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10/19 UPDATE
Was really expecting them to sprout after two days, but it wasn’t even a day when I started seeing cotyledons poking through the soil. End of the day now, and holy cow look at em go!!
Hey all, this is technically ground zero, they were transplanted into solo cups this morning, after soaking in a cup of RO water For 36 hours, and paper toweled for roughly 16 hours.
Using Fox Farm Happy Frog mixed with 1/4 parts perlite, for extra aeration. They will be going in a mix of 2/3 SoHum soils and 1/3 happy frog/perlite mix in 7 gals, watered with RO water and Recharge. It’s been a while since I did soul, and never with a supersoil... so here goes nothing. I’m considering trying to add in some Cal/Mag through a top feed so we’ll see if it’s necessary.
Most of you are probably champs at germination and have doing this for far longer than I have, but I usually get close or 100% germ rate, so for those of you that aren’t good or having trouble let me try and enlighten you on my technique.
This particular batch of seeds from Top Dawg definitely had been sitting in storage for quite some time, usually when I germinate the seeds will sink to the bottom of the cup within two hours however these guys were floating at the top even after the 12 hour mark. If you have seeds that are old, it’s good to scuffing up a little bit by tossing them in a matchbox with sandpaper and just shaking it up for about 30 seconds. usually I’ll let them soak in a cup covered by a plate so that it’s dark for about 12 to 24 hours, then they get moved into a moist paper towel that’s not too soggy for about another 12 to 24 hours until the taproot is about an inch long. From there I’ll transfer them into their medium and put them under a t5 fluorescent. I found that letting the seats sync to the bottom of the cup and soak there for at least 6 to 12 tells me that the seeds are still viable, and are more than likely going to sprout.
Good luck with everybody’s grow this winter season I know for me it’s a lot easier to control temps which is why I’ve decided that I’m going to try and do a sativa grow! Looking forward to seeing what happens.
The leaves on the first set came in fried, possibly due to an under watering issue or ph imbalance. I’m not two worried, I always seem to fry the first set of leaves and subsequent sets are healthier than the last. They’re growing, and I’m waiting on my gorilla grow tent to come in so I’ll let them truck along for another week week and a half in the solo cups. Not a big deal!
Dropped azamax on them for a lil IPM since I can see lil bugs just trying to get in at them. Next watering I dropped on some recharge, and they seem to be much happier now. Will continue to water in recharge 2x a week, also ordered a soil ph pen, to eliminate ph problems.
Good luck on everybody’s grow!!
Ok so yeah definitely seeing a problem here, BAD batch of happy frog. First time in soil, just got a blue lab pen, Calibrated and checked, & my PH is reading 4.9-5.0 on my soil. What do I do to get that number up for seedlings, as well as treating 5 bags of soil entirely??
Dolomite lime will buffer the pH and bring it back up into a usable range(and add some cal/mag). It’s sold as Garden Lime in most garden centers for about $5. Make sure it’s dolomite lime and not hydrated lime. First thing you should do is amend your bags of soil with it since it needs time to break down. Add 2 tablespoons of lime per gallon of soil or about 1 cup per cubic foot. I’m not sure about adding any to the solo cups but I’d just transplant them to bigger pots after you lime the soil. I see you have Recharge also. I’d wet the soil with some of it after amending so the microbes can start breaking down the lime quicker.
So yeah, scrapped the happy frog soil as an option for topsoil since it was Reading a PH of 5.0-5.5. I’m appalled that this company claims that it’s soil is set to 6.3-6.8. It was an outright lie. Scrapped the happy frog and thought, maybe ocean forest would be better. Not by much. 5.7 on ph. It doesn’t help that I haven’t got a readily available source of cal mag (Added dolomite into ocean forest topsoil, helped a little) and I’m using RO water, but that would not cause all the twisting and gnarling of old growth. That’s a PH thing that I saw on my first run in hydro.
In short, I’m fuckin pissed, but they will carry on. I’m seeing slight amounts of recovery after hitting it over and over with recharge, and I got a nectar of the gods sample that will arrive today, and on the next feed they are going to get a good dose of calmag. I’m in no rush, I could veg these guys for 3 months and still avoid the early summer heat- and all I really need to Is keep em trained down to size, and I’m good with that. I’m going to have faith that all 7 will recover and hit peak health in the next two weeks.
