Unless you have an infestation of one particular insect outside, you are fine. Mother nature usually balances them. Except the MF caterpillars most bugs hate cannabis in flower. The smell deters them. You could throw some marigolds in next year for companions too
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Getting some dying leaves, any input?
These things just blowing through the N and P?
Can add some fish tomorrow if I’m on the right track with that. The hydrolysate is 3-3-0.3 maybe that’s the ticket. If just plain old N I’d use Alaska Fish 
Just as a note, some of the leaf margins have been burned for more than a week after a 3-day Neem IPM run. That appears to be a separate issue, or at the very least something that appeared 8-9 days ago
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A good shot of Alaskan fish ferts is always a good thing. Your on the right track. I get those. I just had 3-4 lowers yellow like that. I yank them off and give her shot AFF. and Big bloom"bat guano and worm castings"
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With regards to Silica @FieldEffect, @TopShelfTrees1 has dug up some facts and has an alternative, quik acting recommendation…
Enjoy!
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Gave 'em a shot of Alaska, did a little trimming of the dying stuff and general overgrowth. Will need to start slimming these girls down and getting 'em trained the way I want.
I used a bit of the Silica I have left from last season (Advanced Nutrients Rhino Skin). It’s expensive potassium silicate, which will work just not as well. I went by the grow shop today looking for monosilicic acid but no dice. Could’ve bought a bag of AgSil but may as well use the rest of the bottle i have from last year. Just get some in there. It was well in to the 100s today.
@TopShelfTrees1 and @MissinBissin have you seen this thread?
Definately appreciate the conversation and advice. It’s great to get as much as possible! I tried to find the brand suggested by TopShelf but can’t find it available retail anywhere here in the states. Checking with Black Swallow whether or not they can ship it down here. Alternatively, there are other monosilicic acid brands but they are indeed an arm, a kidney + a leg.
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Wow @FieldEffect, what a great read !
Thanks for sharing that last article, I had no idea that Silica presented too many benefits lol. And Green Sand was spoken of, and once again in a positive light
There is a new respect for that element
and I Will be taking my pH’s above 8.5 to start Nute batch’s
Wonderful way to start the morning, here’s to Growing happy plants
Really liked the 1:1500 dilution rate of the Black Swan product; Zumsil
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Nice brother. I am doing some training and topping starting tomorrow when it cools. I will be removing some shoots that are coming in towards the platform and topping. Going to split each plant topping over a couple of days to limit the stress. I use my Solo sprayer last night with double-strength Monterey. Bad Bugs are out this year. Got to stay on top of these fuckers. Your plants are moving now. 
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The one you posted above is absolutely a stellar product as well, ratios are off the charts! If you can’t source it direct hmu and I’ll see if I can help. I also have friends who own an extremely popular grow shop here in Ontario that may be able to help if need be.
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A lot of people swear by powersi as well but it’s ridiculous too! They even have Veg/bud silica to rape your pocketbook a little more. I actually swore by rhino skin for years as well, had nothing but great results when I ran AN the entire time but that stuff is absolutely nuts price wise especially if you wanna run the microbes and feed them too it’s ludicrous tbh. After all this discussion I’m gonna try a few side bys with some silica first in Veg, then bloom just to visually see if there’s a difference. I’ll take some clones this weekend (if I feel better 
) and get them prepared for a nice little side by side, going to do the same with dynomyco as well just so I can satisfy my own questions and see if what I have noticed is 100% provable.
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Some of the info listed in the link above was done by a chemist/phamacist friend of mine.
His take was don’t waste your money on high priced silicon.
It was a professional write up and is respected by folks at custom hydro nutrients, KIS organics, microbeman and some other big names in the industry.
Maybe give it a good read, it is a bit technical but filled with real world science.
Oh, and did I mention my friend OO is a bit of a genius too.
You could say the paper was peer reviewed but not officially.
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I’m getting in on the same thing, but it ain’t cooling down anytime soon. The 907 is already an imposing monster of a woman - just trying to prune her up a little last night was a challenge. DENSE structure like a hedge. I think I’m going to have a hard time doing anything but trimming up the bottom and pruning off some scragglers, I’ll direct a few of the side shoots way off sideways for seedmaking. I think I’ll attach some bamboos across the cage to extend it out wider to anchor some of the limbs better. Same with Panalawi, I think the IBG is going to be only manageable one of the bunch.
Gotta get 'em bent before the silica hits 
I’m thanking my lucky stars I didn’t leave all three in each pot.
QUESTION ABOUT MY BALLS:
How long before I need to watch for pollen? I read around 3 weeks from spotting balls. I wanna clip 'em before they spray so I don’t get random seeds in preflowers - I want to know what is what if I can help it.
