The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[Azimuth]

Watch the brix. If the hack is better brix goes up.

Brix is not something I know much about. One needs a special instrument to know anything about brix levels, right?

Does that make sense, it was hard to put it to words.

It does when you say it, though I'm not confident I could repeat it in my own words. I'm way behind in specific knowledge like you're sharing here.

Carbon is the big input I worry about. Plant pots break the carbon cycle.

A dead tree gets eaten by a microbe that breathes 02. The microbe combines the carbon from the dead tree with the O2 it breaths and exhales CO2. The tree breathes that co2 in and stores the carbon and releases the 02 to atmosphere for the microbe to use again.

When the tree dies that carbon falls to the ground for microbes to eat and complete the cycle and it all goes round and round.

In pots the tree never lands back in the pot when it dies so you need to supply more carbon to the soil. I like coco for this.

I usually topdress with a nice thick layer of leaf mold which I imagine would be better than the coco what with all of the trace minerals it contains. That would supply the carbon as well as some nutrients.

I also add biochar to my mix, though I imagine that doesn't count toward what you describe as that carbon is supposed to last thousands of years in the soil (at least from studies done on Amazon Basin soil from long ago civilizations) so the microbes don't seem to be breaking that down in any appreciable manner.

Most small pot grows run out of carbon 1st but molasses is a good carbon rescue.

I'm not sure how molasses can be a good carbon rescue given the minute amounts used at any given time. Maybe as a food source for the microbes it results in a population explosion and die off and it's actually the newly dead microbes that add the carbon?

 

[Gee64]

Brix is not something I know much about. One needs a special instrument to know anything about brix levels, right?


It does when you say it, though I'm not confident I could repeat it in my own words. I'm way behind in specific knowledge like you're sharing here.


I usually topdress with a nice thick layer of leaf mold which I imagine would be better than the coco what with all of the trace minerals it contains. That would supply the carbon as well as some nutrients.

I also add biochar to my mix, though I imagine that doesn't count toward what you describe as that carbon is supposed to last thousands of years in the soil (at least from studies done on Amazon Basin soil from long ago civilizations) so the microbes don't seem to be breaking that down in any appreciable manner.


I'm not sure how molasses can be a good carbon rescue given the minute amounts used at any given time. Maybe as a food source for the microbes it results in a population explosion and die off and it's actually the newly dead microbes that add the carbon?

Azi always asks the tough ones lolol

To read brix you need a refractometer. They are fairly cheap and very simple to use.

They show you the sugar levels of the plant, which is an indicator of overall plant health plus they show you in general how your calcium sits, although they don't actually measure calcium, just indicate high or low. High brix is high health.

Once brix is over 12 or 13 then the sugars in the plant are too high for pests. Plant eating pests don't have pancreas's so the sugar inside them turns to alcohol as it ferments and kills them. They know this and stay away.

Your leaf mold is an excellent carbon. I'm not sure about biochar, I've never used it.

Molasses is sugar. Sugar is a very strong form of carbon in a bioavailable form. Plants create it thru photosynthesis, use it to power cells, and send extras out the root as an exudate, for microbes and fungii eat it.

They then breath out co2 which the plant breaths in. When the plant is young it doesn't have enough sugars to share so the microbes eat only the carbon in the soil.

I use coco because they love it and it gets consumed quickly which is important in a 5 month life cycle such as a weed plant.

If the soil runs low of carbon so the microbes run low on carbon, then they breath less co2 out so the plant runs low and the sugar flow slows or stops.

The plants brix levels drop and pests move in.

Nature has decided the plant is weak and must be culled. Pests are the culling crew.

Plant exudates are a treat, not a survival tool for the microbes and mainly go to phosphorus collection, (fungii bribes certain microbes with it to fill specific needs at specific times) which is a main player in raising brix. The rich get richer.

Once the soil runs out of carbon the system crashes as there isn't enough co2 being produced for the plant to feed the system with exudates alone, so adding mollases to the soil supplies fuel to the microbes for co2 production to continue.

The problem with molasses is the microbes can harvest it directly, not having to chew thru nutes to find the carbon, so once the microbes get a steady supply of molasses for co2, nute production slows.

If you rely on molasses to finish, your weed is lesser than if the soil had the carbon in it. Molasses is for the microbes not the plant.

The biggest mistake (maybe not the best word here) organic growers make is failing to realize that everything they put in the soil isn't directly for the plant.

The microbes and fungii need tending to or they go dormant, and the soil itself needs structure, often refered to as "soil conditioning" such as how calcium helps tilth by opening hallways for air, water, nutes, microbes, etc.

