Glob's Grow: 6-plant PPK, 600w + 400w stack + screens, MBS x [CGxC99] + MBS x MBSO

Globule · Feb 29, 2016

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by :tiphat:

This is a 6-plant vertical grow (from seed) in Turface-filled PPKs with a 600w + 400w stack for lighting.

A very kind friend has shared some bloody exciting seeds with me so we shall see how they fare in my little indoor space. :thank you:

I hope I can do them some justice but they seem to be growing themselves just fine in the PPK's without my help at the moment.

I'm growing two different crosses of MBS (a.k.a. "Mind, Body, Soul") created by the Wizards of Oz:

MBS x [CG x C99] (MBS broad-leaf male was used to pollinate a [Columbian Gold x Cinderlla99] female)

MBS x MBSO (MBSO = MBS x OG-Kush)

MBS is regarded as a wonderful, kind and potent strain that the Wizards of Oz have been working for some time. I've never have had the pleasure of growing or smoking MBS before so I feel very grateful to be able to grow (and smoke!) these MBS crosses myself.

Although it hasn't been all blue-skies and blowjobs to get to this point.
Bit of a rough start for these plants (as most of my grow threads seem to begin with) but things are looking much better now!

Here they are a few days ago:

Globule · Feb 29, 2016

SEEDS, COCO & GNATS!

SEEDS, COCO & GNATS!

You've heard of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) well I experienced the GSC! (Gnats, Seeds & Coco!)

To cut a story short, just over 6 weeks ago I planted 6 seeds each of both MBS crosses into 10cm/4" pots of coco with 1/4-strength nutes on a recirculating drip system (using a modified design taken from Pico's awesome thread here).

All was looking fine until a cloud of evil gnats spewed forth from the larvae-ridden womb of coco that I had germinated these poor, unsuspecting seeds in a few days earlier.

The same brand of coco that had presented no problems in the past, I wrongly assumed would be bug-free this time around as well. Bad assumption! I lost 8 of the 12 seedlings and only 1 x (CGxC99) and 3 x MBSO crosses survived.
There was a lot of extra heat around at the time as well but I am throwing my money on gnats being the cause of death rather than the heat.

I know I can't just blame the coco - but that will do for an excuse at this point. Couldn't be my growing skills surely…?

So faced with a bummer of a situation, I did what any sane person with more seeds left would do and sterilised the fuck out of some new coco before planting more! I managed to get rid of 95% of the gnats with a light spray of Pyrethrum, some sticky yellow strips hung from the light reflector and covering the top of the coco with Turface.

Once I could tell sex from the pre-flowers, I moved the most robust 6 females into veg/flower PPK units where they are now. I ended up with 8 females total (3 x CGxC99 and 5 x MBSO) and planted 3 of each cross into their PPK accomodation for Veg + Flower.

They got upgraded to the Honeymoon Suite for the ride through seedling stage as I didn't need the space then:

In need of some bigger and better digs:

That's just a plastic lid with a hole drilled in one corner over a 20-litre/5-gal bucket with a wee water-pump leading up to a 15mm PVC manifold with 4mm drippers:

Need a bit of a transplant do we? Get into that PPK then!

Globule · Feb 29, 2016

ENTER THE PPK

ENTER THE PPK

PPK is a terrible acronym for what is an EXCELLENT growing system! (even for a hack like me)
Basically, the PPK is comprised of a top container to hold the plant and growing medium (Turface in my case) with a medium-filled wick/drain/tailpipe running from the top bucket into the lower bucket which contains a level of nutes set by a float valve in the main res. This moves the perched water table (I had no idea what the PWT was either until reading the PPK thread) from the upper growing container down into the lower container containing nutes.

Frequent feeds (usually every 90 mins or above - depending on plant's root mass) flood the medium/roots in the upper container which pulls down fresh oxygen to plant roots as the nutes drain down into the lower container.

The wick/tailpipe also provides redundancy should power/pumps fail as the wick/tailpipe extends part-way into the nutrient solution in the lower container and passively-wicks nutes to the plant in the upper bucket in between feed or should pumps/power fail.

