Pineapple OG | Mango Frost | G. Cookies

Pete_vs_Nature run#6 Week 2: --------------- I'll make this brief: My posts are pretty long. For the hasty reader: A friendly AI gets to sift through my very personal logs & notes, then drafts a competing weeks journal (usually on my expense). "The Terpene Front" is back - hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Extened notes the report was based on and personal ramblings follow down below, as per usual. Let's go! --------- PATHÉ DISPATCH — THE TERPENE FRONT, WEEK TWO [newsreel crackle, brass fanfare] GOOD EVENING, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. The great heat front of summer has RETREATED, and our correspondent ventures forth once more. DATELINE: BASE CAMP SIX. Three new specimens in tow: Pineapple; Mango Frost, of the F1 Frosts; and Gorilla Cookies, on her FOURTH expedition with this man and STILL willing. None of them, we stress, VOLUNTEERED. Last season’s Inline Fan returns to temperature duty, its summer disgrace forgiven. The radiator has NOT been invited. [ominous timpani] THE LONG POLAR NIGHT. For days the specimens languished at FIFTY-FIVE micromoles, a twilight so dim they stretched toward it like explorers crawling toward a distant lantern. The cause? Our correspondent measured the lamp’s HEIGHT. He placed his thermometers WITH CARE. And then he forgot to turn up the LIGHT. Again. Then came SUNRISE, a ramp so steep the specimens went straight from polar night to MIDNIGHT SUN: twenty-four hours a day, no sunset. Mango responded by refusing to grow taller AT ALL. The height charts have recorded the whole affair for POSTERITY. BENEATH THE CAMP: HOT SPRINGS. Probes buried in the soil read twenty-four degrees. Our man now carries ICE down to the roots by hand, a polar party in reverse. AND THE WEATHER? He has begun MANUFACTURING HIS OWN. One fan blows wind. A SECOND fan has been engaged solely to interrupt the FIRST: five minutes on, fourteen off. Meteorology, ladies and gentlemen, has never been so DOMESTIC. [record scratch] BUT NOW, THE DISCOVERY THAT SHOOK BASE CAMP. Before departure, our correspondent undertook a GREAT SURVEY of soil itself: component by component, EC by EC, pH offset by pH offset. He searched the land for one humble thing, soil WITHOUT fertilizer. Every outfitter’s soil came pre-loaded, even the SEEDLING mixes. He studied so deeply, we are told, that the word “soil” LOST ALL MEANING to him. And then, exhausted and scholarly, armed with more knowledge of the earth than is strictly healthy, he walked into a shop and bought... PRE-FERTILIZED VEGETABLE SOIL. Three-three-three. He did, in fairness, CUT IT with his own components, a gentleman’s dilution. Then he BEDDED THE INFANTS IN IT. It was not diluted ENOUGH. The seedling nests ran HOT. Nutrients piled up, and nobody could say WHICH ones. The pH sat on the wrong side of the border. Leaves faded pale, and Mango DROOPED, a droop that looked like too much water but was likely too LITTLE. [stern voiceover] What saved them? Not the survey, and not the spreadsheets. It was a HANDFUL OF MIXED DIRT at the edge of each nest, a soft border worked in by pure reflex, so the roots could wander outward without striking a wall. Science, rescued by HOUSEKEEPING. [timpani, softer] And now, cautious HOPE. Chlorophyll-B returns, fresh and minty BLUE-GREEN. Pineapple leads the party, a CHAMPION. Cookies hung back shyly, then SUDDENLY caught up, precisely when Mango took the lead in SUFFERING. And Mango stands upright again in a lime-grass green of her own choosing. Our correspondent has made them a promise. After fourteen days beneath a sun that never sets, there will be... a NIGHT. [fanfare, film flickers out] THIS HAS BEEN A DISPATCH FROM THE TERPENE FRONT. READ YOUR SOIL BAGS. GOODNIGHT. ------------------------------ What this was based on: run#6 week 2: Hot Seedling Nests ------------------- The metal inserts you see near the pot centers roughly mark the size of the seedling nests. Often, when starting a new cycle, I find myself scrambling for seedling nests components in hindsight, ringing up people to check out their garden soils because there is an emergency. run#6 was different: After what felt like days of looking for unfertilized soil online, I knowingly borrowed a pre-fertilized 3/3/3 product because I finally needed "something". Every shop had pre-fertilized mixes, even the seedling soils