2.5x1.8 meter coco scrog, 3 strain bingo!!

[Tokesome]

Ok guys, I`ve decided to experiment a bit more seriously with defoliation, I`ve seriously stripped the majority of fan leaves off of 5 of the Arma`s. This change of mind was due in part to reading I`ve done here on it and a recent look at an Arma plant that a mate has grown, (bloody well!) where he`s relentlessly stripped it of its fan leaves.

I`ve taken most of the fan leaves off of 3 Arma`s in one row and 2 Arma`s in the other row, leaving the rest with what I`d call essential fan leaf removal. I`m not sure how many leaves to strip from the Grapefruit, being a stretchier plant with longer internode spacing. I think they`ll defo need some fans removing. I need to get up on a chair or something so I can look down from above over the Gf`s to get a better sense of how much to strip to allow light penetration. I dont think I`ll go for stripping most of the leaves from the Gf`s, and more likely to go for a more removing leaves that are seriously obscuring lower bud from the light, its getting to be more and more like a jungle though and will need tending to soon, today or Friday.

A couple of Arma`s with the fans pretty much stripped

Here the nearer two plants have most of their fans left on, just selective leaf removal, whereas the furthest 3 have nearly all fans stripped. I`ll try and get some better pics taken in a couple of days.

I think I may have slowed down and confused the plants a little with my lighting error for one night, the buds on my plants dont look so big at the tops as my mate`s in the growtent, though mine do have tighter internode spacing. Hopefully I wont have done too much damage here and they,`ll catch up. They`re definitely advancing still, but may have slowed a little, I`m not really sure if its affected them at all, my mate`s were vegged for longer filling out the screen as they`re scrogged.

Thinking of going for Bud Candy as a carb supplement for bloom, Shhh seems to have had fair results from it in his test from what I can see in his thread, seems to be awol at the mo tho. ;-)

Cheers, Toke ;-)

 

[Silky Johnson]

Toke have you thought to try to use Air Pots while growing in coco? Check out their youtube bit on it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NUjNBKex0I

 

[Tokesome]

Toke have you thought to try to use Air Pots while growing in coco? Check out their youtube bit on it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NUjNBKex0I

Hey Silky, no mate I had`nt, but I must say they look the biz, I may have to investigate them further, maybe for the next grow, thanks for the heads up mate. Toke ;-)

 

[Tokesome]

Hey Silky, Are you using them yourself? I imagine they`ll probably take a bit more irrigation?

I`ve just had a word with a mate who has some sample air-pots for me to play with, so I may try one or two next time around if the feed regime works out similar to the standard pots. I wouldn`t like to commit a full grow to them without testing first, but I do have a single pot nft tank Iso I could run one separate from the rest, perhaps on a recirculating set-up as opposed to my drain to waste.

Toke

 

[Tokesome]

Noticing that it takes longer for some pots to run off than others I`m aware that the feed lines are not working evenly. I have 2 feed lines per pot running openly, no drippers, and they take between 2-3 mins to run off pretty heavily, eacept the Grapefruit which have more appetite they take a good 3 mins.

So I`ve bought some dripper ends for the lines, I`ll run some tests tmrp and see if they even things out and find out how long they take to give the equivalent run off.

I like using open lines because I think the heavier flowing feed and run-off helps flush the pots thru each feed and I think I read that the oxygen is pulled thru the medium better on a heavier but quicker feed, less time in an anerobic state.

Having said that I know many people who use dripper systems with no ill effects except for blockages due to salts, in fact I have done myself before. I have some Ataclean to combat this, but just wanna check if Ataclean can give any undesirable effects on the plants/maedium, I suspect not tho.
A mate of mine is feeding 3x a day, twice for an hour and once for half hour. That seems a little long especially for drain to waste, where my mate is running a re=circulating Wilma set up.

I looked at bloom boosters today and cant come down in favour of any product. Budcandy works out quite expensive using 2mls per litre, 160ltrs being used every 3-4 days. Also it seems that Bud candy is only recommended for week 2-4 12/12, then move on to another product, the name of which slips my mind for the moment. Fuck it I might just go with A+B and some PK13/14 in the 3rd and 4th week from harvest, it seems like a market of cons and bullshit, acknowledged by nearly everyone on both sides of the shop counter!

