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

[darjeeling]

Too much fert spray, or impure (chlorinated) water?

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

What the hell is up with my PH....

Hmmmm...... This is weird. My new ph meter came in today and so I was anxious to test it out. I opened up a brand new jug of distilled water and poured some into a clean plastic cup. I calibrated the meter to 7.0. (This may be were I went wrong....I assume that distilled water is a ph of 7.0, somebody please correct me if this isn't true.) I also tested the meter with distilled water in a clean glass to make sure it was reading the same as it did in the plastic cup. 7.0 right on the money every time. I then pulled out the jug which I had previously checked with my soil ph meter to 6.0, and remember this is the same water that I initially watered the soil for my Sally with......The new meter read it as a ph of 4.1! HOLY CRAP I bet I shocked the hell out of her with that battery acid! So then I cleaned the meter and retested it with the regular distilled water....yup, still 7.0 right on the money. So now I tested the water I used the other day that was mixed with the miracle grow and some ph down.....My new meter tested this at 7.8! What the hell? I thought nutes were supposed to lower the ph of water? Is this not tried and true every time? I am wondering if my meter is actually working correctly. I also tested the water coming out of my tap and it measured 9.0! That can't be right, can it? I have a well and it goes through a water softener....but a ph of 9.0 would be hard to drink wouldn't it? I checked my distilled water again and still 7.0.......hmmmmm this is weird.

This is the same meter I bought... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380035275402

JARG

[penumbra]

When it comes to stem blackening, my experience is varied. I have a rooted Luna cutting that was taken from the middle of a long branch and at the top of the plant there is about a centimeter and a half of brown. This browness formed about a week after i got the cutting but didnt progress down the stem after that point.
Conversely...
MY first plant, a blosser, nearly died when i tried taking a cutting from it. When i cut off the top of the plant, the stem below the cut died (turned brown) all the way down to the soil. Luckily there was a little offshoot developing from the rootcrown and somehow it managed to avoid whatever killed the rest of the plant.
Thats just my experience. I think right now you just you have to wait and see what happens.




1.This picture was taken soon after i took my cutting. The darkness at the top of the stem ended up spreading down to the base. That small branch coming from the base of the stem is all that survived.




2.What remains of the main stem is visible to the right of the plant. This plant formed from the small branch that survived whatever killed the rest of the plant.




3.A recent picture of the same plant. The dead stem sits between the plant of picture 2 and some newly emerged growth like the mast of wrecked ship.

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Report Day: 13
Temp: 62°-72° F
Humidity: 63%
Height: 4"
Note: Brown on the top of the stem advancing further down...

I have been keeping a close eye on Harmony Blossom and other than the browning of the stem coming down further she seems to be doing really well. It appears to me that at this point she has fully acclimated to her new growing conditions. If I had to make an educated guess, i would expect the browning of the main stem to stop once it reaches the node. I would think that there is no reason for the plant to be bringing nutrients to the very top where there are no leaves. It's a guess. Has anyone else besides penumbra had this problem of a browning stem before?




An overall view of her. She is starting to take a richer green color I assume from the miracle grow I fed her a few days back. All the new leaf growth is looking healthy, and the brown  on the tips of the original leaves when I got her are not advancing.


JARG

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

YAY! I just got a confirmation that my 4 original plants I ordered have finally shipped after being back ordered for 11 weeks. By this Saturday I will receive 1 of each strain:

1x Hofmann & Wasson
1x Blosser
1x Luna
1x Cerro Quemado

I bought them from http://www.greenstranger.com (Theatrum Botanicum) and have heard this business has gone downhill in service and quality since they were bought out a few years ago. I hope my plants arrive safe, healthy and undamaged. I'll get pics when they arrive.

[bifster]

Hmm definitely keep us posted on how healthy the plants are and how well they do.  Their combo packs sound like really good deals, especially the "rare combo".  I hope they arrive happy and healthy as can be!

[Bayrat]

The browning of the stem is no problem, and yes it will stop and fall off at the node.  It happens every time you pinch or prune and stops wen the node is reached.  Good luck with the new plants!

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Report Day: 18
Temp: 62°-72° F
Humidity: 60%-85%
Height: 4"
Note: NEW PLANTS ARRIVED! 