For the record this will be week 4 of flower, I sprayed STS 3 times starting 4 weeks ago, every Friday. When it gets close, I’ll take pics everyday and try to pluck em the day before they blow, take them inside and either let them pop in a glass of water or cut the individual flowers out and let em dry. Open to suggestions, there seem to be lots of viable techniques. Then into a tupperware with dessicant, I’ll check on em and make sure I don’t over dry. Then vacuum pack and into the fridge until Miss IBG is ready.
On the topic of Silica:
@TopShelfTrees1 that GG stuff looks good. I’ll let you know if I need to get a hold of that Zumsil, thank you for the offer in any case. Still deciding. The Rhino I think will get me through the season and then I’ll need more for next season. It did seem to work just fine last year, and was the only AN product I got other than some Cal Mag I got to help with early seedling Ca deficiciency. I’ve read that silica should mostly be used during veg rather than flower, especially late flower. Probably in that thread I linked. I’d be super interested in your experimental results and apply them to my own grow next run.
@MissinBissin @shag
It’s really a fantastic series of articles. I greatly appreciated reading them and want more people to be exposed to that level of knowledge and fidelity. I’m not a chemist so some of it is “less than intuitive” to me, but it’s all starting to click as I get familiar with the basics over the last several months. It’s been a crash course as @MissinBissin @noknees @Dirt_Wizard and @ColeLennon know I about lost my 2 remaining brain cells trying to figure out soil ammendments 
Cheers guys, I love all your input and the back-n-forth about topics that go beyond what I can find anywhere else - in person or on the internet. Fantastic.
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That’s above my pay grade. I don’t know anything about silica other than it helps with cell structure. I use heavy duty cages and zip ties for this.
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Full disclosure, I’m no expert here.
But, from my recent experience, the sacs will have a dark line at their seams. When the line begins to fade, they’re about to pop. It is also possible that the plant does not produce pollen/collectable pollen. Again, this is information from my first reversals(this run). I’m on week ten with this auto and am still collecting pollen. 
PS. Make sure the pollen is left out to dry before going in a container with desiccant and into the freezer. 
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How’d you get so many balls? How many STS sprays?
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I treated the whole plant! Lol
Figured if I was gonna have pollen in my cabs, I was gonna do it big. Should have plenty of Scarlet Grape S1 and F2’s, as well as Emerald Fire OG S1 and F5’s to hold me over for life. And to share with y’all of course!
Five treatments each, five days apart.
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yeah…that would be annoying to get seeds all mixed together. are you going to let the auto finish, or grab pollen and chop? can’t imagine you’re concerned with the flower yield from the auto? 
proof is in the pudding, sir. you did okay 
haven’t had anything Fire OG-ish in a long time. that stuff hits
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Went out this morning and gave the plants a good dose of goodies in their morning watering because today is going to be the only day in the forseeable future under 100F. They dried back quite a bit yesterday/last night so they really sucked it in. Aloe, kelp, Mycrobe Complete, and a dash of GEM fish hydrolysate. Did some more trimming as well.
Also planted some chile pepper seedlings because I had some daughter-induced (she pulled them up or stepped on them) fatalities early-season. Figured I’d buy some starts from the hardware store, didn’t have any, long story short I’m way late on some of them but hopefully get enough peppers for hot sauce until the 2024 season rolls around.
Lots of worms in my front bed. The pumpkins are growing FAST now. I’ve never seen all this life in the beds. Living soil indeed. Hopefully next season goes a little smoother with all this work already done. Again, I’ll remind you what 2021 gardening looked like:
I need to post an entire garden update for my own logging, will do that tomorrow. There is no resemblance to the above picture. Been trying to keep that on a monthly interval, dropped the ball last weekend. I have a grass yard now, surprisingly.
Gotcha. May do that on my Fastberry (Blueberry Auto). I had planned to:
- Have 3 autos of each desired cultivar
- Top them all, reverse only one side of each
- After the female sides finish select which will be my pollen donor since I was worried the terps I was after were fairly rare
Unfortunately, 2/3 of my autos, both the Fastberry and Bubblegum, have died. So there’s no such thing as options anymore, but I do like having the female half to monitor. I lucked out with the Bubblegum smelling like IBG, not as strong but similar enough.
Hopefully, the result of these auto fem pollen projects are some reasonably reliable Blueberry and IBG fem fast progeny. At the end of the day, I’ll probably reverse the entire Fastberry and freeze some of the pollen for future projects.
Just ran out and sprayed lightly again before it gets hot out. Makes it 4 treatments in a similar interval. I don’t have nearly the density of male flowers.
I’m not worried about the bud from the auto, no. I just retained the un-reversed half to test my method of selection after pollen collection based on how the female side finishes out.
Thank you! The pudding isn’t done yet
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Wow, you have made leaps and bounds. Props.
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