Dr. Mantis Toboggan's Perpetual Tent of Wonder, Dreams, Highs, Lows, Enemies, Friends, and Maybe - Just Maybe - Even You

[limegreenlimey]

you could have had new seedlings ready to flip by now., ugg seems like your trying too hard. put seeds in dirt , add water and light . it's that simple , just keep your lightning 12x12 . I get 5 foot plants 1212 from seed. your doing something wrong, plants look yellow and over loved. plant some female seeds and learn to neglect your plant morre so you don't kill them

It's hard to tread this simple/sophisticated line. I guess I would say for year one "have low expectations of first crop. Experiment but try to keep it simple. Second time out, grow fem seeds or, better still, all clones, stick to one variety, settle on one set of methods (e g., lst or sog etc) and try to grow for weight. Third crop, grow non-feminised seeds and try to find your mother. Fourth crop grow all clones in one style that suits your space, go for a big crop!"

Likely this helps Dr Mantis little!

At this point I'd be putting them all in 12/12 and hoping for some New Year bud

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

you could have had new seedlings ready to flip by now., ugg seems like your trying too hard. put seeds in dirt , add water and light . it's that simple , just keep your lightning 12x12 . I get 5 foot plants 1212 from seed. your doing something wrong, plants look yellow and over loved. plant some female seeds and learn to neglect your plant morre so you don't kill them

I'd venture as far as to say that I could be doing multiple things wrong. Sorry if it's painful to watch! I've got a lot to learn.

It's hard to tread this simple/sophisticated line. I guess I would say for year one "have low expectations of first crop. Experiment but try to keep it simple. Second time out, grow fem seeds or, better still, all clones, stick to one variety, settle on one set of methods (e g., lst or sog etc) and try to grow for weight. Third crop, grow non-feminised seeds and try to find your mother. Fourth crop grow all clones in one style that suits your space, go for a big crop!"

Likely this helps Dr Mantis little!

At this point I'd be putting them all in 12/12 and hoping for some New Year bud

Thanks for the kind advice. I wanted to emulate all your cool grows and I may have bit off a little more than I could chew!

At this juncture, I'm inclined to flip to flowering pretty soon. I'd would like my plants to be as healthy as they can prior, though. How about I give an update on the other clones, on that note?

The MN Tangie is coming along:

The saddest of the bunch, but the new growth looks alright. Here's Blueberry F5:

And the Panama, which seems to be taking well to the LST:

 

[rindindoo]

I'm sure I see positive results from fertilizing the clone MN Tangie & Panama!
I think at the moment they are happy with the concentration, do not forget that on peat mixtures the concentration of fertilizers applied is slightly lower than on coconut.
are you sure the blueberry clone is rooted? Tropical plants take root faster than plants from arid regions, perhaps Blueberries took longer to grow roots?

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

I'm sure I see positive results from fertilizing the clone MN Tangie & Panama!
I think at the moment they are happy with the concentration, do not forget that on peat mixtures the concentration of fertilizers applied is slightly lower than on coconut.
are you sure the blueberry clone is rooted? Tropical plants take root faster than plants from arid regions, perhaps Blueberries took longer to grow roots?

The Blueberry's roots were not as established as the MN Tangie's when I transplanted.

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

Went to the grow store armed with pictures and the consensus was not enough nitrogen and Cal-Mag. I added these earthworm castings to all plants save for the Blueberry F5 clone:

And I'll be added Roots Organic Cal-Mag with molasses tomorrow:

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

Increased the light to 90% today. Continued LSTing the GG #4 clone, Panama mother, and Blueberry F5 mothers.

I'm thinking that the plants will like Cal-Mag, as I think these are deficiencies:

Panama clone:

MN Tangie clone:

The Blueberry F5 clone's new growth is looking good. I'll be giving it feedings before too long, so that I hopefully don't start running into deficiencies with it, too:

I know that it might be painful for you to see my blunderings. I appreciate all the feedback and support while I learn this hobby. Ya'll are a great community!

 

[Normannen]

I would suggest getting a blumat system (fixed my root humidity issues) and putting plastic bags around the pots to control the perspiration, which at the moment is too high.
my setup (don't mind the diatomecious earth) :

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

Set the light to 100% power today and gave all plants except for the Blueberry F5 clone a feeding of molasses and 5 ml/gal of Cal-Mag.

 

[Entusia]

Have you tried out the Photone app to get a rough understanding of the PPFD you're giving to the plants?
Percentages are "fluffy" parameters. 100% of how many Watts, at which efficiency and at how much distance is what really matters...