There is a very active and helpful PPK community here on ICMAG if you want to know more:
• https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=292102 - most recent PPK thread
• https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=138004 - earlier PPK thread dropping some mad knowledge on ya

I built and tried the PPK system for the first time last run. Even with my amateur growing skills, it worked really well for me. Best results I've had to date and very low-maintenance which is key for me. I've re-worked the irrigation/manifold for this run and am hoping to do even better this time.

I started with a full-flood every 8 hours initially after transplanting the seedlings into the PPK's, then dropped down to every 4 hours, then every 2 hours and I will now drop the flooding frequency down to every 90 mins in a few days where it will remain until harvest (unless plants show signs of over-watering.)

I'm using the following nutrients per 20-litres/5.3-gals:

+ 6ml Silica (then pH down to 7.0 before adding anything else!)
+ 20g/4-tsp MaxiBloom (dissolved in a mason jar filled with hot water before adding)
+ 5ml CalMag
+ 20ml Rhizotonic (had some left over in the cupboard)
+ 2ml Drip-Clean
+ 4ml H2O2 (35%)

This gets the EC to around 1.6 (including water EC of <0.2).
Keen to bring my EC down further to around 1.2 but haven't worked out whether I can drop some Maxibloom or CalMag yet. The plants are loving what I'm giving them now so I'm not that keen to mess around with EC unless I see my plants suffering to be honest. I can play with it next round once I've got this grow under my belt.

I know a lot of the PPK growers on ICMAG are getting great success with J.R.Peters stuff but I'm in Australia so can't get that here. MaxiBloom is cheap, readily available and works really well so I'll stick with it for now until it leaves me for the Art Director at work.

I set pH to 5.8 and let it float up and re-adjust back to 5.8 when it gets above 6.1

Globule · Feb 29, 2016

PLANTS, BABY, PLANTS!

PLANTS, BABY, PLANTS!

After the dust has settled, I've ended up with the following lovely ladies getting their veg on:

• 3 x MBS x [CGxC99]
• 3 x MBS x MBSO

I've ended up with 2 extra MBSO females too. That's 5 out of 6 females for the MBSOs!

I transplanted them into the PPKs about a week ago and they are kicking-off again after their transplant and root-setting.

Except for one later planting, Plants are about 75cm/2.5' tall. I'll be putting them on 1.2m/4' screens in a few days.

MBS x [CGxC99]:
These are quite lean and lanky compared to the MBSO's with greater internode spacing and are a lighter green.
To be expected given the heavy Sativa dominance of this cross - and quite frankly I loves me a lanky sativa in the pipe!
I reckon this bigger internode spacing will do great on the vertical screens once I set them up in a few days.

I've noticed that lateral shoots do not grow symmetrically on the MBS crosses which I really like. I reckon this will be handy for growing with screens if stems are varying lengths. I'm assuming this must be an MBS trait(?) as both crosses are displaying this (some more than others).

They are beautiful plants. Very strong stems/laterals/leaves.

MBSx[CGxC99]#1:

MBSx[CGxC99]#2:

MBSx[CGxC99]#3

Globule · Feb 29, 2016

MBS x MBSO:

These are some very vigourous mo-fos!
The MBSO have almost double the number of nodes compared to the [CGxC99] for the same height.

MBSO has a lot more vegetation/leaf action going on than the [CGxC99] too (80's porn-bush vs. landing-strip).

I assumed that the big beefy ones were going to be males but most of them ended up female warriors!

MBSxMBSO #1:

MBSxMBSO #2

MBSxMBSO #3

Sorry for the short write up on the plants so far. Will post up some more later on.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by! :tiphat:

Globs

Donald Mallard · Feb 29, 2016

Nice plants globule ,
particularly the mbs x mbso ,
keen to see how they develop ,
they look to be in good hands ...

Globule · Feb 29, 2016

Donald Mallard said:
Nice plants globule ,
particularly the mbs x mbso ,
keen to see how they develop ,
they look to be in good hands ...

