Where am I :! (SYNTHETIC PEAT)

[ORGANinc.]

Hello all you growers of different shapes and sizes 

I will be embarking on the most unusual and exciting journey, just to show you guys i'm not scared to take a crack at crystals. May not smoke it all, but this is for what the plant will look like given the chance to be grown in peat moss.

Caution, I may need a bit of help, now I know this is a long shot,  but I'm asking nicely and all in the cause of information sharing and votes on what would work best? You would have much control of what Inputs go where. So I've got 2 plants I think will be up to the task. 

2 feminized Sugar Widow @Totemic  1 as a Control, and 1 as the EXPERIMENT!

 The Substrate - Lithuanian Peat Moss 

How do I prepare this soil for the nutes? 

 - I need some base of nutrients for buffering correct? I was thinking just adding some dolomite lime, maybe some calcitic lime? Then I will have to PH im sure, jeezz what have I got myself into. Okay I'm surely not going to take the inert salt only route? 

 - Then PPM for each feed, can I just let some nutrient batch sit and water as and when?

 - My old school pens need batteries. 

 - The amount of perlite that should be added? 

 - The pots will be 10l size so I might just add other 10l pot for experiment sake

 - Hard pass on the inert stuff, I will be using molasses, microbes, kelpak, aminos, and feed the chems every other day. 

Maybe its not the best test but what I want to do is have whatever is missing added the way I know how, and fill in the majority of the nutrients needed during flower with this bottle of General Hydroponics FloroCoco, I know, lol i'm sure this thing is meant for Coco. Haha we will see.

Because I am completely new to this, there is a big possibly of this thing going belly up super duper fast, but this also I do not care about 

All your constructive input would be much appreciated.

literally a clean slate to start and many many possible ways to approach the soil, the grow and the feed.

Edited February 28, 2022 by ORGANinc.

[ORGANinc.]

Ok thanks for all your input, I’ll take special consideration when implementing
 

Implementation is done no time to waste, these seedlings are going to need a home in the next week or so. 
 

I’ve gone for a very simple light mix, very similar to that of Freedom Farms Formula 1 🏎 so this is like Formula 3 beep beep! 

Lithuanian Peat moss 9l

Worm Casting 7l

Perlite 9l

 Basalt rock dust 1/4 cup

Calcitic lime 1/8 cup

Gypsum 1/4 cup

Bonemeal 1/4 cup

Seedgrain malt blend 1/4 cup

Dolomite 1/16 cup

Giving the soil no more than 2 weeks as stated before 

These plants are going to repot and then 1-2 weeks and FLOWER! 
 

Have a flippin Kwaai weekend

 

[ChrisCPT]

7 hours ago, ORGANinc. said:

Hello all you growers of different shapes and sizes 

I will be embarking on the most unusual and exciting journey, just to show you guys i'm not scared to take a crack at crystals. May not smoke it all, but this is for what the plant will look like given the chance to be grown in peat moss, The specific peat moss ill be using has a ph of 4. This is wayyyyy down there and in my mind could work well when with salts. 

Caution, I may need a bit of help, now I know this is a long shot,  but I'm asking nicely and all in the cause of information sharing and votes on what would work best? You would have much control of what Inputs go where. So I've got 2 plants I think will be up to the task. 

2 feminized Sugar Widow @Totemic  1 as a Control, and 1 as the EXPERIMENT!

 The Substrate - Lithuanian Peat Moss 

How do I prepare this soil for the nutes? 

 - I need some base of nutrients for buffering correct? I was thinking just adding some dolomite lime, maybe some calcitic lime? Then I will have to PH im sure, jeezz what have I got myself into. Okay I'm surely not going to take the inert salt only route? 

 - Then PPM for each feed, can I just let some nutrient batch sit and water as and when?

 - My old school pens need batteries. 

 - The amount of perlite that should be added? 

 - The pots will be 10l size so I might just add other 10l pot for experiment sake

 - Hard pass on the inert stuff, I will be using molasses, microbes, kelpak, aminos, and feed the chems every other day. 

