The OBBT Grow Show!

[Citizen024]

Great pull Rip! It looks awesome and thick. Love the buddage, really superb form.

You don't wait for the hairs to redden up a bit more? I generally wait for more reddness, and for the flowers to swell more. Maybe those shots are from earlier.

Way to knock it out there guy!

I don't think this would mess with you microlife too much- but there is this stuff that is an enzyme treatment for ponds. It's cheaper then sin, 1 tbsp is like for 100 gallons or something crazy. Derived from some bran or some such thing. I forget, but all natural

Anyhow, its a much better more potent version of the enzymes used in Cannzyme, etc. and breaks down roots very effectively. Some where there is a thread were they tested Hygrozyme, Cannazyme, and this stuff with dead roots/medium in glass jars. It licked em both and is WAY cheaper ($20 and it makes 100's of gallons). They have it at one shop in my area.

They also tried giving to plants a massive dose of the stuff to see if it burns/shocked.
It only shocked em for a day or so, and they gave it a MASSIVE dose. No burn.

Your microlife should just eat your roots up in the coming days (its food now), and you might jump it along by enzyme treatment. I bet you could even plant into it in 3 days and be fine.

 

[Kanye WeED]

def got a mold situation on my hands man, i dont know why but im thinking i got mold in my shit really dont think its suspose to look like this man, the shit is all over the gloves i left in there and some on the medium

should i throw ALL of it away and start over or just the shit on top

PLEASE HURRY AND HELP, cause i want the shit out TONIGHT!!!

think i got it dialed in, just took the top layer and then some outside and dumped it, the rest looks fine.

im thinking i shouldnt of left my gloves in there or something. From now on everynight im gonna stir the shit real nice and good to try to not let the shit happen again

thanks for the help!!!

 

[Kanye WeED]

I haven't been posting 'cause I been trimming.

First off, I hope to get a quick answer from the Lady, I just vaccumed off all the Perlite and am considering just plugging new plantlets into the active buckets.

I have some babies ready to go, I kinda remember someone saying that you can reuse the system as is.

Here's how the top of the grow medium looks



Wait, let's use the macro



I have concerns about roots growing next to decomposing roots.

OCTOBER HARVEST

I belive that this run is about double the first grow. I made various improvments, but without a doubt the OBBT buckets were the primary reason. Thank you LadyLargely, and DrunkenMessiah!

White Russian



Super Silver Haze



Dabney Blueberry



Buddage





With Rh in the teens, these didn't hang long. Paper bags, then into jars for curing. It's times like this that's hard to not share with your friends, I share my meds. but I can't share these growing experiences except anonymously here.

Grow on....

Respect,

OHH MY GOODNESS RIPVANWEED, u r def 1 of my fav growers on the site, let alone the obbt method u have really got ur shit dialed in

id like to have a better over all look of ur grow from start to finish, dont know if u got a diary on here or not but id love to see it from seedling to put that in your pipe and smoke it!!!

lots of love and respect sir!!! BIG UPS!!!

 

[nine7oh]

Hi, just wanted to say you guys just blew my mind. I've been reading rollitup.org and it seems like the users there aren't as advanced in general as the ones here. ICMAG rocks!!

I went from 100% hydro dude to OBBT in a few hours of reading (okay maybe it was an entire day). After reading all the posts by DM, LLay, Rrog and RipVan I decided to take the OBBT plunge as well. I think a lot of the reasons I switched to hydro was because I didn't know enough about soil (like keeping it fluffy and springy). Anyhow, props to all of you who have been posting, I seriously just learned so much from you guys and can't wait to put it into action!! I'll take pics today of my construction plans...

 

[rrog]

I've been reading rollitup.org and it seems like the users there aren't as advanced in general as the ones here. ICMAG rocks!!

Hello and welcome Nine7oh. I used to spend most of my time at cannabisculture forums, but after my last grow I started seeing the light. I had great results with hydro, but I really had my eyes opened with the use of hormones, heavy aeration and beneficial microbes in the res. Not much discussion on these fine points over there.

When I came here and started reading DMs epic thread, and then LadyL's pictorials, I knew this was the place for me. I don't think you'll find the depth and breadth of conversation regarding LactoB, Cytokinin, etc. And certainly no soil grow with heavy aeration. That's all concentrated here on this forum.

