PANGcake
Active Member
I put this together as I think it can help many lost souls out there in the forums, I was one of them too...trial and error.
Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. (everything but the lord part, I'm mearly a peasant
)
DON'T use soil with a wide pH range, ex. 5,5-6,5 pH, this means the soil is badly mixed. Soils between 6,0-6,5 pH is in my opinion best. I use a soil with pH 6,2 and this has shown great for nutrient uptake and overall growth.
DON'T plant you seed or cutting in a hot soil for vegging plants. Use a lighter soil. When I grow from seed I put the seed in a top layer of light soil (2-3inch) and hot soil beneath for it to break into after few days. When grown from cutting/clone I put my cuttings in a light mix untill they have rooted well under a humidity dome, and when transplanted I put them in hot soil.
DON'T use supermarket soil. Cheaper soils tend to have wide pH range and less nutrients and most of them don't even have micro nutrients. Typically they contain N-P-K, calcium and magnesium (Mg) but no micro nutrients and with a cirka value for pH.
DON'T use a brand of soil that doesn't declare the contents (typically cannabis brands don't). It's a lot easier to diagnose a plant deficiency if you know the contents of your soil and nutrients. Some deficiencies show same symptoms wich really makes it a guessing game unless you know what your working with.
DON'T feed your plants any nutrients during the first 3-4 weeks. If you have invested in a soil proven to be packed with macro and micro nutrients you don't need to feed your plants anything but water first few weeks. This is where many first timers go wrong. They're so eager for the plants to grow and typically burn them early on. I on the other hand waited too long on my first grow
and first sign was Mg deficiency.
DON'T pH the water before adding nutrients and in most cases you don't even have to pH the nutrient solution either. Nutrients I use put the solution at 6,5 pH wich is a good value for the plant to maximize nutrient uptake.
DON'T waste money on a pH pen. When growing in soil you don't need a 100% accuracy for testing your nutrient solution. Most soils are made up by mainly peat wich buffers excellent hence it's not important to know the exact pH of the nutrient solution, it's more important to know the pH of the soil, some direction is allways good though and for that I recomend pH drops for fresh water. I bought them for around 7$ for 250 tests and I've used them bout 20 times, now I know the pH value for adding different amounts of nutrients and really don't test my pH anymore, not even when flushing since I got it written down how much of pH down I need.
DON'T use nutrients made for hydroponic cultivation exclusivly. Use nutrients for soil purposes wich containts both macro and micronutrients, make sure it doesn't lack anything vital for cannabis. I use a 14-14-21 all the way through from veg to harvest wich has a high content of Mg 0,6% and enough of the other micronutrients.
DON'T use nutrients that don't reveal their content (typicall cannabis nutrient brands). Same as I mentioned earlier on regarding soil, it's a lot easier diagnosing a plant problem knowing the exact contents of both soil and nutrients.
DON'T feed any nutrients to your plant(s) last week up till harvest, for best taste and aroma cannabis should be allowed some N deficiciency in late bloom. Only feed water or flush with plain water.
DON'T harvest to early. Harvest time is an over all appearnce decission. If you only go by the colour of the trichomes you might fool yourself as the amber tint trichomes take on late in bloom goes in waves, they might very well be 50% amber in week 6 only to be all clear day after. The bud should be swollen and hard, the pistills have started their way back into their pods and are about 50% brown (this varies from strain to strain) and trichomes should be fully formed. I leave it up to you to decide if to harvest when trichomes are all clear, cloudy or started to amber. I have only grown Indicas and they are in my opinion best to harvest when trichomes are all cloudy, this way you get lil of both worlds. If harvest when clear you can achieve a more uppy high but it won't last long and you'll get dissapointed. If harvested when cloudy you get both an uppy high and a stoney body feeling. If harvested when trichomes are allowed to become 25-30% amber you get a good sleeping pill, best to smoke alone
DON'T use any fast drying methods. This will damage your final product sevearly. Hang the plants whole at a temp 20-25C and RH around 40% and good airflow, not directed to the chopped plants. This will allow for a slow drying, typically takes me 7-9 days, allowing for most of the chlorophyll to be broken down and evaporated with the moist, before curing.. At this time stems should still be bendy not snappy. Trim and place buds in jars. Trimming right before the curing IF most chlorophyll is broken down, will allow your buds to sweat and stink up. If dried to fast then starting to cure the chlorophyll break down process will go on in your jar and add to that hay smell we all know of.
DON'T ever think that curing will give you dank nugs. If it's not dank at harvest it won't be dank after curing. Curing only improves!
Vote on thread to let me know what you guys n' gurls think. If you have any questions post them in thread and I will try answer them.
Keep it real!
//CaL
Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. (everything but the lord part, I'm mearly a peasant
)DON'T use soil with a wide pH range, ex. 5,5-6,5 pH, this means the soil is badly mixed. Soils between 6,0-6,5 pH is in my opinion best. I use a soil with pH 6,2 and this has shown great for nutrient uptake and overall growth.
