My Perpetual SOG Cabinets are Finally Finished!

[eclurker]

Yes I have been a little bit. Salts hurt the micro life, which is what you want in organics. I grow strictly organically, and am still trying to master it!! With an organic grow your soil is buffered to ph, and bubbling teas really helps level the ph, Im just trying to master the correct amount and the planning ahead for the brew. Your plants look very happy, what do you expect to yield?

 

[petemoss]

7 to 10 grams per plant would be great. I could harvest about an oz/week using three or four plants per week. I could squeeze up to 54 plants in 5 sq ft (9 rows of 6), but it remains to be seen if 7 to 10 grams is doable at such a high density.

But before I even think about that, I'll need to improve my cloning skills. My first two attempts were failures using DrBud's perlite method. The boxes above represent my third fourth and fifth attempts. I've switched to a finer grade of perlite to help with the capillary action. If I don't get better than 50% survival this time, I may have to try a bubble cloner.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

Looking mighty nice, there pete!
Just a suggestion...cut a healthy clone, make a hole in some FFOF in a beer cup, and plant it. Leave it alone in the veg...no plastic, no spray, no nutting cept maybe something to hold her head up for a few hours.
I have tried them all too. I always come back to sticking them into the dirt for my best ratios. But even hitting a leaf one little bit can disrupt the root start down at the stalk, so leave them alone as best as possible for 7 days.

 

[petemoss]

Thanks, hoosierdaddy for the cloning advice. I managed to save a few by replanting into coco and keeping it moist. I don't know what happened to me. Cloning used to be so easy it was nearly automatic - root bumps in 4-5 days and long roots within two weeks. I thought about it and concluded that I must be overlooking something. I dug out my old root warming mat and will try to keep root zone temps in the 75 -85 deg area.

 

[eclurker]

On cloning I just use the heat mat and humidity dome with plugs and I have super high ratios knock on wood thus far. Like hoosierdaddy said I dont touch them until I notice slight nute def in the lower leaves which takes about a week or so then to the dirt.

 

[petemoss]

Yup, I'm pretty sure the heating mat is what I overlooked. Temps have been down to 65ish at night, maybe colder. Too cold for rooting. Just starting to see yellowing in the first box of clones. I'll check for roots in a couple of days. These clones are small, prolly one inch average like Doc advises.

I'm helping a friend build a grow cab and I'll need to stock the new cab with clones soon. With four mother plants, that shouldn't be a problem as long as I can get these clones to root. Come on, girls...grow roots or die!

Some pix of clone boxes and the flower cab - a low density SOG

 

[repuk]

wow pete, love your cabs, that's tidiness!

Looks like you nailed the SOG, with all plants with manageable sizes, you stayed on the low density side, let's see how that strain fattens up, though they look ideal for a SOG with that straight not branchy shape. Maybe for that power is better to have a low density canopy so for better light penetration?

I'm also handwatering coco, and my goal is a perpetual SOG. Let's see how everything goes, as this is my very first grow.

I'm nuting them with Atami's B`cuzz A+B, and thinking on just using Atamis ATA Organics "flavour" (0-0-9, basically sugar beet molasses) as a suplement in flowering.

I'd like your advice, as someone who has dealt both with entire rooms for growing with 1000watters that is doing cabs now.

I don't have space issues (have a 20'x36' basement) and wondering what to do, if conditioning another Ikea cab (the whole space this time, 95cmx40x60 with a 250HPS) or buying a Grow Tent... and in such case a 1x1x2 meter one or something smaller like a Homebox XS (60x60x1.20m, w/ a 400W HPS maybe) there isn't much price difference however.

Guess is easy for experienced growers like you to keep everything in control in "tight" spaces, but for a newbie like me it keep al parameters under control could be too much...

I'm a moderate smoker, so good quantity production isn't a must... but I'm liking a lot growing as a hobby... I'm looking to have quality and variety, being able to pick my favourite moms, etc...

 

[petemoss]

Hi repuk! I was just joking about the low density sog. Eventually I'll have about 40-50 plants in the flower cab, but for now the cab is being stocked with the first wave of clones. Because of my problems rooting clones, each week a few clones get put in, but sometimes I miss a week or two when the clones died. So my low density sog is not by design. Eventually I'll get it filled, though I worry that my 250 watt light won't penetrate enough to reach the lower buds.

Your idea for a separate flower cab sounds good. I'm glad to have the extra room to tend to the plants, or veg a little longer before throwing newly rooted clones into the flower cab. I prefer a cab to a grow tent because the wooden cab is more solid and quieter. Also, the sides of a tent get sucked in and sometimes pushes against the plants. That may knock off some precious trichromes! lol

As I mentioned before, I'm helping a friend build a grow cab. It's almost finished and ready for clones (which I'm supposed to supply). Despite my advice to go big with two cabs, he opted to put everything in one cab -mothers/clones veg area and flower section. Sort of a big NGB cab. I came up with a good design for venting the veg section passively. We ran a 2" PVC pipe from the top of the veg section to the flower section above. A sort of "sucking tube" that flows hot air from the veg area into the depressurized flower section. I'll add a pic after I find my camera.

 

[NiceShoes]

Where you the fella who got the last pair of the 8x8 Adorama Louver vents? Dick

Just playin :friends: but they seem to be sold out wherever I look, where did you get them?

Thanks and it's really coming along eh? Pretty bad ass, the colas are getting FAT!

NiceShoes

 

[petemoss]

Thanks, NiceShoes. Yeah, I'm the guy buying up all the 8" Adorama louvers and advising others to stop messing around with pvc elbows. Too much work to cut all those holes and then fitting the elbows in the holes airtight. If you can only get white pvc, you have to paint the elbows black. Plus those elbows take up space that could be used to grow another plant - that's another 10 grams at least!

