lockout?

OK guys I have been consistently getting some type of of lockout, I've been working on my living soil and have been going way overboard! I'm workin on fixing that, which is why I know it must be lockout.

I'm trying to determine exactly what's being locked out, and foliar it as needed, I'm 100% organic, below I'll post the pics and my newest version of my recycled soil recipie, soon I'll have a soil test done and be able to perfect it a Lil more, but I have to work with what I have for the time being!

and this was a different cut but same strain, that came down with the "flu" a few weeks ago, it was mostly unanimous that is was a sulfur deficiency and I sprayed epsom a few times, and she bounced back in no time amd ia now 100%. could this just be the start of the same thing? I could make weekly epsom sprays a thing until I get my soil dialed in!

I'm just looking for some opinions and what you guys think! thanks in advance!

looks like you have gnat issue as well I believe I see thrip marks.

Yep .... considering the yellow sticky is hella full ...

With that recipe, I don't see how you could have a sulfur deficiency. Langbenite is like 22% sulfur, and you have a quarter cup per square foot of soil medium! Personally I don't even use it, but rely on the KISS principle instead. There's enough sulfur, magnesium, and potassium in good plain organic matter to take a plant from seed to harvest, provided your medium is thriving with bacteria, fungi, and other organisms.

It's almost impossible to get "Lockout" on an organic grow (that implies healthy soil life). I'd have to kill my soil first, and turn it into "dirt".

I'd be more inclined to say it's an Iron deficiency not Sulfur.

Oh and even more sulfur with the 3/4 cup gypsum per sqft.. Oh my. So a question: How do you know you have "living soil" and how "alive" is it anyway? What's your base recycled soil? Was it going crazy with bacteria and fungi before you amended it? I question the numbers of viable bacteria in bagged amendments, not to mention mycorrhizal fungi. I suggest you start your own vermiculture bin for your future grows and use that "fresh" to inoculate your soil. And cut down on the sulfur! LOL

You need bigger pots for organic. That way you water them less often, and the top surface dries out deterring the fungus gnats. I like a mulch for this, as it forms a physical barrier and I get to see how alive my soil is by how fast it decomposes. I've never had them actually harm healthy plants, but they can be a serious nuisance. Most gnats I've had are due to laziness... they'll actually lay eggs on dirty wet tent floors and under pots, and they'll feed on crap growing in that crap and reproduce like crazy!

Adding crap because you think there's a "deficiency" with your plants works for hydro - not so much for organic. You should be feeding your soil life - not your plants!

jtrizzy said:

looks like you have gnat issue as well I believe I see thrip marks.

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it was a fungus gnat issue, cleared up in no time, and unfortunate side affect to top watering my sips, while trying to fix my issue. but that's all solved, have seen a gnat in atleast a week, as for thrips, I'm about 90% sure I don't have them, but I've also never had them, so not familiar what to look for, but I'm on top of my ipm game for sure!

Northwood said:

Oh and even more sulfur with the 3/4 cup gypsum per sqft.. Oh my. So a question: How do you know you have "living soil" and how "alive" is it anyway? What's your base recycled soil? Was it going crazy with bacteria and fungi before you amended it? I question the numbers of viable bacteria in bagged amendments, not to mention mycorrhizal fungi. I suggest you start your own vermiculture bin for your future grows and use that "fresh" to inoculate your soil. And cut down on the sulfur! LOL

You need bigger pots for organic. That way you water them less often, and the top surface dries out deterring the fungus gnats. I like a mulch for this, as it forms a physical barrier and I get to see how alive my soil is by how fast it decomposes. I've never had them actually harm healthy plants, but they can be a serious nuisance. Most gnats I've had are due to laziness... they'll actually lay eggs on dirty wet tent floors and under pots, and they'll feed on crap growing in that crap and reproduce like crazy!

Adding crap because you think there's a "deficiency" with your plants works for hydro - not so much for organic. You should be feeding your soil life - not your plants!

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When you say "crap" what exactly are you talking about ?

