The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[Carmen Ray]

Aaaaannnddd, LIFTOFF!

15 brix with a slightly fuzzy line, though could be better. But now we know it  is possible with my combination of things to get above the 12 brix ceiling. End of week 2 of flower, 4:15 am rolleyes

VPD = 2.9. eek
84 Room temp
85 Leaf Temp
30% RH

Even though the leaves are praying quite well, this seems to be telling me to increase the canopy-to-light distance.

Thanks for your help @Gee64 ! I appreciate you!

I was about to say you're up early and then I saw your time! Congratulations on the 15 brix with fuzzy line!

What do you mean about the prayer angle telling you to increase canopy to light distance?

 

[Carmen Ray]

Good morning Gee man and friends!
Gee, I wanted to update you on my prize situation. I had contact from Herbies and Vipar Spectra. Those prizes are on their way to me! I had not expected the light at all! I hope the other seed companies send to me too.

 

[Gee64]

Aaaaannnddd, LIFTOFF!

15 brix with a slightly fuzzy line, though could be better. But now we know it  is possible with my combination of things to get above the 12 brix ceiling. End of week 2 of flower, 4:15 am rolleyes

Nice! I figured you were close. Congrats Azi

VPD = 2.9. eek
84 Room temp
85 Leaf Temp
30% RH

EEK is the correct word lol

Even though the leaves are praying quite well, this seems to be telling me to increase the canopy-to-light distance.

Definitely. Your leaves are struggling to exhale the water. Your stomata are compramised. This is actually a good thing. Fix it and brix will climb higher as the CO2 starts to increase.

Thanks for your help @Gee64 ! I appreciate you!

You're Welcome Azi. You give enough around here, it's good to see you get some back

Don't worry about using commercial calcium, it told you that your mix needs more, and it told you the rest of your mix is solid. Now you just reverse engineer the calcium issue until you no longer need the commercial stuff.

 

[Azimuth]

I was about to say you're up early and then I saw your time! Congratulations on the 15 brix with fuzzy line!

Thanks! It's nice to know it's possible.

What do you mean about the prayer angle telling you to increase canopy to light distance?

Not the prayer angle, but the leaf temp as part of the VPD calculation.

 

[Gee64]

Good morning Gee man and friends!
Gee, I wanted to update you on my prize situation. I had contact from Herbies and Vipar Spectra. Those prizes are on their way to me! I had not expected the light at all! I hope the other seed companies send to me too.

Sweet!! This is awesome Carmen! Those prizes were well deserved, I'm really happy they are coming! I look forward to seeing you use them.

Azi gets the brix he deserves and you get the prizes you deserve!

It's a great day! I'm grinning for you both!

 

[Gee64]

Azi, keep working on that calcium line as you straighten out your environment. If it's not perfectly fuzzy there are still some brix in there.

 

[Azimuth]

Don't worry about using commercial calcium, it told you that your mix needs more, and it told you the rest of your mix is solid. Now you just reverse engineer the calcium issue until you no longer need the commercial stuff.

How much castings do you top dress with per gallon?

My routine has been 1 teaspoon/gallon of pot size of my meals and minerals blend and 3-4x that amount of castings misted in well each week. Recently I was starting to get a bit of an N deficiency which seems to have stopped after I added a mulch layer of compost.

I don't have a lot of extra leaves to FAFO, so I'm wondering if I should increase either or both of my weekly top dressings. The M&M mix works out to about 3 ounces per plant over the course of the grow, and that has seemed to be sufficient in the past, but if the plants are going to be revving higher with the new combination of things I'm thinking they may need more inputs along the way.

 

[Gee64]

Azi I did a bit of googling on your behalf. Spinach and collard greens are very high in magnesium. I actually use spinach as a cover crop outside and harvest it for the worms, but I had no idea it was a good Mg source until now.

I'm not sure how you can use that info, but if you could make a spinach potion to compliment your WCA potion it might be worth trying on one plant to see how it does.

Spinach is a prolific seeder. Let a single spinach go to seed and you have it in your garden for life.

When a spinach plant survives the winter don't cull it in the spring. It's now a seeder plant.

Terrible for eating but it will grow 5' tall and seed the whole garden. Then let that be your cover crop and pluck the baby plants into your recycling system and Potion Lab.

The worms will take the excess and assimilate that Mg into the soil mix.

I freeze mine straight from the garden, then crush it into a meal once it's frozen and dump it into my worm trays.

