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So here are some pics of my setup: You can see some of my DIY Quantum Boards in the front, the box fans suspended from the top of the tent, carbon filter and extraction fan to the side. Cable ties to secure everything to the poles inside the tent and lots of rope ratchets. Here is a Light It Up light at the back, another box fan. The oscillating fan to the left will probably come out sometime, or when it dies. I also have my power supplies / LED drivers outside on the top of my tent (on top of a box) to help keep the heatinside the tent down and my multiplug and power is outside the tent. I also make use of the Power Meters so I can see how much watts I am dimming my Quantum Boards to. I did not take a pic of this as I need to use a ladder to get a proper pic and stuff was in the way. Here you can see the damage thrips can do to the leaves of a plant: You can see the twist ties and clips I use for LST on the plants. I want to try reduce the LST, however since these were already quite large plants when I got them I need to make use of LST to try get the plants to where I want them. Here you can see how small the plant is when I start with LST. Just bend it and leave it for a while and continue to adjust as it grows to ensure you end up with a plant trained the way you like it and want it. Pic of some of the plants chilling inside the tent. I just did the LST before taking these pics so plants look a bit messy still though.

Very sexy setup!

A remarkable recovery. Holly comes from a Transkei origin seed. At a month old she was fimmed by a red locust so I surrounded all of my seedlings in tulle and dowel tents until they were big enough to withstand pests. Today, Holly is chest high and showing sex. I have pruned and trained and she is nice and bushy. I am hoping for some good bud from her.

Setup looks awesome, thanks for sharing. Best of luck with the grow Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

@Slartibarfast so I bud wash my plants. Generally the hydrogen peroxide is only require if you have pests and/or PM. Otherwise you can likely skip the Hydrogen peroxide. I am quite rough with the dunking of buds in the buckets, I then "spin" it in my hand to get excess water off and then hang it up to dry before putting it into a tent to dry. Temperature is very important when drying, heat can degrade the terpenes - try keep it under 26C. Humidity is also very important, you do not want it to be too high (higher risk of getting mold) - but at the same time not too low (can dry out the bud too quickly). Do not have fans blowing directly onto the bud either as it will dry it out too quickly. What I like to do and I understand not everyone has such a setup, but have an extraction fan linked to a RH probe to ensure the humidity stays below 70% (65% if you want to be safer). Then fans inside the tent moving air around but not blowing directly onto the bud which is being dried and I check on the drying buds every day to make sure all is going well. I do prefer to bottle before the bud becomes too dry. I prefer my Boveda packs to lower the RH slightly as opposed to have the Boveda packs increase the RH and try add moisture back into the bud. The trick when doing this is to ensure the bud is not put into the jars too wet - if it is too wet take it out the jars and put it back into the drying tent.

The pen is for wax/honeybee... I traveled with it @dank nothing wrong with old stuff ^^ The vulcano is on the market for quite some time too. I think we used it 2008.

Shot man, surely sounds worthy of an experiment down the line. The mealworms shed their skins quite a few times, this frass is their poop, skins, bran and exoskeletons of the beetles.

It really depends on your budget and what you want to achieve. I have a cheapy chinese vape which has served me well for around 2 to 3 years now, paid like 35 USD for it (R600 or so I think). It works well enough for me to continue to use it, but it is not on the same level as some of the more expensive vapes like the two which @Ill_Evan has... but it does get the job done. Just a bit slower and perhaps with 2 sessions being required. I would like to get myself a proper decent vape sometime soon, probably look at spending around R4k to R5k - like the Pax 3 or Davinci IQ 2. However I do expect the vape to last a good couple of years, both of these are a premium product. So in car terms, the above mentioned vapes are perhaps comparable to a higher end BMW or Merc, where some of the cheaper but still decent ones are perhaps a VW or Honda. My current chinese vape is more like a Cherry or Tata and the Volcano perhaps like a Porsche or Maserati. lol Spending in the R2k range you can still get a decent vape for sure.

Here is my antique if you ever hit one o dese your a OG no doubt! Not even sure it qualifies to be a vape, +- 16 years old, no joke.

We used a Vulcano Classic. Is a bit of a mission and the plastic bag you have to replace rather often. In a group for a fun little smoking sit around, yeah.. daily use.. way to stationary. The thing is as heavy as it looks like. Used a Pocket Vaporizer, OK.. or a Pen Vaporizer. My preferred one. You can take it everywhere and can serve you a few heavy tokes on the go is the version I used BY FAR the most. I used this one: https://vapestore.co.za/pen-vaporizers/ghost Also bought it from those guys. The pen lasts very veeery long on one charge.

