Bagseed Indoor 600W MH/HPs Airpot Sensi Tent

[MrSauga]

I read on the MC thread, or somewhere on 420M, that someone increases their MC .5g/gal every other feed, until they see burnt tips, and that tells them where their plants want to be, and they back off just a bit. I tried it, and my plants got better.

Well I'm not a big fan of that advice of randomly increasing the MC. At one time I would have said to push the MC to the limit but when I did say that I meant within their recommended dosages.

And I'm trying to, so please don't get frustrated.

I'm not frustrated. I can only tell you what I know. It's up to the individual to go with what makes sense to them based on their own research. There's several reasons why not to go that high with MC outside of the current recommendations. Firstly I keep going on about N. Cannabis likes a N load of around 90-180ppm. Outside of that and you risk nute burn or create week stems that when touched they break at the petiole. Currently at 15g+ you are dosing at 386ppm of N.

Most plants take nitrogen from the soil continuously throughout their lives, and nitrogen demand usually increases as plant size increases. A plant supplied with adequate nitrogen grows rapidly and produces large amounts of succulent, green foliage. Providing adequate nitrogen allows an annual crop, such as corn, to grow to full maturity, rather than delaying it. A nitrogen-deficient plant is generally small and develops slowly because it lacks the nitrogen necessary to manufacture adequate structural and genetic materials. It is usually pale green or yellowish because it lacks adequate chlorophyll. Older leaves often become necrotic and die as the plant moves nitrogen from less important older tissues to more important younger ones.

On the other hand, some plants may grow so rapidly when supplied with excessive nitrogen that they develop protoplasm faster than they can build sufficient supporting material in cell walls. Such plants are often rather weak and may be prone to mechanical injury. Development of weak straw and lodging of small grains are an example of such an effect.

An optimum level of nitrogen in plants will result in:

• Vegetative vigor.
• Bright green leaves because of chlorophyll production.
• Increase in the number of leaves, size of the stem, fruits and seeds.
• Increased resistance of plants against fungi.
• Increased resistance against insects.
• Increased resistance to frost and hail.

By contrast, excess nitrogen in marijuana plants can also cause trouble, reducing their yield and flower quality. Nitrogen overfeeding can be noticed when the following symptoms appear:

• Excessive foliage growth.
• Weak stems.
• Delayed ripening of fruits, being less sweet.
• Claw-shaped leaves facing down.
• Poor bud combustion.
• Bright green leaves.
• Little resistance to pests in general.

So I can tell you what I know, and that's all really.

 

[SauronBlue]

I do see the beginnings of a K problem in the tips of your upper sun leaves that has to be caused by a lockout, that should not be possible at the levels you are feeding and if left to continue, will probably get worse. You have the first indications of a lockout, not a deficiency. This is the important distinction... at the level you're feeding there should be no way a deficiency can exist, without there being a lockout that is causing it. Mulder confirms that the possibility is there, knowing what we know about MC.
So, MC works differently than any other nute you have used before. This backing up that we are speaking about happens inside of the plant and only exists for one watering cycle.... you load up the plant with the dosage you have decided on, and the plant begins to process that load by stripping the amino acid shell off of each individual nutrient.
Imagine a pool of nutrient solution in the plant, part of it processed and mobile, part of it still chelated because it has not been processed yet. The plant has to use up the nutrients that have become mobile to clear things out enough to process more, but while the plant is trying to process this mobile soup of nutrients, Mulder's interactions come into play. If there is proportionately too much Ca, N and Mg in the soup, the K is locked out and becomes immobile and unavailable to the plant.
So what has to happen is that the plant has to process what you last gave it, and then move on to the next round. Each time you water you are resetting the system. Flushing is futile... for all you can do is flush the soil, which is not part of this process any longer. Giving plain water simply gives the plant ZERO nutrients for one entire watering cycle, and this will set up deficiencies in every element. The best strategy when you can see you have a lockout is to reset at a lower level immediately, and wait 2-3 days to see the effect. There is no residual with MC... when you hit the right level the lockout will be gone and the plant will be healthy again, with a few battle scars from surviving the lockout of course. Your Megacrop plants are not "used to" this larger amount you have been giving them... they are trying as best they can to survive it.

