Thai's Blooper Reel

[thailer]

they do grow differently. they have these thick roots that grow straight down into the water table and then there's finer roots that create this thick mat on the bottom where it meets the wick and it keeps getting thicker and thicker. at the end with a large plant, i have a hard time getting my fingers into the soil because the roots are top to bottom. theres about two inches of looser soil before you are scraping with your fingers tearing it apart. i now just use a spade to cut out a spot to transplant but i've been tilling my soil because it is difficult to get the fertilizer worked in now.

 

[thailer]

So i thought i would just update on two things.

first, i got 6/6 meatbreath beans to germinate in a cup of water and i am praying they break ground when i go check today. usually beans pop easily for me and i don't really ahve to heat the cup of water but this time, i had to get the house really warm, just to get them to pop open.

second, my mystery leaf problem has returned so i am not sure it is copper in my water now. last time i took the plant and transplanted it into new soil and for two weeks i got new good growth and then again, each new growth leaf on the very tip of the finger, start to curl and go yellow along the edge and develop yellow stripes. the yellow striped never meet the base of the leaf where the fingers all meet. the leaf will develop a dark green color and the fingers on the leaf grow much wider than normal. it throws single blade leaves that are three inches wide when normal would be less than an inch. i'm gonna make a thread for help too but thought i'd update.

 

[zif]

Thailer do you have any experience revegging in a sip?

I'm thinking it should be an advantage, I have never been successful at revegging before. Gotta bring my A game!!

Revegging is the best. Good luck with it!

 

[thailer]

spent all day today trying to get some peat moss that i've spent the last couple days trying to rehydrate. each time i go out there i would dump a bunch of water in the sip with the dry soil. i thought that it would eventually wick up and moisten the dry, light brown peat but nope. so each day for the past 3-4 days i've dumped a couple gallons of water on top. i've tried spraying it from a pump sprayer so it mists down and gets the top moist. short of filling the entire tote with water, i really can see how letting the soil in fabric pots previously to dry out, is hopeless to resaturate. even if you put the plant in catch tray of water, it just doesn't wick to the dry spots and the moist spots just wick water. i could not believe the dry pockets of peat i found when i would check to see if it was finally hydrated. i really needed to transplant a couple days ago so i spent all day dumping water on this thing and mixing up dry pockets with the moist stuff. i put a milk jug to catch the run off coming out the hole at the bottom that would've connected to irrigation. once i caught water in the jug i would then dump it back on the peat moss to conserve RO water. after a while it looked like chocolate milk. probably flushed it looking back at my dumb organic self.

had to use a saw to cut the stalk of the lemon shiv because i don't have pruners big enough.

 

[thailer]

So i think i've figured out the best design to make the SIPs operate better to support larger plants that need stakes. i think i am gonna double up the totes so the bottom tote contains the reservoir and some sort of support for the tote above that is set inside the bottom tote that will hold the soil. this will give me 13-15 inches of soil where currently i am around 10". but its not just about getting more soil depth to hold up stakes; it also increases oxygen to the root zone. my theory is the difference between the hand watered design and the irrigation line design is the wet dry cycle the hand watered sips get which influences transpiration, osmosis at the root zone which increases fertilizer ppm as the soil drys when the plant sucks the water dry from the soil, while the auto top off sips constantly have the same water level.

so forgive my ramble but i want to get this all out while its in my head.

at the root zone there is root pressure and cohesion tension theory which is how water/fertilizer enters the roots and then move up the plant and into the atmosphere. root pressure can only make water travel through the roots so far and isn't as big of influence in transpiration as cohesion tension theory. cohesion tension theory can make water travel despite gravity up tall plants because water is a polar molecule and i like to imagine it like a magnet toy train. the H20 connects to the h20 below that and so on and so on so it creates this chain. as the plant transpires and releases humidity into the air, each water molecule that is evaporated on the leaf surface, will pull up the following h20 molecule below it on the chain. this video explains it a lot better than me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-osEc07vMs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLc4JT522VA

so the plant itself acts like a wick system which is the basis of how the SIP works too. you can see how the pressure to release into the air increases as the water rises up and out of the stomata.

so this all starts at the soil level with the root zone being influenced by the amount of water/oxygen to the root zone. the soil can't be over saturated or the plant won't transpire. so that moves me on to my next topic about the depth of the original SIP and why i want to add more soil depth.

 

[thailer]

What makes a good container soil mix
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=29331

water and air porosity
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=29390

how much air and water
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=29450

effects on root diseases like rot
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=29510

effects of soil settling, salt and drought on root rot
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=29579

when to irrigate/how to determine when to water and how much
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=29674
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=29691

cation exchange capacity
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=29697

so basically the deeper the pot, the more air closer to the surface. if the soil is shallow and wide, its just not the same as the identical amount in a deeper pot. so the soil in the SIPs is wide and shallow and i want to add more soil while creating depth to grow these large trees indoors.

