Naughty.Psychonaut

why did you need to test the soil

lucky you guys with year round supply of rain water for all your plants! very few growers have that privilege would this be your advice to a new grower though? or are you just saying how things work for you? as this is clearly a thread started by a new grower wanting to learn how to do these things, cause no one ever mentioned use of rain water to our fellow newcomer till I mentioned tap water can be a problem, so all the while the standard was rain water? I must be living on Pluto! did you do this from the start and never had issues? from testing my own rain water just collecting over night it's not always 0 PPM, I sometimes get between 0.1 - 1.0 EC, cause the rain collects shit on its way down. it hits the roof, runs through gutters, comes out with stuff in it. Sometimes cleaner than other times. Do you do anything to make sure the rain water is clean or you just collect and use without a care? During my first few months on the forum I was left scratching my head way more than I was after I just used the right tools just once.... because humans can be wrong sometimes, just like me, I can be wrong that's why I still use my tools 🛠

@Darclinc hope all is well your side! As you can see even a seasoned grower change their situations and products they use over time and just introducing a new type of water or a different nutrient product you can have quite adverse effects, specially if you don't research the product properly. I have also seen situations where the product itself does not match what the lable sais, sometimes it's marketing, sometimes a batch flaw and in all these cases you can contact who ever you got the stuff from and take it from there, but without tools you would have to let the products to the damage first before you can call it. in my opinion that's a waste of time and resources. I don't wana burn my plants to have to learn, I would rather just learn and have healthy plants I have a PH probe and a PPM probe. I use them both. however I use my PPM probe much more than the PH probe. There is quite a strong stigma around the whole "Don't panic, it's organic" bullshit... I've heard it everywhere from vegans to agriculture and everywhere in between... The horticulture community love this, I have heard it plenty of times, infact I have heard it WAY TOO MUCH, how people will demote the use of PH and PPM probes in organics simply because of the fact that it's organic. Well, I have learned my lesson, was left standing scratching my head.... did the advice givers actually really wana help me? or did they wana make me feel inferior, because I don't understand the plant as well as they do? or maybe they just didn't really understand it themself? could be any of those, but trust me when I say this, I have learned way more from using the right tools than from listening to people. Back to PH / PPM.... even though all the talk here is about PH swings, it's much more likely to run into deficiencies or toxicities when working with living soil and slow release fertilizers that need to be broken down to become available for the plant, everything will be fine then one day you see heavy discolouration, what do you do? run to the forum and ask??? try to recall what you did last, did you feed it a lot, give clean water? and and and..... all this will cause more confusion and cost a lot of time and in the end more damage will have been done. what you should do, is get clean water with a PPM of 0 - 500 and a PH of 5.5 - 6.5 (very easy. most tap water and bottled water fall in this catagory, you can go to a local spar or pick n pay where you can fill up filtered water for cheap cheap and it will give you the PH and PPM of the water on the content list) run that water through your problematic soil very slowly to make sure you saturate all soil to get accurate reading, then you just dunk the PPM probe in the first bit of runoff you get. if it's too high you keep flushing till you in desired range and if it's too low you know you need to feed. there you go. no waiting for people to respond and hoping they get it right. More people have PH probes than PPM probes so it's easy to get someone to swing by and test PH every once a month or so. you really just need to test your tap water or whatever water you been using, because it'll take a while for water with a super high or super low PH to cause living soil to swing. Organic living soil balances PH by itself and in most cases if you're only slightly off you wont ever really run into any issues. only when you're way out for a period of time will it cause a swing. Sorry for all the reading so early in the day!

yoyo wingwing! let your thing swing!

basically to sum it all up sq1 -> having probes = safe sq 2 -> not having probes = less safe sq3 -> knowing someone with a probe that can help at a moments notice so you don't have to spend the money to get probes = a little safer but less reliable. once you got the visual keys it's still easy to misdiagnose, throwing you back at sq1.

ooooooh man! if that was a woman I'd marry her just for the honeymoon!! I seriously need to start doing monocrops, man you did a great job here

This is the thing, when using rain water it's something specific to your situation. the vast majority of growers, especially new growers, get their water from the tap. with a small amount of those people using 3phase filters, if that. some people bubble their tap water. still not the same as rain water. If you wana make a point of how things work for you, you have to state the things that you do, that can literally flip the whole show on it's head. anyhow, have a blessed sunday!

well, there you go guys, to all the new growers, you don't need to buy probes, just let your plants stress then play guessing games and hope for the best personally I want to help others, not make them feel helpless cause they can't guess the right stuff. if you know for yourself it took time for you to learn how to spot these things, why not just cut the loss of time off by using tools? I'll respectfully stop giving advice as I can see there is no point. everyone should just have years of experience from day one. that makes more sense doesn't it. have a lekker sunday

