Mephisto Genetics Cosmic Queens in not quite living soil

[Loud Pipes]

Heya Pipes, good to see ya! thanks, I'll need it!
And yes! it was the Sour Stomper haha unforgettable plant!
This one is bound to be interesting, same environment, two plants in different pot sizes
Cheers!

If I remember correctly you grew the largest Sour Stomper that this world has ever seen!

 

[calliandra]

If I remember correctly you grew the largest Sour Stomper that this world has ever seen!

Sheez yes she was more than amazing!!
And a great daytime smoke too, got me clear through the winter without feeling the need to hibernate

 

[calliandra]

and here we are, on Day 12

Miz Woozy is not just woozy, she's stopped growing and is crimping her leaves together as if in an angry fist.
I get it, totally - so sorry!!

So she's out, I may leave her for another few days and if she decides to start back up I'll let her grow out on the side as a curiosity. More likely the sight of her will become too painful and she'll get blendered into a little cannabis juice for her sister.

Oh! but it's not like she totally lost her nitrogen (though her first real leaves are going lighter) - I missed lights off today, and lights on is always so much yellower, and editing colors mostly doesn't help much.

So this canopy picture of Missy Twoshoes:

is actually a healthy green in reality lol
Her 2nd-node leafspan is at 19cm.
And she's diligently working on her 4th tier growth.
All the while developing those secondaries, totally evenly!
Usually I pinch off the lowermost secondaries stemming from the first leaf, not touching this one!!

And just some Twoshoesy eye candy

Cheers!

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

very pretty plants,nice pics.

 

[calliandra]

very pretty plants,nice pics.

Thank you! The Mephistos are always a special pleasure to watch growing too, so i try to do them justice
Cheers!

 

[calliandra]

Day 14

Missy Twoshoes just doing her thing, today she stands 9cm tall with a wingspan of 23cm.
Her size as compared to the pot:

Bit closer up

And yeah she seems to be getting a tad much heat, my closet environment is still really weird humidity-wise, the humidifier seems to have spazz-attacks? Sometimes I open the door and the whole space is misted, even the hygrometer on the wall, which always shows lower RH, at 70-80% lol though I've set the humdifier to 45%... I'm guessing it has its sensor at its base, and air gets pulled in from the room the closet's in at around 20% there. So maybe it's because of that.

Side view, just look at those tiny branches, growing their 2nd tier of leaves!

And just because she's so pretty

MzWoozy still hasn't budged, so yeah, I really ruined it for her


The upside being less plants that have to share the good lights...
Very conveniently, I saw a new thread started on PPFD and DLI, need to check that out! One of the cool things about autos being that we can extend the light period and give our plants enough light despite having a subpar setup

Cheers!

 

[Loud Pipes]

I sometimes wonder how big of a role humidity really plays in overall plant development. I'm sure it has some effect but marijuana seems to be a hardy and adaptable plant. Right now my Stiltons are growing in 26-28% humidity and are doing very well. That's the way it is in the winter around here. Last summer I was growing in 90-95% humidity and those plants also did quite well. I no longer worry to much about humidity. If my plants are happy below the ground then they'll be happy above the ground. And as far as light right now I'm on 24/7 lights just to maintain heat since I went to my diy cob set up and the plants seem to be doing very well with that. Went from combating high temps to trying to get the temps up. If it ain't one thing then it's another. Good luck with your grow and I would like to see you grow the worlds biggest CQ. Pipes

 

[calliandra]

I sometimes wonder how big of a role humidity really plays in overall plant development. I'm sure it has some effect but marijuana seems to be a hardy and adaptable plant. Right now my Stiltons are growing in 26-28% humidity and are doing very well. That's the way it is in the winter around here. Last summer I was growing in 90-95% humidity and those plants also did quite well. I no longer worry to much about humidity. If my plants are happy below the ground then they'll be happy above the ground. And as far as light right now I'm on 24/7 lights just to maintain heat since I went to my diy cob set up and the plants seem to be doing very well with that. Went from combating high temps to trying to get the temps up. If it ain't one thing then it's another. Good luck with your grow and I would like to see you grow the worlds biggest CQ. Pipes