Thanks very much Don! Much appreciated sir :tiphat:

Obviously I'm growing with superior genetics for them to be doing so well at 6-weeks despite my best efforts to kill them

I found them to be really heat tolerant (especially the MBSO) compared to others I have attempted to suffocate in the past.
They barely flinched when I was having heat issues earlier on in the grow. No leaf curl or anything.

Even when my drip system bled-out one day, they were quite limp but after a drink they perked back up almost immediately as though nothing had happened. Tough buggers they are.

And vigorous! I'm glad I've got 8' of ceiling height to play with as I would like to veg these as much as possible before switching to 12/12. They are playing very nicely and growing up rather than out.

I've got a 600w MH-Retro bulb hanging just above the canopy.

I'll drop the light back down (and then add the lower 400w) once the plants get to the height I want them (maybe 3.5'?) and then try to control stretch by bending/tying branches on the screens.

The stems on these seem very strong but pliable and should be quite easy to train on the screens I reckon.

Beautiful plants. I just like standing in the room and looking at them with a little headlamp. They aren't starved for attention that's for sure

McKush · Mar 1, 2016

Nice thread Globule! Looking great.

Bradley_Danks · Mar 1, 2016

I wish u would just define ppk the first time you used the acronym.

Globule · Mar 1, 2016

WELCOME!

WELCOME!

McKush said:
Nice thread Globule! Looking great.

Hey there McKush and thanks for poking your kushy head in here once again!
Welcome sir and good to have you back. Your popcorn and choc-top awaits…

Hope you enjoy the main feature

bigdank said:
I wish u would just define ppk the first time you used the acronym.

G'day Big-D! But if I had done that then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance now would I?

When I close my eyes, I imagine you asking that question in two ways:
1. A forlorn princess, looking wistfully out the window of her tower, dreaming that her prince will arrive one day to define the PPK acronym for her (before roughly de-flowering her).
2. A bitter and angry wife, berating her long-suffering husband for not having defined PPK before mentioning it to her.

I'm going with the first option because I'm a glass half-full kind of guy. That, and I like imagining me dressed as a prince on a big white stallion, bringing the joyous news of the PPK acronym to you and winning your heart forever

Wishes can come true Big-D - so for you sir, as far as I know, (the actual origins of the acronym being shrouded in mystery and all that) PPK stands for "Packed Pipes of Kannabis".

Somone korrect me if I'm wrong…

McKush · Mar 2, 2016

Pot Producing Kraziness i thought, umkay?

McKush · Mar 2, 2016

Oh and can you elaborate a bit more on that de-flowering part?

Globule · Mar 2, 2016

McKush said:
Oh and can you elaborate a bit more on that de-flowering part?

Whoa there Bessie!
I said 'de-flowering' not 'defoliation' - no need to get too excited...

Bradley_Danks · Mar 3, 2016

Lol, you grow any outdoor over there in oz?

Sqydro · Mar 3, 2016

looking lush, i still have no idea how the ppks work are they recirculating or whats the deal subbed for the knowlege and the grow show

best of luck mate

Globule · Mar 4, 2016

bigdank said:
Lol, you grow any outdoor over there in oz?

Hey Big-D,

No, I can't given my personal circumstances, but there are plenty growing outdoors in Australia. So much rich soil here but not the laws allowing most to work it yet (other than for mining companies to yank it out of the ground and sell it overseas to the highest bidder).

I would love the option to grow outside without fear of consequences but that isn't the case in Australia just yet. Hopefully not too many more years, but all it takes is another change of state/federal government and things get all fucky again.

It's all for personal use anyway so I'm quite content with my little 10'x8'x6' space I've got right here for now

Sqydro said:
looking lush, i still have no idea how the ppks work are they recirculating or whats the deal subbed for the knowlege and the grow show

best of luck mate

Thanks very much Sqydro and welcome!

I've just spent the last 15-mins trying to find a GIF that one of the PPK-ers posted recently on one of the threads (which was great for helping understand the mechanics of the PPK).