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

Have you tried out the Photone app to get a rough understanding on the PPFD you're giving to the plants?
Percentages are "fluffy" parameters. 100% of how many Watts, at which efficiency and at how much distance is what really matters...

The light is 130 watts. Never heard of that app! I downloaded it and I've got between 550-650 PPFD at plant level.

 

[Entusia]

The light is 130 watts. Never heard of that app! I downloaded it and I've got between 550-650 PPFD at plant level.

The App is pretty cool, readings are at most 5-10% off (with a proper diffuser the error goes significantly down) but overall i find it reliable, and definitely on the cheap side for light meters
They even have handy DLI/PPFD calculators for different plants on their website, types and weeks/stages and also some cool useful graphs like these...

Cannabis Autoflowering


Cannabis Photoperiodic

 

[LG/]

So this is all unsolicited advice, and just imo, feel free to ignore it.
As the plants grow more, they should grow out of all the issues your seeing. Everything they need should be in the soil. But they are very small and probably haven't rooted much based on the size.
At that stage, they are growing slow imo. Might be abit low on light. Can you use both your veg and flower light in there? A 2x3, 6 ft2, 6x33.3=200 w. 33 w/sqft is my standard for led wattage.
Also the soil should have plenty of nutes to keep em going for a few weeks. I think lack of light and not enough water are the main issues.

Not to shrug at the grow store folks, but I hate bottled nutrients. I'm a big fan of dry ammendments and top feeding with them. Love roots organics as a brand. They also sell a cal mag bag like the ones shown, elemental, but it's spendy. I just use oyster shell from down to earth and Epsom salt for cal and mag.

But, they shouldn't need to be fed. If anything they have slightly yellow tips which means the mix is plenty hot.

Also, the soil always looks very dry from the pics. When you water with fabric pots, go slow but really really soak those things. Until there's a decent amount of standing water under it. They will even soak that back up fast.
What are you using for water? Filtered, tap, ro, spring?


All that said, just keep at it. You grow and learn. Good thing is no matter how it goes you always get a new grow in a few months to do it all over again. Wish you the best!
As you said, dont flip to flower until they are healthy. Just going to have better results that way.
I started watching the thread because of the MN tangie. If your in MN, I know a great grow store, PM me for details. Happy growing!

 

[Normannen]

One

So this is all unsolicited advice, and just imo, feel free to ignore it.
As the plants grow more, they should grow out of all the issues your seeing. Everything they need should be in the soil. But they are very small and probably haven't rooted much based on the size.
At that stage, they are growing slow imo. Might be abit low on light. Can you use both your veg and flower light in there? A 2x3, 6 ft2, 6x33.3=200 w. 33 w/sqft is my standard for led wattage.
Also the soil should have plenty of nutes to keep em going for a few weeks. I think lack of light and not enough water are the main issues.

Not to shrug at the grow store folks, but I hate bottled nutrients. I'm a big fan of dry ammendments and top feeding with them. Love roots organics as a brand. They also sell a cal mag bag like the ones shown, elemental, but it's spendy. I just use oyster shell from down to earth and Epsom salt for cal and mag.

But, they shouldn't need to be fed. If anything they have slightly yellow tips which means the mix is plenty hot.

Also, the soil always looks very dry from the pics. When you water with fabric pots, go slow but really really soak those things. Until there's a decent amount of standing water under it. They will even soak that back up fast.
What are you using for water? Filtered, tap, ro, spring?


All that said, just keep at it. You grow and learn. Good thing is no matter how it goes you always get a new grow in a few months to do it all over again. Wish you the best!
As you said, dont flip to flower until they are healthy. Just going to have better results that way.
I started watching the thread because of the MN tangie. If your in MN, I know a great grow store, PM me for details. Happy growing! View attachment 18911856

adding to that, if you have fabric pots that dried up too fast or that are not distributing the water evenly the best way to fix that (and it works for any pots, really, it's just really good for the fabric ones) is to slowly dunk the whole pot in a bucket full of water until it gets heavy, then you let it drip over the bucket a few minutes, when it stops dripping you put the whole pot (with or wihtout plant) back into your grow room. Use the water in the bucket to water it as a few good nutrients are still in there. Alternatively you can place the pot in the bucket (both dry) and do like LG suggests and soak it little by little until it can't even reabsorb the standing water. Let it drip 5 minutes over the bucket, put it away.

and get a blumat .

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

Started LSTing the MN Tangie today!

