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I'm going with an all new living soil grow. I expect to continue to re-use my soil, and fine tune a no-till environment. It also happens to be winter here now, but i've constructed a greenhouse (6ft x 4ft x 8ft) which the plants will grow in. Daylight extension will be provided by 12x28w CFLs and two 28W T5 tubes (all 6500K). The CFLs can be raised and lowered as required, while the T5s are fixed on the frame.
Just this morning I transplanted the germinated seeds into 1 litre pots with 50% Cocopeat (washed and buffered) and 50% perlite. It's draining very well. The seeds were inoculated with Myccorhizae while germinating.
For my main soil mix, I prepared the following soil mix about 3 weeks ago:
Base mix:
Cocopeat (washed & buffered) - 30 litres (37% base mix volume)
High quality Vermicompost - 22.5 litres (28% base mix volume)
Pearlite - 28 litres (35% base mix volume)
Biochar - 8 cups
Amendments:
Oyster Shell Powder - 1 cup
Elemental Sulfur - 2 tbsp
Granular Organic Slow Release Fertilizer - 2 cups
Neem Meal - 2 Cups
Alfalfa Meal - 4 Cups
Total soil volume = 2.8 Cu. ft.
The mix has been cooking for three weeks. I decided on using Washed and Buffered Coco Peat instead of Sphagnum Peat Moss, at it's a more ecologically sustainable industry, and plentiful here in India. I'm going to add 10 cups of granite dust to the mix as well. I wanted to add it earlier, but haven't had the time to visit the stone cutters yet. Oh well, it'll still be at least 2-3 weeks before I need to transplant into this soil. I will be mulching this soil with scrunched pine needles, leaves, and some crushed neem seeds from my garden over the course of a year.
The buffered coco has a much lower PH (6.3) than other Cocos i've used. I added the Elemental Sulfur to help bring the PH down further over the course of a year/two, especially since theres a healthy amount of Biochar in the soil mix.
Another thing im considering is planting some Alfalfa and white clover after the first harvest. Have any of you had good experience with doing so? Would you recommend it as an ongoing green cover, or just between grows?
I'm excited :)
All seeds germinated in the coco-pearlite mix.
The Critical+ 2.0 seems weird though, it looks like the cotyledons never unfurled from their seed shell? Have a look at the image and let me know what you think!
Greenhouse is complete, with height-adjustable daylight extension lights! All DIY :)
Anyway, seedlings are moving along nicely in their highly aerated mix. Going to put the no-till soil mix that’s been cooking for a month now, into 30 litre pots.
I also collected a whole lot of leaves and pine needles from my garden and chopped them up. Once the soil mix is is the pots, ill use the ground up leaves for mulch, and cover with a thin layer of the cooked mix.
Will start the daylight extension now, one additional hour every couple of days till we hit 16 hours of light.
Seedlings are looking alright. Looked a bit light coloured in the coco mix, though I suppose they have been in there for a while now. I top dressed the coco with my living soil mix so hopefully that tides them over till it’s transplant time.
Growth is slow, though I suppose that’s to be expected as we’ve had fairly low sunlight this past month. That’s fine, they have plenty of time to veg, till mid-end feb.
Once my other plants are harvested in two weeks or so, ill switch the lights on at full power for some extra growth too.
The living soil mix is smelling really good, and holding moisture really really well - mulch in action?
I’m also thinking of planting some dill around the perimeter of each pot, they’d make great pest deterrents as i hear, thoughts?
Again posting early in the week instead of at the end.
So I decided those seedlings had been in their (fairly large for seedling) containers long enough, and it was time to transplant. The light-yellowing of the leaves was also concerning me. GREAT decision i will say, because when I removed them from their containers, the roots were huge, and JUST beginning to swirl around the bottom - (see image). Luckily no sign of stressed roots whatsoever. Whew!
I started with the Early Amnesia CBD, aaanndd... I think I may have to deal with a shocked plant. Since my seedling mix was almost 50-50 coco to pearlite, the mix just gave way as I tried to lower it into it's new pot. I don't THINK I damaged anything as far as I could tell. 😕
Anyway, learning from my first mistake, I hand-supported the second transplant (Dinamed CBD Plus) much better, and don't think I should have any stress issues on that one.
