Lazyman's 16KW Headbanger

[SkizOflan]

Very interesting.. I knew that mycor can have that tendency but I wasn't aware that my hygrozyme could be messing things up. So you think if I eliminate that ingredient i should not see any more buildup in the res? I thought an enzyme was essential to root development and overall health. I usually cut out the zyme by week 3 anyway.. Thanks for the info Lazy.

 

[frankborelli]

You need to give yourself some credit. You're not that lazy man....

 

[Lazyman]

Very interesting.. I knew that mycor can have that tendency but I wasn't aware that my hygrozyme could be messing things up. So you think if I eliminate that ingredient i should not see any more buildup in the res? I thought an enzyme was essential to root development and overall health. I usually cut out the zyme by week 3 anyway.. Thanks for the info Lazy.

Yeah, it's probably both ingredients, know that most strains of fungi and trichoderma cannot survive even low concentrations of P, which of course we have in abundance in flower. So adding enzymes in flower is kinda just wasting money, since they die as soon as they hit the flowering res or medium.

It IS good to have such things in veg to establish a strong root base, but beyond that you're just burning money to make dead slime. Good luck amigo!

 

[Lazyman]

You need to give yourself some credit. You're not that lazy man....

Yeah it's supposed to be ironic, I work 12-16 hours a day 7 days a week. Between my full-time job, my grow, my big veggie garden (3k square feet!) and a myriad of critters to tend, there's very few moments I can be lazy! But my mantra is, work now, lazy later!

 

[Rednick]

Yeah, it's probably both ingredients, know that most strains of fungi and trichoderma cannot survive even low concentrations of P, which of course we have in abundance in flower. So adding enzymes in flower is kinda just wasting money, since they die as soon as they hit the flowering res or medium.

It IS good to have such things in veg to establish a strong root base, but beyond that you're just burning money to make dead slime. Good luck amigo!

I wish I would have read that a few days ago.
Decided to try some Hygrozyme in my rez this time b/c I was re-using Hydroton and someone said the 'Zymes help to eat the decaying roots left over, or anything rotting.
Currently it seems to have caused a huge pH spiking mess. I will have to monitor the situation for the next few days, see if it stabilizes.
Hopefully I won't have to dump me rez and flush it out.

The more I try additive the more I get convinced to stick to base nutes, and a little sugar at the end.

But since I got this slime mix brewing, I might just add some more BB and see what happens. Still need to check the pH today and see how much it changed overnight.

 

[Lazyman]

Sorry it's been so long since an update guys, been super duper busy. Not to mention our family reunion is being held at my house this weekend, so lots of tidying and hiding to do.

So the last crop came out to 6.5# total, not spectacular but better than 3. I'll post the breakdown later.

The grape stompers are doing great, I'm fighting half of them to keep them green at week 6, but I'm pretty much giving up as they'll be done in a couple more weeks anyway. Bumping the food 100ppm every 3 days has not affected them at all, crazy! One small plant was COVERED in bugs last night, hosed it with pyrethrin and did a spinosad soil drench for thrips, crazy bugs. They are so damn persistent! That's after 3 sprays in 2 weeks!

So we transplanted everything from the veg room last weekend, 24 wow plants, and about 5 grape ape, about 10 purple mr nice and 10 grape stompers. I also just picked up 25 HUGE Purple AK plants and 5 huge Purple gorillas, I'm transplanting those tonight and flipping most of them right away, so I should be around 90 plants flowering in the "new" half of the room. I also got a warranty replacement on my fried CAP mlc-8x, their wiring went bad and shorted, but CAP was cool about it and fixed me up.

