Ez's "Summer Newbie Contest" grow

If you're following my current BOG grow(https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=281419), alot of this will be familiar. If not... welcome. I'll be growing out cuts from several BOG seeds. I took these cuts from plants that are flowering now. I've got Sourbubble, Sourlifesaver, Bogbubble, and Blue Moon Rocks. I've got 1-2 cuts from various pheno's from each strain. The cuts are 6-12" tall, in 6" square pots. They are currently in a mix of perlite and pro-mix hp. I'm feeding them Grow Big and Liquid Karma. They are quite well rooted...I'd pot them up now if I had somewhere to put them.

Currently, lighting is provided by T-5's. I will be moving them under 1K hps's in about a week. I'll veg them for 2-3 weeks under the 1K's. I'll be growing in a 4x8 tent, with (2)-1K's for lighting. I'll provide more detail on the tent when I actually get the plants into it. At the moment, the veg is going on in a 2x4 tray.

This will be an all organic grow. When I pot up the plants in a week or so, I'll be using LC's #2, along with blood, bone, and kelp meal, plus powdered lime. I'm hoping to get by with just water for the entire grow, but I've got PBP and some earthjuice laying around just in case.

I'm also hoping to add blumats and a gravity res for flowering, but $$ may not permit.

Given the timeframe of the contest, I should be done with both the grow and smoke report before the judging. Also, there will be the smoke report from my current grow. I'll be up to me elbows in BOG bud soon.

Here's how the veg is looking at the moment:


Anyways, I wanted to get my contest thread going. I'll be back with an update when I pot up. Hopefully by the middle of next week

I was able to get the girls moved up to 3.6gal pots this weekend, and move them from the t-5 to the hps. The sour bubbles and bogbubbles were very well rooted...this is a good example...


The sourlifesavers, and the bmr's weren't as nicely rooted, even though they are the larger plants and go through water more quickly. I did'n think to get a pic, but the root mass was about half of that shown by the sb's and bb's. I transplanted them into LC's #2(pro-mix, perlite, and worm poo @ a 60/20/20 ratio). I added 1/2c each blood and kelp meal, and 1c each bone meal and powdered lime per cu.ft. of mix. I watered with un ph'ed RO water, with 1tbsp/gal liquid karma to get things going. From here on out this will be a no feed/water only grow. I do have some PBP in reserve, just in case. Trying to keep this run as organic/simple as possible.

My flowering room is a 4x8 tent. Actual dimensions are more like 5x9. I've got (2) 1000w Hps lamps in adjust-a-wing mediums. I run (1) 6" max fan, with a can66 for exhaust, and another 6" max fan with a dustshroom for intake. I've also got (1) 16" fan for air movement.

The plants have been under the 1K's for 2 days now, and show every sign of loving it. All but the sb's are nice and bushy already, and the sb's are getting there. I'll start topping for clones/yield in 1 week, hopefully be flowering in less than 3. I may have to run some sort of trellis as I look set to be growing some real bushes this time. These clones are about 1 month out of the rooting dome:


Sls and bb on the outsides, sb in the middle. Looking pretty damn good I think Here's a pic from week 7, just after topping on my seed grow for comparison...


I've ditched the 12/1 veg cycle I used for the seeds, and went back to 18/6. The plants grow ALOT faster this way, and seem happier in general. The 12/1 was an interesting experiment, but nothing I'd try again. Also, the sb's will be multi-branched this time. Last run, I FIM'ed all the plants, with mostly good results. The sb's not only remained single stalked, the FIM'ing really seemed to piss them off. This time I topped all the plants by removing the top 2 nodes. All the strains seem to respond better to this technique. I'm giving the plants a few more days to establish themselves, then I will begin spreading out the branches by tying them down(especially the sb, which is very compact). If all goes well, they should be nicely bushed out and ready for a topping in a week.

I'll be back next week with an update...Any questions, just ask.

Nice grow you've got going Ez Rider. It'll be intersting to follow you on this. Good luck and happy growing!

Ez,
I'm sure you've already said how many plants you have in your 4x8, but I can't find it by skimming. How many? Very interested in following the progress of your soil. Great start. -granger

hestah said:

Nice grow you've got going Ez Rider. It'll be intersting to follow you on this. Good luck and happy growing!

Click to expand...

Thanks I'm still in the process of drying/curing the parent grow, but my hopes are high. I'm honestly already looking forward to the 3rd and 4th runs, when I'm actually able to grow only the best 2 or 3 phenos, and ditch the rest. Lack of space is forcing me to piggyback rather than keep mothers...for now.

