TheRoach's First - Soil - Aurora Indica - Organic Grow - 600W

Hey Roach... Just stopped in to bug you :rofl: Bug? :rofl:

My AI are starting to foxtail some. Starting to put on a little weight too.

You seem so Organic. I tried a TEA... topped off with an Organic? Tea (tbsp. plant tone, tbsp. bone meal, tbsp. kelp, splash tomato thrive, 3 drops blackstrap molasses, 1 splash fish fertilizer) percolated for almost 24 hours. PH was 8 ish. PH'd down to 6.5 ish.

Ehhh? Well. I don't know... It is a tea of some kind :rofl:

I will try and put some pics up tomorrow...
 
Thats the weirdest looking bud ive ever seen! Except for that one strain that grows little clusters of calyx's everywhere.

Where are the calyx's at?
What kind of light are you growing under?

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HunterNitro said:
Thats the weirdest looking bud ive ever seen! Except for that one strain that grows little clusters of calyx's everywhere.

Where are the calyx's at?
What kind of light are you growing under?
Click to expand...

I've seen weirder!


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Buenas noches Señor The Roach. Hope all is well. I started making a worm bin today. Quite excited about it. I have a tea brewing also. What does it mean, if anything, if the tea is not frothy? Mine usually isn't very, and this batch has no froth at all. I put an extra tsp of molasses in and I'm going to brew it 48 hours then it's tea time for the plants, froth or not.
 
Weaselcracker said:
Buenas noches Señor The Roach. Hope all is well. I started making a worm bin today. Quite excited about it. I have a tea brewing also. What does it mean, if anything, if the tea is not frothy? Mine usually isn't very, and this batch has no froth at all. I put an extra tsp of molasses in and I'm going to brew it 48 hours then it's tea time for the plants, froth or not.
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The froth doesn't mean anything. Its likely just free proteins in the tea being restructured (think egg whites being beat). Also if you have anything with saponin like yucca or Aloe in your tea, it would instantly foam. Have you ever tried just putting molasses in plain water with an air stone running? Same amount of foam, yet you have not added an inoculant.

Take a sample of your tea and put it under a microscope. That's how you will know the quality and diversity of your tea. In my experience, teas stop foaming after an hour or so...so what about the other 35 hours of brewing? Is nothing happening? Unlikely. Too much molasses, while not tremendously bad, isn't that great for microbial life in your soil. You want microbes to eat minerals. Sugar is pretty much junk food for microbes. Too much of it too often and you will cause the microbe population to swell and eventually deplete your soil of nutrients. The first thing to go is usually Nitrogen.
 
Thanks for that great reply, and the link CC! I thought there was a chance the foam might be some evidence of life :) I don't think I have a good enough microscope to see what I need to see in there, but I'll try with the ones I have. I would love to be able to see something wiggling in there.
 
The foaming is called biofilm, and it means there is a lot of bacterial activity. The quality of the foam is different when it is caused by a soapy agent and bacterial activity.
 
Thanks Roach. Well- I haven't checked on the tea today. I'm busy scraping up materials for the worm bin, but I have to assume it has life in it, foam or not.
Roach, ClosedCircuit, or anyone... Do you have any thoughts on the idea that feeding mollases to the flowering plant as a sugar, results in stickier, sweeter, denser, sweeter, bigger, or in any way better flowers?
I have assumed that the sugars in the mollases are processed and result in a higher brix bud. I didn't realize there was debate over this, but I have a lot to learn. I realize that the molasses has nutrient and micronutrient value, and also that it can feed the beneficials in the soil resulting in slightly more indirect benefits to the plant. Its easy to assume that sticky and sugary molasses makes 'sweeter' and stickier buds. Is this true?
 
Weaselcracker said:
Thanks Roach. Well- I haven't checked on the tea today. I'm busy scraping up materials for the worm bin, but I have to assume it has life in it, foam or not.
Roach, ClosedCircuit, or anyone... Do you have any thoughts on the idea that feeding mollases to the flowering plant as a sugar, results in stickier, sweeter, denser, sweeter, bigger, or in any way better flowers?
I have assumed that the sugars in the mollases are processed and result in a higher brix bud. I didn't realize there was debate over this, but I have a lot to learn. I realize that the molasses has nutrient and micronutrient value, and also that it can feed the beneficials in the soil resulting in slightly more indirect benefits to the plant. Its easy to assume that sticky and sugary molasses makes 'sweeter' and stickier buds. Is this true?
Click to expand...

Sugars are used for flower production (and particularly, resin production) so yes, I'm of the opinion that any sugar you put in your water is going to help your flowers when it comes to producing terpenoids and thc resin in general. I haven't done any side-by-side testing, but I swear that yucca extract is the secret to extra frosty buds.

IMG_049529.JPG

Snowtrain: Grown with nothing but GH three part, Mono-potassium phosphate, and yucca extract.

edit: Sorry I keep posting unrelated pictures on your thread roach, I'll stop.
edit2: that plant was grown in a sterile DWC, which means there were no microbes involved with the sugar uptake. While microbes definitely feed on sugar, it's not the only reason to give it to a plant.
 
