Keffkas Seedsman Comparative: Purple Ghost Candy

[Keffka]

Can honey be used to help sweeten the plant while it flowers? Like the whole carbohydrates sacarin additive would do?

It won’t literally sweeten the buds, but the carbs will feed the microbes well. You don’t want to overdo it or the microbes will begin to ignore the carbs the plant is sending out as a signal for its needs

 

[Gee64]

Honey is a carb, but it's only 80% the carb that organic cane sugar or molasses is, so it's on the weaker side, plus it's not what the microbes expect. They expect plant sugars, but it will definitely work, just add 20% more over what a recipe calls for in lieu of organic cane sugar or molasses.

That being said, honey contains fibre and sugars don't, and microbes love fibre. Dealers choice here. I prefer molasses for it's trace elements.

 

[Roy Growin]

Most reliable way of cloning azalea I have found is air cuttings
Make a nick in the stem at a a knuckle/node, wrap some damp moss round the nick then clingfilm it sealed up
It will start to throw out roots while it is still attached to the branch and can then be cut off
I'm doing some rosemary & lavender later this year, they'll just go directly into a pot of 50/50 soil/grit

 

[Keffka]

Most reliable way of cloning azalea I have found is air cuttings
Make a nick in the stem at a a knuckle/node, wrap some damp moss round the nick then clingfilm it sealed up
It will start to throw out roots while it is still attached to the branch and can then be cut off
I'm doing some rosemary & lavender later this year, they'll just go directly into a pot of 50/50 soil/grit

Have you documented this process? I can see this being extremely effective. Most plants I’ve grown, seem to dedicate a lot of energy to creating roots above the soil line even if it’s in vain.

 

[Keffka]

Here’s an example of cannabis constantly building roots above the soil line

 

[Roy Growin]

Have you documented this process? I can see this being extremely effective. Most plants I’ve grown, seem to dedicate a lot of energy to creating roots above the soil line even if it’s in vain.

It was the method of choice at RHS Wisley

Air layering of plants / RHS Gardening

Air layering is a method of propagating new trees and shrubs from stems still attached to the parent plant. The stem is wrapped with damp moss to encourage roots to form.

www.rhs.org.uk

 

[Keffka]

I got baked and paranoid and pulled out one of the males from the room

Not sure what that was supposed to do since there’s another one in there. I’ll be putting it back but now I’m gonna make sure I mark the pollen so I know which male was the stressed one. Although to be fair, the plant shows little to no sign of stress and seems to be enjoying the dim bedroom light.

 

[Keffka]

Holy cannoli and mostaccioli I’ve got another week of this madness left

 

[Keffka]

Bud set is beginning on the untopped plants. Still stretching the topped plants. There have been some great observations and results this run. The manifold especially proved out this run. We’ve got pencil to highlighter sized branches across the topped plants which are putting the untopped plants to shame.

This one has a little excess light showing. Makes sense, it was 6 inches from the light before being bent over

 

[Papa OG]

Bud set is beginning on the untopped plants. Still stretching the topped plants. There have been some great observations and results this run. The manifold especially proved out this run. We’ve got pencil to highlighter sized branches across the topped plants which are putting the untopped plants to shame.

She was 6 inches from the light before being bent over

Gods plan.

 

[Gee64]

Contrary to popular belief that hormones regulate apical dominance, sugar production does.

If there isn't enough sugars to go around hormones step in and push the dominance to the best candidates for fertility.

If you split an immature plant and have high enough brix to support the tops you split it into, AND all the tops come off the same node of the main trunk, you can equally divide dominance.

Once sexual maturity occurs further splitting waters down domimance.

So top before the nodes stagger, and get your brix up early. Veg soil sucks. Weak flower soil is fantastic. You need P. And as always in organics, Calcium needs to be correct or none of the above really matters.

Node 3 works the best. Why, I dunno, but it does.

 

[StoneOtter]

hormones regulate apical dominance, sugar production does.

Huh? I thought hormones directed things and they did the work Like making exudates and locating them. . You're saying sugar directs things. Now I'm loster than before!

