Diary White Rhino & Friends. Fall 2021 Grow.

[aliceklar]

Decided to try it by the book - in the spirit of fuck around & find out, of course. Ordered some Canna coco A+B & some biobizz calmag.

Noticed some leaf necrosis on one of the seedlings. Generally tho they still seem to be moving in the right direction. All the other plants around them like ghouls. AKMMWR F1s have some pretty flowers.

 

[f-e]

This cupboard.. you say you have used the shelf bit as your flower space before? If so, you might want to extend that shelf, full width. Giving a flower area more proportionate to the veg area, which would be below it.



They look too wet. As a result, the perlite is going green, but not the plants. Perhaps they are freezing their butts off as the primary cause. Did I see 20c a bit back? The outside temperatures have dropped another 5 since then. For a good start, you want to be looking at 25c and many LED users are happy anywhere between 25 and 32. That gets them drinking, which is how the calcium people speak of is moved about. Low temps restrict N and P uptake to. As does being wet. The cold and wet issues are difficult to separate, and what we see as cold, or wet, is dependent on the other one. What looks wet at 20c isn't wet at 25c. They will take it.

We do see a lot of mixed numbers. A greenhouse grower, with his selections, might think 20c is actually warm. I'm trying to run at 25c for a change, which is low for me, and I'm seeing it. Smaller lighter coloured plants than I want. Leading to different feeding needs. If I were to use just 1ml of calmag per liter, it would have to be 6%N 7% Ca 4.5%Mg (double most bottles, and then more Mg)

 

[aliceklar]

This cupboard.. you say you have used the shelf bit as your flower space before? If so, you might want to extend that shelf, full width. Giving a flower area more proportionate to the veg area, which would be below it.

They look too wet. As a result, the perlite is going green, but not the plants. Perhaps they are freezing their butts off as the primary cause. Did I see 20c a bit back? The outside temperatures have dropped another 5 since then. For a good start, you want to be looking at 25c and many LED users are happy anywhere between 25 and 32. That gets them drinking, which is how the calcium people speak of is moved about. Low temps restrict N and P uptake to. As does being wet. The cold and wet issues are difficult to separate, and what we see as cold, or wet, is dependent on the other one. What looks wet at 20c isn't wet at 25c. They will take it.

We do see a lot of mixed numbers. A greenhouse grower, with his selections, might think 20c is actually warm. I'm trying to run at 25c for a change, which is low for me, and I'm seeing it. Smaller lighter coloured plants than I want. Leading to different feeding needs. If I were to use just 1ml of calmag per liter, it would have to be 6%N 7% Ca 4.5%Mg (double most bottles, and then more Mg)

Thats a cool idea with the flower space - I've just completed a major rebuild, but maybe after this grow I'll try that. I'm actually pretty happy for now to have a large farm of trial seedlings and mothers, but only a small flowering space - I'm after variety rather than quantity (tho tbh at the moment I'd be delighted to just keep anything healthy long enough to flower. this grow has been cursed...)

hadnt realised that 20c was a problem - it gets down to 20-21C at the end of the night cycle, up to 27-28C mid day cycle, mostly around 24-25C. I've just increased the daylength in veg from 18/6 to 20/4, so that will help with temps, and the cupboard is in my bedroom so I can up the ambient temperature a bit too.

In other news, some of the pure perlite rescue plants are starting to show promising green regrowth (I topped them last weekend). Fingers crossed..

 

[zif]

Hey f-e , I'm curious if you've given thought to day vs. night temps with LEDs. Also, have you compared giving root-zone heat as an alternative to heating the entire grow?

