Ready to quit growing due to low quality & smell

[Enjoil]

Lol we strait hijacked dudes page. My apologies brother. I’m high af.

 

[SauronBlue]

Lol we strait hijacked dudes page. My apologies brother. I’m high af.

Not a problem, sometimes ur just on a topic. I want to like LEDs bc they may cost more, but they last way longer, with no bulb changes, so you already get your extra upfront cost back from the longevity. Then you save more because they use overall less energy to give the same amount of light, so your light bill is less. On top of that, the extra energy that HIDs use is mostly all the extra heat given off (I'd say LEDs give about 1/3 less heat), so you don't need to get rid of this extra heat, which is an added savings. Like most things, if you can pay more upfront, you get a better product that pays for itself over time vs the competition. The only issue for me is if there's any actual advantage in light quality or something from HIDs, which seems to be a "no".

In other news, I let my plants go as long as I could without water. I usually water the bloom every other day, I was planning to water on ther 4th day, and skip a feed, but then I screwed up the 20gal of nutes bc I wanted to be on a different week of the feed schedule, and I didn't have another 20gal of good water (sat out to let chlorine off-gas) sitting around, so I tried to push it. The next day I started to see branches so limp that they were almost folded over under the weight of heavy buds. I know, some would say a problem they wouldn't mind having, but after feeding them the 5th night, they were still falling over and breaking off by the next day and day after. I've been trying to get ahead of anything that looks heavy, and get a stake in there, but it's like some of these buds got suicidal. I thought having sand over the dirt for thrips, and watering thru that layer, I'd be giving the plants some silica, but I'm gonna seriously need to add some silica to my regimen to toughen up these stalks.

10 of my 14 seeds have grown a tail and been buried, but I'm worried about the clones I got from my friend. They seem so dusty that I'm worried about powdery mold, and the leaves have started to go yellow, even though I gave them a healthy feeding. I'm used to cloning healthy, green growth, I don't want to lose the genetics by chopping the plants to clone, then losing the clones bc they started off weak, and I don't want them to die in the cups before I can multiply them thru cloning.
I've got one cheese plant that seems to be the poster-child for foxtailing. Almost all of the buds up and down this plant are growing tentacles. The same plant is also the main example of what used to plague my plants. I think it's due to over-watering, but I'm not sure. The leaves look burned or sometimes just dry, and quickly they become completely dry, crunchy and brown. This used to start all over my flower room, starting with fans, then sugar leaves, and I'd have to chop before the buds became affected. Most of my plants stayed green after the flush, a few got yellow, limp leaves, and only this one is getting the crunchy brown.

 

[SauronBlue]

Right now I'm flowering Cheeselicious and Purple Diesel Daze by Europa seeds from attitude seedbank. I've used various seeds from different breeders, mostly from attitude or bagseed. I just popped 13 (of 14) seeds from a local breeder that were recommended to me for their quality, and I got 2 clones from a friend who swears they are the killer sour diesel. The 2 clones were lousy with powdery mildew, but I wanted to try to salvage the genetics, so I wiped every leaf down with a mix of H2O2 and water. The mold managed to get on a few of my veg plants (and it was not what I expected. I thought it would jump from leaf to leaf, indiscriminately, but instead it seemed to infect a whole plant, then move to the next. Plants near the clones started showing dots of dust on the leaves, but leaves of other plants that were touching the infected plants were fine. Hopefully they stay that way.), which I threw out quickly and carefully. The clones themselves looked PISSED the next day, all wilted and yellowing, but no powder. In the past few days, they've stood back up, but are still a bit worse for wear, I'll see if they pull thru. Meanwhile, my hydro guy says that he's seen ppl fighting powdery mildew for years. They'll spray w fungicide and get everything under control, but when they stop spraying, it comes back. You can't spray flowers, so if that's true, only scrapping everything and starting over seems to work. He says it's like herpes, where it may go dormant on the surface, but it's in the plant, and it'll have an outbreak eventually. I've tossed out 3 of my plants ready for flower, due to mold spots popping up, and another 2 are in quarantine from the rest, while I chop off any leaves that show signs. I may have screwed the whole next crop with these 2 clones. I'm trying to space things further apart with the room from the removed plants, and watching everything closely.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .
When I noticed the mold . . . . . . . . . . . The lower node still dirty . . . . . . . . . . . The next day, almost dead


9 Gelato and Do-si-dos cross and 4 Cherry Diesel x Lemon Royale for the pheno hunt


A couple days later and they're looking better, but who knows?


