Coco Tree's

[alotawatah]

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[alotawatah]

This second round veg plant looked like a million bucks, then it started wilting like it was dried out but it wasn't. The stench reminded me of a high school date that never made it past third base, took 2 hours, a bottle of febreeze and my buddy with a hose to get off my fingers. After disecting this plant, I had to soak my hands in bleach to remove the smell. The roots rot out and the plant starts tilting and stinking, yup. I initially tried a whole bottle of 3 percent CVS h2o2 with 3 gallons water, drenched into the 3 gallon smart pot. Nothing. On another plant that had the smell but no wilting, I dropped it into 20 gallons of water with 20 ml bleach. This plant is alive and no longer smells, but it's not growing. On a third, it actually started wilting partially and then started coming back to life with no treatment from me. It stinks though and it's getting bleached.
Lesson learned, if you're enviroment isn't perfect, or even if it is, either stay on top of you're bennies or constantly sterilize with maintenance dosing.
Otherwise you may be waiting for something bad to happen.

 

[DJM]

My plan since yesterday has been to start bleach or pool shock today, thanks for those specific ammounts. If you please... I run jacks, 5 12 26 first 225 grams, then 75 grams Epsom salts, then 150 grams Calnit. Where does the bleach come in? I mix and hand water 2 to 3 of these reservoirs a day, so how many gallons of initial kill would I go for before going to maintenance? (My wife can't wait until I hook up irrigation).

My former partner was doing organics, he left and I switched to maxi then jacks, but I failed to sterilize and I didn't maintain the organics. Your answers/suggestions are spot on. Instead of chlorinating/ filtering the well, I imagine I can bleach the reservoirs. I'm on the fence now about bennies or maintenence clorox, I almost feel to inexperienced/broke to go bennies right now. But the root growth with them was insane!!

Again many thanks and I can't wait to finish rooting these 20 gallons and hold in the humidity with this greenhouse(with lots of fans) and watch the magic happen.

If your ph is dropping its more than likely the presence of bacteria. Bacteria causes ph to drop pretty rapidly. Going from organics to salts on un chlorinated/ filtered well can cause rot for sure. Throw in crazy temp/rh swings and it makes many issues more likely to pop up..feeding teas after sterilization works well because they naturally have a high ph than i run in coco and it usually keeps the ph from swinging to low between feeds. multi feeding also helps alot to keep it from dropping until the roots repair themselves and ph begins rising again. just beware of multi feeding plants until sterilized. Even if there is no bacteria in your well, the fact that the well is pure and unchlorinated, means it wont do anything to a pathogen if it finds its way into your medium. The bacteria will spread like wild fire, in drip lines and rezs/tables ect. Most people dont have these issues indoors because most are on chlorinated/treated city water. Most places have enough chlorine to keep most if not all root born pathogens at bay. Put the same room on a well and its a whole different story. Ive gone through it myself

Another thing is. The way i run my rooms, hot and humid, makes rot more possible than a cool dry room. When a wet root zone goes into the 80f + range, and there is no sterilization agent in the water such as on an unchlorinated well, and the medium lacks aeration and sits wet for longer than 48 hours (such as in wet/dry cycles in a large pot) bacteria can form and spread fast. To counter act this i run the temps in my rez colder than i want, around 60f. So every time i feed it lowers the root zone from the 80s down to the 70s..Id try to run your rez temps on the lower end if your day temps are high as mine are here. Bleach is the cheapest , easiest way to sterilize it. Its draw back is its shelf life in water. Its half evaporated in 24 hours and by 48 hours in the water its completely gone. If water is aerated it will happen faster. There are other things you can use if you use multi day rezs, such as pool shock, clear rez, dm zone, ect that wont evaporate as fast

depending on budget and nutrients you are running you could go teas or sterile. if organics or organic based id go teas, if straight salts id go sterile. If you dont use pool shock or bleach, if you have high water needs per day youd waste a fortune on other sterilizers. Same with teas ect. People turn their nose up at bleach and chlorine. But in hydroponics it has great benefits. So much so that damn near every plant nursery or commercial agricultural greenhouse thats not organic chlorinates their well water on dosers to a certain ppm of free chlorine. All tap water has more chlorine in it than adding 0.2 ml per gallon. All you want to do is replicate the amount of chlorine in tap water. Id water them heavily till 50%+ run off with the 0.4 dose to sterilize them , then go down to 0.2 until you decide what route you want to go. make sure the run off is tossed out and the pots don't sit in it. If youre doing multiple feeds a day, id feed all feeds at that 0.4 dosage till run off and then drop it down to 0.2 the following day

