TegridyGrower
Well-Known Member
(to the admins: hope this is the appropriate place for this post, if not, please accept my apologies and feel free to move my post to the right spot).
Emergency protocol: the first three steps when problems occur
This protocol is aimed to help beginners and can be seen as a ‘first aid kit’ even before you post your problem in the forums to find out what to do.
While growing cannabis, many problems can and will occur. Unless you are some Ganja God, most mortal growers have to deal with at least a few issues every grow. I’ve been only growing for a little over a new year now and I achieved N toxicity (multiple times), Ca deficiency, general underfeeding, failed transplants with ripped roots, accidently breaking the maintop completely off beyond repair in (early) flower, P deficiency, self made saucer elevators that collapsed (and thus the plants, while I was away for 3 days, sat with their full weight against the side of the tent), forgetting to water, overwatering, overfeeding, too much heat, light burn, algae and other weird shit growing at the top of my medium, soil temp below 15c and my dog pulling of a big leave of my young plant when I left the tent open but unattended for a second.
Remarkable how many times I screw up, but even so remarkable: every time it was quite easy to get out of trouble and get the plants to recover fast. There’s always three steps you can take to reduce or even stop symptoms spreading further and not seldom the three steps might even take away the cause of the problems.
Slow down the machine
The plants are continuously interacting with their surroundings in many different ways. Dr Bruce Bugbee identified 9 factors that decide the outcome of a grow (see his great video here). Above the medium: humidity, temperature, wind, CO2 and light intensity. Inside the medium: nutrients, O2, temperature and water.
Our girls have a complex relation with all these factors, which are also intertwined: they need to be in balance and there’s always a limiting factor. For example: lets say temperature goes up from 23c to 26c during lights on. This might cause the plants to drink more, so they need more water. Also, relative humidity becomes lower due to the temperature increase, so they might be even more thirsty. Because they drink so much, the fertigation mix might need adjustment: you might even have to lower the EC, but water more often. Also, with higher temps, you need more light! And it’s also the other way around: the brighter the light, the higher the temperatures you need. But in those cases (a lot of light and higher temperatures), CO2 becomes the limiting factor and you need to add CO2. In short: if you change one factor, other factors need to be adjusted to remain in balance.
So, there is a theoretical setup in which everything is dialed in perfectly and for most home growers: this is the point where CO2 becomes the limiting factor. If the environmental factors are perfectly dialed in, the plants are working at maximum capacity and photosynthesize as much as they possibly can. The machine runs full speed.
When a plant is starting to show symptoms of a problem, or you screwed something up, the machine can’t run that fast anymore. Therefore, we need to moderate the environmental factors surrounding the plant in such a way that it ‘fits’ the capacity of the machine again.
This idea is the basis of the emergency protocol: we reduce environmental inputs to ‘slow down the machine’ and to get a better environmental ‘fit’. This reduces stress in the plant and gives it a chance to recover. If you understand this correctly, you can easily guess which steps will follow now.
1. Raise the light
This is the easiest step and can be done immediately after the first observation of the problem: whenever trouble occurs, raise the light a few inches (unless you are in a situation where a lack of light is the problem). Light is the real food for the plants (the nutrients are just a mean to process the light), but if the plant can’t process all the photons you’re lamp is firing at her, the plant will get stressed. When a plant is sick, the machine cannot work at maximum capacity, but if the light intensity stays at high levels, the plant will stress even more, because it can’t handle all the light.
2. Reduce wind, get to moderate temps and healthy RH
With healthy, vibrant plants, we usually have a nice oscillating fan blowing right over their heads, causing them to dance slightly to moderate in the wind. When they’re sick, the wind isn’t necessary as the machines output is reduced. Due to the continuous wind, they have to work harder (because of faster evaporation) and thus get stressed more. Raise the oscillating fan a bit so it is clearly above their heads and they are barely moving. Off course, keep your exhaust running normally, we just want to reduce wind, not the total airflow moving in and out of the tent.
The same goes for temperature and RH: bring it back to moderate levels if necessary (and possible).
3. Reduce nutrient strength and fertigate with a good runoff
Again, we want to slow down the machine, hence we reduce nutrient strength. Maybe to 75% or even 50% (if an excess is likely to be the case) of the amount you were using before the problems occurred. When a plant is sick, it has to work harder to uptake the nutrient solution and water. Only a vibrantly growing plant can handle higher EC’s, but for weak plants, the solution might become to salty and they get a hard time to drink, causing even more stress. With a lower EC, fertigate with a good run off. You don’t have to do a full flush, but getting some of the excess salts out of there doesn’t hurt. Off course, this assumes a grow with mineral nutrients.
There are two exceptions: if you have a clear case of overwatering, then obviously don’t water. Raise the light, reduce wind and moderate temps and RH if possible and wait a few days for the medium to dry. The other exception is a clear case of underfeeding. Obviously you’re not going to reduce nutrient strength in those cases (but still reduce light intensity and wind until the deficiencies are solved; remember the balance).
Conclusive remarks
Many, many problems can be reduced or solved this way. For a lot of problems, the cause is quite clear: like breaking stems, dropping plants, forgetting to water, etc. and in those cases the emergency protocol is also the remedy. As a general practice, I use the protocol also directly after transplanting or heavy (high stress) training. Just few hours of reduced light, helps them to recover faster. In other cases you need to do more research, but since you’ve slowed down the machine, you’ve reduced stress in the plants. With the machine slowed down, the symptoms will also spread slower. You’ve bought yourself some valuable time to research the problem and find a solution or cure and a way to eliminate the cause of the problems.
