Vertical Doughnut Quest of Justice

[justiceman]

Hey everyone It's been a while since I've been around. I got pretty bored with the same old horizontal set up in my 4x4 grow tent. I started thinking isn't there a way I could grow bigger plants in here? Then I came upon this vertical section. I tried to soak up as much info as I could in the last couple weeks and now I have my vert set up! All thanks to everyone here I have gained a renewed inspiration from the trials and testing you all have done.

Style: Vertical Doughnut
Space: 4x4 GL120 grow tent
Ventilation/Air Circulation: (2)6" vent holes for intake, (1) 400cfm 6" inline for exhaust, (1) Phresh 6x16 Scrubber/(4) 6" Air King clip on fans, (1) Honeywell fan
Light System: 1000w Vertical Hortilux HPS(I run it at 600w) 1000/600/400 Galaxy Select-a-watt


Okay that is the basic set up so far. I'm still debating on how many plants I want to fit in. I'm thinking anywhere from 4-6 in 3-5gal pots. The ones inside right now are for testing. I may just end up using those even though it wouldn't be a monocrop. The 4 in there are 2 cherry pie, 1 Kandy Kush, and 1 Grand Poobah respectively.

I lined 3 walls with plastic fencing I got from home depot just in case I need to anchor them or I can use them for vine training. Sound familiar? A Honeywell fan sits right underneath the HPS blowing air upwards.

So I'm not too big a fan of standing water in saucers so I came up with an idea(not complete yet) to remedy this problem. I'm going to elevate each saucer on say a concrete block. I will install a 3/8" nylon barb on each saucer. 3/8" ID tubing will run from each saucer to the front in a non messy manner where a water collection container will be. I will then empty the container. That's the plan so far I used 100% silicon and drilled a hole about 1/4"(barb is 1/4" thread). I slightly screwed it in and went to work applying silicon for the first time ever Here's what I have so far. Hopefully it holds a seal. I'll test it after 24 hours.



Now for this run as a medium I'm using LC's mix(plain). Lately I have been using some organic liquid nutes from Dr. Earth(Nitro big, Golden bloom, Seaweed Concentrate). They work well and they are pretty fast acting. However this grow I will use Guano tea pretty much like what is stated in "organics for beginners" for some extra microbe action.

Any criticism, advice, comments, questions are more then welcome

 

