Novice grow, veteran mentored

[sahdgrower]

Tuesday

Tuesday

Tuesday night.... used to be tuesday night fights on usa or tnt cant remember it was so long ago. Used to love boxing, now im into mma. Anywho on to the star attraction of my current production.




Everyone lookin real good I think. Not the kinda roots on Snypes plants but I am not complaining. Growth is great. I have increased flood cycle to every 2 hours tonight and will continue to submerge twice daily (I am just flooding the whole rez now instead of hand dunking them individually). I do have one plant with a little tacoing of a lower leaf set. Doesn't seem like a big deal but I am Not sure why. My temps do not exceed 75 on my thermometer that sits atop the tank it never exceeds 85. Humidity always 55-65. I do not have a fan blowing on them and the light is 12" above the canopy but none of the other plants are indicating this. So heat stress seems unlikely. My PPMs have not dropped significantly in a week and my ph has been relatively stable with minor increases that have been adjusted when it exceeded 6.2


The plants are also startin to get a little crowded. Couple more days and I will move them into DWC. Also wondering when you guys think I should trim the lower branches prohibiting me from filling the net pots with hydroton? Pretty much just the cotyledon and the first node.

 

[Snype]

Things are looking good! You seem on the right path. I would wait a little while before you prune those. They are still pretty small. Now that you got the flood cycle down to 2 hours, you can lower the lights. I believe that your roots didn't end up like mine because your 2 hour flood cycle took a while to get there. The roots should start to grow pretty fast now as well as your plants. Great to see you on the right path.

 

[sahdgrower]

I was also wondering if my roots didn't perform like yours has anything to do with mine being from seed and yours from clone. Think it has any effect one way or the other?

 

[Snype]

I was also wondering if my roots didn't perform like yours has anything to do with mine being from seed and yours from clone. Think it has any effect one way or the other?

Personally I don't run hydro from seed. I always run my first test in soil. All it takes is a couple minor things to slow things down which is what happened to you. You'll get a feel for it. Seems like you are already, so that's good.

 

[sahdgrower]

Update

Update

Good morning IC,

Here is update of my grow. I had a bit of an incident the other night. I put a restrictor on the the drain line of my E&F system so the pump would fill it faster than it would drain, my restrictor failed the other night and the flood table didn't fill for 12-24 hours. The roots did not like it at all, fortunately it wasn't disastrous... just bad. Everyone recovered nicely but I have kept them in the E&F a couple days longer than I intended to. Which brings me to my next problem, once again inexperience...

I thought I would be able to sex the plants by now. So I have 10 plants all ready to go into DWC and only half are probably females. I really dont want to tend 10 seperate dwc systems and Snype has advised against hooking them up inline in an rdwc as the different phenotypes will require different conditions. So I am waffling between a few options at this point and very open to suggestions. Maybe put some in DWC and keep a few in E&F? They are getting crowded and growing fast. here is a pic from the 12th and another from today the 17th. The seeds popped on the 16th of December.

Also 2 of the plants have displayed some type of problem. I am again at a loss to diagnose. I did try to compare to other problems out there but I am just not sure. It has only appeared on 1 leaf set of each of the 2 affected plants 2-3 nodes from top. The leaves look like insect damage to me but because they are spread the way they are it would be very unlikely. Help if you can?

 

[Snype]

I surely wouldn't be able to sex my plant that were that small but that's just me. I wouldn't think you would know sex for a while so you are going to have to figure that one out.

The main problem of going to RDWC with all the plant together is if you get a problem, you will spread it to all the plants. From all the things that have happened in this grow so far you have cause stress on those plants multiple times. The problematic plant in the picture either looks like a few things. Either your water is too cold, your pH is not in line or wasn't in line for a period of time, it was caused when your problem happened where the plants didn't eat for 24 hours or you have a root problem or the early signs or root rot from the multiple stress. You could also not be feeding enough as well. At your stage I'd be at 4mL Micro and 6 mL Bloom per gallon. I'd pay close attention to the roots on the affected plant/plants and also pay attention to the newest growth. The newest growth should be a good indicator if your plants are in line or if you are still having problems.

If all looks good then put them all in the system but you will run the risk of losing them all if one of them has a problem. Your male situation is going to make this complicated. That's one of the reasons why I always do my initial test in soil.