 

[MoPho]

i train by starting off with one single topping at first transplanting from rooted clone. After that i use aggressive super cropping to shape the plant to the size i am aiming for. How many times i super crop is dependent by how naturally bushy the strain is on its own. Some need no more than a top and 3 super croppings to be where i want them. Others need as many as 100 to shape. Any plant can be shaped into any size, regardless of its natural growth patterns. Its just about the timing and amount of super croppings it needs to achieve ones goals. A stringy growing OG, can grow like a squat hedge with nothing but aggressive, properly timed super croppings

With that said light and environment have quite a lot to do with the growth structure of a plant. For example..while plants are in veg, even in the cloning dome, i make sure that they NEVER touch, and have at least 9 inches or so between leaves..I do this because when light is allowed to cascade down in between plants, and light up the space between them, the plants will actually grow outward towards this light , as opposed to upwards. The minute light doesn't cascade down the sides of the plants, the plant will begin to grow towards its only light source, upward, as apposed to outwards..This will result in a very tall, yet very thin plant, which will require many plants to achieve a full canopy..Which is very inefficient in indoor growing..I use this technique to help manipulate and alter the structure of the plant in a way that's beneficial indoors..One can notice this at play looking at outdoor plants. Outdoors plants are usually planted with ample space, allowing this cascading side lighting to surround the plant, and cause the plant to grow outward more than upward. One can not even shape a plant outdoors and it will naturally grow into a bush. But given the dynamics of indoor gardening, we have to manipulate the shaping by super cropping and proper spacing. Put a clone in the flower room in its final container and never let it touch another plant before flower and you will notice it will grow far better and naturally bushy as opposed to cramming a ton of veg plants together and have them all fighting for light. Even in my domes i space them so they never touch

Once in flower, plants will obviously always touch. However this is where thinning and defoliation come into play and make them essential in my system. My aim is to make my canopy and bushy , with as many tops at the surface as possible..Once i have my plants shaped and put into flower, i will go through a weave the canopy even. While doing this i selectively thin out any overcrowded branches that don't make it up through the trellis. I also selectively defoliate, in early veg, late veg and flower..This opens the plant up and allows its lower less dominant branches to work up and catch up to the main branches. When and how much i defoliate, is again, completely strain dependent. Some sativas may need none, some indicas may need to be stripped bare..Usually a little here and there in veg, and aggressively in flower. I do 3 leave pulls, one early flower, post stretch and one pre flush...For perspective on how much, out of my 16kw room i pull out around a 30 gallon trash can stuffed tight with fan leaves by the end of flower. This also helps create air flow within the canopy which prevents molds from ever getting a foothold, even in a very densely planted canopy

Hope that helps

Took you long enough...after 1 year of waiting, that's all you can give me????

Just kidding!!!!!!!

I pretty much do what you've listed. But I get no where the results you do. Still have a long way and much to learn. I am glad there are people like you, Only Ornamental, DHF, and a few others (sorry to whomever I forgot, my memories are pretty much shot to sh!t these days) who don't mind sharing your knowledge. It's nice to know that in this day and age some people still believe in helping out their community without being monetary compensated.

Mister DJM .... my to you.

 

[TnTLabs]

Thanks TnT, I dropped the silica from 2.5 ml per gallon to 0 and I noticed a health decline, I'm afraid of it not going well with my jacks nutrients and I plan to foliar it. It's looking like bleach for the kill, and then either enzymes and bennies or just maintenance bleach.

hey,
you missread my post, i was asking if you use silica as it would be beneficial, especially in your case!
TBH im thinking it be better in your case to start over.. no joke, till and IF ( a really big IF) they pull through, whots left of them, will take weeks to heal, a lot of maintanance and work..
better would be to clean up, sterelize, start over with the knowledge you have gained... you will most prob have just a good harvest with new clones asap...
peace

 

[McKush]

I think "cut your losses" is one of the hardest lessons to learn in this pursuit. Not suggesting that to anyone here. Ive only recently been able to start doing that. it took the advice of a bud here in a PM on ic to make me realize i was just going to spend extra time nursing and flowering out a compromised plant. Now i dont beat myself up about having to cull a plant that i screw up. We only get so many harvests.

