Diary PCBuds mini-grow

[PCBuds]

is that ol' Toby?

I don't know what that means, and I don't know who that guy in the picture is?

ReikoX sent me a bunch of seeds that I have had great luck with, and I always seem to have some sort of plant that pops up in my planter. I just let them grow for good luck.

I don't name my plants, because I only grow one at a time so I won't get it mixed up with anything.



I did have a lot of trouble getting a plant to start growing this time.
This plant is my fourth attempt.
The first three all sprouted and were all about 2 inches tall, just starting their second set of leaves, when they would keel over and croak.

I don't know what hell was happening?
I think that they were damping off?
So I took about 3 inches of media off the top of the planter and dug down about 6 inches in the middle and replaced that part with fresh coco and perlite.
Then I watered it down from the top with a couple of liters of weak nutrient solution (about 250 PPM) that was PHed to 5.8

That seemed to do the trick, and this plant looks pretty good, but I still don't know what was wrong with the first 3 attempts?


Here's some pictures from earlier on,..

 

[Normannen]

I meant the little tobacco looking seedling, ole Toby= tobacco

 

[PCBuds]

I meant the little tobacco looking seedling, ole Toby= tobacco

It's probably another madder plant?
goingrey figured out that the lucky plant growing with my last plant was a madder plant,.. (as well as some field grass or something? )

I had hundreds of tiny black seeds all around the closet, so that's probably what's growing?
But, it turns out that the madder plant has toxic roots, and I don't think that I want that in my planter?

Maybe I should remove it, but I don't want to spoil the good luck

 

[Normannen]

It's probably another madder plant?
goingrey figured out that the lucky plant growing with my last plant was a madder plant,.. (as well as some field grass or something? )


View attachment 18919607

I had hundreds of tiny black seeds all around the closet, so that's probably what's growing?
But, it turns out that the madder plant has toxic roots, and I don't think that I want that in my planter?

Maybe I should remove it, but I don't want to spoil the good luck

I guess it's a "madder" of faith

 

[PCBuds]

I added more lights and more wind,..

I found a second lucky plant,..

 

[PCBuds]

 

[Alitolla]

Wow..welcome back dude.

 

[Normannen]

I found a second lucky plant,..

View attachment 18920229

What's the madder?
I dunno! What's the madder with you?

 

[PCBuds]

My plant today,..

 

[Ca++]

If I knew quoting you would bring you back, I would of done it weeks ago

Your light setup gives a good bud distribution, with them seen across the full height of the plant. I like this kind of side lighting approach, along with sub-canopy lighting, and interrcanopy lighting choices. Which are all seeing a resurgence, with meaningful results right now. So it will be nice to see you run again. Your grows set a useful benchmark, of equal brightness all over.

I think you may have your own micro-climate under the plant bell you were just using. The last hygro meter I saw say 99%, I was fishing out of my tank.

 

[PCBuds]

Your light setup gives a good bud distribution, with them seen across the full height of the plant. I like this kind of side lighting approach, along with sub-canopy lighting, and interrcanopy lighting choices. Which are all seeing a resurgence, with meaningful results right now. So it will be nice to see you run again. Your grows set a useful benchmark, of equal brightness all over.

Thanks. I find that the side and bottom colas are almost as big as the main cola, and they seem to ripen up at the same time.

I think you may have your own micro-climate under the plant bell you were just using. The last hygro meter I saw say 99%, I was fishing out of my tank.

I was using the dome to bring up the humidity but the plant was starting to hit the dome, and the leaves were curling up.

I've got half a dozen of those hygrometers and they all give different readings. They can differ from each other by more than 20%.
They're actually kind of useless, but they do give me a rough idea of the RH.

The humidity is a lot lower now without the dome, but I don't worry too much about RH.
I've found that the plants do okay when I ignore the humidity, but the TDS and PH seem to be a lot more important.
Too much light can really stress a plant too. I need to turn the lights up slowly or the plant will completely flake out.

I have the lights turned down pretty low right now hoping that the plant will grow taller and reach for the lights.

I want to try and fill the closet right up to the ceiling lights.