Let's see what you're planning!

 

[LadyLargely]

Just thought you guys should check these out- http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=72215

In the next couple of months I hope to combine OBBT and CMH to produce some exceptional bud. Stay tuned for my grow journal!

Mr. Green:

I have been a big proponent of CMH for some time. I've never run them myself but I've personally seen too many excellent grows based on them to not be a fan. One thing though, something that users of this technology have warned me about: CMH does not have enough red for maximum flower!

CMH is excellent tech, but if you try to go all the way to the end with it you will be disappointed. There just isn't enough red in the active CMH specturum. Also they do not have as good of penetrating power as HPS. These two factors mean that pure CMH bud will be thinner and fluffier than HPS bud.

Happily, CMH are meant to be retro-fit technology. Most of them will only run in magnetic HPS ballasts. This makes it very easy to run CMH through Veg and the first couple weeks of flower. Then just swap it out for an HPS to finish the final 6-8 weeks of 'budswell'.

I've been looking into a cool-tubed CMH rig myself to upgrade my own grow in the long term. Instead of swapping the CMH for HPS in the later parts of flower I plan on building a water-cooled, 1+ watt diode LED strip array to suppliment with deep red light spectrums.

Let's see some pics guys! I'm getting so excited to start my grow, I'll find out in the next week or two whether or not I'm going to be legal. Yay MMJ!!

How does everybody split their tubing from the pump to their buckets? I'm planning on getting a pump for a 150 gallon tank and running 4-6 buckets at a time.

Hehe, pics in just a minute my good man. As for how to split the air line there are a couple of ways to go about it. Multi-port air pumps like rrog suggested are a big plus. You can also use something like this:



A manifold. Not quite as efficient as a multi-port pump, but more convenient and easier to customize.

I haven't been posting 'cause I been trimming.

First off, I hope to get a quick answer from the Lady, I just vaccumed off all the Perlite and am considering just plugging new plantlets into the active buckets.

I have some babies ready to go, I kinda remember someone saying that you can reuse the system as is.

With Rh in the teens, these didn't hang long. Paper bags, then into jars for curing. It's times like this that's hard to not share with your friends, I share my meds. but I can't share these growing experiences except anonymously here.

Grow on....

Respect,

Holy shit! Amazing work as usual RVW! Look at that garage full of weed! Wish I was one of your friends, could definitely use some of those generously shared meds about now... But its still lovely to be part of the very exclusive group that gets to share with you information concerning your gardening exploits. Nobody IRL can know about our little family here, it is a special feeling to be a part of it.

Anyway! Your question. OBBTs really start to shine once you go to re-use them. Leaving dead roots down in a bunch of covered hydroton would normally be a recopy for disaster. But, all the aeration and high biological activity make re-use a breeze. Just cut your plants down, re-moisten the medium and let it bubble on its own for a week. Nearly the entire root network will be rapidly consumed. If you are in a hurry, enzyme-driven microbialy-active solutions like Citizen024 suggested will work well and do the OBBTs no harm.

Hi, just wanted to say you guys just blew my mind. I've been reading rollitup.org and it seems like the users there aren't as advanced in general as the ones here. ICMAG rocks!!

I went from 100% hydro dude to OBBT in a few hours of reading (okay maybe it was an entire day). After reading all the posts by DM, LLay, Rrog and RipVan I decided to take the OBBT plunge as well. I think a lot of the reasons I switched to hydro was because I didn't know enough about soil (like keeping it fluffy and springy). Anyhow, props to all of you who have been posting, I seriously just learned so much from you guys and can't wait to put it into action!! I'll take pics today of my construction plans...

Hahah! Welcome to the fold nine7oh!

For some reason this method speaks to something that lies deep within certain Cannabis gardeners. Your description makes it sound like you are one of these people. Users rrog and RipVanWeed where also this way. The moment they laid eyes on this method they seemed to sense that there is just something inherently right about it. As soon as the concept occurred to them they became insatiable in their hunger for more knowledge concerning it.