Let me say though, that the soil mix looks, smells, feels amazing! It's been cooking for 2 months now, and it's light, fluffy, holding moisture really well, and just a really really nice consistency, that I can totally imagine the roots and micro-organisms having a blast in.
INTERESTING OBSERVATION - So I took Mrs Larimar's advice on the seedlings, and had kept them in pure buffered coco + perlite, ie zero nutes, organic or otherwise. 5 weeks in, and top growth in both plants seemed slow, and left me wondering.
However, as it turns out, the roots have clearly been madly searching for nutrients and branching out as a result. I'm hoping this means that they should thrive in the new soil mix, with a strong root base.
Just to give some perspective, each of these seedling containers holds the equivalent volume of roughly 3-4x solo cups.
So I skipped a few weeks, apologies. My friend was tending to my babies while I was out of town for work. Unfortunately she didn't tend well enough, as both plants grew right into the CFL bulbs and some leaves got burnt :( . Luckily the lighting was minimal, as it's just being used for daylight extension. We've also had a ridiculously cloudy/rainy winter this year (this is quite unusual for my area, where we usually have dry cold, yet sunny winters). As such growth has been slow, though I always expected that to be the case. Figured at least the roots would venture far and deep in the meantime.
Despite all this, im very happy with these plants. They'll recover from the light burn im sure, and are looking fairly healthy otherwise. The Dinamed CBD+ is a little more damaged from the light burn, whereas the Early Amnesia CBD seems to be fairly unfazed. I found this to be the case with my last grow too, where the Early Amnesia CBD was a powerhouse, it is a RESILIENT plant!
Unfortunately my friend also didn't add my herb seeds + pine mulch to the pots as I requested, though I guess if you want something done... Anyway, as a result the top inch of soil has dried out, but whatever. I'll plant my seeds and add the mulch myself now.
That said, the coldest of winter is over, and now we're set for longer hours of sunshine. I expect the plants will be going through their veg growth spurts now. Both plants were on about the 6th node of growth, so I fimmed both plants. Let's see how that turns out.
Right so the FIM seems to have gone off well. As far as I can tell so far, both have at least 4x new heads each, might be more, but will only know when it grows out more. Perhaps some of you could chime in with your experienced eyes. The plants haven't received water all week (water issue that's now resolved), but seem to be doing absolutely fine nonetheless.
The Dinamed CBD Plus is pretty deformed from last weeks intense light burn, but looks to be recovering fine. The Amnesia as always looks great. Gonna give them a watering tomorrow morning and see. Might pulse some some aloe vera and add it into the water as well.
I know 10 weeks of apparent vegging must seem ridiculous to most of you, but I did start these in the dead of winter, and despite that they're looking healthy. We've had a reaaaally cloudy winter unfortunately, barely any sun.
Huge growth ! Glad to see that these babies have begun exploding with growth despite the winter sun :)
The FIM worked. Think i’ve got 4 and 5 new bud sites on each! on the I’ll start with the LST next week. Hopefully the new shoots will be long enough to start by then.
Don’t mind a slow and steady approach to the LST’ing with these plants. Would love these to become a pair of monsters 🙂
I’m sourcing some Diastatic Malt Barley as well. From next week ill start watering it in with fresh Aloe. Think ill also top dress with some home made compost next week.
Waah, great growth this week! I counted at least 8-10 bud sites on each plant! Wuhhoooo.
Still haven't started the Aloe + Barley waterings - my malted barley order got cancelled 🙄. Now waiting another order for it.
What I am a little lots with, is how to begin LST'ing these critters. I'm wondering if I need to start yet or not, given that they're outdoors (and I have no space/height restrictions), and the branches haven't reached out horizontally too much.
Should I just bend the main stem? Or let them be for now, and start training once the branches get long enough horizontally?
So lots of growth again this week! However, I am noticing some form of deficiency in my plants - notably the Dinamed CBD Plus. The Early Amnesia CBD seems fine, though definitely got overwatered - and is now super droopy looking (i checked the weight as well).
