LED vertical scrog

[Ichabod Crane]

I have all my ferts in now. I have Jack's 5-12-26, Masterblend 4-18-38, and Chemgro 4-20-39.







In addition I have Yara calcium nitrate.



I will also be using Epson salts and Drip Clean.



Sorry I doint have a picture of the Epson Salt.

 

[Hookahhead]

Well I did the deed today. My plants are 3 weeks into flower and the stretch is over. I went in and trimmed up all bud sites that weren’t showing a decent bud already (say 15-20 pistils). This ended up being all but the last 2-3 buds on a lot of branches. It felt so wrong to be tearing all of those little budlets off, but I knew it was for the best. I even got a bit on resin on my hands from it. I found a toothpick works really well for scraping out the ones that are still just a small stub. On Wednesday I’ll come back and do a nice leaf strip, and double check for any small buds I missed the first time.

I realized this has another benefit I didn’t think of until I was actually doing it. It gave me the opportunity to clean up all of those little preflowers at the base of every node. I’m an outdoor grower, and on many occasions those little bastards have been an open door for botrytis. I always have the best intentions to clean them up, but have never implemented it into my routine. Thanks again for that little tid bit!

 

[DunHav`nFun]

Hey Bro.....I gotta say that as many yrs that I`ve been around all the forums , your threads are far more than just ….threads.....jus sayin......blow by blow , in depth tutorials on howta actually do it with results of each procedure documented and pointed out.....no wonder you got so many rep points Ick.....Respect.....now.....

Since I`ve preached for yrs and yrs about stretch being scientifically proven to be 40% of the flower cycle , when I saw you tag the plants on the 18th of Nov thru the 16th of Dec/today , I knew you`d run this strain before cuz look where the wire is after 28 days stretch on a 70 day strain , as in 4 weeks stretch on a 10 week strain , as in 40% stretch almost to a T......now.....

The swellage begins......and hey….wanna work the plants ?.....slide lights back on the pipes.....stoner ingenuity.....aight....nuff outta me this day.....Keep strokin and thanks for your time...…

Peace.....DHF...… ……..

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Well I did the deed today. My plants are 3 weeks into flower and the stretch is over. I went in and trimmed up all bud sites that weren’t showing a decent bud already (say 15-20 pistils). This ended up being all but the last 2-3 buds on a lot of branches. It felt so wrong to be tearing all of those little budlets off, but I knew it was for the best. I even got a bit on resin on my hands from it. I found a toothpick works really well for scraping out the ones that are still just a small stub. On Wednesday I’ll come back and do a nice leaf strip, and double check for any small buds I missed the first time.

I realized this has another benefit I didn’t think of until I was actually doing it. It gave me the opportunity to clean up all of those little preflowers at the base of every node. I’m an outdoor grower, and on many occasions those little bastards have been an open door for botrytis. I always have the best intentions to clean them up, but have never implemented it into my routine. Thanks again for that little tid bit!

I hope that works out for you. I very rarely take buds in flower. I do it at the beginning and have very little to do during flower.

I do take suckers during flower. A lot of people dont know what a sucker is so I took a picture last night. This is one of three suckers I have taken from these three plants.



This as well as the other two suckers were from behind the screen. If you do your pruning in the beginning correctly you will not have any of these or very few.

Now what makes this a sucker. Well for one it is behind the screen and can not be moved into the light. So it will sit there doing nothing but sucking up nutrients and produce nothing.

Second is that you can see it does not meet my size requirement for the stem. It is a tiny stem coming off the main. Remember I want it at least a quarter of the diameter of the stem it comes from.

Last is the size of the bud compared to the others. In this next photo I show the tip bud of this sucker to the tip bud of a average bud that I will keep on this plant.



This bud will never fill in. It is just to far behind the others and shaded. So I took it off so that any growth it would take will go instead to the better producing bud sites.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Hey Bro.....I gotta say that as many yrs that I`ve been around all the forums , your threads are far more than just ….threads.....jus sayin......blow by blow , in depth tutorials on howta actually do it with results of each procedure documented and pointed out.....no wonder you got so many rep points Ick.....Respect.....now.....

