im cancelling my organics program.

[Manitoid]

Not sure what the problem would be. I can easily get 3/4 lb organic with a 400 or 600 watt setup in a 2'x3' or 2'x4' space.

lw

I am not suprised you can get .5675 (340.5g/600w) grams per watt, as that is pretty low.

What does suprise me is that you are proud of it.


To the original poster. please do not give up. chemical free marijuana, food, water is what the world needs. I believe you will be blessed with success if you keep practising as the battle for weed growing supremacy is not won overnight! practice practice practice practice practice


btw did anyone know that practicing in the UK is spelled practising... learned through hating the red misspelling lines under the words, knowing the server uses a UK dictionary. WEIRD demoralized is spelled demoralised

what do brits have against the letter Z and C... y'alls love S

 

[captinknots]

so here is what happens as my plants progress into flower, i see it starting on some of my og's right now!

pics are week 1, blackberry kush
week2 not sure but it was supposed to be an ak clone. it looks nothing like ak. small bushy plant
week3 is the og pic where is starts
week3 leaf pic, seeing the beginning of problems.
next pic week 4 martian mean greens, super yellow
next pic martians in week 6. notice how red the hairs are! looken like shit!

it all starts to go down hill in week 3 of flower! if you have an idea, id love to hear it.

 

[hash head]

needs more N and cal/mag..

before it gets to this point.



Also: how much have you been watering these? it kinda seems as if the roots arent completely filling out the pots..

 

[captinknots]

the roots are not filling out the pot for shit my friend. if i water generally, and wet the entire pot, it stays wet for sometimes up to a month! lately ive been watering right down the stem in the foot print of the the 1 gallon pot they were transplanted from. with this technique i can water weekly.
I only use a liter or less of water per plant. not a lot at all, but i water in slowly as to see very little runoff.

should cal mg be used till the last couple weeks? the mix has dolomite lime in it, but i didnt personally mix it, my roomie did. he may not have used enough.....

those yellow martian mean greens ive been hitting with fish emulsion and jamiacan guano. 2 of them are looking better. theres 12 of them tho.

 

[NSPB]

Honestly, what I am seeing here is progressive absence of several minor trace elements..

Keeping in mind it is hard to tell exactly with the yellow hue on the plants from the HPS, but:

Molybdenum
manganese
sulfur
copper

All these things (by the 3rd pic) combined, really kinda make it look EXACTLY like a N or cal/mg def. However, I hesitate to say N, b/c looking at your pics I see some tip burning, which really makes me think they have plenty of fertilization.

By the 4 and 5th pictures though, I see a definite loss of calcium and nitrogen. And in the
6th picture, it looks like possible copper lock out due to pH...which would also mean you are locking out nitrogen...

Just my take.



NSPB

 

[FunkBomb]

I use Sta-Green Tree & Shrub Nursery Mix from Lowes and it's great. Each 2 cubic foot bag is only $7 too. It's got the fertilizer balls (not organic) but everything else is. It has enough Nitrogen in it that I don't need veg fertilizers. I fertilize for about 5-6 weeks in flowering, flush and am done. It's very simple and when you throw strong genetics into the mix the buds get massive.

Expenses are low and product quality doesn't suffer at all.

-Funk

 

[Albertine]

It seems something is wrong fundamentally in that your plants are not and haven't been taking up water. How is your bug situation? Are you potting up too soon? What do you consider minimal runoff? I am a newbie and am using fresh mixed uncooked soil based on Sunshine#4 and ewc, and my usual pattern is to get really fast growth right after potting up with a fast crash going into mag def corresponding with being root bound. I saw in one of your posts that you water 'with minimal runoff'. When I water for runoff regularly, it makes my soil crash really fast and the plants look like yours - mag deficient. They also look a little big for the pots. I know now you are watering when dry, but maybe they got there by too much runoff at the beginning.
When I had root aphids I was taking plants out of their pots, sloshing off all the soil in a bucket of soapy water, then repotting them in new soil. They barely blinked if the soap wasn't too strong. If I were you I would try doing this with one veg plant - minus the soap - so it can get some fresh soil and see, if you are really careful about watering from the beginning whether it makes any difference. Maybe go into a smaller pot than you are in right now so it can dry out sooner. The roots sort it all out pretty quick. This isn't about nutrients so much as how you are doing something. For me, runoff is my enemy. We are so concerned about burning them, but flushing to correct excess nutrients can start a chain reaction with rot and shortages from too much water creating an anerobic situation. FFOF etc with amendments is a long way from even Sunshine or a hydro medium and waterlogging is a bigger problem.

What I see is an off balance mag deal.

 

[hash head]

one thing thats important that a lot of people may over look is that when you first use the soil it needs to be watered very very well.. a lot of soils cant properly absorb water unless all of it has been thuroughly watered in... sure water may run out the bottom of the container, but if the soil has never gotten a good soak, most of the water will just run right past it rather than being absorbed.. sorta like taking a rock hard dry sponge and turning a stream of water on it.. mostly it will all bounce and run off of it, with very little being absorbed, but take a moist and rung out sponge, do the same thing it will absorb a lot more water..


if you kill your roots early on, or severly air-prune them, you will never have the same ability to absorb water or nutrients later on down the road.


this isn't necessarily your problem but it could be one that new growers or people new to soil and similar substrates may encounter.


before using a soil you may even want to use your hands to mix it and water it a few times to make sure every bit of it has gotten wet before transplanting into it.

