420 Magazine's Official Girl Scout Cookies Comparative Grow By Brett Blaze

[Brett Blaze]

I have a firm belief that you should not mix nutes when you're high or have had a few drinks. Well this evening I broke both. An old friend stopped by and I made a batch of margaritas and rolled up a joint.

After my 4th margarita (not sure how many hits I had) I remembered I was out of nutrient solution and needed to make a new batch for tonight's watering. It's a good thing I stopped at 4 margaritas. I can maintain normalcy when high but alcohol is uncontrollable.

I made up a new gallon batch of @Prescription Blend Veg formula but the final ppm was about 50 ppm too low. Now I am pretty sure I measured right but decided to add an additional .5 ml additional of Core A and Core B to bring the nute ppm to 500. This time I also added 7 ml of Terpinator to the 1 gallon batch.

I also planned to measure the EC of the run off water tonight. With Coco you can build up excess salts from the nutrient's if you don't have sufficient runoff. This is why I measure to make sure I get around 20% runoff. But what is also important is to measure the EC of the runoff water. Ideally you should have <200 ppm additional to the runoff water from your base solution ppm. My base is 650 (500 net when subtracting 150 base from tap water). My runoff needs to be under 850 ppms. If its higher I may have too much salt building up.

When measuring, # 1, 2 and 4 came out near perfect but #3 was 350 ppms the over base (150 too high). To lower the EC, I added an additional 60 ml of solution to #3 to produce more runoff. The final reading was around 750 ppms so hopefully all is well.
Well back to my margaritas and

 

[BakedARea]

I'm not high or drunk and I have no damn clue what the hell I just read! Something about a joint, PPMs, margaritas, and runoff. That's all I got from all that.
Happy smoking and drinking amigo!

 

[Brett Blaze]

Stage - Veg Day 5 - 19 days above ground

Today's temperatures will reach 95° F (35° C) with Rh going below 15%.

Tent Climate: 78° F (26° C) with Rh at 72%

Tent Room Climate: 73° F (26°C) with Rh at 67%

Current Outside Temperature at 08:00: 80° F (28° C) Rh 37%

Well after last night I'm glad to see I didn't kill any plants after mixing up the nutrients.

#4 has what looks like calcium deficiency. Yesterday it was barely visible. Over night it spread quite a bit. All plants are getting the same nutrients but the coco for #4 may have been rinsed more than the others prior to transplanting. For this watering I added .25 ml of Cal-Mag to the 7 oz. of solution only for #4. I need to watch it today to see if it's still progressing.

 

[Brett Blaze]

Here is a picture of #4 one day apart.

 

[Mdlroad]

Stage - Veg Day 5 - 19 days above ground

Today's temperatures will reach 95° F (35° C) with Rh going below 15%.

Tent Climate: 78° F (26° C) with Rh at 72%

Tent Room Climate: 73° F (26°C) with Rh at 67%

Current Outside Temperature at 08:00: 80° F (28° C) Rh 37%

Well after last night I glad to see I didn't kill any plants after mixing up the nutrients.

#4 has what looks like calcium deficiency. Yesterday it was barely visible. Over night it spread quite a bit. All plants are getting the same nutrients but the coco for #4 may have been rinsed more than the others prior to transplanting. For this watering I added .25 ml of Cal-Mag to the 7 oz. of solution only for #4. I need to watch it today to see if it's still progressing.

Looking mighty fine

 

[BakedARea]

They are all still alive!!!


They look good man. That did spread quick. Looks like the new growth is sucking it out of those leaves like the should in case of a deficiency. Can you get lockouts in the coco like in soil? No right? If not, why not just make sure that you provide some CalMag with every watering?

 

[Brett Blaze]

They are all still alive!!!


They look good man. That did spread quick. Looks like the new growth is sucking it out of those leaves like the should in case of a deficiency. Can you get lockouts in the coco like in soil? No right? If not, why not just make sure that you provide some CalMag with every watering?

Coco can get lock outs if the salts get too high which is why I always want runoff. I'm not sure if Calcium lockout occurs if added daily. I'll need to look that up. Coco requires a lot of Calcium so it probably won't hurt. Although the @Prescription Blend instructions say I shouldn't have to ad Cal-Mag if using tap water but certain strains or RO water may need it. I used RO on #4 until it was transplanted.

 

[Brett Blaze]

Ok did some reading and I can add Cal-Mag to all the feedings. Also if you look at #2 real close it looks like some Mg deficiency may be starting. Ca and Mg deficiencies are real common in coco. One thing I have to be careful is Cal-Mag will increase the EC (Electric Conductivity, which is a measure of the salinity of the water) of my solution and I need to stay between 500 and 1000 ppm (TDS, Total Dissolved Solids). High EC can cause nute burn. If the EC of the nutrient solution is higher than the plant can handle she will start to struggle to get water.

