wtfn's 4000w legal medical soil food web organic grow show

[silver hawaiian]

wtfn

I've had the good fortune of only ever having springtails (tons of 'em) in my deal, none of the baddies. With that in mind, and your statement about SM90, .. I run SM90 at 5ml/gal in every drop of water my plants get. (Well, on the blumat side anyway).

In what numbers are you seeing 'em? Very few? A scary amount?

 

[whythefnot]

wtfn

I've had the good fortune of only ever having springtails (tons of 'em) in my deal, none of the baddies. With that in mind, and your statement about SM90, .. I run SM90 at 5ml/gal in every drop of water my plants get. (Well, on the blumat side anyway).

In what numbers are you seeing 'em? Very few? A scary amount?

I made the mistake of goin' digging, looking for bugs. I almost always end up in fraidy-cat mode when I do that. I haven't seen them in alarming numbers, per se, but I can find them at any given moment by rooting around a little. I found the first one when I was doing some cleaning up. It was crawling around on a mass of soil that had fallen out of the beds on the back side of the room. Then I started looking around in the soil, and spotted a few more within a short amount of time. None are physically on the roots that I can tell, but I'm not about to uproot my plants to find out for sure.

 

[surfguitar]

You could try getting some beneficial bugs (I like http://www.evergreengrowers.com/aphid-control.html). I think if your setting up a living soil loading up your soil with some beneficial bugs at first is a very good idea. I'm running roves and hypoasis mites right now with a bunch of other guys that have managed to find there way in there. That with a good foliar spray program and sticky traps should solve any sort of pest issue.

Have you had a chance to check out the recycled soil thread that is like 600 pages long? wealth of info in that thread. It cuts thru a lot of the misinfo in the organic world imo.

Good choice on premier peat, much better to mix in your own peat versus something like promix. The peat supposedly has a higher CEC than coco and higher organic matter content but I've seen some pretty impressive plants in living organic soil mixes running mostly coco so either is obviously probably good. I think it ultimately should come down to whats cheapest and easiest to source

Are you planning to no-till recycle? No point in wasting all that dirt and microbe colonies you've established

Keep up the great work man!

 

[whythefnot]

You could try getting some beneficial bugs (I like http://www.evergreengrowers.com/aphid-control.html). I think if your setting up a living soil loading up your soil with some beneficial bugs at first is a very good idea. I'm running roves and hypoasis mites right now with a bunch of other guys that have managed to find there way in there. That with a good foliar spray program and sticky traps should solve any sort of pest issue.

Have you had a chance to check out the recycled soil thread that is like 600 pages long? wealth of info in that thread. It cuts thru a lot of the misinfo in the organic world imo.

Good choice on premier peat, much better to mix in your own peat versus something like promix. The peat supposedly has a higher CEC than coco and higher organic matter content but I've seen some pretty impressive plants in living organic soil mixes running mostly coco so either is obviously probably good. I think it ultimately should come down to whats cheapest and easiest to source

Are you planning to no-till recycle? No point in wasting all that dirt and microbe colonies you've established

Keep up the great work man!

Thanks, and yes, I'm certainly planning to recycle this soil. I'm hoping to have it for years and years to come. We're seriously contemplating a move to Denver next year when our lease is up and the biggest logistical problem is bringing my soil with me
Once I know what I've got, I won't want to lose it.

 

[whythefnot]

So, I forgot it's not even day 1 of flower and I have a green light. Went in, checked my 'taters. If they aren't attracted to these organic potato slices, does that mean they're not root-eaters? I would like to be able to assume, but ...

 

[whythefnot]

http://autogrow.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31&Itemid=165

Obviously we all do a lot of reading about plants and growing here, and some of you may have found this before, but I was so impressed with how concise some of this information is. I really like the "Control Strategies" part of the article, and how it gives multiple scenarios. I wish I could share this with every grower new to the desert.

 

[whythefnot]

I snagged one with one of the potato slices. It certainly has the body shape of an aphid, exactly as I described earlier. He was moving around like crazy and I couldn't find my magnifying glass before he got away (or I crushed him, preferably). I'm starting to worry for real now...

 

[whythefnot]

Ugh I just typed a very long post, then lost it due to bad programming practices, then typed it again, then lost it again. In php it's pretty simple to save that stuff until a user logs in, then feed it back to them.

Any mods listening? I'd be glad to get you guys hooked up with the quickness, just PM me. I can't handle that anymore. I had to reinstall chrome today and I must have lost some settings.

 

[whythefnot]

Not gonna be long winded this time:

Prodded around, no bugs on the roots. Checked a plant in a solo cup, no bugs on roots, only springtails.

Roots in beds look really great, better than a lot of aero roots. That's what I wanted from going back to soil: the ability to easily maintain near-perfect moisture levels without risk of crop loss from mechanical failure.

