Radogast 2016 - The Neverending Growing

[Radogast]

BoBrown thanks so much for the IPM description.

I don't mind every 3 days or 2x a week, I've been doing homemade 1% neem oil spray for 5 months now.

I'm not sure about thrips either, the concensus of replies on the thread I opened in the pests and uglies section is that I have spider mite eggs - even though they are on the tops of the leaves and I don't see mites. NOTHING is flying or hopping. I suspect I didn't demolish the spider mite life cycle after all. After all my spraying, spiders are gone too.

I will reread your post and consider my options, I have neem oil and kelp meal - no neem cake or spinosad. Tonight I sprayed with a 7% neem oil solution to see if a stronger solution does the job. The lights are out, so I have tomorrow to think and read.


- - - I respect your growing skills big time - thanks for the help.

 

[Radogast]

Flowering photos

I sprayed neem oil, a 7% solution, just after lights out, so I took advantage of the opportunity to take some flash photos.

The current room layout is :

Right side photos: At 6-1/2 weeks, free seed Giselle in front, GSC Annabelle in back right, at 2 weeks GSC Monique in back left.

Bud Porn: Giselle, 6-1/2 weeks

Bud porn: GSCAnnabelle, 6-1/2 weeks

Wet look canopy porn: Giselle - after she imbibed the 7% solution

Left Side photos: Caramelicious, 4 weeks, blocking the view of White Widow, 2 weeks,

Bud porn: Caramelicious Quiffa, 4 weeks

Wet look canopy porn: Caramelicious Quiffa towering over Caramelicious Sassy

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Looking great Radogast, they will be thankful for the neem!

 

[Radogast]

Worm farming

The only "nutes" I currently use are the soil out of my worm farm. Worm castings(poo) is the core of my organic gardening.

Today was a 4-course worm feeding day, so I decided to take pictures.

A year or so ago, I picked up a used, 4-tray worm farm.

The bottom of each tray is a mesh, so worms can freely move between trays. The worms don't really live in the top tray (it tends to get too much light leaking in through the cover and the top layer of soil dries out.) No worms in the top tray is good because it keeps the worms from escaping, but is bad because it means only 3 of the 4 worm trays are in use. Because of this, the top tray is storage for the worm castings waiting to be used. I could buy more trays and stack the trays higher.

My top worm tray. In this photo I have already removed 6 of 9 sections of worm castings, exposing the bottom of the tray.

When I first started the worms, I started 2 trays with a 1" layer of soaked coco coir. After a couple of months, I filled the other 2 trays with 1-2" of potting soil. For the first several months, the only food I fed the worms was organic banana peels once of twice a week and powdered rock dust (basalt) once every month or two. Banana peels are a favorite food. The rock dust is both a valuable soil amendment and provides grit for the worm's stomach.


Two organic banana peels (cut with scissors) and one dozen organic egg shells (crushed with mortar and pestle.)

OMRI approved Basalt Rock Dust.

Rock dust sprinkled over an active worm tray

After a few months I realized composting marijuana leaves outside was wasting marijuana important nutrients and potentially attracting unwanted attention, so I started feeding the worms all the marijuana leaves. I toss the leaves in extra plastic pots where they sit until the worms need them.

A month ago, I started feeding the worms crushed egg shells under the theory that the soil would enjoy additional chitinase.

When I looked in the second to top worm bin, there were remaining banana peels and no visible worms. I think the worms went deeper to avoid the light leaking through the exposed mesh of the top tray, so I didn't feed the top tray except for a sprinkling of rock dust and some water to moisten the tray. The worms in the other two trays had eaten everything except for the crushed egg shells. I'm going to stop feeding egg shells for awhile. Maybe the crushed chunks are too big for the worms, maybe the worms don't want to eat them, but they aren't eating them so I'll stop feeding eggshells until I understand better.

Worms hanging out where the banana peels were buried last week. Uneaten egg shells clearly visible.

A full worm farm feeding of banana peels, rock dust, cannabis leaves, egg shells and water

 

[Radogast]

Today, I transplanted GSC Annabelle C1 into the pot of recently harvested NL Stella.

As usual, I cut the root ball on 4 sides with a pair of scissors and sprinkled the root ball and hole with mycorrhizal forming fungus.

After translant, I spread 1/9th of a worm tray on top of the potting soil

Finally, I spread apart the stalks of GSCAnnabelle to form more stalks.

This marijuana farming is starting to feel routine - at least the parts I understand.

That is not to say I don't want to improve.
I want to get a hardier strain of Glomus intraradices mycorrhizal forming fungus
I want to improve my worm castings and worm farming.
I want to improve my training, especially of clones with alternating leaves.

 

[Radogast]

Graduation Day - Tangerine Dream Ghita

I could have waited another two to three weeks to flower out Ghita, but I am worried Ghita is male. The other TND 'clone' I was gifted was male. I suspect someone was playing a joke by passing along known male clones.

Also, Ghita is in a bucket of regular, non-recycling, soil. She needs some nutes to continue vegging and throughout flower.

I'm just ready to see if Ghita can grow good flowers.


Tangerine Dream Ghita: 21" tall, headed into the flowering room.

TND Ghita canopy has 5 strong tops and a 2 good secondary tops

New flowering room layout: 5 proven girl pots, and TND Ghita.

 

[Radogast]

I'd rather be high
I'd rather be flying

Sir David Bowie

 

[bobrown14]

BoBrown thanks so much for the IPM description.

I don't mind every 3 days or 2x a week, I've been doing homemade 1% neem oil spray for 5 months now.

