PsyCLown

Yeah, give it a try if you'd like. Make sure there is little to no bark / wood as this often makes the soil too acidic for cannabis. I have yet to find a nice soil mix which I'd use for cannabis (other than the cannabis specific ones) and this goes for my house plants as well - so I often mix some coco and perlite with a bit of compost or potting soil as house plants often aren't as fussy with the bark as cannabis can be. Some soils are too hot for cannabis seedlings and you can burn your plants. I do not know what soil your nursery stocks - perhaps consider doing a bit of a test. Get some soil from your nursery for some plants and get yourself a bag of some soil commonly used for Cannabis and see how the results differ (if they even do). I have seen many new members try grow in soil from their nursery and end up with lots of issues and they end up demotivated because of it, it can also be a nightmare to try and nurse your plant back to health and correct the issues. Stay far, far away from Culterra. I plant seedlings straight into 20L pots, however you can start in smaller pots and pot up when needed. Nice! I have a red lace leaf japanese maple, recently put it into the ground as well as a normal japanese maple and then also a liquid amber. That Bonsai nutes will likely suffice for veg, in flower you may want something with more P though and a decent amount of K. Not sure about lemon juice working for pests, maybe for PM as it will lower the PH of the leaves but take it as it comes. Everyone has a different growing environment, so what works for one may not work for the other or the situation may differ. For now - take it as it comes. There are many ways to grow cannabis, there is not necessarily a right or wrong way. You need to find what works best for you. People can give you advise and guidance and say what works well for them or what may work well for you and your situation, end of the day you're the one doing the growing and it needs to work for you. Maybe take a look around the forum, view some of the grow diaries and see what issues some members ran into and how they resolved the issues etc.

Welcome @Dread ! From Carb? Outdoor growing, well, currently we're in the flowering part of the season. So you can get some seeds going however plants won't end up as big and yield might be slightly on the lower side but still worth while to get a harvest in before it is too late. You can always make a quick purchase of some seeds if you'd prefer to know what you are growing, or use this to just gain some experience before winter comes. If you do not like getting too stonned, then some high CBD strains could be good As a beginner, I would suggest getting some nice soil which has been tried and proven to work well for cannabis. Incorrect soil can lead to lots of frustrations and issues - best to spend a little more and avoid these issues as a beginner. Once you know what you're doing, you can start to experiment a bit more. Freedom Farms Classic (green bag) is very popular and commonly used. You can also reuse your soil, no need to toss it out after a grow. If you are unsure about anything, members on the forum will help guide you through your grow to ensure some success.

I really like Quantum Boards, multiple Quantum boards for added flexibility. Also allows for better airflow compared to some other larger lights. Bar lights can be nice, you get loads and can get some which are designed for specific sized tents, however you lose a bit of flexibility with individual height adjustment which can become useful if running multiple strains in the same tent or have plants in different stages in veg etc.

It's difficult for me to notice that unfortunately. The medium looked a bit different to what I recall. Seems you're sorted though. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Where is the contamination and what is the medium? Looks like vermiculite only?

So the thread @Chris Jay started recently got me thinking... I thought it might be cool for members to share some of their memorable experiences they have had on weed. I have more of these than cool places I have smoked at. Don't have time to type my story out now, however will post it once I get a chance - others are welcome to post theirs in the meantime.

Hmm, mine are a bit boring. Best place is on my couch, with Netflix and loads of snacks... Otherwise braai with friends is good too. Smoking while on a hike, I tried it but just made me a little lazy but chilled at the same time. Nothing which really stood out though, not as cool as some other members here.

They have rockwool and what else?

Nah, if you have the hard micro continue to use it - if possible try add a bit of extra calcium though. Calcium edta if possible, otherwise calmag could work too but contains high amount of nitrogen.

