Dr. Bruce Bugbee method: NASA technique on Mars etc.

F2GD

Member
why not just add more dolomitic lime to the original mix. what was it 40g p/cuft go up to 50 or 60g cubic foot. i make the mix... run a little water thru. test the runoff. then add a little more lime. maybe its the pete in my area but im usually pribable up around 50-60 g cubic foot.
The issue is that I ran water through it twice, the third time it plummeted. This is the 3rd or 4th time this has happened when I am testing and I would change out the media to fix it, but it could be due to salt buildup. I would get the mix perfect, transplant a seedling, water it. Then by next watering the runoff is acidic. Also when I am watering once I get above 15% runoff the ec starts climbing, If I say watered 100% runoff would that continue to rise or should it stabilize back down to 1.3ec?

I water when the mass of the pot is within a couple grams of it's dry weight so I know that it should not overwatering and I make sure to get atleast 15% runoff. I have also tried watering with a higher pH mix, by default mine comes out to 6.5 but I have tried up to 8.5 and the runoff is still super acidic.

As I am supplementing my soft water with a good cal mag mix (since my water is very soft, I add call mag till it's 0.4-0.5mS/cm). Would a salt build up tank the pH? Would you recommend flushing and if so how? (My tap water is 8.5pH, 0.15mS/cm)
 
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F2GD

Member
There are definitely benefits in growing in peat moss over coco coir (dry bud weight of 8.56g per plant in Peat vs 3.84g in Coir). I am wondering if my lime is being weird and is actually a hydrated dolomitic lime, I am going to read into balancing ph a bit more



 

downhill21

Well-Known Member
Hello everybody, I’m new of this forum ...wanna share about Bugbee soil recipe :

I live in Europe so ,some of the components bugbee use can be different from mine even if
Dolomite is dolomite and Gypsum is Gypsum .
I want write about that cause my experience has been quite dramatic.

50%peat @3.5 ph
50%vermiculite
Gypsum and dolomite

I lost 3 cycle doing that .
My buds does not grow . Vegetative stage was fine. Roots grow quick in all that vermiculite .
But for 3 time I fucked up the flowering stage with this formula .
full respect to mr Bugbee
It obviously something make it tricky .
For about 9month I believed in his recipe ( I followed with accuracy with the right dose of gypsum and dolomite ) but during flower the bud doesn’t grow and was a nightmare !!!
Its more than 20 years I grow .. I’m not perfect but even not a disaster .
Nutrients were balanced as chart ( canna nutrients) ph balanced .
2000w of HPS lights for 36 plants .temps and RH fine .
I think that I went in nutrients lockdown due to hard managing of soil ph ( that’s the more probable explanation)
I turned back to my old soil and things get back normal ...but I ruined 3 harvest ... ( superfluffy buds ... ridicolous harvest .. to cry about )
Anyone had my same experience ?

In the beginning I didn’t want to believe was the soil ,but after 3 flowering of shit I realized that..
Thank you
I’m trying Bugbee’s “soil” recipe too. Found my Fastbuds Blackberry seedlings seemed to suffer leaf burn. No nutes, just h20 may have been ph’d as high as 6.3 or so. I now water @ 5.5-5.8. Unable thus far to find other issue. As you noted, prolly my own learning curve at fault.
 

downhill21

Well-Known Member
this guy isnt a light manufacture or a physicist.. this is possibly the leading plant scientist in the country... what makes you think his expertise is in lighting only? in his video on grow lighting myths he mentions making a whole series on nutrients... and the systems they develop for nasa are total systems not just light oriented...
Concur. Bugbee is a crop physiologist. He and his team of grad students study all aspects of crop physiology. His company, Apogee Instruments is indeed Light-oriented, and his lectures do identify Light as the most important of 8 environmental variables effectiving plant growth. I think it’s important to note that Bugbee behaves more like a facilitator, & many of his lectures include studies & conclusions from his grad students. It’s not just Bugbee the Cannabis God.
 

