av8or's PPK - First Grow

[delta9nxs]

omg! you've got the dreaded root disease "plantus giganticus"! it only occurs in ppk's!

that plant looks great! even though it's going to die. sometime.

it's one of your best so far. i like the shape. how many weeks veg did it take to reach 41"?

also it looks like the medium is about perfectly tuned for moisture.

for the folks at home can you go over your choice of medium, air gap, duration of flood, type of flood (wave or full), and the interval you are using between floods?

this tuning ability allows each individual grower to fine tune root zone moisture content to their particular set of environmental variables.

and moving anywhere is not the answer to bug control, especially here in oregon. they should rename I-5 "the Great Mite Highway". millions of them every day are traveling up and down the road in the trunks of cars. insuring that their kind will be perpetuated forever.

nice job!

 

[av8or]

J1 - A veg cycle

J1 - A veg cycle

I put a J1 into flower last night, 1 Mar 15. Here's that plant's story so far:

Picture #1 - 6 Jan 15, got six cuttings with roots barely showing out of the rapid rooter. I put them in 42 ounce clear Tupperware containers per D9's pre-veg model and used 300 ppm Jack's/calnit and a couple 13 watt cfls to start vegging.

Picture #2 - 14 Jan 15, (ref. post #149) a week after transplant they hadn't don't much while the roots got used to the turface and started to fill the bottom of the pot.

Picture #3 - 23 Jan 15, Once the roots have established themselves in the 300 ppm, I moved them to 600 ppm and the vegetation is starting to really take off. They got tall really quick, causing me to require more space...

Picture #4 - 6 Feb 15, I put up a tent and moved the girls to the full size ppk site at 900 ppm and put 2 x 400 watt t5 lights (for all four ppk veg sites). As you can see, I topped them at this point. I cut almost 16" off this J1 to anticipate head room as she had more veg time left.

Picture #5 - 1 Mar 15, moved this J1 to flower. Still at 900 ppm (my veg and flower rooms are on the same res) but now there are vertical 600 watters all around. She is now 41" tall.

Veg room is kept at 75-70 f, 55-60% rh.
Flower room is 80-72 f, 45-50% rh.
All res temps stay between 70-72 f.
Res ph is input at 5.8 but the main res usually indicates 6.0-6.3

I set the air gap at 5" because I don't have any pre-drilled holes in the bottom of the wick. This allows a hydraulic co. section with the bottom bucket without causing my top bucket to stay flooded for too long. The media used is Turface MVP. All I do is rinse it out for a few minutes in a five gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom and a layer of the same window screen used for the wicks laid in the bottom of the five gallon bucket.

There are three separate ppk systems in my room(s). A 300 ppm for new rooted clones and seedlings that achieves a flood in a minute and fifteen seconds and is set to do so every three and a half hours. The second system is at 600 ppm and floods in a minute and a half every two and a half hours. The main system is at 900 ppm and floods completely (or at least within an inch of the top of the media) every hour and a half. The idea is to increase feed, light and container incrementally to promote fast, healthy growth. It's working. I also do a lot of training during the 600 ppm stage. In Oregon, plants smaller than a foot tall or wide are not counted against me. This is why I top so aggressively from a young age. I'm trying to create as much vegetation as possible before they start counting against my legal limit. Suggestions here are appreciated. I put each new teen into the main ppk system right at 12", hoping she grows an inch a day for the 32 days she spends in the 900 ppm veg site. Putting 3-4' tall plants into flower is my goal. It'll cube out my flower room nicely and still allow me to move around a little. I'd love to have the same problem Flower Farmer had, but man did that jungle look difficult to maneuver in!

In summary, 54 days from a barely rooted cutting starting around 4" tall, she was topped in half once and still managed to grow over three more feet while creating a few other strong main colas. I can't imagine how tall she'd be if I hadn't topped her.

Her twin (who was flipped 16 days ago) has stretched an additional 16" and is now starting bud production. If this new J1 follows suit, I'll be looking at a five foot tall plant which is plenty manageable in my room.

These J1s are supposed to be 9 week strains, so I'll let you all know how she turns out in mid May.

