McPpk

av8or said:

With that space, I think you're probably plenty good on lateral growth. When that girl fills out, she'll easily take up a third of that room at this rate! Looking great, brother. Super healthy!

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Hey Av, wish I would have listened to you brother. was going to do my last re-tie session today when I snapped one of the laterals. I've taped it back but am not very hopeful... so anyway finished retieng the rest without incident. i think that was an omen. will start letting them grow up again while restraining them at the bend for a while.

damn i hate that, was going pretty well also just a wee bit too much pressure on a stiff one and critch... oh fuck....

My tallest is still the GLP at 20" today but the SWD is really starting to stretch and catch up. SWD is 18-19" tall. CK is 15" and the CC is short.. no more than 8" tall but it is the oldest and letting it grow up it would be 15-17 right now i bet.

Not sure but I should probably flip soon Av, what you think? i cant do 6' wide treebushes like you so I'm not exactly sure when to pull the switch.

McKush said:

My tallest is still the GLP at 20" today but the SWD is really starting to stretch and catch up. SWD is 18-19" tall. CK is 15" and the CC is short.. no more than 8" tall but it is the oldest and letting it grow up it would be 15-17 right now i bet.

Not sure but I should probably flip soon Av, what you think? i cant do 6' wide treebushes like you so I'm not exactly sure when to pull the switch.

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I know it's really strain dependent but to give you an example, my last three lemons were all 24" when I flipped them. Now they're all 5' tall and wide and look to weigh around 20 ounces or so. My only concern would be the little 8 incher. I'd probably wait till I'm getting explosive growth then flip immediately. I get between an inch or two a day when things are really cranking.

Today 6/3



picture of the SWD 18-19" tall. really getting lanky compared to the others. I should note that the SWD really took off after an adjustment to the float level in the control. the air gap was at about 5" and I raised water to 4" air gap.

McKush said:

Hey Av, wish I would have listened to you brother. was going to do my last re-tie session today when I snapped one of the laterals. I've taped it back but am not very hopeful... so anyway finished retieng the rest without incident. i think that was an omen. will start letting them grow up again while restraining them at the bend for a while.

damn i hate that, was going pretty well also just a wee bit too much pressure on a stiff one and critch... oh fuck....

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Oh no! Man I've been there. One time I even dropped a bank of t5s on a beautifully mainlined Jillybean and snapped her all to hell. I could have cried. Live and learn, though. The biggest problem with training this way is lower laterals bearing weight. I've found that allowing the topped branches to maintain more of an obtuse angle to the would-be meristem that it allows for a much greater load bearing plant. I'm trying to make the plant weight force itself inward onto it's own branches instead of having the laterals hopefully withstand the weight of the developing buds instead of snapping from being trained too far laterally and not enough vertically. Using trellis netting seems to help, as well. Basically, for every inch of lateral growth, I ensure the plant gets at least the same in vertical growth. I'll try to photo document this with a plant coming up.

av8or said:

I know it's really strain dependent but to give you an example, my last three lemons were all 24" when I flipped them. Now they're all 5' tall and wide and look to weigh around 20 ounces or so. My only concern would be the little 8 incher. I'd probably wait till I'm getting explosive growth then flip immediately. I get between an inch or two a day when things are really cranking.

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5' tall is no problem with my ceiling but its pretty close to the max i'd want to go. this system has raised my planter height much higher than with coco dtw. not going to be able to grow tall sativas with a 10' ceiling and a fixture that needs 33-36+ inches.. I'll switch to vert lighting style if I ever want to go taller. right now this epap kills it for me tho.

your growth rate is much better than mine if you are getting 1" at the same time I'm getting ~.5" (not sure where your plants are age wise when your getting 1"). my water frequency is probably a big part of that i wager. i'm watering 7x day roughly 3 hrs apart, if I go to a cycle timer and flood once every 90min then maybe my growth rate can be improved...? i've been trying to be conservative in watering since you mentioned moisture consistency issues... perhaps with the 3" tail I have it will behave differently for me and 90 be ok... dunno.

CC update. Checked on the room this morn and the tip of the CC which I snapped yesterday and taped up with painters tape is bending up towards the light! I clipped off one fan leaf that dropped about an hour after the accident but that was it. This morning the rest of the leafs are drinking. coola.