I agree, however big companies and certain practices which are in place is the main driving force behind the fuck up and getting them to make a change is the difficult part. Either because it doesn't work in their favour and perhaps makes things more difficult for them, or it does not make financial sense. A friend and I were having a discussion as to whether EVs will be the future or whether they're just the now. I feel battery technology or power storage technology needs to advance more in order for it to become the future. Lithium is rare and not pleasant to work with, it also costs money to recycle. I do not believe recycling lithium is profitable. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Yeah, I get what you mean. It's nice to have options, ideally we'd not have let the earth get to the state its currently in... It's gonna get worse too. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Majority of food is grown with salts though and astronauts would also like some fresh stuffs in space. It has its place and purpose. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

For me, using the powders was a mission. A mission to weigh each feed, you needed to add one at a time, dissolve it fully before adding the next and ensure you add them in the right order otherwise some of the nutes would precipitate out of the solution. Also had some weird issues here and there which I couldn't explain, I then moved over to GHE and haven't looked back since. Not saying GHE is the best but it works well and is super easy to use. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

... Still waiting. [emoji14] Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Your grow is looking great! Nicely scrogged, plants are looking happy, defoliated nicely. Super excited to see how the harvest turns out! Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

That's pretty cool, I tried the Haifa nutes but moved away from them. @CreX still uses them I believe. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

So regarding 6 panels and adding more later, remember that the string of panels ideally needs to be in a certain voltage range - too low and efficiency drops, too high and it'll cause permanent damage to the inverter. If the amps (current) is too high per string / mppt the. That'll just get cut and limited. Also remember you need to take into account the temperatures as that'll affect the voltage, cold weather will lead to higher voltage. So you need to work it out to be in a safe zone. As for going down to a small tent of say 80x80 Putting a small light of no more than 240w inside, will definitely reduce the power required. Smaller tent, means less lights and smaller fans and therefore less power. If running the light at max during flower, fans may come to approx 60w so call it 300w in total at max. In veg it'll be less power and you could get away with just an extraction fan and one fan inside for air circulation. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

A bit of a TLDR, so did not read every post but will try answer all questions. I have looked into a solar setup myself and have had friends who have gone ahead with solar setups - if you use a lot of power it makes sense to go this route. Firstly, 5KW inverter with 2.2KW of panels is silly, you generally want to try and aim for more panels than the inverter is rated for as the panels efficiency will decrease with time and are the limiting factor as to how much power you can pull from the sun. The weather varies, some days there will be more cloud coverage and power production starts when the sun rises but you won't be generating max power early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the sun starts to set - this is where the additional panels will start to shine and help you maximize how much power you are able to produce throughout the light cycle of the day - as you seem to be aware, winter things change as well and there are less hours of light. So without a doubt, look at adding more panels. Especially if you want to run the whole house and subsidise the grow when the sun is shining. Also make sure that 5KW is sufficient for your house, draw too much and the inverter will trip - your whole house is then without power until you turn it on again. Geyser, kettle, stove, grow lights, fans, aircon, dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer TV etc. etc. It can all add up quickly You may need to change your habits in terms of how you use electricity and what appliances you have on at the same time in order to make the 5KW inverter work. This is something only you'd be able to work out as you know what appliances you use and when you use them. Now onto the question of your grow equipment and the draw and the battery. Let's start with the grow equipment, for a 1.2m x 2.4m tent you'd like to aim for 4x 240W Quantum Boards which comes to just under 1KW of power (let's round up to 1KW take the efficiency of the driver into account). You will need to have fans to circulate the air, as well as for extraction and possibly intake as well. 100W to 200W is a reasonable estimation, we'll go with 200W to be on the safe side. Now depending on your grow, there may be additional equipment such as water pumps for automatic watering (often not a high amount of power), aircon, dehumidifier - these need to be taken into account if you are running them. However we can consider a base load of 1.2KW when your tent is running at full power with all fans. So that means 1.2KW (1200W) which is being drawn by your tent per hour. 1.2KWH in other words or 1.2 units per hour. During veg you can dim the lights down to around 400w in the tent and should be fine, in flower you will be pushing the full 1KW of power to the lights if you have the tent full of plants. So for veg, 600W per hour with fans. For flower, 1200W per hour with fans. When lights are off, 200W per hour for just the fans. Lithium battery is 100% the way you want to go, they generally come with a 10 year+ warranty and are able to be discharged more than your typical gel / deep cycle batteries. What is meant by discharge (also known as depth of discharge), well, the 5KW battery is basically a 105ah battery at 48v (105ah x 48v = 5040W (5KW) ). We can use the 5000W figure here to explain DoD (Depth of Discharge): A 10% DoD means the battery has been drained by 10%. So 5000 - 10% = 4500W of charge remaining in the battery. 50% DoD = 2500W remaining in the battery. 80% DoD = 1000W of power remaining in the battery. Your typical AGM / deep cycle batteries can be discharged to around 50% at most and even then they have far fewer cycles which they can handle (a decent deep cycle AGM type battery can handle around 600 cycles). A Lithium battery can be discharged past 50% safely, unlike your AGM / gel / deep cycle type of batteries which can take serious, permanent damage if discharged past 50%. Most Lithium batteries for solar use are able to be safely discharged to anywhere from 85% to 100% - keeping in mind that the further you discharge it, the fewer cycles you will get. As an example, a Lithium battery may be good for 6000 cycles at 80% DoD but only 3500 cycles at 100% DoD. These are rather accurate figures for Lithium batteries as well, I think Hubble and/or Pylontech batteries offer figures similar to the above. As you can see, 6000 cycles is 10 times more usage out of the Lithium battery compared to an AGM style battery with 600 cycles. Also you are able to get 80% discharge out of the Lithium battery (4000W) compared to 50% discharge out of the AGM battery (2500W). Another figure to briefly touch on is the constant discharge rate, not all batteries are able to safely provide the required current for an extended period of time. So you may require multiple AGM batteries in order to safely allow the 5KW inverter to draw 5KW of power from the batteries. You get Lithium batteries where a single battery is able to provide sufficient power to max out a 5KW inverter - one thing to keep in mind when looking at buying batteries for your inverter (or a single battery). So now to the final part of your question, how long will the battery be able to run your grow setup for. Well, I have done the basic maths already so we know that with lights during veg you are drawing 600W of power roughly (per hour) and the battery has a total capacity of 5000W (let's say you want to only discharge to 80% to help prolong battery life, or to keep some power spare incase of load shedding / emergencies). That leaves us with 4000W of power to draw from the battery. 4000W / 600W = 6.66 hours (Around 6 hours and 38 minutes I think) In flower, a very different story. Literally half as the draw is 1200W. 4000W / 1200W = 3.33 hours (Around 3 hours and 23 minutes I think) The above calculations do not take into account whatever else is running and drawing power in the house. If your geyser turns on and it is a 3KW geyser, that is 3000W it can use within an hour and will almost drain the battery quickly, almost to the full 80% DoD within an hour. Fridges & freezers cycles on and off multiple times throughout the day, there will often be basics running such as the fridge / freezer, some lights, router for internet etc. These are often small amounts of power being drawn but it is still there and needs to be taken into consideration. The biggest benefit with solar is being able to run off the panels during the day when the sun is shining and this is where the biggest cost savings will come in. The battery is nice to have, but running a grow off batteries for an extended period of time is stupidly expensive for initial costs (around R25k for a 100ah Lithium battery). When the sun goes down, it makes more sense to switch over to Eskom's grid and keep the battery for load shedding or emergency use and during the day when there is a bit of cloud coverage. If you need to be off grid, the cheaper way would be to have a generator tied to the inverter as opposed to buying multiple batteries. However when it comes to running costs - over a long enough period of time the generator may work out more expensive and it has it's drawbacks too - requires fuel, isn't good for the environment with the emissions, require services & maintenance and it is noisy. However the initial cost of a generator is far cheaper than multiple batteries.

