Plant Alchemy With KNF: Korean Natural Farming And Jadam

[Hafta]

I find many of these techniques take a few rounds to get the hang of them. Stuff you could have done early but didn't can make a big difference later on. I started my first plant with the weights after I had already supercropped it and many of the branches weren't as flexible as would have been beneficial. Still I did what I could and noted what might have worked better and used that knowledge on the next plant.

I seem to be getting the hang of the basics at least, and am glad i stumbled across @Hafta 's thread (and really grateful he elected to share his technique! )

@scottreid1966

 

[Hafta]

@scottreid1966

Somehow I must have hit the "post" button.
@scottreid1966 , @Azimuth
I am glad that the technique is being utilized, it is quite beneficial. Everyone on this site wants everyone here to be successful and I am happy to share.
Could I impose upon you guys to post some photos showing the use of CST? The wife, and I, would like to see them. Perhaps I can help avoid some issues or make suggestions.

Thanks ahead of time...........

 

[Azimuth]

@Hafta , unfortunately no pics for me yet. Someday, just not yet.

 

[Danishoes21]

As for my ALM (Aged Leaf Mold), or any of the various natural farming concoctions, I'm a bit of an outlier in that not very many growers use those inputs. I have an interest in them and enjoy my various experiments and like to share with anyone who might also have an interest. But don't feel like you're missing out on some common body of knowledge on this stuff. It's actually quite the opposite.

I don't know of any other grower who uses the leaf mold to the extent I do and, while it has worked great for me so far, it is not something I'm yet prepared to suggest others use, at least until I have more experience with it. So, you're not alone in staring in bewilderment at all of the acronyms I throw around, although I do try to spell them out periodically for any new readers.

This thread is a place for me to record ideas I pick up along the way and maybe spark some back and forth with others who might have a different angle on things as I'm learning as much as anyone about this stuff everyday. It's also a place for me to park interesting videos and other background info for future reference. Almost like my personal journal or diary but without the day to day grow updates.

So, kind of like my grow, this thread is a bit unusual compared to most, but it's interesting to me and I hope also for others.

You got a really interesting journal thats for sure. I was not familiar with any of the terminology you are using but find myself now identifying some of the things you have mentioned here with some things I have done in the past and currently using. It does help me understand why it works for me, it will help when it doesnt work.

My current grow is the first time I used the aged bamboo leaf as part of the soil (stuff was all over the soil so It was a clear sign to use), first time I used fermented seaweed as par of the soil and as foliar feed, not the first time using common weeds to create anerobic teas (still cant find a difference in result beetwen aerobic or anerobic, my plants love the one I use)... I am pretty strict with my gardening/farming methods I dont cut corners when it comes to keeping it simply organic. My first rule before even reading a book is read the place where I am growing... sometimes I've taken several weeks to observe and study the place I will grow and this accounts for all grows vegetables and cannabis.

It would really be nice to see a picture or two but thats just me not been able to focus and read more than 10 mins straight without getting sidetracked.

Anyway got lot of respect for the peps willing to try something new, discover and share it.

 

[scottreid1966]

Somehow I must have hit the "post" button.
@scottreid1966 , @Azimuth
I am glad that the technique is being utilized, it is quite beneficial. Everyone on this site wants everyone here to be successful and I am happy to share.
Could I impose upon you guys to post some photos showing the use of CST? The wife, and I, would like to see them. Perhaps I can help avoid some issues or make suggestions.

Thanks ahead of time...........

CST= Cross Stress training?

 

[Hafta]

CST= Cross Stress training?

Constant Stress Training.
With the weights being in continuous motion (air movement, etc) and constant weight stress (gravity), the daily removal of mid-sized fan leaves, and borderline too much light intensity (just outside the "burn range"), the plant(s) develops the structure required to deal with the stress. After the three week into flower partial defoliation, all stress is removed. The weights are moved back towards the trunk as the flowers develop.
The plant can now focus that " now excess" capability into flower growth.