Yeah, you're right. The 8822 never dried out well between 90 minute floods. Once the plants got bigger and the roots were taking up a lot more moisture, the issue apparently corrects itself but I sure had to nurse them to that point.

Well Kushy....When to flip , when to flip.....just like Av8or said as in strain dependent , "X" can be anything.....

I`d rather flip early and see where they end up by end of stretch than too late with mega pruning and hacking involved to keep em outta the lights but , the only wayta know is do it.....but....

You`re still in the process of building roots and foliage while dialing drying out between feeds to make em explode vertically AND sideways , so again......

Pull the trigger or wait....with that many different plants in such close quarters , all of em need to be at the same height from the lights down as you develop the horizontal canopy , and drop em down as needed without lollypoppin for depth penetration lights wise till end of stretch....aight....

Let the games begin.....learnins in the doin....good luck Kushy........handle it....

Peace....Freds.........

Been busy in the garden since last update. Plants are all doing fine. The GLP and the SWD are now at least 24". The SWD was 18-19" on 6/3 so about 5+ inches growth this past week.

Have been on the fence whether to keep the SWD (see pic above) or replace it with the back up CK I'm keeping. It is pretty slim and not nearly as vigourous as the others, but it is 65/35 sat/ind so I think that is ok.

I've got the epap up to 750w setting. Got rid of the old 7 program timer which could only time to a minute at the shortest and replaced it with a CT-1 cycle timer. I shortened the feeding cycle to 45 seconds every 2:00 but the plants seem just a tad too wet, was hoping the increased light would balance out but that may not happen. That took me from 7 waterings to 12 daily. So I just increased the interval to 2:30 and 45 second flood and I will monitor those results and adjust if necessary, so at ~9.6 waterings per 24h. Every 3:00 hours for 1min was working well for them and I may end up back there if necessary.

Got some valves and fittings that I'm going to install this week some night also. I'm getting the first three sites to flood at 45sec but the last site #4 never floods. So I want to get them even.

Speaking of floods... nice surprise this week during my morning check. opened the FR door to see site #4 trickling water out the feed line. oh WTF! Either I bumped the 7 program digital timer or the storms that night somehow made the timer change, but somehow my pump ran till it pumped out the res. No idea how but I was working in there the night before, so...? Anyway that is what prompted the change to the CT-1. Screw me once and I lose trust in that component. It was something I was meaning to do anyway. First and I hope last pump down. argh.

No change in feed strength, 600ppm. All plants are green and tender, lovin it.

Temps in the low/mid 80's during lights on. Good enough for the state of my AC.

Did a lot of construction work in the FR this weekend. Built a dedicated Veg Room on the ledge and am close to having that complete. Just some ventilation work and Orca then seal any light leaks left with caulk and I'll be set. hope to finish this VR asap this week so I can flip my 4 plants in the McPpk's. Going to use 6" passive intake and 4" windtunnel exhaust pulling thru a 4" CF. The room dimensions are 3x4x5 so about 60cuft. Plenty of room for my needs. Will post some pics later, but it is shaping up.

Pic from 6-7 this weekend

pic from yesterday 6-11

construction pics of the Veg Room. I have a few more things to do in the VR then I'll move either the SWD which is spindly or the CK into the VR then flip the FR. The plants are getting way big and will get monster size unless I flip soon. As usual construction takes forever.

Also going to install some valves and even the flow to site 4 (bottom right next to VR)



Those power lines will be routed thru the VR and not left lying like that (I don't leave a power line on the floor for sure)

Also will be running the Dehumi drain and power thru the VR along the wall.

Room dimension again is 3x4x5. Plenty of room for veg for my needs.

Looking good MK whats next clones and flip ? plants are looking nice and healthy. Are you liking the PPK thing ? B

Hey Bud. Thanks for the kind words. I would like to take clones but dont know much about it yet. I havent had a proper vr so never had the ability to grow them out. Thats now been remedied im happy to report. Did a massive push this weekend to finish the vr and tie up some other loose ends. Vr is in use finally. Moved in the backup critical kush this morn. Yee haw as it were.

