First off, thank you for taking an interest in my thread. I can really use the help, it's true what The Rev said (I think it was him) that when switching to organics you are taking one step back to take two forward.
I did do some top dressing on mine. At day 19 I top dressed the Kosher Tangies with a high phos bat guano, and at day 25, I top dressed all the plants with about a gallon of the same soil mix their in, but this time it was 'cooked'. Since that didn't appear to be doing much, day 30 something I started adding CalMag by General Organics and Molasses to the water, and for the Kosher Tangies I have added some 5-1-1 fish emulsion. I think those things have all helped prevent the leaves from fully yellowing, but once it starts, seems so hard to reverse...at least organically. I may try your top dress recipe in the future, I'm sure those EWC would have helped...but next round I was planning on using teas in flower stage, so maybe I'll be good. Maybe I'm running into deficiency because the soil was not 'cooked'??
Just a few things to chew on...
- the high phos guano is good for root growth, but doesn't offer you much in terms of flower development nutrition, as it's low in potassium.
- in in living soils, I have never had a calcium deficiency... so i'm curious what your input amounts were for calcium materials. maybe you can boost them up for the next round.
- a top dressing of soil is a fairly weak addition of nutrition if its 2" or less (especially if it's weak in the potassium you needed for continued flower development). whereas by adding that 1/4-1/3 cup of bloom amendment with the compost will be adding a more concentrated dose of food, and also organisms right along with them from the compost! Roots colonize my top dressings so quickly, it amazes me!
- and the fish emulsion, same thing, low in flowering nutrients when comparing it to the amount of nitrogen it has. yellowing leaves in the most recent growth will be a factor other than nitrogen, and since N is mobile in the plant it will pull from the lower leaves (i figure you already know this, but just stating in case
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Oh btw, I think my Kosher Tangies look better in the pics than in person. The colas seem a lot skinnier in real life imho. Perhaps I should do something about my low RH. It's around 33, I've never bothered trying to get it up, for fear of mold issues (and laziness too). Need to read up on VPD. Would proper humidity levels have an impact on the plants ability to uptake the nutrients in the soil?
I too have been contemplating how to deal with the RH... and my line of thinking is right with yours... maybe they aren't running most efficiently right now. They are definitely working hard this time of year when its cold and dry out. But it doesn't seem to be affecting me all that much. I guess I will compare my winter harvests to my summer harvests and see if there is a correlation/causation between the different environmental conditions. even that's tough because of variance of plant sizes.
Seems to me the only effective way is to switch to a sealed room, because when you have a passive air grow, its hard to change environmental conditions when the air is recirculating so quickly out of the room, and environmental air is constantly coming in. So IMO, this would call for a sealed room, so everything can be controlled. expensive venture... but maybe it will pay itself off in the first run! lol
, I have not checked the PH once during this grow. Somebody suggested checking the ph of the water runoff, compare to the PH of the water going in, and the soil's PH should be right about in the middle? Does this sound right? Thanks.
Well there are people with different schools of thought on this subject. While i agree with the average of the pH between in and out is somewhat accurate for soil pH... I just don't see it being as accurate as a good soil pH meter right in the soil (not the cheapy ones). I bought one from bluelabs that was around 175$ i think. I was still using organic bottles at the time, but found that the sunshine mix did not contain enough liming agent so my pH was always dropping at the end of flower and i knew something was going on. once i figured that out, and limed the mix properly, my pH stayed perfect the whole grow, and the plants were going nuts with bud development.
every now and again i check the pH of my no-tills to make sure nothing funny is happening. I noticed the other week my dairy queens new growth was looking yellow and i assumed Fe deficiency. checked the pH, and it was over 7; Fe was insoluble. I had a PM freakout when i saw a spot on a leaf, and drenched the plants with K-Bicarb solution... i forgot to cover my soil with a drip guard. K-bicarb is very alkaline... so hence the alkaline spike! threw in some gypsum with a topdress of compost and some other nutrients and one week later they looked perfect. checked pH after 2 weeks, came out 6.4!
second... you can't afford to be having runoff when your nutrients are of a finite amount in your soil. runoff carries away valuable nutrition! so i'm of the school of never have runoff! also, i'm curious of what your watering habits were? I never let pots go "dry", as dryness decreases microbial activity and possible slow growth. i'm more of a keep it "uniformly moist" all the time kind of guy
Sorry for the novel lol. But I definitely enjoy trying to help out the organic community... there aren't many of us around!