I'm not sure about thrips either, the concensus of replies on the thread I opened in the pests and uglies section is that I have spider mite eggs - even though they are on the tops of the leaves and I don't see mites. NOTHING is flying or hopping. I suspect I didn't demolish the spider mite life cycle after all. After all my spraying, spiders are gone too.

I will reread your post and consider my options, I have neem oil and kelp meal - no neem cake or spinosad. Tonight I sprayed with a 7% neem oil solution to see if a stronger solution does the job. The lights are out, so I have tomorrow to think and read.


- - - I respect your growing skills big time - thanks for the help.

Neem oil works on the spider mites - Spinosad will not. The thing is it will only keep the spider mites in check. You won't be able to rid yourself of them 100% ... man when I see them they kinda freak me out. They will attack the weak link that I know 110%. I've seen them on just one plant total infestation.. plant beside nothing. The plant with the infestation goes into a garbage bag double tied and in the garbage can, soil - container and plant. Then a total clean up, top to btm veg and flower rooms and any other places we have indoor plants.

Yeah those nasty fuckers, I had spider mites, they can ruin a perfectly good weekend. They usually hitch a ride on plants we bring in from outside containers in the fall.

I'm on any container plants coming inside like white on rice till I know they are free of pests.

When we bring in containers in the fall, we do it on the IPM day. You can even spray them down with a hose outside first, I mean totally hose them down (dont drown the soil tho). Plants can handle that a lot better than the mites. It really doesn't even bother them to get hosed off.

The best defense against pest infestation is healthy plants. Why I say if one isn't quite right in veg - toss and move on. It's a lot easier to sprout a new seed than it is to get rid of pests. I mentioned that in another forum here and everyone got all sorrowful about "killing" plants. I only have this to say. Try on some spider mites on a sick plant, pretty soon you wont have to worry about plants any more, they all will be sick and then dead, in short order.

It sucks but survival of the fittest is the way of nature. We have a small hand to play in the order of things in the garden, so we may as well use it. It does bite hard to cull a plant I spent $15/seed on or $100 for a pack of 10 but long haul, I remember the keepers more easily than the culls. For me, the only difference between culling seedlings of veggies or canna, is the price of the seed. Reason for cull is the same.

Plants can fight off pests, and the communicate that with other near by plants. Read about it in a book "What a Plant Knows" by Daniel Chamovitz

There is a reason why one plant is totally infested and the plant next to it is not. They communicate with each other and they know you are in the room every time you're there and they let the neighbors know when we are there doing things like trimming leaves, defoliate etc. The plants go defensive.

Blue green algae is an example - they will kill humans and grazing animals when we mess with their symbiotic plant they live with in soil (they also live in fresh and salt water).

The best thing we can do for our plants is give them a healthy living soil to help them thrive. I add in my IPM once a week or so, Fulpower (organic fulvic acid) (1 tbs/gal) and 1/4 tsp. of Pro-Tek (organic silica). These help the plant when an infestation happens by isolating the disease and build a barrier so that the rest of the plant does not get infected (why spider mites suck ass big time).

Rad sorry for the ramble on and focus on negatives - I prefer to focus on the beauty of mother nature and our favorite plants. Gardening for me really is about having fun and get some joy and reward.

So yeah keep it green brother and best of luck with your new rounds of girls to ladies and I wish you big nugs.

 

[Radogast]

Nice intro. What strains do you plan to grow this year? .....will there be Kush?

The OG Kush in Cannatonic makes CBD Shark (Cannatonic x Shark Shock) about 1/8th OG Kush

Bubba's Gift is Bubba Kush pre-98 x God's Gift (OG Kush x Grand Daddy Purple) - Lots of Kush in there


I'll probably be starting one of those two soon after the seeds arrive. I need to compare the plants in the cloner and the little pots to the pots in the flower room to decide. If Tangerine dream Ghita is male, I'll be planting Bubba's Gift.

 

[kotsotronic]

 

[Radogast]

Hiya Kotsotronic. I've seen you post on another journal. You are welcome here, although I'm not sure what here will be

I'm trying to figure out the balance for posting on a perpetual grow - for example:

Yesterday, I planted a rooted clone Caramelicious Sassy in soil.
Today, I planted rooted clone Caramelicious Quiffa in soil.

I didn't post pictures because the process looks just like when I planted rooted clone Tangerine Dream Ghita on Jan 1.

In a couple of weeks, after I harvest 2 plants, I will have free space in 2 large pots so I will transplant 2 small pots to those 2 large pots.
This will force me to move a couple of large plants out from under the low hanging early veg light to under the higher hanging late veg light. Having just harvested, creating 2 open spaces in the flowering room, and feeling the pressure from 2 new plants in late veg, and tall plants maturing in late veg, I will be motivated to graduate 2 plants from late veg to the flowering room - when the time is right.

Planting rooted clones and sprouted seeds into small pots is important to keeping the perpetual process moving. You gotta hatch eggs (or clone chicks ) to have chicks, to have pullets, to have hens, to lay eggs, that can be hatched to keep perpetual chickens cooking in the kitchen.

Is the process of evaluating the flow of plants in the perpetual loop and timing baby plants what I post?

That said, every 2-5 weeks, I do the same things to different girls, some of which I have now known for 4 generations, You folks may not know, but those of us who smoke her know the differences between the smoke of Caramelicious Quiffa and Caramelicious Sassy. As a gardener, I know some of the differences between growing Quiffa and Sassy.

Is the process of revealing those differences what I post here?

