Panama x Malawi - Probiotic & Organic Indoor Soil Grow

[TheFertilizer]

Tea time...

1 Tbsp Bloom
1 Tsp Micro-Blast
1 Tsp Meta-K
1 Tsp Oily-Cann
1 Tsp Catalyst
1/4 cup of my soil for the worm castings suspended in a coffee filter

 

[Van Stank]

How am I not subscribed to this yet Fert? Kind of mind boggling to me. Your girls are looking good brother. I was looking at that strain but went with regular Panamas and Regular Malawi and regular Malawi x Purple haze. I still might order the Malawi x Panama.

 

[TheFertilizer]

How am I not subscribed to this yet Fert? Kind of mind boggling to me. Your girls are looking good brother. I was looking at that strain but went with regular Panamas and Regular Malawi and regular Malawi x Purple haze. I still might order the Malawi x Panama.

Lol I don't know, I hadn't taken offense to it I think you were use to me spamming up other peoples' journals and the Build a Better Soil Thread haha

I'm worried about this yellowing starting. You think it's natural? I've got some tea brewing up but I'd rather try to keep it to plain water. I want to send this soil in for testing, but I realized I already mixed it up differently from my flower mix and so I can't even replicate what's in the flowering pot--not to mention there's like three different kinds of soil in there. So I think maybe I ought to just give up on the water only idea and start giving it some teas.

 

[bobrown14]

[
Tea time...

1 Tbsp Bloom
1 Tsp Micro-Blast
1 Tsp Meta-K
1 Tsp Oily-Cann
1 Tsp Catalyst
1/4 cup of my soil for the worm castings suspended in a coffee filter

Not a fan of those bottles ^^^^ there Fert... not necessary IMHO. You could do much better with just 1 cup plain worm castings and water and bubble for 20-24 hrs tops. If you want to "feed" the plants you can add 1/2 cup of kelp meal to your water with the EWC and bubble ... mix with water and water in. That will pretty much cover any issues you will have with growth.

The yellowing is nothing I worry about. Likely its from the neem foiler. Neem is pretty strong... you kinda get that feeling from the smell! So you can burn leaves with neem. You soil mix is strong as well. Your clones told you that and you picked up on it and cut the soil down some ... that was good. It takes a few weeks for the soil to be ready for planting. That and you don't need a heat mat for clones... you can burn roots with that heat mat and get the result you got just from that heat mat and/or soil too hot (strong nutrients) as well.

I use that heat mat for seeds and seedlings, once there's true leaves I turn off the mat... and I cover the mat with a dishtowel - it's too warm, I've cooked seedlings without it being covered with a towel.

One more thing I've noticed is the lack of fan leaves. I don't cut any fans off my plants. For several reasons. I know a lot of growers do that and I'm not sure why??? Yes you can trim all the leaves and laf down low that will help with pests but I like to see a lot of fans. The plant will grow them back once you cut them off but usually its up at where the flowers are. I like more flower to leaf ratio so I let the fans grow yellow and fall off. Specially those big ones. They store energy for the flowers and you won't need to feed the plants with nutrients. They are stored in those large fans and the plant will use those stored nutrients up building flowers and seeds if there are any.

Your grow looks fine to me.. I have a lot more yellowing fan leaves than you do for sure.. I look at the leaves and how they are hanging... are they pointing up at the lamps or drooping?? Yours look like they are pointing up = healthy plants. Droop ... start looking for pests ...

For thrips just get some Spinosad.. that will actually get rid of most all of the pests you can get indoors. Captain Jacks or Monterrey Garden spray is perfect and you spray @ 1-2 tbs per gal of water. Can use a little more with an active infestation. Some of those mites like Russets... they are very difficult to get rid of due to their life cycle. The only thing you can do is IPM regularly... say 2x a week

MY IPM with an active infestation:

1-2 tbs Monterrey garden spay
1 cap full of Ful-power
1 tsp Pro-tekt
1/4 cup of Horsetail fern tea
1 gal filtered water

Mix and spray on... can mix in 1/4 cup of the neen cake tea as well for the 2 pronged attack. I keep some of the neem tea on hand ready at all times. I've found that IF I catch and infestation early enough, the spinosad is enough. For Russets... you have to IPM 2x a week for at least a month maybe a month and a half.

