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A PPK for a 12 Plant Limit

p5150

New member
hey Super....you said ask, so i'm askin! I've been reading up on the PPK systems as that is the direction i'm going. I'm a novice when it comes to growing but ive been building(contractor) for 30 years. In my quest for PPk knowledge i stumbled onto your thread, and im very interested in the vert radiused scrogg you where showing...would you mind giving a more in depth start to finish explanation so that a new guy can come correct the first time???
 

SuperWeed

Member
hey Super....you said ask, so i'm askin! I've been reading up on the PPK systems as that is the direction i'm going. I'm a novice when it comes to growing but ive been building(contractor) for 30 years. In my quest for PPk knowledge i stumbled onto your thread, and im very interested in the vert radiused scrogg you where showing...would you mind giving a more in depth start to finish explanation so that a new guy can come correct the first time???

Now that is a good question. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the process, but in a nutshell - follow these steps.

Learn the basics of horticulture. There is no magic in a bottle. The magic is in knowing what a plant wants. Here's a story that brings the point home.

The Chinese government was trying to grow rice indoors. They had studied the plant and knew how to meet every need. The right nutrient formula, media, container, water temp, everything. But the rice wouldn't grow. Nothing worked.

Desperate, the government called in a real rice farmer. Not a scientist, but someone who had worked the fields his whole life. The gave him a tour of the facility and asked him why the rice wouldn't grow. Within minutes, he had an answer.

"There is no rain."

The rice needs to receive some of it's nutrients and water uptake through the leaves as the fields are often flooded.

We run into this all the time. There are growers out there who are going against God and all plant science and are still doing well. I'm not gonna lie, I don't know everything. But I bet I have forgotten more than most will ever bother learning.

Cannabis is C3. That means there are environmental optimums, which according to science, we can use to force the genome expression we like the most. Learn how to use technology to control these environmental variables, and you are a master. No pebble snatching needed. I just saved you 15 years and a whole lot of hassle.

Co2 PPM: 1200 ppm(greenhouse best practices seems to be 900-1000) Seems to be the point at which plants first evolved.

Par: 1100-1200 umol seems to be about right. I defer to Spurr and Delta9 on this. I have double checked their math against other data I have researched, and they are on point.

PH: depending on medium, 6.0-6.4 has given me amazing results from veg to flower.

Watering Schedule: DWC works. However, cannabis didn't evolve in lots of water like rice did. I think the best weed comes out of coco. I don't like using a medium, anymore than the next guy, but coco has too many positives. As long as it stays perfectly moist (PPK does this), coco is the perfect medium for air/water holding capacity and root growth. IMHO. Pulse irrigation is at this point, the superior way to water, scientifically. More often, just till runoff.

Fert PPM: Less is better. PERIOD. If the plant doesn't show a deficiency, run at 600 ppm. Drain to waste. No need to recirculate. I can see the attraction, but it's more moving parts. Success is simplicity. I'm running 130ppm TDS in a U.C. and the plants look amazing. Unless you can do leaf assays, less is more.

Canopy temperature: To fully take advantage of the increased CO2 levels, the leaf temperature should be 86f.

Air velocity: I think a lot of growers have it wrong. They have fans blowing so hard that the plants show wind damage. There is no need for this when you manage your canopy. Period. I used two floor fans for laminar-type flow, blowing the co2 back up. The tropics don't tear your skin off. NO MOLD EVER.

Root Zone Temperature: Tomato grows best when the root zone temperature is 86f. At the time of this show, I set my water temp to 70f. In the future, I am going to continue running a zone type product and run my feed water at 78-86 and see what happens. In DWC, this would not work. I think this is one of the long-term disadvantages of growing in water.

RH/VPD I try to stay to the dry side of the VPD charts. The plants have a wide range of tolerances. So about 50-60 in veg and between 60-70 in flower. Right till the end. I don't want my plants to stop generative growth. I dont lower the temps and humidity at the end of the cycle. I want as much weight as I can get. Let someone else lose money to make their bud purple. Smoke mine. Smoke theirs. You'll be back. Every time. Because unless the cops come, these systems are pretty foolproof.

If you want to get good at just the canopy part:

1. Research NugBucket's Mainline method. Get good at it. Study bonsai and espalier, after you get good at it. It won't take long. Just do as much as you can do to build between 16 and 32 heads for a 1kw light, as early in the plant's life as possible. I make my first mainline top, not at 3 nodes, but when I take the cutting. I want the plant to be a little bonsai tree as soon as possible. It makes life easier, later.

