Indoor PlantRoom does Biotabs, Biochar, Autopot Smartpot XL, Telos, Topping and LST

[PlantRoom]

Welcome to my grow journal fellow growers and stoners

This will be a 3 strain auto grow RQS Amnesia Haze, Barneys Pineapple Express, Fastbuds Gorilla Glue. Trying to go as organic as possible, building soil, using biotabs range of nutes and tap water.

Environment is a 90x90x180 tent, Grow Northern Telos 0008 light, Autopot SmartPot XL, 47L reservoir, 8" box fan extraction, internal circulation fan, lights 18/6. Water will be left to stand for 24 hours and contains 125ppm Ca and 10ppm Mg.

Seeds will be rolled in Mycotrex and started in root riot cubes, transplanted into a 1L smart pot with more mycotrex into a mixture of 50% plagron light mix and 50% plagron worm castings, after approx 10 days the complete pot will be transplanted into final pots.

Plants will be topped at the 4th node and nodes will be LST'd to give 8 colas.

Nutes are Biotabs, startrex, orgatrex, mycotrex, bactrex, boom boom spray, PK5-8.

50L soil to be divided between 3 pots will be made up of the following approx:

35% innoculated Biochar/growstone mix
20% Plagron light mix
20% Plagron Coco Coir
20% Plagron Mega Worm
3% Malted Barley
1% Ecothrive Charge (Insect frass)
1% Startrex

So let's get this party started

First job is to get the biochar innoculated, I've got 8% homemade char from my woodburning stove and outdoor firepit, to this I've added growstones GS2, and various amounts of worm castings, malted barley, ecothrive charge and watered in with orgatrex and bactrex. I didn't wash the char so there is also a small amount of ash

Crushing char to get a mixture of powder and 1mm-1cm sized bits

Adding growstones

Amendments

Ready to mix

Mixed and watered with 8L of bactrex and orgatrex solution

There's about 20L of this slurry leaving 30L of Soil/Coco/Castings to add

pH of this mixture started around 9.5 and has lowered after a couple of days to 8.5, this gets a good stir everytime I pass it and will sit around now for a couple of weeks until the next update which will be soil mixing and seed popping

Thanks for checking in :smoking:

 

[DTOM420]

I’m adding my first biochar to an expanded Coots Mix and I’ve been warned by numerous very well known soil builders NOT to add to much biochar. The recipe I’m following makes right at 10 gallons of finished soil and there’s only 2 cups of finely ground inoculated biochar in each 10 gallon batch. Too much biochar can rob your soil of nutrients and cause you all sorts of grief. I’m not quite following the proportion of char in your soil but it sounded like it could be on the high side and wanted to warn you. I’ve been told it’s better to add less and then keep building the char in slowly on subsequent grows; rather than loading it all in at first. Unless, maybe, you’re building it and going to leave it to cure for a LONG time, like a year or more.

Just thought I’d pass along the warning. Might be worth a test from Logan Labs. In any case, good luck with your grow!! I’m subbed to see how it all turns out for ya.

 

[PlantRoom]

Update on the Biochar slurry, it has dropped to pH7.5 today, I'm guessing that the bacteria is doing this, I've

I’m adding my first biochar to an expanded Coots Mix and I’ve been warned by numerous very well known soil builders NOT to add to much biochar. The recipe I’m following makes right at 10 gallons of finished soil and there’s only 2 cups of finely ground inoculated biochar in each 10 gallon batch. Too much biochar can rob your soil of nutrients and cause you all sorts of grief. I’m not quite following the proportion of char in your soil but it sounded like it could be on the high side and wanted to warn you. I’ve been told it’s better to add less and then keep building the char in slowly on subsequent grows; rather than loading it all in at first. Unless, maybe, you’re building it and going to leave it to cure for a LONG time, like a year or more.

Just thought I’d pass along the warning. Might be worth a test from Logan Labs. In any case, good luck with your grow!! I’m subbed to see how it all turns out for ya.

Welcome

I hear what you're saying, I started a thread asking about the pH and % to add and then found the answer on here as KiS recommends 5-8% char https://www.autoflower.org/threads/biochar.63486/#post-1677530 https://www.autoflower.org/threads/biochar-in-pots-and-ph.69181/#post-1986808 The slurry mix I have here is 8% char of the final pot amount so at the top end if I use it all.

All the research I have done confirms what you are saying that the char can rob the soil of nutrients and can take a while to become beneficial. From what I've read, this is because char that hasn't been inoculated will absorb nutes from the soil into it's pores until it cannot absorb any more, so what I am doing here is inoculating with nutes and bacteria in an attempt to avoid that problem and give the char a head start in getting balanced with the soil.

