The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[Azimuth]

2 gallon. It's my original build just with a smaller wick footer. I have inserts for the others that I retro fitted to the new size so I can revert to the first design if I want to test side-by-side, but honestly if this works well I'll probably just build new ones.

But, I want to see what I learn first. Not very many variables but one never knows...

 

[Azimuth]

Do your sips have clear inserts? If so, do the roots go down into the outer ring/foot or stop all at a certain level?

On the donut design I use now roots populate the entire soil structure all the way to the bottom of the bucket with the very fine feeder roots. Even in the overly wet zone.

A very few venture right down the middle through the aeration holes in the air chamber/ reservoir but not very many.

The inserts themselves are upside down cloudy food storage containers with lots of small holes melted in them with a soldering iron.

 

[Gee64]

2 gallon. It's my original build just with a smaller wick footer. I have inserts for the others that I retro fitted to the new size so I can revert to the first design if I want to test side-by-side, but honestly if this works well I'll probably just build new ones.

But, I want to see what I learn first. Not very many variables but one never knows...

Yeah you need to see a big difference. I'm confident this will do it. It turned mine completely around when I switched to top watering.Either build should work.

Once you get over this 3-week-post-flip hurdle then comparing builds may streamline things. If nothing changes then it's your soil, but I don't think so. It may need tweaks to raise brix at a certain point, but thats to be expected.

So when your soil dries down, does the dry surface of the pot get crusty?

 

[Azimuth]

Either build should work.

I'm really optimistic about the new design as most of the soil is held up above the water line with an air gap in between rather than sitting in the wet, so the vast majority should no longer be over wet. But I guess that depends on how efficient the wicking footer is with my soil mix.

But I'll know later on today! I'm excited about the possibilities.

So when your soil dries down, does the dry surface of the pot get crusty?

Surface never goes dry. LOL. And I didn't check this first time. I'm back to weekly top dressing with castings so I would think the calcium in them would negate that issue.

Isn't it like 4 o'clock where you are? Dude, go get some sleep!

 

[Gee64]

I'm really optimistic about the new design as most of the soil is held up above the water line with an air gap in between rather than sitting in the wet, so the vast majority should no longer be over wet. But I guess that depends on how efficient the wicking footer is with my soil mix.

But I'll know later on today! I'm excited about the possibilities.


Surface never goes dry. LOL. And I didn't check this first time. I'm back to weekly top dressing with castings so I would think the calcium in them would negate that issue.

Isn't it like 4 o'clock where you are? Dude, go get some sleep!

lol I'm up at 3ish every day. You should let the surface dry out. The 1st time it will likely be crusty, thats normal, but if the crusty comes back thats an issue.

Your calcium line was crisp so ewc may not be enough. It's a maintainer, but the global mix needs the proper Ca to Mg ratio.

But you will have lots of opportunities to check.

If the surface never dries your soil is way too wet. But 1st things 1st, lets get the plant used to a new watering style. See if brix or the calcium line improves.

 

[StoneOtter]

Good morning

 

[Gee64]

Good morning

Mornin' Stone️

 

[Keffka]

If the surface never dries your soil is way too wet

Since starting drip irrigation the surface is never fully wet, only in the small areas the drips hit. The only way to get the entire surface wet is by hand watering.

However, my plants have never looked better. Their growth is insane, they’re always happy, and the environment is vastly more stable. They don’t even get fat with water any more, they just constantly look great.

I’m thinking mulch will be the only way to get the entire surface moist without hand watering. I’m also contemplating running drip irrigation start to finish. Since I’ve got the quick connectors and vinyl tubing I can run drip emitters everywhere with ease.

 

[Gee64]

Since starting drip irrigation the surface is never fully wet, only in the small areas the drips hit. The only way to get the entire surface wet is by hand watering.

However, my plants have never looked better. Their growth is insane, they’re always happy, and the environment is vastly more stable. They don’t even get fat with water any more, they just constantly look great.

I’m thinking mulch will be the only way to get the entire surface moist without hand watering. I’m also contemplating running drip irrigation start to finish. Since I’ve got the quick connectors and vinyl tubing I can run drip emitters everywhere with ease.

Mulch is the ticket for sure. I hand water in veg only because as they grow greenery they require more water everyvday and its a PITA to constantly adjust the schedule, but if you are vigilant it works really well. Your room environment should stabilize a fair bit more again in late flower too. Once stretch is finished.

 

[Gee64]

Mulch is the ticket for sure. I hand water in veg only because as they grow greenery they require more water everyvday and its a PITA to constantly adjust the schedule, but if you are vigilant it works really well. Your room environment should stabilize a fair bit too.

Your plants look gorgeous BTW. I haven't made it over there lately but I lurk

 

[Azimuth]

I swapped out the old SIP design for the new and improved (for me, old hat for most others) one today. Conceptually I already really like it. Maybe even prefer it.

