Fudo Myoo's Organic, LED Homegrown Journal

[Fudo Myoo]

@InTheShed , I poured a little RO in the bin and shoved the prongs in. Never moved off 7. It’s possible the moisture level needs to be perfect for these things to work, but for my purposes, it’s junk.

I’m going to get some ph solution and make sure it’s calibrated, I had to change the batteries. But yeah, huge difference.

 

[InTheShed]

Thanks!

 

[Fudo Myoo]

Thanks!

So those numbers didn’t sit well with me so I ran up to the store and bought some ph 7 solution. After recalibrating I remeasured everything and it all increased. Dechlorinated tap was at 7.5 the RO shot up to 8 then settled back to 7.5. Not sure what to make of that.

 

[InTheShed]

Are you using distilled for the slurry?. That's the only way to get accurate results (unless you have deionized water available). Also, never put your pH pen in distilled water as it's bad for the probe.

 

[Fudo Myoo]

Are you using distilled for the slurry?. That's the only way to get accurate results (unless you have deionized water available). Also, never put your pH pen in distilled water as it's bad for the probe.

Ro water.

 

[InTheShed]

Grab a bottle of distilled so you know you're getting accurate results.

Also, add just enough distilled water to make a slurry since it looks like you have 4 or 5x water to soil.

 

[Fudo Myoo]

Grab a bottle of distilled so you know you're getting accurate results.

Also, add just enough distilled water to make a slurry since it looks like you have 4 or 5x water to soil.

Ok I’ll do that but what’s the difference? Most of the stuff I’ve read says use either or.
I mixed it 1 part soil and a little more than 2 parts water.

 

[InTheShed]

Ok I’ll do that but what’s the difference? Most of the stuff I’ve read says use either or.

Dunno the difference from a chemistry angle but every description of the slurry or pour through test (from equipment manufacturer, scientific, or university websites) say distilled or deionized, so there must be a difference!

I mixed it 1 part soil and a little more than 2 parts water.

Oh okay. The pic looked like you started with 2oz cup of soil and ended up with 7oz total.

 

[Fudo Myoo]

Dunno the difference from a chemistry angle but every description of the slurry or pour through test (from equipment manufacturer, scientific, or university websites) say distilled or deionized, so there must be a difference!

Oh okay. The pic looked like you started with 2oz cup of soil and ended up with 7oz total.

added more soil to the second one…
Looks like we need another test. I’ll do one distilled and one RO and we’ll see the difference.

 

[Fudo Myoo]

Today’s activities. I transplanted them all into 1 gallon pots with 3/1 ffof and perlite. They were wet with nutrient solution when I got them. He told me the line but I wasn’t paying attention because I’m going in the other direction anyway.

They’re all in peat but the GG4 which is odd. Probably sourced somewhere else. I’ve been perusing the Sip thread trying to learn what I can. I’m going to head over there later, I have some questions. I know @Krissi Carbone and @Azimuth like to go straight into the Sips, but they’re hungry and I need time to get the containers ready. Plus I think I’m going to order a couple of Krissi’s containers or something similar. They’re smaller and I’d like to compare them with mine. I’m a little behind schedule.

I also asked about the water and they use tap. So on the advice of I think @Keffka , I cut the RO with tap and added cal-mag till the tds was at 550 and watered them in. And here they are under 550ish umols.

Tap water

So @InTheShed , I did another slurry test with less water and more soil. Both bins were right at 6.0 ph. I mixed in some water and turned it. I’ll do another test this weekend with distilled. I bet it goes higher. We’re in the ballpark anyway.

Have a great day!