 

[Gee64]

Huh? I thought hormones directed things and they did the work Like making exudates and locating them. . You're saying sugar directs things. Now I'm loster than before!

sort of, once there isn't enough sugars to go around, hormones step in to ensure the sugars go to the best candidates for reproduction. If you have enough sugars for all, apical dominance can be equal throughout the plant.

 

[StoneOtter]

sort of, once there isn't enough sugars to go around, hormones step in to ensure the sugars go to the best candidates for reproduction. If you have enough sugars for all, apical dominance can be equal throughout the plant.

Ok then, I'm no more lost then! I hadn't considered abby normal conditions. There's a backup plan and system! Wow!

 

[Gee64]

Most plants are grown synthetically so sugars are in shortage, exagerating things, and making it appear that hormones are the cause, which is true, but it happens because of not enough sugars being produced to go around. High brix, natures way, Gods intent, whatever moniker you give it, makes splitting apical dominance go to more splits.

If synthetics were the vast minority, not the vast majority, you likely would have never encountered the term apical dominance.

Sugars initiate it, hormones enforce it.

 

[Gee64]

In a 10gal pot of high brix soil, if you manifold to 8 tops there is no dominance, if you take it a step further to 16 tops, you almost always lose 2, and quite often 3, to runtiness, or lack of dominance. My deduction to the repeated conclusion is that the rootball simply can't supply enough to raise brix higher, so sugars hit the wall at 13-14 colas. But if they don't all come out of the same node you get apical dominance all over the place in a willy nilly fashion. Light becomes a factor and colas getting more light produce more sugars so the plant, with the use of hormones, caters to them.

 

[Gee64]

If you never top, light gives the top tip the advantage and it gets full dominance.

 

[Keffka]

This is the fourth run in a row where K has been showing itself in my leaves and I can see a pattern. At this point many growers would add more K or bump up their feeds. That’s not necessary. There’s plenty of K in my mix and trying to force more in will create some vicious issues.

Instead I look to the environment. Rh and proper VPD heavily influence K usage. A dry environment causes the plant to transpire (move water up from the soil out of its stomata) more, faster. A humid environment does the opposite, slows the plants water movement down. It’s basically the throttle for your plant.

The faster a plant transpires the more K it needs since it uses K to open and close its stomata, among other things.

The leaves on my plants that are showing K issues are all around the outside, closest to the walls. I run hot dry air, and have regular fans blowing air around my walls constantly. So because of this, we can deduce there is no need to add more stuff into our mix. Just gotta make sure our room stays plant comfy which is about 85F and 70-75 rh right now.

 

[Keffka]

Flip +16.. I’m a bit gobsmacked by their size compared to where they were just 2 weeks ago. It’ll be a lot easier to see what’s what when buds begin stacking.

The manifolded plant is 30 inches from soil to cola top, about 24 inches of that is cola. The quad, and 2 untopped plants are all around 41 inches from soil to cola top, I’m having to constantly bend them to lower them as they’re about 16 inches from the light, which is a bit close. I’m gonna top dress tomorrow night after a good fish watering.

I need to get some better air flowing across the tops of the containers before flower really sets in.

 

[Keffka]

So I figured out I have a Japanese azalea (Tsuitsui Azalea), which means it’s evergreen, which impacts a few things. It flowers in spring and summer so the flowers it’s currently losing aren’t a major issue. I assume since the container medium was devoid of nutrition it began cannibalizing for its summer bloom. Since I’m no longer majorly concerned about a weak plant and now know what to expect I changed course.

I repotted the Azalea into a 2 gallon fabric of barely moist acidic soil I will water 24 hours from now. The roots were sad. They were a spongy mass, the color of the coco they are in, and were root bound. There were some whitish lively looking roots on the bottom so I sprinkled down some Great White. I will let those last not bound roots creep out into the soil while picking up some beneficials sans myco from my understanding. Hopefully it’ll be enough to trigger it to stretch its roots into the pot with fertile soil and the issues should resolve.

I’ll still take cuttings since I want to have multiple bushes. Landlord is gonna love me when I’m done.