Grow in soil, it’s easier they said. Yeah man organics all the way. Good god. If I could drop these guys in a hydro setup Id have 2 ft bangers by now. But as it stands in this shit setup these plants are straight up not having a good time. I’ve never seen leaves droop so hard in my life. I’m watering maybe about 2... 3 liters into each pot and letting them go for 4 days, maybe I should go longer? I don’t know man... never had this problem before and it makes me sad. Side branching is struggling to take off at 4 weeks. Maybe it’s the genetics, maybe it’s the watering. At this rate I’m just gonna let them veg until I know they are healthy- big fans, strong growth, solid roots... we shall see if that happens.
See. Here’s the thing I’ve learned this past week. Don’t do go flaming me for this, but real growers recharge. In my garden, i have found that after adding it to my water, and setting the PH of that mix back down to 6.3 is FAR more beneficial than freaking out about the actual soil PH. Without adjusting the PH the mix going into my plants was a hefty 8.0+, and the directions do say “Don’t worry about adjusting PH, recharge will take care of that for you!”so Take my advice or leave it, but look at how healthy all this new growth is. It’s like seeing a completely different plant!
They aren’t without issues, most from learning the best watering practices (I think next time I would amend the soil with some sand and possibly add a top layer).I still tend to feel a little frustrated with the growth on some of these guys given the amount of work I’m putting into them but I think this next week is gonna show some great growth.
African Haze F2 is a stretchy stretchy plant, I’ve seen it grow off Instagram. I’m gonna let these plants explode, and see what happens. These plants are gonna veg till I can sex them, hopefully a full 8 week term. Am I crazy? Fuck yeah I am. Let’s hope my plant training techniques provide the best possible yield!
Blessings to all.
So last Sunday I watered in a little less than a gallon for each, in 7-gallon pots. the bottom is soaking wet, but about 1/2 inch down the soil seems bone dry. Medium is FF ocean forest and SOHUM Super soil at the bottom. the plants are showing over/underwatered. What do i do??
Hi there, In your diary, it said you gave your plant about 3L of water per day.That’s alot my friend.Plants at this age only drink approximately 0.5~1.0L per 24hour.So you should correct your watering schedule.As you are growing in fabric pot, be careful not to leave any dry pockets when you watered.Happy growing... ✌️
This week is gonna come a little early.
First off, the males showed themselves and were culled shortly thereafter, all that’s left to show sex is #1, which Fingers crossed is a female, and she’s still just getting into the exponential growth phase.
These plants went from looking sick to perky healthy and fast growing in less than a week. What happened?
One, I started using yucca in the watering, which has helped to evenly moisten the soil, which I had allowed to get dried out. I watered less and more frequently, and began to understand the difference between a plant that’s under watered and one that’s over watered.
Onto particulars. #5 is an awesome plant, out of all 7 original plants she was the fastest strongest and most healthy growing from the get-go, and she never let my newbie mistakes stop her from growing. I was on the edge of my seat watching her for preflowers, praying for pistils, when they finally arrived I was pumped. I’m thinking about taking a cutting from her and keeping her around.
The other two are doing okay, with # 1/7 not exactly killing it... yet
I’ve had to go to multiple business trips, and in three days the plants looked very thirsty, but after a decent watering they woke back up(sort of)
It’s crazy the kind of growth I get with the migro lights, the plants are so bushy and short.
I’m going on annother trip here shortly and hoping to return sooner rather than later. I found someone I trust to watch the plants and house sit, and as soon as I return, I feel comfortable setting up the SCROG net and kicking into 12/12. I have this theory that as they stretch I should be able to even out the flowering colas by setting the tallest farthest from the plant. See you all on flowering switch day!
I had to go on annother work trip for a week, and had my girl watch them and house sit... she did the best she could but they were still acting up. They were so droopy I couldn’t believe it, and was wondering what happened. Can’t help but think it’s a few issues.
Weird watering and shitty soil mix. They needed more aeration in the top mix for SURE. Lesson learned, add more perlite to ocean forest, got it...