There are better ways to trigger an immune response and I feel you'd want that immune response earlier in flower... Perhaps even in veg. More research likely needs to be done on this for cannabis for us to really know though. Plants certainly start drinking less as they are reaching their end of life. Nutes can also build up in your medium over time, especially if one does not reduce / taper the nute strength towards the end of flower and this can lead to plants being burnt a bit.

Doesn't seem many seedbanks stock Bodhi seeds anymore, at least not locally. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

So 136g dry from 6 plants, where quite a bit was tossed due to bud rot? The plants had no training either, so single cola only?

Such a nanny state. Did you know that if you hoon your car, they will impound it and destroy it. Super strict on certain things, unnecessarily so I feel.

You don't need to smoke in order to be able to grow. However not smoking / sampling your own plants can leave you a bit in the dark when it comes to how smooth the smoke it, taste, effects, potency - this can easily be resolved by sending the bud in to be tested and/or having someone who can assist and sample for you and give you feedback. I have grown a few autoflowers, I can tell you first hand that the potency has always been lower with the autoflowers compared to the photoperiods I have grown. Had I not sampled them myself, I wouldn't have known. With that being said, I know of people who grow but do not smoke themselves... They get by fine as others sample for them or they grown clones of known plants which others grow.

Dirty Banana and Beach Wedding both look pretty decent, how is the bud size though? Does yield look as if it may be good? Sometimes a bit hard to judge off a single photo.