 

[Ca++]

I do my cuts in a standard prop, which I don't open for at least 10 days. It has water pouring down it like your plant bell. I have to leave the middle row of my seed tray empty, or the RH there, while not measurably different, will lead to an area of fallen cuttings. The damper it is, the more chance some will damp off. With near certainly, if you can get right to the limit of saturation. You addressed the cleanliness issue, coring out where plants had failed. In rockwool with h2o2, losses are less frequent. While a compost can grow mold stuff quickly. I use coco, so in the middle. The occasional sack has had to be pushed out from cutting duty, as that initial baseline cleanliness requirement, wasn't being met, for my high RH rooting environment.

With seeds, I cover up to stop the substrate loosing moisture. Once they are up and out the ground, I'm quick to lower the RH around them. This reduces stretch, and the chances of damping off. The difference in success rate is very noticeable.

I did notice you went from dome to fans quickly. I don't take a week over it either.


Hows the cat?
Still got the ebike?

 

[PCBuds]

I do my cuts in a standard prop, which I don't open for at least 10 days. It has water pouring down it like your plant bell.

I had been spraying the inside of the dome several times a day and the RH inside was around 70%-80%
The 99% reading was erroneous. I ended up spraying the hygrometer.

I've struggled with trying to raise the humidity before and it turned into a PITA.
I tried an ultrasonic humidifier a couple of years ago and ended up with water dripping off everything in the closet.
I hung a rag off the table after I removed the dome. I spray it with water to raise the humidity.
I accidentally sprayed my incandescent bulb yesterday and it exploded.
I think that I'm just going to ignore the humidity. I've grown many big plants in my closet without worrying about the humidity.

I'll keep the incandescent bulb/heater until I've got the light strips turned up but I want a bigger plant before I turn them up.

Once the plant is bigger, the humidity goes up too because of all the transpiration.

I have to leave the middle row of my seed tray empty, or the RH there, while not measurably different, will lead to an area of fallen cuttings. The damper it is, the more chance some will damp off. With near certainly, if you can get right to the limit of saturation. You addressed the cleanliness issue, coring out where plants had failed. In rockwool with h2o2, losses are less frequent. While a compost can grow mold stuff quickly. I use coco, so in the middle. The occasional sack has had to be pushed out from cutting duty, as that initial baseline cleanliness requirement, wasn't being met, for my high RH rooting environment.

I like to do my own version of "no-till" but it wasn't working for me this time.
I did dig out the middle of the planter about 4" across and 6" deep but I guess that wasn't good enough.

I neglected to flush the planter as well, so my PH and PPM were probably way off.
And I didn't want to upset my springtails either. I haven't noticed any springtails running around on the new media yet. I hope they're OK?
I don't think there's much for them to feed on with the fresh media?

With seeds, I cover up to stop the substrate loosing moisture. Once they are up and out the ground, I'm quick to lower the RH around them. This reduces stretch, and the chances of damping off. The difference in success rate is very noticeable.

I only seem to have trouble with the babies, but I think my new plant is going to make it now.

My other problem is mold but growing in the winter with the low humidity really helps with that.

I did notice you went from dome to fans quickly. I don't take a week over it either.

Yeah, that was pretty quick. I guess I should have waited a week before turning on the fan.

The plant does look better now though. The leaves have flattened out and the serrations are no longer curled. I think the plant was kinda suffocating?


Ohh,.. I also checked the PH in the "reservoir" and it was at 6.8 so I've been draining it daily, bringing the PH down to about 5.5 and pouring it back down the tube.
I'll keep doing it until the reservoir is at 5.8

I also removed the first set of leaves and the nodes so that the plant has more space above the media.
It makes it easier to water, and lets the plant breathe better when it's filling in.
I've done that before but I waited until they were much bigger branches.
I figure it's better to do it now so the plant doesn't waste its energy on those two branches.

Hows the cat?

The cat is fine.
She's a happy cat,..

Still got the ebike?

Yup. I've put over 4000 km on it since I got it just over a year ago.

I've had some eventful excursions.

It's not designed for mud.
Mud got jammed between the tires and the fenders, and the wheels wouldn't turn.

 

[Ca++]

I have also noted the serpentine like leaf margins, keeping little ones under high RH. I think the leafs backbone is as log as usual, but the sides are bigger as they are holding more water. Thus they start to meander. Then with the RH reduced, it's like tightening up a bow saw.