 

[captinknots]

It seems something is wrong fundamentally in that your plants are not and haven't been taking up water. How is your bug situation? Are you potting up too soon? What do you consider minimal runoff? I am a newbie and am using fresh mixed uncooked soil based on Sunshine#4 and ewc, and my usual pattern is to get really fast growth right after potting up with a fast crash going into mag def corresponding with being root bound. I saw in one of your posts that you water 'with minimal runoff'. When I water for runoff regularly, it makes my soil crash really fast and the plants look like yours - mag deficient. They also look a little big for the pots. I know now you are watering when dry, but maybe they got there by too much runoff at the beginning.
When I had root aphids I was taking plants out of their pots, sloshing off all the soil in a bucket of soapy water, then repotting them in new soil. They barely blinked if the soap wasn't too strong. If I were you I would try doing this with one veg plant - minus the soap - so it can get some fresh soil and see, if you are really careful about watering from the beginning whether it makes any difference. Maybe go into a smaller pot than you are in right now so it can dry out sooner. The roots sort it all out pretty quick. This isn't about nutrients so much as how you are doing something. For me, runoff is my enemy. We are so concerned about burning them, but flushing to correct excess nutrients can start a chain reaction with rot and shortages from too much water creating an anerobic situation. FFOF etc with amendments is a long way from even Sunshine or a hydro medium and waterlogging is a bigger problem.

What I see is an off balance mag deal.

your right on all counts. not drinking, dealing with what i think are root aphids, (using nematodes). my roots dont seem to grow at all after transplant from 1 to 3.5gals. i up pot a week before flower. not even close to root bound but roots throughout the 1 gal.

ive been doing a wet dry watering cycle, or trying to at least. is that killing the roots when they get dry? they never wilt.
ive heard dolomite lime doesnt work if its not consistently moist. and mine is not. I think it looks like cal lock out but why would anything get locked out in organics. ive got plenty of humics in there. unless the moist thing is true.....

 

[captinknots]

one thing thats important that a lot of people may over look is that when you first use the soil it needs to be watered very very well.. a lot of soils cant properly absorb water unless all of it has been thuroughly watered in... sure water may run out the bottom of the container, but if the soil has never gotten a good soak, most of the water will just run right past it rather than being absorbed.. sorta like taking a rock hard dry sponge and turning a stream of water on it.. mostly it will all bounce and run off of it, with very little being absorbed, but take a moist and rung out sponge, do the same thing it will absorb a lot more water..


if you kill your roots early on, or severly air-prune them, you will never have the same ability to absorb water or nutrients later on down the road.



this isn't necessarily your problem but it could be one that new growers or people new to soil and similar substrates may encounter.


before using a soil you may even want to use your hands to mix it and water it a few times to make sure every bit of it has gotten wet before transplanting into it.

whats air pruned? is that from letting the pot dry up? should i stop doing this? im not sure where i learned it, but i try not to water till my pots are really light compared to wet weight. if i just check the top couple inches for dryness i can tell the bottom of the pots are soaked..........

so my soil should be wet when i transplant into it? i wet it after...

 

[hash head]

whats air pruned? is that from letting the pot dry up? should i stop doing this? im not sure where i learned it, but i try not to water till my pots are really light compared to wet weight. if i just check the top couple inches for dryness i can tell the bottom of the pots are soaked..........

so my soil should be wet when i transplant into it? i wet it after...

its letting too much air get to the roots.. without enough moisture..

it can be useful like in air pots.. but if your plants never develop strong roots by growing into a nice moist medium.. how do you expect them to meet the demands of the growing plant down the road.

You want to let the pots dry, but they don't need to be bone dry.. and they should start out moist a majority of the time, especially when the plants are young as they have less roots in the first place.


there is such a thing as over watering but honestly your plants dont look like it.

 

[hash head]

whats air pruned? is that from letting the pot dry up? should i stop doing this? im not sure where i learned it, but i try not to water till my pots are really light compared to wet weight. if i just check the top couple inches for dryness i can tell the bottom of the pots are soaked..........

so my soil should be wet when i transplant into it? i wet it after...

not necessarily the soil wet when you transplant into it like you dont want to soak it right before, you want to water it and mix it well for a few days before youre going to transplant.. make sure all of it gets well moist a few times.. then let it get to the point of moist before you transplant.. maybe water a few hours before you transplant and then again when you transplant into it.


if you are just transplanting into dry soil and putting a little water after.. the soil is never absorbing to its fullest potential and actually very little of the water may actually be getting to the roots..

 

[redneck shogun]

ive been doing a wet dry watering cycle, or trying to at least. is that killing the roots when they get dry? they never wilt.

