Bos

Picked up this dead body this morning. Margaret Roberts organic catterpillar spray. Effective no doubt, first application a week ago since preflowering started. Will be applying every 14-21days depending on the rain to keep these buggers in check.

Still enjoying a secret jar of some Fruitpunch from last outdoor season. Sweet and strong.

If you have clones of the female, why the rush? Done exactly the same thing due to male/female timelines. Collected the pollen and used it on the female clone. You'd be surprized how many seeds you can collect from a smallish clone. Manipulations aside....IMO I'd prefer to keep the male as healthy/stress free as possible to maximize viable pollen production.

How warm/hot do those tyres get in the middle of the day? Can you touch them around 12h00? I have a few potted plants and their soil temps become real warm by the end of the day due to the dark coloured plastic. Covered mine with shadenet for now(it helped), going to paint them white or a light colour instead. Don't think elavated soil temps will do a grower any favours.

Sad day today...... Seems the heat was too much for the big Vanilla Kush lady. 2.5m tall and she grew BALLS....chop,chop.

Are you 100% sure its a mammalian... Large grasshoppers/locusts can do some serious damage. I've had medium sized plants in 20lt pots stripped of 70% foliage in the course of 2 days(locust). Certain butterfly larvae(worms) can also do a lot of damage.

Hand sanitizer, iso propyl alc. 70% is best. Unscented jik, used 100-50% dilution as a wipe down or 50-10% dilution for spraydown application. In a pinch 25gr HTH/1lt water solution or a potassium permanganate solution will work just as effectively as a sterilizing agent for tools.

Just observe proper sterile tech as @Prom mentioned. Bleach or IPA will do for the blade. Pathogens can spread very easily.

Basically the same thing. I go straight to solo cups with my cuttings. Hydrated/buffered coco, half fill the solo cups-tamp the coco down lightly. Poke a hole and insert cutting after applying hormone powder. 3days in dome mist twice a day or more if required. Roots usually appear around day 10. Then harden off in indirect sunlight after a fishmix 50% feed, then straight to soil.

Aweh How's the temps in your neck of RSA? We're clapping 51deg and 38 in the shade. Ladies showing a bit of wilt, understandably. Watered the growbeds last night and very glad we moved to growbeds, pots and bags would not have survived. Keep hydrated.

If you only ever learn one thing... @Totemic's First Two Lines. It's the difference between dirt and soil. If you can really look after the LIFE in the soil it will blow your mind. And it improves with time.

Eishhh, mostly why I've been moving away from the smaller volume pots and bags. The north coast heat and wind just makes it impossible, they just dry out too fast.

Aweh gromies. Ladies got their veg on, been having a hard time keeping the "low profile". Did 2-3 toppings on the big girls but alas... they refused to be kept down. Preflower stretch has commenced, can't fiddle too much any more. Got a few clones from the "best" Vanilla Kush and Pineapple Skunk representatives. Once rooted I'll introduce their male counterparts, might feminize some of the Vanilla Kush clones. The CBD and CBG girls in the 60lt tubs seem to be struggling with the heat and high rh, but they're showing decent growth, few more clones to be had there. Growbed has been topped with ewc, compost and a sprinkle of hardwood firepit ash previously. Last week a dash of rock dust and dolomitic lime watered in and topdressed with leafmulch and grass clippings. Haven't touched bottle nutes.

Agreed, don't do halfbaked. Yes, it will cost a bit in the short term but you'll have peace of mind in the long term. And a decent system will pay for itself in the long run without breaking down. Whats that saying...pennywise, pound foolish. Goedkoop koop is duur koop, same in afrikaans.

Aweh fellow greenfingers, Tis the season to jolly, hope all are doing great. The weather is doing its own in our valley, judging by some random plants revegging. Our growbeds are getting cramped(big girls), hence the 60lt tubs. (leaf photo for scale.) The Vostok auto girls/boys reacted to the funky/crazy weather and flipped early. Sooo....boy met girl and we'll have some beans for the winter run. Stay safe and out of trouble during this silly season and have a merry time. Puff, puff pass.... Cheers

Final written warning for sleeping on the job... Luckily the vervet troops in our neighbourhood do not eat colas, they prefer the butternut.