DON'T plant you seed or cutting in a hot soil for vegging plants. Use a lighter soil. When I grow from seed I put the seed in a top layer of light soil (2-3inch) and hot soil beneath for it to break into after few days. When grown from cutting/clone I put my cuttings in a light mix untill they have rooted well under a humidity dome, and when transplanted I put them in hot soil.
DON'T use supermarket soil. Cheaper soils tend to have wide pH range and less nutrients and most of them don't even have micro nutrients. Typically they contain N-P-K, calcium and magnesium (Mg) but no micro nutrients and with a cirka value for pH.
DON'T use a brand of soil that doesn't declare the contents (typically cannabis brands don't). It's a lot easier to diagnose a plant deficiency if you know the contents of your soil and nutrients. Some deficiencies show same symptoms wich really makes it a guessing game unless you know what your working with.
DON'T feed your plants any nutrients during the first 3-4 weeks. If you have invested in a soil proven to be packed with macro and micro nutrients you don't need to feed your plants anything but water first few weeks. This is where many first timers go wrong. They're so eager for the plants to grow and typically burn them early on. I on the other hand waited too long on my first grow
and first sign was Mg deficiency.DON'T pH the water before adding nutrients and in most cases you don't even have to pH the nutrient solution either. Nutrients I use put the solution at 6,5 pH wich is a good value for the plant to maximize nutrient uptake.
DON'T waste money on a pH pen. When growing in soil you don't need a 100% accuracy for testing your nutrient solution. Most soils are made up by mainly peat wich buffers excellent hence it's not important to know the exact pH of the nutrient solution, it's more important to know the pH of the soil, some direction is allways good though and for that I recomend pH drops for fresh water. I bought them for around 7$ for 250 tests and I've used them bout 20 times, now I know the pH value for adding different amounts of nutrients and really don't test my pH anymore, not even when flushing since I got it written down how much of pH down I need.
DON'T use nutrients made for hydroponic cultivation exclusivly. Use nutrients for soil purposes wich containts both macro and micronutrients, make sure it doesn't lack anything vital for cannabis. I use a 14-14-21 all the way through from veg to harvest wich has a high content of Mg 0,6% and enough of the other micronutrients.
DON'T use nutrients that don't reveal their content (typicall cannabis nutrient brands). Same as I mentioned earlier on regarding soil, it's a lot easier diagnosing a plant problem knowing the exact contents of both soil and nutrients.
DON'T feed any nutrients to your plant(s) last week up till harvest, for best taste and aroma cannabis should be allowed some N deficiciency in late bloom. Only feed water or flush with plain water.
DON'T harvest to early. Harvest time is an over all appearnce decission. If you only go by the colour of the trichomes you might fool yourself as the amber tint trichomes take on late in bloom goes in waves, they might very well be 50% amber in week 6 only to be all clear day after. The bud should be swollen and hard, the pistills have started their way back into their pods and are about 50% brown (this varies from strain to strain) and trichomes should be fully formed. I leave it up to you to decide if to harvest when trichomes are all clear, cloudy or started to amber. I have only grown Indicas and they are in my opinion best to harvest when trichomes are all cloudy, this way you get lil of both worlds. If harvest when clear you can achieve a more uppy high but it won't last long and you'll get dissapointed. If harvested when cloudy you get both an uppy high and a stoney body feeling. If harvested when trichomes are allowed to become 25-30% amber you get a good sleeping pill, best to smoke alone
DON'T use any fast drying methods. This will damage your final product sevearly. Hang the plants whole at a temp 20-25C and RH around 40% and good airflow, not directed to the chopped plants. This will allow for a slow drying, typically takes me 7-9 days, allowing for most of the chlorophyll to be broken down and evaporated with the moist, before curing.. At this time stems should still be bendy not snappy. Trim and place buds in jars. Trimming right before the curing IF most chlorophyll is broken down, will allow your buds to sweat and stink up. If dried to fast then starting to cure the chlorophyll break down process will go on in your jar and add to that hay smell we all know of.
DON'T ever think that curing will give you dank nugs. If it's not dank at harvest it won't be dank after curing. Curing only improves!
Vote on thread to let me know what you guys n' gurls think. If you have any questions post them in thread and I will try answer them.
Keep it real!
//CaL
I've done a side by side where I gave 2 plants nothing but water their first 3 weeks, only difference was one was fed water at 6,5 pH and the other water straight outta the tap at 8,4 pH and they grew equally good. I still think it could stress your plant initially when watered a pH way outta range even though the soil buffers that's why I used the drops to get aproximate values. Another experiment I did to see how good the soil really is at buffering was I flushed a bagseed plant w water 8,4 pH. It had been growing in that soil for 9 weeks getting fed at 6,5 pH. The run off after flushing it 3 x the size of the pot was still at 6,0 pH as the soil. From my "experiments" and from the advice given to me from people not making any $$$ on their advice I came to the conclusion that the pH doesn't need to be spot on. This is my take on the pH hysteria 
