Weasel Forges Ahead

Whew. Don’t you hate it when people post in their journal so much and then you have to read it all? :D Sorry ha ha.
I flushed all the plants throughly - just because. Went over all my nutrients with H Buddy and made sure the numbers were entered right, tweaked a couple targets, fed the plants again with the New new new Mix.... I feel good about it.
About 50 plants in veg and they’re mostly happy -I’ll weed out a fair number of them later .
Veg

Veg

 
All perlite is used for is to increase drainage in the peat. If you could recreate that effect with any locally sourced materials, that's all you need. Perhaps tiny crushed pebbles, partially crushed sea shells/oyster shells, or maybe lava rocks used for gas grills? Literally anything to avoid paying $200 to ship a $45 product. Save your coins for shipping nutrient salts, hehe.
 
Dr. Hook’s suggestion of chainsawing up some styrofoam is horrible but interesting. o_O But really... I’ll just see about that guy with the truck next, before contemplating the rocks and shells more.

Perlite IMO is good stuff, at first anyway, but it does seem to break down into dust (which makes sludge) before very long.

In the spring I usually get a couple truckloads of eelgrass from the beach to put on the gardens. It washes up in quite large banks. Black and made of mulched up heavy grass. . It’s tough and springy -sort of like plastic confetti - takes a year or more to break down and makes a great mulch. I’m thinking I might be able to use that stuff but I could be totally wrong.
 
How long does it take for styrofoam to biodegrade and what leeches out when it does? I remember a few years back Broke Ass Reg did a grow in shredded newspaper, so the possibilities are almost endless what can be used as a grow medium.
 
They say it takes 400 years to break down. The stuff is all over the place here washing up on the beaches in all shapes and sizes. The stuff blown up in the forests and dunes is crumbling and growing moss all over.
Nah I’d never deliberately put that crap in soil but I bet it would work. Maybe better to just grow in straight styrofoam then you could just put it in the garbage after? Styrofoam-grown. Not feeling huge marketing appeal there somehow.. .:hmmmm:
 
I can get coco, especially in the summer when the store gets it in, and I actually have a couple of those little bales already. Yes I could be a coco grower. Just means more watering, and auto watering, and ph control I guess. But I did enjoy growing in the stuff before.
 
Oh that’s a very interesting idea. Like maybe a third coco or whatever and then probably about the same lime thing, as Skybound and Farside are doing.
 
Weaselcracker said:
It was interesting what Homer Simpson said on some other mega crop thread today. That he doesn’t usually feed higher than 5 g a gallon in flower. I will try that - feeding very low. Though I feel like I already sort of have. Usually not quite that low though.

I’m using rainwater so basically RO, and peat. Tried it with and without calmag.

Anyway I’ll run some tests in a couple weeks once the clones get a bit bigger.
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I don't know how seriously I take anything that Homer dude says. :ciao:
 
I notice my Sativa leaning Triple Cheese (2 & 9) is on the dull side whereas my PC (1 & 8) and Incredible Bulks (not pictured) are nice and sheeny. The 3 Cheese aren't too fond of the feeding program whereas the other 2 strains love it. I did reduce the P for bloom by 5 ppm down to 55 to make the Cheese a bit happier which it seems to be doing, but I'd still like to add some sheen to the leaves if that's possible. But the Bulks and PCs all have shiny leaves. FYI, the numbers are what week they're each in 1-9.

Shiny n Dull.JPG
 
Last night I saw that you at one point had your P at 65, and mine was set at 60 - so I actually increased mine to 65 for this last feeding
hopefully it will be clear either way whether that was a good or a bad move.

I also dropped the nitrogen to 150 just to see what would happen. Nitrogen seems fairly easily adjustable to me if that’s too low, and the leaves overall seemed too dark for my liking.

I was kind of wondering about just watering down the whole mix a bit as it seems on the rich side for some of them.
 
I ran 65 with GREAT results when I was in rockwool, so that's why I went back there when I went back to high P, but I was having issues with N and P, so I lowered both a tad, but then my current week 5 Cheese was getting rusty and contorted leaves so I lowered it more still. FWIW, the PCs loved the high P, but I want to find a program that works good with them all because making individualized diets for each is more work than I want to do. I will if I must, but I will exhaust my options before considering that. I also have considered plain watering, but then I'd have to keep notes of who was fed when and I'm just lazy and don't wanna, lol. If you have good results with it though I definitely will. I can't wait till Penny gets up to speed, it will be nice to have people trying different things to compare experiences and learn more.
 
This is why I need to bite the bullet as I keep saying and just do a side-by-side thing where each one is getting a slightly different mix. Always chasing my own tail...
That PC of mine There must be a way to grow the fucking thing so it looks healthy all the way through, no? It just needs something tweaked.
 
The silica is a plus and works with the calcium to make strong branches, plus I think when your PH is buffered higher you'll have an easier time, but the silica will up the PH of the feed stock and likely lead to better Ca uptake. But the biggest factor IMO is what condition they are in coming out of veg. If they start bloom good and you can maintain them, it'll just happen. In that ebook I sent, especially in the P section, it emphasizes that more P is needed during veg than bloom which I have been overlooking for a long time. I think it says that about all of the macros, so maybe doing more watering w/o ferts during bloom is required? I recently started to use Recharge again about once a week and have noticed a slight boost in health, likely from eating the exudates off the roots that I was previously ignoring, but perhaps an occasional flush will produce a similar result? I'm forming the belief that I was over driving the nutes during bloom and only weeks ago began to dial back and am seeing a minor improvement overall. Perhaps I've been tripping over my own feet.
 
Weaselcracker said:
hopefully it will be clear either way whether that was a good or a bad move.
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Dang. :( Results don’t look good and the plants weren’t happy with Newmix 2021. Overall more waxy and blotchy.

I’m due to leave for a few days so I should probably mix up some ‘healing remedy’ for them before I leave...
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Perhaps a bennie wash with great white and humic kelp and a ml of molasses. I'd mix that and let it set up for 30 minutes before use, then dilute it with more water and flush the pot(s).
 
Get more feedback about what symptoms are showing. I see PH issues in the spotting, but now I see interveinal chlorosis and leaf margin curling, so diagnose the cause and adjust the feed accordingly. Maybe over or under watering, low soil PH, high RH and if none of those factors, than it's nutes. I suggest looking at other grows involving same or similar strains and conditions, and see what ferts are being used, look up the Analysis and feed charts, reverse engineer the line and jot down the targets. Then somewhere between those numbers and your current numbers would be where you might want to go. The kicker is that when you get confident about a feed program, it'll take you a couple weeks to couple months using it while observing the results before you make any more tweaks. You're more than welcome to my numbers, but they are contingent on the soil being buffered up to be successful, but also know that I focus on hybrids and favor Indica leaners for the shorter finish time. I know you sometimes grow Sativas which might be a whole different regimen.
 
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