Silver Mountain co-op run (closed)

@Cormoran gotcha! I am planning to give this meathod a whirl and see how it does for me, I guess the better way to ask is besides the grow stones to wick up water, is there like a drainage layer that doesn’t wick water but let’s movement of the water if that makes sense.

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No drainage layer, it’s really not necessary unless I screw up really badly on the transplant… after that they’re basically never top-watered more than a pint at once, for compost tea, or a quart for the 10g pots. Is that even what perlite does, though? I thought perlite was a wicking material as well, and for that matter a more efficient one than growstone. That’s why we use growstone, actually, so it wicks up slowly as the roots exert capillary pressure… I think. I dunno at this point, I’m running on 5 hours of sleep and I forgot the conversation I had with my partner about it. :stuck_out_tongue: He did most if not all of the design work for this. He’s also the one who set up the tracks for the lights, and until recently, did all the feeding and transplanting and virtually everything else, which is why it occasionally seems like I’m a clueless idiot despite having been growing for 9 years. :roll_eyes: I kinda am, but I’m the one with the basement and the one who’s chatty enough to actually go online. You wouldn’t catch him dead on any kind of social media, he only recently caught up to texting.

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Awesome thanks dude!! @Cormoran. I hope when you get to take a nap it is a good one!!

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So, call me crazy, but I just went into the tent and did a transplant-lite on #2 - she looks like something in her diet disagrees with her, with the leaf tips on the bottom yellowing and curling upwards, and I started to feel like I’d seen this show before and didn’t like the ending. :grimacing: :man_facepalming:

Not sure why she’s complaining in particular, since I amended the other pots exactly the same and they’re fine, but she’s reacting much worse than that Silver Mountain F2 I transplanted from the 3g pots so it’s probably not from root damage. If it is, I doubt what I did will hurt even if it doesn’t help, and if it’s from the soil being too hot I think it could save her. I dug up the top third of the soil around her, leaving the root ball intact, then replaced the soil with unamended stuff from the last run. I thought it was fairly depleted, but apparently not as much as I thought… or she’s just particularly cranky. Either way, we shall see. :crossed_fingers: I still have clones that might make it, if not, but that would delay things significantly to wait for one to catch up… plus then I’d have to transplant it again, and apparently every time I do it’s a coin-flip on whether or not they’re going to die from the soil being too strong. :roll_eyes:

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Dude I believe the same thing is happening to me !

I am thinking may have over watered them a little to much.
Are you possibly doing the same thing ?

I know it’s not the nutrients for me because I use straight Fox Farm Ocean Forest and have never had issues before.

So I decided to check my PH but found out my pen is busted and giving inaccurate readings.

I didn’t realize until I double checked and tried calibrating it.
Everytime I calibrated it the next time I went to use it it was inaccurate again.

I decided to buy some test strips today to test my water, and my PH is a tad to close to 7.
So I’m thinking I may have been giving them a bad PHed water as now too.

But make sure PH is okay, make sure they aren’t too wet either.

Here what looks like.

For now I’m going to let her dry out a bit, and then later I’m going to water with a lower PH

If I find a solution to my issue I will definitely let you know. I feel we might have the same one.

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If it were any other strain I’d be assuming the same thing and would’ve ignored it, since the fabric pots dry out very quickly especially at the tops. I’ve repeatedly gotten smacked down by this strain for believing I can feed it even close to normally, though. Every other plant I have is thriving in the soil these die in. Either way, if she’s still in trouble I have no answers to give her other than LITFA, so she’s on her own… though the lights just came on, and I think she’s starting to perk up a bit. Lower leaves are still wrecked, of course, but the top leaves aren’t so clawed anymore. Now I’m looking at possibly doing the same thing to #5, which also has clawed top leaves but isn’t showing nearly as much distress on the lowers… might as well interrupt it before it starts being a real problem though. #3 is fine, as I suppose I’d expect from the chem leaner of the group.

That said, as far as your problem, FFOF is already a fairly hot soil from what I’ve heard… if this is a new strain for you, that might theoretically be the problem. I don’t think I’m seeing serious nutrient excess from those, though, just slightly burnt tips. The tips of the dead leaves at the bottom are curling down, not up, which is what happens with phosphorous excess and what clued me in to my problem. It also seems unlikely that pH’d water would be the problem, since it’s organic soil and has its own buffers to some degree, unless you’re adding nutrients with salts. Overwatering, though, causes pH imbalance on its own… if it’s been overwatered for a while that can definitely start causing big problems. It could also be deficiency, despite FFOF being hot - I don’t have any experience with it personally, but I know that some bagged fertilizers aren’t balanced right for cannabis under LEDs and often need a little supplementation. I had constant deficiencies until I started using a micronutrient supplement with my water, and they’re not always what they look like either, which makes it a constant game of guesswork unless you’re getting your soil tested regularly. Adding a little magnesium to my water helped with a constant phosphorus deficiency, for example… ironic that now phosphorus excess is killing these. :roll_eyes: Dunno if you’ve ever seen the Mulder vivo graphic, but it’s an excellent and compact lesson on why none of us understand what the hell is going on in soil:

