I love that, thank you! I’ll put a few drops of the wetting agent in both from now on too!
2 Likes
Yesterday all the ladies had a compost tea treatment, hoping to see some growth in the coming days.
In the kinderkarten we have two Big Buds on their day number 15 and on the back the Mephistos.
Hubbabubbahaze and Super Orange Haze x 3BOG on their 5th day.
And a mixed bunch of flowering autos and vegging fotos in the adult tent
All plants look healthy despite the over alcaline watering in the beginning.
4 Likes
You can use CSM - cotton seed meal in transplant holes where it is slow release NPK+ and is mildly acidic (6.5) so helps with pH regulation. It’s also a fungal dominant food.
Cannabis prefers fungal dominance in flowering. I add to my transitional amend with feather meal for slow and moderate release N through flowering. It’s coming online for them lasting around 8+ & 6 wks respectively, so it times to the stage of development demands.
I don’t know if that is something you can get over there?
1 Like
I did a quick search and couldn’t find those except for feather meal in some industrial size 1300kg bags.
Nearest cotton seed meal would be sent from the US.
I have now started pHing my water the old fashioned way with the good old pH-…
1 Like
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02148-8
Hmmm. I wonder if it would be possible to cultivate microbes from dry areas and introduce them into one’s outdoor spots to make the plants withstand more drought..?
Might help reducing workload in dry summers.
Just a thought.
1 Like
They did experiments transplanting microbial inocula from these soils into a plant species (the native grass Tripsacum dactyloides), and found that plants grown with “dry-legacy” microbial communities had better physiological responses under drought (ie. improved intrinsic water use efficiency, better transpiration stability) than plants with “wet-legacy” microbial inocula.
However, when they tried the same with a domesticated crop species (Zea mays / maize) the benefit was much smaller (and microbial community stability was lower). This would suggest that the effect is strongly host specific, and microbial soil environment may not be the same as for “native outdoor plants”. So the benefit might be lower.
Drought resilience is multifaceted. Microbes are only one part of the story. Root system, plant genetics, soil moisture retention (via mulch, organic matter), plant selection, water management all play big roles.
1 Like
That’s true. This somehow just caught my eye now that I have started to scratch the surface on playing with the microbes… I knew I’ll get proper info from here, and well, you.
1 Like
Day 8 for the Mephistos, day 18 for the Big Buds. I think the Mephistos will finally start some growth above ground soon.
The other Big Bud is growing great and I bent her a few days earlier than the other one which is growing more sideways than up. Eventually I bent her too in the hopes of getting the side branches to grow faster. Maybe a mistake we will see.
I think I got a little over confident and started winging things too much so I dug out this watering schedule I used on my first grow and will follow it here on out:
4 Likes
Set to watching
2 Likes
@Bluntsmoke Thank you for hopping along, I hope to not disappoint… well, maybe this will be a good example of what NOT to do, those are important aswell lol..!
2 Likes
Morning of day 10 for the Mephistos. They are slowly starting to grow, SOH × 3BOG a little behind.
And on to the Big Buds, day 20. Does anyone have any suggestions if I should do something to open this one up? It has really tight node spacing and the branches are left in the shadows. Should I remove leaves, remove the stakes, put more stakes or what? She will start flowering soon and I really want her to get bigger. HELLLPP…
Meanwhile in the 4x4 things are happening too:
These fotoperiods are starting to take shape. The plan is to move them to the 3x3 for flowering. I’m new with the fotos so looking for some advice: should I defoliate before flipping them?
5 Likes
@Hopalong hey I don’t have any advice I just wanted to say I feel like I’m having the same or a similar thing going on with my og kush auto. The node spacing is so tight and it just seems to be a short bushy sucker. Only about 5 inches tall. I hope it gets a little bigger before it goes into bloom. It’s day 24 tomorrow sure would like to see more growth. Idk, fingers crossed.
2 Likes
@NewGrower31 yes I follow your journal and they do have similar type of structure.
Yesterday I did snip the lower big fan leaves and one from the top to expose the shoots more. Also I have bent the plant in the hopes of introducing more growth to them. Today is the day 22 for this one so we are fairly close age-wise with our plants…
Just for comparison, here is her sister, same age but much better structure to my liking…
Both have shown sex already so I guess the stretch should start soon(fingers crossed).
3 Likes
@Hopalong hey can I ask you unrelated question? Someone on my journal who seems to know what they’re talking about, has suggested I put some holes in the sides of my bucket to help it dry out faster. I feel like it wouldn’t hurt but also feels maybe unnecessary. It does seem to be taking awhile for my soil to dry out though. For example I put approx 2 liters on and the soil was still not dry on the top inch 8 days later. Your opinions?
@NewGrower31 Yes my opinion is you can’t have too many holes in it. Cannabis likes airy, fast drying media and on the other doesn’t like soil that is constantly soaked and stagnant(roots need oxygen).
This is why I have opted to do my grows in fabric pots.
2 Likes
@Hopalong, I’ve had the same problem until I bought a 2-gal pump sprayer. With the nozzle on, it evenly wets the top and allows for a slow soak. After a couple of passes, I remove the nozzle for faster outflow and the water soaks right in. Only problem is you can’t have any particles in the sprayer, otherwise it clogs. This happened with my first run with my veg tea.
2 Likes
I’m growing a ilgm slh auto in a bucket with minimal holes and probably need to drill more holes. But the top of the soil is deceiving and I still have to water at the same frequency as the fabric pots every 3 days. And it’s outperforming the fabric pot plants right now too so I’m reluctant to make any changes.
3 Likes
@ChunkyMonkey I have a 1 gallon sprayer and I was going to use it but noticed that the part inside the handle, in which there is a comb like “filter” or something, has split and the water is leaking out of it.
Maybe there was water in it when we had some frosty nights a couple of weeks ago and it wa senough to brake it. I’ll prob get a new one when going to the city next time.
Fotoperiods are rocking. I keep defoliating them every few days and soon it’s time to flip them.
@Budbrother what would be your suggestion with the dry amendments? If you remember, I use Greenhouse Feeding’s Biogrow and Biobloom. They got the initial topdress of Biogrow when they were roughly two weeks old, I gave them 4-5g/liter of substrate, they are in 5G pots.
Should I give them a mix of Grow and Bloom or only Bloom? How about the timing, topdess now and wait for a week until flip or how ..?
3 Likes
That stinks @Hopalong . Plants look great though!
2 Likes