JARG's First Salvia Grow (Grow Log continues at www.MichiganSalvia.com)

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Report Day: 56
Temp: 70°-82° F
Humidity: 20%-50%
Height: 4"-5"
Note: Clones clones clones...

The clones in the soil have gotten much worse and so I decided to pull them and try again with water. I wrapped some aluminum foil around 4 glasses and cut a hole in the center. I kept having the problem with the water wicking out the side of the glass and making a mess. After 2 hours of messing with it I decided to try something else. I filled up the glasses with perlite and stuck the clones in that. Filled the glass with distilled water up to the same level as the perlite. The perlite I am hoping is just there to keep the roots dark and hold the cutting in place. Hopefully it works. Overall it was not a very productive night. Freaking 3 hours to take 4 clones. Ugh

Tried clones in water with aluminum foil....most of the water came right back out of the glass and siphoned out onto the floor!


I then tried again with perlite...


At least I got some leaves out of the deal if nothing else!


JARG

[longjourney]

Hey Jarg,
 I don’t think I have ever seen anyone else works harder on their plants than you have. Your an inspiration my friend.

[U_Wrang]

     Did anyone get back to you on the pH of distilled water?  It is 7.0 only if it's distilled AND deionized.   Distilled only water can and does still contain enough hydroxyl ions to shift the pH down to 4.9-5.1. 
     Your digital pH meter may be fine- you just need to get a bottle of pH7.0 calibration solution.  I was totally surprised when you mentioned using pH Down because fertilizers are quite acidic to begin with. You should be using pH Up to raise the pH to 6.0!
     Also, skip the distilled water and get a Brita filter pitcher.  Not only does it use activated carbon, but has ion exchange pellets as well that deionize the water.  My tap water typically measures pH 6.3 and 23-24ppm total dissolved solids after filtering, which is plenty pure for hydro.  It run around pH8.9 and 100ppm TDS before filtration.   I also use the filters about twice as long as they recommend because I don't start seeing the ppm TDS increasing until then.  Plus, you get good drinking water!
     I will add that I do use distilled/deionized water- as a final rinse for my pH/TDS meter's probe to keep it clean longer.

[Sea Mac]

I haven't been mixing my Miracle-Gro fertilizer by hand in a bucket.

I have so many large plants it is impractical to do so.

I got the Miracle-Gro Garden feeder: I dump a refill bag in there and take the hose around from pot to pot to pot and soak them all with gallons and gallons of "Blue Water" as I call it.

That thing premixes the formula for me! That way they don't get too much.

I certainly notice the difference!

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Report Day: 61
Temp: 70°-82° F
Humidity: 30%-60%
Height: 4"-5"
Note: This time the clones might make it...

Thanks for the comment longjourney! I probably update my grow log way too much, but I have had the time on my hands lately and I like to go back a lot and reference what I have done thus far. Also thanks for the useful info U_Wrang, maybe my ph meter isn't broken after all... I haven't been using deionized water, just distilled.


OK so here is the day 61 update. The lighting is now set to 20/4. The plants still seem to be doing good even with the high concentration of MG plant food I gave them a while back. If anything I think that the newer leaves had a lighter green color to them probably from a little nute burn, but it hasn't stopped or slowed growth of the plants. I found a white fly in one of my plants. So it might be time to give the leaves a bit of the old Neem mix again. I only could find one white fly, but I am sure there are others just hiding about. Here it is on the underside of the leaf. This picture came out really clear.


The 4 clones I took (2 Owens and 2 H&W) seem to be doing good. No browning whatsoever and it has been 5 days so far. I think that is a good sign. I took the 2 liter bottles off for the picture, but they stay on 24 hours a day. (I still remove them once a day and blow are around the leaves of the plants and re-mist the inside of the bottle.)



Richters is still showing lots of new growth. You can see the lighter color green I think from slight nute burn... It's still hanging on to those 2 old leaves and I may just cut them off soon. They don't feel like they want to pull off very easily.


Owens after taking 2 clones 5 days ago.



H&W after taking 2 clones 5 days ago.



Cerro Quemado



Blosser is really starting to get some bigger leaves finally.




Here is the H&W sport I pulled out of the soil and put into the DWC system. It isn't looking as vigorous anymore, but it is still alive.



And lastly, I actually found a small mushroom growing in the soil at the base of one of my plants stems.... I quickly pulled it and hope that it isn't a sign of trouble in my soil! Looking back I should have taken a picture first.


