Keffkas Seedsman Comparative: Purple Ghost Candy

[Keffka]

Same as Azi, I don't have much height to play with so I'll be burying, quadding, double-topping and will probably still need to decapitate after stretch
Thinking about just laying a bag of coco down so the pot doesn't take up 12-18" lol

I’d love to see that. I curse my pot height constantly. It’s even worse when I use the risers to keep the pots elevated. I can move my light though so I do have a little room to play with.

Worth a side-by-side experiment for sure, but I'd be surprised if it matters much at all.

I think what likely has the biggest influence on transplanting is what pattern your roots are growing in. If you’ve gotten the roots to branch instead of circle themselves the plant will just branch into its new container. If it has to break that circling pattern it will take a bit of time to adjust to the new container.

 

[Azimuth]

Thinking about just laying a bag of coco down so the pot doesn't take up 12-18" lol

I saw a YT video where a guy did just that for his parking lot grow. Laid down a base of straw bales and put bags of compost on top of them with planting holes on one side and drainage holes on the other.

Planted right into the bags and as the plants grew and the bales broke down from the watering, the roots grew right down into them.

No soil required. He literally grew his garden on pavement.

 

[Gee64]

I've seen guerrilla grows coming right out of ProMix HP4 bags. Synthetic, but huge.

 

[OGpapa]

I've seen guerrilla grows coming right out of ProMix HP4 bags. Synthetic, but huge.

Me too. Just rows of bags middle of nowhere.

*Turn around find my way out of that death sentence.

 

[Gee64]

Me too. Just rows of bags middle of nowhere.

*Turn around find my way out of that death sentence.

Exactly.

I mean who in there right mind would risk it all for synthetic weed? Now if it was LOS..... Actually I know the guerilla.

 

[OGpapa]

Exactly.

You know that feeling. Like I don't belong here. Close eyes cross fingers!

*Tries to click heels together

 

[Gee64]

I accidentally hit send. I edited to finish the post.

 

[Gee64]

I grew up on Vancouver Island, which is very similar to Humbolt County in a lot of ways, so you stumbled onto them regularly picking Chantrelle mushrooms in October.

All the logged off areas with a creek running down a South facing slope had them pretty much.

Likely different now with legalization. You literally can't give it away a lot of the time now.

 

[Keffka]

Heres a tip for folks that need to mix 40+ gallons of soil without a composter:

Don’t do it without a composter

However, if you are as hard headed and stingy as I am, you’re gonna do it anyway. Do yourself a favor and grab a few totes or containers

That’s 50 gallons of soil being mixed by hand.

It’s very hard to mix soil evenly without mixing over and over and over. Using extra containers can alleviate this a little bit. Especially when amending. Bits and pieces like to get stuck in the corners and edges and you wanna make sure your soft rock phosphate isn’t caked in a corner. A tarp also works well if you have the space and privacy but if you’re limited on space the containers can help. Take the soil out and put it in your containers then change up the order you place it back in while mixing thoroughly as you add more.

This will be the last grow I do this manually. I’ll be purchasing a composter this summer so I can stop doing this.

I also like to drive holes through the soil for more airflow while cooking (decomposing quickly) like this

 

[JiggiLotus]

Heres a tip for folks that need to mix 40+ gallons of soil without a composter:

Don’t do it without a composter

However, if you are as hard headed and stingy as I am, you’re gonna do it anyway. Do yourself a favor and grab a few totes or containers

That’s 50 gallons of soil being mixed by hand.

It’s very hard to mix soil evenly without mixing over and over and over. Using extra containers can alleviate this a little bit. Especially when amending. Bits and pieces like to get stuck in the corners and edges and you wanna make sure your soft rock phosphate isn’t caked in a corner. A tarp also works well if you have the space and privacy but if you’re limited on space the containers can help. Take the soil out and put it in your containers then change up the order you place it back in while mixing thoroughly as you add more.

This will be the last grow I do this manually. I’ll be purchasing a composter this summer so I can stop doing this.

I also like to drive holes through the soil for more airflow while cooking (decomposing quickly) like this

Woo!!! Can you feel it Mr Krabs?

 

[Keffka]

Day 9

 

[Keffka]

A few of the sprouts are having growing pains. I’ll snap images tonight of what I’m talking about. This is very common. I’m seeing things like slight mottling on a leaf, slightly discolored leaf tip, intriguing spotting, slightly mutated leaves, possible finger mutations (missing a finger, even numbers, etc). All of this is nothing to be worried about when they’re this young. You can even see things that look like possible deficiencies starting already.

