This is my first post to this forum but not my first visit! I have spent countless hours gleaning info from the many posts and guides available here! I feel there is a great community of helpful/knowledgeable individuals on this site so I decided to post one of my own grows for feedback on diagnosing an some issues I had (am still having) this year. I am open to all feedback as I am still a novice grower and have only completed 2 successful grows prior to this. This will be kind of a post/current grow journal for 2018. I have pics from seedling stage to current flowering state that I will post on this thread so you can see where I may have went wrong or can improve upon for my next grow. If you have any suggestions or recommendations on the below setup, your feedback is welcome!
My Grow:
Growing Environment -
Growing in Northern CA Outdoor
Climate Zone: Csb - Warm-Summer Mediterranean
Surface Layer Soil: Moderately alkaline clay loam
Soil amended with Kellogg Potting Mix with Fertilizer before planting at a depth of 3 feet
Genetics:
ILGM White Widow Fem Seeds
Nutrients:
Alaska Fish Fertilizer 5-1-1 (Applied once a week during veg at 3 Tablespoons per gallon)
Alaska MorBloom 0-10-10 (Applied once every two weeks during flower to two out of three plants )
Golden Barrel Unsulphured Molasses (Applied once a week at 2 Tablespoons per gallon throughout grow)
Pesticides:
Cold Pressed Organic Neem Oil (Applied as a preventative measure at 1/4 teaspoon emulsified with Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Liquid Soap in 1L Hand Pressure Sprayer)
Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Liquid Soap (Applied as a preventative measure at 1/2 teaspoon emulsified with 1/4 Neem Oil)
Safer Brand 5163 Caterpillar Killer II Concentrate (Applied when budworms were noticed during week 3 flowering at a rate of 1 teaspoon per gallon)
Planted in permanent home, south facing with structure shielding from Northern exposure and large bush and carrots/tomatoes planted adjacent. Pic taken 5/31/18
Thanks dbld55! You will see my issues appear right around the last few weeks of veg, more details to follow…
I maxed out on my replies being a newb and all so sorry for the delay in pic posting…
These were the other plants that were also planted south facing with structure blocking Northern exposure. Planted with Basil, Jalapenos and Cilantro as companion plants. These are also the plants that developed the most severe issues to date that you can see in later photos. Pics taken 6/21/18
This is when I first started noticing issues. Pics were taken on 7/19/18. On all 3 of the plants, you can see that a few of the leaves are yellowing near the middle/bottom of the plants. It’s not crazy yet in terms of yellowing and necrosis but it will be easily spotted in upcoming pics. I know for a fact that my neem oil/soap mix was way too high after I reread the directions online (they were not listed on the neem bottle!). After I read the directions from the manufacture online, I realized I was using 600% of the recommended dose
Never again will I make that mistake again! I am fairly certain that this is not my long term problem I have been dealing with though as you will see from other pics that they never fully recovered and new growth was affected even though I discontinued my insane dosage of neem/soap insecticide. I am thinking that once the spray was discontinued at that the new growth shouldn’t have been affected if the dosage was the culprit.
These pics are from 8/10/18 and 8/14/18 and you can see yellowing occurring near the upper middle of the plant. This is 2 and 1/2 weeks after the neem/soap spray was reduced.
The girls are in flower as you can tell. In the first pics you can see that the tips of the leaves look burnt and there is some yellowing overall on some of the suger leaves. I thought that I might be overdoing it on the nutes at first but I am not sure this is the problem as I was already giving what I though was a relatively low dose of NPK throughout the grow cycle. Pics from 8/14 and 8/23.
And here we arrive at the present day, 9/12/18! These were taken today and show you the full extent of the damage on the plants. The two in the green structure are pretty sad looking. I am fairly confident I will still be able to harvest a few decent buds off of them but nothing like there full potential would have been. The solo plant is looking healthy enough to produce some nice looking buds though despite the problems
Damn fine grow my man. Next time u calld it. Go lightly on the Neem oil. Im about to repost ur picture. The blue circle confuses me(which i guess is the 600% neem area). The pink area is naturally empty.
The tips burnd means you Slightly overfed which is better then underfeeding.
The slow yellowing of leaves is natural as u go through flower. She’s just consuming herself.
That is not facts. Very nice tips. But not facts. Some choose to feed all the way thru flower and chop their girls full of nutes…
“Over time, the water leaches calcium carbonate out of the concrete and into the soil, resulting in soil near the concrete structure having a higher pH.”
Thanks for all the input guys! Sorry for the late reply, just got back from catching some Coho Salmon up in Alaska the past 5 days!
@PhantomFarmer : This is very interesting about the concrete! It never even occurred to me that calcium carbonate would leach into the soil, that makes total sense! The PH does run on the more alkaline side and is between 6.5 and 7.5 when I check the in ground meter. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is an acceptable level for cannabis to still effectively take up nutes right? I will definitely keep an eye on this now that I am aware of the leaching… Thanks for the tip and the article link!!!
@PurpNGold74 : Thanks for the props! I am definitely trying to have a improved grow over last year. My crop got destroyed by budworms last year because I didn’t keep a close enough eye on those bastards late in the game. For some reason, I didn’t see the repost of the pics with your notes… Let me know if you did repost and they just didn’t come through for some reason. On the yellowing leaves; do you recommend removing fully yellowed leaves by pruning or should I just leave them on until they are fully shriveled up on the plant. I have read lots of conflicting info on this and am not sure the best approach. Up until now, I have been pruning away leaves that have fully yellowed but not to the point where they are crispy…
As I mentioned, last year I had some of my crop destroyed by those damn budworms. After I got back from my trip last night, I checked all my girls this morning and found 3 of those SOB’s chopping away on my buds!!! I picked them off and sent them to hades but I am worried that I may have missed some since they burrow deep into the bud sometimes. What are your guys thoughts on using Safer Brand 5163 Caterpillar Killer II Concentrate this late in the game when flowering? Will it affect my buds negatively or leave any kind of residue on them? I definitely don’t want to comprise quality this late in the game but I sure as heck don’t want those suckers munching away and crapping all over my buds!
im watching n waiting for more pics. So far so good
