The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[budnoob3]

You’ve all got me convinced to replace my lost refractometer now, I hope you’re happy lol

 

[Azimuth]

You’ve all got me convinced to replace my lost refractometer now, I hope you’re happy lol

Oh, it gets worse. Next he'll have you pumped up on a moisture meter.

 

[budnoob3]

Oh, it gets worse. Next he'll have you pumped up on a moisture meter.

I have an old fashioned moisture meter, carefully reach down to about 14” depth and grab a small handful and squeeze - if it feels like a wrung out sponge it’s ok. Can’t be drowning worms as long as Mother Nature cooperates too

 

[Azimuth]

I have an old fashioned moisture meter, carefully reach down to about 14” depth and grab a small handful and squeeze

Hard to do with a pot full of roots.

 

[budnoob3]

Hard to do with a pot full of roots.

Truth but by then they’re drinking so darned fast i don’t have to worry as much

 

[Gee64]

That's a great idea! Comfrey and nettle are my two primary inputs so I'll brix them and see what they are.

So when you brix a plant there are 2 very different ways. You can brix the leaves like we do with weed and get overall plant sugars, or you can brix the fruit and determine ripeness.

A good example of that is I just harvested my red currants a few days ago. The plant brixed at 15 and fuzzy, but I watched the berries climb until 10.5 and harvested them there to get the tartness that one expects in a currant. Higher brix in the fruit and it gets sweeter and over ripe.

My point being don't confuse the 2. Brix the leaves to determine overall plant health and fruit for desired ripeness.

 

[Gee64]

Oh, it gets worse. Next he'll have you pumped up on a moisture meter.

Why stop at one!

 

[Azimuth]

The difference between Ca and P is that you can dump Ca in and it's done, but P needs to be mined. If you just dump it in then the plant is happy with that and sees no need to pay the microbes with exudates, and brix drops to near zero, yet the plant looks fine. It just has no immunities and bugs move in.

I wonder if that's some of what's going on with my plant. The Jadam extracts are supposed to be readily plant available, touted as quite a good thing, but perhaps a different path is needed for high brix.

If the plant can bypass the microbes and that works against brix, hmmmm.

What do you reckon @Gee64 , think the nutrient availability of my extracts gets in the way of high brix?

Maybe also for my FAA? That, I believe, is a different process from cold-pressed which may be more of how an Alaska Brand Fish Fertilizer is made? Mine are predigested by microbes, the other (I think) is more of a raw ingredient though I could be wrong.

But then again, having my plant inputs processed by the microbes in my Jadam process shouldn't produce an output much different from running them through my worm bins, though mine are anaerobic microbes and the output isn't covered in a calcium carbonate slime, but otherwise should be pretty similar in terms of availability.

 

[Gee64]

What do you reckon @Gee64 , think the nutrient availability of my extracts gets in the way of high brix?

Maybe also for my FAA? That, I believe, is a different process from cold-pressed which may be more of how an Alaska Brand Fish Fertilizer is made? Mine are predigested by microbes, the other (I think) is more of a raw ingredient though I could be wrong.

But then again, having my plant inputs processed by the microbes in my Jadam process shouldn't produce an output much different from running them through my worm bins, though mine are anaerobic microbes and the output isn't covered in a calcium carbonate slime, but otherwise should be pretty similar in terms of availability.

I don't know enough about jadam to say for sure, but if the plant has access to available P it won't buy it with exudates.

So I would guess yes, it could interfere with brix. I guess someone needs to try a side-by-side and see

As for the fish, again I'm not sure as it's already processed when you use your FAA so to me it seems much more like organic hydroponic inputs.

From the small amount of reading I have done on it, JADAM was originally a consorted effort amongst a group of farmers that set out to make holistic bug repellent, so that tells me they were dealing with low brix, but I couldn't find any info that stated if it worked as a topical foliar repellent, or if it raised brix to repel. It's interesting for sure tho.

So again, I guess someone needs to compare.

Brix is natures way. Thats not to say other ways won't work, it's just to say that Mother Nature likes things a certain way.

They need to be part of the carbon cycle and part of the nitrogen cycle.

Most farming styles are ways to grow that aren't natures way, they are hacks to make plants grow better in places they shouldn't, so I'm skeptical, but also open minded to it, as it is still minimally processed, but it is processed by microbes already.

