Starke's Story: An LED Tale

[starke]

Starke I just finished reading your entire thread and I've got to congratulate you on some great work and perseverance.
On your second grow, great job Boyd with the big help, I was rooting you on like my pick in the Kentucky Derby. You got bumped around out of the gate but caught up down the home stretch, passed every other horse and as you were heading towards the finish line I was yelling, Go, Go, Go!
I was also yelling No, No, No when you switched to Jacks. I know , I know that's blasphemy on this site but, after reading an over 100 page thread about Jacks a couple of days ago, I would have bet a million dollars you would start seeing deficiencies; and you did.
I know a lot of guys kill it with Jacks but it appears that it is very sensitive to water quality and it also appears that you have to have everything else in your room perfect before it works properly. That's just my take after reading that long thread on Jacks. A lot of people were having a bunch of issues after switching to Jacks.
You got over 2 lbs. though last round using it so it obviously can do the job; it just seems to need a lot of tinkering to get it right.
Anyway you are doing a great job and I'm really enjoying your thread; very educational too. Hoping you get your 3 lbs. this round.
I do have one question for you. I think it was the Liberty Haze that threw balls later in flowering, did you consider pinching them off and trying to get it to finish? I've read where some strains are prone to do that later in flowering and that you can watch it, keep pinching them off and they will finish fine.
Good luck this round.

At this point I'm going to give the Jacks another couple of rounds and see if I can get it dialed in - only because I've probably got 23lbs of each component left. The good news is my Italian heirloom tomato plant loves the stuff. Put one in a five gallon Hempy and it is threatening to take over the front porch. I will probably put all my tomatoes in Hempys next year.

I am open to suggestions on simple effective nutes that do not cost an arm and a leg. I'm an older head and don't believe I need 32 bottles and supplements to grow good dope. Tried the KISS with Maxibloom and it was just not enough. Thought before doing the Maxi veg product with the bloom, I would try the Jacks because it was way more economical than the GH products when it came to a two part.

I pulled the Haze only because I had another one in the room and could afford to. The second one did not herm and I am running three of the clones from that plant this round.

 

[FlaDankster]

Way to pull through dude.


Have you heard of Mega Crop?

1 product.Powdered.Mixes extremely easy.Has more goodies in it than a rich kids pumkin bucket on Halloween.

Works wonderful but does need a P/K product in flower in my opinion.

 

[starke]

Way to pull through dude.


Have you heard of Mega Crop?

1 product.Powdered.Mixes extremely easy.Has more goodies in it than a rich kids pumkin bucket on Halloween.

Works wonderful but does need a P/K product in flower in my opinion.

Thanks, I'll read up on it. Any suggestions for the P/K product(s) for flower?

 

[FlaDankster]

I use BeastieBloomz from foxfarm.It's what was on hand.I say use what ever ya find cheap.

Only thing i've noticed about the MC is depending on water source ph may drift some.

 

[FlaDankster]

Just saw there is a thread on MC in the nute forum bud.

 

[justiceman]

Liking the tie down you gave the ladies.



I'm currently using Veg+Bloom and it works quite well as a 1 part. Also using their PK(shine) along with it. I find that my pH has the most stability if I add about .2-.3EC(100-150ppm) worth of tap water to my R/O before adding nutrients.



Just got a free sample of MC a little bit ago that I want to compare to Veg+Bloom soon. I'll say this. VB definitely smells better than MC hahaha, but I've heard that's how MC comes so no big deal. I'm a big fan of keeping it simple. I've always wanted to try jacks but my room and runs are so small that it would take me forever to use it.


Happy Growing!

 

[starke]

Weekly Update Veg

Weekly Update Veg

Just a quick update and pic. The girls have bounced back nicely from the defol and training a few days ago and have begun to green up some (although the pic still does not do them justice). Big thanks to caljim for his suggestion on the new Jack's ratio. It is working nicely.

Last Week:

Today:

Peace,
starke

 

[Palindrome]

New run starting to look good, had a good LOL a few pages back.

Bug's sucks, and yeah be prepared. Been lucky myself, only had a few runins with the borg over the years.
Everything else I have battled, have been fairly managable even in flower.

Hope you nipped it in the butt, and got everything cleaned out good!

Happy growing!

 

[justiceman]

Awesome to see that nutrient ratio change is working out!

 

[starke]

A Room Change

A Room Change

The problem with Hempy buckets or any other drain to waste style of growing is the waste part of the equation. Unless you truly are draining to waste, you must deal with the runoff in some fashion after feeding/watering. Collection buckets/pans, sump pumps, shop vacs, manually dumping buckets etc.

In my case I have an aluminum roasting pan under each bucket to collect runoff which I then shop vac out. This amounts to about a half gallon per plant and requires vacuuming four of the plants, dumping the shop vac, vacuum the other four and dump the shop vac again. This is an absolute pain in the ass and has been in both the tent and in the new room. I was not graceful at 20 and have not improved with age. My dancing around trying to vacuum out waste water has caused me to break one plant entirely in the tent a couple of grows ago and to frequently damage plants by accidentally sucking parts of them into the vac while moving around. There are two plants in the room now with leaf damage to what will be colas caused by being sucked into the shop vac.

After scratching my head I decided to build a low boy DTW table and allow the waste to drain through the floor into my crawlspace. Keeping the height to a minimum was my primary concern.

Construction was the basic corrugated roofing and PVC gutter. I had to build the bases in two sections in order to get them into the room:

Both halves in place and the gutter installed:

A layer of Panda for additional moisture protection:

The corrugated roofing:

 

[starke]

Continued From Page 31

Continued From Page 31

Everything went together fairly smoothly. Here are the girls after receiving their first feeding on the new table:

Only cost me about six and a half inches in height so I am happy. No more stumblin' fumblin' bumblin' to feed the girls:

Peace,
starke

 

[FlaDankster]

Nice work.

You gonna put some thing on that wood?Like some Kilz or another product to ensure nothing nasty grow on it?

 

[starke]

Nice work.

You gonna put some thing on that wood?Like some Kilz or another product to ensure nothing nasty grow on it?

I'll probably spray them with some Thompsons Waterseal after this grow when I tear the room down to clean. Did not have any handy last night and too late to go to the store so I said fuck it until then.

 

[caljim]

I had a joke in mind that went something like..."bet thats the best 6" you ever gave to the ladies" ...but that would be totally inappropriate so I will keep it to myself.

Those tables look nice and surely will pay for themselves in saved labor in no time.

Plants are greening up well too.

 

[FrozenFire]

Well done starke! I'm a firm believer in engineering out manual labor where reasonably possible. Any thought on auto feeding with a pump and drip lines?

 

[starke]

caljim: I had the same thought cross my mind while building the bases...sadly my misses might agree.

FrozenFire: The wheels have already started turning. Not smelling smoke yet, but the plan is hatching.

 

[justiceman]

That's an awesome table you built! Great job I love it. I'm still part of the shopvac club for now hahahaha.

 

[Palindrome]

Nice and simple flow table, IMO it's a must for simple hydro like hempy buckets.

I wonder what happend to Hempy? he was a really nice guy, and a good skilled grower.

 

[starke]

Just a quick note for a reference point. Lights went out at 9:00 pm last night and will remain out until 9:00 am tomorrow. 36 hours of dark then the 11/13 cycle begins. It's flower time.

 

[starke]

Flower Day 1

Flower Day 1

Just another place marker. Day one of flower. Here is a pic of the ladies as they appeared at lights on this morning, after 36 hours of dark:

Peace,
starke