The idea is the same with the growstones, they should be filled with bacteria and nutes, but I've not heard of growstones acting in the same way as char (absorbing nutes from soil) they just appear to be used as an aeration mix usually, there's no research on inoculating growstones that I'm aware of yet, also growstones are pH neutral.

We'll see if it works!

 

[DTOM420]

Update on the Biochar slurry, it has dropped to pH7.5 today, I'm guessing that the bacteria is doing this, I've


Welcome

I hear what you're saying, I started a thread asking about the pH and % to add and then found the answer on here as KiS recommends 5-8% char https://www.autoflower.org/threads/biochar.63486/#post-1677530 https://www.autoflower.org/threads/biochar-in-pots-and-ph.69181/#post-1986808 The slurry mix I have here is 8% char of the final pot amount so at the top end if I use it all.

All the research I have done confirms what you are saying that the char can rob the soil of nutrients and can take a while to become beneficial. From what I've read, this is because char that hasn't been inoculated will absorb nutes from the soil into it's pores until it cannot absorb any more, so what I am doing here is inoculating with nutes and bacteria in an attempt to avoid that problem and give the char a head start in getting balanced with the soil.

The idea is the same with the growstones, they should be filled with bacteria and nutes, but I've not heard of growstones acting in the same way as char (absorbing nutes from soil) they just appear to be used as an aeration mix usually, there's no research on inoculating growstones that I'm aware of yet, also growstones are pH neutral.

We'll see if it works!

Sounds like you’ve got it under control. I couldn’t tell if you were using the 8% as the amount in your total mix. Funny you mention KIS. Tad has been helping me with my soil mix. On my first run, he’s one of the ones that recommended just using 1-2 cups per batch that, as I said, ends up right at 10 gallons with all the amendments following the base materials. I ended up inoculating mine with mammoth p, Recharge, lacto bacillus and MicroBlast.

 

[PlantRoom]

Sounds like you’ve got it under control. I couldn’t tell if you were using the 8% as the amount in your total mix. Funny you mention KIS. Tad has been helping me with my soil mix. On my first run, he’s one of the ones that recommended just using 1-2 cups per batch that, as I said, ends up right at 10 gallons with all the amendments following the base materials. I ended up inoculating mine with mammoth p, Recharge, lacto bacillus and MicroBlast.

Great minds think alike

 

[PlantRoom]

Declaring Day 1

Changed the strains, now have Dinafem Haze XXL Auto, FastBuds GorillaGlue Auto and Kannabia Mikromachine Auto. Has taken them 4 days to show above ground (root riot), now at Day 5 , I'm declaring day 1. Seeds were rolled in Biotabs Mycotrex before planting. Tap roots out, so it's time to plant up.

Final soil mixed

 

[PlantRoom]

Day 3

Like a stoned eejit, I have managed to snap a seedling in two after they all decided to go for a roll in the tray, lesson learned don't try any delicate transplanting operations when baked

So I have lost my one and only Kannabia seed and will replace it with something else in a couple of days, which will put it 10 days behind the other two

Transplanting into 1L fabric pots, 50/50 mix of Light mix and Worm castings, sprinkled with Mycotrex and a dash of water, trashed seed on the right.

 

[PlantRoom]

Day 10 Haze XXL

Watering with dechlorinated tap water water with a low dosage of bactrex.

OK, so my destructive antics have killed a second seedling, the Haze has survived and is growing but it looks like it could be a bit behind, time will tell, also had a bit of tip burn on the first leaves so not sure if its a hot soil or the light, moved it to 1.40m from the light to see if it helps, but because this seedling also rolled, I have probably caused it some damage, we'll see.

So I started a couple more, RQS Amnesia Haze Auto and Barneys Pineapple Express Auto, they are both up but not at day one yet. Also another little surprise was a mushroom appeared and disappeared within a day in the Haze pot, I forgot to get pics, but I guess this means the Mycorrhizal fungi is alive and well and doing its job

Dead un

Haze XXL burnt and curling tips.

 

[PlantRoom]

Day 14 Haze XXL
Day 2 AH & PEX

Two new seedlings transplanted into 1L with no problems this time and have taken off nicely. Haze XXL is ready for transplanting into final pot as it is poking roots through the fabric, searching for more.

Root riot living up to its name

Haze XXL, showing some deficiency, possibly N?

Smart pot air pruning

 

[Happyganjafarmer]

good luck with grow friend, i am stalking you!