The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

@Carmen Ray I still have them on swicks but I am cycling the perlite from wet to dry to wet to dry this time, to avoid over-watering to some degree, but mostly because I feel top-watering is vital for calcium.

A week ago my brix readings had very crisp lines which indicates low available calcium.

Since then I have cycled them wet-dry twice with mild top watering on the dry cycle and the calcium came around really quickly. From an issue and concern to bang on in 1 week just by cycling the bottom.

I let the water in the perlite disappear and then give them 1 more day before watering the reservoir again. I then only fill it 1/4 full.

The perlite stays damp so they arent drying completely but it is greatly diminished.

My theory is that by cycling I will still pull water roots down, but also force feeder roots up top to work, and to cycle the calcium as well.

So far I am quite happy with the results but its too soon to get excited yet.
 
Gee64 said:
If that doesn't fix it I will topdress some high phos guano as well.
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Do you run flowers through your worm bin? I like to put the big showy flowers in like peony and daylily, as well as the larf from trimming. I also do a dried extract of them but I think running them through the worm bin should be the best way to use them since the base nutrients all get processed, dusted with great microbes, and then packaged in a time release form.

Since P is supposed to be added in early in the grow to be available to the plants in flower, I'm thinking turning flowers into worm poop might just be an ideal way to deliver it. And all from your backyard without having to keep a pesky bat colony going, though those  are great for mosquito control.
 
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Here are the 2 thrips clones I culled. This was in perlite swicks, 2gal pots, and 23 days after I planted the clones. The swicks do grow roots👍
 
Gee64 said:
@Carmen Ray I still have them on swicks but I am cycling the perlite from wet to dry to wet to dry this time, to avoid over-watering to some degree, but mostly because I feel top-watering is vital for calcium.

A week ago my brix readings had very crisp lines which indicates low available calcium.

Since then I have cycled them wet-dry twice with mild top watering on the dry cycle and the calcium came around really quickly. From an issue and concern to bang on in 1 week just by cycling the bottom.

I let the water in the perlite disappear and then give them 1 more day before watering the reservoir again. I then only fill it 1/4 full.

The perlite stays damp so they arent drying completely but it is greatly diminished.

My theory is that by cycling I will still pull water roots down, but also force feeder roots up top to work, and to cycle the calcium as well.

So far I am quite happy with the results but its too soon to get excited yet.
Click to expand...

Gee64 said:
20230716_144328.jpg
20230716_144133.jpg

Here are the 2 thrips clones I culled. This was in perlite swicks, 2gal pots, and 23 days after I planted the clones. The swicks do grow roots👍
Click to expand...
Hi Gee,

The calcium deficiencies I am seeing are a result of a soil that is too hot for seedlings and occur with top watering too.

Wouldn't my copycat swick method, using a raised swicky pad have a different effect to that of a perlite water bed because in the version I use the roots are air pruned. It's a different style of wicking altogether.

Are the other swickers having similar results to you with calcium deficiencies? What is their experience?
 
Carmen Ray said:
Hi Gee,

The calcium deficiencies I am seeing are a result of a soil that is too hot for seedlings and occur with top watering too.

Wouldn't my copycat swick method, using a raised swicky pad have a different effect to that of a perlite water bed because in the version I use the roots are air pruned. It's a different style of wicking altogether.

Are the other swickers having similar results to you with calcium deficiencies? What is their experience?
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Im not sure about your pad or the other swickers but by watering from both ends my refractometer tells me the calcium is becoming very available. Its not as easy as just straight bottom watering but its working.
 
Gee64 said:
Im not sure about your pad or the other swickers but by watering from both ends my refractometer tells me the calcium is becoming very available. Its not as easy as just straight bottom watering but its working.
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Very interesting, Gee. It sounds a bit tricky to have to get the balance top and bottom, but I suppose like anything once it is a habit it is routine.
 
Carmen Ray said:
Very interesting, Gee. It sounds a bit tricky to have to get the balance top and bottom, but I suppose like anything once it is a habit it is routine.
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I think so. When the res goes dry I water lightly up top instead of refilling the res, then the next day I add 2 lites of water to the res, then 2 days later I repeat. As it starts to stretch I'm thinking the watering will accelerate.
 
Gee64 said:
I want to train the plant to drink from both and eventually go back to a fuller res as well as regular light top watering. My goal is to mimick a tree with a tap root into the aquifer and rain on the feeder roots up top.
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I've been tempted to top feed once a week. I like that visual of the plant sending a tap root into the aquifer and getting rain fed from above 😍
 
Gee64 said:
I want to train the plant to drink from both and eventually go back to a fuller res as well as regular light top watering. My goal is to mimick a tree with a tap root into the aquifer and rain on the feeder roots up top.
Click to expand...
One of the most insightful things I've read on 420.