Your 2 cups of neem in 18 gal of soil is hot... a little bit. Neem will get the mircro organisms growing big time so it needs to sit before any plants go into the soil or the micro organisms will eat the roots of the young plants and the neem...

7ish gallons of soil = 1 cubic foot of soil. I like to mix Neem and Karanja cake 50/50 @ 1-2 cup per cu ft. They are both organic fertilizers and the neem of course helps fight off pests. I amend the soil at up-pot to final containers @ flip to flower.

Hope that helps.... I think you're fine.. just water and you should be fine.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Not a fan of those bottles ^^^^ there Fert... not necessary IMHO. You could do much better with just 1 cup plain worm castings and water and bubble for 20-24 hrs tops. If you want to "feed" the plants you can add 1/2 cup of kelp meal to your water with the EWC and bubble ... mix with water and water in. That will pretty much cover any issues you will have with growth.

The yellowing is nothing I worry about. Likely its from the neem foiler. Neem is pretty strong... you kinda get that feeling from the smell! So you can burn leaves with neem. You soil mix is strong as well. Your clones told you that and you picked up on it and cut the soil down some ... that was good. It takes a few weeks for the soil to be ready for planting. That and you don't need a heat mat for clones... you can burn roots with that heat mat and get the result you got just from that heat mat and/or soil too hot (strong nutrients) as well.

I use that heat mat for seeds and seedlings, once there's true leaves I turn off the mat... and I cover the mat with a dishtowel - it's too warm, I've cooked seedlings without it being covered with a towel.

One more thing I've noticed is the lack of fan leaves. I don't cut any fans off my plants. For several reasons. I know a lot of growers do that and I'm not sure why??? Yes you can trim all the leaves and laf down low that will help with pests but I like to see a lot of fans. The plant will grow them back once you cut them off but usually its up at where the flowers are. I like more flower to leaf ratio so I let the fans grow yellow and fall off. Specially those big ones. They store energy for the flowers and you won't need to feed the plants with nutrients. They are stored in those large fans and the plant will use those stored nutrients up building flowers and seeds if there are any.

Your grow looks fine to me.. I have a lot more yellowing fan leaves than you do for sure.. I look at the leaves and how they are hanging... are they pointing up at the lamps or drooping?? Yours look like they are pointing up = healthy plants. Droop ... start looking for pests ...

For thrips just get some Spinosad.. that will actually get rid of most all of the pests you can get indoors. Captain Jacks or Monterrey Garden spray is perfect and you spray @ 1-2 tbs per gal of water. Can use a little more with an active infestation. Some of those mites like Russets... they are very difficult to get rid of due to their life cycle. The only thing you can do is IPM regularly... say 2x a week

MY IPM with an active infestation:

1-2 tbs Monterrey garden spay
1 cap full of Ful-power
1 tsp Pro-tekt
1/4 cup of Horsetail fern tea
1 gal filtered water

Mix and spray on... can mix in 1/4 cup of the neen cake tea as well for the 2 pronged attack. I keep some of the neem tea on hand ready at all times. I've found that IF I catch and infestation early enough, the spinosad is enough. For Russets... you have to IPM 2x a week for at least a month maybe a month and a half.

Your 2 cups of neem in 18 gal of soil is hot... a little bit. Neem will get the mircro organisms growing big time so it needs to sit before any plants go into the soil or the micro organisms will eat the roots of the young plants and the neem...

7ish gallons of soil = 1 cubic foot of soil. I like to mix Neem and Karanja cake 50/50 @ 1-2 cup per cu ft. They are both organic fertilizers and the neem of course helps fight off pests. I amend the soil at up-pot to final containers @ flip to flower.

Hope that helps.... I think you're fine.. just water and you should be fine.

What about root drenching with spinosad? Because I'm already about 6 weeks into flower and I worry about the humidity risks of spraying often at that stage.

