Plants in my 1st soil recipe are still alive after 5 days.

So you are just on the high end a little of the PH scale, what are your plans to adjust that? I just did a slurry test on my soil (waiting for it to settle now) but I have not added my fresh EWC to it yet since my mix is in a large tote outside and I only have enough castings for my grow tub, that is currently being used so I really need to get another tube the actual size I grow in so I can start composting those EWC to know for sure what my final PH will be. I will post a pic later of my slurry test.

GrnMonStr said:

So you are just on the high end a little of the PH scale, what are your plans to adjust that? I just did a slurry test on my soil (waiting for it to settle now) but I have not added my fresh EWC to it yet since my mix is in a large tote outside and I only have enough castings for my grow tub, that is currently being used so I really need to get another tube the actual size I grow in so I can start composting those EWC to know for sure what my final PH will be. I will post a pic later of my slurry test.

Click to expand...

Those slurry tests taken were from plants with 2 weeks left till harvest. I won't be trying to adjust PH of the soil or water the rest of this grow, just planning to finish the last two weeks with occasional waterings of ro with about 40 ppms of cal mag+. I haven't PH'ed my ro water this grow.

My soil has been cooking for about 10 days. Both times when I put my mix in a barrel I needed to empty the barrel to let the soil air out on a tarp for a few days because each time it was a little to wet.

3 gallon pot of my soil dry weight would be about 10.5-11.0.
Last time it cooked, 13.6 lbs was the weight of a 3 gallon pot.
Just now a 3 gallon pot of my cooking soil weighed 13.2 lbs
In my garage temp 81 and humidity 50%.
Inside the soil mix undisturbed the temp was 82 and humidity was 92%.
I stirred the mix and thought the humidity was going to go up after stirring but it actually went down to 91%. Usually it went up after being stirred. I think if I leave it alone for a few days the humidity will rise. Last mix spent a lot of time at 99% humidity.
Last time the smell and the heat seemed to settle down at just about 6 weeks.

GrnMonStr has me thinking about my soil PH now.
Wish I had tested the ph of my 2nd batch of used ffof before adding the amendments. I tested it just now and it is already in the PH 7 range. I already came up with some experiments to play with the two soils, mixing some ffof with a ph closer to 6 with some of my soil that has a ph closer to 7 to see what happens next grow.

I have a plant in my 1st mix that has always been healthy but had what looked like nute burn on the edges of the fan leaves early on. It always stood out. The burn is on the tip and sides of the fan leaves.
Could be lots of things I suppose including my soil PH.
At about 9 weeks of flowering it has the most solid bud formation of all my plant. It does lack the large crystals I'm hoping for next grow but aside from that it is quite nice looking, especially when you consider all the struggles these plants have been put through, with that in mind she is extremely nice.

The buzz from the two small plants grown in the 10" clay pots sucked, very much resembled the quality of the last grow when I overwatered. Those plants suffered in those clay pots, having the early calcium deficiencies. The smoke is not something I would be inclined to share or brag about.
There is good news though. I harvested another plant 2 days ago, it was a small plant in 3 gallon's of ffof. I just put a couple of small buds in the toasted oven at 160 for 45 minutes, tried it and I am really stoned.

2 pictures below are of the plant with the nute burned leaves at 9 weeks taken yesterday, note the leaf closest to the soil, it is the original single blade leaf. This plant has not been harvested yet.
I have 3 plants that still have that single blade set of leaves, my goal next grow will be to remove some branches but keep all fan leaves alive. I have had plenty of grows were I'd be removing tons of dead leaves in the past, I'm going for green to the end next grow.

I think I should start a stop watch when I go to trim this plant.

I have one plant in a 12" clay pot in my soil. Heavy compared to the plastic pots. It was one of the four plants I found that had hermies likely from the transplant at 1 week into flowering. This is also one of four plants that suffered from a likely Nitrogen deficiency. I gave two plants including this one a boost from the GH trio that brought back the color fast for awhile but it is slowly faded again. The other two in 3 gallon pots received one top dressing of blood meal about 2 level tbls and those have been fine with no other treatments.
The plant below has horrible airy buds that will be used in bubble hash. A number of plants will likely be bubble hash.
I noticed this one has late flowering hermies today and brought it out then found a nasty male flower right were you would expect it to be.
Shit! I was lifting this plant in front of a fan to weigh it and man I got burned with seeds on some plants. Yet luckily some plants like the nice one shown above have little or no seeds.
Took pics, the 1st is of the early flowering hermie I missed, it was hidden by other crap that I cut away for the picture but I should have found it before. The second is of the late flowering stamen that is circled. I'm not aware of any of the plants not harvested yet having banannas but will be looking closely.