I can understand your explanation here, thanks for writing it out. My questions come in at how this relates to me. Which pictures are showing you signs of lockout? They look extraordinary to me, not signaling deficiency/lockout. Also, I continue to point to the issues I had months ago, where I was agonizing over the look of my plants, and all were telling me they look fine. I look at those pictures, and am so glad I did what I did and didn't settle for what everyone told me was fine. My plants look way better than they did then, so why do you all say they look damaged now, but were fine then? It's very confusing what I'm being told.

This is when I thought they looked horrible, and it seemed like everyone was saying I needed to take pics with the lights off to be able to try to see the issue I was trying to show:



And this is what now looks like it needs immediate attention?



I honestly don't get what you guys are seeing. I'm not being obstinate, I'm searching these pics for any signs of problems, and I HONESTLY don't understand what you're seeing. How are you all so certain that I'm headed for a crash? Shouldn't it already have happened after weeks of feeding at this level? How is this not a marked improvement over the condition they were in while at your recommended feed level(6g/gal), which was also much earlier in their life, when they needed less nutes? The only problem I see on the fan (sun?) leaves is where they burnt on that heavy feed, and have not had an issue since.
PLEASE address what I'm saying, not just continue on with your point, but answer my questions, so I can understand. Again, thank you for you patience, I'm just trying to make sense of this in my head.

If you came up and told me that my car was going to explode, and I knew you were knowledgeable about cars, I'd be concerned, but wouldn't just sell my car that night without understanding more. This is the situation I feel I'm in. I respect all of your opinions, but unless I can see how this relates to me, why would I give up what I have that is apparently working great, to go back to a situation that was NOT WORKING for me? Please help me make this connection.
If I didn't care about your opinions, I would just ignore it, and wouldn't still be trying to understand what you're saying, and you're telling me that I need to make a DRASTIC change, the likes of which could potentially ruin my end result, afetr all this work and progress. Can you not see how I'd be a bit hesitant?

 

[SauronBlue]

Well I'm not a big fan of that advice of randomly increasing the MC. At one time I would have said to push the MC to the limit but when I did say that I meant within their recommended dosages.

I'm not frustrated. I can only tell you what I know. It's up to the individual to go with what makes sense to them based on their own research. There's several reasons why not to go that high with MC outside of the current recommendations. Firstly I keep going on about N. Cannabis likes a N load of around 90-180ppm. Outside of that and you risk nute burn or create week stems that when touched they break at the petiole. Currently at 15g+ you are dosing at 386ppm of N.

Most plants take nitrogen from the soil continuously throughout their lives, and nitrogen demand usually increases as plant size increases. A plant supplied with adequate nitrogen grows rapidly and produces large amounts of succulent, green foliage. Providing adequate nitrogen allows an annual crop, such as corn, to grow to full maturity, rather than delaying it. A nitrogen-deficient plant is generally small and develops slowly because it lacks the nitrogen necessary to manufacture adequate structural and genetic materials. It is usually pale green or yellowish because it lacks adequate chlorophyll. Older leaves often become necrotic and die as the plant moves nitrogen from less important older tissues to more important younger ones.

On the other hand, some plants may grow so rapidly when supplied with excessive nitrogen that they develop protoplasm faster than they can build sufficient supporting material in cell walls. Such plants are often rather weak and may be prone to mechanical injury. Development of weak straw and lodging of small grains are an example of such an effect.

An optimum level of nitrogen in plants will result in:

• Vegetative vigor.
• Bright green leaves because of chlorophyll production.
• Increase in the number of leaves, size of the stem, fruits and seeds.
• Increased resistance of plants against fungi.
• Increased resistance against insects.
• Increased resistance to frost and hail.

By contrast, excess nitrogen in marijuana plants can also cause trouble, reducing their yield and flower quality. Nitrogen overfeeding can be noticed when the following symptoms appear:

• Excessive foliage growth.
• Weak stems.
• Delayed ripening of fruits, being less sweet.
• Claw-shaped leaves facing down.
• Poor bud combustion.
• Bright green leaves.
• Little resistance to pests in general.

So I can tell you what I know, and that's all really.

