Vertical coco gutter's/ Round 1 disaster.

Day 49, gave some act again...day 50 will be the final watering with nutrients solution and then I will begin flushing with ro.

I have to be careful, top row is growing downwards and when the buckets are dryer the plant outweighs the bucket holding it in the gutter, I had one or two tipped over last night.. I gave them last fertilization at day 50 and if they keep going like this they will be harvested by day 58-60... I flush for 6-10 days when growing in coco and 10-14 days when growing in peat based soiless mixes. Find the coco easier and quicker to flush especially these tiny pots. I can give them a heavy room watering with plenty of runoff and they are thirsty for more the next day as with pro-mix you have to wait 3-4 + days in between heavy flushes. And about half as much rooted substrate to get rid of after you harvest so theses are nice advantages coco has over pro-mix and soiless mixes.

Put a little twist tie on the girls so they don't flop out on ya. Tie them to the gutter above, or Install a something to tie to. Super easy fix, n a lot better than coming into plants flopping out. When I did a style like urs that's what I did. I also installed some 4" fence on the front side of the gutters for the plants to grow thru n tie back too. That actually worked really well.

Yeah I was supposed to rig something up before they got this heavy but somehow I got overwhelmed with the daily maintenance and other stuff I have to take care. I got lucky because usually I do a scrog style and by the 5 week if they are not supported they start to fall over and collapse under the weight. I figure the simplest way would be to screw a screw above each top to the tongue and groove board above it then tie the top with a string or a wire..

The nets or chicken fence would be cool too especially if you want to pack all the available space with growth or use the gutters to do a vertical scrog.. So many different ways to do it.. Did you have the plants sitting flat on a shelf/gutter or did you have them growing at an angle miraculousmeds?? I'm thinking if I had the buckets sitting normally it would be much more simple to automate my waterings ..

And it's hard enough to get sprayers on a flat garden to water evenly what about when you are trying to get sprayers set at different heights to water evenly, water is kinda like electricity as it takes the path of least resistance so whichever row is at same height as pump and red will probably get the highest pressure and get more water then the gutter above it. Maybe I should post in the hydro section or diy section I'm not an irrigation expert.
Day 52

Day 52

I've planted at a slight angle n kept the pot flat, and I have built offset shelf frames so that the pot sat on the back shelf frame n rested on the front shelf frame. The gutter ran below n recirculated back to the res. I fed each level with it's own looped manifold, n separate small pumps, on the same cycle timer to feed evenly.

Yeah maybe I could plant at an angle and keep the bucket flat, problem with that is I have been vegging and growing them first 3 weeks I have them growing horizontally until the end of stretch to get them to grow tall rather than side ways which is what would happen if I vegged and started budding them directly in the gutter I presume ??? The only other vertical grows I've done are donuts where I would use 4 to 10 plants placed in a circle arround the light bulb, I did one or two harvests where everything was done vertically and I noticed they would not grow upwards to a good size unless I had the bottom of the bulb above the top of the plants.. But I also noticed without a reflector you don't get much light coming out of the endings of the bulbs, so keeping the bottom above the tops makes me feel like I'm wasting light on the walls. Maybe I should try it and see what happens.. I have so many plumbing fittings and pumps and irrigation timers and regular timers and solenoid valves that I probably won't have to buy anything except for hoses..
Having a pump for every level is a good idea, maybe I'll do that if I can't use what I have laying arround, I was thinking one pump, one red and obviously down no recirculating, but instead of having a single pump try to water everything and every level which is pretty much impossible unless each line going to a bucket would have it's own valve and even then you adjust one and the other 3 have pressure changes, so I tought I could hook the pump to an irrigation timer which controls 4 solenoids /4 irrigation zones, have the pump on timer and start then one by one each solenoid would open for the amount of time I program it for to water level by level one after the other.. I already have the irrigation timer, would b a bit cheaper to get 2 more solenoids I have 2/4 so at 25$ each it would be cheaper then buying 2-3 small pumps. Seems like that could work too. Just have to figure out how long according to plant growth to turn it on without wasting too much solution.

Not sure what day this was.. A few pics taken before lights on, about 6-7 days before harvest.

They were taken at day 59, they probably could have stayed a few more days to get the maximum weight possible but the space was needed and trichomes were just right, too amber and it goes from strong up high to more of a sedate/body buzz.

I'm currently moving this vertical gutter room to a new space and I will be making a few ajustements based on these past 2 harvests. I'm moving from a basement with 7'-5" of ceiling height to a room with 9+ feet of ceiling height and with more potential. Started setting up everything. The upcoming ladies are all PowerPlant and are in the same 1 gallon pots. I've realized that the clones planted in the 1,6 gallons pots of coco are generally bigger and healthier so the batch of clones rooting now will be planted in bigger pots and I will maybe replace the gutters with some multi level donuts or simply go back to horizontal