Granger2 said:

Ez,
I'm sure you've already said how many plants you have in your 4x8, but I can't find it by skimming. How many? Very interested in following the progress of your soil. Great start. -granger

Click to expand...

Actually, I didn't say. I'll be running 9 plants per light once i begin flowering. It may turn out to be less because the others will probably get super bushy while I'm bushing out the sb's. The sb's grow quite a bit slower than the others. The sls in particular, grows very fast once it gets going. I'm hoping that the sb's superior root mass will help offset this. They should root into the LC's like crazy, it's a very nice mix. I really believe that lack of root mass was a major limiting factor on the parent grow...and they still mostly did pretty well. Some of the plants got too tall last time, forcing me to flower before I wanted to. This time, I will be aggressively topping and pruning to prevent this. I want to get the sb's big and bushy, and I can use all the tops for the next go around.

Still hoping to get the blumats before I flower, but I'm hemorrhaging money at the moment.

You are doing a fine job EZ...

Good Luck! . Bog

I like this thread, I am subbed!

Update

Update

Sorry for the long delay. Between wrapping up one crop/getting the next off the ground, and coping with a dying ac system, I've been a little busy. My ac started to go just after I put the plants under the 1K's...of course. During the hottest parts of the day, I was running 90F+. I was in the high 80's all the time(lights on) and at least mid 70's lights off. I wasted a week waiting for a part that didn't solve my problem. The plants themselves did pretty well with the heat. They showed some stress for a few days, but then took right to it. I broke down and bought a new ac system, and put it in this wednesday, as I couldn't stand it anymore. I'm now running mid-high 70's lights on and high 60's to low 70's lights off. Strangely enough, a few plants are now showing what I believe is stress from the lower temps. The ac has only been running for 4 on/off cycles, so I'm hoping to see them recover soon.

I decided to top all the plants again. I toped them once, while they were still in 6" pots, to make them multi-branched. This time I was going for clones, but also to bush them out for yield. The sourbubble in particular, will remain compact unless you top it aggressively. I concentrated on sourbubble and bogbubble for cuttings, but I aggressively toped them all. My cuts are standing up in the dome and looking good.

Here's how the sb's and bb's looked before I topped them. This would have been day 12 under the 1K's:
Here's how they looked 1 day later, after a good haircut:

Now, here's a pic of what I believe are temperature stressed plants(sls and bmr). They did this immediately after I got the new ac up and running, and the temps DOWN. A lot of these same plants got upset when the temps initially soared too. You can see. it's mainly the middle plants in this tray, most of the perimeter plants are fine. The temp drop had no visible effect on the sourbubble, and only 1 bogbubble pheno got mildly upset.

I believe I'm having trouble with keeping the pots PROPERLY watered, but this always seems to be a problem for me. Still hoping I can swing the funds to go with the blumats. I'm wondering: with this mix I'm using(LC's#2), should I be watering until I see a little runoff, then letting it dry? Or should I be trying to maintain a moisture level? I'm positive I stunted the root systems by overwatering in veg last time, and I don't want to repeat that mistake. My superoots pots breathe and drain WAY better than any plastic grow bag, and that should help. Still, I really need to up my watering skill, and/or get something that handles it for me(blumats)

Plants are 12-18", and I'm hoping to go into flower late this month. Stay tuned, the updates should be more regular now...I hope.

I'm not completely sold on this water-only method...yet, but the plants seem to be growing pretty well, and the ease of using nothing but plain, un-ph'ed RO water can't be beat. I'd LOVE to hear some of the organic guru's sound off about my grow...

Concerning soil, they look good and healthy. So...so far it's working well. If you have to help the soil along in bloom it's still be easier. -granger

Watering is a skill that can be time consuming because a plant should be lifted to see how heavy it is before watering.

Over watering does stunt so good drainage is important. Some plants will root faster and drink more water than others. Wait until it feels light indicating it's pretty dry.

Don't wait until you see leaf droop to water. A regular schedule and average amount of watering can be determined after awhile.

I dont see run off so maybe you are giving them a bit too much at one time or your soil isn't holding the water and may need a wetting agent.

Even when things arent perfect some strains still manage to do well while others are more finicky.

Remember that plants like it warm. Around 80 F. Try to keep relative humidity at fifty percent.

BushyOldGrower said:

Watering is a skill that can be time consuming because a plant should be lifted to see how heavy it is before watering.

