Frankenstein - Soil - 2 x 4X4 Scrogs by Freezy - Heavy 16

[Freezy]

Alright got it. awesome.

The question that i asked that you did not under stand let me rephrase. after my flush I asked what kind of nutes do you think i should use to work with the tea. I do have the full line of general organics as well as heavy 16. up till now i was using heavy 16. i guess what my question really is is this-after the flush do you think that if i run heavy 16 it will work with the tea even though its not organic? or should i just go with the full general organics line?

besides that i got it. I will get back to you with some updates later. I'm going to put them under the scrog after I flush it. Thanks everyone for the input!!

 

[Papageno]

I don't know anything about that product. I will say however a good grower can make any product line successful because they are all basically the same.

Organic is just a better way of getting chemicals into the system...but it is all just chemicals. Using some factory chemicals wont do anything wrong.


That tea has everything you need except Silica/potash and Cal/Mag. I would let it be for at least a week. Maybe 2 before going back to a nute program.


Flush it, Fix it, watch it, post it...then lets talk.

 

[Freezy]

Okay sounds good I'll keep you posted.

Thanks everyone for the input it has all been very helpful! I am very apreciative

 

[Freezy]

BTW I found out that the exact mix it's 50/50 fox farm ocean forest and pro mix

 

[Freezy]

Okay the flush was done yesterday. I put em in the bath and flushed them till the runoff was clean. I put a little over 12 gallons of pH'd water with enzymes and a really small amount of vitamin b1 after the bath. They are going to start growing into the scorg now. Its been a little over 24 hours since the flush and they seem to be doing a bit better. I will get back with some more pics in a week. for now this is what they look like. I only have one mh bulb so i said screw it and threw them under the 2 separate hps's but they are still in veg. Just a side note- the temp has been between 72-75 that temp gauge in that pic was before I got the AC and venting all right.

I picked up the next round of clones today. They are about 2 weeks old and in fox farm ocean forest soil. They are in the veg tent under t5's. They are going to be transplanted into bigger pots later this week, Im thinking I'm going to use 5 gal felt pots with Roots organic 707 soil. I'm not sure if I should continue using heavy 16 or if i should try using a super soil.

 

[Papageno]

Are those pics from 1 week after flush?

 

[Freezy]

That's right after the flush.

 

[Freezy]

These are the new girls. They are in my veg tent for now.... I plan on flowering 4 of them and keeping the last one as a mother plant. Ive never done a mother so any advice in the best way to do that would be appreciated. They are under a light fixture with (8) 4 ft T5's that are high intensity. They are in fox farm soil right now, 2 weeks old and have not been fed any nutes. They look happy and healthy and I plan on transplanting them a bit later this week. I have some roots organic 707 soil that I was planning on using... Is it okay to transplant into different soil? They will be moving into 7 gal containers. I was thinking about using a super soil... any thoughts?

 

[Freezy]

Question- I am going to top these on the 2nd or 3rd node. Do you think it would be better to do that now, and wait for them to recover before i transplant them? Or wold it be better to transplant them, let them get used to their new home and then start topping them?

 

[Emilya Green]

I don't think that either depends on the other... neither topping nor transplanting should be so stressful as to exclude the other.


If they need to be topped, top them.

If they need to be transplanted, transplant them. You can check for this by seeing if you have any lower leaf damage indicating constricted roots or just popping them out of their containers and taking a look under their skirts... if the roots are wrapping, transplant them.

Regarding your earlier question about super soil... please read my current grow log. I went into super soil without the needed previous step of being ready to brew microherd infused teas. When I went into supersoil with the best intentions, I found that I was in a dead, but highly enriched soil, that my plants could not get any goodness from. I had not yet made the link that it is the microherd that feeds the plants, not the soil. I commend you for thinking about going full organic, but prepare better than I did, and at least "cook" your super soil for a couple of months before using it, and get set up with a good air pump to make your own teas. If you are just going to dump a good tea on a good soil and then ruin things by applying salt based synthetic nutes along with it, you will have no better luck than I did.