 

[scottreid1966]

CST= Cross Stress training?

So is CST another word for quadlining? Still trying to learn the lingo.

 

[Hafta]

So is CST another word for quadlining? Still trying to learn the lingo.

No. It is something I coined to describe the growing technique.

 

[scottreid1966]

No. It is something I coined to describe the growing technique.

So what does it stand for?

 

[Azimuth]

Constant Stress Training.

 

[Azimuth]

still cant find a difference in result beetwen aerobic or anerobic, my plants love the one I use)

The aerobic tea people say you really need a microscope to tell what you have when since the life cycle of the microbes is so short and slight changes in temp, or available food or whatever can have a dramatic effect on what you actually are growing at any point in time, including the negative ones you don't want to cultivate. So without a microscope it's really hit or miss in terms of what you're adding to your garden.

That's why I stopped brewing aerobic teas and moved to either simple extracts or the anaerobic ones.

Also Master Cho makes the point that not too far beneath the surface there is little oxygen so maybe cultivating the anaerobic microbes is better anyway. In any event, like you said, the plants do live that stuff even though it smells awful to us.

 

[Azimuth]

Experiments Update

I've got a few different experiments going right now so I thought I'd make an update post on them.

Sip #1 (Gravel Bed) vs. SIP#2 (Cave Structure)
This one will have to be redone down the road given the N deficiency in #1. But, both plants look great, with #2 actually looking better than the other, but #1 had an 'N' deficiency for 3 weeks before I found a solution so I'm sure that set it back a bit.

#1 has much more in the way of roots in the reservoir, but that seems to just be because of how the container was built. It also ran out of gas in terms of nutrients about 3 weeks earlier than #2. Put another way, #2 went about 25% longer before starting to show deficiencies. What's interesting about that is that #2 has about 25% more soil in the container because of the way it was constructed. Coincidence or causative? I'd bet the latter as that would fit more into what experienced organic growers all say, which is the larger the container the better since a small container can't contain enough nutrients to last a whole grow.

I'll be flowering them next and will likely do another round with those same containers after they finish flowering. But I've been very impressed with both structures.

Water and Fertilize ONLY through the Reservoir
Fail. The plants only went so far/long before showing deficiencies and adding my extract fertilizers to the reservoir water did not seem to make any difference. Adding a top dress of worm castings has improved things after about a week or so, so I'll be top dressing and fertigating from the top weekly until I get a better handle on how to keep them happy.

So, whether it is a case of two different types of roots as I had earlier postulated, or maybe something else like @ReservoirDog suggested, either way I think I'll be watering with plain water through the reservoir going forward. And, since there is no need to worry about microbes in the reservoir, regular tap water should be fine if I run out of rain water.

ResDog pointed out that commercial products using this bottom watering approach strongly recommend mineral salts be added to the reservoir water to fertilize the plants. So maybe the KNF and Jadam Liquid nutes are just not able to be used directly without some sort of carrying agent. The Natural Farming extracts are supposed to be highly plant available, but maybe that's in the presence of something else like microbes or salts, etc. I had the same poor results using my extracts to try to run a Hempy grow. But, since I don't want to add salts to the mix, I'll have to find an alternative method to deliver the goods. Top feeding it is.

RWC as a fix for 'N' deficiency
This one looks like a success. Once I added the castings as a topdress, it took about 3 days to start to see better color and it's been about a week and the plants are definitely looking better although not fully back to all nice healthy green yet. I had tried my various extractions including FAA (fish amino acid) in the reservoir to no avail, and even started top feeding them, but the biggest improvement came when I added a fresh layer of castings to the top and covered that with leaf mold. So going forward I'll plan to topdress with the castings at least every couple of months if not sooner. That actually should work out great since that would be about the time I'd normally up-pot anyway before promoting a plant to flower. It got a bit extended this round because I am trying some pollen chucking in the flower box and I didn't want to comingle these plants with the others I'm trying to fertilize. But I'm glad it did since that gave me the push to solve the N problem.