Maybe its not the best test but what I want to do is have whatever is missing added the way I know how, and fill in the majority of the nutrients needed during flower with this bottle of General Hydroponics FloroCoco, I know, lol i'm sure this thing is meant for Coco. Haha we will see.

Because I am completely new to this, there is a big possibly of this thing going belly up super duper fast, but this also I do not care about 

All your constructive input would be much appreciated.

literally a clean slate to start and many many possible ways to approach the soil, the grow and the feed.

Hahah..Looking forward to how this plays out.

Worst case we have a good laugh and know what not to do.. 

 

Respect for your contribution to science!

[ORGANinc.]

38 minutes ago, ChrisCPT said:

Hahah..Looking forward to how this plays out.

Worst case we have a good laugh and know what not to do.. 

 

Respect for your contribution to science!

Nice one man, yeah exactly, let’s see how it goes

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

excited to see how this turns out!  

how long you cooking the medium before using?

I am very careful with dolomite these days, luckily I use it for the mushrooms aswell so always have some on hand. Having it on hand turned out to be both a blessing and a curse lol long long time ago I saw early signs of CaMg deficiency, so I thought the dolomite will work perfect as it's organic and a source of CaMg. I topdressed each plant with 40g of dolomite, the plants reacted rather quickly for an organic situation, took about 3 to 5 days for all plants to look right, but then just as quick as my problem was solved the pendulum kept swinging and another 3 days later I had severe toxicity/lockout. this was before I had a ph or ppm pen, so I never tested if it was a ph swing causing lockout, which is very possible with dolomite, or a ppm problem. 

I see you got 4 different Ca sources in there. Calcitic Lime, Gypsum, Bonemeal and Dolomite, you used quite little of each so hopefully you don't run into the same problem I did. also a whole different scenario when you mix it into the medium and you know what you doing. I clearly did not  

[ORGANinc.]

6 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

excited to see how this turns out!  

how long you cooking the medium before using?

I am very careful with dolomite these days, luckily I use it for the mushrooms aswell so always have some on hand. Having it on hand turned out to be both a blessing and a curse lol long long time ago I saw early signs of CaMg deficiency, so I thought the dolomite will work perfect as it's organic and a source of CaMg. I topdressed each plant with 40g of dolomite, the plants reacted rather quickly for an organic situation, took about 3 to 5 days for all plants to look right, but then just as quick as my problem was solved the pendulum kept swinging and another 3 days later I had severe toxicity/lockout. this was before I had a ph or ppm pen, so I never tested if it was a ph swing causing lockout, which is very possible with dolomite, or a ppm problem. 

I see you got 4 different Ca sources in there. Calcitic Lime, Gypsum, Bonemeal and Dolomite, you used quite little of each so hopefully you don't run into the same problem I did. also a whole different scenario when you mix it into the medium and you know what you doing. I clearly did not  

Howzit bro, yeah I’ll probably let the soil sit for 2 weeks, but this is such a mild recipe that I reckon you could get away will 1 week to be very honest, the availability of nutrient when in a topdress scenario is much higher as the topdress goes into the most active area. 
 

Yeah I’ve also tried to fix calmag deficiencies with dolomite topdress and didn’t immediately see good results, I fried some plants and then others snapped back and finished reasonably. 
 

I needed a decent source of calcium in the medium because I’m not adding any liquid calcium to supplement the feed. 
 

So we will see how it goes but I think it will be okay, just want to see how the soil reacts to the chemicals

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

58 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

Howzit bro, yeah I’ll probably let the soil sit for 2 weeks, but this is such a mild recipe that I reckon you could get away will 1 week to be very honest, the availability of nutrient when in a topdress scenario is much higher as the topdress goes into the most active area. 
 

Yeah I’ve also tried to fix calmag deficiencies with dolomite topdress and didn’t immediately see good results, I fried some plants and then others snapped back and finished reasonably. 
 

I needed a decent source of calcium in the medium because I’m not adding any liquid calcium to supplement the feed. 
 