 

[f-e]

I hadn't realised that was a night temperature. I saw the gauge in a pic, so jumped to the conclusion the lights were on. The temps sound alright. I will look through again and see if anything strikes me as off. I was just speed reading before.
Edit: You say you don't trust the square digi gauge, so are you using the analogue temp/humidity for your numbers?
I would chuck the analogue away, and have a few digi's to recognise what is true, and which RH readings needs ignoring completely. Some of them square white things are okay for RH but others are simply wrong. I have one says 19% right now, and I know it's 60%, Though my fancy pants bluetooth at £30 says 64% and my £120 co2 meter says it's 55%. Sometimes you have to buy a batch, put them outside, and see what the weather report claims. Being near a weather station helps, and steady conditions as it's hourly updates from most.
Over time the sponge in the dial gauges take on dirt. Hardening them. Things like humidifiers can paint your lights white with dust in weeks. It's a difficult environment.


zif I haven't given it any thought until now. The old thumb rule was 4c lower, but air temp. The plant temp would of seen a bigger swing, with them HIDs going off.
I'm not a big follower of this aspect of growing. It's not been within my power to avoid the weathers grip on things. What I can do, is keep above 20c at night. Long ago I would say 18, to avoid any dips to 16. However that's a long way from the 25+ I want in the daytime. The issue here is stretching and calcium uptake, which shows as light new growth. At night, with a reasonable temperature differential, water use slows to 50%. Too cold and it will slow even further, which is Ca about to happen. Ideally night EC should be higher, but again, I'm not a follower of that. If you can get your night warmer than the day (particularly the hours before morning) stretch can be reduced about 20%. It's not a lot, but also saves having a night time EC. As you are loading up. Remember lights out is sleep time, but 5 or 6 hours later and most plants are ready to get up. If we let them.
My daytime is always (except this run) 25+ which is easy to achieve. I'm happy going up to 30, but that is a long way from 20. Feeding for both has it's limitations. I won't ever get to that though, as with 30 being weather driven, my night will be 24 anyway. It seems, as I look at my typical figures here, I do have a 4-6c differential most of the time. Just from watching my limits. Which is where my concerns lay.

As I start getting lower night temps, such as 22c, my pot temps do become a concern. As does my tank which greatly effects them. I have trace heating under the floor. Much like putting your tent on a folded up single heated blanket. This warm floor stops any cold zones, and offers some thermal radiation that has a surprising effect on pots not even touching it. Touching would be bad, as blankets can get to 30+ if smothered. I do like the floor heating, as any cold air drops straight to it, where it's warmed. Such messing about isn't for rooms though, where larger air volumes need better heating than a 100w blanket. There you know exactly where the air comes from and heat it on route.

 

[aliceklar]

I hadn't realised that was a night temperature. I saw the gauge in a pic, so jumped to the conclusion the lights were on. The temps sound alright. I will look through again and see if anything strikes me as off. I was just speed reading before.
Edit: You say you don't trust the square digi gauge, so are you using the analogue temp/humidity for your numbers?

Thanks f-e. I'm not measuring humidity at all yet - I'm still at a fairly basic stage as a grower, and have only just started properly measuring pH. I was dubious about the digi pH meter to start with, but spent a few days playing with it and realised that what was throwing my numbers off was the way my tapwater comes out at 6.4 and rises to 7.5 over 48 hours. I calibrated with solutions I knew the pH for, and I'm happy with it now. I only started checking pH properly because of all the problems I've had this grow - my last couple of grows I just used an 80/20 compost mix, top dressed with bonemeal and kelp and gave some supplemental liquid tomato feed - and everything turned out just fine... Guess I was just lucky! My thermometer is at least 20 years old - its an old mercury min/max type, and I like that it shows me simply how hot/cold the space gets when I'm not there. the cupboard has a decent extraction fan and a desk-type fan for air circulation. My light cycle is the opposite of whats happening outside, so the lights keep the plants warm at night, and I dont have issues with overheating in the day. The ambient temps in the house range from about 18C-22C

Raised lights in veg from 70% to 80%. Lots of growth evident - thank god. Seedlings are getting big - nearly ready for re-potting. Culled the Medical Mass x white Rhino F2s down to one per pot. Tough love.

Watered the rescue coco/perlite plants with the Canna A+B nutes at half strength. Strong re-growth visible on some of the perlite rescue plants. Might be able to save some of them yet.

