Naughty.Psychonaut

only a pleasure brobeans I see why you would go with the autos, yeah. a lot of growers I know that's got some years behind them will keep auto seeds to have year round harvests outdoors, because you're not as dependent on light cycles. but knowing how to get literally every single step in place before the plant even shows a single sign of stress is the key to growing a auto. about the loadshedding and light schedule thing, you see the only way it can go is to reduce the hours of light your plant gets. right? I don't know what area you're in, but my area gets hit with loadshedding 3 times a day at 2hrs each time. this equals to 6hrs of complete darkness and leaves me with 18hrs of electricity. that's a perfect veg cycle for a photoperiod plant. come flower time you need to reduce the 18 down to 12hrs anyway, so you don't nees more or longer hours of electricity anyway. the worrying thing when comes to loadshedding is RH, especially during winter. when your extractor and circulation fans go off it gives time for mold spores to settle and take host. most likely loadshedding gona cause you harm it will be in the form of powdery mildew.

this is cool information, might even run a little testy test myself what do you do about soil composition? besides adding perlite and/or vermiculite do you sieve anything out or you just choose the right bags off the get go? for instance, i've bought cheap potting soil from the commercial nursery only to have about a 2:1:1 mix of grit sand, bark and some halfway decomposed leaves .... this was way way back before really growing my own weed and not knowing a thing about soil, I thought it was the best damn thing, needless to say it wasn't. because of the heavy amount of bark the N levels kept rising over time and the soil compacted like a mother cause of all the fine dust from all the load of sand in the mix. drainage worked well for the first month or so till the bark became a sludge and together with the compaction created a whole anaerobic mess and basically I ended up with mud. I guess to do what you're doing one already needs to have a basic understanding of soil and what to shoot for and what to avoid.

woah! I was just about to say that the little bit at the top might not be enough to fill a 30L pot/bag, this is why I was thinking the size of the soil bags sold might have to increase, but you're saying it can fill even more than that without making the bag any bigger? well.... uuh now see ..... now I would like to change my answer. I would like to get a full 30L bag for same price

yeah like a 30L bag is our "general measurement" and is more accurate than saying 30kg bag like Psy said. ok ok lets see, so I wouldn't mind if they just filled up the 30L bag but kept the price the same, seems like that would be the easier thing to do. I agree about not wanting a bigger bag though, so just that little bit at the top, I don't know if thats gona be enough to fill the 30L material pot. if I had a old plastic FF bag laying around I would've checked as I have a couple bins of it recycled, can fill a bag to the brim then throw it all in a pot and see how much it will be. although, as you already know it will compact in the pot over time after many waterings.

watering also causes compaction, like our pots always seem to have less and less soil in the longer you been watering it down, so it can just aswell shrink the medium in size

I like the taste of the same size bag for cheaper flavour ...the bag I use now happens to be ff and I think important to note I am not moving to another brand because it will be cheaper only, it has to be the same quality too so the answer isn't just one or the other for me and I don't think for most of us, sorry we went off topic brother!

what about cubes? I don't mean we must measure the soil in cubic cm, I think in general a certain amount of soil is easier to guage by "the size" of it. like a certain size bag filled to the top will only be able to have that amount in, if you put wet soil dry soil heavy soil light soil, you fill it up and call it "a full bag of soil". because of the fact that we're dealing with soil we can't really call it Liter or Kilograms, because it's not always gona weigh the same.

hmmmm I have to say, I don't fully agree with that... I feel the importance of good soil trumps the importance of a good light, and we all know how heavy a kak light can impact a grow. now just imagine kak soil... last thing I wana save a few bucks on is soil. I would gladly rather cough up an extra R30 - R50 for something that'll completely flip my growing experience for the better. there are a lot of examples on this forum alone. such as the "promix" from builders warehouse in a recent thread. there has also been documented "420mix" soil grow that had to be exchanged for freedom farms because in fact a good price does not mean it's a good product. high pricing also doesn't equate to quality in the least, I had the "pleasure" of trying out some Just Cannabis soil when it was all the hype. Paid R200 a bag and it claims you can finish a whole grow with just water... A week in the soil and all I saw was toast. pricing is not a good guidance when looking at quality. and that's what you want, quality. It's gona be hard for a new brand to take my support away from Freedom Farms, because I feel the 3 most important things when buying soil is quality, reputability and consistency. Something I've only gotten true to form from Freefom Farms. For me to stop supporting FF and move over to something new, the new brand will have to provide a better grow experience than in FF for atleast 3 to 5 grows in a row. then they got my support. they can be a bit more expensive than FF too I'll still buy it, because it's an improvement over the already exsisting product. if you could get FF to just make their bags either bigger or cheaper that'll work too

hi bud, hope all is well your side, sorry if I am not undersranding correctly, but you asking if we would like the current size bags we getting all over the show to be cheaper or to make bigger bags with more soil in that'll cost the same as the current bag size? I was under the impression that the freedom farm bags are enough to fill their 30L pots.

