The Compound...

[swapmeet]

I am figuring that with the heat and sitting in water that the perched water went stagnant and may have caused root rot. Hopefully not. But it is easy to check.

Getting them off the floor so drainage is returned and watering less often will take care of this if the roots are not to far gone should it be root rot.

It is the new growth that is yellowing, that is my concern... they don't smell bad... and I've got the no pest strips in there, so hopefully I can solve this with a flush.

I think from now on, I will hand water them and do away with the wick system...

 

[swapmeet]

It looks like it was a heat situation....the new growth is nice and green... regardless, I will hand water from the top once to twice per day from here on out...

 

[DunHav`nFun]

Ok.....Now let me see if I understand this right , cuz I`m pretty sure I`ve missed or overlooked this end of things.....So you`re sayin you`ve been dumpin juice in the outer holding troughs for the plants to eat instead of just catching runoff ?......Bro.....

Sub-irrigated planters where you feed externally and the plants wick up the juice aren`t designed for coco or any other inert media like perlite , but rather as far as I know "organic water fed only" dirt setups since dirt won`t wick as much juice and endanger the rootzones from becoming anaerobic root rot disasters staying too wet…...now....

I know you`re using perlite an inert media , but Hempy`s were designed to be fed from the top down for gas exchange/oxygenating the rootzone while also exchanging and PURGING juice completely that bottom residual reservoir designed to allow the plants to stay alive and wick feed leftover as a LIFE LINE ONLY if needed before the next feed sequence.....anyways.....There`s 1 guy here growin big ass sativa bitches with a wick system underneath his coco where the smartpot just sits on the "swick" and draws up juice as the plant needs EXACTLY like sub irrigated planters work , but the jury`s still out on whether or not the setup will produce efficiently as well as consistently , run after run but I digress....so....

Hope everything starts comin together my buddy , but as you see with ANY new setup , it`s always somethin till shit starts the rotations and all bugs are worked out along the way.....Keep strokin Bro....you`ll get there....bet on it.....

Peace.....DHF..... …...

 

[swapmeet]

Ok.....Now let me see if I understand this right , cuz I`m pretty sure I`ve missed or overlooked this end of things.....So you`re sayin you`ve been dumpin juice in the outer holding troughs for the plants to eat instead of just catching runoff ?......Bro.....

Sub-irrigated planters where you feed externally and the plants wick up the juice aren`t designed for coco or any other inert media like perlite , but rather as far as I know "organic water fed only" dirt setups since dirt won`t wick as much juice and endanger the rootzones from becoming anaerobic root rot disasters staying too wet…...now....

I know you`re using perlite an inert media , but Hempy`s were designed to be fed from the top down for gas exchange/oxygenating the rootzone while also exchanging and PURGING juice completely that bottom residual reservoir designed to allow the plants to stay alive and wick feed leftover as a LIFE LINE ONLY if needed before the next feed sequence.....anyways.....There`s 1 guy here growin big ass sativa bitches with a wick system underneath his coco where the smartpot just sits on the "swick" and draws up juice as the plant needs EXACTLY like sub irrigated planters work , but the jury`s still out on whether or not the setup will produce efficiently as well as consistently , run after run but I digress....so....

Hope everything starts comin together my buddy , but as you see with ANY new setup , it`s always somethin till shit starts the rotations and all bugs are worked out along the way.....Keep strokin Bro....you`ll get there....bet on it.....

Peace.....DHF..... …...

I hear ya bro. I have run this extended reservoir hempy set up once before, many years ago... about 18 bushes in a walk in closet with very good results.... this run has been much more difficult, I am assuming due to the different climate/environment/nutes I was using...
Regardless, once I flower these moms, the hempy portion of this grow will be over...so no need to worry or try to dial it in... Once I decided to go with big numbers in coco, the mothers/hempies became obsolete...

Now I am getting close to ready to start building my feeding system/manifold for the quad racks...