Chitosan is suppose to trick the plants immune system, think it is being attacked and eaten by bugs Aspirin & salicylic acid is meant to help the plant handle stress better, handle extreme temps better and even consume less water (so more resistant to drought).

In our organic realm there are a few... Additional to normal feeding routine. Mung and Adzuki SST's for veg. Yellow corn SST's for flower. AACT and BIM's for microbial. Comfrey FPJ for veg Seaweed FPJ for micro's (live by the sea) Catnip and or Tomato leaf extract for spidermite and aphids. Varients of Banana/potato/sweetpotato/aloevera smoothies for nutrient boost and microbe support. Rice and pasta water also in the mix- starch, sugars and LAB. Worm farm coming along nicely, vermicompost for the soil and tea for the ladies.

100% Just look at how popular the iPhone is. [emoji14] Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Aweh greenfingers, 1st things first- Purple pineapple smoke report is goooood. With such a short time in the jar the smoothness was unexpected....she plays nice and euphoric but as soon as you decide to chill/relax, she puts you to glorious sleep. On to newer things.... Endevouring to adapt our grow technique to comply with the new (to be gazetted) laws. Strain and pheno hunting aside herewith the ladies that made it to the big flower league. Most are local crosses, the Fruitpunch f4 and Purple Pineapple being my own project lines. The 'new' (ever evolving) amended soil is coming into its own, no deficiencies thus far. Had a dash of Ca and Mg problems last year, but no probs currently, leaving time to focus on organic IPM evolution, hence the tomato leaf and catnip extract spray applications. Had some good results so far with the spider mites/ aphids, with Margaret Roberts keeping the worms under control. If you look at each plant's presentation you can see which are in preflower and which are preparing to go into preflower. Depending on their genetics they all react differently to light and the flowering window. Go big or go home. Cheers vir eers.

I hear neem seed meal is a next level add. That is the seed meal, which differs to the neem leaf powder, busy trialing the leaf powder in my soil now, both should have hugely beneficial antioxidant qualities. Just dosing it right is quite NB.

Ordered myself a GPen Elite for 2200 rant and while i was browsing the site i saw some really expensive vapes. Not that 2k is cheap I get that some of them are for dabs, waxes, oil, etc, but how to justify spending 6k on a vape? I own a Flowermate Aura and its pretty decent and can vape dabs, and price tag just under 2k. What do you guys think about the more expensive vapes, the cheapers ones, and anybody used the GPen Elite? Thoughts?

Ahh ok, I thought it was just their poop. My bad. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

I believe chitosan oligosaccharide is from the shells of crabs, shrimp and so forth, but purified into a white powder. I believe the frass does not contain chitosan, only the shell itself - so ground mealworms may work... Not 100% sure though. So how organic it is, well, up to you to decide. You spray it on the plants. I believe it also has benefits for humans if consumed and is particularly good for kidney issues.

Shot @Ill_Evan , you are like a vape guru bru , can't wait to test out the GPen. On a side note my better half is wondering if any dry tabacco vapes exist, apparently the tabacco needs higher temps than 230, seems most vapes cap out at 230 celcius. Shot for the input @Fridge , @Prom , appreciated, nice to hear all the positive vibes from the dry herb vapes. If I think how much groceries cost these days its not hard to justify a vape purchase. What would your dream vape be right now?

I'd love to try the volcano! The first and only vaporizer I bought was the arizer solo. I bought it 5 years ago and use it nearly daily ever since. I only needed to replace the batteries once so far. I am very happy with it! I think it cost 3000 Rand back then. By now they released the arizer solo 2, which is in a similar price range. I dream of getting the "mighty" one day... Edit: I think, if you use it daily and it lasts for years it's worth buying it, even if it's one of the more expensive models. The cheap ones might just disappoint you and you might just not use it anymore after a couple of sessions.