BonnMac

Active Member
Concur. Bugbee is a crop physiologist. He and his team of grad students study all aspects of crop physiology. His company, Apogee Instruments is indeed Light-oriented, and his lectures do identify Light as the most important of 8 environmental variables effectiving plant growth. I think it’s important to note that Bugbee behaves more like a facilitator, & many of his lectures include studies & conclusions from his grad students. It’s not just Bugbee the Cannabis God.
Bugbee does indeed give credit where credit is due with some of his recent grads spearheading research in extended PAR research, among other studies.Their graduate articles are echoed throughout the internet with LED light manufacturers citing his students research in their mission statements.
Bugbee is not a god, as you say.
I think we all just appreciate his stewardship in education and sound scientific advice.
We’re not looking for rock stars. We just want to grow good weed and give props to someone that clarifies a lot of misinformation that is out there.
 
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downhill21

Well-Known Member
Bugbee does indeed give credit where credit is due with some of his recent grads spearheading research in extended PAR research, among other studies.Their graduate articles are echoed throughout the internet with LED light manufacturers citing his students research in their mission statements.
Bugbee is not a god, as you say.
I think we all just appreciate his stewardship in education and sound scientific advice.
We’re not looking for rock stars. We just want to grow good weed and give props to someone that clarifies a lot of misinformation that is out there.
I like the guy. He appears (to me) pretty humble & there are few university cannabis programs, which I’ll generally follow more closely than bro-science. There’s another cannabis geek at Michigan State University who isn’t bad.
 

Vizzaro

Active Member
IMG_20210514_174135.jpgIMG_20210514_174210.jpg
I just harvested my 3 Jack Herer and 1 SFV OG (BagSeed). Now I'm not sure if it's myself constantly being around my plants or that you really need different variation of nutrients during flower or that the plants I grew are bagseed or a combination of everything. But my plants have never smelled as dank as dispensary weed. I also did harvest my plants a bit early at 8 weeks of flower, I am flying to New York in 3 weeks and I wasn't going to have time to properly jar my plants and burp them plus my plants were getting really heavy on top and I did not prepare for that and they were flopping over. Bottom line is this something that anyone else has experienced growing with Bugbee's recipe and using 20-10-20? Does curing really make that big of a difference?
 

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TOWERSGROW

Member
View attachment 4903985View attachment 4903986
I just harvested my 3 Jack Herer and 1 SFV OG (BagSeed). Now I'm not sure if it's myself constantly being around my plants or that you really need different variation of nutrients during flower or that the plants I grew are bagseed or a combination of everything. But my plants have never smelled as dank as dispensary weed. I also did harvest my plants a bit early at 8 weeks of flower, I am flying to New York in 3 weeks and I wasn't going to have time to properly jar my plants and burp them plus my plants were getting really heavy on top and I did not prepare for that and they were flopping over. Bottom line is this something that anyone else has experienced growing with Bugbee's recipe and using 20-10-20? Does curing really make that big of a difference?
Looks nice mate ,
With bugbee soil recipe I had the opposite ... superfluffy colas with no weight and 12 weeks of flo were even not enough ..
Still I have to understand what I fucked up ,
However your looks better than mine
 

Vizzaro

Active Member
Looks nice mate ,
With bugbee soil recipe I had the opposite ... superfluffy colas with no weight and 12 weeks of flo were even not enough ..
Still I have to understand what I fucked up ,
However your looks better than mine
Thanks. Yes this is definitely a learning process for all of us and our experiences will vary. My first plant did have as dense buds. But I attribute that to me putting that first plant in Miracle-Gro then taking it out of that to out into a bugbee mix. Plus I did the schwazzing technique on the plant in early flower. And I had a whitefly infestation. I learned my lesson. Haha. I'm just bummed I'm not smelling a delicious dank bud smell.
 

TOWERSGROW

Member
Thanks. Yes this is definitely a learning process for all of us and our experiences will vary. My first plant did have as dense buds. But I attribute that to me putting that first plant in Miracle-Gro then taking it out of that to out into a bugbee mix. Plus I did the schwazzing technique on the plant in early flower. And I had a whitefly infestation. I learned my lesson. Haha. I'm just bummed I'm not smelling a delicious dank bud smell.
Once I had the same dankless problem ...
It was a humidity issue , too low .
Don’t know if it’s your case ... but I solved it raising up the humidity ( from 37 to 55) ...
 

TOWERSGROW

Member
Once I had the same dankless problem ...
It was a humidity issue , too low .
Don’t know if it’s your case ... but I solved it raising up the humidity ( from 37 to 55) ...
And another point I’m not clear with Bugbee...
20-10-20 for all cycle ??
veg - mid stage- flowering same Ratio ?
Is something they always teached me differently .. so perhaps I did not understood well from the video ..
Looks to me too much N in flo stage ...
 