 

[BakedARea]

Gotcha. Salt buildup. So by having runoff every time, you are reducing or eliminating that variable correct?

With adding CalMag, I would start very low. Just enough so they can take it in if they need it but not too high since it seems it could cause more harm if applied incorrectly. That's scary man! Good luck.

 

[Brett Blaze]

What I am doing is pushing the old water out which includes the salts. Every time I add nutrient solution to the coco it pushes out old nutrient solution which had been suspended in the coco. Runoff carries salts out of the coco.

When you add Cal-Mag to the coco (while using nutrients) you are actually satisfying the coco's requirements for Ca and Mg. Coco binds with Ca and Mg reducing the availability of Ca and Mg to the plant.

 

[BakedARea]

Coco binds with Ca and Mg reducing the availability of Ca and Mg to the plant.

Whoa....did not know that! Thanks for that wisdom. Curious if you think that my soil mix includes coco coir and chunks. Having this mixed into my soil then reduces its capacity to provide that for my plants?! That would mean I would likely need to provide more calcium than originally calculated? Hmmmm...

My last soil mix was based on The Rev's TLO recipe. I wonder if he accounted for the coco and its absorption of Ca & Mg?!

Sorry...all of that has nothing to do with your grow. Just stoned and typing my thoughts out. Haaa haaa. You get to enjoy the consequences of those moments. About to open up a Estrella Jalisco Mango Chelada and puff on a Jack Herer cartridge. Cheers and blessings on this glorious weekend!

 

[Brett Blaze]

Thanks BA. I would assume any mix that contained coco should watch the Ca and Mg levels.

I think I'll have a Sam Adams this afternoon. I also have some King Louie and Grape Ape cartridges I may puff on too.

Enjoy the weekend.

 

[BakedARea]

I would assume any mix that contained coco should watch the Ca and Mg levels.

I will definitely have to look into this further. I had never known about that detail until today. Or maybe I did read about it at some point but was too stoned to remember it.
I know that is unlikely...

 

[Brett Blaze]

Update on #4 Calcium issue.

As of tonight I don't see any further progression of the calcium deficiency on #4. Tomorrow morning's photos will tell me more. All plants were given Cal-Mag with their feeding tonight. I added 1.5 ml to the 1/2 gallon of solution that was remaining.

 

[Brett Blaze]

Here's a 5 day progress pic for #1 and #2.

 

[Mdlroad]

Here's a 5 day progress pic for #1 and #2.

Moving right along

 

[Brett Blaze]

Stage - Veg Day 6 - 20 days above ground

Today's temperatures will reach 86° F (30° C) with Rh going below 25%.

Tent Climate: 75° F (25° C) with Rh at 76%

Tent Room Climate: 73° F (26°C) with Rh at 69%

Current Outside Temperature at 08:00: 78° F (26° C) Rh 36%

Good Morning fellow growers.

It looks like a cold front came in last night and knocked temperatures down to a chilly 86°F today.

Good news. No or very little progression of the Ca deficiency damage from last night and no new spots are showing up on any leaves. Looks like the dose of Cal-Mag did the trick.

It's hard to believe that #1 and #2 are already producing their 6th node. I plan to quadline these plants but I need more nodal spacing and maybe another week of growth. The plan includes transplanting to 3 gallon pots a couple days prior to topping.

Today's Photos.

 

[Prescription Blend]

@Dano999 they are looking good. I did have a question related to the calcium spots on #4 and the light color of #3. You had commented in another thread that you had just transitioned from the seedling mix to veg week 1 mix going from 150ppm to 500ppm of nutrient. I wanted to ask if the timing of seeing these issues and then having them recover coincided with raising the nutrient strength, and if you think that they could have been fed veg strength a little earlier to avoid this in coco media?

 

[Brett Blaze]

The best I can tell is the Ca spots started after the transplant. #4 started getting burned tips around the 12th when I increased the ppms. I thought it might be nute burn but the burns were spots in the middle of the leaf as well as the tips. After applying Cal-Mag no additional spreading occurred.

Upping the ppms earlier may be something to consider in coco. It may depend on the coco buffering. This was buffered coco but I rinsed to get run off at 500 ppms or lower because I was concerned of putting seedlings in high buffered coco. #3 seed went right into coco after sprouting. #4 went into a peat pellet and was transplanted to the solo cup on May 1st while #3 was not transplanted.

The last two nights #4s runoff ppms have been low. All others read around 150 ppm over input while #4 reads 150 ppm less than input.

Right now they are growing at a great rate and look healthy.

 

[Brett Blaze]

@Prescription Blend

One other thing. I have probably read every journal in the comparative grow and a few have reported leaves lighter than what they had seen in previous grows then getting darker later on. Different nutrients and mediums.

It may be genetics and nothing to do with nutrients.