3 days on jack's 5-12-26 and the plants are loving it! Bye bye General Hydroponics forever

[Milky Weed]

I tried it once.
But I think I muffed up and started using it too early. Hoping it would help push trichs to start clouding etc. Ran it for 4 weeks if I remember correctly. Did not have ph problem.

If I try it again, my plan is to wait until trichs start turning milky. I'm not a flusher.

I think I used it too early also. Has SO MUCH K in it i cut it with more N. My leaf’s started yellowing up from lack of nitrogen.

 

[Failmore]

Dabpress has a pretty outstanding reputation. I haven't seen a single bad review from anyone. I called their tech support line just to ask a few questions about the different models and their customer service is phenomenal. Informative and very easy to talk to unlike most other customer service A-holes you get on the phone.

There are 3 kinds of people in this world when it comes to MacGyvering shit: people that can build things, people that think they can build things, and people that need supervision to operate a toaster. I know I can't build things and don't even make the attempt. I'm the guy that needs supervision operating the toaster

What was the issue with your home made press?

It was hard for me to mount the press to the bottom block and keep it solid. Did not have the correct parts for it. So I was not getting solid contact. Then when I tried to fix it I messed up the jack and gave up.

 

[jonnynobody]

I was asking in a different thread, but didn't get much of a reply. Why does Jack's use calnit instead of calcium carbonate? Why don't they boost the nitrogen in part A and keep the calcium more isolated? That way you would be less likely have nitrogen toxicity or calcium deficiencies in the flowering cycle. Especially while using RO water and LEDs. Is there any advantage of calnit aside from cost?

Would it be a good idea to use Part A and magnesium, but sub the Part B for Calimagic or some type of calcium carbonate? I read somewhere that the plant takes and uses 80% of N during veg. Would the 5% in part A be enough during flower?

I wouldn't quibble much over why one manufacturer uses calcium carbonate versus calcium nitrate. It's much ado about nothing.
GH uses calcium nitrate in maxi grow: https://www.brewandgrow.com/gh-maxigro-22-lb-pouch.html
And they use it in their flora series within the micro bottle: https://www.1000bulbs.com/pdf/gh-gh1414-label.pdf

Like I said it's really much ado about nothing. Maybe GH gets calcium carbonate cheaper? They are a money grubbing piece of shit company. I really wouldn't read too much into it. I've never had an issue with using the standard jack's recipe as it's listed on the bag diluted to 1.6ec PH adjusted to 5.8.

If you prefer to reduce the calcium input in the final weeks of your flower cycle you simply reduce the calcium nitrate. At the end of the flower cycle the plant isn't creating new growth of any kind. The plants are just ripening. There's no need for all that calcium and nitrogen at the end so many people do reduce in the last 2 weeks. Jack's own regimen on their feed chart suggests using the 7-15-30 finish formula for the last 2 weeks with no calcium nitrate. There are a couple approaches you can take to reduce the nitrogen input at the end of flower.

I ran the 7-15-30 finish formula and I'm not sure what to think. I didn't notice any notable difference vs running 321 to the end. I also do not flush.

 

[jonnynobody]

It was hard for me to mount the press to the bottom block and keep it solid. Did not have the correct parts for it. So I was not getting solid contact. Then when I tried to fix it I messed up the jack and gave up.

You at least made a valiant effort. That's more than most will ever do (myself included). There were some reviews I saw where people were receiving brand new presses that had fucked up plates that were uneven and wouldn't line up. This situation reminds me of the old saying about why you pay a carpenter to swing a hammer. You've got a squeaky floorboard that's driving you nuts. Carpenter shows up, scratches his head for a second, and gives a couple solid whacks with his trusty hammer to a particular board on the floor. Magically the squeak has been fixed. Carpenter looks at the customer and says, alright that'll be $150. Customer says, why would I pay that? All you did was hit a board with your hammer. I coulda done that! Carpenter smiles and says, did you know which board to whack with the hammer? That'll be $150 cash, check, or money order

 

[Snowback]

I've been rotating forbid, avid, and floramite every 3 days for about a week and a half now inspecting leaves the following day after each spray down. The plants have all been recovering nicely with new growth no longer twisting and no more rounded leaf tips. I also learned in this process if you see burned leaf edges and you know for a fact your fertilizer mix is correct you need to pull a leaf and check it under a scope. Mites love the leaf margins and veins for feeding and egg laying. I observed almost zero mite eggs in the center of very large leaves. Go to the edge and it's spider mite egg armageddon. I checked 10 or so leaves all with the same symptoms of burned edges. All had extensive mite eggs on the leaf edges.

