big plant ppk

[catman]

Again.. D9 experimented a lot so for you guys to quote one thing he said isn't wise. I personally thought his plants had too much nitrogen in late stages of growth most of the time... for my tastes. Those of you debating flushing should experiment for yourselves. It's no-brainer that flushed plants taste and smoke better ... for me, but I don't like the chlorophyll taste.

 

[Permacultuure]

Again.....D9 did this to adapt to his perpetual harvest set up....I have sampled flushed and unflushed flowers grown in a ppk with jacks.....the pepsi challenge might be a little more difficult than you think catman

 

[FlowerFarmer]

If the media is of the sort that doesn't really hold nutes/salt and you feed weak across the board; I don't necessarily see the need to flush.


I used to run Lucas religiously. Not just the 8/16 ratio he promoted, but followed all of his gardening/hydroponics methodology from the days of OG and CW. He never flushed.. nor recommended it as to not starve the plants of what they still may want during those critical days of late bloom swellage.

In Rockwool, Soil, Coco, Peat.. Yea, flush the shit out of it, but in clay pebbles (hydroton) or just straight up water (mediumless), it was never deemed necessary (and perhaps counter productive). Plants still need nitrogen (and the rest of the cocktail of 17 essential elements) in flower despite the many myths/supposed truths that get thrown around a lot now a days.

Side of side BLIND tests with my organic pot snob friends... they'd typically fail every time, picking the unflushed GH herb over their dirt grows or otherwise claiming that the lucas buds were super flushed or organically grown when they were in fact quite the opposite.

Hydroponically grown Lucas....Burnt cleaner.. tasted cleaner in my experience over the stuff grown with bat guano (see cockroach piss..aka nitrates). Not knocking properly grown organics by any means however. Just don't think flushing is always mandatory in hydro if the plants are grown in rock and not overfed.



D9's recommended 1.2EC in a clay media with no flushing.. no problem over here. I bet his smoke is fantastic.

Now a days if growing in clay I'll dwindle down the last few days... to appease the masses, even though they'd likely fail the blind test themselves anyways.

 

[disciple]

 

[high life 45]

Thankfully some old heads came through, since my previous post was lost in limbo.

The whole flushing idea started from primarily soil growers who were letting their media dry out to "promote" root growth while using fertilizers. Naturally there is a salt buildup and flushing was needed. Check out the recycled living soil folks. Not only do they not flush, they don't even remove rootballs after harvesting. Anyway I had my "unflushed" herb receive more comments on taste and flavor than the "heady organic" herb everytime.

Its fairly easy to watch your ec to find a stable input. If your ec is rising your feeding to much, if it falls the girls are hungry. Other variables come into play but ime this is a good general rule of thumb.

Good growers can manipulate the environment to the plants benefit. This includes temp, rh, and co2. If your rh is not optimal, your plants have to take water from the nutrient solution and you very well.may end up with cannabis that needs to be flushed.

This was catmans experience iirc. He had a huge rootball and i suppose he was very impressed with it. He commented about how he never saw other ppkers with rootballs like his. This gave me the impression that he was very proud of his rootballs, when in fact it was his poor environmental conditions that caused his plants roots to make up for something he wasn't addressing. His low rh. His rootballs were actually telling me that something was wrong because his yeild was rather low compared to all the other ppkers I had seen. Later on he admitted his rh was around 35% and that was why his yield was low, I don't think he realized that it was the low rh that also caused his plant to grow a thick root system.

D9s experiments have proven to be some of the best experiments ever done with cultivating plants if you ask me.

Depending on my environment I have had feed from 800-1200+ with good results, sometimes I fill up my top off red with water for the last few weeks, sometimes I empty the system and fill it up with water, sometimes I don't do anything at all. I can't say that either of the methods have produced anything more special than the next for me.

D9 helped me tremendously as a grower and i think many others have had similar experiences.

Right now I'm nearly halfway through growing one of the biggest plants I have ever grown, and what's amazing is in February I harvested 2# of this plant and then revegged it out of flower back to a normal veg state. I have gotten lab results from 21-25% thc with this strain in a ppk. Right now this plant is on its way to being a 4-5# beast. I'm not sure this has ever been done in a hydro situation before, but its working.

