Organic Satori / Skunk / Ice Cream under 400W HPS

[Gelado`]

Starting a new thread for my current grow: a 3 x 3 grow tent with a 400W HPS. At present I have three Ice Cream clones from my last run, a Skunk 1 from Seedsman (also a clone from my last run) and a Mandala Satori that I haven't sexed yet. These were vegged under 250W MH and I switched to 400W HPS a few days ago.

My medium, amendments and fertilizers are 100% organic, aside from phosphoric acid for pH adjustment and an occasional hit of epsom salts.

I use a 1:1 ratio of excellent buffered coco peat to good potting mix and I add 10% perlite. I top dress with amendments weekly. I adjust the top dress as needed. This is ROLS-style as I'm using the previous medium without removing old roots (aside from the main stalks when they were ready to come out).

At present my amendments consist of:

organic alfalfa, high P Indonesian bat guano, organic unsulphured blackstrap molasses, brown sugar, earthworm castings, high grade compost from an agricultural university, three kinds of bio-organic fertilizer from agricultural universities that are just packed with excellent amendments that have been precomposted, dried and ground hops, sea minerals, and occasional applications of Plagron AlgaGrow, AlgaBloom and neem oil.

I prefer to keep my medium constantly moist (NOT wet), but since I travel frequently, I occasionally let the medium get soaking wet to tide me over. This has worked well so far since I use a good amount of coco, perlite and Smartpots.

 

[unregistered190]

Awesome.....good luck with the grow Gelado

 

[Granger2]

mmmm...something smells sweet already. I've grown Satori before, and all 4 phenos I got were good. Good producer, very potent, unusual taste. Oh, FYI, all phenos got a sudden pronounced boron defieciency 3 weeks into bloom. None of my other strains got it. Cured with 1 app of 1tsp/gal boric acid from the store. Gave them 1/4 tsp follow up 2 weeks later. Good luck. -granger

 

[lovekush®]

Good luck gelado, as a skunk you put down?

 

[Gelado`]

The Skunk 1 is from Seedsman; it is sweet, floral, a little fruity and very potent, although it has more leaf than I'd like. GREAT high though; very relaxing and it is great for my mood. I'm out of town and I brought about a gram of the Skunk with me so I can smoke my trademark out-of-town pinners.

As for the boron deficiency, thank you for the heads up! I am feeding with such a variety of stuff that I don't think I'll have any deficiencies. I am using sea minerals (for human consumption) which contain a broad spectrum of goodies and I also have a professional horticultural-grade trace element mix that is certified for bio-organic cultivation in Europe (although I don't think it's organic). I only need a tiny amount of that stuff to cover all trace element needs. Good stuff!

EDIT: Just checked and my trace element mix contains boric acid at 1%. I think that should do it, but thanks for mentioning the boron thing as it's not something I've really ever considered!

 

[lovekush®]

I had seen growing up and smoked the pure and I preferred to choose this skunk#1 from FD, I don't remember who worked before on that old batch Sacred seeds...
I use Bio Nova trace Mix ", which also contains boron monohydrate 0.4%, but only in the event of a serious food shortage (not first).
I love how the root system grows with the coconut and stimulator.
Good luck and we feel the next update.

 

[Rory Borealis]

Gelado,

Rock on !! I am watching this grow closely. I too, will soon start a Ice Cream and Satori grow. You mentioned being away from your plants while travelling? How many days can you stay away before the plants begin to wilt and need more water?

 

[Gelado`]

Rory, without heat issues and with a good, solid watering, I think I can be away from the Satori and Ice Cream (two plants in one five gallon Smartpot clone) for around twenty days. The skunk in the one gallon pot may need watering sooner, but I'm hoping it doesn't. The two new Ice Cream clones in one gallon pots should be able to go three weeks as well. Time will tell; I won't be able to water them until I get back! Thankfully temperatures are low because it's winter and I no longer have heat issues since I replaced my cheap carbon scrubber with a much better Mountain Air, which neutralizes more odor and has much better air flow.

Of course, it is better to water a little every day with organics since it keeps the soil life much more active. I predict some leaf burn/drop because the soil will be dryer. The periods I've given are estimates at best and the amount of time I can be away will shorten as the plants grow and spring starts since their demand for water will increase with greater vegetative/floral mass and higher temperatures.

 

[lovekush®]

Rory, without heat issues and with a good, solid watering, I think I can be away from the Satori and Ice Cream (two plants in one five gallon Smartpot clone) for around twenty days. The skunk in the one gallon pot may need watering sooner, but I'm hoping it doesn't. The two new Ice Cream clones in one gallon pots should be able to go three weeks as well. Time will tell; I won't be able to water them until I get back! Thankfully temperatures are low because it's winter and I no longer have heat issues since I replaced my cheap carbon scrubber with a much better Mountain Air, which neutralizes more odor and has much better air flow.

Of course, it is better to water a little every day with organics since it keeps the soil life much more active. I predict some leaf burn/drop because the soil will be dryer. The periods I've given are estimates at best and the amount of time I can be away will shorten as the plants grow and spring starts since their demand for water will increase with greater vegetative/floral mass and higher temperatures.

Wow, You'll have to stay out that long! Sure, they resist?

 

[Gelado`]

They should be ok, but I may ask a friend to water them for me in the next few days since I'm starting to worry about them. Even if they're fine, a watering will help greatly with soil life and to prevent nute burn (yes, even with pure organics if the soil dries up too much, burn is a real issue). Still about a week until I get home and that HPS gets really hot!