Here’s an even more complicated one, of unknown accuracy, marked up by notorious troll @WestCoastCroppers… who has turned out to be trolling about real problems in the past, FWIW. Calcium without boron is kinda useless, it turns out, and when I got on here he was trolling about just that - people throwing cal-mag at a problem without adding any boron. He didn’t come out and actually say what he meant, of course, just got all snarky and started attacking random people as “the problem with cannabis today,” which is why that account is now banned and he’s moved on to another sock. It’s notable, however, that this chart properly shows boron as a stimulator of calcium, rather than just showing calcium as an antagonist to boron.

If, after this conversation, you’re wondering why the hell I still use soil… so am I. :stuck_out_tongue: I think I’ve got a few more terrible runs left in me before I give up and move over to synthetics in sterile medium, though, and every terrible run is another learning experience that makes the next one a little bit less bad.

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Wow thank you for all the help :pray:

I have only been watering with PHed water, so I will try to take your advice and give her some Cal/Mag

I normally don’t use FF, but I had some issues last year and didn’t make up my organic coco mix I normally would be using.
I know I over watered her a bit before I let her dry out and panicked. Im also using a fabric pot, so I don’t get it, but I saw people with similar symptoms who claimed they over watered as well.

I really hope you find a way to help your girl there.
If I find anything else online I’ll let you know.

And if you have access to Coco, I really do recommend making a simple organic coco mix.
I just couldn’t grab any coco this year for various reasons…tho you actually can reuse coco a number of times untill it starts to break down.

But I literally just add:

Organic Veg amendments
Organic Bloom amendments
Earth Worm Castings
Bone Meal
Epsom Salt
Perlite
Hydroton (Clay) Pellets
Mycorrhizae powder
SEA 90 (Optional)

Just mixed that all into my coco and it lasts me the entire run. You can reuse it for the next few years as well if you flush it out and reapply nutes.

I have never had issues with that mix.
The coco and living soils are the easiest and best way to go in my opinion.

I don’t think I’m going to ever use the FF again. Its giving me issues I’ve never had to deal with before. I just want healthy plants lol

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Have you thought about using SIPs? Takes the guess work out of watering and feeding. You create an all you can eat smorgasbord and let the plants take what they want, when they want.

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I appreciate the advice… but that’s what people told me when I started running organic, that “you just feed the soil and the plant takes what it needs,” and every single package of organic fertilizer I have says it doesn’t burn. I’ve tried telling my plants that, but they just don’t listen. :roll_eyes: As far as SIPs, they’re just another mechanism for bottom-watering, which I already do most of the time with established plants - they’re not going to fix the fundamental problem, which is that this strain is extremely nute-sensitive and is constantly dying from the all-you-can-eat smorgasbord I’m giving her. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Maybe transfer her to a Seed Starter Mix with some added Earth Worm Castings and Perlite ??

If she is crazy sensitive maybe you can give her just the basics and then slowly and gently top feed her as she needs it.

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There always has to be that one plant that won’t listen :joy:

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Not precisely that, but I already did replace a good portion of the soil last night before I posted about this. As I said, she’s perked up a bit this morning, so I’m planning on doing the same with #5 because she’s also looking a bit grumpy around the top leaves. Again, thanks, but I think I’m good for now. :slight_smile: Mostly just annoyed that this strain is constantly unhappy compared to my other plants, and makes everything I do turn out wrong. She’s like that one ex-girlfriend who was constantly unhappy, but then when I tried to help she’d get angry at me for doing it wrong, almost like she was just unhappy regardless of the circumstances. I have no idea whether she’s still as unhappy without me as with me, of course, but I suspect she is. :stuck_out_tongue:

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To me it looks like the roots aren’t happy, not necessarily that the soil is the problem. I don’t have an answer to fix it tho. Maybe uppot with some mycos :man_shrugging:

As for FFOF, it’s garbage imo and I won’t use it for anything if I can help it. IME, you get about ~3 weeks worth of good growth before things start going haywire. Never did figure that out. I went to water only super soil and then back to hydro after a couple runs with it.

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The FFOF doesn’t have enough dolomite lime in my experience. FFOF goes to 5.6 pH after a few feedings even with running some ro water before each feeding. It gets to the point where you’re running 10+ gallons to even try to fix it to the correct pH after enough time.

To me tthe silver mountains looks like it could benefit from switching to a normal pot with some starter soil .

