fun, has a job that he loves, and makes a good amount of cash doing it. I plan on doing something similar in the pot growing business. Pay me well enough, and I will show up every 3 days to water your plants. I will help you design and build a grow room that will work. I plan to market my disability in my advertising and people will pay me more simply because I am deaf. Here is a post from some years ago that turned out to be a gold mine and already I do some of this for seniors and the disabled who wish to have their own gardens but don't know how to start.

Grow room setup & gardening expert network for needy patients?

It seems to me that there is a need for a network designed to put gardening and grow room setup experts in contact with patients who are willing to grow themselves, but who need help in doing so. I have done this a couple of times now, offered to do it a few more, and just recently had another...

www.420magazine.com

Soon I will expand this out to about a 200 mile radius around my home. Or at least, that is the plan. The world seems to be changing drastically at the moment, and who knows what 2 years has in store for any of us?

 

[Emilya Green]

Again, I would like to thank you for your suggestion. As usual it is accompanied by a real reason that makes complete sense. In this case, it also happens to be something that is painfully easy to adjust to. 6.2-6.3 is my new target range. You're basically telling me that I need the Ph in that range to pick up the heavier elements that I will miss by adjusting to a higher number each time, correct? And that otherwise the problem won't show until late veg when I definitely do NOT want issues? Got it I think. We can't be having molybdenum deficiencies now can we? And yes, it's always a range, which I learned by watching my PH pen change during testing. It goes up or down til it slows way down and the numbers in the hundredths are just slowly inching to change. I pretty much wait until it takes several seconds for the number to change and I have used this as my "point of stabilization," ie, ok, this is what this water is. But if you test you easily see that it never really settles on one specific number, it's always a changing range.

Senescence. Second time I've heard that term. I thought it meant just the process of getting older. Aging, basically. But the way I've heard the term used in this forum by various people has me wondering if I understand that properly. Any help?

Thank you Emilya.

Glad to help. It makes me happy when I see that light go on and I know that I am no longer needed. Yes, you can miss out on elements in that lower part of the range, but here is another point. The drift happens, no matter what. If you start out in the middle of the range, you will drift out of the usable range much faster than if you started at the lower part of the range. The longer you are in the range, the more nutes your plants will see. Set your pH to 6.8 and for about 10 minutes, your nutes will be in range until they drift beyond it.... tell the plants to suck it up fast!

Yes, the 6.5 pH advice you see all over the place is actually new... like in the last 7 or 8 years... before that, everyone knew that 6.3 was the hot spot and the point where mathematically, the most nutrients were the most mobile. Then people got lazy and some even decided that adjusting pH was not even necessary and some genius decided to pick the middle of the range and say that is where you need to adjust to.

Senescence: 1. the word you throw out to sound knowledgeable when you have no idea why or what the plant is deficient in. 2. the word to describe the reason your plant is dying out of your control 3. the explanation for a salt lockout, when you don't believe in salt lockouts.

This is a tender subject for me, and a subject in my upcoming book. There are people here who have blocked me just so they can keep using this word in all the definitions given above, and not have to hear me say that they are wrong. Our plants do not have to die at the end in such a violent and ugly manner... it is totally possible to stay green right up to the end. Those who can not do this or will not do this, blame their ugly plants on Senescence.

 

[Jon]

Actually, you have hit on my master plan. I have done well in the business/financial world but I am looking to retire by 45, which is only 2 years away. I am going to release a book teaching my methods and my observations of the evolution of the online cannabis world, and I will put out my shingle for my mobile consulting business. Based actually on a friend who runs an aquarium/fish/coral store, where he makes a killing going around and maintaining and cleaning tanks for rich people, I think I can make this work. He has fun, has a job that he loves, and makes a good amount of cash doing it. I plan on doing something similar in the pot growing business. Pay me well enough, and I will show up every 3 days to water your plants. I will help you design and build a grow room that will work. I plan to market my disability in my advertising and people will pay me more simply because I am deaf. Here is a post from some years ago that turned out to be a gold mine and already I do some of this for seniors and the disabled who wish to have their own gardens but don't know how to start.

Grow room setup & gardening expert network for needy patients?

