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promoting root growth


Redd_Beardd
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So i've noticed after harvesting my last few plants that most of my plants' root systems don't seem to be as big as i would have hoped.

I use the following materials in my grow process:

  • Soil - Ocean Forest
  • Nutrients
    • 1oz worm juice + 1oz bokashi leachate + 1g tap water - fed every other watering during veg cycle
    • Root Organics Buddah Bloom - fed every other watering during flowering cycle

    [*]Containers - various sizes; black plastic

    [*]Light

    • Veg - 400W MH
    • Flower - 600W HPS

    [*]Flowering is all done in a tent with a separate area for veg and mother plants.

    [*]Ossilating fan in both grow areas

I'm pretty confident on my feeding regimine (but always open to tips and suggestions). However, I'm beginning to consider moving to colth / breathable containers for my next grow. I am also questioning if the number of plants to available light might have something to do with this as well.

My plan is to reduce the number of plants in both veg and flower to better balance the flower to light ratio and using grow bags instead of plastic containers.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

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Hey brother. Look into Mycorrhizal Fungi and get some ASAP! I use Rooters which is the cheapest brand you can buy and it works very well!

Thought I'd share this link as I found it pretty easy to read..No offense at all towards you, I just like easy reads lol - http://www.mycorrhizae.com/

And this is the product I use. It's mean to be used at every transplant and you can look at my thread if you wanna see how crazy my root growth was this time around! Might be around page 3/4. Wet/dry cycles might do you some justice too!

And at the moment I'm pushing the limits with plants under a 600w HPS. For half the day the get and extra 400w T5VHO, but we'll see how it works! If I don't have a problem, now wat they light is your issue!

And I certainly vouch for growbags becuase they're cheap and so easy to use when transplanting out of.

I start in a solo cup then move to a one gallon grow bag then move to the final pot. The transplant to the final pot never even produces drooping leaves! So I love them for that reason! To get them out the solo cups, I just carefully fut the solo cups off.

But good luck brother!

Grow on.

post-26357-0-03010700-1374270601.jpg

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hey hoss. thanks for the tip on the mycorrizal fungi! i'll give that a shot. my gut is telling me i got too excited and my timing was off. i really think i took too many clones too late in the year and consequently overloaded my tent and lost the young mothers to be due to heat in my veg / mother area. i keep a very close watch on the temps and in that area i had to swap out the 400W MH i was using for a standard 4' two tube flourescent light. the temps in that area were already in the 90's F / 30's C in May. my established mothers have faired just fine. i kinda think that's also due in part to them being sativa dominant. the temps in my tent never get above 82* F / 27* C because i have a portable a/c unit and a using a fan to air cool my light. however, my harvests are lower per plant than i'd like which leads me to believe i have too many plants and either need to up the light to 1000W or reduct the number of plants. i'm gonna go with fewer plants and focus on increasing the yeild via pruing and training.

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Hmmm, what do you consider a low harvest for 600w? Anything under 3 ounces dried maybe?

And yeah they mycos will do you GREAT justice!

Know a couple growers in the big state deal with the same issues right now haha heat.

AC seems to not be optional out there! It's a must! And from what I understand, plants in general should be fine under 90 degress.

Anything above 90 gets more damning the hotter it gets! But few plants and a more attentive veg sounds like a plant too!

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yea pretty much. i'm averaging 0.5oz - 1.0oz per plant. i'm sure i'll be able to get 1.5oz + by letting them stay in veg longer and using cages and / or bamboo supports. i'm averaging from clone to harvest cycle of about 10 - 12 weeks. however, i think the next garden i'll extend the veg time and try some new training / pruning techniques. ...and try out that mycorhyzial fungi!

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yea pretty much. i'm averaging 0.5oz - 1.0oz per plant. i'm sure i'll be able to get 1.5oz + by letting them stay in veg longer and using cages and / or bamboo supports. i'm averaging from clone to harvest cycle of about 10 - 12 weeks. however, i think the next garden i'll extend the veg time and try some new training / pruning techniques. ...and try out that mycorhyzial fungi!

Yeah, forgot to mention co2 as well.

And since your organic, maybe look into compost teas :) It's sorta of our answer to feeding our plants.

The recipes I use are all on the first page of my thread. Everything I use works fine for me so it should work fine for you if you wanted to try somethings.

The better your soil, the better the results tho, and when you take care of the soil, it gets better with time :)

So far so good for me! The soil I'm using now, I grew in during the winter and finished in the spring, and it's hold up pretty good!

& yeah that's pretty low yields that I'm sure you can easily improve, with a little attention to detail.

I feel like a little loving for the girls goes a long way :)

Rather than planning on feeding and organics garden, you should be prepared to amend the soil before you pot up into it.

Kelp Meal, Bat Guano, some rock dusts for your foots and fungi to anchor down, something for food for lots of N, could be guano, or a tomato food or both. What I have is in my thread.

That way it's already there. Feeding doesn't work the same at all tho.

