[BotanicalBill]

Hey gang, just wanted to start a little thread that is a test for a couple products..

Setup:
36 LUIs in organic soil(pro-mix, tons of perlite, worm castings, blood,bone,kelp, dolomite)
5 gal buckets
LST'd for a nice even canopy
6-600 HPS
Tons of fans for circulation
Big.Ass Dehumidifier
Air-cooled
Carbon filter..
The setup has worked great in the past and has proven quite reliable.
The clones have been ran before so I'm quite familiar with their needs.

Today is day 1 of flowering.

18 of them are un-touched with anything but organic soil with some Metanaturals bloom thrown in every couple feedings.

the other 18 have been sprayed with Eden Messenger's Harpin protein.

6 of those 18 Harpin-applied have also have had Humboldt Bushmaster applied at just a hair under 1tsp/gal (4ml/gal or so) of water.

The only thing I don't have is some that are Humboldt Bushmastered w/out Harpin.. Maybe I'll go back and do 2 that aren't Harpin'd and toss some BM at them.. I'll update that if I do..

For those that aren't familiar with Harpin protein, it's basically a product that tricks the plant to think it's being attacked by something and triggers it's defense mechanism. In some plants this not only helps protect against attacks by pathogens before they attack, but it also in some plants has been reported to create more vigorous growth as a side effect.

I first read about Harpin proteins in a post by Zamalito and decided to look in it. Then I saw a grow by I believe it was Elevator Man who was using it on a few of his plants and he seemed impressed with it. I think he was using a product called Halo.. I'm using a powder made by Eden Bioscience, who if I'm not mistaken first developed it. If I'm wrong on EM being the one using it, please feel free to correct me, I can't remember the thread I originally saw it being used.

I'm not a huge fan of using amendments unless I can find valid information on it outside of the community related to this hobby.. Basically the product has to be used elsewhere in the horticultural community and appear to be valid. For that reason I've only used Fulvic acid in the past. Harpin proteins seem to also be used on a wide variety of plants by a lot of commercial non-hobby related interests so it seemed like it was worth a shot.

That being said, I probably would come off as a hypocrite for saying the above then also having Bushmaster. I didn't originally buy the BM because I wanted giant dense yields. I had it because about 4 months ago I had a situation where I needed to stop growth immediately with some plants I originally hadn't expected to grow out at all. They ended up too big by the time I realized I didn't have the heart to just chop em' so I bought the smallest bottle I could find and gave it a shot. It did the trick on the 4 plants I used it on and then sat in the fridge for the next 4 months without much thought given to it.

So anyway, I still had pretty much the entire bottle of BM left and knowing I was going to do a test with the Harpin I figured I'd dig out the BM and toss it into a few containers and give it a real shot against other plants in the same conditions to see if it really does do anything worthwhile other than stop vertical growth.

I'll have some pics this weekend to show where we're starting. Right now there is a very nice, extremely level canopy from all the LST'ing that took place.

So sit back and enjoy!

BB

Some info on Harpin proteins

https://www.yardener.com/HarpinProteinProducts.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0501075158.htm

[Red]

Looking forward to it my man.

[BotanicalBill]

Ok, I dropped some BM into 2 of the non-Harpin'd buckets (Note to self : 4th row from the west side,5/25 Day 1 Flower) so we'll have that to check out too. I took some pix, not sure how well they turned out since all the damn lights were on and the yellow usually makes my pics suck, but we'll find out in a bit..

[BUDDY BOY]

Setup:
36 LUIs in organic soil

Thats all I need to hear.... GOOD LUCK. Your setup sounds pristine, and Im sure you will do great. Which pheno.

[BotanicalBill]

Ok here are some pics, nothing fancy.. unfortunately every inch of the space is used so there's very little room to get any type of wide angle shots.. But it is what it is..

First two shots are the north and south sides.. 18 each side..

third one is just a side canopy shot to kind of show that evenness of the canopy..

The last one is just one of the buckets showing the LST process for anyone that didn't know what that meant.. Just training the branches down with twist-ties anchored to holes in around the 5 gallon bucket..

Each plant right now is about 12-14" tall LST'd with many thick branches that will turn into nice dense tops. They'd probably be 20-24" had they just been topped and left to nature's whim. I should get the best penetration I've ever had this cycle, hands down..


