Apple Zauce

You know, it’s funny. I used to grow soil with salts, hydro with salts, bubble buckets with salts, outdoor with salts; all very well. I consider myself to be someone who can and does grow things well. I’ve had success with tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, lemon, lettuce, apples, kale, artichoke, chives, green onions, garlic, potatoes, cannabis, and more. Growing high grade indoor organic cannabis in living soil with only organic cannabis inputs is not a thing that I’ve had success with. And it’s driving me fucking nuts. I’ve tried to stay positive. I’ve looked at the bright side, I’ve pushed on and the reality is this grow looks like shit. It’s looked like shit one way or another most of the time. I’m trying to figure out what is going on. My fist run in this same environment with less stuff overall I produced a fair amount (just under 1/2lb in a 2x4 with an Amazon LED) of high quality dense herb. I also had a bunch of trim and larf to cook with and make some bubble hash. I used a couple of bags of soil king and a basic GH nute regiment. I thought to myself, I should go organic. Make this herb healthy: of the earth. I should try to grow the finest goddamn organic clean frosty as a motherfucker stinky sticky white ash producing herb. I thought, I’ve done this a bunch a long time ago. I just had a good run the old way. Success is on my side Let’s change it up. Let’s do it a different way. It’s day 27. Almost 4 weeks complete. Saturday is day one of week 5. These plants are burnt, underdeveloped, look like trash, have zero nose, and no frost to speak of. These are allegedly 65 day plants so we’re getting close to the half way point. There’s a bunch of lower burned leaves especially on AZ5. I’m trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. Soil: I have a nice healthy soil mix from what I believe but I don’t really know because it’s never been tested. Soil test is now on the To Do List. I mixed The Rev’s recipe from True Living Organics in these bins. I let them sit for over two months before I planted anything in them. When I did, everything seemed to do really well. But, one issue I’m certain of is that it is too hot for nute regimen. Pests: I had pests to deal with but that was expected. And I believe I have eradicated my pest problem. I stick to my rotating ipm, stopped over watering, and I keep the areas clean. IPM Anecdote: I finally did figure out how the neem oil burned the plants so badly a while back. I had used sulfer and neem too close together in time. There was still sulfur residue on the plants. When I applied the neem they got fried. Mystery solved lesson learned: Don’t mix sulfer and oils as foliars. Environment: My environment is good I think. Flower tent RH is always around 50-55%. I have an inkbird humidity control unit with a humidifier on one end and a dehumidifier on the other. I check it often and it stays pretty consistent. Lights on temps top out at about 88. Lights out temp bottoms out at about 70-72 but only when I spray the plants before lights out. Otherwise it sits at about 76-78 sometimes a touch lower. There are three fans blowing in conflicting directions and heights creating a nice breeze throughout. I have a 6” infinity fan that usually sits running at level 2-4 (enough to create a touch of tension inward on the tent walls). My intake is passive. I have two 4” ducts, one on each short end of the tent. One has a hepa filter on the end and the other has a nylon duct filter. We have some air coming from outside passively through a few spots and this room receives circulating air from the rest of the house, passively as well. We could use some more fresh air in this room but I don’t think that our issues lie here either. Light: The light is a Mars hydro sp3000. It’s a goofball light company but the ppfd checks out. Plus I had a good run with it. I don’t think that’s necessarily the issue. A better light wouldn’t hurt but it’s not causing my woes at the moment. Nutrients!: This is definitely where my issues lie at the moment. I took a KNF farming class for cannabis that I found through one of my local dispensaries. It was great except now my plants are frying. I love what I learned and I know it works because I talked to a lot of other people that use these methods and they work well for them. In addition I’m on a discord and can ask questions there as well (multi pronged approach - smart with the right operator 😂). I’m assuming my soil is too hot for this method mainly because they told me to use neutral soil, which my soil is not 🤣😂🤣 (like I said, smart). That said, I was hoping to not waste months of work and use this great mix and cut the values down a bunch and still end up on top. Last week I slowed the amount of humic to 1/32 tsp, bloom to 4ml/gal, soy amino to 1/2 tsp/gal, 1/2 tbsp of langbeinite/gal. I diluted all of that to a bit more by topping off my spray container. It still seems to be too hot. Which fucking sucks because I worked super hard on this beautiful soil and I spent a fair amount of time learning this wonderful method and they don’t seem to work together at all. The Rev’s mix is rad but will only produce mids without teas, additional amendments, and a bunch of fussing that is actually less work than I’m doing now but way more than I want to be doing later. I’m starting to consider cutting my losses and stripping everything out and starting fresh with neutral soil so that I can put the KNF practices in place but really I’m only 4-5 weeks out. I might as well finish this bunch and learn a few more things along the way. I’m going to be using only water this week. I’ll go back the nutes again the following week and cut the mix again. Hopefully I’ll get something out of it. 🤷‍♂️🏻 My veg tent has some mac1 clones that are looking great. The autos are looking great. My umami clones look like shit and are all mostly dying. Same treatment, same soil mix, same lights, same ipm, same cycle, same everything. This appears to be a difficult plant for me 🤣🤷‍♂️🏻🎯🥓 Maybe it’s time to move on from these exotics. We’ll see, tomorrow’s another day.