 

[aliceklar]

Getting some nice vigorous leaf and stem growth on a few of the rescue plants now, and lots of growth on the seedlings - the new stem growth is noticeably green compared to the purple of the stems previously. With the rescue plants, not far off having clonable material soon

 

[aliceklar]

Have been wondering about the difference that maternal vs paternal line makes with the form of plants. Just noticed how uniform the F1s were also compared to the F2s. Both share a mother (grandmother).

 

[exploziv]

F2 opens up the genepool and shows more expressions of it, so yeah what you observed is very much what is happening.

 

[aliceklar]

All the rescue plants greening up now - apart from the ones still in the original compost mix, although they are looking better than before they were flushed with low pH water. Reducing the pH seems to have made the difference. Just topped the Green Gelato & two SQ x Afghans in perlite/coco. Rapid new green growth - bodes well for taking cuttings. Seedlings starting to crowd each other - time to pot up. Might do half in the new batch of compost, half in coco/perlite to compare.

Thinking about temps, and soil temps especially. Have started keeping water and mixed feed in the grow space (25-29C), not outside - realised watering with water at 18C might be contributing to cold roots. Might raise the plants off the floor a bit to help with temps further. Also am still thinking about a more radical restructure - similar to what f-e suggested, with a larger space on top and smaller area for clones etc at the bottom. Dividing the space horizontally like that would make a big difference. The 24/0 lights from the clone space would act as a floor heater for the level above. Would need to completely rethink door and light proofing and airflow though... its a nice daydream at the moment but no energy to make it happen. Next year...

Intrigued about this new Canna A+B two part feed. NPK when mixed is 5:4:3, which seems a weird ratio. I thought cannabis preferred lower N, and then higher P in bloom. This seems too N heavy? I mean, its marketed for weed in coco but the numbers seem odd.

 

[aliceklar]

I've figured out why the Canna A+B is relatively high in N but lower in P & K. Its because they also sell two different supplements containing P & K that they recommend are used to supplement the A+B in flower. In all there are 4 additional supplements. Thats a lot of bottles.

 

[OG_Bishop]

feed them nutrients!!! they're almost DEAD!!!

 

[PCBuds]

I've figured out why the Canna A+B is relatively high in N but lower in P & K. Its because they also sell two different supplements containing P & K that they recommend are used to supplement the A+B in flower. In all there are 4 additional supplements. Thats a lot of bottles.

That sucks.
Things are getting expensive.

 

[zif]

All the rescue plants greening up now - apart from the ones still in the original compost mix, although they are looking better than before they were flushed with low pH water. Reducing the pH seems to have made the difference. Just topped the Green Gelato & two SQ x Afghans in perlite/coco. Rapid new green growth - bodes well for taking cuttings. Seedlings starting to crowd each other - time to pot up. Might do half in the new batch of compost, half in coco/perlite to compare.

Thinking about temps, and soil temps especially. Have started keeping water and mixed feed in the grow space (25-29C), not outside - realised watering with water at 18C might be contributing to cold roots. Might raise the plants off the floor a bit to help with temps further. Also am still thinking about a more radical restructure - similar to what f-e suggested, with a larger space on top and smaller area for clones etc at the bottom. Dividing the space horizontally like that would make a big difference. The 24/0 lights from the clone space would act as a floor heater for the level above. Would need to completely rethink door and light proofing and airflow though... its a nice daydream at the moment but no energy to make it happen. Next year...

Intrigued about this new Canna A+B two part feed. NPK when mixed is 5:4:3, which seems a weird ratio. I thought cannabis preferred lower N, and then higher P in bloom. This seems too N heavy? I mean, its marketed for weed in coco but the numbers seem odd.

I was just looking at a paper about P in flower production.... Maybe this one? https://doi.org/10.3390/app10217875

You may be able to dial in by changing formulations through the grow, but going with a fixed NPK ratio can certainly deliver an outstanding result.

 

[f-e]

The Canna A&B isn't grow and bloom though, it's a two bottle combination you use right through. So adding the PK, you have 3 bottles from start to finish.

Many trials have shown P greater than canna provides is probably of no use. The K may also seem low, but canna know their coco is providing a lot. However boosting both with the PK booster is both possible and advised.

