The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[Lerugged]

Also, the size of the trichomes are much smaller than Indicas. At least with the African sativas. When I run dry ice hash demos I use a screen size smaller than I would normally use, when Im shaking something I grew. Less green matter, better quality. They just seem smaller to me.
So, I just tried that Malawi.
Oops. I still have to take the kids to soccer practice. Haha.
It's pretty devastating. Taking forever to just write this nonesense.
Sheeeet

 

[Keffka]

I have Grandkids now, they are way better than children!

I can imagine. I don’t want to push it on my kids but I look forward to grandkids. It’d be nice to have a granddaughter since our family skews heavily toward men.

This I knew. Isn't this the reason that certain regions simply cannot grow 0.3 % THC hemp? The hemp will test over every time

That would make a lot of sense. Indoors obviously we can control that better but outdoors there’s only so much you could do. Especially the closer you get to the equator.

I imagine some sort of shade netting would be helpful if you’re trying to keep the numbers low, but that sounds like a big pain in the butt and a huge maintenance cost for no guarantee. Even more so if you’ve got huge fields growing. An environment close to the equator also very likely has a lot going on in its soil and with the microbes that can’t be easily fixed with less light.

 

[Keffka]

I must say @Carmen Ray your knowledge has increased ten fold since I first saw you here. Keep up the work! It makes it so much easier to grow and be confident in your decisions when you have that knowledge base.

 

[Keffka]

Also, the size of the trichomes are much smaller than Indicas. At least with the African sativas. When I run dry ice hash demos I use a screen size smaller than I would normally use, when Im shaking something I grew. Less green matter, better quality. They just seem smaller to me.
So, I just tried that Malawi.
Oops. I still have to take the kids to soccer practice. Haha.
It's pretty devastating. Taking forever to just write this nonesense.
Sheeeet

I almost had to have my wife take em to soccer practice the other day. Luckily the fresh air seems to really help level off that runaway high

 

[Gee64]

Also, the size of the trichomes are much smaller than Indicas. At least with the African sativas. When I run dry ice hash demos I use a screen size smaller than I would normally use, when Im shaking something I grew. Less green matter, better quality. They just seem smaller to me.
So, I just tried that Malawi.
Oops. I still have to take the kids to soccer practice. Haha.
It's pretty devastating. Taking forever to just write this nonesense.
Sheeeet

Oh.My.Gosh! Matt next time you make hash can you do a walk-thru?

In here, In your blog, in a journal of it's own, however you see best, but I would really like to know how to best do it.

I have bubble bags but haven't really had time to figure them out.

 

[Gee64]

Also, the size of the trichomes are much smaller than Indicas. At least with the African sativas. When I run dry ice hash demos I use a screen size smaller than I would normally use, when Im shaking something I grew. Less green matter, better quality. They just seem smaller to me.
So, I just tried that Malawi.
Oops. I still have to take the kids to soccer practice. Haha.
It's pretty devastating. Taking forever to just write this nonesense.
Sheeeet

I hear you, I grew it once, smoked it once, the the worms got the rest. I was fakked. No Bueno Baby, No Bueno.

 

[Lerugged]

I'll definitely do that. It's so easy.
I'll check the screen sizes tomorrow.
I'm too high now, I just lit another one. Haha.

 

[Gee64]

Sometimes, as they say, it's all in the timing.

@Keffka , @Azimuth , @Carmen Ray , @Jon, @StoneOtter , this will be a useful demonstration for you right now, for everyone else, here is a cool demonstration of a cool thing that might help you understand a majorly confusing item of organics.

Soil Carbon vs CO2 from the air.

The CO2 used in photosynthesis comes from the air. This is about the other half of carbon, soil carbon. The conditioner. It's where the money is.

We discussed it a bit this week with Azi getting familiar with how carbon and watering are intimitely linked.

Soil uses raw carbon as a sponge to draw water from to regulate it's intake. Raw carbon, as in a wood chip, is a wet log to the plant.

When that water gets absorbed into, and drank out of that wet log, the nutrients in the log are slowly fertigated out and into the plant and what is left, the husk of the log with nothing left but pure carbon, which isn't soluable, turns into a humate and acts identically to a colloid and runs the CEC better than colloids or synthetics.

Here it is in action, and when you see it, it will make a lot of things make sense about both soil carbon and watering, which are half of what needs to happen correctly for optimal growth. A picture is worth a thousand words. Grab a coffee. It's gonna take 2 or 3 posts to explain.