Also proper calcium makes the static electricity levels proper, so when a plant pulls say a magnesium molecule off the colloidal serving tray it doesn't have to tug to get it as there is another charged molecule not yet on the tray waiting to hop on.

Its electrical field makes it so the colloid can actually toss the magnesium to the plant as it sucks the new one on, all thru electromagnetism.

Its called flow.

When food is abundant and processed from a microbe its pushing to try to get on the platter so things being taken from the platter hop off really easy.

Your additives also effect this process.

None of all that works very well with poorly conditioned soil. It all works extremely well with well conditioned soil.

Nature takes care of the tricky stuff, you just need the basic parts in a pot with some water and microbes and fungii. And light to drive the whole thing. Its solar powered.

In the human gut biome that carbon that our gut micromes eat is supposed to comes from fibre.

In perfect compost on a molecular scale carbon (browns) outnumber proteins (greens,nitrogens) 30:1, so you can see carbons importance.

Fungii needs about 20:1 carbon to nitrogen just to stay healthy, not nescessarily thriving.

Carbon is carbs, and nitrogen is proteins. If you think of it as carbs and proteins a balanced diet is easier to understand.

Humans require 2/3 carb and 1/3 protein. So do plants

Carbs are dense, proteins aren't so a 2:1 ratio on your plate translates into a 30:1 at the molecular level. Or in the ballpark. All you need for perfect weed is to be in the ballpark.

Now you need nutrients, so make sure that by eating 2:1 carbs to proteins that the carbs and proteins contain all the nutrients.

Nitrogen in the soil will find carbon in the soil causing hot composting so you must cook the soil 1st before roots touch it.

If you balance your diet and still don't lose weight your calcium is low so mag has locked your proteins( nitrogen lockout) and now carbs can't burn.

Your brix are low and the culling crew is coming for you. McDonalds has no fibre.

Processed means " we took the fibre out, now microbes don't want it so it has a longer shelf life, as no one wants to eat it except you"

When they GMO a seed to make it "pest resistant" they have made it so the pests don't want the plants fibre so they stay away, but then we eat it and our biome doesn't want it either.

When the crop stubble gets tilled in it won't decompose, as the microbes don't like it, so the field gets carbon deficient really quickly. Then they sell you carbon too.

Understand the carbon and nitrogen cycles, and calciums value in the soil and you now have carbon,nitrogen,O2, and H2O covered.

All thats left is nutrients, so make your carbs and proteins supply them.

The microbes and fungii will take it from there.

 

[Gee64]

The short answer: If you take mollases (carbon) and combine it with oxygen, and run it thru a microbe, the microbe exhales carbon dioxide, which is where the plant gets its carbon from.

Billions of microbes all exhaling CO2, which is 1.5 times heavier than air, so it sits low at plant level, allows adequate carbon sequestration by the plant.

 

[Gee64]

I don't mean what I am about to say to be mean, judgemental, or condescending, just a fact...

Until you understand the nitrogen and carbon cycles, organics will drive you nuts. Tail chasing.

Once you understand them both, and they are really basic, you will say "Really??!! WTF??!! Thats it??! No way!! So let me get this straight.. Chuck a bunch of carbon, minerals, and organic matter into a pot, add water and light, and then regulate it with calcium and thats it? Free carbon and nitrogen?? get the fuck outta here!

Just remember the golden rule... It ain't worth $hit til it goes thru a microbe or fungii.

Carbon is so important that organics in chemistry means anything attached to a carbon molecule.

 

[Azimuth]

The short answer: If to take molasses (carbon) and combine it with oxygen, and run it thru a microbe, the microbe exhales carbon dioxide, which is where the plant gets its carbon from.

Billions of microbes all exhaling CO2, which is 1.5 times heavier than air, so it sits low at plant level, allows adequate carbon sequestration by the plant.

Ok, sure. But for a carbon source you're putting in what, 1 tablespoon of molasses per 5  gallons of water? That's not much carbon especially if you want a 30:1 ratio.

I can see where a good top dressing of coco or leaf mold would supply lots of carbon, but 1 tablespoon of sugar? Although I can see where feeding the microbes make their population temporarily explode and then collapse littering the battlefield with more carbon that way. Maybe?

And, where did you learn all this stuff, the "Teaming" books?

 

[Gee64]

Ok, sure. But for a carbon source you're putting in what, 1 tablespoon of molasses per 5  gallons of water? That's not much carbon especially if you want a 30:1 ratio.

I can see where a good top dressing of coco or leaf mold would supply lots of carbon, but 1 tablespoon of sugar? Although I can see where feeding the microbes make their population temporarily explode and then collapse littering the battlefield with more carbon that way. Maybe?