Yeah I wanted to keep it to plain water because I can't really go pickup any other stuff right now. Those are the best bottled nutrients I have. Supposedly EarthJuice didn't want to go for the OMRI certification again, but they're all still "organic". I learned about them on Icemud's grow because they apparently one one of the lowest metal contents of any bottled nutrients. I wanted to go pick up some Sea Bird Guano and Bone Meal for P and K because I know the Bio-Live I put in isn't high in either, and I just want some around for backup. But the boxes are kinda spendy for $15 each Which I know doesn't sound like that much, but when you're trying to save up for stuff and have your last $100 you treat everything as a percentage lol Two boxes of those would take up 30% of the money I have left and it's the holiday season so yeah that's not gonna happen lol

I screwed up and already cut this soil down so I can't send it off to Penn State to see what the nutrient content is :/ The best I could do is send the ultra-hot unamended mix, and then guess that the flowering mix is about half. But I'm leaning more toward saving money and just sending in the new diluted mix I made, because the pots the flowering plants are growing in are growing in like 3 different kinds of soil so I don't know how much the tests will tell me for this run anyway.

I let my mix cook for about 4 weeks, I'm thinking it could have gone longer with all that neem meal? I need to start thinking about cooking up a new batch, but I'm not sure now is the best time to do it since it's so cold outside, and if I put it in my house it's gonna stink up the place. But I figure once I unpack the flowering plants I can just re-use the soil that's in those pots and since it was so hot probably not need to amend it again?

Was just thinking about going and looking for some EWC out in the woods since I remembered you posted a guide on how to do that, Bob, but I can't remember where it was at? In your journal?

 

[Van Stank]

Fert....I think if you have good air flow and your humidity isn't too bad, you can go with foliar spray even at this point. Think about the plant naturally. They get rained on a lot. If your temps are dropping too low in conjunction with stale air (no air movement) and then you added foliars I would say you might have some issues.

I am more cautious about foliars in flower due to not wanting to impart anything that is going to ruin my smell or taste of the bud.

And bob is dead on on the leaves.....its going to happen, sometimes sooner than other times. Last grow, I had one of the ATF plants yellow 2 weeks earlier than the other plant. This time around one yellowed earlier than the others. But throughout....my leaves were always praying until they were ready to fall off.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Fert....I think if you have good air flow and your humidity isn't too bad, you can go with foliar spray even at this point. Think about the plant naturally. They get rained on a lot. If your temps are dropping too low in conjunction with stale air (no air movement) and then you added foliars I would say you might have some issues.

I am more cautious about foliars in flower due to not wanting to impart anything that is going to ruin my smell or taste of the bud.

And bob is dead on on the leaves.....its going to happen, sometimes sooner than other times. Last grow, I had one of the ATF plants yellow 2 weeks earlier than the other plant. This time around one yellowed earlier than the others. But throughout....my leaves were always praying until they were ready to fall off.

Yeah my humidity is so low I don't think I'd need to worry much, but it's the temperature I worry about because they're dropping now. Seems like I'd probably be best off not spraying too close to lights out because of the temperature drop?

Well, I'm probably gonna toss the tea then. Not TOO much waste of money. I just kind of worried deficiencies were creeping in for more than just the yellowing. Maybe I'll save it for my Maddog ( PGSC x Cherry OG ) because that one is definitely magnesium deficient, the veins are bright neon green. But I think it's just been getting too much water, I've been giving it as much to drink as the Panama x Malawi and it just doesn't drink as much as them.

 

[Van Stank]

What are your temps getting down to at night. I think if you have good airflow, not much leaf on leaf action going on (and looks like you are defoliated pretty well so I don't see that going on) you would probably be good. I am a HUGE believer in getting that air moving. The pests hate it and I hate pests more than damn near anything else so best believe I have all three fans zipping around....one oscillating fan below the canopy and two fans above the canopy. They aren't hurricanes and don't need to be....but they gotta keep the air moving.