I myself was long disappointed with the ganja-growing websites after overgrow went down. Rollitup, cannabis.com, etc. They all suck. Not since the ole OG has there been as bright and intelligent a cannabis community as ICmag. In many ways I think this community is the best there has ever been, superior to the old OG. Sheer chance brought me to ICmag after I had given up on on-line cannabis communities. The happy accident has resulted in all this you see here. I don't think I shall ever leave.

Stoked to see your take on this method. Its so young that it seems like every single person who tries it out ends up improving it in some way. Your questions and updates on your own progress will always be welcome here. Bio Box is a fascinating technique. It is a living, breathing thing. They seem to take on lives and souls of their own. The more you work with OBBTs the more you learn to 'talk' to them. Becoming a Bio Box gardener can be a very spiritual, even religious thing. The connection I have come to feel with my little ecosystem-in-a-box is unique among all sensations.

Anyway, TIME FOR AN UPDATE!!

...Errr, or it was time for an update. For some reason when I go to upload pics I get this vague failure message:

"Upload of file failed"

No matter how many or few or small or large my photo updates are. This is most irritating. Fuck! Well, sorry guys, but till I get this straightened out you'll have to settle for a preview:

Oh well. There will be a proper update as soon as ICmag image upload stops being a bitch to me. Stay tuned!

 

[LadyLargely]

Update Proper

Update Proper

Ahh, there we are. Finally got the ICmag photo uploader to stop PMSing. So without further ado:

LadyL: rereading I sound a bit asshole'ish. My bad. Didn't mean to say you might just pull flarf.

Anyhow, please keep the pics coming! Excited to see what the potential is. Really not practical for my set up, but a great education for me to see it done.

I just have see it in a context beyond those factors and I look at it more as a "how much can the plants energy support" kind of thing. You can focus it, or spread it out, your choice. Genes do influence what is possible with a strain for sure.

Hehe, not at all my good man! Have you forgotten this little comment of mine already:

... but I gotta say I'm not terribly impressed with the size of them. With tables like that I assume you're running 1000 watt hortilux? If thats the case then tsk tsk, I expected better of you buddy!

So consider us even!

No need to have come to my defense KW, ole C024 brings up a valid concern.

Citizen024

Having so many buds on such small plants could very well be a recopy for disappointing 'popcorn' buds. But I can assure you, my good man, this shall not happen to me. I fix this potential problem just like I fix all potential problems:

Cheat

The problem with having so many little nuglets is nutrient delivery. Every time you make a nug you get an intersection in the stem it is connected to. And every time an intersection is made the nute-delivering efficiency of that stem goes down. Put too many intersections on too thin a stem and it can barely get anything done!

Which is why I'm such a fervent practitioner of supercropping

Check it out:



Those two stems are nowhere near the main shaft. They are relatively small compared to all the others. See, even my remote auxiliary stems are massive. And if you pinched the stems found in the above image you would find them to be rock hard. Not only are my stems much larger than typical ones, but they are also denser as well. Nutrient-carrying bundles of xylem are much stronger and more tightly-packed than on ordinary stems.

Couple that with this:


(disregard the scale, this pic is like 5 weeks old)

My super-tight main stem internodes. None of my main stems are even a foot long. No single bud is all that far from the root network. In fact, if you measured you would find that all of the main colas are nearly equidistant from the root bundle. Lower offshoots are longer and the ones higher up are shorter. As ugly and crazy and disorganized as it seems there is actually quite a beautiful symmetry to my plants.

So no, there will be no 'flarf' in this harvest

Anyway! Budding is really starting to ramp up. WW#2 is far enough along that I will begin her starve cycle in the next couple of days. WW#1 is still working on new baby colas, she has a lot more. It could be another week before she goes into starve. Lets look at some more horizontal cola formation:



Lovely.

You can just about track my progress for the week by looking at the two images below. They are of the same cola from roughly the same angle:



Older one on the left, as if you needed me to tell you

I love how frosty these little nuglets are getting already. Just look at the center nuglet in the second image. Not bad for a 2 week old flower eh? Who says you can't grow potent weed under floros!?

Other than that there isn't much happening now. I just keep re-training WW#1 to bring the smaller buds up into the light. WW#2 hasn't needed any training for a few days now. Prolly 1 or 2 more sessions and then she's done till harvest.

