When I first became aware of grow forums, it was clear they were the new High Times back pages. Everyone knows what brands and products to recommend, but seem to always miss the point behind what’s actually involved in the growth process.
Well, if you learnt to “grow weed” instead of learning “how plants grow”, maybe this writeup will help.
Plant growth has 2 components: Producing photosynthates, and moving photosynthates. That’s it.
Your job as a plant husband is to observe and assist photosynthesis. Not to worry about pests, or worry about light spectrum, or worry about terpene synthesis, or worry about the thousands of chemical processes that must happen for the plant to live. All of that worrying is extra curricular activity. These hobbies will change drastically when you start focusing on your job as a grower.
I am a vilacus of the closet, a foreman of the photosynthesis operation. I worry about the orchestrated mining of plant food from thin air, the quality of the plant food mined, and the transport of the plant food out of the mines and to construction sites. I support the operation. I trust the workers. I am not a miner. I am not a construction builder. I am not a concrete supplier. I ensure the workers have tools.
So that we are clear, plants make their own food . NPK is not plant food. Some nutrients are tools required for mining (pick axe, dynamite) and some nutrients are required for transport of material (mine carts, ore buckets). And we have the mine shafts and service roads themselves (phloem, xylem).
Your plant is building itself out of carbs acids and lipids that it made from light. Not out of tools (NPK) you supplied it.
Utilizing this concept will make you seem a “plant whisperer” to your peers. It will make you seriously question the qualifications of every “professional” grower you’ve met, who always dance around buzzwords. But it’s an understanding anyone who’s dumped time and money into this hobby should have. It should be on the first page of every grow guide. Obviously Ive stuck this in the “advanced” section because it’s against accepted Cannabis nute co. dogma, not because photosynthesis is an advanced growing concept.
You can easily detect the photosynthates your plant produces
Contrary to mainstream belief, Cannabis does not get its color from chlorophyll. Cannabis is a fast growing plant that gets its color from Anthocyanins. Chlorophyll is rather opaque and is only green at a specific pH:
Anthocyanins are pH indicating pigments of cyanidin glucosides; photosynthetic sugars produced by Chloroplasts (which are direct descendents of Cyanobacteria).
Photosynthates increase the acidity of the cells they contain. When the photosynthates build up, anthocyanins build up, visibly indicating the pH of the cell. When photosynthates are depleted, the cell pH raises, and anthocyanin indicates yellow. We can tell that healthy growing cannabis has a pH of 10 in the leaf. (And no, soil pH has no affect on this. Hydrangeas being the exception)
Healthy growing leaves are dark green with an even sheen, and completely flat. This means photosynthates are at max production in relation to their transport. One of the most common problems in Cannabis growing is that the production of photosynthates outruns the transport of photosynthates. The solution I’ve seen every “expert” suggest is to slow down photosynthesis rather than to speed up transport of photosynthates.
Imagine being a gold miner waiting on mined material to get out of your way. You can’t continue mining until the mined material is removed… Now imagine you are a watch maker waiting on gold to make gold watches. You cannot make gold watches if the miners cannot get the gold to you.
Understanding photoassimilate transport will solve all problems and exposes every myth. Chloroplasts make everything. It must all be moved. Even Thc is produced by the Chloroplasts and must be moved to the trichome.
Blue tips in New growth indicate sugars are building up instead of being transported
Glossy patches indicating photosynthetic lipids are stalled in transport. Notice the correlation with leaf depression.
Leaf tip clawing due to minor imbalance in production and transport of photoassimilate. There is no such thing as nitrogen toxicity in fast growing plants. The solution to clawing is to increase transport,not to decrease photosynthesis.
The grow shop does not want you understanding this. You’ve been cutting N for bloom because you get clawing at stretch. 100% calcium deficiency. Always has been. Cannabis uses tons of calcium on the regular and tons more at stretch. And every single grow I see has clawed twisted, curled, curvy leaves by budset. All the same problem: boron>cal>phos. And it’s never -phos. It’s never -boron. Every Cannabis grow I see is calcium deficient. The role of nutrients has been completely misunderstood by Cannabis growers, thanks to the nutrient peddlers themselves.
