Schwaggy stumbles onto something interesting maybe…
I do a bit of hydro growing using flood and drain setups. I usually have between 6-15 plants/table depending on table size. For years I’ve tried what I call “potpourri” trays that are just different cuts on the same table. After a while I noticed that whenever I mono-cropped a table, the quality of the final plants were very consistent and could hit the potential.
My potpourri trays would usually be a mixed bag as far as how well each plant would hit its potential. It was always a source of great frustration. Come harvest, there was always a couple plants that just missed the mark on quality. Sometimes, these plants would just crash out hard in uncharacteristic ways when compared to their mono-cropped performance. I would eventually come to assume that maybe the inconsistent canopy of having different cuts on the table would deviate optimal light height and explain the results. Strangely, the plants that set the height would even come out subpar.
I would hang out in my flower room high as a kite just thinking about what could explain this. I thought about how the plants can “talk” to each other by releasing compounds that can trigger other plants.
While it’s understandable to think of plants as pleasant stationary scenery, they are organisms competing with others after scarce resources for domination to ensure future progeny. There’s no reason to assume plants are only using their ability to interact altruistically warning others of danger and well wishing. So I thought: what if some of these plants are producing chemicals and exuding them from their roots to “poison the well” and harm the other cuts sharing the same rez?
I decide to search roots releasing harmful chems and find:
Oh shit, could it be?...I now search for cannabis + allelopathic plants
Could it be? Are some cuts just better assassins? Holy shit, do I need to start noting allelopathic ninja traits now?!
I don’t know whether these few quick-scan dot connections really mean that each pheno has an inherent murder trait, but it’s fun to think about.