So here we go.

Here is the rootball from RV1, lightly shaken out. It filled every speck of the 1 foot cubic pot.

Really shaken out.

So many arteries, why so many?

Trimmed down to the main arteries.

The tap root.

See that chunk of dark brown bark? Thats soil carbon.

And what's left of this one? Thats almost humate.

See that stick? Hold that thought for a moment, more to come in the next post on the bark and the stick.

The tap is like a corkscrew.

 

[Gee64]

So this piece of bark from my last post above.... If you pinch it between your fingers, hold it under water, and gently roll it between your fingers....

This is whats inside. So many roots each attached to a humate.

Calcium mixes with water, gets sucked thru the bark by the root and into the plant. Roots grow mini feeder roots inside the nugget that attach to the humates as they form, calcuim gets pulled past the humates in the solution and loads the humate platters. Dolomite assures magnesium too. It sets the base charge of the CEC. Now 85 of the 100 spots on the platter are charged up to move the rest of the cations in the liquid solution provided by the carbon reservoirs and CEC comes to life, other cations hop on, ph gets set in the last few spots to regulate the stickiness.

This is how carbon powers organics.

Water and electricity right next to the carbon platters.

Look at this stick. It's getting eaten now.

Another.

So my question in the above post, why does it grow so many roots. The answer is because I supplied it with carbon and myco steered the roots and biology into the wood. It grew as many roots as needed to get all the carbon chunks. Want more roots, use more carbon pieces. Too much creates a too wet environment so carbon density becomes key. More pieces of less dense carbon lowers moisture but requires more roots creating more active humates. Balance is key here. Coco is perfectly balance friendly so I use coco.

Thats how it works folks, now just add minerals and organic matter.

Pretty cool hey?

 

[Gee64]

I'll definitely do that. It's so easy.
I'll check the screen sizes tomorrow.
I'm too high now, I just lit another one. Haha.

Sweet! I'm stoked!

 

[013]

as per usual Mr. Gee, very timely info…

I’ve been cooking biochar this week and came to the realization today that different tree species should be used since there are differences in the sticky factor of the sap and density of the wood.

Take for example a poplar tree, it’s a lightweight but wet wood and the sap is not sticky, when a poplar limb is dried- it breaks very easily. Compare that to pine, which is more dense, loaded with sticky sap and doesn’t break nearly as easy. Pretty confident that (because of diffent densities and thickness of the sap) these factors will cause the resulting biochar to hold more or less water than another tree species… written poorly (while not stoned) so it may not make sense.

Anywho noticed that when cooking biochar it makes sense to cook 1 species at a time. If I mix poplar & pine then the poplar gets carbonized pretty fast but the pine takes twice as long.

Another salient point is don’t just use 1 part of the host tree. Mostly I use small branches but I cut sone trees a while back and left them at the edge of the woods, now there’s huge sheets of thick pine bark just ripe for the taking and the pine bark seems to be more lightweight & less sticky than pine limbs full of sap.

Interesting side note… pine trees were highly sought after in years gone by for naval stores… tar, pitch and turpentine are made by cooking down pine trees. The resultant goo was used to waterproof cracks or gaps in the planks on wooden ships…

Easy homemade biochar… buy a clean empty paint can from big box hardware store, pop a hole in the lid, fill it with your wood chips, replace the lid and set it on the grill. (Straight up or sideways doesn’t matter either orientation is fine) When smoke is coming out of the hole the wood is being carbonized, when there’s no more smoke being emitted from the hole- then your biochar is done cooking.

Biochar is supposed to be pre-charged by soaking it in water filled with your favorite goop… pick your poison… mycos, Neem seed meal, fish ferts, kelp meal, whatevs. Evaporation city, let it dry in the sun or run a fan over the container of biichar / goo water until all the water evaporates off.

Edit to modify….. whoops don’t use plain biochar without pre-charging it. Plain (uncharged biochar) will steal your nitrogen to compost the wood. Crap I knew this but forgot so huge thank you to Mr Azi for the correction…!!!!

 

[013]

How about a little quid pro quo? Need help on ratios for mixing a small batch of soil

Used soil with 40% rice hulls
Mushroom compost
EWC
coco coir
Biochar

The plants are in solo cups but will be upcanned to 1 gallon soon, but the intent is to do another outdoor swick in a creek this summer.

