[Scottish Research]

Great thread AK!

You can really learn a lot here people. This is the reason I joined this site.

So the Chem daddy adds speed and potency to the mix. I now see the genius. Not sure why I overlooked this one.

A few questions:

Do you always space your plants like that?

How long is your light rail?

What kind of yield per plant do you expect in a keeper?

What base nutrients do you use? I'm currently using the Maxi series.

Do you ever get away for a vacation?

Really nice work AK! Thanks so much!

R.Fortune

[aerokrafter]

-Wizoo
I have a lengthy post about nutes rolling around in my head. There is so much snake oil, bullshit and outright misinformation out there when it comes to nutes, especially with the aeroflo. I promise to reveal all soon.

-R Fortune
Thanx for the kind words. I'll do my best to answer your questions:


Spacing

I checkerboard sites for several reasons:

In the cloner and using my methods, there is not enough room to get high quality clones to go up to 45 days if every site is full. If you are flowering 2" clones, its possible to put 2 clippings per site - just watch out for root entanglement.

In bloom once again its about space, light and quality. In the AeroFlo its possible to fill every site, however the resultant jungle becomes very difficult to manage and the quality of finished product suffers. In a scrog you are flattening out the plant to max out light, while with my method you are exploding the plant into plantlets - only producing the highest quality tops. It's really about how you will most efficiently use light.

Plant numbers. By topping and checkerboarding, I get the same number of tops - 36 - as a straight up SOG with twice the number of plants - while achieving much more control and higher quality results. Cutting the number of plants you have to deal with in half, while maintaining yeild and improving quality, is a pretty good deal - considering the only costs are 2 extra weeks in the vegger, and a little extra work from the grower. This becomes even more of an issue with multiple units.

Light Rail:

The light moves about 3'. It travels from edge to edge of the canopy with a small pause at each end. Adjusting this pause allows you to control the "dish" or "pillow" of the canopy. The flatter the canopy at the end - the better the results. This method gives me a 5' x 5' x 3' cube of great even light to work with.


Yeild:

Yeild is always second to buzz in my philosophy. That being said, at some point you have to pick what is worth your time and bloom room space. For me that minimum number for keepers is 1.7oz/plant average. This is just under 2lbs/1k - pretty respectable. My overall average goal is around 2.5. I expect to get around 2.5 with GDP. To get beyond these numbers requires special genetics. I found a plant that is just that. Next month I plan to start a run with the expressed goal of getting 5 lbs from 1k of light. It will be something new and challenging for me, and I plan to use every trick I know to pull it off.

Nutes:

Look for this soon. I am still thinking about how best to explain it all.


Vacations:

Yes - rarely! Growing at this level is like having dairy cows. Top off the rezes with RO water at lightrise, wait at least 4 hrs to measure and feed, and then deal with "the calving room" every day - the plants understand the concept of "weekend" about as much as cows. Some times I miss the "kiss" of dirt, but every time I open up the bloom room, the rush of sights and smells keeps me motivated to continue making it better.


-Hope this helps!

-AK

[talktosamson]

Originally Posted by woolybear

glad to see another doggy grower doing it right!

I've notice out of my 3 doggies, one cloned like a dream, with very vigourous clones,

the other two not as much... after a month 3/6 of the cuts havent rooted, but are still alive

luckily the good one smells like a dream and i do have rooted cuts of the other two phenos.... i'll tagging along

I also have a nice but very slow pheno of the doggy that refuses to want to clone. Like others have said almost a month to get roots, its insane. But my keeper pheno clones like a damn dream!!!

[aerokrafter]

Looks like I got lucky getting decent rooters! I must say that I feel extremely lucky finding the pursecandy pheno. Of course much of that "luck" has to do with the great cross CSG has pulled off.

[the gnome]

Originally Posted by talktosamson

I also have a nice but very slow pheno of the doggy that refuses to want to clone. Like others have said almost a month to get roots, its insane. But my keeper pheno clones like a damn dream!!!

I noticed they either root like hell or slow as hell
I have 3 and 2 rooted in plain water sitting off to the side in 10 days, nice long white filimentous type roots.
the other took 3+wks.
you could throw those 2 on the floor and they would root!
the majority of the GDPs are extremely vigorous

[Scottish Research]

Thanks AK for answering my questions.

To get beyond these numbers requires special genetics. I found a plant that is just that. Next month I plan to start a run with the expressed goal of getting 5 lbs from 1k of light

Interesting..... Wonder what that could be?

I also agree with you that the High or the quality of the intoxication should come first.

R.Fortune

[aerokrafter]

AeroFlo Tips n Trix Warning!

Nutes

In every gold rush, the majority of the money is not made by miners, but by shops, bars, cheats and hoes until large corporations take over and squeeze everyone out. Sounds pretty familiar to those in this green rush.

Nutes are the new patent medicines - they promise to cure everything for everyone, but rarely disclose whats in it. Customers get bottles with shiny hypnotic labels covered in crypto meta science, while the covered wagon trundels off in the night to the next town full of suckers.

Every one is on their own to figure out what works and how to use it. Communities such as ours help, but ultimately we all have to experiment to find what is best in our application.

So my plan is to show you what I use, what I found not to work, and my theories as to why. These results are my own data and your mileage may vary. I represent no commercial interest and my only concern is results - I'm bound to piss some one off!


I'm going to break this up into 3 sections: moms, clones, and bloom.


Moms

The best way to analyze for improvement in any dynamic system, is to break up the process into its constituent parts and look for limiting factors at each step.

So the output and limiting factor of the mom zone is high quality clips for the cloner. For the best possible bud, we must have the best possible group of clippings to begin with.

Keeping many different moms of different sizes lush and happy at the same time requires some special food indeed.



