Having a hard time getting Biobizz dialed in.

[Trichome]

So I started some feminized seeds in Freedom Farms seed mix and the seedlings grew very well and healthy.
Eventually when the seedlings reached vegetative stage I transplanted into 15L fabric bags with Jaime’s Orgasoilux.The plants took off and did really Will until about three weeks in when the fan leaves tips started turning brown.I had heard somewhere this soil mix runs a bit hot so I flushed the plants with about three times the amount of water and let the soil dry out.This helped and at watering time that week I gave them only rain water with a bit of Topmax(fulvic&humic acid).I got taken by surprise when the plants showed flowering(first outdoor grow,I used to do hydro indoors) I decided to let them flower in the 15L bags as I read that the roots air prune and figured I could feed them with the Biobizz nutrients I had on hand! 
About two weeks into flower plants showed signs of Potassium deficiency with leaf margins and tips turning brown and clawing so I hit the with one ml per L Grow and 1ml per liter Bloom.After two days the plant looked even worse.

To cut a story short I’m now in week 6 of flowering with decent buds but have lost most of my big fan leaves and have see sawed back and forth with flushing and applying mild then stronger nutes  to try and stop the leaves from yellowing.Basically just trying to keep the plants healthy as possible until flush time.

Today the plants leaves(mostly older looked terrible so I did another flush and checked EC/ppm run off with Hanna meter and my ppm was over 1800ppm.So aagain I flushed and re fertilized with 650ppm of Mega solution 3 part synthetic to try and resolve the leaf yellowing issue.

some say ppm/EC is meaningless with organic farming! Is it? 
 

Can an experienced soul grower here give me some expert guidance on the use of Biobizz nutrients? I’m starting to think their feed chart is way off!Maybe I should have used a quarter strength first but I guess I panicked as I was already two weeks into flowering and as you know time is of the essence in getting a handle on problems at that stage. The largest fan leaves here are much yellower than they appear in the pictures!

Thanks guys!

Edited February 22, 2023 by Trichome

[SkunkPharm]

Your plant looks perfectly fine. The fan leaves are suppose to turn yellow in flower especially outdoors. Is this your first time doing Organics?

[Trichome]

Hi Skunkpharm,it is my first outdoor organic grow.I’m not used to leaves yellowing by two weeks into flour though,these are 9 week strains.I’ve always managed to keep my fan leaves green at least into a week before flush.Granted they are in the beginning of week six now but I started having issues at two weeks into flower already.So you’re saying even that’s normal outdoors? Soon all I’ll have are the bud fans and the sugar leaves! Any tips on Biobizz nutes?

Also anyone reading this post- The top pics are in veg right before my fan leaves started with tip burn,as you can see they look really good, shiny green,this at two weeks into veg.At this stage only rain water a bit of fulvic in Orgasoilux.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Trichome

[Prom]

They look like they should... may be... but really just may be ^^ you can give them a tick more. What week you stand in your BioBizz chart (how old are those plants)? You are about 4 week out till finish, what BB products you use.. full range or just a few selected ones?

[Trichome]

Prom 

Using Biogrow Biobloom and Topmax.Very small amount of Aminos and some silicon(very sparing on the silicon privy as it is high k.

I’m at week five in the chart but I noticed a pronounced yellowing after feeding even though my roots have basically filled the fabric bags so I’m sure between the root space  and the flushing I’ve done most of the original nutrients in the soil must have been flushed out or consumed? I did also hit them once with synthetic nutes about 5 days ago and they improved temporarily I fertilized Monday with 3 ml /L Bio bloom  and 2 mlL Biogrow .Last night the fan leaves were looking really sick, clawed down and burned tips progressively yellowing up the plant.So today I flushed the hell out of them with fresh rain water First run off reading was  of 1.8 tested today = run off after 10 liters at ph 7.2. 
 

