2x400w KISS coco show feat. Casey Crosses and Strawberries 'n' Cream

What's up fellas...long time no see. Hope everybody is well.

This is a straight up frankenstein grow with random stuff that have accumulated over the years. It is also my first grow in a couple of years, so I'm excited to get back into the game.

-Strain is SSSDH x Casey Jones (Sour Hazy Jones) from OJD/CSG. 11 seeds soaking, hoping for 6 females if all goes well

-some sort of Sunhut(?) tent from the good ol days... Actual usable interior space = 52"(L)x34"(D)x72"(H). Going to be a tight squeeze but I'll make it work.

-2x 400w (one switchable and one HPS, have not decided on 1 MH + 1 HPS or both HPS yet, any thoughts are welcome and appreciated)

-Going for bare bulb with a simple hanging mechanism a la the little 400w torture chamber grow I did, one stacked a bit higher than the other...seeds starting under a horizontal 150w hps until they are a couple of nodes high and then going into the main chamber. Thoughts on this as opposed to vegging them vertically from the start, maybe going with the 400w a bit higher up to keep from burning? I have always vegged horizontally for my vert grows in the past so I'm curious if this is the way to go or not, particularly with these stretchy genetics

-Fine coco, tap water, canna A, canna B, rhizotonic, nothing else for nutes unless corrective action is necessary

-Looking at about a month veg before the flip and will probably end up with a final home in 3gal bags, although if I end up with fewer females than the planned 6 I may go up a bit in size and see where that gets me

-Basic static screen for SCROG - not enough room for the modular screens I might like. I may also consider a variation on my ridiculous zip tie torture, I mean training, seen in the aforementioned 400w vert thread I made, as that would allow me the ability to rotate the plants and remove them for feeding/photos/etc.


-This is a stupid simple grow and my goal is to find some killer phenos from both sides and hopefully end up with at least one that is my ideal head stash and at least one big time (Casey-leaning?) producer would be ideal as well. No tiered/stadium setup or anything fancy by any means, just some hopefully chunky bitches in bags hanging out around a couple of lights.


The beans are going in the coco tonight after a 24 hour soak so wish me luck

oh, and although it is silly to count my eggs before they hatch especially in a new enviro with brand new genetics, I am really hoping to break the .75 g/w mark on the low end, so looking for 5-600g if all goes well first run. We'll see if I still have some moves left I suppose

400 watters are my favorite. 72 inches and two of them might be a bit hot, maybe a light mover and one bulb raised and lowered vertically might be just as good. It won't have to move far. I'm in for the gro.

Dr.RedWhite said:

400 watters are my favorite. 72 inches and two of them might be a bit hot, maybe a light mover and one bulb raised and lowered vertically might be just as good. It won't have to move far. I'm in for the gro.

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Yeah, I was a little concerned about that but I'll take it as it comes and figure it out. I should have plenty of air exchange with a 6" fan and I won't have any trouble keeping the climate on point in terms of ambient temperature and humidity, so hopefully all goes well. I guess worst case scenario I'll just hang a spare 150 or 250w hps on the bottom end for shits and giggles. Thanks for tuning in!

Watsup jd4083...... Ditto on the coco and the 400's........ Pretty envious of the beans you running.... Best of luck..... Ill stick around for the show
Smelly...

SmellyFlorist said:

Watsup jd4083...... Ditto on the coco and the 400's........ Pretty envious of the beans you running.... Best of luck..... Ill stick around for the show
Smelly...

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I've definitely been keeping my eye on your thread, yours and a couple others like Marlo are a great help with my coming back into things so out of date and rusty. Thanks for checking in dude, hope not to disappoint


what do you think, hang one 400w a bit lower or put them together like with your setup? you've got a lot more lateral room than I do...