2. Know the strain. Use cannastats to calculate your stretch.

3. Veg the bush until it is high enough to reach the tips of your canopy screen, when the branches are laid down.





As she grows up the cage, prune back the suckers, like tomato or grapes. You want your branches to grow nuggets, not branches. IF that makes sense So, I like to top each side branch, as if I were mainlining the branch. Keeping only the nuggets closest to the branch, thus making a huge cola. This picture is an example of what not to do. Too many side branches growing up, crowding the cola.



Your veg time will depend on the strain, but with some work, you can calculate it down to the day with certain strains.

I love Dosatron, but I used the wrong units. I would call them and ask what they recommend for Jacks. I use a zone product called UpTake by Pace 49 chemicals. I built this grow with no money. I only had two portable 14,000btu ac's tied into the houses main ac. My temps and humidity was all over the place. Still killed it, because for the majority of the time, the environmental variables were dialed in. Imagine what I will be able to do, when I can control everything. 4lb, 5lb? :dance013:

If you are trying to build a show, exactly like this, with the same number of plants and lights, hit me up with a pm.

Can someone tell me why I'm still broke?

Edit - I ramble. I will put together a grow journal. I will have to draw some pictures and steal pics from other sites. But I will put together a user manual, so to speak.

Double Edit - how does one go about finding investors? I'm ready to take this method to way more than 42 lights.
 
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SuperWeed

Member
Btw - there is another "version" of main-lining. It's a clever deviation that I see in nature, all the time. I have used it to grow in this method, but it seemed that the branches didn't weigh in the same as when a true main-line was implemented. One of my main goals is to calculate the weight to the cola. I want to know what my paycheck will be, ahead of time. Just like any other business.

However, it is clever and it might be a good way to get started, more quickly.
 

Hookah79

Active member
Awesome info SW!!! Appreciate the knowledge shared among us.

I've been reading about ppk for the longest.Delta and other's grow journals are no doubt helpful,but i am still lacking the fundamentals of running a 30 plus pot setup.Not even sure if it's even doable.I too would like to dump the nutes in a reservoir and go on vacation ...
 

p5150

New member
thank you super:woohoo:i appreciate both your time and knowledge. I also appreciate your pm offer but at the rate i'm posting.....
 

p5150

New member
not trying to reinvent... just out of curiosity!! would would be the advantages/disadvantages of doing two plants with 16 sites each covering 180* of cage???
 

Buddler

Well-known member
Veteran
Waiting on my order!



Ohio...



I'm still here.



Well said.



Thank you!



Secrets... It's all pretty simple. Jacks, tap, coco, ph 6.3 (w/out adjusting), wick, drain buckets, dosers, sterile, mainline = HUGE FUCKING PLANTS. :woohoo:

Buddler, what can I help you with? I am happy to help!
Hey Super do I need to answer that lmao :bigeye: B
 

simbolic

New member
Long time lurker, first time posting. SW, I am very interested in your setup.

I have participated as a passive partner in a venture that has ultimately failed and gained nothing but some equipment. My hope is that you can supply a list of necessaries to get started with my own PPK to duplicate with around 6 plants instead of 12 or 24.

Currently, I have a bunch of lighting and other stuff which includes one 1kw hood and ballast, 400w hood and ballast, 357w LED light, 10 5.8gal air pots, simple digital timer and some seeds.

Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!
 

SuperWeed

Member
Awesome info SW!!! Appreciate the knowledge shared among us.

I've been reading about ppk for the longest.Delta and other's grow journals are no doubt helpful,but i am still lacking the fundamentals of running a 30 plus pot setup.Not even sure if it's even doable.I too would like to dump the nutes in a reservoir and go on vacation ...

It is doable. I plan to do it with thousands of plants. I just need a motivated investor.

Superweed!!!!
thanks!

Even a Master came to visit. Thank you sir.

thank you super:woohoo:i appreciate both your time and knowledge. I also appreciate your pm offer but at the rate i'm posting.....

No problem. Write down every question you have and go post them in the appropriate forum. You will get answers. See which ones make the most sense. You will get to 50 posts in no time. Do an introduction thread and link it back here. Say hi to GuineaPig. I haven't since I've been back.

not trying to reinvent... just out of curiosity!! would would be the advantages/disadvantages of doing two plants with 16 sites each covering 180* of cage???

Good question... I can see a couple issues. More plants. More work. More media. More tubing. More labor. More almost everything.

Here's how I would do it. Visit Darpa's grafting thread and get good at root/stalk grafting and join the two plants into one, while they are small and use more media/longer veg time and watch the magic happen. You gain the benefit of two independent root zones while maintaining the ease of one plant maintenance. I know, I'm a genius. :biggrin: I haven't done this, but I have flowered out multiple strains grafted to one plant. I should have taken more pictures. Don't make that mistake folks. Take pictures. Journal everything. Leave it to your kids.

