Plant Farm 2016

[plantingplants]

Here's the weird soil. I feel like maybe it was just a dry spot. Soil can be hydrophobic once it fully dries. I tried watering in some Tween but it didn't seem to wet it, as you can see from the pool at top left (it has stuff floating in it). The bright white-ish part of the photo is where I scraped away the top centimeter of wet soil. That's all really dry colonized soil. I gotta pick up a wetting agent.

 

[plantingplants]

And finally, some perty pink pistils:

 

[Robrites]

How'd I miss this thread?

 

[Stone House]

Is it possible the dry spot is a part of the soil mix that didn't get mixed in well enough (clump of amendment)?

 

[who dat is]

Here's the weird soil. I feel like maybe it was just a dry spot. Soil can be hydrophobic once it fully dries. I tried watering in some Tween but it didn't seem to wet it, as you can see from the pool at top left (it has stuff floating in it). The bright white-ish part of the photo is where I scraped away the top centimeter of wet soil. That's all really dry colonized soil. I gotta pick up a wetting agent.

View Image

I would look into the yucca extract from build a soil. I think it's a liter bottle and it should last you awhile

 

[HillMizer]

You could go to the feed store and get some a couple bales of straw. Rice is best and wheat is good enough.
You could be done with your watering woes a long time ago. Probably for $16-30($8/bale) in your area and much cheaper in the valley.

If you don't use mulch in this climate then the top 2 inches of your soil is mulch. The mulch will act like a hundred little drippers and carry the water down to the soil. It will keep it from being hydrophobic, prevent dry spots, keep soil from washing away when the rains come, provide lignin and other foods for biology now and in the future ad well as providing moisture and shade for biology.
I have a gallon of therm x70 yucca I'll pour you some if you want, but it's a temporary fix at best.
Sorry if this is a rant but we gotta stop thinking about More products to buy that are only bandaids. The info people are sharing here works better, longer and cheaper then all the bottled products.

If you're a Jeremy Silva build-a-soil fan then this is from his website
Rule #6: No matter what else you do, make sure you MULCH. If you skip Mulching you are missing the boat."

 

[who dat is]

You could go to the feed store and get some a couple bales of straw. Rice is best and wheat is good enough.
You could be done with your watering woes a long time ago. Probably for $16-30($8/bale) in your area and much cheaper in the valley.

If you don't use mulch in this climate then the top 2 inches of your soil is mulch. The mulch will act like a hundred little drippers and carry the water down to the soil. It will keep it from being hydrophobic, prevent dry spots, keep soil from washing away when the rains come, provide lignin and other foods for biology now and in the future ad well as providing moisture and shade for biology.
I have a gallon of therm x70 yucca I'll pour you some if you want, but it's a temporary fix at best.
Sorry if this is a rant but we gotta stop thinking about More products to buy that are only bandaids. The info people are sharing here works better, longer and cheaper then all the bottled products.

If you're a Jeremy Silva build-a-soil fan then this is from his website
Rule #6: No matter what else you do, make sure you MULCH. If you skip Mulching you are missing the boat."

It's still a good product to have on hand for foliars as well.

 

[_tessarecting]

I told plants that months ago lol

 

[DAT]

!GORGEOUS PINK PISTILS!

 

[plantingplants]

Yea I definitely need mulch. I have two bales of rice straw already but here's the thing. I've literally been adding sprayers almost every two weeks. I keep finding spots that aren't getting efficiently hit, and if I put mulch down, I can't see dry soil spots. So I keep meaning to mulch but I'm waiting to make sure everything is getting sprayed first. Hitting the sides of the mounds has been really difficult.

But I take your point. I didn't think about how mulch will act as drippers for this spot. I'll throw some on and see what happens. I was looking at the mushroom mounds today. It's crazy how much colonization there is. I wonder if the mushrooms are drinking a lot, too.

 

[HillMizer]

I bet you won't have dry spots if you mulch. The eye doesn't tell you much anyway, it might be wet just on the surface.
You poke your finger down in there to check. Soil wicks moisture, but only if you keep it wet.
I water home depot buckets with 2 drip emitters on stakes. Just two little drops....
Fungus is a good sign, I think you're watering better than you think. Your soil "mulch" on top is just drying out IMO. Your buds look great! You're doing a great job.