Since I`ve preached for yrs and yrs about stretch being scientifically proven to be 40% of the flower cycle , when I saw you tag the plants on the 18th of Nov thru the 16th of Dec/today , I knew you`d run this strain before cuz look where the wire is after 28 days stretch on a 70 day strain , as in 4 weeks stretch on a 10 week strain , as in 40% stretch almost to a T......now.....

The swellage begins......and hey….wanna work the plants ?.....slide lights back on the pipes.....stoner ingenuity.....aight....nuff outta me this day.....Keep strokin and thanks for your time...…

Peace.....DHF...… ……..

Thanks DHF. I got a lot from your posts when I first started. My first couple posts were nothing spectacular.

If I am going to do a thread I want it to show as much as I can to help as many as I can. I get less questions in my private messages. If I can help someone once only then I have to answer it again and again. So a thread is the best way to help as many people as I can. That way when I am busy and can not reply I dont come off as a dick.

On my vert scrog thread I didnt go into enough depth and I received a lot of questions on trimming and pruning. So that is why another thread on vert scrog.

As popular as my vert scrog thread was I still got more 5 star ratings on my 13 week scrog thread. That rating system is one of the best features on the site in my opinion. It sifts out the chaff and brings the best threads to the top. I wish more of the new people knew this and is why I post about it all the time. It would save so much time for new growers. And my point is that you and many others agree I do have some good threads. Based on the star ratings that is. And I thank those who have rated me so high.

Now that tag I put on is for me to judge where I am at in my grow. It is so easy to forget when they went in or when they will be done. Like you said I have grown this strain many times. The stretch ended a day ago but my tag is dated for today.

So today is my date to look for any suckers and trim them off. It is a guide for me to know this when I am busy. It is a hard date. By that I mean I need to have the suckers gone today or tomorrow or I start loosing yield. As you have seen I have been trimming suckers and moving things around already. So I use that date to make sure I am aware of where I am in the growth cycle. It is also much easier than getting a calendar all the time.

You can see here on the tag my important dates. First is the day I started flower. Second is the trim date to get rid of suckers. And finally is the harvest date. All the important dates figured out and easy to find. Truthfully I can take this plant at day 67 or 68. But 70 days is easier to determine on a calendar.



And again thank you DHF for what you have done for me and many others here. I do my threads to give back to the site for what I have gotten from it. A thread takes a lot of time for me so I dont do many so I best make the most out of it.

 

[Hookahhead]

I hope that works out for you. I very rarely take buds in flower. I do it at the beginning and have very little to do during flower.

Yeah sorry I forgot to mention I realize this isn’t exactly what you recommend (pulling them after flower instead of before). However in my case. I didn’t have a lot of the little starts to trim before flower, so I took them after. It would probably work better if I take them a week or more earlier than what I did. Now that I have the confidence to do it, I can work on refining my technique.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Yeah sorry I forgot to mention I realize this isn’t exactly what you recommend (pulling them after flower instead of before). However in my case. I didn’t have a lot of the little starts to trim before flower, so I took them after. It would probably work better if I take them a week or more earlier than what I did. Now that I have the confidence to do it, I can work on refining my technique.

I start will a large plant so I have a lot to choose from. It also gets the roots out of balance with the top like I said earlier. So yeah starting will a smaller plant does have other challenges than what I started with.

 

[pongster]

hey mister crane, thanks for all the updates...

i have some questions regarding coco, nutes/ppm and your stems; would like to know your insights, if you don't mind... =)

* how do you get those trunks? how old are these plants? i have never grown anything that "woody", it really impresses me and with that strength i bet it can support a lot of weight!

