The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[StoneOtter]

Thanks! Do you agree about mineralizing? I'm confused a little. I would have lost a bet that brix would be higher than 3. I do see room for improvement, Geoflora veg is 5-3-4. Their bloom is 3-5-5. They may be hungry. I haven't started bloom yet, next feed next week. Besides regular geoflora I've top dressed with compost once and ewc once and that's it. Time to go again.

 

[Gee64]

Thanks! Do you agree about mineralizing? I'm confused a little. I would have lost a bet that brix would be higher than 3. I do see room for improvement, Geoflora veg is 5-3-4. Their bloom is 3-5-5. They may be hungry. I haven't started bloom yet, next feed next week. Besides regular geoflora I've top dressed with compost once and ewc once and that's it. Time to go again.

Brix is mainly the correct amounts of 5 things. Carbon, oxygen, calcium, phosphorus, and microbes, so yeah, mineralization. Those are the 4 main things in photosynthesis and the microbes are needed to supply them. Then add as much light as you can and when brix stalls, add more of all 5 parts. I'm not really familiar with geoflora, but I bet if you added cal and phos you would see an improvement.

 

[Gee64]

Interesting. This is from the manual of my new 1000w LED. Look at the last tip. Maybe I should add extra dolomite to my mix and recook it.

 

[Azimuth]

I always prefer the fastest rooters but slower rooters are people too

Actually I find with Durban, which I know pretty good, that fast rooters are usually phenos of long rangy plants that yield huge, and slow rooters are usually the delicate phenos that don't produce as much, take a week longer to finish, but have the really nice smells and tastes.

They also usually photograph better.

But I still like the best rooters best

I'm more asking about clones from the same mother.

 

[Keffka]

Interesting. This is from the manual of my new 1000w LED. Look at the last tip. Maybe I should add extra dolomite to my mix and recook it.

Does that second tip say perfect temperature is -4F to 95F? Lol good luck with that

What LED were you running before this? I can almost guarantee you’ll need more Ca and Mg than you’re used to

 

[Carmen Ray]

Why the extra cal and mag for the light?

 

[Gee64]

I always prefer the fastest rooters but slower rooters are people too

Actually I find with Durban, which I know pretty good, that fast rooters are usually phenos of long rangy plants that yield huge, and slow rooters are usually the delicate phenos that don't produce as much, take a week longer to finish, but have the really nice smells and tastes.

They also usually photograph better.

But I still like the best rooters best

They definitely seem to carry. Fast rooting clones seem to produce fast rooting clones. My cbd plant was hard to clone and so were all the clones of the clones.

 

[Gee64]

Thanks! Do you agree about mineralizing? I'm confused a little. I would have lost a bet that brix would be higher than 3. I do see room for improvement, Geoflora veg is 5-3-4. Their bloom is 3-5-5. They may be hungry. I haven't started bloom yet, next feed next week. Besides regular geoflora I've top dressed with compost once and ewc once and that's it. Time to go again.

Mineralization will raise brix, but mainly its the cal and phos. Brix are sugar and sugar is created by photosynthesis, so to create more photosynthesis you need more oxygen, carbon, calcium, and phosphorus, and to process all that new stuff you need more microbes. As the light increases the other 5 must increase or you won't get more sugar. Are you reading the leaves or the leaf stems? leaf stems will read really low.

 

[Gee64]

I'm on the road Stone. Tomorrow I will write you a better answer, sorry. Its one of those days

 

[Gee64]

Thanks! Do you agree about mineralizing? I'm confused a little. I would have lost a bet that brix would be higher than 3. I do see room for improvement, Geoflora veg is 5-3-4. Their bloom is 3-5-5. They may be hungry. I haven't started bloom yet, next feed next week. Besides regular geoflora I've top dressed with compost once and ewc once and that's it. Time to go again.

Sorry Stone I was driving and misread your post. Mineralization and brix actually go hand in hand. I doubt your soil is low on minerals but it may be low on calcium and phosphorus.

Microbes don't particularly like eating minerals, they would rather eat plant matter or anything else containing carbon.

Carbon is what they seek.

jPlants, with the assistance of myco, have figured this out and perfected a system where the plant photosynthesizes sugar, which is largely carbon, gives it to myco, who in turn takes a cut as a middleman fee, and trades the rest to the microbes for minerals.

