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My lil Organic Grow Round 1

Hey everyone. Just wanted to introduce my self and say thank you to everyone for contributing such great info.

I'm a newish grower. I ran a small medical home grow op a few years ago with some success. Grew for prob about 18 months or so. Pretty much fucked up every crop except the last two. I started with flood tables in a garage. Had some serious environment control issues and ended up with pm over and over again. Then I moved the grow in to the house to an extra room i had and switched to coco and things were much better. I was using the Botanicare line. Pulled about a lb off a 1000w light on a 4x4 table. Not amazing i know but I was happy about it. I had more success growing outside. I basically did the same thing i did indoors but with 20 g grow bags. That one came out really good. I got an estimated 4-5 lbs from about a dozen plants. Stuff looked like indoor but smelled even better and had much denser bud structure. Unfortunately that entire crop got stolen. My next crop after that as an indoor that hermied on me. That coupled with some legal trouble forced me to move to a small apartment where I could no longer grow.

Fast forward a few years and here I am going at it again. I've grown an organic vegie garden for the last 2 years so I have some experience with organics but I wouldn't consider my self a "great" gardener. Starting to grow cannabis again has really advanced my knowledge of organics so I forsee this next years garden being my best yet.

Anyways, I'm growing indoors in a 5x10' tent. 1 1000w light (I'm going to swap it out for 2 600's at some point in the future) but the tents not full so it's really not necessary right now.

I've got 8 plants started from seed (Citrus Black by solfire genetics) in 10 gal fabric parts. I basically used Coots mix. Other than the Peat and pumice in the mix I added worm castings, cow compost, (charged) bio char, neem meal, crab meal, and kelp meal along with some rock dusts. I can't remember the ratios off the top of my head but it was basically what coot recommends. I topdressed with some home made worm castings and then covered with hay.

Seeds were started in small cups then transplanted straight into their 10 gal homes at about 2" tall. That was about 4-5 weeks ago. But the plants missed about a week of growing time when they had to be stored in a closet for an annual inspection by my landlord.

Plants get a foliar spray containing some silica, essential oils, sea 90 (basically sea salt), and a nitrogen containing amino acid powder once to twice a week. Then they get a worm or alfalfa tea also, which I water in as well as foliar. I do that bout once a week. But missed that this last week. The essential oils got added to the foliar after I found some little flying bugs. I think they were fungus nats but i'm not sure. They were gone after 2 applications so what ever they were I'm not worried any more.

So everythings been growing really good. Then about a week ago or maybe a little more I noticed small brown spots forming on the lower older fan leaves. It continued to get worse (not horrible or anything) then I started getting some twisting my fan leaves. I think it's a magnesium or calcium deficiency. I also realize that I could have been over watering. I'm hoping it's the latter because I was under the influence that there was plenty of mg and ca in my mix. And this is brand new soil so no chance of depletion.

2 days ago I made up a kelp tea (for ca) and mixed in some epsom salt (for mg) to try and address the issue. I think they look better already but it's hard to tell. They're definitely still growing well, in fact I feel like they really just took off around the same time the issue started developing. I realize I could just go grab some cal-mag but I'm pretty determined to keep this grow organic and not buy anything from the hydro store. Plus I know that won't really fix the problem. This crop is just for my self, family, and friends so I could technically afford to lose the whole crop but I might cry (at least on this inside) if that happens. I planned on flowering the plants in about 2 weeks but I want to make sure I have this issue corrected or at least headed in the right direction before then.

I was going to post this in the infirmary to begin with but i figured the guys that know how to fix it are going to be here and I've been meaning to start a little grow log.

Thanks in advance for reading and/ or contributing.

pics coming very soon...5 min
 
pics
 

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So can anyone verify if this is a ca/ and or mg issue?

The only thing I can really see that I did wrong was maybe over water...or I added way too much bio-char and it's sucking up all my nutes. I did add some extra bio char because I was a little short on pumice. I thought it was good for aeration but after I added it I wasn't so sure. It definitely holds a lot of water.
 

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h.h.

Active member
Veteran
Sounds like over watering.
Possibly magnesium deficiency. You can try a shot of Epsom salts, but probably the water.
 

Cvh

Well-known member
Supermod
Welcome to the forum!
Sounds like overwatering. Let your pots dry out between waterings.
The flying bugs should also go away then.
 

Lapides

Rosin Junky and Certified Worm Wrangler
Veteran
It could very well be your water source. Is it from the tap?


IMO letting your pots dry out between waterings in an organic soil grow is not the thing to do. I've noticed that when my pots get just a little too dry, the plant plays catch up from that point on and is just not as healthy as it was before the pot got dried out.



