COorganics TLO BG SCRoG - HPS+MH

[SweetLeef]

Exactly!

Since I wont be running a sterile hydro system, a beneficial tea will help you introduce and boost numbers of beneficial bacteria while keeping the bad stuff at a minimum. Since I am doing an ebb and flow system, the beneficial tea will also wash down any buildup of salts at the water line. From what I've read you need to do a completely sterile grow, or add a beneficial tea, otherwise you are headed into a world of problems. This has got me curious though, I think because of this conversation, I will feed tea to one of my TGA plants and see how it does next to the other. Thanks CO

 

[CronicHempHog]

what do you mean sterile?
how clean would you consider sterile?

 

[COorganics]

I can say for sure sweetleaf, that no matter how I ever grow in Soil, Ill be adding teas. Teas put the "living" in living soil mix. And the "Living" is what feeds the plants in a true organic soil set up.

 

[SweetLeef]

what do you mean sterile?
how clean would you consider sterile?

From TheCapn's(I know) Live or Sterile? Why I choose Live

"STERILE: aka DEAD RES, means an environment where there is NO bacteria, good or bad. The benefit here is you don't have to worry about expensive or complicated beneficial bacteria, you just add the product that kills both and go. The downside is if you have a pythium problem, these products won't usually bring your roots back to health. In addition, these are chemicals the plant is taking in, and I'd rather not consume chemicals. Also, you don't get the benefit of the root encouraging bacteria."

Does that help Chron?

I can say for sure sweetleaf, that no matter how I ever grow in Soil, Ill be adding teas. Teas put the "living" in living soil mix. And the "Living" is what feeds the plants in a true organic soil set up.

Well then, I guess all of my plants will be getting a spot of tea

 

[ProperGreen]

Clean Smoke?

I would like to here some folks opinions re: teas into flowering.
1) when do you stop feeding your plants teas in flower?
2) are you changing you're recipe late into flower? For example cutting out molasses or something?

Reason I'm asking is I quit doing teas early into flower my last run and the plants were GREEN right until I chopped them. One went 12 wks and was green still. I think to get that really really tasty product I need to run out of food in my container towards the end. Does this sound right? My thought is to provide more teas, into flower to promote more microbial activity which will actually process all the organic matter and minerals in the pot. Allowing the plant to run out of nutes just before harvest. This will be a guessing game for me a bit and will totally be strain dependent. With good notes and a few runs of the same strains I should be able to dial it in.

Am I missing anything? Plz chime in.

Some thoughts brother,

In a well made soil, there's no way you'll run out of nutrients!
The soil will actually increase in nutrient content, or fertility, over time!
Teaming With Microbes will tell you that!
"Reason I'm asking is I quit doing teas early into flower my last run and the plants were GREEN right until I chopped them. One went 12 wks and was green still. I think to get that really really tasty product I need to run out of food in my container towards the end" - This sounds right in terms of a hydro mindset!

But in terms of organics, our plants will only take what they need from the soil, when they need it.
And the nutrients aren't just in the soil, like chemical nutes that ppl feed, which can be flushed.
The nutrients in the soil remain immobilized, or locked up inside the living micro organisms.
Your plants should naturally fade as they're finishing up.

I know from experience that more teas aren't the answer tho!
Just go water only for the last couple weeks and you'll be fine.

I think that the secret it helps tremendously to harvest the plants just before the lights come on too!
Between doing that, and a nice slow dry, with a solid cure for at least a couple weeks, I think you can't go wrong!

Those are my thoughts brother!
Have you been having issues with the quality of your smoke? Like do your ashes not burn pure white, and is the smoke not smoother than smooth?!

& Blessings

Ps, When you use a tea, you are adding nutrients, just not in the form of the standard N-P-K.
Compost is nutritional and molasses is SUPER nutritional! When you make a tea, you have to have something in there to feed the microbes, or else they won't grow in numbers, so cutting the molasses out will essentially take the "gas out of the car" if you will.
Just stop with the teas a few weeks before and go water only! My last tea is in week 2-3 flowering with my final topdressing!

 

[ProperGreen]

The Organic "Flush"

Thanks sweetleaf!

Yes flushing should not need to happen with organics, but my tastiest plants of the six were the 2 I flushed. I believe that's because I didn't really do it right. Subcool's soil doesn't NEED any teas at all according to him. It seems adding a microbial innoculant (that's what a tea really is) can't hurt, if u were already brewing some. heck i bet a lot of guys using supersoil also use teas. Teas with Hydro sounds interesting, ill have to swing by you're journal again soon and see that. Like an organic liquid solution in the res?