If you wanna grow small plants and with big root systems you know who to listen to, if you want to grow huge plants from comparatively small containers keep on ppking, pretty much everyone else has great understanding of what's going on in this thread. I have nothing against the naysayer but I would hate to see anyone be mislead by someone who has not had great success as a grower. D9 does not preach false science.

 

[zeke99]

Don't like the leafy taste of the Chlorophyll, and don't like my buds smelling like my landscaper just buzzed through here with his Lawnmower.

Yes, to each his own.

Again.. D9 experimented a lot so for you guys to quote one thing he said isn't wise. I personally thought his plants had too much nitrogen in late stages of growth most of the time... for my tastes. Those of you debating flushing should experiment for yourselves. It's no-brainer that flushed plants taste and smoke better ... for me, but I don't like the chlorophyll taste.

It's also "a no-brainer" that the more expensive a bottle of wine is, the better the wine tastes...

It's interesting to note that flushing proponents seemingly cannot comment on this topic without implying (attempting to insult) that people in disagreement with them enjoy or perhaps don't notice the "chlorophyll taste" (are you all smoking the dried, cured flowers or the fan leaves?) or "freshly mowed lawn" smell. The attitude appears to be defensive and it's hardly helpful.

 

[Grow4Flow]

zeke99,
So nice of you to turn this into something it is NOT. never have i addressed you, nor have you ever offered me any advice (probably woouldn't have taken it) so don't pretend that you are some kind of know it all of PPK's, a simple question was asked and i answered in my own experience. I wasn't trying to push my methods on anyone, but i have yet to have any failures in a PPK grow which gets flushed, i couldn't give a shit WTF you believe.

I don't see shit from you anyway, so who the hell are you to offer any advice? all you do offer quotes from others.

 

[high life 45]

Now now guys, its all gravy in the navy.

Zeke put together a ppk PDF back in the day that was a big help to alot of us myself included.

G4flow, do you wet or dry trim?

I noticed a huge improvement in flavor taste aroma smoothness'. Etc just from switching to a dry trim. I was a hardcore wet trimmer before that.

 

[catman]

Good growers can manipulate the environment to the plants benefit. This includes temp, rh, and co2. If your rh is not optimal, your plants have to take water from the nutrient solution and you very well.may end up with cannabis that needs to be flushed.

Fun facts according to this plant physiology textbook in-front of me..

97% of water the roots take in is evaporated from the leafs
2% for photosynthesis
1% metabolic processes

I believe this is agreed upon by scientists. I'm aware there is disagreement about whether or not transpiration moves nutrients around in the plants. I'm aware of a certain substance that reduces transpiration while increasing yield which suggests to me that RH would not effect a plant needing to be flushed or not.

This was catmans experience iirc. He had a huge rootball and i suppose he was very impressed with it. He commented about how he never saw other ppkers with rootballs like his. This gave me the impression that he was very proud of his rootballs, when in fact it was his poor environmental conditions that caused his plants roots to make up for something he wasn't addressing. His low rh. His rootballs were actually telling me that something was wrong because his yeild was rather low compared to all the other ppkers I had seen. Later on he admitted his rh was around 35% and that was why his yield was low, I don't think he realized that it was the low rh that also caused his plant to grow a thick root system.

I share my experiences with others honestly and I'm most proud of that because it seems a very difficult thing for most to do.

To this day I have seen very few pictures of rootballs from the PPK. I enjoy seeing pictures and I simply would like to see more as I find them interesting.

My RH during that grow was between 10% and probably no higher than 50% when temperatures were low. I documented my experiences in my thread. This grow was in a high altitude desert climate so my humidity would have been 10-15% if I had not controlled it with a humidifier.

I'm sure the plant did produce more roots to increase transpiration as you say, but I believe a more significant factor for why I got so many roots was because of excessive defoliation. I hypothesized that since removing leaf material from clones produced more roots...that the same might be true for plants in any stage of growth. I shared some research I did on the subject and the actual biology of how this occurs. So I'm confident in my belief.

I don't believe my yield was low. I only had 3 plants... I could easily have fit 4... Each plant was a different variety. If I had grown 4 plants of one of the varieties I would have yielded 1gpw. I do not think that is poor for 4 plants around a 600w. I grew my plants from seed while obeying my plant count restrictions. I'm sure I could have done better if I simply would have selected higher yielding varieties. I wasn't after high yield... I was after making the most of genetics I was proud to grow.