 

[swapmeet]

It has been a rough few days in the garden... It seemed like every time I watered the clones in the cups, there would be some that were just shriveled up and died over night.

I remembered what Freds told me about checking the ppm/ec of the runoff... Sure enough it was over 1,500 ppm. So I thoroughly flushed every cup until the runoff was normal, and then fed them at an EC of .650... Hopefully that solves the problem... I am not sure if I spaced the initial rinsing or if it was the different coco that needed more thorough rinsing... but I will know soon.

On another note, the mothers have bounced back really well and are exploding with new growth... Should be ready to flower soon... I will have pictorial evidence later today.

 

[swapmeet]

Back to business....

Back to business....

Well... a lot has happened in the world over the last couple months... And with me. I am a covid survivor, got pretty damn sick, though not on the verge of dying or anything.... I am still young enough and have been in very good shape, which helped. However, in that month of major sickness I lost all but 3 plants... 3 clones, NL, BBC, and Gelato. The crop death was a combination of extreme heat, sickness, and lack of experience with coco... the perfect storm.

So I decided to order some more genetics, pop my last 9 beans, veg them until I feel comfortable flipping the switch, then flowering them, which the harvest will coincide with the end of my lease... and I will move up north to a perfect climate where the hottest month averages 75 degrees, and the nights get cool enough to add some purple into the game.

So Freds....the golden adage lines up here again...When all else fails, do what you should have done the first time and take Freds' advice. You told me I should do a run all the way through with coco and get to know it before diving in big on my racks, so I am taking this opportunity to do so. My new place will cost as much as both places I have down here in hell... So I am going to work on perfecting the racks on the side.

In the meanwhile, for easy production funds, I will go back to my ebb and grow days and build a little pay the bills system in donuts on one side of the attic, and build the racks and figure those things out on the other side of the room. Then I will slowly replace each of the donuts with a quad rack.

So.... let's get down to business here... I will catch you up to speed...

I had the three small survivors and I popped my last beans, so now I have 12 plants--all in coco.

 

[swapmeet]

I couldn't find out why my plants were looking like they were mg and/or p deficient... the leaves were getting all jacked. I calibrated my ph pen ant it was +.3, so once calibrated correctly, they started putting out nice green leaves again and I transplanted them into the fabric pots. I decided that I would grow them in a donut with a vertical bare bulb, since that is the set up most similar to the racks as well as the ebb and grow set up I will be using.

I did a mock up of what a donut could look like in the ebb and grow set up in the same 4x4 area as my racks will take up.



Notice that the bottom of the fabric back is actually a tad bigger than the bottom of the blue 2,5 gal bucket I'll be using in the ebb and grow setup. Also, that the fabric pots actually all fit inside the lines of the 4x4 square tiles, making them take up about 3x3... so 16 fit around the center where the light will be, and slightly less as the plants grow inwards towards the light...more about that later...

 

[swapmeet]

So, with my coco actually in those fabric pots, and there only being 12 of them, the donut is much tighter...



All of them are off the ground, but I used different size risers to bring the top of the canopies close to the same height.. This is the day after transplant.

 

[swapmeet]

Like I said before, the inner circle of this donut is very tight. I measured across the circle from leaf to leaf and it is 27" both directions. So that is 27x27" for 729 sq inches... divide that by 144 inches in a square foot is 5.06 square feet. I want to see what I can expect from these CMH bulbs that I have, so I dropped a 315w CMH in the middle of the donut. 315 watts divided by 5.06 sq feet puts me in the golden zone of 50+ w/sf, at 62.25. So far the plants like it as you can see from the transplant day of May 26th, flipped on May 28th, and today, May 30 after 2 days of 12/12, they look much more full:









And those are today... We are caught up.

 

[bucketswithsoil]

Good to see ya back...

 

[swapmeet]

Good to see ya back...