Cheers, Toke ;-)

 

[Tokesome]

Here are a couple of pics of my mate`s tent grows. They were switched over to 12/12 the same time as mine, now day 19. They were trained for longer so the plants were a bit more mature than mine. It shows that different environment factors make a difference. The buds are noticeably bigger, but fewer per stem and larger internodal spacing, mine might have slowed up due to me leaving a light on overnight last week tho, I`m not sure.

Compared with these of mine, the same strain, but not scrogged, just tied back a bit.

Both look ok in their own way, just hope my lighting error isn`t doing any stunting!

Here`s a pic of 3 fan leaf pruned plants, the fan leaves you see in this pic are on the Grapefruit plants behind. Tihis pic is followed by 2 plants from the same row where I`ve only removed essentially light blocking fans.

The other row of Arma`s I`ve stripped the fan leaves off of 2 plants, and the following pic is of the other 3 in the same row again with only essentially light blocking leaves.

I`m resisting the urge to remove the fans from the other 5 Arma`s. There is no real control over this experiment tho, and if I feel that the plants with the stripped leaves are doing a noticeably better, I`ll go ahead and strip from the other 5. If they do noticeably worse I`m going to sew all the leaves back on to the ones I`ve defoliated, lol.

I`m going to have to get into the Grapefruit and remove some fan leaves, as you can see, its getting a bit busy in the jungle.

Cheers Toke ;-)

Ps. is anyone else finding this sight to be slow, it seems to be slower than any other site on my computer, just wondering if there`s a server problem, or if someones hacking my internet. . . . yeah stoner paranoia, smilies not working properly either

 

[Tokesome]

I fitted drippers to the ends of all lines now, I`ve yet to run tests to see how long they need to be on to give the desired run off, but should be pretty easy to sort that.

I took 3 plants out of the grow room to have a good look at them. I had a look at one Arma that I`ve severely plucked the leaves, one Arma that I`ve removed fans that are getting in the way and one Grapefruit.

Here are some pics where you can see what` going on.. You can see behind the plant a single radiator with a standard bath towel hung on it, and for scale the first pic, the plant is 27 inches tall.

Armageddon with fan leaves plucked

Armageddon with some fans removed where it counts

And both Arma`s together

Grapefruit, approaching 40 inches in height now

I was a bit surprised to find the roots are not as full and lush as I`d expect, even though the plants look healthy enough. I`m a bit concerned by this as this could affect how well the plants can finish. It wasn`t so much of a surprise from with the Arma`s but I was expecting better roots on the Grapefruit.

Armageddon roots

Grapefruit roots

I thinned some of the fan leaves on the row of Grapefruit today, so there`s better light penetration.

The plants are still stretching, though this should come to an end soon as its the end of week 3 now. The Armageddon plants are now reaching 29 inches and the Grapefruit 40 inches, that`s from the top of the pots, in real terms the Arma`s are chest height on me and the Grapefruit are up to my chin.

This is looking from the right hand side of the room.

This is from the left

I`ve upped the nutrient strength from ec1.3 to ec1,5, which I`ll feed tmro. I`ll then flush on Sunday before carrying on.

One thing I`ve noticed is that since employing a weekly flush I`ve had no signs of Mg deficiency and not the slightest signs of tip burn. That`s why I`m giving nutrients at a higher strength for a while, I think they can take it a little stronger. I wont exceed ec1.5 this grow though.

Cheers, Toke

 

[Scrogerman]

Hey Buddy!
Looking Good, Defoliation ah, Mmmm, ill be interested on this one too bro. Not Sure myself & im skepticle. Have you been doing this from the start bro? From what im reading its detrimental to Bud-Growth if not done from the start, but i aint even done it like this before, i hope it works man. Ill employ the tec myself if you report positive effects. in the past when ive removed leaves(Fans) from budding branches, that Bud site stops in its tracks, Whats your take on it bro? Ive read alot of the Defoliation thread & still not convinced, but i wanna see it work, makes sense to let more light in etc. Hope this works for ya buddy! makes sense to let a little Apicle dominance do its thing, too even & less light penetrates imo. Saying that your canopy looks pretty even steven to me, nice job man!