Too much light- They really did not like the 18/6 so close to the canopy with such a powerful 600 watt system, and my gf last week was not knowledgeable enough to raise the lights so I started to notice light bleaching on one of the poor guys. It’s up to the other two to fill the room, which I’m pretty sure they are gonna do just fine.
Never again will I put 2 week old seedlings into a 7 gallon pot, it’s just too hard to control. Please learn from my mistake and save yourself the headache!!!
I think as this one goes on I’m gonna need to re adjust, slow down the N and throw some more PK in the mix. They are gonna get defoliated as well. Good luck for everyone else!!
Flipped last Saturday, so maybe about 6 days into flowering. I threw a lot of bennies in the mix, SD Microbes brewkashi(great for organically lowering the ph) recharge and mammoth P, as well as top dressing with SD microbes bokashi bran mix. The soil has taken a very spongy loose but firm feel and it’s really showing in how the plants are reacting. Also on my regimen is a twice per week foliar of bloom khaos, prescribed by Oregon’s only nutrient line. Outside of some slight tip burn these girls are starting to crush it.
I havent seen a very critical stretch, nothing to lose my mind over, and as these are near pure sativas I’m really unimpressed so far( here’s to hoping I jinx myself)
Will continue training until week 2 and see where that takes me.
Watering once a week with nutes, the rest is pure water. Every two days seems to be the magic number, 3 & they get too thirsty.
But man are they showing some real comeback vigor now that the roots have filled the pot, they’re crushing it now.
Guy I was talking to on Instagram said they were gonna run about 12-14 weeks, so what’s that, another three months to go I guess🤘
Burned some plants pushing too much nutrients, didn’t flush, just went back to RO water and I’ll let them go, they seem to be doing great nonetheless. Plant 5, although extremely vigorous is the slowest to show trichromatic production. I have a feeling she won’t be dank.
One of the plants, the healthiest throughout veg is getting kinda n deficient. Top dressed with castings and bonemeal and all sorts of stuff, but idk if she’s gonna recover.
Other than that the one that did the shittiest in veg has the best smell, trichrome cover and densest nug building. Smells like some headband.
Thanks for stopping by!
I’m on the start of the 5th week, and my 12 week plant is fading pretty hard. Doing full organic supersoil, threw in a top dress a week ago didn’t seem to slow the n deficiency. What should I do??
It always depend on what is in your living soil. Did you bought it or made it? Do you water with chlorine free water? You need good living activity there to break down the amendments. 7 gal container for living soil might be small too. Working with soil is like waiting for your pay check: you don't get to see the results right away. It takes a week or 2 to start to see the effects. When you top dress you can try to make a tea with your dry amendments, EWC and rain water. It will speed up the breakdown process. If you get a deficiency in middle flowering it is not a crime to use Organic Cannabis-friendly nutrients in the way that it won't hurt your soil. Those are fermented plants matters in a form ready to absorb by plants and do not needs to be braked down like dry amendments. I prefer to use nutrients than having a major deficiency in most important of flower. Next time just review your soil recipe. You can also learn to make your own fertiliser out of brown sugar by looking into Korean Natural Farming.
They keep chugging and chunking, but their leaves are showing me that they are thirsty for nutrients, so I gave them a full feed with Oregon’s only nutrients and they repay me by not responding at all. Heavy nutes, no nutes... fading all the same. However, they continue to bulk at an exponential rate, showing vastly superior growth in comparison to previous grows. It’s only the start of week 6 of a “12 week” strain and it seems like it wants to finnish at 9-10... guess we’ll see what happens.
They keep plugging along.
Don’t know if I’ll ever do soil again, maybe I will - I made a lot of mistakes in the veg cycle but I can’t seem to get these girls to take up nutrients properly, and I think I could have done a better job if I knew exactly what my ph was, I just desire more control...
Nanners on one plant already, they are swelling insanely, sagging from their own weight. I now know the end comes soon, perhaps one month from now.
Now they are getting fat. PH was way off so they couldn’t uptake the bottled nutrients. Whoops. Like way off, which was fine when they were crushing it in the SOHUM. I suspect it was the bokashi grains mixed in that fucked everything right up. All good, live and ya learn. Either way these are still some of the thickest colas I’ve grown so far
Real up up up , makes you wanna do some thing you love. Aphrodisiac. Still gives you the munchies, mostly in the head but it’s still got some body, and after the high expect a deep deep sleep.
