Skybound's Journal

[Skybound]

8 days is fast.

My last set of clones were both in 6 days. When taken from a plant being treated with the tria, accelerated rooting seems to be a side effect, lol.

 

[NorCaliwood]

That is hella fast............

I just took some that don't seem to like it.. yet?????

 

[Skybound]

That is hella fast............

I just took some that don't seem to like it.. yet?????

Triacontanol or clones? Triacontanol IMO is great for prepping moms. A few other choice results too, but I'm amazed how it improved my rooting times.

 

[Weaselcracker]

You mentioned somewhere you thought you could add calcium by spraying with gypsum. Has that worked? I see some of my P Chunks have what I assume to be Ca def.

 

[Skybound]

You mentioned somewhere you thought you could add calcium by spraying with gypsum. Has that worked? I see some of my P Chunks have what I assume to be Ca def.

I presume it has. Granted, not knowing the limits, I admit that my elemental ppm is very light. Here is what I'm using every week now. While I'm talking about it, I want to say that I love how the flavor of the PC improved greatly since spraying it with ground up fish, and of course calcium and magnesium. Please post a pic of your Ca def. I am still seeing a Ca or Mg def that shows in the last third of bloom, but I can see it minimally throughout. I noticed what I thought was Ca in Con's journal he's calling it Mg def. Little tiny red/brown spots in the leaves. If you cranked your P back up though I bet it is Ca in your case as Ca and P precipitate together and cancel each other out. I've read microbes can break those precipitates apart in the root zone over time so by late bloom it becomes food again, but that's contingent upon the right microbes/fungi.

But foliar sprays I put everything into and so far all is well. Just a few mins ago, I mixed a batch and sprayed veg. I doubled the epsom to .5 grams which kind of puts Mg even with everything else in the 25ppm range. Everything being soluble, I assume everything I spray must be absorbed as it has nowhere else to go but into the plant, so because of that, I don't want to accidentally overdo it on any one element, or the combination of them all. I read one place that Ca isn't absorbed efficiently in the leaves, but only on that page said that about Ca. As far as I know, all elements can be sprayed on, though some may not work well to correct an imbalance or deficiency and I can't recall which that applies to. It is encouraged that the PH be low, I've read from 5-5.5, but this mix usually dips down to 4.7ish. It's hit or miss if I can remember to correct the PH before application, but I think now was the only time I forgot. Say a prayer for my Veg.

I also just added an 1/8 TSP of seaweed and doubled the Epsom to .5g. Also upped molasses to 3ml. It smells less fishy now.

 

[Skybound]

PC week 7, flushing in a few more days

It should yield well, but still the leaf damage erks the hell out of me.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I’ll get a pic tonight. My leaves are trashed. Will make you feel much better.

 

[Skybound]

Some cool concepts in here, especially the part about using basic or acidic water as a foliar spray to chase bugs or molds. I was fortunate enough to have some experience with Kangen water machines and when you drink alkaline water, your body reaps some immediate benefits that you can feel your insides relishing in the change in PH in your belly.

 

[Skybound]

This is a free seed Herbies's Gorilla Glue, day 22, and I am experimenting by trying to emulate the cationic drench, but in hydro. Basically I doubled the ammoniacal N to 20% of N and P was already high. I'll run this routine for only 3 days then observe. If nothing gets out of whack, next round I'll do a full week and observe.

 

[NorCaliwood]

That was too much math for me.... That is one thing in hydro is you can tweak formulas

To me if some anit broke.... hit it harder??

GL

 

[Dankman_420]

Be easy with the GG. They have a tendency to freak out and Herm. Looking good in here

 

[Skybound]

That was too much math for me.... That is one thing in hydro is you can tweak formulas

To me if some anit broke.... hit it harder??

GL

I looked at Doc's Cat drench and noticed that it is high in P, but also has a surprising spike in ammoniacal nitrogen for week 4(ish) only. So I am trying to see about emulating that effect in my hydro nutes. Since P is an Anion and in my solution it is already high, I left it be, but I greatly increased the NH4+ (ammoniacal N) and will run that through my roots once a day for three days. As @Dankman_420 noted, GG is a weak strain, but also this is my bread and butter so I gotta take small calculated risks when I screw around so not to kill any plants. I can take weight cuts on the chin and write it off as the pursuit of knowledge which to me is priceless.