And, where did you learn all this stuff, the "Teaming" books?

The carbon in a mollasses tea only supplies the microbes for a day or 2, then its gone. You need to keep adding it.

I have read a lot of books, and the "teaming" ones are excellent, but you need to try it all, at least I do for how I learn, to see the effects of what is being read.

Theres no book to get it all from. It would be a billion pages thick.

Mostly I look at nature, mimic it, the apply my knowledge to backward engineer natures results in my mind, to find the how/why.

Weed shows problems really quickly as it is so voracious, but get it correct and it pulls so much nutrition from the soil its mind boggling.

I grow it mainly to learn and to use it as compost to grow high brix food.

I read about calcium, had a nitro def, and tried it. It worked.

I mixed soil with no added carbon source. I needed molasses.

My lawn had dandelions and hardpan. I added gypsum and the calcium content corrected it.

My father and his lineage are all farmers.

My cousin is a tenured Associate Professor in plant biology and runs the entire dept of a very reputable university.

It was alot of osmosis for me as a child, growing up in old growth forests with a food forest in my childhood yard, which is still there today, powered solely by the compost it creates.

Nature has been perfecting this for a billion years, we need to obseve her not manipulate her.

In pots you sever natures link so you have to mimic her. In the ground it just happens. Correct the calcium and add compost. Done.

You only add compost because we consume the fruits which are the best compost so it must be replaced.

Google "contents of a plants dry matter". Those are your major players. Minerals are way down the list.

Carbon and oxygen are 90% of dry matter in a plant. Probably important.

Hydrogen is 4% more.

C6H12O6, is 6 carbons, 12 hydrogens, and 6 oxygens, its also the chemical name for sugar.

94% of the needed inputs are for sugar.

Hydrogen is always the limitor, as in PH, potential hydrogen.

It all goes through a microbe to be temporarily stored in the soil until it gets eaten by a plant, which will eventually die and return to the microbes, and all the excess gets stored in the atmosphere.

In organics you need healthy microbes/fungii to get a healthy plant, and they eat the same things for the most part. So do we. Coincidence? Maybe we really ARE what we eat.

Co2 is heavy so it sits low for the plants to grab it.

Go watch the vid I posted again, maybe even a couple times. He has the synergy down really well. Take notes to condense it. A pattern emerges. The pattern is Natures Way.

Natures way is to allow maximum genetic potential. I want that in my food so I tinker in my weed lab.

Synthetics will do all this very well but they won't raise brix. Thats why synthetic guys deal with bugs. Bugs bug me. I want brix. I definitely don't want to smoke or eat bug spray.

So I give the soil everything that the microbes and fungii want, and the plants need.

Then I let the plant grow without any more help from me other than some fish ferts and water.

Fish ferts are nitrogen, low dose, but really they are amino acids for synthesis.

Fungii, when trapped in a pot, needs the help.

The real problem is being trapped in a pot severed from nature. Outdoors, fungii will move nutrients hundreds of feet to the plants. Its hard to get deficient outdoors.

 

[Azimuth]

Ok, OK, OK. I'll get a brix refractometer.

Anything in particular I need to look for? I see lots of different options and price points available.

And also, I assume I will need to squeeze out some liquid from a leaf for the instrument to read things properly, so what's your method for that?

 

[Gee64]

Ok, OK, OK. I'll get a brix refractometer.

Anything in particular I need to look for? I see lots of different options and price points available.

You know I'm not sure of brands. I bought this one so long ago and I still use it.

Azi you who tinkers would benefit from one. For produce soil its essential, why grow low nutrition food? Weed reacts quick in a pot so you can science stuff fast and one of these can show you results. More brix means better fruit and flower.

Plants are smart too. If a nasty storm is coming their brix will drop quickly. All their sugars drop to the roots in case they get sheared off.

 

[Azimuth]

And how do you squeeze out a liquid sample from a leaf? I'm thinking a C-clamp and a couple of stainless steel washers, unless you have a better way...

 

[Gidorah]

Azi always asks the tough ones lolol

To read brix you need a refractometer. They are fairly cheap and very simple to use.

They show you the sugar levels of the plant, which is an indicator of overall plant health plus they show you in general how your calcium sits, although they don't actually measure calcium, just indicate high or low. High brix is high health.

Once brix is over 12 or 13 then the sugars in the plant are too high for pests. Plant eating pests don't have pancreas's so the sugar inside them turns to alcohol as it ferments and kills them. They know this and stay away.

Your leaf mold is an excellent carbon. I'm not sure about biochar, I've never used it.