1 Question- have you been doing the Flush from Wk1 Veg?

 

[Scrogerman]

Oh, i just noticed youve removed leaves from the top quater, thats a big No-No in my book, i always leave the top 1/3rd well alone. whats your thinking here bro? What have you seen/read/understand that made you do this? you got me interested now"! where did you get the info that made you do that, youve obviously seen something somewhere. Cool if it works. Scary Stuff LOL!

 

[Tokesome]

Hey bro, glad to see yer still hoverin about. Well a mate has had amazing results from one of the Arma`s I gave him. His tec is to remove nearly all fans at start of flower and then again 4 weeks into flower, and as I said great job on the one plant, colas like baseball bats.

All of his other strain has grown equally impressive using this technique, tho 5 of the 6 plants I gave him went all wierd and leaves narrowed and looked tortured, dont know why but it happened before his defoliation, and my mate with the growtent scrogs had 2 out of 8 plants go this way too and removed them from the grows.

I think the reasoning on taking this approach starting in the veg stage is that it helps to produce very short internodes hence more bud sites per branch length. the tec is carried on thru the flowering phase as the plant will produce many more fans, I dont see this as any difference to removing fans from any plant in flowering stages.

I`ve always removed some fans from conventionally grown plants, just never to the extent I have done on 5 of the 10 Arma`s. The GF`s are only having essentially light blocking fans removed, same for the other 5 Arma`s, so I have some rough comparrisons going on. I may totally strip one of the GF`s of all its fans to compare there a little too.

I didn`t think I had much too lose with the Arma`s, if you remember they yielded poorly last grow.

To be honest I think there is some stunting going on with all the Arma`s, the flowers on my mate`s growtent have fewer but considerably bigger buds than mine, and continuing to grow faster too. I`d fucked up and left a light on continuously for 38hrs just over a week ago, wondering if this has fooked them over a bit.

I think one thing I manage to do consistantly is allow my plants to dry out accidentally in coco during veg. I`m thinking this has some pretty major adverse affects on my plants health. I also read that taking cuttings from a plant that has been allowed to dry out or go without nutrients for a while is difficult and may lead to poor stock.

I`ve got 6 Hog cuttings rooted in the veg cupboard, new hope for my stock. I`ve also taken another 14 guts from the GF`s yesterday, but 3 weeks into flower and the last 2 attempts at taking cuts failed totally, so I`m not too hopeful of continuing this strain, sad as its a top smoke and my preferred smoke of the 3 strains I`m smoking at the mo.

Cheers Toke ;-)

 

[Tokesome]

The other thing Scrogger mate, is that I have left the top few fans on each stem even on the ones I`ve severely stripped, dunno if its a big no no, but I`ve seen this mass stripping of fans working well above average for a mate.

Here are the cuttings taken yesterday from plants 3 weeks into flower, I miscounted, I`ve got 18 GF`s taken, that was the max I could find on the plants as I`ve done a good job of removing lower growth! I took 4 Arma`s just to see if they root up, I`ll discard them once I find out, just wanna know if I`m having trouble with cloning Grapefruits or with cuttings generally as I`ve never in over 20 yrs lost a full batches cut`s, let alone 2 in a row.

Here`s the veg cupboard, The plant at the back is the Arma mum, I`ve just hacked her right back. I dont know why I still have her hanging around really. The six smaller plants are the Hog clones. The new cut are in the prop dome under the carrier bag, all under a 70 watt HPS.