Unfortunately, because PPK is only 3-letters, ICMAG is excluding it from my search terms. How rude!
Maybe the acronym needs to be changed to "PPKK" to make it acceptable for the ICMAG search engine. (Either that or a custom rules engine to be added allowing 3-letter search terms to be used if they are common ones...)

Can anyone else please share where that PPK animation is located?

I'm new to growing myself, and even though I got my PPK build wrong initially (tailpipe was too short) others here helped me understand/fix my issues. Really generous and helpful PPK community here on ICMAG. We are very lucky here I reckon

The best advice I would give anyone is to read through the main PPK threads (I linked them earlier in this thread) and really soak it in.

In trying to find a low-maintenance, robust and forgiving grow system I've tried DWC, Coco, Coco + Blumats and the PPK.

PPK has a bit of a learning curve but if you sink some time into it, it will help you understand plants better in general I reckon (at least for me). It's a bit daunting given the number of posts in the threads but I cannot recommend getting your PPK on highly enough.

I'm only on my 2nd PPK run but it has changed my life for the better (that and I love the sound of the pump coming on and flooding those plants with nutes!)

Cheers Sqydro!

Globule · Mar 4, 2016

PLEA FOR SCREEN-TRAINING HELP

PLEA FOR SCREEN-TRAINING HELP

This is a plea for help!

I tried distilling the screen/training info out there, mainly from MiraculousMeds and IchabodCrane (thank-you very much gents for your generosity helping people like me!) on how I should train my plants to the screens.

Forgive me folks (as I know you've posted this many times to help others) but I couldn't find the specific stuff that I know I've read before on this matter! Having a 3-letter word like "PPK" makes it hard to search for PPK-related stuff using the ICMAG search engine…

This is only my 2nd run growing vertically with screens and 2nd run with PPKs as well so some help would be greatly appreciated peeps!

Shot of them yesterday:

THE BONNIE SITUATION:
• PPKs are making my plants grow too fast and I think I need to get them onto the screens and switched to 12/12 lighting sooner rather than later.

• I was only planning to grow 5 plants in this space but I had too many lovely females so ended up growing 6 instead.

• Currently 5 out of 6 plants are at about 3' high now (5' high including buckets) and un-topped.
One plant is about a week behind the others and is about 2' high.

• I've got ceiling height of 8' but 2' of that is taken up with the PPK's so have about 6' total plant height available to play with.

• The screens are 20"/50cm wide and about 4'/120cm tall.

WHAT I KNOW:
• I've read about trimming suckers (anything less than 1/4 size the stem it is growing from) and clear out the first 3-shoots on each branch off the main-stem (unless this would leave a monster gap).

• I also understand that it recommended to start trimming gradually when you flip to 12/12 and then train branches back into towards the plant center during stretch but leave alone once stretch has stopped for remainder of flower.

• Once plants almost reach the desired height, dropping the bulb down to the center level of the plants will make them fill-out a bit more (before you switch to 12/12)

• Also that awesome tip about cutting leaf-stems low to avoid budrot from old stem-ends! (I did lose a decent bud last run from this issue so thanks for that tip!!)

MY PLAN OF ATTACK FROM HERE :
• Will drop bulb down to centre of plants today/tomorrow and veg for another week. This should let the plants fill out a bit more down below and let the plant that is a week behind to put on a bit more height before switching to 12/12 next week.

• During the next few days I'll get the screens introduced and start tying plants to screens in preparation of flip to 12/12.

• After flipping to 12/12 start gradually open up the center of the plant by trimming every away growth up to 3rd node of any branch coming off the main stem). This space will be filled in my bending stem back into the center of the plant as they overgrow the sides of the screen.

HELP ME!! HELP ME!! (said the way the fly said it in the original 1958 "The Fly" movie…)

https://youtu.be/NTZhrwR7CoE

• Imagining you as the two scientists MiraculousMeds and IchabodCrane...
• Note the relevance of the vertical web-screen in the above YouTube video...
• Don't squash me with a rock and help me grow dense buds on vertical screens instead please?