Other than "bright green leaves", which are in both the optimal and the excess list, I have none of the signs of excess that I can see. I use no pesticide or bug control, because I don't even have fruit flies or those little white-flies that I had a ton of in older grows. My leaves are not clawed or curled, the are rising high to the lights on strong, healthy stems that need no stakes or screens to help support them. My plants are beasts compared to plants I've grown before, and other growers that I've visited recently, a couple of them even exclaimed at the thickness of my stems, and that they thought each of my plants was actually 3 or 4 plants, until they saw there were only 2 buckets under the canopy. What and where are the warning signs on MY plants?

 

[MrSauga]

No worries man! The plants look great and nobody said they didn't. Let's just leave it at that. You've done a great job and you should be proud. Nobodies taking that away from the plants.

 

[SauronBlue]

I keep trying to make the point that I'm in no way offended or feeling defensive, I just don't understand what seems so clear to others that I'm on the verge of peril. What works for me may not work for anyone else, but if it works, it works. If it doesn't work, I don't want to plow ahead, anyways, but I've gotta see why I'm slamming on the brakes, and I just don't. I implore anyone that sees an issue to illuminate what has been hidden to my eyes. I leave it at that, and hope you don't give up on me.

I just transplanted all 7 of my veg plants into 5gal airpots. quite a dirty pain, but I'm glad to have gotten it done. Not that the plants had great growth, but I did expect to see more signs of root-binding, after so much time in smaller pots. I recently found out that the plants I'd adopted in January were grown in miracle grow soil from home depot. When I went to decide if I wanted to use the same stuff for those plants, I decided to get that, and to try a bag of some other miracle grow, that seemed not to be packed with crazy time-release crap that I've always heard would ruin your plants, but instead had some of the stuff most hydro-store stuff has. And seeing as the miracle grow didn't destroy the plants I'd taken in, and it was 1/2 the price of the stuff I use, which is one of the cheaper soil mixes, I decided to experiment.
I had about a half bag of my Ocean Forest left, so I used that on 2 of the plants I'd cloned from my flowering plants, and I used the "organic" miracle grow on another, so there'd be an actual comparison between 2 plants with identical genetics. I used the rest of the organic on 2 of the orphans, and the full-on miracle grow on the last 2 of those 4. The organic stuff seems to be based with coco coir, the other seems more like soil, which is weird, because the 4 adoptees seem to have soil more like the organic coco stuff, but I saw the bag this week at the house they came from, and was told that was the stuff used. I realized, too late, that I'd left the bottom of one of my small airpots stuck to the soil under the first plant I moved, so it's just going to have to grow around that.
Everything got a good watering, and I even lowered my ppm to under 800 (I had been between 1200-1500), to see how they like it. I was trying to start pushing them early, but we'll see. I don't mind trying new things when there's plenty of time to observe and react before anything really matters, but deep into flower... Anyways, I'm happy with my progress today, getting back in tough with you guys, here on the forum(I've had internet for 2 days), and finally getting my veg plants into their forever homes and getting them tied down for training.

 

[Emilya Green]

The little bit of lockout that you seem to be having does indeed seem trivial... if its working for you, carry on. I simply assumed from the conversation that there was a bigger problem and you were wondering why a K lockout could occur from using too much MC, so I chimed in. Many of us are finding that even 6g is too much for our gardens, and the start of many of our problems looks very similar to your minor leaf damage. As long as things keep working for you, I agree that you should not change a thing, especially at this stage of the game.

 

[SauronBlue]

I finally got some hooks in the ceiling to hang my light from. I decided to just do the hooks with no 2x4 for now. these hooks hold 70# each, and I know my light is way under 140#. I used a strip of painter's tape to mark off the joist, once I found it, then marked my measurements on the tape before drilling. I got a new MH bulb for my 600w , and got all my veg in a 5ft square. I also got a bulb for my 400w, and I'm ready to pull it out, if needed. I'm gonna drop another green crack seed, but I've got 2 new seedlings, and a bunch of the clones are starting to show the bumps all over their roots that will grow out into roots. This generation is looking good, considering what they've been thru, and the next generation is shaping up to be monstrous!
I'm working out exactly how I want to cover the floor of this room with plastic. I'm just wondering if I need to put a layer of cloth under the plastic, or what. I want to cover the plant area, and up the wall about 4". I'm so tired of trying to empty the runoff from the round saucers, so I started using the lids to tote bins. Those give me way more room to overflow, but I want to have all of the runoff in one area to be collected. I'd rather have it end up in a container that can get dumped, but even being soaked up by towels and rung out works. I also need to get busy on building my auto-cure/dry bin. I just got a 2nd set of fans for it, after the one fan I had before, disappeared during my move, and these are connected by a wire that doesn't allow me to reach putting one on each end of the bin. It's always something.

