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Not really hitting my stride yet, any suggestions how to improve?

h.h.

Active member
Veteran
If you just wet the surface, your roots have little reason to travel.
If you have any kind of salts in your water they will stay in your soil.
I always do a periodic heavy water.

You're not losing that many nutrients, bacteria, worms.
 

bigbadbiddy

Well-known member
So you would go contrary to what some other peeps said and water like I did with some runoff once the pots are really dried out? (until now I timed it so I water a day before they would start letting their leafs hang, took me some time to get honed in on that)


Because I was really starting to buy the whole "if you water too much with runoff, you flush out all the good stuff from the soil".
 

Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Yes. Moist. Drying is a throw back to chemical growing. Drying out a bit can be beneficial in late flower to put on weight and potency....a practice used by farmers in Mexico and Afghanistan.
 

bigbadbiddy

Well-known member
Thanks for the feedback guys, helps me understand the nuances a lot better.


I think I am currently letting them dry out too much in between waterings. This habit came about from the time with the buckwheat hulls and the compaction issues where I had disastrous effects of overwatering (and possibly, at least sometimes, root rot) when I didn't let them completely dry out over the course of a week or two.


No longer need to do that.




I think going forward I will look into watering every other day or so with a light shower to keep the top moist and go for a "drench" or "deep watering" every week (or a bit earlier or later, depending what I find).


That should help from what I could gather.


All the best


BBB
 

bigbadbiddy

Well-known member
Couple pics of late flower. As you can see, the defoliated group at ~60 days flower looks a lot lighter than the control group (was defoliated as well but no later than last week of veg) and the control group is 2 or 3 weeks behind (not sure right now).

I also attach a pic of one of the G13xSkunk that seems to be the furthest along and going to be harvested soon. Like her look in terms of resin but she seems very light, very small buds... Many of those though as you can see, doesn't even completely fit on the pic :D

Anyway, I am not sure if this is normal end of flower look on the foliage... As you can see with another G13xSkunk I attached a pick of (that I didn't nearly defoliate as much and that grew a lot differently), it also seems to be "bleaching out" a bit much and a lot more towards the bottom of the plant.
Would you say this is normal?
Mainly due to the buds being so small on most of these plants, they seem to tell me that they are missing nutrients to fill out ...

I also attached a pic of a few plants in veg, where you can also see the foliage towards the bottom yellowing. I would consider this normal due to the size of the plant in 1 gal pot (will transplant them to flower asap). But not sure, always anxious about that lower foliage yellowing and, to me, seemingly showing all kinds of deficiencies.

Finally I attach 2 pics of pests that have befallen my recently rooted and transplanted clones ...
They were very healthy with thick roots, suddenly an outbreak of these critters... I assume they are spider mites. Hope I get them under control. Posted in the infirmary as well... Spinosad?

Anyway, all feedback and opinions welcome.

All the best
BBB
 

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h.h.

Active member
Veteran
The bugs.
If they are a problem.

Finger.

Smash em.
Use sticky paper.
If they're in the mulch, switch to wood chips or something that gives them less shelter.
 

bigbadbiddy

Well-known member
Saw another thread with pics that looked similar.
In there someone said they are compost mites?

Anyway, they were not as few as it seems on the pics I uploaded. So while I initially tried to smash em good with my fingers as you suggested, there were too many.

But I think they are a bit large for spider mites?

Probably going to continue with the neem oil emulsion sprays for now.

Saw that I can easily get spinosad around here if things go sideways.

I just wanted to avoid yet another run where I loose all my clones.

One of the G13xSkunk seems really special and I don't want to loose that one, as I have lost a couple keepers over the past few runs because I could never get past the cloning stage...