Northwood said:

Oh and even more sulfur with the 3/4 cup gypsum per sqft.. Oh my. So a question: How do you know you have "living soil" and how "alive" is it anyway? What's your base recycled soil? Was it going crazy with bacteria and fungi before you amended it? I question the numbers of viable bacteria in bagged amendments, not to mention mycorrhizal fungi. I suggest you start your own vermiculture bin for your future grows and use that "fresh" to inoculate your soil. And cut down on the sulfur! LOL

You need bigger pots for organic. That way you water them less often, and the top surface dries out deterring the fungus gnats. I like a mulch for this, as it forms a physical barrier and I get to see how alive my soil is by how fast it decomposes. I've never had them actually harm healthy plants, but they can be a serious nuisance. Most gnats I've had are due to laziness... they'll actually lay eggs on dirty wet tent floors and under pots, and they'll feed on crap growing in that crap and reproduce like crazy!

Adding crap because you think there's a "deficiency" with your plants works for hydro - not so much for organic. You should be feeding your soil life - not your plants!

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I can promise you I have a living soil, I've been working on that single goal for years now, to answer all of your questions and then some, here a link to my journal/experiment I've been working on, you seen very knowledgeable and I'm pretty sure your could give some hell of advise if you don't mind reading this a Lil and helping us out!

https://www.rollitup.org/t/greens-gorilla-glue-4.979073/

OzCocoLoco said:

When you say "crap" what exactly are you talking about ?

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I'm pretty sure he means any amendments or inputs, but I can't speak for him...

OzCocoLoco said:

When you say "crap" what exactly are you talking about ?

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"Crap" in organic growing is anything you think you must add to feed your plants. It only become crap when you forget the objective, and that's to feed and nurture your soil life instead.

Northwood said:

"Crap" in organic growing is anything you think you must add to feed your plants. It only become crap when you forget the objective, and that's to feed and nurture your soil life instead.

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That didn't answer my question

OzCocoLoco said:

That didn't answer my question

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I'm so sorry. Honestly I don't know how to answer your question any more succinctly. Perhaps if you reworded your question, you might get the answer you are looking for. But for us organic growers, "crap" is pretty obvious. (And I don't mean crap as in poop.) LOL

I'm not going to even attempt to convince you toward an organic grow. The main reason I do it is because I'm lazy AF, and don't want to mess around with PH and EC meters, and just feed my damn plants plain water from seed until harvest. Is that okay with you?

Northwood said:

I'm so sorry. Honestly I don't know how to answer your question any more succinctly. Perhaps if you reworded your question, you might get the answer you are looking for. But for us organic growers, "crap" is pretty obvious. (And I don't mean crap by mammal or ovarian poop.) LOL

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I'm just curious to hear what ammendments you define as crap and why ? I don't know how you came about this radical concept that anything added that's intended to feed the plant is in your words "crap",maybe you could explain how you came up with it ?

OzCocoLoco said:

I'm just curious to hear what ammendments you define as crap and why ? I don't know how you came about this radical concept that anything added that's intended to feed the plant is in your words "crap",maybe you could explain how you came up with it ?

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It's because in organic growing, you don't feed plants at all. You forget about that! You feed your soil life... bacteria, fungi, protozoans, and larger stuff like earth worms from your fresh worm poop and other "locked in" amendments. Only the creatures allow the nutrients to be available to plants, as signaled by the plant roots themselves. Under those conditions with thriving microbes, it's impossible to get "lock out" or any other crazy hydro problems. No need to "dial" in your feedings, the plants dial in what they need and when they need it.