The only seeds I'm actually unhappy about are the ones that cost plenty moola. The others were sponsered. The Charlottes' (Dutch Passion) were purchased from a local RSA distributer which I'd prefer not to name untill they've responded to my emails.

Aweh gromies, The outdoor garden is coming along, albeit initial germination issues that messed with the timelines a bit. The whole pack of Charlottes' Angels were a dud, Wedding Cake and Amnesia same story.... No problems with the Pineapple Skunk and Vanilla Kush (bagseed) ladies. *2 years ago we gifted these bagseed beans to a friend from Lipopo who was just starting her growing journey, they found their way back and the pheno hunt is on. Substituted the remaining empty spots with Purple BudxSwazis and Garlic Breath. Also germinated a few Strawberry Vostoks and some Seedsman CBD to replace the Charlottes. The butternut seems to serve well as a groundcover as we haven't had any real pest issues with the ladies so far, most of the pests seem to prefer munching the butternut leaves. And they produce food at the end of the say, which is another bonus. Cleaning up the bottoms here and there as needed and will probably have to defoliate a bit in the coming weeks. Did a topdress with aged manure, grass clippings and sawdust. Cheers

Looking good....

Margaret Roberts has a good biological caterpillar insecticide. Its part of my outdoor IPM regime, especially during flower. Those buggers will hollow put your buds from the inside and by the time you notice....its too late.

I suspect my encounter was with F. Oxysporum judging by the symptoms, but I can't be 100% sure as there are more than 100 variations of this SOB, but its THE most widely spread. The first visible signs are typically "Fusarium wilt" where you notice one branch or node or bud suddenly wilting (too late allready) but the rest of the plant looks fine, then another branch and another untill eventually the whole plant wilts and dies. In some cases you may also notice a dried out or discoloured patch on the cannabis stem/cambium/bark that looks strange....it eventually spreads. This soilbourne fungal pathogen usually enters through the roots, moves through the plant cells into the xylem where it sporulates and blocks fluid and nutrient flow, hence the wilt. It eventually spreads to the whole plant hence burning required. On my plants I did notice a red or pinkish discolourization on the roots and stems below soil level which is apparently a telltale sign. I did find this on some, but not all my plants. The cambium/bark at soil level also seperates from the stem and starts rotting.

Organic amendments or inputs are the way to go imo. SST's and FPJ's are awesome diy/grower additions for any plants, but balance and a light hand is key. My comfrey based FPJ's usually tend to be on the acidic side and will cause problems if applied undiluted. I prefer not to adjust the ph and just dilute it. My first SST's(corn,red adzuki beans) did cause problems. Initially the plants responded well, but the eff up came later. (Had to cull and burn) I suspect that the amount of available starches caused an imbalance in the soil microbiology and instead of doing good, stimulated a pathogenic Fusarium fungus outbreak due to it being prevalent in our area. The rootzone microbiology is complex, consisting of numerous organisms, some are beneficial to plants, others not so much. They keep themselves in equilibrium, but an excessive "outside" input can tip the scales in the wrong direction. Still using SST's, but much more diluted than before. Less is more.

@Bay Seeds First run. Charlottes Angel (Dutch Passion) Pineapple Skunk (Trinity) Wedding Cake (Trinity) Amnesia (Trinity) Vanilla Kush (@Dank bagseed-pheno hunt) Second run candidates WW x Mango Kush (OG-57) Garlic Breath f2 (Gerber) White Widow (Seedsman) Slurricane 9 x DeluxSugarcane (Cannabist) Terple x Delux Sugarcane (Cannabist)

Summer 2022 Aweh fellow florists, How's the outdoor season prep coming along? The growbeds are now more than one year in the making and just getting better. Theres no comparison to the surrounding "soil/sand". Growbeds have a 20-30cm dark humus layer and are much more "active" with all kinds of organisms. #Soilfoodweb Since the last harvest in june, we've layered more organic material, added bonemeal, rockdust, calcitic lime and multiple doses of AACT to stimulate the organic breakdown activities. The mycelium growing in the mulch layer was a cool find and a good healthy sign IMO. We've come to enjoy/prefer this organic no-till approach to outdoor cannabis growing. Reduced costs, water consuption, plant stress and IPM issues. Which means less sweat, graft and worry for the grower that must deal with any problems. After soaking, beans were planted in 9lt bags for eventual sexing, then they'll be moved to the growbeds. Cheers.