But that brings up a very interesting question I know most of you are thinking about even though no-one has verbalized it yet which is "So, Azi, what is it about the worm castings that work so well? Is it the great nutrients contained in the castings themselves, or is it more about the microbes they add, or maybe some combination?" Those are really good questions and I plan an experiment to find out. Once I get the seeding experiment concluded and some plants promoted into flower I'll have some veg cab space that I can use to try a few things out.

SIP Cloner
This one is a work in progress. Plants root better without water in the reservoir because that keeps the soil too moist. I like the structure of being able to root plants directly in a small SIP container which would eliminate an up-pot but I haven't had great success with this method, at least not yet.

Bland Soil, SIP vs Regular Pot
As more and more roots reach the reservoir the SIP plant is starting to pull away from the regular container plant in terms of performance, but it is not a dramatic difference at least yet. It does, however, demonstrate the value of the reservoir structure as being beneficial. Still, it seems the combination of the reservoir and the improved soil is what has contributed to the dramatic improvement I've seen with all of the plants I've converted over.

Directly Seeded SIP
Total homerun. The seedling didn't have to take any time at all to convert soil roots to water roots (if that is what happens). As soon as the tap root from the seed hit the reservoir it took off. This is easily the best plant from seed I've ever grown both in speed and health. I grow mostly from clones, but I will use this method for most seeds I grow in the future.

Training with Fishing Weights (rather than ties)
I'm quite happy with Hafta's approach to structuring the plant. His CST (Constant Stress Training) appears to be quite good. I'm mainly using the fishing weights part of his approach, but am also trying to remember to pluck a leaf or three each day. I'm growing indoors in a small cabinet so I don't get a lot of benefit for the limbs swaying in the breeze but I get some as I take the plants in and out-of the cabinet.

***********

I think that's most of what I'm experimenting with, and so far it's been very worthwhile. The results of these tests have changed significantly the way I grow and I think I am mostly thru my transition to using what I have learned.

The new seedling is the first plant to benefit from many of the lessons so I'm going to try to run that one straight thru without any experimental detours and see how it goes. I just topped it to start training it out in a quadline because I think I'll have enough room to shape it once the two original SIP's get promoted to flower in another week or two. It may end up being too big and I'll have to resort to manifolding plants in the future given the real estate I'm working with, but that would be a nice "problem" to have.

 

[Hafta]

Experiments Update

I've got a few different experiments going right now so I thought I'd make an update post on them.

Sip #1 (Gravel Bed) vs. SIP#2 (Cave Structure)
This one will have to be redone down the road given the N deficiency in #1. But, both plants look great, with #2 actually looking better than the other, but #1 had an 'N' deficiency for 3 weeks before I found a solution so I'm sure that set it back a bit.

#1 has much more in the way of roots in the reservoir, but that seems to just be because of how the container was built. It also ran out of gas in terms of nutrients about 3 weeks earlier than #2. Put another way, #2 went about 25% longer before starting to show deficiencies. What's interesting about that is that #2 has about 25% more soil in the container because of the way it was constructed. Coincidence or causative? I'd bet the latter as that would fit more into what experienced organic growers all say, which is the larger the container the better since a small container can't contain enough nutrients to last a whole grow.

I'll be flowering them next and will likely do another round with those same containers after they finish flowering. But I've been very impressed with both structures.

Water and Fertilize ONLY through the Reservoir
Fail. The plants only went so far/long before showing deficiencies and adding my extract fertilizers to the reservoir water did not seem to make any difference. Adding a top dress of worm castings has improved things after about a week or so, so I'll be top dressing and fertigating from the top weekly until I get a better handle on how to keep them happy.

So, whether it is a case of two different types of roots as I had earlier postulated, or maybe something else like @ReservoirDog suggested, either way I think I'll be watering with plain water through the reservoir going forward. And, since there is no need to worry about microbes in the reservoir, regular tap water should be fine if I run out of rain water.