 

[TheFertilizer]

What are your temps getting down to at night. I think if you have good airflow, not much leaf on leaf action going on (and looks like you are defoliated pretty well so I don't see that going on) you would probably be good. I am a HUGE believer in getting that air moving. The pests hate it and I hate pests more than damn near anything else so best believe I have all three fans zipping around....one oscillating fan below the canopy and two fans above the canopy. They aren't hurricanes and don't need to be....but they gotta keep the air moving.

There's a lot of air movement inside the tent for sure, and air flow from the fan is probably pretty high too. I'm not sure though because I've been having heat issues with the tent being +10 degrees higher than the ambient room temperature. So I have a thermostat setup to my oil space-heater, and it shuts off at 68 F and turns back on at 66 F. During lights on, that keeps it at 78 F and under, but lights out it drops down as much as the room does, meaning 66-68 F. But lately the oil heater isn't really heating up enough, so it's been more like 60 F on real cold nights. I'll have to start turning the power setting on the heater up to Mid. But I literally have such shit electrical here that it worries me to run it at that much, especially when the HPS is on.

 

[TheFertilizer]

My clones look like they're doing much better in the diluted soil. Most of them are reveg'ing because I took the clones so late into flower, but that doesn't seem like a disadvantage when looking at the crazy branching it has lent to most of them. In fact, I think I might wait until flower to take clones from now on, I won't have to do any top'ing.

 

[bobrown14]

What about root drenching with spinosad? Because I'm already about 6 weeks into flower and I worry about the humidity risks of spraying often at that stage.

Yeah I wanted to keep it to plain water because I can't really go pickup any other stuff right now. Those are the best bottled nutrients I have. Supposedly EarthJuice didn't want to go for the OMRI certification again, but they're all still "organic". I learned about them on Icemud's grow because they apparently one one of the lowest metal contents of any bottled nutrients. I wanted to go pick up some Sea Bird Guano and Bone Meal for P and K because I know the Bio-Live I put in isn't high in either, and I just want some around for backup. But the boxes are kinda spendy for $15 each Which I know doesn't sound like that much, but when you're trying to save up for stuff and have your last $100 you treat everything as a percentage lol Two boxes of those would take up 30% of the money I have left and it's the holiday season so yeah that's not gonna happen lol

I screwed up and already cut this soil down so I can't send it off to Penn State to see what the nutrient content is :/ The best I could do is send the ultra-hot unamended mix, and then guess that the flowering mix is about half. But I'm leaning more toward saving money and just sending in the new diluted mix I made, because the pots the flowering plants are growing in are growing in like 3 different kinds of soil so I don't know how much the tests will tell me for this run anyway.

I let my mix cook for about 4 weeks, I'm thinking it could have gone longer with all that neem meal? I need to start thinking about cooking up a new batch, but I'm not sure now is the best time to do it since it's so cold outside, and if I put it in my house it's gonna stink up the place. But I figure once I unpack the flowering plants I can just re-use the soil that's in those pots and since it was so hot probably not need to amend it again?

Was just thinking about going and looking for some EWC out in the woods since I remembered you posted a guide on how to do that, Bob, but I can't remember where it was at? In your journal?

Yes finding worm castings ... that is my GO-TO for amendments. They eat up everything organic and poop it out. You get bacteria AND readily available to plants - nutrients, and you cant burn a plant with EWC.. I'd have burned my plants down by now.

I'm familiar with Earth Juice gear... I do use something they have in powder - its I think what they are calling "Primal Harvest" - bought it several years ago ... but I tried it recently on a plant that was almost dead due to lack of water (we were away on vacation) added that in and the plant popped back to life and finished. Great buds.

My take on bottles is you are paying for 99% water. I can get that a lot cheaper + worm castings = almost free!

To find castings, find a trail in the woods and take a bucket with a scoop with you. Look for dead decaying branches or logs laying on the forest floor. Right beside and under the logs, there will be the worm castings. Scoop up the castings ... sometimes if you lucky the castings can be several inches deep... try and get just the castings. This time of year there will be leaves covering the castings. Just brush them aside - black gold, scoop and move to another log. You will have all the castings you need and more. I filled a 3 gal bucket in 10 minutes the last time I went out. Now is a good time.. just have to move the leaves a little. In a month or so the leaves will be gone.. oh where did they go... yup the worms ate them! Win win.