what's up devil boy @David666 if you really wana understand the science behind your situation you going to have to do some more research on the following 4 topics - genetics - phenotype - plant morphology - plant plasticity plants will never grow exactly the same anyway, though you do have some problems at hand aswell, so I agree with the guys, focus on something else for your next grow. my suggestions would be 1 - Get yourself some FreedomFarms green bag, the soil you have there is causing more questions and guessing games than it is helping you to grow weed. 2 - Get some photoperiod plants, I would suggest some fiminized seeds from a reliable source. Autos are for the seasoned growers, they are so full of kak I have not even attempted one at all. I feel if you don't do everything 100% you're at more of a loss than anything. 3. Ph and EC pens, for sure takes out a hell of a lot of guessing and playing around, but then again you can test a shitty soil 100 times and make changes, bit the overall composition of your soil could be shit and then testing wont help at all. e.g. just by the looks of it I can say there is way too much bark in that soil and no amount of testing will tell you that.

I was just coming back to say that the "less is more" slogan would probably not be the best economic approach for a sustainable business model that's not the only people saying that stuff, though. in fact most commonly I hear it from people who have been growing all kinds of plants all their lives and have done quite a couple different methods of growing and ended up back at the basics with organics, when asked why organic after all the experience the answer is usually one of three things. 1 - biodynamics. 2 - regenerative lifestyle. 3 - it's hard to over do it with organic. I think there is a big difference in the type of organic growing when looking at a plant in a new pot with "newly crafted" soil in production focused growing conditions and a patch of soil on the earth that's completely exposed to all elements and is actually "organic" in the true meaning of the word. I can understand that you can give more of everything and cause less stress when growing without any confines or restrictions, but once you go into a pot already it's a whole different ball game. nutrient build up can happen super quick. fungal and bacterial colonies can dominate very easily. aeration can quickly become a problem not only for the plants roots but the microbial activity. there are minimal buffer zones and nowhere the roots can go to be "free". When people say "organic" they're casting a broad net in a field where there are sooooo many variables that misconceptions run the show. I have to say that in my experience you still have to be careful with both. I've seen a guy build his own soil with a sphagnum/coco base some worm castings and a whole mix of rock dusts. combining recipes and what not. I told him I can see with my eyes that he is giving too much, just didn't look right. he said the only nutrients will come from the worm casting and the rest will break down over time. which in theory is true, I mean most organic growers' theories anyway. he planted a newly established clone that was ready to go in the soil and it got so severely shocked I had to help him with a EC test, was sitting at 8-9. the worm castings was only 30% of the mix. soil biology is too complex to call it stuff like "it's hard to over do it" or "less is more" the only key I see fit would be "figure it out for yourself"

learnt the hard way too with my previous grow! where does that notion "it's hard to over do it with organics" even come from?

@Valda hope all is well you wana chop the plant down by April or you wana smoke the weed by April? how big is the plant? you can deprive a plant of light to induce flower, some people build greenhouses with a "built-in" light deprevator, basically just something you can easily manage to put "on and off" to black out a certain area. remember light leaks and stray lights during dark cycle will cause foxtails and may even push the plant to hermie. so if you create a black out make sure it blacks out completely. if your outdoor is in a pot, allow 12h sun light a day then move them into complete darkness. if you're planted in the earth you can get a wood/pvc structure of sorts to go over the plant and use black drop sheet to cover the plant and reduce light down to 12hrs.