ResDog pointed out that commercial products using this bottom watering approach strongly recommend mineral salts be added to the reservoir water to fertilize the plants. So maybe the KNF and Jadam Liquid nutes are just not able to be used directly without some sort of carrying agent. The Natural Farming extracts are supposed to be highly plant available, but maybe that's in the presence of something else like microbes or salts, etc. I had the same poor results using my extracts to try to run a Hempy grow. But, since I don't want to add salts to the mix, I'll have to find an alternative method to deliver the goods. Top feeding it is.

RWC as a fix for 'N' deficiency
This one looks like a success. Once I added the castings as a topdress, it took about 3 days to start to see better color and it's been about a week and the plants are definitely looking better although not fully back to all nice healthy green yet. I had tried my various extractions including FAA (fish amino acid) in the reservoir to no avail, and even started top feeding them, but the biggest improvement came when I added a fresh layer of castings to the top and covered that with leaf mold. So going forward I'll plan to topdress with the castings at least every couple of months if not sooner. That actually should work out great since that would be about the time I'd normally up-pot anyway before promoting a plant to flower. It got a bit extended this round because I am trying some pollen chucking in the flower box and I didn't want to comingle these plants with the others I'm trying to fertilize. But I'm glad it did since that gave me the push to solve the N problem.

But that brings up a very interesting question I know most of you are thinking about even though no-one has verbalized it yet which is "So, Azi, what is it about the worm castings that work so well? Is it the great nutrients contained in the castings themselves, or is it more about the microbes they add, or maybe some combination?" Those are really good questions and I plan an experiment to find out. Once I get the seeding experiment concluded and some plants promoted into flower I'll have some veg cab space that I can use to try a few things out.

SIP Cloner
This one is a work in progress. Plants root better without water in the reservoir because that keeps the soil too moist. I like the structure of being able to root plants directly in a small SIP container which would eliminate an up-pot but I haven't had great success with this method, at least not yet.

Bland Soil, SIP vs Regular Pot
As more and more roots reach the reservoir the SIP plant is starting to pull away from the regular container plant in terms of performance, but it is not a dramatic difference at least yet. It does, however, demonstrate the value of the reservoir structure as being beneficial. Still, it seems the combination of the reservoir and the improved soil is what has contributed to the dramatic improvement I've seen with all of the plants I've concerted over.

Directly Seeded SIP
Total homerun. The seedling didn't have to take any time at all to convert soil roots to water roots (if that is what happens). As soon as the tap root from the seed hit the reservoir it took off. This is easily the best plant from seed I've ever grown both in speed and health. I grow mostly from clones, but I will use this method for most seeds I grow in the future.

Training with Fishing Weights (rather than ties)
I'm quite happy with Hafta's approach to structuring the plant. His CST (Constant Stress Training) appears to be quite good. I'm mainly using the fishing weights part of his approach, but am also trying to remember to pluck a leaf or three each day. I'm growing indoors in a small cabinet so I don't get a lot of benefit for the limbs swaying in the breeze but I get some as I take the plants in and out-of the cabinet.

***********

I think that's most of what I'm experimenting with, and so far it's been very worthwhile. The results of these tests have changed significantly the way I grow and I think I am mostly thru my transition to using what I have learned.

The new seedling is the first plant to benefit from many of the lessons so I'm going to try to run that one straight thru without any experimental detours and see how it goes. I just topped it to start training it out in a quadline because I think I'll have enough room to shape it once the two original SIP's get promoted to flower in another week or two. It may end up being too big and I'll have to resort to manifolding plants in the future given the real estate I'm working with, but that would be a nice "problem" to have.

Nicely written. You have WAY more time than I do. Perhaps I fish too much?

I also grow in a cabinet and have two circulating fans that I focus to increase the "swaying branches" affect. I use high power magnets (it is a steel cabinet) to hang the fans and a couple of additional 65 watt LED grow lights. The magnets slide and allow positioning anywhere you like.

