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

[Emilya Green]

The seeds are from the UK's SeedSupreme, a gift from @Vulx for running a side by side test of their product. This plant is an interesting cross of an old favorite around here and I am looking forward to seeing how it grows under today's conditions.

Barney’s Farm have crossed the famous “Barney’s” Pineapple with the Barney’s Cheese/Skunk #1 with the intention of breeding in to this new variety the essence and flavour of these two delicious strains. The result is an extremely vigorous and stable plant. A mould and disease resistant plant which flowers into a beautiful conclusion in just 55 days. The essence and flavour of Pineapple Chunk is immediately obvious. Its aroma of earthy Cheese is backed up by a secondary scent of Pineapple. The taste is delicious and unique. Earthy flavours underpinned by a strong tasty Pineapple aftershock. Pineapple Chunk is most rewarding. A huge giver with a massive THC output and low CBD gives a powerful couch lock effect.

The soil will be some of my old worn out organic soil, now a 50 gallon mix of original super soil and all the base soil I have used for the last 6 years. I have totally lost control of this soil as far as being certain what is in it, and short of a soil test and taking the time to re-amend it, I have chosen to go the fertilizer route on this grow. I have been so impressed with the Vulx amendment that I will be using it in all of my soil from start to finish in this grow.

Those who know me are probably quite taken aback by this apparent backwards move by the woman who said that she would never give up organics, but there is an exciting new product out there that I am totally enthused to try. That product is Mega Crop, a totally new way of looking at fertilizer technology.

From their website:
Vegan fertilizers have several advantages over Organic fertilizers.

• Not sourced from animals, so no risk of antibiotics, antibiotic resistant bacteria, pharmaceuticals, hormones or pathogens that are associated with animal based fertilizers
• Far more water soluble and available to the plants, for better absorption, quicker and complete uptake by the plants
• Lower environmental impact
• Not supporting the animal agriculture industry

There are several important things going on here, but the key points that I will start this discussion with are that this fertilizer is much smaller molecularly than traditional fertilizers, therefore it is not only more water soluble, but it is much easier for the plant to uptake. Second, this fertilizer is chelated (held together) with an amino acid bond instead of the traditional salt bond. Salt bonds need to be broken apart in the soil, and the salt remains behind as a waste product. Mega Crop waits till it is inside of the plant before it releases the fertilizer, with the leftover waste product being a very usable amino acid. There is NO waste and NO unusable debris.

It is my belief that we are finally seeing agricultural science making a world changing advance with this new science, and I wish to see what it can do in my garden. I will be pushing these plants hard and I expect to see results not typical of even my minimalist organic grows. I have every belief that I will exceed my expectations, having watched others grow with this stuff and get end product that looks every bit as good as my organically grown pot.

So here we go... I am dunking 5 seeds in water tonight.

 

[Old Salt]

Welcome to the group giving Mega Crop a run. I see you have V2 of their product. I'm really looking forward to seeing what your plants will look like with the attention to detail you put in all of your grows. Wishing you the best of luck on this adventure!

 

[farside05]

As a fan of Mega Crop in peat based mixes, I'll bite. Should be interesting to see your take on it in soil. @MrSauga runs Mega in soil and has excellent results.

 

[Alafornia]

Awesome. I'm in.

 

[MrSauga]

Nice intro Em... good luck! Should be fun to watch
Thanks for the tag fs!

 

[Zincite]

Yep, I definitely want to see this grow. cheers

 

[Vulx]

Excited to be along for the ride! Interested to see how the new MC performs.

 

[Jack420]

I’m in for the ride mc working great for me so far

 

[Emilya Green]

Here we are, 36 hours after dunking them in RO water. Each seed has started to split, and several are showing small tails of roots. They all floated at first and after about 12 hours a gentle push sent every one of them to the bottom of the bowl of water, until this morning when I retrieved them. Now they are on a well rinsed paper towel, in the same water they have been sitting in. This is on a pie plate and the whole thing has been shoved into a baggie and placed on top of the power supply in my favorite 800w gaming computer to stay warm. I will wait for tails to emerge to about 1/2 inch long, and then we will place them in soil about 1" deep in solo cups.
This soil is now a good strong organic soil with some mineral enrichment since it includes in the mix all of my supersoil used for the last 6 years. It will be amended with the calculated amount of Vulx for increased root production, water retention and nutrient efficiency. When they reach the surface we will start watering lightly, immediately starting with the suggested mix of MegaCrop for seedlings. I plan on using tap water and not worrying about chlorine or pH unless and until I see indications that this nutrient system needs to be in a certain pH range.