I’m hoping to use the above main ingredients without recooking if possible.. but I’ve got plenty other gear on hand if necessary… down to earth 5-4-2, srp, greensand, bone meal, blood meal, kelp meal, Neem seed meal, Leonardite, Langbenite, azomite, epsoms, rice hulls, pumice

Truly a bang up job on all the soil science stuff, details and pics so it’s really cool to see roots growing right thru the sticks…

 

[Azimuth]

The resultant goo was used to waterproof cracks or gaps in the planks on wooden ships…

And to "Tar and Feather" wayward American colonists as a form of public punishment.

You can use the biochar plain or you can pre-charge it by soaking it in water filled with your favorite goop…

Negative. Well, I suppose technically you  could but if you don't pre-charge it, it will suck out the nutrients in your soil leaving you with deficiencies in year 1 and maybe year 2. After that it starts giving back to the soil.

Always charge your char before using it in the garden.

 

[Azimuth]

The feminized seed plant I feared was male started showing some pistils (ok Keff, stigmas) today so I guess it's actually female as advertised.

I tested the soil today which I top watered yesterday to find the meter say it was dry. Surprising since I just watered yesterday and the top of the soil was still moist.

But, who am I to argue with the meter so I put 1.5" into the reservoir to see what that will do to the moisture gradient.

It was then that I noticed the button that allows me to switch between light, pH, and moisture had come off the moisture setting. Doh!

So, since I basically screwed myself I figured I'd take a brix reading a few days earlier than planned. It's up to 8ish with a bit less crisp of a calcium line so that's something.

I have to figure out a better way to get a bloody drop of sap as that was a complete and very frustrating PITA.

 

[013]

Thank you Azimuth, I went and added a note at the bottom.

Ah crap totally my bad!! I did that one time and yep the plant was sickly. She suffered until she croaked but now I always precharge my biochar

 

[Gee64]

as per usual Mr. Gee, very timely info…

I’ve been cooking biochar this week and came to the realization today that different tree species should be used since there are differences in the sticky factor of the sap and density of the wood.

Take for example a poplar tree, it’s a lightweight but wet wood and the sap is not sticky, when a poplar limb is dried- it breaks very easily. Compare that to pine, which is more dense, loaded with sticky sap and doesn’t break nearly as easy. Pretty confident that (because of diffent densities and thickness of the sap) these factors will cause the resulting biochar to hold more or less water than another tree species… written poorly (while not stoned) so it may not make sense.

Anywho noticed that when cooking biochar it makes sense to cook 1 species at a time. If I mix poplar & pine then the poplar gets carbonized pretty fast but the pine takes twice as long.

Another salient point is don’t just use 1 part of the host tree. Mostly I use small branches but I cut sone trees a while back and left them at the edge of the woods, now there’s huge sheets of thick pine bark just ripe for the taking and the pine bark seems to be more lightweight & less sticky than pine limbs full of sap.

Interesting side note… pine trees were highly sought after in years gone by for naval stores… tar, pitch and turpentine are made by cooking down pine trees. The resultant goo was used to waterproof cracks or gaps in the planks on wooden ships…

Easy homemade biochar… buy a clean empty paint can from big box hardware store, pop a hole in the lid, fill it with your wood chips, replace the lid and set it on the grill. (Straight up or sideways doesn’t matter either orientation is fine) When smoke is coming out of the hole the wood is being carbonized, when there’s no more smoke being emitted from the hole- then your biochar is done cooking.

Biochar is supposed to be pre-charged by soaking it in water filled with your favorite goop… pick your poison… mycos, Neem seed meal, fish ferts, kelp meal, whatevs. Evaporation city, let it dry in the sun or run a fan over the container of biichar / goo water until all the water evaporates off.

Edit to modify….. whoops don’t use plain biochar without pre-charging it. Plain (uncharged biochar) will steal your nitrogen to compost the wood. Crap I knew this but forgot so huge thank you to Mr Azi for the correction…!!!!

Nice post Oh One Three.

Everything about biochar sounds good yet I am hesitant to use it. For 1 reason only. It lasts forever.

Now that being said, it's pretty darned awesome stuff. As long as it's no more than 5% of your mix you are good, but if you rebuild and add a little every round and overall you get over 5% you could start to retain too much moisture.

Roots will also never grow into it like they do into wood carbon, so you never get a mile of roots stuffed into a hollow piece of bark like a ball of cotton batten, directly attached to humates.