 

[SauronBlue]

I decided to change things up a bit, and see how it worked. I've had these supplements, sweet candy and pk booster from Green Labs, but never even opened the packages. Well, today I ripped them open, and mixed them into my feed. I know a lot of people have had issues using the supplements, and I can imagine why, if they follow the dosage on the website. When you're only feeding 6g of MC, to add in 5g of sweet candy AND 5g of bud booster, you're more than doubling the strength of your feed. You're swapping out a can of beer for a glass of straight vodka, and wondering why it's throwing up. Even though I was giving 80g of power to my plants per 5 gal of water, I decided to cut my base MC down to 40, and only add 3g/gal of each supplement, for a total of 70g of powder in this 5gal of water. I had trouble understanding what each supplement brought to the table that was different, since they both had no nitrogen, and high P or K values (and my sweet candy said 0-0-16, but the website listed 0-17-28. The website listed 0-19-39 for PK Booster, but my bag had no numbers to compare), so I just gave them both equal standing.
I mixed them up my usual way, doing the MC first, then both supplements together in the small mixing bottle, before adding to my 'res'. The sweet candy really made the mix dark, and the little black particles either took a long time to dissolve fully, or are still hiding in there. I figure this is a better way to use whatever tolerance my plants have for strong feed, rather than just MC alone. Maybe I'll be the one of first to have success with the supplements LOL. I don't really have any complaints, but I guess my plants could have packed on a bit more mass to the buds by now, so maybe this will take them into overdrive.
EDIT: I also cut the Cal-Mag out of this feed

P1


P2

 

[Silverfox125]

They look really good.

You're swapping out a can of beer for a glass of straight vodka

 

[SauronBlue]

By the way, I looked up the "TDS Meter" that I had bought on amazon. Someone actually asked them, "does this use the .5 or .7 PPM scale? And the company's answer was "The TDS Meter uses the Parts Per Million scale from 0-9999". I guess the whole issue will be shrouded in mystery until I get a Truncheon...

 

[Emilya Green]

I have had good success with the BE and SC, and the SK in veg, but certainly not in the amounts you are using it. Good luck... hope you have a fire extinguisher nearby!

 

[SauronBlue]

I have had good success with the BE and SC, and the SK in veg, but certainly not in the amounts you are using it. Good luck... hope you have a fire extinguisher nearby!

I thought my amounts were pretty conservative, seeing as the supplement calculator on the website says to start at 5g/gal of each, and go up to 7.5g. What is your magic number?

Well, I watered for the 2nd time with the new flower feed, yesterday. Things have not gone to hell. I've seen more yellowing, and lighter green on some of the leaves, especially on P2, but nothing that looks crazy for late flower. On the bright side, they seem to smell a bit stronger each day, and I'm seeing new, white pistils popping out, where the buds seemed to have slowed way down and gone orange. I'm taking this to mean that the added PK booster is helping the buds to fatten up, and grow bigger, and that the Sweet Candy is strengthening the terpine profile. Both very nice things, I only wish I hadn't gone most of the season without the boosts.

P1


P2

 

[Emilya Green]

I thought my amounts were pretty conservative, seeing as the supplement calculator on the website says to start at 5g/gal of each, and go up to 7.5g. What is your magic number?

I don't know what supplement calculator you are looking at, but it says nothing of the sort here at my end of the internet. The max recommended on SC is 1g and the max at the end of bloom for BE is 1.5g/g. If I tried giving the dosages you are giving, my plants would have surely shriveled up and died.

