600w 4x4 tent blue dream scrog in drip to waste coco coir!

[stevewinthrop]

It's been a while since my last grow, so I am a little rusty. I used to grow in a mix of coco, perlite and earthworm castings. This time I decided to go 80 percent coco, 20 percent perlite. I used to hand water my coco pots, but this time I decided to set up an automatic drip to waste system. Growing 4 plants from dispensary clone. Supposedly this is the Santa Cruz cut of blue dream, the mostly sativa pheno. I got a few grams of the blue dream bud from the dispensary beforehand to see if I approved and boy do I. A very nice clear head high, very energetic with a huge ceiling so it's good for daily smokers, takes a long time to build a tolerance to.

That said, it's not great for pain relief, and if I end up smoking too much it actually makes my migraine worse.

It was a tossup between the blue dream and their sour diesel. They had clones of each, I tried the sour diesel and it just was not a clear headed high, and it was major couch lock. Which is strange to me because it is supposed to be this really strong sativa, but it had almost none of the qualities I associate with sativa.

Anyway, I've had them in 5 gallon smart pots for about 2 weeks now and they're coming along really nicely. I was worried that th 5 gallon smart pots were going to be too big, but they have already filled the entire substrate top to bottom with roots. Literally. There are roots coming up out of the top of the coco trying to reach the drip ring, and roots coming out all around the smart pots. It's amazing, I've never used smart pots before, always black bags or square pots, so this insane root growth is new to me.

I'm feeding them per 20g res:

140 grams maxibloom
4.5 grams fulvic acid
3 grams of agsil
10 grams maxicrop
5ml rapid start
20ml super thrive
20ml of yucca extract

I will be cutting out the maxicrop rapid start and super thrive at week 2 of flower and hit them with the liquid koolbloom for a week then it's just the silica, fulvic and maxibloom for a while. Near the end of flower I'll hit them with the dry Koolbloom and then flush them for the last week.

I'll probably do one week near mid flower with maxicrop and molasses to try and get more flavor and smell to come out. Last plain coco grow I did was my really pungent cut of greenhouse UK cheese and after the cure it was not stinky at all and the taste was very different than my grows with worm castings and teas.

But I promised myself that on this run I will try to keep everything easy, simple and ready to use. No brewing, just open a bottle and dump. I'm hoping the Seaweed and molasses will do the trick for flavor and smell.

So here they are two weeks from transplant (solo->5g smartpot). I've topped them numerous times and have been super cropping them to spread them out and even up the canopy. This is my first go at a real scrog, usually I will just super crop the canopy somewhat even and then flip them.

I will probably flip these guys in a few days, maybe after the weekend. The guy at the dispensary said it stretches about 2x, and I think I have enough growth under the net right now to fill out the screen when it stretches.

Here are pictures of the ladies.

 

[stevewinthrop]

After looking at a bunch of scrog grow journals last night I decided to flip them today. Scrogs look horrible and perform poorly when over grown and if I were looking at this scrog in terms of percentage covered I'd say it's around 70 percent. So I clicked the tabs off of the timer, hooked up the light proof intakes and tucked last night's growth.

They also have been drinking a lot more recently, the wastewater trays have been pretty dry so I haven't been getting much run off. I added another feed to the day and upped the amount of seconds that they get fed each time.

So now they are getting 45 seconds first thing in the morning, then every two hours they get another 30 second cycle. Then at the last feeding right before lights out they get another 45 second feeding.

Light schedule is now 9am to 9pm, they get a feeding 8am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm and 8pm. As freshly transplanted clones they only got one feeding the first week. After I started seeing roots I slowly increased the frequency of feeds, every time feeding til runoff. I'm using a natural surfactant so I'm not too worried about getting 20 percent runoff, but I'm still aiming for a little bit of runoff.


Here is picture of how they look the day I'm flipping them. I am just posting so I can see the day I flip and how full the screen looked so I can adjust on my next grow.

 

[stevewinthrop]

I guess now would be a good time to list what equipment I'm using.

The tent is a 4x4x7 Apollo horticulture tent. Not the highest priced, but excellent quality. They can be found on Amazon for around 100 shipped. When I bought mine it was 85 and free shipping. Here is the link for the tent:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H9...5_QL70&qid=1412448538&sr=8-12#ref=mp_s_a_1_12

The only modification I made to the tent was to add an additional crossbar on the top to hold my fan and carbon scrubber up.