Thank you for the post and good to have ya around my friend.

Edit: super high sounds good. I'm about to blaze some river rock Lemon Pie and get there myself.

Edit: edit: where the hell is my bowl?

I'm actually gonna try it this run brother! But rather than saying flushing, I'd rather say leaching all the potential dissolved solid from our soils. I've always had really nice smoke afterwards, better than any I could ever buy in growing organic and in not flushing.
But once, my second harvest, I had some bud that burned a little harsh from using teas up until the very end, and those included molasses, which I think was the culprit.
But interesting to hear that the plants you flushed were the best you had.
Maybe there is some residual buildup that we could benefit from leaching out.
In all the reading that I've done, the consensus is that you don't "flush" organics, especially with some sort of flushing product, but every once in a while you'll come across a read where someone suggest flushing, like Danny Danko with hightimes, who suggest it, so I'm thinking maybe there is something to it, and that I'll be cheating myself to not even try it you know.
But I'll be blown away if I can get my smoke to come out any better than it already does!

& Blessings

 

[COorganics]

Proper Green,
Thanks for the response bro!

I'm sorta with ya on some of that stuff...lets see ill try to make this a solid post and maybe u can help enlighten me.

Well with the soil getting richer over time and never running out of nutrients. In my opinion the soil needs to be amended and cooked between runs, so it must have ran out of gas. Could that be why you are top dressing before harvest? That seems weird.

As far as issues with the quality of my smoke, yes, lol, I want it better! I want the highest quality by the quart jar. I have White ash and joints that just keep on smoking. Flavor is good, smell is good... But The fire! And it's smoother than smooth??? Not quite yet, Lol, I'm still working at this. My weed is not the best I've ever smoked. I'm shooting for that. we all should.

As far as molasses it has a fair amount of Mag in it I believe. I only use a teaspoon in teas anyhouzzle. But I do know that N, and Mag stored in the plant make it smoke harsh. Black ass cracklin' ass burning weed sucks. It's from one of those I believe.

U are saying though that the plant should not run out of anything before harvest? And that's ideal?

 

[COorganics]

I just read you're next post, after posting mine. Then reread your first post again. My head is basically in the same spot as yours with this stuff I think with the exception of your soil mix and theory. It could be I just don't know about it yet... That happens to me a lot.

And in rereading I see u said top dress 2-3 wks INTO flower, I thought u said 2-3 weeks before HARVEST. Not that it matters though, I was thinking maybe that late top dress would be kinda like u amending the soil for the next run.

 

[ProperGreen]

Proper Green,
Thanks for the response bro!

I'm sorta with ya on some of that stuff...lets see ill try to make this a solid post and maybe u can help enlighten me.

Well with the soil getting richer over time and never running out of nutrients. In my opinion the soil needs to be amended and cooked between runs, so it must have ran out of gas. Could that be why you are top dressing before harvest? That seems weird.

As far as issues with the quality of my smoke, yes, lol, I want it better! I want connisuier quality by the quart jar. White ash and joints that just keep on smoking. Flavor good, smell good. The fire! And it's smoother than smooth? Lol, I'm still working at this. My weed is not the best I've ever smoked. I'm shooting for that. we all should.

As far as molasses it has a fair amount of Mag in it I believe. I only use a teaspoon in teas anyhouzzle. But I do know that N, and Mag stored in the plant make it smoke harsh. Black ass cracklin' ass burning weed sucks. It's from one of those I believe.

U are saying though that the plant should not run out of anything before harvest? And that's ideal?

Each time you re-amend the soil, you should have to add less to it than you had to add to it before.

The soil doesn't "run out of gas", but you do use up some things in the soil for sure, and you have to replace these things. Nitrogen being something that Cannabis uses heavily, and your humus content of the soil in soil, which breaks down and/or gets depleted over time.
That is why I top dress in a way I guess, but not really as the growing season is so short. I top dress more so just to make sure that the plants have enough to get them thru to the end in case they need it, since my soil mix is so light. And I do it proactively, knowing that these things will take some time to become available to the plants.

But most organic amendments aren't fully available the first growing season. Like Greensand for example. It's supposedly a swell source of Potash, but it takes so long to become available, that it's often doing nothing the first time you use it. "Cooking" the soil helps give the microbes a jump on processing everything that we add, but when you look at the things that we use, you'll see that all of them are slow release, other than the worm castings, which have already be processed by microbes in the worms gut.

But in knowing that everything that we add to the soil must be composted by microbes before it's plant available, and that these microbes lock nutrients up in their bodies, everything that the plant doesn't use will remain in the soil. As the soil becomes more fertile, or more alive, which a good soil will in time, that means more microbes living there, which can immobilize more of the nutrients that we add.