I'm not here to convince you to go organic, but other than laziness, it's worked for me. I can't say I get more yield (it's about the same), but the money saved is a good thing. I expect at least 1.2 grams per watt on my current grow which isn't spectacular with more modern growing methods, but OK. Plus it's kinda fun to have a million worms as pets! LOL

I don't have a horse in this race. but what north is saying is true! and it's actually my goal, but still have a fuck ton to learn! and I also agree about the lazy part, well sort of! there is still a lot of work to get it right, but once the soil has its own circle of life, kinda like how my gg sip is right now. there is nothing to do! I literally top off my sip about every 10 days with em1 and we'll water, that's been bubble! I don't do a dam thing else! and it's killing it! at 60 days from the day I received this cut, it's was already covering a 4x4 by itself! and the growth is just non stop, only on the 5 or 6th day of flower and haven't even started the stretch yet!

sorry I got carried away, but my point is, the same exact soil, but in a smart pot, I'm always having some kinda issue, always needin to add teas, or top dress, just so much shit! with my sips once there up and running, and all the life and shits going on, I do nothing! I could literally run a thousands of these sips by myself if they were already set up! I'd be lucky to run 100 girls by myself in the same exact soil, but in a smart pot! but that's why I'm trying to get this all locked down! but eventually I'm switching to all sips very soon, just need to build about 4 or 5 more sips!

Northwood said:

It's because in organic growing, you don't feed plants at all. You forget about that! You feed your soil life... bacteria, fungi, protozoans, and larger stuff like earth worms from your fresh worm poop and other "locked in" amendments. Only the creatures allow the nutrients to be available to plants, as signaled by the plant roots themselves. Under those conditions with thriving microbes, it's impossible to get "lock out" or any other crazy hydro problems. No need to "dial" in your feedings, the plants dial in what they need and when they need it.

I'm not here to convince you to go organic, but other than laziness, it's worked for me. I can't say I get more yield (it's about the same), but the money saved is a good thing. I expect at least 1.2 grams per watt on my current grow which isn't spectacular with more modern growing methods, but OK. Plus it's kinda fun to have a million worms as pets! LOL

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I run a certified organic orchard so I'm quite aware of the principles of organic growing. You seem to be missing the point that if you don't have the minerals in your soil then the biology can't cycle them no matter how many pet worms you have.Liebigs law of the minimum works just the same in an organic system,so if a soil test and or leaf test shows you are low in an element you need to amend it whether you are conventional or organic.
Targeting different cycles and stages of a plants life with different inputs is standard practice,you don't just "feed the soil "whatever you have laying around you give inputs the plant will be needing in whatever part of it's life cycle is coming up so you are infact feeding the plant it's just being cycled by the biology first.

OzCocoLoco said:

I run a certified organic orchard so I'm quite aware of the principles of organic growing. You seem to be missing the point that if you don't have the minerals in your soil then the biology can't cycle them no matter how many pet worms you have.Liebigs law of the minimum works just the same in an organic system,so if a soil test and or leaf test shows you are low in an element you need to amend it whether you are conventional or organic.
Targeting different cycles and stages of a plants life with different inputs is standard practice,you don't just "feed the soil "whatever you have laying around you give inputs the plant will be needing in whatever part of it's life cycle is coming up so you are infact feeding the plant it's just being cycled by the biology first.

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How about a little thought experiment. Let's pick a couple minor micro nutrients - sulfur and iron. We pretend we can magically remove every sulfur and iron containing compound from the potato peels, water melon rinds, apple cores, and everything else we feed our worms. How do you think the worms would do? How many springtails, mites, and other larger organisms would be thriving in that bin? What about the diversity and numbers of bacteria and other micro organisms? See where I'm going with this?

Feeding a plant differently for various stages of growth implies the use of bio-available nutrient salts, and we're back to guessing what the plants need, when, and how much. Just because that bottle of "organic" derived salts and chelated minerals are sourced organically doesn't make it any different from non-organic. It's like how I roll my eyes when I see nitrate/nitrite free salami in the store and "celery extract" is in the ingredient list. Plants themselves know best what they need and when for their various growing stages and communicate with life in your soil to provide it for them.

I agree that soil testing is a great thing, because information is power. But it's not a test for my plants requirements. It's to ensure that the soil has everything needed to sustain a diverse and huge number of the bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and other life forms.