The microorganisms that your plant relies on to be healthy need constant moisture to live.



The pictures of your plants don't look overwatered to me.


Also, I would stop trying so many things to correct the few spots you see. A lot of extra additions in an organic grow can take up to a couple weeks for you to see the difference, and in that time you may try other things because you're not seeing any results, thus fucking shit up further.


Your mix sounds solid enough. I doubt it's missing anything you need. Stop stressing and keep chugging. Maybe do less also.


edit: the spots could also be from your foliar applications. The little droplets of water left on the leaves can act as a magnifying glass with the strong light from your 1000 watter.
 
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Hey guys thanks for stopping in. So I'm going to water less. It just feels weird not watering them every 3-4 days. I do know that you dont want soil completely dry. Especially peat based soils because they turn hydrophobic. I felt they were were growing out of their funk yesterday so hopefully that trend continues.

I am using tap water but I run it through a chlorime filter. We have pretty hard water where I'm at. Somewhere around 300ppms. I can't remember off the top of my head but its up there. I thought would be a plus seeing as how it contains all those minerals but I guess their could be too much minerals?

Oh and I only spray at lighys off.

Anyways...I'll do less for a bit. Maybe I'm just over complicating things.
 

wetdog

New member
Did you add lime to buffer the pH of that peat moss?

It's sorta looking like a Calcium def and twisty leaves can indicate pH problems, but overwatering can also present weird growth like that. If you added sufficient lime, then I'd look real hard at the overwatering. If not, I'd topdress some lime right quick.

Wet
 
Wassup wet dog. I guess youre like the wetter less sweet version of me huh?:biggrin:

I didn't add any lime. I did use a pre mixed mineral kit from buildasoil though. It contains oyster shell flower. I figured that would be sufficient. Is oyster shell a good alternative to lime? I actually forgot the oyster was in there. So at this point I'm thinking there's no way its true deficiency. Probably lock out from ph being off or too much water. I'm gonna let the soil dry out a bit then just give them plain ol water for the next couple waterings in hopes that they just sort them selves out.
 

wetdog

New member
Wassup wet dog. I guess youre like the wetter less sweet version of me huh?:biggrin:

I didn't add any lime. I did use a pre mixed mineral kit from buildasoil though. It contains oyster shell flower. I figured that would be sufficient. Is oyster shell a good alternative to lime? I actually forgot the oyster was in there. So at this point I'm thinking there's no way its true deficiency. Probably lock out from ph being off or too much water. I'm gonna let the soil dry out a bit then just give them plain ol water for the next couple waterings in hopes that they just sort them selves out.

Yaa, my wife loves the smell of wet dogs, so I got to be the stinky one>:tiphat:

IDK about lime (OSF) and BaS mineral mix. I always keep my liming agent totally separate from other minerals, The standard is 1cup/cf. It would depend on how much of the mineral mix you added and what % of the mix the OSF was.

BTW, OSF lacks Mg (I use dolomite), so keep an eye out for deficiencys.

First though, let them dry out some and see where that goes and cross off one possible cause.

Can you calculate just how much mineral mix was added? Likely light on the OSF I'm thinking.

Wet
 

Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
I'm with Lapides on this one. I think it is from foliar spray. Also on the drying out thing.
 
Wow guys. Thsnks for all the responses. I feel better just knowing that you're looking over my shoulder.

Now that I think of it the problems started around the same time I did an alfalfa foliar. Maybe I added too much Dr bronners soap and it left a residue or something. Maybe related I dunno.

So I bought a 40 lb mineral mix. Which consists of 20 lbs basalt, 10 lbs gypsum, and 10 lbs osf. It was supposed to be enough for 14 c.f. I messed up somewhere in my calculations because I ended up with only 10.7ish c.f. of soil when everything was mixed. So about 80 gal of soil.

Could too much minerals be a problem? I feel like at this point I prob shouldn't mess with it any more. Pots are starting to get lighter. I would usually water right about now but theres definitely plenty of moisture in the top few inches of soil still. I'm going to give them 2-3 more days ( or maybe longer) before I water again. After going this long with no water and realizing that they're perfectly fine without I was def overwatering.

I actually have some tomatoes in an outdoor bed right now and when winter came along they suffered similar effects as the canna but less spots and more dead leaf edges. I was used to watering every other day during the summer. I solved it by just not watering at all ( because I thought they were all dieing and I kind of abandoned them) now the occasional rain ( I'm in San Diego) is all the water they get and theyre doing great.

Its funny because I did alot of research before I started this little venture and I'm fully aware the the most common newbie mistake is over/ under watering. I was thinking well thats simple, how do u fuck that up... And here I am.

