Team Microbe's Living Soil Laboratory

[Team Microbe]

Do earthworms have any issue with Fossil Shell Flower (diatoms) cutting up their innards?

DE is an indiscriminate killer, it works by mechanical abrasion of exoskeletons. It'll kill friend and foe alike - when dry. Personally, I don't use it for this sole reason. My soil doesn't stay continuously moist by any means... the top layer always begins to dry out before the rest of the medium and since the majority of microbes reside on the top 4" of the soil, it doesn't require much logic to depict whether this would be worth using or not. If you don't find walking on broken glass enjoyable, then neither will your microorganisms

 

[Team Microbe]

The Bocking 14 Comfrey is flowering already! Had to chop these off to encourage further veg growth though, you don't want flowers with these plants I've read

Health levels are slowly rising as the cycle continues onward... I think that's the most rewarding aspect of growing in soil. Reserves are created, lipids are stored in the form of that sleek waxy film (shiny leaves), and stresses of all kinds slowly become less and less detrimental. I love this shit!

Clover has started to make it's way up into the lowers of this Silver Lotus. This is ok as long as it doesn't get too crazy, I don't like cutting off air flow too much anywhere in the canopy. It should be filling in within a week or two anyways, so I'm not sure how much of a chance the crimson will get to penetrate the canopy. We'll see though!

Cheese Candy after her Foliar Friday treatment. These girls are lovin the Neem Oil, Essential Oil blend, Aloe and Agsil16H it looks like. Don't fix what ain't broke I suppose...

I've been noticing that these topped clones are doing much better than rest of the clones I took. I think I'm going to revert to this method for now on because all cuttings were taken at the same time, yet half of them are twice as big as the other half lol. It requires some preparing with the mother(s) but if done right I think it can work out well for my next run.

I've been giving them light waterings with a heavy watering every now and again. I let them go 3 days instead of 2 this week just to see what would happen, growth increased but soon there afterwards I began to watch the leaves slightly droop as well as the clover. Right when I noticed this I watered, but I think I know my "sweet spot" now. It's hard when you move up to bigger pots after using 5 gallon pots for so long, I'll admit it!



[YOUTUBEIF]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpGEeneO-t0[/YOUTUBEIF]
Been jammin out to this song all day. I've been in a woodstock type of mood lately...

 

[The English Cut]

Simply put, Potassium Silicate is a "synthetic substance" and NOT allowed for use in organic crop production as plant or soil amendment CFR 205.601(j).

Thanks for the reply, I agree with you and I also use DE in my soil mix (1/4 cup per cubic ft) and Potassium Silicate in my IPM programme.

You kinda missed the point of my post though, I was just asking if all Potassium Silcate products are equal, I'm just confused as to why TM is saying Armor Si is not acceptable while AgSil is. I guess it will remain a mystery (cue Twilight Zone music).

 

[Team Microbe]

Mineral compounds by definition cannot be organic or non-organic I learned (from Coots). They CAN be approved for organic food production though, and that's where Agsil16H comes into play.

It's been approved by USDA NOP over 15 years ago, because it's silica sourced from a naturally occurring sand. It's approved for IPM routines but it doesn't say it's approved for drenching however. Just for disease/pest resistance. I'll continue to drench with it nonetheless due to the health levels of the plants I've grown with this watering routine

 

[The English Cut]

TM that's fine and dandy my man, but what's the difference between AgSil and Srmor Si, and why did you say Armor Si was a no no?

It's not a trick question, I have no axe to grind, I really don't care that much personally except I have the feeling that poor Bozo3 will have poured away his bottle of Armor Si needlessly on your advice

 

[Team Microbe]

I don't even know what Armor Si is, but he lost me at General Hydroponics so I wrote it off since he said he's done soil up until this point. G.H. is a no no...

 

[The English Cut]

G.H. is a no no...

Ain't that the truth...