My first dry herb vape was a Arizer ArGo (R3750) and now my primary means of consuming cannabis is through a Da Buddha Vaporizer (R3300). My opinion is that the vapes that are designed for just one form of cannabis (dab, herb, concentrate etc) are much better than those that can do both or all. I find the cheaper vapes that can do any substrate cheap out on one or the other. Although if I were to desire a product that can do both or all substrates I would definitely go for the top tier ones that are over R6k because then you know it will do well. Hence I went for the ones that did dry herb the best as that was what I have the most access to. The ArGo is the best portable dry herb vape I have found and the Da Buddha Vape I would say only has the Volcano Classic Vaporizer (R7360) as a competitor. The GPen Elite I would say is the better vape of the ones at it's price level and it is recommended for dry herb use only, so you know that it will do that well. I think you have spent your money wisely Arizer ArGo Da Buddha Vape Volcano Classic Vape

Weekly Update: Four months to the day that Holly's seed went into paper towel. The plants are in varying stages of development with a couple of late starters. I got some shots of node activity, to see if I can sex them all. I think they are all female except for Molly which might be a boy. I am still doing a foliar spray for pest control every 2 days. The neem will be phased out and I will use only BB and BT during flower. I have changed their feeding routine and the seem good on the following: - Monday - Molasses water Tuesday - water Wednesday - Epic 5:2 (humic and fulvic acids and kelp) Thursday - water Friday - Seagro (gentle general plant food from fish) Saturday - water Sunday - Cape Seaweed (kelp) Holly (Transkei origin grown in my soil mix in the ground) Molly (Transkei origin in my soil mix in the ground) Mystery purple (in Orgasoilux in a bag) Inzane In The Membrane (in Orgasoilux in a bag) - clone To be continued in the next post

@Bos knows his way around the organics, solid advice right there. Check the origins (if possible) when sourcing your molasses/sugars for ferments. I like making simple compost or worm castings extracts/leechates for plants. Nah, what would they be used for? Heard some folk tales about asprins being used to force fems, never tried tho.

You have mold on or not? If you don't have on, don't wash. Drying.. yes, is a bit of an art you do not need loads of air flow. What you want to achieve is stable temp (around 20 degrees) and the right humidity to dry in (50-60%). You got that, air flow is not really important. And as long as you let the weed DRY!!!!! and don't jar it to fast, you should never get a mold issue on dry weed. Remember that those spores are EVERYWHERE, you can only prevent them from starting to grow, as long as it is to dry for them to do anything. Over 68% air humidity, you WILL run into troubles. Most people jar weed to wet.. patience is the key to harvest, dry and cure.

They eat your plant. Particularly the young leaves & buds. I usually get them on my orange tree, feeding on the developing oranges, which die & drop off Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

It's weekend which means update time. I just realized I didn't put a pic up of the last harvest. Pic #4 is a combined Glamberry, Jack Berry and a small Durban Poison harvest. Pic #1 is the lady that gets carried out and in everyday moments before my 17month old decided to take it for a walk and dragged it down the reservation road. Ok so that's in the drying cabinet now. Pic #2 & #3 is the last one of the 6 that started this journey. Lost one at germination, 2 to being male, 4th = 40g dry, 5th is in the drying cabinet and number 6 is flourishing in the shade house. So without knowing what sex the first one would have been means a female hit rate of 50% plus out of 6. I'm happy @Bay Seeds, thanks for the opportunity. Sleep time for this thread until weighing time. Till then buds here's to 2021 [emoji109] Sent from my DRA-LX5 using Tapatalk

So is anyone using or has tried using Chitosan oligosaccharide, and/or salicylic acid or aspirin?

Ahoy matey! Been a while but I have finally got a grow going again So I am quite fortunate in the sense that I did not have to start plants from scratch, got some larger cuttings from friends and most were ready to be potted up into 20L fabric pots already. Said friends did have some issues with pests and the overall condition of the plants meant that I needed to do a bit of work - top them, clean up the old dead leaves and now I need to start with some training and I obviously needed to spray for pests. When I got the plants I did a spray with a mixture of neem and pyrol, I much prefer Pyrol over Neem but had both and decided to not fuck around and get rid of these pests as the leaves had been attacked quite a bit by the thrips. Two nights ago I got some Beauveria bassiana (EcoBuz sell it as Pest Pro, as well as a few others under various names) and did a spray on my plants as a precautionary measure - not that I have seen any thrips since the first spray. I saw some bugs in the coco, but has not seen them recently and am hoping they have since died as well... not actually sure what bugs were in the coco to be honest. Some details on my grow, equipment and supplies etc. I am using Quantum Boards with Samsung LM301B diodes as per usual. I love these lights, they work really well and grow some dank bud! For air circulation I use box fans which are mounted at the top of my tent, blowing downwards. 23cm pots for the smaller plants, 20L Plant Matters fabric pots for the larger plants. The plants are all in coco with a bit of perlite. I use the 5KG bricks, buffer myself and just eyeball the perlite. I like to use GHE Tri Part nutes and I follow the feeding chart on the bottle I aim for a PH between 5.8 and 6.3 generally. Mostly in the 5.9 to 6.2 range actually. Below is a list of the strain I am running currently: Solfire Gardens - LSP (Lumpy Space Princess) In House Genetics - Bananium In House Genetics - Sugarcane Exodus cheese (not sure which breeder) In House Genetics - Jelly breath In House Genetics - Lime drops Exotic Genetics - Cookies & cream In House Genetics - Slurricane In House Genetics - Frosted apricots In House Genetics - Blunicorn TH seeds - French cookies Since some of these strains have already been flowered by my friends, I know how some will turn out and others I will need to wait until flower to know whether they will be keepers or not. So far it seems the Lime Drops and Frosted Apricots are not that great, Blunicorn could be better too I believe but I have not seen pics of these plants myself. The Sugarcane is a keeper for sure! Jelly Breath was quite decent too. The Exodus Cheese makes some really big buds I believe and French Cookies some very dense nugs. Cookies & Cream is from seed, there is a chance it may be a male. Also not sure how this pheno will turn out. I will certainly be narrowing down the strains for my next grow and scrap the strains which do not perform as well. I will be posting some pictures when I get a chance. Still need to do some training on the plants too, hoping to flip to flower before the end of Jan.