 

[Azimuth]

Nicely written. You have WAY more time than I do. Perhaps I fish too much?

I also grow in a cabinet and have two circulating fans that I focus to increase the "swaying branches" affect. I use high power magnets (it is a steel cabinet) to hang the fans and a couple of additional 65 watt LED grow lights. The magnets slide and allow positioning anywhere you like.

Thanks, Hafta. That's a good idea. I had a directional fan going but in my small box it was drying out my cuttings and was not allowing me to root clones. I changed the cloning part but never did revisit the fan.

It doesn't seem to be too much of an issue but would probably improve things. I'll have to think on it some and see what I come up with.

 

[Azimuth]

Nicely written. You have WAY more time than I do. Perhaps I fish too much?

You mean because of all of the various experiments I have going or that my posts are too wordy?

 

[Hafta]

You mean because of all of the various experiments I have going or that my posts are too wordy?

Because you have so many experiments going..................
I thought a single journal was time consuming.

 

[Azimuth]

Today I harvested another experiment, this one my first attempt at making seeds. I thought I saw the tips of seeds poking out through their husks as that plant got late into the grow but, having never done this before, I really didn't know what I was looking at.

Sure enough, that's exactly what they were. I’m pretty stoked. These are from a male and female of the same strain and I'm hoping to go on a pheno hunt at some point looking for the traits of a plant I grew before I knew much of anything. It had all of the best traits from this strain but I didn't know enough to keep it around.

But now I should have enough seeds to hopefully find another close to it at least.

I'm not sure what the best way is to separate the seeds from the plant matter surrounding them so I guess I'll try a few things and see what works best. I tried prying out the ones I could readily see when I was trimming but only got to about a half dozen before deciding that was too much work.

So, I trimmed the bud sticks, washed them and hung them to dry with a makeshift seed catcher hung underneath them in the hopes that as the seed husks dry, the seeds will be released naturally and I won't have to do much work. Probably wishful thinking.

I've got two more females of the same strain in flower going now along with the stud male and I'm hoping to get a total of at least a hundred seeds or so to work with. Then I'll have to clean the flower box as best I can to get back to my normal routine.

The other two females in the flower box right now are the SIP vs Regular Pot experiment to compare those two setups all the way thru harvest. And, no surprise to me, the SIP is the better looking of the two plants.

After those are harvested, the next two will be the comparison of the two different SIP structures (gravel bed vs cave/air gap) and then the Direct Seeded SIP after that. By then, I should have most of the information I need to inform my grows going forward.

So, lots of things going on but hey, at least I'm not bored!

 

[Azimuth]

After hang drying the buds for a week or so they were dry enough to go fishing for seeds. Only one fell out during the hang and the rest were a real pain to dig out. I broke the buds apart and got most of them I think.

The result of this exercise makes me question why seeds are so expensive. It's not like they're rare or anything. Fertilizing this first plant was an afterthought and I really only started trying at about week 5 and only half heartedly at that. I basically took a few flowers from a male that was still in veg and put them on a few of the female buds, and shook a flowering male plant over it a couple of times. That was it. I was hoping to get a dozen or so seeds out of this one and a lot more from the two I have in flower now that I put more effort into.

I haven't counted the seeds yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to be close to my total target of 100 seeds already! And the next two plants could each easily more than double this haul as I was more diligent in my fertilization efforts. For those, I tipped the male plant that was next to the females over a tray and shook the branches releasing the fine pollen into the tray and then dipped a makeup brush into the pollen and then onto each bud on both females. I tried to touch each pistil on each bud a few times, dipping the brush in fresh pollen each time.

The next day most of the pistils had shrunken and turned a darker color so I assume I was successful. So, from these three  very small plants, I expect to have several hundred, maybe 500? seeds and this is my first go and I basically have little idea of what I'm doing.

So I would imagine a professional grower growing full sized plants (mine are flowering in 1L containers) would likely produce many, many thousands of seeds on a single plant. And we buy them "by the each" at $10 a piece. Makes no sense.

