passive plant killer

[jjfoo]

jjfoo,

I presume you include atmospheric humidity, even though you don't mention it specifically.

yea, probably the biggest factor!

If you have tons of holes or smartpots (fabric pots) you are going to lose more water and need lower ec. If you have a R.H. of 30 you will need different nutes than a guy with 80.

I have no holes at all in my buckets for root pruining or gas exchange, so I don't get near the evap as people that drill holes in their buckets.

Here is an interesting read:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC367454/pdf/plntphys00221-0149.pdf

 

[the_baked_chef]

maxi bloom or cool bloom?

and jacks shipping shouldnt be so bad theres USPS flate rate boxes just have someone break out 5lbs of each or so cram it in one and send it lol I paid 44.90 after shipping for it and click specialty chemicals under the tab at jrpeterslab(dot)com and check its really good stuff and doesnt take much so it lasts

Hi Daggerinmyback,

thanks for the suggestion with the USPS flate rate boxes. I would very much like to use the same nutes everybody seems to have so great success with but i didn't quite get what you ment.
I looked the flate rate fees up and is still would cost around 100$ just to ship a decent sized box to the Netherlands.
If i understood you correctly you suggested that i would ask someone who already ordered something in a much bigger box if there was some space left fot the nutes, but i have no idea where i would find some one like that - and it would still need further transportation in the Netherlands so i may have to use some of the many nutes that are easily accessible here

If i did understand your idea wrong please elaborate

 

[delta9nxs]

I was in the flower room the other night and passed out onto the concrete floor. Had to go to the emergency room where a blood test found that I am now severely enemic. Great! Two days in the hospital getting pumped full of whole blood. I'm still extremely weak and am mostly just trying to rest, so I haven't been getting a lot done. This shit has to end soon.

I have been trying to read the thread a little and stay up with you guys but it has been difficult. If I have overlooked questions please let me know and i'll try to answer.

I want to thank all who have tried to help people new to the thread.

Welcome, chef! I started with flora nova bloom and, as my buddy cactus jack warned me, it makes a mess in these things. Took months to clean out the residue. On your side of the pond Haifa Chemicals from Israel is a big supplier in europe. They have a formula almost identical to the jack's program.

I'm sure the Dutch manufacturers have something to offer also.

I have used a lot of maxi bloom from gh and think it would probably work ok too.

But I can testify as to the efficacy of jack's/calcinit.

Also, I don't think peat is a good choice of medium for one of these things. Peat is extremely acidic and must be countered. It also decomposes rapidly even in short term crops. The decomposition poses as much of a mechanical problem as a chemical one in that it tends to reduce the initial air porosity of your mix. The chemical side of it is that it will tend to use up nitrogen that should be available for the plant.

I'm using atami coco still but i'm working on a cheap, locally available substitute. I have come to believe that it is the mechanical properties of a medium that are the most important element. Not the material itself, so much. As long as you can maintain approx. 30% air porosity and have the capillary potential to wick moisture upward 6-8” I think you would have a workable medium for a ppk. I'm trying to put together a medium that has no salt content at all made from mostly agricultural byproducts. If I can accomplish this I will have no more need of a “grow” store.


So scrog, have you finally clogged a feed line from the control bucket? I get one once in a while. I just blow air through it to get the crap out. You can easily compare flow volume by dumping the control bucket and watching the backflow. I don't know what the brown stuff is but it has occurred in almost every hydro res i've operated. I suspect brown algae. There are forms that don't require light. Anyway I just blow out the line whenever I move a plant. I also wash the reservoirs with dish detergent and a brush at the same time.

The black plastic buckets from us plastics do give off an oily looking sheen initially. They need to be scrubbed thoroughly with detergent before use. I think all plastics should be scrubbed before use. However, I have not had issues with toxicity. I do think it is essential to have light proof containers no matter what you use. Green filamentous algae is not your friend.


Hey, jj! My ec 1.2 statement was just to let people know that I am operating at that level. Some plants in some environmental conditions will require more. Remember I dropped to ec 1.2 back in December when the humidity dropped all over north america. I fully expect to bump it up a little when my humidity goes to 50-60%.

thanks for the link. It's a keeper.

IF, you have touched on some ideas I want to come back and discuss later, getting tired now. Thanks for all your help.

d9

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

I was in the flower room the other night and passed out onto the concrete floor. Had to go to the emergency room where a blood test found that I am now severely enemic.

Shitty.

I know I can't come clean up the undergrowth for you, or defoliate, or take cuttings.

This makes me sad.