 

[Carmen Ray]

Thank you Gee man

 

[Gee64]

How much castings do you top dress with per gallon?

I use 2 heaping solo cups, which I think are 18oz, per 10gal pot per week. With that I use the following formula for my top dressing. My topdressing is the exact minerals in my mix in the exact ratios as the mix.

6 tbsp per gallon of soil in the pot =60 tbsp divided by 4 weeks because those 60 tbsp in a 10 gallon pot with a full rootball only last for 4 weeks. So 15 tbsp of minerals per week per pot, or to make it easier, 1 cup of Gaia 2-8-4, which isn't Rev's recipe, but it's the exact same minerals. So here is exactly what I use.

15tbsp Gaia 2-8-4 and 1 tbsp high P bat guano to equal 16 tbsp (1 cup) per week. Gaia is a tad short on slow release P so the guano helps here.

My routine has been 1 teaspoon/gallon of pot size of my meals and minerals blend and 3-4x that amount of castings misted in well each week. Recently I was starting to get a bit of an N deficiency which seems to have stopped after I added a mulch layer of compost.

That could be a Ca def too, tightening the soil and restricting air, or possibly your reservoir filled and saturated your soil choking air. Keep an eye open and analyze deeper if it happens again.

I don't have a lot of extra leaves to FAFO,

I had to google FAFO, too funny, I FAFO my entire life all day long and had no idea what it meant. . I'm an FAFO'er! lol

so I'm wondering if I should increase either or both of my weekly top dressings.

I use 1.5 tbsp topdressing per gallon per week and 5 times that in EWC if that helps.

I use about a half cup, per gallon of soil, of EWC per week. Thats in late veg and thru stretch. It slows down after stretch. You will see what I mean, the pot surface levels won't drop as much. About the beginning of week 5.

It coincides with water intake becoming identical each day. This is the yield zone. When plants find this rhythm and you cater to it by reducing water a bit to just what they need, and not clogging the surface with too much EWC, they hold their brix and add weight really fast. Ride this as long and steady as you can.

From the end of stretch until scenescence starts is the money zone.

Scenescence is the ripening zone. They still need minerals to ripen but not as much organic matter. So stick with the top dressing but don't worry that they aren't eating as much EWC.

The M&M mix works out to about 3 ounces per plant over the course of the grow, and that has seemed to be sufficient in the past, but if the plants are going to be revving higher with the new combination of things I'm thinking they may need more inputs along the way.

They will. High end athletes eat more. Your grow space may get stinkier around week 4-5 if your brix stay up.

Get those leaf temps down. If not you will see issues in 10-14 days. You are .13 kpa higher on the leaf than the atmosphere, so the leaf is warmer than the air. It will try to hold the moisture because of physics, instead of the air wicking it away.

Atmospheric carbon is being restricted from coming in and water is being restricted from leaving. Transpiration is compromised right now. I'm glad you got up early, now you see the truth AND why it's vital to see that 10 hour mark. Thats the reading to make adjustments by and now you know why. You will see people scoff at VPD and even get rude about it being snake oil.

Don't argue with them, they aren't educated. Let them miss out. Too much light, now that LED has taken over, is ruining more plants than over watering is.

VPD is actually the environmental factor that plants use to set their stomata to, and stomatal regulation is the throttle of the grow.

Everyone thinks it's light. Light is just a factor. Now you know how that factor works.

Shoot for 1.35-1.45. That's the spot where a cannabis plant can work hard all day long without stress. Then start shovelling the food and minerals in. They eat a lot at 1.4.

I double-dare you to try and keep up.

When they are really revving in an optimal VPD you can actually measure the soil surface dropping if you pay attention, just like you can watch your car's fuel guage drop when you open it up on the highway.

Best part Azi, is that you still have room for improvement. You're just getting to the good stuff, you haven't really started using it yet

So everything you are learning about brix here, make sure you apply it outdoors to your inputs. That's absolutely paramount to what your trying to accomplish.

Make high brix inputs your outdoor goal for next season and everything will get noticeably better and far more stable.

A stable plant creates a stable atmosphere around itself, and VPD gets easier. Another layer of balance.

Sky's the limit!

 

[Gee64]

Thank you Gee man

Now you have to figure out which lights to use, 1st world problems!

 

[Gee64]

Lol I'm still chuckling about FAFO. I guess my life's mantra can be summed up in 8 letters.