 

[sahdgrower]

more pics

more pics

Here are overhead pics of the two affected plants. One has been fim'd. You can see how the problem affects opposite leaves on the same node and no other part of the plants.

 

[Snype]

I replied above your last post.

 

[sahdgrower]

So what I think I will do for now is that I will put the best 6 plants into DWC buckets and keep the other 4 in E&F. Veg for 7-10 more days and then flip to 12/12. As soon as the plants show sex I will shuffle them around as necessary. Eliminate the boys and keep the best girls.

I don't know why I thought I would be able to tell by now. I guess it's because I used to grow 20 years ago and I remembered never having any difficulties discerning between boys and girls, so this go around I didn't bother reading up on that aspect. I guess I was just on a different timeline back then. I used to veg 3 months from seed. My best plant yielded over 3lbs. but that was also about 8 month grow cycle I expect to do a lot better this time around. Not 3 lbs per plant but hopefully a lot more than 3 lbs every 8 months.

 

[Snype]

So what I think I will do for now is that I will put the best 6 plants into DWC buckets and keep the other 4 in E&F. Veg for 7-10 more days and then flip to 12/12. As soon as the plants show sex I will shuffle them around as necessary. Eliminate the boys and keep the best girls.

I don't know why I thought I would be able to tell by now. I guess it's because I used to grow 20 years ago and I remembered never having any difficulties discerning between boys and girls, so this go around I didn't bother reading up on that aspect. I guess I was just on a different timeline back then. I used to veg 3 months from seed. My best plant yielded over 3lbs. but that was also about 8 month grow cycle I expect to do a lot better this time around. Not 3 lbs per plant but hopefully a lot more than 3 lbs every 8 months.

Hopefully the ones in DWC don't grow faster than your smaller tray ones. You are going to have plants that look like they are in different stages. Anyway good luck. Very hard to maximize a crop this way.

 

[sahdgrower]

I have no delusions about maximizing my first time out. My hopes are to harvest some high quality meds. Hopefully by April. Make some moms of all females. Learn a lot along the way so that I may begin to maximize in the next few runs when I have familiarized myself with the strain and a single mom from which I can monocrop in RDWC. So far I have managed to keep the plants looking pretty good at the same time as making good mistakes to learn from. It is really giving me a solid feel for the plants and the changes I make or fail to make. I am enjoying myself a lot when I stop stressing over tiny details.....

 

[sahdgrower]

on to DWC

on to DWC

So I moved all my plants to DWC!!! Yay me. Looks pretty good but as usual a few bumps in the road. I decided to put all the plants in DWC but I put 4 plants into one DIY DWC, I did not have any more airstones on hand so I just used a water pump with a venturi valve on it to recirc the water and create a waterfall to increase DO(see photo). Ultimately I would like to eliminate my air pump as it makes so much noise it kind of drives me crazy, but for now it is doing the job I need it to. I put my plants with the least established roots in this system and then I put the other 6 into individual DWC buckets. Another bump... when I went to Lowes to get new buckets they had 0 blue lids. Computer said they had 101 but not an employee could be found that knew where in the hell they where, hard to find good help I guess, so now for the time being I am stuck with the mish mosh you see below.



My clones are also 10 days old today but still no visible roots. You can sorta make them out in the foreground. Also I will be turning on my 600hps in the next couple of days and I will keep my T5 on as well. Also I will be doing some LST to the plants and I will be addind in my scrog screens. I am going to attach individual screens to each bucket lid (after I get matching lids) so that I can still have options for moving things around and culling males.

 

[sahdgrower]

day 35

day 35

Plants are 35 days old from germination. Looking good in general. Nothing is as I would like it to be. Learning is a bitch sometimes. I am shooting for Jan. 31 to flip. I am carefully monitoring each plant individually for ph, ppm, water temp., height and appearance of growth and roots. Also monitoring air temp and humidity. All my environmental factors seem spot on at this point. All the plants are in the same range of ppm and ph as each other so it is a good base to start to really see any difference in each plant. I turned on my 600hps and have it set 24 inches from the tallest plant. I also left my T5 on an have it hanging horizontally. Maybe I will alternate which side I hang it on to balance out how much extra light the plants are getting. I had a little gunk on some roots and a little browning and I added a bit of bleach which seemed to clear everything right up right away. Getting ready to LST anyday now.


I guess I got as good a handle on everything as I can expect to at this point for my experience level. Hoping I can keep things rolling along.