It seems to me that there is a need for a network designed to put gardening and grow room setup experts in contact with patients who are willing to grow themselves, but who need help in doing so. I have done this a couple of times now, offered to do it a few more, and just recently had another...

www.420magazine.com

Soon I will expand this out to about a 200 mile radius around my home. Or at least, that is the plan. The world seems to be changing drastically at the moment, and who knows what 2 years has in store for any of us?

That's so funny. Talk about a lucky hit. (mine I mean). Well that's awesome, exactly what I had in mind. One of my goals in life has always been to do something I LOVE for my job. If you have to work, you may as well enjoy it, right? Good stuff. I wish you all the luck in the world. Didn't know you were deaf. Should I type in all caps or can you hear me?

 

[Jon]

Glad to help. It makes me happy when I see that light go on and I know that I am no longer needed. Yes, you can miss out on elements in that lower part of the range, but here is another point. The drift happens, no matter what. If you start out in the middle of the range, you will drift out of the usable range much faster than if you started at the lower part of the range. The longer you are in the range, the more nutes your plants will see. Set your pH to 6.8 and for about 10 minutes, your nutes will be in range until they drift beyond it.... tell the plants to suck it up fast!

Yes, the 6.5 pH advice you see all over the place is actually new... like in the last 7 or 8 years... before that, everyone knew that 6.3 was the hot spot and the point where mathematically, the most nutrients were the most mobile. Then people got lazy and some even decided that adjusting pH was not even necessary and some genius decided to pick the middle of the range and say that is where you need to adjust to.

Senescence: 1. the word you throw out to sound knowledgeable when you have no idea why or what the plant is deficient in. 2. the word to describe the reason your plant is dying out of your control 3. the explanation for a salt lockout, when you don't believe in salt lockouts.

This is a tender subject for me, and a subject in my upcoming book. There are people here who have blocked me just so they can keep using this word in all the definitions given above, and not have to hear me say that they are wrong. Our plants do not have to die at the end in such a violent and ugly manner... it is totally possible to stay green right up to the end. Those who can not do this or will not do this, blame their ugly plants on Senescence.

interesting. And your description of the word has me laughing hard. People are touchy, lol. Yeah, I'm not sold on the starving them out at the end thing with just water. It seems counterproductive. Why do people even do it? I do it cuz I read that if I don't I will taste the Tiger Bloom and Grow Big in my buds (using the FF). But I don't actually KNOW that is true, cuz I never tried it. I am afraid to so far cuz all that work and then just cuz you didn't flush your bud ends up shitty? No thanks. I would prefer to give them nutes all the way to the end and harvest them green. The only reason I don't is cuz I am afraid I'll end up with bud that burn to little black rocks and not white ash. This is going to spawn a longer discussion, cuz you're gonna tell me I don't have to flush and I can nute them til I chop them right? LOL.

I'll tell you what, is there a non-journal spot or something you already have out that addresses this that you can direct me to? I mean, different colored leaves are cool, but can't you have them without starving the plant at the end?

 

[Emilya Green]

interesting. And your description of the word has me laughing hard. People are touchy, lol. Yeah, I'm not sold on the starving them out at the end thing with just water. It seems counterproductive. Why do people even do it? I do it cuz I read that if I don't I will taste the Tiger Bloom and Grow Big in my buds (using the FF). But I don't actually KNOW that is true, cuz I never tried it. I am afraid to so far cuz all that work and then just cuz you didn't flush your bud ends up shitty? No thanks. I would prefer to give them nutes all the way to the end and harvest them green. The only reason I don't is cuz I am afraid I'll end up with bud that burn to little black rocks and not white ash. This is going to spawn a longer discussion, cuz you're gonna tell me I don't have to flush and I can nute them til I chop them right? LOL.

I'll tell you what, is there a non-journal spot or something you already have out that addresses this that you can direct me to? I mean, different colored leaves are cool, but can't you have them without starving the plant at the end?

The cases that are often cited as proof that there is no need to try to flush the nutrients out of our plants, even if that were possible to do, so that they taste and burn clean, are in the outdoor in the ground grown plant and the organically grown plant indoors. Both will have full access to their nutrients right up to the moment of the chop. Neither will be "flushed." Neither will automatically taste of nutrient or burn uncleanly because of the way they were grown. Flushing at the very end to change the burn or the taste can be thrown into that pile of old wive's tales such as the need to hang your plants upside down after the chop, so all the goodness can flow down into the buds.