[DamnUglyDogE]

~~~ ~Clean and simple. .. Liking it. ..

How much time ya got for VEG ?

2 cherry pie in the back and the others in the front could work nicely ..

Smoking the same bud for for a year gets old. .
Always nice to have a mix. ..

A fan in each corner.. like it.. Not sure if its the best for air movement .. Yet. .. looks cool. ..

Nice show. .. Front row seat.. Jar, Carmel canna butter,popcorn and cold beer ta boot.

.ready. ..

 

[Bush Dr]

Move your plants in closer to the light

Move the light up, with vertical growing your trying to stretch the plant to get full advantage

Your air movement fans are useless, they need to be at least 12" and swivel

4 Plants will yield the same as 8, you'll just have 4 big ones, total yield is the same sometimes less with more plants

Switch to coco and run to waste ...... then you'll get the results you were after

 

[justiceman]

~~ Clean and simple. .. Liking it. ..

How much time ya got for VEG ?

2 cherry pie in the back and the others in the front could work nicely ..

Smoking the same bud for for a year gets old. .
Always nice to have a mix. ..

A fan in each corner.. like it.. Not sure if its the best for air movement .. Yet. .. looks cool. ..

Nice show. .. Front row seat.. Jar, Carmel canna butter,popcorn and cold beer ta boot.

.ready. ..

Right on Alien. I just set up the room yesterday. The plants in the doughnut are moms that have been vegging in another small tent for at least a month or so. They are so small because I have taken many cuts from them. I got time for veg. I'm thinking 2-4 weeks but I'll see how fast the plants grow.I love your comment about the 6" corner fans.

Move your plants in closer to the light

Move the light up, with vertical growing your trying to stretch the plant to get full advantage

Your air movement fans are useless, they need to be at least 12" and swivel

4 Plants will yield the same as 8, you'll just have 4 big ones, total yield is the same sometimes less with more plants

Switch to coco and run to waste ...... then you'll get the results you were after

Word. I wasn't sure how sensitive they would be to the light, but I moved them closer and raised the light a bit. They are loving it. Thanks for the tips! Haha I had a feeling those fans might not fit the bill Now I'm thinking about how to fit a 12" fan in with the plants or If I even need it for that matter since I have the honeywell fan blowing up from the middle

Been thinking about running H3ads Coco formula with some CES nutes I've been holding on to for a minute. So far I've been going the organic route though and it's working for me so I'm gonna stick with it for this run at least.

 

[justiceman]

Okay so I had two extra plants outside which were previously in my veg tent, but I replaced them with some fresh cuts. Didn't really have a plan for them but I figured hell why not stick them in the vert set up to make a true doughnut. Now I have 6 plants instead of 4. I have them positioned as follows starting from the bottom of the circle clockwise: Kandy kush, cherry pie, cherry pie, cherry pie, grand poobah, grand poobah.


It's only been 5 days but things are looking good, and the plants seem to be responding well.

 

[VertNwb]

 

[justiceman]

Alright finally at the 1 week point. From now on my plan is to post once a week. So Here are some pics. Just gave them this a couple days ago.
[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]Veg mix-[/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]1/3 cup Peruvian Seabird Guano (PSG)[/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]1/3 cup High N Bat Guano (Mexican)[/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]1/3 cup Earth Worm Castings (EWC)[/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif](That makes the "dry mix". You can make all you want and save it to use later.)[/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]Mix with water @ 1 cup of dry mix into 5 gallons of water to make the tea.[/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]To that 5 gallons of tea add:[/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]5 tsp. Seaweed Concentrate
[/FONT][FONT=Calibri, sans-serif]5 tsp. Black Strap Molasses[/FONT]

and yesterday I gave them a foliar spray with EJ micro blast and cocowet(surfactant)

 

[justiceman]

Alright so it's been 2 weeks since I put these girl's in the vert chamber. I forgot to measure them at the start but they are all roughly 28" tall now.

I just flipped the switch to 12/12 earlier today. I'm brewing up another veg guano tea, as I can see on the bottoms they are starting to become hungry for N. After that I'll be switching to the flower guano tea mix.

The actual doughnut is starting to get smaller. I'm thinking about somehow training the branches away slightly, or putting some kind of wire cage around the light to keep them from getting to close. Criticism is encouraged.

Here is how they look so far! Wish me luck!

 

[DamnUglyDogE]

Looking good man. ..

The fun begins. .. Nice. ...

 

[soursmoker]

looking nice man, I will be watching and taking notes for the future...

 

[justiceman]

Yo the ladies are about 1 week into flowering now. As you can see most of them are definitely stretching, except one of the cherry pie's which is in the back left corner. Still stretching but looks a bit odd. She was an outside plant that started to flower. I reveged her and now shes going back into flower.