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That might be it, they were just transplanted and that was my 2nd one… the first one was the Silver Mountain F2 I mentioned earlier. I ripped the root ball in half and it was originally in much worse condition, but it’s already recovered and isn’t showing any of the same problems as this one, which also felt like a much less stressful transplant to me. If it is root problems though, replacing the soil around them shouldn’t cause any worse problems, and if it’s nutrient toxicity it might help. It seems to be already, if I’m not just imagining things… dunno, we shall see. At this point the plan is to treat liberally with this miracle plant tonic:

Thanks. I appreciate that you guys all care, but I have no plans to transplant again, and nothing in particular to transplant to since all the depleted soil has already been put into pots. Usually doing too many things at once without waiting to see the results is an excellent way to kill plants, anyway. They were already transplanted just three days ago. As I’ve said repeatedly now, the plan is LITFA. Please stop making suggestions, everyone. Feel free to tell me you told me so if they die, since we’ll never know anyway; I can’t do everything at once to see who’s right.

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Ah, I missed they were just transplanted and whatnot. That’d do it. LITFA sounds like the best medicine then. Especially if the other one’s are fine ^^

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I pile that LITFA on all the time. It’s my favorite additive. I literally never add anything else unless the plant looks like it needs it. Except for some dihydrogen monoxide I bought at a discount. I do try to use plenty of that.

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lol there is a lot going on that bottle label

Edit-I love that it’s on an advanced bottle as well. I hope that was on purpose

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Hey Cormoran, nice to see another Silver Mountain Preservation run!!! And stoked to see your beautiful plants. I haven’t been active / on here in a while due to changing life circumstances and such, but I just checked in and am over here drooling.

Silver Mountain is such a great strain and has continued to be one of my fav daytime smokes I have, though I am running low because I haven’t had any plants in a year now it feels like!

I haven’t / won’t be trying to sign up or anything but I have plenty of the Silver Mountain F2s I made in the fridge still and would love to get another variation of the F2s with different parents if you want to do a little trade or gift to each other at some point!

Nice to have logged back in and be on the OG. Hope everyone is doing well this spring and having a great year so far.

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Assuming I haven’t managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again by feeding them last week, definitely. :wink: If you hadn’t gifted me some of your F2s, I’d never have known how good this is and started this run, so you’ve got a nice fat pack coming if things work out. They’re still not exactly looking great, but it doesn’t seem like the leaves that were healthy in the last picture of #2 are any more damaged, so I’m holding on to hope. Worst case, I have several clones of one of your F2s going in 10g pots right now, and if need be I’ll let them go to seed to get some form of Silver Mountain repro - technically it might be a F1 x F2 incross, but better than nothing. No idea whether that would be good enough for the co-op, but whether they’ll pass them out or not I’m not going to let go of this repro without a hell of a fight.

Speaking of, it’s close enough to a week that I might as well drop at least a mini-update; pretty much nothing new, though. The F1 females continue to look ugly and I’m not sure whether they’re recovering or just dying very slowly; the males are slightly unhappy in their 3g pots and want to flower already, but still haven’t started actually dropping pollen. Here’s the group pics:

Individual pics of the females, I didn’t bother with the males this time. Every time I look at the picture of #2 I change my mind about whether or not there’s new growth, or if it’s just wishful thinking. If so, it’s certainly not going anywhere fast. Whether it’s because they were transplanted 6 days ago and are still recovering, or the soil is a bit too strong, I’m not sure. The Silver Mountain F2s and all the other transplants in the other room look much better, but haven’t shown much sign of new growth either. If the F1s don’t look better in another week, but are still alive, I’ll probably transplant - at that point the Silver Mountains and the few remaining Glue downstairs should be done flowering, and I can mix their depleted soil together and give it a try without amending.

Silver Mountain F2s - at least one is halfway-decent size and would probably get a few hundred or maybe a thousand seeds. The others would need some time to grow first, but overall it’d only be about 3 weeks more veg if I end up having to go with them. They’re looking better than the F1s, but also weren’t nearly as deficient before the transplant, so it’s possible that’s all this is and I’m just being a big anxious goof because I care a bit too much. :stuck_out_tongue: If I hadn’t had trouble with them before, I wouldn’t have ever worried, but these are definitely more sensitive than my other keepers. Granted, those are Frankie, Glue, MAC1 and Blueberry right now… so maybe it’s more that they’re pretty heavy feeders, except for the Blueberry, which is about in line with this one.

I also still have clones of the F1 females, though none of them are rooted yet. Interestingly, the leaves that are dying on them are mostly curling up at the tips as well, so maybe it’s not phosphorous excess - they certainly shouldn’t have an excess after two weeks getting plain water.

And finally, #1 in flower followed by the two F2s. Oh, and Frankie snuck into the group pic again…

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