I had my next pot up cooking for maybe 6 weeks so I emptied the reservoir as best as I could and dumped the contents. I picked out the hydroton and replaced it with perlite and mixed it up really well. The soil was very wet, and especially mucky down in the reservoir zone as was expected.

Mixing in the perlite also mixed the very wet soil with the rest so now it's all evenly overwet.
I'll check it with the meter tomorrow and see if the moisture levels have stratified .

Saw some interesting things that I don't see after a grow with all of the roots. First was lots of happy worms and most of them were concentrated in the wettest zone in the pot. Since that zone has been underwater for more than a month I did not expect that. Also saw lots of worm capsules/eggs which is a good sign.

I could definitely feel a difference in wetness and density between the soil in the wet zone and that in the middle of the pot so I think having much less soil in contact with the reservoir is going to be a very positive thing.

Once I see if the moisture stratified tomorrow I'll fill the reservoir and see what that does to the moisture levels at different depths.

I'm looking forward to getting a plant in there to see if I notice any difference in growing with this style but I think I'll wait another week and see how things settle. I'm thinking that maybe the cook didn't happen as thoroughly as it should have given the very wet soil so I'll monitor the soil temps over the week and see if it remains stable.

 

[Gee64]

I swapped out the old SIP design for the new and improved (for me, old hat for most others) one today. Conceptually I already really like it. Maybe even prefer it.

I had my next pot up cooking for maybe 6 weeks so I emptied the reservoir as best as I could and dumped the contents. I picked out the hydroton and replaced it with perlite and mixed it up really well. The soil was very wet, and especially mucky down in the reservoir zone as was expected.

Mixing in the perlite also mixed the very wet soil with the rest so now it's all evenly overwet.
I'll check it with the meter tomorrow and see if the moisture levels have stratified .

Saw some interesting things that I don't see after a grow with all of the roots. First was lots of happy worms and most of them were concentrated in the wettest zone in the pot. Since that zone has been underwater for more than a month I did not expect that. Also saw lots of worm capsules/eggs which is a good sign.

I could definitely feel a difference in wetness and density between the soil in the wet zone and that in the middle of the pot so I think having much less soil in contact with the reservoir is going to be a very positive thing.

Once I see if the moisture stratified tomorrow I'll fill the reservoir and see what that does to the moisture levels at different depths.

I'm looking forward to getting a plant in there to see if I notice any difference in growing with this style but I think I'll wait another week and see how things settle. I'm thinking that maybe the cook didn't happen as thoroughly as it should have given the very wet soil so I'll monitor the soil temps over the week and see if it remains stable.

If you take a handful of that soil and squeeze it hard does more than 4 or 5 drops of water come out?

 

[Azimuth]

If you take a handful of that soil and squeeze it hard does more than 4 or 5 drops of water come out?

Yes. Didn't even have to squeeze it all that hard. Lol.

 

[Gee64]

Yes. Didn't even have to squeeze it all that hard. Lol.

Ok you are definitely O2 deprived. Your gonna love this Azi. No where to go but up. O2 is one of the 5 main components in brix and you are lacking it bigtime. Lets fix that 1st as its a free fix.

So when you use your water stick and it got down to where you watered at, 6-7 down deep, next time make note of what the reading is at 1", 2" and 3" deep as well. I want to know your gradient.

Also, if you have some extra soil laying around, fill a pot but don't water it.

Measure it with the stick and when the bottom 2 inches reads 4.5, weigh the pot. Then weigh a pot with a plant in it. That will tell you how much water between "almost droughting" and your current normal.

Convert that weight to volume, as in 1 gram is 1 cubic centimeter, and that will tell you how many litres of water are in your soil. If it's over 12.5% of the pot size then your soil has over a reservoir full of water in it already, even when the res is dry.

So in a 2gal pot, if you have 1 litre of water in the soil, you are roughly at the right spot. So no need to add water to the reservoir.

If the pot weight says you are down to a half litre in the soil and you feel the need to water, only add a half litre. Make sense? Use the water stick to learn to recognize it so you don't have to weigh it all the time.

If that wigs you out then try it on just one plant. Use the runt if you like. It won't be runty for long.

Remember, the 12.5% we are adding here is over and above where a plant is starting to water stress, not 12.5% of the dead dry volume, so 12.5% is the max you water when the plant is dry, not dead.

Your baseline is 4.5 on the stick, so it's not as drastic as it sounds. You aren't trying to make the plant happy, you are trying to create the right soil conditions for AEROBIC soil microbes. When you get that right it's also correct for myco.

Then we will worry about dialling in calcium.

 

[Jon]

Hi Gee. Sorry I haven’t been here too much, but I have been in research mode. This transition from chem to organic becomes steeper with every piece of info I learn. Supposed to be the other way around, lol. Anyway, I’ve been looking at soil amendments as you and others have prescribed in their soil mixes. Some are common among you organic wizards, so I started there.