First and foremost.... I didn’t include the landracey sativas yields, I would expect a possible qp off her, she had the most flower but it was really leafy and not worth the trim, so a partner of mine and I have decided to invest in butane extraction and we’re just gonna shatter it. I only took tops, everything below the tops was put in the lard pile, to be turned into shatter/edibles as well.
These plants.... these damn plants... I’m glad to be done and moved on from it, I’m gonna give one cut annother go next next season in an RDWC system, after it recovers from the monstercrop. I think I made a huge mistake in just dropping them right into 7 gals, and soil just isn’t as enjoyable as RDWC. I don’t like the loss of control, or wondering why the plant is pissed at me. Not to mention I had to mix nutrients almost every other day towards the end. I know used reliable soil blends, but couldn’t dial it in.
Anyways, like I was saying I am in the process of monster cropping the #3 cut, which was leaps and bounds ahead of its sisters. Bigger calyxses, insane long trichromes, and a smell & effect that really reminds me of a white widow cut I used to get back in Hawaii that would put you up up up then crash you down into a deep sleep. That’s the #3 cut. I think I could do her more justice, grow her RDWC style and let her really chunk out. Till then, but up next is gonna be a pointbreak(Tropicana cookies x triangle mints) by SUFR seeds and Sour Dubb x Sour Diesel IBL by Top dawg.
See ya guys soon!
@xanado18, Pungeant smell is what YOU! whant. Hehe but I agree if I just smelled the bud like a normal flower it would smell like rotten shoes. But all the complexity comes after a little maturation and patience. Rubbing the stems also gives different aromas. After wet trim final smell on hands was Cinnamon, Pine, and Varsol paint thinner.
@sativaman,
Thanks brother! Hoping my tastes/smells come out like how you were saying, right now it’s got a real poopoo smell 😂 not a bad thing though right?
Hey man, Doesn't look too bad but definitely a little issue with water retention in the soil. I totally agree that a top layer would be beneficial
With these heavily Peat Moss dominated soils, it is important to water slowly and evenly so the peat doesn't begin repelling water. Once peat goes hydrophobic, it is especially difficult to remoisten without water just going right through and storing near the bottom. My advice would be to look into using a cover-crop or 1-2 inches of composted bark/mulch/hay/straw at the top of your container (or what I do, walk into my backyard, go to the 100 yr old White Oak, and utilize its well decomposed debris that surrounds its trunk..)
The covercrop or mulch acts in 3 fashions.
1. It allows moisture from deep within the pot to "wick" up towards the surface
2. It helps alleviated that compacted surface of peat which is pre-disposed to a hydrophobic surface unless meticulously watched over, and watered much more frequently, in smaller amounts.
3. depending on what you choose, it can enhance all the beautiful biology in the soil which is crucial when using . Especially using a product like Growers Recharge, which is actually living fungi that form mutual relationship with cannabis by exchanging nutrients in exactly the form the plant needs it. Fungi, bacteria, and other forms of soil life feed of all the organic matter!
One thing I am incorporating into my next grow involves building soil horizons in the container, just how the Earth's richest soils are naturally setup. I learned of this technique from "Shaping Fire Episode 54 Extra! Living Soil Horizons - Leighton Morrison" on YouTube... Some incredible knowledge this guy drops you won't be dissapointed and you may want to incorporate a similar style! :D
P.S. Don't sweat the problems too much in Veg. This is when the plant is still very adaptable to stresses and you will be happy to see your eagerness to learn pay off with a beautiful harvest.
- GreenGrows :D
@xanado18 Always happy to help my friend. So to continue on this subject, yes, you could definitely use some sort of home depot mulch and clover seeds. One thing I do want to make clear is a majority of people have accepted using fabric pots to improve drainage. However, the top of the line fabric pots (like GrassRoots) have a liner which really aids in keeping moisture in the pot. Most cheaper fabric pots don't have this liner, causing air to constantly wick moisture from the sides of the fabric pot, especially if there is a lot of airflow, or really low humidity.