* i saw you are doing dtw with runoff; have you ever tried drip systems?
do you think that perhaps ppm/nute strength should vary according to the irrigation method in coco, mostly related to its efficiency?
what i mean is; if one irrigates through "flooding", and gets 20-25% runoff volume, this is 25% of nutes lost to the trash (maybe less if some captured by the coco, but you get my point).
if this is so, then by doing more runoff, one should increase ppms?
and in the other way, drip system should run lower ppms?
same NPKCaMg ratio?

my question comes from my own small orchard tent, in which i could only play between 1.25 and 1.4 ec (at full flower) before seeing real burnt tips, by using blumats. but i have another plant which i do DTW, and can feed her with 1.3 at veg stage with no problems whatsoever, and it even seems weak green.
other growers report feeding at 1.8, some 2.0, and at one point it begins to be confusing.

* another thing i've noticed is that led light (or at least my light's spectrum) can show some things that even sun does not show...
could perhaps led light "exaggerate" some defects?
i say this because some seedlings under my led seem weak green, but they got kicked out of that tent and went under the sun, and look perfect green, within the 3 seconds trip from the tent to the balcony...

sorry for the boring questions,
thanks a lot again for sharing with us
and stay high

 

[Ichabod Crane]

hey mister crane, thanks for all the updates...

i have some questions regarding coco, nutes/ppm and your stems; would like to know your insights, if you don't mind... =)

* how do you get those trunks? how old are these plants? i have never grown anything that "woody", it really impresses me and with that strength i bet it can support a lot of weight!

I have no idea how old they are. I just grab one from veg that is ready and flower it. I can have 72 plants but only have 9 in flower right now.

* i saw you are doing dtw with runoff; have you ever tried drip systems?

I have but never got them to work right for me.
Everytime I did that it would drain all my nutes and then I would run out of RO water and it had a real bad impact on my other plants.

do you think that perhaps ppm/nute strength should vary according to the irrigation method in coco, mostly related to its efficiency?
what i mean is; if one irrigates through "flooding", and gets 20-25% runoff volume, this is 25% of nutes lost to the trash (maybe less if some captured by the coco, but you get my point).
if this is so, then by doing more runoff, one should increase ppms?
and in the other way, drip system should run lower ppms?
same NPKCaMg ratio?

I am not sure since I do just one watering per day.
Like I said I never was able to get the drip system to work right.
Something I will work on again at some point but have not yet.

my question comes from my own small orchard tent, in which i could only play between 1.25 and 1.4 ec (at full flower) before seeing real burnt tips, by using blumats. but i have another plant which i do DTW, and can feed her with 1.3 at veg stage with no problems whatsoever, and it even seems weak green.
other growers report feeding at 1.8, some 2.0, and at one point it begins to be confusing.

I have not run the Blumats. Again like my drip system I could not get them to run correctly so I stopped using them.
That said I did have to up my feed EC under the LEDs. I think part of that is because I am short on calcium.

* another thing i've noticed is that led light (or at least my light's spectrum) can show some things that even sun does not show...
could perhaps led light "exaggerate" some defects?
i say this because some seedlings under my led seem weak green, but they got kicked out of that tent and went under the sun, and look perfect green, within the 3 seconds trip from the tent to the balcony...

Yeah I can see that. LEDs are not the same as the sun. So yes I can see them showing up a little different for sure.

sorry for the boring questions,
thanks a lot again for sharing with us
and stay high

As for feed cost I am not worried about the cost. Lets do a quick cost break down on my feed cost.

I got the Jack's at about $60 for a 25 pound bag. I just bought 50 pounds of calcium nitrate locally for $16.57. My Drip Clean cost $32 for a liter. And the potassium silicate is$38 per gallon.

So I pay in order from above per gallon this

Jacks $0.017
CN $0.0016
DC $0.032
PS $0.01

For a total of $0.06 per gallon. I am feeding the plants in this thread about 4 gallons a day. That comes out to $0.24 per day. Or for 70 days $16.80. If I loose 25% of this it is $4.20. I will get about 3 pounds from this room. So the cost per ounce is 9 cents per ounce of wasted nutes. The cost of feeding is 35 cents per ounce.

