Monster U

Welcome back to the TESTLAB. I’m Doctor Watt, here to shepherd you through the lunacy of illumination. I’m here today with a new segment which we call “WYNTKA”, which breaks down as: what you need to know about. With today’s knowledge nugget being how science handles measuring light.

Rain can not only ruin your day, but it can completely devastate your crop. By taking a few preventative steps you can save your day and your harvest.

There are eighteen essential elements for plant nutrition, each with their own functions in the plant, levels of requirement, and characteristics. Nutrient requirements generally increase with the growth of plants, and deficiencies or excesses of nutrients can damage plants by slowing or inhibiting growth and reducing yield....

By now we hope you’ve read through our article outlining integrated pest management, as well as our “Prevention” article (stay tuned for our upcoming our extensive “Knowing Your Enemy” series on particular pests). Maybe at this point you’ve also done everything to prevent a pest population from reaching unacceptable levels but things got out of hand anyway. Fear not, we’ve provided everything you need to know to get things back under control in this next section of our pest patrol series, “Elimination and Restoration”.

Whether you’re an indoor grower reusing your soil or prepping your beds for next season, there are a number of ways to prepare your soil for reuse. Start by breaking up the soil. Then add humus, amendments and inoculants to add nutrients and life to your soil. Apply a little compost tea to kick it all off and your soil will be ready for another round of big harvests!

As we learned in the article on integrated pest management, maintaining an acceptable, manageable, level of pests is key to keeping things in check. This naturally requires maintaining an environment which is conducive to plant health but much less inviting to unwanted creatures so as to keep as many out as possible, allowing you to keep things under control. Preventing hoards of pests from entering the garden in the first place is the best defense against any pest and prevention starts with keeping an eye out.

The end of summer is the time of year when plants are finishing up their growth cycle and are just about ready to have the bounty you’ve worked hard to cultivate harvested. At this particular point in time, the plant is focusing most of its energy and nutrients on producing big, beautiful flowers, leaving its immune system weaker and vulnerable to hungry opportunists. Just before you can get your hands on the fruits of your plants’ labor, you might find that some six or eight legged creepers have beat you to the punch.

So here we’re looking at what we would consider a non-sealed room, meaning it’s an open-air room. Non-sealed means that there’s not an air conditioner that’s running the cooling capacity of the room, but it’s actually doing it through a vented reflector or just through a carbon filter. So, there’s air constantly coming in the room from outside and constantly leaving the room, exhausting the grow room air. So here’s our first diagram, it’s a basic vented garden. Let’s talk about some of the basic components of the garden.

Let’s take our first dive into the odd world of light-emitting diode. Because to understand LEDs, you have to forget everything you know about traditional gas discharge technologies. Because LEDs work completely differently.

Increase your propagation success by inoculating your medium appropriately. Broad-spectrum inoculants that include mycorrhizae and Trichoderma such as Great White Shark are outstanding for soaking Rockwool or peat-based plugs prior to sticking your cuttings. These "good guy microbes" protect the plant from root/stem rot diseases such as Pythium, Fusarium, and Rhizoctonia. In aeroponic or DWC cloning machines, use Botanicare's Hydroguard to keep the water clean and pathogen-free. Proper inoculation is crucial for successful cloning.

Any tool you choose to use in your greenhouse should provide greater functions in your day-to-day operations. Uniform lighting and controlled watering systems are aspects that can highly affect your annual yields, but there are other factors to consider when managing crop profitability. Benches, for instance, can increase the function of any grow room.

Know Your Machine: There are many different types and styles of trimming machines available now for both wet and dry trimming needs. Each machine is unique and some will work better or worse for you depending on technique, strains, moisture content and other subtle variables but generally, they all work.