Over watering does stunt so good drainage is important. Some plants will root faster and drink more water than others. Wait until it feels light indicating it's pretty dry.

Don't wait until you see leaf droop to water. A regular schedule and average amount of watering can be determined after awhile.

I dont see run off so maybe you are giving them a bit too much at one time or your soil isn't holding the water and may need a wetting agent.

Even when things arent perfect some strains still manage to do well while others are more finicky.

Remember that plants like it warm. Around 80 F. Try to keep relative humidity at fifty percent.

Click to expand...

On the water subject: I only get runoff if I really try. The addition of 20% EWC really ups the pro-mixes water holding ability, even with extra perlite added. Also, the very strongly rooted plants have had trouble with the rootball drying out too fast since I've transplanted. I've had this problem with rockwool blocks in soil too. I wind up overwatering the whole pot because the "core" is drying out. I've been holding off on the blumats until I get a better Idea of EXACTLY how wet to get them each time.

Without a little runoff, how can you be sure you fully watered the plant? About how much water are you giving a 4gal pot at any one time?

On the subject of temperature: When my hvac system is working properly, my grow-tent temps tend to run 75-80F and 45-60%RH lights on. Lights off mostly runs 68-72F and 50-70%RH. I used to worry about the RH getting so high, but I have constant intake/exhaust between the tent and the rest of the room, where the RH is lower. Sometimes the RH will get ~30% when it's real dry outside. I dump 5-10 gals of water in the bottom of each of my 4x4 trays to combat this. Anyway, are you saying that closer to 80F lights on is better than where I'm at? I think the stress I'm seeing is the result of a sudden 20 degree temp drop. I'm thinking if I'd lowered the temp by 5-10 degrees for a few days, they wouldn't have reacted at all. Too bad for them...I was sweating my ass off with no ac. FWIW, I'd always been under the impression that mid 70's was best, unless you're running co2...I'm not.

You know amounts of water needed vary greatly due to several factors.

I give four gallon pots a little over a quart of water daily but some plants don't dry enough so they may just get a light watering on the second day.

As I said the weight of the pot let's you know if watered enough and sometimes I do get a little run off. I use pro mix HP with no added perlite or added wetting agent. It has enough of both the way it comes IMO.

Ever been in a large commercial greenhouse? They were called hothouses and when I was a kid the local family greenhouse nearby was very hot and humid. Plants grew like mad but even as a kid I could hardly stand it.

Some growers do gro at lower temperatures but 78-80 f is what I do.

BushyOldGrower said:

You know amounts of water needed vary greatly due to several factors.

I give four gallon pots a little over a quart of water daily but some plants don't dry enough so they may just get a light watering on the second day.

As I said the weight of the pot let's you know if watered enough and sometimes I do get a little run off. I use pro mix HP with no added perlite or added wetting agent. It has enough of both the way it comes IMO.

Ever been in a large commercial greenhouse? They were called hothouses and when I was a kid the local family greenhouse nearby was very hot and humid. Plants grew like mad but even as a kid I could hardly stand it.

Some growers do gro at lower temperatures but 78-80 f is what I do.

Click to expand...

It's been just over 2 weeks since I transplanted from 6" to 3.5 gal pots. I'm watered 3X since, maybe 1/2gal per pot, each time. Seems like the tops dry out, the bottoms stay too wet. I'm not particularly familiar with pro-mix, does it wick well enough to even out the moisture content with just a good top wetting? FWIW: I believe the extra perlite is compensation for adding the EWC to the mix.

At 1qt/day you must be keeping you plants relatively wet, or at least moist, all the time...correct? My 6" pots could easily soak up a pint if they were dry. My guess is I could run almost a gal before runoff, into my 3.5 pots, if I let them get good and dry. I don't think a qt would penetrate the soil more than a few inches under dry conditions. I'm confused

The only thing I'm certain of, is that poor watering technique has been a major limiting factor in ALL of my container grows. Whenever I've tried hydro, the root-mass seems takes care of itself. I truly do want to get away from chem/hydro though.

Maybe a little over a quart. Two gallons does about six plants.