I don't even know what Armor Si is

The 'Si' in the name Armor Si gave it away for me, and the 0-0-4 looked familiar too (my bottle of Grotek silicate pro is 0-0-3). Didn't take very long to google it and see it was just potassium silicate.

no offence intended, I'm just saying that if heads are asking your advice, it's because they trust you. If you don't know the answer to a question, there's nothing wrong with saying so, I think your credibility will thank you in the long run

On a Si related note I went out and picked my first load of horsetail yesterday, it's now drying in a mesh sack hung in a nice windy, covered spot. The idea is to collect, dry and pulverise enough of it this spring/summer to replace the Potassium Silicate in my IPM spray/drench this season and next and still have enough to use as an additional soil amendment along with DE next year. I know I'll be a lot happier that way, a bit closer to 100% organic can't be a bad thing. I read that as summer progresses, the horsetail plants have a higher silica content, so I'll definitely keep collecting till autumn. A quick search shows I'm not the only one with the idea:

I am the only person I know that has actually dried,pulverized,and added at the rate of 1 cup per cubic foot of horsetail to a recycled soil. 'Darc Mind' uses it to topdress as a mulch.

One thing to take into consideration is that this procedure of incorporating it into a soil mix should be treated like an uncomposted amendment such as alfalfa meal,kelp meal ,etc....which of course means ample breakdown time before planting.

On another fungicidal note, what is the deal with Potassium Bicarbonate? Permitted, tolerated or reviled? I know Ed Rosenthal's Zero Tolerance is based on it and while they don't use the word organic on their website, they do use words like natural, environmentally safe, food grade, approved for edible plants, biodegradable blah blah etc. They also claim you can spray up to 10 days before harvest as the Potassium Bicarbonate is absorbed by the plant as food while the essential oils evaporate. Hmmm.

How do people here feel about spraying during flowering? I know it's a divisive issue (round here there's not much that isn't!) with some never spraying during flower and others doing it right up to the last moment. Personally I only spray if it's absolutely necessary and I wouldn't spray with neem at all during flower as that smell is so damn stubborn that (rightly or wrongly) I believe it'd end up affecting flavour in the finished product. I'm interested to hear opinions and experiences but not really up for lots of impenetrable technical info, thank you very much. Dumb that shit down for a stoner please. Peace, TEC.

 

[EclipseFour20]

...On another fungicidal note, what is the deal with Potassium Bicarbonate? Permitted, tolerated or reviled? I know Ed Rosenthal's Zero Tolerance is based on it and while they don't use the word organic on their website, they do use words like natural, environmentally safe, food grade, approved for edible plants, biodegradable blah blah etc. They also claim you can spray up to 10 days before harvest as the Potassium Bicarbonate is absorbed by the plant as food while the essential oils evaporate. Hmmm.
...

Under CFR 205.601(i), Synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production as disease control...the 9th item listed is Potassium bicarbonate. Good to go!

Source: http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?rgn=div5&node=7:3.1.1.9.32#se7.3.205_1601

 

[Polygon]

Why are some no-till/organic warriors against topping? I have read coots and a few others saying they don't want to "cause unnecessary stress to the plant"

I find that topped plants thrive and with some strains produce a more even canopy, seems a little ridiculous to think it's "unnecessary stress" when well over half of the growers I know seem to do it with success.

 

[Team Microbe]

Why are some no-till/organic warriors against topping? I have read coots and a few others saying they don't want to "cause unnecessary stress to the plant"

I find that topped plants thrive and with some strains produce a more even canopy, seems a little ridiculous to think it's "unnecessary stress" when well over half of the growers I know seem to do it with success.

Great question, I only recently learned the truth behind this matter myself after listening to a few seminars given by John Kempf over at Bionutrient.org

Let me first off start by saying that we as farmers, cannot bring our plants to their "full potential" by any means, way, shape, or form due to environmental factors (stress) that are simply out of our control. This includes everything from a thunderstorm outside to a less than ideal setting inside. Pests, overwatering, under-watering, overfeeding, etc all fall into this category. If a plant never saw stress during it's entire life cycle (next to impossible) then it would yield a tremendous amount of fruit come harvest. Up to 80% more than what we see on a regular basis, believe it or not. But, we don't live in a perfect world, and even through a perfected/dialed in routine - we're only attaining about 30% of that plant's inherent potential.

That being said, it's very clear that stress is the main cause of low yielding, disease ridden plants that do not perform up to par (par being 30%-ish). Knowing this, mitigating stress should be the grower's main concern in the garden. This is why I choose low stress training (if any training at all) over high stress training techniques like topping, super cropping, mainlining and fimming. I've seen the differences first hand in my garden, and my highest yielding crop thus far wasn't trained at all - they were grown into the classic "X-mas tree" form.