 

[Freezy]

Okay so its been about a week and a half since my last update. After about a week from the flush I watered the big girls with half strength GO full line because i did not have the stuff for the tea yet and they were starting to look hungry. Since then I did end up brewing a tea. I didn't use your exact recipe village idiot but i did a lot of research on microbial life and ended up doing a tea with the following recipe.

2 gallons RO water
2 cups ancient forest
1 cup worm castings
2 tbsp of Stump Tea (pre packaged powder)
1 tbsp seabird guano
5 ml of honey
5 ml CaMg
after 12 hours I added 2ml more honey

Question- I think I should probably be using more honey? What do you think?

I honestly didn't have all the money to cough up for the recipe you had given me. Also, With RO water do you think its safe if i go full strength with the CaMg for every watering? I want to start giving them more as I know they are craving it I just don't want to overdo it. I have the CaMg from the go line, but was considering using epsom salts right in the res. do you think that is a good idea or just stick with the GO CaMg. If the epsom salts are a good way to go how much/ gallon for enough calmag not to have an issue?

I let the tea brew for about 24 hours and fed it to the two big girls. I kept the tea brewing under the t5's so it stayed about 70 degrees while it brewed. About 3-4 solo cups each and then watered down with some pH'd water. I checked the ph of the tea before i used it and I think it was right around 6.7 and the ppm was around 850. Since then the girls look better but they look hungry. I want to feed them full strength next watering, along with some more honey, if you think thats a good idea. I am running into a problem keeping the soil warm enough. Im trying to balance having a good canopy temp with the soil. I tried a heating mat under one of them, along with the few layers of cardboard to see how well it works. If it works out, which i think it will i will go buy another heating mat for the other plant.

Anyway, the other girls (white widow) have been transplanted into 7gal pots with the exception of one thats in 5gal (going to keep this one as a mother). They also got to enjoy a solo cup each of the tea that i made. They were showing a little bit of rust on the leaves early on and they have all gotten better since I transplanted them. They look great right now and they have been topped a couple times since the last pictures. They are really taking off after the tea. I mixed the soil up as follows:

5-6 gallons or so of roots organic 707 soil in each pot
roughly 10 tbps of dolomite in each pot
about 1 gal of perlite
top dressed with about 1 cup of worm castings and 1 cup of ancient forest

so far they are healthy and have shown a lot of growth in the last 2-3 days. They are starting to show a tiny amount of what i think is calmag deficiency, which is another reason i would like to just add epsom salts to the res. They have still not received any nutrients at all, just the tea, and top dressing. I really want to keep this as close to a full organic grow as i can. I know the GO line isn't a TRUE organic grow, but i figure the GO line with the organic soil, and some good organic teas they will love it. Im really just now starting to understand microbes a bit and I'm excited about trying to keep them thriving in my soil. I don't think I have left anything out but i will post some pics in a minute of the girls. Notice the yellowing in the big ones, thats why I want to go full strength.

Also, thanks emilya for your input I don't know if i have thanked you or not I have been paying attention to your advice also!

 

[Freezy]

I think if I can just get the two big ones looking healthy enough I will throw them into flower despite the scrog not being filled out in about a week or so. I know the strain is susceptible to stress and becoming a hermaphrodite, like it did last time on me. My plan is to get a harvest every 4 weeks or so. After the big girls are 4 weeks into flower, I will put 4 of the white widows into flower, and also take clones off of the mother so I will consistently have plants that are 4 weeks apart from each other. The 4x8 tent will be used for veg and the big room will be used for flowering.

 

[Papageno]

# 1 that is a great recipe. the stuff you omitted is more for extra blooming additives and some fertilizers. the tea I make is a complete plants food / enhancer / microbial atackathon. What you made is really good for what you are trying to do.

So just in order as you asked...

Honey is there to feed the bacteria so they can breed and make lots of good stuff. IF you feed too much your bucket will overflow with foam. 2 times back I added too much and I didn't have to add any more and the foam was like 8 inches above the top of the 5 gallon bucket with only 2 gallons of tea so like 2 feat of foam. WAY too much. But it doesn't hurt. You just need to get in there a stir it up. Also the more air you put in there with the air pump the more it will breed.