were full of them. Instead, while working on nutrient curves, I tunneled into classifying soil components, their individual EC and pH offsets and nutrient compositions. I was completely baffled and brick-walled by the complexity. I was hoping to elegantly side-step my unsuccessful product searches by "cooking up" some seedling nests from raw materials I had, but greatly under-estimated what there is to learn about "soil", a word that had just lost all meaning for me. So, rather than trying to start a soil business, I borrowed some general purpose vegetable soil and tried to thin it out a little with the components I use. That was a huge mistake. It easily resulted in a few days lost from the valuable seedling-veg phase, but it only slowly dawned on me why. The seedling nests were too "hot" still, my fairly conservative nutrient cocktail already seemed to cause symptoms akin to nutrient lock-out. Some stuff seemed to accumulate and I did not know which. K, Ca, Mg and N were the likely culprits, when P deficiency symptoms could be cured within days by upping the dosage. But even worse: I completely forgot about the fact that my medium's pH differed greatly from the seedling nests components. An offset of at least +0.3 was needed - this entire time. So I started eye-balling my daily pH values in accordance with the transitional phase, when roots slowly explore their new home medium. Thankfully, the high biology contents caused better pH buffering in the nests - so that zone was fairly stable - just in the wrong kinda way ... Things that likely saved my butt: - No hard seedling nest - medium boundaries. Every nest had a transitional zone worked in, mixing a bit of both before establishing a core. This almost automatic move growers make made a big difference. The roots could discover gradually without ever hitting an "acid wall of fog". - pH differences were noticed late for spectacular results, but meaningfully early. I would up the pH when the roots were just contained in the nests, and gradually transition towards my medium's pH as they grew outwards. Or, at least, that's what I hoped would happen. But uncle Pete has some tricks up his sleeves: To help move nutrients towards the leaves when the roots barely could, I improved my good old foliar spray - originally designed to help with Far Red expansion stress. Bypassing root feeding with a daylight-only spray really helps, when poor visibility and low hanging scrog nets are our enemies at night. It delivers some Ca, Mg, but plenty of micro-nutrients fairly close to where they are needed, when the roots have other problems to deal with. (Also, I am secretly leaf-feeding a plant in the living room that I accidentally treated like a gold fish.) Quick, additional facts: ------------------- - Mango's watering was a challenge, drooping indicated larger problems, soil sensors disagree with cultivar? - I quickly recovered my PPFD ramp, cultivars basically told me when to stop increasing. Mango had a personal "cloud" when recovery was tough. See impact on size in the heights chart. - Climate is really stable, I am happy and focused on randomizing wind patterns instead, also upping transpiration for plants - Chlorophyll-B production finally underway, towards the end of week 2. Fresh, juicy blue and minty green hues intermingle with an exhausted-chlorophyll / mild nutrient-lockout yellow wash on all cultivars. Pineapple recovered and started producing healthy greens first, Cookies followed the lead shyly, Mango confirmed capability under "competing priorities". - Cookies suddenly decided to catch up in height, after Mango took the lead in suffering for the week - Medium temps are not amazing, reaching up to 24°C. Ice-pack cooling is back to lower nutrient solution temp to 12°C, then misting in slowly to arrive at 18°C for longer durations - several hormone-proximity-mines have been deployed in my medium, for roots to discover ... ---------- Thanks for checking out my journal, stay healthy! - Pete