*******

Edit: Holy Crap!

I just counted them and I have 253 legit seeds, as good looking as anything you'd get from a seed seller and another third(?) as many immature, pale, or smaller seeds. I don't know about viability but they look as good as anything I've ever bot so I would imagine I'd get pretty good germination rates. Once I make some room in my veg space I'll try to sprout one or two and see if they pop. These seeds are (The Black x The Black).

 

[Danishoes21]

After hang drying the buds for a week or so they were dry enough to go fishing for seeds. Only one fell out during the hang and the rest were a real pain to dig out. I broke the buds apart and got most of them I think.

The result of this exercise makes me question why seeds are so expensive. It's not like they're rare or anything. Fertilizing this first plant was an afterthought and I really only started trying at about week 5 and only half heartedly at that. I basically took a few flowers from a male that was still in veg and put them on a few of the female buds, and shook a flowering male plant over it a couple of times. That was it. I was hoping to get a dozen or so seeds out of this one and a lot more from the two I have in flower now that I put more effort into.

I haven't counted the seeds yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to be close to my total target of 100 seeds already! And the next two plants could each easily more than double this haul as I was more diligent in my fertilization efforts. For those, I tipped the male plant that was next to the females over a tray and shook the branches releasing the fine pollen into the tray and then dipped a makeup brush into the pollen and then onto each bud on both females. I tried to touch each pistil on each bud a few times, dipping the brush in fresh pollen each time.

The next day most of the pistils had shrunken and turned a darker color so I assume I was successful. So, from these three  very small plants, I expect to have several hundred, maybe 500? seeds and this is my first go and I basically have little idea of what I'm doing.

So I would imagine a professional grower growing full sized plants (mine are flowering in 1L containers) would likely produce many, many thousands of seeds on a single plant. And we buy them "by the each" at $10 a piece. Makes no sense.

*******

Edit: Holy Crap!

I just counted them and I have 253 legit seeds, as good looking as anything you'd get from a seed seller and another third(?) as many immature, pale, or smaller seeds. I don't know about viability but they look as good as anything I've ever bot so I would imagine I'd get pretty good germination rates. Once I make some room in my veg space I'll try to sprout one or two and see if they pop. These seeds are (The Black x The Black).

Awesome seed haul Azi. Cant wait to get back at making seeds myself.

yeah I ask myself the same question why are seeds so expensive? and I understand now 5 years after legalization in Canada... Corporations wanting to make a business out of a HYPE, so they make (with all do respect to serious breeders) they make GARBAGE crosses of heavyly diluted genetics with cool names to target a section of the population that consumes cannabis the real genetics they keep in vaults since the pattenting era of cannabis is already started.

Many companies are actually doing pattents and certification of genetics that they will only hold with the ends to sell it and make millions.
Im pretty sure at the peak of Amsterdam genetics they produced millions of seeds a year. Imagine the profit of selling one seed "feminized" for 25$, easy math millions and millions, and they did good at targeting who they sold their seeds.

There is also a market for regular seeds and is considerably cheaper... the genetics behind regular seeds is more trustworthy imo.

I feel the old genetics are harder and harder to find, and if you find them its nearly impossible to trace them back to actually see if they arent making false claims regarding a specific strain... I applaud anyone making seeds even by mistake, have your own seeds, thats the future.

 

[Azimuth]

Edit: Holy Crap!

I just counted them and I have 253 legit seeds, as good looking as anything you'd get from a seed seller and another third(?) as many immature, pale, or smaller seeds.

I went to add a gram of the leftover material to some olive oil and as I was chopping it up 5 MORE quality looking seeds fell out so who knows how many more are hidden away in the rest of the material. Once the first one dropped out I scrutinized the rest pretty well and didn't see any sign of the other 4. Unbelievable.

I guess I'll have to go through the rest more carefully. I've got a few other experiments lined up before I test germination so that test will be a few months down the road, but I like my chances.