Here's my go-to spot... you will end up with worms in your soil... they will reproduce and go dormant if conditions are not good for life.
You can see the castings there right under/beside the log... when you scoop you will see worms... leave them behind - please. You will have plenty of cocoons that will hatch. These worms will likely be the European Night Crawlers. The large ones we used to use for fishing.
Red Wigglers are the worms that most everyone uses to make castings for sale as they are more prolific. But the castings from the Euro crawlers is top notch - they have a much larger gut!

Hint - wait to go looking for castings after a few days of no rain. The sparkle you see in the pics.. naturally occurring Silica - this trail is on a long extinct volcano.

RE:clones - I take them at up-pot right before flower - trim the lower branches off and into the cloner. I sometimes take clones in flower but only as an emergency.. several reasons. Clones in flower are basically re-veg... I don't get as lucky with that and they take longer to get roots. Up-side is less time in VEG once they get going. I cut/trim all the lower leaves in half on the clones - cut off the yellow bits. That helps promote root growth.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Yes finding worm castings ... that is my GO-TO for amendments. They eat up everything organic and poop it out. You get bacteria AND readily available to plants - nutrients, and you cant burn a plant with EWC.. I'd have burned my plants down by now.

I'm familiar with Earth Juice gear... I do use something they have in powder - its I think what they are calling "Primal Harvest" - bought it several years ago ... but I tried it recently on a plant that was almost dead due to lack of water (we were away on vacation) added that in and the plant popped back to life and finished. Great buds.

My take on bottles is you are paying for 99% water. I can get that a lot cheaper + worm castings = almost free!

To find castings, find a trail in the woods and take a bucket with a scoop with you. Look for dead decaying branches or logs laying on the forest floor. Right beside and under the logs, there will be the worm castings. Scoop up the castings ... sometimes if you lucky the castings can be several inches deep... try and get just the castings. This time of year there will be leaves covering the castings. Just brush them aside - black gold, scoop and move to another log. You will have all the castings you need and more. I filled a 3 gal bucket in 10 minutes the last time I went out. Now is a good time.. just have to move the leaves a little. In a month or so the leaves will be gone.. oh where did they go... yup the worms ate them! Win win.

Here's my go-to spot... you will end up with worms in your soil... they will reproduce and go dormant if conditions are not good for life.
You can see the castings there right under/beside the log... when you scoop you will see worms... leave them behind - please. You will have plenty of cocoons that will hatch. These worms will likely be the European Night Crawlers. The large ones we used to use for fishing.
Red Wigglers are the worms that most everyone uses to make castings for sale as they are more prolific. But the castings from the Euro crawlers is top notch - they have a much larger gut!

Hint - wait to go looking for castings after a few days of no rain. The sparkle you see in the pics.. naturally occurring Silica - this trail is on a long extinct volcano.

Thanks, Bob! Yeah I didn't really wanna go pay for the worm castings again, it was expensive, $20 for a .7 cubic foot bag. That's expensive worm poo. I'm not really sure where nearby that I can go to find a forrest that will have what I'm looking for yet, but it's been raining so it's probably a good time for it. I just don't really want to risk collecting the wrong stuff and coming back with a bunch of forrest soil instead of castings.

It seems like all nutrients are expensive. Even the down to earth boxes are like $15 a piece.

Let's say I don't find the castings. Can I just use the soil mix I put my clones in and bubble a tea with the castings in that?

 

[TheFertilizer]

Okay well, I know I was told not to worry about yellowing, but this is still worrying me, this yellowing along the leaf serrations. I'm worried it's a sign of potassium deficiency ( since the bio-live wasn't very high in K ). Going by a symptom chart this is what I'm seeing...