That being said, there actually is a very important time to flush if you are running synthetic nutes, and that is immediately prior to going into the last 2 weeks of the grow so that the soil can be cleaned of any and all salts that are keeping nutrients from being captured by the soil and away from the roots. Excess salt definitely restricts water and nutrient uptake, and clearing out the pipes just prior to the point where the plant needs more nutrients than ever before as those buds go into their final swell, is just a good idea.

The different colored leaves are not from starvation usually, it is the normal seasonal color change that comes in with cooler temperatures and shorter daylight periods... starvation only causes one color... yellow.

All this being said, there will always be a devoted contingent of growers out there that believe that our plant needs this final struggle with starvation, to be able to throw its all into the completion of those buds, and that by doing so, the quality of the pot will improve beyond what could happen simply by feeding the poor thing. Part of this also comes from the commercial grower's world, where they try to save a buck every chance they get so as to make more profit on their grows. Many commercial growers will not feed their plants on the last watering cycle because they know that the plants will finish out just fine with just water and any leftover nutes in the soil, so why waste a round of nutes on a plant that is not going to have the time to fully utilize them? I see this in the Geoflora schedule, which also calls for skipping the feeding on that last 2 weeks of the grow, but this can be explained by the nature of this organic nutrient system... logic tells us that even without that last feeding, there are still some raw nutes and microbes left in the soil, at least marginally feeding the plants right up to the end.

 

[Jon]

The cases that are often cited as proof that there is no need to try to flush the nutrients out of our plants, even if that were possible to do, so that they taste and burn clean, are in the outdoor in the ground grown plant and the organically grown plant indoors. Both will have full access to their nutrients right up to the moment of the chop. Neither will be "flushed." Neither will automatically taste of nutrient or burn uncleanly because of the way they were grown. Flushing at the very end to change the burn or the taste can be thrown into that pile of old wive's tales such as the need to hang your plants upside down after the chop, so all the goodness can flow down into the buds.

That being said, there actually is a very important time to flush if you are running synthetic nutes, and that is immediately prior to going into the last 2 weeks of the grow so that the soil can be cleaned of any and all salts that are keeping nutrients from being captured by the soil and away from the roots. Excess salt definitely restricts water and nutrient uptake, and clearing out the pipes just prior to the point where the plant needs more nutrients than ever before as those buds go into their final swell, is just a good idea.

The different colored leaves are not from starvation usually, it is the normal seasonal color change that comes in with cooler temperatures and shorter daylight periods... starvation only causes one color... yellow.

All this being said, there will always be a devoted contingent of growers out there that believe that our plant needs this final struggle with starvation, to be able to throw its all into the completion of those buds, and that by doing so, the quality of the pot will improve beyond what could happen simply by feeding the poor thing. Part of this also comes from the commercial grower's world, where they try to save a buck every chance they get so as to make more profit on their grows. Many commercial growers will not feed their plants on the last watering cycle because they know that the plants will finish out just fine with just water and any leftover nutes in the soil, so why waste a round of nutes on a plant that is not going to have the time to fully utilize them? I see this in the Geoflora schedule, which also calls for skipping the feeding on that last 2 weeks of the grow, but this can be explained by the nature of this organic nutrient system... logic tells us that even without that last feeding, there are still some raw nutes and microbes left in the soil, at least marginally feeding the plants right up to the end.

Ok, fair enough. So to truly take advantage of the nute systems you use (at least the FF and Canna), a flush before the last two weeks and using the nutes all the way through the end of the grow is what you do? That would keep the leaves green and the plant looking awesome I would assume. That said, for the plants that are getting the Fox Farms nutes, should I then just flush on the schedule as it's written? Did Fox Farms cover what you outline above in their schedule or is it necessary to "insert" the flush you're referring to before the last two weeks? (It seems from looking at the schedule that they covered it, and I should just go with the schedule as written). And, with the Canna nutes, they only recommend one flush at the very end, for both the photos and autos feeding charts. So I guess it's safe to assume that the Canna falls into the same category as the Fox Farms and I should flush when the schedule tells me to flush? Think it's safe to assume the Canna chart is setup the way it is for a reason? Or, as you suggest above, should I toss in a flush before the final two weeks of fattening with the Canna nutes?

 

[Emilya Green]

I don't know the canna schedule, but yes, the FF schedule calls for this last flush as you go into the last 2 weeks.