Ill post up some picks soon.

But yeah mon time to flip. They are getting pretty big now and im very much past due i think. Had to get the vr done tho and im ocd as hell.

Im still struggling with how best to support them. Ive got some bamboo so may build them for now. Dont know how well it will work tho. Any ideas?

How do i clone a plant where the laterals are not very long? The cotton candy is going to be bud city so that one is easy not sure about the others tho. Seems like i would be cutting off the entire stem or lateral..

Totally satisfied with how the vr turned out. Me likey.

Oh btw im loving the McPpks! Combined with ro and jacks and calcnit it is a great system. Now you know i dont have much experience but the plants are near perfect as im going to get for a long while. Not a hint of any issue or nute burn. Have never even checked ph. They all thrive. Im not jockeying water all the time and stressing over it. I installed valves today and equalized the pressure to all 4 sites. Im getting a full flood @ 45 secs. Feeding 8822 every 2:30. Love em. Awesome system umho. Big tho, tubs are 20" wide and sit on buckets so a bit taller than i would like. I could fit two more in but dont want that much. Going to relocate the exhaust run to the top sometime in the future when the mood strikes and i can schedule it.

My room is really starting to pull together.

My problem is likely going to be in the space and support area. Three of them are going to be monsters. The fourth is the samsara spicy white devil which is the tallest and fastest stretched now. Starting from last it has started to shoot. Very spindly tho and i thought about culling it or sending it back to veg while i run the ck2.

Next will be working on the lung room and getting it a little more presentable.

Funny you mention the RO water. I actually had more problems with it than without it. I live in a normal metropolitan area with city water that contains chloromine but I found that the ph after filtration through the kdf85 filter was highly unstable. Then again, that was when I was first starting to grow weed at all....you know...8 months ago. But for the last 5 months I've been using my tap water and the plants are a boomin'! Have you experienced any ph fluctuations, Brother Kush?

Hi Av, wow your comments about PH drift in RO/Jacks+Calcnit really surprised me. I live in a rural setting and we have a small water utility that serves about 500+ homes. They do a great job and every year I get a water quality report. That said we live on a shit ton of limestone. My water is 500-700 PPM out of the tap so by adding the jacks/calcnit I would be in the 1100-1300 PPM range. I grew DTW in the 1200PPM range so tap+jacks/calsnit would probably work for me too but my results with RO are way ahead of what I was doing with tap + maxi in DTW imho.

I haven't checked PH a single time yet. I have a good enough PH pen also (oakton) but I resolved not to use it unless I start having a problem with this grow and need the diagnostics. Not knowing the PH means I don't have to think or worry about it or jack with yet another thing, but also I keep reading that RO+jacks/calcnit needs no PH adjustment and that it was formulated for RO water to be as such. Don't know, don't know if that is true but I'm a gonna find out on this grow.

Aerating water will generally raise the PH, you think that is what is happening? Don't recall if you are running CO2 also, didn't think so. We both aerate our water when the pump runs but I'm not running C02. I don't think that has any real bearing as maybe my water has PH fluctuation also.

Hey, wait a minute, wrote all that above and then googled your filter KDF85. That's not an RO filter but maybe you have another system? I use a 75GPD capable 5 stage plus RO/DI filter from Bulk Reef Supply it makes the water look purty and gets it really clean. Could that be the reason?

Hmmmm.....so the kdf85 was added to the RO system, which leads me to believe that it's extra filtration, not in lieu of. The ppm out of the tap is only 155 but I wanted to get the chloromine out of the water. That's why I added the kdf85. After filtration the ppm is 5. Just 5. So it's working well!

The chloromine doesn't seem to have negatively affected the plants so I'm going to leave out the ro and kdf85 but I'm wondering if my ph problems were due to something entirely unrelated but in my inexperience I could have misdiagnosed the issue. It's likely, even! Either way, things are super stable now.

And yes, I run co2 (@ 800 ppm) with temps swinging from 82 to 75 day to night, rh 58% day and 50% night. This room is just about dialed. Just in time to finish a few more plants and tear it all down! Time to build better and bigger!

fuck me Av, i just typed you a page reply then lost it all. fucks sake i hate that. fuck me.