Cheers, Toke

 

[Scrogerman]

I like ya style bro!
If this tec is working well with the same strain for your friend then im pretty sure it'll work for you too. I aint giot the balls to try it yet, it looks fked up bro! & sort of does & does'nt make sense to me, if you get me! Like i said if you report positive, then ill be doing it myself bro, i dont trust everyones results, but i know i can count on your tests.
Have you tryed 'Bubblecloning' bro? Fk me its sooo simple its unreal, no domes, no foliar misting, no nutes, no bugger all & im getting 100% everytime, it seems impossible to Fk it up. Just a little 25ltre Rubbermaid Tub/Tupperware Tub, & a decent/reliable aquarium heater, Airpump & Stones/airline & Heypresto Bro', Keep temps in the Low 80's for rooting & reduce once a nice rootball has formed to 70f. Its gotta be the easiest way to clone there is, Give it a try bro, my buddy just rooted into Coco from the Bubblecloner with no probs at all. Yeah, im looking forward to seeing your results on this defoliate tec now. Good Luck with it bro.
Peace.....Scrogs!

Hog has been on my list for a long time now, Im sure you'll be well happy with her, so has THBubblegum too, oh & about 3 or 4 of there other strains too. MkU,Sage etc etc.

 

[gaiusmarius]

good to see your plants doing well, will be very interesting to see how they react to that fan leaf rape (rofl)

have had trouble cloneing at times myself, some times i just don't get what went wrong, other times i know exactly, lol. ie not cleaning the clone box properly before use, or not opening the dome every other day, when the thing is packed out, causing mold. not removing dead clones, which rot and spread there rot to the clones next to them.

other times i've had plants make roots just sitting in a cup of tap water. i guess the well made aero cloners are really the most fool proof, but just like rh and temps matter in the trays, so does water temp matter in the aero cloners. good luck with the clones, you could also start making the final stem cut under water, apparently this stops air getting into the veins and potentially causing a blockage.

 

[Tokesome]

Hey guys thanks for dropping in.


Hey Scrogger, how big a tub would I need to fit 20-30 cuts in a bubble cloner, I fancy trying this. What do you use to hold the stems of the cuts in position? I`ve seen plastic cups used, what do you think?

Hey giaus, I always sterilise and rinse thoroughly all cloning equip, tho yeah at times I`m guilty of the rest. I`ve never done the final cut under water before, but yes I just been reading over that stuff myself and may well do this in future. These recent cuts were a bit on the woody side, I`d already taken the lower chaff off, too thoroughly for the purpose of good cloning. That reminds me, I must give them some fresh air tonight. ;-)

Today I was checking the collective run off of the 5 GF`s, feed in has been ec15-16 ph 6.0-6.4(oops!), the run off is ec11 and ph6.2

The Arma`s were a bit odd and may have to start some individual pot tests. First five Arma`s collective run off was ec13 ph6.1, second lot of run off from the other 5 Arma`s was ec15 ph5.9, mmm. . . so quite a difference there.

I think I`ll flush again tonight or tmro, followed by some nutrients.

Cheers, Toke

 

[Scrogerman]

Hey Toke!
Sorry i missed you ol buddy!
Yeah its defo the one bro, you'll thank me im sure of it. Even really hard to clone cuts root out in the BC, may take a few days longer thats all, & its a good idea to have a bottle of Oxy+ on hand to sterilise etc but we can disscuss any of the tec points after(there aint many tbh).
right imo its gonna be about the shape of the tupperware/Rubbermaid tub you buy. If you think SWC(shallow water culture) you'll not stray far wrong with a 30-50 ltr Tub. Ive just managed 16 in a 25 ltr Tub covered in BinBags( i could of managed 25 at a push), ill upload pics if you wish, there are a few in my project x album. I use Pipe Lagging cut to 2-3" lenghts & shortened a little for the plugs. you know the stuff that just pops onto copper pipeing, its a kind of Poly-plastic(i think), like neophrene, but thats too expensive neophrene, the pipe lagg costs bugger all & works wonderfully well. I scuff the skin of the cutt at the botton 20mm(scarify), but just scuff the skin , no deeper, i just run a razorblade down gently just in a few places not all the way around bro, take the first layer or two of skin off for better rooting, just dont go deep(this is not essential at all). I asure you mate you will be very pleased with this method. I have a link to a very good thread by Cortez that ill put up at the bottom, need any help just ask, but its pretty fool proof this method bro! Here you go! just remember you'll see better & faster rooting with temps in the low 80's like 83f i like, then when i see a good root mass forming after 10 days i take out the water heater & like temps in the 68f to 72f range where i apply H2o2(Oxy+) for 2-3 days for piece of mind(important imo) & then you'd be going straight into the coco, No peat Pucks etc to worry about. & my buddy who has just done that very thing, well, his plants are flying bro. You wont look back. Good Luck!