Veg room: We brought over 60 Jackpots in 4" pots, getting transplanted next week. Also 18 that were in 2g smartpots, and 17 space bomb (space queen X tiny bomb) in 1g pots. Plus there's a couple dozen GS and PMN from last run that I "held back" to catch them up, so that run is set to be around 120 plants or so, big run! Also got my mom room packed full, right now I have:

3 Jackpot
3 Grape Stomper
3 Blue Dragon
1 True Blue (old kush strain)
3 Grape Ape
2 WOW
2 Purple Gorilla
2 Purple AK

Too many moms! I'll be replacing a few large moms shortly and flipping them, gonna up-pot them to 10g Gropots (tall smartpots with handles) before flipping though.

Taking more clones this weekend (maybe 3-4 trays) of various things, gotta get my strike rate up from 50% to at least 80-90. I think I'm just loving them too much (ie overwatering) but I'm definitely seeing better results with rockwool starters than anything else.

Pics coming soon, just gotta upload em at home.

 

[chef]

Very nice! You need to change your name tho

Appreciate the lowdown on your cooling too, been trying to decide on my new cooling setup. Leaning toward a 4-5ton split.

Really looking forward to your next pot size test too. My $$'s say your attribution is misplaced. It's the big pots mang

Also, took some wet weights of the JP, 2 gallon pot vs 6 gallon pot:

15 2g pots worth of JP weighed 6.4# wet.
6 4g pots of JP weighed 7.2# wet.

Basically over double the yield in the bigger pots, though I will attribute much of that yield difference to the fresh soil the 4g plants got at the flip, wheras the other 15 were N deficient for much of their run.

I'm gonna prove how much difference pot sizes make with the grape stompers though, some heavy tea feedings have helped with the N def quite a bit, though the thrips are still having a ball. Tried to find some Spinosad at Lowes today, no joy.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

got any pics of how that grape stomper turned out?

 

[Guest 18340]

No rest for the wicked huh Lazyman.
Props to you bro

 

[Lazyman]

got any pics of how that grape stomper turned out?

Hmm not just yet, it's almost dry, but the buds were off two gangly moms and are small and not very representative of the strain. In comparison the 50 GS kids growing right now have large colas that look nothing like their moms, but I'll post up some pics shortly of both.

 

[Lazyman]

No rest for the wicked huh Lazyman.
Props to you bro

Hehe no way man, I had to hire a buddy to do some yardwork for me as I simply don't have enough hours in the day! Thanks very much for stopping in.


On that note, I brought over 24 huge purple AK plants and 8 Purple Gorilla plants over to the basement last night, and transplanted them all into 5g smartpots of FFOF amended with extra EWC. Whew what a pain! Got em all watered in, tagged and staked, now the room is FULL. Basically made 5 extra rows of plants.

Tonight I'm going back to prune and add in more Blumats to water them, and to put saucers under more pots. I swear the counts are crazy, I've used 100 5g smartpots this week, 40 bags of FFOF, 10 bags of EWC, 15 bags of Ancient Forest. In 3 weeks I need to buy another 100 5g smartpots and another 40 bags of soil for the next crop coming in from veg. Wow!

 

[Lazyman]

Oh yeah, and the electrician is adding 3X30A 240V circuits for me today, outside the basement for air conditioners, whoohoo!!

 

[SkizOflan]

Hey Lazy,

I had a question about pruning - when do you do your final pruning before/during flower? I usually try to do my last prune job by the end of week 1 and then just let em go.. I see that you tend to favor a natural style of growth (i.e. no scrog, lst, topping) and i'm wondering if you could shed some light from your experience on how and what to prune before flowering. For example, what seems to be the best plant infrastructure for bigger buds, do you trim all the 'inside' lower bud sites (i do), and how do you determine which bud sites you want, and which to ditch? Thanks in advance, i always appreciate your beta.

P.S. - do you ever do coco, or soil only? I only ask because i'm having issues with my pots not drying out enough in a 24hr period to be watering every day, and i think i'm over-watering and causing root growth to slow.. Is it ok not to water every day in coco? I've read you're supposed to regardless, but i would rather let them have a day off to dry up sometimes. Any help..?

 

[SkizOflan]

One more question - if you could use co2 for only 1-2 weeks during a grow, when would it be?