Haha thanks! Yeah we'll see how well I can cater to Milady's needs lol

As for humidity, I used to be like you
Now, I've sort of relativated that, seeing how my plants reacted to the addition of humidity to a really very dry environment. Not to get lost in the details of it, I had started a Northern Lights#5 x Haze in a very rich soil but she was showing all sorts of distress signs that her nutrition was out of whack.
There's this concept called vapour pressure deficit, which measures how extreme the conditions are for your plant. Because the leaves need a certain humidity around them to do their photosynthesizing thing, the plant will pump water from the soil directly out of the leaves to achieve that under very low humidity conditions. So the plant gets so busy just pumping moisture, the nutrients in that solution just sort of whizz by the spots they would've been needed and don't get processed. I really saw that in my plant, and it all just stopped when I added some humidity to the air.

Also, a guy I'm following on another forum (growing in no-till soil) actually uses humidity to influence when his automatics start flowering: lower humidity will get them flowering sooner, whilst higher humidity keeps them growing in veg for longer!

That said, I still agree with you that the better the soil the plant is growing in, the less it will be negatively impacted by what otherwise may be considered harsh conditions.
I also am experimenting with regenerating soils my veggie garden, and this fall I noticed how the plants that have begun going mycorrhizal are much less affected by frosts than others. In fact, the roses merrily continued putting out buds, even the leaves took a long time till they finally started showing frostbite lol
So yes, that definitely is true!
Cheers!

 

[calliandra]

Day 16 - 18

So day 16 being the winter solstice, which is my xmas (the other just being an extension of the "main holiday" lol) I got celebrating and didn't get round to updating :smoking:
So it's a two-in-one deal today, the nice thing about it being able to post comparison pix!

I had started doing some very light LST on day 15, just twisting the main stem that little bit to get the branches to grow staggered out right from the start. So I had pinned the third tier of leaves into place. On day 16 however, I changed my mind, as I saw that that very lowest branch growing out of the first mono-leaf node has fallen behind the others, even despite getting more light with the LST-twist.

So first comparison, of plant in bondage, and then released - all on day 16, lights out

3rd tier LST

LST undone

3rd tier LST

LST undone

And the reason for all this back and forth - here you can see really well how the branches are all keeping up with each other from the 2nd node upwards, but the lowest one has stayed short. So I'm considering pinching it, a bit on the fence about it still though
haha
lowest branch peeking out at the bottom right

So on day 17, I did the same LST move on the 4th node, this time not pinning down, only turning the plant on its axis to stagger the branches.
And comparison pix!
I took another lights on pic on day 16

And here we are at day 18

She's getting leafy, and it's getting harder to get pictures of her structure.
Pile o' leaves lol

And branching progress

Ahh, I don't know, today the branch looks like it has hope again lol

What also has happened in the meantime was a major feeding event - a good layer of fresh vermicompost got added to the pot, followed by a slurry of kelp, neem, trim leaves from another plant I just harvested, sprouted barley, DE and rockdust. Hoping thereby to provide the food that will be needed when she starts stretching and putting out flowers. That got added in a ring outside the current dripline, so it's something the roots will be growing into in the next few days. Possibly, they're already doing that, as I saw the tips going light haha may have been a tad much at once
Normally I wouldn't be adding the amendments bunched up like that so much, but this soil is still very iffey and needs "conditioning" to really be that good soil that will grow strong and healthy plants all on its own

Cheers and have yourselves some fine relaxed Xmas days!

 

[Loud Pipes]

I spent some time going through the Bio Torch website that you linked us to. Very interesting. I'm growing organically with Pro Mix ultimate compost (OMRI certified) and Mephisto Super Soil. Water only except for an occasional dash of a myco inoculant and molasses. But you're taking it to a whole different level and from your Sour Stomper grow I know what you can do so I'll just sit back and watch the drama as it unfolds. Good Luck. Pipes