Flushed further with Synthetic nutes three part at 650 ppm at adjusted ph of 5.8. Last read after flush EC 1.1 740ppm. The plants were looking better this evening when I took the top view shots.I’ll wait to see how they look in the morning.I will have to let them suck up a lot of the water before I can adjust anything else!

Edited February 22, 2023 by Trichome

[Weskush]

Ive had some strains fading really early and some extremely late. I personally think that genetics also plays a big role in the way the flowering process expresses itself. I wouldnt stress too much. Keep feeding bloom nutes as suggested because if you are going to up the N, you are most probably going to end up with all kinds of complications and even more new leaf growth and that is not what you want at this stage of flowering. Just my opinion.

[Prom]

As the stress started short after the synt nutes.. is most likely where you got things started. I would never mix biological feeding with chemical. Is like you let Mana rain from the sky and then suddenly you flood the land with mustard gas. Sure you can let mana rain again but there is nothing left to eat it. You killed your soil micro organisms with that one feeding.  You might want to stick to the Mega fertilizer set till the end of the grow, makes most sense as it requires pH to be in the right range, just use Up or Down. Also the silicon.. is a no go, that is most likely chemical.. one drop is one drop to much. If you want to go soil.. follow the right BioBizz table and things should get like you would expect. The main BB product is Bio Heaven... the other products are just build around it. Get a bottle of Kushy Amino Acids and stick to the feeding on the bottle.. is same same like Bio Heaven just 100 times cheaper. To make things easier.. I would just use BB Fish-Mix and BB Bloom, plus add molasses yourself. BB Grow = 75% Fish-Mix + 25% molasses. Using Grow is a start but not enough to get the BRIX number over 12%.. so you have to add molasses anyhow.. hence skip Grow and just add more Molasses.. stuff is cheap too ^^

If you use Freedom Farm Premium Classic (green bag), BioBizz Fish-Mix, Bloom, TopMax (or similar Humic and Fulvic acids), BB Bio Heaven or Kushy Amino Acids, Kushy or Freedom Farm Kelp Extract and de-sulphurated molasses with rain water. You have all to run a grow till the end, nothing else needed. And just stick to the BioBizz grow table.. they work, I ran over 1000 plants with it. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Prom
typo

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

8 hours ago, Trichome said:

Prom 

Using Biogrow Biobloom and Topmax.Very small amount of Aminos and some silicon(very sparing on the silicon privy as it is high k.

I’m at week five in the chart but I noticed a pronounced yellowing after feeding even though my roots have basically filled the fabric bags so I’m sure between the root space  and the flushing I’ve done most of the original nutrients in the soil must have been flushed out or consumed? I did also hit them once with synthetic nutes about 5 days ago and they improved temporarily I fertilized Monday with 3 ml /L Bio bloom  and 2 mlL Biogrow .Last night the fan leaves were looking really sick, clawed down and burned tips progressively yellowing up the plant.So today I flushed the hell out of them with fresh rain water First run off reading was  of 1.8 tested today = run off after 10 liters at ph 7.2. 
 

Flushed further with Synthetic nutes three part at 650 ppm at adjusted ph of 5.8. Last read after flush EC 1.1 740ppm. The plants were looking better this evening when I took the top view shots.I’ll wait to see how they look in the morning.I will have to let them suck up a lot of the water before I can adjust anything else!

The feeding charts fall more under the marketing scheme of getting you to use more of their product just so you end up buying more of the product. 

Just remember, as an organic grower you have a branding iron burn the following onto your brain - "Less Is More". - feeding a healthy plant wont make it healthier or grow faster, usually it just does more damage. 

This is only for people who are running the biobizz schedule, a lot of people using super soil or ammended soil can't really use these steps as it might cause more problems than anything. 

First off, you skipped over the most important part of all the biobizz products- Fishmix, where is your Fishmix brother? 

Second, you need so little silica that the amount in the soil is perfectly fine. silica addatives is more for inert media growers. 

this is all you need.