Adding Calcium, phosphorus, carbon, oxygen, and more or healthier microbes allows for more photosynthesis. More photosynthesis means more sugar so more bribery and trade. Brix is a measurement of sugar. The richer a plant gets, the richer a plant gets, until one input gets exhausted or reaches it's limit.

It's almost always cal and phos. Cal sinks and phos is hard to mine.

Adding calcium opens the soil which provides oxygen, so calcium is a twofer.

Carbon for the microbes starts from the soil, but once brix get rolling the plant provides it in the form of sugar.

Phosphorus must be added or mined, but once you have oxygen and carbon the microbes are happy and robust and will gladly mine phos for sugars.

So adding calcium and phosphorus is the quickest way to raise brix, which will raise microbes, which will mine phosphorus, all creating sugar via photosynthesis to provide carbon. And microbes breathe air so thats where the twofer fits in.

Its almost a closed loop except calcium keeps sinking and becoming unavailable and then soil tightens, oxygen gets cut off, microbes go to sleep, mineralization slows, and brix crashes cutting off free carbon (sugars) .

This is why I preach calcium so much. If you correct the calcium everything else aligns and all you need to do is add some phosphorus, and not a lot, and jumpstart the microbes with a mollasses or organic cane sugar drink to add some quick carbon.

That carbon is for the microbes so they can start mineralization, not for the plant to eat.

The plant gets its carbon from the air.

So once brix start to rise the plant can give the microbes the carbon and the barter system begins.

Now you can see that if cal and phos are always available, all you need to do is add more light to drive photosynthesis, which creates more carbon, which brings more phos, which increases photosynthesis, which creates more carbon, which brings more phos.....

And the plants empire grows.

If you do all that and brix won't rise, prime the pump. Give the microbes a shot of sugar water to get them partying and then it all starts to flow.

 

[StoneOtter]

Are you reading the leaves or the leaf stems? leaf stems will read really low

Stems were 2.5 and leaves 3 and a fuzzy line.

Sorry Stone I was driving and misread your post. Mineralization and brix actually go hand in hand. I doubt your soil is low on minerals but it may be low on calcium and phosphorus.

Microbes don't particularly like eating minerals, they would rather eat plant matter or anything else containing carbon.

Carbon is what they seek.

jPlants, with the assistance of myco, have figured this out and perfected a system where the plant photosynthesizes sugar, which is largely carbon, gives it to myco, who in turn takes a cut as a middleman fee, and trades the rest to the microbes for minerals.

Adding Calcium, phosphorus, carbon, oxygen, and more or healthier microbes allows for more photosynthesis. More photosynthesis means more sugar so more bribery and trade. Brix is a measurement of sugar. The richer a plant gets, the richer a plant gets, until one input gets exhausted or reaches it's limit.

It's almost always cal and phos. Cal sinks and phos is hard to mine.

Adding calcium opens the soil which provides oxygen, so calcium is a twofer.

Carbon for the microbes starts from the soil, but once brix get rolling the plant provides it in the form of sugar.

Phosphorus must be added or mined, but once you have oxygen and carbon the microbes are happy and robust and will gladly mine phos for sugars.

So adding calcium and phosphorus is the quickest way to raise brix, which will raise microbes, which will mine phosphorus, all creating sugar via photosynthesis to provide carbon. And microbes breathe air so thats where the twofer fits in.

Its almost a closed loop except calcium keeps sinking and becoming unavailable and then soil tightens, oxygen gets cut off, microbes go to sleep, mineralization slows, and brix crashes cutting off free carbon (sugars) .

This is why I preach calcium so much. If you correct the calcium everything else aligns and all you need to do is add some phosphorus, and not a lot, and jumpstart the microbes with a mollasses or organic cane sugar drink to add some quick carbon.

That carbon is for the microbes so they can start mineralization, not for the plant to eat.

The plant gets its carbon from the air.

So once brix start to rise the plant can give the microbes the carbon and the barter system begins.

Now you can see that if cal and phos are always available, all you need to do is add more light to drive photosynthesis, which creates more carbon, which brings more phos, which increases photosynthesis, which creates more carbon, which brings more phos.....

And the plants empire grows.

If you do all that and brix won't rise, prime the pump. Give the microbes a shot of sugar water to get them partying and then it all starts to flow.

Thanks for this detailed explanation Gee! I'll put what I can to work and let you know what happened! This is fun! I got a delivery of "sweet candy", something Emilya's been talking about in her Geoflora grows. It brings on the p and k among other things. Today will be day one of that. Should be an interesting brix test next week!