So we will see how it goes but I think it will be okay, just want to see how the soil reacts to the chemicals

My very first indoor grow was FF green bag with hydroponics A,B,MKP nutrients. I called it beginners luck, because it turned out great, but literally everyone and their aunties soiled themselves when they heard I was mixing organics with synthetics.  like that was the worst thing a grower could ever do. Everyone had their reasons, random people would come out the boendoes standing behind the seasoned growers, calling me out for defending what I was doing. I stated it was my first real indoor grow, so people jumped to the conclusion that I knew nothing about anything plant related quite a few people didn't like the fact that I didn't wana listen to their seasoned advice, but yeah this is how we learn who to take advice from 

These days companies like GreenHouse Feeding and quite a few others actually make nutrient lines that combine the two styles of growing and it seems to be much more accepted these days. As time goes on we will se more and more of this. 

Lekker fingers crossed for no losses and better results than anticipated!! 

with a ph and ppm pen, you really can't go wrong. run off tests and slurry tests have saved my crop quite a couple times.

[ORGANinc.]

28 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

My very first indoor grow was FF green bag with hydroponics A,B,MKP nutrients. I called it beginners luck, because it turned out great, but literally everyone and their aunties soiled themselves when they heard I was mixing organics with synthetics.  like that was the worst thing a grower could ever do. Everyone had their reasons, random people would come out the boendoes standing behind the seasoned growers, calling me out for defending what I was doing. I stated it was my first real indoor grow, so people jumped to the conclusion that I knew nothing about anything plant related quite a few people didn't like the fact that I didn't wana listen to their seasoned advice, but yeah this is how we learn who to take advice from 

These days companies like GreenHouse Feeding and quite a few others actually make nutrient lines that combine the two styles of growing and it seems to be much more accepted these days. As time goes on we will se more and more of this. 

Lekker fingers crossed for no losses and better results than anticipated!! 

with a ph and ppm pen, you really can't go wrong. run off tests and slurry tests have saved my crop quite a couple times.

This is conventional agriculture, people hate that word but, with soil, farmers will do anything to up the numbers, not all but you can imagine what I’m saying, and how far they or their fathers and their fathers were willing to go with excessive amounts of salt / pesticides / Herbicides led them to where they are today and many times the story is dire, the soil will not function probably if salts are used in excess for prolonged periods of time, I will definitely be throwing this soil away once the grow is done, and not in my garden lol, they going for a drive
 

But for purposes of the machine, this angle in my view is more quantity, less quality. 

[ORGANinc.]

Here’s the babies, there’s a tall and a short one by the looks of it. 
 

please can I have a general consensus of which one should be the control, the plant I will grow exactly how I usually grow no chemicals, and the other with the bloom nutes? 
 

control will be (different soil) in my very old, freshly Re-amended soil.
 

thanks and always appreciate the feedback

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

yeah, this is true!

if you know to keep adding microbes and not rely only on salts as feed in organic situations and keep adding organic compounds to keep the microbes alive and create that prolific symbiosis, you'll be fine. the salts can basically just act as "addatives"

when growing in a pot and in the earth is also a big difference. I worked on many different farms, 2 biodynamic farms, even they use salt nutes, because it's still natural when you use it in amounts the soil can still break down. all the synthetic nutes we have on the shelves all come from the earth anyway, they're just concentrated and combined in unnatural combinations. when growing in a pot, the amount that can cause harm is significantly less, because the microbiome inside a pot is not nearly that of which is in the earth and is harmed or disrupted much easier, but for people with a background in agriculture and mycology, with a quite comprehensive understanding of how microbes operate, it's easy to draw a picture. 

why I moved away from salts completely is because I have a bigger problem with how they source these compounds, the production of the compounds and the complete dismay of organic growing, because of these products. we've all seen the indoor FMCG farms, growing masses of vegetables that look like they where 3D printed, to feed the already over populated planet, essentially trying to solve a problem by creating a bigger problem.  

now I just stick to stricktly organic and the "less is more" approach  

[ORGANinc.]