So this is all unsolicited advice, and just imo, feel free to ignore it.
As the plants grow more, they should grow out of all the issues your seeing. Everything they need should be in the soil. But they are very small and probably haven't rooted much based on the size.
At that stage, they are growing slow imo. Might be abit low on light. Can you use both your veg and flower light in there? A 2x3, 6 ft2, 6x33.3=200 w. 33 w/sqft is my standard for led wattage.
Also the soil should have plenty of nutes to keep em going for a few weeks. I think lack of light and not enough water are the main issues.

Not to shrug at the grow store folks, but I hate bottled nutrients. I'm a big fan of dry ammendments and top feeding with them. Love roots organics as a brand. They also sell a cal mag bag like the ones shown, elemental, but it's spendy. I just use oyster shell from down to earth and Epsom salt for cal and mag.

But, they shouldn't need to be fed. If anything they have slightly yellow tips which means the mix is plenty hot.

Also, the soil always looks very dry from the pics. When you water with fabric pots, go slow but really really soak those things. Until there's a decent amount of standing water under it. They will even soak that back up fast.
What are you using for water? Filtered, tap, ro, spring?


All that said, just keep at it. You grow and learn. Good thing is no matter how it goes you always get a new grow in a few months to do it all over again. Wish you the best!
As you said, dont flip to flower until they are healthy. Just going to have better results that way.
I started watching the thread because of the MN tangie. If your in MN, I know a great grow store, PM me for details. Happy growing! View attachment 18911856

All advice is welcome - though I may not have the means to heed it all! I can use the assistance. In retrospect, It may have been more appropriate if I had started this journal in the "New Growers" area.

My tent is separated into 2 sections - the flowering section (still vegging at the moment) is a 2 ft x 2 ft. It wouldn't be able to fit another light in there, as the current light is already a bit over 1 ft x 1 ft in size.

Interesting what you said regarding nutrients. I'd ideally like to be cultivating using just ammendments, but in talking with grow store and BuildASoil employees, they've made it sound like even the BAS 3.0 (which is nutrient-rich) will struggle to support a plant in as small of containers as I'm using. I also realize that they're in the business of making money, but I don't know enough about it to challenge them.

Indeed, my pots do look dry in my pictures. I've been afraid of root rot, but I'm thinking that I may be overconcerned, especially growing in fabric pots. I gave the GG #4, MN Tangie, and Panama clones a bigger watering today then ever. I've only got tap water as an option.

One

adding to that, if you have fabric pots that dried up too fast or that are not distributing the water evenly the best way to fix that (and it works for any pots, really, it's just really good for the fabric ones) is to slowly dunk the whole pot in a bucket full of water until it gets heavy, then you let it drip over the bucket a few minutes, when it stops dripping you put the whole pot (with or wihtout plant) back into your grow room. Use the water in the bucket to water it as a few good nutrients are still in there. Alternatively you can place the pot in the bucket (both dry) and do like LG suggests and soak it little by little until it can't even reabsorb the standing water. Let it drip 5 minutes over the bucket, put it away.

and get a blumat .

Unfortunately, a stipulation about my growing in my place (owner-occupied rental) is that I don't have standing water. I run a watering can to and from my tent. Once I own my own place (if the housing market will let me in) I'd definitely do the former without question, and perhaps the latter. Regarding blumats, are they ONLY used for water? Could you put compost tea in them, too?

Thanks for all the help coming out of the woodwork! There is so much wisdom, patience, and love here.

 

[Normannen]

Started LSTing the MN Tangie today!



All advice is welcome - though I may not have the means to heed it all! I can use the assistance. In retrospect, It may have been more appropriate if I had started this journal in the "New Growers" area.

My tent is separated into 2 sections - the flowering section (still vegging at the moment) is a 2 ft x 2 ft. It wouldn't be able to fit another light in there, as the current light is already a bit over 1 ft x 1 ft in size.

Interesting what you said regarding nutrients. I'd ideally like to be cultivating using just ammendments, but in talking with grow store and BuildASoil employees, they've made it sound like even the BAS 3.0 (which is nutrient-rich) will struggle to support a plant in as small of containers as I'm using. I also realize that they're in the business of making money, but I don't know enough about it to challenge them.

Indeed, my pots do look dry in my pictures. I've been afraid of root rot, but I'm thinking that I may be overconcerned, especially growing in fabric pots. I gave the GG #4, MN Tangie, and Panama clones a bigger watering today then ever.



Unfortunately, a stipulation about my growing in my place (owner-occupied rental) is that I don't have standing water. I run a watering can to and from my tent. Once I own my own place (if the housing market will let me in) I'd definitely do the former without question, and perhaps the latter. Regarding blumats, are they ONLY used for water? Could you put compost tea in them, too?