Calcium and Magnesium are very hard to overdo. Go full strength for sure.

I haven't used Epsom salts in a res so I wouldn't know the correct dosage. I would have to do some research on that an I am a bit busy today.

The final pH and PPM is dead on. Last time I measured mine was about 800 ppm and close to 7 pH

I wouldn't worry too much about the soil temps. if the room is good the soil will be good. I typically place plants on 2x4s to keep them off the ground and things are fine.

I would be hesitant about full strength feeding. Half strength will be good for sure. You don't want to burn them. In soil you really don't want to add honey. in the tea where is is being broken down that may work (molasses is better and cheaper) but in the soil you really should have some product like Sugaree or Bud candy or something like that. everyone makes a broken down molasses in a quart for like $20. that would be more than enough for this grow and probably the next 3 as well.
Amazon: Cutting Edge Sugaree Quart : Garden Tool Sets

I would say also going organic is awesome but by no means is it an all or nothing deal. When done correctly a fully organic grow can't be beat and is also the easiest way to grow. But we all make mistakes and sometimes using some fast chems is the answer. Don't ever hinder yourself by trying to hold to some arbitrary ideal. We do what we have to in order to make the plants as happy as possible.

Your best way of knowing how things are is by watching the quality and rate of new growth. Cannabis grows incredibly fast. if it isn't growing fast there is your first sign of a problem. Sounds to me like you have everything back in line so we may be able to ride this out in cruise control.




AND never ignore Emilia. She gives the best advice of anyone on here.

 

[Freezy]

Okay cool ill start up the calmag at full strength and leave the rest at 1/2. I have not noticed growth in the two big ones like I want to. I will be patient and see how they get because they are improving they are just getting yellow. I saved some tea its in my fridge I plan on using it again on them if you think thats a good idea. Its only 2 days old at this point. As soon as they get healthy they are going into flowering. Heres some pictures. I have better hope for the young ones and I'm honestly more excited about those, the frankenstein was so so from last harvest. Here is a pic of the same strain from my last harvest not trimmed yet.

Im thinking that the young ones should start getting 1/4 strength nutes with 1/2 strength calmag next feeding.

 

[Papageno]

If you are going to go 2 rooms and go perpetual (I did this before) I would recommend to space things out based on your drying space and ability to trim. I recommend you read up on washing buds at harvest. If you are growing for a dispensary then I would demand that you wash. eventually someone is going to get a real bad problem from unwashed dispensary weed and then the government will have an open door to regulate grows more closely.

Anyway I bring it up because I harvested 2 autos the other day which was not a lot and it took me like 3 hours to trim and wash and hang them. Now if you have a setup where you are pulling down 4 full grown regular plants at once that is like a 12 hour job of trimming and washing and drying. But if you space it so you have a plant finishing every few days one at a time you may be able to maintain your sanity a bit.

Have you ever harvested a full big bad ass plant that is like a pound of weed? If you start SCROGing and doing things right and using bloom enhancers right it isn't hard at all. You are gonna need a big screen TV and a lot of smoke in your grow room to manicure all that.

My wife wont let me trim in the house it gives her a headache...but she smokes weed all day long...go figure.


Anyway it is all about logistics. when you go perpetual you are also a part of that and you are now a perpetual harvesting machine. Get used to it.

 

[Papageno]

That bud looks decent but not dense. The bloom enhancers like Chitosan, the Kelp extract and Alfalfa would all make that dense and nuggy. Advanced Nutrients Nirvana is 2 of those things. The tea I made was an attempt to put everything awesome form the AN line into one bottle. it can be done they just separate it all out to get more money out of you.

The alfalfa and Crab meal (or shrimp meal) are supper cheap and can be found at any good gardening store. I let the tea break them down. this is what I use.


Amazon: Down To Earth Crab Meal Fertilizer, 5 lb.

Amazon: Down To Earth 5-Pound Alfalfa Meal 2.5-0.5-2.5

1 bag will last you years.

The kelp is in the Nirvana but is also found a lot of places. I also like this stuff you can get at Home depot...