 

[Keffka]

550 ppms or 55.0 ppms? Where did you come up with that number? I’m unfamiliar with feeding by way of nutrient solutions so anything above 65.0 ppms is out of my depth. It doesn’t sound wrong, just wondering how you decide

 

[Fudo Myoo]

550 ppms or 55.0 ppms? Where did you come up with that number? I’m unfamiliar with feeding by way of nutrient solutions so anything above 65.0 ppms is out of my depth. It doesn’t sound wrong, just wondering how you decide

Well not really scientific, google lol. I searched “ ppm for clones” or something like that and that’s the number I saw. I mixed some RO and tap together and got a reading of 60 ppm. Then I added maybe 10ml of cal-mag and a little more tap and it hit 550 ppm. Just water and cal-mag.

Oh right, I don’t see a decimal on the tester screw , I’ll look later.

 

[Fudo Myoo]

Curiosity got the better of me so I decided to sacrifice the tomato plant for the greater good and boy am I glad I did.
Roots galore! I was a little concerned about the weed barrier and if the roots could get though. They busted right through to the reservoir and didn’t drag a bunch of soil in with them. Res is nice and clean. I’m considering this test a success.

Girls are growing. Stanks got a nice structure to her, she’ll be fun to train. She’s pretty pale though. Next watering they’ll all get some Happy Frog all purpose and some Recharge.

 

[Keffka]

Curiosity got the better of me so I decided to sacrifice the tomato plant for the greater good and boy am I glad I did.
Roots galore! I was a little concerned about the weed barrier and if the roots could get though. They busted right through to the reservoir and didn’t drag a bunch of soil in with them. Res is nice and clean. I’m considering this test a success.

Girls are growing. Stanks got a nice structure to her, she’ll be fun to train. She’s pretty pale though. Next watering they’ll all get some Happy Frog all purpose and some Recharge.

In my experience weed fabric doesn’t stop aggressive roots. The first year we were in fabric bags outdoors, our plants rooted into the ground with ease. We had to use an axe to break the container free then dig up the roots. The second year we put two layers of weed fabric down then set the containers on top of that. The plant laughed and used the extra barrier as a place to setup arbuscules and root nodules before again going into the ground.

If you’ve got aggressive roots, the fabric really doesn’t do much good. Seems more useful for helping your specific plant outcompete than actual weed suppression.

 

[Fudo Myoo]

In my experience weed fabric doesn’t stop aggressive roots. The first year we were in fabric bags outdoors, our plants rooted into the ground with ease. We had to use an axe to break the container free then dig up the roots. The second year we put two layers of weed fabric down then set the containers on top of that. The plant laughed and used the extra barrier as a place to setup arbuscules and root nodules before again going into the ground.

If you’ve got aggressive roots, the fabric really doesn’t do much good. Seems more useful for helping your specific plant outcompete than actual weed suppression.

Yeah it should work well, because it never works in the yard.

 

[StoneOtter]

I’m hoping it solves my late flower sativa problem. Everything else is pretty much by the book. My pots get super crusty towards the end. That’s got to be the problem. The hybrids don’t care but the Sativas hate it.

I goosed up the soil ph for my landrace grow and she thrived. 7.5 the lab said. A little high like me

I've watched your grows so I know you know this, but sometimes reading it all at once helps, so here we go. This is your SIP fix. It's about calcium, so grab a coffee.

Your issue is usually more of a SIP mechanical problem, not an ammendment issue. The soil mechanics occurring in a SIP pot, at least from my experience, are not conducive to proper calcium cycling.

With LOS and SIPs you need to keep the calcium rotataing. In top watering, the calcium in your EWC/topdressings waters in and moves down, creating the perfect environment for feeder roots in the top of the pot. The entire pot for that matter.

In most SIPs that fail, feeder roots disappear and the top half of the pot goes hard, dry, and crusty.

That crustiness is magnesium, in the absence of proper calcium (the cal to mag ratio is out). The excess magnesium crusts things up. It also locks up nitrogen on a 1 to 1 basis for every molecule of excess magnesium. So a dose of CalMag will fix the crusties, but it will also unleash all that nitrogen at once. In veg a few curled leaves aren't a big deal. In flower you do not want nitrogen toxicity.

Fix this before flip, and don't flip until it's fixed.