Or do I post the pretty pictures of different stages and activities? Won't they look just like he other ones?

- --

Fortunately, I don't have to decide. I just fake it and post whatever seems interesting to me, and possibly others

In veg, I did a little training, made up some small pot soil mix, planted and labelled a rooted clone.

In flower, I cleaned up a few leaves, pinched off some future popcorn buds, bent some drying stems to find out if the bud are dry yet (soon) and checked the level of pests (better.)

All-in-all a pleasant gardening day - but no photos.

Todays excitement was having the police, fire and ambulances enter the fat, drunken, wannabe dominatrix's house next door TWICE - the second time hauling her away, sitting up on a stretcher, sipping out of a paper cup. And yeah, I stood there at the window with binoculars watching. The wife, the teenagers, and the visiting teenagers watched too. We were obvious about it, chatting and speculating from inside the house.

The crows did not watch (they have before.) They know I didn't clear enough of the driveway to avoid their peanuts getting lost in the snow. They also know I cleared the back deck for the bluebirds, jays and doves to eat.I imagine the crows are slightly miffed. If I don't shovel a driveway feeding space tomorrow, I'm pretty sure I'll hear lots of crow cawing

 

[FeralA9X]

The OG Kush in Cannatonic makes CBD Shark (Cannatonic x Shark Shock) about 1/8th OG Kush

Bubba's Gift is Bubba Kush pre-98 x God's Gift (OG Kush x Grand Daddy Purple) - Lots of Kush in there


I'll probably be starting one of those two soon after the seeds arrive. I need to compare the plants in the cloner and the little pots to the pots in the flower room to decide. If Tangerine dream Ghita is male, I'll be planting Bubba's Gift.

Some nice strains you have there Rad, cant wait to see how they turn out

Fortunately, I don't have to decide. I just fake it and post whatever seems interesting to me, and possibly others

Sounds good to me
Still trying to work out if im doing a perpetual journal next or would be easier to cover in multiple journals lol, setup the cupboard again last night and thinking about using the aerogarden on a shelf for clones, so that makes 4 grow spaces

 

[Radogast]

Some nice strains you have there Rad, cant wait to see how they turn out



Sounds good to me
Still trying to work out if im doing a perpetual journal next or would be easier to cover in multiple journals lol, setup the cupboard again last night and thinking about using the aerogarden on a shelf for clones, so that makes 4 grow spaces

I have 4 lights so I think of them as 4 grow spaces

I know many here feel a tug to buy more seeds and create more grow space. When I show someone my grow they look around the basement and say "Have you considered building more rooms and a few more lights?"

If they pass laws that make it legal to give away marihuana, I may try to grow more, but right now we are harvesting just enough to provide what my wife needs. As I learn to grow better, the yields and quality will get better - but compared to street weed and the stuff that comes in from Caliornia, our cannabis quality is already top shelf

All thanks to the people and ideas on

Thank you

 

[bobrown14]

Hey Rad - I think crows are smarter than a lot of humans! I also think they are smarter than ALL humans up to about age 5 or 6. You can train them to feed. We compost an outdoor pile just for the crows. If we keep it well fed they are quiet - if we are late to the pile, they actually get close to the house and cry for food. I've even seen a crow standing on the roof, bending over looking into our bedroom, then cry very quietly for us to get up and take the compost out to the pile for them. We get to know them personally each season. Their enemies are the Peregrine falcon. Man they make A LOT of noise...unlike crows they care not of our existence.

To rid pests in the indoor garden:
1) identify the pest
2) learn their life cycle
3) defend against EACH and EVERY cycle.

Spider mites are the worst since they have 4-6 cycles - you have to defend each and every one all the time.

Why a lot of folks when infested with them it's tear down and throw out, major clean out and start over.

 

[Radogast]

Hey Rad - I think crows are smarter than a lot of humans! I also think they are smarter than ALL humans up to about age 5 or 6. You can train them to feed. We compost an outdoor pile just for the crows. If we keep it well fed they are quiet - if we are late to the pile, they actually get close to the house and cry for food. I've even seen a crow standing on the roof, bending over looking into our bedroom, then cry very quietly for us to get up and take the compost out to the pile for them. We get to know them personally each season. Their enemies are the Peregrine falcon. Man they make A LOT of noise...unlike crows they care not of our existence.

To rid pests in the indoor garden:
1) identify the pest
2) learn their life cycle
3) defend against EACH and EVERY cycle.

Spider mites are the worst since they have 4-6 cycles - you have to defend each and every one all the time.

Why a lot of folks when infested with them it's tear down and throw out, major clean out and start over.

My wife has trained the crows (and I) to expect feeding time AFTER the garage door closes and the boy drives off to high school. They don't start calling until after the garge door closes, and my wife and/or I will throw the peanuts in the driveway and call "Hey Crow! Crow Crow!"

That said, as the time approaches feeding time, the crows are often watching the master bedroom windows for the blackout curtains to open and peering past the necklaces of stones and shiny things into the master bath. If they catch our eye, they will open their beaks in a silent caw or soft caw and fly to another branch. My wife calls one pair Stella and Herman. It might not be the same Stella and Herman each day

Yesterday there was crow vs hawk drama. Out the back window an hour after sunrise, several crows called out and flushed a big bird. It appeared to be a snowy owl. About 20 minutes later, there were 3 crows outside the bedroom window, about a block away, crowding a lone hawk on a leafless sycamore tree.

