Wicked Mike's 2015 Growlog

ribbedturtleneck · Jul 19, 2015

Keep up the good work, Mike!

Wicked Mike · Jul 20, 2015

BigB said:
spectacular, but I'm not surprised because you of all people can pull it off.

that miami soil is basically sand and coral unless you're in homestead

He's right. One big oolitic limestone shelf, so not only is it solid rock a half an inch down, but it's alkaline. You have to either grow in pots here, or raised beds/berms. Even then, there's a problem: whether you're watering with city water or drive a well and run irrigation, you're using water filtered through that limestone, so pH issues are an inevitability here. I've been meaning to post something about it for new South Florida growers for a while now, because it can really mess with your head if you don't realize what's happening. You start seeing nutritional deficiencies and can't seem to correct them, and it's not that the nutes aren't there, but that they're not available to the plant because of the pH.

Growing here is like growing anywhere; it's has its pros and cons. The climate works (mostly) in our favor; it's unusual even during the winter for us to have nights that go below fifty, so risk of cold damage at any part of the year is minimal. The other side of that coin, though, is that the hot, humid climate means that insects get out of control fast, and fungal pathogens are a real issue, plus the intense UV during the summer scorches your leaves and pods. Oh, and we have Scirtothrips dorsalis. For anyone not in Florida or Texas, count your blessings on that one. These things are nothing like other thrips species; UF/IFAS says forget about getting rid of them once you've got them, the best you can do is try to control them. I'm trying to get an infestation under control as we speak, and have lost easily forty or fifty plants outright.

BigB · Jul 20, 2015

that sucks to hear about your plants dude. but i had no idea that the water's ph was screwed because of the limestone. I usually fill up an 18gallon bin with water when i don't have rain water and let the chlorine/fluoride evaporate. Is there a cheap solution to fix this ph issue? You should come over and check out my back yard sometime again, as long as you don't bring the thrip with ya

grantmichaels · Jul 20, 2015

Wicked Mike said:
He's right. One big oolitic limestone shelf, so not only is it solid rock a half an inch down, but it's alkaline. You have to either grow in pots here, or raised beds/berms. Even then, there's a problem: whether you're watering with city water or drive a well and run irrigation, you're using water filtered through that limestone, so pH issues are an inevitability here. I've been meaning to post something about it for new South Florida growers for a while now, because it can really mess with your head if you don't realize what's happening. You start seeing nutritional deficiencies and can't seem to correct them, and it's not that the nutes aren't there, but that they're not available to the plant because of the pH.

Growing here is like growing anywhere; it's has its pros and cons. The climate works (mostly) in our favor; it's unusual even during the winter for us to have nights that go below fifty, so risk of cold damage at any part of the year is minimal. The other side of that coin, though, is that the hot, humid climate means that insects get out of control fast, and fungal pathogens are a real issue, plus the intense UV during the summer scorches your leaves and pods. Oh, and we have Scirtothrips dorsalis. For anyone not in Florida or Texas, count your blessings on that one. These things are nothing like other thrips species; UF/IFAS says forget about getting rid of them once you've got them, the best you can do is try to control them. I'm trying to get an infestation under control as we speak, and have lost easily forty or fifty plants outright.

The pH of my groundwater fluctuates 3 whole points from day to day, or even within time of a day.

I have recorded pH's of 8.5 and 9.0 - including the sample I recently sent of to Ward for analysis for brewing ... and then it was 6.0 Saturday when I brewed (and so had I added a 1/2 tsp of citric acid, I'd have gone to far below the bracket for a happy mash) ...

Ugh.

And those little buggers that you just posted - that fills in the gap in my experience ... I have those little fucters ...

Growing here's a PITA if you ask me - right down to, and including the sun.

BigB · Jul 20, 2015

aside from fruit trees, my everglades cherry tomato is the only thing that has ever done well in our crap soil. I never even bothered to put anything else in there, but that little sucker has definitely evolved to be in this climate. If those damn hornworms didn't get to it id still have some

Wicked Mike · Jul 22, 2015

grantmichaels said:
The pH of my groundwater fluctuates 3 whole points from day to day, or even within time of a day.

