Another BBP Test - This Time It's Clones!

[Cormoran]

I’m also doing a BBP test! I’m running three clones of my Foxtail Lemon Skunk - one will be my control, using my standard nutrients and standard kelp spray. One will be using standard nutrients, but spraying BBP instead. The third will be using Bob’s recommendations for nutrients and spraying BBP. Here’s the original plant, now 6 weeks into flower:

No idea how much longer to let her go. Last I checked, all the trichomes were still clear. Not the point, but a bit of a preview of what’s to come. Anyway, on to the test plants. First, a montage of where they’ve been up until now.

Week 1-4, cuttings:

Week 5-6, into soil:

So, on to the test! I received my BBP yesterday; I was planning to start the test last weekend, but shipping snafus (on my end) delayed it until this week.

So, the first thing that jumps out at me is: BudBusterPro is NOT ORGANIC. I’m not thrilled by that, I try to stick with organic products. Of course, my organic bloom fertilizer has potassium sulfate anyway, it turns out… and it’s not like phosphoric acid doesn’t sneak into my food, I do shop at a supermarket. It’s a slippery slope to hydro, though. We’ll see just how much of a difference BBP makes. I’m not thrilled about the fact that I don’t know the ingredients, but on the other hand, this is the product I shamelessly ripped off by just buying generic ascophyllum nodosum, since they were kind enough to provide the ingredients on the package. I can’t exactly blame @BudBusterPro for wanting to make some money, and you don’t do that by explaining to growers how to DIY your product.

I took a few pictures before applying the BBP, at a 2.5ml/8oz dilution as per Bob’s recommendations. I sprayed about 2 oz on each plant, and sprayed the rest on a spare Guerilla Fume that’s also in veg. I sprayed the rest of the tent that didn’t get BBP with kelp. I also measured the height of each plant. The smallest (9") will be getting the BBP with nutrients at full blast, the middle (10") will be getting standard nutrients with BBP, the largest (11") will be getting my standard regimen. Pre-treatment:

The BBP seems to make them a little depressed, more so than the kelp; though all three are drooping a little. Immediately after treatment:

An hour after treatment, the BBP-treated plants are still depressed while the kelp-treated plant is only slightly droopy. They might need more dark time than that to absorb all the BBP, looks like I have some shiny spots on the leaves. That’s all they’re gonna get though, I don’t give them much downtime at once. They’re on a 6.5 on/1.5 off schedule, cycling three times a day. Right after lights-on:

Another 2.5 hours in, they’re all recovered. Still some slight droop to the BBP-treated ones, but I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference if I weren’t looking for it:

We’ll see what kind of difference it makes. I’ll post an update next week after the spray for sure, possibly in a few days if it seems really exciting.

[BudBusterPro]

Cormoran !
Thanks for the run!
Always look forward to the challenge and working with new growers (to BBP)!
Because your plants are significantly larger than 14 day old seedlings, we will continue to maintain 2.5 ml/ 8oz water apps on a 7 day schedule.
Will be fun to watch the progression, and we won’t change our dilution ratio until we get to the flip!

Sorry about the Food Grade Phosphoric acid, but bat guano just isn’t appropriate for my intended purpose! Thanks again for the BBP run and we’ll try to keep the audience’s attention!

Bob

[Cormoran]

Update time. I’ve got pictures again, but they’re too tall to measure with a ruler next to them and it’s too awkward trying to hold a yardstick and ninja my way into pictures - so, again using the same order of test 1 (BBP + extra nutrients), test 2 (BBP + standard nutrients), control (kelp foliar + standard nutrients) they were 18", 16" and 15" today before the spray. Here’s the pictures:

Again, they’re all pretty depressed from the treatment, including the kelp. Not sure what happened with the first picture, but it’s a wet plant with drooping leaves. I’m probably over-documenting, but better more than less. Here’s the pictures:

Right after lights on; they’re still depressed:

And again, recovered after a few hours:

Still no real difference from the BBP that I can tell. The kelp-treated plant has grown an inch more than both of the BBP-treated plants, so far. Not exactly conclusive of anything, especially considering that it’s supposed to take a few weeks for the BBP to really show results… though the little pamphlet I received did show a picture 3 days after application, when it says the first results can just start to be seen, and they’re certainly branchy. Mine are very branchy as well, but no more so than the plant treated with kelp, that I can see. Maybe the effects are too small for a difference to be seen now, but cumulative effects from multiple sprayings will start to really stand out.

edit: The first dark picture of test plant 1 after treatment went even more wrong than I thought. It’s actually a picture of my GG4 RIL and a 3g pot with an auto germinating in it, I guess I was moving my camera while the picture was being taken and swung it around to face the other wall.