I'll post an updste in a few days. Hopefully things are on the upswing.
 
Just for fun and why the hell not...I'm bored

Just for fun and why the hell not...I'm bored

So on somewhat of a tangent. Has any1 ever used avacado seeds as a fertilizer. I have a avo tree that has been producing like crazy. I have so many I don't know what to do with them. Which isn't the worse problem to have considering the price of avocados but I've been trying to figure out what to do with them all.

My dog eats most the ones that fall. The ones she doesn't get are fed to the worms. They love em just as much as the dog. They're always the first thing the worms eat. I think it's because avos are so fatty and they decompose quickly.

I also made a fpj or ffj whatever the acronym is with equal parts sugar and avo. It seemed like it was working. The avo was still green (except for the top layer that was making air contact which had a nice white fuzzy layer) and had a sour smell to it but nothing like what you would assume 2 week old avocado mash sitting in a cupboard would smell like. Definitely not putrid. After researching avocado ferments I learned that because avocado is so fatty that it doesn't ferment well so I scrapped it.

Then today I found a pile of avo seeds where my dog likes to snack and thought about seed sprout tea. Unfortunately avocados are difficult to sprout and it takes weeks. So I did some more research and it turns out that people actually take avocado seed powder as a dietary supplement. So I figured if it's good for our body it's good for the soil.

I'm dehydrating about 2 dozen seeds right now. When they're done I'll powder them and feed some to one of my smaller worm bins (just in case there's a problem). The only issue I can see is that avo seeds contain high amounts of tannins which could be potentially harmful but I'm pretty sure drying them should destroy most tannins along with any flavanoids, terpenes, and other volatile stuffs that we usually try to keep in wine and cannabis.

Here's a shitty pic of some seed just because I know everybody like pictures. I really need to get a phone with a better camera.
 

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MedResearcher

Member
Veteran
Hard to say, I don't think its Mag def, because the fact its showing on the bottom fans. For me, it typically pops up on the top, closest to the light, where the growth is the fastest, just not enough mag to keep em solid green.

How thick is that mulch layer of hay? Its pretty easy to over mulch with hay, which will lead to an over water situation. Not because you are actually over watering, but because the hay is stopping evaporation, and possible cause an anaerobic situation.

I am not saying don't mulch, just mulch slowly and carefully. Can always add more mulch, as the plants strive and start needing water frequently. Should not take much mulch for an indoor environment. Outside, 110 degree July weather, you can get away with a thicker layer. 10 gallon pot, with a tiny start in it, it may not really need any or much mulch until it gets established. Prior to a plants roots filling out a container, at least myself, I sort of rely on a little bit of evaporation to keep the container from staying soggy.


Organics are forgiving, but there are limits as to how hard it is, and how poor the PH is of the source water. Over time, calcium carbonate builds up causing issues. Not sure that is the case atm, but something to think about long term, especially if you plan to reuse the soil for multiple cycles.


Plants look pretty good, are they still perky, praying to the lights?


Molasses is a nice additive to keep things chugging along. I have recently realized again why it is so good. Tbsp per gallon of feed, if you can afford it.


Gypsum is a quick way to get some calcium, I would say quicker than Oyster, and the sulfur in it balances out the PH to some extent. If your water is high PH, Gypsum is the way to go for a shot of calcium. Sort of like the mulch though, start with a little bit, and observe. It can cake up if you add to much to quick.


Investigate your mulch, look under it, smell it. If they seem over watered remove some of the mulch imo. Thin layer of gypsum for some quick calcium. Molasses and Kelp cant really go wrong.


Looks pretty good though, have some patience and keep a close eye. If the plants are praying, you are on track, when they stop doing that, something is going wrong.

Mr^^
 

MedResearcher

Member
Veteran
Have been growing Canna for close to 20 years, over/under watering is still one of the trickiest things for me to manage. My GF has a better green thumb, she can just look at the leaves and instantly tell if they need water. She claims as she waters she sees them respond, and keeps watering until they are on full perk and look right.. lol.

When I can, I let her do the watering :)

Think that is part of the reason so many people grow canna hydroponically. It removes the whole under/over watering, making it easier. Imo, not better, but easier, and more automated/fool proof.


Mr^^
 
Wassup MedResearcher. Thanks for stopping in. I agree with you on the Mg thing. I havn't seen it enough with 100% certainty to really know what it looks like but it didn't really match the symptoms i was reading about. I just know that Ca and Mg are usually related so I kind of bunched them together.