So I guess I'll do my best to do something like pray for you. Or super deliberate best wishes. Or something.

I'm kind of a hack at that sort of things... so if you get worse, it might've been my fault. But I'll do my best. At least once.

 

[the_baked_chef]

@D9: Thanks for the friendly welcome. I very much enjoy you sharing your experience with me i wish you all the best for your medical problems which seem to have taken a turn to the worst..
From what i read to you i would put you down as a guy who won't loose hope too easy and you probably know are saying similar to a dutch one that would roughly translated state that: the deepest hour of the night precedes dawn.
So keep the good spirit up after all hope is the second best medicine and you already have plenty of the best

Thanks for the tipps with the israelian nutes, much to my suprise i instantly found a supplier in Belgium not too far from where i live so i'll probably just take a trip down there and let them show me around.
Maybe they can also supply me with some bricks of coco )

 

[daggerinmyback]

@ D9... man wish I could help you out with stuff... and I hope for the best for you... I just got rejected as a donor of bone marrow because I have ptsd and grind my teeth into dust... I try to help where I can and you have greatly helped us all grow the boring way ... Get better and come show us how you pulled 4lbs off a untamed plant...

 

[jjfoo]

the first was whether i could keep my motherplants in a bucket connected to the ppk system. What would happen if overtime the roots of the plant had maxed out all the place in their medium? They would probably grow down the mediumwick, wouldn`t they?

At this point you could remove the plant, prune the roots and replace the plant. Read about root pruning.

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

Yo!

oo just updated his thread here. He's taken a haze to 125 days in a PPK!

 

[jjfoo]

I am having sever mildew. Anyone else have trouble with this using this style? I'm wondering if the constant source of moisture could be a bad thing for some strains. I'm growing bubba X OG (at least that is what i was told).

My veg plants even had it. I sprayed with the grow-more silicon product. I've read that mold doesn't tolerate a high pH. The EC of the spray was about .4 and the pH was like 10. I use RO so the solution doesn't have the same alkalinity as using tap water. The veg plants now have no mold or burning (10 days later). They look great, but the flowering plants are not responding the same. I'm ok with losing it all, I just wan't to prevent it. I can't be sure if the high pH spray helped or if it was something else (weather change, etc).

by the way, I wanted to share this link. It is probably already in this thread, but for teh new people who havn't yet read it all...
http://www.controlledenvironments.org/Growth_Chamber_Handbook/Plant_Growth_Chamber_Handbook.htm

 

[daggerinmyback]

Could be area of the country?... Im now coastal and had to change a few of my ways... have had gnats now first time... but I hope you can figure it out... cause Im afraid of that in this damp climate... I do have mildew in a few of my windowsills but the lights seem to keep my plant room dried out better ... but Im watching my RH monitor like a hawk every morning

thanks for the link man I now have more to read

 

[the_baked_chef]

i read that regular spraying with diluted h2o2 solution will keep buds relatively secure from mold - but that would probably be too late now ...

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

jjfoo

Mildew, as I've seen it, is an issue of humidity, temp and air circulation. Or more elaborately: the localized high humidity that can only result from limited air circulation. An example would be a wet towel left in a black garbage bag left in the sun.

As you haven't drilled out your sides in your media container, your garden should have less evaporation than a more porous PPK set up.

If you increase your air gap, that should additionally reduce the moisture content in the upper layers of the media (and therefore have less direct evaporation).

Having some understanding of your build, my feeling is that the most proactive direction is to optimize internal air circulation (to break up high-moisture pockets) and good exchange of air/dehumidification within the growing area. Eliminate the still, warm, damp air pockets and you'll eliminate the environment that mildew grows in.

Of course, I know you already know that.

So what details am I overlooking in this response?

 

[SCROG McDuck]

Could be area of the country?... Im now coastal and had to change a few of my ways... have had gnats now first time... but I hope you can figure it out... cause Im afraid of that in this damp climate... I do have mildew in a few of my windowsills but the lights seem to keep my plant room dried out better ... but Im watching my RH monitor like a hawk every morning

thanks for the link man I now have more to read

I'm coastal in south florida and get that mildew on my door jams
and outside cabinets that are not in the sun. No gnats so far.

In the tent, RH% can go very low with fans running 24/7 so
I've taken to a 'lights on' humidifier (Commercial Grade) on a timer
and a 'lights off' dehumidifier on a timer.
Along with the newly installed pulse system, the girls are looking better than ever.
I found that with both on 24/7 the humidifier was just feeding the dehumidifier most the time: 5 gallons a day!
The tent is too crowded to have the dehuey and the humidifier in there together
with the ppks, so the humidifier controller is in the tent and the humidifier and dehuy is outside the tent.