Crow crowding reminds me of cats sneaking up on each other. I call it 'crowding' when 3 crows surround a hawk on 2 or 3 sides perched on nearby branches. When the hawk looks at one crow, the other crows take a small step closer. When the hawk turns to look at a crow that just moved, the other crows take another step closer. The hawk never actually catches them moving. It's a brilliant mind game that annoys the heck out of hawks, especially because hawks can't hunt while crows are crowding them.



- - -

I have been mostly successful against the spider mites. They are down to a detectable but not bud and health threatening level towards the plants. Last night I sprayed a 4% neem solution. a couple of my strains reacted badly to the 7% nnem solution after being just fine with the 1% neem solution. The 1% neem solution was not enough to control the eggs on the leaves.

7 days after spraying (twice) with 7% neem foliar. Some girls have oily leaves - maybe from the sputtering of the sprayer as it runs out.

7 days after spraying(twice) with 7% neem foliar. Some girls have leaves that are strongly damaged, while most strains are relatively unaffected. This is a strain I can sacrifice. Breeder free seed Lachesis has a low yield and a medium to weak high. I wasn't planning on cloning her again after this run. I'm just not that into her.

This photo was taken after I defoliated 8-12 mostly* yellow leaves.

*Also motley** yellow leaves.

** Looking to see if I had the word motley correct. I ran across a 1920-30s era painter, Archibold Motley Jr. Gorgeous early blues club scenes in a Social Realism style.

 

[Radogast]

Radogast's State of the Garden Address - Part A: Gardening Experience

As far as knowing what to do, 2 years ago I had very little relevent gardening experience.
I had a small vegetable garden 35 years ago for about 3 years, strawberries, tomatoes, sunflowers, cucumbers, chili peppers, bell peppers (and bell peppers pollinized and made fiery by serrano chilis), marigiolds, and kitchen ginger. The front yard was a wildflower garden, grown from seeds I collected walking around the neighborhood - a changing carpet of colors. This was in the San Francisco Bay area, where it takes absolutely no skills to harvest vegetables and flowers from a garden - the sun, temperature and humidity conspire to keep plants happy and pests unhappy.

Then I lived in Arizona for a decade. I did outdoor xeriscape gardening - turning bare earth into a 4-star hotel style palm tree and swimming pool version of paradise. A backdrop of greens and grays interrupted by the occaisional explosion of desert friendly flowers. My houseplants all died.

I moved to New England and was not involved with plants for many years. Shortly before starting to i grow Medical Marijuana, I moved to a house in the woods where I attempted discount landscaping in a place with 4 seasons. I don't naturally synchronize with seasons. They were not well defined and not time critical in Central California and Arizona. If you planted 1 month early or 1 month late it didn't really matter.

In short, very little of my prior life experience prepared me to grow marijuana.
Thanks to the people at , I absorb a little more growing information each week.


Part B: Gardening Style


When I started growing 2 years ago, I was growing cannabis in survival mode. I had a good first harvest, then I had real problems getting the plants to grow - taking months to grow from 10" sickly plants to 12" sickly plants. During this time of slow growth, I researched methods and styles of training, fertilizing, watering --- and still was having no success moving towards a second harvest. A bunch of ideas and nowhere to try them.

I started to seriously consider what style of gardening I wanted to do. Deep Water Culture hydro attracted the puzzle solver in me, Aquaculture attracted the environmentalist in me, but Soil always seemed seemed most natural. Soil with as little effort as possible attracts the permaculturist in me - which is what anchors my growing style. I really admire the Hi-brix and Organic growers here. If I ever start over with new soil, I'll be looking at Hi-brix, but so far my soil is still growing sugary plants so no need to replace it yet. I'm a cheapskate that way. - - I also want to explore the edge of 'do nothing' farming in an indoor, artificial environment. I want nature to grow things as natural as possible, while I artificially maintain the room environments for vegetative and flowering growth. Like the permculture hero Masanobu Fukuoka, I want the living soil (and the worm bin version of living soil) to do all the work. I compromise with nature's perfect methods by growing with fake sunlight and creating an indoor version of Coastal California temperatures and breezes Like Masanobu Fukuoka, it might take me 17 years and needlessly killing a few harvests to figure it out to my personal level of satisfaction.


Part C: Goals for the year ahead


A goal for this year is to optimize my worm farming to meet the needs of my harvest schedule. It might take longer than a year. I think I could use 4 more growing trays, but haven't committed to spending the $60 or so. The state has not committed to allowing me to grow for another year. I really would like a good recreational marijuana law for the state this year. The bill in the State Senate and the initiative headed for the Nov 2016 ballot both look very good to me.

A second goal is to experiment with simple methods to improve flower weight with natural ingredients. The spider mites have messed up my baseline for growing and harvesting. I would like some spider mite free grows with the new worm castings schedule as a new, larger, and danker baseline.

I have 3 new seeds from 3 new strains on their way. I'd like to weave these seeds into my perpetual grow as pots rotate through. This will mean saying goodbye to 2 or 3 of the existing girls. At this point about 1/2 my buds are 'top shelf' organic, home-grown buds of sweet bliss. The rest is pretty good shit. A third goal for the upcoming year is to grow a wider variey of 'top shelf' strains and a vanishing percentage of lower quality strains.


Financially, we are successfully with a goal of maintaining financial success. Growing in the basement is saving money.