/Edit
By the way h.h., I am sure it will delight you to know that I read "Finger." and frantically logged in and searched the pictures in the middle of the night to look for a finger in the picture... I thought I accidentally took a picture with my finger in it and uploaded it and was worried LEO can now identify me with my thumbprint or whatever.
Caused me half a heart attack last night my man :D
 
Last edited:

Rodehazrd

Well-known member
Hey BBB
Do you see the bugs on all your strains? I have them on my Bangi Haze now. They seem to like it best. I'm keeping a mother and they always show up there first. It gets those little white bite marks on the leaves. Neem controls it pretty well but last year I had it bad and used the Pyrethrum TR. $25 for a fog bomb. I tried other weaker sprays of pyrethrin first but thats what worked best for me in a bad infestation. I think you can use it up to a couple weeks before chop. Made from flowers. :tiphat::tiphat:
 

Buddah Watcha

Well-known member
Veteran
Are the bugs on your plants? or just on the soil and pots? Living soil should be full of critters running around and decomposing organic matter.

Look under the leafs, if you see mites sucking the juice out of yours plants, than most likely you got a mite problem.

It doesnt look like spider mite damage to me tho... seems like either ph lockout or overwatering or something... could be broad mites too tho, so check under the leafs before trying to fix whatever issue you might have.

Spinosad aint gonna do anything to mites btw, spinosad only effective against thrips from my experience.

Good luck!
 

bigbadbiddy

Well-known member
Howdy,


might have expressed myself poorly.


The buggers/mites are only in the soil and under the pots of my rooting clones.
Not on the flowering plants whatsoever (at least none that I saw).


Same as on the clones, no bugs have currently infested any leafs or the plants overall.


They also have remained so for the past 1+ week. Have not moved over to any of the other plants in veg and have not attacked the plants themselves.




Over in the infirmary the consensus seems to be that these are soil/compost mites that feast on dead roots.


I currently am of the belief that I best stop the neem treatments (or only spray neem below the pots) and watch my watering habits on the clones more closely to avoid overwatering and root rot. They should then slowly disappear.


They are also much more numerous below the pots of some plants while basically non-existant below the pots of some others. So it is probably a thing of dead roots and some clones struggling more with rooting than others and likely the ones struggling the most are getting their roots eaten by the buggers.


One clone actually looks like it might bite the dust soon, considering to pull it. Not sure what that is from in particular here.


But the rest look alright. I would say they look good and healthy but a) because they were monstercropped (cut in flower) and b) because of the heavy neem sprays, I am not sure how they ought to look right now.




/Edit
would really like some feedback on the defoliated group in late flower.
I am convinced now that the defoliation was just bad and cost me at least a bunch of weight. But aside from that?
The way most plants look to me, I am not sure if this is normal for the late stage of flowering... But most of them looked similarly deficient already a week or so ago.
I am currently of the believe that I needed to topdress more nutrients at some point in early or mid flowering?
What do you all think?


I did not topdress any more than I did, along with ACT/microbial tea in early and mid flower, because most phenos had slightly burned tips (really slight, really just the tip) and a few had slight clawing to their leaf tips as well.
This I interpreted as nutrients being slightly overabundant in the soil, not lacking.




Ultimately I guess I have to finish with the control group that wasn't defoliated in flower and see how that turns out to make any more assumptions/adjustments to my soil or top dressing or adding nutrients during flower.
But I would be grateful for any feedback/input/ideas at this point as well, obviously.


Another thing I am considering is that the 630 CMH (red spectrum) is just a little too powerfull for my small grow space. I came to that assumption because the 315 CMH (blue spectrum) seems to "bleach out" the leafs considerably less. The plants under the big light are considerably "bleached" looking in their foliage and were so at the stage, the plants flowering under the smaller light are currently. But the plants under the smaller light are completely green without any deficiencies whatsoever...
Maybe I need to keep the 630 CMH a bit further away from the plants? Currently the 315 CMH is about 20-30 cm from the highest buds while the 630 CMH is about 40 cm from the highest buds...



All the best and thank you all for your continued interest and help in all this.


BBB
 
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