JARG

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Report Day: 66
Temp: 72°-80° F
Humidity: 30%-60%
Height: 4"-5"
Note: The clones have roots!

Since changing my clones to the air bubbler DWC system they have started to grow roots. It looks like I now have 4 new happy plants. Yay! I can't wait to plant them in soil pots when the roots get long enough. Does anyone know how long it usually takes for new roots to get long enough to plant? I am imagining about 1 to 2 weeks. Does that sound aboit right? How long should the roots be before planting?

I also checked my H&W sport that I put in the DWC bubbler system with only 1 little stringy root originally. It had grown a bunch of roots so I decided to plant her in soil to see what would happen. Hopefully she has enough roots and will continue to grow. Here she is when I pulled her out of the perlite:


And here she is in her new home:




I have put all 4 clones in the bubbler DWC system. 2 have shown roots and I am very happy with the way the system is performing.
Here is Owens (The first to go in the system a few days ago)


And here is H&W who just got put in yesterday!



And finally a picture showing all 4 clones in their DWC system. I had to buy a second air pump as the one I had is rated for 10 gallon tanks, but I found when I split it to 4 air stones it barely pushed any air out. I now have 2 pumps and each is pushing air to 2 stones and it works good.


JARG

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

**UPDATE** I have enough requests now. Thanks to everyone who inquired about receiving a plant.


Aha! So here is the big catch of my grow log. Not only does Salvia interest me in the entheogen sense, but also as a business sense. I figure it could make a nice little side business until it becomes illegal in my state (which will hopefully be never). When my 4 clones get a little bigger I am debating giving them away to anyone on here who wants to cover the shipping costs ($10 for 2 rooted healthy clones). 1 will be an Owens and 1 will be a Hoffmann and Wasson. I want to do a few test runs of my packaging and shipping before I start offering them for sale (which will probably be through eBay....). I want to make sure that when I do launch the business that I know the way I package them will be good and reliable. The clones will be root bound in a small pot before shipping. I make no guarantees that they will arrive alive since this will be a test run. I figure that they "should" arrive nice and healthy though since I have done a lot of research into packaging and shipping, and also know what works from the way I received my plants. I would like for whoever receives them to promise to do a grow log on this site. That way when I do start selling them on eBay I can reference the grow log and this great forum.

If anyone is interested just send me a message instead of posting it in the grow log. (**Again, I have enough requests now, thanks everyone**)

PS The sport I planted in soil went to my mom and is now living happily at her house.

JARG

[bifster]

how many days did it take for your clones in the dwc system to start rooting?  i made a cutting day before yesterday and dipped it in rooting hormone, then copied your system and built it, but it hasn't grown any roots yet and the leaf tips are beginning to brown.  i hope it'll root!

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

It took about 3 days before I noticed roots on the first one. Some of the others took 4 or 5. Right now the roots are about half an inch to an inch long on all 4 clones and it has been 8 days. I didn't use any hormones, just distilled water, the air bubbler, and perlite. I think it makes a big difference about the humidity on starting clones. As you can see with mine I put a top cover on to try and keep humidity at 100%. After 5 days I left the top off of them thinking they would be good. Overnight the edges all turned brown so I put the covers back on until the roots get longer. I'll update pictures on Friday right before I plant them in soil.

Just give yours a little more time and cover them if they aren't already. I'm positive it'll root!

JARG

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Report Day: 71
Temp: 78°-86° F
Humidity: 30%-60%
Height: 4"-5"
Note: The clones have been planted...

So I had to take my closet grow area back. I tore everything down and set it all back up in a different room. It's a pain in the ass to get to now and it's a bit warmer in the new spot, but it seems to be working OK. I didn't mess with the plants all week and just let them grow......and grow they did! I couldn't believe it when I finally checked them. They really didn't grow any taller, but I swear every leaf at least doubled in size! Here is what they look like:


Blosser


CQ


H&W


Owens


and Richters. This plant seems to have slowed down growing again. I don't know what is up with this one. It has all the same conditions as the rest but is growing really really slow. Who knows, maybe it is still recovering from the spider mites a while back or maybe it is focusing it efforts on making a bigger root system since it didn't have much of one, or maybe it just want to be fussy and mess with me. Whatever it is I just have to leave it for a while and I am sure it will start growing eventually...








So I am getting ready to plant the clones I had in the 2 liter bubblers. I prepared 4 small pots that I will be shipping them in. I rinsed off some river rocks and lined the bottom of the square pots.