I've taken a few of the main branches and tied them to the walls for support and to kind of pull the plants away from the light a bit, because holy shit is it getting crowded in there, mostly due to my lack of training(lazyness). As you can see a few of the leaves are showing a little bit of heat stress/burning closest to the lamp.

Soon the nuggets will be coming in full effect. Can't wait!

 

[Born Loser]

Looks great bro! Watch that bulb!
I'm lazy too, but the payoff for a few minutes work every day will be worth it.
I'm anxious to see it on chop-day

 

[Avinash.miles]

nice!
it's FULL in there
talk about dense!

 

[lazy gardener]

awesome job cuz! just curious and not slandering you but did you train anything on the mesh wall you put in? gonna get funkkyy

 

[justiceman]

Looks great bro! Watch that bulb!
I'm lazy too, but the payoff for a few minutes work every day will be worth it.
I'm anxious to see it on chop-day

Indeed that's correct. Your statement has inspired me to be a bit more diligent in future training Ya that bulb is like a light saber!

nice!
it's FULL in there
talk about dense!

Ya I didn't expect it to get so full. Kinda caught me off guard haha.

awesome job cuz! just curious and not slandering you but did you train anything on the mesh wall you put in? gonna get funkkyy

Thanks! no prob man I'm happy to answer questions and I love to hear criticism as well. It only helps me improve and keep on my toes. So I have been training them onto the walls. It's kind of hard to see it because it's so full but the twine is covered by the leaves. I've pulled some of the main branches back towards the wall in order to keep them away but everything keeps growing back toward the light so it looks like I haven't done anything haha. Also since I pull the front middle plant away to access the other 5 I'm unable to tie her to anything except for the pot itself which I did in an attempt to pull the main top away from the light.

I've come to realize that training in vert is far more crucial then normal grows. Plus the plants just seem to love that bare bulb so they grow so fast.

 

[justiceman]

So I finally got into gear and ended up figuring out a simple way of pulling the plants back away from the light! I also figured out why the previous training seemed so futile Thanks for motivating me to not be as lazy about training.

The Bad: Because of my ventilation set up I have negative pressure in the grow tent which we all know sucks the walls of the tent inward therefore it pushes the plants(not too much) towards the light. Haven't fixed this problem yet but it was not the worst one

The worst was the way I set the plastic fencing up. I foolishly installed a piece on each wall instead of wrapping it around the tent poles from one side to the other(which would keep it tight). As a result each fence wall hangs away from the already sucked in walls tent wall once a plant is tied to it therefore giving far too much slack puttin the plants closer to the light no matter how much I tied them to the fencing.

The Good: I tied a single line of jute twine from a pole of my tent to each adjecent pole. 4 poles, 4 lines. Each line is positioned on the inside of the doughnut over the front middle of the plant which holds each one back towards the actual poles which DO NOT move from negative pressure or poorly chosen installations. It seems to be working really well Just before these pictures the leaves were so close some were actually starting to touch the bulb and I'm sure you'll be able to spot some heat stress/burn here and there. Best of all is I can still take the front plant out in order to easily access the others for hand feeding. I can just put it back carefully onto the jute twine(already tested this) and wallah it's supported well and much farther away from the light just like the 5 other immobile plants.

 

[dachieftan]

subed

 

[DamnUglyDogE]

Looking great.. Tasty looken doughnut...

Solid canopy... Solid job Justiceman...

Maybe try bamboo sticks between the poles.
One on top, one at center level...
Gives lots of contole to the wall and makes
great anchor points ta pull the canopy back with..







​

 

[justiceman]

subed

Yo good to see you around!

Looking great.. Tasty looken doughnut...

Solid canopy... Solid job Justiceman...

Maybe try bamboo sticks between the pools...
One on top, one at center level...
Gives lots of contole to the wall and makes
great anchor points ta pull the canopy back with..






​

Right on alien. Hmmmm not a bad idea! I'm gonna try and rig something up. I can get some 4ft bamboo sticks and install them on each wall of the tent horizontally in some manner. If I wanted to install them vertically I guess I'd have to find some 6.5Ft sticks.

-----------------------
Week 2 Flower

So finally hit week 2 of flower a couple days ago. I gave them a high P guano tea and they seem to be coming along just fine so far. Seems like the doughnut is beginning to stabilize around the lamp in a good manner.

 

[DamnUglyDogE]

99¢ store's seem to have tall bamboo all the time around these parts..
6 x 7' sticks for a buck. .

Might check it out if ya have them around. ..

Man that looks ta be one full room ya got...

Stank dank....
Nice.....