Weaselcracker said:
Thanks Roach. Well- I haven't checked on the tea today. I'm busy scraping up materials for the worm bin, but I have to assume it has life in it, foam or not.
Roach, ClosedCircuit, or anyone... Do you have any thoughts on the idea that feeding mollases to the flowering plant as a sugar, results in stickier, sweeter, denser, sweeter, bigger, or in any way better flowers?
I have assumed that the sugars in the mollases are processed and result in a higher brix bud. I didn't realize there was debate over this, but I have a lot to learn. I realize that the molasses has nutrient and micronutrient value, and also that it can feed the beneficials in the soil resulting in slightly more indirect benefits to the plant. Its easy to assume that sticky and sugary molasses makes 'sweeter' and stickier buds. Is this true?
Click to expand...

iwltfum said:
Sugars are used for flower production (and particularly, resin production) so yes, I'm of the opinion that any sugar you put in your water is going to help your flowers when it comes to producing terpenoids and thc resin in general. I haven't done any side-by-side testing, but I swear that yucca extract is the secret to extra frosty buds.

IMG_049529.JPG

Snowtrain: Grown with nothing but GH three part, Mono-potassium phosphate, and yucca extract.

edit: Sorry I keep posting unrelated pictures on your thread roach, I'll stop.
edit2: that plant was grown in a sterile DWC, which means there were no microbes involved with the sugar uptake. While microbes definitely feed on sugar, it's not the only reason to give it to a plant.
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Would have to respectfully disagree with fum. Plants create sugars (primarily ATP) in their leaves during the process of photosynthesis. They do not absorb sugar through their roots. Sugar is a food source for microbes. What will make your end product larger, stickier, and more potent is a community of biota trained to eat minerals. You train them by assembling a minerally balanced soil.
 
TheRoach said:
The foaming is called biofilm, and it means there is a lot of bacterial activity. The quality of the foam is different when it is caused by a soapy agent and bacterial activity.
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I used to think so, and many people believe this. But, from what I have read that isn't really known for sure. If you look at what is just in castings alone (worms carcass -protein-, other loose proteins, amino acids) there are several substances which could contribute to foaming. Again, I default to my experience where foaming stops after an hour or two. Yet, I know for a fact that microbial density probably does not really increase all that much within that span of time. It is over the next day or so that microbial life really begins to take off. That can happen with or without foam. Foam itself is not an indicator of the quality of your tea. And as I mentioned previously, too many drenches with tea that has too much molasses can actually cause a depletion of nutrients in the soil.

I agree with you there are different types of foam, for sure. Those foams can indicate different things about your tea, for instance if it is anaerobic.
 
ClosedCircuit said:
Would have to respectfully disagree with fum. Plants create sugars (primarily ATP) in their leaves during the process of photosynthesis. They do not absorb sugar through their roots. Sugar is a food source for microbes. What will make your end product larger, stickier, and more potent is a community of biota trained to eat minerals. You train them by assembling a minerally balanced soil.
Click to expand...

There are alot of things that yucca does (among them is the fact that it balances minerals in the medium) so it might not be the complex sugars causing the frosting over, but I'm thinking that it can't be biota doing this (at least for me) because I run H2O2 in the res the whole time. The Mono phos might have something to do with it, but I have run the GH +mono phos without the yucca and it seemed to be about half as resin covered compared to the way it looks when I use yucca throughout the plants life cycle.
 
Food for thought. Thanks guys. The more I learn the more I realize how completely ignorant I am. I could say more, just to prove it, but I have the rest of my life for that.
I only put 4 tsp of molasses in a five gallon bucket, along with some very good sources of bennies, so I am guessing that in 48 hours the bacteria will have had time to devour that hopefully. In fact- I'm more worried it was too little and they've starved to death now...
 
Thats interesting CC, I only see foaming after a day or so bubbling.
I usually let tap water bubble for 24 hours prior use, add sugar cane honey and let aerate for a couple hours, then the castings go in. I don't see any foaming for at the beginning of the process. I guess local temperatures have a great influence in the behavior of the bacterial population in the tea. When I make the tea indoors the foaming is thicker too.
 
iwltfum said:
There are alot of things that yucca does (among them is the fact that it balances minerals in the medium) so it might not be the complex sugars causing the frosting over, but I'm thinking that it can't be biota doing this (at least for me) because I run H2O2 in the res the whole time. The Mono phos might have something to do with it, but I have run the GH +mono phos without the yucca and it seemed to be about half as resin covered compared to the way it looks when I use yucca throughout the plants life cycle.
Click to expand...

Yucca is supposedly an anti-microbial with potential natural chelation properties. So it is very likely that other components in the yucca are contributing to the increase in production you are seeing. Have you experimented with other sugar sources to see if they all do this? If you start adding straight molasses with very little nutritional value to plant I would guess you wouldn't see the same results.

Yucca, Coconut Water, Aloe Vera, and Seed Sprout Tea are all sources of sugar that we douse our plants with. Some of their claimed attributes are probably bolstered more than they deserve, but they all provide additional beneficials to plants. That is why it is easy to over look the potentially counter active affects of adding too much sugar.

Keep in mind I am speaking from a soil perspective. Good soil ends up holding onto alot of the things you put into it, so I always feel its safe to be weary when there are obvious trade-offs with an amendment.
 
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