You might have nailed it with the mulch layer. It's actually pretty thick. 1/4 to a half 1/2 in depending on pot. I keep a nice thick hay mulch on my worm bins and I added the hay when I added a worm casting top dressing pretty much out of habit. I do the same thing outside on my no dig veggie beds because it's pretty much necessary. I'm going to take off some mulch right now. I actually have some cover crop seeds I've been meaning to throw in there so this is a good time anywayz.

My tap water flows at 7.1 ph. So not too far from neutral. I dunno if the .1 makes a big difference. I'm sure it could over time but I would think the soil would buffer it to an extent.

I do add molasses to my compost teas. It didn't even occur to me to just water it in. I could definitely add it to all my waterings. Molasses is cheap and I like to keep it around to make BBQ sauce anyways. mmmm... bbq:)

There was more than the recommended amount of gypsum and oyster in my original soil mix. I probably won't need to add any for a while.

My ph might be off. I tried testing it but I wasn't really sure how to interpret the results. My tap water tested at 7.1. I mixed a handful of soil with a jar of tap water and then it tested at 7.4. It pretty much meant nothing to me other than that my soil was more basic than the water. I realize that's not a very good test. I guess I could have looked one up.

And I agree with you on hydro making it simple. After doing both in my opinion the only REAL benefit to hydro is how fast plants grow. Without a doubt organics produces better tasting and smelling cannabis/ food with higher nutrition content. But hydro is crazy fast. The thing that really got me into organics is when a friend gave me a tower garden a few years ago. If you don't know about tower gardens it's basically a ridiculously expensive badly designed nft-ish system. But it did get me growing at least SOMETHING again. I used botanicare products because that's what I used to use when I grew canna which was a completely necessary expense. I grew lettuce, kale, mustard greens, all sorts of stuff. But it all sucked. I didn't even want to eat it. That's when i was truly realized the difference between organics and chemical fed plants. I've been smoking for 15 years and worked in the cannabis business for about 8 years. I've seen alot of weed and never really appreciated organics vs chem fed until I experienced it through food. Hydroponic weed will still get you really high. But no one can deny that hydro cilantro is flavorless.
 
And I forgot the pics

And I forgot the pics

...
 

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Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
So on somewhat of a tangent. Has any1 ever used avacado seeds as a fertilizer. I have a avo tree that has been producing like crazy. I have so many I don't know what to do with them. Which isn't the worse problem to have considering the price of avocados but I've been trying to figure out what to do with them all.

My dog eats most the ones that fall. The ones she doesn't get are fed to the worms. They love em just as much as the dog. They're always the first thing the worms eat. I think it's because avos are so fatty and they decompose quickly.

I also made a fpj or ffj whatever the acronym is with equal parts sugar and avo. It seemed like it was working. The avo was still green (except for the top layer that was making air contact which had a nice white fuzzy layer) and had a sour smell to it but nothing like what you would assume 2 week old avocado mash sitting in a cupboard would smell like. Definitely not putrid. After researching avocado ferments I learned that because avocado is so fatty that it doesn't ferment well so I scrapped it.

Then today I found a pile of avo seeds where my dog likes to snack and thought about seed sprout tea. Unfortunately avocados are difficult to sprout and it takes weeks. So I did some more research and it turns out that people actually take avocado seed powder as a dietary supplement. So I figured if it's good for our body it's good for the soil.

I'm dehydrating about 2 dozen seeds right now. When they're done I'll powder them and feed some to one of my smaller worm bins (just in case there's a problem). The only issue I can see is that avo seeds contain high amounts of tannins which could be potentially harmful but I'm pretty sure drying them should destroy most tannins along with any flavanoids, terpenes, and other volatile stuffs that we usually try to keep in wine and cannabis.

Here's a shitty pic of some seed just because I know everybody like pictures. I really need to get a phone with a better camera.

I also have an avocado eating dog. I moved into a house with an enormous avocado tree. I've yet to research anything on avocado production. So far it just keeps giving and giving. Is there a season on them? I'm in the mid-Mexican highlands.

Do your worms eat the skins?

I just moved in after months of renovating. Now I'm trying to turn my attention to the garden which was trashed by the workers.

I'll have to check out the seed thing. I was thinking of planting them and selling avocado trees.
 

Big Nasty

Active member
Hi Sweetdog,can i ask why you are using sea salt?I have always heard it's one of the worst thing for plants,it can block K,ca,mg and binds to the colloids of the soil,sprayed on the leaves it could be even worser,your plants look good though.
edit:i've just read the label of sea90 and there are like a bunch of heavy metals in this product,i can't believe this stuff is for sale and it's even organically approved,wtf i mean arsenic and so on?
 
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