The plants excrete exudates that dictacte which nutrients are taken up and which remain in the soil. Making sure a little of everything is there has done me justice :)

When your "feeding" or planning on doing so, you bypassing the organic part of the equation and going straight to the plants in a plant ready formula.

Therefore you don't have to rely on the soil for getting nutrients to the plant. That's the synthetic way. You have to flush all that out. In organics, in a good soil, it's not really possible to flush without killing the living soil.

That Bhudda bloom looks very mild in terms of NPK which is good for an organic bottled supplement.

But from what I've learned in my obsessive quest for info so far, it's best to go with the dry organic fertilzers as that's the natural way.

The only things I have in a bottle are molasses and Neptunes Harvest Fish Hydrolysate. I use them both only in different compost teas.

You gotta go to the soil in organics.

Otherwise you have to say F it and buy some super weed 20-45-15 or something haha

Bless brother

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right on. i've recently read about exhale c02 bags and will probably get a bag for the next crop.

yea, this is the first time i've used a bottled nutrient. the mix looked good and the guys at my local horitculture shop didn't have anything bad to say about it.

i've also tried amending the soil with high N bat guano and diatomacious earth before, but i used to much bat guano and ended up buring most of my plants. i'll dial back the amount of guano and give it a shot again. i've got plenty of raw materials around to make my own compost tea so that will go on the task list next.

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hi man well it depends also the way you grow your plants and if the size of the pots was really adapted to the grow :) In 20L pots for example yeah for sure most of the srains on a "regular" grow with a little veg but nothing crazy and a good flowering would not fill the pot, i don't think lol ^^ I've experienced a few thing about size pots and it's prety fun to do and sometimes surprising ^^ I remember we even had on the forum some members growing only in 25cl plastic glass like i parties you know, and having very nice result with this, we could also mention Gonzo that had to veg his girl for almost 10 weeks in very undersized conainers, and the beauty is that they did it very nicely :)

But to come back to you lol, what are your pots and how long do you veg usually? (you might have mentionned it above i have looked quickly if i could see it bubt didn't see it, sorry if you already answered to this ^^ )

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pot size is important but too big is not good either. Best methd to get fat roots is a mix of coco + clay pebbles - 50/50. t is messy and the ater floats out as soon as you put it on top.lol-but this effect is the closest you come to Hydro wthout the hustle wth al that eb&flow or pump stuff. If you don't like this methood stick with your favorite soil mix but add clay pebbles never th ess. Fill up the pot ground with them, so the roots can breathe and are not stuck on the plastic of a tray. Put a small layer on top; helps wth watering and avoids getting lower and higher surfaces or holes around the stem. Finally peat moss is a very good medium, if you want a lighter less tight medium peat moss is the key. Even better than coco to mix with other soil ..

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right on. i've recently read about exhale c02 bags and will probably get a bag for the next crop.

yea, this is the first time i've used a bottled nutrient. the mix looked good and the guys at my local horitculture shop didn't have anything bad to say about it.

i've also tried amending the soil with high N bat guano and diatomacious earth before, but i used to much bat guano and ended up buring most of my plants. i'll dial back the amount of guano and give it a shot again. i've got plenty of raw materials around to make my own compost tea so that will go on the task list next.

Nice! This is my 2nd run using them, and I have to say i'm impressed very much so :)

And the compost teas will help build up your soil microbiology, so that way you soil can hold more nutrients and deliever them as they're needed.

As far as amending the soil goes, the rule of thumb is 3-5 cups of Nutritional amendments pre cubic feet(7.5 gallons of soil). Anything less might now be enough, and anything more might burn. To give you a better idea, you can just look at the first post in my thread.

My soil mix recipe is posted there! Everything is already in my soil mix tho, so I can go from start to finish with just water only.

And good thing the guys brought up pot size, never crossed my mind :)

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i start my seeds in plugs. after about 3wks of visible root growth i move them to their starter pots. these are small containers, approximately 3" and only hold about 1c / 8oz of soil. about 2-3 weeks prior to transitioning to flowering i transplant them to 8" containers.

for my next garden, i'm considering transplating the seedlings directly to 1g grow bags and skipping the intermediate 3" containers.

dust, i usually veg by feel. i typically top the plants after the 4th set of leaves appear. the plants are about 5.5" - 6" tall at this point. when the plants get to the fullness i like and about 12" - 24" tall i move them to the tent. i use this method regardless of whether they are clones or started from seed.

bam, thanks for the tips! i've been curious about coco and have been considering adding it to my soil.

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Plugs for 3wks?! That might be the problem! After 3wks I have a solo cup full of roots that badly needs to be transplanted!

After solo cup I got to 1 gallon grow bags and there good to grow in those for about 2-3wk IMO, then I switch to the 3 gallon smart pots to finish the veg and start flower!

But maybe the plugs help air prune the roots? Have you noticed or not?

I think you just identifed you problem which seems to be your pot size for sure! It's all VERY SMALL what your using!

I never had the prob so I can say for sure, but I'm sure Dust knows what he's talking about haha.

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