You should look into doing the "no-till" type of growing, where you grow in massive pots, like 30 gals, and you continually top dress, and never disturb the soil. So after you harvest, you pull the core of the rootball out, and drop a young plant in that spot and continue business as usual, rather than having to cook and re-amend the soil, like we do traditionally. This helps the soil establish a larger fungal biomass, which mean nutrients being more easily transported around the root ball. Bacteria move, but barely, so unless the roots come to them, or unless there eaten in the rhizosphere, the nutrients that they've process will remain locked up inside of them, where are fungi are like roads on the rootball, and can move nutes all around it, within their bodies.

I'm making that transition after I finish this run for sure.

And as far as molasses, it has a fair amount of EVERYTHING in it lol! N,K, Ca, Mg, Sulphur, and a slew of minerals or micros. It also chelates other nutrients in the soil, making them more readily available in the soil ecosystem.

But damn I'm tired lol! I've been up all night trying to decide what seeds to order and I've still got NOTHING!
So in regards to this post, If I missed anything, I'll be back around sometime tomorrow when I wake up and get going to check you out lol!

Bounce whatever ideas or thought you got back to me!
Hopefully some of the others like like PeeJay and Graytail and gardenfaerie will migrate this way, and get another spectacular convo going lol!

And I'm too tired to proofread lol, so pardon the typos, but I'm about to kick the buck haha!
As soon as I lay down I will fall asleep lol.
It's 5am here!

& Blessings.

 

[COorganics]

Great post. So does teaming with microbes explain why/how microbes store nutes inside of themselves. I thought they "pooped" the nutes out into the dirt. Maybe they are slow digesters?

Please get some rest though, lol

This thread will be here for us tomorrow

 

[ProperGreen]

Back And In Full Effect Brother Lol! The Soil Food Web Is What We're Going On About!

Great post. So does teaming with microbes explain why/how microbes store nutes inside of themselves. I thought they "pooped" the nutes out into the dirt. Maybe they are slow digesters?

Please get some rest though, lol

This thread will be here for us tomorrow

Hoy brother,

Yes, Teaming with microbes does explain this!
Simply put tho, there's a food chain.

In that food chain are bacteria and archaea, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes, in that order.
Bacteria, archaea and fungi immobilize the nutrients we add to the soil, which means they feed off of them, and store them inside their bodies so that they will remain in the soil ecosystem. What they can't store, the "poop" out so to speak, or pass on for the next microbe, or for the plants, as it's in a plant ready form.
These microbes are found in the highest numbers in the soils as well, with bacteria being the highest since their at the bottom of the food chain.

Then you have the protozoa and the nematodes, which are the larger microbes that mineralize the nutrients in the soil, which means they release them to the plants in a plant available form, by eating the smaller microbes, such as the bacteria, archaea, and fungi, which have these nutrients lock up in side them.

Next you have the nematodes which feed on everything, even other nematodes, so they are mineralizers as well. But being at the top of the food chain, they are found in the soil in the smallest numbers.

But every time a microbe(b/a or fungi) is eaten, or dies, it releases what it had stored inside inside into the soil ecosystem in to a plant available form. They also sometimes can't retain all of what they've fed on, so that pass it on in the same form, which I guess is the "pooping" part, while retaining what they can.

Not sure if they're slow decomposers of not brother, but I do know that they're just REALLY REALLY REALLY small! If I have to bet my money on it tho, I wouldn't say that they're slow decomposers!
With that thought, I've got something else to looking into today haha! Thanks!


& Blessings my brother!

 

[Graytail]

Another fine live soil discussion.

Once you establish good populations of mycos and beneficial bacteria, the soil should stay at optimum, provided there's enough digestible matter to keep them happy. I come at it from the mineralized, high-calcium soil direction, so I think in terms of replenishing the minerals that the bacteria have eaten, and recharging the soil with some beneficial humus. The soil will need added calcium and phosphate, and the humus will provide a supply of nitrogen and enough potassium. The kit provides the mineral recharge in the right ratios and we use EWC for humus, along with composted fan leaves.

I'm not sure what to think of soil composition at harvest. Doc Bud has said that flavor improves from added calcium, so we feed fish emulsion until harvest. My impression is that an excess of nitrogen in the soil at harvest is bad for quality, but I can't see any reason that N supplied by the biota could be bad. It would be in response to root exudates, and would be something the plant would want. My impression is that the harshness comes from pumping up nutes artificially.