 

[av8or]

Here's a good look at the 600 ppm system.

 

[delta9nxs]

nice! very well thought out! thank you!

you could cut out the rapid rooters altogether and root directly into the 1 quart 300 ppm system. maybe a slight time saver both in terms of plant growth and labor.

are you side lighting with vert bulbs in veg?

 

[av8or]

nice! very well thought out! thank you!

you could cut out the rapid rooters altogether and root directly into the 1 quart 300 ppm system. maybe a slight time saver both in terms of plant growth and labor.

are you side lighting with vert bulbs in veg?

I've since switched away from rapid rooters and am using a turbo cloner. I haven't had success with putting the cutting directly into the 300. What feed schedule would you use for that? I'm thinking every three and a half hours is way too far apart for cuttings without roots. I would like to get that down, though.

I was using a single 600 watt MH for veg. Now I'm using two big t5 banks (425 watts or something like that, each). See picture below. I haven't noticed any real difference between the two save maybe a flatter canopy under the wide footprint of the t5s. Hard to tell yet. When the next room is built, I'll probably go back to vertical MH bulbs in veg. What is your preference? I switched solely for the purpose of heat reduction but it seems a wash anyway.

 

[delta9nxs]

I've since switched away from rapid rooters and am using a turbo cloner. I haven't had success with putting the cutting directly into the 300. What feed schedule would you use for that? I'm thinking every three and a half hours is way too far apart for cuttings without roots. I would like to get that down, though.

I was using a single 600 watt MH for veg. Now I'm using two big t5 banks (425 watts or something like that, each). See picture below. I haven't noticed any real difference between the two save maybe a flatter canopy under the wide footprint of the t5s. Hard to tell yet. When the next room is built, I'll probably go back to vertical MH bulbs in veg. What is your preference? I switched solely for the purpose of heat reduction but it seems a wash anyway.

the trick to rooting in the 1 qt 300 ppm system is to keep the room at a constant 80-82f with a rh of 70-75%. this can be hard to do in a room with other size plants but maybe a clear plastic curtain could be used to create a mini environment for cloning. you could also use domes but i hate em because you get trapped into a burping schedule. lid on for first 3 days. then off 10 min 4th day, 15 minutes 5th day and on and on until they will stay up on their own for at least an hour. i've cloned with a nearly 100% rate doing this but it's much easier to just have a room set up at the right parameters.

in the 6 plant limit thread the guys i built the first one for used a shower curtain successfully. they are using a t-5 fixture 24/7 but at about 24". the flood frequency was every 3 hours filled to about 2/3rds. no rooting hormone.

we've since expanded it to 36 sites using the same 500 gph pump for all.



i feel the t-5's and other flo arrays in general are fine for early veg. but as you near the flip, say at least the last two weeks, you should have them under some intense light. preferably the same intensity and spectrum they will be flowered under. a well rooted plant in a ppk being fed 600 ppm can handle 1500 umols at the closest part of the plant and will grow at high speed.

i like the mh in veg for morphological reasons but have mostly used hps for expedience as they have a greater "throw weight" per watt. the mh will give you a shorter but bushier plant and should give you tighter nodes. in conjunction with some judicious leaf picking.

i think if you pick mh bulbs that are in the 4000-5000 kelvin range you can still get a decent lumen per watt ratio.

you'll notice in a light bulb catalog that the higher the k rating the lower the lumen per watt ratio. this is strictly a function of wavelength.

the other thing i was going to mention is that i believe using the bulbs vertically hung so the arc tube is at the same level as the center of plant mass actually suppresses elongation both in veg and stretch.

first grow!

 

[av8or]

That's some good info, boss. Thanks. I'll see what I can figure out for a mini clone sauna inside the veg tent. Maybe the plastic sheeting will do the trick. I definitely want to get that cloning process nailed down.

As for the lighting, I was under the impression that you wanted to create shorter internode length and bushier plants. Is this not necessarily the case? Or do I want to stretch as much as my space allows? I put those t5s in there to accomplish exactly that and to keep temps down, not that it matters. I have an ac in the tent, as well. Maybe this tent should come down and I should turn the downstairs into a veg room and the entire garage (instead of a third) into a flower room. Then I can buy all sorts of new lights!