@SkunkPharm that's pretty cool hope you don't run into the same issue as StonedTrooper in the future! when talking organics, ph it's much less of an issue than ppm, though both can still swing. if you keep using water with a ph of 1 or 10 (something way out) it's unlikely that any soil will maintain ph neutrality over long period of time. especially if you reusing soil. tap water here where I am comes out at 9 sometimes 10 and I have seen my living soil climb till about 8 ph and the plants did not like that. could've avoided it. it's a good thing that you have a couple years of growing behind you. good to know the products you use and what product does what and all that stuff.... but the best of all is having the probes on hand, because not everyone has years of growing behind them and they don't know all the science on day one and having the probes makes it much easier to understand than just "taking someones word for it". when studying this at universities the professor will give you probes to get accurate readings for the main purpose of "not having to take someones word for it" and to not play guessing games. hyrdo / organic. there's no harm in wanting to get the stuff right from day one instead of stressing a bunch of plants just to learn from that anyway. if a professor points to a plant and sais "that's what's going on in there, just take my word for it", I wouldn't go to that class anymore. I've seen quite a few cases on the forum similar to my learning experience where probes would've saved these peoples grows in a jiff. once they know what all the signs look like with no second guessing they can use the probes for their pools too! great device to have!

the idea that people say don't test ppm or ph when you grow organic is redundant. why would you "watch" and what would you "watch" for? you'll be looking for signs of things not being right. signs of stress in form of too much or too little PPM, right? or signs of stress from PH being out of whack..... sooooooo why would I wait to see signs on the plant if I can just test with a device that gives me the correct information with just a press of a button? and fix the problem before seeing the signs and before the plant has stressed at all? if you have a good, accurate device it will help you not waste so much time and school fees. first problem you run into you test and from there you golden. no guessing games. cause let's be honest, the sole fact that you said "which you learn by time" means you know no one will know the signs on day one. if you have a device you will.

yeah, I got the bluelabs toolbox long long ago finished the grow I was busy with at the time then moved over to organics most people will say that's stupid for a while I was bitter with having made the purchase, cause it wasn't cheap and hearing the majority of organic growers aks me why I would even need to test for PH or PPM, cause it's organic... right...? only to realise later on that they just showed me their level of understanding of the whole thing without thinking it through all the way, or they just haven't been doing it long enough to encounter all that can to wrong, in which case I am glad for them, but not everyone gets that lucky. Clearly there are going to be situations where even organic growers wana take the guessing out the game and test for both PH and PPM. it's just safer to have access to these tools. I have to advise against buying any kinda tech equipment and stuff that can "do everything in one" and rather go with tech equipment that's one thing made to do or test one specific thing. this will ensure better accuracy. This is just my but tech things that can do it all tend to be more gimmick-like and don't stand the test of time. In the long run it's cheaper to buy more expensive stuff

Update New batch moving into flower effortlessly, makes me think the fuckup with my previous batch was all due to the timing of topdressing. nothing else done differently and the fact that they moving into flower much much quicker than the previous batch tells me it's not environment related either. French Macaron Blueberry Hashplant Super Cheese Chernobyl Frosted Apricot have a lekker weekend all

Update here, just finished off the Blueberry and Sugarcane outdoor ladies. I'm aware I posted photos of the Blueberry in another thread, but they belong on this thread and I know from my days of lurking these threads don't make no sense if you don't follow the conversations. so here they are, again, Sugarcane

Previous batch moved over to flower tent, was using the veg tent for some other stuff... got het cleaned out and ready for the next round 3 x Super Cheese, 1 x Frosted Apricot

without a doubt that is the best advice to give a new grower, don't overlook this! biggest mistake people make as new gardeners is thinking there will be only one product to do it all. if that was the case we would all be raving about this one product and when we have it we're successful gardeners and it's easy like that. if the world was made of cadbury. gardening is one of those crafts where you literally never stop learning no matter who you are you never stop changing and adapting to overcome different things. even the most clued up guys with years and years and years of growing behind them are all still constantly researching different and better ways to do these things and how to keep up with current changes and what not. that's why they stay in the game so long. change, adapt, overcome. avoid looking for and choosing one thing to carry you through it all, rather get the right mindset from the start and tell yourself you'll do research or run over to the forum here and ask for advice whenever a new situation presents itself. like they say, I can talk till I am blue in the face, that doesn't mean you'll be drifting around tight corners on day one. at least not without getting a few fender benders. so be prepared.

this indoor flower cycle kicked off kinda wack, I top dressed the soil with elemental blend right when I flipped them to 12/12, within a few days they showed a very positive reaction and started stretching and didn't wana stop untill very late. the BBHP took 13 week, the outdoor one was much quicker with only 9 weeks, but it was also a much smaller plant. the Sugarcane inside the tent only started making pistils during week 6 of 12/12, not sure if it was the elemental blend, still scratching my head on this one a bit. checked for light leaks and all that, everything is fine... only thing I could point out was how they just never stopped stretching, I think that was the nutrients

will be honest, she looks quite a bit better than the rest of the experience. she stank as a plant, had quite a sour under-ripe fruite smell with hidden notes of already processed hash but now that she's harvested the smell is very faint... I hope she just needs a to spend some time curing to reveal her true beauty

package came yesterday, with a free pack of 5 x Feminized Strawberry Sugarcookie seeds thanks a ton @Totemic your genetics will live on through us all on the flip side of things, with all the current changes happening we are moving towards brighter future for the cannabis industry in our country, which will open quite a number of opportunities for the enthusiasts such as ourselves. keeping the right mindset, attitude and intention is key and we all know you got that initiative man, keeping in good hope for you and what the future holds!