I needed to add water to my newest soil mix, I let it dry out a bit to much. Added about a half gallon of water 3 days ago, just added another half gallon to a 30 gallon batch of soil today.

Those who can easily injure there back like me, I'd like to say a 30 gallon batch can be made with no injury or sore muscles. I think each time I do it, it will become easier.
Used a 33 gallon plastic barrel and the stuff pictured below.
Amendments are going to take space, in my 2nd mix they accounted for 12 gallons. With soil added I ended up with 36 gallons of amended soil, I put the rest in an empty ffof bag.

Remember to wear goggles or some type of eye protection and a resperator as show below. At least wear a mask. You will regret not covering your eyes, I did when I forgot. Gloves were also used.

Here is what I did.
With soil and amendments added and a little bit of moisture in the soil so it doesn't create dust moving it around, mix it with a rake and shovel. Avoid scraping the tarp. To mix the lower section of the soil in, the part you can't reach with out slicing the tarp, you will need a big tarp area to make it easy. Move the upper soil away from a good size section of soil on the tarp. Leave it 2 or 3 inches high. Now lift the tarp and let the soil roll toward the pile, then flip the soil on top of the big pile of soil, a foot comes in handy when doing the flip. Next mix it in with the rake then repeat around the tarp. When ready to put it in the barrel create a high pile with the rake and shovel it into the barrel. Adjust pile when it gets low to avoid scraping the tarp with the shovel. The last bit of soil can easily be dropped into the barrel. Tarp can be reused many times if you avoid ripping it.

I found a link to cornell edu that explains cottonseed meal:

Cottonseed meal is a rich source of nitrogen (7%). Unfortunately, a substantial percentage of the insecticides used in the U.S. are applied to cotton, and some of these tend to leave residues in the seeds. Most organic certification programs restrict or prohibit the use of cottonseed meal.

Here is that link and two others that I like regarding amendments.

http://blogs.cornell.edu/organicdairyinitiative/files/2014/04/Alternative-Soil-Amendments-14lq9e4.pdf

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/lane/sites/default/files/documents/lc437organicfertilizersvaluesrev.pdf

https://extension.umd.edu//sites/extension.umd.edu/files/_images/programs/hgic/Publications/HG42_Soil_Amendments_and_Fertilizers.pdf

Haven't updated hear since harvest. The harvested plants make a nice smoke and have a very nice buzz but do not have much of the flavor or smell that they should have. Tricomes are incredibly small. Visualy not appealling, very airy buds. This grow reminded me why I don't grow in the summer. Maybe if I had a developed root system they would have done OK. I will start a journal with my new grow and add a link here.
The new grow is off to a much better start. Same seeds as the grow just harvested, the seeds came from the same branch as the plants from the last grow, probably from the same bud. They are 21 days from being seedlings and already have trunks equal in thickness to the last plants at harvest. They were put into the 3 gallon pots in a no-till fashion, I figured the small root system might make it work out and play to my advantage versus a 3 gallon pot that was heavily filled with roots. No-till is usually done in much larger containers.
I had fan leaves with 7 blade leaves last grow. These seeds are capable of growing 14 blade leaves. This grow the plant shown has 11 or 12 blades. This pic taken yesterday only shows 11 blades. There is a blade shooting forward that will be visible for pictures in a few days. This never happened this fast before. I have only watered it once with 6 cups of RO 11 days ago and misted the plant twice since transplanting. It weighs 15.2 Lbs. It was always the heaviest at transplant about 21 lbs. Some have already been watered this one might wait a few more days.
For the no-till I cut out the center and added a 50-50 mix of perlite and castings. Then since the pots had about 2 inches available space from the lip, I added an inch of my newly made 2nd batch of soil that was cooking for more than 6 weeks and watered it heavily with a fair amount of runoff.Each plant being watered the second time is getting 6 cups with about 50 ppms of GO Cal/mag+ about 8 drops into 6 cups of RO.

These are at 6 weeks from seedling in the no-till 3 gallon pots. Trunks are developing nicely this time, it was not a fun summer grow, off to a much better start this time. These were topped once. I am going to flip tomorrow.
I have one unique leaf expression.
I pruned the 1st set of branches, looking at the last pic below I'm going to go prune some of the 2nd set of branches. I will take the branch and leave the fan leaves.
Sorry for the MH lighting.