 

[av8or]

D9, is this better for light height?

 

[delta9nxs]

yes, you do want shorter internode length and bushier plants. i only meant to convey that sometimes brute force will get you a bigger plant faster.

i personally am going to make another foray into the world of metal halide lighting in combination with some hps and maybe a few leds.

in the world of plant biology at the molecular level there is an argument going on about where the cells are located that control the phytochrome b elongation and shade avoidance responses. one group thinks they are located uniformly on the stems and the other thinks they are at the nodal points. last i heard.

i'm with the nodal point group. and so i think that anything you do to control or offset the red/far red ratio sub canopy at these points will make a shorter, bushier plant.

using lights that don't have much far red is one way. we all know that you can grow with a cheap hps street lamp bulb but because it is loaded with far red it will cause a lot of stretch. this is why agricultural bulb manufacturers use a blue element also. adding this component to the spectrum of a hps bulb is a shaping tool more than a growth tool. when using that bulb.

or you can approach controlling the ratio from the other side, using a mh bulb in the 4000k range that will also have some brute force in the red part of the spectrum and hopefully less far red than even an agricultural bulb.

but it will have less "throw weight" than a hps bulb of the same wattage. again because of wavelength.

the term "throw weight" is a holdover from the cold war when it was used to describe the total megaton capability that could be launched. the russians had the most weight on paper but it was thought at the time that we would win the exchange because we had the edge on accuracy. not that it would have made any real difference in application had it happened.

i think the cannabis world is hung up on the gram per watt thing when, in the future, starting about now, quality is the real game.

the taller, more stretched out a plant is the harder it is to illuminate properly. the harder it is to illuminate the poorer quality the bud will be.

indoors we are limited to the mechanics of bulb design. a hps bulb puts out a pineapple slice when viewed from above hung vertically. a weird pineapple slice that is the width of the arc tube at the bulb but radiates about 30 degrees from the horizontal axis as it goes out.

so at the range where a 1k hps achieves 1500 umols of fluence, about 18-20 inches, the radiation pattern is only about 2' high. this the premium light. the light that produces the best bud.

as the plants get bigger they become less well lit and quality suffers.

in your post above you asked if the lights were hung right. they are not. they should be dropped down into the plants until the center of the arc tubes are at the center of plant mass. think in terms of light interception. and that photo biology occurs on a photon by photon basis. look at flower farmers lights. he's got them right. and i can't wait to hear about yield!

posts like this are what happens when i can't sleep

meanwhile, back at the nodes, the phytochrome b responses on the poorly lit plant are growing more stem than bud at any given plant mass.

exploring more ways to control the response i see de-foliation as a valid tool. not the overall leaf plucking without thought for consequences, which i have done experimentally, but taking the large, fully expanded fan leaves from nodal points that do not have a flower growing on them.

i believe these leaves are feeding the elongation response and popping them off, a few at a time, helps to control it.

if done all through veg you can visibly see the nodes tighten up, increasing budsites.

there is another way to control the red/farred ratio that i think will become popular with cannabis growers. and that is intracanopy lighting.

growing large plants that are hollowed out as they grow leaves enough room inside the plant canopy to hang one or two daylight leds or cfl's.

this would certainly offset the ratio.

but it also could control larf. larf, the whiteish, wimpy looking almost worthless flower material a plant grows when the plant part does not get enough light.

i think the threshold for converting the plant part from a sink into a producer of photosynthate is around 200 umols. so not only does that part not produce but it is actually hurting overall yield by diverting energy from the producing parts.

a 26 watt daylight cfl can produce 900 umols at 3".

well, i think i can go back to sleep now, later on

 

[delta9nxs]

looking at this pic of yours you can see in the top right background the stem with the 3 branches. each branch has a fan leaf attached to the stem right below it. when the cells at the nodal point they are both attached to become occluded from direct light by the foliage above or in front of it the red/far red ratio changes towards far red and the elongation response begins. i believe these leaves feed the stem growth above it until the next nodal point.

i pop these off from the bottom up, a few at a time. i continue this practice through the end of stretch so that by flower the only leaves still on the plant are emanating from bud sites. i mostly leave those alone.

healthy looking plant!

