Sorry I thought it was obvious I was referrin to pot grower anecdotes of “I starve my plants n they does better.” Like yers bout the Italians.
Haha u trollin me?
Terroir is 1 of the longest studied n most thoroughly proven theories in ag around the world. 1st proposed in ancient Greece then studied by EU monks in the middle ages n now proven by the emerging science of epigenetics. U can debate its significance but cant debate the quantifiable differences environment has on plant growth n outcome.
This is the whole reason why a clone performs 1 way in yer room n another way in a buddy’s room. Hell. Plant morphology is a direct result of the diffs in light spectrum n DLI in diff regions. Hard 2 argue w ne of that hard science.
That’s a different argument entirely, and not really the subject of this thread.
The salt stress on the tomatoes makes a quantifiable difference, I’ll see if I can supply you the paper I read on it. Like with the water deprivation of cannabis tho, it’s based on the inarguable fact that under stressful conditions plants produce compounds and hormones in different ratios than when everything is hunky dory. The only assumptions being tested is whether those increases in stress-related hormones leads to an increase in dry weight of the parts we care about.
Caplan_Deron_201808_PhD.pdf (1.8 MB)
This is the paper all this information comes from you can also hear him on cannabis cultivation and sicence podcast I think it was episode #57. I actually tried this drought stress technique on my Temple of Apollo but I don’t have any way to measure other than just the visual looks of my flowers but they are pretty dam frosty. Alot of interesting stuff in the paper and actual information .
So Arabica coffee grown in different regions don’t taste distinctly different? U really gonna claim they dont taste differnt to errbody?
What bout tomato varieties grown at home vs. grown in a greenhouse? Who can’t taste the difference?
Howsa bout Anaheim err Big Jim chiles grown in Cali vs. the same thing grown in Hatch NM? LOL ask ReikoX bout that terroir.
The list goes on n on n on. Just own it n admit yer wrong.
Only 1 arguing is u. I thought we was agreein. I dont think quantifiable means what u think it do. Quantifiable science aint just some anecdote some1 wrote an article about. Its repeatable techniques with the same controls n treatment variables that result in measurably different outcomes when tested in multiple different places by different ppl.
Tomato taste has more to do with the fact they grow varieties specifically made to be shelf stable, travel well, etc. They also harvest them early and artificially ripen them with ethylene gas.
Coffee? Peppers? You honestly think people could tell in a blind taste test? I seriously doubt it.
Yes, even the Big Jim I grew was different than the Hatch chilis. Same cultivar, different phenotypic expression.
But back to he discussion, on years that we have drought stress, the chili crop is hotter.
They also do something similar with echinacea, inducing drought stress to increase the medicinal benefits. I belive it was Tony Verzura on Hash Church that mentioned this.
I think an important observation here is the correlation between pot size and duration of time until the soil levels reached the drought stress thresholds.
In the paper, they were using 11L (~3 gal) pots. This allowed them to reach the -1.4 / -1.5 MPa levels within 11 days.
I would expect this time frame to be longer (in larger pots) or shorter (in smaller pots). The key there would be to accurately measure to the drought stress thresholds.
The oils in plants are part of what help them withstand drought and heat so when you apply just the right amount of water restriction it can signal them to pump up oil production.
Have heard that before but I don’t follow how more trichomes would help prevent water loss. In my mind the plant would have to create a thicker cuticle on the surface of its leaves to slow evaporative losses, like the waxy coating on pine needles.
Its probably like a cactus, although there is lots of space between the needles, they help prevent moisture loss from the plant by creating a kind of artificial climate on the leaf or plant surface.
This would be easy to do if you were doing some form of aero - just turn off the sprayers for a while. Also, if you were doing flood/drain, the same thing. In NFT, just turn off the pump. In DWC I dont see why you couldnt drain the buckets.
The trick would be determining how long to let them dry out. In any type of aero, they will dry out very fast - just a few hours without spray and parts of the roots begin to air prune and then die. I know that for a fact because I have done it many times by shear stupidity.
These were autos, but the drying out really slowed them down. It took a few weeks of extra time to get to harvest.
However - the harvest was excellent as far as yield. Well above the normal yield levels for autos. I got almost 3000 grams wet from three plants. That averaged to 1000 gms per plant wet, which works out to over 250 grams per plant dry yield. Thats even with one of the plants haveing a very small set of colas compared to the other two, but its roots had the most damage and recovered the least.
I have no idea how much of that - if any - was due to the drying out or to my scrog skills or to having them in an AAA system.
Like I said, the trick would be figuring out how much drying is safe and adds to the yield, and how much is just killing the roots and doing too much damage.
For my AAA setup, just 12 hours is enough to do major damage. I imagine it would be similar for NFT, LST, HPA and DWC. I think Flood/Drain would allow you to go much longer because the hydroton would hold a good bit of moisture and take much longer to dry out. Still, I dont think you could go even close to 11 days before the plants were 100% dead. Soil would hold a lot more moisture and take much longer to dry out.
The other thing to wonder about is the rate of drying. With my AAA setup or any system with nothing to hold extra water - like hydroton, etc - they will dry out very quickly and die.
Does this boost in yield require a slow drying out or will a fast drought work as well or?
I would not take my results as any kind of indication that this will work with fast drying, but it is still intriguing as a possibility.
In any case, Im done drying out roots. The way I have been doing it by accident slows the growth too much for me. Im already getting enough yield for my needs and dont really want the risk.
Yeah, thats not really a significant sample size. Barely better than my three plant accidental ‘test’.
Still, the result does seem to be worth following up on with better controls and a much larger sample size.
I still think the trick - even in soil - is going to be determining how far you can, or need to go to induce the correct amount of stress - without killing the plant or just stunting it. Im my example, the one plant that had the most root damage was the smallest yielding by far, while the other two more than made up for it.