As to the question of the phenos, I have both the ortega and SWts from what I can tell.. one is very single-cola dominant and a very heavy yielding and then a much more branchy and lower yielding pheno.. I can't remember which is which now name-wise, I think the heavier yielding fatter leaved one is the Ortega they say? Anyway, in the future just the heavy yielding mom will be used for some crossing with F13, Flo, an some other DJ stuff...

[zamalito]

Its always good to see a properly done product test. I've never used harpin protein indoors. It will be interesting to see how it effects plants in an environment free of pathogens.

[Elevator Man]

BB - yeah, it was me used the HALO - it seemed very effective, though once is hardly a real test! But they grew like the clappers in the week following the spray...

[clowntown]

Wow very interesting thread!

Originally Posted by BotanicalBill

For those that aren't familiar with Harpin protein, it's basically a product that tricks the plant to think it's being attacked by something and triggers it's defense mechanism. In some plants this not only helps protect against attacks by pathogens before they attack, but it also in some plants has been reported to create more vigorous growth as a side effect.

Sounds like the bottle description of Advanced Nutrients' Scorpion Juice product:

Originally Posted by https://www.advancednutrients.com/landing_pages/scorpion_juice_landing.html

...Scorpion Juice is a unique vaccination that powerfully and safely stimulates hydroponics plants’ internal defenses so they’re better able to resist their enemies.

· Unique Plant Protection

· Increases Growth and Yield

· Non-toxic, economical formula

Hydroponics plants vaccinated with Scorpion are given advanced preparation so they can stand up to insects, disease, drought and stress. They’ll rebound from attacks, keep growing strong, and give you the profitable harvest you’re counting on.

In test gardens, we grew plants vaccinated with Scorpion side by side with plants that were not vaccinated. Hydroponics plants treated with Scorpion were far more likely to survive dangerous conditions than were untreated plants.

The enhanced immune system function triggered by Scorpion Juice has an added benefit: it increases increased cellular metabolism so plants grow with more vigor and produce larger harvests.

Anyone know whether Scorpion Juice is in fact Harpin proteins?

Edit: Upon further reading:

...and has been proven in field tests to be superior to harpin protein products that purport to create induced systemic resistance.

Better than harpin, so not harpin but salcylic acid... what do you guys think of that description?

[BotanicalBill]

Thanks for that info, clowntown, I'm not familiar with the product but the description certainly does sound exactly the same..

As far as progress I'll have more to report later this evening when I get to take a look at things but a couple days ago I was checking things out and quite frankly haven't seen big differences between any combination of the tests.. What I would expect to see from them I am seeing but it's nothing drastic at all.

On the 18 side that have all Harpin applied and 6 have BM, you can definately tell that the 6 BMs are not as tall, but only by maybe 1 1/2 - 2 inches.. This could have changed a bit in the 2 1/2 days since I've seen them last, however. I couldn't see any change at all in the leaves on the BM'd plants like some people see with higher doses where they get somewhat funky looking so I'm pretty sure LUI can probably handle more like 2tsp+ per gallon in soil no problem.. I did a little under 1 tsp per gal in my test..
But over all the 6 looked just perfect and a little shorter than the 12 directly next to them. I hadn't paid much attention to the harpin-only 2 I did on the other side but I'll be paying attention to that tonight to see if I notice anything drastic.

Basically I'll be looking at overall health, height, and budlet production to see if any of these combinations seem to speed up the process..

I'll report back later

See ya

[BotanicalBill]

Alright, I now will stand corrected on my BM having minimal effect after visiting again today.. All 8 BMs are definately shorter than anything that doesn't have BM applied to it.. On the 18 with Messenger-applied the 12 that don't have BM applied are probably 3-4" taller than the other 6 that have BM. Also, the 2 in the other row that are nothing but BM are also shorter than their surrounding nothing-applied sisters.
At the rate I applied BM (a hair under 1tsp/gal), if you didn't have non-BM'd plants right next to them to compare height, you would never know that BM was applied to the 6 from just a straight healthy-looking plant standpoint, they look fantastic.

As for the harpin, I was in a pretty big rush to get business done and didn't get a chance to compare closely the non-harpin'd row to the harpin rows but I can tell you I certainly didn't notice anything that was standoutish just from standing amongst the garden. The difference in the BM and non-BM was very noticeable, however. I didn't get time to compare bud-growth yet but after only a week into flower there wasn't much to see anyway. I'll report back later in the week.

Peace