Mold: The gift that keeps giving

I decided to harvest this crop at 8 weeks, rather than stretch to 10 in search of better quality. I've already grown these 2 strains out to 10 weeks, and they didn't wow me with potency, so I figure I'm not missing much. Also, I was using a self-made drying chamber to dry the buds, but I need to trim all the buds off the plants to get them in the bin/racks, and I want to hang the whole plants this time, to take the advice of dry trimming (I hate dry trimming. it's a pain to cut the dry leaves off[compared to the fresh leaves sticking straight out and not crumbly dry], you knock off more trichs messing w the dried buds, and ur trim is for shit- no quality bubble hash from that dried out crap), but the only place that I can house this amount of plants and control the temp/humidity, other than my dry chamber is in the flower room. So, my next crop will have to wait a week, and I'll stretch lines across the room to hang them where they are.

Bud Porn

 

[Moto258]

I’m not an expert by any means but I’m learning to be one, and from what I’ve been reading and trying to understand your dilemma with the lose of terps. I’d first start off with your nutrients and either grow full organic or full synthetic. Either which way I’ll explain why I’m getting to my point on nutrients and why I think it could be many things causing your issues being that every grower has some ways of growing to suet their needs. But first start off by finding the right types of food because if your feeding synthetics and trying to build up the microbial life in your soils with organics as well your killing your soil life in my opinion. And that’s in my opinion why your terps aren’t showing because your plants aren’t using their genetics full potential. It’s a crazy controversy over this subject but if you want your genetics to show their true colors you need to either stick to fully synthetic feed or go organic and feed your soils. I feed and build my soils with added microbial life along with a nutrient feeding schedule that is a liquid form that’s supposed to be a full organic product but these days most things aren’t fully organic but I can promise you feeding an organic mix along with great soil life going on you’ll have great success every time. Like I mentioned this is a huge controversial subject these days but all my grows can speak for them self as far as I’m concerned and using synthetics is just going to start ruining the fine art of what cannibis is and used for because we’re altering the genetics. Yes synthetics are cheaper but man if you can get your organics down to a T all your problems go away and I promise growing will be a blast instead of having let downs. Much love and happy growing my friend let me know if you need any more advise and I also use full spectrum leds in flower like you do so theirs no shame in that my friend!

 

[SauronBlue]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm not really sure why adding some organic elements would be a problem when using synthetic nutes, the companies sell them for that purpose. Like Recharge, it's to add soil microbes, but you can use it well in media with no soil, and still get the benefits. Pro-mix even makes a coco with mycorrhizae bacteria already in there. I can see why you wouldn't want any synthetic elements in an organic grow, but I don't see how using an organic element would ruin a "synthetic grow". Maybe someone can enlighten me?
I'm very interested in super-soil and no-till organics, but it's a huge change to make, when I'm still trying to get one style to work well. I've almost gotten soil/coco to where I want it, but I want to really have some true success in at least one style before trying to start over in a new one, unless it's just hopeless to get good results. I'm also really interested in RDWC, but for practical reasons, I'm not even going to think about it until I'm in a more suitable location

