Fish hydroslate or fish emulsions, alfalfa tea/topdress/foliar.
if the ph was off a lock up would happen and report as deficiencies, adding more ferts wont help then
Just wanted to second this post. In my experience any sort of deficiency and/or toxicity is typically related to problems with your soil and/or your watering practices/schedule. Most problems we will experience with organics has more to do with your soil being properly balanced as opposed to having too little/too much of something.
Wow thats a lot of info. Great stuff. I dont recall smelling any ammonia. I didn't quite do exact measurements, so i'm going to do my best to answer you're questions as accurately as i can.Just wanted to second this post. In my experience any sort of deficiency and/or toxicity is typically related to problems with your soil and/or your watering practices/schedule. Most problems we will experience with organics has more to do with your soil being properly balanced as opposed to having too little/too much of something.
If you over-water your soil it will cause all sorts of issues that look like deficiencies. Too much water in your medium can throw off your pH over time because the constant supply of water will be reacting with the nutrients/elements within your soil medium, as a result you'll start seeing false "deficiencies" or "toxicities" that is usually your pH being out of whack 9/10 times.
The idea of organics regulating the pH itself is often misunderstood and is the reason why many people believe they do in fact have deficiencies/toxicities. Yes, a living organic soil is definitely able to regulate it's own pH, but only when the soil itself is properly balanced. A properly balanced soil doesn't just have to do with the types of amendments that are in it, but also the quality of the compost/EWC in the mix, the amount of aeration/oxygen in your soil, and the amount of water as well.
Too much water will make your medium's pH out of whack, depending on what the water was reacting with in your soil at the time will make your pH either too acidic or too alkaline. Either way this is a problem because if your pH isn't in the 6.5-6.8 range you will experience lock outs that will manifest themselves in the form of "deficiencies". Like your nitrogen problem for instance; you had a clone in the soil for 3 weeks, I highly doubt that a 6-12in clone used up all of the nitrogen in the soil. The only way you could actually be out of nitrogen in your soil is if you used something like blood meal and/or guano in the soil and let things go anaerobic when you let it cook. If your soil goes anaerobic, that nasty smell it gives off is actually ammonium gas and that smell is literally your nitrogen evaporating from the soil. This could also be an issue even with a plant in the medium, as if your soil has too much water then there isn't enough oxygen and therefore only anaerobic microbes can survive, meaning your nitrogen is all being lost in the form of ammonium gas. If you haven't smelled any ammonium, this likely isn't your issue, and you would know if you smelled it believe me!
So, if you still have nitrogen in your soil, but your plant isn't getting any of it then the only explanation here is that you're actually experiencing a lock out due to too much water and/or too little drainage. If I may recommend, get yourself a moisture tester and a Chapin sprayer as that will allow you to water as optimally as possible aside from maybe Blumats or something. Unless the plant is completely rootbound I NEVER water until I see runoff. Only water like that when you know you have a rootbound plant, otherwise there will likely be way too much water in your soil with such a tiny clone. Remember, the roots are what uptake the water in the soil, so if you only have 1g of rootmass and 5 gallons of soil you only need to provide enough water for the microbes to survive and for your roots to uptake. With that in mind, the amount of water you give will be directly proportional to the size of your root mass. I've been growing on and off for nearly 7 years, the last 2-3 years have been living organic soil. I've only just now started to realize just how important properly watering is because I've been messing it up for that long. Most of the problems I've ever had as well as many of the problems I see people on here have are almost always related to watering.
If I may, allow me to ask a few questions? I'll be able to help much better when I have an idea of what your exact situation is instead of continuing to type out a miniature novel xD
1) You said you just transplanted the 1g to a 5g pot. How often have you been watering the 5g pot and how much water do you give your clone when you do water?
2) You said your 5g pot has amended soil in it, could you tell me more about what is in your soil exactly? How long did you let it sit and "cook" for? What, if anything, was used to inoculate the soil?
3) What ratios are in your soil in terms of peat/aeration/compost? 33% of each? 50% peat, 30% aeration, and 20% compost? What ratios did you use?
Get back to me with the answers to those questions and I'll do my best to help you out.
For what it's worth, unless you're in flower you shouldn't be too concerned about stunting. When you're in veg, the worst case scenario with mistakes is that you have to veg for longer than normal so they can recover.. but they are more than capable of recovering from just about anything in veg. My air conditioning went out for 6+ hours one time before I noticed, my girls were in 122 degree heat in a sealed room with zero air conditioning or ventilation. Fortunately I was running CO2 and supplement with silica, otherwise they likely would have died for sure. 6 hours in 122 degree heat and they weren't even droopy. I did experience mediocre yields with that grow, but it was due to errors I made in flower, not the heat stress from veg. When you're in veg, unless the plant is 100% dead you can bring it back with enough time and care. Hopefully you're in veg as that will allow us to take our time with this issue and allow you to properly troubleshoot not just this issue, but hopefully provide you with enough information that will allow you to have a seamless grow come flower. Come flower, there are no second chances unfortunately..
