Wanna Ask The Old Farts A Question?

[mister_terious]

hey old farts!

hey old farts!

We will all share that honor in time won't we? Anyway would molasses be ok to use in veg in an outdoor soil situation?? m_t

 

[HempKat]

We will all share that honor in time won't we? Anyway would molasses be ok to use in veg in an outdoor soil situation?? m_t

Molasses is pretty much okay to use for indoor or outdoor and veg or bloom. However, if you're outdoors and planted in the earth it would be pretty expensive and it shouldn't be necessary. Something to also keep in mind outdoors, the sweetness in the molasses will attract some critters.

In general though, a good thing to keep in mind about molasses is that it's really just another form of organic nutrient/fertalizer. It's nutritional value to the plant is mainly iron, potassium and calcium. Some folks believe adding molasses makes the buds bigger, which it does indirectly but not the way people think. That is some people think the plant actually takes up the carbs that molasses represents and puts on weight, much like people do. However to the best of my knowledge there is no proof that plants consume sugars and such like that. Plants produce the carbs they work with from the sun or light.

So why feed molasses? Well for one there is the plant nutritional value of iron, potassium and calcium. These are needed by the plant and molasses has the benefit of being derived from plants so it's more suited to go back into a plant. If it were derived from animals it might not be as good, kind of like if you tried to substitute pig blood for human. It might work but won't work well. Actually with plants it would just be harder to access requiring it to be broken down more first. Molasses is also what they call a natural chalete qhich means it has the ability to draw out nutrients that are trapped in organic matter helping to provide access to more food for the plant. Finally while plants don't use carbs for energy the way we do there is a player in the scene often overlooked that does. That is the beneficial microbes living in the soil in a symbiotic relationship with the plant. Molasses helps feed them and give them energy too which allows them to work more efficiently and that in turn produces results for the plant. That's the more likely reason buds put on weight, not from eating carbs but by taking in more nutrients and water with the help of what they call the bio-herd.

The reason I mention all that is to get to the point of saying molasses is not something you add here and there and you get amazing results. If you use it you should do so as part of a complete feeding/watering program on a regular basis. So while it doesn't produce miracles or guarenteed growth it can when used properly and consistently.

Anyway back to your question, if you are in some form of container but outdoors then it could be worthwhile but if you are just straight in the earth I think it's a waste. I say that because containers are isolated environments so the rootzone is impacted and requires us to do more for good results. In nature the soil environment is much more complex and diverse and doesn't need molasses to enhance things. Not that it wouldn't do any good but more of it would just soak away from the plant with no barrier.

If adding straight to the feedings I give it at every watering all thru veg and flower. The only time I don't give it is with new seedlings and clones that have yet to establish enough of a root system for it to do any good. I generally add it at the rate of 1 tablespoon per gallon of water/nutrients.

 

[TheOneWill]

How often should I mist clones?
How can I speed up root progress in a bubble cloner?(Got Liquid Karma)
Also is it good to mist your plants that are in veg? Does it do anything other then raise the humidity?

Can you flower clones that have not rooted yet in a bubbler?

 

[HempKat]

How often should I mist clones?
How can I speed up root progress in a bubble cloner?(Got Liquid Karma)
Also is it good to mist your plants that are in veg? Does it do anything other then raise the humidity?

Can you flower clones that have not rooted yet in a bubbler?

Well if you are talking unrooted clones you shouldn't mist them at all really. There should be enough moisture in the medium. Since they don't have roots yet they can't really take in moisture except for thru the leaves in the form of humidity which is why most cloning methods use a humidity dome. Now if you area where the clones are is on the hot side and/or has low humidity things might get dry for the clones and require some added moisture. Most advise to not mist the clones directly but rather mist the inside of the humidity dome. As for frequency, well the way I clone generally takes two weeks and in that time I never have to mist. So if you had to it shouldn't be but once or twice at most. If you need to more often chances are things are too warm and or dry in your grow area.

As far as I know bubble cloners are the fastest way to root clones, there is no special trick or ingredient that will speed up rooting. The only variable I have found that I can control to improve cloning is tempurture, if it's too high or too low then it takes longer and I have trouble. If I maintain the temps at 78 to 80 degrees F then the clones seem to do their best.

Yes it is good to mist the plants every so often in veg. It doesn't have any specific benefit other then it's a way for your plants to take in additional moisture and it helps raise humidity. How often to do it I'd say depends on the humidity. If it's low and stays low then you'll likely need to mist frequently. Just keep in mind misting is an additional form of watering and too much can cause over watering issues too. The only time it's considered to be a bad idea to mist is when the plants are firmly in flower with buds forming. Moisture can get trapped in the denseness of the bud and lead to bud rott.