Progress Update:
I've dried the plants, hanging in my flower room for a week with all the sugar leaves in tact - and some with fan leaves. I can say that, whether it's all due to the dry method or also some of the changes during the grow, but I do feel like there is a noticeable increase in the smell. I've only started on the cheese so far, since they seemed dry enough, while the purple was still really soft and moist. The smell is much like what I would get on my fingers from the buds, but stronger. I have high hopes for how it will develop during curing.
One issue is probably enough to ensure that I never dry-trim again, even though it seems to be much better for smoke quality. I cannot deal with trimming dried buds! It takes like 4x longer for me to trim this stuff now that all the leaves are half-dry, curled up into the contours of the buds. Every little leaf tip is curled up into a bit of bud, so it's taking me literally hours to trim each plant. I didn't think wet trimming was terribly bad, but I did buy a trim bowl to do it faster, and really liked the speed boost with my last trim. I can't use that to trim dry bud, the leaves just don't stick out enough to get thru the wire grate, where the blade can cut them. Not to mention, the drier buds don't seem like they'll like the rough treatment of the fingers, flipping them around the grate. How do those of you that dry trim deal with this? It might usually take me 1.5 hours to trim a whole plant by hand, 30 min with the trim bowl. Now I'm taking more like 4 hours, and that's on the cheese plants that I had removed the fan leaves of. 2/3 of them are Purples, and those all grew with lots more leaves, so there's more work, plus the buds are fluffier, so easier to cut too much if not careful. They're also taking longer to dry, and are still soft and limp a day after I was able to start on the cheese. I'm almost done with the cheese, a day and a half later, and I'm absolutely DREADING having to deal with the fluffy purple plants.

 

[Edzzed]

I cannot speak for others but when Canada gave the green light I said to my wife. I want to try growing it. She said you have never grown anything in your life and could kill the lawn just by looking at it. I said yeah. We shall see. I bought some equipment and went at it. I learned a lot by reading and studying peoples postings. I googled things like ideal conditions for cannabis, Nutrients and things. As the days went to weeks I found myself needing more equipment. (dehumidifier) some more switches, sensors, pH meters and other little items. My 4x4 tent is automated to the point where all I really need to do is add nutes and water. I have a 5 gallon bucket with oxygenation, A water pump so I can water the plants. That said, Heater kicks in when temps drop, Dehumidifier kicks in when humidity gets high, Extractor fans kick on when temps get to high, Another fan kicks on every 20 minutes for 30 seconds to change the air. I spent a few bucks but no CO2 generator or AC. I grow in winter since it is easier to regulate temps. I have had 2 successful grows and am on track for a 3rd. When my wife tried the first batch she was impressed. I told her I did a lot of reading and gave myself an education. I needed to treat it as a science. So I did that.

 

[ChefDGreen]

It is a science.
Most of those speed trimmers are really mid-grade machines. All that rolling around is just bruising your trichomes making your buds oxidize and lose potency faster.

For the mold, increase the air movement and temperature of the room. Also lower the humidity. That will be a very unfriendly environment for the mold and it should just go away.

also you can try @InTheShed ’s method of a 1% citric acid spray.
500ml distilled water
5g citric acid powder
Few drops of soft soap like Palmolive

 

[Mayne]

that new megacrop is strong, ( nitrogen ) but lacks Cal-mag. NEVER should you water plain water in coco, must have atleast 200ppms of calmag, because plain water leaches ( washes roots ) of the nutes.

 

[SauronBlue]

I did a lot of reading and gave myself an education. I needed to treat it as a science. So I did that.

I have done pretty much the same thing. My knowledge and equipment have grown bit by bit, over years. I play hours long growing videos for background noise while I'm in the garden, hoping to hear something new or interesting. But not every problem is addressed in a vlog, so I came here to find help for a specific problem that I haven't seen, even after searching for it specifically. That's why it's good to have a community!

Most of those speed trimmers are really mid-grade machines. All that rolling around is just bruising your trichomes making your buds oxidize and lose potency faster.

For the mold, increase the air movement and temperature of the room. Also lower the humidity. That will be a very unfriendly environment for the mold and it should just go away.

I really don't like trimming. I can get to a point where I'm ready to make bubble hash out of the whole lot, just to stop trimming. I'm getting a little more patient. I've started taking a bin to trim while comfortably watching something that's only mildly interesting, so I can focus.