Thanks for all the help coming out of the woodwork! There is so much wisdom, patience, and love here.

I wish I had a picture of my system RN to show you.
other than the one I had posted earlier in the thread, with my fabric pots in plastic bags (to retain humidity because mine dry too damn fast, and I think yours might have the same problem).

I use a Big Drippa bag from Garland attached to the "roof" of my box (that holds 1-5L water)
To It I attached the blumat tubing and that feeds my system
no need for running water, this one is litterally "standing" in your grow room and you can fill it every 2-3 days
the plastic bags, if you don't have a humidity higher than 50% are a godsend , or you're gonna have to fill that bag every 2 hours (kidding, I dunno anymore, been using plastic bags and blumat for over a year now).
I fill the water every 3 days by about 0.5L
in colder periods every 4-5.
If I see a pot getting too dry or too wet I regulate the ceramic sensor to drip faster or slower. The only issue my plants have rn is that some are growing so fast they are starving themselves of potassium.
and Yes
you can put an organic tea in the system BUT you gotta be careful that you don't let it sit in your system to ferment (meaning you use the system to distribute the nutrient within a day or two(tops) then you flush the system with clean water (if not clean the whole system with vinegar and peroxyde before using it again)).
So far I only use cheap overpriced commercial nutes

 

[Entusia]

Started LSTing the MN Tangie today!



All advice is welcome - though I may not have the means to heed it all! I can use the assistance. In retrospect, It may have been more appropriate if I had started this journal in the "New Growers" area.

My tent is separated into 2 sections - the flowering section (still vegging at the moment) is a 2 ft x 2 ft. It wouldn't be able to fit another light in there, as the current light is already a bit over 1 ft x 1 ft in size.

Interesting what you said regarding nutrients. I'd ideally like to be cultivating using just ammendments, but in talking with grow store and BuildASoil employees, they've made it sound like even the BAS 3.0 (which is nutrient-rich) will struggle to support a plant in as small of containers as I'm using. I also realize that they're in the business of making money, but I don't know enough about it to challenge them.

Indeed, my pots do look dry in my pictures. I've been afraid of root rot, but I'm thinking that I may be overconcerned, especially growing in fabric pots. I gave the GG #4, MN Tangie, and Panama clones a bigger watering today then ever.



Unfortunately, a stipulation about my growing in my place (owner-occupied rental) is that I don't have standing water. I run a watering can to and from my tent. Once I own my own place (if the housing market will let me in) I'd definitely do the former without question, and perhaps the latter. Regarding blumats, are they ONLY used for water? Could you put compost tea in them, too?

Thanks for all the help coming out of the woodwork! There is so much wisdom, patience, and love here.

You can use Blumats with fertilizers but the really slim lines make it a bit of a pain, especially with organics and all the bacterial biofilm growth that goes on in the pipes (colloquially "slime").

As long as you let the pots dry up a little bit between waterings (aka as long as you don't water them when they're still wet) you shouldn't be too concerned with root rot, especially when the roots are already developed. When they're a bit lighter, but still humid, just water them and watch them perk up.

Now drench them without looking back, or let them soak up water slowly from a tray or something... i'm pretty damn sure they're gonna love it
Another tip: break the soil a little bit by pushing on the edges of the pots, that'll make hydrophobic spots easier to dispell.

BuildASoil says:
Think of soil moisture on a scale of 1-10. 1 being bone dry and 10 being muddy wet. We want to operate in the 3-7 range all day long, day in and day out.

With fabric pots that's easier: since they dry up quickly and more uniformly, you can indulge in more waterings than plastic pots with much less risks.

If you're inoculating soil with beneficial bacteria and fungi and feeding them that's even less of a concern, since your roots will literally be the home of a ton of living things that can and will defend themselves (and also the roots) pretty easily and effectively from rot. They don't like bone dry though, so 2+2.

Too much care/concern is the culprit of many a problems. Frequetly happens to everyone when starting out, so no worries, that's just the learning process at work!

 

[Bona Fortuna]

Started LSTing the MN Tangie today!



All advice is welcome - though I may not have the means to heed it all! I can use the assistance. In retrospect, It may have been more appropriate if I had started this journal in the "New Growers" area.

My tent is separated into 2 sections - the flowering section (still vegging at the moment) is a 2 ft x 2 ft. It wouldn't be able to fit another light in there, as the current light is already a bit over 1 ft x 1 ft in size.

Interesting what you said regarding nutrients. I'd ideally like to be cultivating using just ammendments, but in talking with grow store and BuildASoil employees, they've made it sound like even the BAS 3.0 (which is nutrient-rich) will struggle to support a plant in as small of containers as I'm using. I also realize that they're in the business of making money, but I don't know enough about it to challenge them.