I have just setup my Final Flowering containers for my next grow. They are 15 gallon nursery containers, using Coast of Maine Stonington Blend soil as my base, and incorporating other local ingredients to include in the mix (includes sand, crushed clay, glacial rock, and volcanic rock).
I filled the bottom inch with rock (I used lava rock, but any small-medium rocks should do) and covered that inch of rock with another inch of sand (I used sand from a local stream, but you can use construction sand, builders sand, play sand) The rocks prevent the sand from leaching out the bottom, and the sand prevents that bottom area from becoming Anaerobic, not allowing organic matter to sit in a pool of water is essential to preventing root issues.
Now after this layer, I added my base soil mix (make sure it is well-moistened, but not soaking wet) and lightly packed until there was about 5 inches left at top of container. I then put an inch of earthworm castings, followed by 1-2 inches of bokashi compost and a mycelium rich Mulch.
I kinda went around your question, but yes it seems there may be some pockets of hydrophobic soil in your medium refusing to become moist. I think a cover crop could help, just remember its not going to become useful until the clovers spread a good enough.
A good way to look at it is in nature, it isn't often you see bare soil with nothing on top of it. The Earth naturally protects itself from drying out by growing cover crop and trees losing their leaves among many other splendid interactions.
Good luck don't hesitate to ask anything more :D
@@GreenGrows,
Hey, thanks for your response brother!! I was actually considering the whole cover crop thing, and thanks for giving out a lot of good knowledge here. But since I have your attention at the moment, I have a few more questions! Maybe ill try to throw down some clover if I can find it. What do you think, If I say, pick up a bag of mulch from home depot(or do you have a better suggestion, one that I can go out and make happen tomorrow), and just throw clover seed on the soil then cover that with a layer of mulch? How deep should that mulch layer be? How much/often should I be watering in order to get the peat soil to the right wet consistency again? it seems like the top absorbs the water, but if I dig a few inches down it's almost bone dry. I'm definitely going to do my own research, you've done a lot for getting my ball rolling with this extensive post, but any more help would be really appreciated!!
Thanks Again!!
looking at picture and evolution of deficiency it looks like Potassium or phosphore are lacking. What is your soil made of? what top dress did you applied?
@sativaman, thanks for the feedback! so if .7 gal every two days isn’t enough, what would you suggest? I feel as though my soil is only getting wet at the top and the bottom, and the center is staying dry, killing off microbe activity. (It feels hollow in the center) Is that possible? I’m gonna try kick it more potassium and I been dropping Epsom salts in there 1/2 tbsp per
@sativaman, right so, https://buildasoil.com/products/buildaflower-top-dress-kit?_pos=1&_sid=547950f5d&_ss=r&variant=952957049 is the top dress, I added a hefty amount and mixed with bokashi. I’m running Oregon’s only nutrients( the full line) at half strength as well, with recharge, mammoth P and a tablespoon of epsom was applied on the last feed. Was watering .7 gallons every two days, but I’m starting to think that that wasn’t enough to moisten the whole 7 gallon pots.
@xanado18, thanks for the good words man.They are already producing huge flowers so I would just advise to stay tuned :))
By the way,did my answer help solve the problem?
@HighRoller909,
Thanks! They just keep goin and goin and goin...😴 As long as I don't fry them into submission I think ill have a very solid harvest. I remember when I first started up, you helped me with one of my very first grow questions. Thanks for that, Good luck with those stretchers, they already look like they're gonna stack insane amounts of flower!
Beautiful flowers,great harvest,congratulations! Gotta love African sativas because they give very energetic and euphoric high. Wish I was able to trade some Golden Tiger for that African Haze.Enjoy flowers man.
@Platinouuu, Theyre chopped and drying at 18.3 celsius and 58 percent humidity, getting trimmed tonight tomorrow and probably the day after. pics to follow! :)
Se ven muy bien! Muchas buenas vibras para la nueva familia. Nada por preocuparse por las quemaduras, podría ser el sembrado de la semilla directo al sustrato preparado o modificado. Muy bonitas y libres para moverse, te seguiré 🙏
@Platinouuu,
thanks bro, yeah they're on the path to a full recovery so I'm hoping for the best! I've been growing in hydro and figured I'd give soil a try, and ive learned so much already from this run! thanks for following and the kind words!
much love bro😎
xanado18
