The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[g-one-three]

I was just doing a bit of reading on deionized water. It says humans should not drink it because it will remove ions (both cations and anions) from our bodies as it reabsorbs what the deionization process removed from it.

It also said that if you use it for plants that it's an excellent base to build water from, as in if you add ions of your choice such as calcium and magnesium back into it, but RO is a better choice as it leaves both oxygen and CO2 in the water, and RO removes bacteria and pathogens that DI doesn't.

Your plant does look over watered in some aspects when it's definitely not as you are not using the SIP function and you are letting it dry down, so I would guess that it very well could be the DI process.

Over watered means lack of oxygen, which is why plants that are over watered look like they are starving.

Plant food must have an O2 molecule attached to it in order for a plant to recognize it as food.

I would try a flush of RO only water, drain the res, let her dry down again, and see what happens, however in flower that may cost you a few days growing time until she dries down.

The other option would be to continue your current watering schedule but lose the DI.

That would take longer to replace all the moisture with the RO only water, but would be gentler. I'm a tear off the bandaid kind of guy but I'm also the 1st to admit that sometimes that isn't the best approach, and I always have a couple pounds in my stash so that luxury allows for a failed grow, so thats a consideration too.

Half your plant looks fine so if your stash is low then protect that 1st.

Either way will work so your choice there.

Maybe split the difference by letting her really dry down but not wilt, then water her up without an actual flush?

So I'm not outta stash but it's starting to head down lol.

Drain the reservoir either way for now so the only change is the type of water to see if you get better results?

Ill run 5 gallons of just the RO part and aerate it with an aquarium pump. We can see if that helps.

This is interesting, because if that's the issue then the plant gets to choose which limbs get priority treatment. They never stop amazing me.

How many plants do you have in flower right now?

2

Are they all showing similar symptoms?

Nope

Have you successfully reached harvest using DI water in the past?

Its all I've used on my last 2 grows. The plants that were sativa leaning, purple haze and white widow, showed deficiencies similar to this. It would explain the sudden onset of CalMag deficiency as the RODI water is pulling anything out of the soil it can as it passes through. I've read a couple of things about how people who only drank RODI water end up losing teeth because the water pulls the calcium out of their bodies. Weird stuff.

I could try my tap water but man it's coming out of the spigot at 580ppm. Its hard water but runs through a softener and when we got it tested iron was the only thing high.

The RO water is running right now and coming in at 91ppm which is up from what the RODI was running at 8ppm lol.

Is there anything I can add to help charge up the population of microbes I possibly destroyed? I have liquid Kelp, Neptune's harvest and Recharge. I also have Dynomyco I could top dress with.

Also, your VPD readout of 2.0, does that take leaf temperature into consideration or is it auto generated by the monitor?

If it's auto generated with no leaf temp input, thats the vpd of your air, not the vpd that your plant is running at when exposed to your air.

Read thru the instruction manual. If it has a "leaf temp offset" input option then I can tell you how to determine the real VPD, but you will need an IR thermometer gun.

VPD when applied correctly is a huge plus, and when applied incorrectly can be a huge detriment.

2.0 is way too high so I suspect that it has a leaf temp offset input area, it's just set to zero right now.

My VPD calculator only uses whole numbers, so the results are slightly different than yours which uses decimal points too, but if I plug in your values with a zero leaf temp offset then I get your values pretty much.

Ya it's auto set, I haven't gotten around to getting a IR gun yet. There is a spot to add in leaf temp so when I get IR gun I'll add it in.

So with the addition of the heat mat, the soil temp is hovering around 71° consistently which is about 4+ degrees warmer than when the lights were off

 

[Azimuth]

I built my new Netpot SIP today and am going to give it a shakedown cruise with some bean seeds.

This one will be used with a future draft choice, probably a Blueberry CBD plant, and will have all of my recent upgrades.

First, the soil has calcium and flower crumble added and will get the top dressing crumbles from the jump. I'm going to try to grow with just the crumbles this time rather than my JLF's to see if that can help brix, and I'll give dolo water every time or at least until the brix meter shows adequate calcium levels.

