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You have probably already heard of “reverse osmosis,” which is the process of changing salt water into fresh water.
Osmosis, on the other hand, is the process that retains the tension of the cells, maintains the plant and leaves’ correct positions, allows the buds to remain in ideal condition, and helps take in nutrients. It doesn’t use up any of the plant’s energy.
Definition of osmosis
Osmosis is primarily responsible for preventing marijuana plants from wilting or lying flat on the ground by retaining the cells’ tension. Osmosis applies not only to plants, but also to many other things in our world.
One such example would be the fact that a liquid with dissolved solids draws pure water. You can see this in action with a demonstration involving two containers of water partitioned by a semi-sealed membrane.
Water can move through between the containers, but solutes are unable to pass. Water will always move to the container with a higher concentration of dissolved solids, thus diluting it. This movement doesn’t need any energy to function, and it won’t stop until there is an equilibrium.
Like vacuoles in the cell, every cell has a semi-permeable membrane as its exterior. These membranes let water through, but most solutes are blocked. Vacuoles function as storage for nutrients, sugars, proteins, and more. Water is attracted to the high concentration of the vacuole, thus swelling the cell as far as the cell wall will allow.
The cell wall keeps the cell from popping by providing a counter pressure. This built up pressure and tension allows the plant to stand upright and its leaves to position themselves according to the light.
Osmosis is also integral in the opening and closing of the stomata, through which the plant “breathes.” Download my free marijuana grow bible.
Nutrient absorption by osmosis
Nutrient absorption (and the absorption of the dissolved salts inside the nutrients), which also involves osmosis, takes place in the cannabis plant’s roots. In this case, osmosis causes substances within one liquid to move to another liquid, through the semi-permeable cell membrane. These substances go from the substance with the greater concentration to the lower concentration. This involves movement of ions or osmotic pressure.
Because of this process, the type and amount of substances on either side of the cell membrane have a high level of importance. Let’s simplify things and say that the liquid (located in the plant and in the water outside) contains nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) ions.
Therefore, the type and quantity of the substances that are located on both sides of the cell wall are important. To keep it simple, let’s assume that the liquid in the plant and in the water just outside contains some N (nitrogen), P (phosphor) and K (potassium) ions.
Assuming the cannabis plant has already used some of the nitrogen ions, the plant’s concentration is less than the concentration of the water outside. Because of the principle of osmosis, new nitrogen ions will be attracted to the inside of the plant from outside. When both sides of the cell wall are in equilibrium (meaning the plant has enough potassium ions), then these ions will stay put. However, sometimes phosphorus could be pulled out of the plant and cause a deficit. This occurs when there are more phosphorous ions inside the plant than in the water outside.
Reverse osmosis
Reverse osmosis takes out the dissolved salts in water. This processed can be used in kidney dialysis, in laboratories, and also to partly finish a product that will eventually turn into beer or soda. It can also be applied to growing marijuana plants.
Usually, the ratio of dissolved substances in tap water does not matter for your cannabis plant, even if is present in a high concentration in your area’s tap water (i.e. a large amount of chlorine). Some would like to control exactly what their plant receives, however. If you fit this description, you can begin with demineralized water and add in other nutrients. Keep reading to learn how exactly reverse osmosis works.
A semi-permeable barrier partitions two containers with liquid inside of them. Water flows from the liquid with the higher concentration of solutes to the liquid with a lower concentration. This movement is not unpreventable, however; it can be reversed by putting pressure on the more concentrated liquid. It is possible to figure out how much pressure should be exerted in order to stop the water from passing through the membrane altogether. This pressure can be referred to as osmotic pressure.
If you add even more pressure, you can reverse the flow completely, and water molecules will begin traveling through the membrane and into the less concentrated liquid, thus achieving reverse osmosis.
To put it in terms of “clean” and “dirty water,” your extra pressure on the dirty water makes pure water enter the clean side. This creates even more clean (or demineralized) water, and a liquid or brine with a very high amount of salts in it. Demineralized water has a pH level of 7 and an EC of nearly 0.
Pay attention to a potential lack of calcium or magnesium when watering your plant with demineralized water. You should learn the hardness level of your tap water. It is usually assumed that you’ll water your plants with tap water, and tap water always contains high concentrations of calcium and magnesium. It is important to note that reverse osmosis removes these minerals from the water.
Turgor and plasmolysis
The pressure that is exerted on a cell wall when that cell is under tension is called turgor. The cell’s capacity for drawing water from nearby cells or spaces between cells is what causes turgor. As the pressure increases, the cell membrane stretches and expands until it touches the cell wall. The cell wall creates a counter pressure, like a box that has a counter pressure on a balloon inside as it is being blown up.
Plants’ stiffness is caused by turgor. Turgor lowers when cells lose water (i.e. when the osmotic value of the surrounding environment is greater). When turgor gets too low, the cell membrane breaks off from the cell wall (plasmolysis). The cell dies after remaining in plasmolysis for too long.