But my lights on the other hand is 0,96 KW per hour at $0.155 per KW. So a total cost for my lights for 70 days is $124.99. That is $2.60 per ounce. SO my lights cost 7.5 time more.

So while the cost is important for the nutes it is one of the lower cost items.

If I didnt answer all of what you were after ask again.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

There are no dumb questions. I dont know everything so Ask away and we can all learn.

 

[pongster]

As for feed cost I am not worried about the cost. Lets do a quick cost break down on my feed cost.

I got the Jack's at about $60 for a 25 pound bag. I just bought 50 pounds of calcium nitrate locally for $16.57. My Drip Clean cost $32 for a liter. And the potassium silicate is$38 per gallon.

So I pay in order from above per gallon this

Jacks $0.017
CN $0.0016
DC $0.032
PS $0.01

For a total of $0.06 per gallon. I am feeding the plants in this thread about 4 gallons a day. That comes out to $0.24 per day. Or for 70 days $16.80. If I loose 25% of this it is $4.20. I will get about 3 pounds from this room. So the cost per ounce is 9 cents per ounce of wasted nutes. The cost of feeding is 35 cents per ounce.

But my lights on the other hand is 0,96 KW per hour at $0.155 per KW. So a total cost for my lights for 70 days is $124.99. That is $2.60 per ounce. SO my lights cost 7.5 time more.

So while the cost is important for the nutes it is one of the lower cost items.

If I didnt answer all of what you were after ask again.

your nutes cost is very cheap compared to mine in $/gal;
*is there some special care/storage feature you have to keep your salt nutes without sucking moisture?
*in cold times, do you heat your water to mix the nutes? if so, how? (accounting that you are not heating a cup of water for coffee)
*how much do you mix at once?
*and this mix, how long does it last? (in terms of pH stability and precipitation)

thanks again bro,
cheers

 

[Ichabod Crane]

your nutes cost is very cheap compared to mine in $/gal;
*is there some special care/storage feature you have to keep your salt nutes without sucking moisture?
*in cold times, do you heat your water to mix the nutes? if so, how? (accounting that you are not heating a cup of water for coffee)
*how much do you mix at once?
*and this mix, how long does it last? (in terms of pH stability and precipitation)

thanks again bro,
cheers

You do have to store them specially. I use a rubber seal plastic bucket. In the bucket I use a plastic bag. The bag allows me to reuse the bucket with out worrying what was in the bucket before. I dont want to cause a precipitate by mixing the different nuts.

My grow is about the same temp all year. About 80 degrees. Instead of heating my nutes I have two jugs of all my concentrates. That way I can set one aside to fully dissolve for a week or more.

I mix a gallon of concentrate at a time. I use 70 ml of this concentrate for a 5 gallon bucket of nutes.

I mix as I need the nutrient solution. It dont sit for more than a few days. Up to a week if I have some one else watering.

The PH seems to rise a little over the first day or so. About 0.2. So I mix at 5.8 if it will sit for a few days. If not I shoot for 5.8 to 6.0 and am not worried if it is 6.0.

 

[packerfan79]

Hey Ichy,

You got any recommendations for PM, and pest prevention? I have been running nothing but seeds and clones from them for years. Haven't had any issues.

I have had a bunch of crazy shit cut short the last 3 grows, so I am running some lemon drop og clones, don't have 6 weeks to wait for seed plants. Learned my lesson in the past, and want to make sure these clones are in good shape.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Hey Ichy,

You got any recommendations for PM, and pest prevention? I have been running nothing but seeds and clones from them for years. Haven't had any issues.

I have had a bunch of crazy shit cut short the last 3 grows, so I am running some lemon drop og clones, don't have 6 weeks to wait for seed plants. Learned my lesson in the past, and want to make sure these clones are in good shape.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

The only thing I use is Eagle 20 at 2 ml per gallon. But that is before they go to flower. Usually a month before they go to flower.

You may be better off asking in the infirmary because I have little experience with it. Or maybe someone can post something for you here.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Last night was day 28 of flower. So it is a good time to look back at what has happened so far.