Thx.

 

[Lazyman]

Hey Lazy,

I had a question about pruning - when do you do your final pruning before/during flower? I usually try to do my last prune job by the end of week 1 and then just let em go.. I see that you tend to favor a natural style of growth (i.e. no scrog, lst, topping) and i'm wondering if you could shed some light from your experience on how and what to prune before flowering. For example, what seems to be the best plant infrastructure for bigger buds, do you trim all the 'inside' lower bud sites (i do), and how do you determine which bud sites you want, and which to ditch? Thanks in advance, i always appreciate your beta.

Sure thing, pruning is best done at the flip, then again 2 weeks later. No more! When I prune (I've started again) I usually clean off the lower 6-8 inches of a plant, but I let the size of the plant dictate how much I remove. Big plant remove a lot, small plant remove very little. I have had good success with supercropping/topping, but I have enough room to let them go pretty wild currently. I do thin the inside and remove lower budsites when using overhead lighting, but with sidelighting (bare bulbs) I don't really have that problem. I just rotate the plants every now and then to even out the lateral growth.

P.S. - do you ever do coco, or soil only? I only ask because i'm having issues with my pots not drying out enough in a 24hr period to be watering every day, and i think i'm over-watering and causing root growth to slow.. Is it ok not to water every day in coco? I've read you're supposed to regardless, but i would rather let them have a day off to dry up sometimes. Any help..?[/

Yeah I've done a few runs in coco, didn't like it much mainly due to the lack of ferts. I don't think daily watering is necessary on anything but fairly large plants, and with bigger pots they can go 2-3 days without watering. It is absolutely fine to water coco as needed,especially when plants are small they need a drier medium so they grow roots. In flower they should be big enough to water more often, as the roots are established by then. If you want a drier medium mix in some perlite, or even coco chips to the coco peat. To help cure slow root growth add peroxide to the water and it will oxygenate the root zone and spur root growth, I use 2ml per gallon of 35%, use more for lower concentrations.

One more question - if you could use co2 for only 1-2 weeks during a grow, when would it be?

Thx.

Week 4-6, that's the "weight gain" stage. After 6 CO2 use should be tapered off anyway, so 4-6 is perfect. Hope that helps!

 

[SkizOflan]

Thanks so much!

Do you have any advice for how to make flowers pop out faster after the flip? I know in the past i've used AN Bud Blood, pk boosters, etc. during week 1 or 2 with (seemingly) positive results, but i haven't found much discussion on these forums about specific principles underlying faster bud formation. Would CO2 supplementation allow plants to bloom faster? How and exactly why does increased p/k facilitate faster bud onset, and what do you use to accomplish this in your garden? I'm starting week 2 of one of my current OG runs (50x/4 lights) and am really seeking to dial in my garden and nutrient formula. Is there a way to post pics w/o an outside link? I'd love to share with ya..

p.s. Hope ya don't mind these questions here, or would there be a better venue..? Don't want to jack ya but i bet it's valuable information to everyone anyway.

 

[SkizOflan]

One more thing - I use H&G Roots XL (which i believe is beneficial fungi?) through week 3 and am fairly positive that adding h2o2 to a mix with my Roots XL would kill any live beneficial organisms. What's your thoughts? Also any interactions with hygrozyme or any other additives? Thanks.

 

[Lazyman]

Thanks so much!

Do you have any advice for how to make flowers pop out faster after the flip? I know in the past i've used AN Bud Blood, pk boosters, etc. during week 1 or 2 with (seemingly) positive results, but i haven't found much discussion on these forums about specific principles underlying faster bud formation.

You're quite welcome, and though every grower wil give you diffewrent answers to your questions, I'll do my best!

