TequilaSIPr
Well-Known Member
Thanks Res! That psilocybin idea sounds great! Fermentation too! No tank though i need to get back over the mushroom side of the forum!
SIP Club - Getting Hydro/Coco Results In A Soil Based Medium
- Thread starter Azimuth
- Start date
Hey! One day old so moved her once from downstairs to up. Medium zone full, res empty. She’s big but lighter than I expected - lots of perlite and coco filler helps. But it was easier with two!
Moving?! Yeah that’s complicated
She’s on a south facing balcony but we’re tropical and close to the equator and not loads of light. But - all the monsoon comes in from the west at this time of year so she’s not on one of those balconies right now. Then those bright lights keeping her in veg now aren’t good for flower! So one option is to move her to the SW-W facing balconybwith less light pollution in order to flip her - that’s about 25m, polished concrete floors so a trolley will do it nicely. Or maybe have a 3 piece (Shed!) roller blind/awning put up on the balcony.
All filed in the “Lets See What Happens” drawer for now!.
I'm truly sorry to hear the news about your health problems @ReservoirDog!
My thoughts and best wishes go out to both you and your family.
My thoughts and best wishes go out to both you and your family.
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
Whup, sorry for the delay. The short answer is Yes... with a couple caveats up front. All three were mini-SIP plants, staggered in time and size, in 2-litre, 4-litre and 8-litre SIPs. They produced very well for their size, the stuff was wicked strong, tasted great, but at the time I didn't have the amounts on hand that I figured I'd need, in order to do larger or more plants.
However, later on I did run two of my large outdoor tomato SIPs on purely these castings this season and had the best harvest ever with plants comparable to the MegaCrop fert'd tomato SIPs.
I also have two full size plants vegging in one of my 27-gallon tote-SIPs, currently (see below). I'm flowering them any day now so I'll update via this thread. They have done very well thus far; they are ''rehabbed'' - as seedlings had their main stems broken. They showed a certain amount of chutzpah, thus seducing me into up-potting them into a castings-only SIP system.
Kinda want the small one a little bigger but losing patience. I keep the plastic on there as mulch so microbes are at surface ready for me to top dress more castings. Reservoir has a bubbler and receives only 7pH tap water, chemically dechlorinated. Voila:
The tomato example I think is pertinent to the cannabis question, and I can assure you there was no bottom-end rot, and as I mentioned, the harvest this year was, and still is, epic.
The castings I make are totally customized with no random ingredients provided merely because they are handy, like kitchen compost.
This was approached purely as an experiment, one that I gained a lot of confidence in early on, and thus expanded as far as energy and resources allowed, but it's still an experiment and I prevent myself from feeding them scraps easily at hand that would make my life easier and allow me to expand production further.
That's not to say one could not come by all of these ingredients efficiently, cheaply, and in large volumes, one definitely could, it's merely to say that I haven't done so and so this limits my production of these special castings.
Worms are fed everything from accumulator plants like comfrey, nettles, willow and bamboo, to organic micro-nutrient additions like locally harvested seaweeds, and pest management ingredients like neam cake and crab shells. I do limit myself to whatever I can grow at home or is locally available in such great supply as to be free or close to it. My exception to this rule thus far is fungi and microbes which I buy commercially and then culture in overseeded 10x20 trays, on the roots of wheat, corn and legumes, then add these fresh roots to the worm feed. Everything is mixed together in a blender and fed at apple sauce consistency or sometimes in frozen cubes.
My plans are to trap and isolate local microbes and mycos to replace my commercial ones, but only for the challenge and education.
All three cannabis plants I've brought to flower so far and harvested- that were using the castings as 'sole' fertilizer grew remarkably similar to a synthetic all in one I use, MegaCrop. Surprisingly, leaves did not fade very much, indeed they kinda looked like an organic grow using a 5-5-5 (heavily) all the way through. I make sure a lot of phosphorus solubizing microbes are in the mix and mycorrhizae, as well as some Nitrogen collectors too. By volume it’s about 50 % N, I estimate, from heavy comfrey and nettle use. No obvious deficiencies have arisen as yet.
Now I’m wondering what would happen if you dried the castings, if they would have a significantly longer shelf life and how much of the microbial life could go dormant and then come back with a watering when ready to use. See what happens when I can’t get Geo Flora? I try to invent my own! I’ve got some castings set aside for the drying experiment (just curious), I’ll keep you posted.
Also - the two I have vegging I’ll be sure to document flower on this thread. I know it’ll work, my only fears are whether some reg seeds slipped into my rotation because I just had another plant turn out to be a male when I was working with seeds marked Fem. D’oh!
I know all about cooking supersoils, but you see, this is a rabbit hole, and I’ve fallen and can’t get up! Go Lassie! Go get Timmy!
Green peppers love the castings too:
TequilaSIPr
Well-Known Member
I think ive drastically been underwatering my earthbox didnt know it held 3 gallons!
Day 50 from the peep hole!i think the cal mag has been helping or more water or both but growth seems to be picking up and looks greener i want to give her like 10-15 more days till flip
Day 50 from the peep hole!i think the cal mag has been helping or more water or both but growth seems to be picking up and looks greener i want to give her like 10-15 more days till flip
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
yeah, you can add water until some dribbles out the overflow hole, that's why it's there. You can't overwater as a result, either, so have at her. Little bit of water-soluble kelp does wonders mixed into the water. Plant looks great though, should flower nicely. Looks like your training really helped. BIG leaves, beautiful shapes!I think ive drastically been underwatering my earthbox didnt know it held 3 gallons!
