Balancing Soil Minerals

[TheyCallMeJJay]

This isn't the thread for this subject we should start one. I noticed that the plants grown from seed once placed into the final containers I was almost double watering the hollow ones. This was without giving them their full cycle for independent phenotypes. However it was a seed grow and they would need to be ran as clones in any experiment as single pots is not anywhere near accurate enough.

I will follow this up when I do it next with some 'Snype' type pot weighing so that it's accurate.

How did you come to such an accurate conclusion of -27%? You must be an expert....

I have the bone dry weight. Along with the weights of all the amendments within. I have lot traceability controls at play.

Not so much an expert in cannabis cultivation, more so a very effective manager within the chemical/compounding world. I'm just applying the QA method derived from such.

You're just fucking around until you start recording things, then it becomes science

 

[milkyjoe]

i can't remember which icmag member (father earth maybe?) said that he thought hollow stems, in cannabis of course) were tied to lower boron, said something about when he supplemented Boron his stems were solid all thru.

Silica is part of that equation also. B/Ca/Si in proper proportions eliminates hollow stems
P is of course needed to transfer energy to the site but not to form the tissue itself.

I also believe if you feed too much nitrate and K the plant will grow so fast it makes hollow stems. This is because K replaces Ca and all iy brings with it so the tissue is not as healthy as it should...little fat kid plant vs little athlete, one is far denser and healthier. Nitrate brings excess water

I do not accept hollow stems as normal and I work hard to prevent them

 

[milkyjoe]

www.quantumagriculture.com/node/181

 

[milkyjoe]

Michael...I was wrong on that transmutation again. It is Na plus Oxygen that makes K.

Avenger pointed this out. His equation even accounts for the tiny bit of mass loss that provides the energy to drive the reaction

Perhaps he would share with the thread

 

[Microbeman]

regionally, our loess is like that; it dries, it dies. the more water it gets, the better it grows. i recently read that soil jokes are the loess form of puns

sometimes it matters if I aggregate my tools and if I garden all aloam

 

[Bradley_Danks]

I was working a garden that had about 30 plants from clone and 30 from seedling growing outdoor in native soil and all the seedlings had hallow stems but the clones did not. I noticed the weed quality was good on both crops. I didnt notice any lower quality of bud from the hollow stems. The major downside of the hallow stems was how easy they would break.

I foliared with Ca and Silica for the majority of the vegetative stage of growth and the stalks may have become a bit sturdier but they were still considerably hollow for the remainder of the outdoor season. The soil had quite a bit of minerals in it as everything was organicaly amended based on a soil lab test administered in the beginning of the season. I have no idea why the seedlings had hollow stems as compared to the clones.

 

[m_astera]

www.quantumagriculture.com/node/181

Thanks for the link to Hugh Lovel's article. It's not dated but must be a newer piece. I've had a lot of discussion with Hugh over the years on the BDNow yahoo forum (Biodynamics).

Lovel's ideas are mostly good and surely interesting, but I have a problem with him presenting his hypotheses as facts. In the past he has quoted Marschner's "Mineral Nutrition of Higher Plants" re Boron, and I've gone to my copy of Marschner only to find that what Hugh quoted was not to be found. So I'm skeptical of much of his theorizing and claims, especially things like this chart
http://www.quantumagriculture.com/s...he/blog_image/Biochemical Sequence 3a (2).jpg
with his note "this is the basis of plant growth".

What I find most interesting and valuable is Lovel's idea that Calcium is responsible for horizontal expansion of plants while Silicon is responsible for vertical growth, with Boron being a necessary mediator for both. For example: Assuming adequate Boron and Silicon but deficient Calcium, the plant will grow vertically but have trouble expanding horizontally, resulting in hollow stems or hollow heart in brassicas, celery, and potatoes. Adequate Ca and B with deficient Si should then lead to short squatty stems and perhaps tubers with weak vertical growth.

Getting back to the hollow stems and water usage question, it does make sense that a pith-filled stem would be able to store moisture and regulate evaporation better than one with a hollow stem.

 

[m_astera]

Michael...I was wrong on that transmutation again. It is Na plus Oxygen that makes K.

Avenger pointed this out. His equation even accounts for the tiny bit of mass loss that provides the energy to drive the reaction

Perhaps he would share with the thread

Sounds reasonable. Na 23 + O 16 = K 39.

 

[cyat]

I remember Lucas (of the Lucas formula) talking about getting hollow stems from feeding floranova veg up to two weeks in flower as opposed to just 8 ml of floranova bloom from start to finish, and he noted an increase in potency. I recall getting hollow stems when using a silica additive, those plants were on the lanky side too.