[Cormoran]

Another week, another treatment. I’m starting out this update by editing the previous post; I uploaded the pictures in the right order, but listed them backwards in the first paragraph. In order from left to right, the pictures are: Test 1 (BBP + extra nutrients), Test 2 (BBP + standard nutrients), Control (kelp foliar + standard nutrients). This week they’re 18.5", 17", and 22". That’s 3.5", 1" and 4" growth over the past week, respectively. The BBP-treated plant that’s not getting extra nutrients is clearly having a bad time of it. It’s still gonna get the same as the control plant, though. Here’s the pictures, before the spray:

They seem to have gotten used to the spray, or they’re just large enough now that I can’t tell any difference. All three are a little tired-looking with the lights off and the spray applied, but the kelp is looking about the same as the others. Test plant 2 is more depressed, but that’s because of nutrient deficiencies.

I was baking cookies, so I forgot to take pictures when the lights came back on. Here they are a few hours later, they all look fine again.

I’ve consulted with Bob again, and I’ll be giving test plant #1 double the nutrients the other two are getting this week. I’ll be sending them into flower in 2-4 weeks, if all goes as planned; if the mother plant is finished this weekend at 8.5 weeks, I’ll wait 4 more weeks. If it’s done next week, 3 weeks. If it’s not done in two more weeks, the clones will be going into flower that weekend. Hopefully that way I can line up all my plants to finish flowering around the same time.

[Cormoran]

I’ve sprayed them at 2.5ml/8oz again. I moved it to Saturday this week because I’m planning on moving them down to the flower room next week; I want to spray them once they’re down there, since it’ll be at a higher concentration. If things don’t go as planned, I can still spray them at 2.5ml/8oz and flower them a week late. This week they’re 21.5", 20.5" and 25" - still about the same, 3-3.5" a week each. The control plant also seems bushier, though that might be a trick of perspective. Again, we’ll see what happens with the yield. I bumped up the nutrients for all three this week, keeping the same ratios as before though. Test plant 1 is getting double what test plant 2 and the control plant are.

Lights off, just after spraying. Nothing particularly interesting to see here.

I don’t think I’d fed any of them yet when I took these pictures. I was out for a few hours, so when I got back I did everything at once.

[Cormoran]

I think I forgot to update this thread when I harvested the original Foxtail Skunk these clones came from, last weekend. It was the end of the day on Sunday and I was busy trying to get her and the Spirit Train F2 that finished at the same time both cut and hung before the flower room lights went out. Anyway, it came down last week, closer to 11 weeks than 10; that left me with a bit of a conundrum. I can reasonably hang 3 plants at once without shutting down the flower room, maybe 4 depending on the yield - if I flowered the three Foxtail Skunk clones this weekend along with my GG4, I’d end up with 4 high-yielding plants finishing at once. I topped the Foxtail clones last weekend since they were at the top of the cages and didn’t top the GG4, so I’m giving the clones one more week to recover from topping and moving the GG4 down to flower this week. The clones all took off this week, since I gave them some immediately bioavailable fish fertilizer instead of their usual top-dressing and compost tea. Looks like there was a reason I was alternating these before, I just didn’t know it. I gave test plant 1 double the strength, as usual. This weekend, test plant 1 is 25", test plant 2 is 24" and the control is 27" - the BBP-treated ones recovered better from topping.

Once again, right after spraying; they’re doing fine with the spray now that they’re a little bigger.

Right after the lights came back on. There’s still drops of spray on the leaves, so I’m gonna be getting little prills of phosphorus; if I were to smoke any of this, I’d want to do a bud wash first, though I have no idea if they’d be dangerous and those sun leaves should fall off/be trimmed by then anyway. I’m gonna be extracting this, probably, but it’s worth noting. According to the pamphlet I got, letting the plants fully dry will stop them from forming, but with 1.5 hrs lights off at a time they don’t get time to fully dry.

[BudBusterPro]

Hey @Cormoran !
Your observation of little ‘pearls’ along the midrib of your leaves are inconsequential…
As you stated, sometimes in low humidity/lots of air circulation your BBP dries before it has a chance to completely penetrate the leaf…simply wet mist the leaves again the next day just before lights out and they will be re-absorbed…
You’re looking good and stick with your plan to apply 2.5ml/8 oz apps until a week or so before the flip…then follow the program as you stated!
Thanks for the update!