I'll be back with some photos.

 

[whythefnot]

This looks very much like one of the tiny bugs in my soil, even more so than the photos of RAs that I've seen. The website calls this a "mealybug killer". I'm certainly not implying that that's what they are, but at least I can rest assured knowing that RA and other aphids are not the only bugs that look like that.

 

[whythefnot]

mmmkaaaayyyy...

First, the room:

Day 1, posterity, yada yada

 

[whythefnot]

I snagged some photos of one of the little buggers. Anybody know what this is? I found 2 on one of my potato traps. This is 100x:

On second thought, I think I'll just make a thread about this to get some answers faster.

 

[whythefnot]

I just found one on a piece of root and I freaked the fuck out for a minute. But I think I have it figured out now...

Hypoaspis: predatory mites. Their favorite food seems to be fungus gnat larvae.

This is a GOOD thing! I can allow myself some sleep tonight.

I honestly think this is the same bug I posted 4 hours ago, aka the "mealybug killer"
I guess this is a benefit of buying local unscreened castings. Too bad I had to soil myself over it.

 

[whythefnot]

Oh snap! I had a very public major freakout yesterday. Reading back through it today, now I know what Donald Trump felt like the morning after the last election.

 

[whythefnot]

I had no idea IR thermometers were so cheap -- I had never ordered one because I thought they were all $100+. I just picked one up for $15 that has almost all 5 star reviews (out of hundreds) on amazon. Can't beat that.

 

[silver hawaiian]

Oh snap! I had a very public major freakout yesterday. Reading back through it today, now I know what Donald Trump felt like the morning after the last election.

I've done the same, you're not alone

I had no idea IR thermometers were so cheap -- I had never ordered one because I thought they were all $100+. I just picked one up for $15 that has almost all 5 star reviews (out of hundreds) on amazon. Can't beat that.

Whaddya need'a zap to read?

Now I want one, just for a toy, if they're $15!

EDIT: You can't yada-yada posterity

 

[whythefnot]

I've done the same, you're not alone



Whaddya need'a zap to read?

Now I want one, just for a toy, if they're $15!

EDIT: You can't yada-yada posterity

Hehe, I certain CAN yada-yada posterity when I'm convinced I've got root aphids

I'm wanting to zap my canopy so I can get a leaf surface temp. It's been a really big hassle keeping anything alive with the humidity here, and I know this room is sealed at least fairly well because of the lack of CO2 losses and the whole ordeal with the floor lifting (first 10 pages or so). Right now I have my (air-cooled) lights a good 4 feet off of the canopy for fear that I'll burn my plants again (the whole room got a good scorch a few weeks ago when lights were at 2 - 3 ft, and I decided to cut away the worst tops in the last few days in preparation for flower, and internetz photoz). I'd like to be able to lower my lights a little without that crushing fear.
Temp/humidity just doesn't seem to be working the way I would expect in this room, and I want to understand why. My humidity controller is still acting strange -- I have to set it on 90% (all the way up) to get it to top out at about 75%, which is where my plants seem show the most turgor pressure at the temps I'm running (any cooler and the a/c just sucks more air out of the room -- only thing that truly fixes the problem is running fewer lights). I have tons of airflow (5 fans around the room pointed at canopy plus a/c and carbon filter) and my controller is touching my other therm/hyg that seems to read accurately.

So the only thought I have left is that I'm cooking the leaves with the lights somehow. I want to disprove that hair-brained idea so I can move on to a different theory.

 

[surfguitar]

Definitely looks like some beneficial soil mites to me! looking great bro

 

[surfguitar]

That's interesting about your humidity issues, maybe this is a problem reserved for sealed rooms? My plants seem to be doing great running fans and exhaust on med-high with our dry air right now, think humidity stays around 20-40%. I will admit I have dabbled with the idea of adding a humidifier but plant growth seems to be excellent so I dunno haha

 

[whythefnot]

That's interesting about your humidity issues, maybe this is a problem reserved for sealed rooms? My plants seem to be doing great running fans and exhaust on med-high with our dry air right now, think humidity stays around 20-40%. I will admit I have dabbled with the idea of adding a humidifier but plant growth seems to be excellent so I dunno haha

Holy crap, are you serious? What temps are you running? Mine dropped to the mid to low 30s (temp in upper 70's) and half my room turned yellow and crispy. A lot of the leaves are still curled up and crispy -- that last photo hid a lot of the damage very well, but I'm sure we'll be seeing it in the bud photos throughout the next two months. It took quite a while for them to regain turgidity as well.

Those numbers are the reason I ordered the IR thermometer. Something be amiss around here.


Also, during the last run, it was the times that I vented outside air (during a/c troubles) when my plants were the least happy and suffered the most damage. So it certainly isn't an issue related to a sealed room.