Thanks brother... looking forward to a harvest with this coco...I feel like I'm getting the hang of it more... Ever since I re-calibrated my ph meter, it has been all green. I am still feeding the new transplants every other day for a couple more feedings. Today I tightened the donut to get these girls as close to the light as possible. with that air blowing straight up I can pass the hand test at like 4 or 5 inches.



The inner diameter is close to 2x2' I am hoping to see a reasonable harvest, though the little gelato bush will be a key indicator on what I could expect if I vegged a group of 12 that size...

 

[DunHav`nFun]

Thanks brother... looking forward to a harvest with this coco...I feel like I'm getting the hang of it more... Ever since I re-calibrated my ph meter, it has been all green. I am still feeding the new transplants every other day for a couple more feedings. Today I tightened the donut to get these girls as close to the light as possible. with that air blowing straight up I can pass the hand test at like 4 or 5 inches.

<a href="https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=81415&pictureid=2043981" target="_blank">View Image
The inner diameter is close to 2x2' I am hoping to see a reasonable harvest, though the little gelato bush will be a key indicator on what I could expect if I vegged a group of 12 that size...

Sorry to hear bout the sickness Bro.....Hope things are better these days.....just remember not to let the smartpots sit in their runoff cuz they`ll wick the juice back up and cause imbalances and residual salt buildup will ensue guaranteed......now....We talked about the donut thingy a long while back before you were dead set on the quads , although this will apply to both.....see bro.....You got all that light blastin sideways with nothin to catch and reflect it back to the plants.....and what does that do ?....throws that 50 watts per sq ft right out the window and most likely will end up 1/2 of those needed lumens or wtf ever the kiddies call it these days like par , umols and ppfd`s and some such....anyways...…

When budget permits , getchas 1 of them newfangled light meters , and you`ll have a good idea on what to do from then on , but for now...…You can make outta pvc or maybe find some already made local where you are , but theyre garment racks with wheels on the bottom to roll and move around easily.....They`re usually 4' wide and perfect to hang "reflectix" panels so all lost light will be reflected back at the plants for optimum watts per sq ft and increased metabolism for end results.....

You can leave the bottoms open for passive air intakes to help get rid of heatgain , although with just that 1 bulb you shouldn`t haveta worry much about temps.....biggest thing is reflection for the backs of the plants.....aight....nuff outta my old ass this day......My boy`s back from deployment in Afghanistan and I`m a happy camper.....Got a pig in da ground with the beer on ice , and ALL my rowdy friends `re comin over tonite…...Yall Come.....and Swap......you`ll get there my buddy.....shit happens......bet on it.....it`s how you react and overcome that matters......so get ta work and handle it.....I`m around …..Glad you`re ok.....

Peace......Freds…… …...

 

[swapmeet]

Sorry to hear bout the sickness Bro.....Hope things are better these days.....just remember not to let the smartpots sit in their runoff cuz they`ll wick the juice back up and cause imbalances and residual salt buildup will ensue guaranteed......now....We talked about the donut thingy a long while back before you were dead set on the quads , although this will apply to both.....see bro.....You got all that light blastin sideways with nothin to catch and reflect it back to the plants.....and what does that do ?....throws that 50 watts per sq ft right out the window and most likely will end up 1/2 of those needed lumens or wtf ever the kiddies call it these days like par , umols and ppfd`s and some such....anyways...…

When budget permits , getchas 1 of them newfangled light meters , and you`ll have a good idea on what to do from then on , but for now...…You can make outta pvc or maybe find some already made local where you are , but theyre garment racks with wheels on the bottom to roll and move around easily.....They`re usually 4' wide and perfect to hang "reflectix" panels so all lost light will be reflected back at the plants for optimum watts per sq ft and increased metabolism for end results.....