 

[zif]

^ wow! Nice resource.

I’m really enjoying seeing you work through improving your design.

Thanks for sharing your process, thailer!

 

[moses wellfleet]

Thailer are you planning to grow your trees higher than 10m?


https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/11044/how-do-trees-lift-water-higher-than-10-meters

One thing that occurred to me when hand watering the sip is that as the plant uses up the reservoir an air space must form. So where does this air come from? Down through the soil of course as there is no other route. So if you let your reservoir run down you are providing valuable aeration of the soil at the same time?

 

[thailer]

Thailer are you planning to grow your trees higher than 10m?


https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/11044/how-do-trees-lift-water-higher-than-10-meters

One thing that occurred to me when hand watering the sip is that as the plant uses up the reservoir an air space must form. So where does this air come from? Down through the soil of course as there is no other route. So if you let your reservoir run down you are providing valuable aeration of the soil at the same time?

i think the air comes in through the soil. in the hand watered design it would come in the overflow hole but not the irrigated design as the hole hole is covered with water or the tubing.

the tree with that stump pictured above was 6 feet tall or so but that is also including the SIP. so the plant was about 4.5 feet tall soil level and above. the soil is first round soil and it looks like worm casting when you dig down in there. i don't see this difference in first round using fabric bags. the roots are super thick. i'm pretty sure if this plant didn't anchor itself to the drainage pipes in the reservoir below the soil, i could pick this up as a big thick rootball.

this plant i really made sure i put soil in so the rootball was a little higher than the lip of the tote in a mound and as it flowered, the mound sunk down and so did the soil level. i was trying to keep the transplanted rootball out of the water table and as high as possible. so i mean i could just keep doing this and not change anything but really think these big bad bushes would do better fertilizer wise, if they had 25 gallons of soil and not 15.

 

[thailer]

^ wow! Nice resource.

I’m really enjoying seeing you work through improving your design.

Thanks for sharing your process, thailer!

thank you for following along!! its nice knowing people enjoy what i post!

 

[Ibechillin]

Next step is raw salts and pore water EC/crop steering...

 

[thailer]

Next step is raw salts and pore water EC/crop steering...

i am of the theory that living soil is exclusively water only and that using any raw salt or plant soluble bottled source to increase whatever is not conductive to living soil and in fact the exact opposite of what we are trying to achieve. or at least me.

so my reply to that is twice as long as my replies above about sips lol

i was kinda thinking i would do another thread and start a new grow log.

 

[moses wellfleet]

i think the air comes in through the soil. in the hand watered design it would come in the overflow hole but not the irrigated design as the hole hole is covered with water or the tubing.

Ok I don't have an overflow at all if I overfill I got to suck it out manually. I check rez level with a dipstick.

 

[Ibechillin]

.

 

[thailer]

https://www.researchgate.net/public...ilizers_on_the_beneficial_soil_microorganisms this link that you wanted me to read says that application of soluble fertilizers hinders 84% of microbes. i spent quite a while reading and then skimming the rest but i am not looking at this the same way you are. sure chemical fertilizers can increase yield but i'm about increasing the microlife and activity in the soil by giving them meal type fertilizers in the soil to break down and this activity increases as the microbes reproduce. that is my goal and the closer i get to achieving it, the bigger my yield goes up. i don't think you need all of that to get big juicy buds. its about environment, soil structure, and watering.

 

[thailer]

do turkey bags contain smell well enough for traveling? i don't want to spend the money on a vacuum sealer just yet.

 

[thailer]

well i think that its time to start a new grow log. this one really captures a great point in my life that i'll hold dear but I am going to be changing things up and it's not going to be an adorable one light grow show anymore. instead of growing a couple huge plants, i am gonna grow several largish plants that will fill out the floor space more than a plant that is 4 feet wide but i have spare two feet with nothing growing there wasting light. so my system is getting redone, i am hoping to add a light and then i am going to veg in a tent to keep genetics but use my rooms as flower rooms for a total of..............

81 sqft. so not super big but its big to me.

i will post link when i figure out a title lol

 

[moses wellfleet]

Good vibes for the new grow show :yay:

 

[choom]

hey!! when are you going to pop those Lemon Meringue seeds! JK no rush...
i just got new beans i am super proud of and found lost ones of mine thought
gone long ago, what strains are you growing now and what strains are seeds
in your library? I can't wait to build a new garden when I get situated in Shelton

 

[moses wellfleet]

Thailer I was wondering what your latest thoughts on LEDs are, you ready to try them yet?

What interests me is improved terps. You know the story about HID lamps frying the terps. Quite few reports around of growers getting sweeter more fragrant terps from LED.