So finally got some germination. Really looking forward to the grinspoon genes showing. Looks like nothing else I’ve seen from photos and need some sativa in the bottle Got 2 out of seven popped. My normal jiffy plug didn’t get the first o es going so went to the old paper towel with two and both took. Did manage to dampen one off after it got stuck with a helmet head. [emoji22] So this is the one. Stretchy a bit. Here’s to hoping it’s a girl Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Part of my pheno hunting for the year, got all 10 seeds soaking. They will be joined by my Bubbleberry line, also 10 on soak, for this round.

These little buggers are slow growers.. not sure if it is the jiffy.. potted them up today.. Hope to see some explosion in growth... seems I'll need it soon... They are in the tray in the middle. The rest are companion plants..

Awe no worries. The frass sold in shops might be just that, not sure if they include exoskeletons etc. Most of the frass gets fed to worms before going to the soil. Are these easily obtained in SA?

dynavap.

@Roasty do you add milk to your rice water to isolate lactobacillus? After seeing your post I searched how to make it and this article says to add milk to isolate the bacteria you want and remove potential threatening bacteria. http://seattlegardenfruit.blogspot.com/2017/04/how-to-turn-rinsed-rice-water-into.html?m=1 The article goes on to say the following: This particular beneficial microorganism is popularly used in composting that specifically arrest foul odors associated with anaerobic decomposition. Lactic acid bacteria thrive and feed on the ammonia released in the decomposition normally associated with foul odors. So if you need to decompose or ferment wastes less foul odors, lactic acid bacteria is the specific bacteria to use. Can this be used to safely compost dog waste?

True story, my ArGo caps at 220 C. I've seen before those vapes that you actually slide the cigarette into and the device heats the cigarette enough to vape it. Ever seen those before? Otherwise I am not too sure how one could vape tobacco

Copper Soap from Bio grow works great as an preventative measure

Awesome thanks for the advice. Will make sure to keep the fans from blowing directly on the bud. Temp and humidity is looking good in the tent around 25°C and 55% RH. Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

What he said Enjoy the grow man, good to see you back inda garden! Got some popcorn lined up for this one

Good to know, i keep a small colony of mealworms for the frass, supposedly does what Chitosan does. Neat hack if the Chitosan works, keeping mealworms requires a bit of dedication, i wiped out a few colonies already Wouldnt be organic tho would it? No idea what Chitosan is.

If you fear mold.. just use the bicarb of soda. 2g per liter and wash off with clear water. Look that the water is around 20 degrees. Not to warm to make the resin soft, not to cold to make it brittle. One bucket with water is fine, the solution of the first gets massively diluted, just leave it in the second bucket as long as you, gentle move it in the first. Right away hang it in a very airy spot and try to get them as fast back to normal dry.. and start your procedure. Have fun PS: Don't mix the bicarb with lemon juice.. you cancel the effects out to my understanding. Lemon juice is acidic.. PM not likey that.. same with to alkaline, Bicarb of Soda. One or the other. I prefer the bicarb of soda.