Not much will go down from here on out. Next update you guys will prolly catch WW#2 right in the middle of her first starve cycle, so she'll be looking like shit. About 2 weeks from now will be when the magic really starts to happen. WW#1 will be getting finished with her later starve cycle and I'll finally be able to plug in my UV tubes. Updates will prolly come a bit more often for a bit after that, as the buds always frost up really dramatically during the first UV blasts. It's a sight to behold, can't wait to show you guys, stay tuned

 

[rrog]

Man, when you update, you really update!

 

[nine7oh]

it begins!

it begins!

Alright here is my substrate, which is pretty much identical to Ladys mixture.

• 50% coco croutons (1/3 boiled, soaked and mashed up into fiberous, stringy stuff)
• 25% vermiculite/pearlite
• 25% Soil (Fox Farm Ocean or something... this whole soil thing is new haha)

As for preloading the organic nutrients, I went a slightly different route. My buddy who is a organic/soil dude seems to dig the Earth Juice, so I decided to use that for this round. Ideally, I'd like to buy the individual organics, but I have to make this system work before I spend more... I've maxxed the OBBT budget!! I checked and it has many of the same ingredients such as kelp, guano and all that stuff that smells horrible. I've noticed a theme here, the worse it smells the better it is.

• Mixed in 3tbsp Earth Juice Grow/.5tbsp bloom into 6 gallons of substrate. So the 2tbsp per 3 gallons substrate would rate that mixture 'strong' according to the bottle, but not the maximum extra strong.
  
• 2tbsp fast acting lime
• 1tbsp epsom salts
• 5tbsp 'plant success' - which had pretty much all of the pro-biotics that myco madness had.

Can you see any problems with using the pre-mixed Earth Juice organics as a preload? I can see how the individual bags of organic nutes would allow you more control, but Earth Juice should work, right?

Now time for the stuff I understand... hooking up hoses! The bucket is pretty similar to the other 5 gallon builds I've seen here but I combined the reservoir overflow, reservoir level indicator and air supply all into one part. Got some 90 degree elbows and some rubber grommets... not a single leak!

I did notice it is important to put your rocks in the bucket, then fill it ALMOST up with water so it's just below the rocks... THEN cut that clear tube and set the over flow height so that the soil never gets saturated wet. Here they are all ready to go!

If this method works for me, it seems pretty easy to scale up. I was considering having, say, a 10 gallon reservoir that would automatically water each OBBT bucket on a set schedule. Then all of the bucket overflows would be connected and a) fed back into the res. or b) into a 'overflow' res. so as to not grow funky organics in the fresh water supply.

Now I'm just waiting on some fuzzy stuff. I cooked up some rice wash and its been 2 days with not a whole lot going on... damnit. The real question is which 2 strains get the bucket treatment... wreckage/white rhino/mango/hubba bubba or belladonna? Hmm... decisions...

 

[rrog]

Great to have another bucket man! Is that medium wet? I had to pull mine all out to wet... I loaded it dry because I knew no better.

What air supply you runnin?

 

[LadyLargely]

Hahaha!

nine7oh, welcome to the party!!

Haha, good god man, you've set some kind of record I'm sure. That was what, like 36 hours from you first ever laying eyes on an OBBT to having constructed a fully ready-to-fire incubating one yourself!!! That is awesome!

Barely two days a member of our little club and you've already brought some interesting innovations!

* 50% coco croutons (1/3 boiled, soaked and mashed up into fiberous, stringy stuff)
* 25% vermiculite/pearlite
* 25% Soil (Fox Farm Ocean or something... this whole soil thing is new haha)

Haha, I love that. 'wuts this dirt business?' And "coco croutons" that cracked me up!

I think you've got yourself some FFOF; Fox Farms Ocean Forest. Easily in the top 5 of best ganja-growing soil mixes straight out of the bag. Good choice! Got no clue what it is, but you got the good stuff!

Man, if someone like you can make one of these things fly then it truly is as versatile as I thought. You're looking really good though. Even without any practical experience with soil you should have an easy time. The speed at which you picked up the concept and replicated it along with you catching little tricks like the rock layer being a tiny bit taller than the water line and such; is all spells you out as a supremely competent gardener.