That crustiness chokes off oxygen, and every speck of plant food has to be attached to an oxygen molecule for the plant to recognize it as food, so low calcium is just the 1st domino in a death spiral.

In the absence of calcium, it's magnesium's job to kill the plant before it can produce weak genetics. Bugs are on their way. Brix levels are crashing.

Calcium works on contact, it's an electrical thing. Calcium is a nutrient, but it's also a soil conditioner, and it's heavy, so it moves downwards when it comes in contact with water.

It's double positive charge neutralizes magnesium's charge when in proper ratio, and Mag releases nitro, causing the soil to go from crusty to fluffy. Now your leaves won't die and fall off.

This is how CalMag fixes a nitrogen deficiency. It's chemistry, not biology, and it confuses people.

Occaisonal top watering until the res is full with EWC topdressing will eliminate this problem.

The Rev's system is a great example. He uses SIPs pots, but fills the reservoirs via top watering. At least that was his system in the 1st two books. I haven't read his 3rd book yet.

Your refractometer will tell you the state of the calcium content in the plant. If you are studious here, you can stay ahead and healthy and learn the plants required rhythm of needed top watering/EWC.

Once you have a top watered calcium source, or a way to cycle calcium, figured out for your style, this problem will disappear.

The health (healthy being without disease or impairment) of your plant is directly tied to the state of soil calcium. If soil calcium is off, you are either running slow on low voltage, or too fast and frying from too much voltage. Either way, you aren't processing nutrients or photosynthesizing properly.

Too slow or too fast are both no good, but you only need to be in the ball park to hit a home run, you don't have to get it perfect. Just close. The rhizosphere will dial it to perfection.

Refractometer.... thats your calcium monitoring device. The split second the line is less than very fuzzy, a calcium deficiency is arising. Stay ahead.

Somehow in the SIP world it became taboo to top water. I'm not sure what that's about, but I suspect it's related to a synthetic mentality.

LOS works differently in SIPs. Calcium must be constantly cycled back to the top, or constantly added up top. EWC is the best readily available calcium rich top dressing. It needs to be watered in.

If you topdress EWC from the very beginning, and water it in, theres a really good chance you will be successful.

Follow the refractometer. It's your best friend here. Analog refractometers are far superior to digital ones. Digital ones won't tell you about calcium levels.

My next grow I might look at those horseshoe top watering devices for the top of the pot and give them a hit of water now and then.

 

[Fudo Myoo]

I goosed up the soil ph for my landrace grow and she thrived. 7.5 the lab said. A little high like me

My next grow I might look at those horseshoe top watering devices for the top of the pot and give them a hit of water now and then.

I’m not doing landrace this time. I’m going to cook a batch just for that for next time.
How do you keep the soil that high? More Lime? If I put a handful of garden lime in the bins now, wait a week, then transplant, would it hurt/help? I’m out of time for this batch. I just tested it again with Ro and it’s 6.1. I’ll get a bottle of distilled today. Soils been cooking a month. I used revs suggested amount of garden lime in absence of dolomite…

 

[Fudo Myoo]

I got the pots all lined and the feet smashed in. I put a layer of screen at the bottom to firm them up a little. I also drilled a 1/4” hole on the opposite side of the drain for more air. Just waiting on the soil. I’m running all hybrids this time so it should be fine. I’d still like the ph to be a little higher.

 

[InTheShed]

I just tested it again with Ro and it’s 6.1.

Seems low for soil no? I use dolomite to raise the pH of my soil when it's low out of the bag but it was pretty easy to find. Probably Amazon!

 

[Fudo Myoo]

Seems low for soil no? I use dolomite to raise the pH of my soil when it's low out of the bag but it was pretty easy to find. Probably Amazon!

It is low. I tested it again with distilled and it was 5.9, actually lower than RO. It’s rerun soil so I obviously didn’t put enough lime in. I threw 1 more cup of lime in each bin. It’ll take at least 2 weeks till I can use it so those plants better stay small. lol. I’m testing ffof right now just to see what I get.