Before growing, we were already spending over $500/mo on marijuana for medical and recreational use. At that point, spending $2500 in startup costs to grow $2500 worth of cannabis meant the construction materials and growing supplies paid for themselves at the first harvest, around the 5 month mark. Cutting out the bottled nutrients has lowered my monthly expenses, increased plant health, reduced yield, and greatly increased in bud flavors and potency. Spending another $500 to create the Gardening Room, and shifting to a perpetual grow now means $250-$300/mo (mostly for 2000 kwh of electric lights and fans per day) is yielding harvests (averaged over the last 6 months) of 105g/mo = 3.75oz/mo = $900/mo at street weed prices for lusciously dank, 100% organically home-grown bud. There was a long, dry spell, but we are now exceeding my financial and quality yields.


In January 2016, The State of the Garden is: We are much better off than 1 year ago with a vision for a better future 1 year from now.

 

[bobrown14]

Hey Rad - I think crows are smarter than a lot of humans! I also think they are smarter than ALL humans up to about age 5 or 6.

You can train them to feed as you do now. We compost an outdoor pile just for the crows. If we keep it well fed they are quiet - if we are late to the pile after breakfast, they actually get close to the house and cry for food. I've even seen a crow standing on the roof, bending over looking into our bedroom, his head upside down look in at us sleeping, then cry very quietly for us to get up and take the compost out to the pile for them.

We get to know them personally each season. Their enemies are the Peregrine falcon. Man the young falcons make A LOT of noise...unlike crows they care not of our existence. The crows will avoid the falcons at all costs. Since the falcons make so much noise the crows know they are around and hide from them - they up tight to the tree trunk in the pine trees. They are almost impossible to see.

The crows are good stalkers too as you mentioned with the owl. I've seen them stalk red squirrels as a team hopping thru the branches, it's actually pretty cool to watch. Freakiest thing was last summer opening my eyes to see a crows head upside down at the window and hearing it purring like a cat.

Here's a youtube vid - I think the Crow does about 8 consecutive decisions planning his moves and finding tools. This is very similar in intelligence to how apes use tools. The cool thing about apes is they teach the children to use the same tools. The crow figures it out on its own without parental training.

RE: IPM routine - what I do is add in some Pro-tekt every time I foiler spray. Pro-tekt is silica which is the 2nd most abundant element after oxygen found on earth. It's not readily available to plants or humans without help from our friends the soil microbes.

My foiler recipe is:

1 gal water
1 tbs Fulpower
1/2 tsp Pro-tekt
neem cake meal - 2-3 tbs
1-2 tbs Kelp meal ground up in a grinder (coffee or food grinder) -

I put the neem cake meal and the kelp meal in water and let steep like a tea for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour or so...in a jar and shake it several times before use.

Strain that mix into my spray reservoir with a very fine strainer, then add in the Pro-tekt and fullpower. If I have active pests its an additional 1 tbs of Monterrey liquid (spinosad) added in 2x in a row IPM treatment 3 days apart or 2x a week.

I know you use the neem oil - the neem cake meal tea will be about 30-40% as strong as the oil but you wont have to worry about spraying at lights out and getting too much oil on the leaves like you had with the 7% solution. You can spray this with lights on with no ill effect. It's recommended to spray close to lights out or early on beginning of light on schedule. I.E. not in the middle of the day for the ladies.

2nd week:
^^^ The same thing without spinosad. This can be applied up to the day before harvest.

That's how I do it week in week out ... I also sprinkle neem cake meal on surface of soil on the ladies (not seedlings/clones) a few pinches. just for shits a giggles - ALL pests really do not like neem. The meal is easier to deal with for me. You can also use the neem cake meal and oil together.. just figure out what works best for each cultivar. When I need to use the oil I use soap nuts as an emulsifier, another emulsifier that is great is Aloe gel.
Sometimes I add in aloe/coconut water to the IPM mix.. the ladies really love that!

Here's a little reading for ya on silica... thanks to the Lumper/Coots feller.

Silica – The Hidden Cost of Chemicals

^^^^^^ INFO BOMB ALERT:

This is copied from the link right up there ^^^^ not the whole thing but a good part of it...

Read FTW

Silicon and Sun Power

Photosynthesis is the most important process on the planet. The green plant is the only source of food and the management of chlorophyll, the green pigment where all the action happens, is the chief role of the farmer. Silicon is a gold sponsor of the sugar factories within the plant as it supports this process in several ways. The leaf is essentially a solar panel, the underside of which also serves to capture the CO2 gas as it rises from the roots and soil life. The better that panel is presented, the more efficient it will prove in capturing sunlight, water and CO2 (the three components of photosynthesis). Silicon strengthens the stem and holds that panel in perfect position. The plant is less likely to droop in warm conditions and more likely to maximise photosynthesis.

Minerals are the major players in the photosynthesis equation. Blotches, stripes and pale colours, from shortages of minerals, represent the mismanagement of chlorophyll. Sometimes it’s not just the lack of these nutrients but their delivery into the crop that is the issue. Silicon can have a big impact upon mineral uptake. Phloem and xylem are the pathways that govern mineral absorption and the translocation of minerals within the plant. These nutrient highways are built from silicon and their performance will suffer in its absence.

Calcium is an example of a poorly translocated mineral that will be utilised more efficiently when the nutrient highways are broad and true. Boron is a calcium synergist, which can improve the performance of calcium, but it has recently been recognized that boron also boosts silicon uptake. Boron solubilises insoluble silicon and it is a good idea to combine boron, calcium and silicon in your program to maximise the synergistic potential of the trio. One popular strategy involves the application of boron to the soil in late winter to trigger the release of silicon. The soluble silicon will be used to build the super highways that will improve the sluggish uptake of calcium (needed for cell division during the spring flush).