QUESTIONS:
The stuff I would love some help with is how do you prepare and orient the plants on the screen?

Q. Do you strap them to the screen as a '+' or 'X' ?
(I.e. A or B from the image below?)

Q. If you put the plant on the screen as a "+" do you trim off the branches at the back of the plant/screen or bend them around 180-degrees to the side and get them onto the screen?

Also any other awesome tips you've got for me for getting my plants ready for screen-training will be rewarded with a big "WOOT!"

Thanks in advance folks. You rock!

Miraculous Meds · Mar 4, 2016

Hi Globule, I rep'd u for the fly vid. that was good. Ive only seen the remake with Goldblum. that movie scared me, but I was only a youngster when it came out.

Im sure u have looked thru this thread, but if not here it is. this was the beginning of my journey thru what I call the ichy screens.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=242646

Now to answer ur question. Im more of a A type trainer in ur drawing. Ichy is more on the B side with a slight variation. But I think we would both agree in the A example that u cut the branch off completely that is directly opposite the front screen, n u keep the nice branches that are just slightly angled away from the screen, n bend them forward in front of the screen. Basically ichy likes to keep as many as the main branches as possible, n bend them in the screen in replacement of weaker or sucker branches. He even goes as far as to loop the bigger branches down to the bottom of the screen. I never had much success doing that, n just trained the best of the weaker bottom growth to fill in there. With enough time to harden off down below with a bottom light blasting right at them, they will perform just like a top branch. In fact (and I wish I had kept a pic of this) I had branches that were no thicker than a coffee straw, that produced just as big of buds as my top growth branches. We are talking 10g colas on a 9" long coffee straw thick branch, cause the branch had a couple weeks of strong light to make it grow n flower significantly well. It required tying to the screen so it didn't break off of course. I cut out a few more of the branches that grow behind the screen n grow some of the weaker branches into more vigorous ones, while still cutting out some suckers.

To summarize, there is obviously more than one right way to be successful at training this way. there are some fundamentals to keep in mind. The basics are fill the screen in completely while not overcrowding n causing larf to form from not enough light penetration from overlapping branches n sun leaves. Be patient, it takes a few runs under ur belt with each strain to really learn how to train them properly.

Another tip, especially with stacked vert lighting is to make sure after tying, that the branch tip is angled slightly toward the bulbs n never slightly toward the screen. When angled toward the bulbs they get blasted from both sides of the branch with 2 sources of light, n that's how u get huge, fat, chunky, well developed buds over the entire surface of the screen.

Hopefully that's a good start to answering ur training questions. Maybe hit ichy up, hes very kind n helpful n knowledgeable with this training tech. Any other questions I can help with just ask away. I love to share what ive learned from this awesome icmag community n my experiments n experiences.

Another couple things to keep in mind are don't tie back too aggressively early or u will stunt the branch tips that are further away from the bulb than the suckers/weaker branches that might be closer to the bulb after tying. U can preemptively tie branches that u know will put on good weight later, so not to miss tying them before critical bud mass forms n they fall into the bulb n burn/scorch before u catch them. U will start to notice obvious branches to do this with around week 2/3 of flower.

I could help steer u in the right direction concerning canopy distances from bulb to back of screen etc.. Let me ask, do u plan on using a 600w on top of a 400w? Also did u say ur screen dimensions were 20"x4'? Do u plan on building ichy screens where the base is 6"? and finally do u plan on flowering 6 plants in this? Canopy distance plays a huge roll on bud development n overall quality n yield. Answer these questions n ill get u headed in the right direction.

Miraculous Meds · Mar 4, 2016

Sqydro said:
looking lush, i still have no idea how the ppks work are they recirculating or whats the deal subbed for the knowlege and the grow show

best of luck mate

Globule explained it a bit. PPK, passive plant killer. A sarcastic play of words for a system that started out passive, n easy way of growing healthy, large plants. Its since been tweaked n developed a thousand times over to what its evolved into today.