Leaf Color:
Edges Appear Brown or Burnt
Pale Color Leaves
Yellow Leaves - Lower, older leaves
Yellowing Between Veins
Veins of Leaves Stay Green
Brown or Dark Spots
Leaf Symptoms:
Lower Leaves / Older Growth Affected
Leaf Edges Appear Burnt
Leaf Tips Appear Burnt
Leaf Tips Die
Yellowing Between Veins
Veins of Leaves Stay Green
Spots
Old Leaves Dropping Off
Slow Growth
Twisted Growth
Abnormal Growth
Leaves Curl Under
Leaves Curl Upwards
Plant Symptoms:
Old Leaves Dropping Off
Slow Growth
Twisted Growth
Leaves Curl Under
Leaves Curl Upwards
Stretch (big spaces between nodes)
Too Tall
Other Symptoms:
Buds Not Fattening
Are tips/edges of leaves brown or burnt?:
Yes
Spots on Leaves?:
Yes

In other news, found out 5/8 of my T5 bulbs are dead, so that's not cool...

 

[Gee64]

im not sure if molasses is compatible with bio-live but molasses contains potassium

 

[TheFertilizer]

im not sure if molasses is compatible with bio-live but molasses contains potassium

Man I never realized that! I've got some molasses in the fridge... I just went out and bought some langeninbite... Langaninbite? Lenny bites? This stuff...

LANGBEINITE 0-0-22 – Down To Earth Fertilizer

 

[Van Stank]

Fert, if you are worried about Potassium.....look for some kelp meal teas. Also you can look for adding Greensand to your soil mixture in the future if you feel you are running low in current grows.

For my plants in flower, I like running a few things in my teas. I like the ground Kelp, Seabird Guano, and some EWC. You really get a nice shot of P and K from it. Not to mention the goodies from the EWC.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Fert, if you are worried about Potassium.....look for some kelp meal teas. Also you can look for adding Greensand to your soil mixture in the future if you feel you are running low in current grows.

For my plants in flower, I like running a few things in my teas. I like the ground Kelp, Seabird Guano, and some EWC. You really get a nice shot of P and K from it. Not to mention the goodies from the EWC.

You think the kelp meal would be more readily available than the langbeinite? I got this because it had no nitrogen. With all that neem meal I don't think I need any more N.

 

[Van Stank]

Well I use the Langbeinite when I mix my soil initially. My only warning against using Langbeinite is that its also got a lot of Magnesium and you need to be careful to try to keep your Calcium to Magnesium ratio in check. Thats one of the reason I like the Seabird Guano in my teas....not only is it great on the "P" for flower, but it also adds additional calcium that tends to get used at a higher rate under LEDs.

Your solution will work short term and will probably give just as readily available "K" as my Kelp option, but keep an eye out for signs that your Calcium to Magnesium ration might be off.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well I use the Langbeinite when I mix my soil initially. My only warning against using Langbeinite is that its also got a lot of Magnesium and you need to be careful to try to keep your Calcium to Magnesium ratio in check. Thats one of the reason I like the Seabird Guano in my teas....not only is it great on the "P" for flower, but it also adds additional calcium that tends to get used at a higher rate under LEDs.

Your solution will work short term and will probably give just as readily available "K" as my Kelp option, but keep an eye out for signs that your Calcium to Magnesium ration might be off.

Hmm... I ended up getting Oyster Shell and Langbeinite when I went last night just looking at the backs of labels and such. Maybe I should just go exchange for the Sea Bird Guano and Kelp Meal instead? I picked up a bag of EWC to brew up with it all too, and it seems like Kelp Meal as overall better benefits for a tea.

I wrote that confusingly. I just picked up the oyster shell for later down the road because I want to switch my pH stabilization method from dolomite lime to oyster shell. But maybe I should go get the guano and kelp meal for right now to give my flowering ladies some P and K.

It's funny 'cause I intended to go get the guano and the langbeinite. I don't know how I ended up with oyster shell. I think the deal they had on the box got me lol

 

[TheFertilizer]

Okay, I got some seabird guano instead of the oyster shell, and some WC, and got a tea going with it.

In 2 gallon bucket

1/2 tsp langbeinite
1 tbsp seibird guano
1 1/2 cups EWC
1 tbsp LABS
1tsp molasses

Hopefully it will perk some of these girls in the back up...