Recirculated OBBTs have been discussed for a while now, but I do believe you are the first person to actually jump off and do it. Given your background it is hardly surprising, second nature to a cat like you.

As long as you have strong aeration the whicking effect in OBBTs is strong. Nutrients brought in via recirc should find their way into the medium very efficiently. I think you could definitely run your runoff back into the res. Strong oxygenation will keep anything too funky from happening and the microsphere should keep pH in check. In fact, running recirc like that could actually reduce shock to the soil chemistry when you add nutes.

But you're the expert as far as that goes!

Otherwise, you're looking really good man. There should be no problems with your proposed nutrient scheme. After pre-loading we just mix up teas and thats just because its easy and convenient for us organic green thumbs. Earth juice added straight to the central res should do just as well.

I've got full faith in the recirculated OBBT concept. My one caveat is that you may want to think of an air stone or waterfall arrangement in the central reservoir, a-la-Bio Bucket. That would pretty much guarantee that recirculated runoff from the OBBTs would cause no funkiness. Just happy beneficial aerobic bacteria would be the result.

Welcome to the fold nine7oh! You've splashed onto our little scene in spectacular fashion. Can't wait to see how your build effects the growth of plants from your excellent gene pool. They will be some happy ladies indeed! Stay in touch and stay tuned!

 

[RipVanWeed]

Nine7oh, welcome to the Club,

Just a backup to what LL said, Earth juice fits in to the OBBT scheme well. I just finished my 1st OBBT grow, I used Earth Juice Bloom about four times in the last 6 weeks of flower. It was used alternately with my brewed Tea's, and then sometimes just bubbled city water.

I planted established plantlets into the buckets, once the plants adjusted they really took off. During veg. I didn't add anything but Tea or water, maybe a touch of N rich guano in the Tea once.



I'm a newbie,



The just completed OBBT grow was only my 2nd run, so I have no experience or comparison to speak. My only comments about your setup and plans are, take advantage of as much of the bucket as possible. Fill them another 2" with grow medium, if you were to do that right away it wouldn't really affect your incubation time.

Being cursed with impatience, I popped the next generation right into the active, established medium, 18/6 to veg.



I cut out the stem and core of the rootball using my wife's tulip planting tool. It is very interesting to look inside,



there were fine little roots about the size of hairs sprouting up from all over the surface of the coco/soil medium. I used a shop vac to suck off the old layer of Perlite.

The roots are so fine and densely woven I think that if you were to increase the volume of your medium, it would likely have a positive impact on your grow.

My other thought



is that you should consider using more than just Earth Juice during your grow. I'm no expert but it just seems that a varied diet, while we skew it to Canna's favorite flavors, more closely mimics Mother Nature.

Let's take a look at what Ive been talking about



Densely woven roots



Densely packed buds





I think you are going to be very happy with this grow.



Gonna go medicate now, this morning I took a tumble in my backyard. 4:30 am I was out there spraying my Jack Herer's with a Neem/Spinosad Caterfuckingpillar combo, when a rock rolled under my foot. I fell about 4 ft. down an embankment, bouncing on railroad ties and rocks to land on my face in the dirt. Ego/pride is the most bruised, shins, knees, and forehead only a little. I had myself so "protected" from the spray, that I couldn't see down very well. Picture this...idiot 51 yr old, stumbling around in the dark wearing a bandana across my face, antisplash googles (like you see above, except it was dark, so I used clear lenses), and a flashlight on my forehead. I was 1/3 done when I fell, I was so pissed off I ripped off the shit I was "protecting" myself with and finished spraying by moonlight. Then a hot soapy shower, ahh, feeling better already.

Good Luck 970...be sure to keep all of us informed and up to date.

Respect,

 

[Kanye WeED]

Nine7oh, welcome to the Club,

Just a backup to what LL said, Earth juice fits in to the OBBT scheme well. I just finished my 1st OBBT grow, I used Earth Juice Bloom about four times in the last 6 weeks of flower. It was used alternately with my brewed Tea's, and then sometimes just bubbled city water.