I tore off every single leaf with burned edges then hosed 'em down in floramite @ full strength. Full hazmat suite & respirator of course. I mop the entire basement with bleach the night of spray then I use a pesticide only mop head to bleach out the grow room floors. Soak 'er in bleach for a day afterwards. Every morning I wake up with a fear that my garden will be decimated and today I finally feel relief. Every single plant is reaching for the sky again with fresh new foliage bursting out looking healthy and lime green as it should. I tore of a couple leaves from the most troubled plants and I had to look hard to find even 2 or 3 eggs whereas before I was finding patches of 20-30 eggs. The difference is incredible. I'm continuing the same spray regimen until they go into flower in 2 weeks. Then I'll switch to spinosad and venerate every 3 days for the entire flower cycle.

Jack's is doing fantastic! Here's a picture of the ladies back in action:

Blue dream just jack'n it:
View attachment 5026421

The whole room. A much smaller flower cycle this next run. I lost a lot of plants to mites unfortunately. It's been a hell of a learning experience and it won't be something I'll let happen again:
View attachment 5026422


Below are 2 strawberry cough's planted at the same time. 1 is in coco and 1 is in soil. Is that an incredible difference in size or what? I don't think I could afford to grow in soil with that kind of growth in coco. I'll be using coco exclusively moving forward:
View attachment 5026424

A throwback strain here. White widow. She was badly ravaged by mites. I'm impressed she's making a rapid turn around. Super stanky strain:
View attachment 5026425View attachment 5026426

Nursery a:
View attachment 5026427

Some blue dream and god bud clones. I lost 5 or so cuttings to mites not to mention all 6 of my gg#4's. That shit hurt. As the plants in the flower room recover and bush out over the next 2 weeks I'll take another round of cuttings as the mite situation will be resolved by then. I'll continue treating the clones though as if they're still there. No fucking around moving forward. I'm a mite wrecking machine from now on:
View attachment 5026428

Jager. She's a monster but smells like black licorice. Nice potency and very smooth but I'll be processing all of it as hash rosin:
View attachment 5026429

Bruce banger. She was almost dead before the miticide treatments every 3 days. I can't believe she's still alive. Unreal man:
View attachment 5026430

Blue dream bushing out loving life:
View attachment 5026431

You may already know this, but keep in mind that Avid is extremely toxic and it is also systemic.

 

[cobshopgrow]

Why does Calimagic use it then? It seems to be the most recommended calmag product.

ive never used their product, but i guess the nutrient manufactorers fill you everything in a bottle as long someone is buying it.
if they really use calcium carbonate only in their mix it should be as good as every slow release garden lime.
maybe buy a small bag of calcium carbonate powder and try yourself, it hardly disolve in water.

 

[jonnynobody]

You may already know this, but keep in mind that Avid is extremely toxic and it is also systemic.

It's awful horrible stuff. I wear a full hazmat suit with respirator. I'm sending a sample off for a test to a local testing facility after the next harvest. For $75 they'll hook you up with an analysis of what's in the plant matter. If there are any pesticides or other contaminants it will list the chemical and concentration.

Forbid has the longest half life at 45 days so if it's only being used in veg and the plants have another 60-70 days of flower it should be metabolized from the plant tissue by harvest time. Avid has a 28 day half life if I remember correctly. None of this is ideal. This is pure desperation.

 

[xtsho]

It's awful horrible stuff. I wear a full hazmat suit with respirator. I'm sending a sample off for a test to a local testing facility after the next harvest. For $75 they'll hook you up with an analysis of what's in the plant matter. If there are any pesticides or other contaminants it will list the chemical and concentration.

Forbid has the longest half life at 45 days so if it's only being used in veg and the plants have another 60-70 days of flower it should be metabolized from the plant tissue by harvest time. Avid has a 28 day half life if I remember correctly. None of this is ideal. This is pure desperation.

You feel the need to wear a respirator when applying the stuff yet you spray it on your plants?

Why don't you just use citric acid?

 

[jonnynobody]

You feel the need to wear a respirator when applying the stuff yet you spray it on your plants?

Why don't you just use citric acid?

I know man. It's far less than ideal taking this approach and as soon as they're eradicated I'll revert to my organic options. I've had good luck with venerate and spinosad, but all the other organic stuff I've tried has just damaged the plants. Horticultural soap was the worst even at 50% of the recommended dose it fried everything. Had to actually toss a few plants. I do plan to buy azagaurd in the near future. Azamax is absurdly overpriced, but the product works very well. I've got 2 more products I'm eyeing up for the IPM. Pyganic seems to be highly recommended and it's fairly cheap. The other one I plan to buy is azagaurd from domyown but that puppy is $230 or so. No smaller quantities. The value over buying azamax from those blood suckers at GH is tremendous due to the high concentration and low application rate. Gotta save a few more pennies to hit the order button on that one. Once the infestation is eradicatedTo be completely forthcoming I kept frying my plants with citric. I even reduced to 2tsp/quart and it kept frying my new foliage twisting and curling. I've made 3 attempts so far to make the citric work to no avail. Is there something I'm doing wrong with the application? I reduce the lights to a cloudy day with barely any output before I spray and the same thing keeps happening.

 

[rkymtnman]

calcium carbonate isnt really quickly avaiable to the plants, its too big to be taken up like it is

i've read that too but how is it true if calcium carbonate is in my well water and my plants never need Ca supplementation?