Veg: 

Fish 1ml/L every watering, if you see burnt tips skip on next 2 or 3 feeds, just give clean water then back to 1m/L fish. 

You can give Grow 1ml/L once every 2 weeks as at this point you just want some sugars to keep the microbes happy. you can smell the grow, it's sweet, that's the beetroot extract, but don't just give grow the whole time.

Flower: (not flour )

Week 1 you give 1ml Bloom to start, then you switch from giving Fish each time to giving Grow each time, and Fish only once every 2 weeks as the fish is more N focussed and you're not vegging anymore, (this is the same as the old school golden rule of cutting on N and giving molasses during flower, the sugars does NOT make the weed taste better that's 100%, but the sugars keep the microbes thriving which then gives you better weed overall). 

now you carry on like this, each week increasing the bloom ml/L till week 5 of flower then you keep it at 5ml/L till you ready to harvest, but then you don't harvest, you just put the nutes away, because like they say "when you think the plant is ready, give it another week" and you use this "extra week" to give just clean water. - not flush - just water as you normally would, but with clean water. during this week you check trichomes every day. I usually harvest around 10,20% amber as during the first week of drying a lot of chemiclas shift around in the plant and when drying is done you sitting at about 50%. where as when you wait till 50% before harvest you gona end up with 80% amber and that's basically sleeping medicine.

 

[Trichome]

Naughty.Psychonaut thank for answering in detail brother.That’s what I was looking for.So to be clear I am not increasing the Grow from Iml only the Bloom? Also what about the frequency of fertilizer vs water.Do I feed every watering or every second or third?

[Trichome]

Prom 

Thanks for the advice brother,I appreciate it.I think when I hit the plants with the first feeding of Biobizz I probably still had too much Ammendments left in the soil.I think the soil NPK was still too high and I went and put fertilizer on top of that.

actually the first issues started with the Biobizz nutes and not the synthetic.

[ORGANinc.]

Hello @Trichome Plant looks good, I think the deficiencies you are noticing are actually lockout issues. New growth looks good. 15l pots filled with Orgasoil

Part of me wants to say just water till the end as plant is not much bigger than pot. Other part if you must feed, way way less is more.

Edited February 23, 2023 by ORGANinc.

[ORGANinc.]

1 hour ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Just remember, as an organic grower you have a branding iron burn the following onto your brain - "Less Is More". - feeding a healthy plant wont make it healthier or grow faster, usually it just does more damage. 

This is only for people who are running the biobizz schedule, a lot of people using super soil or ammended soil can't really use these steps as it might cause more problems than anything. 

Feeding a healthy plant does more damage than good - I love this!

I think that can only apply to situations of surplus or excess. Which unbeknown to me, was the first 3/4 years of my growing experience obviously only because i was wanting to grow organic. But understanding little about how much unbalanced nutrients was actually in my soil, similar to that of Orgasoil and Antifragil. Good for flowering plants never the less.

Plants want small amounts of nutrients in the beginning of their life cycle, they want a lot at the end of their life. Everyone does it backwards with organics.

Edited February 23, 2023 by ORGANinc.

[ORGANinc.]

@Trichome please sir, nobody is taking a dig at you. Just in case.  Alls good in green 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

31 minutes ago, Trichome said:

Naughty.Psychonaut thank for answering in detail brother.That’s what I was looking for.So to be clear I am not increasing the Grow from Iml only the Bloom? Also what about the frequency of fertilizer vs water.Do I feed every watering or every second or third?

Rather make the mistake with organic and learn from the mistake and try to get over to the organic side than to try and force mix synthetic and organic and force things to work. 

the problem with synthetics isn't that it doesn't work, neither does it make the plant worse for you to consume. the problem with synthetics is it defeats the purpose of "life" which is your main focus when growing in living soil. (organic soil should be alive, if not you leaning towards inert and shouldn't be growing in soil anyway) 

keep things alive. then you'll notice how little we talk about when we say less is more. you gona be giving almost no nutes. 

now to answer your question here, the only nutrient that fluctuates is the Bloom, yeah. all the rest you keep at 1ml/L straight through. obviously unless you see burnt tips like I said before, then you give just clean water 2 or 3 times in a row and then back to feed. 