The amount of time taken away from a plant's life to recover from topping doesn't seem logical to me anymore, especially after learning what John has discovered. But, the stoner world will always do things their way because the next guy said so - so to each his own I usually say

 

[Team Microbe]

I think your foots bleeding.


Stress can be good, depends on the plant and what one wants from it (outside of the stoner world, where we grow more than one type ). Hottest peppers I grew last year were water stressed during the last few weeks, the mildest came from indoors, grown in an ideal environment.

Can't recall any plant I've topped fitting the description of low yielding or disease ridden, nor would I waste the space on a screen with a single cola. It does slow things down by a few days, but that's easy enough to take into account if one can read a calendar.

Wouldn't spraying anything with aloe stress a plant? Vermicompost?

How did your side by side look with that topped plant? Did you even have one? Or is this more anecdotal nonsense regurgitated from Stoner Island?

Like I said, to each his own

 

[JediMasterVon]

Why are some no-till/organic warriors against topping? I have read coots and a few others saying they don't want to "cause unnecessary stress to the plant"

I find that topped plants thrive and with some strains produce a more even canopy, seems a little ridiculous to think it's "unnecessary stress" when well over half of the growers I know seem to do it with success.

Well, since everybody does it then it's ok.

Wow

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Growing a plant under that big unshielded fusion reactor in the sky is a very different environment than growing under a HID lamp. I'd love to grow un-topped plants outside. But since I grow inside, I've found that topping and training is a productive method to maximize a plant's potential under artificial light. What do a few days to recover matter when you're in veg? The clock starts ticking during flowering.

 

[Team Microbe]

Growing a plant under that big unshielded fusion reactor in the sky is a very different environment than growing under a HID lamp. I'd love to grow un-topped plants outside. But since I grow inside, I've found that topping and training is a productive method to maximize a plant's potential under artificial light. What do a few days to recover matter when you're in veg? The clock starts ticking during flowering.

Unless you've got a deal worked out with your electric company... veg time costs money too

And of course, time is also money..

 

[Polygon]

I think people took my tone wrong when asking a simple question and now I've got people acting like I told them I fucked their grandma or something. One of the reasons I've had an account here for 5 years and never post... I really don't mean to offend or call anyone smart or stupid for topping or not topping, but as a grower I've seen benefits from topping certain plants and wouldn't consider the minimal time spent recovering to be a huge deal. I personally do more LST growing so it doesn't matter either way to me...

The reason I asked was to find some proof that it's harmful other than minor stress. I looked through the website you suggested and didn't seem to find anything relating to cannabis or topping. So, besides minor time lost and inflicting a lil stress on the plant - does it have any other effects that have been observed in a research setting?

This kindof falls under the category 'different strokes for different folks'... But I know I'll get irrational responses to this when I'm just looking for an answer. Suggesting topping a plant in this thread is like saying I'm going to sterilize my soil and kill a puppy to the organic warriors

Thanks for the response TM, btw, understand what you're saying, just wanna dig deeper

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

The extra expense of a few more days under a T5 is negligible compared to the ability to spread a plant out horizontally and obtain an even canopy. And as I stated above, this method has distinct advantages when growing under lights. In my case I'm using 400 watt lamps (CMH) which only provide a vertical zone of adequate illumination for quality bud formation of approximately twelve to fifteen inches. So here, the point is to fit as many flowering buds into this limited vertical zone. Topping is just another tool in the grower's toolkit.

From my reading of Polygon's original post, the question he was getting at was, "What is the negative of topping?" The implication seemed to be that there is a school of thought that topping a plant will cause undue stress which will somehow be carried forward and permanently limit a plant's growth potential. I'm aware of no evidence to support this idea.

I think that "stress" may not even be the best way to look at this situation. From my experiences, topped cannabis plants take a few days to sort out their hormonal situation and redistribute growth energies to lateral growth tips. But there seems to be no evidence of some resulting growth inhibition which forever limits the plant. Manipulating growth habits by removing apical dominance, is a time tested method that has been utilized by gardener's for ages.

From Wikipedia;

Apex removal

Plant physiologists have identified four different stages the plant goes through after the apex is removed (Stages I-IV). The four stages are referred to as

lateral bud formation,
"imposition of inhibition" (apical dominance),
initiation of lateral bud outgrowth following decapitation, and
elongation and development of the lateral bud into a branch.