 

[av8or]

I think I understand. I will be sure to discuss lighting setup with you before the new build starts. For now, I dropped the lights back down as low as I figured would correctly angle out its coverage to the bud sites as fully as possible. I tried to copy Flower Farmer's height (from what I saw in the pics).

 

[delta9nxs]

much better. in a perpetual room, with plants at all sizes, you will have to compromise the principle while plants grow. one plant gets it a little too low and one too high but in general you will deliver more usable light.

 

[delta9nxs]

not only does it suppress stretch and promote close node spacing and therefore more bud sites, it also pulls the plant out laterally making it larger in diameter giving you more usable canopy sq ft wise.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

This thread is blowing up like ur plants! Keep rockin it av8.

and u got the ppk guru helping u taboot!

All hail sir d9! aka ppk rockstar aka ppk godfather! godfather, I have a favor to ask of u. Do I have to kiss ur ring?

 

[av8or]

This thread is blowing up like ur plants! Keep rockin it av8.

and u got the ppk guru helping u taboot!

All hail sir d9! aka ppk rockstar aka ppk godfather! godfather, I have a favor to ask of u. Do I have to kiss ur ring?

Hahaha! Hell yeah, brother! It's easy to be successful when the man himself is guiding you along.

 

[av8or]

much better. in a perpetual room, with plants at all sizes, you will have to compromise the principle while plants grow. one plant gets it a little too low and one too high but in general you will deliver more usable light.

That confirms what I was thinking. I'll find a happy medium with the light elevation.

 

[av8or]

looking at this pic of yours you can see in the top right background the stem with the 3 branches. each branch has a fan leaf attached to the stem right below it. when the cells at the nodal point they are both attached to become occluded from direct light by the foliage above or in front of it the red/far red ratio changes towards far red and the elongation response begins. i believe these leaves feed the stem growth above it until the next nodal point.

i pop these off from the bottom up, a few at a time. i continue this practice through the end of stretch so that by flower the only leaves still on the plant are emanating from bud sites. i mostly leave those alone.

healthy looking plant!

Let me see if I understand correctly. Throughout veg until the end of the stretch in flower you continuously remove fan leaves that are shading other apical shoots, correct? Won't this stunt the growth of whatever internode section above it causing a shorter, busier plant?

I am still very unsure of what the end state looks like (outside of pictures from you guys). Learning all the training techniques isn't doing me much good if I'm not sure what the plant is supposed to ideally look like given these indoor conditions and space.

For whatever reason, probably boredom, I gravitate towards removing as much unneeded foliage as possible. What exactly am I trying to build during veg? Right now I am simply trying to cube out as much volume in the room as possible with plant matter. I've been topping early a few times to make a then letting it go vertical from there. Those plants tend to mushroom out and the widest laterals grow horizontally save the bud sites that grow upward. Tying these laterals up so they stop snapping is a challenge.

I need a better training regimen. Teach me, internets.

 

[Rotel]

I'm 100% against defoliation.

Sugars made via photosynthesis go down the outer part of the stem to supply the roots.

The fan leaves also act as nitrogen reserves for late flowering and as this mobile nutrient is consumed the leaves will yellow. Only then would I recommend their removal.

 

[av8or]

Rotel - thanks for the input. My understanding is more in line with what you said, but I have also seen a lot of people who swear by defoliation. I wonder if it's really a matter of diminishing returns. Which produces more bud...a plant with giant fan leaves producing lots of sugars while shading a ton of other growth....or a plant with those fan leaves slowly removed to reduce shading but also not producing as much sugar? Is it this simple or am I missing another important step? If this is the debate, then I can see how it could go either way.

I will say that having to choose between more bud and better bud, I'll take quality every time. So which technique focuses on quality over quantity then?

 

[disciple]