So the question isn’t about them. But in this process I realize there’s a potentially very important basic concept I don’t know.

Let’s say the goal here in a perfect world is to figure out the “perfect” organic soil mix on every level for each strain you want to grow. In this fantasy world, you have EVERYTHING perfect. Down to the optimum # of days to age the soil first at what temp and rh and moisture content. Everything maxed perfectly - the literally best case scenario. Needless to say this is in reality just a concept. Even you will never achieve this. But let’s call that BEST case possible.

Now let’s contrast that with total shit organic soil off any rack in any store just grabbed at random, full of the wrong stuff at the wrong concentrations, with fungus gnats and the whole horrid shebang. Or even soil you made yourself out of total garbage like newspaper and dirt from your yard. There’s the WORST case scenario for our purposes here.

Either way a plant is going to feed off that and grow. One plant will be great, one will suck.

Why?

Why won’t the plant in shit find the small amount of good stuff in there and take only that, resulting in a plant that is small but good? At least til it runs out of good stuff? And then what? It eats the crap instead? Or it starts refusing to eat?

It instead seems that plant would eat the bad stuff too. That’s another part of the question. Is this accurate? If all there is to eat is shit, will the plant eat shit or starve itself?

I guess that is actually the question I’m looking for the answer to. Sorry if I’m all over the board, I’m having difficulty framing what it is I’m wondering.

???

Will a plant eat crap or starve itself instead and why? That I suppose is what I don’t seem to know and feel I need to to get this in any capacity.

Thanks.

 

[Gee64]

Hey Jon.
First I have a question for you. Who won the grow-off?

Will a plant eat crap or starve itself instead and why? That I suppose is what I don’t seem to know and feel I need to to get this in any capacity.

Thanks.

Ok there are multiple things that could occur here.

One thing is that the crap ingredients may never collectively create a mix that comes into a friendly PH zone. You for the most part need calcium to be a buffer so if the crap mix has adequate calcium it becomes far less crappy.

Another is that whatever the mix is, it requires microbes and fungii to break it down. Plants don't eat ammendments, microbes do (composting), and the plants eat the microbe poo, so if it isn't a good enough mix to create nutritious poo then the plants don't get nutritious food.

Carbs and proteins - humans need approximately 2 carbs to every 1 protein. So do plants. In plants these are called browns and greens.

So to compost you need lots of carbon (browns) compared to your meals (greens) to end up with a mix that will cook properly.

Then there is minerals. You need them for cellular function.

So if you have adequate calcium the electrical charge in the soil becomes conduscive to good microbial life, as calcium is a strong electrolyte and microbes run on electricity. The carbon they eat leaves it's shell of the carbon molecule behind which forms humus aka humate. It's like a microscopic piece of perlite in shape. It has a massive surface area for its size. And it's pure carbon so it conducts electricity.

When calcium is correct the magnetic charge in that piece of humus (think static electricity here) attracts things. It attracts cations. So lets say it has room to hold 100 cations. If about 70 are calcium, and about 20 are magnesium, the static charge remaining in that humate will pull in other cations.

Ammonium, calcium, magnesium, potassium,sodium, aluminum and hydrogen are your cations.

So now we only have 10 spots left.

Cations are positively charged so every time the humate attracts another the charge becomes more positive on it's way to neutral. At pure neutral it will fall apart.

So a few potassium jump on, some ammonium and a sodium. Now lets say 3 spots are left. Hydrogen jumps on.

Hydrogen is quirky. It is neutral in charge but has the ability to flip from slightly negative to slightly positive any time it wants.

So when the humate is full, all the pieces should be stuck to it but hovering slightly just as 2 magnets will either stick together, or when reversed they will repel.

So if Calcium and magnesium in combination set the base charge of the humate, and a bunch more attract, and they are all stuck by magnetism, lockout has occurred, but if hydrogen hops onto the last few spots and flip-flops it's charge just right, they hover, but don't fall off, and the plant can easily pull them off as needed.

When 1 gets pulled off the charge of the particle changes and another gets pulled on by magnetism.

This is called CEC. Cation exchange capacity.

The hydrogen that regulates and fine tunes the charge IS your PH.

So if the crappy soil never has enough to create this system, you end up with a very low CEC or more to the point, unbalanced and too much hydrogen jumps on giving you a low PH and lockout occurs. So theres that.

Then there is microbe/fungii health. If the crappy soil can't fulfill a healthy diet, and the soil isn't healthily charged with the right amount of electricity, microbes become unhealthy from the poor diet and sluggish from low electricity. Less poop and poor quality.

Crappy soil isn't really crappy, it's unbalanced.