I then marked each clone so I can follow the growth of each one. Each clone had a different length of roots and I want to see if they all do OK. If they don't all do great I want to have lots of pictures for reference for when I do this again. I spotted between 2 and 4 clones I could take from each of my mother plants again right now! I don't have enough 2 liter bubblers! I may just have to only take 4 clones again and then do some serious trimming to use all the leaves for the quid.... I'll probably take Cerro Quemado and Owens again. I love the look of the Owens textured leaves.

Here is Owens #1 and it's roots:




Here is Owens #2 and it's roots:





Here is H&W #1 and it's roots:





Here is H&W #2 and it's roots. It had the biggest root system and I fully expect it to take off quickly. It seems my H&W mother is my fastest growing plant.






And here they are after they have been planted in the pots. They are now living under the 18/6 lights with their mothers and I hope to see some good growth over the next week to prepare them for shipment. These are the plants you lucky few will be receiving in the mail. I am not 100% sure if I want to send 1 clone to 4 different people or send 2 clones to 2 people.

Owens Clones


H&W Clones



That about does it for this update,
JARG

[bifster]

Hmm, my cutting has been in the dwc system for 4 days now and is showing no signs of roots whatsoever.  Grr...I hope it doesn't die out on me and become just a waste of chopping off a branch!   

[VampireElf]

Congrats on planting the new babies you must have been stoked!  Are you able to monitor the root growth with the cuttings in the perlite or do you have to wait and just pull them out at a certain point and plant em?  I got 3 cuttings in glass jars cut two weeks ago and they each got little roots below the bottom node.  Im hoping they'll all end up like H&W #2!  It sucks too cuz tomorrom I'm going on vacation for 10 days and leaving the chaning of the water to my housemate - super worried over my little clones.  But I wish your new plants the best.

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Bifster/The-Bif/Bif-Girl/Super-Liz/E-Liz/ or whatever you go by these days... (haha couldn't resist adding a few more nicknames after reading your introduction the other day on how you came up with bifster). Anyway it seemed to work the best on my DWC system when the bubbler was creating tons of air bubbles right up the stalk. I had so many bubbles coming up at times it would bury my plant in perlite as stray pieces of perlite came up with the bubbles. I would still give it a few more days and I think you will see roots soon.

VampireElf, I was just pulling the clones out of the perlite every few days to see how the root development was coming along. That is the only way I could think of to monitor them.


Well I had a little bit of a down turn on the babies this morning. I had left them without a humidity dome overnight and I think they wanted to slowly get acclimated to not having one as they turned quite brown. I think they are mad at me. I still expect them to recover, but I don't know how long it might take now. So for those of you who are receiving the free clones, just keep watching here. I will get ready to send them only when they are healthy and strong. I have covered them with 2 liters and misted the inside to get as close to 100% humidity as possible until they show some signs of new growth.


You can see they got pissed off at me overnight! Lesson learned!




JARG

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

On a good note I was over my mom's house today and was able to check on the H&W I gave her. It is doing quite well so I snapped a photo. You can see it has grown a little bit and it is reaching for more light towards the window...

Here she is day I planted her (Aug 8th):


And here she is Today (7 days later Aug 15th): You can see the growth of the two upper leaves.


JARG

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Let first start by saying I think the clones will still make it.........but I think I almost killed them by not adjusting them to their new home before throwing them under the 6 massive bulbs that become their sun. When I first put them in the soil pots I should have left them in dim light for a few days with a humidity dome and slowly brought the light intensity up while simultaneously slowly acquiring them to lower humidity.

Both Owens dropped all their main leaves, but I still have lots of hope and think they will make it because I see new root growth and the stalks are staying very green. I think they just have to build their roots and then they will start to grow leaves again. I may have transplanted them a bit early. You can almost make out one of the new roots in the picture. I have circled it in red. Looking at in person it stands out a lot more, but didn't come through in the picture very well. There is also another root on the opposite side that popped through the top of the soil.


The leaves on the H&W look like they are sagging, but really they aren't touching the edges of the pot. They sagged quite a bit the first night under the lights and then dried a bit. So they have cemented themselves in the saggy look, but in reality they have perked up quite nicely. When the new leaves start to develop they will look much healtier. For you guys that are expecting the clones.....I think these clones may need longer than a week to recoup from the transplant. I'll keep you all posted though.


JARG