Radogast 2 - Return of the Clones

xtrchessreal said:
Rad: I thought soil should be at 6.5 or even a little lower. 7.0 and 7.2 is high according to my soil ph charts. Manganese and Iron above 6.5 is unavailable. Checkout the pictorial here on 420 and look at the pics of iron def and manganese def. Cannabis Plant and Pest Problem Solver - Pictorial
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:peace:
I dunno how this double posted on me sorry about that.
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I think soil PH matters, but
I'm just going to point out that if nutrient availability were as described
in the top and bottom charts with the vertical bars, none of our plants would ever grow!
We would have to supply nutrients on alternate waterings with customized PH nute combinations.

It's charts like that that make me believe the chart makers are full of hidden agendas.

So it makes it tough to behave rationally in response to this kind of chart.
 
Soil mixture

I mixed up measured amounts of Clackamas Coot dust, Clackamus Coot nutrients, worm castings and a heaping teaspoon of TM-7 (humid acid ) from Build A Soil in 10 gallon pots this afternoon.

I was going to add some neem for pest discouragement, but I have liquid, not a solid form.
I plan to add compost, rock, and sphagnum peat moss.

Anything else you would suggest?
 
Radogast said:
Soil mixture

I mixed up measured amounts of Clackamas Coot dust, Clackamus Coot nutrients, worm castings and a heaping teaspoon of TM-7 (humid acid ) from Build A Soil in 10 gallon pots this afternoon.

I was going to add some neem for pest discouragement, but I have liquid, not a solid form.
I plan to add compost, rock, and sphagnum peat moss.

Anything else you would suggest?
Click to expand...

At this point you don't need the TM-7, and Kuddos to you for buying it, you lucky man. The CC mix already has neem in it - no need to add any more.

This is an excellent start. If you wanted to add diversity, might I suggest rice hulls. They add so much more than just aeration and if you wanted to do the SWICK, they make an excellent addition for extra aeration.
 
I can't say much to the graph, I'm just not a statistics graph kind of guy. But i can tell you for 7 years I have been the grunt in the collective gardens and i do the labor work, we don't have a auto water system so I do it by hand and was taught by a 40 year old grower with 14 years experience that runs the collective that 6.0 is the pH and if you get away from this either up or down you will have issues the further you get the worst it will be. Now not all plants are the same, some like real acidic soil (Japanese iris pH5.5) others like a moderate soil (cannabis 6.0) and some prefer a higher alkaline soil (blue flax pH 7.0) I've used this even with my clones and have had great success when some recommend lowering pH to 5.5 for clones. I was taught 6.0, and whenever I go away from that I get this

20150122_080222.jpg


Death. This pH issue was in my personal grow. after looking at notes and date pics were taken I discovered that any th ing lower then 5.5 will completely kill your roots to your cannabis plants. All my other herbs, cilantro, basil, lavendar, elderberry, and the others are fine with non pH tap water at 7.0 ppm is 47. I add tomato pellets for a slow nutrient release in my house plants.

I&I
 
A well balanced living organic soil will buffer ph. It is a non-concern with LOS.
 
Sweetsue said:
A well balanced living organic soil will buffer ph. It is a non-concern with LOS.
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So true, Sue. :cheesygrinsmiley: Mine's by no means LOS, but the large amount of local forest humus in my mix has the same buffering effect. Prevention better than cure, and all that. :thumb:
 
Hey Rado, what's shaking?

PH is a non issue in a living organic soil grow. Lots of folks swear otherwise even master cannabis growers, the thing is this: a guy with 40 years experience using bottles doesn't really have things figured out. He just has figured out what amount of what bottle works with what other bottle and at what time. A life time of that doesn't teach you much about how plants grow, Gfc. No offense. I think it's this: believe the mythsalesmen and buy their products, or see for yourself.

Who PH adjusts the soil in the mighty redwood forests?
 
No offense takeN. I have much respect and love for organic growers and didn't mean to give advice that didn't pertain to this grow. how many plants do u think u could keep fully organic healthy quality with quantity, 45? I don't see it possible and if so multiple gardners. I tend a collective garden of 45 including my own 30 at home w fiance license as well. I'm overwhelmed with my bottle nutes with the amount I tend to so pH does matter just not to this grow or your guys style to be clear for other bottle growers. And it is experience no matter what u use to feed them, just a different experience. No reason to bash on bottle growers, mine are aptus nutes ad I use with my veggies, I'm not turning green and haven't been to a doctor in over 7 years ;)

My bottles I picked and didn't listen to a salesman. I did research on the brand aptus and was sold. Organic is good I've smoked plenty of it, but the mass is use to and likes the bottle fed. Organic just gets the hippies like me that pay 5$ for a gallon of milk compared to the 3$ slime shit. I've tasted both

I&I
 
GFCollective,

Despite where I want to be in the future, my clones are being bottle grown. So your comments are spot in for where I need go today.
When you were advising PH of 6.0, that is adjusted WATER PH, right?