Ok, let me start with this. you buy soil loaded with nutrients then you plant into the soil, most important thing here is microbes. (basically always most important when talking organic). Once transplant you use clean water (dechloronated if you can) and either add a bunch of microbes to your water or mix into soil when planting. The dechlorinated part is most important right now, because you're inoculating microbes and chlorine and chloramine kills off microbes like no ones business, that's why it's in the tap water in the first place. (chlorine compounds escape water in the form of a gas, flouride you have to remove with a 3phase filter. once your microbes are thriving in the amount of chlorine is too little to bother it, plus cannabis plants also use the chlorine as a micro nutrient so using dechlorinated water all the time also isn't the best, but needed with inoculation. 

From here on you literally just give clean tap water untill you either see signs of deficiency then start with the biobizz stuff like explained. 

Every grower gona have their own watering regime, though there is a sweet spot for every different media and and and.... Media that dries out faster will need more frequent watering and vice versa, also depending on environmental conditions, my plants dry out faster in summer than winter, so my watering changes. it's never a set in stone once off one style across the board, it's more of a build a relationship with the soil and maintain the sweet spot. 

inert media = roots should never ever dry or you encourage salt build up and root damage. 

soil growers = maintain between 30 - 70% moisture. keeping it at 50% is a little risky, cause then you encourage root rot. it's important for soil to dry out to a certain extent so the roots can get a moment to take in some oxygen. Oxygen is SUPER important to your roots and people really over look this since the roots are underground and what not, like they say out of sight out of mind, but that's again ignorance. Also, as the knife cuts both ways, other side is that leaving your soil above 50% moisture for too long will obviously also encourage root rot and the root zone will become favourable to all kinds of pathogens. 

Here is what I do, I got my plants in 30L material pots, I water them every single night. Each pot gets minimum 300ml and maximum 500ml depening on if the leaves are praying or drooping, weather, what I did before, how much the plant is asking for at that moment. 

I keep a 3 to 5cm thick alfalfa layer as mulch so the top soil doesn't dry out, cause as you'd imagine 300 to 500ml doesn't settle too deep in the 30L pot, but giving that much every single night will keep the pot in that 30 to 70% moisture flux. I water it goes up to around 70% next night before I water again it'll be around 30%.... that's the sweet spot for me here where I am at and with my environmental conditions. may be different situation for you. 

 

[ORGANinc.]

Im Sure he knows the basics through, I read above i think he says he grew hyrdo before. 

Anyhow, plant still looks good and well on its way to being lekke bud

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

55 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

Im Sure he knows the basics through, I read above i think he says he grew hyrdo before. 

Anyhow, plant still looks good and well on its way to being lekke bud

yes I was typing out an answer to his question here 

 

3 hours ago, Trichome said:

So to be clear I am not increasing the Grow from Iml only the Bloom? Also what about the frequency of fertilizer vs water.Do I feed every watering or every second or third?

as clear as I possibly could I was going short form but thought wait, get 50 growers in a room ask them "how does one grow" you'll get 50 different answers. so there wasn't a "Do this" or "do that" answer. I rather go full deep explanation. there is mos a big difference in hydro and living soil

if I look at his reaction here to my previous answer, it seems it's what the man was looking for. 

3 hours ago, Trichome said:

Naughty.Psychonaut thank for answering in detail brother.That’s what I was looking for.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Naughty.Psychonaut

[SkunkPharm]

I would not worry to much. Genetics play a big role like they said here in the thread. Just keep feeding biobizz bloom and maybe add some biologicals like biodyne. Plants grown organically should not have any fan leaves by the end of the grow. 