1) So if I'm understanding properly, you're currently in 5g pots at the moment after having transplanted from a 1g pot correct? I have the same issues with the aeration pots, a lot of the water tends to fall out the side and as a result doesn't completely saturate the soil because most of your water is becoming run off. This will only become more of an issue once the pots get root bound as you'll have to water slowly or else all of the water will just rush out of the sides of your pot. It's entirely possible that your plants aren't actually getting the full 1/2 gallon of water which makes me think that maybe they weren't getting enough water at first, on top of that fact it was a new transplant, so the roots of your 1g transplant haven't had enough time to get in sync with your living soil. You're reporting that your plants are looking healthy at the moment (awesome!!), so my thinking is that it just took the plant a little while to get settled. Before a plant really starts showing any growth, it has to establish it's roots first but once they're readily established then watch out! I recommend looking into a pump sprayer for watering, I just got one for the first time myself and I can't see how I lived without it before. It is so much easier to control the amount of water your plants get when it comes out as a fine mist as opposed to a shower head. This way you can water nice and slowly, allowing you to evenly moisten your entire medium and ensuring that there is minimal to no run off coming out of the sides of your pots. The other thing to consider about improper watering is that it will leave "dry spots" in your soil. If the water flows out the sides as run off, then certain spots inside of your soil are getting zero water because it actually runs out the sides before it can be absorbed by the soil. These dry spots can cause issues and inhibit your roots ability to completely fill the pot as well as inhibit your microbiology. It takes a lot longer to water with a pump sprayer than it does a hose, but taking the extra time to water with a pump sprayer will give you a noticeable improvement almost over night.
Thanks for the tips, I'll get a pump sprayer soon. Hopefully it wont take forever to water my plants? Would you suggest I go from fabric to just plain plastic pots for side draining or is the pump going to fix my issue entirely?
That's actually why I recommend the pump sprayer, watering the fabric pots is a bitch with the water flowing out of the sides.. but the pots themselves are amazing. Rather than switch back to plastic pots to avoid that issue, I wanted to find a compromise that allowed me to continue to use the fabric pots because I don't even want to use anything else. The pump sprayer is mainly for until your pot gets rootbound, then you can get away with a hose no problem because by that point you'll struggle to water them enough if anything! The other thing about the pump sprayer is that I finally realized its best to just do multiple waterings/mistings of the top layer of soil to keep it moist, if you only have a 1 gallon root mass you dont want to water until you see runoff at that point.. you'll only drown the roots that are trying to grow and establish themselves as well as your microbes. This is especially true when you're dealing with seedlings and/or clones, they want moist soil so they can establish themselves at their own pace.. but if things get too wet and water doesn't drain properly the roots will die rather than grow.
It is at least 4 cu ft. 1 bag of happy frog is 2. 1bag of ocean forest is 1.5. The Alaskan humus is .5 which is 4.so its at least 5 then. Plus all my chunky perlite
LOL that makes sense. I messed up the math in my head when I said 1.5 - 2 cu ft.
I personally felt like 2cups wasn't a large amount, but what I feel doesn't really matter when I've never done this before LOL. But by ratio it didn't seem like a large amount. I was more worried about not amendingenpugh N because castings are only 1-0-0
You are doing great, just asking the others that are more experienced if they think it was a good addition. You will definitely make adjustments over time. I'm asking for both of us.
Hey man, sorry I didn't reply to this.. RIU seems to be pretty hit and miss with it's alerts as I never got an alert showing you replied to me!
So what are most folks primary source of N? Is it usually EWC? I was rolling over the idea of getting my own worm bin for fresh castings.Hey man, sorry I didn't reply to this.. RIU seems to be pretty hit and miss with it's alerts as I never got an alert showing you replied to me!
As for the bat guano, I've shied away from the stuff in the last couple of years as it can be quite temperamental. If you decide to go with guano, err on the side of caution. If it's too little you can always add more via top dress, but too much guano will cause you all sorts of heartbreak in the long run.
Guano is fine to use, I just don't like it anymore personally and feel there are better ways to get P into your soil. Clackamas Coots is responsible for a lot of the information I know concerning organics, and he is why I've stopped using high P products. Apparently, if your soil gets too high in phosphorus it will actually inhibit the ability for certain microbes to live in your soil. An organic soil that has too much phosphorus in it won't allow for certain microbes to inhabit your soil. All I really use for my P in my soil is crab meal and supplement with fish hydrolysate as needed, has worked just fine for me thus far