EWC works so well because it contains huge amounts of calcium and organic matter and it's loaded with soil microbes. Mother Nature invented vermicomposting.

I don't know if Jadam promotes soil microbes. Isn't it an anaeribic process?

The quickest way I can think of is to find some outdoor plants, brix test them, then jadam half and not the other half, and see what the refractometer tells you. You could see results in 2 weeks.

 

[budnoob3]

Another question, what’s ya’lls take on foliar feeding?
When I was experimenting with high-brix kit years ago I was told that the foliar feed helped increase the production of exudates benefiting microbes. Didn’t know what was being used exactly bc it was just a kit with directions for use but no table of specific contents. So when I looked up info in general about foliar feeding I found that diluted molasses was fairly commonly used for this and so I did some comparison.tests and couldn’t see any measurable differences between using kit on one and diluted molasses on another. I’d still like to know if it really makes any difference at all.

 

[Gee64]

Another question, what’s ya’lls take on foliar feeding?
When I was experimenting with high-brix kit years ago I was told that the foliar feed helped increase the production of exudates benefiting microbes. Didn’t know what was being used exactly bc it was just a kit with directions for use but no table of specific contents. So when I looked up info in general about foliar feeding I found that diluted molasses was fairly commonly used for this and so I did some comparison.tests and couldn’t see any measurable differences between using kit on one and diluted molasses on another. I’d still like to know if it really makes any difference at all.

Mostly the foliars for high brix are calcium I would guess. Or minerals. Or both. It's a jump start.

You spray minerals right into the photosynthesizers, they start photosynthesizing hard, and you get a sugar rush from the high revving photosynthesis.

The sugar rush gets sent straight to the roots and out to the microbes who immediately get more robust and both multiply and work harder, thus increasing available nutrition at the root level to get carried back up to the photosynthesizers to perpetuate the rush. The rich got richer.

Every time you hit the system with a foliar you artificially jack it up another notch. It works well but I really detest spraying my leaves unless its with clean water to freshen them up.

I prefer to make P and the microbes required to mine P available at the roots from the sproutling stage forward so the plant never needs to be primed into high brix, it just grows up already high brix.

I try for a brix level of 20 before flip. You need to start young and get a lot of laps of the rich getting richer to get to 20 in 8 weeks, I can't always do it, but it's my goal.

17 is kind of my minimum. If you can't get to 17 in veg then it will be a harder flowering.

You will lose leaves for sure so I prune a couple extra branches off so the plant has less to support.

If you can't get over 17 in good soil that usually means that for whatever reason, that plant doesn't cycle calcium very well. So it's at a disadvantage.

But the kits work really well, you will never hear me bash them. They make high brix easy and attainable for anyone.

There are better ways in my opinion, but they are substantially more work. The kits are freakishly easy, you just follow the instructions exactly. Done.

 

[budnoob3]

I would never bash kits either, got great results from it!

 

[Azimuth]

So again, I guess someone needs to compare.

Let's get Mikey!

 

[Gee64]

Let's get Mikey!

He won't try it, he hates everything!

 

[Azimuth]

He won't try it, he hates everything!

He likes it! Hey Mikey!

 

[Gee64]

So Azi, I've been pondering your jadam question a lot, and here is what I've come up with, you know, according to Gee logic.

If your potions feed microbes then they will work like a hot damn! This is kinda what I'm hoping but if it feeds the plant directly, then it depends what it feeds the plant, but via soil preventatively would have been better.

So if its a calcium solution, heck yeah use it. If it's a magnesium addition, heck yeah use it. If it's any cation you can likely get away with it. If it's K you can likely, but maybe not, get away with it, if it's traces you can get away with it, but if it's P I don't think things will go well.

But a one time dose of a P potion could easily prime the system to jack everything up a bit, like a free couple laps, and you wouldn't interupt the P mining process.

4 weeks later you could likely slip another in. Just not early in veg, let P miners get established. The whole point is to have enough horsepower in the pot to get over 12 and never look back.

If you want to use potions to get brix up run them like Doc's program and I bet you can get a Jadam high brix kit rolling, but you will need to be feeding something just right all the time. And lots of Jadam calcium.

 

[Gee64]

So Azi, I've been pondering your jadam question a lot, and here is what I've come up with, you know, according to Gee logic.