[Cormoran]

There’s definitely lots of air circulation, but it’s around 65-70% humidity in there; I do spray regularly for IPM mid-week usually, but I can hit them with some plain water tonight. I guess there really isn’t going to be a next time, since they’ll be down in the flower room and they’ll have 13 hours of darkness rather than 1.5 hours. I’m a bit leery of turning the fans off overnight in there, though. I have a bunch of plants that are already 9 weeks into flower, not trying to tempt fate by leaving them with no air movement and high humidity. Maybe I will be spraying them the next day to clear up prills after all.

I’ve been spraying them at 2.5ml/8oz like you suggested, and was going to bump it up to 3ml/8oz next week - I believe you also suggested that? I can’t recall what happens after that, I don’t know if I’d asked yet… though I know it doesn’t get sprayed past week 2 or 3. Is it just 3ml/8oz for the next 3-4 weeks, and should I do the last spray at 2 weeks after flipping the lights or 3? Or is it based on the pistillate growth and we’ll have to play it by ear?

[BudBusterPro]

Yup Cormoran,
You are correct…you should be applying the 2.5ml/8oz ! Typo on my part I’m going back to edit it here just so no one’s confused…

Day or night not a big deal on those pearls…a wet mist a day or two post application works just fine. I have seen instances where it takes a couple wet mists to get it all in but that’s the exception!!!

So yes, as defined in the Brief Program Outline you have 3 more BBP apps.
One 3ml/8 oz application at the ‘flip’
Another 3ml/8 oz app 7 days post-flip
Final 2ml/8 oz app 14 days post flip…and you’ll be finished with your BBP !

PS Don’t be concerned with applying BBP to your pistillate bloom…they LOVE it

[Cormoran]

I moved the plants down to the flower room yesterday, but they were looking pretty beat up after the trip and an overdue training session with the tomato cages; I waited until today to spray them, though in retrospect I’m not sure that was necessary. I took pictures before the spray, but don’t have any after since I didn’t want to mess up their light schedule. They looked fine just after spraying though, I’m sure they’re still fine a few hours later. This time I sprayed at 3ml/8oz, which is easier said than done; 2.5ml works out perfectly to a half teaspoon, but for 3 I had to use a syringe. Luckily I have a large supply of them for RSO. Here’s the pictures; test plant 1 is now 29", test plant 2 is 27" and the control is 31", so it appears they’re growing at the same rate again.

On Bob’s recommendation, I also sprayed the clones; in this case, I sprayed everything except the clone of the control plant, because these clones have been struggling with my ineptitude for 1-3 weeks already and I’m not sure they’ll ever root. If they do, and it’s with BBP’s help, I don’t think I’m gonna quibble too much about organics - especially considering their reaction. The clone of the control plant, which was sprayed with kelp, is in the back of the central column. The two Foxtail clones look pretty much the same before and after the spray, but they both looked fine before; the other clones all looked extremely beat up before the spray, and have perked right up after, except for one which seems to be fully dead. It’s very obvious that they’ve been mistreated still, but the leaves look much better. The Guerilla Fume in the center row on the mid-left looked like it was already dead before, and now it’s reaching for the light again. The main point of this test, though, was to see how long it takes for the two Foxtail cuttings to root; so far nothing on either after 24 hours, which is not surprising. I’ll take a look at them every day to keep track of them though - last time they rooted in under 7 days with no spray, from a mother plant treated the same way as the control in this case. We’ll see how it goes, but they definitely seem to appreciate the spray so far…

[Cormoran]

Second to last spray is done, 3ml/8oz again; had a bit easier of a time mixing it, since the plants are big enough to use up nearly 10oz of spray on their own and I’m spraying the clones again. Test plant 1 is 32", test plant 2 is 30" and control is 33" - the BBP-treated plants stretched a little bit further, it seems. Here’s the pictures:

The clones I’m actually testing are doing fine; the BBP-treated plant has slightly more visible root bumps, though I couldn’t get a clear enough picture to upload. The other clones are pretty much dead, after some mechanical hiccups with the cloner left half of them without water for 12 hours or so. One of the Guerilla Fume actually grew a root yesterday, right before I was about to give up on it entirely, but the root and the only remaining growth tip seem to both be dead today. It was mostly dead before the root, so it’s not surprising; I think I actually killed it by adding some kelp to the water though. Now I know, it doesn’t help and in fact seems to hurt the clones. Back to pure water. Anyway, they’re gonna be scrapped by next week, but I’m fairly sure the Foxtails I’m testing will root just fine. They didn’t have a month of mistreatment beforehand. I have more cuts of the other ones in the fridge, so I’ll break them out once I’m certain all these are dead. However much they appreciated the BBP at first, it didn’t make enough of a difference to save them.

