ITryToGrow Tries to grow

[ITryToGrow]

why, your op of course! Let's see some nasty budshots

Well duh!

What I meant was, do you have something special in mind, canopy? specific system items and so on?

Anyway, you requested it, so here goes:

Man, everything looks soo much better on the pictures than they do in real life, which makes me sad.

Now then, today was a real hard-at-work-day!

Added some cooltubes with a fan (RVK 125) for three reasons:

1. The most obvious, to cool the bulbs.
2. Shield the bulbs from the plants (or is it the other way around?).
3. Let it act as an active intake.

Boy what a hassle it was getting everything in place, no room to move about since the plants are rather big and bushy (which is good ). Got them in place and it works, but I'm not 100% satisfied. Next step will be to connect the RVK to the portable AC, it's still a little to hot for my taste.

They suffer from some heat-stress, as you can see in the pictures, but there's not really much I can do about it at this point. And the humidity is not currently working, so RH is like 25% average.

Changed the 600's (MH) in the hoods to 600 HPS'.

Trimmed some lower weak branches and plucked (defoliated) a little. Mostly to improve air-movement and light-penetration.

Man that H2O2 is some magically good shit! I've NEVER, and I'm mean never-in-like-6-years-of-growing-never, had such a stable pH!

Changed the res' and added some Vitalink Buddy, can't hurt right?

Anyway, at this point it seems unlikely I'll even get 2.2lbs Mostly I think cause there's only three real big and stable plants in there. This run was meant to be 16 monsters, not 2 or 3. Next run is gonna be 36 plants in there, all from clones. Unfortunately a lot of the clones will be from a couple of the weak ones, but I'm hoping that run after the next will be all clones from the 2 or 3 strongest ones.

Thanks for watching!

Cheers

 

[laughingmoon]

yes, those are the shots I like! Seems like you enjoyed taking them, as well!
Is the heat stress the upward folding of the leaves?

 

[ITryToGrow]

yes, those are the shots I like! Seems like you enjoyed taking them, as well!
Is the heat stress the upward folding of the leaves?

Good!

Yes, I do love the ladies, especially when they pose for you... Just wish I could up the yields a bit...

Yes, that is, from what I've learned, signs of heat-stress. Weird thing is tho, canopy temps are ~77F and exhaust temps are ~82F, go figure...

 

[laughingmoon]

Gotit. I'm running CFL and and am consistently in the 81-82 range even with large intake. I think the problem is I have 5 bulbs and they each have a fixed heat from each. I need fewer bulbs and higher wattage I think. The teeth of the blades aren't curling, just the entire leaf somewhat tacos.

 

[ITryToGrow]

Gotit. I'm running CFL and and am consistently in the 81-82 range even with large intake. I think the problem is I have 5 bulbs and they each have a fixed heat from each. I need fewer bulbs and higher wattage I think. The teeth of the blades aren't curling, just the entire leaf somewhat tacos.

Whats the RH? Maybe that would help to bring the temps down.

 

[laughingmoon]

I have no idea to be honest. Weather.com says 62% but who knows how accurate that is. Controlling the humidity here won't be an option considering the size and location of my lil cab.

 

[ITryToGrow]

Picture update, YEY!

Picture update, YEY!

First some pictures, cause I know you like 'em boss!

These are all taken today, week 3 of 12/12.

pH is somewhat stable since I started using the H2O2, thanks again scroger!

EC is pretty high, ~1.60 but they seem to like it, so it's all good I suppose. I change the res every week as well, trying my best to avoid imbalances in the nutrient-solution. Especially since I almost never have to add anything but water during the week.

Been following the defoliation thread, pretty interesting stuff indeed! It's def a recommended read.

Gonna trim and defoliate mine again in about a week. But I'm treading lightly since they were never defoliated during veg.

Clones are coming along nicely, gonna have a picture update for you tomorrow after I've put them in the veg-tent.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers

 

[ITryToGrow]

Clone Wars

Clone Wars

Alright, the clones have been placed in the veg tent:

44 clones in total of which 36 will get to eventually bloom.

They're placed under a 400W MH and the goal is to keep them there until the bloom-tent is ready, which means that they will be there for about 5-8 weeks.

I will keep the light up high and give them half strength nutes, I'm aiming to have them grow as slowly as possible. I do not want them to outgrow their current pots cause I have no where to put them then.

Yes I know, three of them are missing the clay pebbles - I just ran out. Gonna fix it tomorrow.

Cheers

 

[IamNug]

if they get too thick, just top them. You might want to use a hedge trimmer. Jk! =] Looking great!

 

[ITryToGrow]

Yeah, that's the plan. Top them, not the hedge-trimmer!

Thanks!

 

[Raphael]

Looking great ITryToGrow, keep it up! I love that double wide tent and the buds are becoming more prominent...just wait for the next five weeks!

Cheers

 

[ITryToGrow]

Hey Raph!

I think I might be taking a different route when it comes to the clones.

New plan is this: Take 10 of the best looking clones from the 3 best looking plants (2 WWxBB and 1 EI) let the 10 of them veg out and take new clones from them.

This way I'll get enough clones for the whole tent from the best phenos AND I can make mothers!

Unsure of what to keep the mothers in tho, I'm thinking air-pots but not sure about the medium.

Ideas? Anyone?

 

[ITryToGrow]

bump

 

[CalBear4Life]

I'm about to start a couple of mothers and I am going to be using a coco/perlite mix (70/30) and eventually 7 gallon plastic buckets. I am going to start them in small cups and work them up to 2 gallons, then the 7 gallons. Hope this helps...cheers!

 

[ITryToGrow]

Thanks cal!

 

[Raphael]

Hey Raph!

I think I might be taking a different route when it comes to the clones.

