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Dwc vs flood and drain. Og, cookies, cheese, amnesia and more...

Crooked8

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Dwc @ 35 days

Dwc @ 35 days

Uk Cheese cut

Amnesia Haze

Big Buddha Cheese

Herojuana OG(smells awesome and stays really short)

GSC cut(not real, looks like i got played, pissed)
 

Crooked8

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The Light of OG

The Light of OG

Heres the Og light rocking out. I had to top a few, but it still looks like it will work out pretty well.

Tahoe OG(stays a lil shorter, would be producing more if it was directly under a light with a full canopy of its own kind around her)

Fire OG|Note: This cut is the best tasting Og ive ever smoked. It never produces that well....until now. She is stacking harder than ever and i attribute it to the drying out phases im giving the rockwool. That or lowering my ec a little is helping a lot. She stretched a lot as usual but damn did she stack tops. Check her

And heres an under canopy shot. I love the way these pumps blast everything around between the slabs. Its like a flowing raging river at all times when the pumps are on. They're loving it...

Thanks guys, The F&D is flushing now so ill post harvest time shots soon along with another DWC update.
 

hobb3s93

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Dam dude sucks bout the GSC. shit with hype like that i aint surprised , u know how it goes down here. atleast u got a real fire og!! ive prolly grown more fake ogs than real ones lol.

about the F&D tho: so letting rockwool dry out doesnt lead to ph imbalance like in coco?
how long of a dry period are we talking? one less feeding per day? shorter feeds ?
once again ive never flowered anything in rockwool so excuse my questions.

although this last run i did, i had rooted a couple clones in Hugo block kus i thought i was gna do a table of rockwool. but then i changed my mind and thru the rooted hugo into 3gal coco pot. those women all got very big although i did have some "lockout" issues with that tray. i was thinking bout trying it again

do u prefer slabs over blocks?
keep them pictures comming brudda , everything looks super fire, happy harvest, cheers
 

Crooked8

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Im only posting this thread to try to answer my own questions as well as others. Ask away buddy. I was unaware that allowing coco to dry out led to ph imbalance. I just base it kinda on my resivoir. If i flood at a certain ph and then i check it after and the ph is the same i feel the medium has to be in the correct ph zone. I havent encountered any lockout or deficiencies(other than the gdp but that was due to too intense of light right away). When i unplug the pumps ill give them as long as 3 days without water. Usually two days with the pumps off. Their floods are on a timer so they always get hit for 15 minutes. Checking the medium daily to see how moist it feels. Once i feel like it starts to lighten up in color just a bit, thats when i flood them again. Since doing this rooting is just insane at 1 week or 8 weeks. I use grodan delta8 (4x4x3) to start my plants in veg. Then i place them on top of the slabs when i flip and they go nuts. If youve never flowered anything in rockwool i suggest trying it at least once. Its so forgiving that an inexperienced grower could still kill it before even dialing it in. Rockwool flood trays are S I M P L E and they need very little maintenance if you set yourself up right. I maintain my resivoirs ph and top them off daily. However, i have left my tray for as many as 5 days without touching it, flooding once daily and everything still went great. If you dial rockwool in its really something awesome. I just feel it holds the perfect ratio of air/moisture. Its almost impossible to overwater. I coud go on and on. When i do flood i flood 1x per day in the flood and drain. Ive tried up to 4x a day with no difference. The differences have only been noticed lately since ive let em dry more.
 

stihgnobevoli

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sorry to thread jack, but what was that about the pH in coco? i just put some plants into a mix that was like 40-60% coco.
 

Crooked8

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Keep it going in and running off between 6.2 and 5.8 and you should be golden.
 

Crooked8

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So, im realizing the uk cut i have is throwing nanners in the dwc. Shit. I didnt notice any in the flood and drain! Weird as hell. Anyway, not happy about it but i figured hey maybe ill take a shot at using this pollen. So i tried crossing the uk pollen to the tahoe and the fire og on a couple lower buds. I literally just grabbed a bunch of the nanners, kinda smashed em in between my fingers and dropped/layed all the smashed material on top and around the outsides of a few ogs. I could def see viable pollen coming out ofnthe nanners onto my fingers. I think that cross would be sick. I dont think there is enough time for them to develop anyway so it may have been a waste of time who knows. I think they take at least 4 weeks to ripen from this point and im just shy of that by two days for harvest. Maybe ill get a decent few beans i can try out. Would paint some silver lining on the nanner situation.
 

hobb3s93

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i Dont wanna misquote anybody or be the start of bad information

but i believe dhf or some other coco pro was explaining on a thread here that letting your coco dry leads to it drying unevenly which can cause spikes in salt content in the dry part of ur medium which i beleve affects the ph or atleast the plants uptake of nutes. where as if u always keep it damp this phenomenon doesnt occur. and coco as with rockwool is very hard to over water so as u know more water =more nutes/air which is always a good thing.

but like i said i dont wanna pass out any bad info but i my experience with coco my first run i let dry out and only water every 1-3 days and the bud was good but the yeild was very shitty, this time a round i was feeding atleast once a day at some point twice and they got huuuge. but i think the drying out ph thing refers more to rootbound or full rooted plants because when u transplant u can let um dry out so the roots seek more.

and im down to try rockwool , itd definetly be my next choice because it is sterile.i am an INEXPERIECED grower so itd be awesome to throw um in sum slabs and kill it .the only thing that made me choose coco over rockwool was the fact i dont like the idea of the drippers running when im not in the room or more so awake lol. all about the space and the time as im sure u know.