These stages can also be defined by the hormones that are regulating the process which are as follows: Stage I, cytokinin promoted, causing the lateral bud to form since cytokinin plays a role in cell division; Stage II, auxin is promoted, resulting in apical dominance ("imposition of inhibition"); Stage III, cytokinin released resulting in outward growth of the lateral bud; and Stage IV, auxin is decreased and gibberellic acid is promoted which results in cell division, enabling the bud or branch to continue outward growth.[1]

More simply stated, lateral bud formation is inhibited by the shoot apical meristem (SAM). The lateral bud primordium (from which the lateral bud develops) is located below SAM. The shoot tip rising from the SAM inhibits the growth of the lateral bud by repressing auxin. When the shoot is cut off, the lateral bud begins to lengthen which is mediated by a release of cytokinin. Once the apical dominance has been lifted from the plant, elongation and lateral growth is promoted and the lateral buds grow into new branches. When lateral bud formation prevents the plant from growing upward, it is undergoing lateral dominance. Often, lateral dominance can be triggered by decapitating the SAM or artificially decreasing the concentration of auxin in plant tissues.

 

[dannykarey]

I gotta go with Mikell on this.....Great post!

We are all on the same side peeps

Danny

 

[SurfdOut]

Hawaii is the only state that grows coffee. Kauai grows the most coffee but is the least tastiest bean because the plants arent stressed at all.

 

[The English Cut]

I must confess that I'm a compulsive topper of plants, it's very humid round here, so it's in my interest to have lots of small buds rather than a few big ones whether I'm growing indoors or out. I've tried exclusively training plants with no pinching out and the buds were still too big for my preference and a few rotted. I definitely yield more from a plant that's been topped multiple times and has multiple bud sites than one that hasn't, just for that reason: smaller buds = less or no rot.

I've definitely noticed that some plants will take a lot longer to recover from topping than others. In my experience the more sativa dominant plants will better cope with pruning. However I've seen topping slow down growth in some near-pure indicas to such an extent that I'd prefer to LST anything like that from now on.

I don't believe that one approach is correct and the other incorrect, it's all about circumstances and personal choice.

As far as stress to plants goes, I'm not sure if 'light pruning' (ie not ripping off branches) falls within what I call stress. I feel it stimulates growth. I'm much more concerned about submitting my mother plants to any stress than something that's going to flower out. I mean if the mums get too stressed then that has the potential to mess up any future clones which could have a much bigger effect on yield imo.

I was looking into the whole hot pepper thing recently. This from suttons seeds: 'Plants stressed by hot sun, drough and poor soil will ramp up their capsacin levels. Treat 'em mean to make 'em mean.'

And I can well believe that about the coffee bean flavour too. I'm not sure if the theory necessarily applies to all plants though, I don't remember getting really tasty tomatoes from the plants I'd forgotten to water or superb aubergines from a plant infested with root aphids. I've seen people do terrible things to weed plants to stress them into producing more resin: steel nails through the stem, crushing stems, ringing the stem at the base. I'm not into that, the idea of stressing just for stressing isn't my style anyway, I smoke way too much.

OK I've rambled enough, let's keep tings on a good vibe here, we're all learning and shit, even gurus can be wrong sometimes. Peace from Stoner Corner, TEC.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

You're right TEC, short stout indicas don't respond well to topping. I'd forgotten about that. But then they grow short already, so there isn't as much need for it.

Alpine plants tend to have short dense growth forms which help the plant retain any heat they might have accumulated during the day, as opposed to being open and allowing the cold wind to penetrate into the plant structure. I think this evolutionary pressure helped determine short and dense indica growth habits.

We might think it best to try and mimic the growing conditions of wild plants, but what we are trying to grow is totally opposite of what the plants evolved to produce. Unseeded bud is about as "unnatural" a product as one could imagine. The plants are trying their darndest to produce seeds and that's not what we want!

In their "natural" state, cannabis plants are growing in dense clumps, reaching for the sky trying to escape their neighbor's shadows, and to get their flowers up out of the thicket where the wind can do it's work with the pollen. We don't want that. We cull the males and want the females to spread out and put all their energy into growing the maximum volume of flowers in a futile attempt to produce seeds.