I realize a great deal more than most

If you wanna grow small plants and with big root systems you know who to listen to

Homie please.. I had a single 600w bulb... You don't think your 4-5# monster will have lots of roots like I had? You'll never how a plant with my root mass turns out with lots of light surrounding it

 

[Grow4Flow]

Now now guys, its all gravy in the navy.

Zeke put together a ppk PDF back in the day that was a big help to alot of us myself included.

G4flow, do you wet or dry trim?

I noticed a huge improvement in flavor taste aroma smoothness'. Etc just from switching to a dry trim. I was a hardcore wet trimmer before that.

I trim only the fans wet, i manicure once dry.

 

[high life 45]

Me to G4flow, so you grew with jacks and didn't "flush" and noticed a grassy smell?

I know the grass smell your talking about but have only seen it in wet trimmed herb that was drying or improperly cured/grown herb.

 

[Grow4Flow]

Me to G4flow, so you grew with jacks and didn't "flush" and noticed a grassy smell?

I know the grass smell your talking about but have only seen it in wet trimmed herb that was drying or improperly cured/grown herb.

Years ago, early on in my growing which is why i always flush. But i taste it in fellow growers flowers who don't believe their plants don't need to be flushed

 

[high life 45]

What do you notice finishing with hydroplex vs jacks?

 

[flat9]

I don't flush and got tons of positive comments on the flavor. Just feed Jacks at 1.0 - 1.2...

 

[LSWM]

Years ago, early on in my growing which is why i always flush. But i taste it in fellow growers flowers who don't believe their plants don't need to be flushed

I mean no disrespect, but simply offer my experience as it sounds similar to yours.

I had a grassy smell my first few runs, and now I believe it was from jarring too early. If the strain doesn't have a pungent smell it can easily be covered up by the grassy smell, and if you jar it, never go away.

I guess this has to do with the wet vs dry debate. Ive done both and prefer to do as you say, trim fans wet then manicure dry.

 

[disciple]

 

[TerpeneTom]

Going to build a new PPK set up in the near future. Thinking about PVC and uniseals (or other recommended seal, had many leaks with the carlon fittings) in lieu of garden hose. Going to purchase the tractor supply containers and use turface again as I have heard the napa floor dry compacts?

What reservoir did d9 use? Would love to know this.

Anyone made any small beneficial changes to the device? Or have any suggestions/recommendations.

 

[forkup]

For smaller 4 plant or less ops I've thought about uniseals and large pipe similar to the undercurrent so each container just dumps straight back into the res. Uniseals and barbed ends work well with flexible pipe and are pretty leak proof imo and quick to build. I saw a setup using them and think I'll use them on my next build instead of the carlon fittings. I had a few leaks at first with the carlon fittings but they settled down and I haven't had an issue in over a year.

If you're going to use a single large tailpiece the carlon fitting I showed a few pages back works very well and is easier to modify to work properly than the other methods I see. It has is fairly thin lip which I think helps drainage.

I get some kind of mold/bacteria build up in my res over time. My system is lightproof yet it slowly builds up requiring frequent PITA cleanups. I've read thru a few threads and solutions and am currently trying aquarium filters but I'm wondering if anyone else has this problem and how they handle it. Has anyone tested running a dead res compared to using bennies? Does anyone run a biofilter with success?

 

[Permacultuure]

D9s experiments have proven to be some of the best experiments ever done with cultivating plants if you ask me.


D9 helped me tremendously as a grower and i think many others have had similar experiences.

Right now I'm nearly halfway through growing one of the biggest plants I have ever grown, and what's amazing is in February I harvested 2# of this plant and then revegged it out of flower back to a normal veg state. I have gotten lab results from 21-25% thc with this strain in a ppk. Right now this plant is on its way to being a 4-5# beast. I'm not sure this has ever been done in a hydro situation before, but its working.


D9 does not preach false science.

 

[theplaya]

Hey quick question. I have build a ppk using the (3) 1.5 tailpipes and today I raised the tub to look inside and see a bunch of roots have gotten down to the bottom container. Would it be ok to just leave them or shoild I trim them off? I'm worried with the conditions of not have d.o. in there the roots will eventually be rotted. Any help would be appreciated. And delta where ever u r I thank u from the bottom of my heart for introducing this great system to the whole world.