If this Cat test doesn't do any damage, I'll go longer next round, then stronger the round after that. I want to see more frost production, but I also keep my eyes peeled for other growth differences. FYI, I've read plants will eat themselves to death on NH4+ and if it is the primary source of N, plants will die, and because of this, we growers need to ensure not to be giving too much. To further complicate that, I'm in hydro where that damage can be more severe and faster setting. The recommended N ratio for hydro in that book was 75% NO3- to 25%NH4+. My studies has me below that 25% at 10% of total N, but my Cat mix is up to 20% which is double my usual, but still less than the book's recommendations.

 

[Bode]

I'm interested in your experimenting in hydro, but don't understand some of what you're doing. I do know that the hi-brixers used to do the first Cat drench a few days later, say 28-32 days instead of 21. They played a game until everyone had it understood. Something about identifying the correct day for the drench. Then, they'd give another Cat drench a week to 10 days later. I think that's how it went. It seems the whole exercise was to change the ph of the medium (possibly to encourage a particular nutrient uptake like the immobile ones Phosphorus and Iron), and then go back to business as usual. Just a hypothesis, though. Cheers

 

[NorCaliwood]

Strange the little spike in nitrogen at that stage. You just looking to see if she acts strange then. She looks to be about over in the stretch department. 80% or so.

I played with hydro afew times over the years. I went all doctor Frankenstein one year and did some top feed and plants were in Rockwool 4" cubes set ontop a 32" slab in a leach tray.That was fun till the buds got some weight to them and everything had to be tied up. I had 4 of them leach trays with 6 plants in each. All clones of the same size and stamina. Man I had strings tied to the ceiling holding these,, well might had called them vines cause they could'nt stand up at all... Everything had to be tied. No real grow medium to build a root base and help support the plant. Was funny but a lot of work.

I still have two whats called eco-grower unit. Drip ring. Like a water farm but with a larger octagon shaped pots and reservoir. Made with much thicker heavy duty plastics too. I got a half a barrel of these clay pellets outback.

Why I stick to soils.. They are much more forgiving than hydro.


Like said it doesn't take long for a plant to feel the change in hydro..

But in soil, you don't have to feed them all the time. Thems night you feel lazy and don't want to mix some shit,, alittle water will do and she'll make it thru.

Babbled enough iffin it makes sense..

 

[Skybound]

I'm interested in your experimenting in hydro, but don't understand some of what you're doing. I do know that the hi-brixers used to do the first Cat drench a few days later, say 28-32 days instead of 21. They played a game until everyone had it understood. Something about identifying the correct day for the drench. Then, they'd give another Cat drench a week to 10 days later. I think that's how it went. It seems the whole exercise was to change the ph of the medium (possibly to encourage a particular nutrient uptake like the immobile ones Phosphorus and Iron), and then go back to business as usual. Just a hypothesis, though. Cheers

Great observations Bode! I wish I had seen that info before starting mine at 22 days, but all I was able to unearth was to do the Cat process when the stretch has stopped and the buds have set and since my buds look fairly well set ("set" must be loosely defined?) I chose to begin it. I can definitely see how the bump is P would lower the PH, but then why call the Drench Cationic if the preferred element is an anion? Granted, P2O5 is not the same thing as P, still, I believe Doc named it a Cat drench for the reason of the prominent cation in the bottle. Also, this being hydro, PH means something totally different so if the trics are produced by tweaking the PH, that should be easily accomplished in the nutes. I wished I subbed to the high brix thread sooner because reading 1100 pages in hopes of finding morsels isn't a practical way to study a topic like this. But if the end result is that I can't emulate the cat drench and frost out my buds, at least I know that I tried my best. For the record, so far my high brix hydro attempts aren't turning out well, though I learned more than most trying to.

I also changed my mind about quitting growing. I still see a good sized window after legalization before the little guys get squeezed out and I want to try and get a piece of that action while I can. That said, I'll soon build a small 9x9 room and I'll try and squeeze 9 plants into. I'm hoping I can do a HB kit or two, but am also tossing around the idea of mixing my own stuff, but whatever I decide, I won't be able to support nine 10gal reservoirs, so I need to ditch hydro for that to happen.

