BF Laughing Buddha grow

[MerryPrankstr]

Hey Weez,
My light meter helps me quantify, but I never measured a light source for seeding/clone so I don't know what my target value is. I was thinking 1,000 to 3,000 lux? I don't think they want it too bright for new seedling clones, but I've been wrong before.

I tried searching for measured lighting levels on the net but I don't think I used the best terms for searching.

At about 3-4 " I can get about 23,000 lux but it does start to get warm.

Do I need to worry about TDS meter for DWC to measure nutrient strength, BTW>

M.P.

[Weezard]

Hey Weez,
My light meter helps me quantify, but I never measured a light source for seeding/clone so I don't know what my target value is. I was thinking 1,000 to 3,000 lux? I don't think they want it too bright for new seedling clones, but I've been wrong before.

I tried searching for measured lighting levels on the net but I don't think I used the best terms for searching.

At about 3-4 " I can get about 23,000 lux but it does start to get warm.

20k for seedlings 10k for clones, should do.
Seedlings stretch on low light and clones "try too hard" with strong light.

Do I need to worry about TDS meter for DWC to measure nutrient strength, BTW>

M.P.

Not essential unless you are running tests and recording data.
With decent hydro nutes, and a teaspoon, the PH balance will be close, and the gals will tell you when to back off on the nutes.

The TDS meter is very handy for soil, or coco run-off tests.
And the PH meter can be critical to DWC.
You need to fix PH extremes before you see symptoms.
Flushing coco is fast n easy.
Changing water is also.
So, not essential, but useful.

Aloha,
Weeze

[MerryPrankstr]

I should be able to dial the light in now.
My plan is is to crack a few seeds and choose a mother or two and clone enough to run plus a few backup. I think I run most of clones in DWC but a couple in soil.

Gonna grow more than the Laughing Buddah, but I'm not sure what else just yet. I still have a couple of weeks to read up on DWC techniques, so that should keep me busy.

Thanks again.

M.P.

[Weezard]

Anytime, Brah.

Joe da farmer makes it look easy, because, well, it is easy.

Just added an album to my IC, called 'ventions.

Since the only thing easier than coco, is DWC, I went and got chocolate all ovah my peanut butter.

Open 24/7, drop on by.

Weeze

[MerryPrankstr]

Just added an album to my IC, called 'ventions.

Since the only thing easier than coco, is DWC, I went and got chocolate all ovah my peanut butter.

Open 24/7, drop on by.

OK will do. Long tome IC lurker. Joined last CC.com outage but have not yet posted.

BTW my ph meter arrived and my tap water is 7.5
I think my target value should be like 6.0 so I know now that I'll have to adjust the ph down a bit at a time.

Popped some test bagseed seeds with a method I read about on IC and got 100% tap root action within 24 hours so I think I'm ready on that new technique. Being a farmer I always just put them in my dirt about 1" down and watered.

Lots of changing for this old dog, but most of it is for the better.
Just waiting for the moon, now...

:twocents:
M.P.

[SauceeMcGee]

OK will do. Long tome IC lurker. Joined last CC.com outage but have not yet posted.

BTW my ph meter arrived and my tap water is 7.5
I think my target value should be like 6.0 so I know now that I'll have to adjust the ph down a bit at a time.

Popped some test bagseed seeds with a method I read about on IC and got 100% tap root action within 24 hours so I think I'm ready on that new technique. Being a farmer I always just put them in my dirt about 1" down and watered.

Lots of changing for this old dog, but most of it is for the better.
Just waiting for the moon, now...

:twocents:
M.P.

Hey MP,

Would it be possible to coerce you into spewing that seed popping strategy from IC?

Just wondrin'

SMG

[Weezard]

OK will do. Long tome IC lurker. Joined last CC.com outage but have not yet posted.

BTW my ph meter arrived and my tap water is 7.5

Perhaps, depending on how pure your tap water is.
If it's as good as ours, that PH reading is meaningless.
Or at least, inaccurate.
Always read PH after adding nutes.
That will assure that there's a high enough ppm concentration to give an accurate PH read.

I think my target value should be like 6.0 so I know now that I'll have to adjust the ph down a bit at a time.

Or lower.
Treat coco like hydro.
It likes PH from 5.2- 5.8 But 6.0 will work as long as you dip to the low 5s now and then.
You will find that 1 teaspoon per gallon of hydro nutes like Dyna-grow/dyna-bloom will drop the PH of your water for you to very close to what you want.
And a little Phosphoric acid will fine tune it.

