Emmie's Vegan Fertilizer, Pineapple Chunk 2020 Celebration: Experimental Soil Grow

[SQl2kGuy]

BTW ... anyone reading this journal who wants to learn/be inspired how to capture pollen and grow 1172.5 seeds, ... then I seriously encourage you to read @Emilya 's last journal ... it's an incredible read!!!

Say yes to regular seeds and better genetics

 

[Emilya Green]

Very nice ... 30 days of veg and the plants are about 24 inches (60 cm) by the looks of things ...

I am going to start my third grow in January, ... and I am wondering if you'd recommend using MC, Sweet Candy and Sea-K together for the entire grow.

I was actually thinking I'd start by using Sweet Candy & Sea-K once each week to start, ... and then using them every feed in the last 2-3 weeks of the grow ... thoughts?

I am also going to use my 10 gallon pots again for my soil grows instead of the 5 gallon pots which I will use for the coco grows ... thoughts?

Ultimately, ... I want my indoor plants to reach 4.5 feet tall this time. I thought pot pot size was important ... but you hit 2 feet tall healthy plants in a 1 gallon pot which is awesome ... so I'm a bit confused again. Are your plants gonna hit 4 feet in a 5 gallon pot of soil this round?

ttyl

ooops... I hit enter too soon. I am going to edit my response in here. Keep checking back.

I am impressed with MC and their supplements as recommended, so far. I want you to realize though that a good part of the magic here is Vulx, in soil. MC is a good nutrient, but few people using it are getting the results that I am seeing. There is no question about the matter. Vulx is making these amazing things happen.

So if you buy into a nutrient line, I always feel it is best to follow their instructions, to the letter. This is a new kind of nutrient and all the old rules regarding synthetic nutrients are to be questioned. If they say to give these nutrients every time you water, that means to do exactly that. They give us a calculator to figure out how best to use the supplements, which is figuring the amounts based on following their directions. So use them every time. Every watering is a feed. Don't second guess or you will immediately see the results. I am finding that a MC grow is very fast to tell you what is going on.

The plants look a little taller now that they are in containers suitable to their size, but yes, they leaped up to the their mature height, and indeed without seeing any pistils yet, they are showing alternating nodes, showing that they are indeed mature enough to flower. This by the way happened at least a week ago.
I am shaping the plants at this time using the whack-a-mole method of topping each node that achieves dominance or helps create the bush form I am going for. I am guessing that by the time we do the flip here in a couple of weeks they will still be roughly this height, but with around 16 nodes ready to bud out. When I flip to bloom, I will try to minimize the stretch, but they very well may stretch up to 4' by the time we are done. It really isnt about container size when you are logically training the plants and are forced to keep them from their natural heights of 5' or more because of growing indoors. We always work to try to keep them short, even way back in veg... not exactly how they grow outside in the sun.

 

[barillaro]

they are showing alternating nodes, showing that they are indeed mature enough to flower.
is this typically when they choose to show gender as well?

 

[Emilya Green]

I think this is largely strain dependent, but these showed alternating nodes a week ago and I understand that at that point if put into 12/12, they would flip to flower. As far as showing pistils spontaneously, clearly showing that sex is in the air... that comes later... I am thinking on this strain it will be around the 5 week point.

 

[Emilya Green]

The lead plant took advantage of the increased nutes and went wild with growth the last 2 days. Taking a cue from SQL, this precocious plant decided to get tall, and she sent 4 nodes up to the top with accelerated growth. This will never do. She was now 1 fully grown node taller than the other two in the tent. She has been whacked back down to the size of the other plants. We are no longer doubling nodes every time we make a cut, but these big 4" cuts are going to dramatically accelerate the lower growth. This is going to become the widest plant. We will call her Bertha... Bertha Budd.

 

[Emilya Green]

Veg, Day 34
This afternoon it was time to water again, as I didn't water correctly upon transplant... I had every intention to water completely, merging the two soil regions as I always instruct others to do, but I wasn't ready for dealing with that much water down there yet and was working with a 1 gallon jug, trying to mix up and shake into solution my MC mix. I got 2 gallons in before I got distracted by a first responder, and being one to comply with most things official... well, I didn't get back to the watering that night.
So today I mixed up 3 gallons of MC at 4g/g plus the SC and the SK, and they took just short of that 3 gallons. I don't usually do this, but it is called for right after a transplant so as to entice the roots downward to find the new soil, so I left a good bit of water in the drip trays. I am sure that by morning the plants will have sucked up most of this runoff as those new roots scamper downward to find it.
Lastly, thinking about all the fancy screens, yo-yos, trellises and what not that is being sold today to hold up our plants when they get too heavy, I am thinking that we are making this all too complicated. I see no reason at all why a perfectly common tomato cage could not be repurposed into a very effective tool in the cannabis garden... and once installed they seem like they are going to be the perfect height to hold up the big top buds and help them spread out the center. This evening, I am having one of those, why didn't I try this before, moments.

I mentioned the cuts I had to make to Bertha last night, and here, before I feed them to Buddy, are the scraps that each would have made into a nice clone if I had needed them. Seeing them again this afternoon it was obvious that a couple of them had reached 6" long! I almost lost control of my canopy.

Since I named Bertha this morning, the other two needed names (and nametags) so this evening we are having our debutante ball...
Here is Bertha, all decked out in her finest

Here, because she was an early leaner, we introduce Piza

And here we introduce Marci, named after a good friend from Hawaii who just makes me happy

I note tonight that any of the damaged areas are not getting worse and that as each day goes by, the overall color of the plants improves. Development continues to be astounding for plants of this age.