Molasses is sugar. Sugar is a very strong form of carbon in a bioavailable form. Plants create it thru photosynthesis, use it to power cells, and send extras out the root as an exudate, for microbes and fungii eat it.

They then breath out co2 which the plant breaths in. When the plant is young it doesn't have enough sugars to share so the microbes eat only the carbon in the soil.

I use coco because they love it and it gets consumed quickly which is important in a 5 month life cycle such as a weed plant.

If the soil runs low of carbon so the microbes run low on carbon, then they breath less co2 out so the plant runs low and the sugar flow slows or stops.

The plants brix levels drop and pests move in.

Nature has decided the plant is weak and must be culled. Pests are the culling crew.

Plant exudates are a treat, not a survival tool for the microbes and mainly go to phosphorus collection, (fungii bribes certain microbes with it to fill specific needs at specific times) which is a main player in raising brix. The rich get richer.

Once the soil runs out of carbon the system crashes as there isn't enough co2 being produced for the plant to feed the system with exudates alone, so adding mollases to the soil supplies fuel to the microbes for co2 production to continue.

The problem with molasses is the microbes can harvest it directly, not having to chew thru nutes to find the carbon, so once the microbes get a steady supply of molasses for co2, nute production slows.

If you rely on molasses to finish, your weed is lesser than if the soil had the carbon in it. Molasses is for the microbes not the plant.

The biggest mistake (maybe not the best word here) organic growers make is failing to realize that everything they put in the soil isn't directly for the plant.

The microbes and fungii need tending to or they go dormant, and the soil itself needs structure, often refered to as "soil conditioning" such as how calcium helps tilth by opening hallways for air, water, nutes, microbes, etc.

Also proper calcium makes the static electricity levels proper, so when a plant pulls say a magnesium molecule off the colloidal serving tray it doesn't have to tug to get it as there is another charged molecule not yet on the tray waiting to hop on.

Its electrical field makes it so the colloid can actually toss the magnesium to the plant as it sucks the new one on, all thru electromagnetism.

Its called flow.

When food is abundant and processed from a microbe its pushing to try to get on the platter so things being taken from the platter hop off really easy.

Your additives also effect this process.

None of all that works very well with poorly conditioned soil. It all works extremely well with well conditioned soil.

Nature takes care of the tricky stuff, you just need the basic parts in a pot with some water and microbes and fungii. And light to drive the whole thing. Its solar powered.

In the human gut biome that carbon that our gut micromes eat is supposed to comes from fibre.

In perfect compost on a molecular scale carbon (browns) outnumber proteins (greens,nitrogens) 30:1, so you can see carbons importance.

Fungii needs about 20:1 carbon to nitrogen just to stay healthy, not nescessarily thriving.

Carbon is carbs, and nitrogen is proteins. If you think of it as carbs and proteins a balanced diet is easier to understand.

Humans require 2/3 carb and 1/3 protein. So do plants

Carbs are dense, proteins aren't so a 2:1 ratio on your plate translates into a 30:1 at the molecular level. Or in the ballpark. All you need for perfect weed is to be in the ballpark.

Now you need nutrients, so make sure that by eating 2:1 carbs to proteins that the carbs and proteins contain all the nutrients.

Nitrogen in the soil will find carbon in the soil causing hot composting so you must cook the soil 1st before roots touch it.

If you balance your diet and still don't lose weight your calcium is low so mag has locked your proteins( nitrogen lockout) and now carbs can't burn.

Your brix are low and the culling crew is coming for you. McDonalds has no fibre.

Processed means " we took the fibre out, now microbes don't want it so it has a longer shelf life, as no one wants to eat it except you"

When they GMO a seed to make it "pest resistant" they have made it so the pests don't want the plants fibre so they stay away, but then we eat it and our biome doesn't want it either.

When the crop stubble gets tilled in it won't decompose, as the microbes don't like it, so the field gets carbon deficient really quickly. Then they sell you carbon too.

Understand the carbon and nitrogen cycles, and calciums value in the soil and you now have carbon,nitrogen,O2, and H2O covered.

All thats left is nutrients, so make your carbs and proteins supply them.

The microbes and fungii will take it from there.

Wow, such a knowledge drop! Thank you. The more you say it in different ways, it's starting to click. Especially like the mimic nature, don't fight it. Appreciate the info and thoughts.

 

[Gee64]

And how do you squeeze out a liquid sample from a leaf? I'm thinking a C-clamp and a couple of stainless steel washers, unless you have a better way...

I sometimes take 2 teaspoons and crush a balled up leaf, sometimes i fold it up and use pliers, sometimes i milk the leaf stalk to squeeze a big drip out. All you need is a small drop. Half the size of a black hash hotknife hit is plenty.