I’ve been noticing from the start with the Dinamed CBD Plus, while it looks healthy for the most part, the veins seem bright green. This spread into the body of the leaves. Today one of the lower fan leaves seems to be turning yellow. I also noticed hooked leaves. I’ve put photos of each.
Need your help guys! Want to identify the cause as soon as I can :(
Q1: My Dinamed CBD Plus is showing yellowing veins -> inner leaves. More so of lower leaves. See images and descriptions. Main soil recipe is in the description in week 1.
Q2: Does the Amnesia look overwatered? Or some other issue? Help!
@perilousp hi dude sry to come a bit late....
to my point of view you're curled leaves are just the direct consequences of a burn wind...u said that your weather is hot really hot...with lilte humidity...i can also see on some pics that you are in a large place open to wind... right ?
and if ur temps are really hot you dont even need a big wind..... just a litle hot but continuous breeze can do that !
here is a link ....you can see on the last 3 photos that it can affect the color of leaves... cause the leaves normal processes are altered....it s not an iron or mag deficiencies at first 😒 https://www.growweedeasy.com/cannabis-plant-problems/wind-burn
@ Gray_Wolf @Fruitgrower hey guys ! i know you want to help or may be win the GoM 😏....but plse 🙏 if you want to help, keep in mind that the first important thing is a correct analyse of the issue....it not always also evident that you seems to think....👍
keep also in mind that if a bad diagnosis is done it could be worst than the initial issue..... and if i am right on my analyse you told to a grower, initially you wanted to help, a bad remedy. when you know how grazy can be that plant on lockout process....if you had to much something not needed
me... if i was the grower and realise after my help request that the issue is not fixed...or it is worst....i will hesitate in the future to ask for help.😟
it's exactly what's happened to me last year in harsh heatwave.....so to conclude take your time... focus on your help's diagnosis not on the GoM 🙌
@perilousp if you are ofently faced to that kind of harsh condition the best for you is to learn to work with silicate products....it s easy and it will develop a big celular reaction on you stems... leaves.....buds... increasing nutrients absorption (take count of that).
if you have the right condition on your place you can also grow aloé vera and use the juce with water to spray plants in early morning 30 mn before the sun rise and before night (you have biobiizz product aloe vera if u can't have a natural plant)
silicate powder by terra acquatica is a very good product i gonna test soon....easy to use, u can even spray your plant after a light flitration. but be careful to not breathe the powder....use it on open place (a mask and glove can be recommended if you work with it)
you also have atami silic boost but it s a synthetic mineral silicate...so a light metallic taste can be induce to the plant if too much or badly use.
Hope this helps you in the future. happy growing 👊
I'm not happy. I've noticed two issues that have got worse this week. The Dinamed CBD Plus seems more affected than the Early Amnesia Haze CBD, however they're both clearly suffering.
1. The TIPS of new growth seem to be yellow (see images). This automatically makes me think, nute burn? Even though I can't think of anything in my soil that would result in nute burn. Is it because of the Alfalfa meal that I mixed in when making the soil - 4 months ago?
2. The yellowing of lower leaves was worse this week, indicating a mobile nutrient deficiency, or at least what looks like a magnesium deficiency.
Here's my thoughts on what it could possibly be, though I am a noob and any help would of course be much appreciated!
a. Magnesium deficiency - this would explain the discoloration of the leaves certainly. I never added any dolomite lime when prepping this soil.
b. Potassium excess - and consequent lockout of magnesium and calcium? Could this explain the yellow tips?
c. Acidic soil PH - This would seems unlikely at first, given the presence of Biochar, and the use of Coco peat rather than Spaghnum Peat moss for my base mix. However, I have been PH'ing my water down to 6.0 before watering. Could that be the culprit?
I'd really appreciate your inputs guys! Don't want this issue to spread any further, since the plants are looking great otherwise!
Things are looking much better this week :)
The tips seem a lot greener, though there is still some eagle beak clawing of the tips. The plants have grown A LOT this past week! The Amnesia is easily 2.5-3 feet tall already. The Dinamed is about 2 feet tall, but much bushier, with a much more even canopy.
I'm thinking the time has come to switch over to flowering. Exciting times :)
I'll be putting up some netting around the greenhouse frame now that the weather is warming up.