New plan is this: Take 10 of the best looking clones from the 3 best looking plants (2 WWxBB and 1 EI) let the 10 of them veg out and take new clones from them.

This way I'll get enough clones for the whole tent from the best phenos AND I can make mothers!

Unsure of what to keep the mothers in tho, I'm thinking air-pots but not sure about the medium.

Ideas? Anyone?

That sounds like a good plan with the clones. Vegging for 5 weeks in a tent is very hard to do, you just can't get around the fact that it's over a month. If you raise the light, you will just get over vegged stretchy plants.

So now to the mothers; the most healthy roots I have seen comes from a rapidly recirculating deep water culture. Root growth is closely correlated to canopy growth, and so then it becomes a question of the use of the mothers.

If they are going to be heavy production mothers I would go for a rapidly recirculating water culture, similar to the Under Current's design. In 2 weeks I will be documenting a build of a four site RRWC that will use 3 400w ceramic metal halide bulbs hanging vertically that will have a goal of 40 cuts per week per plant.

If they are going to be used only to supply the flower room, an ebb n flow in a tray configuration or ebb n "grow" which is the bucket configuration will provide plenty of cuts as well as automated waterings. Using soil to provide enough cuts for the perpetual flower room is very common as well but is harder to get watering automated. Starting out small, placing a rooted clone in a dixie party cup and vegging until you can pull the plant out of the dixie cup when it's thirsty then transplanting up to a larger sized medium works well.

I am actually hand watering my whole 4x8 tray of production mothers right now every day and they are definitely showing it showing deficiencies and necessitating foliar feeding. They are in coco and suck the 6" pot dry in less than 20 hours. I am getting about 10 cuts per plant on average, some up to 20.

So to summarize, if you want production numbers the RRWC is a very viable option. If you are only needing cuts for a perpetual and don't want the added costs that come with RRWC, an ebb n flow setup (either tray or bucket) will give great growth and simple setup costs. If ebb n flow is too much for the space that you have, than a soil mix or coco or soil and coco will give you good growth but hard to keep on top of watering. The blumats are nice for automated watering of coco/soil but in my opinion they keep pots consistently saturated and that tends to lead to a lack of dissolved oxygen at the root mass. If you don't mind watering daily, soil mix or coco is the easiest and simplest and cheapest, but also provides slower growth.

Cheers!

 

[ITryToGrow]

That sounds like a good plan with the clones. Vegging for 5 weeks in a tent is very hard to do, you just can't get around the fact that it's over a month. If you raise the light, you will just get over vegged stretchy plants.

Right, and the benefit is that I can throw away the crap-phenos and concentrate on the excellent ones!

In 2 weeks I will be documenting a build of a four site RRWC that will use 3 400w ceramic metal halide bulbs hanging vertically that will have a goal of 40 cuts per week per plant.

DAMN! 40 cuts/week, that's massive. You building for yourself or for someone else?

If they are going to be used only to supply the flower room, an ebb n flow in a tray configuration or ebb n "grow" which is the bucket configuration will provide plenty of cuts as well as automated waterings. Using soil to provide enough cuts for the perpetual flower room is very common as well but is harder to get watering automated. Starting out small, placing a rooted clone in a dixie party cup and vegging until you can pull the plant out of the dixie cup when it's thirsty then transplanting up to a larger sized medium works well.

Yes, I'm looking at only supplying clones for the flower-"room" (tent). So maybe 40 every two months or so.

The thing is, or rather, the things are:

1. I Really don't want to get into the whole business of a new system.
2. I want to be able to not visit the mothers for 2-3 days
3. I really like the concept of the air-pots and I want to try them out.

They [air-pots] also have the benefit that I can use them with my current system with the addition of some drippers.

Soil is a no-no, rather not do the coco-thing so I'm leaning towards rockwool or hydroton.


Thanks for your input Raph! It's always appreciated!

Cheers

 

[Raphael]

Right, and the benefit is that I can throw away the crap-phenos and concentrate on the excellent ones!

There ya go

DAMN! 40 cuts/week, that's massive. You building for yourself or for someone else?

It is for myself and the patients/caregivers who need consistently good genetics to help with pain or anxiety or whatever

Yes, I'm looking at only supplying clones for the flower-"room" (tent). So maybe 40 every two months or so.

The thing is, or rather, the things are:

1. I Really don't want to get into the whole business of a new system.
2. I want to be able to not visit the mothers for 2-3 days
3. I really like the concept of the air-pots and I want to try them out.

They [air-pots] also have the benefit that I can use them with my current system with the addition of some drippers.

Soil is a no-no, rather not do the coco-thing so I'm leaning towards rockwool or hydroton.

The air-pots look like they are intended for soil and or coco or shredded rockwool rather than hydroton, as the pebbles create air pockets by themselves, making air pots not needed to prune the roots. I watched this video here to get an idea

Drippers will do well for you and your mothers in your system without modifications besides pump, timer, dripper, etc.

Thanks for your input Raph! It's always appreciated!

Cheers

Of course

 

[ITryToGrow]

It is for myself and the patients/caregivers who need conistently good genetics to help with pain or anxiety or whatever

Check! Nice, I'm looking forward to that build!

The air-pots look like they are intended for soil and or coco or shredded rockwool rather than hydroton, as the pebbles create air pockets by themselves, making air pots not needed to prune the roots. I watched this video here to get an idea

Yeah, that's a good vid.

Yepp, I'm leaning towards rockwool with the drippers.

Especially since I basically have everything but the actual drippers.

 

[ITryToGrow]

What's a good methodology to making great mums? Been looking but can't find the info I'm looking for.

What/how do I do it?

Should I bonsai them?

What wattage should I use to keep 5 or 6 of them in a DR120 tent?

C'mon people, I know you got the info!

Cheers