The cannabis gurus who have let you down, the nutrient companies who have controlled the narrative for too long, none of those smiling faces want you to succeed. There are consultants charging money who don’t even know the definition of photosynthesis. There are breeders showing stunted partial harvests on Instagram and they are selling out of seed…
The only expertise in the cannabis industry is advertising, data collection, and back scratching. This industry wants you perpetually confused, constantly reporting back, and your plants perpetually sick. That is why every form of calcium offered to cannabis growers is attached to Nitrate. It’s why grow tents come in sizes drastically shorter than every ceiling in the country, and grow lights come with straps 3 feet too long. It’s why every post on some grow forums start with a brand name or a “shout out” to a vendor. They want you forgetting why weed is called weed. They want you lost without them. They want you believing it is hard to grow huge amounts of insane herb on your own. It’s not. You just have to remind yourself what photosynthesis is. It’s the most important biological process in the history of the universe, show it some attention.
So why did I call this "Auxin whispering" if the entire thing is about moving sugars in the plant, and how that's the most overlooked aspect of growing? Because sugars attract auxins. Wherever the sugars are, the auxins go.
Cytokinin is produced in the roots. When I see purple stems, I know cytokinin is not being produced. Sugar is not making it from the leaves to the roots, I can see the sugar loading up the phloem. Phosphorus is not making it to the roots. That’s why sugar is not making it. You can see that in the leaf restrictions everyone has. This is the stunting cycle nearly every grower is stuck in. Fixing phosphorus deficiency with phosphorus only makes sense when you’re actually deficient in phosphorus. No one is. Calcium deficit is holding back phosphorus is nearly every grow I’ve seen in the last 5 years. You can thank the poor transpiration of LED spectrums, boron-cal are most affected of all. Notice the nutrient companies have “hard water” blends but do not bother asking your transpiration rate before shoving random amounts of nutes in your rhizo. Very odd marketing tactics. This is why some of us remain in the shadows… Where you stay in business by being the best, not by milking and taking advantage of customers.
So purple means sugar loading? Yes. That’s why trees turn colors in fall. The cold weather slows down the movement of phosphorus in the phloem, which in turn slows down the movement of sugars, which builds up anthocyanin, which indicates pH of the cell… This helps the plant survive winter by lowering its freezing point,and signals to insects that they are too late.
Purple is not a good sign until the last half of bloom, when you want sugars building in the smokable buds. Contrary to vape pen propaganda, sugars are what increase the quality of the smoke, not cheap ass terpenes. If you’ve vaped distillate, you know. The industry isn’t smart enough to make smokable fake weed yet.
Girdling? Redirecting sugars from the roots to the fruit.
Boiling roots? Redirecting sugars from the roots to the fruit.
Stabbing stem with nail? Redirecting sugars from the root to the fruit.
PurpleMaxx? Redirecting sugars from the root to the fruit.
Snowstorm Ultra? Redirecting sugars from the root to the fruit.
Day/night DIF? Cold slows phos, which leaves more sugar for above ground growth vs root growth.
Red/Blue spectral growth differences? Red raises leaf temp.
When you “get it”, you get it. People over think things. They learn buzzwords and not what they mean. Tattoos of pot leaves but can’t diagnose them. When I joined the internet 6 years ago people were laughing at “feed it sugar” threads and Brix was considered a topical additive by most, not a measurement of plant health. I’m telling you right now, don’t waste money on a Buildasoil Brix meter. You can see the Brix with your eyes
These edges were blue before bloom set in. Sugars naturally redirect to flowering sites to support reproduction. This is called senescence. Senescence can be steered with simple nutritional queues.
Amish crop consultant John Kempf discusses steering sugars with nutrition.
That’s pretty much it. 2 grams a watt is not a good yield. Nitrogen toxicity is a total myth. Pot growers worry about the wrong thing, always. Chlorophyll isn’t green. All leaf deformations are calcium related. Terpenes are a joke. Sugars and fats get you higher. I know I know… Ban me now for trolling. I have documented scientific court solid proof of a conspiracy against quality Cannabis, you’ll simply have to wait for the book. After 80+ years of clandestine operations Cannabis has officially been mershafied; fit for legalization. Marinol 2.0
People are afraid to break free of dogma, until they “get it” on their own. Sometimes it’s the most expensive education there is; allowing yourself to grow out of a box someone else put you in. Every box cannabis has been put in has been to serve a single agenda. None of these legally-immune middle aged new England white guys who have totally wrecked the grow scene were your friends. They’ve don’t nothing but milk milk milk for corporate interests.