A recirculating system, that shares a wick system. Thus u don't ever dry out the roots n die from pump failures or under watering. It features a reduced pwt, due to the hydraulic effect of the wick/drain system in the right medium. Another of the huge benefits is that u get fast rdwc like growth, while keeping the roots in a medium, safe from water born disease like pythium that ravage water grown roots. No more worrying about water temps like in rdwc, where u have to compensate by a cooler room or running a water chiller. Also no need for added o2 from air pumps/stones, etc... So in essence u have the performance of rdwc, with the safety of roots grown in a medium. A kind of blend of the best of both worlds.

Globule · Mar 6, 2016

Miraculous Meds said:
Hi Globule, I rep'd u for the fly vid. that was good. Ive only seen the remake with Goldblum. that movie scared me, but I was only a youngster when it came out.

Im sure u have looked thru this thread, but if not here it is. this was the beginning of my journey thru what I call the ichy screens.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=242646

Now to answer ur question. Im more of a A type trainer in ur drawing. Ichy is more on the B side with a slight variation. But I think we would both agree in the A example that u cut the branch off completely that is directly opposite the front screen, n u keep the nice branches that are just slightly angled away from the screen, n bend them forward in front of the screen. Basically ichy likes to keep as many as the main branches as possible, n bend them in the screen in replacement of weaker or sucker branches. He even goes as far as to loop the bigger branches down to the bottom of the screen. I never had much success doing that, n just trained the best of the weaker bottom growth to fill in there. With enough time to harden off down below with a bottom light blasting right at them, they will perform just like a top branch. In fact (and I wish I had kept a pic of this) I had branches that were no thicker than a coffee straw, that produced just as big of buds as my top growth branches. We are talking 10g colas on a 9" long coffee straw thick branch, cause the branch had a couple weeks of strong light to make it grow n flower significantly well. It required tying to the screen so it didn't break off of course. I cut out a few more of the branches that grow behind the screen n grow some of the weaker branches into more vigorous ones, while still cutting out some suckers.

To summarize, there is obviously more than one right way to be successful at training this way. there are some fundamentals to keep in mind. The basics are fill the screen in completely while not overcrowding n causing larf to form from not enough light penetration from overlapping branches n sun leaves. Be patient, it takes a few runs under ur belt with each strain to really learn how to train them properly.

Another tip, especially with stacked vert lighting is to make sure after tying, that the branch tip is angled slightly toward the bulbs n never slightly toward the screen. When angled toward the bulbs they get blasted from both sides of the branch with 2 sources of light, n that's how u get huge, fat, chunky, well developed buds over the entire surface of the screen.

Hopefully that's a good start to answering ur training questions. Maybe hit ichy up, hes very kind n helpful n knowledgeable with this training tech. Any other questions I can help with just ask away. I love to share what ive learned from this awesome icmag community n my experiments n experiences.

Another couple things to keep in mind are don't tie back too aggressively early or u will stunt the branch tips that are further away from the bulb than the suckers/weaker branches that might be closer to the bulb after tying. U can preemptively tie branches that u know will put on good weight later, so not to miss tying them before critical bud mass forms n they fall into the bulb n burn/scorch before u catch them. U will start to notice obvious branches to do this with around week 2/3 of flower.

I could help steer u in the right direction concerning canopy distances from bulb to back of screen etc.. Let me ask, do u plan on using a 600w on top of a 400w? Also did u say ur screen dimensions were 20"x4'? Do u plan on building ichy screens where the base is 6"? and finally do u plan on flowering 6 plants in this? Canopy distance plays a huge roll on bud development n overall quality n yield. Answer these questions n ill get u headed in the right direction.

Thank-you very much for your help MM :tiphat:

Bloody awesome mate!
That helps me a lot sir.

Will post more tomorrow but you are right on all counts:
- Ichy screens: 20" x 4'
- 6 plants (i got greedy!)
- 600w on top of 400w (but now about to sell some sperm to buy a ne 600w ballast...)

Will post pics tomorrow. Appreciate your very kind help mate!

WOOT!

Glob's Grow: 6-plant PPK, 600w + 400w stack + screens, MBS x [CGxC99] + MBS x MBSO

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