 

[TheOneWill]

Would this really work?
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=93305

 

[HempKat]

Would this really work?
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=93305

I'm not sure which one you're asking about the thing with the bag or the thing with flowering some clones. Either will work but like the one guy in your link is telling you, most plants will sex in veg after about 6 to 8 weeks and by the time you do the bag trick and all it will be several more weeks down the road and you won't be speeding things up. I'm guessing from what you've said there and here that the problem is you want to know what is what so you can take cuts and flower and not have any males.

Here's what I would do if I were you and I had plants that were between 6 to 8 weeks and still not showing sex. First of all I would relax, at 6 weeks they should be on the verge of showing pre-flowers any day now. Since they can go as much as 8 weeks I'd wait at least that long. I'd also examine my lighting. Some people like to run veg 24/7 because plants can take it and they feel it gets plants bigger, faster. It's been my observation that people who run 24/7 usually have a harder time getting their plants to show sex. If you are running 24/7 then slow it down to 18/6. I'd also go ahead and take cuts of all the plants even though you don't know the sex. Just be sure to label all the plants so you know what clones came from what plant. That way you've taken the clones while in veg which is prefered. Now if you're at 6 weeks you could just wait those additional 2 weeks in veg and your plants should pre-flower in 2 weeks time your clones should have rooted also so your bases are covered. You can just put the original plants in flower and as they show sex you match that up with the clones and you toss out any males unless you like one for making pollen to make seeds with.

The trick with the bag is really more for the impatient and while it can work it takes a while and really serves more to keep the impatient grower feeling like they're doing everything they can. :smile: If there was a sure fire way to speed things up everybody would be doing it and know about it. The smart way to grow if you can manage a veg/clone station and run a flower room is to start from seed when you want a new strain grow it out carefully giving it all the time and attention it wants to do it's thing then once you establish sex keep any females you like, a male or two if you want to make seeds and then flower out the seed plants while you get the clone moms up to producing clones and then just work from clones after that until you want a new strain, then lather, rinse and repeat

Clones give you the benefit of knowing what you have ahead of time. They also give you the benefit that they tend to stretch less and flower quicker.

 

[TheOneWill]

Thank you for more advice.
What do male and female preflowers look like?

I do have have it on 24/7 next grow I wanna do 20/4.
How long should I let the roots grow before I can plant then flower?

 

[Malcolm]

I have a closet with sliding doors that could house up to 6 plants (though 4 would probably be a smart limit). I have sealed off the edges of doors against light and excess odor leakage by duct taping rolled up towels to the openings. Unfortunately, if I seal it up completely there will be no way for the plants to get enough air (right?). I could create a cardboard door with a small hole to fit the exhaust of a fan to solve this problem. Would this hole, with the fan fitting snugly in it and duct tape along the edges, allow enough light into the closet to disrupt the dark cycle? If so, what can I do?

 

[HempKat]

Thank you for more advice.
What do male and female preflowers look like?

I do have have it on 24/7 next grow I wanna do 20/4.
How long should I let the roots grow before I can plant then flower?

​

Above is some diagrams to help you with identifying parts of the plant. Also some actual pictures of pre-flowers (inside the circles in the pics). You can do 20/4 if you want, it's not going to help you in any meaningful way. The most significant difference is your electricity bill will be that much higher for running the lights 2 extra hours. The growth difference between 18/6 and 20/4 is almost nothing. I did a grow 24/0 once and after 2 months veg I had 6 foot tall plants (which is really too tall for good indoor growing, around 4 feet tall is better at 6 foot the light is far enough away that the bottom parts of the plant do not do well). That was from seed. The next grow I did 18/6 using the same pots, soil, same batch of seeds, same light, same nutrients, etc. The only difference was the length of light. It yielded plants that were 5.5 feet tall after 2 months, which again is really too tall. There was another difference though, the plants under 18/6 seemed healthier and had better color. So I conclude from that, some dark period is better then none and that any light on beyond 18 hours is really a waste of electricity and doesn't help the plant very much.

See plants have things they do during the light cycle and then different things they do during the dark cycle. The light cycle is mainly about converting light to food for the plant. Since it has a limited amount of light to make use of it normally does most as far as making new growth from that food when the lights are out since the plant isn't busy doing anything else. Now what it does during the dark cycle it can also do during the light cycle just not as well because it's busy with other things too. That's why you can go 24/0 though because it'll still do what it does in the dark just not as well. The theory is the extra light time produces enough growth to make it worthwhile to avoid the dark period. I disagree. It's like a human, our bodies do things to heal itself during the times we sleep because all our other functions slow down allowing the body to focus on healing from whatever we just went thru during our awake hours. Now if we say avoid sleep by using speed or caffine to keep us away. Our body can still heal, just not as effectively. It's not exactly the same because one plants don't sleep and two if you take away their dark period altogether the won't die. If a human tried to stay up indefinately eventually it would do alot of damage.