I'm 19 days into this organic adventure, and I'm not sure the plants or myself are liking it. Most of the plants are showing signs of stress, and the sourbubbles seem to be growing even slower than usual. I started these plants in 6" pots of pro-mix, and fed them with 50/50 RO and tap water, with FF grow-big at half strength. 19 days ago, I transplanted into 13L superoots pots, using LC's #2 with bone/blood/kelp. I didn't let the soil "cook", just mixed it all up dry, then transplanted. I used liquid karma for the first watering(1Tbsp/gal), straight RO water, no ph. All I've given the plants since, is the same un-ph'ed RO water. At first, most of the plants were really happy about the transplant. The sourbubbles and the bogbubbles in particular, were pretty rootbound.

Last sunday, everything was looking pretty good, so I topped for cuts. At that time, only 2 different plants were showing any stress. The plants get a limp look and some leaf clawing/curling. Since then, all the plants have started to show these signs. Something is obviously wrong, but what? I don't see any pests beyond a few flies. The soil mix is allegedly foolproof. The climate isn't great, but not bad either. I've only been recording for a few days, but my temp hi-lo's are running 82/70 and my RH is 50/70. It must be something I'm doing, but all I'm doing is adding un-ph'ed RO water. All I can think is that it's the way I'm watering.

I have been having watering issues. I think I got the plants too wet at transplant and inhibited deeper root growth. I'm in the process of determining EXACTLY how much water my pots need. I took 3.5gal of dry LC's. It weighed ~7.5 lbs with the pot. It took ~3.5 qts of water to fully wet the entire pot...no runoff. At ~2lbs/qt, that gives me ~14.5lbs/wet pot, not counting plant. I'll carefully watch my test pot, and reweigh it when it's dry enough to re-water. Got an old-school moisture meter to probe the soil. I'll use these measurements as a baseline to determining how much to water at 1 time. This probably seems extreme to some of you, but my watering intuition sucks.

I took some pics last night a few hours before lights out...they looked beat-up. Today they look better, but still unhappy. I'll show some pics of both. Here's the sls/bb side last night:
and this morning:

The look a lot better this morning, but a few still look rough:
The color is from the hps...sorry. Next time I water, I'll pull a few out under some natural light for pics. Ideas ANYONE?

I've got some sb pics I'll put up in a continuation post...damn 5 image limit...

continuation

continuation

So, the sb's don't seem to be as affected by the wilt(or whatever's going on), but they're tough little mothers. They do seem to be growing especially slow though. Here's how they looked last night:
Most look like this:
But a few look like this:
The sb's look exactly the same today, so no "today" pics.

I started out watering ~1/2 gal/plant every 4-5 days. The last few waterings have been ~1qt/plant every 2-3 days. The sls and most of the bogbubbles dry out faster, the sb and 1 of the bb's, slower. Trying to get it dialed in, just wish I knew for SURE why my plants are pissed. I'd like to go into flower ASAP, but the sb's in particular need to get bigger.

Well. I'm still having watering problems...at the least. I actually weighed each individual plant, and found out they were quite dry. If you remember: I figured that each pot weighs ~7.5lbs DRY. I also determined that the pots should weigh ~15lbs when completely wet. When I weighed the pots today, they all weighed between 8.5 and 9.5lbs, counting the plant. This means that they're almost completely dry. I watered everything until the pots were all ~15lbs...no runoff. I'm having real trouble judging the weight by hand. I had surgery awhile back, and it really affected how I "feel" things. My fear now, is that I've stunted the roots, and the plants aren't able to feed properly because the rootball isn't getting to the nutrient rich soil(water only, remember?). Hopefully the weigh-ins will get the watering in line. I'll upgrade to the bluemats if I can get a handle on my watering.

So here's how the plants look today, several hours after a good watering. This is the sls/bb tray. The plants are bushy, they just won't stay perky and happy.:
Here's a natural light pic to show actual color. This is before watering:

I was surprised to find the sourbubbles dry too, but they were. I didn't think to get a shot before I watered, but here's how they looked several hours after:
They mostly look ok, but you can see the lower right corner is droopy, and 1 you can't see is too. Biggest problem with the sb's has been slow growth. This drooping thin just started with a few of them. The sls/bb bave show more signs of stress, but they continue to grow pretty well.

My plan is to let all the pots dry out to ~10lbs. At that point, I'll add ~5lbs of water, let them dry to ~10lbs, repeat. I'm hoping a few REGULAR wet/dry cycles will get growth going again. I'm still open to any other ideas...

Ez,
Sounds like a good strategy. If you're willing to do all that weighing, you'll be working with precision.

But truthfully, I know it's different when you see them "live" and everday, but in the pics they look just fine to me. I'm betting it's gonna be a nice crop. Good luck. -granger