Indeed, my pots do look dry in my pictures. I've been afraid of root rot, but I'm thinking that I may be overconcerned, especially growing in fabric pots. I gave the GG #4, MN Tangie, and Panama clones a bigger watering today then ever.



Unfortunately, a stipulation about my growing in my place (owner-occupied rental) is that I don't have standing water. I run a watering can to and from my tent. Once I own my own place (if the housing market will let me in) I'd definitely do the former without question, and perhaps the latter. Regarding blumats, are they ONLY used for water? Could you put compost tea in them, too?

Thanks for all the help coming out of the woodwork! There is so much wisdom, patience, and love here.

Is it possible to use a drip tray?
Something just a few inches high that you can briefly fill with water. It wouldn’t be standing water for long at all. The soil would wick the water up using capillary forces. You can use compost teas in this fashion and it’s cheap to boot.

 

[Bona Fortuna]

Haha just looked at some older pictures and realized you already are using drip trays.
Apologies.

 

[Dr. Mantis Toboggan]

I wish I had a picture of my system RN to show you.
other than the one I had posted earlier in the thread, with my fabric pots in plastic bags (to retain humidity because mine dry too damn fast, and I think yours might have the same problem).

I use a Big Drippa bag from Garland attached to the "roof" of my box (that holds 1-5L water)
To It I attached the blumat tubing and that feeds my system
no need for running water, this one is litterally "standing" in your grow room and you can fill it every 2-3 days
the plastic bags, if you don't have a humidity higher than 50% are a godsend , or you're gonna have to fill that bag every 2 hours (kidding, I dunno anymore, been using plastic bags and blumat for over a year now).
I fill the water every 3 days by about 0.5L
in colder periods every 4-5.
If I see a pot getting too dry or too wet I regulate the ceramic sensor to drip faster or slower. The only issue my plants have rn is that some are growing so fast they are starving themselves of potassium.
and Yes
you can put an organic tea in the system BUT you gotta be careful that you don't let it sit in your system to ferment (meaning you use the system to distribute the nutrient within a day or two(tops) then you flush the system with clean water (if not clean the whole system with vinegar and peroxyde before using it again)).
So far I only use cheap overpriced commercial nutes

Thanks for all the info, @Normannen!

You can use Blumats with fertilizers but the really slim lines make it a bit of a pain, especially with organics and all the bacterial biofilm growth that goes on in the pipes (colloquially "slime").

As long as you let the pots dry up a little bit between waterings (aka as long as you don't water them when they're still wet) you shouldn't be too concerned with root rot, especially when the roots are already developed. When they're a bit lighter, but still humid, just water them and watch them perk up.

Now drench them without looking back, or let them soak up water slowly from a tray or something... i'm pretty damn sure they're gonna love it
Another tip: break the soil a little bit by pushing on the edges of the pots, that'll make hydrophobic spots easier to dispell.

BuildASoil says:
Think of soil moisture on a scale of 1-10. 1 being bone dry and 10 being muddy wet. We want to operate in the 3-7 range all day long, day in and day out.

With fabric pots that's easier: since they dry up quickly and more uniformly, you can indulge in more waterings than plastic pots with much less risks.

If you're inoculating soil with beneficial bacteria and fungi and feeding them that's even less of a concern, since your roots will literally be the home of a ton of living things that can and will defend themselves (and also the roots) pretty easily and effectively from rot. They don't like bone dry though, so 2+2.

Too much care/concern is the culprit of many a problems. Frequetly happens to everyone when starting out, so no worries, that's just the learning process at work!

That tip about breaking the soil up is interesting - the GG #4 clone's bag feels almost hard. Am I at risk of screwing up the roots by doing this?

The BuildASoil quote is helpful in conceptualizing. There have definitely been timess when it's gotten below "3" on that scale.

Haha just looked at some older pictures and realized you already are using drip trays.
Apologies.

No need to apologize! You're trying to be helpful!

 

[Normannen]

That tip about breaking the soil up is interesting - the GG #4 clone's bag feels almost hard. Am I at risk of screwing up the roots by doing this?

Funny tidbit, they actually kinda love it, specially if you do it slowly in a massagey kind of way (cue the sexy music)
joke aside, the beauty of fabric pots is that you can kinda feel from the outside how the rootsystem is developing, and you can kinda break the hard soil chunks. it can be done with plastic pots too, but they lose soil all over the place and it's hard to feel (if you catch my drift ;D)

I don't have a dirty mind, only dirty hands