Silicon – The Stress Savior

There are two types of stress that affect production negatively. Abiotic stress involves the negative impact of environmental factors upon living organisms and biotic stress is about pest pressure. Abiotic stress is the single most harmful factor impacting crop growth and productivity on the planet and it can only have more impact as global warming progresses. However, biotic stress is not far behind. Every year since we began the chemical experiment in agriculture there has been an increase in the total amount of chemicals applied on a global scale and every year there has also been a marked increase in pest pressure. The current path is not sustainable; in fact it is not working! There is an obvious relationship between abiotic stress and biotic stress in that environmental factors will increase pest pressure. We are seeing this in all of the countries in which we work. Even in the local ginger industry, right on our doorstep, growers are experiencing pythium pressure unlike anything they have previously experienced. This destructive fungus has found a new niche in the wettest growing season ever. This does not represent a deficiency of fungicides but rather it highlights the desperate need for a more holistic approach that will offer a greater level of inherent protection during times of stress.

Silicon can reduce the impact of both abiotic and biotic stressors and it represents an essential component of a program designed to create a disease suppressive soil and stress resistant plants. The stronger the cell wall, the more stress resistant the plant, whether that stress is from pathogens or non-living factors.

Part of the climate change forecast is an increase in extreme weather events. Wind can be particularly destructive in that it can promote lodging, which can render the crop unharvestible. At the most recent silicon conference, Iranian researcher, A. Fallah, presented a paper reporting a reduction of silicon within the plant associated with high nitrogen usage. It is already understood that over application of nitrogen has a nutrient diluting effect and that the mineral most affected is potassium. Now we understand that mismanagement of nitrogen can also impact silicon nutrition and the associated protective effect of this mineral. In this instance, weaker stem strength and increased susceptibility to lodging were noted in the rice crop studied. Fallah reported much stronger stems and resistance to lodging in silicon treated crops.

One of the stressors that is becoming more of an issue in many soils is the oversupply of heavy metals, salts and some trace minerals. In all cases, silicon has been shown to mitigate the stress. Copper (Cu) can build up in the soil due to the overuse of fungicides. We have found humates a valuable tool to neutralise the negatives associated with this excess. Silica has been effective in mitigating the effect of a variety of heavy metals but recent US research suggests that silicon may be a viable management tool in high copper soils. J. Li, J. Frankz and S. Leisner working in flower crops in Ohio, found that silicon could very effectively mitigate Cu toxicity stress and the improvement was measured on multiple levels.

Swedish researchers working in cadmium contaminated soils found that the higher the silicon level in the plant, the lower the cadmium level. In fact, there was 60% less cadmium in the silica treated food grains.

In some exciting Russian research involving wheat, silica was shown to alleviate salt stress quite dramatically. Wheat is notoriously sensitive to high salinity and the salt created a major decrease in photosynthesis. The addition of silicon to the soil resulted in increases in photosynthesis ranging from 158% to 520% depending upon the salt concentration in the soil. This is one of several studies highlighting the silicon link to salt management. We always recommend the inclusion of small amounts of humic acid and potassium silicate with every irrigation, to manage saline irrigation water.

A South Australian study reported reduced drought stress and an associated reduction in pest pressure following silicon treatment. This study found that applied silicon mitigated the increased insect pressure that was a direct effect of high levels of nitrogen. Not only does high N shut down silica uptake but applied silica can also compensate for this nitrogen mismanagement.

Cold stress can even be addressed with silicon. South African scientists working with bananas have shown that silicon protected the plants from cold damage and that an associated increase in vigour decreased the banana’s susceptibility to Fusarium Wilt.

This enhanced protection from disease has been well researched. A recent Japanese study entitled “Silicon in the Control of Diseases in Rice, Sorghum and Soybean”, found reductions in brown spot pressure that varied between 35% and 75% in rice studies. They found significant reductions in anthracnose in silicon-treated sorghum and the results were quite dramatic when foliar applying potassium silicate to manage soybean rust. They concluded their paper with the following words; “The results of these studies underscore the importance of Si to increase plant resistance to foliar disease”.

This increase in disease resistance was originally thought to be related to the “barrier effect” linked to increased cell strength, but it is now understood to be also related to increased plant immunity.

Silicon-Based Immunity

One of the most dynamic research streams in agricultural science relates to the investigation of plant immunity and the triggers that activates the plant to fight its own battles. It is now understood that the plant has an immune system, which can be both monitored and magnified. Salicylic acid, for example, the biochemical upon which aspirin is based, activates the plant’s immune system. Aloe vera is the richest natural source of this compound and many of our growers benefit from the inclusion of this plant extract in their programs.

Recently, silicon has been found to trigger the production of a suite of compounds that fuel immunity. This mineral is now seen as an integral tool in proactive pest management as it offers both protective cell strength while also fuelling a robust defense system.

Phenolic compounds are one of the biochemicals that are part of this defense system and these compounds are now recognised as key players in the protection of avocado trees from Phytopthora cinnamoni. T.F Bekker, et al, from the University of Pretoria, conducted research which demonstrated that soil applications of potassium silicate to soils affected by this disease, increased the total phenolic content of the avocado root tissue.

It is interesting to note that this silicon-based, immune response is most pronounced when there is existing disease pressure. It’s almost like the plant calls in the heavy artillery when the going gets tough! A Canadian paper presented at the South African conference involved the study of 30,000 genes. The researchers reported that unstressed plants appeared to be minimally affected by silicon feeding with the associated up regulating of only two genes. (Note: upregulation is the process by which a cell increases the quantity of a cellular component such as RNA or protein in response to an external variable.) However, in stressed plants (affected by powdery mildew) there was an up regulation of a number of genes. A Spanish paper also covered the Powdery Mildew control potential of silicon and they found that the inclusion of amino acids with the silicon fertiliser enhanced the response.