The mold is not from my grow, but from some clones I got. He doesn't even seem to know what it is. He told me when I first started explaining the issue, that whenever they look dusty, he sprays them with water and it goes away. The 2nd or 3rd time we spoke of it, and my battle to get rid of it, he said "what did you say that powdery stuff is?" I got some CannControl. I mixed up a fairly strong batch, and soaked everything like a spring break wet t-shirt contest. I keep letting them dry, then spraying them down until all the dust is rinsed off, then one more for good measure. Give it a few days to a week and hit them again, just in case. I don't know about PM just going away after a good outbreak, by only adjusting the environment. I've heard of people plagued by PM returning over and over- I'm not taking any chances. I've got a crop that just went into flower, so I gave them extra just in case, so I don't risk needing to spray anything once buds form.


My quest to find the stink has yielded great results. I'm about a week of dry and a week of cure in, and the smells from each variety are really great! The Cheese has a delicious fruity smell, and the Purple Diesel has a sinister, skunky smell. I'm not sure what of all the different changes added to that, but it's really a night and day change. I personally think the watering had a good deal to play in the improvement, but the longer/stronger use of terp boooster and dry trimming can't be counted out, either. I'll be trying multiple drying techniques at this harvest, as a test, but I'll continue watering less often with plenty of terp boost.
After hanging for 6-8 days in about 65°/65%, I trimmed and put the buds into turkey bags with hygrometers. The bags all started around 60%, and climbed up past 65% the first couple days. Depending on the rH of the bag, each day I either dump it out into a tray for a while, or just open the bag and move the buds around a bit.
The smell at chop was the same as always, the smell while hanging was mixed, with lots of grass smell, but a hint of goodness when sniffed up close. Once they were actually trimmed is when the stink came out, so it may have a lot to do with the dry trim (I just really hope that isn't it LOL). Even some buds that sat out all night after trimming still had the great smell, it hadn't worn off from time or getting more dry. As I open the bags each day to "burp", they continue to have the good smell.
It's still early, but I couldn't help but try to smoke a bit of each. They both had trouble grinding up fully, as they are still moist inside, especially the Purple. The Cheese, being drier, was smoother at first, but not great to finish a bowl. It started off with some of the fruity flavor that it smells like, but I think it just needs more time to even out and finish. The Purp was more moist, and not great on the back of the throat. I've gotta be able to smoke comfortably to give a good review of the effect, but I could feel enough from the Cheese to be fairly sure that it'll give a nice buzz.

Looks like I'll be using the flower room for an extra week after harvest for drying from now on

Such a pain to get in around all the buds when the leaves curl up

Killed my back sitting at a table for 2 days before taking the trimming work to the couch

Bagged up to cure

Dumping out the bags to air out. The Purple is more sticky and moist, doesn't fall apart as easily

Spread out to get some air

2 closeups of the Cheese

2 closeups of the Purple

 

[SauronBlue]

I decided to go back and get the breeder info on all the varieties I have, just in case I want to check what I should be looking for, and got a great surprise! I looked at the page for my cheese, which I had been scratching my head as to why it had a fruity smell, rather than a savory one that I'd expect to be called cheese. I thought maybe it was from the terp boosters adding their own smell, and overriding the natural one. When I looked at the growers page, the bud looks like mine, and the smell is exactly what they say to expect. I took this as a huge reassurance, because I had to do something right to get the result to match the breeder's description. I really can't wait to try this bud when it's cured fully. I also have a renewed enthusiasm to try out some of the seeds that I have lying around, because the descriptions sound amazing!

I blurred some of the irrelevant crap. Not sure how to post a thumbnail now, hope this works

 

[ChefDGreen]

If you want my advice on trimming... wet trim
It’s so much faster, cleaner, and simple. You can leave your plants up and trim them one by one so you don’t have plants that over dry from being the last to be trimmed. Then all you have to do is cut the buds off the branches and jar them as they dry.

the buds do look more pretty when they’re dry trimmed, but at that point who cares right? You’ve got so much bud, go back and trim yourself a pint sized jar of nice nugs to look at and show off. Leave the rest how it is with just a wet trim.