Watsup...... Thanks brah.... yeah Marlo, what a legend hey...
From what I can gather you got an actual tent, and my rooms quite a bigger than yours, ideally I would prefer to use 600's in my setup. but this is about you, lol, not me.... But your tent looks a lil over a meter deep? Maybe too shallow to have an "elongated" donut in there....?? Your tent seems bout head height? maybe stack those 400"s an defo bang a floor fan under them on super low.... But really brah, Im not the one to be giving advice here.... Im just throwing an idea or two around.... But maybe look into Ichabod Cranes thread, pretty sure he has stacked donuts.... an he's really got his game down, I know you said you cant do individual screens, but maybe you could get an idea or two from his thread..... Iv been pondering the idea of doing donuts with 400hps stacked with a 250mh below it..... like julian says: "work with what you got....." lol.... not sure if the 250 would give any penetration, but it would defo help with controlling the heat.... almost like a down size of stack 1000hps with 600mh below it...... Once again brah, all ideas.... an I can really ramble on.... so tell me when to shut it......
Anyways Ill be hanging back here.... looking forward to the show.... best of luck....
Smelly

thanks for the ideas dude, I'll keep it updated when I get everything settled in

however, we are at a bit of a standstill and I feel like an absolute fool here -- pretty concerned with my apparent lack of coco seed starting ability.


Requisite background: I have never planted seeds directly in coco, always rapid rooters or even something like Light Warrior and then -> coco after a bit. This time I figured it couldn't hurt and the whole idea was to keep it simple -- it's idiot proof right? -- so I went ahead and soaked (for 48 hours, should have been 24 but got stuck at work and had to wait until the next day). I should mention here that only 2 of the 11 seeds had cracked at this point, but I just figured it was old stock so it would get there eventually. This was weird since I've never had beans not crack with tails within 24-36 hours, but again, I assume this had something to do with age or me and not the breeder/seeds themselves.

They were then planted directly into standard solo cups with canna coco and a very light (maybe 1/4) A+B feeding. They also got topped with a misted bag on each cup (the store is 25 miles away and I work 6 days a week, gimme a break, I know it's ghetto). usually it would be rooters under a humi-dome but whatever, same principle right?

I just checked the cam from work and I'm sitting at 73 degrees with 36% humidity at the moment, which is how it has been since day one. I'm sure you could argue for more RH but pretty spot-on...

Anyways, like I said, I feel like an absolute idiot here. I have never in my life had issues getting seeds to break surface within 24-48 hours and I have put some beans through some SHIT in my time...to say the least...lol. Can somebody please tell me if I'm going crazy or if I should just turn the lights off and call it a day? Can I really be this rusty or did I never know what I was doing to begin with and got lucky all those times?


edit- the only difference in environment/general that I can see between this and past efforts is the water. In a new spot using well water and not the city tapwater I was using before (which was PERFECT for coco after looking at the mineral assay from the county), but the pH/ec/etc. were fine at all points during initial testing.

I guess the good news is that I have a handful of Cheesedog, Rainbow Jones, and Strawberry Cough x The White waiting to drop in the event that I brutally murder these beans. Still, really unsettling start to what should be a foolproof effort...

Watsup...... maybe you freaking out a bit...... maybe give them a bit more time..... When Iv popped bagseed beans inside its always been with coco, outside Iv used coco and soil..... Last ones I soaked for over 24 hours, half come up, half didnt... I left the 50% that didnt come up for over three weeks in the room with no water. I then threw those trays filled with coco outside into a soil mix about two weeks ago... last week seedlings broke the surface of that soil...... WTF Iv had the same when Iv put the coco back into storage, open it up few weeks later and theres seedlings....
Just some of my past experiences brah.... But me personally, I wouldnt bomb them just yet.....
Jeeeebus you got some awesome genetics to work with there.... very envious... lol
Best of luck....
Smelly

I've killed way too many seeds in my time. Coco is dead simple once you get it down.

Before I plant I water 3-4x the volume of nutrient solution through my 6 oz cups of Coco. I then SQUEEZE as much solution as I can out of the coco. I then plant my beans, either already popped, or completely untouched, into the coco ~1/2 below the surface and lightly cover them and lightly push with my finger.

I use no dome and my humidity is usually between 30-50%. Depending on the lighting, and environment, they will not receive water for ~7 days. They are normally developing their first true leaves by this point. I then water until runoff and within the next few days I can see roots in the bottom of the cups. (I use clear cups for this reason. The $1 store is where I get them.) After that you can start watering every other day or even daily without worry of over watering

In all my attempts with rockwool, coco, pumice, and soil, underwatering and overwatering have always been my issue. Rockwool was the worst, and pumice a close second. Coco has its issues and can certainly be overwatered, but has a larger margin of error than the other two mentioned. Hope this helps in the future.

Thanks for the tips dudes. Had 3 break surface literally overnight, so holding out hope that the rest aren't far behind. Can't believe how long that took....