Well the new plants have arrived and they are certainly Salvia, but I have my doubts whether these plants are actually the strains they say they are. The all seem to be very similar in the shape of the leaves. Long and slender with large serrations at the edges. If they actually are what they are supposed to be, then my order was shipped wrong. I did not get a "Luna" strain and instead got an "Owens" strain. I have emailed Theatrum and will let you guys know what they say. It took about 12 weeks to get these plants in. On a good note the plants seem to have arrived fairly healthy. There were some black sections on the leaves but they all had really good looking root balls. I have replanted them and put up the humidity chamber around them. After I put my original plant next to these, I was amazed to see how dark green my first plant has gotten.

So I unpacked the USPS box and found 4 plants. Each plant was inside a plastic bag wrapped in wet newspaper.



I unwrapped my new plants and saw they survived the 3,000 mile journey. I was like a kid at Christmas opening my new presents!



I bought some soil-less potting mixture from Home Depot. It doesn't have any fertilizer in it and was advertised as getting new cuttings to root. It has a very good drainage quality and I think this will work much better than my original mix of perlite/vermiculite/potting soil. The potting soil I had held water forever and didn't drain well at all. I may even change my first Salvia plant to this new soil-less stuff.

So here is a picture of each plant after I got them repotted and watered.





And my original plant doing quite well....just growing really slow.....or maybe it's just that I am expecting it to leap upwards like sea mac's plants


And finally I put the humidity chamber around them and covered 75% of the top of the chamber with another piece of cling wrap. It is holding at 85% humidity at around 71° which should give these new plants a great environment to get acquainted.



OK I just finished setting up a more controlled environment for my plants. The days around here lately have been unpredictable for cloudiness and sunshine and I wanted to move away from the uncertainty of mother nature. I setup 2 fluorescent fixtures with 4 Natural Sunshine bulbs on an adjustable height wire. This should give me much more control over how much light and for how long the plants are receiving it. Does it make any difference in the growth rate of Salvia if the lights are on for 24 hours a day vs 18 hours a day?


JARG

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Report Day: 22
Temp: 72°-75° F
Humidity: 75%-85%
Height: 4"
Note: Problems with first plant...

OK fine, I'll admit it. I don't know the first thing about growing Salvia Divinorum. I noticed that my first plant started to get brown on the tips of the leaves and was progressing pretty rapidly over two days. I felt the soil and the top 1/4" was bone dry like a desert and below that felt like wet clay. My soil was not working good, and certainly not draining right. I was afraid of root rot so I decided to re-pot her with this new soil-less growing medium that I potted my other plants in. It seems to have a much better drainage quality and doesn't get hard packed. I think it is pretty much made up of coir fiber, perlite, vermiculite, and some other small ingredients....but no soil. So I found that the root system had almost degraded to nothing when I rinsed off the dirt from the root ball. Only a few roots looked white and healthy. Here are some pictures of the process:


You can see I dug down a bit and it just became hard packed and wet....It had been over a week since I last watered her.



I rinsed off the root ball and found a poorly developed root system. Much worse than when I got her.



I rinsed my pot and put some river rocks in the bottom.



I then filled the pot back up with my soil-less mixture and made sure to leave it very loose so as to get some air to those roots. I made sure the mixture was moist, but not wet, and certainly not drenched before I put it in the pot. I'll keep an eye on her and water when necessary.



I put her back with the others and put a humidity chamber around her too leaving about a 1" wide gap for gas exchange at the top.



After considering how I planted my 4 new Salvia's I may re-pot them too. I had packed the soil-less mixture pretty tight for them and I am afraid air might not be able to get to the roots. I have a pretty busy rest of the week so I will get the new lighting setup with daylight CFL's going this weekend.

JARG

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

Report Day: 26
Temp: 76°-79° F
Humidity: 75%-85%
Height: 4"
Note: first plant recovers...barely

Well I decided not to go with CFL's. It seems everyone on here grows with them to great success. But I am interested in learning more and giving back what I learn. I haven't seen any grows using Natural Sunshine Fluorescents. Since that is what I have now I want to see how the plants react to them. It will be an interesting log I believe. So I did take my extra mylar and lined the floor and walls with it to reflect back a ton of light. It's freaking bright in there now! I have 1 more fixture and two more bulbs that I will be adding to make a total of 6 4-foot bulbs in 3 fixtures. I have been leaving the light on 24/7 and covered the window in that room with black plastic so the neighbors don't get too curious... not that I am doing anything illegal, but I don't want the hassle of any cops showing up at my door thinking I am... 

A day after I repotted my first plant the leaves drooped REAL BAD. I was worried I killed it. I kept spritzing it every few hours when I could. After a few days I sprayed some water near the stem to give it something to drink and the next day it perked right back up. WHEW! That was lucky... 2 leaves died and fell off and 1 more looks like it isn't going to make it, but the rest have kept their rich green color and are picking back up instead of drooping. Now it just needs a little more time to adjust... Also, I wanted to mention the browning of the stem stopped when it got near the node and I clipped it off a few days ago.