All plants were treated differently but this is a rough idea of what I did so far from seedling to week 6.
After taking 8 to 11 days to dry out the 1st watering was about 4 cups of RO.
2nd watering 6 cups added 1/4 tsp/gal cal/mag+. Day after 2nd watering they each got a small layer of diametric earth and most went 8 days without being watered again.
3rd watering all but one plant received about 3/4 cup of castings/perlite and 3 tbl of DTE Bio Live and were watered with about a 1/4 tsp epsom salt per gallon. Two plants recieved a foliar spray with epsom. One of the two plants receiving the foliar had a minor Mg def in one single blade leaf.
Hopefully the plants look good in the pics above, some were just waterboarded, flushed, leached whatever IDK
The new ffof was used then amended with my 1st soil mix and used a 2nd time, then I started the no-till without leaching the soil of any buildup. No synthetics were used at any time in these soils since new unless maybe I forgot using it somewhere, I might have but sparingly if I did.
The slight runoff I was getting was quite dark.
I ran about 9 gallons of RO through all but one plant. I started with one plant last week on up to the last plant yesterday. Wish I finished them with a tea. I think overall they liked it. After they dry out from the leaching each is getting 3/4 cup of 60/40 castings/perlite and 2 tbl blood meal mixed into the top soil. Each will get about 6 cups of ro with 1/4 tsp cal/mag+ per gal.
#7 was always weak in color, I wasn't sure if the soil was deficient or if the plant just had weak color. That one I gave DTE Bio Fish instead of bio live and it now has good color. Bio live may have done the same but it reacted well to the Bio fish.
Any missing waterings from the list above were basically staggered RO only watering then a 1/4 tsp Cal/mag+ then RO...

Man, this was a WOW moment when I saw the roots from a drain hole. Coincidentally it is the same plant trunk pictured above that this relates too.

If you read through the thread you would know this grow was all about the roots. I was not seeing any roots in the drain holes this grow. Likely because of the way I am watering. I was not concerned not seeing roots, the trunks told me everything was going well down there, at least that is what I am hoping, won't know until I pull some pots after harvest.
I recently was seeing some roots showing up at the drain holes. I have never had a grow where it took so long for roots to show up at the drain holes. I always liked it in the past if they showed up quickly. I was usually watering more often in the past when this would happen, roots also showed up quickly in the drain holes when I was overwatering.

Anyway, the two roots coming out that I just saw are much bigger than I can recall seeing in the past. Hope to be seeing some good crystal this grow. If it isn't I'm totally switching to new genetics.

Thank You to all RIU members that have upped my game tremendously in the past year.

Hope these shares are beneficial to others as I have been helped.

Happy Growing!

10 days from flip to 11.5/12.5.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Hope saying that doesn't start a fight or debate here.
Happy Growing Everyone Everyday!

Tomorrow will be 21 days from flip.
Plants are doing well.
I'm guessing a few are still low on N. The ones that appear to have a light green shade have been given additional blood meal and 60/40 castings perlite.
Most of the 6 topped plants started showing a magnesium deficiency.
At least two of the large topped plants began showing signs of calcium deficiency.
I have increased the cal/mag+ to one tsp per gallon each watering. I have also been adding about a half tsp of epsom salt per gallon each watering. Lower fan leaves have been given an Epsom foliar most days lately.
Most have the majority of their fan leaves. One plant used the fan leaves and they are gone on the bottom of the plant.
Here are some pics at 20 days from flip.
Happy Growing!

4 weeks 1 day since flip.
Total flowering time will be 11 to 13 weeks.

Most have a calcium deficiency. I have increased the cal/mag+ to 1 1/2 tsp per gallon. Backed off the epsom salt recently. Magnesium deficiencies seem under control. Still struggling with Nitrogen deficiency in a few. Gave those liquid fish fertilizer recently.

I brought out the tallest plant (48") for pictures away from the lights. It has the most noticeable calcium deficieny.
1st 2 pictures are of the 48" plant # 3.

Other pictures are near the hps lights with a flash to counter the lights. Wanted to capture some crystal pictures. They are developing much better than the summer grow.
Happy Growing!

I have decided to change the water I am using from RO to a mix of my hard 500ppm tap water and RO to create water that has a ppm range of 150 to 200 ppms.
I'm not sure but for some time I felt like my calcium problems in flowering were from over watering. Now I'm not to sure. My calcium problems started after I switched to RO several grows back and I'm getting the feeling from a few members that I might be better off this way. I'm already wanting to veg some fresh plants to see how they react.
Overall plants are doing well. Would be curious if they would have been in better shape had I started them with the water mix of tap and RO. Hope to find out next grow.
Happy Growing!

Next grow I will do a few plants with RO and a few with the RO / Tap mix.
I am trying different feedings with different plants. Some of the younger plants were given a top dressing ff marine cuisine 10-7-7, some were given ff Happy Frog 6-4-4. Each were also given a 60/40 mix of castings/perlite.

Feeling somewhat lost as to what to do next, just going to water with the RO / tap at 150-200 ppm range and maybe add a small amount of cal/ mag+ and see how things continue to go.