just wana mention if you grow a clone it is the replica of the plant it came from, so people typically go for clones over seeds to guarentee a good phenotype. with seeds there are greater chances of ending up with something you don't like, even if you grow a batch of seeds from a strain you like. in this case you buy a bunch of the seeds, enough to do something called a "pheno hunt". this is where you work your way through all the seeds and find the best one and go from there. if you buy a pack of regulars and plan to breed, buy a pack of 10 or more seeds and be sure to find the best male and best female before crossing all willy nilly and making more work for yourself than anything else. if you birth a batch of 300 to 500 seeds and it's all just from the first male and female you could find, you gona spend a lot of time being dissapointed growing out 300 seeds just to find out none of it was worth the time or effort. rather work on getting your hands on a female you like through finding the right clone, then get your hands on some regulars of something you also like and find the best male in the pack, then cross those two. you can spend quite some time "pheno hunting" the batch of seeds from this breed. they'll be regular seeds again as you knocked up a female with a male. if you wana make feminised seed you have to reverse a female. If you just looking to have some fun and make some seeds then you can go on any of the local seed banks and get anything that sounds and looks nice to you. I see a lot of support for Trophy seeds. Look at Inhouse Genetics or Ethos Genetics stuff, but honestly there's a bunch and every second breeder has something crazy good.

mmmmm those are real nice and frosty!!

@Ponica take a moment to pat yourself on the back because this is proof you can grow a weed plant. now the next step is to get you to grow some good weed.. the chances of ending up with good weed when growing bag seeds or random seeds is a chance that is slim to none. respected breeders will not breed outdoors, indoor growers will isolate breeding projects, so having seeded indoor weed is either a mistake that was made during growing or somehow stray pollen got sucked into the flower tent. if it's outdoor seeded weed then it's up in the air with the parents. probably some ditch weed parents or some Uncle Piet down the road that don't know to pull out his males, and trust me you don't wana spend time growing a offspring that came from someones plant who doesn't yet know to pull out his males. if you put a super dank strain outdoors to flower and get seeds off it, it was pollinated by stray pollen and I wouldn't even suggest growing those out as it will be a waste of time, even though one of the parents was a super dank strain. I would write this one up as completely experimental, because growing some random seeds you don't know what to expect of will not be a true testimony to your skills or the quality of your growing equipment. that might be the best that the genetic could ever look but on the other side of the knife, it could also be the worst... you could only really guage that if you have something to reference it to. my advice will be to get either some clones or some reputible seeds for future grows. also stick to one medium for now. if you wana test a bunch of stuff, make sure you have a control measurment. for example, if you testing what soil works best you need to grow clones of the exact same plant in different soils so there's no phenotypical difference in the plants at least. if you wana test genetics and you wana pop different seeds to find the best phenotype, do it all in the same soil.... otherwise you getting a whole mix masala and you don't really get any true answers from your experiment. I would suggest Freedom Farms Premium classic paired with Biobizz Grow, Fish & Bloom. + legit clones/seeds you'll be gold.

update overdue, been 3 weeks. Blueberry Hashplant trimmed and in jars, came out to 75g, burping them daily, smells like.... some stinky weed.... doesn't smell like anything I can put my finger on, all I can say is it's good weed. got a clone of her in flower again, but will probably be the last time growing her. she made a few nice fat buds, rock hard, but could be denser. here's a few photos @Khakibos @ORGANinc. what's good man, I remember you saying you keen to see what the Bodhi - BlueberryHP does, here she is - could be better I give her a 5 or maybe a 6 out of 10..... here's the outdoor Blueberry Hashplant, this plant was 1/4 of the size of the indoor plant, so I didn't weigh her. gave her a budwash as she's been getting all sorts of dirt on her standing outside. don't know who of you have tested this, but there's no doubt in my mind that a budwash also speeds up the drying process. not that we want quicker drying, just something to take note of. if it doesn't make sense and seems counterintuitive, test it! you'll see outdoor BlueberryHashplant Next, we have the Sugarcane finally hanging, she got the chop about 2 nights ago. Tent got cleaned out. made it smell like a hospital in there, left it for 24hrs... moved the vegging ladies over, they actually been on 12/12 in the veg tent for about 2 weeks already, so we're heading towards the end of week 3 of flower for these girls. French Macaron Chernobyl Frosted Apricot Super Cheese Blueberry Hashplant That's all for now, folks

welcom mr. @Bundy yeah check out the grow diaries! you got bud porn for us?

@Totemic All the best with your future endeavors, sir! was an honor to learn from you over the years, still got some of your beans to grow out, looking forward to doing so and growing in a community alongside an inspiration such as yourself! Just had to grab a few things for future projects and seeing as you closing the online shop I quickly put in a order for some STS and a pack of regular seeds

don't know if I must laugh, cry, scream or pull my hair out from frustration Poor Joe went to a college party one night and after shooting up only one dagga this will be him for the rest of his life, do you want to be like Joe?