Anyway, again you can go 20/4 if you want but you'll be just as good if not better plant wise at 18/6 as you would be at 20/4 and your electric bill will be several dollars lower per month.

How long you should let them grow in veg before going to flower is debatable. Personally I say let the plant have two months. It takes about 2 months to get to a good size and reach full maturity. I'm a big believer in that we alter enough when we grow indoors so things like how long we veg or the length of light cycles we should keep as close to normal as possible. That being said, as soon as a plant has established roots you can put it into 12/12 if you want. What I have noticed though is that if you flower a plant before it's mature, it'll mature first then start to flower. That's why it's better to wait rather then flower early to identify sex because by the time a pre-mature plant matures and flowers it'll be close to showing pre-flowers if on an 18/6 cycle anyway. So you didn't really save any time. Also if it's too small and you feel it needs to be bigger you would have to switch back to veg and then wait for it to revert to veg which can take as much as a month. So in that situation you would really lose time.

Now if you are working from clones, hopefully they came from a mature mother. If so you don't have to wait for them to mature. Clones are as mature as the plants they come from. You also don't need to worry about sexing them even if they have no pre-flowers showing the sex will be the same as the plant it came from. So with clones once they establish roots you can usually flower them after about 2 or 3 weeks veg time to build up some size. However you could go sooner to have smaller plants or wait a bit longer to have bigger ones.

 

[HempKat]

I have a closet with sliding doors that could house up to 6 plants (though 4 would probably be a smart limit). I have sealed off the edges of doors against light and excess odor leakage by duct taping rolled up towels to the openings. Unfortunately, if I seal it up completely there will be no way for the plants to get enough air (right?). I could create a cardboard door with a small hole to fit the exhaust of a fan to solve this problem. Would this hole, with the fan fitting snugly in it and duct tape along the edges, allow enough light into the closet to disrupt the dark cycle? If so, what can I do?

If the door is your only intake then doing what you're suggesting will cause ventilation issues. If you add an active intake with a fan that could offset the problem but the fan blowing in will make things harder for the fan pulling air out. So the better way to go is to either keep the bottom of the door unblocked and try to make some form of light baffle. Or seal the door and have a different passive intake in there that is protected by a light baffle.

Light travels in a straight line and only changes direction if it is relected in a different direction, so the inside surface of the light baffle (where light might pass thru) should be painted black so it doesn't reflect up and around the light baffle. The baffle itself creates a couple of 90 degree angles the light has to pass thru. If it can't reflect inside then the light will be stopped by the baffle. Dark rooms used by photgrapers back when film still needed to be developed in a dark room often had an entrance that was a hallway that turned back on itself before you could enter the dark room. It was essentially a giant light baffle big enough to allow people to enter the room without letting light in.

Below is a diagram showing a cross section that helps illustrate the idea. If I wer coing to build one I'd find a box tall enough and long enough to completely block the gap at the bottom of the door. I'd cut a nother in it big enough to expose to open area under the door, to the inside of the box. I'd then cut the same size opening in the front. If done correctly the box will cover the bottom and length of the door with an opening in the front and the back to allow air to pass under the gap beneath the door. Now open the box and place a dividing wall in the middle of the box that is taller then the holes in the box but short enough that there is space between the top of the divider and the top of the box and then paint the inside black. Now close the box and secure it to your door. The air will pass thru but not the light.

​

The first pic I was just trying to show the concept of the light baffle but then I got to thinking it doesn't match up quite right with the box idea I suggested. So here is another cross section based more on the idea of using a box.

​

 

[Malcolm]

Thanks! I've been collecting cardboard in case I had to do this so I'm set.

 

[TheOneWill]

Thanks for all the help hemp kat.

 

[HempKat]

Glad to help :smile:

 

[chronicdoc316]

hempkat,

I recently started my first real grow and I am using an all organic setup --coco with foxfarm nutes with a drip setup 1/4 straight lines in duel 5 gallon buckets with a recirculating res and a Co2 delivery system -- and I am following the foxfarm weekly schedual ---I am in week 3 of my flower and I am trying to get max bud size-- I have done some reading and it says to max bud size add molassas in week 3 (1) will this increase the size of my buds (2) can I just add it to my foxfarm nuts (3) will i clog my lines or have any adverse effects IYO (4) how much will this increase my bud size
to my Power plant and Bella donna.

any help would be greatly appreciated..