If your PH drifts over time, (and it will), amend to the edge in the other direction.
That will use the drift to "sweep" a PH range, as some elements are unavailable at the high or low limits to an ideal range .
Hope that makes sense, I'm getting too ripped to edit.:stoned:

Popped some test bagseed seeds with a method I read about on IC and got 100% tap root action within 24 hours so I think I'm ready on that new technique. Being a farmer I always just put them in my dirt about 1" down and watered.

With coco. just use plain tap water to expand some of it, put it in a tall plastic cup and poke the seed in 1/2" deep, pointed end up.
They will pop up clean with none of that stuck husk action.
It's an excellent germination media.

Lots of changing for this old dog, but most of it is for the better.
Just waiting for the moon, now...

:twocents:
M.P.

I'm stoked watchin' an ol' dog embrace a few new tricks.
Goodonya, brah!:thumbsup:

Weeze

[MerryPrankstr]

Would it be possible to coerce you into spewing that seed popping strategy from IC?

Sure...

I've tried wrapping he seeds in various types of wet absorbant paper without great success, and have enjoyed about an 80% germination rate directly planting them in soil. Here's the new (to me) method.

I got 100% seed germination from bagseed, and have not yet tried it on my Dutch beans so YMMV here.

I took a thick walled ceramic coffee mug and filled it 2/3 with luke warm water that had been sitting for 24 hours to de-gas. Next you gently cast the seeds on the water. They will foat on the top. That's what we want.

Next I covered it with an inverted small shallow bowl placed it in my grow tent which averages a night temperature of 73 deg and daytime temp of 78-79 deg. and covered it with a small towel to assure darkness inside the two vessels.

24 hours later I removed the towel and bowl and the seeds were on the bottom of the cup cracked open and showing about 1/2" of tap root. After draining the water and placing the craked beans on a soaked paper towel I quicky planted them 1/2" down from the surface of pre-prepared starting pots and placed them back in the dark.

Day two (36 hours) later the first seed popped it's head out of the soil. Still waiting on the rest, but I have good hope for the remainder as I didn't expect the first on for another day yet!

Well, there it is.
Seems to work for me.

Weez, got you on the concept of the ph control and drift.
In another life long ( like 30 years ) ago I worked as an engineer and balanced the water chemistry for boilers and cooling towers.

BTW I was truly thiking of jumping all the way from soil to DWC buckets minus the coco. Ya think that's too big of a jump for this ole dirt farmer??? (LOL)

By the way, I gifted the Dinafem Road Runner bean to a fellow Bonsai friend along with 2 of my Cocao Tree seedling (RM48 and Trinidad cultivars). One of my other crazy hobbies is to make fine milk chocolate straight from the bean. Now that stuff should be illegal it's so high test.

My African Baobab (Tree of Life) is showing is starting to show it's second year's growth (joy!). You can't believe what I went through to germinate THAT seed (LOL).

Enough, enough....
:twocents::twocents:
M.P.

[SauceeMcGee]

Sure...

I've tried wrapping he seeds in various types of wet absorbant paper without great success, and have enjoyed about an 80% germination rate directly planting them in soil. Here's the new (to me) method.

I got 100% seed germination from bagseed, and have not yet tried it on my Dutch beans so YMMV here.

I took a thick walled ceramic coffee mug and filled it 2/3 with luke warm water that had been sitting for 24 hours to de-gas. Next you gently cast the seeds on the water. They will foat on the top. That's what we want.

Next I covered it with an inverted small shallow bowl placed it in my grow tent which averages a night temperature of 73 deg and daytime temp of 78-79 deg. and covered it with a small towel to assure darkness inside the two vessels.

24 hours later I removed the towel and bowl and the seeds were on the bottom of the cup cracked open and showing about 1/2" of tap root. After draining the water and placing the craked beans on a soaked paper towel I quicky planted them 1/2" down from the surface of pre-prepared starting pots and placed them back in the dark.

Thank you so much for that!

SMG

[MerryPrankstr]

You're welcome SaucerMcGee,

Now I'm not claiming that this is the best way to do it, just that it works best (so far) for me. I'm gonna hav to look into the coco germination method, especially if I'm gonna grow hydo in the future.

I adjusted the nutrient reservoir in the basil DWC from 7.25 to 5.60 over the course of last evening using 5% acidic white distilled vinegar. That's just about in the middle to lower target value for hydro basil grows (per a google search). Now I'll sit back and see how they like it. The roots are about 1" into the reservoir now so they should be taking off soon. They certainly are a LOT greener this morning.

If I can pull this off I will try a production run of LED / DWC good Amsterdam genetics.

M.P.