I have recorded pH's of 8.5 and 9.0 - including the sample I recently sent of to Ward for analysis for brewing ... and then it was 6.0 Saturday when I brewed (and so had I added a 1/2 tsp of citric acid, I'd have gone to far below the bracket for a happy mash) ...

Ugh.

And those little buggers that you just posted - that fills in the gap in my experience ... I have those little fucters ...

Growing here's a PITA if you ask me - right down to, and including the sun.

Man, if you've got chile thrips, you're in trouble. Prepare for war.

cone9 · Jul 29, 2015

Nice looking peppers, Mike.

Well...for the most part! This one is just ugly mean looking:

I wouldn't eat that even if it didn't look like a saggy old man butt!

sirex · Jul 29, 2015

You kiddin me? The ONLY reason I'll eat that is that it looks like a saggy old man butt!!!
Mmmmmmm.......S.O.B its what's for dinner.

RocketMan · Jul 30, 2015

Been out for a bit and just caught back up Mike. Those are some really nice looking pods your getting down there but yeah, that last orange one, mean looking for certain. I'm going to have to check out those Cream Fatalii's too, nice.

Hey, are y'all planning on being at the I Like It Hot Fest this year? It's September 12 & 13 this year. I haven't made up my mind yet about it.

Pulpiteer said:
You know, I thought, "Why work a job that only gives me summers off, when I can work a job that only works on Sundays?" And here I am, living the dream.

One year I gave my District Superintendent (person just below the Bishop) a Bishop's Crown and a Devil's Tongue at our Church Conference. He thought that was amusing.

I'll look forward to the cloning video - thanks!

Hum, that might be an interesting combination. Would the clone be called a Bishop's Tongue or a Devils Crown :rofl:

Wicked Mike · Aug 2, 2015

cone9 said:
Nice looking peppers, Mike.

Well...for the most part! This one is just ugly mean looking:

I wouldn't eat that even if it didn't look like a saggy old man butt!

That gnarly piece of pepperliciousness, hot as Hades, is a Jigsaw Gator. I wish I could take credit for this one, but it's one of Romy's creations.

RocketMan said:
Been out for a bit and just caught back up Mike. Those are some really nice looking pods your getting down there but yeah, that last orange one, mean looking for certain. I'm going to have to check out those Cream Fatalii's too, nice.

Hey, are y'all planning on being at the I Like It Hot Fest this year? It's September 12 & 13 this year. I haven't made up my mind yet about it.

Hum, that might be an interesting combination. Would the clone be called a Bishop's Tongue or a Devils Crown

I'm thinking I'll be there. Might even go the vendor route and bring a truckload of plants up there.

sirex · Aug 2, 2015

you better bring a truckload of plants!!!

Student of Spice · Aug 23, 2015

When things slow down are we going to be able to expect new photo updates? Its not like you have anything really going on

lol. I will see you at that festival, count Lori and myself in!

Wicked Mike · Aug 26, 2015

Student of Spice said:
When things slow down are we going to be able to expect new photo updates? Its not like you have anything really going on lol. I will see you at that festival, count Lori and myself in!

I've been meaning to post some new stuff. I've been scrambling around trying to clean, organize, and transplant for our heavy season, which is about to start, and continuing to fight Chile thrips, bacterial spot, etc.

But hey, who couldn't use an additional challenge just to keep things interesting?

Just sent an e-mail looking into the festival. The only stumbling block I foresee is the 10'x10' vendor space. If I were selling bottles of hot sauce, it would be one thing, but plants take up a lot of room.

ribbedturtleneck · Aug 26, 2015

Batten down the hatches!

Hybrid Mode 01 · Aug 26, 2015

Wow. These last two pages have certainly shown me that Florida's long pepper growing season certainly comes with some strings attached! Basic water, intense heat/humidity, superpests, storms, damaging sunlight, crappy "soil"...
Sitting in front of my bank of T8s at my seedling germination station in mid-January while listening to Radio Havana used to make me long for a more cooperative gardening climate. Now I'm starting to think I will just take the good with the bad and make the best of the weather and resources I have around me!
Good luck in the war on those thrips. They sound like a "perfect storm" of a pest - kind of like emerald ash borer or soybean rust. I bet somewhere in a lab, somebody is working on finding a natural predator for them.
Keep up the good work! So far it looks like you're fighting (and winning) the good fight!