[Cormoran]

Finished up the final application of BBP today, at 2ml/8oz. They haven’t shown much difference in growth rate; this week, actually, none of them grew much at all. Test plant 1 is 32.5", test plant 2 is still 30", and control is 34". The final picture of the control plant looks darker because the lights shut off while I was measuring. The overhead lights were still on, but not the LEDs. Overall, test plant 1 has grown 23.5", test plant 2 has grown 20", and control has grown 23". The final yield will tell the real story, though, and there’s still about 2 more months to go for that.

The clones are finally rooting. I’m not sure if that little hiccup with the kelp made any difference in the results; the BBP-treated clone seemed to be showing root bumps first before I added kelp, but this time the clone of the control plant actually has roots first while the BBP-treated one is just starting to show one. The pictures are from last night, when the control plant had a root showing and the BBP-treated one had nothing, but the treated one has a root now. The control is still further ahead, but they’re both rooted and within a day of each other.

I’ll be saving weekly pictures, but I won’t update this thread anymore unless something particularly unexpected happens; I’ll do a big photo dump at the end with the final results and yield. Thanks for following along, those of you who’ve made it all the way here.

[Cormoran]

Laziness strikes again; it took me a little longer than expected to get back to updating this one. I suppose I could’ve updated it with the news that I hadn’t weighed everything out yet, but up until a few days ago that was all. I couldn’t even bring myself to smoke the Foxtail Skunk from the first harvest, so it took longer to turn it all into RSO and then edibles. I kept these latest ones hanging in a closet for about four months because I didn’t feel like trimming them, so they’re very well cured now. Or maybe completely dried out and turned into hay, either way it doesn’t matter much. All I managed to prove with my experiment is that the Foxtail Skunk likes slightly more food. In the meantime, I’ve also realized that I might not be able to dial in my nutrition just yet without completely replacing ~300 gallons of soil and growstone. Apparently another reason nobody uses this stuff, aside from the cost skyrocketing 300% over the past few years since I first bought it, is that it’s made using calcium carbonate as a foaming agent. This means every time I water, I’m giving them a calcium excess and locking out magnesium. I’ve kept this last grow going by spraying with epsom salt on a regular basis and adding it to the water, and they’ve done better; not sure if adding it to the water actually solved things, so I’m gonna have to stop spraying some of the plants to see what happens.

TLDR of the last very long paragraph: things are a mess over here. I don’t exactly know what I’m doing, and I don’t know enough to know what I don’t know. Anyway, here’s the last of the pictures. I thought I had them synchronized on flower time but apparently they’re a week off.

First harvest, clone mother - week 7

L->R Test 1, Test 2, Control - week 6

First harvest, clone mother - week 9

L->R Test 1, Test 2, Control - week 8

All were harvested in week 10, approx 75 days. The mother yielded ~70 grams, possibly as much as 74; all of the clones yielded more, with or without BBP, with or without adequate food. Not entirely sure why, but it may have had to do with the first few weeks for the mother being in a plastic pot. The clones never had time to get rootbound, starting in an aero cloner and moving directly to 10 gallon fabric pots. Not really relevant to this experiment, at any rate. Test plant 1 yielded 111.4 grams; test plant 2 yielded 100 grams, and the control plant yielded 102.6 grams.

I’m not sure what this proves, other than that BBP can’t make up for lack of adequate nutrition - exactly what Bob told me from the get-go. It is interesting that the control plant yielded slightly more than the one sprayed with BBP, but 2.6 grams isn’t exactly earth-shaking one way or another - I’m not sure what to consider the margin of error here anyway. I’m weighing with a kitchen scale, and zeroing out different 32oz mason jars each time before weighing, so it wouldn’t entirely surprise me to find that there’s a 2 or 3% margin of error here. Test plant 1 definitely did better than the others, with extra food as well as the BBP spray. I don’t think there’s a 10% margin of error, but I also don’t think this tells me so much about BBP as about Foxtail Skunk’s feeding preferences. As I said, all I managed to prove is that Foxtail Skunk likes slightly more food, and since I plan to never run it again and would highly recommend nobody else bother to either I’m not sure how useful that is. Hardly worth the update, but I’ve been feeling bad about giving up on this journal and wanted to wrap it up, worth the read or not. If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this post, congratulations and I’m sorry for wasting your time.

[BudBusterPro]

Thanks for the update Cormoran !
Appreciate your efforts and look forward to future grows !

It is VERY true that using BBP without additional nutrient support can be counterproductive.
There are several growers here now that have shown if you meet the increade nutrient demand of BBP treated plants, you will reap the reward!

I wish you luck in your future grows, and will follow your progress intently!

Thanks again, Bob