According to the spreadsheet, my soil could use more N, so I'm going to start out with three bean plants to try to fix N in the soil until I have a clone to pot up. That will also give me a chance to see how the new design compares to my previous versions using live plants.

So, I loaded the pot, planted my three seeds and put 1L of solo water in the reservoir to kick things off. The fact that the soil will gets access to lots of air should help keep the soil from being overwet and therefore give the microbes more O2 to mine the carbon in my mix as well as the extra P both in the soil mix and as a top dressing. Calcium has been added to the soil mix and will be routinely supplemented with dolo water.

Once I'm ready to transplant a clone I'll chop and drop the bean plants and leave their roots in the pot.

Game on!

2 Gallon/8 Liter Netpot SIP

I built a new 2G SIP using a 2 gallon utility bucket and an 8" Netpot to add to my stable of designs from earlier in the thread and wanted to document it here.

It is the easiest SIP I've ever built and involved only one drilled hole for the soil footer, and a bunch of small, melted holes in the footer and support cups.

The 8" Netpot fits a standard 2G utility bucket (the ones with a spout) perfectly, with maybe a half inch air gap all around the inner pot. I drilled a center hole in the Netpot for a smaller cup for the footer and supported the Netpot on four other same sized small cups surrounding the footer cup inside the utility bucket.

That's it. No fill tube and no overflow hole as I'll be using a dip stick to monitor reservoir depth. 1L of water sets the reservoir depth at about 1" below the Netpot so i should get great air exposure all around.

The 8" Netpot holds a little less soil volume than my 2G/8L paint buckets, but I think the extra air exposure that the soil will get should more than compensate for that. I'm chasing higher brix and more air, less wetness seems required so I'm hoping this design will allow the best of two worlds; SIPs and Organics.

Only one way to find out so I'll be trying a round with thus new design and see what I learn.

 

[Gee64]

I could try my tap water but man it's coming out of the spigot at 580ppm. Its hard water but runs through a softener and when we got it tested iron was the only thing high.

I use RO exclusively, so I vote for RO. I definitely wouldn't use tap water at that high of a ppm. The catch with RO is that if you don't build your mix to run on RO then you will need calmag. Nothing wrong with calmag, theres a good reason it's the most popular item in a grow shop.

The RO water is running right now and coming in at 91ppm which is up from what the RODI was running at 8ppm lol.

Is there anything I can add to help charge up the population of microbes I possibly destroyed? I have liquid Kelp, Neptune's harvest and Recharge. I also have Dynomyco I could top dress with.

Recharge is a microbe mix, but you need to mix it like a tea, so follow the instructions exactly. If you think you may have compromised your soil microbes you likely compromised fungii too, so Dynomyco will also help out a lot. The other 2 are feeds. Kelp helps everything and neptune is fish ferts which are my personal fave. Fish ferts strenthen myco fungii and myco needs to be the boss in the soil. I water with fish ferts about once every 7-10 days, usually every 3rd watering.

Ya it's auto set, I haven't gotten around to getting a IR gun yet. There is a spot to add in leaf temp so when I get IR gun I'll add it in.

VPD is pretty easy if someone walks you thru it. When you get a gun by all means tag me or better yet pop in here if you need some pointers. In here others can absorb it too if they need to, but if you want it in your journal so you have the record of it just tag me there. VPD will help you dial in the synergy between your plant, your light, and your grow environment.

So with the addition of the heat mat, the soil temp is hovering around 71° consistently which is about 4+ degrees warmer than when the lights were off

71 is a good temp. Don't go too high. I like 71-72 myself.

You should see a much happier plant in a couple more days with your temps up. She may start moving water faster too.

If that happens don't start watering heavier, just water more often. Keep the soil around the sweet spot in flower with less wet/dry fluctuation.

You will know where the sweet spot is, she will pray hard when you hit it. That means she's moving a lot of food and getting a lot of air at the roots.

Every strain is a bit different so let her dry down until her leaves perk right up, then try to hold her there with more smaller waterings and let your water warm to room temp at least overnight.