Irrigation does take diligence and time to dial, check and repair. But it offers a lot of efficiency, more time to work on other parts of business. My irrigation was far from perfect, I made some mistakes with the new layout. All in all pretty stoked on it though.
Keep up the good work

 

[plantingplants]

Yea, irrigation has been tough this year. I'm going to wet the dry mounds down tomorrow and then mulch. Thanks for the kind words, mizer. Sometimes it feels like I'm never doing good enough, and then sometimes my eyes clear up and I see that I'm actually doing pretty well.

I put up a second layer of trellis on the big girls. Don't know why but the biggest plant, the Dream Beaver, has PM. Taking brix reading tomorrow. Also sending soil and water samples out to Spectrum tomorrow.


This photo was taken right next to the one a few pages back. Can anyone ID these mushrooms? I have maybe 40 of them. Would be cool if this was also an edible mushroom farm

 

[plantingplants]

Everything is looking great and it feels so good. Shout out to the milk man for his custom salt recipe. They were starved at the flip but it hasn't seemed to affect their flowering at all. They're getting fat and really thickening up. Knock on stalk. I never count my chickens. There are a couple plants that have smaller buds... is there any way to tell if it's genetic or environmental? ie did they not get enough x or y or were they just born with it?

Here ya go!

 

[FoothillFarming]

Great job.

One way to test the lower budding plant is to tissue test it. Depending on what that looks like, you can determine how far off you are from a balanced grow.

My guess is genetics, I always get a dud or two.

 

[slownickel]

Great job.

One way to test the lower budding plant is to tissue test it. Depending on what that looks like, you can determine how far off you are from a balanced grow.

My guess is genetics, I always get a dud or two.

What I have seen is that the duds are sometimes THE SUPERIOUR genetics, yet discarded.

Often the best seeds are discarded as they have a higher demand for calcium that is not being met....

 

[who dat is]

What I have seen is that the duds are sometimes THE SUPERIOUR genetics, yet discarded.

Often the best seeds are discarded as they have a higher demand for calcium that is not being met....

Would this not show up as a deficiency though? Or just a stunted underperforming plant without any visible deficiencies noticeable on the leaves?

 

[slownickel]

Would this not show up as a deficiency though? Or just a stunted underperforming plant without any visible deficiencies noticeable on the leaves?

I can show you the best seed genetics in the US for sweet onions, asparagus, etc.. and put them in a soil without enough calcium and they just sit there.

There is an amazing variety of grape that a grower in Chile brought over to Peru. Didn't respond. Many growers put in lots of acreage and then ended up pulling it out.

When I finally got that Chilean to send in a soil sample of his best areas, 90% Calcium using [email protected]!!!!!

The more fertilizer you apply, the worse it gets.

Doesn't mean deficiency symptoms, it means poor vigor or growth rates.

 

[FoothillFarming]

What I have seen is that the duds are sometimes THE SUPERIOUR genetics, yet discarded.

Often the best seeds are discarded as they have a higher demand for calcium that is not being met....

This clicked for me many years ago. Not the Ca part, but the "duds" being more desirable, just harder to grow. Plants like Blue Dream are epic because it yields massive amounts of good quality herb, and is easy to grow. However, you ever seen Blue Dream grown to perfection? Amazing herb! Seen lots of people poo poo cookies because of low yields, but once you get her dialed, the yields are quite nice.

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Yea, irrigation has been tough this year. I'm going to wet the dry mounds down tomorrow and then mulch. Thanks for the kind words, mizer. Sometimes it feels like I'm never doing good enough, and then sometimes my eyes clear up and I see that I'm actually doing pretty well.

I put up a second layer of trellis on the big girls. Don't know why but the biggest plant, the Dream Beaver, has PM. Taking brix reading tomorrow. Also sending soil and water samples out to Spectrum tomorrow.


This photo was taken right next to the one a few pages back. Can anyone ID these mushrooms? I have maybe 40 of them. Would be cool if this was also an edible mushroom farm

View Image

Chlorophyllum rhacodes or bruennum is a guess. If you cut the stipe (the stem) does the cut part change color? Chlorophyllum rhacodes has a characteristic color change. I collect them & eat them, they remind me of cheesesteak meat. Watch out for the green spored version which you don't want to eat.

 

[plantingplants]

I got my soil results back from Spectrum. Still waiting on a water test

Foothill, I'm definitely getting a K and Ca meter next year. I'm excited for that.

slownickel, that's really interesting. Wouldn't that suggest that almost all of our current genetics are duds (relatively), if almost everyone is/has been selecting for the best producing plant in Ca deficient soil (which almost everyone has)?


PDX, thanks! I think they're the bruennum, but I took a look at a mature cap and the gills were green, so I guess that's a no go. I'll take a spore print later.