This is what you see. The line represents the level. If the line is crisp your calcium is lower than optimal. If the line is fuzzy its optimal.

Every veggie has a brix level that it needs to be above to be "healthy" and weeds is 12-13.

Thats "healthy" by natures standards, and is allowed to perpetuate its seeds.

 

[Gidorah]

Hey Gee, just watched the healthy soil video, loved every second of it. Planning on doing an outdoor grow this spring/summer, live in Southern California in a Mediterranean climate with clay soil. So much clay that i think I could throw a few pots if I had a potters wheel. Plan was to grow in huge pots outdoors because of this. Do you have any thoughts on a long term plan to make clay soil a healthier soil? I was thinking of removing about a foot of clay and backfilling with all the organic matter I produce and letting it turn into a healthier soil over time. Any thoughts?

 

[Gee64]

Hey Gee, just watched the healthy soil video, loved every second of it. Planning on doing an outdoor grow this spring/summer, live in Southern California in a Mediterranean climate with clay soil. So much clay that i think I could throw a few pots if I had a potters wheel. Plan was to grow in huge pots outdoors because of this. Do you have any thoughts on a long term plan to make clay soil a healthier soil? I was thinking of removing about a foot of clay and backfilling with all the organic matter I produce and letting it turn into a healthier soil over time. Any thoughts?

Well you certainly have the climate. I would start a test patch immediately. Work in a good calcium source like ground oyster shells and a fair bit of dolomite. Clays have excellent colloidal value but too much requires too much electricity to run it all so it needs to be cut down.

Calcium is in now so add a bunch of carbon like too many leaves, or coco for a quick test and then chuck in some compost for organic matter to activate it, water it for a month, then plant something in it.

If that clay soil is really mucky and clumpy in the rain then magnesium is high and the calcium will help with that too.

It could be really good clay tho so I would play with it.

Calcium, carbon, organic matter, water.

 

[Gee64]

Still waiting for sex to show and again the capillary action seems to have stopped. I put pure RO water in, and if it doesn't restart I will reprime it yet again, and then swap in RO water immediately.

So I uppotted a tomato today into a @VIVOSUN cube cloth pot. The worm looks happy.

I was expecting better roots. My swick keeps it too wet. Dang plastic cups. More holes I guess. Smaller wick too perhaps.

The cube pots are awesome tho, 6 or 7 gal, I cant remember but they fit milk crates and have velcro tabs in all corners to secure 4 bamboo's straight up in each corner.

They have 16 wicks each into 9 litre pails below.

Full bore weed soil in the pots so lets see Hopefully theres 40 tomatoes in there...

It lives in the corner now. Its a Beefsteak. The Roma resides in the opposite diagonal corner. Same kind of cube.

 

[Azimuth]

Half the size of a black hash hotknife hit is plenty.

As if I have  any idea what that is.

I'm going to order a meter this week. I've seen some tables for various edibles so I'll plan to test my veggies this summer as well.

How often do you test, or maybe a better question, how much does the brix move around? Is it a weekly thing, more often, less?

 

[Azimuth]

Still waiting for sex to show and again the capillary action seems to have stopped.

Curious on that stoppage. Why do you think? What type of wicks are you using?

 

[Azimuth]

I remember seeing a High Brix thread at one point so I'll go hunt that down and see what can learn...

 

[Azimuth]

So, it turns out that I have a TDS meter which shows results in ppm's. Any thoughts on what I should be targeting when I feed my various extracts?

 

[Stunger]

I'm going to order a meter this week. I've seen some tables for various edibles so I'll plan to test my veggies this summer as well.

I got a second hand refractometer online a couple of year ago for I think $7, some of the new ones can have a big price on them. Make sure you get a Brix one, as there are different refractometers for lots of things.

 

[Gee64]

As if I have  any idea what that is.

I'm going to order a meter this week. I've seen some tables for various edibles so I'll plan to test my veggies this summer as well.

How often do you test, or maybe a better question, how much does the brix move around? Is it a weekly thing, more often, less?

In veg high brix is scarce. In flower when phosphorus really starts to flow brix climbs. Plants are more vulnerable when young. Freshly rooted clones are extremely vulnerable.

I test often but mostly before and after a big change such as a tea or a myco drench.

When they are praying strong brix are usually climbing.

The more seasons of use on your minerals, going round and round plant to compost and back, frees more phosphorus and soil health climbs.

Increase Calcium, phosphorus, carbon, oxygen and microbes/fungii and brix increases. Its a slow ramp up.