 

[lovekush®]

They should be ok, but I may ask a friend to water them for me in the next few days since I'm starting to worry about them. Even if they're fine, a watering will help greatly with soil life and to prevent nute burn (yes, even with pure organics if the soil dries up too much, burn is a real issue). Still about a week until I get home and that HPS gets really hot!

Depends on the distance of the HPS lamp from the plants, and the ventilation system.
Usually a mature plant in a 11 litres pot, under a 400w HPS, has water for up to 5/6 days before starting to suffer.
the coco is added to the medium reduces irrigation times and you have the pot too small ...
If you have the opportunity of watering from a trusted friend, do so at least 1/2 for sure
Greetings

 

[Gelado`]

They were watered on the 5th or 6th by my friend and almost all of my plants were wilting badly! He gave them 4.5L, which I felt was too little, but when I checked on them today they were fine. A few brown leaves lower down and one lost Ice Cream clone (it dried up shortly after transplant), but I have five more rooting under CFL, so no biggie. I gave them another 4.5L and will top dress with compost, worm castings and high P guano tomorrow, along with some EM activator and seaweed before watering in molasses and maybe some hops.

The plants show some leaf tip burn which may be due to the soil drying out too much (higher fertilizer concentration in the remaining water at the bottom); the Satori shows the least, aside from the very small Ice Cream clone.

The Ice Cream is flowering well; the smallest IC clone is only 8" and budding. The Skunk is about 18" and doing well (early buds) and at around 20" the Satori is lanky with long internodal length and flowering the slowest. It is just starting to shoot out pistils. I'm glad the Satori is a female!

The largest is the oldest Ice Cream clone at around 22". It is a bush since it was cut down about a foot! Lots of tops everywhere on the big IC. I may just stick to four plants so the girls have more room to spread out. I've bent the Satori out a little so it doesn't grow into the largest Ice Cream.

 

[Gelado`]

Castings/compost/guano/kelp/cane sugar top dress complete! Watered it in. The girls look good, but are a little slow--it's been cold and wet. I dropped the HPS several inches to give them some warmth!

I also noticed I had my scrubber switching off with the lights after I set everything back up after the construction that went down several weeks ago. Oops! Good thing I noticed now. There might have been some stinky nights in my near future! There will be anyway, but at least they'll be scrubbed!

 

[Gelado`]

Last night when messing with the timer and the scrubber/power strip, I managed to turn off my timer! My plants got 5.5 hours more darkness than normal today. Hopefully I don't see any balls as a result of my screwup, but I think it should be ok; the plants may have considered the darkness to be like a morning storm or something (outdoors).

Here's my skunk female. She's around two feet tall.

Here's my satori: a little taller than the skunk and trained to grow away from the Ice Cream in the same pot.

My big Ice Cream bush: a little over two feet tall and lots of tops.

My little Ice Cream girl. Only 10" tall or so!

 

[Gelado`]

I forgot to mention I am using plant-specific LEDs with the HPS--around 100W of LEDs in primarily far reds (600 and 650nm), with some blue (460nm range) too. These help round out the spectrum provided by the HPS.

 

[Floridian]

I remember a thread a pretty long time ago about a person doing a side by side on soil with mycorrzae and without.The results were really evident though I couldn't tell you why or how.The plants with the myc. stayed in much better shape after a long dehydration then the plants wirhout.

 

[Gelado`]

Both my compost and bio organic ferts are boosted with mycorrhizae and beneficials. I do everything I can to keep the soil healthy. Keeping the medium evenly moist is vital for soil life!

 

[Gelado`]

Last time around I cut out the top dressing and liquid organic ferts 4-5 weeks before harvest. The girls took longer to finish than I expected. This made for very clean tasting smoke, but may have hurt yields somewhat. This time I'll continue to feed with Plagron Alga Bloom and top dress weekly with compost and castings until two weeks before harvest. No more wet/dry cycles either, as I feel the dry periods hurt the girls, perhaps more so because of the coco in the mix.

The girls show a little burn (not on the newest growth, though), so I won't feed with Alga Bloom for a few weeks, but I will continue to top dress with high P Indonesian guano/compost/castings/sugar/hops weekly and water through with an occasional hit of organic molasses until two weeks or so before chop.

Temps in the room drop to around 55 with the lights off; I think they're 75ish with the lights on, which is good, and I have the lights down lower than usual to keep the girls warm. From now on I'm only growing in the colder part of the year because the power savings are immense!

 

[Gelado`]

Yesterday I removed four or five very large fan leaves from my Satori that I originally tucked out of place because they were touching leaves on the largest Ice Cream and Skunk, and one large fan was touching the door of the tent when closed. I decided to clip them off halfway up the stem to get them out of the way, but I regret doing so now because I think it might slow the Satori down. She does have quite a few good large fans up top that I didn't touch, so time will tell. Lots of branching along the main stem on the Satori, so I think she's going to be a yielder with a large central bud.

I also took a large lower branch from the Satori to clone.

The largest Ice Cream is getting pretty bushy. Everything is doing well with the lights lowered and lots of H2O. I think the burn on the leaves is a result of the soil drying out while I was out of town, which can cause pH to go out of whack. Everything is doing splendidly now that I'm back!

 

[Gelado`]

Bought a new bulb today; it's much warmer in the tent now, and significantly brighter too. I got a good bulb for a great price--no more generic Chinese crap for me. This one was made right here in Europe!