Russian researchers have hypothesised that the plant immune system requires mobile silica compounds and if there is luxury levels of silica available to the plant there will be additional synthesis of stress protection molecules. A co-operative research effort between American and Japanese scientists showed that silica related resistance involves multiple pathways and that silica amendment clearly alters plant defense signaling, increasing the plant’s disease resistance.

Fertiliser Sources of Silicon

Silica fertilisers are available in liquid and solid form and the liquids offer the most rapid response. Silicon is found in good levels in rock mineral fertilisers and in rock phosphate and guano products. However, this is not the plant available form of the mineral and, depending on the particle size, it may take many years for the mineral to become available. This is not the case if the fertiliser is a calcium silicate or magnesium silicate but you need to ask about the solubility of any silica fertiliser you may be considering. This is also not the case if these materials are micronised.

Diatomaceous earth in the amorphous form is a very rich source of insoluble silica. The material is basically the exoskeletons of tiny prehistoric creatures called diatoms. These remains contain up to 85% silica dioxide and the silica shell is sharp and jagged under a microscope, almost like a broken razor blade. Diatomaceous earth has been used as a natural insecticide for decades, as the jagged, little razor blades can cut up the offending insect’s exoskeleton causing the creature to dehydrate and die. This material is also used internally as a natural means to control intestinal parasites. The rich silica lode from diatomaceous earth can be made plant-available by micronising the material right down to a tiny particle size of 5 microns. It can then be held in a liquid suspension and applied via boom spray or fertigation. As little as 5 litres of liquid, micronized diatomaceous earth per hectare, applied through fertigation on a regular basis, can lift leaf levels of silica into the luxury zone, with all of the associated benefits.

Potassium silicate is a good soluble form of silica but it is not compatible with many other fertilisers and must often be applied as a standalone. One way out of this limitation is to use a pre-formulated potassium silicate-based fertiliser which includes other synergists.

Note: Potassium Silicate = Dyna-Grow Pro-TeKt

 

[Radogast]

Hey Rad - I think crows are smarter than a lot of humans! I also think they are smarter than ALL humans up to about age 5 or 6.

You can train them to feed as you do now. We compost an outdoor pile just for the crows. If we keep it well fed they are quiet - if we are late to the pile after breakfast, they actually get close to the house and cry for food. I've even seen a crow standing on the roof, bending over looking into our bedroom, his head upside down look in at us sleeping, then cry very quietly for us to get up and take the compost out to the pile for them.

We get to know them personally each season. Their enemies are the Peregrine falcon. Man the young falcons make A LOT of noise...unlike crows they care not of our existence. The crows will avoid the falcons at all costs. Since the falcons make so much noise the crows know they are around and hide from them - they up tight to the tree trunk in the pine trees. They are almost impossible to see.

The crows are good stalkers too as you mentioned with the owl. I've seen them stalk red squirrels as a team hopping thru the branches, it's actually pretty cool to watch. Freakiest thing was last summer opening my eyes to see a crows head upside down at the window and hearing it purring like a cat.

Here's a youtube vid - I think the Crow does about 8 consecutive decisions planning his moves and finding tools. This is very similar in intelligence to how apes use tools. The cool thing about apes is they teach the children to use the same tools. The crow figures it out on its own without parental training.

I'm surprised your crows defer to a Peregrine Falcon. We have a local murder of 7 crows. I have seen 4 crows crowding a mated pair of Red-Tailed Hawks. I haven't seen or heard the Red-Tailed hawks lately, but I don't get out much. I have also seen 5 crows dive bomb and chase a Goshawk. This surprised me. Goshawk are superfast at weaving between trees and running along the ground while attacking prey, as well as being larger than Red-Tailed hawks. It doesn't seem like a Peregrine Falcon would be scarier than those birds. Maybe one of your crows was a newbie flyer needing protection.

RE: IPM routine - what I do is add in some Pro-tekt every time I foiler spray. Pro-tekt is silica which is the 2nd most abundant element after oxygen found on earth. It's not readily available to plants or humans without help from our friends the soil microbes.

My foiler recipe is:

1 gal water
1 tbs Fulpower
1/2 tsp Pro-tekt
neem cake meal - 2-3 tbs
1-2 tbs Kelp meal ground up in a grinder (coffee or food grinder) -

. . .


Sometimes I add in aloe/coconut water to the IPM mix.. the ladies really love that!

Here's a little reading for ya on silica... thanks to the Lumper/Coots feller.

. . .

This is the second time you have posted recently about your IPM and the second time I have felt myself resisting the idea.

I thought about it, and my resistance comes from the idea of adding a cocktail of foliar ingredients all at the same time.

Right now I am minimilist. I know how my girls grow with just soil and water. I know how the 1% neem oil solution affects my plants and the spider mites. I have recently added a soil amendment of worm soil once per grow cycle. I am pretty sure it will be a good thing, but I don't really know the amount of difference it makes. Being able to assses the value gives me a basis for assessing whether it is worth the cost in money, labor and environmental sustainability. Changing the neem oil % at the same time as I am adding worm soil is already confusing the value of either action alone.

A cocktall of folair spray ingredients, each with their own separate as well as synergistic value, leaves me with no way to appreciate the value of any of the individual ingredients.

Is there a shorter list of effective ingredients I can mix as phase I ?