First we will start with a picture of day one of flower.



And a picture of day 28 of flower. The screens are filling in nicely.



Still a little thin on the bottoms but that is OK. That is where the lower quality buds will be. The top is pretty full.

If you remember back I posted a picture of a 8 inch cola that had 16 buds. I tagged that cola with a twist tie so I could keep track of it threw flower. This picture was from 7 days ago.



Here is the cola 6 days later. I took this picture last night. Notice how much it has filled in in just 6 days. The buds are much bigger. And that first picture of this cola was just about at the end of stretch. So I dont expect it to be much longer than it was in the first picture.



Finally I have a picture of a top cola. You can see I have a little tip burn on the leaves. I have given the plants two feedings of MKP at one teaspoon per 5 gallons. The last picture I took had no burn and that is when I gave them the first feeding of MKP. I gave them the second the night before last.



Over the next couple weeks I expect the leaves will get clawing. This is cause by having to small of containers. I am running 5 gallon bags and they tend to start drying out between waterings. So that will cause the claw as the nutes concentrate and the PH moves around. I have noticed it is not as bad when I use 7 gallon bags. But I can live with it since it does not really affect the smoke.

 

[Itsmychoice]

That’s some pretty impressive growth. You have made some great plants for this method. I wrestle back and forth what way to go. Veg a few big plants or just run a bunch of small ones? Your set up is pretty productive and it would certianly be easier to worry about 12 plants instead of 36. People debate veg time like weeks matter, if the lights are always on it doesn’t really matter. Slowly vegging and selecting the very best and most ready plants has some advantages as well. Oh and the giant bud part, you can grow decent size buds on small plants but to grow baseball bats you need a trunk.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

That’s some pretty impressive growth. You have made some great plants for this method. I wrestle back and forth what way to go. Veg a few big plants or just put a bunch of small ones and your set up is pretty productive and it would certianly be easier to worry about 12 plants instead of 36. People debate veg time like weeks matter, if the lights are always on it doesn’t really matter. Slowly vegging and selecting the very best most ready plants has some advantages as well. Oh and the giant bud part, you can grow decent size buds on small plants but to grow baseball bats you need a trunk.

I am constrained by plant numbers. So fewer bigger plants works for me. I am pulling one of these setups down about every 5 weeks. So I really only need 6 plants in flower like this to give me a half pound a week.

One thing that may be overlooked is the fact that I added a upper screen to the plants. That added 25% more screen area over what I started with. I posted about doing this in the beginning of the thread.

Another thing is the ease with which this takes to maintain. Growing flat on the floor can be a real pain in the but to work on. Here I just slide the light out of the way and walk back and forth to maintain the plants. I only need to reach in 8 to 10 inches at the most. And I can do it standing up or sitting on a bucket. Much easier on the back then bending over or crawling under.

 

[Itsmychoice]

Growing horizontal is definitely a pain in the back. What is your screen size now? 6 high by 6 wide with 5 lights about a foot apart? A trash can with a little giant pump, an art dne cycle timer and 3 blackhole drippers should go on your list. Starting about now feed them to runoff 3-4 times a day.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Growing horizontal is definitely a pain in the back. What is your screen size now? 6 high by 6 wide with 5 lights about a foot apart? A trash can with a little giant pump, an art dne cycle timer and 3 blackhole drippers should go on your list. Starting about now feed them to runoff 3-4 times a day.

My size is 2 foot wide by about 7 feet high. The screen size is 2 foot wide by 6 feet high. The wall they are on is 7 feet across. So the real area is about 35 square feet. The same as the floor size.

The lights are about 13 inches apart I believe. Not sure and the lights are off now.

I may set up a dripper not sure yet. I have to water the rest of the grow and it dont take much to water these. It gives me a chance to tend them. And a little tweak here and there is easier than a giant mess at one time.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Opps my mistake. The area on the wall is about 42 square feet. Slightly bigger than the floor area. It was 35 square feet before I added the second set of upper screens.