Thanks. Not sure why you're explaining osmosis and turgor? I get that nutrients can move out of the roots. Are you saying that overwatering > low ec soil solution > osmosis draws nutrients out of roots? The part I'd need more explanation of is how overwatering creates a low ec soil solution. If that's true. Maybe it's as simple as soluble nutrients being washed out from too much watering til runoff? But wouldn't root exudates and all that crazy stuff happening at that interface keep enough nutrients in solution?
When you have more salts that are too high in your medium, this effect will get worse and worse, the more you dry up the medium if there is not enough calcium, the more they are going to droop asking for water. Sort of like you drinking salty water... This is why the plants get droopy and you all keep thinking you need more water...
It may be root rot or stem rot if things haven't changed at all. http://www.planetnatural.com/product/mycostop/ this may help but it is better for prevention from what I have read. If it is root rot or stem rot then drenching the soil with a fungicide would be your best best bet but that will kill all your soil microbes so you want to be damn sure that is what it is. Would be a shame to do that unnecessarily.
Now, in this formula, you could easily substitute Na for K.
What does this mean?
It means your plants can handle much more K if there is enough Ca.
It is a relationship that has to be established.
Let me try explaining it a different way.
Say you are one of these people that like only 1 tsp of sugar in your coffee. And imagine your woman brings you a coffee with 5 sugars. You aren't going to like it. So what do you do? Throw the coffee away? Imagine that K is the sugar and Ca is the coffee.
All one has to do is dilute the coffee with more coffee (note, not water) to get rid of that relationship of coffee to sugar to one that is lower.
I'm not a soil scientist so I don't know how much Ca to apply without overdoing it since the 250 lbs of oyster is still breaking down. If I don't add anything, by next April the calcium will have risen at least 20% to around 75-80% saturation. Actually would rise more than that but I'm not factoring in how much the plants remove. Just basing it on what Shcrews' identical soil did. So unless someone can tell me a calcium amendment I can use that is instantly available and won't upset my soil chemistry and how much to use, I'm going to play it safe and roll with it just like Shcrews did last year, only using water.
No idea how I missed it but that 7 FT bbhp is a fucking male. I'm laughing and crying at the same time. I still have some big ones but what the fuck.
Guess I'm still gettin a hang of the whole regular seed thing. Must have been one I planted before I was able to sex them and I got distracted by how big it was. The part that kills me is that I had a huge plant next to it that I pulled out to transplant. That one got stunted but it's a female. I didn't know which one to move first but now I know which I should have left.
So any ideas what to do with a 7 ft male plant? I took clones for breeding because it's vigorous and smells great. I'm thinking it'll just be duck food.
The other problem is that I neglected my backups because it was too annoying and time consuming to handwater them all. So I have maybe 5 or 6 shit plants to replace it with.
Maybe time to hit up craigslist for a nice start or two.
Look on the bright side...you still have plants in the ground... imagine if you planted all males and had no backups...or no means to acquire another round...etc etc feels like a punch to the gut but you're learning...
Yea I'm still ok. I was just so stoked for that plant man. I have a big green crack and blue cheese but they just aren't going to be super heavy like that bbhp. I was shooting for a 8, or 9 #er but oh well.
I had just taken a brix reading of it -- it was at 15.
Fire Water, everything is relative. Of course it's better than a home invasion. It's also a lot better than starving to death or drowning. Doesn't mean it doesnt suck.
Jointed, I guess it depends who you ask. Once my shit is automated with a pump and all I have to do is start the engine, I don't like having to hand water for two hours a day. But yea lesson learned :/
Also better than getting kicked in the nuts, that always sucks.
I find a % of seed starts will actually throw a female pistil, then revert back to a full male plant. This happens a lot with females seeds, they throw what looks like a male sac first, then develop into females. This is the first year in many that I planted a male in a final large pot. Facepalm when I figured it out, however that was over a month and a half ago.
Careful with craiglist. Would really blow if you got russets right before flower because you trusted the wrong person. Wish I had some plants left, but I cleaned out everything that wasn't in a full home. Good luck.
There was plenty of N. I had planted some before they were sexed to give some a head start. ThenI culled the males. Just my mistake.
I hit the deficient ones with 1 tsp Magnesium Sulfate, 2 ml AEA rebound iron, 3 ml micropak, and 1.5g Albion ca per gallon.
So the ducks didn't like eating it probably because of the older leaves. It's dried now but I'm just going to toss it into my irrigation pool and let it rehydrate and hopefully some of the nutrients will be extracted.
Slownickel, I decided to try out a little extra gypsum since you're preaching it so hard. I gave every plant about two pounds each and made sure to dust the leaves until they weren't green anymore. Did I do it right? lol actually I just gave 300g over one sq yd to the smallest saddest plant, and because I take unnecessary and ridiculous risks to look for high payouts, I gave 300g to a nice big one. It's surrounded by two very similar plants and It's slightly shorter so I'll be able to see any significant difference. My only concern here is that the oyster shell breaks down quickly soon and combined with the gypsum it brings Ca saturation too high, bumping too much K off right in time to fuck up flowering with a k deficiency. ....but k is so high I'll probably be fine. I think shcrews ended up with 1-2% K after growing 10# plants in the same soil and mine probably won't hit 8#.