You can leave the bottoms open for passive air intakes to help get rid of heatgain , although with just that 1 bulb you shouldn`t haveta worry much about temps.....biggest thing is reflection for the backs of the plants.....aight....nuff outta my old ass this day......My boy`s back from deployment in Afghanistan and I`m a happy camper.....Got a pig in da ground with the beer on ice , and ALL my rowdy friends `re comin over tonite…...Yall Come.....and Swap......you`ll get there my buddy.....shit happens......bet on it.....it`s how you react and overcome that matters......so get ta work and handle it.....I`m around …..Glad you`re ok.....

Peace......Freds…… …...

Hi Freds, thanks for coming by.... It is hard to tell in the picture, but I have little risers under each pot that looks like its on the ground...They keep each plant close to an inch off the ground or so.

As for the reflectix, I was thinking about that, and maybe I'm wrong... that happens regularly... the reason I did not put any up is because the light that gets through the plant to the reflectix, then reflected back will be onto the back of the plant.... The part that will be pruned off so that the buds facing the bulb will get all the light. So I was figuring that throwing up boundaries would just restrict circulation... I have that fan in the background aimed at the wall behind the plants to get their leaves wiggling a bit... without messing with the upflow of the fan under the bulb much.

The garment wheeler racks is another golden idea of yours bud... if the reflectix is deemed necessary, then that is what I will use.

I am still dead set on the quad racks... that is the project I will be tinkering with until I get it right... At the same time, it is time to start producing... The demand is real. This is why I have decided to go back to the ebb and gro buckets for production while I work the kinks out on the racks. I have produced many pounds with a DIY ebb and gro setup. The only difference back then is that it was under horizontal kw hps in rows. This time it will be in tight donuts. I will use one of those 18 gal rubbermaid type of containers for the control bucket and 3/4" tubing.

As I gut the quad racks build and tested, I will replace each ebb and grow donut with the racks. I think it is hard to beat the production potential of the racks, that is why a rack set up was so successful for you towards the end of your production career. They are like a crosss between your set up and a multi-tiered donut set up/coliseum set up... I really like the idea, but I have realized that you were right about working on that project on the side, while getting production taken care of... and getting to know coco with a couple runs under the old belt.

I am glad to hear your boy is back safe and sound brother, raise one for the family!

 

[swapmeet]

I have 4 rolling 4' garment racks on the way... actually adjustable from 2-5'

 

[DunHav`nFun]

I have 4 rolling 4' garment racks on the way... actually adjustable from 2-5'

The size plants you`ll be growin won`t be thick enough to stop proper light penetration directly through the plants , thus the need to not worry so much about hackin the backs of the plants out , but rather do a thorough job of cleaning out the innards and isolating dominant cola limbs if more than 1 size dependent of course....that said.....

Most elite seed strains are single cola dominant with very few being self-branching on top of being more indica dominant and taking for fucking ever to veg to any decent size to amount to any weight by end of Harvey , so that`s why there should be enough reflective surface behind the plants to allow em to be all they can be , and Hell......I was gonna tell yas push comes ta shove , order a cheapass 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 tent to throw em in , but garment racks with rollers allows so much more freedom of use down the road.....anyways.....

We`ll figure it out as yas get goin , no biggie...….all things in time.....also.....My boy`s been home a couple weeks from war , and now he`s gonna be deployed to the bullshit riots in the big city if things don`t calm down.....buncha fukin idiots lootin and burnin shit to the ground for no other reason than to incite anarchy and chaos....oh well.....life goes on.....shit gets rebuilt.....looks good for the nothin ass democrats come election time , but 1 can still pray for a miracle....

Peace....DHF..... …...

 

[bucketswithsoil]

DhF...droppin knowledge....
STEADILY.....big Ups...
:friends:

 

[swapmeet]

The size plants you`ll be growin won`t be thick enough to stop proper light penetration directly through the plants , thus the need to not worry so much about hackin the backs of the plants out , but rather do a thorough job of cleaning out the innards and isolating dominant cola limbs if more than 1 size dependent of course....that said.....