 

[SauronBlue]

If you want my advice on trimming... wet trim
It’s so much faster, cleaner, and simple. You can leave your plants up and trim them one by one so you don’t have plants that over dry from being the last to be trimmed. Then all you have to do is cut the buds off the branches and jar them as they dry.

the buds do look more pretty when they’re dry trimmed, but at that point who cares right? You’ve got so much bud, go back and trim yourself a pint sized jar of nice nugs to look at and show off. Leave the rest how it is with just a wet trim.

I would argue that the buds look great after a wet trim. You can get the leaves nice and close without clipping the buds, giving them that homogenous, shaved look. Also, the leaves tend to shrink a bit more than the buds, so if the leaves are clipped close enough, they can actually tuck themselves in during drying. The only cleanup I've needed after wet trimming is between buds that were really close together.
The one thing that has really caught my eye (and nose) is the difference between my last harvest of the exact same varieties, that was wet trimmed, clipped to buds, and dried on racks. It's much easier for me to process my harvest in a humidity-controlled bin than to occupy my flower room for a week, but if that's what I've gotta do to get this kind of smell from my buds, then I'll have to adapt.
I'll be trying to dry my next crop a few ways, to see if it really is the dry style, or if some of my other changes were bigger factors. I'll probably dry most the same way I did this time, then a couple will get hung after trimming, and a couple will get trimmed and chopped to nugs to dry. I'm not looking forward to trimming so that I can hang afterwards, because it's a pain trimming a bud that you can't cut off of the branch, with all the other buds in the way, and supporting the weight of the rest of the attached plant while trimming. Maybe I'm just running my chamber too dry, or maybe that infusion of water from the stem really changes things. Only testing will tell...

 

[SauronBlue]

that new megacrop is strong, ( nitrogen ) but lacks Cal-mag. NEVER should you water plain water in coco, must have atleast 200ppms of calmag, because plain water leaches ( washes roots ) of the nutes.

When you say plain water, are you speaking of only RO water, or also tap water that may already contain minerals? If not using RO as a base, would you still add 200ppm of cal mag, regardless of deficiency in leaves? During my time in the MegaCrop thread, I realized that ppm is a troublesome measurement, because there are several different ways to calculate ppm, and it may be hard to even figure out which scale your meter uses, much less what the people you're speaking to may be using. We had to stop using ppm in the thread altogether, as it was causing all kinds of problems in the translation. I haven't really used my ppm meter since. I have CalMag, but I've barely used it since I switched from RO water. I think I added it 1-2 times during this past grow, which was my first recent coco grow (ProMix HP CC).
(repm) I rely on the dosage given by the bottle of nutes, and cut that amount if I need to feed younger plants. One thing I've had an interest in, but have not found good info to learn about, is how to make up a feeding program - what elements in what amounts are needed fro different stages of growth. If I add a PK booster, how do I calculate it's effect on the total solution? If I add another supplement, like silica or kelp, where do I steal the ppm from, or do I keep the base ratios the same and just add to the ppm? I'd like to not just know how to start tinkering with my own mixes, but also just understand better what the nute companies are doing with their dosages. I've also looked into making a super soil or living soil, which is along those lines, but other than recipes to follow, I haven't found a real EXPLANATION of why I'd want (for example) bat guano, what's the reasonable range of amount to use, and why I'd pick one kind over another, or maybe over chicken or some other poop.

 

[BeanTownFan420]

Did you finally quit having that quitting attitude yet? And just keep on trucking through the ups and downs we all have.

 

[Moto258]