Weekly update cont... Wedding Cake (In Orgasoilux in a bag) - clone Double Wild Durban (In my soil mix in the ground) LC-18 x Transkei (In mixed soil remnants in a bag)

I quickly went to your first link.. Yes, salad from the garden you wash ^^ I just read the first bid and wasn't sure if i should read on. I think we had the discussion about washing buds in here before. As I said, I only do it, if I have to.. and if i really really have to, the compost heap gets visit Soft PM or soft parasite infection.. I would wash. Rest I declare myself the loser and try to make it better next time. I would never ever use a chemical pesticide on my weed (biological warfare i use against PM ^^). That would go compost in any case. Very hard to get it clean and making your weed wet, is also asking shortly for biiiig trouble. When you dry your weed correctly and wait till it has the right moment to jar.. the inside of a big bud can stay very long moist inside, it will release that to the rest. If that goes over 68% in your jar, mold will start to grow. Slowly but steady.. you always smell it first. And if you smell it.. the batch is off. Most save way is to watch your parameters when you dry and OVER dry a bit. As most take it to wet, over dry is a better chance to not have a mold issue. Then get a Boveda bag. I use 62% for the first 2 weeks and 58% for long term storage. You can re-moist the bags, so they last forever, as long as they don't come from a moldy glass.. dump those right away. If you do not trust your own judgment, get a cheap cheap humidity meter to drop in your Jar.. 68%.. you go over.. re dry your stuff! You do it right, you end with weed you can store for as long as you want. Should add.. you want to end up around 62-58% and you will have a sexy smoke

Why wash off potency??? Why would it be a better smoke? Washing off dirt? You wash your buds when you have to. Rest you get the smoke you have in the plants genetics. If you are in the mood to wash your weed.. I can't stop you.. I wouldn't do it just for the fun of it hehehe if your weed is so dirty from the wind.. you want to grow on a different spot anyhow

Outdoor went pre. Morning picture of the Gelato (back) and the Charlottes Web (front)

Glamberry by Bay seeds impressing more every day Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@Onion this was such a great read. I like how confident you are in exactly what you need to combat all these environmental challenges! As a beginner organic farmer(very loosely titled but got to claim what you want), I really enjoyed how you explained your rationale behind your methods. I’m forced to watch many YouTube videos often just being able obtain a grain of info per video as many don’t explain why and rather ‘I use this’. Will definitely be anticipating each update. Thanks for sharing

My gawd those strains

Edit

While we are on the subject of microbes and fermentation, I would like to raise an important issue that I see is a real problem. There are countless articles and videos on the internet on organic gardening advising people to leave tap water in a container standing overnight to supposedly get rid of the chorine in the tap water. As anyone that keeps freshwater fish will know, this is a big mistake that many organic gardeners keep on making. The first problem is knowing if chlorine is really the only issue or if chloramines are present in the water. Chlorine is a very volatile gas and hence why people are advising to just let the water stand to get rid of the volatile gasses. This is called off-gassing the chlorine. Let's assume for a moment that chlorine is the only problem and you are trying to get rid of it by letting the water stand overnight. 2 ppm of Chlorine can take up to 5 days to evaporate from 50 liters of standing water. Ultraviolet light, water circulation and aeration, temperature and the area of the surface of the water exposed to the air will speed up the off-gassing process. None the less, it's very unlikely that you will get rid of even half the chlorine in a container by just letting in stand overnight. Due to this volatility and rather instability of chlorine, local authorities and governing bodies today are switching to using chloramines instead. Chloramines give off much less of that familiar chlorine odor and the water tastes much better as well. Unlike chlorine, chloramine does not evaporate so easily from water. Chances are pretty big if you are using municipal tap water, that it has been treated with chloramines, rather than, or in conjunction with chlorine instead of chlorine only. You can get rid of chlorine and chloramine by boiling. It takes a considerable amount of boiling to get rid of chloramine though. 1 ppm of chloramine in 40 liters of water will need to be boiled for at least 1 hour to get rid of all the chloramines. Not really a practical option. My advise is to use a chemical option to neutralize any chlorine and chloramines present. My favorite two options are ascorbic acid and sodium ascorbate. Ascorbic acid will lower the Ph of the water, while sodium ascorbate is Ph neutral and will not change the Ph. Very little is required of either ascorbic acid or sodium ascorbate to neutralize the chlorine and chloramine in water and these are easy to come by and rather cheap as well. If you buy 500mg ascorbic acid tablets from the pharmacy, you can use 1/4 tablet (125mg) per liter of water. Theoretically, you can use even quite a bit less than that, but I've been using this ratio for a very long time with success. Note: A water quality report from Tshwane June 2020 (my local gov) shows Monochloramine levels at average rate of 1.24mg per liter and free chlorine at 0.09mg per liter. This shows a rather big inclination to treat water with chloramine.