I had an opportunity to take some pictures with the lights out this morning.

Some are topped some are not.
The canopy is not even and some are lanky and tall but crystal is looking good.
Stretch has just about come to the end. The tallest is 52". It is one of the small plants that was not topped and was less that 18" when flipped.
That is normal for these plants and my style of growing.
I usually do not top and will flip at 18" and they will stretch to about 54" to 66" during about a 4 1/2 - 5 week period.

Pics are at 4 weeks 5 days. Harvest will be between 11 - 13 weeks of flowering.
Happy Growing!

p.s. Hope to many pics on one page does not make it difficult to open the thread. I'm trying to keep everything tightly packaged having two grows on two pages so far and like adding a bunch pictures to each post when possible.

I made a big mistake! I never added gypsum until about 12 days ago at 4 1/2 weeks in. Don't know why I did not add some early, just dropped the ball on that.

Many of the no-till have had calcium deficiencies, I have also been fighting some nitrogen deficiencies in some of them. Mg def showed up but has been contained pretty well.

Anyway the no till pots have some excellent crystal so far but 5 out of 8 developed balls. Chatting with another grower I'm feeling it is the nutrient deficiencies that are causing the balls to have appeared. Only an assumption at this point.

I have plants, all the same seeds as the no-till, in new ffof with 10% added perlite and in my own soil mix that has gypsum added and was cooked. Those plants are showing no balls and have not had a calcium deficiency.
Don't get me wrong, the balls may have been caused by something else including my bad genetics IDK.

I usually am an under fertilizer. I was pissed I forgot the gypsum and gave them all a healthy dose 12 days ago.

I'm 6 weeks and 4 days since flip and haven't seen any new balls develop.
Only one plant the largest of the topped plants has shown a few late nanners. It has the worst calcium deficiency. It is getting chopped early.

Here are a some pictures taken 2 days ago at 6 weeks 2 days from flip.

#1 topped does not have the same visible calcium deficiency. It was one of the plants with Nitrogen deficiency and was also the plant with the most notable Mg deficiency. It did have balls.



#2 topped no-till has been the best as far a leaf condition.


#3 is getting chopped. Biggest topped plant with the worst Ca deficiency. It is the only plant I found having some late flower bananas.


#4 has a minor Ca deficiency.


#5 is showing some Ca deficiency.


This is one of the plants, not topped and has no balls, that is in either in new ffof or in my own soil cooked with gypsum. Not sure which soil it is in.

I will be experimenting with ro only and ro plus tap combined to make 150-200ppm water next grow.
Next grow will likely be 2 types of soil. New ffof in some pots and my soil mix in others. This experiment with the no-till is interesting but I want to start with soil that has plenty of nutes next grow. I usually under fertilize so I probably did not amend the soil with enough fertilizer this grow plus missing the gypsum was a big mistake.

Last grow I could not capture any good crystal pics as the crystals were so small and I have a cheap camera. This grow I'm seeing normal crystal development. I was able to catch some pictures of crystal on the healthy plant shown above. The plant in the last two pictures in the last post. It is a plant that was not topped and had a shorter veg time than the topped plants.

Crystal pics are below a share about my RO system. Pics were taken yesterday at 6 weeks 4 days from flip. Flowering will take 11 to 13 weeks.

I have one of the cheap RO systems, $160 on Ebay. Has held up for 3+ years with 18ppm water. Came with 2 sets of replacement filters and I have replaced the tubing using the tubing found in the Home Depots irrigation section.
I threw away the tank that comes with it. I would not trust it under the sink.
Keeping it in a spare bath tub, the input is hooked to the shower head. Collection into 3 gallon jugs takes about 40 min to fill. Drainage is shown in the pics. No worries about water leaks. Just turn on the water and check back in 40 mins. If I need to convert it back to a shower it takes less than 10 minutes.



6 weeks 4 days from flip. Flowering will take 11 to 13 weeks.

I look forward to your water experiment. I'm running into some Calcium def myself, and was thinking to add some tap water to my RO water. Seems much easier keeping plants green with tap water...

Buba Blend said:

Thank you Richard! I have read your method in the past and like that style using about 25ppms of go cal/mag+ and plan to use it to some degree next grow. After a few grows of overwatering I wanted to go water only to see how far they would go without showing a deficiency in my soil and in ffof side by side.
All of the plants in smaller clay pots were given some gypsum raked into the top soil.
I'm thinking of doing the same to some of the 3 gallon pot plants. At least one 3 gallon will go ro only to the end to see what happens.
2 plants now show the calcium deficiency both are in 10" clay pots both are in the ffof.

Click to expand...

To get ro water do you absolutely have to have a ro machine...... I'm using tap water, letting it sit out for at 24hrs. Do any places sell ro water?