Pete_vs_Nature | Welcome back to Pete's run#6! The cultivars have been coping AND thriving throughout week 3. A little bit of both really, but all in all they are looking very promising. My medium mix is hard to prime correctly, I dumped several liters into each pot and they just seem to evaporate at this rate. -- Mango: She is patient #1. Watering is tricky, as you can see with the droopy-ish leaves. Soil sensor readings have been all over for her. Root zone oxygen issues already caused some wrinkling leaves on all cultivars, her deformations are a bit more intense. Colors resumed well, plasticity looks also fairly decent, given high Far Red ratios. Her height development stunted visibly on the chart, making it crystal clear she is enduring something akin to a bar fight deep down in the root zone. Revenge of the seedling nests? Cookies: Cookies has picked up and challenged Mango in height - which is a clear vital sign to me. She has been receiving a lot of light, PPFD clocked in at 280, when 240 was planned. This likely caused a minor setback in her height development, just as she took rank #2 from Mango. Some leaf deformations, as noted above, remind me that this plant is doing really well all in all. Pineapple: Pineapple took the week 3 tent leadership. With scars, yes, just like Cookies and Mango, but her root zone must have expanded past the seedling nests first. Off she goes in height, ridiculing my light setup at the same rate. Her vigor is causing me serious light mapping headaches - and those are problems I much prefer to root asphyxia. --- That's the short report from me. As per usual - A friendly AI spied on my personal daily logs and confronted me with a slightly different conclusion for the week: PATHÉ DISPATCH — THE TERPENE FRONT, WEEK THREE [newsreel crackle, brass fanfare] GOOD EVENING, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. A promise has been KEPT. After fourteen days beneath the midnight sun, Base Camp Six has received its first NIGHT. It lasted, we are pleased to report, almost until the HEATER came on. Temperatures sank to twenty-two degrees. The humidity COLLAPSED. And so our correspondent called upon an old companion, the Dehumidifier. He wanted it not for removing water, but because it gives off WARMTH: a machine hired for its SIDE EFFECTS. Our man calls this arrangement, and we quote, “Perfect.” [ominous timpani] FROM POLAR NIGHT TO SUNBURN. Last week the specimens starved for light. This week our correspondent, determined never to repeat that error, adjusted the lamps... in the DARK. While the camp slept. By “ballpark.” The specimens woke to a sun of THREE HUNDRED micromoles where two-forty had been planned. Gorilla Cookies, camped directly beneath three light bars, took the worst of it, her top leaves marbled and BLEACHED and folding into tacos for shade. Asked to account for himself, our correspondent produced a height chart and announced that the numbers “check out fairly well.” The Royal Society is REVIEWING the claim. [record scratch] BUT NOW, THE GREAT MYSTERY OF THE VANISHING WATER. Litre after litre went into the pots. No run-off. Not a DROP. “I have no clue where the water is going,” our man wrote in his field journal, and so he did what any explorer lost in the desert would do. He poured in MORE: three litres extra, then two and a half, then three more, “for safety.” The pots were wet from BELOW. The sensors barely moved. Still he poured. Then, on Day Twenty-One, came RUN-OFF. And Pineapple OG herself revealed the truth, her great leaves curling up into CLAWS: The water had not been vanishing. It had been STAYING. ALL OF IT. The entire time. The desert, it turns out, was a SWAMP. The mystery of where the water was going had a simple answer: NOWHERE. And the roots below, starved not of water but of AIR, had been quietly holding their breath. [stern voiceover] “Revenge of the seedling nests?” our man asks. This program cannot rule it out. [timpani, softer] STANDINGS FROM THE FIELD. Pineapple OG has seized the lead, scars and all. Her roots were the first to break out of the nests, and she now grows so vigorously that she RIDICULES the lighting plan. Our correspondent reports these are headaches he much PREFERS. Gorilla Cookies, sunburnt but undaunted, has overtaken Mango for second place. And Mango Frost, patient number one, droops and wrinkles through what our man describes as a BAR FIGHT deep in the root zone. Yet her colours hold, still lime-grass green. And a new instrument at base camp: the expedition now calculates the lamp’s distance to the canopy AUTOMATICALLY, from each specimen’s height. Soil distance, minus plant, equals altitude. Calculated, this time, with the lights ON. [fanfare, film flickers out] THIS HAS BEEN A DISPATCH FROM THE TERPENE FRONT. WAIT FOR THE RUN-OFF. GOODNIGHT.

