highchome

This is a bit off topic for the thread , but... Not sure about that. I think in this case so far it is actually a win for us in terms of law. The constitutional court ruled that the current laws were not reasonable and needed changing. Its up the the government to draft laws and the constitutional court ensures they are constitutional. We are now just in weird place waiting for the actual laws to be drafted, and hoping that they are sane rather than triggering another round of legal fights. But that bit is all very lawfull The problem is the police not understanding the ruling. Hopefully they get educated soon, but I think it is pretty common world wide for the police to be a little resistant to being educated...

@CheapHomeGrow I'm pretty new to it, so others here can probably answer with more detail. What I'd say that we are in a slightly weird position as the courts ruled a few months back that growing cannabis for "personal use" is legal. The government now needs to amend the laws to define what precisely that means. So we are currently legally allowed to grow cannabis but not buy or sell anything. I think selling seeds is a grey area. The big problem is that the deciding if it is for personal use or not seems to be up the police's discretion, i.e. they can arrest you and then the court can throw the case out. We've seen some ridiculous arrests recently, e.g. anything grow indoors with lights is called a "drugs lab", or pictures of them weighing the leaves and talking about the street value as if that is what is sold Despite this I'd say that growing is going quite well. There are a number of specialist shops already and there seems to be a general change in public opinion. There are also some comercial grows starting up so I guess that is sometime too. I'm pretty sure most of us hobby growers will continue growing whatever and hopefully the police start backing off.

I saw it on the https://cocoforcannabis.com site, it was quite a prominente link . Feel free to DM if you have any questions I can help with

Hi and welcome

@CheapHomeGrow nice! Welcome. I've recently finished listening to all your podcasts about growing in coco (with Dr MJ Coco), it was a *really* nice addition to the info on cocoforcannabis.com. And I've just finished repotting all my plants into coco . So thanks for the podcast, it has already been great.

Another podcast that seems like it may have potential: https://cheaphomegrow.com/cannabis-podcast/

I've given a few of mine away and I'm also battling with a poor choice of soil with high pH . But I do have a white widow clone (~10cm) and if you are happy to try nurse a few back to health yourself I can also do another small white widow clone and a super skunk kush clone or two depending on how its looking. I'll DM

Good point. I'll do that from now on.

An organic potting soil, mixed with some vermiculite & perlite. But it has quite a high pH it seems.

@greenkush right, thank you. I'll be more aggressive with trying to get the soil pH down then. So far I've been watering with water around 5.8 trying to lower the soil that is in the high 7-8 range. So far that's only dropped it to mid-7 at the very best. Perhaps I now need to add some soil additive that will help keep it down.

Here is another pic, that may show it better... Thanks. I've done very little fertilizing so far. Would the high pH result in burn even with lower fert doses?

Does this look like LED burn or is it more likely cause by the high pH issue I'm fighting with currently? I did lower my LED a bit, bestva 1000W was at ~50cm from top of plant I've moved it to ~60cm. So it could possibly be that. However my soil pH is still high 7, I'm trying to lower it but it keeps creeping back up after watering. When I look at the nutrient deficiency chart this looks closest to the picture of phosphorous deficiency but I'm not convinced... Anything else I should be considering? Thanks

I'm wondering how much extra pollen will be flying around now. With the Cape Town wind they could end up pollinating a whole bunch of hobby grower's plants in the area

Thanks @RedEye, I'll use that as a starting point for mine. FWIW I've converted it to excel and attached: 2019-05-30_17-21.xlsx You can customise by changing the 150L value. I'll fiddle more and upload again if I think it may be useful

Not quite with you on that one, no Do you mean I need to flush before each feed, or flush with the nutrients in the water? lol. But are you putting water with a lower pH than the target pH to drop the soil. E.g. in my case soil is 8, so I put pH ~6 water in?

What is your preferred way of correcting soil pH? My water's pH is over 8.1 , that is easy enough to correct to ~6.5-6.8 with pH down. My soil is currently around 8.0. I've seen two bits of advice given online which no clear indication of which is better, or both? Use a soil additive to drop the pH (but which one?) Flowers of sulphur Something less harsh like coffee grounds Just water with a lower pH (but how low?) Water with the pH I'm after, e.g. water at 6.5 Water with an lower pH (e.g. 6) to bring it down faster I'd imagine that the advice for raising pH would correspond to this. Thanks for any advice.

Welcome

Thanks @Green Leaf Organics that is an interesting point! I think that together with finding out that there is easily available food grade ethanol around changes my mind completely.

Right, that makes sense. Thank you. (I'll start the timer now to see how long it takes for my first post saying "is this nutrient burn?" )

FWIW I just saw a company that sells food grade ethanol here: http://www.ethanolsa.co.za/food-grade-alcohol-ethanol-cannabis-oil-extraction.html.

Thanks @Jimmy-z, that helps a lot. So as far as I understand then, I'll use the calcs from the spreadsheet at https://hydroponic.co.za/detailed-dosage-breakdown-element-ppm-npk-ratio-hortimix-andor-ehg/. Aim for ~1000ppm at pre flower and work out the weekly dosage to build up to that. But does that mean for flowering I should be aiming for ~2000ppm?

@SkunkPharm are you saying, also make sure to calibrate the pH meter weekly etc?

Resurrecting this thread... What dosage & schedule should I be following for using hortimix for soil? @RedEye you say don't follow their guide, what do you recommend then? So far what I've been told/seen is this, let me know if any of this is wrong? Mix as per https://hydroponic.co.za/hortimix-nutrient-preparation-and-usage-table/ Do flush with water every 3 weeks - 1 month Weekly dosing, roughly following the guide above, but back off if there is any burning (checking Ph of mix before watering) What do you think, does that sound reasonable?

Hi @Stoukie, in addition to what @greenkush said. As far as I understand, our bodies (liver) will process cannabinoids better if they are dissolved in fat (they are fat soluble luckily ). So using an fat/oil means you should in theory get more of the THC & CBD absorbed. I've got no idea how much difference it actually makes, but personally I'd rather go that route

FWIW this is what I ended up doing with the cannabutter for dosing I used different size blister packs and filled with the butter and stored in the fridge. It is then easy to work out what dosage you want. Taken under the tongue to get effects faster, though we tend to use it like this with a low dosage for overall effect. I think you may be after something a bit different, but just maybe this helps?