 

[Emilya Green]

I checked on the seeds when I got home from work and realized that I forgot to turn off the hibernation function on the computer, so about 45 min after I got up from it this morning it shut down and cooled off... so the seeds have been sitting on a dead power supply at room temp of 67F all day long. Still yet, I see some progress... just not as much as I had hoped for by this evening.
Not letting anything slow down progress, I decided to work on my soil. As I started thinking about this I made a momentous decision, and one contrary to my entire professed philosophy and if anyone out there is looking for signs of my mental collapse, this would be it.
I decided to not start in solo cups. Instead, I am going to start the seeds in my one gallon velcro equipped geopots. It is time that I test out the two stage watering ideas that I have been talking and advising about, and put it into actual practice in my own garden.
Part of the reason for this loss of reason was that I have committed to using @Vulx in this grow from start to finish. I asked myself, "self, would it be easier to prepare 5 gallons of soil now, or 5 solo cups plus 5 gallons for later?" I figured that doing all that extra would just be silly, and I followed the advice from the auto folks and will start out in a large container. Ok ok... I know that a 1 gallon smart pot is not exactly a large container or the final container... but it is a very large container for me at this point in the grow. Please bear with me as I process this changing of a mindset.... it is hard for me.

So, I filled my 5 smart pots with the rich damp soil from the compost bin and then dumped the measured soil into an igloo cooler to mix in. Then I added 125 grams of Vulx in for each gallon, a total of 625 grams, and spent 10 minutes or so mixing it all up by hand until I could no longer see Vulx. I could definitely feel it though.. it makes the soil oh so smooth!
I am about ready to go now, just waiting on the seeds and then one more mix of the soil before I fill the pots for the final time.
One final note on the strength of this soil and my compost process. As I was mixing the soil I felt something strange and pulled up a huge worm! It has been over 2 years since I introduced my earthworm farm into the compost pile... and apparently some of them are still going strong! I had no hope that any of them could still be alive!

 

[Jdeck]

 

[Carcass]

This ought to be interesting!
Remember,there's 4 steps to using Mega Crop:

1. Weigh out the proper amount.
2. Dissolve in water.
3.Water plants.
4. Marvel at how easy that was.

 

[Reave]

Nice to see you trying the mega crop too. It does seem to work well so far. No complaints.

 

[Emilya Green]

ok, the 5 seeds have been planted. One of the tails looks funny and I don't think it will make it, but at least it has a fighting chance now that it is in the soil.
They were all planted 1" deep and gently covered over. A circular area about 4" in diameter around the seed was gently watered with plain water and I will do this twice a day until the seeds pop.
Here they are through the window of my Gorilla grow tent, formerly known as the Love Tent, now repurposed into being the Veg tent. One of my budget noname imitation full spectrum LED arrays has been put into service above them, set to an 18/6 schedule.
Now, we wait...

____________________________________________
The Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant (in soil) - STICKY
Emmie's Links, Journals and Tutorials
Berry-D'licious No AACT Organic - Grow Journal
Pineapple Chunk Mega Crop Test - Grow Journal

 

[Emilya Green]

We have some activity in the veg tent! I see movement in the earth in at least 3 of the 5, and we clearly have one up above ground. Houston, we have liftoff!

____________________________________________
The Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant (in soil) - STICKY
Emmie's Links, Journals and Tutorials
Berry-D'licious No AACT Organic - Grow Journal
Pineapple Chunk Mega Crop Test - Grow Journal

 

[Dutchman1990]

Hey Em! I’ll join in on this grow show! Looking like a fantastic start and gotta love MegaCrop

Keep up the great work

 

[Emilya Green]

Hey Em! I’ll join in on this grow show! Looking like a fantastic start and gotta love MegaCrop

Keep up the great work

Hi Dutch! Great to see you! Yes, I am really enthused about this MegaCrop and what it means for our hobby.
____________________________________________
The Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant (in soil) - STICKY
Emmie's Links, Journals and Tutorials
Berry-D'licious No AACT Organic - Grow Journal
Pineapple Chunk Mega Crop Test - Grow Journal

 

[Emilya Green]

This morning our number has increased to 3. This is a perfectly acceptable number for a 2x4 bloom tent... still hoping for one more though. The grow has officially commenced.

____________________________________________
The Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant (in soil) - STICKY
Emmie's Links, Journals and Tutorials
Berry-D'licious No AACT Organic - Grow Journal
Pineapple Chunk Mega Crop Test - Grow Journal

 

[Dutchman1990]

Grow little ones grow!

 

[Emilya Green]

It seems clear by this time that we have two no shows... one was my fault for not closing the baggie and letting the paper towel dry out a bit too much, and one looked doomed from the start when it threw out a blackened foot in the dunking bowl. I will keep watering the two that have not showed for the next couple of days and then I am going to give up on them.
Tonight was the last time the plants will get plain water and from now on they will be getting tap water with MegaCrop. Tonight I was sure that the seedlings had established themselves in the pots by sending roots all the way to the bottom and since the plants were no longer swimming around in the container when I watered, the 3 containers were properly watered to runoff, still using RO water.
Here are the girls, thriving already in their Vulx and super hot super soil mix.