Day 50 from the peep hole!i think the cal mag has been helping or more water or both but growth seems to be picking up and looks greener i want to give her like 10-15 more days till flip
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
Just realized that this:
Is totally not true. I've added both humates and kelp to this SIPs water a few times. Consider, however, that I also put those same ingredients into the worm feed, so it'd be in there regardless.
- Thread starter
- #2,788
Ok, good. I've been using my castings more frequently this round (2tsp/gal/week) and the plants look great, but they're still in veg so I'm hoping it continues that way through flower.
I have been making my castings with kitchen scraps, some minerals, meals and compost but have kept my Crumbles of comfrey, nettle and flowers separate, instead using them either as a topdress or to make a Jadam extract, but it occurs to me that running them all through the worm bin would make the castings that much better and save a step in the application process since I'm adding the castings weekly anyway.
Plus, the inputs would be transformed into even better additions since they would be covered in a calcium carbonate slime and have added microbes from having gone through a worms gut.
I've only just started adding them to my worm bin so my trial with them is still several months out, but I'm optimistic and excited to give them a try and hearing you have already blazed the trail makes it that much easier to follow.
I make my castings a bit differently from the way you do but still with a watchful eye as to proportions of inputs in an effort to get a consistent output across various batches.
Calcium carbonate slime FTW!
I like to add the kitchen scraps in mine since they often include fruit parts which bring the P and K to the mix. They're 90% water though so they don't do much for your bulk in the castings.
I like it! More involved than I'm being though, but I am looking forward to your updates on your home grown microbes/fungi.
Mine are driven mostly, like yours, from what I can either grow myself or scavenge locally.
I like the sound of this!
This one I can answer. Spoiler alert: they work great dried out. For a while I was getting bugs (mites and thrips) about two weeks after I uppotted which I attributed to my castings since I add them as part of my soil mix, so I thought I'd dry them out and see if that helped.
I simply misted them well when I topped dressed them and the Microbial life seemed to kick back into gear. I also added some dried out castings to many houseplants that have been sitting in the same pots for years and were looking very tired. Two weeks after applying the first round of castings the plants have all perked up, greened up, and are growing aggressively again. And to think I was actually contemplating that I'd have to repot them!?!!
But that's quite a bit of the fun of it, no?
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
Updated/glamour shot of the Supercastings plants w/cucumbers behind and new recruits top-right.
This tent’s (5x5) footprint constitutes more than 1/3 of my livingroom where it stands (would have taken half of my entire flat in Amsterdam circa 2011-12, including the bathroom). Far from feeling cramped by it I enjoy the sights and smells, and consider such a scenario the true definition of luxury…(those two do look healthy, don’t they?)
- Thread starter
- #2,790
And how do you use the castings, simply mix them into your mix or do you topdress, and if so, how often?
They do indeed! Mine look similar, good color, good growth etc. That's what I'm hoping to carry on through flower. Interestingly, as good as they look, I'm only getting a Brix reading of about 5. Based on how good they look I was expecting much higher.
Sooo . . . I'm new to this forum and SIPS, by which I am intrigued. Sounds like a great way to avoid the fast growth/slow growth conundrum created by wet/dry cycles of standard fertilizing/watering. However (just lazy I guess and like everyone I'm busy-busy-busy), I don't want to wade through the many posts to get an answer to this question: how do I handle fertilizing?
Hi there!
A question with a thousand answers!
At the most basic - you can pour synthetic nutes in or just water and use a soil to provide your nutes.
Or a combination of the two
Its very very flexible.
A question with a thousand answers!
At the most basic - you can pour synthetic nutes in or just water and use a soil to provide your nutes.
Or a combination of the two
Its very very flexible.
RedskinnedRhino
Well-Known Member
Pour em in the reservoir, it'll suck up nutrients like a fat kid suckin up a McDonald's milkshake.
- Thread starter
- #2,794
That's certainly true for synthetics but organic growers have had success topdressing and then lightly watering from above to settle them in and then going back to pourin' water into the reservoir.
What nutes are you using?
I've been growing autos in HP mix; nutes MC (3/4 strength) and transitioning to FF Bloom when appropriate - pH'd well water to 6.5 with white distilled vinegar.
Hi @MedicalMe. Why use white vinegar? Most pH down formulas contain phosphoric acid plants can use. Vinegar is up to 4% acetic acid which is good for developing film but bad for plants.
Cheap.
smokesbetter
Well-Known Member
Here is my sip auto doesido some where around 2 mouths' old ?? just going into flower >
RedskinnedRhino
Well-Known Member
Two Cherry Cola Autos in a 27gal SIP, 3x3 grow area.
I trim em daily, but when I return, it's a bush again. Bush just gotta be a bush, even when you want it to be a tree.
I trim em daily, but when I return, it's a bush again. Bush just gotta be a bush, even when you want it to be a tree.
ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
Thanks mate. Everyone in my offline life always comments on my stoicism and courage with this and other stuff (I've some chronic migraines, bad ones, long ones, and something else) and if its ok with people here, I wouldn't mind being able to just be scared shitless here now and then. I should go look for any relevant, related forums here on 420mag. Maybe there's some sufferers chatting somewhere.I'm truly sorry to hear the news about your health problems @ReservoirDog!