I'm surprised myself how nice my oldest plants look after four weeks of 12/12. Actually, the buds are smaller than they appear in the pix. The white hairs and frosty leaves make the buds look puffed out and fat. But I'm not complaining!

 

[repuk]

Hi repuk! I was just joking about the low density sog. Eventually I'll have about 40-50 plants in the flower cab, but for now the cab is being stocked with the first wave of clones. Because of my problems rooting clones, each week a few clones get put in, but sometimes I miss a week or two when the clones died. So my low density sog is not by design. Eventually I'll get it filled, though I worry that my 250 watt light won't penetrate enough to reach the lower buds.

And going higher to a 400W would be overkill in heat terms I suppose?

Your idea for a separate flower cab sounds good. I'm glad to have the extra room to tend to the plants, or veg a little longer before throwing newly rooted clones into the flower cab. I prefer a cab to a grow tent because the wooden cab is more solid and quieter. Also, the sides of a tent get sucked in and sometimes pushes against the plants. That may knock off some precious trichromes! lol

hehe the quieter factor is something interesting, though I guess once in flowering I'll flip the lights on at night, and have the extractor to be thermo-controlled so the noisier period will be at night when no one is in the basement.

Discretion is also another factor... I guess in terms of costs either a cab or grow tent could cost the same when bought new?

As I mentioned before, I'm helping a friend build a grow cab. It's almost finished and ready for clones (which I'm supposed to supply). Despite my advice to go big with two cabs, he opted to put everything in one cab -mothers/clones veg area and flower section. Sort of a big NGB cab. I came up with a good design for venting the veg section passively. We ran a 2" PVC pipe from the top of the veg section to the flower section above. A sort of "sucking tube" that flows hot air from the veg area into the depressurized flower section. I'll add a pic after I find my camera.

great... good point to run the PVC outside to save inside space... however I think that way you cannot control the veg area humidity, I mean, extraction is linked to both areas. However due to the extraction "losses" of the pipe run will maybe compensate keeping more humidity in the veg area?

If not a CPU case FAN with the thermo-controlled module is great for reduced veg areas! and no PVC run needed...

 

[one Q]

can we get a pic of your friends cab with the doors open.

 

[petemoss]

repuk, for five sq ft I think a 250 watter is a good match. I've seen some very respectable grows with a 250 watt light in a cab (_frankenstein's Wonder Box for instance.), but all those were done with 10-15 plants -not 40-50 plants. DrBud gave an example of 430 watt HPS over 16 sq ft -that's only 27 watts and 9 plants per sq ft! He admitted that the buds were not pretty, but "the weight was there." Many cab growers use a 400 watt light in larger cabs like the four feet wide closets from HD but as you noted, heat is a big problem.

I'm not sure if my sucking tube will work. May need to add another tube if one is not exhausting the veg area fast enough. As far as humidity, that will largely depend on the ambient temps and humidity. I can keep ambient temps and humidity within a comfortable range in my small office with an A/C, humidifier and dehumidifier.
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one Q, I'll get a pic of the inside the next time I visit. Except for some wiring and weatherstripping, the cab is almost ready. Now if I can only find a reliable cloning method, we can start to stock his new cab.

 

[petemoss]

I took the 12 clones out of the box and transplanted them into bottles (20 oz) yesterday night. Right away, they wilted and dried up. Doubt if any will make it. I dug up my old bubble cloner and set it up with 11 new clones. Looks like I'll be growing a low density SOG for a while! Most of the ill-fated clones had short bunches of roots and some only had root bumps. In my haste, I decided to dig them out and put them in my coco mix. I should have waited a couple of more days for the roots to get longer. Oh well, good thing I have four LUI mothers ready to supply new cuts.

 

[Mr.Bitti]

great box and great grow man, i wanna keep my on this. good luck on the bubble cloner i hope you get some sick new clones.

 

[repuk]

good luck with the clones!!! have to see these new cabs filled!!

 

[petemoss]

Thanks for the kind words Mr.Bitti and repuk. I'm slowly getting my cloning skills back. With the heating pad, roots popped out after only nine days in the perlite boxes! After weeding out weak, sickly clones I ended up with 20 rooted or rooting clones. They are here in their bottles and cups next to the bubble cloner. I'm going to screw in some more CFLs and veg these new clones until I see roots at the bottom of the bottle before throwing any into the flowering cab.



The flowering plants are still filling in and are in their 3-5 weeks of flower. I'm having some yellow leaves starting from the bottom of the plants and working up to some middle leaves. I flushed until runoff was not too acidic and now they are all back to their old DrBud diet. A few have stretched to nearly 20" and I wonder if the bare stems will get filled by harvest next month.




Damn, these LUI have pretty fat buds! Thick stems too. The one above needs a bamboo stick for support.

 

[repuk]

glad to see your cloning luck restored

those LUIs look like the ideal SOG strain!

 

[petemoss]

These LUI really grow nice buds. This short Indica dominant strain doesn't stretch much when grown with a two to three week veg. But if you only veg them to 2-3" they grow to over 13". Some clones were vegged to 4-6" and grew to over 20" but look awfully stretchy to me at that size. With another month of fattening, the lanky clones are still mostly top buds with light fluffy popcorn buds below. Supposedly, there are two distinct phenos -Ortega and Sweet Tooth. I'm not sure which phenos I have, but one mother is definitely different with thin shoots.

I asked the mods to move this thread to the Grow Diaries forum where I hope to update till harvest.

 

[eclurker]

Those buds look sooooo healthy!! Yum yum. Excellent work sir. Keep us in the loop. Happy growing.