Here's the link: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=26473&page=2

 

[Scrogerman]

I just wanted to add it may be an idea to add low EC nutes or use Rhizo or another rooting stim.
Ive found some Pheno's of some strains do like a little charge there, like EC 0.1-0.2 or so, without it certain pheno's showed def's really quickly & before they rooted properly almost, but even those ones will root without anything at all, just something to remember & consider bro!

 

[Tokesome]

Nice one Scrogger, Yeah post some pics of yer 16 in the tub, I need some inspiration at the mo, I`m a bit fooked, and trying to get myself in shape for a big party at the weekend.

I`ll take a look at the link next bro. Yeah I usually go with half strength Rhizo or a little superthrive, which reminds me, I need to stock up on that.

I`ll probably try and make a bubble cloner next week, I`m gonna take a load of cuts from my mates plants in 3 weeks or so, and I`ll try one out along side some jiffys in a dome.

I`ve noticed that my GF`s are taking way longer to run off than the Arma`s now that I`ve fitted 2 drippers per pot. If it takes 30 minutes to get run off from the 10 Arma plants, it`ll take 40+mins to get the GF`s to run off. Not surprising when you see the size of the Grapefruits compared to the Arma`s. I`m going to have to make a 3rd feed loop and run just 5 lines and drippers from it to feed extra to the GF`s. Otherwise I think I`m going to end up with the GF`s not getting enough or the Arma`s getting too wet. Its a bit of a PTA, but it`ll give me that flexibility to manage 2 or 3 different strains with different requirements, should I need it.

Cheers for now, Toke ;-)

 

[Scrogerman]

These are older pics, but it gives you the idea of how simple it is bro, all thats in the tank is a Theo Auarium Heater(Cost me £20 & its only 50w),
Expensive bit of kit for a 5" heater. 2 airstones 12" run by a 300lph pump which cost £12 or so, oh & the airline of course, thats it simple as fk, i never misted once, soo simple its unreal & if your not happy ill send you the money for the kit myself, thats how confident i am that you'll lov this method, say G'Bye to 'Peat&Coco Pucks, they aint nessesary. My mates plants in Coco are absolutely flying man, they came outa my Cloner, & straight into the Coco. If you want more pics of the tank & pucks ill upload for you tonight, Not-a-Botha! I borrowed my mates tank in those pics btw, mines covered in BinBags like i said! ! laters Bro!



Look im that lazy i couldnt be bothered to trim up the leaves, cuts rooted in 7-10 days, fully! One pheno yellowed cause she was hungry while rooting, the other wasnt arsed at all, n stayed real green, Only water in the 25ltr tank!
Terrible pics but dont let that put you off, you gotta try this bro!

 

[Scrogerman]

I recommened you use a 1.5" Holesaw for the holes in the Lid, perfect size,(6mm drillbit for the airline holes, of course), Mines 1.25", a bit too small, 2" is prolly a little big tbh! Good Luck!

Oh its only an 8 site cloner, Mines 16, ill post pics tonight bro, you can see all the room left on that lid anyway!!

 

[Tokesome]

Cheers Scrogger, looks good. I`ve got a pump and some airline, just need a 'T' splitter to go to 2 stones, which I also need to get, and a suitable tub, mmm and maybe a hole saw or big wood drill bit would probably do the job.

Look fwd to the pics mate.

I think I misread the run off from the GF`s. I reckon what I thought was ec1.1 was really 1.7, must put my reading glasses on when doing this shit!

I`ve flushed the 10 Arma`s and will flush the GF`s tmro. No signs of over ferting anywhere, but I think I`ll set the ec at 1.3-1.4 to be on the safe side.

Cheers, Toke ;-)