I started this grow with bottles and peat moss and perlite heavy soil. I've transplanted a few clones into pure potting soil.
At this point my simple goal is to get these clones to grow out so I can take clones from them and pamper them in healthy, living soil.
 
My comment was only meant to make you smile at how easy your new soil will make your life. No PH concerns, no careful measuring, no flushing. If you were to set those monster trays up as a giant SWICK, watering becomes a five minute chore to refill. You'll have more time to play with your land and the plants will grow all on their own. WooHoo!!!

When you plant them into new soil those clones will sigh in relief. My hope is that they'll explode in growth for you. Can't wait to watch the excitement. I figure they know it's coming and that's why they're hanging on so tenaciously.

:green_heart:
 
Hey there rado and friends. yes I personally don't mix any nutes for my clones but that's because I use happy frog soil So they have the base nutes for young plants. I have mixed beone from mad farmers to help the roots if plants aren't growing as fast and I feel or assume it's due to the roots.

My ppm is also only 47 coming from the well so its not full of chlorine from the city or anything else they put in it.

Using peat moss and perite I can't give accurate advise on. I've grown with peat moss before but only in 3g pots with established plants. They recieved a full feeding from transplant till flush And Did fine. I've got pots going with coco and perlite right now and it's same thing but I don't care for how much more water the coconut shavings absorb. I water twice as much to the same Size pot as I did my happy frog soil.

So to answer your question finally ;)

My ppm from tap is 47
my pH from tap is 7.0

I lower pH to 6.0 (I use mad farmers pH up and down) I plan to start adjusting with lemons and not sure what makes pH go up, anyone here know? Mad farmers has no dyes though and I like pH'ing without the worry of a sensor going bad so I use the liquid pH kit.

I have heard of growers going to 5.5 but I've never moved from 6.0 as that's what I was taught and I've watched it work for years In many many strains.

Sorry this should have been a easy answer that has turned into a page :p but here is a pic comparison of my baby clones a few months back maybe half a year.

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The one with not much roots going on, is regular water.
The one with a great root ball, is a xtreme Gardners brand of compost tea (kinda like your guys worm bin) they gather the fine worm poo and other things and I throw the package in 5g buckets. This was my first use on clones with the tea and it had great results. I never pH the tea and i did recently, it was 6.5-7.0 so maybe that has to deal with what corganics was talking about. In a natural form u don't need to pH but everytime with bottles I get away from 6.0 tips turn brown, growth slows, and issues form.

Plain 6.0 water would be the safest with a ppm no more then 550 I'd say but that's a opinion.

(Posted from cell and was hard to see how off track I got, sorry if I confused anyone or everyone)

I&I
 
GFcollective,
Your post was neither long or rambling, it probably just looked long on your cell phone.
You could have added a tale about the farmer's daughter and I still would read it :)

My PPM was lower than previous measurements, barely 80 PPM on the aquarium dip sticks.
Previously it was 120ish. Never a whiff of chlorine or chloramine.
The wonderful water here must be why we have so many indoor growers.


SweetSue,

I would never assume anything but a helpful, supportive comment from you. :)

I was planning to start the seedlings in the big pots. Their genetics have never gone anywhere and they deserve it first.

I'm having a heck of a time finding a good compost in all these piles of snow. I don't want to wait until April for the normal spring supplies. I also don't want to spend another $75-100 on worm castings when I could have the added complexity of a good compost while spending less.

Home Depot didn't even have peat moss or lava rock yesterday morning. The landscape rock companies are buried in snow. I feel like a criminal asking for soil supplies in winter.

I can see many internet searches in my future.
 
80 ppm is perfect, I don't have a degree in biology but I've read that 300-500 ppm is drinkable (however I would never drink it)

The water from the collective grow in the city of tacoma is brown for a good minute and then smells strong of chlorine shortly after the rust clears out of the water. It's jah awful. Everytime I go there I'm glad I live in the moutains.

I&I
 
Rad:

I was wondering of you looked at the pictorial and the explanation of soil ph for specified Fe Iron def and the Mn Manganese def. Those charts I added were just for quick reference.