Absolute disaster! We had a storm the other day, which tipped over my GREENHOUSE! The Dinamed CBD Plus was saved, but the poor Early Amnesia CBD tipped over, broke a branch, and fell OUT OF THE POT!! We got it back in, but the plant went into shock. Leaves went droopy, and it just looked so sad. Note - put weights on greenhouse.
Anyway, the Dinamed is looking lovely, she's bushed out beautifully with many main cola spots. The Amnesia will take some time to recover unfortunately. You can see the plant drooping now in the pictures.
On a side note, I had switched to flowering last week, but was out of town, so no post or pictures :P
Man. The Early Amnesia is NOT happy! It's clearly been severely weakened since it fell out of the container in the storm, but it's having major issues:
1. The leaves have become MUCH more pale, yellower. Even the new growth isn't nearly as green as before (or compared to the Dinamed, which is lush lush lush!)
2. I'm now wondering whether it's roots were damaged - Doesn't seem to be taking up water (leaves feel a bit dry), and is now suffering from some kind of mobile nutrient deficiency. Should I foliar feed in that case?
3. 3rd picture of the Amnesia shows yellow spots, on newer leaves - some kind of bug attack? I checked the underside of all the leaves, no bugs, cocoons etc. But as it's a living soil, of course there were lots of different creatures in the soil itself.
I need your help with this one guys :( how can I best help her through this period? TLC, or leave her be?
On the other hand, the Dinamed is looking GORGEOUS!! Perfect infact!
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20
Week 20. Flowering
5 years ago
More photos +22
91.44 cm
12 hrs
31 °C
6.4
Normal
36 %
21 °C
40 L
7 L
10.16 cm
Nutrients 3
Aloe Vera (Fresh, Latex removed) 50 mll
ACT - EWC, kelp, fish hydrosylate, molasses, alfalfa neem meal 200 mll
So it's been a crazy week. My Early Amnesia CBD was displaying a serious deficiency, and yellowing fast. I'm SO glad I didn't panic and pour a whole lot of things in to help.
But what did strike me, was that not only was there a seeming deficiency (leaves were yellowing fast), but also that the leaves were feeling dry. I quickly realised that during the storm, the loss of some root mass had caused an imbalance. The Root-Plant ratio was off, and the smaller roots couldn't support such a large plant suddenly.
So I did what I had to, very sadly, but I trimmed off any excessive plant matter. I cut off dying leaves, lighter leaves, popcorn bud stalks - basically reduced as much unnecessary plant matter. I know it's not ideal to do so at this stage of flowering, but it was either that or watch my plant eat itself trying to survive. It worked. The plant has stabilised. It is still showing some deficiency, but the mass yellowing stopped, and all new growth is dark green. Whew. The leaves are also holding moisture better. I will give it weekly ACT to help it along.
On the other hand, the Dinamed looks beautiful. I feel very sad about what the Amnesia went through during the storm. What a beautiful plant it was gearing up to be. Nonetheless, it is a very resilient strain, and has handled some heavy handedness well. I just pray it packs on some weight now, and has a good closing.
The weather has turned hot and dry. I will need to give more water now.
I have a question - if the plant was damaged in the first week of flower, and went into shock, does this mean i've lost 2 weeks of good flowering, or that it will take 2 weeks longer but flower fully?
Flowering - End of Week 5
Had some erratic weather, and strong winds this past week. On the other hand, due to covid lockdowns, the air has been PRISTINE! Bright sunshine, some stormy weather this past week.
The Dinamed CBD Plus looks and smells stunning quite honestly. The buds have become fat fat fat!!
The Early Amnesia CBD unfortunately hasn't packed on nearly as much weight as I would have liked, given its size. Can't complain though, the plant was lying outside it's pot during the storm a gew weeks ago, so all in all, a decent recovery.
Keeping the watering simple, with some aloe vera and malted barley top dress. Will give it an ACT next week again.
Right so these plants are looking and smelling absolutely RIDAACCULLUS!