And D9... get well soon, I (we) miss your interventions, cooments and revilations.

 

[daggerinmyback]

SCROG! thats the answer I needed to trigger my synapses to work.... thanks
I have my fan on a timer with lights on and lights off it runs intermittently but my RH has been lucky enough to stay at 60% highest but Im vegging now so it will have to drop for flower

and I was wondering what Delta's light revolution was and hope he's doing better...

 

[SCROG McDuck]

SCROG! thats the answer I needed to trigger my synapses to work.... thanks
I have my fan on a timer with lights on and lights off it runs intermittently but my RH has been lucky enough to stay at 60% highest but Im vegging now so it will have to drop for flower

and I was wondering what Delta's light revolution was and hope he's doing better...

Mine are in flower now.. but run the same during RH veg.
I'm wanting 60>54>60RH.. do you think that 60% is too high for them? I wish I had the balls to run them at 70% but bad shit starts happening around there.

I'm guessing that it is strain dependant.. more Indica, less RH%, more sative, more RH%. Temps have something to do with it too.

Oh, and I'm running 2, 6" fans, one on/off with the lights and the other, 24/7.

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

I was reading, for other reasons, a couple of reports on mold and other crap. Some documents generalize problems at 60%, others 70%.

The biggest thing to remembrance, at least in my mind, is the problem with pockets of humidity that are greater... like condensation in the bud mass, etc.

This is why DHF, I believe, reminds us of the process of dropping the RH down to 50% in flower--not because it is optimum growth conditions but to prevent catastrophic infestation.

 

[jjfoo]

ok,

I have good air flow around the plants. At first I actually had too much and my plants where getting dried. I live near the coast, but the room humidity doesn't get above 60. I have a dehumidifier.

I have raised my airgap to about 4 inches. It used to be about 2. I noticed that if I rub the leaves that they seem to be wet. There are no leaks or spray hitting them.

I'd like to learn more about using H2O2 or a high pH spray to create an unfriendly environment for mold.

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

I have raised my airgap to about 4 inches. It used to be about 2. I noticed that if I rub the leaves that they seem to be wet. There are no leaks or spray hitting them.

jjfoo... I know you already know this... but my guess is that the moisture you describe is the result of your plant's transpiration. If the canopy is so dense that the air flow doesn't go through the whole of the plant, that transpiration can result in high local humidity, and in the right conditions, it can condense and make leaves wet. This is something I'm observing in my 18-6 room.

My guess is that you have really thick, bushy, beautiful plants. In all of that beautiful, healthy, and rapid growth, the air isn't pushing through the whole canopy and in spots the air is trapped, resulting in pockets of localized high humidity... and that is the source of the 'wetness' and core issue related to mildew. At least, that's my guess.

 

[the_baked_chef]

I'd like to learn more about using H2O2 or a high pH spray to create an unfriendly environment for mold.

hi jjfoo

is did not find the thread where i read about it - i think it was in the outdoor section though...

anyway here is some quote that explains how to use is - which is pretty much straight forward...

Spray regular hydrogen peroxide (the kind from the drugstore, not the food grade kind) full strength on the affected plants. Do not spray on newly transplanted plants or young seedlings until they become well established. Test on a small area of the plant and wait 24 hours to see if it has any negative reactions to the hydrogen peroxide. This works as both a treatment and a preventative.

In the original thread they adviced to use a much more diluted h2O2 solution for preventive foliar spraying - 2 tablespoons of H2O2 (3%) per pint H2O ^^

however i did not try this myself as i have h2o2 anyways for my fishtanks but i plan to do it in my grow (far far in the future...)

If IFs assumption is correct you might just thin out your bushes ;o)
How convenient that D9 has already conducted and shared some experiments about when and how often to do this and the effects on your harvest (good to here that he is on the track to recovery ) )

 

[daggerinmyback]

Ah, my RH in veg right now some how has jumped to 63% while I was away, and thats with the fan on at lights on (6" 240cfm) and here and there at lights off, and I heavily defoliate at least twice a week and it drops it nicely...

Ive often heard 50% RH is russian roulette with buds as the denity often allows inner condensation, but know that strains like different things based on their genetic homes...

I hope D9 is at least better and just waiting to drop a hiroshima level of knowledge on us with his experimental lighting, since the mention Ive been looking at the UMOL stuff and flipping between HPS/MH and HO CFL to save electric costs but am trying to justify that cost and setup to the wife...