Teas feed and stimulate biota, both. If you're nice and green up to harvest, and you're not actually feeding nitrogen nutes, then I would think the plant is happy and the smoke should be smooth, provided it's the biota doing the work and not the nutes in the teas.

Ya know ... a refractometer would tell you if the green is good or bad. You'd either get a nice high brix reading or a puzzlingly low one.

 

[JJ Bones]

I'd say flushing in this case isn't the same mindset as hydro. It's more to help your plants use what's left in their leaves. Not necessarily to flush away salts in the soil.

Flushing with pure water should help though for sure. Then if you reuse your soil just re-amend.

 

[ProperGreen]

Hey Brother, Can You Elaborate A Little If You Don't Mind?!

I'd say flushing in this case isn't the same mindset as hydro. It's more to help your plants use what's left in their leaves. Not necessarily to flush away salts in the soil.

Flushing with pure water should help though for sure. Then if you reuse your soil just re-amend.

In doing a bit of binge reading, I've attempted to try and come to a better understanding as to why you think that flushing the soil would help the plants use up what's in their leaves, but I've failed to do so.
Can you elaborate a little on your position for us please brother?

I.e, why you think flushing would force the plants to use what's in their leaves vs. continuing to produce exudates in order to acquire the nutrient solutions they'd like?

& Blessings!

Ps, Thanks for your time in advance

 

[JJ Bones]

From what I've come to learn about water, pure water like distilled or RO will try to grab certain elements. This is one reason drinking it consistently isn't good for humans because they've found minerals leaving our body via urine.

If you apply large amounts of pure water to the grow media the same thing can occur, minerals bind to the H2O and get flushed out.

The symbiotic relationship with the exudate's and microbes also exists thanks to co-factors such as minerals/elements. This is one reason we often encourage mineral catalyst products in compost teas, they are tools for the microbes to work to their full potential.

I did a grow with great organic soil and compost tea, towards the end I stopped all of it and only fed water. My leaves began to get yellow and do all the things they normally do for a flush.

So when they are hardly to no nutrients left for the microbes to provide to the plants, our plants begin to take from its own leaves to keep the flowers growing.

I'm no expert just speaking from what I came to understand and have experienced so far. So not saying my word is concrete or anything

 

[ProperGreen]

Sounds Good Brother.

From what I've come to learn about water, pure water like distilled or RO will try to grab certain elements. This is one reason drinking it consistently isn't good for humans because they've found minerals leaving our body via urine.

If you apply large amounts of pure water to the grow media the same thing can occur, minerals bind to the H2O and get flushed out.

The symbiotic relationship with the exudate's and microbes also exists thanks to co-factors such as minerals/elements. This is one reason we often encourage mineral catalyst products in compost teas, they are tools for the microbes to work to their full potential.

I did a grow with great organic soil and compost tea, towards the end I stopped all of it and only fed water. My leaves began to get yellow and do all the things they normally do for a flush.

So when they are hardly to no nutrients left for the microbes to provide to the plants, our plants begin to take from its own leaves to keep the flowers growing.

I'm no expert just speaking from what I came to understand and have experienced so far. So not saying my word is concrete or anything

Hmmm, can you post some of the info in the Proper Gardens thread you made, or here is fine too, so that we can make our self more familiar with the things you know that we don't?! I keep saying we assuming that this is news to CO too, but I'm speaking for myself for sure!

And the last couple grows I did the same thing with stopping with teas in the end, and I noticed the majority of my plants gave me their "fall color" show, while some remained a bit greener until the end, but in the end, all of the smoke was of similar, but equally superb quality in terms of the tastes.
And when I was using teas up until the very end, which was the grow prior to the last two, it seemed that I was inducing senescence in a way, by using teas about every other watering for the duration of the grow, and every now and then I'd get a weird taste, so I could tell that the flowers were still metabolizing, or using the ingredients of the teas.

Also, do you "flush" for the reasons that you've shared?
Or do you continue as normal, with just water only in the final portion of the growing season?!

Any why would there be hardly any nutrients for the microbes left to use ever? Especially in terms of minerals and micro nutrients added to the soil? As far as I've learned, the microbes immobilize the nutrients so that we can't wash them out of the soil right?

Thanks for the response brother! Looking forward to the next one!

& Blessings

 

[JJ Bones]

I'm still learning just as we all are, so as I always say I'm not an expert just a student with a lot to share

"And the last couple grows I did the same thing with stopping with teas in the end, and I noticed the majority of my plants gave me their "fall color" show, while some remained a bit greener until the end, but in the end, all of the smoke was of similar, but equally superb quality in terms of the tastes."