I spent several years in dirt before moving on to the next step. The greatest thing I learned in dirt was how to formulate organic biotic teas.

Here's what you need:


Here is the base recipe

In 5 gallon bucket of RO water with airstones add:

1 Teaspoon Subculture M
1 Teaspoon Subculture B
4 Teaspoons Black Strap Molasses
4 Tablespoons Peruvian Seabird Guano

Allow to brew for at least 3 days. It is common for a foamy head to rise and fall a few times as everything get broken down. There is very little odor for all of the shit goin on here.

How to use it:

1 - Take out the airstones.

2 - Add 1 teaspoon of each Subculture. We are refreshing the current brew and innoculating the next in one step here.

3 - Stir vigorously. Some people strain out their teas, but I found them more effective with all the particulates in it. If you do not stir, its possible to burn plants.

4 - Dilute into watering can 50/50 with RO water for large and older plants.

25% poop soup/75% RO water for smaller and younger plants

Do not use more than 3/4s of your poop soup bucket because we are doing a continious brew.

5 - For each gallon of soup removed, add back 1 teaspoon molasses and 1 tablespoon guano, then refill with RO water and return airstones.


I use this once every week, and use plain RO water for all other waterings.

Warning - clorine and other contaminents will KILL the critters we are growing - use RO water.

This is by far the cheapest and best diet for vegging I have found. It allows you to use smaller containers for smaller root balls - without running the risk of autoflowering. It's great for AK47 and sweet tooth crosses that normally throw a fit unless they are in a 20 gallon pot. The airstones push the developement of aerobic beneficials, while inhibiting the nasty anaerobics.

Bonus Flowering Tea Recipe:
Just substitute Bat guano for seabird guano in the base recipe for a PK boost. For added micronutrients toss in some small bricked alfalpha cubes. Caution this brew has a stink. I grew super dank organic for years - using only these teas.


Next up - cloner nutes and trix

-AK

[Scottish Research]

Hi AK,

In every gold rush, the majority of the money is not made by miners, but by shops, bars, cheats and hoes until large corporations take over and squeeze everyone out. Sounds pretty familiar to those in this green rush.

Yes, this is historically accurate, but lost on most.

Nice info here. I have never made one of these tea's before.

I have a few questions:

What brand molasses do you recommend? (just saw the molasses jar in your pic. I'll try Whole Foods.)

Should the molasses be sulfured or un-sulfured?

Do you do an EC check before you feed your moms?

What size containers are you keeping your moms in?

Do you use Smart Pots?

Thanks!

R.Fortune

[aerokrafter]

-R Fortune

Any brand will do. I prefer sulphinated simply because sulfur is a good micronutrient by itself, and to desulphinate the molasses the manufacturer has to pass it through another process that strips a small amount of other micronutrients. I just go to the grocery store and look for the brand with most micros in it. Just look at all the great stuff in this $4 bottle:


Some times the cheaper brands are better - because they don't process it as much. Here is my favorite $2 bottle of plant fertilizer:


It's sulphured and actually has more iron than the above brand.

I don't ec check the tea. If you happen to run the tea too hot - the worst that you will get is a little over nitro load that will give you a little leaf curl. It won't burn unless you really mess up the recipe and dilution steps.

I start everything in 32 oz styro cups. Medium size is a gallon pot, and large plants go into 3 gallon pots. I have kept moms for over 2 years in pots this size - lush and providing flush after flush of clones.

If you want to try a cheap experiment - use the tea recipe without the subcultures. You wont get quite the boost without them - but for $20 you have enough tea for 6 months. Flush, then pour it on your most pitiful plant and be amazed. It took me almost 2 years of messing with first DWC, then NFT, and finally aero before I was able to duplicate and finally surpass the quality of buds grown with these teas.

-AK

[aerokrafter]

AeroFlo Tips n Trix Warning!


Nutes - Cloner


It's time to leave the warm vibe of dirt and mother nature. Aeroponic growing requires using synthetics - we gotta leave our helpful beneficials behind.


Here is the goal:


These cloners are darn near fool proof. I prefer the turbo cloner - they seem to have fixed all the annoying things with other models. No external air pump, no "splash holes" that drool down the side, and vinyl pucks that handle bleach better.

As for nutes - its hard to screw up. It's very rare to lose a single clone. I've cloned with 0 nutes successfully in these things - tho adding nutes avoids added recovery time from yellowing. I have used Ionic, GH, Sensi and DM all without problems. Just stay between 450 and 550 ppm and pH range of 5.5 to 6.5.

One trick I did find was to use extra K. It seems all aeroponic systems can use a little extra K because of the differential root formation and the nutrient delivery method. I used Potash+ with all those brands - It's stable and buffered - doesn't nail the pH.

Here are the products I'm currently running in my cloners:


I picked DM because of its stable pH. Like I said earlier, I haven't found one NOT to work. Those Nute bottles are two years old and only half empty - even with multiple cloners in use, you won't need much. I'd reccommend 1 liter bottles: Old Nutes = New Problems. I'll be tossing these soon, just out of principle.

Formulas:

I use 3ml/gallon for all three nutes.

48 site turbocloner - 15A 15B 15K+
60 site aerocloner - 30A 30B 30K+

For me this works out to around 500 ppm and 6.4 pH.

Tips:

I don't top off the cloners - I just change out the res with new nutes when the solution level looses a couple inches. The cost is 5 minutes and 5 cents - cheap vs starving or burning your clones with addbacks. Remember: When in Doubt - Throw it Out!

The cleaner, the better. Use bleach, take apart the pump, and soak the manifold. One of the problems with cloners is that they heat up. Heat + food + innoculation from you not cleaning = trouble with tribbles. Any time you get over 82 degrees - pythium will happily slime your pretty new roots.

Bloom nutes are next. Those are a bit more complicated.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

-AK