I may not understand this LOS thing you are doing so I apologize for posting things that may not apply to your situation.

When you posted your PH values of the water before it went in and then after it came out I saw there was a difference at the generally high end. To me this raised a flag. The PH rises as it passes through your soil so it means the average of the soil PH is even higher than the water PH after it has passed through. In other words the water is collecting IONs from the soil. This means the soil has more to give than it does to take away. I get all sciencee because I have a background in science.

:peace:

I just wanted to say that I have now read about LOS and understand the concept. Basically you use your old soil but add things to it that make it a living soil similar to what you might find in nature. Many reasons this is beneficial the biggest for me would be the build up of used soil in my 20x20 back yard. In a few years time this may become a problem, however I also live in a townhome situation and the smell of composting would likely get me some complaints. I'll have to look into this further as I go and "asses" this idea being a viable option for me. (asses the window) If you saw it you'll know it :)

Having said that and with not any experience in LOS I would still argue that your soil PH could be as high as 8 since the water after flowing through it was averaging 7 and 7.2. You are probably waiting on some organic processes to start to take place which might help this. But at the moment this is likely the reason your clones from last May are still struggling.

As I said I have a science background and I focus on little things, perhaps too much, so I apologize if this came out sounding expert-ish or smackdown-like - I am the first to admit I am not an expert. :Love:
 
Mr. xtrchessrealx :thumb:

I agree with your assessment. My Clones are in 2 kinds of soil: perlite/peat/potting soil and plain potting soil.
The Living Soil (Clackamas Coot version) that I am assembling is a dream for the future.
Check out Sweetsue's grow for a bodacious example of LOS (just watched Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure)

Since I agree with your assessment, next water will be bottled nutes PH down to 6.0
Hopefully I can get some BASIC growth out of these plants.

Sorry if the talk of soil building is confusing, if all I had to offer was my raggedy plant pictures, I'd be too bored to keep a journal.
They remind me of my oldest daughter: good girls with good genetics that, sadly, don't want to grow up and be productive.
 
It's sound advice for the clones xtrchessreal, and may well save them for future adventures. Your post didn't come across as anything less than helpful info from a knowledgable grower.

Incidentally, compost doesn't usually give off smells that should cause you grief in your townhouse neighborhood. A well-constructed compost pile just smells like earth. If you toss in kitchen scraps they can be buried to counter any smells and help decompose more quickly. The resulting product is like gold to a plot of land.

Kids Rad - what can you do? We had one in each model. The daughter is my rock and lives in the apartment next door. She has a severe anxiety disorder but still holds her mother together when life gets too challenging. Her brother is a captain in the army and married a woman who decided right off that I was the mother-in-law from hell. That strong and confident man I raised turned into a whipped a-hole, and now we've been cut out and may never see our delightful granddaughters again. Never saw that coming when we sent him off to conquer the world. All you can do is love them and hope for the best.
 
If this journal was boring I probably wouldn't keep posting on here, don't beat yourself up about that. I have found lots of good humor here with interesting discussions. I will check out the Clakamas Coot LOS style you talk about as well as Sweetsue's grow for further reference. This might be something I can do.

The recycling is appealing. We already recycle plastics and take scrap metal in for money and since we're vegan our actual trash is just kitchen scraps that ends up being the size of a half full plastic grocery bag once a week. Its funny because we don't use a trash can for the trash pickup it is so little we just drop it in a neighbors container, of which they have five containers every week! In fact the neighbor has had complaints from Waste Management because they leave so much out, its a bit ridiculous.

Sweetsue, do you think its possible to compost inside with a bin or two? I figure the most soil I would need is about equal to three 2CUft Happy Frog bags for a grow. I am evaluating it, costs of bin, costs of additives and then compared to costs of just buying soil, how many years out before I am saving money etc. I can see that if some of the additives are from my kitchen scraps that saves me a ton over time. Anyway, I'll be looking at all your grow journals to see what needs to be done and then "Asses" the window :)

You know what Sweetsue I don't have kids never will but I am old enough to know that my mom did everything she could during the time I was raised and I don't hold any grudges and just respect her and love her for who she is. When I was married I was whipped too and during that time I avoided my mom. It wasn't until I got away from my wife a few years I realized the hold she had on me. I read your advice on this forum and I know you are a valuable person. Just let your a-hole of a son be an a-hole he'll be back when he gets a bit older. You can't beat yourself up and second guess your life. Live it the way you want, if your son doesn't get it, live and let live.

:peace:
 
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