Why do you think the leaves began to change color? (real question, I know via text things can seem rude so it's meant to be a real question just to clarify )

Also I think if we were growing plants for longer then one year these things wouldn't really work the same. By then I think soil conditions would be as you say and the 'flushing' aspect wouldn't really apply because things would be so well established. That's an educated guess though.

 

[ProperGreen]

You Don't Sound Rude At All Brother! And I Hope I Don't As Well! Just Trying To...

I'm still learning just as we all are, so as I always say I'm not an expert just a student with a lot to share

"And the last couple grows I did the same thing with stopping with teas in the end, and I noticed the majority of my plants gave me their "fall color" show, while some remained a bit greener until the end, but in the end, all of the smoke was of similar, but equally superb quality in terms of the tastes."

Why do you think the leaves began to change color? (real question, I know via text things can seem rude so it's meant to be a real question just to clarify )

Also I think if we were growing plants for longer then one year these things wouldn't really work the same. By then I think soil conditions would be as you say and the 'flushing' aspect wouldn't really apply because things would be so well established. That's an educated guess though.

Hey brother,

You don't sound rude at all, and I hope I'm not coming off rude either! I'm just trying to learn from you that's all! I know that there's so much more that I don't know in comparison to what I do know, so don't mind me questioning everything please!
My aim is to try and better understand your logic, not to challenge you brother.
Thanks for your time in conversing with us.
Team work makes the dream work .

But, I think that the plants changed color in the end because they were totally content with the conditions in the tent, as well as the nutrients they were getting from the soil, whenever they wanted them!
There were also no colder temps to induce the variety of colors showing up.
I've learned that in nature plants can change colors for a number of reasons including temps, moisture within the leaf, maturation of the plants, strength of light they recieve, and in response to the soil.
I also figure that there could have been genetic influence, because not all of the plants changed to such vibrant colors.
But I pollinated my most colorful plant and I'm growing another one of that same strain out, so maybe we'll get to see the color show again here around May?

And in the plants being grown for longer than a year, I don't see why that would matter you know?
From my POV or as far as I've learned, as long as you keep the soil happy, it will continue to live on. Even when you rest it. I think of perennials that flower year after year, but drop all the leaves in the cold months while storing nutrients in the roots and stems.
And I also think of the "no-till" guys that grow in the same soil over and over again without disturbing it to re-amend it, but rather topdressing it to feed it or re-mending it that way.
They also plant new clones or seedlings in the same spot where they have just removed a fully matured plant from.
When you observe a lot of these results, they're often green up until the very end.
I've been moving around a lot on my way to legal status, so I haven't been able to setup a "no-till" situation, but I plan on doing it certainly this summer/fall.

But in all, I've learned that a good soil is designed to retain nutrients rather than to let them go, so I don't get how we could alter the plants excretion and/or choice exudates via flushing. I've learned that the number of different exudates that our plants are capable of excreting is quite ridiculous.

But I'm asking you questions because I don't believe that's the case, I ask solely because I don't understand how you know?
This is why I asked you about it. Just to see what you logic behind that post was.

In that regard(harvesting the plants with mostly nothing in their systems), I think the best thing to do would be to chop the plants down a couple hours before lights on, after the plants have sent everything down to the roots, but before it calls everything back up with lights on you know?

What are you thought brother?

& Blessings

Ps, I wouldn't have guessed that you weren't as expert given the knowledge that you've spread around the place. I would have guessed that you weren't a novice tho! You've been doing this longer than I have, and I know by how long you've been a member here lol!
From student to student, thanks again. It's all love from my area!

 

[SirFairyDust]

Chlorphyll (which gives the leafs the green color) follow an enzymatic process during senesence (even during drying/curing) which result in the breaking down of them. Check out these links on it
Chlorophyll Degradation in Horticultural Crops | KAEWSUKSAENG | Walailak Journal of Science and Technology (WJST)
Chlorophyll Breakdown in Senescent Arabidopsis Leaves. Characterization of Chlorophyll Catabolites and of Chlorophyll Catabolic Enzymes Involved in the Degreening Reaction
Chlorophyll degradation during senescence. [Annu Rev Plant Biol. 2006] - PubMed - NCBI
Chlorophyll is another factor for bud smoothness
Correct me if I didn't answer your question I'm high, skimming the thread, and saw a chance to "help" (Jj bones ?)

 

[brazel]

Chlorophyll? More like BOREophyll.
Odoyle rules!
Ahaha sorry I'm immature and stoned!
But all jokes aside I'm really intrigued by all this info.
I have no input, just starting to use teas and amendments. I will keep following and learning!
ENJOI