Every time I water I refill my jug and let it sit in the tent to warm until next watering.

Warmer soil explodes microbe population so more air is required, so overwatering, which chokes air off, hurts even more in warmer soil, but because things speed up from the warmth you can quickly dry down.

Find that new sweet spot that warmer soil likes and you will suddenly see a much happier plant. Even happy plants look happier if their soil was a bit too cold and you warm it.

Other than the weirdness in the one plant your Gals look pretty good so I think you will like the warmer soil. Just be ready for a different watering regiment than what you are used to, they move quicker.

 

[Azimuth]

I started my drought this weekend and got half way to my target on day 3 of no water.

If I get to target on day four I think I'll give it a rescue drink and then another droughting round as I think the droop is happening too fast for the extra frost I'm wanting wanting to develop.

When I have an active SIP reservoir I usually go almost a week for the plant to use up the water bank in the soil before I see any droop at all, and this plant has not had an active reservoir so getting to droop this quickly is a new one for me.

I know @Stunger has had good effect in the past with multiple rounds of droughting and rescue drinks, although his in in an outdoor pot getting baked by the sun and he has no choice, so I'm going to give more than one round a try.

In my prior rounds the elongation of trichomes developed slowly over the course of the second week, and I'm thinking I might not get the effect I'm after if my drought is one round of 4 days.

 

[Gee64]

I built my new Netpot SIP today and am going to give it a shakedown cruise with some bean seeds.

This one will be used with a future draft choice, probably a Blueberry CBD plant, and will have all of my recent upgrades.

First, the soil has calcium and flower crumble added and will get the top dressing crumbles from the jump. I'm going to try to grow with just the crumbles this time rather than my JLF's to see if that can help brix, and I'll give dolo water every time or at least until the brix meter shows adequate calcium levels.

According to the spreadsheet, my soil could use more N, so I'm going to start out with three bean plants to try to fix N in the soil until I have a clone to pot up. That will also give me a chance to see how the new design compares to my previous versions using live plants.

So, I loaded the pot, planted my three seeds and put 1L of solo water in the reservoir to kick things off. The fact that the soil will gets access to lots of air should help keep the soil from being overwet and therefore give the microbes more O2 to mine the carbon in my mix as well as the extra P both in the soil mix and as a top dressing. Calcium has been added to the soil mix and will be routinely supplemented with dolo water.

Once I'm ready to transplant a clone I'll chop and drop the bean plants and leave their roots in the pot.

Game on!

Sweet! This will be a cool experiment. Having the extra life in the Sip environment that are nitrogen fixers may be a good way to both use excess moisture and get myco rolling before you plant some weed in it. You should try to introduce the cannabis before you chop and drop so myco is alive and well, not trying to go dormant from the chop n drop. Either way tho I think you will like the results. If your spreadsheet shows you low on nitrogen then you need more meals. I would look for a high P meal and introduce that.

Very cool Azi, please keep us updated.

 

[Azimuth]

Hey @Gee64 , congratulations on your MoTM nomination! Your active help to me and others in this thread and that of other members makes you an obvious choice so I cast my vote your way. Good luck!

 

[Gee64]

Hey @Gee64 , congratulations on your MoTM nomination! Your active help to me and others in this thread and that of other members makes you an obvious choice so I cast my vote your way. Good luck!

Hey thanks Azi, and congrats to you too Buddy. Your nomination is no surprise with all the info you move to those that need it with both Sips and your potion thread. It must keep you busy for sure. Maybe organics is catching on?

Anyways it's cool that we both got mentioned. The contests are pretty lively this month

 

[Gee64]

And thanks to whoever it was that nominated both myself and Azi

 

[Gee64]

Yesterday, Day 57,57, 43, and 40.

The Gang

The 2 older ones.

The 2 younger ones. They are fully red now and the 2nd flush is beginning on the Day 43 Gal.

The non-stop 3rd flush seems to be slowing but the trichs are still mainly clear and there are still tufts of white coming in. She's got battle scars but she made it, now to let her finish. Or maybe a 4th flush?