Flower "set" after the flip: One effective technique is to turn off the lights entirely for 24-48 hours, making sure the plant is unmistakably flowering. I also use AN Bud Ignitor the first 3 weeks of flower, it does help with flower set. Bushmaster is another product (hormone) that can be used, but it halts all streth immediately, and may reduce overall yield (according to some.) Nitrogen is important to plant health, and a balanced diet results in bigger flowers than an unbalanced one every time. I don't cut off N til week 6. Hell, at week 4-5 simetimes I feed a LOT of N trying keep some strains green!

Would CO2 supplementation allow plants to bloom faster?

CO2 accelerates all things on a plant, growth, flowering, and ripening. I don't have any empirical data to prove it, but yes it stands to reason that flowering would be faster.

How and exactly why does increased p/k facilitate faster bud onset, and what do you use to accomplish this in your garden?

Again, Bud Ignitor works well, but I use Koolbloom powder for a good, cheap and effective PK booster when needed. With most balanced nute regimens it's not needed, but if the plants arent showing tip burn on their regular diet you can supplement with PK boosters. On some strains, at week 5 or so I will change out the res and run JUST Koolbloom for a week to make sure the plant is stocked up on PK, but without a strict control group its hard to tell the exact effects.

I'm starting week 2 of one of my current OG runs (50x/4 lights) and am really seeking to dial in my garden and nutrient formula. Is there a way to post pics w/o an outside link? I'd love to share with ya..

Yep, start an album here and upload them to IC, it's safe and secure, server is hosted in Amsterdam, outside authorities can't get warrants in the Netherlands.

p.s. Hope ya don't mind these questions here, or would there be a better venue..? Don't want to jack ya but i bet it's valuable information to everyone anyway.

Nope this is fine, but I always encourage folks to start a journal of their own grows, you'd be amazed at how much you learn, and how much you can teach!

One more thing - I use H&G Roots XL (which i believe is beneficial fungi?) through week 3 and am fairly positive that adding h2o2 to a mix with my Roots XL would kill any live beneficial organisms. What's your thoughts? Also any interactions with hygrozyme or any other additives? Thanks.

Tricky question that. Roots XL is a good product, I use it in veg too, but in flower root development grinds to a halt so I don't use it past veg. Adding 2ml/gallon of 35% peroxide oxygenates the water, and will kill anearobic bacteria, while giving oxygen to goo (aerobic) bacteria. Too much will kill them. I would tell you that oxygenating with an air pump and stones is safer (and in the long run cheaper) and can't be overdone.

Do you have a problem that someone advised you to use H2o2 for? Usually there are alternatives for most treatments.

 

[Rednick]

Just be careful with the PK boosters (like Koolbloom), too much too early and you are going to have burn't red hairs by week 6.
As far as forcing the flower, I think Genetics is the best way.
Get a strain that finishes quicker. Genetics dictate a lot about HOW you grow your plant. Environment will have an effect, but remeber you will be fighting nature, when you really want to work with nature.

 

[SkizOflan]

Great, thanks for the info!

I had a few questions though - when you use your bud ignitor or koolbloom do you reduce your base nutes at all? In post #395 you gave me your feed schedule and it looks like you cut out your base nutes completely when using a pk booster. But if i'm trying to do both, i would just lower my coco a +b right? Let me tell you my current feed formula for veg all the way thru week 3 flower:

(Grown in Botanicare Ready-Gro Aeration Mix Coco) - i've never pre-flushed before trasnplanting into fresh coco, is this bad..? :/

30 Gal Res:
40ml silicate
50ml A+B (house & garden)
50ml Vitamax (grotek)
150ml hygrozyme
30 ml Roots xl
125ml Ca/mg (technaflora)
----------------
ph=6.1 ppm=325

Sometimes i add liquid karma or botanicare seaplex or even an algen extract if i have it. I know this recipe works, but i'm looking for something simpler and easier to manage. It looks like you have no more than 3-4 different solutions in your mixes, and you're getting good results. Any advice? Do you think i'm feeding too many ferts at once? Also, i cut out the silicate by week 4 in flower but i'm wondering if this should be done earlier.. Thx.