Pete_vs_Nature | ----------- Welcome to Pete's week 4! I'll leave it to the footage to explain the highlights. Find below my week 4 daily logs commented on by a (very critical) AI-helper. Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoy and can take something home to your plants. - Pete ----------- **PATHÉ DISPATCH — THE TERPENE FRONT, WEEK FOUR** *[newsreel crackle, brass fanfare]* GOOD EVENING, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. Before tonight's report, this program must issue a CORRECTION. *[uncomfortable pause]* DATELINE: BASE CAMP SIX, DAY TWENTY-TWO. Mango Frost raises one great fan leaf and turns it SIDEWAYS. Then back. Then to the OTHER side. Our correspondent, puzzled, massages it upright along the stalk. Learned men of science call this "differential turgor." Expedition veterans recognise it as SEMAPHORE. Mango, ladies and gentlemen, was SIGNALLING. Nobody at base camp could read the message. *[ominous timpani]* For three days the confusion deepened. Mango drooped like a plant drowning. Pineapple OG drooped like a plant drowning. The instruments agreed: one pot dry, one pot wet, and our man watered accordingly, with care, with precision, with SCIENCE. *[record scratch]* AND THEN, DAY TWENTY-FIVE. The discovery. The soil sensors had SWAPPED NAME TAGS. Our correspondent had set them up thoroughly. He had TESTED them. He had even swapped the cables at the hub to be safe. The system, unmoved, kept every sensor's old identity and changed NOTHING. For days, Mango's thirst was being reported as Pineapple's, and Pineapple's flood as Mango's. And so our man, guided by his finest instruments, gave MORE water to the plant that was DROWNING, and LESS to the plant that was PARCHED. Last week this program announced that the desert was a swamp. We now correct the record: the desert WAS a swamp. Just not THAT one. Mango's semaphore had been spelling out a single word the whole time: THIRSTY. *[stern voiceover]* To complete the humiliation, Mango's own sensor turned out to be sitting too SHALLOW. Pushed in a little deeper, it reported five percent more water at once. The pot had not changed. Only the INSTRUMENT had moved. *[softer timpani]* THE TRAINING CAMPAIGN. Undeterred, our correspondent turned to shaping his specimens, but could not find his latest training instructions. He trained from MEMORY. Pineapple OG's stem SPLINTERED, precisely as two previous expeditions had warned. The new training aids, it emerged, could push a stem DOWN but not hold it UP. The protective tape, declared OBSOLETE, was swiftly UN-obsoleted. Gorilla Cookies, meanwhile, was observed looking "a bit too happy." For this offence she too was bent ninety degrees and taped. Base camp is a place of EQUALITY. And Mango? Bent at last, her stem shredded a little under the brace. But note her colours, ladies and gentlemen: a yellow-green savanna, washed with camouflage orange-brown, broad blades arcing outward to claim the whole horizon. While her companions unfurl nine-fingered leaves, Mango holds firm at SEVEN. She is a specimen of the OLD WORLD. *[timpani, warmer]* And on Day Twenty-Seven came the week's GREATEST act of horticulture. Our correspondent, at last trusting his corrected instruments, gave his specimens... NO WATER AT ALL. They showed, and we quote the field journal, "signs of great relief." *[fanfare, film flickers out]* THIS HAS BEEN A DISPATCH FROM THE TERPENE FRONT. LABEL YOUR SENSORS. GOODNIGHT. ---