See guys, I built this methodology, so that anyone with discipline could follow it. The most discipline is required when the plant is small. Bonsai is key. I'm serious. Shape the plant early. Graft her early. Then let her do the work later without stalling her with extreme "defoliation".

Hey Super do I need to answer that lmao :bigeye: B

"Ask and ye shall receive"

:tiphat:well said.

only thing I still need to learn/understand is par measurement. any suggestions on a good meter?

I and other farmers I trust have had good success with Quantum meters. Measurement is in umol (micromoles). We want about 1200 during full flower, 700 during veg as a minimum. So that limits the size of your circular canopy. Test the bulbs and build the cage accordingly. I make my cages a little large, because you can wrap them back around themselves, making them smaller, without blocking light. This way we could swap between 600 and 1000.

Long time lurker, first time posting. SW, I am very interested in your setup.

I have participated as a passive partner in a venture that has ultimately failed and gained nothing but some equipment. My hope is that you can supply a list of necessaries to get started with my own PPK to duplicate with around 6 plants instead of 12 or 24.

Currently, I have a bunch of lighting and other stuff which includes one 1kw hood and ballast, 400w hood and ballast, 357w LED light, 10 5.8gal air pots, simple digital timer and some seeds.

Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!

Welcome!

Do you want to duplicate the whole process, limited to 6 total plants? Yes? This will take a little rework of the process and some time to develop super/production mom and bonsai'd production plants (Lets make up a new name for the trees we are building. Something of a cross between bonsai and cannabis... anybody out there good with words?). With the equipment you have, we would want to do things a lot different. Are you planning on buying anything else? In my mind's eye, there are a few ways we could do it, depending on a few factors...........

I will dedicate some time to it. I would like for you to journal your grow, start to finish. Then we could talk about things in your thread. So as to keep it tight and not confusing? Sound good? We could invite Delta9 to participate. I am having lunch with him tomorrow and I will ask his opinion.
 
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SuperWeed

Member
You know, at one point I had built a tiny cage and had my SuperMom around it, with a cfl hanging in the middle. She grew so bushy, so fast, that I had to leave her off to the side in low light conditions, to slow her down. I was only there two days a week, max. Noone else was allowed to touch her, lol!

Point - this method can be done on a small scale with any bulb that can be hung vertical.
 

Mr Blah

Member
You know, at one point I had built a tiny cage and had my SuperMom around it, with a cfl hanging in the middle. She grew so bushy, so fast, that I had to leave her off to the side in low light conditions, to slow her down. I was only there two days a week, max. Noone else was allowed to touch her, lol!

Point - this method can be done on a small scale with any bulb that can be hung vertical.
In the past I have tried putting a CFL around a plant like you described but for some reason it is a start to a slow death for me....wonder why?
Do your leaves start showing signs of dying when you do that?
 

SuperWeed

Member
Cmon SW its time to show some more of your secrets . Bud

I live based on a couple suppositions, which one could, for the sake of argument, call secret. Because at the end of the day, most people aren't ready for the Red Pill.

1. The Force is real. The Force is knowledge and the practical application of that knowledge. Ignorance is not bliss. Knowledge is the beginning of power.

2. We live in the Matrix.

You can have anything you want out of life, if you help enough other people get, what they want.

God, Nature, The Universe, all of us, We Are One. This includes you, elite godheads, and you untouchable caste. Do unto others, and see how fast the world turns around.

The Law of Attraction is real. I don't know how it works, it's above my pay grade. What matters isn't knowing how it works, but knowing that it works and knowing how to use it. And as much as I want to know all of it, sometimes maybe I don't. This is why:

There is no Light Side or Dark Side of The Force. There is only The Force.

There is only the good side or the dark side of our own nature.

That means very wealthy and powerful people in our world have very dark natures, and until they see what is possible, then the world will stay evil. We will continue to have war and poverty and famine. In a world where we all have supercomputers in our pockets.

Choose The Light. Think about everything you say. Never hit. Hitting never works. The reason we have so much police violence is because we were taught that hitting was ok. Decades of war has ruined this country. PTSD case upon PTSD case, child abuse, domestic abuse, suicide, depression, all caused as collateral damage of a war on this or on that. Remember, you may never see that person again. And in 100 years, we will all be gone. Do Unto Others, As You Would Have Them Do Unto You. And watch what happens in your life. The Christians call it being saved. I call it, a better life.

Read Napoleon Hill. Read David Icke. Read Bob Proctor. Listen to Jim Rohn, "Your Best Year Ever" on YouTube. Those 4 hours changed my life. Read Dale Carnegie. Read Peter Drucker. Read Jim Rogers. Read Leil Lowndes. Read Stephen Hawking. Read Conspiracy Theories. Read Ayn Rand for the love of God. Read Rupert Sheldrake. Read Huston Smith. Read the Bible, front to back. Read The Bhagavad Gita, the Torah, The Koran, The Talmud, The Upanishads, Read, Read, Read, Read and study the sciences. Math, Geometry, Probability Theory, Chemistry. Push yourself. Your brain has an infinite capacity for knowledge. With experience, it will bring wisdom. There is so much I still want to know.