Nothing worse than the bike grinding to a halt in a muddy puddle. All effort to keep it upright, just extending the moment. Then you just have to put your foot down. Then the other. I can see why you threw it down lol

 

[PCBuds]

I have also noted the serpentine like leaf margins, keeping little ones under high RH. I think the leafs backbone is as log as usual, but the sides are bigger as they are holding more water. Thus they start to meander. Then with the RH reduced, it's like tightening up a bow saw.

I wonder if it's the leaves trying to create a shape that encourages air flow so that it can transpire more effectively?

Nothing worse than the bike grinding to a halt in a muddy puddle. All effort to keep it upright, just extending the moment. Then you just have to put your foot down. Then the other. I can see why you threw it down lol

It didn't grind to halt.
It was so mushy that the front wheel just kept plowing forward but it would slide out sideways.
I dropped the bike over a dozen times that day but I didn't fall over myself.
The first few times it happened, I didn't realize that the wheel wasn't rotating. I couldn't figure out why it was sliding out and I couldn't steer.
It was a really strange feeling.

I ended up using a stick three times to clear the mud out from between my fender and tire.
Then I thought to remove the fender brackets so I could get more clearance to scrape out the hard packed mud.

You can see the 6 foot skid mark that ended up sliding sideways. Once I hit more solid ground, the wheel would either start turning, or it would grind to a halt, and my back wheel would just spin.

 

[Ca++]

It looks like you need some winter tyres, if you face that sort of journey often. I had missed the skid mark before. I bet their are others lol. Some mudguards like a crosser for winter? The battery must be doing some work, to get you through all that. I wouldn't want to be pedaling

 

[PCBuds]

I have also noted the serpentine like leaf margins, keeping little ones under high RH. I think the leafs backbone is as log as usual, but the sides are bigger as they are holding more water. Thus they start to meander. Then with the RH reduced, it's like tightening up a bow saw.

I found a picture of the plant with the leaves cupping,..

It was after I saw the leaves that I removed the dome. She looked like she was suffocating??

 

[PCBuds]

It was after I saw the leaves that I removed the dome. She looked like she was suffocating??

@ReikoX
After I saw the wonky leaves, I Panicked and gave the plant an entire liter of LITFA, then shut the door.

I have been messing with the PH in the reservoir though.
I figured that I need to take care of that.

 

[PCBuds]

It looks like you need some winter tyres, if you face that sort of journey often.

That dirt path was a mistake.
It's fine when it's dry but there were puddles this time.
The path was only about 2 km long, but it took me almost 1½ hours.

When I first started down the path I could ride around the puddles, but the puddles kept getting worse and then I couldn't ride around them.
I should have turned around, but I just kept going.

When I took the picture, I could finally see the highway ahead, so I stopped and took a picture.

I had missed the skid mark before. I bet their are others lol.

Dozens.

Some mudguards like a crosser for winter?

I like the street tread for its much lower rolling resistance, and increased battery range.

I don't need knobby tires because I don't ride in the winter. (I'm done riding for the year now.) And I always stay out of the mud.
That was just a bad day.
I should have turned around when I started to have to go through the goo.

The battery must be doing some work, to get you through all that. I wouldn't want to be pedaling

On the pavement I'm using about 200 Watts to go 22 kph, and I don't pedal. (I didn't connect my PAS sensor, and just use my throttle.)

When I finally got my ebike to the pavement after the mudfest, I was drawing over 700 Watts and pedaling Hard to only go 8 kph.
The tires were just humming.

That's when it occurred to me to disconnect my fender brackets so I could get at the mud and scrape it off. It was like clay.

 

[Ca++]

When I finally got my ebike to the pavement after the mudfest, I was drawing over 700 Watts and pedaling Hard to only go 8 kph.
The tires were just humming.

That's given me a good chuckle. More than a horse, and it still wouldn't move

Watch your battery over winter. Half charged for best life expectancy, but some BMS units will trickle that down below the LVC. They usually don't run off pack voltage, but instead just a few cells. Regular use allows balancing, but in storage, the BMS can pull them cells down to nothing. Then it can't charge, as it's brain dead, and has dangerous cells from over depletion. I suggest a long charge every months or two, for time balancing. Then a run, so you are not storing at 100%, where they age quite a lot faster than at 50%

It's about as technical as growing