 

[Radogast]

Hey Rad - I think crows are smarter than a lot of humans! I also think they are smarter than ALL humans up to about age 5 or 6. You can train them to feed. We compost an outdoor pile just for the crows. If we keep it well fed they are quiet - if we are late to the pile, they actually get close to the house and cry for food. I've even seen a crow standing on the roof, bending over looking into our bedroom, then cry very quietly for us to get up and take the compost out to the pile for them. We get to know them personally each season.

My wife and I are both fascinated about the concept of a compost pile for crows.

What makes it just for crows?

 

[glimmergrass]

Radogast's State of the Garden Address - Part A: Gardening Experience

As far as knowing what to do, 2 years ago I had very little relevent gardening experience.
I had a small vegetable garden 35 years ago for about 3 years, strawberries, tomatoes, sunflowers, cucumbers, chili peppers, bell peppers (and bell peppers pollinized and made fiery by serrano chilis), marigiolds, and kitchen ginger. The front yard was a wildflower garden, grown from seeds I collected walking around the neighborhood - a changing carpet of colors. This was in the San Francisco Bay area, where it takes absolutely no skills to harvest vegetables and flowers from a garden - the sun, temperature and humidity conspire to keep plants happy and pests unhappy.

Then I lived in Arizona for a decade. I did outdoor xeriscape gardening - turning bare earth into a 4-star hotel style palm tree and swimming pool version of paradise. A backdrop of greens and grays interrupted by the occaisional explosion of desert friendly flowers. My houseplants all died.

I moved to New England and was not involved with plants for many years. Shortly before starting to i grow Medical Marijuana, I moved to a house in the woods where I attempted discount landscaping in a place with 4 seasons. I don't naturally synchronize with seasons. They were not well defined and not time critical in Central California and Arizona. If you planted 1 month early or 1 month late it didn't really matter.

In short, very little of my prior life experience prepared me to grow marijuana.
Thanks to the people at , I absorb a little more growing information each week.


Part B: Gardening Style


When I started growing 2 years ago, I was growing cannabis in survival mode. I had a good first harvest, then I had real problems getting the plants to grow - taking months to grow from 10" sickly plants to 12" sickly plants. During this time of slow growth, I researched methods and styles of training, fertilizing, watering --- and still was having no success moving towards a second harvest. A bunch of ideas and nowhere to try them.

I started to seriously consider what style of gardening I wanted to do. Deep Water Culture hydro attracted the puzzle solver in me, Aquaculture attracted the environmentalist in me, but Soil always seemed seemed most natural. Soil with as little effort as possible attracts the permaculturist in me - which is what anchors my growing style. I really admire the Hi-brix and Organic growers here. If I ever start over with new soil, I'll be looking at Hi-brix, but so far my soil is still growing sugary plants so no need to replace it yet. I'm a cheapskate that way. - - I also want to explore the edge of 'do nothing' farming in an indoor, artificial environment. I want nature to grow things as natural as possible, while I artificially maintain the room environments for vegetative and flowering growth. Like the permculture hero Masanobu Fukuoka, I want the living soil (and the worm bin version of living soil) to do all the work. I compromise with nature's perfect methods by growing with fake sunlight and creating an indoor version of Coastal California temperatures and breezes Like Masanobu Fukuoka, it might take me 17 years and needlessly killing a few harvests to figure it out to my personal level of satisfaction.


Part C: Goals for the year ahead


A goal for this year is to optimize my worm farming to meet the needs of my harvest schedule. It might take longer than a year. I think I could use 4 more growing trays, but haven't committed to spending the $60 or so. The state has not committed to allowing me to grow for another year. I really would like a good recreational marijuana law for the state this year. The bill in the State Senate and the initiative headed for the Nov 2016 ballot both look very good to me.

A second goal is to experiment with simple methods to improve flower weight with natural ingredients. The spider mites have messed up my baseline for growing and harvesting. I would like some spider mite free grows with the new worm castings schedule as a new, larger, and danker baseline.

I have 3 new seeds from 3 new strains on their way. I'd like to weave these seeds into my perpetual grow as pots rotate through. This will mean saying goodbye to 2 or 3 of the existing girls. At this point about 1/2 my buds are 'top shelf' organic, home-grown buds of sweet bliss. The rest is pretty good shit. A third goal for the upcoming year is to grow a wider variey of 'top shelf' strains and a vanishing percentage of lower quality strains.


Financially, we are successfully with a goal of maintaining financial success. Growing in the basement is saving money.

Before growing, we were already spending over $500/mo on marijuana for medical and recreational use. At that point, spending $2500 in startup costs to grow $2500 worth of cannabis meant the construction materials and growing supplies paid for themselves at the first harvest, around the 5 month mark. Cutting out the bottled nutrients has lowered my monthly expenses, increased plant health, reduced yield, and greatly increased in bud flavors and potency. Spending another $500 to create the Gardening Room, and shifting to a perpetual grow now means $250-$300/mo (mostly for 2000 kwh of electric lights and fans per day) is yielding harvests (averaged over the last 6 months) of 105g/mo = 3.75oz/mo = $900/mo at street weed prices for lusciously dank, 100% organically home-grown bud. There was a long, dry spell, but we are now exceeding my financial and quality yields.


In January 2016, The State of the Garden is: We are much better off than 1 year ago with a vision for a better future 1 year from now.

Hi, Radogast the Green!

Loved this. Thank you for writing it and sharing it. I'm subbed in and eager to learn more about LOS, perpetual growing and, well ... everything