av8or's PPK - First Grow

[HarvestMoon303]

I soaked the little girls in a tray of mycotrol diluted to just under 10 ml per gallon. The same concentration I ran through the entire ppk system alone, without nutes, flooding every 6 minutes for an hour. Then I went through and flushed everything out with 115 degree water For five minutes each site.

"...flooding every 6 mins for an hour"?

I'm guessing that it's every hour for 6 mins, but my real question is if that is the normal feeding schedule for your setup. The plants look pretty good for being through hell and back, and I'd like to know how the Jillybean turns out. I don't see a lot of it here (Medical in CO), but I've had some insane Jillybean, strain-specific, very high quality shatter, and it was the best concentrate I've ever had.

 

[av8or]

"...flooding every 6 mins for an hour"?

I'm guessing that it's every hour for 6 mins, but my real question is if that is the normal feeding schedule for your setup. The plants look pretty good for being through hell and back, and I'd like to know how the Jillybean turns out. I don't see a lot of it here (Medical in CO), but I've had some insane Jillybean, strain-specific, very high quality shatter, and it was the best concentrate I've ever had.

I should have been explicit. My apologies. The normal feed schedule is a full flood (takes my pump 1:13 for all 12 ppk sites) every 90 minutes. Again, only one flood every 90 minutes. The flood schedule in my last post was for the application of Mycotrol. I drained my system of all nutes. Then I filled it all back up with water and mycotrol. I was hoping to soak the roots for 30 minutes in the mycotrol but found it difficult to move/plug the large plants.

So I came up with this attempted solution. After filling the system up with the mycotrol solution, I Fed the sites through normal operation, completely coating the inside of every hose and site in hopes of killing as many root aphids as possible. Not being able to flood the sites for 30 straight minutes in a normal ppk system, I figured I would fire the pump every six minutes. It allows for complete drainage of the solution before flooding it again. It takes about three minutes to completely drain and I figured I'd wait an additional three to allow some O2 exchange in hopes of not drowning the girls. Keep in mind, I'm a veteran of growing for four whopping months now...so I'm mostly clueless. Doing this three minute wet / three minute dry rotation for an hour, I figure I mostly completed a 30 minute soak, all while leaving my plants in place and cleansing the inside of the system.

Once all the mycotrol was done soaking, I flushed the entire system by running a hose from my washing mashine's hot water spigot and flooding each site with 115 f degree water. The goal was above 111 f degrees and I got it done. Each of the ppk sites were corporately flooded by removing the hose off my res pump and hooking the hot water hose to the ppk feed line. Then all I had to do was adjust down the feed rate with a ball valve once floods were achieved.

By this point, the girls hadn't eaten for 9 hours and instead got the snot knocked out of them. I refilled the system with 600 ppm Jack's/Calnit and fed back on the normal schedule. All the while I had OGBiowar tea brewing. That got added at 1.5 cups per gallon in my main res.

There are Green Lacewings crawling around the leaves and stems still, so I'm going to hold off on any spraying of mega wash or ogbiowar foliar feed.

Again, I'm still trying to figure all this out. I'm hoping that my inexperience in growing possibly equates to a fresh new perspective and potentially leading me to improving this ever-evolving endeavor. I hope this answers your question. Everyone else, please flame away and let me know what I did wrong! Plants look good though...haha!

 

[av8or]

Oh, and I agree, Jillybean kicks ass. Don't know that I'm gonna make shatter out of it, but I'll let you know how she tests.

 

[av8or]

I put a J1 into flower and a Jillybean into veg. The J1 grows fast and I want my Sour Urkle in veg to recover longer from the root aphids and subsequent treatments. These two girls didn't seem to notice there was a war going on around them.

 

[av8or]

So....how do I unclog a tail pipe? I've got one ppk site that is not draining, all of a sudden. It seems roots have filled the tail pipe. I need to clear the obstruction lest my plant drown in the undraining water. Anybody experience this and have a solution?

 

[FlowerFarmer]

I ran coco in my 1st PPK and had some draining issues. Despite holes being drilled in my upper containers the plants were still drowning due to tailpiece plugging up.


I used a coat hanger straightened out, and from the top I stabbed down into the media until I hit the tailpiece opening. I then "wallowed" it out by sort of spinning the coat hanger around. Helped a little, but I ultimately finished the grow by draining my lower containers and running it DTW the remainder of the grow.

My tailpieces were the 1.5" ones however not directly below the trunk so it might have been a little easier for me then the new designs with one tailpiece directly below the plant's mass.

 

[Oti$]

I too have used a straightened coast hanger to unclog tail pieces...hope you get the Dab's under control soon. When I started out four years ago everyone on the site was getting root aphids, so when they finally made tier way into my garden I had read enoughabout them to do battle with the little fuckers. It was in my first 4 plant 5 light ppk in which I had a lot invested time and build wise. They killed my yield and set my harvest date back nearly a month (I didn't catch them until mid flower), by I did have a harvest. A pathetic one, but a harvest. Good luck, I'll go back to my lurking bucket in the corner

 

[av8or]

FF - Ok, so a good ole fashioned reaming is needed. Too easy. I wasn't sure if that would be detrimental or not, though. I'll root around and see what I can't unclog. I'm developing the feeling that these plants, once established, are insanely resilient.