And last but not least: always be happy when working with your plants. Cheers!
Emergency protocol: the first three steps when problems occur
This protocol is aimed to help beginners and can be seen as a ‘first aid kit’ even before you post your problem in the forums to find out what to do.
While growing cannabis, many problems can and will occur. Unless you are some Ganja God, most mortal growers have to deal with at least a few issues every grow. I’ve been only growing for a little over a new year now and I achieved N toxicity (multiple times), Ca deficiency, general underfeeding, failed transplants with ripped roots, accidently breaking the maintop completely off beyond repair in (early) flower, P deficiency, self made saucer elevators that collapsed (and thus the plants, while I was away for 3 days, sat with their full weight against the side of the tent), forgetting to water, overwatering, overfeeding, too much heat, light burn, algae and other weird shit growing at the top of my medium, soil temp below 15c and my dog pulling of a big leave of my young plant when I left the tent open but unattended for a second.
Remarkable how many times I screw up, but even so remarkable: every time it was quite easy to get out of trouble and get the plants to recover fast. There’s always three steps you can take to reduce or even stop symptoms spreading further and not seldom the three steps might even take away the cause of the problems.
Slow down the machine
The plants are continuously interacting with their surroundings in many different ways. Dr Bruce Bugbee identified 9 factors that decide the outcome of a grow (see his great video here). Above the medium: humidity, temperature, wind, CO2 and light intensity. Inside the medium: nutrients, O2, temperature and water.
Our girls have a complex relation with all these factors, which are also intertwined: they need to be in balance and there’s always a limiting factor. For example: lets say temperature goes up from 23c to 26c during lights on. This might cause the plants to drink more, so they need more water. Also, relative humidity becomes lower due to the temperature increase, so they might be even more thirsty. Because they drink so much, the fertigation mix might need adjustment: you might even have to lower the EC, but water more often. Also, with higher temps, you need more light! And it’s also the other way around: the brighter the light, the higher the temperatures you need. But in those cases (a lot of light and higher temperatures), CO2 becomes the limiting factor and you need to add CO2. In short: if you change one factor, other factors need to be adjusted to remain in balance.
So, there is a theoretical setup in which everything is dialed in perfectly and for most home growers: this is the point where CO2 becomes the limiting factor. If the environmental factors are perfectly dialed in, the plants are working at maximum capacity and photosynthesize as much as they possibly can. The machine runs full speed.
When a plant is starting to show symptoms of a problem, or you screwed something up, the machine can’t run that fast anymore. Therefore, we need to moderate the environmental factors surrounding the plant in such a way that it ‘fits’ the capacity of the machine again.
This idea is the basis of the emergency protocol: we reduce environmental inputs to ‘slow down the machine’ and to get a better environmental ‘fit’. This reduces stress in the plant and gives it a chance to recover. If you understand this correctly, you can easily guess which steps will follow now.
1. Raise the light
This is the easiest step and can be done immediately after the first observation of the problem: whenever trouble occurs, raise the light a few inches (unless you are in a situation where a lack of light is the problem). Light is the real food for the plants (the nutrients are just a mean to process the light), but if the plant can’t process all the photons you’re lamp is firing at her, the plant will get stressed. When a plant is sick, the machine cannot work at maximum capacity, but if the light intensity stays at high levels, the plant will stress even more, because it can’t handle all the light.
2. Reduce wind, get to moderate temps and healthy RH
With healthy, vibrant plants, we usually have a nice oscillating fan blowing right over their heads, causing them to dance slightly to moderate in the wind. When they’re sick, the wind isn’t necessary as the machines output is reduced. Due to the continuous wind, they have to work harder (because of faster evaporation) and thus get stressed more. Raise the oscillating fan a bit so it is clearly above their heads and they are barely moving. Off course, keep your exhaust running normally, we just want to reduce wind, not the total airflow moving in and out of the tent.
The same goes for temperature and RH: bring it back to moderate levels if necessary (and possible).
3. Reduce nutrient strength and fertigate with a good runoff
Again, we want to slow down the machine, hence we reduce nutrient strength. Maybe to 75% or even 50% (if an excess is likely to be the case) of the amount you were using before the problems occurred. When a plant is sick, it has to work harder to uptake the nutrient solution and water. Only a vibrantly growing plant can handle higher EC’s, but for weak plants, the solution might become to salty and they get a hard time to drink, causing even more stress. With a lower EC, fertigate with a good run off. You don’t have to do a full flush, but getting some of the excess salts out of there doesn’t hurt. Off course, this assumes a grow with mineral nutrients.
There are two exceptions: if you have a clear case of overwatering, then obviously don’t water. Raise the light, reduce wind and moderate temps and RH if possible and wait a few days for the medium to dry. The other exception is a clear case of underfeeding. Obviously you’re not going to reduce nutrient strength in those cases (but still reduce light intensity and wind until the deficiencies are solved; remember the balance).
Conclusive remarks
Many, many problems can be reduced or solved this way. For a lot of problems, the cause is quite clear: like breaking stems, dropping plants, forgetting to water, etc. and in those cases the emergency protocol is also the remedy. As a general practice, I use the protocol also directly after transplanting or heavy (high stress) training. Just few hours of reduced light, helps them to recover faster. In other cases you need to do more research, but since you’ve slowed down the machine, you’ve reduced stress in the plants. With the machine slowed down, the symptoms will also spread slower. You’ve bought yourself some valuable time to research the problem and find a solution or cure and a way to eliminate the cause of the problems.
And last but not least: always be happy when working with your plants. Cheers!