And know yourself. We talk about knowing our strains, all the time on these forums. But how often do we talk about knowing ourselves? Maybe a system isn't right for you. Maybe a technique isn't enough complexity. As I said, we live in the Matrix. I prefer simplicity, because that is what the genius of our world have told us works best. Occam's Razor. Einstein. Simplify. We weren't meant to have 5000 items in our living rooms. Simplify. Grow more.

And most of all, Think. "Think, and Grow Rich".

I have more, but the weed is wearing off.
 

SuperWeed

Member
In the past I have tried putting a CFL around a plant like you described but for some reason it is a start to a slow death for me....wonder why?
Do your leaves start showing signs of dying when you do that?

I used a really powerful CFL. I think it was 200w? Real big, specialty socket. My buddy ran a grow store, sold it and moved. I got a bunch of weird stuff like that. It had it's own hood and everything. Hydrofarm, I think.
 

gorilla ganja

Well-known member
Hey SuperWeed, this thread is quickly becoming a super thread.

I hope I can pick up all your laying down.

Just wondering if you have some more pics of your production moms.
I understand the process. I've used the technique outside in the bush to increase root mass and not so much to separate off individual branches.

I know it's probably tough to get a clear pic of all that is going on. Is the mom in the middle with pots all around to start the branches in? You must train the mom for awhile first to get several branches about the same size?

I like your simplistic methods that are pure genius.

Peace GG
 
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SuperWeed

Member
Hey SuperWeed, this thread is quickly becoming a super thread.

I hope I can pick up all your laying down.

Just wondering if you have some more pics of your production moms.
I understand the process. I've used the technique outside in the bush to increase root mass and not so much to separate off individual branches.

I know it's probably tough to get a clear pic of all that is going on. Is the mom in the middle with pots all around to start the branches in? You must train the mom for awhile first to get several branches about the same size?

I like your simplistic methods that are pure genius.

Peace GG

No. This is one of my biggest regrets. I did not take pictures. And this show was raided in Jan '15. I am growing according to someone else's ideas right now, in the UnderCurrent with a flat canopy.

Let me draw out a production mom, as best as I can.



Main-Lining is key. You want 2 tops. Then you pull them apart like you are making a two pronged fork. I grow them real tall, keeping just about 700umol, so they stretch green with good internodal spacing, then i lay them over. Once a branch will reach a pot, air layer it, let it grow roots, main-line it. When ready to flower, cut it off the main branch and repeat.

This is a pain in the ass and there are a lot of inherent difficulties, but it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVhO3JO5F1k
 

Aspenou812

Well-known member
Veteran
AHHHH look what i found..... awesome thread...... I use to read overgrow religiously i never grew then or posted but i was a super lurker..... Back in a time when all things CANNA were taboo..... that was so sad so very sad at the time there was no other internet outlet like OVERGROW that i ever knew of..... all that knowledge and information lost that was a big setback for me and a huge setback for all things CANNA in America, Im now doing with Ic Mag what i wanted to do with Overgrow all those years ago. I have a great mentor and friend helping me and keeping me straight lmfao.... and several digital friends advising me and pulling for me. what a great way to learn and grow with these magical plants....
 

SuperWeed

Member
AHHHH look what i found..... awesome thread...... I use to read overgrow religiously i never grew then or posted but i was a super lurker..... Back in a time when all things CANNA were taboo..... that was so sad so very sad at the time there was no other internet outlet like OVERGROW that i ever knew of..... all that knowledge and information lost that was a big setback for me and a huge setback for all things CANNA in America, Im now doing with Ic Mag what i wanted to do with Overgrow all those years ago. I have a great mentor and friend helping me and keeping me straight lmfao.... and several digital friends advising me and pulling for me. what a great way to learn and grow with these magical plants....

Welcome my dear. :) I hope you find something useful.
 

gorilla ganja

Well-known member
Well I wrote out a post last night but i guess I was to stoned to hit the post reply button.

I think I understand the production mom set up. The drawing helped a lot.

Can you keep the rooted branches attached as long as you want or do they rot off of the mom, for lack of a better term, after they are rooted? Whats the longest you have kept a rooted branch attached?

It is a brilliant way to reduce plant count and allow veg growth till ready for flower.Turning one plant into at least 9 plants, 10 if you include the mother.

This really gets my mind going as to the different possibilities.

Peace GG
 

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