 

[SauronBlue]

I don't know what supplement calculator you are looking at, but it says nothing of the sort here at my end of the internet. The max recommended on SC is 1g and the max at the end of bloom for BE is 1.5g/g. If I tried giving the dosages you are giving, my plants would have surely shriveled up and died.

I see where I got mixed up. On the supplement calculator (Supplements Feeding Calculator), I put in 5 gal at the top as my res size, but I'm so used to thinking in terms of g/gal that I didn't see those numbers as the total to use for 5 gal. So, more like 1g/gal, up to 1.5g/gal is the recommendation. I make mistakes, just like anyone else, which is why I'm always willing to take a second look at what I'm doing when you guys' eyeballs jump out at something LOL. Luckily, my plants seem to have been able to deal with the heavy fert, without much adverse effect. I think I might pull back just a bit on the supplements, and push the MC just a bit more. Or maybe just let them PK it up for the last 2 weeks...?

 

[SauronBlue]

I tried lowering the concentration of my mix, but my plants burst out in light green and yellow if I think about going under 8g/gal. I've given 10g/gal MC and 3g/gal of each PKB and BC. To my eyes, reading the plants, that seems to be doing alright by them. I've been watching the trichomes to see when they are finished maturing. So far, I've got mostly white crystals, with a few still clear. Once I see about 5-10% turn amber, I'll chop. Since so much has been said against flushing, I plan to water with fertilizer until I chop them down. I need to get on top of building my curing chamber, so I'll have a place to put the finished harvest.




I've hung a 400w light in the veg room, to illuminate the young plants. There's 22 clones and 2 seedlings, growing alongside my mature veg, which has come around from being beaten up during the move. I get about 100% success, rooting clones with plain water (I had the same success rate with tap as I now do with RO). I might add a small amount of MC in the cloner, if I see that the clones are starting to yellow (which, for me, means roots are sprouting, and they want nutes), but I want another couple days to get them into dirt. I mixed up a batch of MC at 3g/gal, and added .5g/gal of PK Boost to encourage rooting, then wet the soil down with it before filling the pots and covering the roots. I like wetiing it first to ensure that the roots aren't touching dry soil after such a wet environment, and to try to get the ph in range.





I'm ready to put the mature veg into flower, but I'll wait until the current crop is done, the move the lights, and relocate the veg. I put 3.5mil plastic down over the floor in my veg, but I've already got water under it 2x in the week since it's been down, so I guess it's not thick enough. Ugh! it never ends! So I think I'm going to order a replacement floor liner from a grow tent, and use that to protect the floor instead, but that's like $45, and I'm so broke right now LOL. I had a roll of 12x25' sheeting, so it was a free experiment to try using it.

 

[SauronBlue]

Things are going pretty smooth. All of the young plants are doing well. I'm disappointed that 2 attempts to pop green crack seeds didn't take, but excited to try the Cheese. I've got a lot more seeds, but I don't want to pop them all at once.



Old veg is really ready to flip already. I don't want them to keep growing much bigger before flipping, but I've gotta free up that bloom light, and move the little ones out of the 12/12 zone. I guess I could use the one other LED I have, with an HPS bulb in my 600w.




I really want the bloom to finish, but I can't complain because they just keep getting fatter. I keep a close eye on the trichomes, but I still don't have any amber, and I'm waiting for at least 10%. I can't take very good pics of the crystals, but I can see them great, using my loupe or my usb microscope. I shouldn't be more than a week away, now. I've put a little bud from each plant in a small container to water-cure. I just want to get an advance screening of what to expect, as my mouth is watering in anticipation LOL. They are giving off ppm to the water much slower than other bud I've done this to, and I'm wondering if that's because these are still alive. If that is the case, the first 24 hrs brought me to 108 ppm from 18, and the next 2 days only brought me back up to 42. I could really smell the bud once the water was drained off. I was surprised by that, it's the first time I've niticed a strong smell during water curing.


P1


P2



I'm going in a whole different direction with my drying cabinet, as building so many baskets out of wood was killing me, and really expensive without a workshop to cut bigger boards down and make neat cuts. buying small, pre-cut dowels is expensive, and hand saw cuts leave connections going off at odd angles. I'm going to try to retro-fit some plastic bins, see how that works.