JonCreighton

Well-Known Member
Concur. Bugbee is a crop physiologist. He and his team of grad students study all aspects of crop physiology. His company, Apogee Instruments is indeed Light-oriented, and his lectures do identify Light as the most important of 8 environmental variables effectiving plant growth. I think it’s important to note that Bugbee behaves more like a facilitator, & many of his lectures include studies & conclusions from his grad students. It’s not just Bugbee the Cannabis God.
Most scientists refer to their research as "my lab". iv only ever seen the guy give credit. i can specifically remember him shouting out the girl in the far red videos multiple times and if u watch the video where he displays his lab he goes thru all the achievements of his grad students. i think he literally even has them posterised all over the walls of the lab.

Before this guy we had the Chandra at all and what else.... not much.
 
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JonCreighton

Well-Known Member
To anyone whose actually interested in reading Dr. Bugbee's published journal articles here is a list:

You can find many papers for free on SciHub (at the moment https://sci-hub.do/)
2004 paper on hydro nuits seems to contradict the 20-10-20 he recommends in the video....

im still trying to figure this one out if anyone got an ideas why
 

JonCreighton

Well-Known Member
And another point I’m not clear with Bugbee...
20-10-20 for all cycle ??
veg - mid stage- flowering same Ratio ?
Is something they always teached me differently .. so perhaps I did not understood well from the video ..
Looks to me too much N in flo stage ...
i would think most strains ud want to stay around 160ppm N so thats be fine. Im always more worried about the K defficiency but i have never seen it show up visually on the plants.
 
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Vizzaro

Active Member
Once I had the same dankless problem ...
It was a humidity issue , too low .
Don’t know if it’s your case ... but I solved it raising up the humidity ( from 37 to 55) ...
I don't believe it's a humidity issue since my humidity during the dry stayed around 58% and now I'm curing and just trying to keep my buds around 62% - 65% based the the hygrometers I purchased. I guess my question is when does it start to get that weed smell? Maybe I'm overthinking all of this, I guess I just thought that all weed would smell dank as long as you knew how to grow.
 

BonnMac

Active Member
And another point I’m not clear with Bugbee...
20-10-20 for all cycle ??
veg - mid stage- flowering same Ratio ?
Is something they always teached me differently .. so perhaps I did not understood well from the video ..
Looks to me too much N in flo stage ...
I wondered the same thing. Someone asked that exact question in the YouTube comments in his "maximising cannabis growth video". The response was, yes. From veg to the end. The nutrients are pretty diluted as long as you slightly overwater. That is key.
 

Vizzaro

Active Member
I wondered the same thing. Someone asked that exact question in the YouTube comments in his "maximising cannabis growth video". The response was, yes. From veg to the end. The nutrients are pretty diluted as long as you slightly overwater. That is key.
That is exactly what I did. I may have gone a bit too high with my EC towards the end giving my plants an EC of 1.4 which made the EC go up past 1.5 every time I watered but with a little overwatering it would drop back down. This time I am going to stick with and EC of 1.1 and see how that goes. I got a decent yield off of my grow, 13oz's but the overall smell isn't all that great to me. Maybe cause I spent too much time around my plants, I don't know. I guess I was hoping to grow some dank smelling weed like from a dispensary. It get's me high that's for sure. Does properly drying and curing make that big of a difference in smell and taste?
 

BonnMac

Active Member
That is exactly what I did. I may have gone a bit too high with my EC towards the end giving my plants an EC of 1.4 which made the EC go up past 1.5 every time I watered but with a little overwatering it would drop back down. This time I am going to stick with and EC of 1.1 and see how that goes. I got a decent yield off of my grow, 13oz's but the overall smell isn't all that great to me. Maybe cause I spent too much time around my plants, I don't know. I guess I was hoping to grow some dank smelling weed like from a dispensary. It get's me high that's for sure. Does properly drying and curing make that big of a difference in smell and taste?
Great question as this is my first grow, as well.
Variables include dry vs wet trim. Apparently drying the whole plant intact with most, if not all leaves, preserves the fragrance and flavour.
My understanding is it's best to first dry at low temperatures with humidity between 45-55% for at least 7 to 14 days.
All this seems to be more related to bro-science and less Bugbee.;)
 
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