Next is the light, it's again the 600w Apollo horticulture ballast and reflector with the Ushio super red bulb. What can I say, I've been really impressed with the Apollo gear, very nice quality. Their bulbs weren't the brightest, but I did most of the veg so far with the MH bulb they include in the kit, and it did great.
The link for the ballast/hood is:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005E...165_QL70&qid=1412448538&sr=8-7#ref=mp_s_a_1_7
The link for the bulb is:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003U...200_QL40&qid=1412448989&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1

Next is the ventilation system. I used to have a can fan 4" HO with can filter. Those were great, but my grow room used to be in an uninsulated shed, so the temps never really got out of hand out there. Now that the grow is in my heated home, I had to upgrade to a 6 inch fan. I did some research, watched some videos and I came to the conclusion that on the price:noise ratio that there was no reasonable quiet choices. I'm not concerned about the noise as long as I can't hear it from my living room, which I can't. I went with a fan/filter combo from iPower. The link for the fan/filter combo is here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00GW...165_QL70&qid=1412449447&sr=8-6#ref=mp_s_a_1_6

The quality of the filter didn't matter much to me because once it starts getting weak, I have a 50 lb box of pure virgin Australian coco carbon to replace the carbon with.

All the ducting I'm using is insulated, purchased at home Depot.

Next up is the hydro setup. Basically I have four of the 5 gallon smart pots sitting on top of milk crates. There are two milk crates in each catch pan, and those catch pans are actually under the bed storage bins from Target. Each pot has a 6 inch hydro halo (drip ring) and they're all connected to a 1/2 ID tube that runs to my 24 gallon reservoir. The reservoir is a black Costco storage bin, I believe they're 24 gallon, but I only ever put 20 gallons in them.

In the reservoir I have a powerhead constantly mixing the water and an air stone aerating it. Everything is pumped to the plants with a little 200lph aquarium pump. I am using the mistking timer for the feed pump, it can be programmed for durations as low as 1 second and can have up to 8 daily cycles.

The scrog net is just a simple pvc frame with a vigoro trellis stretched over it.

I have two clip fans in opposite corners circulating are above the net and one room fan under the center of the screen blowing up to help circulate air under the canopy.

That's about it, just a fairly standard grow, but different than my past grows. This system is very "hands-off", I set the pH of my reservoir every few days if it needs it, otherwise I just open the tent in the morning to tuck branches or supercrop and once in the evening to give them a foliar spray and tuck branches again. So far a 20 gallon res lasts 2 weeks, but when they're in the middle of flowering I'm expecting to fill the res weekly.

If there are any questions or suggestions please post them.

 

[stevewinthrop]

Everything got their initial prune under the canopy tonight. They'll get another later this week just to clear out everything unnecessary. I left a few sucker branches on the plants because they might make it to the canopy by the time stretch is over, but other than that I cut out weak branches, sucker buds and large fans.

Their first twelve hour night actually ended up being 18 hours due to a drunk driver taking out a transformer down the block. I've been living in this neighborhood for 8 years and due to underground power lines we have only lost power three times, and two out of the three have been from drunk drivers, the other one was from an ice storm that was able to do some sort of damage to our Junction box.

Anyway, here are some pictures of before and after. Also added a progress shot.

 

[stevewinthrop]

They've been stretching, but not too bad. I have a runt of a plant and I couldn't figure out why, it's the one in front left. When I was trimming the undergrowth I noticed the hard rain bird 1/2" rainbird tubing was pinched! So it wasn't getting the amount of nutes everyone else was getting. Bummer. I started hand watering that one, which is fairly easy, it's in the front, but this weekend I'll replace the line and upgrade the pump so that all of the pots are receiving the same amount.

Here is a picture of the tucking on this the fourth day of flower. I plan to tuck til day 10, I am hoping it fills out a bit more, it's not stretching as much as I've heard blue dream stretches so I'm wondering why, but it's still only day 4 so we will see if it picks up here in a few days.

 

[stevewinthrop]

And here's a picture when they first started. Picture is from September 17th.

 

[DrFever]

looking good during stretch keep pulling plants outwards stretching plant also super crop tops to keep them at same height

 

[stevewinthrop]

Thanks Dr.

I woke up this morning and they had stretched 4+ inches. So they finally woke up after several days of stretching only a couple inches in a night.