this is just me, but I would at least get my money back. did it also trip your mains? a little 20w fan? then you need to contact the manufacturers and tell them that, but before you do, test your outlets with a multitool and see if there isn't something wrong with power delivery from your wall sockets. or even just the one the fan was plugged in by. chances are small but never zero. Only a much larger electrical appliance that pulls way more power can cause a surge big enough to trip your mains. like a stove or washing machine. not a desk fan. also good measure is every now and then to go touch your plugs and sockets they are plugged in by, even touch the wire to see if nothing is running hot because of any short connections. just run your hands along all the areas of concern, you will even feel it on the appliance, depending on how the thing was put together, but a more reliable indication would be the plugs itself. if everything feels A-OK all the time and you know your power supply isn't the problem then you know it was a design/factory flaw. I hope you keep your proof of payments or "slips" when buying these things? if there is a visible sight where the wires wore out and created a short you need to photograph it and all that. get in contact with the manufacturers. there is just no way 2 to 3 months is a normal running time for those things especially if it's wires wearing out and shorting. I would understand if it happens after 10 years, sure, but a couple months???? No. but still that thing shouldn't even get hot if a wire shorts cz of how little power it sucks. the motor and the power it takes to run it is so little that the motor itself will stop working before anything gets hot or trips main circuits..... unless the problem is in the main circuit, this can cause the fans plugs and motor to run hot and potentially trip the mains, yeah...... anyway I am one of those people that believe in reports even if I get nothing from it, if that company recieves enough concerning emails about their product potentially burning peoples houses down they will make changes to the design and or way they're put together.

this is a good point, if you can get something more reputable for same price or less it really is a no brainer! However I like to note that looking after your stuff is something that'll help everyone in every situation. I don't wana go around telling people to not learn something new hahahah imagine how long your fan will last if it's something that's known to last longer plus you look after it and take good care of it? the bigger stornger box fans for same price or better than the clip grip ones are also not always available everywhere. fans, we have them in our cars, computers, lights, AC units, they're litterally everywhere. they gather dust, all fans do this. the smaller the fan the quicker dust will get to the motor and the more frequintly you gotta clean them. this is just a thing of fans that we have to take into concideration I must be reeeally lucky then 4 good fans in a row! I would like to bet that looking after your stuff has a bigger impact on how long they last than bad luck and a good example of this is that every single clip grip fan I bought so far is still working today. have not lost one. anything and everything that's man made is meant to not last forever, that's the business model. however some people are still able to use electronics that where made in 1990s typically because of how they look after them. a fan burnt and tripped the mains? what fan was this? the wire shouldn't wear at all. this is a major factory/design flaw with insane danger risks that the manufacturers can be held accountable for. you deserve restitution in that case brother, they could've burnt your house down with you in it!!!! damn I would not have let that one go

Too true, brother. Before I had a real setup and still played around with household items trying to slap a DIY setup together, I grabbed a safeway desk fan from clicks. probably cheapest one out there. This was probably around 2016 to 2017. It still works today. I ran it for about 2 or 3 months non stop at the beginning, but when I bought a setup I grabbed a combo from futurama and got the fan in question as part of the combo, so I replaced the El-cheapo, but she's sitting in her box ready to go if I need a extra little fan for whatever. I have a friend that went through this recently, arguing with me about his fan being up to shit and is starting to give in now only after one grow, but when I visit him and tell him that he needs to look after his shit, because there is a visible layer of dust building up on the fan and is probably an easy fix then he goes off saying "but I pay for the thing and it should work right all the time" then I just stop trying to help the dude. It's a matter of "as jy nie wil hoor nie moet jy maar voel" but in a financial way

Welcome! great place to be if you wana grow some dank!

Loving the layout of the garden there!

My dudes Two or three months of use is really not the normal amount of time for those clip grip fans though, I have 3 going for a year. 1 probably going for 2 years now. After I complete a grow clean my fans properly, last grow I finished was the first time I did a deep clean and ended up opening all of them to get to the dust, it's really really easy to open them up. Take the front off, put your fingers behind the base of the blades around the king pin and push away from the rest of the fan so the blades pop off the pin, take the front screws out then the 2 on the back and there you go, it's open! Look inside the little motor? They're super simple to understand. It's got 3 wires. Positive, negative and a 3rd wire that goes to the speed control. You'll see where they all go, see if they all attached? If not it will take a drop of solder to reattach. See if the little motor isn't just dirty? Can the pin move around freely? Get dust out everywhere you can and put a drop of oil on the pin as it comes out the motor, spin it around a few times and all that. If it still doesn't work.... it's probably fucked

That is quite a mix! How long do you let all that sit before planting in it?