FAFOYOLO. .... sounds Italian if you say it fast

 

[Gee64]

Which leads to my favorite saying... "What could go wrong?"

 

[Gee64]

Can't wait to see how it ends up here in several weeks!!
**Sits back and hits the vape**
Mmmmm red haired bud..... Yeahbaby

Scottay your humor is always appreciated!.

 

[Gee64]

I finally found my USB dongle so I can take pictures with my dslr camera and pop the chip into my phone with the dongle again. No more $hitty photos.

It was cloudy yesterday but here's photo dump of the BK. Her purples are highlighting more.

The light was weird so it makes for neat photos.

 

[Gee64]

A few more.

Some RVDV.

 

[StoneOtter]

 

[Azimuth]

VPD = 2.9. ( )
84 Room temp
85 Leaf Temp
30% RH

Even though the leaves are praying quite well, this seems to be telling me to increase the canopy-to-light distance.

I played around with the VPD calculator and it seems like getting the RH up is really the only material way to improve my VPD result. Even dropping the plant to lower leaf temps doesn't move the needle much.

I use 2 heaping solo cups, which I think are 18oz, per 10gal pot per week. With that I use the following formula for my top dressing. My topdressing is the exact minerals in my mix in the exact ratios as the mix.

Ok, wow. That's multiples more than I'm using so I have room to increase things. I was concerned about using too much and have the minerals build up in the soil over multiple grows leading to issues down the road, but it seems like there's plenty of overhead room before I get to that level.

That could be a Ca def too, tightening the soil and restricting air, or possibly your reservoir filled and saturated your soil choking air. Keep an eye open and analyze deeper if it happens again.

Increasing my weekly top dressing and castings additions should help keep up and keep those issues at bay.

I haven't used the reservoir at all yet other than treating it like a standard saucer. I'm trying not to give it more than the soil will hold.

I use 1.5 tbsp topdressing per gallon per week and 5 times that in EWC if that helps.

Good thing I have a continual supply of castings. I'll start upping things with this week's additions.

Get those leaf temps down. If not you will see issues in 10-14 days. You are .13 kpa higher on the leaf than the atmosphere, so the leaf is warmer than the air. It will try to hold the moisture because of physics, instead of the air wicking it away.

Atmospheric carbon is being restricted from coming in and water is being restricted from leaving. Transpiration is compromised right now.

Im assuming that lowering the leaf temp can help move water and that will help up the RH. My space is too small for a humidifier but maybe I could put a container of water on a heating mat. I think I'll see if lowering the plant helps lower leaf temps and therefore better thru put first though.

I double-dare you to try and keep up.

Challenge accepted!

 

[Gee64]

I played around with the VPD calculator and it seems like getting the RH up is really the only material way to improve my VPD result. Even dropping the plant to lower leaf temps doesn't move the needle much.


Ok, wow. That's multiples more than I'm using so I have room to increase things. I was concerned about using too much and have the minerals build up in the soil over multiple grows leading to issues down the road, but it seems like there's plenty of overhead room before I get to that level.


Increasing my weekly top dressing and castings additions should help keep up and keep those issues at bay.

I haven't used the reservoir at all yet other than treating it like a standard saucer. I'm trying not to give it more than the soil will hold.


Good thing I have a continual supply of castings. I'll start upping things with this week's additions.


Im assuming that lowering the leaf temp can help move water and that will help up the RH. My space is too small for a humidifier but maybe I could put a container of water on a heating mat. I think I'll see if lowering the plant helps lower leaf temps and therefore better thru put first though.


Challenge accepted!

OK so what you really need is to lower your light intensity and your vpd. RH will definitely help. Shoot for 52%. It's a great down the middle RH.

Wet pots of dirt with no plants in them work really well to hold humidity. If they were sips you might even be able to regulate it somewhat?

Maybe

Worth a try

And if you can lower your light intensity your air temp will probably drop too.

 

[Azimuth]

OK so what you really need is to lower your light intensity and your vpd. RH will definitely help. Shoot for 52%. It's a great down the middle RH.

How long will it take the plant to adjust leaf temps; minutes, hours or days?

I just lowered the plant by 2" and figured I'd check it again before bedtime to see if further adjustments would be required if the effect will be seen by then. I have the cab open so it's not a perfect comparison to what it is when it's closed up, but it should give me a sense, at least.

And if you can lower your light intensity your air temp will probably drop too.

How so? I would think air temp is more a function of airflow and heat from the lights.