But don't scowl yet, I'm a LOS grower. If you like to pour nutrients in, it's premixed so you don't need the same style of CEC, the mix has the charge in it and as it runs across the roots it gets in, and microbes do eat it and process it, but it becomes a hydroponic organic system, and now biochar becomes very valuable as a medium within the medium to hold moisture (feed water) in place and eaten by microbes and you have a bio-hydroponic system in your pot and the biochar replaces the humates to great success.

In LOS as long as you keep it to about 5%, and that can certainly vary depending on the density and amount of soil carbon in the mix, it will work great.

I would need a lighter-than-coco soil carbon and I love coco so I don't upset the balance with biochar.

If you have low carbon soil in the ground, biochar becomes unbelievably valuable. It will revive that soil with one application and never need to be replenished.

I love your instructions on how to make it too, thats a great post and if anyone wants to play with biochar I highly recommend it, but if you rebuild that soil you need to manage the accumulative amount used as the rebuilds add up.

I would gladly use 5% except for the fact that what do you do with that soil when your done with it? If you always throw it into your garden it will accumulate.

I know that sounds like I'm knocking it, but I'm not. Ancient civilizations used it to great success to grow food for millions.

Those beds on archeological sites still today are extremely fertile. They managed it's amount and composted the rest of their carbon, they didn't over-biochar the beds, they did a set it and forget it approach to start the new bed, then managed the soil just as we would with compost thereafter.

If you respect that biochar to soil ratio, you will see a great boost and better water retention.

Do you brix your plants? I would love to see both brix results and the calcium line results on different ratios of biochar levels in your mixes. There will be a sweet spot for sure to combine with your conventional choice of soil carbon. The balance. You just need to dial that in and then don't add any more biochar that alters it's ratio.

 

[Gee64]

The feminized seed plant I feared was male started showing some pistils (ok Keff, stigmas) today so I guess it's actually female as advertised.

I tested the soil today which I top watered yesterday to find the meter say it was dry. Surprising since I just watered yesterday and the top of the soil was still moist.

But, who am I to argue with the meter so I put 1.5" into the reservoir to see what that will do to the moisture gradient.

It was then that I noticed the button that allows me to switch between light, pH, and moisture had come off the moisture setting. Doh!

So, since I basically screwed myself I figured I'd take a brix reading a few days earlier than planned. It's up to 8ish with a bit less crisp of a calcium line so that's something.

I have to figure out a better way to get a bloody drop of sap as that was a complete and very frustrating PITA.

013 I will reply to your mix question but I need to ponder it a bit, plus I don't and never have used rice hulls, so I need to read up on them. If you can clue me in as to why/how you use/fit them into the balance in your mix that would really help me out.

Azi you kill me!!. Only use the moisture meter part, the ph part sucks.

You could use it to see if it it has changed, but don't trust the reading it gives you, and if it does change it may be the meter not being consistent, not an actual soil change. I buy the ones that only measure water, sorry I should have mentioned that. Soon you will have 2 or 3 or 12, so you can buy the water only waterstiks moving forward

From brix 5 to 8, a 60% increase just by changing watering habits for a week. If you get another 60% this next week that gets you to 12.8. You would be golden.

Brix snowballs, the rich get richer above 12 until maximum photosynthesis is reached. You will be sequestering carbon, closing the loop. A perpetual machine

If it stalls about 10-12 then we assess, and move on, the calcium line will go fuzzy or we will add more, then move on to microbes if needed, then minerals and P being the big one.

I think proper watering, calcium, and a microbe tea will do it, your mixes probably have great mineral content already.

It may actually just need better watering practices and some dolomite water and you may become very high brix.

No matter how, you are moving ahead and will get to high brix soon.

Then you reverse engineer it into a sip and away you go.

I have my self-adressed stamped envelope ready

 

[Gee64]

TMSC - Day 51 of Flower.

Mutey is starting to finish.

Those main stalks are about as big around as your wrist. It's a shaft of buds. It's hard to see or photograph but if you zoom in and look hard, all of a sudden you will see what I mean. It's a freakin huge cola hidden by so many leaves.

Ikky is finishing hard and fast. 12 days left by the calendar, so this is about right. She started stinking up the joint bigtime today. Sweet earth and sweet lemons, but not candy sweet, just sweetish. Really nice.

She's a beauty

She's fattening.

I pulled a cola over to show the flowers better.

 

[Gee64]

RVDV clones - Day 4 of Flower.

#3.

#1.

Day 56 of 60.

 

[Gee64]

I didn't get to topdressing today. Tomorrow it is. Sorry Ladies, life has been really busy this week.