 

[HempKat]

hempkat,

I recently started my first real grow and I am using an all organic setup --coco with foxfarm nutes with a drip setup 1/4 straight lines in duel 5 gallon buckets with a recirculating res and a Co2 delivery system -- and I am following the foxfarm weekly schedual ---I am in week 3 of my flower and I am trying to get max bud size-- I have done some reading and it says to max bud size add molassas in week 3 (1) will this increase the size of my buds (2) can I just add it to my foxfarm nuts (3) will i clog my lines or have any adverse effects IYO (4) how much will this increase my bud size
to my Power plant and Bella donna.

any help would be greatly appreciated..

Well first of all it sounds like your set up is tweaked for maximum performance already so you really shouldn't need more bud size. Now that being said the two main uses of molasses is one for it's chalete properties (ability to draw out nutrients locked in the soil) and two for the energy it can provide to the microherd. If there is any size increase from molasses it's because it helped kick the micro organisms into high gear which in turn brought more water and nutrients into the plant.

All in all given your set up is what it is I'd say the molasses is a take it or leave it kind of thing. I think coco is eneough different from soil that the molasses would do more harm then good by it's risk of gumming up the works. You would be better served by insuring you are giving them as completely rounded a feeding as possible. The buds do swell in the final weeks, if they take up lots of nutrients and water they'll swell more.

 

[chronicdoc316]

Hey thanks for answering my question I will just go with my setup already in place ..I do have a couple more ?'s... my plants are 4+ ft high and branching is every 2 inches or so up the entire stalk .... I have trimmed the bottom of the stalk about 6 inches or so of any branches should I go higher to concentrate the energy to the upper buds and if so how high? and also over the past week or so I have found that the ph is dropping very fast on a daily basis I have been correcting it every day but it seems to drop again by the next day from 5.8 down to 4.3 or 4.5 is this normal and why or what could be the potential problems the nutes are good.

 

[HempKat]

Hey thanks for answering my question I will just go with my setup already in place ..I do have a couple more ?'s... my plants are 4+ ft high and branching is every 2 inches or so up the entire stalk .... I have trimmed the bottom of the stalk about 6 inches or so of any branches should I go higher to concentrate the energy to the upper buds and if so how high? and also over the past week or so I have found that the ph is dropping very fast on a daily basis I have been correcting it every day but it seems to drop again by the next day from 5.8 down to 4.3 or 4.5 is this normal and why or what could be the potential problems the nutes are good.

There's no set height to which you should trim the bottoms of the plant. Some would say don't do it at all. I used to be one of those but have now come to realize it does help. I mainly go by, whatever looks like it's losing color due to lack of light and/or any growth that doesn't look like it'll ever amount to much. That's what I cut away. How high or low this is, will mainly be a factor of how populated your grow. The more plants you have under one light the more crowded they are and the denser the canopy will be. Not much light will get thru so you'll probably end up trimming them pretty high. If they're not packed tight the light will be able to get down further meaning you'll have to trim less.

I'm guessing you have 1000W lights, if so then at 4 feet tall you shouldn't have to trim much if it's not too crowded. at that height the strength of the light it recieves should be pretty good top to bottom. 4 foot is about the perfect height for plants under a 1000W light in my opinion. On your ph problem, well I've never worked with coco or the style of grow you're using So I'm not sure what to tell you then you should ask someone familiar with the style you're using. Ph is a serious issue, if it's too low or too high it will block the plant's ability to absorb nutrients. This will appear as a deficieny which most people will treat by adding more nutrients which just makes matters worse and pushes the plant closer towards nutrient toxicity.

 

[chronicdoc316]

thanks for your input it is very insightful....can you tell me what to expect as far as yield with this size plant

 

[HempKat]

thanks for your input it is very insightful....can you tell me what to expect as far as yield with this size plant

Sorry, yield is more a factor of genetics then size so you can't say that because a plant is 4 feet high it will yield X number of grams or ounces. Some strains are known to be low yielders and some heavy yielders. I haven't grown those strains either so I can't even estimate by that. Generally speaking indoor plants will yield 2 to 4 ounces if that size and grown well. Now that's dried, trimmed, bud weight by the way, that would be between a half pound to a pound when it's still wet. Wet weight means little though except you can average that dried it'll weigh about a 4th of what it does when wet.

 

[Macster2]

hey Hempcat maybe you've an answer?



www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=96320