Edit - the new Cat formulation has 2 sources of ammonium and 1 source of P.

 

[Skybound]

Strange the little spike in nitrogen at that stage. You just looking to see if she acts strange then. She looks to be about over in the stretch department. 80% or so.

I played with hydro afew times over the years. I went all doctor Frankenstein one year and did some top feed and plants were in Rockwool 4" cubes set ontop a 32" slab in a leach tray.That was fun till the buds got some weight to them and everything had to be tied up. I had 4 of them leach trays with 6 plants in each. All clones of the same size and stamina. Man I had strings tied to the ceiling holding these,, well might had called them vines cause they could'nt stand up at all... Everything had to be tied. No real grow medium to build a root base and help support the plant. Was funny but a lot of work.

I still have two whats called eco-grower unit. Drip ring. Like a water farm but with a larger octagon shaped pots and reservoir. Made with much thicker heavy duty plastics too. I got a half a barrel of these clay pellets outback.

Why I stick to soils.. They are much more forgiving than hydro.


Like said it doesn't take long for a plant to feel the change in hydro..

But in soil, you don't have to feed them all the time. Thems night you feel lazy and don't want to mix some shit,, alittle water will do and she'll make it thru.

Babbled enough iffin it makes sense..

I think the biggest growing pain I'll struggle to get used to is transplant stress. In potted rockwool, I simply do not get it, ever. I like to get my girls nice and rootbound before up potting to force roots to back build the media. Putting small plants in large pots doesn't feel natural to me, but I guess that's the norm for dirt. I like playing with the wet/dry cycle too, but I get antsy when it takes more than a day to dry out a pot.

I learned that plants, if given the chance to, will supplement calcium with potassium when the Cal is running deficient for any of about 6 reasons, and when they eat excess K, the branches grow like wet noodles. I suppose this is why DB went above and beyond to stay away from letting K get into his system except only when he wants it there. I presume to force the plants to take up the needed amount of calcium and develop nice strong branches.

When I do the soil runs, I want to do it exactly like you're doing it because you admittedly use hydro nutes to supplement your soil which I dig. I know everyone else does too, but the words "hydro nutes" have a stigma associated and a lot of folks hit a mental block when it comes to those words. What some think of as hydro nutes I now see as complexed elements that are added to soils to provide a portion of the overall supply as immediately available in ionic form. It's all the same stuff though.

 

[Bode]

Highya Sky,

I went back over my notes and found where DB journaled what was in the Cationic Drench. NH4 ammonium nitrate, fish ferts, sulfates, and phosphates. I can't remember which journal it was in. That's all the info I retained on his processes. Hope it gains a little progress in getting you to your goals. Cheers

 

[Weaselcracker]

Please post a pic of your Ca def.

Issues

• Weaselcracker
• Jul 7, 2019

Issues

• Weaselcracker
• Jul 7, 2019

I went in last night and looked again and to be honest it looks more like classic phosphorus deficiency, especially now that it’s so advanced. I really do not know why I thought it looked like calcium deficiency before.
Maybe it did, before. Or maybe I was just stoned, lighting was bad, and I was stoned.

It’s only mainly on the P Chunks.
My diet a la Botanicare ml/gallon recommendations has been this-
N- 85
NH4- 0
P- 115
K- 275
Mg- 45
Ca- 95

After I got the idea that it was Ca def, I added a dose of Calmag, which now I’m thinking was maybe the exact wrong thing to do.


I was planning on giving the next batch, just going into flower, this-

N- 100
P- 100
K- 180
Mg- 70
Ca-140

 

[Skybound]

I think the Botanicare blend is too rich in K+, and because the P- is also high, it is likely precipitating with Ca++ and together the high K+ and high P- are restricting your Ca++ from getting absorbed at the rate it needs to which also restricts the P as a result. Your next blend IMO remedies both of those concerns and I predict it will go a lot better then, than it went now.

 

[Skybound]

This article suggests that excess P won't negatively affect Ca, but I read elsewhere that both lock up together on the roots as the complex calcium phosphate, but microbes on the roots are able to break them back apart after some time.

Phosphorous toxicity and concentration in higher plants