I ammended with EWC and a tablespoon of Pride Bloom top dress.
Lowered the light intensity to about DLI: 24
VPD and all other parameters are ideal using this chart:
The leaves are deteriorating rapidly, but strangely enough she’s still throwing many white pistils. No new leaf growth and no leaf improvement. When it gets real crispy I pluck them off.
The only thing I noticed is that the top soil would dry too quickly. So I rewetted the top inch of soil and added an old frozen pizza cardboard insert to help prevent it from drying out.
The clay pot is what’s robbing all your moisture… I recently figured this out for the first time using a clay pot for a fun project. I have to leave mine, sitting in a tray of water to keep the pot hydrated, so it doesn’t rob the moisture from the substrate. At this point, I could imagine you would get away with water only as you are pretty close to the finish… and it does sound like the excessive dry backs are causing some issues. I would imagine, excessive dry backs having an effect on the pH as well. Cheers !!!
Edit- I like the thoughtful words of encouragement you wrote. Nice touch !!!
(IMO) It’s not as unhappy as it looks…
What that is is senescence kicking in, she is still bulking up a little (white pistils) but my guess is that will be mostly over (2 weeks).
Leaning towards the @BTYGMO diagnosis. Ollas are clay, makes sense. Important for living soil to stay moist, i mean the drybacks are excessive climate change and enough could create an extinction level event. Microlife traversing the Sahara if u will.
You will see what I mean that tray will be empty in 24 hours … I water my tray more than I water my plant lol. When it gets bigger, I imagine that will change but for now more water goes in the tray lol
Quite possible. It was my first super soil attempt and I didn’t let it cook for too long. But, I’ve got some soil I’ve been sitting on since mid-summer that I’m excited about.
Do you mean the plant will stop throwing out white pistils or that the plant will be finished in 2 weeks? It’s an auto wk. 9, if it helps.
Thank you taking me on this descriptive imagery ride.
I feel more at one with microbes in general with a new understanding.
I even pictured microbe camels and thick rope tied around it’s waist to carry microbe luggage. It was brutal on some parts of the journey, for sure.
Well, No more of that!
The microbial mujahadeen. I love it.
Keeping living soil moist is really difficult. I use City Pickers from HD. More soil and more water than an EarthBox. Many use Blumats or autopots, because human understanding is a poor comparison to plants drinking what they need. Automatic watering and living soil go hand in hand.
What type of recipe did you use? IMO, most super soil recipes are a bit outdated and too hot. I’ve had so many headaches the past few years that I started soil testing so I know what’s actually in there.
I’m kicking myself in the butt for not picking up a couple of City Pickers at HD when it went on sale for $10. But, it seems the quality went down by a alot. Now they are flimsy, brittle and only last a couple of seasons outdoor.
I originally planned to set up one earthbox and one city picker in a 3x3. But, instead went with 2 earthboxes and a junior for my next run. Considering starting a grow journal, but not sure yet.
I think so too. The plan is to ride it out with bottom watering.
One thing with making up soil medium yourself is to mix it and ideally leave it to sit and do its thing for a few weeks before use as a lot of the stuff you maybe using will not be water soluble or even available until its broken down.
Just as I expected. Everything and the kitchen sink! If this is working for you then great but it’s kind of a lot if you decide to re-use and re-amend.
These are just my opinions and others may disagree but the multiple nitrogen sources is un-necessary.
Dolomite, langbeinite, and epsom salts should be dropped immediately. Adding magnesium will wreck your base saturation. Epsom foliars are Ok but not in the soil.
Guanos are horrible for the environment so they should minimized. That being said seabird guano is an amazing shot of phosphorous. Still, they destroy ecosystems when harvesting that stuff.
I try to go easy on azomite and rock dusts in general because it’s straight up 10% aluminum. Also too much iron which competes with all your micros.
What I do like is the lime/oyster shell, the gypsum, the bone meal, and rock phosphate. Alfalfa and kelp is always fun.Worm castings are fun too.
But really, a soil test should determine what you put in there wile keeping in mind your base saturation and balanced macros/micros. So take what I say with a grain of salt.
I did all that mixing & matching a few years back, a headache.
Past two seasons I have gone with: 30% perlite, 30% coco, 40% peat moss…amend initially with Dr Earth ‘tomato’ fert…topdress with Pridelands veg and flower fert. At the end of the run I reuse that soil after amending with the Dr Earth. I do the ‘tea’ thing twice weekly. No feeding issues, zero, nada. No ‘PH’ checking…just tap water.
Really like the ‘all in one’ fertilizers now…@backyardboogie420 turned me on to this approach.
I’m having what appears to be similar issues.
My older soil build is hot af. I even cut it with my recently pre-amended used. But my N is off the charts and this crop will suffer drastically.