hopefully u get sume cool seeds from ur banana scare. i cant say i ever smoked some cheese or uk cheese, she must be have somthing interesting about her though for u to run next to tahoe and fire :tiphat:

stingnobeli:: he said it man start um out at 5.8-5.9 in veg and end up at 6.1-.6.2 in (late) flower :worked for me:tiphat:

later hombres
 

Crooked8

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Im so torn when it comes to the constant feed/dry out idea. If a plant hasnt uptaken the water/nutes its been given why rewater it? This is what i was told by a master who hits 2.5 per. Then i know someone who runs a constant dwc that never drains and he has similar results. No idea what to think. I never hit 2+! They both do!
 

onthaherb

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I think it's because coco dtw needs to dry out so air can get to the roots where as in DWC the air is "delivered" via airstone. That's why you run tiny pots in coco - so you have many dry periods allowing fresh air to penetrate the coco fibers and refresh the roots. Not an expert but that is my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong. Plus I would think that a plant constantly running dry would create a thicker rootball than one that is "spoiled" so to speak.
 

Yes4Prop215

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sucks GSC was fake...it looks like an S1 maybe, or an OG kush. ive grown out a few s1 cookie beans and the leaf pattern is very similar.
 

Crooked8

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I think it's because coco dtw needs to dry out so air can get to the roots where as in DWC the air is "delivered" via airstone. That's why you run tiny pots in coco - so you have many dry periods allowing fresh air to penetrate the coco fibers and refresh the roots. Not an expert but that is my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong. Plus I would think that a plant constantly running dry would create a thicker rootball than one that is "spoiled" so to speak.

Ive had successful runs consistently since ive changed to hydro/rockwool. Ive tried many things, this hitting them way less often is new and i know some of my strains super well so i can see the differences. Ive never had happier plants. I think the idea that a spoiled plant has a smaller root system is correct. I had no idea how important dry and wet medium phases were. I knew the roots needed air but i thought rockwool always had enough. I was right, it had enough to do well but not enough to be dialed.
 

Crooked8

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sucks GSC was fake...it looks like an S1 maybe, or an OG kush. ive grown out a few s1 cookie beans and the leaf pattern is very similar.
Ive had a few people say it looks like an og and im pretty sure its not. I currently run two types of og and ive probably run 8-10 cuts of it in my life. This thing is way too hairy and doesn't stretch much at all compared to og. Its a shittièr producer too. The leaf pattern is similar but the theyre too skinny. Giving up on the cookies i think. I like other cuts more. Animal cookies(fire x gsc) looks promising but i still dont care that much anymore. This cookie craze will fade, but og will always be king i think. Just my opinion.
 

hobb3s93

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Im so torn when it comes to the constant feed/dry out idea. If a plant hasnt uptaken the water/nutes its been given why rewater it? This is what i was told by a master who hits 2.5 per. Then i know someone who runs a constant dwc that never drains and he has similar results. No idea what to think. I never hit 2+! They both do!

ya i get u man, i dont wanna jack ur thread to talk about coco but i feel like everytime i meet someone who does this professionally(not implying u dont) they have some methods that i feel wouldint work for me. guess its just having everything consistant and dialed and having good genetics???
keep doing ur thing man ill get out of ur hair
 

Crooked8

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I agree i really think everyone has a way to do this that suits them. Im just looking for my preference. So far recirculating is way better than dtw for me personally. Others swear dtw is the way but it just doesnt suit my setup. Maybe in a few years ill look back at my current setup and call myself a moron. Thats happened already hah
 

St3ve

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Sorry to jump in so late but I would like to help clear some things up for you.

You should NOT let coco dry out. It should stay moist at all times. The water/nutes that the plants uses isn't the problem, its what evaporates. When water evaporates, it leaves salt. The next time you water, the leftover salt is added making it get increasingly unbalanced. THis is why a lot of people use a layer of rock or hydroton or something as a top layer to the coco to assist in retention.

Roots do NOT get oxygen from drying out, they get their oxygen from the water. As you are watering, the air is hitting the stream and getting saturated with oxygen. The roots use it from the water, NOT from the air.

The only time you want to let it get a little drier (not dry, just not quite as moist) is when you are in early veg and trying to grow roots. Once the pot is filled with roots, you can just feed non stop if you want. Every watering delivers fresh oxygen to the roots which is what helps the plant to grow faster. This is why RDWC and Aeroponics can veg plants faster than most anything else. In those systems, the roots are getting fed fresh water with o2 constantly, as compared to other systems that only deliver it periodically. That is why coco is so popular.. it can hold less water, and allows you to use smaller pots, to be able to water more often and get faster growth.

Any other thoughts or questions about the differences let me know. I have experience with soil, rockwool, DWC, RDWC, Aeroponics, and Coco.
:tiphat:
 

Crooked8

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I agree with the salt build up being an issue. I dont run coco but ill tell you plants do get more air when they dry out and it is beneficial during their entire life. Check this thread and look at this guys results. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=257889 after you see how he crushes tell me if you still think rockwool shouldnt dry out :)
 

Crooked8

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Harvest shots

Harvest shots

63 Day Chop

GDP:


Uk Cheese cut(herms too much tossing it, smells awesome though):


ECSD(pretty sure its fake and also worthless so tossing her):
 
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