Otis - how did you deal with the root aphids?

 

[Oti$]

All veg plants got Bayer tree and shrub root dunks and the trees I poured super hot water(slightly cooled from boiling) through the pots every other day for a little over a week. The got water knocked them back enough in the trees to limp to harvest. I had one plant, a sour boggle, that the aphids seemed to love. The other three seemed to be aphid free after the hot baths, but the sour boggle had to have the hot water treatment several times until I was finally able to harvest it. The most infested plant was the first to finish and seemed the least affected by the bugs,

 

[Snook]

root aphids.. i've had them in RDWC but not in the PPK. where are you finding them? pulse rez?

as far as clogged wick; too high a gap, (haven't had one since the gap was lowered to 4"). small gap, combined with too long a pulse will also make the gap disappear and = more/longer PWT. the roots want the most water they can get to and the longer the PWT is present, the more time the roots can follow that slow draining, maybe non-draining, PWT down the wick into the rez. The problems I had came mostly from small gap when the plants were still in veg., once they find their way down into the rez, don't think you can stop them.

 

[delta9nxs]

root aphids.. i've had them in RDWC but not in the PPK. where are you finding them? pulse rez?

as far as clogged wick; too high a gap, (haven't had one since the gap was lowered to 4"). small gap, combined with too long a pulse will also make the gap disappear and = more/longer PWT. the roots want the most water they can get to and the longer the PWT is present, the more time the roots can follow that slow draining, maybe non-draining, PWT down the wick into the rez. The problems I had came mostly from small gap when the plants were still in veg., once they find their way down into the rez, don't think you can stop them.

this is precisely what happens! i think it has to do with hormonal signaling. the faster the medium drains the less roots go down the pipe.

av8or, do your top tubs have the predrilled drain holes around the tailpiece? in those tubs i am drilling 4 3/16" holes in a pattern around the tailpiece hole. about 1.5" out from the hole

this increases overall drain speed by letting gravity do more of the draining down to the point where the perched water table occurs.

 

[Snook]

this is precisely what happens! i think it has to do with hormonal signaling. the faster the medium drains the less roots go down the pipe.

av8or, do your top tubs have the predrilled drain holes around the tailpiece? in those tubs i am drilling 4 3/16" holes in a pattern around the tailpiece hole. about 1.5" out from the hole

this increases overall drain speed by letting gravity do more of the draining down to the point where the perched water table occurs.

I have thought about drilling holes like that but with 2, 2gallon buckets, the wick goes first, thru the bottom of the ppkrez and then thru the lid of the ppkrez, this leaves a gap where water would (and does) go and create some kind of PITA situation. so drilling those holes, for me, is not an option. BUT, I guestimate that drilling those same holes in the wick, just inside the ppkrez would accomplish the same task of draining faster.. and.. remembering the 'air pruning' days of the PPK and might those holes prevent/inhibit roots from going there?

back to you av8or, youre growing trees, right? why not pick up the PPKpot, turn/elevate it above you head, ream the wick out, repack and rescreen?

 

[Gry]

A most unusual thread, and a tribute to tenacity.

 

[av8or]

I neglected to pre-drill those extra drain holes. I'll retrofit those today. I was able to auger out the tail pipes and found little root growth, such that it should not be causing the issue. I'm elevating all 12 ppk sites and re-leveling them, as I've recently reconfigured my layout. I'm hoping faster drainage and level sites will do the trick.

The plants hit hard by root aphids are all drowing while the other plants are perfectly fine. I'm going to lose one or two girls, maybe a third, but at least I've got some strong plants coming up behind them that are not seemingly affected by the latest disaster.

Gry, thanks for the kind words and welcome aboard.

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Sucks to hear about all the trouble you've been having Av8or. I know all too similarly what it's like to struggle with different aspects of growing while knowing full and well that I should be smooth sailing given experience/knowledge at hand.

The waiting and watching not knowing if things will pull through is enough to drive me crazy.. especially when watts are a burnin'.


Hope things get turned around sooner then later.

 

[av8or]

Thanks for the encouragement, FF! Truth be told...if I relied on this for income, I would be a little more upset. But this is still a hobby so I look at these little disasters as learning experiences. It's not fun to lose any of the girls but at least in my perpetual grow I have plenty of healthy plants already vegging to replace the sickly ones.

 

[disciple]

 

[av8or]

Disciple, I thought the same thing. I'll keep them going as long as possible. One is pretty sad looking though!

 

[Snook]

The ones you think you're going to lose.... we might be able to save if you want to try just for fun

ask him how, av8or.

 

[av8or]

Snook - yes, sir.

Disciple - How do we save them?