10 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

yeah, this is true!

if you know to keep adding microbes and not rely only on salts as feed in organic situations and keep adding organic compounds to keep the microbes alive and create that prolific symbiosis, you'll be fine. the salts can basically just act as "addatives"

when growing in a pot and in the earth is also a big difference. I worked on many different farms, 2 biodynamic farms, even they use salt nutes, because it's still natural when you use it in amounts the soil can still break down. all the synthetic nutes we have on the shelves all come from the earth anyway, they're just concentrated and combined in unnatural combinations. when growing in a pot, the amount that can cause harm is significantly less, because the microbiome inside a pot is not nearly that of which is in the earth and is harmed or disrupted much easier, but for people with a background in agriculture and mycology, with a quite comprehensive understanding of how microbes operate, it's easy to draw a picture. 

why I moved away from salts completely is because I have a bigger problem with how they source these compounds, the production of the compounds and the complete dismay of organic growing, because of these products. we've all seen the indoor FMCG farms, growing masses of vegetables that look like they where 3D printed, to feed the already over populated planet, essentially trying to solve a problem by creating a bigger problem.  

now I just stick to stricktly organic and the "less is more" approach  

Yes this is also a luxury home growers and commercial growers who take advantage of retaining a symbiosis in the soil can achieve, because at the end of some people need to achieve better yields 
 

so if you can have the best of both why not. My growing approach remains having the huge majority of nutrients come from organic sources. And then on my next soil test on my bed, which is in totes now, I will be adding sulphates for micro nutrients. 
 

also been thinking about a good source of silica as foliar for seedling stages only. But we will see

Edited February 26, 2022 by ORGANinc.

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

55 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

Here’s the babies, there’s a tall and a short one by the looks of it. 
 

please can I have a general consensus of which one should be the control, the plant I will grow exactly how I usually grow no chemicals, and the other with the bloom nutes? 
 

control will be (different soil) in my very old, freshly Re-amended soil.
 

thanks and always appreciate the feedback

 

are they different phenos or same cut?

if they are clones, I vote the small one in your known soil and the bigger one in the test soil?

if they're different phenos I don't think it matters too much, because structure and expressions will differ even if everything is on point.

[ORGANinc.]

Seeds bud, ya they are going to be different no matter what, or maybe surprise us and grow pretty similar

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Just now, ORGANinc. said:

Seeds bud, ya they are going to be different no matter what, or maybe surprise us and grow pretty similar

do you know how stable the genetic is? 

If it's f2 they may have a bit of a difference in end weight when looking at it like that, otherwise you can only look at overall health and general reaction to the unknown media. if they're only f1 or 2 I would try to look at each plant individually, but if they're f3 or 4 they have higher chances of growing more similar. 

[ORGANinc.]

19 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

do you know how stable the genetic is? 

If it's f2 they may have a bit of a difference in end weight when looking at it like that, otherwise you can only look at overall health and general reaction to the unknown media. if they're only f1 or 2 I would try to look at each plant individually, but if they're f3 or 4 they have higher chances of growing more similar. 

I’m really not sure bud, I think these are just a cross of the white widow that I grew and the sugarcane that I also grew, so each plant could lean on either side quite heavily I imagine. 
 

it’s just for reference per say, one is already looking like on the taller side 

[SkunkPharm]

You should come and get some of the higher pH peat from me. Or you are going to have to add some dolomite lime and/or calcitic lime to the peat. A pH of 4 is not going to be ideal for any plant. 

[ORGANinc.]

39 minutes ago, SkunkPharm said:

You should come and get some of the higher pH peat from me. Or you are going to have to add some dolomite lime and/or calcitic lime to the peat. A pH of 4 is not going to be ideal for any plant. 

Ya I realized I've made an assumption about the peat that is wrong, the peat that I bought and using now is actually the same peat as yours, they explain in the H2gro website its the same as your bale, just moeeerseee expensive.

The peat that was 4 or 4,5 was the one from Dirty hands when they sold it to me, now I hope that is correct as it was a long time ago, but either way. Doesn't matter too much as that soil is run in a couple of rounds

[SkunkPharm]

I have a different one as well. It’s called the TS1. The use it to grow blue berries.

[PsyCLown]

Growing from seed and doing a comparison isn't ideal, there can be quite a few differences when growing from seed. I have purchased packs of seeds where one plant looks nothing like the other and then a 3rd one is more along the lines of what I'd like.