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Hi Marci ... And Piza is a good name ...

I like the idea of tomato cages and bamboo sticks so far ...

And soon this will be favorite journal ... well, after you complete your last one

Seriously though ... the tips you add are amazing ... and I'll be voting for you in January's Member of the Year for sure !!!

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Well hello Kama Sutra ... welcome to the grow ...

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Hey @Emilya ... I almost forgot to ask ...have you ever used just vinegar for pH down? Are the bottled ones I buy really worth it?

 

[Emilya Green]

Hey @Emilya ... I almost forgot to ask ...have you ever used just vinegar for pH down? Are the bottled ones I buy really worth it?

Vinegar works but it attracts bugs... The acid based products are better.

 

[Emilya Green]

I have a timeline... and it looks like the universe saw it coming. As it often turns out for those who live their lives on impulse, the universe sets plans in action long before we know what is going to happen.
I have learned that I need to take a trip on the week of March 1 to visit my dear Mum in Mission Viejo. I looked at the calendar, and it is perfect timing!
I will be flipping in 2 weeks, with expected start of flowering date to be Jan 1. This is a 55 day plant, and it will finish up 3 days before I fly out! It looks like I will be harvesting, getting a bit of a slow dry in and then will be putting it in a low and slow situation for a week while I am gone.
We were just talking about low and slow too... You really got to watch this universe as she operates.... She really seems to know what she is doing, way before we do.

 

[Dutchman1990]

Lookin good Emilya

 

[Reave]

Ah yes, quantum physics at work.

 

[Mark Gordan Smith]

Hi Mum, Hey.....I have the perfect gift for you from Missouri!

 

[Emilya Green]

Hi Mum, Hey.....I have the perfect gift for you from Missouri!

Actually, that is why she is out there. She decided years ago that the lifestyle and the smell of pot didn't agree with her. Dad decided to retire and smoke a lot of pot to deal with his pain. She enjoys the high society Ventura Beach crowd and has no pain in her life other than my brother. I enjoy the ozarks and catching bass and my brother. It's nice to visit in the winter, but CA is not somewhere I could live, rich or poor.

 

[Emilya Green]

Veg, Day 36
I owe a photo to this journal. These plants are absolutely going insane. I had to top 10 different growth tips that had reached the point of dominance. I am relentlessly maintaining the current height while forcing the plants to branch out. These plants are at least a week or maybe two ahead in development as compared to most plants that I grow. It has to be the Vulx, and to be fair, the breeder does say this is a very aggressive plant. Something is working, that is for sure.
The girls are drooping a bit here, but never fear... we were 10 minutes from bedtime when these pictures were snapped.

 

[multiVortex]

Actually, that is why she is out there. She decided years ago that the lifestyle and the smell of pot didn't agree with her. Dad decided to retire and smoke a lot of pot to deal with his pain. She enjoys the high society Ventura Beach crowd and has no pain in her life other than my brother. I enjoy the ozarks and catching bass and my brother. It's nice to visit in the winter, but CA is not somewhere I could live, rich or poor.

Wait! Hold it! Hollllld it!!!!!



Bass? Really?


Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

[SQl2kGuy]

You're really showing what that @Vulx can do!!!

Fantastic results @Emilya ...

 

[Emilya Green]

Veg, Day 38
Watering and Lights
There is a lot going on today and I am going to break this into several pieces. Please feel free to comment on any of them.
First, today was watering day and they took just a bit more than they did the last time. They each got 1 gallon of MC at 4g/g with SC and SK. The lights have been lowered to the top of the tomato cages and adjusted to 28,000 LUX or with this frequency of light, 412 PAR.

1. A couple of very important points can be made on this watering, as related to my widely read theories on proper watering. I only plan on vegging until the 27th when I flip to 12/12 and each watering before then is very important as to how well we establish the root system in these containers. To this end we have two goals, first to tease the roots into heading for the outer edges so that not only is there lateral root growth, but then they get air pruned and divide too. It is highly beneficial to force the root growth to the sides.
2. The second goal is to allow the center root mass, essentially your last rootball, to displace most of the soil in that region with root mass. As the roots pulverize it, proper watering gets it out of there to make room for bigger roots.

My watering method allows this to happen. By fully wetting the medium at first, you set up the transfer. Then, water around the outer edge, up to the limits of the original rootball's diameter, wetting that region even more. Then water the original rootball, driving the microsoil in that region into the now very wet outer region. When you do this correctly, you can see the signs of what you have done on the surface of the soil, where it ridges up between regions. That is the microsoil that was in your original rootball. Especially now, a week and a half until flip, it is very important to give the roots all the help they can get.

And most importantly, the outside edges are now the wettest areas in the container.

 

[Emilya Green]

MegaCrop and Leaf Damage
Early on I saw some leaf damage and thought I was looking at an excess of MC. This may have been so back then, but there were also other things going on, such as severe restrictions on roots in way too small of a container. We saw damage twice, in the beginning on the lower fan leaves from the over fert and then later in the mid level fans from the rootbound damage.

The point to be made here is that the plants are now pretty much overall a beautiful MegaCrop Green and even the damaged leaves look healthy and strong except for a couple that are obviously being cannibalized. Except for the first true leaves on one plant, I cant even force some of the lower leaves to go away by planting over them... they are that healthy.

Everything is coming back into full and healthy vigor after the transplant. The once constricted roots are now able to get the nutrition they need and the plants are repairing themselves rapidly.