If your potions feed microbes then they will work like a hot damn! This is kinda what I'm hoping but if it feeds the plant directly, then it depends what it feeds the plant, but via soil preventatively would have been better.

So if its a calcium solution, heck yeah use it. If it's a magnesium addition, heck yeah use it. If it's any cation you can likely get away with it. If it's K you can likely, but maybe not, get away with it, if it's traces you can get away with it, but if it's P I don't think things will go well.

But a one time dose of a P potion could easily prime the system to jack everything up a bit, like a free couple laps, and you wouldn't interupt the P mining process.

4 weeks later you could likely slip another in. Just not early in veg, let P miners get established. The whole point is to have enough horsepower in the pot to get over 12 and never look back.

If you want to use potions to get brix up run them like Doc's program and I bet you can get a Jadam high brix kit rolling, but you will need to be feeding something just right all the time. And lots of Jadam calcium.

Does Jadam involve foliar feedings? That may be a way to artificial brix, but brix are brix, you just need to wash the crop at harvest really well is all.

Again, a lot of work compared to a pot of good soil.

But cool if you can figure it out. FrankenBrix.

Bug spray is probably easier lol.

 

[Azimuth]

If my inputs are better coming in other ways than a JLF I have no allegiance to liquid feeds. Sending them in instead in my castings, soil mix and top dressings is easy enough.

Given it's the tail end of week 7 and the plant still looks pretty good, I'm going to say some combination of my soil mix plus yard inputs is enough to get me through flower. So, it's definitely close enough to be good and seems to be providing everything the plant needs. Now, how are they delivered? That is the next question to answer.

Liquid looks good but potentially not able to push high brix. It could also be simply a P deficiency in the soil to be mined that's holding back brix.

I wonder if the difference The Rev talks about between his liquid cheaters method and his TLO is exactly this. A liquid feed of fish and Big Bloom may work like my potions. A direct feed so good looking plant but an uninspiring brix, vs a meals type feed through the microbes.

 

[Gee64]

If my inputs are better coming in other ways than a JLF I have no allegiance to liquid feeds. Sending them in instead in my castings, soil mix and top dressings is easy enough.

Given it's the tail end of week 7 and the plant still looks pretty good, I'm going to say some combination of my soil mix plus yard inputs is enough to get me through flower. So, it's definitely close enough to be good and seems to be providing everything the plant needs. Now, how are they delivered? That is the next question to answer.

Liquid looks good but potentially not able to push high brix. It could also be simply a P deficiency in the soil to be mined that's holding back brix.

I wonder if the difference The Rev talks about between his liquid cheaters method and his TLO is exactly this. A liquid feed of fish and Big Bloom may work like my potions. A direct feed so good looking plant but an uninspiring brix, vs a meals type feed through the microbes.

I have watched the Rev's ways evolve. His 1st book has the best brix recipes in it. They are the ones I use still pretty much.

But he's no dummy. There are also a certain number of synthetic soup growers that want to go organic so liquid feeds work really well for them, they make sense, but they likely won't be high brix.

If they are soup growers then bugs are just part of life already, so low brix isn't a big deal, they just want organic.

So Rev gives options.

You can grow really good organic plants as low brix soup grows with organic ferts, but if you dumped raw pumkin water made in a blender with pumpkin and water and dumped that into the soil as unprocessed food, you would get higher brix. The microbes would eat it and feed the plant, starting the exudate cycle.

Really at the end of the day high brix means high exudate output, and you need 5 things to jack up exudate output besides water and light.

Anyone guesses?

 

[Carmen Ray]

I have watched the Rev's ways evolve. His 1st book has the best brix recipes in it. They are the ones I use still pretty much.

But he's no dummy. There are also a certain number of synthetic soup growers that want to go organic so liquid feeds work really well for them, they make sense, but they likely won't be high brix.

If they are soup growers then bugs are just part of life already, so low brix isn't a big deal, they just want organic.

So Rev gives options.

You can grow really good organic plants as low brix soup grows with organic ferts, but if you dumped raw pumkin water made in a blender with pumpkin and water and dumped that into the soil as unprocessed food, you would get higher brix. The microbes would eat it and feed the plant, starting the exudate cycle.

Really at the end of the day high brix means high exudate output, and you need 5 things to jack up exudate output besides water and light.

Anyone guesses?

oxygen, microbes, myco, sugar?