So if you build a balanced soil as far as carbs and proteins are concerned, to properly compost, add the correct amount of calcium and magnesium to fix the CEC platters, and have the correct minerals to flow across the platters (platters=humates, humus), You are off and running.

The carbs and proteins now become vital. They bring in all the minerals and nutrition and such, so crappy carbs and proteins break down into crappy unbalanced soil, and quality carbs and proteins break down into healthy balanced soil ingredients.

That creates the food.

Now if you take some foodless compacted dirt, add some calcium and magnesium to it, it will fluff up by electricicty. That is tilth.

Soil particles are like plates stacked in the cupboard. When stacked, 12 plates may be 12" tall. When calcium/magnesium are correct, the magnetic charge gets just right and like magnets turned over that repel from each other, every 2nd plate will stand on edge. Those 12 plates are now 12 feet tall. All that space created by every second plate standing on edge is tilth. Air and water and microbiology move in it like hallways in a skyscraper. This is called soil conditioning.

So you need soil that supplies good food to run a proper CEC, and provide conditioning to create tilth. Then you add organic matter to be eaten so as the CEC moves supplies to the plant it can be replaced.

So the end result is if crappy soil has some nutrition in it but isn't conditioned to form hallways and a healthy CEC, you get compacted airless soil and lockout, and that limited nutrition can't be properly attached to an oxygen molecule to be recognized as food, and your cations are locked to the platters. Even if there is some food in the crappy soil it is unrecognizable as it isn't attached to oxygen, or it's locked out.

So thats how nutrition works, and how hydrogen effects PH. You need both to be correct. It all runs on electricity, which also conditions the soil.

 

[Azimuth]

Measure it with the stick and when the bottom 2 inches reads 4.5, weigh the pot. Then weigh a pot with a plant in it. That will tell you how much water between "almost droughting" and your current normal.

Convert that weight to volume, as in 1 gram is 1 cubic centimeter, and that will tell you how many litres of water are in your soil. If it's over 12.5% of the pot size then your soil has over a reservoir full of water in it already, even when the res is dry.

I can probably back into that number now.

When I drought, I consider day 1 to be when the reservoir is dry and I typically go the full 11 days to get to the 50% of starting leaf angle considered ideal. So, let's say it's at least half of that time before I see a drop in leaf angle at all. 6 days say.

Pre-drought, I have typically tried to replace the water in the reservoir at the pace it is being consumed which is about 1L every two-ish days.

So, 6 days to first signs of droop at 1/2 a liter a day equates to about 3 liters stored in the soil. Very rough math but probably close enough for our purposes in this discussion.

So if I understand your concept, I have 3 liters of unnecessary water in the soil not being used but taking up space that could be (would be) filled with O2 for the microbes.

So, even though my very robust looking plants suggest that this water bank is not too much for the plant roots (probably because of the bottom layer air chamber), it is totally unnecessary for proper plant action and it does affect the microbial action by robbing them of adequate oxygen for them to party.

So, maybe this is why synthetic grows in SIPs are almost a no brainer since the extra water does not cause issues for the roots and microbes are not as much in play for basic functioning, but it does cause problems in organics since there is an entire other division that needs to come into play that is hindered by the extra water bank stored in the soil.

Larger plants go through water faster so maybe the reservoir should only come into play later when a normal daily watering can't keep up with demand.

 

[Gee64]

Jon, Does that help?

 

[Gee64]

I can probably back into that number now.

When I drought, I consider day 1 to be when the reservoir is dry and I typically go the full 11 days to get to the 50% of starting leaf angle considered ideal. So, let's say it's at least half of that time before I see a drop in leaf angle at all. 6 days say.

Pre-drought, I have typically tried to replace the water in the reservoir at the pace it is being consumed which is about 1L every two-ish days.

So, 6 days to first signs of droop at 1/2 a liter a day equates to about 3 liters stored in the soil. Very rough math but probably close enough for our purposes in this discussion.

So if I understand your concept, I have 3 liters of unnecessary water in the soil not being used but taking up space that could be (would be) filled with O2 for the microbes.

So, even though my very robust looking plants suggest that this water bank is not too much for the plant roots (probably because of the bottom layer air chamber), it is totally unnecessary for proper plant action and it does affect the microbial action by robbing them of adequate oxygen for them to party.

So, maybe this is why synthetic grows in SIPs are almost a no brainer since the extra water does not cause issues for the roots and microbes are not as much in play for basic functioning, but it does cause problems in organics since there is an entire other division that needs to come into play that is hindered by the extra water bank stored in the soil.

Larger plants go through water faster so maybe the reservoir should only come into play later when a normal daily watering can't keep up with demand.

The lights just turned on. You nailed it with this post

 

[Gee64]

The lights just turned on. You nailed it with this post

Now calcium, and all your plant nutrition knowledge have a great opportunity to shine.