 

I have also grown the same cutting a few times and due to inconsistencies, ended up with bud which looks as if it could have been from a different strain despite it being a cut from a known pheno.

 

Small changes can make big differences and depending on how accurate you want the comparison to be, you need to try ensure everything is as much the same as possible. Although possibly too late to look at sourcing 2 clones of the same plant - still going to be cool to see the differences, although differences in terms of terps, trichomes, yield, bud structure all go out the window and cannot be accurately compared.

 

To put it into perspective, the below two pics is the same strain, just different phenos.

Not the biggest difference I have noticed, just what I have pics of.

 

[ORGANinc.]

35 minutes ago, PsyCLown said:

Growing from seed and doing a comparison isn't ideal, there can be quite a few differences when growing from seed. I have purchased packs of seeds where one plant looks nothing like the other and then a 3rd one is more along the lines of what I'd like.

 

I have also grown the same cutting a few times and due to inconsistencies, ended up with bud which looks as if it could have been from a different strain despite it being a cut from a known pheno.

 

Small changes can make big differences and depending on how accurate you want the comparison to be, you need to try ensure everything is as much the same as possible. Although possibly too late to look at sourcing 2 clones of the same plant - still going to be cool to see the differences, although differences in terms of terps, trichomes, yield, bud structure all go out the window and cannot be accurately compared.

 

To put it into perspective, the below two pics is the same strain, just different phenos.

Not the biggest difference I have noticed, just what I have pics of.

 

Ya the difference in environment from grow to grow I think will effect huge changes in how plants end up. Yeah, its not going to be super accurate but just a fun reflection or comparison. Clones do very different things from grow to grow I have noticed as well. 

I do expect the experiment plant to be bigger or yield more having more available nutrients. But nothing is certain. Too effect this theory somewhat, I will be making the small plant the experiment plant and the bigger one the control. 

Let's see what happens.

 

[ORGANinc.]

So I had a chat with @PsyCLown and   We spoke about it being much better an experiment given the chance to grow 2 clones of the exact same genetics which I agree, so I will be adding these 2 GG #4 Josey Wales clones run simultaneous with the sugar widows, same set up, same feed for the experiment plant. 
 

So we will be able to somewhat conclude between seeds and clones. 
 

adds another dimension to the testing which I’m happy about. The GG is 3 weeks in flower tomorrow. We will see how she progresses during the experiment. 

[ORGANinc.]

Okay so 2 weeks and 2 days later, 2 days more than I intended letting the soil rest. But to be very honest, this peat mix is very sponge like not super crumby but hold very well. It’s a nice mix I think.

you will see I thoughtfully labled the experiment plants somewhat

My old soil felt abit more sandier and heavier as I would imagine. Not 100 percent happy with the structure when it when in, But once the I had watered it. The surface was quite similar. Soft and crumby too.holding nice chunks. Still expect the control plants to react better regardless of not feeding nutes initially. Other soil could start abit slower

Flower will start next week. I will feed the nutes immediately at 12/12 at 1/4 dose 

control plants are just above to the right.

Edited March 13, 2022 by ORGANinc.

[ORGANinc.]

These 2 experiment plants received a small feed, microbes, 1/2 dose kelpak, 1/2 dose nettle fpj. 
 

on to 12/12, next watering will be the NUTES! 1/4 dose 

[Smelly Joe]

Thats some love for those plants. Been fiddling with FPJ for a few seasons now and I enjoy their company in the garden. The garden sure loves it and its sooooo easy. 

Definitely following along this test

[ORGANinc.]

7 minutes ago, Smelly Joe said:

Thats some love for those plants. Been fiddling with FPJ for a few seasons now and I enjoy their company in the garden. The garden sure loves it and its sooooo easy. 

Definitely following along this test

Thanks for the enthusiasm bud! Yes those 2 plants are in soil that’s not loaded with much nutrients, especially in terms of nitrogen, so I’ll possibly be incorporating the nettle fpj or fish as we go been experimenting with nectarine ffj aswell, only used it once, bout time for the second dose for the outside plants