 

[Gee64]

Here are a few more shots. The older 2 are just past 8 weeks of flowering and it looks like senescence is creeping in. It's hard to tell with all the damaged leaves, but I think it's starting. I'll follow the trichs.

This middle aged one is thickening in and stacking nicely now. She should do better in the end as I didn't have the calcium problem with the 2 younger ones.

The older ones still pushing new tufts of hair.

 

[Gee64]

And the 2 remaining programmers. They are loving their new home. I'm torn. I really want to try some LC-18, but it would be fun to flower this strain 1 more time, it's pretty cool, and these 2 would be excellent plants. Maybe I will, maybe not. Procrastination, who needs it....

 

[Gee64]

I started my drought this weekend and got half way to my target on day 3 of no water.

If I get to target on day four I think I'll give it a rescue drink and then another droughting round as I think the droop is happening too fast for the extra frost I'm wanting wanting to develop.

When I have an active SIP reservoir I usually go almost a week for the plant to use up the water bank in the soil before I see any droop at all, and this plant has not had an active reservoir so getting to droop this quickly is a new one for me.

I know @Stunger has had good effect in the past with multiple rounds of droughting and rescue drinks, although his in in an outdoor pot getting baked by the sun and he has no choice, so I'm going to give more than one round a try.

In my prior rounds the elongation of trichomes developed slowly over the course of the second week, and I'm thinking I might not get the effect I'm after if my drought is one round of 4 days.

I'm no droughting expert but isn't the whole point to drought?

Do you follow the LWA protocol? Don't wuss out, you ARE a chronic overwaterer .

Be strong, let them droop enough.

If they are in senesence they don't need their fans anymore, so don't worry if you over-drought a bit.

Are they naturally yellowing yet?

I've often wondered if you sprayed the leaves as a rescue but left the roots dry would that help the droughting?

Hmmmm, if we only knew someone who was currently droughting....

 

[Lerugged]

Looking good buddy. Is there any meat on those buds or all hair ?

 

[Gee64]

Looking good buddy. Is there any meat on those buds or all hair ?

All hair with miniature calyxes. Lots of calyxes, just miniature with huge tufts of hairs popping out.

They are freakin' cool! I can't wait to try it.

If you squeeze them there is some meat inside for sure, but the usual swelling down the stretch hasn't occurred.

Figure they still have more to give?

 

[Thirvnrob]

Hey Gee, I have a question if you don’t mind. This girl is a little over 3

weeks old, in Ocean Forest, in a SIP. I’ve never seen discoloration like this & thought you might know. I was planning on topping her today, but maybe I should wait?

 

[Gee64]

Hey Gee, I have a question if you don’t mind. This girl is a little over 3

weeks old, in Ocean Forest, in a SIP. I’ve never seen discoloration like this & thought you might know. I was planning on topping her today, but maybe I should wait?

Hey Rob
I'm not sure what that is. Is that purple?

Is it a purple strain?

It looks odd but it doesn't actually look bad. How is she doing otherwise?

I think I would hold off just to see how those leaves develop.

Is she an auto?

 

[Thirvnrob]

Hey Rob
I'm not sure what that is. Is that purple?

Is it a purple strain?

It looks odd but it doesn't actually look bad. How is she doing otherwise?

I think I would hold off just to see how those leaves develop.

Is she an auto?

Sour Diesel, regular strain & yep, it’s purple. I’ll hold off a few days & let you know. Thanks!

 

[budnoob3]

Sour Diesel, regular strain & yep, it’s purple. I’ll hold off a few days & let you know. Thanks!

Could just be my sight but looks like you may have larvae on those leaves, any signs of pest to you up close?
Can you zoom in more on the centers near first 1/4 of leaves close to pistils forming, seeing some white specs can’t make out….

 

[Gee64]

Sour Diesel, regular strain & yep, it’s purple. I’ll hold off a few days & let you know. Thanks!

Please do, that's interesting. Can you post some more pics as it progresses or if it corrects itself?

 

[Gee64]

Please do, that's interesting. Can you post some more pics as it progresses or if it corrects itself?

A P deficiency can turn a plant purple but it usually looks a bit diffefent than that