Farmer's Funky Flower Trees - PPK

[frankenstein2]

I don't think pure happy frog will work... it will need to be cut for air porosity otherwise it will waterlog and die as I and Dave the Newbie have experienced with fine coco. I do like the idea of soil PPK though for guerilla growing. Give it a whirl Franky, let us know how it works out.

Last year outdoors i had some seven gallon grow bags in the swamp. We had a really dry year. Luckily it was a good year for the beavers, so i had about an acre of land that was covered with about six inches of water. I took the seven gallon bags and set them directly in the water. They worked almost exactly like a ppk. The only difference is they only got top watered about once a week. The top half of the bags were always dry, and the plants loved it. I put them out in the beginning of july and got an average of 100 grams per plant. happy frog is actually more coarse than coco. With the perlite in it, i think it wil work for a ppk. In my experience happy frog is an airy medium, it's gonna work. If it doesn't i'm gonna hold a gun to it's head till it does.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

bump!
hows progress big fella?
hope all the kinks are ironed out by now ....

 

[FlowerFarmer]

I think they are slowly but surely growing out of their cation issues.

I might be a hair late on my update but here we are. Might have set me back a bit, but I think these ladies are gonna be OK so long as I don't encounter sudden death like Dave mid flower.

Hopefully my tailpieces stay flowin' and draining.


I've backed off just a hair more. Doing 64oz every 1.5 hours.
* EC is 1.2 in Bulk Tank and pH is 5.5
* EC is 1.5 in Pulse Tank, but pH seems to be climbing. Found it at 6.8 the other day. Just splashed a little down into my pulse tank to get it to 6.0 which after a few cycles is back up to pH 6.4. I'm wondering if this is because my feed is too weak. I am running co2 now at 900-1100ppm.

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Transitional Shots
- from transplant to current

 

[high life 45]

Are you adding magsul to your mix? or straight jacks? i notice that my girls dont mind the extra magsul, and its mentioned on the directions for mixing from jrpeters. The newer growth looks healthy, so I hope your on your way to big trees!!!

I have drilled holes in the bottom of my top buckets before, when they didn't drain correctly.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

if you look at the last 2 images, the second last one looks alot ... weepier than the last
as if they were drowning and then recovered.
its the angle of the leaves im referring to rather than colour.

have you come up with a reason why you experienced what you did? did you identify a nute / ph fuckup or a coco drowning or soemthing else, or are you just happy its all gone away ... for now?

 

[delta9nxs]

first, i'm greatly relieved to see that they are coming around!

your medium still looks wet on top. it should have a little dry crust just before the next watering event.

you should only get water showing not dripping off between your fingers when you pick up a handful from the top and squeeze it. again right before an event.

if water drops off then decrease volume or extend interval. minimum 4" air gap.

i would start picking off the worst leaves so that you can clearly see if any new damage is occurring.

 

[DHF]

Good luck FF....Stunted growth and recovery periods suck balls with the power meter spinnin regardless.....

Keep dialin Bro.....and get the turface for insurance next run........

Peace.....Freds.......

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Thanks for all the support guys. I was hoping these plants would hit the ground running, but I guess that is life. Learn and adapt.

HL45, straight Jacks + CalNit in RO - nothing else at all.
I do have several small holes in the bottom of my upper to aid in draining.


Dave, I believe D9 and others hit the nail on the head. Over-watered out of the gate which led to uptake issues. This was compounded by not "charging" my coco properly after heavy RO rinsing. I only did a pour through of 2ec as opposed to 2000ppm (ec4) recommended by D9.

I wonder if all that can be avoided. I've been using Atami right out of the bag (manufacturer pre-charged with CalNit) for nearly 10 years, and have never had any issues like this prior. I should have either did the ec4 pour-through as D9 suggested, or maybe just ran with it without any further rinsing/charging like I've done in the past.

Just recently I did try a pour through of 3.2ec through one of my ladies as a test to see if I could correct any cation issues and notice change, but I really didn't see anything change yet.

Either way I'll be taking the time this grow to prepare some type of clay product for the next run.


delta,
If I take a handful of coco from the pot it doesn't drip water right away, but if I squeeze it in my fist it will drip a bit of water. Now, this is from the top section of my upper container, so perhaps I'm still even wetter below. I'm at 64oz every 1.5hrs, but I'll push it back further.

Do you think it'd be best to maintain 1.5hrs with less volume then 64oz, or should I stick with the 64oz and increase my duration of every 2 hours or so?

~4" air gap.



DHF, Thanks dude! I'm certainly a bit inefficient here, but really don't care at this point. Hopefully these ladies blow up out of this and I can flip the switch sooner then later, but I'm not sweating it at this point. I've had some runs put behind me so I'm in a position to take it easy, enjoy life a little more, and plan/refine my game for bigger, better, safer down the road.


Not going to be a lot of action out of me here as usual. Gotta lotta shit to try to catch up on, but I'll be nosing around. I'll be waiting for that 4 plant / 5 light PPK show outta yall down there in hell and I super stoked to see Dave take a perlite PPK to harvest without killing it.