Im also of the mind re Calcium that LED use seems to have an effect.

Ive noticed the correlation quite a bit since it was first brought to my attention.
 
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Holy Crap Guys! Check this out. Its a crappy picture but you can see the brix reading of 19 with a fuzzy line. It's Rev's recipe grown outdoors. I have never used his soil outside. This is one of the Purple Kush plants outdoors. The 1st leaf I checked was actually 21. I have no idea how high it will go in flower. I guess we will find out in a few weeks😎 Man if you are using Rev's soil you need to get it outside! I know its expensive but this is top end readings here and its still in veg. I will check the other 2 tomorrow.
 
DV8 said:
One of the most insightful things I've read on 420.

Im also of the mind re Calcium that LED use seems to have an effect.

Ive noticed the correlation quite a bit since it was first brought to my attention.
Click to expand...
I have researched a fair bit on why LEDs seem to require more calcium and magnesium and there really is no answer that I can find so I am going with the fact that they just photosynthesize more under LEDs and therefore require more calcium as its a big player, and as a result more magnesium is required to balance the extra calcium.

But I honestly have no idea.

It does make mathematical sense though.
 
Azimuth said:
Do you run flowers through your worm bin? I like to put the big showy flowers in like peony and daylily, as well as the larf from trimming. I also do a dried extract of them but I think running them through the worm bin should be the best way to use them since the base nutrients all get processed, dusted with great microbes, and then packaged in a time release form.

Since P is supposed to be added in early in the grow to be available to the plants in flower, I'm thinking turning flowers into worm poop might just be an ideal way to deliver it. And all from your backyard without having to keep a pesky bat colony going, though those  are great for mosquito control.
Click to expand...
Sorry Azi I just saw this post now. I run all my outdoor flowers through my compost and return it to the outdoor gardens. Indoors I run orchid flowers through the worm farm but otherwise the only flowers in the worm farm is cannabis flower of which every tray gets at least a couple ounces. I freeze them 1st and shatter them into meal.
 
Here is one of the 10gal rootballs from the thrips cull of the broken light. I went from solo straight to 10gal. It was 81 days from sprout, 65 days from uppot, and day23 of flower when I culled it. The bag was 100% solid roots. The pot was only top watered so its all feeder roots. If my light never went Kaputski this would have flowered huge buds and could have easily survived a prolonged run at a VPD of 1.4. But it will also make excellent compost as that rootball holds a lot of carbon.
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This is freshly peeled out of the bag.

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Here it is after a gentle shake to show the roots better.

You can still see the outline of the solo cup.

Thats why I don't really like starting in solos but having 4 10gals in the veg tent and 4 in the flower consumes a lot of space so I do start in solos quite often but If the flower tent is empty and I have nothing to put in it I will start my seeds in the 10gals. They come out better than this one.

The rootball with the soil was easily 30 pounds but I could pick it up by the stump and not a single root popped. Its a tough rootball.

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This took a lot of work to shake out. The soil was held in really well. Later today I will completely rinse it out to the white roots and we can look at its structure.

There is a stoner myth that you need to uppot to a small veg pot and then again to a final flower pot, letting the veg pot grow roots until its rootbound and then uppot.

The only way I get roots better than this is when I plant directly into a 10gal.

I don't coddle-water my seedlings after they have sprouted. Once they are in the big pots they get drip irrigated to mild runoff and then that gets repeated daily.

When they say you can't overwater a cloth pot what they really mean is that you can't overwater a cloth pot.

The pot pulls in so much air that soggy drains freely out the bottom and what is left is the perfect environment for growing feather dusters.

Let me be clear though, this is a "Growing from seed" thing.

Clones take a little coddling as they don't have a tap root but my work around for that is displayed in my swick cloning link in my signature.

My 10gals are pretty much the same height as a 5gal pail but a couple inches wider so I can set the rootball on an upside down 5gal pail and peel the pot down and over the pail to cleanly get the rootball out.

All the beautiful Rev's soil I beat out of it and all the fungii/microlife that was in it are now in my flower garden outside.

Those flowers will compost and then end up in my veggie garden. My veggies use it to build brix and the wasted pot turns into high nutrition food. Circle of life.
 
Gee64 said:
@Carmen Ray when we get swicking properly figured out I think we can get an even better rootball.
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Gee I've only ever had roots poking through the bottom of the bag with swicking or if the bag is placed on top of soil. I'm super keen to see what my root balls look like after this grow.
 
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