[GreenGalaxyFarm]

Personally i wouldnt just throw some biobizzz bloom at her and hope for the best, some monster bloom or similar especiallly around swelling and maybe a ripener as well will get you better results. This process is made super easy with bottles but you can definitely go the dry amendments route as well  for similar results.

[Prom]

Not just bloom ^^ give em the standard feeding after the BB table. The main issue is the soil.. you can't rate it as soil anymore after the chemical maze. If you check the pH from the BioBizz solution.. is not in the rage you should feed.. and no micro organisms to balance it for you. If you want to stick to biological... you have to bring life back into the soil.. like @SkunkPharm mentioned, Biodyne will help a lot, i use the 401 Environoc and is a very sexy addon if you just did a flush on a pot and get things back in order faster. Working with dead soil means you have to pH the feeding solution or lockout is preset.

[Trichome]

Guys thanks a lot for the information and taking the time to reply.

I do know the basics as I have quite a lot of experience in hydro and inert soil mediums using liquid nutes indoors.As mentioned this is my first outdoor organic/ living soil grow and I obviously have a lot to learn so I am open to any and all lengthy explanations even if I know some of it!

I think next time I’ll use some FF mix and concentrate on just feeding the soil as opposed to the roots or I will do a hybrid organic grow using an inert medium like coco coir with Organic liquid nutes.

[Trichome]

@ Naughty Psychonaut 
Thanks for the detailed info.I do think maybe part of my problem is I’ve been letting my soil get too dry between watering.In doors in potting soil with synthetic nutes I always used to let them get nice and dry between watering and then water with about 20%run off just before they started to wilt.Obviously this ‘living soil’ deal is quit a bit different.I’m definitely gun shy now when it comes to using bottled organic nutrients.It seems obvious to me now that plenty of soil and careful,measured watering is the way to go and also to only use the bottled stuff when the plant shows signs of needing nutrients. I loved the Freedom farms seedling mix as my seedlings did so well in it!

Edited February 23, 2023 by Trichome

[Trichome]

If any of you guys are still checking in on this thread It’d be great to hear opinions on the two main ‘super soil’ blends on the market from those with experience using them.At some point I’d like to try my hand at making my own soil but only when I understand the estimated break down of various amendments in the soil and time frame of availability to the plant better. 

[Trichome]

This is only for people who are running the biobizz schedule, a lot of people using super soil or ammended soil can't really use these steps as it might cause more problems than anythingThis is only for people who are running the biobizz schedule, a lot of people using super soil or ammended soil can't really use these steps as it might cause more problems than anything

 

@Naughty.Psychonaut

I think what you said here is key but since I was seeing signs of deficiency before ever starting the Biobizz I put it down to the reasoning that my roots had completely filled the medium and had depleted the soil.I think not having more space for the roots and thereby access to more nutrients is what caused me to run into a situation where I had to move fast.Adding a top dressing would be too slow to fix anything I think even if I had some compost tea or whatever!

Thanks again for all your help.I definitely have some good information to digest! This way of growing is a learning curve but It’s starting to sink in!

I’ve come to the conclusion that the super soil route is definitely not for small grows in small containers.

I’m thinking very big fabric bags next time around and all living soil grow in spring

[Weskush]

The living soil route takes time and patience. The first process is leaving the blended soil to cook under a tarp or bin for a minimum of 4 weeks to activate microbial life and breaking down of elements. Super soil run very hot which makes the cooking process vital. After this process the soil must be amended on occassional basis. Bone meal, bat guano etc. Different amendments gets absorbed at different rates. No instant fix here. Check out "super soil recipes" on the net. Synthetics is not sustainable while with living soil, if you keep the microbial organisms alive in the medium, can be used repeatedly and gets better with time. Regarding container size. Ideally 100L or more in fabric pots or a grow bed. With fabric pots the dry out happens much faster than with a grow bed which requires constant monitoring to prevent destruction of microbial life in the soil. 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Weskush

[Trichome]

Weskush

Makes sense,thank you.