Mothers are a diff story

Peace

 

[TnTLabs]

exactly mc kush.. ive made the experience but with pests, its not worth the trouble wasting weeks or months even nursing compromised plants for a bad harvest..
get new clones and start over.
If you were to try and salvage what youve got i wouldnt use chlorine only, as once you sterelize you will have to keep sterelizing to keep pathogens at bay.. a dead rez as it were
I would propose to sterelize and then the following day feed with rich compost tee + trichoderma, mycorrhizae etc.. but no garanty they will pull through, most likely its too late and the stems are rotting inside where you cant see it...
sorry mate...

 

[whatthe215]

Don, for all of us who don't post anymore: you're the fucking man. I have so much respect for you. The experience and knowledge you share is beyond valuable.

I genuinely can't think of anyone in the industry I'd rather have the opportunity to work with. Thanks again for the truly altruistic sharing you do.

 

[Hookah79]

..........

 

[alotawatah]

exactly mc kush.. ive made the experience but with pests, its not worth the trouble wasting weeks or months even nursing compromised plants for a bad harvest..
get new clones and start over.
If you were to try and salvage what youve got i wouldnt use chlorine only, as once you sterelize you will have to keep sterelizing to keep pathogens at bay.. a dead rez as it were
I would propose to sterelize and then the following day feed with rich compost tee + trichoderma, mycorrhizae etc.. but no garanty they will pull through, most likely its too late and the stems are rotting inside where you cant see it...
sorry mate...

It took alot for me to rate these posts about "cutting losses" the other day, and as I realize the extent of the damage, it makes even more sense. I will be culling a portion of both the veg and Flower plants, up to 50 percent, to leave me with the healthiest half and I will be battling it out.

 

[alotawatah]

DJM-
I got alot out of you're recent posts. I'm already planning next summer, chlorinated. My goal was to yield on par with 200 gallons soil in 20 gallons coco. Someone suggested that I run enzymes with this style, continuing that roots shed and the dense nature of these root balls, combined with the long veg is building up food for root rot. I'm thinking pondzyme. Currently I'm at .2 ml bleach per gallon and I'm not sure if the damage is continuing below the coco or if it's halted. Thanks for your help.

TnT- I was running sillica blast with maxibloom.
When I switched to Jacks nutrients, I dropped the sillica from my nutrient mix, as a grower yosemitesam pointed out in a jacks thread that the k is already through the roof with my nute mix. I was planning to foliar the silica, I'm a little shell shocked right now and I don't want to even see these plants right now, but I have responsibilities so I've got to suck it up, my daughter and family are healthy and that's what matters.

 

[grnthmb2]

my one question which after reading all of this thread is the mystery of the dosatron. how on earth did djm manage to mix an a and b with additives to a concentrated stock and not have lockout issues. i remember reading a 500% ratio for the stock solution...which im guessing is 50% water dilution for the stock solution, however i remember him mentioning something about reverse engineering his dosatron and such and such.

Hey djm if you outthere if you could detail and show picks of this game changer would be much appreciated by all.

bless up

here is what he is referencing. sorry for not formatting this properly.
DJM-
reverse engineered my entire regimin (5 bottles) diluting them 5-600% and mixing them together...my dosatron is plumbed into my water line...as water passes through it the dosatron pulls 2% of the diluted nutrient mix and injects it into my tap water...then 3/4 inch pvc leads to my rez, hooked to a 3/4 heavy duty float valve...each morning when my rez is empty..i have a timer valve that opens long enough to fill my rez to the brim..the float valve is a fail safe to prevent flooding...i also added ph adjustors into the diluted mix, so when the water was mixed with it, it would put me at the perfect feed strength and ph