Being that microbial life can suffer in dry conditions it is probably a good idea to not let the soil dry out. I tend to water a little more often and not a heavy watering every time for this reason. I would like to do some tests to get some real data to determine if it works better this way but they seem to respond well. If you have everything that is needed in a soil and you let it cook long enough then I would say that a good tea is what you need to boost the life in your soil.

 

[Mr Celsius]

And if everyone just used coco, they would never have to worry about too much or too little oxygen/moisture in the root zone. :facepalm:

 

[redneck shogun]

And if everyone just used coco, they would never have to worry about too much or too little oxygen/moisture in the root zone. :facepalm:

Do you recycle your coco?

 

[Mr Celsius]

Do you recycle your coco?

I'm moving to hydroponics in a moment. I move around methods of growing, but am versed in all. For any vegetables, outside, that I grow, I'm 100% organic.

To answer your question: I have in the past with success. Its actually easier to breakup then peat based "soil".

I hate that we call it soil...

 

[redneck shogun]

I'm moving to hydroponics in a moment. I move around methods of growing, but am versed in all. For any vegetables, outside, that I grow, I'm 100% organic.

To answer your question: I have in the past with success. Its actually easier to breakup then peat based "soil".

I hate that we call it soil...

I don't doubt that it can be and successful too but I love my diversity so I use both but it's mostly peat with local soil and a good bit of homemade compost. I like to add about a gallon of coco to it after a run to fluff it up a little and I like to amend it with different sources each time.

 

[captinknots]

yeah i think the dry cycle has been detrimental to my crops. im over it. even over the past week shits been looking better.

 

[AndrewGreen]

well put man. Well put

 

[Suby]

I haven't read the whole thread so bare with me if some of the information is repetitive.

Obviously your plants are not healthy, they look sickly and for AK they are definitely not reaching their potential.

Achieving a successful organic grow depends on a quality water source, a quality soil mix and effective control over environment including RH, temps, and pest control.

If any of these things are not in check then failure is a given.

It sounds like your water source is no good, not even close.
Melt snow or collect rain water to start or even try bottled (watch sodium level)
RO water can be tricky if your filters are not setup properly or your original water source is very bad.
Plain water is fine but using an activated compost tea every watering can make a huge difference and can do no harm as it adds soil biology and doesn't contain a significant amounts of fertilizer.
Wetting your starting mix with an ACT for the composting period can also help.
No mater how perfect your soil mix is if your water source in bogus then your medium will reflect that.

You haven't posted your soil mix in this thread, seeing as we are adamant about making this work for you post it here pls.
Your soil doesn't sound like it has the proper porosity; you need a minimum of 30% perlite.
You need dolomite lime and a quality peat based medium like Promix HP.
That's your base mix; if a mix doesn't have these then fundamentally your likely to encounter problems if your goal is to grown without bottled fertilizers.
As far as sources of fertilizers to add to your mix go there are a ton of recipes in the OFC and elsewhere in the forum.
Stay away from coco for now, stay away from bagged organic soils for now, used products that you can be sure of the quality.

Now methods.
Watering until runoff is overstated; it is a trick for the hydro fert users to avoid salt build-up.
This is not an issue with organics, ferts in organic soil are made available over time unlike salt based ferts which are immediately available and depend on water concentration in the soil.
Watering until runoff is over watering in my opinion, water is easy to add and impossible to remove so less is always a better option.
Wet/dry cycle should run between 3-7 days unless your plants are huge in a small pot (which can work but again basics here).

Transplanting is also key, timing is everything but the method counts.
When transplanting into a well composted and thus perfectly moist soil don't water afterwards.
I wait until the plant is moist but will soon need watering and just carefully transplant into moist soil.
Over watering is a sure-fire killer and will disrupt nutrient cycles causing def's. and delay rooting.
Keep the rootzone warm, do not let pots sit on a cold concrete floor, put them on Styrofoam blocks to insulate, even if room temps are fine a wet root zone on cold concrete will channel cold into the root zone.
Multiple transplant are important, never dump a small plant into too large a volume of new soil, transplant shock is also overstated, quick and gentle hands will never damage or stall a plant.

Pest control, this is the Achilles tendon of organic growing, beating pest with non organic methods is a lot easier hands down.
I will get some comments from that I am sure but IME it's true.
If you have pests all bets are off, before looking to anything why plants look bad start with pests, if need be shutdown, sterilize, clean clean clean, sterilize, start with fresh clones or seedlings and start again.
Prevention is key here, if need be cheat and use a non organic pest control, yeah fuck it I said it. I have cheated in the past and am not ashamed to say so...
As for the rest if you have had successful hydro grows then environment, lighting, temps, should all be covered.

This is the basics, there are TONS more things you can explore and work on and this is the fun of organics.
This has to be fun and beneficial for you, if it's not then go the hydro route, no one here will think less of you because of it.

My friend Jayjush gave you solid advice, read a lot, experiment a lot, but get your basics 100% down first.

The door here is always open and we are all in this together.

§ub's