Amazon: Alaska By Pennington Kelp Liquid Fertilizer 0.13-0-0.60 Concentrate, 32 ounces

And the nice thing is that stuff is good to use through all stages of growth but if you buy it from AN it is $65 for a liter for the chitosan only stuff. And they make that from by product from the fish industry so they take literal garbage and let some bacteria break it down in a vat and turn around an sell it for a premium. Ridiculous.


Anyway Don't forget the enzymes. I know that stuff is spendy. but it accelerates everything down there in the soil and will turn dead roots back into plant food. that is a big help in a recovery stage. we can flush all we want but it dead material is still decomposing down there the pH will suck and things will be bad. getting a good enzyme in there will fix that right up.

 

[Freezy]

okay cool. will full strength on the enzymes work okay? I think the bottle I have says .1ml-.5ml per liter which works out to like .4ml-2ml/gal. Should I add them every watering and do you think 2ml/gal would be okay? And holy crap i didn't realize how expensive they are. I looked up the goldzyme that i have, i have 2 small bottles that I got at an indoor grow expo for free and they are $60 a bottle. ridiculous. glad I to them for free

as far as the feeding goes with the tea and all, what do you recommend for a schedule? would water, tea, feed1/2 strength, water, tea,feed 1/2 strength work okay? I will continue to use the same recipe for my tea just up the molasses a little bit.

As far as that last grow bud pic goes i ran into some real big heat and moisture issues, I had added bud hardeners but i just attribute the fluff to the heat. a few times i had issues with the ac shutting off and the heat exceeding 100 for a few hours and besides that i had a hard time getting it below 80 so.. not good lol. Now i have an additional 12,000 btu's of AC and I'm not flowering in the tent. I have higher hopes for this time around, finally getting things relatively dialed in. I think its only better from here so we will see. lol and idk if anyone noticed the tiny little seedling… random bag seed I figured I would throw in there lol no idea on the strain.

 

[Freezy]

yeah and your right the harvesting may get to be a pain. oh well it is what it is. I have never washed or heard of someone washing buds I will look into that. I don't know yet what I am going to do for drying. I may take a few really big cardboard boxes and put some 4 inch tubing with a really small inline fan just to recirculate some air. I guess Ill cross that bridge. Going to look into the washing. is it really necessary with an organic grow?

 

[Papageno]

That heat is what likely caused your hermis.

That schedule looks good...but I always play it by ear. I don't believe in schedules. They are merely guidance. As you improve and dial things in your plants will grow faster and stronger and need more. A big problem people have is following a schedule developed by an expert for their system. Well you can't follow that if you don't have their level of photosynthesis going on.

So I would start with that as it is a nice middle of the road plan. If you are under feeding the signs will be clear and easily reversed. Also remeber in bloom the nutes will ramp up and then sharply drop off. I will drop a chart below. it shows a lot of environmental factors and how they should change over the grow cycle. it is for a Hydro setup and is a 3 month cycle so real quick. we probably want to go longer especially if we SCROG we add like 2-4 weeks in the mid veg stage. But look at the EC levels and the week descriptions at the top. We will want to start dropping off the nutes nearing the end of bud stacking when we go into resin build up and let the bacteria and enzymes and sugar bring us over the finish line.

 

[Papageno]

Washing buds has nothing to do with organic or not. You wouldn't eat vegetables without washing them. You will be amazed what come off the plants after 4 months of sitting in a room with high air circulation. When I was checking my flowers for maturation through the jewelers loop I was astonished how many rug fibers i found in them and there is no rug anywhere near them. It will make the smoke much smoother and better tasting and easier to consume. You loose no potency. It is all in the thread below.


Bud Washing


Go ahead and wash some and not others. And cure them properly and try it out. Once you start washing you'll never go back.

If you are selling it like is sounds like you are your customer base will be loyal. The most important thing for a professional grower is to have good mature cured final product. If you wait till they are ripe, wash and cure them properly you will have a very loyal customer base. they simply will not be able to find smoke that compares.

I let did a quick dry on a very loose popcorn bud from those autos and had my wife smoke it the other day and she was very very happy...and that was not cured. Just washed and left in a dry warm area and again a very small loose popcorn bud.