When you say plain water, are you speaking of only RO water, or also tap water that may already contain minerals? If not using RO as a base, would you still add 200ppm of cal mag, regardless of deficiency in leaves? During my time in the MegaCrop thread, I realized that ppm is a troublesome measurement, because there are several different ways to calculate ppm, and it may be hard to even figure out which scale your meter uses, much less what the people you're speaking to may be using. We had to stop using ppm in the thread altogether, as it was causing all kinds of problems in the translation. I haven't really used my ppm meter since. I have CalMag, but I've barely used it since I switched from RO water. I think I added it 1-2 times during this past grow, which was my first recent coco grow (ProMix HP CC).
(repm) I rely on the dosage given by the bottle of nutes, and cut that amount if I need to feed younger plants. One thing I've had an interest in, but have not found good info to learn about, is how to make up a feeding program - what elements in what amounts are needed fro different stages of growth. If I add a PK booster, how do I calculate it's effect on the total solution? If I add another supplement, like silica or kelp, where do I steal the ppm from, or do I keep the base ratios the same and just add to the ppm? I'd like to not just know how to start tinkering with my own mixes, but also just understand better what the nute companies are doing with their dosages. I've also looked into making a super soil or living soil, which is along those lines, but other than recipes to follow, I haven't found a real EXPLANATION of why I'd want (for example) bat guano, what's the reasonable range of amount to use, and why I'd pick one kind over another, or maybe over chicken or some other poop.

Ppm is just a way of putting data to your feeding regime. Sure you can’t just go clearly off a Ppm meter in order to know how to apply it to your garden. Ppm is just to make sure your not going over the amount of ppms needed for the amount of ppfd your lights put off. Sure ppms wouldn’t make since to use if you don’t have a feeding plan and an ingredient list of foods to use. I use the amount most nutrient companies use as a reference and then adjust to the ppms needed as I adjust it to the feeding schedule I use while adjusting the lights ppfd. If your able to figure out how to read your ppms and use it as data then Ppms in my opinion mean a lot more than most might wana think it does. You just have to know how to use it to your garden needs not everyone’s garden has the same set ups in fact I’ve yet to find anyone that has a set up even similar to mine. I wouldn’t feed my plants unless I know my ppms after I know the ph in the nutrient mix, but that’s just me. Now I feed also most if not all organic stuff(hint saying most if not all because of course their are controversies over what’s all in an all organic nutrient that isn’t oragnic) but my point is when I mix all my stuff up on top of my normal nutrient trio I use it raises the ppms so much that if I didn’t check my parts per million in my stuff I’d be burning the crap out of my plants and having all kinds of issues locking things up their for wasting all that money on the extra stuff I feed my plants with because the plant can’t even use that stuff when your having nutrient lock outs. Just my opinion tho don’t want crap on anyone’s party here now all love coming from this guy just expressing my opinion that’s all. Happy growing and I hope you start enjoying the growing more my friend!

 

[Moto258]

I understand no worries. I just want to add in so I’m not looked at weird for expressing an opinion that sometimes when I write and talk on here it’s to help someone go in the right direction from a method I might use. I don’t go completely into Depth because growing is an art a way of life and sometimes I don’t like to explain to anyone exactly how I do things step by step. I just give them words of advice so anyone can do the research and work for themselves. Most growers i know are very competitive like that!

 

[Moto258]

I understand no worries. I just want to add in so I’m not looked at weird for expressing an opinion that sometimes when I write and talk on here it’s to help someone go in the right direction from a method I might use. I don’t go completely into Depth because growing is an art a way of life and sometimes I don’t like to explain to anyone exactly how I do things step by step. I just give them words of advice so anyone can do the research and work for themselves. Most growers i know are very competitive like that!

Ohh and let me add one more thing this guy right her is a darn farm boy so grammer and me might not add up but hey at least I can be honest about it. Didn’t go past high school education I so sorry erybody for sounding like a hill bill y!! Lmao all love no hate here!

 

[The Celt]

I've also looked into making a super soil or living soil, which is along those lines, but other than recipes to follow, I haven't found a real EXPLANATION of why I'd want (for example) bat guano, what's the reasonable range of amount to use, and why I'd pick one kind over another, or maybe over chicken or some other poop.

Good morning Sauron,

Having read some of your comments on here, especially this last one, you’ve been lead to believe that growing cannabis is much more complicated than is really is, which often happens to hydro growers. Given some of the guys who hung out in the MegaCrop thread, and are no longer here, it’s not surprising.

First thing you need to “unlearn”, that many of those kinds of hydro guys push is:

- you can only control what you put in the soil, you can not control what the plant uses.

