Mephisto Genetics Cosmic Queens in not quite living soil

[calliandra]

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Been making a cake for my dad's birthday and going to my sister's tonight.

It's a BlackBerry jam cake, his mom made them. But no one has her recipe .

Hey you too!
What a feat! I'm sure he'll love it, even if it isn't The Original Recipe
cheers!

 

[Dudeski]

I like baking, but I like eating it afterwards better!

Fyi, there is a breeder here with monthly contests , Magic Strains. March contest is best tutorial . Just letting you know, I gotta find a link. He has some very good genetics

 

[Dudeski]

https://www.autoflower.org/threads/march-giveaway-2018.64140/

 

[BISCUITS]

Wow that's a multi-tasking level that sounds almost scary! Best of luck for all your ventures!

Maybe it helps to understand better how nutrients come in different forms.

• There's soluble forms, which are immediately plant available,
  
• exchangeable ionic forms bound to particles in the soil (and to oxalate crystals on fungal hyphae), that can quickly become plant-available,
  
• and then there are the great majority of nutrients bound in the bodies of microbes, in decomposing detritus, and the mineral component (sand, silt, clays), which are mostly ignored in chemical soil tests.

There is no lack in nutrients in just about any soil when we look at total amounts, ever!
But we have devastated our microbial populations to the point of breakdown - and the bacteria and fungi are the guys who go extract those bound nutrients from the sand silt and clays and organic matter with their enzymes and store them in their tiny bodies, keeping them in place. The protozoa and nematodes (and worms!) then have to go eat those bacteria and fungi, and by excreting the excess, make them available to the plant in soluble form, in the perfect mix of all - what, 3? 5? 14? 42? Plant science keeps expanding their count... all of them? - elements plants need for healthy growth.

So circling back to the mycorrhizae, having that P in a readily available form in great amounts (as is the case with that guano), the plant will be happy with that (as long as it lasts - because it will also leach out with watering!). So it won't even start making the enzymes to get germination and growth of the mycos going as long as it doesn't need to
Sure there needs to be P in insoluble forms so the fungi can go mine it, but I'm learning to worry less and less about that.

One thought that really helped me along with that:
Think of a really healthy plant, loving life on a sunny day. Got a picture in your head?
So what is it going to be made of?
All the nutrients, in the perfect amounts and combination a healthy plant needs!

Manures will always be at least partially processed (some more, some less, hence the difference in "hotness" between horse, chicken, bat...), releasing those goodies into soluble forms.

Sure, bacteria and fungi will grab soluble nutes too (they do it all the time! Not every bit of nematode poo gets caught up by the plant roots ). But if that becomes their main source of nutrition, it's a shortcut that literally cuts out essential parts of the process, leading to other problems.

For example, when bacteria and fungi go to mine nutes, they excrete enzymes which act like glues to aggregate the soil, creating that lovely crumbly texture that lets air circulate, holds water, and allows the roots to expand unhindered.
Assuming the bacteria to be feeding just on soluble stuff, they won't be making those glues, the aggregates will crumble and collapse, and those (aerobic) bacteria themselves won't be able to live there anymore, giving way to those who can: the anaerobes, who however don't go well with the plants we want to grow at all. So it's a straight path to hell lol

Cheers!

Excellent! Knowledge is power my friend.It has also been demonstrated that plants will actually consume whole bacteria along with the nutes they contain.It was shown through radioactive labelling .I read about it initially in Max Yield magazine.I have also come to focus more on bacteria and trichoderma then with mycorrizae.They have been shown to not do very well in high P substrates and also take some time to really get going.This is an advantage of the no-till method.Don't get me wrong I still add them lightly mixed in my soil.

 

[BISCUITS]

Closet update!
The changes to the air intake have lowered the humidity a bit, maximums are in the 60s now and all the way down to 45%
But the NLH was crowding the closet so badly
(canopy view)
View attachment 858802

I went and chopped her down to make space for the CQs
View attachment 858805

Just kidding haha View attachment 858806
I was just messing around and wanted to see what the situation would be like if I only had 2 "normal" plants in there
I didn't spread out their branches any, knowing they'd have to be squished in again, but I think it's quite clear now (as if it wasn't before) that my grow space is totally overcrowded, and the girls would have benefited greatly had they been able to grow out like that.
Especially since MzWoozy decided to grow into a full plant anyway - which I can only attribute to the Mephisto vigour she has built into her!!!

rare full-plant view of Queen Sissi (I can't take her out anymore, the bean's bound to the wall ), day 59 today
View attachment 858804

She is quite the bush, and her undergrowth consists mainly of budsybuds

Whilst playing around, I also saw there has been some furtive thripsy-looking nibbing at her bottommost leaves where she's all scrunched up against the wall
View attachment 858807
I didn't see any actual thrips, but treated them with a rapeseed oil foliar anyway as it can't hurt, and also removed some of them, since they have neither light nor space down there anyways.
Nothing tragic, but nice to catch in time.

So still same general situation
View attachment 858803

The curse of being able to check on my soil is that I know that unfortunately, the biology in the NLH pot is collapsing, and also that my freshly harvested VC has root-feeding nematodes in it
I shouldn't have tried to inoculate my wormbin with that compost of a friend of mine, I'm pretty sure that's where I got them from.

I wouldn't even mind that, if I knew the rest of the microherd is abundant and resilient enough to prevent damage.
By mere displacement, covering the whole plant in good microbial protection to crowd out the bad guys, gobbling up all the foods, maintaining the environment nice and aerobic, and maybe even actively hunting them down.
But it's not, so I don't have a microbial inoculant to do anything about the NLH's weak microherd until I figure out how to handle this situation.