Most elite seed strains are single cola dominant with very few being self-branching on top of being more indica dominant and taking for fucking ever to veg to any decent size to amount to any weight by end of Harvey , so that`s why there should be enough reflective surface behind the plants to allow em to be all they can be , and Hell......I was gonna tell yas push comes ta shove , order a cheapass 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 tent to throw em in , but garment racks with rollers allows so much more freedom of use down the road.....anyways.....

We`ll figure it out as yas get goin , no biggie...….all things in time.....also.....My boy`s been home a couple weeks from war , and now he`s gonna be deployed to the bullshit riots in the big city if things don`t calm down.....buncha fukin idiots lootin and burnin shit to the ground for no other reason than to incite anarchy and chaos....oh well.....life goes on.....shit gets rebuilt.....looks good for the nothin ass democrats come election time , but 1 can still pray for a miracle....

Peace....DHF..... …...

Well....it is their cities and states with the total lack of leadership... I think an economy roaring back will bode well...we will see. As for the reflectix... that makes sense... I am getting on board with that...

I ask: what about the circulation fan?
Should I just aim it into an open corner of the reflectix?

 

[swapmeet]

I hear ya on the single colas... that is what most of these are...only reason why the gelato, bbc, and NL have more branches is because I took a couple clones off of them... Even the plants that look tiny are well-stacked with 7-8 tight nodes that just had their ugly fans removed from earlier ph pen failure... So with a couple of weeks of stretch, I am hopin for enough nodes to pop around an oz off... but we shall see what we shall see... If I can average just 1.3 oz per plant, I will be ecstatic... I am going to need a nice stretch to pull that off...

 

[DunHav`nFun]

Point a circulation fan on each opposite side of the donut down at the area I`m callin the "passive air intake" between the rollers/casters and however tall enough to allow good airflow into the bottoms and up thru the lil plants , and that allows the muffin fan in the middle to help pull in the outside air and push it straight up creating a column of air recirculating 24/7 to control heatgain as much as possible.....then.....

To attach reflectix to the racks just wrap some short strips of ducktape around the front and back then use a regular paper "hole punch" and punch holes where needed to stick cable ties/tie wraps to up down and all around and reflectix panel done with no possible ripping..... and before I forget about it.....Getchas some Drip Clean from H&G and add 1ml per gal EVERY feed but do it from start of grow never in the middle.....

It locks onto excess nutrients and prevents residual salt buildup in the medium , and the best part is there`s all but no need for runoff with coco anymore with Drip Clean in the feed regimen compared to me dumpin 100`s of gallons of runoff for yrs and yrs...…

I never knew what Botanicare Cal/Mag Plus was till I went balls out coco , and then I found out real quick about coco`s CEC/cation exchange capacity with Chem D deficient left and right , so I got some and it saved the day.....keep it on hand......

GH has I think the name is Cali-magic that`s completely different from Botanicare in that CalMag plus is Calcium Nitrate based , while GH`s stuff is Calcium Carbonate based that can be used up into flower if needed …..never used Cali-magic so don`t quote me on how far into bloomage it can be used , but no extra nitrates are ever needed after end of stretch IME , and that`s all I know.....aight....

Headed to the lake with # 1 son to play with the new fishin drone.....finds the fish , drops the bait right on top of the schools , hit return and it comes back to the boat and lands all the while you hang on and fill the coolers and livewells with supper.....Holler and......

Take care.....DHF..... …….

 

[bucketswithsoil]

Headed to the lake with # 1 son to play with the new fishin drone.....finds the fish , drops the bait right on top of the schools , hit return and it comes back to the boat and lands all the while you hang on and fill the coolers and livewells with supper.....Holler and......
Take care.....DHF..... …….

i know where talking weed up in here....but come on DhF...gotz to tellz talkz more about this drone and dropping....man size bait for man size fish???...how strong is this drone...talk2me bud...