 

[cobshopgrow]

same for my tap water, while mine have way too much carbonates.
not directly avaible dont mean not avaible at all, if the carbonate reacts with some acid it becomes avaiable, like for the people who make calcium acetate, or lets take limed peat as example.
the peat is acidic the lime is alkaline, both together will react and make the calcium avaiable.
calcium carbonate is a pretty good PH up, am sure this all is nothing new for you, i just wanted to point it out.

 

[cobshopgrow]

i think maxibloom have some calcium carbonate included, but not much and it have a lot acidic P in it, so this will balance each other out and make it disolvable and avaiable to the plant.
on my hunt for calcium nitrate substitutes (as its hard to get anyway where i am) i also came across calcium sulfate, gypsum, quickly avaiable, quite PH neutral, you just have maybe too much sulfur in your mix which isnt a big deal often.
a nice option i never tried but eyed is chelated calcium, its really expensive and there are just a few sources, but it sounds really tempting to use later in flower.

 

[Snowback]

I also would be curious to try chelated calcium. A place not far from me sells it.

 

[cobshopgrow]

if you do please share the results.

 

[jonnynobody]

I had a repeat yesterday of the same issue I dealt with last grow cycle. The little red rust spot looking dots that appeared on my leaves on several plants was not the result of a deficiency. I only noticed them on 1 plant yesterday and the first occurrence with this grow cycle. I plucked a leaf to find out what was going on under my trusty 40x kids microscope. Effing spider mites were causing the spots. The leaves that had the spots were covered in mite eggs. I plucked every last one and hosed the plants down with a pesticide treatment. I'm now spraying daily alternating spinosad, venerate, and every 3rd day I'm rotating forbid, floramite, and avid. Shit is just unbelievable they're surviving with the onslaught of pesticide I've been applying.

Last cycle I was certain what I was seeing was a calcium deficiency. It was not and had nothing to do with fertilizer. I'd suggest anyone who is not running some form of IPM correct that shit immediately. Eventually lack of IPM will decimate your garden and make you wanna tear your hair out.

I started 30 or so fresh seeds and abandoned any ideas of taking clones from the infected plants. I'm over this shit. I've isolated the seedlings in a nursery far away from the flower room. I spray a 10% bleach solution on the floor all around the entrance of the nursery tent every day now. Learn from my pain and implement an IPM system of some kind.

 

[MidnightSun72]

Half way through my second small bag of Jacks Tap. So I just ordered a 22lb. The girls are vegging along nicely on it 0.7 starting EC. I add nutes up to 2.0EC. Then add Epsom up to 2.1EC. So far it's going really well. And my girls transitioned to the floraflex in flower perfectly. Really happy with Jacks.

 

[zzyx]

Grown with J R Peters Jacks Classic No.4 10-30-20

 

[jonnynobody]

Grown with J R Peters Jacks Classic No.4 10-30-20View attachment 5032273View attachment 5032275

Back in the day Uncle Ben over @ ICMAG was using the 20-20-20 with amazing results start to finish. He even tried a few of their other fertilizer mixes I've never seen anyone else use and his plants always looked amazing. His purpose was to clearly and definitely once and for all prove to everyone you do not need cannabis specific nutrients. It's all a sham. He'd post pictures of his frosty fat colas and it was very impressive. Great guy that gave great advice. It just took me a long time to listen

 

[Gno702]

So I have 2 stock solutions made up on hand. 1 is jack's 5-12-26 at the maximum solubility of 2# to 1 gallon RO water. The other is 580g calcium nitrate to 1 gallon RO water. I'm going to figure out how much liquid stock solution is needed of each that is equivalent to 3.6g/gallon of powder and 2.4g/gallon of powder. Once I have those numbers I can start rocking the stock solution accurately with confidence. I'll be adding epsom to my next stock solution to make res making day as easy as possible. I hate weighing powders

Some info would be greatly appreciated if possible
So I would like to make stock solution of Jacks 3.6 2.4 1.2 feed

So is it 3.6 x 100 for 51226
2.4 x 100 for cal nit
1.2/x 100 for Epsom
So after that how would you feed in mils per gal to get desired 321

 

[MidnightSun72]

Some info would be greatly appreciated if possible
So I would like to make stock solution of Jacks 3.6 2.4 1.2 feed

So is it 3.6 x 100 for 51226
2.4 x 100 for cal nit
1.2/x 100 for Epsom
So after that how would you feed in mils per gal to get desired 321

You would mix your powder liquid concentrate at a ratio of 1 to 1 to 1.

You need to test how much it raises the waters EC.
take a gallon of water and a table spoon of each and measure the EC. And then increase the number of table spoons of each mixture until you hit your desired EC.

so as an example. If your water starts at 0-0.1EC. And you add in 1 table spoon of each mixture and you end up with an EC of 0.8. Then you would know you need 2 tables spoons of each to hit an EC of ~1.6 then test and see.