Im very confused though. Im on Day 44 of flower. I’ve been examining the trichomes and from what my inexperienced eyes can tell:
Clear - About 20-30%
Milky - About 60-70%
Amber - Definitely spotted a bunch. And not just on the sugar leaves, but on the buds!
The buds are packing on trichomes at a really high daily rate.
Ive put pictures, because I need some experienced eyes to guide me on what effects I could expect from these high CBD strains if say:
I harvested in 5 days (at day 49 flower)
I harvested in 10 days (at day 54 flower)
It’s basically become really really hot these past few days. And dry (only 20% humidity).
Could these be factors why the plant has matured so early? Do you think it’s ready to harvest?
Need some help deciding if these girls are ready - very early, I know. But its extremely hot and dry here now. Early Amnesia is showing (as far as my inexperienced eyes can tell) mostly milky trichomes, with some amber. I’ve uploaded pictures
they have a couple of weeks the top pic shows what i call the second flush of trichomes appearing, they are fatter than first or more bunched together, they say you can pick 2/10 days after seeing appear .
the plant is packing on weight in this period pick early lose weight gain a lighter high.
leave till last knockings and get the full couchlok.
if you can give then 3 days of no lightat the end it really gets those trichs juicy
@perilousp,ive planted marigold, thyme and glover directly in the pots... near the weed, they liked each other
tomatos and weed share nutrients,,, having good sybiotic live together,,, but here in europe its to rainy humid for tomatosmost time and they begin to rot... so i never planted tomatos togerther with my wee. but my aunt lives in california she does it every time.. tomato and cannabis
@Mrs_Larimar, thanks for that! I've got some dill, basil, oregano, and clover seeds. The herbs will be at least 8-10 inches from the cannabis, with the dill the furthest out. The clover will probably be interspersed all around, as a living mulch. I'll sow those in tomorrow.
@perilousp,i just did it like you do.......blending, screening deluting.....
iam mixing calcium powder, blended magnesia tablets, spirulina , kelp into the drink ( you do similar things
.....and you have to google for azospirillium...... great stuff
its a bacteria that binds the N in the ar and envoirement and makes it avialable for the plant. It is very spread in asia ( you are in asia?) for the farmers. and its vry cheap there. you can look into my diary " the big green ones" or just google for it. in europe its tough to get and quite unnknown
In India are many manufactures who produce it .. its called " bio nitrogen too
kindly check EM too effective microorganismns
@Mrs_Larimar, yes! We had a few days of nice bright sun which helped no doubt. The cold and gloom is already on its way out now, so I expect they’ll be growing fast now.
I wanted to ask you, how do you prepare your aloe vera for a soil drench? I was thinking of blending a whole leaf or two with water, and then diluting 1/4 cup with 4 litres.
My question is, do I need to take the latex out (the yellow goo) first? If so, how would I do that? Thanks!
I would get those pine needles out of there first. The acid that makes is not good for cannabis. Check out recharge to help with your natural soil nutes.
@BeefWellingtons, well we don't really get much of all that in India. I'm brewing some compost tea with some vermi, seaweed, epsom salts, and fish hydrosylate. Hopefully it works just as well 😄
@@Athos, thanks for the reassurance. My second grow so began getting concerned when I noticed the amber trichs! But i’m guessing they’ll be churning out new trichomes continuously now as well. I shall wait as you suggest ::)
Hey @GYOweed, well yes, they are definitely hungry. As I mentioned, they’ve had zero nutrition up till now (pure buffered coco + perlite seedling mix).
They were just transferred into the living soil pots. So i’m hoping that should take care of the nutrition now.
As for cold, the greenhouse is pretty warm, but i’m working to improve the airflow in there. They’re currently on Sunlight (about 10-11 hours) + 100W of CFLs - mostly for daylight extension right now.
Once my flowering plants are harvested in 10 days, ill be increasing the light wattage to the full 400W, in addition to Sunlight.
And BAAAm here she is..... Mother Sun made agood Job........ If you take her out... star twith afew hours so she gets used to it, start in shadow// halfshadow... she got to get used to sunlight and wind... i wont bend her. shake the plant daily alittle to strengthen her
Start to top her.. For big Lst is not really a need in outdoors,, just take away the lower mini shoots and top her and shake her daily
perilousp