I just went through grow with plagron grow, and I'm well into bloom using that grow still, with the PK lifted to plagron bloom standards using PK. However, the ratio's of plagrons bloom are that of Advanced grow. Almost literally, Plagron bloom is Advanced grow. This is not unusual either. Cannabis plants are highly adaptable. Both work fine, but you will see different phenotype's.

There is nothing wrong with canna coco. It's actually good, and perhaps the longest standing of all coco feeds. Adapted through testing, not presumption. I particularly like it's low K which allows the calcium and magnesium to play a bigger part, as demanded with LED grows. There is no alternative and you still get 200ppm of K when the coco's addition is factored in. Which, from label reading, no other feed seems to understand. Missing the 100-100-200 standard by miles.

 

[aliceklar]

The Canna A&B isn't grow and bloom though, it's a two bottle combination you use right through. So adding the PK, you have 3 bottles from start to finish.

Many trials have shown P greater than canna provides is probably of no use. The K may also seem low, but canna know their coco is providing a lot. However boosting both with the PK booster is both possible and advised.

I just went through grow with plagron grow, and I'm well into bloom using that grow still, with the PK lifted to plagron bloom standards using PK. However, the ratio's of plagrons bloom are that of Advanced grow. Almost literally, Plagron bloom is Advanced grow. This is not unusual either. Cannabis plants are highly adaptable. Both work fine, but you will see different phenotype's.

There is nothing wrong with canna coco. It's actually good, and perhaps the longest standing of all coco feeds. Adapted through testing, not presumption. I particularly like it's low K which allows the calcium and magnesium to play a bigger part, as demanded with LED grows. There is no alternative and you still get 200ppm of K when the coco's addition is factored in. Which, from label reading, no other feed seems to understand. Missing the 100-100-200 standard by miles.

Nice to hear the vote of confidence for Canna Coco I'm interested to see how it performs.

Do you think I'll need the calmag? My tapwater is 322ppm (v high calcium carbonate). Got a tester today for the first time - will check nutes later. This is fun!

 

[f-e]

It contains a fair bit of calcium already, but canna themselves say that filtering water is a waste of good stuff. It isn't just hard though. Your water is fucking solid. You might need to use nitric acid in a bid to lower the carbonate levels. This would make calcium nitrate. Making calmag seem like overkill for it's calcium content. However the Mg will surely want increasing to compete. Epsom salts.

 

[aliceklar]

It contains a fair bit of calcium already, but canna themselves say that filtering water is a waste of good stuff. It isn't just hard though. Your water is fucking solid. You might need to use nitric acid in a bid to lower the carbonate levels. This would make calcium nitrate. Making calmag seem like overkill for it's calcium content. However the Mg will surely want increasing to compete. Epsom salts.

Solid is the word. Had wondered if Epsom salts were the solution to the calcium imbalance.

Not sure if I can get my hands on nitric acid. I've got some pH down on order, which is Phosphoric acid, but so far I've been using granulated citric acid (which I have on hand for winemaking - I also have malic (C₄H₆O₅) and tartaric (C[SUB]4[/SUB]H[SUB]6[/SUB]O[SUB]6[/SUB] ) acid for the same reason). I've noticed that the effect of the acid is temporary - PH creeps back up over the course of a few days after adding to water.

 

[aliceklar]

Started repotting the MMWR F2 and MMJ F1 seedlings today - 6 gone into 2 litre pots with perlite/coco. Might try the remainder in the new compost (w 50% perlite) to compare. All still growing rapidly - noticed a few more brown spots on one. Interested to play with my new meter, and see the difference between ppm in feed in / runoff out.

Used the last male AKMMWR to give the girls a final dusting. Some seeds swelling noticably, but still quite a lot of unpollinated flowers visible.

 

[PCBuds]

... Not sure if I can get my hands on nitric acid. I've got some pH down on order, which is Phosphoric acid,...

I was going to make my own PH down by using the sulphuric acid from an old car battery because I had it on hand and it was free.

I was informed that the acid is probably full of lead, so I decided against it. Lol