 

[delta9nxs]

when i used the atami straight out of the bag i still got the cec issues but not too bad. it does start them slower than the rinse and the heavy pour through.

with the rinse and re-charging i had no displays at all and rapid growth.

i think your timing is about right on the interval so maybe play around with less volume.

but if it is only a drop or two that runs out you are close already.

 

[forkup]

Good recovery! I think you're right, the initial flush without a full recharge was a screw up. Glad to see you turn your girls around. Hopefully you're on your way to sheer boredom

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

and I super stoked to see Dave take a perlite PPK to harvest without killing it.

thats a bit pre-emptive isnt it : i can kill in any medium out there!

 

[FlowerFarmer]

truckin right along. Some looking very nice, others still exhibiting some signs but growing out of it. Oddly my original 2 favorite plants are now my least favorite.

A few of them are getting wide, but the others are growing pretty much how I expected this variety to grow. Always has been a rather compact lady.. not sure how she'll fair in a tree situation.

Hoping to see some real explosion and throw the switch soon.

Tossed a few moms around a donut for the hell of it. Havnt really mastered keeping good moms under T5s so best to just flower these out and take more clones for the various projects. Not doing a thread on this, but will toss updates in here at times. Will be blumats w/ straight jacks/no additives.

2 White Rhino / 4 A.Mango

 

[FlowerFarmer]

transitional

 

[delta9nxs]

hey, FF! are you sure you're mixing the jack's right?

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Pretty sure.


I'm doing 130g of Jacks + 86g of CalNit. I do this in a 50Gal barrel for around 1.2EC. I do this in slightly less water to give me a stronger mix of around 1.5EC

I'll first dissolve each in a 3.5 Gal bucket until fully dissolved. I'll then add the jacks bucket to my barrel and let it mix for a while.. then add the CalNit bucket.

___________

I was mixing via EC on my truncheon (in my previous coco circles room), but you recommended the above in a prior PM as we were finding it odd that amounts that I was adding in to achieve 1.2EC. I was previously mixing Jacks to about .7EC and then adding calnit to a 1.2EC

Below is my quoted PM to you back around March/2013. The grams I was using must not have made much sense so you advised me to revert to weighing to ensure I was hitting a .66 ratio.

"Now, I've only got a truncheon so I'm just mixing jacks until I bounce between .6-.8EC (around .7), and then adding CalNit until I reach 1.2EC. I believe this is correct. It is working out to roughly 120g of Jacks and 90g of CalNit in my 50-55 Gal barrel."

I have however cleaned and confirmed my truncheon is accurate. It now is in fact reading 2.77EC in bluelabs conductivity standard solution.

This was what you suggested prior. Should I go back to measuring by EC? My truncheon is definitely ON according to the bluelab solution.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]followed by 1.2 @ .666 by weight because your meter may be off.

so instead of 120 gr jacks run 130 and instead of 90 gr calcinit run 86 to correct the ratio and water as often as possible.[/FONT]

____

HL has directed me to some photos of a potassium lockout/issue and they look identical to what I've been experiencing.

My question.. is my mix boogered up, or is it merely uptake issues (due to the over-watering)(lack of proper charge)(or pH?) resulting in potassium lockout.

Joe Fresh sick plant guide picture.

My latest photo. I think the majority are growing out of it. Been slowly pulling fans to see if I can identify if the issues remains. Hard for me to tell though.

I have been finding it difficult to keep my pH down even though my bulk res is currently sitting at 1.5EC and around 5.4pH. My pulse res however climbs up and is sitting at 6.5 now. I've found it at 6.8 before. I've sometimes been doing just a splash of down into my pulse res to correct to 6.0, but it quickly goes back up after a few cycles which is what I expected as I can't alter my pulse res pH itself much, and my lower bulk res pH doesnt seem to be pulling it down over time.



I think things are improving, but I'm all ears guys if you've got any suggestions.

 

[Snook]

Pretty sure.


I'm doing 130g of Jacks + 86g of CalNit. I do this in a 50Gal barrel for around 1.2EC. I do this in slightly less to give me a stronger mix of around 1.5EC

I'll first dissolve each in a 3.5 Gal bucket until fully dissolved. I'll then add the jacks bucket to my barrel and let it mix for a while.. then add the CalNit bucket.

.

i mix J+C (360ppms Jacks >600/ec 1.2 w CN) whatever the amount of water in a seperate barrel and then transfer to the bulk rez. havent even looked at the ph in over a year.

 

[bobblehead]

I may be wrong... But shouldn't cal/nit be added before base nutes?

 

[Jamorg13]

I may be wrong... But shouldn't cal/nit be added before base nutes?

I agree. Shouldn't any Calcium products be added to the rez 1st? I had continual problems until I figured this out. I usually add Ca to my rez and wait a minimum of 10 minutes until adding anything else.

 

[FlowerFarmer]

I couldnt tell you, but know D9 has always recommended mixing Jacks to a certain PPM then CalNit so it must not matter that much.. at least with this regime.

I do believe however that Mg would need added BEFORE Calnit AFTER Jacks if one was choosing to supplement Mg separately.