another interesting titbit I found during all the testing and shit, I got a Sour Lemon OG from the Emerald Triangle that's a sativa dominant then I have the Banana Hammock, a heavy indica. Two very different plants. Just doing some check ups and testing to see what's what, and I found the EC in the two mediums where quite different. What threw me off first was that all plants seemed fine. SL had hiiiigh EC around 8 - 9. BH had a normal EC 5-6. I quickly realised I really shouldn't care what people say, because I was given 100 different reason as to why that would happen and that I just needed to practice discipline by not messing up when giving nutrients and be more sure of what I am doing and and and..... Skip a few weeks, after giving different nutes and trying to get the EC of all the mediums the same, what do I find? A lovely toasted Sour Lemon OG plant, fucked. Because I listened to people instead of the plant. I never messed up in the first place, the reason for the EC difference was cause the SL doesn't want any feed and the BH wants more. Even something as simple as the genetics of a plant will have impact on the EC in your medium.

Well, before getting into this I have to ask, have you ever experienced "hot soil" or heard of anyone planting into organic soil only to have their plant curl up and turn to toast? You see, I don't really like the whole "no need for testing because it's organic" that a lot of people throw around these days. If the saying was true at all then why would organic soil end up toasting a plant? The fact is that organic soil can and surely will become too "hot" and you can definitly experience nutrient build up in organic soil just as you do with synthetic nutes and coco and there are ways to go about fixing that. I've seen oaks throw away whole plants because they repot into some "fancy" soil then they don't do any tests and call it a loss and call out the brand that makes the soil. I was almost that guy... In my thread "back at it like a crack addict" you can see that there is without a doubt such a thing as "too much" when it comes to EC in organics. With a simple quick runoff test I saw that my EC was higher than 9.9... flushed with clean water (just like in coco/hydro) got the medium EC down to 3-4, plants exploded with growth. finished with the biggest harvest I done to date. after some seasoned growers where stumped and couldn't really provide me with much help because they "didn't believe in testing organics" and I almost lost a whole crop if I listened to them. Ph is a whole different ball game. Not all organic soils have the same buffering capabilities or work only in certain range and what not. I think the biggest impact is actually the difference in pot growing and earth growing. When growing straight in the earth I wouldn't ever mind checking ph, but when it comes to growing in a pot, especially when recycling soil that contains coco which starts breaking down and releasing magnesium over time and as you know magnesium swings can cause PH swings and also a pot with soil in has a defined microbiome, if you keep giving water with ph that is way out eventually you'll end up changing the micro activity in the soil and soon to follow will be the ph and then plants will not uptake as they should and this is when your EC starts to climb. with all this said, you can 100% even have plants growing straight in the earth that experience nutrient lockout because of root damage caused by either ph swings or simply a root that hits a mineral pocket. one cannot dictate how nature should behave so promoting no tests on organic is such a loose end argument, not that I am saying this is what you're promoting. I just don't see why a seasoned grower will tell a new grower to not do test, when testing will just help the newbie to understand and read the soil and plant better. I say test everything even the things you think you are sure of

☝ the soil we're talking about here is the load in the big pot above, in the post where I mention the Trainwreck and Hawaiian Cake plants I speak of another test I am doing with some re-ammended soil. I had a bag of sphagnum, mixed into the same recycled FF + wormcasting mix and it came out really nice but I felt it needed some perlite and now I am happy with the mix. that mix will only be used for potting up cuttings or seedlings. it's more focussed on aeration and root development than providing feed for the plants

Thanks man! Sun light is freeee, clones are free, soil is from a recycled batch, there really is no reason to not be growing something outside Yeah basically I just run a EC test on the used soil, got a shit load of it piling up, EC came in at 2.7... perfect for young plants. So I really didn't have to do much to the soil with regards to re-ammending. I just filled up the big pot up to 70% with the old soil then added a nice 10cm thick layer of worm castings to fill the top of the pot. This was done in early August, the pot was left to stand in the rain and sun just like that for a whole month, then I just flipped the soil and mixed it around a little. EC is now at 4.7 so I am expecting to start feeding her during late veg, but will probably just top up with worm castings again. nothing fancy

@Smelly Joe Have you seen these, brother? I came across this crazy OCB pack during the first lockdown, someone was asking where to get papers when all the shops where closed and I just started looking for interest sake I heard RAW also got a pack like this, but I haven't seen it. Folds open to serve as a nice little work station and provide a little wind protection when breaking up the buds outdoors. Still haven't used any of these, just got it cause of the pack a single pack of RAW black will last me up to 2 months. daily operation on 8-10g of heavy dank in my system will leave me with half finished sentences that's organized chaos!!!