Decided to hedge my bets and see what the situation is when I get home from work in about 8 hours or so...if there are still more than 4 or 5 that have not broken the top I'm going to go ahead and put the following in to soak and worry about the grand pheno hunt later...

-2 Rainbow Jones (GDP x Casey) - fem
-2 Strawberries n Creme (Straw Cough x The White) - fem
-3 Cheesedog (reg)

^ all OJD/Connoisseur genetics...this is my first run of CSG beans, in case I didn't mention it. After some time away from the scene I literally came back one day to get beans and just went for the first breeder I could remember with 100% positive feedback from before and OJD was the one that came to mind. doesn't hurt that I've been dying to try Casey since it was impossible to get because everybody was camping on the drops, lol


When all is said and done that should land me close to the 6-7 females I was hoping for and a bit of variety for the head stash too. Getting tired of the current selection so that should be nice. Thanks again for tuning in, I plan to stop being lazy and actually clean the room and tent up enough to take a couple photos Friday after work. Just got a HUGE promotion so I'm psyched about that and just as excited to get started as I am with these beans

Thats good news brah.... so whats that, 3 up out of 11....? Heres hoping theres more up when you get back home....
Congrats on the promo too..... works wonders for the confidence hey....
Smelly

Now that I think about it, there were 2 beans fully cracked with a tiny tail and one that had just cracked with no tail after 48 hours in the soak. Now I have two seedlings and one that is just now turning right side up and breaking through. I really think this might have just been old stock.

Anyways, I'm impatient as all hell so I ran home for lunch and went ahead and threw the 2x Rainbows Jones, 2x Strawberries n Cream, and 3x Cheesedog in to soak. Then, just for shits and giggles (and to remove the human element), I went ahead and picked up some more rapid rooters and a legitimate humi dome. So if I end up with 18 seedlings I'll just make some room or buy another tent and split em up I suppose...why not? might as well go balls deep....


Here we go.......

Looking forward to this one man. Vegging under horizontal is fine, I usually keep my clones under horizontal lights for the first few weeks then another couple around the bulbs. Coco is also an awesome medium, what size of pot are you using?

I've grown both of the parents of OJD's Sour Haze. His SSSDH is a stretchy girl for sure but with a good veg and a lil training she is an awesome yielder, I pulled 1.2g/pw with 6 of them around a 600w back in 2009ish, best ran for 11 weeks. Once finished she is pure lemon, fuel, candy, haze! Absolutely beautiful. True's Casey Jones cut is another big stretcher, she yields even more than SSSDH, but her aroma is much different, smells kind of like a hospital floor and has a nutty smell as well, it's delicious, even know I've probably made it sound horrible lol but no it's a really addictive aroma for sure. She is quicker though, I used to pull her at 9 weeks, True told me shes ready at that stage, I agree.

So just bear it in mind man that these girls are gonna stretch big time on ya, keep pinching and bending.

I can post up a few pics of the moms if you want to see.

Peace,
HGO

PS Congrats on the promotion!

Hundred Gram Oz said:

Looking forward to this one man. Vegging under horizontal is fine, I usually keep my clones under horizontal lights for the first few weeks then another couple around the bulbs. Coco is also an awesome medium, what size of pot are you using?

I've grown both of the parents of OJD's Sour Haze. His SSSDH is a stretchy girl for sure but with a good veg and a lil training she is an awesome yielder, I pulled 1.2g/pw with 6 of them around a 600w back in 2009ish, best ran for 11 weeks. Once finished she is pure lemon, fuel, candy, haze! Absolutely beautiful. True's Casey Jones cut is another big stretcher, she yields even more than SSSDH, but her aroma is much different, smells kind of like a hospital floor and has a nutty smell as well, it's delicious, even know I've probably made it sound horrible lol but no it's a really addictive aroma for sure. She is quicker though, I used to pull her at 9 weeks, True told me shes ready at that stage, I agree.

So just bear it in mind man that these girls are gonna stretch big time on ya, keep pinching and bending.

I can post up a few pics of the moms if you want to see.

Peace,
HGO

PS Congrats on the promotion!

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Thank you for taking the time to stop by my friend, your work is very impressive and I'm honored to have you around for the show.

Right now they're in solo cups and the initial transplant will be into a 2 gal grow bag -- assuming 6 females (which is ideal for my plans) I will probably end up in a 4gal bag for the rest of their life. I like bags a lot but if there is a good suggestion for another container I'm all ears.