 

[Gee64]

It will be very interesting to see what it does

 

[Gee64]

Does that second tip say perfect temperature is -4F to 95F? Lol good luck with that

What LED were you running before this? I can almost guarantee you’ll need more Ca and Mg than you’re used to

I was running a Perfectsun Goliath 575watt

 

[Gee64]

Why the extra cal and mag for the light?

The only reason I can come up with is that the high par of the new LED's causes more photosynthesis so you burn through the nutrients quicker.

 

[Gee64]

Stems were 2.5 and leaves 3 and a fuzzy line.

Thanks for this detailed explanation Gee! I'll put what I can to work and let you know what happened! This is fun! I got a delivery of "sweet candy", something Emilya's been talking about in her Geoflora grows. It brings on the p and k among other things. Today will be day one of that. Should be an interesting brix test next week!

Also, its organics, so if you add the Candy it may take 10-14 days to see any results so be patient.

Also check the soil. If its light and fluffy on top when dry thats good.

If it has a crust you are low on calcium up top so oxygen is getting choked.

Crusty soil means the cal to mag ratio has swung to heavy mag. Excess mag locks up nitrogen on a 1 to 1 ratio for every part in excess.

Nitrogen is vital even in flower and it comes from the air.

Nitro in the soil gets composted into amino acids so things like alfalfa meal, once composted, aren't really nitrogen any more. They are now aminos and proteins, so you need fresh nitro non stop.

Air is 78% nitrogen. Tight soil restricts the air.

 

[Gee64]

@StoneOtter I should include light too so it's really 6 things that you need to increase to raise brix.

Light drives photosynthesis, but the other 5 are the supply chain to keep up with the light so.... If your plant doesn't get full sun all day long it can't photosynthesize enough sugars to raise its brix but... most plants have adequate or too much light and its the other 5 that are the restrictions.

This is how DLI comes into play. Without adequate DLI, high brix simply can't be achieved. The sugar factories aren't running enough during a day.

 

[Carmen Ray]

The only reason I can come up with is that the high par of the new LED's causes more photosynthesis so you burn through the nutrients quicker.

Ok that's what Otter said to me earlier in my grow too. It's possible I had increased light too suddenly, and he gave that as an explanation. It makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Keffka]

I was running a Perfectsun Goliath 575watt

Yeah dude, you’ve almost doubled your wattage.. I would also be willing to bet your current light spectrum and spread are both fuller and more complete than your previous light. It would also be useful to figure out the difference in your red ratio between the lights.

 

[Gee64]

Calcium is extremely overlooked by most people. As a plant nutrient it falls far enough behind N,P, and K that it didn't make the top 3, but if you include soil health, and not just what a plant needs to eat, the list would read C,N,P,K and fertilizers would have 4 numbers instead of 3. Calcium is the mother of all minerals. Without it NP and K are useless. Calcium sets the stage for all the other actors to perform.

Yeah dude, you’ve almost doubled your wattage.. I would also be willing to bet your current light spectrum and spread are both fuller and more complete than your previous light. It would also be useful to figure out the difference in your red ratio between the lights.

I added a UV and IR bar. The IR I'm still not sure I want or need extra, but the UV is vital. I haven't turned on the IR bar yet. As soon as I get a full grow from seed under it we shall see.

I can see IR really improving indicas, but I don't need my sativas any taller.

The new light sure pumps out the heat though, it will be great in the winters.

I had to install the driver outside the tent to get the temps down from 100+ to the high 80's.

My VPD is through the roof.

Yesterday I finally got it down to 1.8

Poor clones. They shoulda stayed in school.

But they sold their souls to Gee's Tent of Horrors so shits getting real for them now.

 

[StoneOtter]

@StoneOtter I should include light too so it's really 6 things that you need to increase to raise brix.

Light drives photosynthesis, but the other 5 are the supply chain to keep up with the light so.... If your plant doesn't get full sun all day long it can't photosynthesize enough sugars to raise its brix but... most plants have adequate or too much light and its the other 5 that are the restrictions.

This is how DLI comes into play. Without adequate DLI, high brix simply can't be achieved. The sugar factories aren't running enough during a day.

I can't say light def isn't part of it. We've had so many cloudy and rainy days this summer it's crazy!