DO. NOT. KNEE. JERK. This. If you’re an organic grower this is a very important lesson. Just because you see your sprouts doing something does not mean you need to address it. Especially because we will be transplanting out of these containers by the time any thing we did would have an effect. Very often will sprouts show some sort of hiccup in their growth. You can attribute this to them adjusting and evolving to their situation. If you have everything dialed in and working as it’s supposed to, just let your sprouts go. They will work out the kinks themselves and reward you handsomely for it.

Also, we still have zero need for any sort of supports even on the tall ones. This method grows strong stems that don’t need to be supported. If your seedlings are falling over, you’re either not giving them enough light or you’re not giving them enough wind. If you’ve got both of these dialed in then you likely don’t have enough calcium, however this is rare. Typically seedlings that are leggy and unbalanced are from not enough light. They’re telling you they want more light by trying to grow closer to it than they can balance for

 

[Keffka]

In this post you can see leggy sprouts that needed to be stabilized and supported:

Keffka's Recycling, KOS Blue Thai, Herbies Seeds Apple Betty, Runtz Punch

Those sprouts were being run under 12/12 for sexing without any adjustment to the light intensity. So instead of getting the amount of light they normally get at 16/8 they were getting the same intensity as 16/8 but only for 12 hours. 4 hours a day over 7-8 days was all it took for the sprouts to get leggy. I should’ve either brought the light closer or turned up the brightness on the fixture, either way would’ve prevented this

 

[Azimuth]

My sprout came out with the most brilliant white tips to the first true leaves. As they grew they swallowed the white. Had never seen that before, but looked pretty cool.

 

[Keffka]

My sprout came out with the most brilliant white tips to the first true leaves. As they grew the swallowed the white. Had never seen that before, but looked pretty cool.

They’ll definitely do some silly stuff. I had one sprout that would grow half of its leaf bleached out. It was the same leaf on each other node. For instance the first node would grow with one of its leaves half bleached, then the third node leaf that was on the same side of the stem as the first node also had half its leaf bleached.

It did that all the way up the plant until it sexually matured then it stopped. It didn’t seem to have any effect on the plant at all. That plant actually wound up being one of the better harvests from that run.

 

[Azimuth]

They’ll definitely do some silly stuff. I had one sprout that would grow half of its leaf bleached out. It was the same leaf on each other node. For instance the first node would grow with one of its leaves half bleached, then the third node leaf that was on the same side of the stem as the first node also had half its leaf bleached.

It did that all the way up the plant until it sexually matured then it stopped. It didn’t seem to have any effect on the plant at all. That plant actually wound up being one of the better harvests from that run.

That's got to be something in the seed development, no? Definitely something in the gene pool if it was every other pair. Wonder what would cause that.

 

[Keffka]

That's got to be something in the seed development, no? Definitely something in the gene pool if it was every other pair. Wonder what would cause that.

I assume it’s something in its genetics related to variegation since it was very specific. Almost like a gene was being consistently misplaced as it was building the plant up.

 

[Keffka]

Day 10. I’ll post the plant issue pics after I walk the dog

 

[Keffka]

Here’s a couple hiccup shots. This first one is a bit of mottling

Some times this can indicate magnesium becoming an issue but I doubt that’s the case here. What’s more likely is this little sprout is getting a bit more light than it wants but that’s okay. The roots are growing fast enough that the plant will overcome this fairly quickly. I imagine by the third set of leaves she’ll show no signs of this ever even happening.

Here’s a plant whose next set of leaves are looking a bit silly

The leaves are a little twisted up, and torn possibly, it’s hard to tell. They also have a little bit of spotting. This is another one I’m not too worried about. They’re getting the upper end of light for their age currently and I’m running on the drier side. The roots are playing catch up. Once there’s a bit more root mass the new growth will be lush and colorful.

Here’s another shot of spotting with slight discoloration on the tip of new growth

Nothing to worry about. Let it grow.
Most of this stuff winds up resolving itself before transplant. As the roots expand and the bacteria and fungi start to work with the plant this stuff irons itself out. If for some reason it’s still acting off, I will wait at least a week or two after the first transplant. Typically once the plants hit bigger containers with a healthy fertile soil they quickly fix their issues and get to growing.

If I come across some more of these growing pains I’ll post them

 

[Keffka]

Good ol Michigan. Weather dropped to 28F overnight and will make it to 60F by this afternoon. This is a pain in the butt for temp control. I’m considering turning the light up and dropping the plants a little lower. We’ll see though, reacting to every weather change can be rough on the plants and some times it’s better just to let them tough it out for a few days, if they’re in a safe environment.