I pulled them all back under the net, everything is looking good, and the weather here is starting to cool down too.

 

[DrFever]

even if you have to lift table and reset stretchin wide as they can go i can see in back some is higher then others fix that up

 

[stevewinthrop]

Yeah, that's bad ass. How long into 12/12 did you keep tucking?

 

[stevewinthrop]

Today is day 8 of 12/12, stretching is slowing down so I did some tucking today but I will stop now unless a branch is really getting ahead of the others. I cleared a little more undergrowth out and tied a few branches down today.

On Friday night I replaced the water pump with a larger one. The 150 gph pump was just not getting the line pressure where I wanted it. I hooked up the new pump and every drip ring was dripping at a consistent rate and all pots started runoff at the same time. Perfect. Did some maxicrop / fulvic / triacontanol foliar on Saturday and the plants responded as always. I can see pistil and calyx begin forming, so I know budding will begin to set soon, perfect time to stop tucking from what I have read.

Will probably resort to weekly updates after this post. Here are pictures of the canopy and an upskirt shot as well. Still have a little clearing to do underneath, but want to wait until the stretch is through.

 

[stevewinthrop]

I broke down and tucked one more time this morning. There were a few longer stems I tucked, then I just evened out the canopy. That's all though.

 

[newtothiscoco]

hello steve what a nice garden you got going there

 

[stevewinthrop]

Thank you, it's just a small tent, something to grow enough medicine for myself and maybe get donations from dispensary if there are leftovers. I'm hoping to get at least 5 ounces, this is my first time scrogging but also first time doing multifeed coco.

Optimally I'd be getting between a pound and a pound and a half, but I'm setting my goal low because I always seem to fuck something up big my first time doing something. So far I haven't had any nutrient issues or big equipment failures and my plants are growing quickly and consuming a lot of water and nutrients so we are off to a good start. I'll be adding 200 actual watts of leds in the coming days, I got all of my supplies I just have to solder everything together and make it look pretty.

Thanks for stopping by! Going to be some buds pretty soon, I can see calyx and buds are starting to stack up.

 

[testymctester]

Everything looks great, Steve. I don't think you will have any problems hitting your goal.

 

[DrFever]

Yeah, that's bad ass. How long into 12/12 did you keep tucking?

keep tucking stretching plants outwards as well as super crop till buds start to appear and keep tucking leafs through out flowering

 

[stevewinthrop]

Ok that's pretty much what I did, seemed most natural. Here is what they look like today. The reservoir had maybe 3 gallons left, so I filled it up. Today it got maxibloom 1tsp/gallon, liquid koolbloom at 5ml/gal (first dose), silica (standard .25g/gallon agsil) fulvic acid (plant derived) and some aminos.

They are drinking 20 gallons of nutrient solution per week. That's 5 gallons of runoff out of a 25 total gallons reservoir. They are hungry girls.

 

[DrFever]

What i normally do once you go into 12 12 first week in 12 hrs i still give them veg nutes
second week 50 VEg 50 Bloom 3rd week bloom only
4th week bloom only
5th week pending on N value of your bloom mix this is where Def starts middle of 4th and 5th week
So giving them a little shot of N is not a bad idea 20 percent VEg nutes 80 Bloom / with Zinc and iron Foliage spray to carry the plant to the end
your goal is to keep her green as long as you can some plants day 40 or so and healthy

 

[stevewinthrop]

Oh for sure, for N I'll be using maxicrop, it's not high in N, but it works great keeping my plants green. I have used techniflora nutrients according to their schedule for a long time, but recently went cheaper with the maxigrow and maxibloom. I did a few grows with the lucas formula, and had pretty good results. Tried more expensive nutrients and dosed according to their schedules (but usually at half dose) and to be honest I've seen very little difference between all of them. I'm giving the maxigrow/maxibloom a shot because it's removing one more step, and it's a step that I feel can be removed, which is the liquid micros.

So far so good, this is their first week without full nitrogen, but I'm doing that on purpose. After two weeks of liquid koolbloom they'll get another mix with nitrogen, and then I'll slowly taper the nitrogen til week 6 where they'll get the powdered Koolbloom. Then no more extra N.

Thanks for all of the help, DrFever, I appreciate it!

 

[stevewinthrop]

Lots of these bud sites stacking. Starting to really look like something special now.