I know these bitches are gonna stretch especially if I get the SSSDH leaning phenos...I'm thinking I may want to flip those a bit earlier than the other crosses. Since I only currently have 4 seedlings above the surface for the SHJ, I'm guessing I'm not going to end up with a lot of females for this cross anyways, sadly enough.

Yeah, I typically go horizontal for a couple of weeks until we're at a few nodes and then I'll toss them in under just one vert 400w in this case for a week or two, then light both up.

My thought is that I will have the screen that will cover 5/6 girls, but there will be one girl next to the door for the tent that I won't be able to use a screen for since I will need to open the tent (well, I could, but it would be a pain in the ass I think). For that one I'm going to do all my torture chamber testing and supercrop the shit out of it, basically try to break it down to the perfect shape without any extra help from zip ties/twist ties/all the other stuff I usually use when not using a screen. (See: my last documented 400w grow in my sig)


Thanks again for the help everybody and I can't wait to see what these genetics can do.

Also...only 4/11 Sour Hazy Jones have broken the surface. At this point I'm just going to assume that the rest were not viable...they'll stay around in the tent to see if they eventually decide to show up but I'm not counting on it at all. So it looks like the final female count will definitely include the 2 Strawberry Cough x The White and 2 GDP x Casey and hopefully at least one from the Cheesedog and Sour Hazy Jones camp

Hey brah... Hope you well...
Any more of your beans broke the surface yet??
All the best...
Smelly...

yeah man, wasn't gonna update til I had something of substance. Have 6 above surface now, the rest are gonners I think, but I'll keep them under the seedling light and see what happens. The other 7 beans were placed in rapid rooters on the evening of the 13th and are on track judging by what they looked like this morning, should be breaking the top by tomorrow. Definitely reminded me why I love rapid rooters so much, talk about idiot proof.

Sorry this thread sucks right now, I promise it will be worth a look once things get rolling thanks for checking in brotha

Hey brah, 6 hey... oh well its better than nothing hey[just tryna be optimistic...] Yeah update us on how an when the others break, Im keen to keep a close eye on your gemination process... also those genetics
aaaahhhh yeah thread dosent suck.... if you want one of those, look no further than mine....
Best wishes brah.... :friends: An heres to those other 7 rapid rooters do their trick by the am....
Smelly

2 of the 6 SHJ (the last two to come up) are ugly as hell and look like they want me to put them out of their misery...in fact, all 6 are looking like they've seen better days. Clearly starting seeds in coco is something I have yet to master. Seeing healthy roots poking through the bottom so they're alive, just not thriving. I'm letting them dry out pretty thoroughly and then hitting them with a "flush" (not really a flush, just pHed plain water) to see what the deal is. Just for shits and giggles I ran a bit of the VERY weak nutrient solution I was using originally (basically just using it to get the pH to 5.6-5.8 range) through one of the two that look really bad and the runoff was right at pH 5.6 with an EC of .6, so seems to be in range with what it should be. Surely that tiny amount of nutrient solution isn't burning it up, is it? I guess I'll find out in a couple of days. Either way, if they don't look better in a couple of days they're going to get tossed into some LW or something similar until they get their shit together and can graduate to coco. So much for KISS, huh? oh well

In the mean time, the Cheesedog seeds are struggling a bit but the Strawberries n Cream and the Rainbow Jones beans have been sprouting with vigor and are looking just fine...one RJ already poking roots through the RR, the rest not far behind. Last night I dropped 3 Cheese n Chaze (another CSJ pack) and one each of some freebies I had - 710 Genetics Mango, 710 Cheese, Cali Connection Grape OG, and VisionSeeds ChocoLoco...all fems. Definitely not the mix I had in mind but I'm really just hedging my bets here. Obviously going to be a little crowded if I get even a couple of females from the reg seeds in play thus far, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Considering setting up another old tent just to have a little breathing room and play around with a few that I don't care a lot about to do some "torture testing." This time around, these guys will be rooted in RRs and then thrown into a light soil mix like Light Warrior before the transplant to coco a la my usual method -- not taking any more chances until I really learn what I'm doing with starting in coco.

If anybody has any suggestions for seed starting in coco (I swear, I've read every post on the internet and I've yet to find an answer to what the issue is with mine) I would love to read them. This slow start is reminding me that no matter how long you've been around there is always much to learn.