BigB · Aug 26, 2015

A predator for a virus? I think the answer is the immune system....don't mean to bring the evil 3 letter acronym, but GMO is probably the only way around it. I don't see the big deal regarding GMO....everything that has been cultivated since the dawn of man and change genetically from its wild self has been GM'd. It's more the idea of making things resistant to pesticides then blasting them with said pesticides, but, that's a different topic for a different day

grantmichaels · Aug 26, 2015

BigB said:
A predator for a virus? I think the answer is the immune system....don't mean to bring the evil 3 letter acronym, but GMO is probably the only way around it. I don't see the big deal regarding GMO....everything that has been cultivated since the dawn of man and change genetically from its wild self has been GM'd. It's more the idea of making things resistant to pesticides then blasting them with said pesticides, but, that's a different topic for a different day

I'm on the fence, but as it turns out, my sister is about to give a pro-GMO TEDx talk in Boulder and you can probably find it easily since I *Liked* it FB, I think ...

My thing on it, is that I think we should tax GMO product producers to create funding to do an exemplary job seed-banking heirloom crops being displaced.

I think there's inherent problems w/ reduced genetic diversity that's well-known to us (ohai, consanguinity) ... it leads in the opposite direction of robustness, typically.

So, if they are going to plant engineered crops, and fuck w/ Mother Nature (which usually fails us, in the long run), I think they owe the people doing so responsibly, which I think requires plans and procedures to deal catastrophe scenarios including and not limited to extensive seed-banking ...

That's my .02, anyways ...

BigB said:
A predator for a virus? I think the answer is the immune system....don't mean to bring the evil 3 letter acronym, but GMO is probably the only way around it. I don't see the big deal regarding GMO....everything that has been cultivated since the dawn of man and change genetically from its wild self has been GM'd. It's more the idea of making things resistant to pesticides then blasting them with said pesticides, but, that's a different topic for a different day

"immune system" to me, in this case, practically means brewing AACT and watering w/ aspirin ... what are you thinking, specifically?

BigB · Aug 26, 2015

grantmichaels said:
"immune system" to me, in this case, practically means brewing AACT and watering w/ aspirin ... what are you thinking, specifically?

What i'm saying is that a virus' only predator are the immune cells. I'm no plant biologist, or a human biologist for that matter, but I would think that that's one of the few ways to fight off a virus. No bugs will "eat" a virus. My other idea is that by diversifying the organic life in the soil, i.e. fungus and beneficial bacteria, you could probably help a plant be "healthy" enough to fight off the thrip virus. One of my healthiest looking potted plants has mushrooms popping out of it all the time now. I'm thinking it's either from mycorrhiza or something else that's in the miracle grow potting soil mix. Was very interesting, i actually saw the same mushrooms coming out of a citrus plant at home depot.

Wicked Mike said:
But hey, who couldn't use an additional challenge just to keep things interesting?

This makes me worry about my plants haha. I'm wondering where I should move them to. One of my plants I got from you is nearly 8ft tall and very bushy, lots fall over and branches break during storms with strong gusts, but this is my first hurricane that I have to think about these things!

grantmichaels · Aug 26, 2015

i think a lot of it is signal hacking in terms of replication, but anyways ...

are you familiar w/ drew endy? ... i watch his CCC presentation from like 5 yrs ago every year or so ... it's on of my rut-buster's, LOL ...

https://vimeo.com/18201463

good shit.

D3monic · Aug 26, 2015

i'm a firm believer there's a large difference between GMO and breeding for selective traits. Two totally different animals. It's one thing to breed a plant that is drought resistant by selecting plants that display the positive traits and it's a totally different thing to gene splice that plant and give it the dna of a scorpion or some weird bacteria to make it have the traits you want.

but there's already plenty of threads fighting about that.