So now I'm hesitating to check on Sissi's soil too, which I did plan to - but since I can't really do anything about it, I don't really want to know? Sweet oblivion! LOL

Plants really are amazing creatures!
They try to grow way before conditions have reached a comfortable level for them.
Looking at the NLH, one wouldn't think her soil situation is as dire as it then turns out to be under the microscope!

But enough of these soil conunderigs, here's a secondary bud of Sissi's

View attachment 858808
oops looks like I lost a hair over all that haha

Cheers!

That NL5/haze is going to be a real behemothis.She likes to stretch.She is still one of my personal all time favorites.I remember growing her for the first time.Me and a buddy started her indoors in February and put her outside in May she was already over 3 feet.She grew into the biggest plant I have personally ever seen.A 12' tall 16' circumference Xmas tree that was loaded with 2 lbs. of some wickedly potent buds.The frickin fans leaves would get you high like for real high.We sold bags of fan leaves for $20 all day long and kept the buds for ourselves.This was back in the early 90's when it was mostly commercial brick weed on the market and this shit changed the whole game when we realized how good herb could be.Please be good to her because she was so good to me and will hopefully be good to you. NO TILL FTW!

 

[johnp540]

yes please! I may not be able to read anymore today, but maybe you have some pictures?! haha
Just finished my first ever writeup of a microbial assessment for a friend in exchange for 2 citizen COBs he had lying about, so had to figure out how best to get it done, and my brain doesn't want to figure out anything else today


Yes! I definitely can imagine that!

cheers!

Lol that's cool it'll be right here. It's the first post on the page (20).
https://www.autoflower.org/threads/...-critical-cbd-auto.62490/page-20#post-1708795
Writeup of a microbial assessment sounds technical yet informing lol definitely worthy of cobs. I like your style, can't wait to get caught up in your journal. I believe I'm on page 4. I'll get you some pics. There's only a few in my journal.

 

[johnp540]

@calliandra forgive me if I missed it in the first 4 pages, and my impatience if it's to come, but where did you get the northern lights #5× haze from?
I've been looking at getting some from Swami, along with his cherry bomb. He's also has a lot of other really interesting genetics from the older days. Real Panama, Clackamas Coots the one and blue orca, rumor has it he's breeding road kill skunk with some things now to be released in the spring. Definitely worth checking out if you into old school genetics.

 

[johnp540]

day 32
After having shown her to you last time right after lights out, when she mostly lets it all hang, I took her out of the closet today just before lights out.
Standing 42cm tall
View attachment 847319

Branching
Those two branches pretty much up with the main tip are from the 2nd node, with the branch from the 1st (the monoleaf) and the third are visible up front in the leaf mass, quite a bit shorter than those other two.
View attachment 847318

She did get defoliated a bit, as I got the feeling she's trying to grow away from herself, or at least all that tangled mass. I mainly removed leaves that were getting squished, pressed down against the soil, and 4 of the fan leaves growing out the mid section of the main stem.

View attachment 847320

Still enough foliage left, I'd say The wingspan of the bush is at around 75cm (=the depth of the closet).

The plant matter from the defoliation got chopped (my blender just died) and stirred into water, and watered back to the plant.
View attachment 847321 View attachment 847322 View attachment 847323

Oh and this is something that can be done no matter the soil recipe!
Because it's a solution of aaall the nutrients a healthy cannabis plant needs to grow healthily, in perfect amounts. No danger of any unbalanced feeding there!
Cheers!

I've actually heard of people juicing the leaves to combat powdery mildew. I'll have to do some digging to find out who exactly said this. I heard about it on a panel on "Free Weed" with Danny Danko from High Times. It's a podcast that I think they don't do anymore, but the episodes are still available to listen to.

 

[Dudeski]

@calliandra forgive me if I missed it in the first 4 pages, and my impatience if it's to come, but where did you get the northern lights #5× haze from?
I've been looking at getting some from Swami, along with his cherry bomb. He's also has a lot of other really interesting genetics from the older days. Real Panama, Clackamas Coots the one and blue orca, rumor has it he's breeding road kill skunk with some things now to be released in the spring. Definitely worth checking out if you into old school genetics.

Ace seeds has Panama seeds, I think it's ace, because I have some to try! I think it's a long grow though

 

[calliandra]

Excellent! Knowledge is power my friend.It has also been demonstrated that plants will actually consume whole bacteria along with the nutes they contain.It was shown through radioactive labelling .I read about it initially in Max Yield magazine..

omg.
that just sent chills down my back!! THEY'VE FOUND IT in academia!?!?! Endocytosis in plant roots?!!!!!! haha! just a matter of time till they find that remutation isn't just an evolutionary quantum leap, but is happening all the time -plants reusing and adapting subcellular entities like chloroplasts, mitochondria they take up by endocytosis! sames time and energy!!

That idea has been around for a long time, but the only person I know who has been openly speaking for soil and plant care along those lines is Herwig Pommeresche, who built up his practices around it far away from academic discussions and has been turning out amazing results, quite in harmony with the nature around him, for decades. His book, "Humussphäre" (most of his writings are in German) has just gotten a second edition
Here's one of the very few clips of him explaining some of his sleights of hand somewhat in English:



This has enormous implications, as it flies in the face of the idea that organic matter has to be completely mineralized before it becomes available to the plant.
Resilience-strenghtening redundancy in the pathways by which nutrients can be taken up, and energy efficiency sound much more in character with what we have been finding about nature

So please! Any links you may have to this!!!
So fun!
Cheers!