 

[sahdgrower]

Sad day

Sad day

Well it appears my mentor will be leaving me. I am sad to say it but all good things must come to an end. I will say I am reallly grateful to Snype and all the help he has given me thus far. It has helped me immensely I may have even given up on DWC if not for the help. Instead I am cruising along (probably in the slow lane but on the highway none the less).

Thanks Snype! I wish you well and hope you find some way to overcome your health problems.

 

[sahdgrower]

in the garden

in the garden

As I said I am cruisin along. A couple plants have indicated female today and I think several others are indicating male. What do you guys think?


Will finally do my LST today as well. Lookin forward to the flip! Should be soon.

 

[sahdgrower]

check it out

check it out

Doin a 4 way LST on a few of my plants...




I topped at the 5th node on Jan. 9th and now I tied the bitch (hopefully) down and cut all but the third and fourth node. I really like the symmetry of the technique. I'll post in a few days with update.

 

[sahdgrower]

Gettin Scroggy with it

Gettin Scroggy with it

Day 44

Everything is looking real good. Six of my plants are showing female although all the ones that I topped took much longer to indicate sex, anywho I Culled 4 the male plants and fed them to my chickens, they didn't eat em at first but by the next day they were picked clean. Also set up my scrog screens. I wanted to make them attached to the lids so I could check roots and manage buckets. Hear are some shots from this evening.



The first shot is of my prototype scrog screen, I cut a + notch in a little stub of pvc for the screen to sit into. It works real good but after putting it all together I realized I really didn't need to do it as the zip ties i am using holds the screen plenty firm and it saved me cutting 20 more stubs with +'s cut into them.

So as I said above I wanted to make the buckets accesible but I am fast realizing that I am in serious need of some better systems to manage my buckets. Up till now I have been lifting the hole lid/plant out and setting it in another empty bucket while I check ph/ppm and top off etc. For bucket changes I have just been filling a new one and switching them around. My back can't take it and with the screens it is ridiculous.

My solution. I think tomorrow I am going to mount some casters to a wooden pallet and put all my buckets on that. So at least I will be able to move the hole shebang around for better access. Then I think I am going to just go ahead and assemble them into Snype's RDWC system. I know he said I shouldn't but rather than try to figure out each plant I will just focus on the best one and cater to her. Last I think I really need to cull 2 more plants. hard to kill female plants. You can see in the pictures however the likely victims. I wish I could grow em all but all the light I have is the Gavita 600hps and the 6 bulb T5.

 

[OldSchoolGreen]

Looking REAL nice. SCROG set ups are the best. Good idea about the wooden pallet and casters. Sounds like a pain in the ass trying to work in there right now. I hope you have it nice and comfy in there in no time!
Hey man, you've gotta do what you've gotta do. Pointless to run too many plants for the available light!

-Old School

 

[sahdgrower]

Mobile RDWC

Mobile RDWC

So I went ahead and set up my RDWC on pallet with casters on it. I attached an individual scrog screen to each bucket lid and now I can move the whole system around to access all sides of it and I can also lift the plants out of the buckets to check roots and any other maintenance without screwing up the scrog!


I attached the casters to the top boards of the pallet (recessed in pallet frame) so the overall increase in height of my system is only about 6". I also used really good heavy duty casters so they can take the weight and move really easy. Lucky for me they were a freebie from my mom!

 

[sahdgrower]

Scrog and the Flip

Scrog and the Flip

Here are my plants today. I have them in the scrog, but perfectly honest I am a little unsure of myself at this point. Specifically my scrog technique and when to flip. Here are some pics.
Canopy shots and here are a couple of the undercarriage.


So my questions are as follows.
Should I be attempting to keep the growing tips almost always under the screen or do I let them grow up 2-3" then move them? Also the main tips have 2-3 tips that all fit in one hole, should I attempt to separate them into different holes.
Should I be cutting out the larger fan leaves that seem to be blocking light from hitting branches that could reach the screen? Should I be cutting out the leaves in the undercarriage?
How much of these screens should I attempt to fill before flipping? They are 8" above the top of the pot and each screen measures 18"x24" with 2"x2" squares which gives me an entire screen dimension of 4'x3' with all 4 plants combined. Under my 600watt Gavita HPS I think this is pushing the limits of adequate light penetration. So I am also wondering if I should be utilizing my t5 light for supplemental flowering light or if I should just dedicate it to clone/veg.