This applies to all forms of growing, hydro, soil, chemical or organic. Plants can not be force fed nutrients, they will only use what they need, you just need to be sure it’s there and available to them.

If you are growing with MC, just throw the ppm meter away, you don’t need it I bought a TDS meter when I first started growing and it’s still in the package never having even had batteries in it you can also forget the boosters with MC, again, not needed. MC has excess K in its base formula.

This plant went in a hempy bucket (15gal) on July 4th at 8 inches tall. It was fed nothing but MC starting at 4.5g/gal and by August was getting 6g/gal until I harvested it in early October. Dry weight of 473g trimmed bud and another 280g of small bud and trim to make hash from.

You really don’t need a meter using liquid nutes either, but requires good math skills, preferably a good understanding of chemistry and the metric system as well.

Essentially, you want an excess of nutrients but in a balanced ratio. This holds true regardless of the grow style (soil, hydro, LOS or chemical nutes). Problems occur when something is out of balance in the ratios.

As I mentioned above, organic super soils are no different and the “type” of amendment, bat guano vs chicken shit doesn’t matter. Dry (desiccated) cannabis/hemp has a wt/wt ratio of the 5 primary nutrients of N:K:Mg:Ca of approximately 4 : 1 : 3 : 1.4 : 1 - these are good numbers to know when making your own feeds/soils.

So what that means is that for every 100g of bud, it contains 4g N, 1g P, 3g K and so on.

I‘ve made my own “water only” soils for years, and am currently working on an organic DWC hydro feed currently. The soils have worked great and the hydro, it’s still in the infancy stage so time will tell

Calculating what you put in your supersoil, I will use N as an example and bloodmeal as the source, it’s what I use and relatively cheap.

- decide roughly how big you want the plant to be, or more specifically, how much bud you hope to produce. You have to make some assumptions at this point, and knowing your plant/strain helps. For this step I assume 454g (1lb) of bud per 5 gallons of soil. You will need these numbers later.

- bud makes up approx 50% of the entire plant mass and 454g of dried bud would only weigh about 300g if all the water was removed, giving the desiccated weight of the entire plant 600g.

- nitrogen making up 4% of the entire weight means that we have used 24g of N to grow this plant. To get 24g of N from bonemeal (15% N) we need 24g / 15% = 160g of bloodmeal for every 5 gallons of soil as a minimum. I typically double this as the plant will use what it needs.

When making/using these LOS water only soils, the source of organic N (or other amendments) doesn’t matter to the plant, you just need to know the % of the nute in it. I use bloodmeal for N, but you can use any organic source of N.

I won’t go any further into the subject here, but when I start a new journal in a couple weeks, I will go into detail of working out nute mixes there if there is enough interest.

Back to commercial nutes, even that is not as complicated as many make it out to be. Dr. Bruce Bugbee, the head of Hemp/Cannabis research at Utah State University who also does research on botany and lighting for NASA uses Jack’s 20-10-20 in their research and do NOT get fussy about ppm.

This video of his is worth watching if you want to get a better understanding

Maximizing Cannabis Yields

Hope this helps simplify your thoughts on nutes, if you want to know more, reach out, I am always willing to help those who want to further their understanding

PS: these are girls grown this summer in my LOS that I only watered 4 times all summer, Mamma Nature supplied the rest

 

[Moto258]

Good morning Sauron,

Having read some of your comments on here, especially this last one, you’ve been lead to believe that growing cannabis is much more complicated than is really is, which often happens to hydro growers. Given some of the guys who hung out in the MegaCrop thread, and are no longer here, it’s not surprising.

First thing you need to “unlearn”, that many of those kinds of hydro guys push is:

- you can only control what you put in the soil, you can not control what the plant uses.

This applies to all forms of growing, hydro, soil, chemical or organic. Plants can not be force fed nutrients, they will only use what they need, you just need to be sure it’s there and available to them.

If you are growing with MC, just throw the ppm meter away, you don’t need it I bought a TDS meter when I first started growing and it’s still in the package never having even had batteries in it you can also forget the boosters with MC, again, not needed. MC has excess K in its base formula.