I'm also interested in more information on the dosatron/watering setup and reverse engineering it. I can do the math on figuring out what the nutrients with a certain diltuiton, so thats not a problem for me.

which dosatron were you using? just a single sourced one i take it?
It sounds like you found a way to mix them all (5) together in one big solution, is that correct?
If yes, how did you prevent lockout? was it because its so diluted? what brand of nutes allowed you to do this? Was this batch good for longer than a week?
Are you still making a solution every week for the dosatron rez? (for the different stages of nutrient requirements? eg, pk13/14)
Does this mean the rez (not dosatron rez) never gets cleaned?

long time soil grower, interested in low maintance coco, especially watering solutions.

Obligatory thank you. You've been an absolute stand-up member of this society for giving back in such a huge way. hope we hear from you again, and also lookking forward to seeing your IG.

 

[TnTLabs]

DJM-

TnT- I was running sillica blast with maxibloom.
When I switched to Jacks nutrients, I dropped the sillica from my nutrient mix, as a grower yosemitesam pointed out in a jacks thread that the k is already through the roof with my nute mix. I was planning to foliar the silica, I'm a little shell shocked right now and I don't want to even see these plants right now, but I have responsibilities so I've got to suck it up, my daughter and family are healthy and that's what matters.

hows it going?!
i hear you with the too much K, BUT you could just feed less jacks to keep silica going... yeah spraying would help.. but rather keep silica going into the rez

 

[alotawatah]

"Hows it going?!
i hear you with the too much K, BUT you could just feed less jacks to keep silica going... yeah spraying would help.. but rather keep silica going into the rez"

Thanks for checking, I don't want to speak to soon, but the bleach seems to have halted all progress of the disease ( or diseases). I did lose a couple, and I killed several more that were completely rotted out. I even pulled on one slightly and the stems split right open, revealing the deep rot you mentioned, which freaked the fuck out of me. So now some look great with sturdy stalks and no more discolored leaves, others are showing the problem still. We will see. Others with collar rot(possibly separate issue, I believe I may have 3 forms of this rot) got ringed all the way around the bases of the stems with a with a 1 inch band, but they are thriving. Others stopped rotting around the collar completely. I have 3 light dep plants finishing now that also seem to have had it, 1 lost its connection with the base several weeks ago ( my first sign of rot that I didn't pick up on, I thought the wind from a thunderstorm did it) I supported it half ass by leaning it against a wall, sprinkled some ogt special sauce I had left over around the base, and this plant continued to flower and is behind but starting to frost up now. That gives me hope. My other 2 flowering plants show burnt tips on leaves, even though I'm at 750 ppm feed.

 

[alotawatah]

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[alotawatah]

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[TnTLabs]

a shame.. looks like a big tree..

 

[TnTLabs]

right, so yeh deff keep the silica going, keep the area around the stem dry! remove all dead leaves you find and water with rice wash water.. do like 2 cups of rice wash per gallon.. try and keep the stem area well vented.. best of luck

 

[srich250]

I have a decent mycology background
growing mushrooms requires a very humid environment for the primordia (pre-mushrooms) to get a good pinset(pins=unopened baby mushroom) with lots of numbers
BUT!
lack of air movement fosters an environment that competitor fungi/molds, trichodermia in particular can get a foothold and grow.
you don't need a lot of air movement like cannabis but you get idea.

I'll soon be running hi RH with a proper VPD to take advantage of my using Co2,
i plan on adding a few squirrel cage blowers with hi grade hepa filters mounted on them
to help keep the spore load to a minimum in the room.

Hello Gnome, did you ever get your squirrel cages setup with hepatitis filters on them to help with powdery mildew? Would truly appreciate seeing your setup with these or links so I can figure out how to make a few???

Thank you for all your awesome info and posts as well!!!!!

 

[the gnome]

I found my old hunter hepa air scrubber
It's been running 24/7, it doesn't scrub 100% of the spore load out
but there's way less nasties in the groroom wih it running
easy cheap insurance imo


actually Ive had PM once in the last 6yrs
it wasn't too severe imo,
volck/horticultural oil saved the day!