 

[TheyCallMeJJay]

k



Getting back to the hollow stems and water usage question, it does make sense that a pith-filled stem would be able to store moisture and regulate evaporation better than one with a hollow stem.

I have yet to see one filled with moisture/water. Just air

 

[TheyCallMeJJay]

Searching around in the ICMAG on Hollow Stems, there's like 30 different theories on it. This thread coincidentally narrows it down to just a few things. All of which may possibly get you the hollow stem. It really looks like the guys in coco and hydro experience it much more frequently. There's something there IMO

 

[50YardLine]

I hardly ever see hallow stems.........

 

[m_astera]

I have yet to see one filled with moisture/water. Just air

Agreed. What I meant was that a pith filled stem could absorb water into the pith and provide moisture to the cambium from there. A hollow stem filled with air wouldn't have that ability.

 

[Bradley_Danks]

Searching around in the ICMAG on Hollow Stems, there's like 30 different theories on it. This thread coincidentally narrows it down to just a few things. All of which may possibly get you the hollow stem. It really looks like the guys in coco and hydro experience it much more frequently. There's something there IMO

I have only grown hydro a few times but I remember a run using only advanced nutrients veg and flower base nutrients for the whole run and the plants had hollow stems. The plant was really stretchy and easy to break like the seedlings I did outdoor.

This seedling right here had hollow stems and she grew over 10ft...

 

[milkyjoe]

Easy to understand on the hydro/coco stuff. Stupid high levels of niitrates and K guarantee unhealthy cells.

Easily fixed by making your own salt formula. Look to nova crop for guidance.

Interestingly when you drastically lower K you increase Ca uptake...when that happens you have to raise B to transport the Ca.

With coco you are never gonna avoid high uptake of K which guarantees low Ca uptake. Plant tissue works like soil...it only holds a certain amount of cations and anions. So if one cation is high another is low

 

[TheyCallMeJJay]

Easy to understand on the hydro/coco stuff. Stupid high levels of niitrates and K guarantee unhealthy cells.

Easily fixed by making your own salt formula. Look to nova crop for guidance.

Interestingly when you drastically lower K you increase Ca uptake...when that happens you have to raise B to transport the Ca.

With coco you are never gonna avoid high uptake of K which guarantees low Ca uptake. Plant tissue works like soil...it only holds a certain amount of cations and anions. So if one cation is high another is low

A lot of those coco grows look stupid good. I will say that. The root mass they get is quite impressive as well.

 

[maxmurder]

Searching around in the ICMAG on Hollow Stems, there's like 30 different theories on it. This thread coincidentally narrows it down to just a few things. All of which may possibly get you the hollow stem. It really looks like the guys in coco and hydro experience it much more frequently. There's something there IMO

a long time ago i tried using those gh waterfarms for fast growing moms and they did grow fast but everything was hollow and much harder to clone - i went back to soil (same clone off s clone for moms, not seeds) and had zero hollow stems, same nutes too.

 

[TheyCallMeJJay]

a long time ago i tried using those gh waterfarms for fast growing moms and they did grow fast but everything was hollow and much harder to clone - i went back to soil (same clone off s clone for moms, not seeds) and had zero hollow stems, same nutes too.

As much reading as I've done on the subject the past few days makes me lean toward the fact that there's multiple situations that would give us this condition.

That said, I keep going back to boron as I know of the 8 soil lots that I've gotten test back (I'm still waiting on the rest) they were all very low. All of the lots are very different in what's in them.

Growing inside, I can see it not being that much of a big deal. Outside that's got to be a serious issues due to breakage.

In my search here on ICMAG, there seems to be a rumor that DJ Short prefers hollow stems in breeding. The rumor is he thinks there's a connection between hollow stems and increased potency. A rumor, to be clear, but often repeated in the thread search.

 

[m_astera]

More on Boron

More on Boron

I have yet to see a follow-up soil test that didn't show a need for more Boron, even if luxury levels were supplied before the crop was grown. Plants love B and suck it right up.

In humans, Boron deficiency is closely correlated with joint problems, Calcium deposits, bone spurs etc. India, the home of hatha yoga and flexible old folks, has good amounts of B in its soils and food and a very low incidence of arthritis. Jamaica, in contrast, where the soils have been depleted of Boron and other trace elements by sugar cane farming for centuries, has a very high incidence of arthritis. Every six months or so one of my shoulders starts to stiffen up and get painful. After taking an eighth or scant quarter teaspoon of borax or boric acid per day (stirred into juice each morning) for a week or so the pain goes away and the shoulder is flexible again.

As for toxicity, borax is listed as less toxic than table salt.

 

[milkyjoe]

It has a side effect in me, a fun one