My new room with mylar lined everywhere. I also added a temporary foam door so I could add mylar to that too!


Here you can see inside... I added a fan because I wasn't sure how the temperature was going to be. It has stabilized at 79°...


The plants I got from greenstranger are starting to get a rich green color. This must mean they are alive and doing well! I didn't have to repot them with looser soil as they seem to be doing just fine.


I noticed this root shooting off from about an INCH ABOVE THE SOIL! It must have had enough humidity to shoot off and reach the soil....pretty cool. You can see it on the right side of the stem and it came out right underneath the two tiny leaves on the right side.


JARG

[nick97]

Jarg, do you remember how many lumens the florescent have? My two, 2' bulbs put out 5,000 lumens each, so I am at 10,000 lumens, and I have two grow spectrum bulbs in there. It was previously used for growing rare Chile peppers (Habenero, etc.) and I had no problem growing them indoors.

Remember, you can place the light about 4" off the tops of the plants, assuming they are all about even in height. CFL/high output florescent's have the advantage of being close to the plants, unlike MH/HPS which need about 2-4' above the plants. I don't have any experience, yet, growing SD, but I do have experience growing hard to grow plants indoors. No illegal plants, but plants like Orchids, and harder to grow vegetables.



Here's a link to the light I own.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Compact-T5-FLUORESCENT-GROW-LIGHT-Fluorex-2-TEK-400-hps_W0QQitemZ180256217567QQihZ008QQcategoryZ42225QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

I think my tubes are only around 2200 lumens each, but that really doesn't matter as lumens are only a measure of what humans can see... plants see a much wider spectrum of light which is why I am using the Natural Sunshine bulbs. I just got into this long discussion about lumens because that is what I always went by, but it is the worst way to measure light for plants. Check out that whole discussion here http://www.salviasource.org/forum/cultivation/lights-for-a-noobie/0/ It looks like your light fixture is 110 watts with probably about 16.5 watts reaching the plants, where as mine is 80 watts a fixture with probably 12 watts reaching the plants. Of course your light is more compact being only 2 foot long instead of my 4 foot long, which means the light is more concentrated. Still I am curious to see how my plants react to my setup. I may do as Bayrat suggested in that thread and compliment the setup with some CFL's later on.

JARG

[nick97]

Like you said, more watts per sq. foot. I am not going to argue my point, because while I am open for discussion, this is not the thread.

In regards to PH, you want to measure the pH AFTER you add any chemicals. If you are just watering, it will be best to use de-chlorinated water, or distilled water, or boiled water. Chemicals will naturally bring down the pH. I didn't bother with a calibrated machine, because the basic water + drops are fine for me. With the digital units, it is possible to mess up during calibration, and the reason I stuck to the basic stuff.

Go out and get a tester for like $7, using drops, and a color coded card. One from a pool store works fine, or one from your local hydroponics store. Doesn't matter; pH is pH.





-Nick

[JustAnotherRegularGuy]

I've decided that the digital ph meter I bought is junk/broken. I wanted to go that route instead of the color matching as I believe it will be more accurate, and I am kind of a tech/gadget person. I always measure after adding nutes to the water and I am using distilled water.

JARG

[Bayrat]

Now that's a good looking grow room.  I used to have something very similar for plants needing much more light than SD, and it worked great.  I used the 2'x4' 4 bulb fixtures (10 of them!) with 3 plants under each one and 1 on the side and things grew well.  Your setup with 6 bulbs should be perfect until the plants get about 1.5-2' and then maybe add 1 more of your fixtures on each side , down low aiming at the sides of the plants.  I didn't use the expensive grow lamps, I used a mixture of 3-1 daylight- warm light cheap bulbs.  I think my SD seems to like the warm light so I'd probably go 50-50 day-warm.

As far as your poor root growth I would say the plants are too dependent of the high humidity in the tent, getting all the moisture it needs from the air.  I'd ween them off asap.  With a good root system those plants should grow fast, and without the tent you could get the lights a lot closer.

As far as PH, I am not that picky and don't even check mine, but the most accurate test are the ones that aquarium stores sell.  The litmus test strips are the easiest.  Problem is testing after adding additives like fert will throw the results off.  That's why the stores sell different tests for fresh and salt water.  Just test your plain water to make sure it is not totally out of whack then forget about it imho.