This plant went in a hempy bucket (15gal) on July 4th at 8 inches tall. It was fed nothing but MC starting at 4.5g/gal and by August was getting 6g/gal until I harvested it in early October. Dry weight of 473g trimmed bud and another 280g of small bud and trim to make hash from.

You really don’t need a meter using liquid nutes either, but requires good math skills, preferably a good understanding of chemistry and the metric system as well.

Essentially, you want an excess of nutrients but in a balanced ratio. This holds true regardless of the grow style (soil, hydro, LOS or chemical nutes). Problems occur when something is out of balance in the ratios.

As I mentioned above, organic super soils are no different and the “type” of amendment, bat guano vs chicken shit doesn’t matter. Dry (desiccated) cannabis/hemp has a wt/wt ratio of the 5 primary nutrients of N:K:Mg:Ca of approximately 4 : 1 : 3 : 1.4 : 1 - these are good numbers to know when making your own feeds/soils.

So what that means is that for every 100g of bud, it contains 4g N, 1g P, 3g K and so on.

I‘ve made my own “water only” soils for years, and am currently working on an organic DWC hydro feed currently. The soils have worked great and the hydro, it’s still in the infancy stage so time will tell

Calculating what you put in your supersoil, I will use N as an example and bloodmeal as the source, it’s what I use and relatively cheap.

- decide roughly how big you want the plant to be, or more specifically, how much bud you hope to produce. You have to make some assumptions at this point, and knowing your plant/strain helps. For this step I assume 454g (1lb) of bud per 5 gallons of soil. You will need these numbers later.

- bud makes up approx 50% of the entire plant mass and 454g of dried bud would only weigh about 300g if all the water was removed, giving the desiccated weight of the entire plant 600g.

- nitrogen making up 4% of the entire weight means that we have used 24g of N to grow this plant. To get 24g of N from bonemeal (15% N) we need 24g / 15% = 160g of bloodmeal for every 5 gallons of soil as a minimum. I typically double this as the plant will use what it needs.

When making/using these LOS water only soils, the source of organic N (or other amendments) doesn’t matter to the plant, you just need to know the % of the nute in it. I use bloodmeal for N, but you can use any organic source of N.

I won’t go any further into the subject here, but when I start a new journal in a couple weeks, I will go into detail of working out nute mixes there if there is enough interest.

Back to commercial nutes, even that is not as complicated as many make it out to be. Dr. Bruce Bugbee, the head of Hemp/Cannabis research at Utah State University who also does research on botany and lighting for NASA uses Jack’s 20-10-20 in their research and do NOT get fussy about ppm.

This video of his is worth watching if you want to get a better understanding

Maximizing Cannabis Yields

Hope this helps simplify your thoughts on nutes, if you want to know more, reach out, I am always willing to help those who want to further their understanding

PS: these are girls grown this summer in my LOS that I only watered 4 times all summer, Mamma Nature supplied the rest

Thank you for putting so much into the stuff you put on the 420 mag!! I seriously wish I had the patience you have to put so much into something on the internet!!! I don’t want to throw anyone off topic here just wanted to express that because I wish I had the patience For technology like most have on here lol I’m very boaring and basic it almost hurts haha! Y’all continue your great conversation I’m just here to peak in from time to time!! Much respect!!

 

[The Celt]

Thanks for the comments @Moto258 and no worries bout being a farm boy. I am a mountain man, prefer the company of my dog and wild animals to people I grew up a carpenter and barely graduated high school , had not interest in school and education.

It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s, when I decided to go back to school, that I took an interest into the science (engineering) behind the work I did. Even after that, it wasn’t until my 40s when I started having chronic pain and took up growing that I took an interest in anything aside from engineering Now at 50, with all the previous abuse I put my body through catching up with me, I find I use my mind even more to compensate for the things my body won’t tolerate

Keep in mind, your upbringing, education and occupation generally says nothing about intelligence. You will find more high IQ people doing blue collar work than you will working in the sciences