I planted established plantlets into the buckets, once the plants adjusted they really took off. During veg. I didn't add anything but Tea or water, maybe a touch of N rich guano in the Tea once.



I'm a newbie,



The just completed OBBT grow was only my 2nd run, so I have no experience or comparison to speak. My only comments about your setup and plans are, take advantage of as much of the bucket as possible. Fill them another 2" with grow medium, if you were to do that right away it wouldn't really affect your incubation time.

Being cursed with impatience, I popped the next generation right into the active, established medium, 18/6 to veg.



I cut out the stem and core of the rootball using my wife's tulip planting tool. It is very interesting to look inside,



there were fine little roots about the size of hairs sprouting up from all over the surface of the coco/soil medium. I used a shop vac to suck off the old layer of Perlite.

The roots are so fine and densely woven I think that if you were to increase the volume of your medium, it would likely have a positive impact on your grow.

My other thought



is that you should consider using more than just Earth Juice during your grow. I'm no expert but it just seems that a varied diet, while we skew it to Canna's favorite flavors, more closely mimics Mother Nature.

Let's take a look at what Ive been talking about



Densely woven roots



Densely packed buds





I think you are going to be very happy with this grow.



Gonna go medicate now, this morning I took a tumble in my backyard. 4:30 am I was out there spraying my Jack Herer's with a Neem/Spinosad Caterfuckingpillar combo, when a rock rolled under my foot. I fell about 4 ft. down an embankment, bouncing on railroad ties and rocks to land on my face in the dirt. Ego/pride is the most bruised, shins, knees, and forehead only a little. I had myself so "protected" from the spray, that I couldn't see down very well. Picture this...idiot 51 yr old, stumbling around in the dark wearing a bandana across my face, antisplash googles (like you see above, except it was dark, so I used clear lenses), and a flashlight on my forehead. I was 1/3 done when I fell, I was so pissed off I ripped off the shit I was "protecting" myself with and finished spraying by moonlight. Then a hot soapy shower, ahh, feeling better already.

Good Luck 970...be sure to keep all of us informed and up to date.

Respect,

sorry to quote this and be a minor annoyance but ripvanweed shites desereves to be seen 2 times god i loe his tunes

any way i started my obbt grow alos here is mine

thanks for all the help with the mold probs guys!!!!

 

[LadyLargely]

Hey there cats and chicks! Good to see we're still lively!

there were fine little roots about the size of hairs sprouting up from all over the surface of the coco/soil medium. I used a shop vac to suck off the old layer of Perlite.

The roots are so fine and densely woven I think that if you were to increase the volume of your medium, it would likely have a positive impact on your grow.....

*nods* This is very much the purpose of the pearlite. It allows roots to grow right up to the edge of the medium. The whole thing may be utilized. You had some MASSIVE plants and I am not at all surprised that they used the space so thoroughly. Increased volume of the medium (and thus the working OBBT) could be very much related to growth performance, so long as you have the lights/nutes to back it up.

...you should consider using more than just Earth Juice during your grow. I'm no expert but it just seems that a varied diet, while we skew it to Canna's favorite flavors, more closely mimics Mother Nature.

Let's take a look at what Ive been talking about



Densely woven roots



Densely packed buds



I think you are going to be very happy with this grow.

You have a strong point on using more than earth juice for nutes. Having a decent pre-loaded regime up front would mean a lower complexity of fed nutes later on would be acceptable. But the fact of the mator is that these plants are vigorous. They are going to consume a lot of everything. Cannabis can be a pig. It will exist in nearly no nutes but give it access to high levels and it'll just soak them up! Doubly so if you do any sort of starve schedule!!!

Having strong, uniform, glistening, astonishing yields like Rip takes good strong levels of a wide variety of nutrients. Diversity in the nute program is highly beneficial and should never be overlooked!

RVW, your wonderful images suggest a coorilation I've been making for some time:

Thick cannabis plants make thick buds.

Thick roots, thick stems, thick veins and ventricals placed dense throughout the alloted space. I think this makes for maximum buddage!

 

[LadyLargely]

Sideways cannabis UPDATE!

Sideways cannabis UPDATE!

WW#1 side cola

Yes, now that's more like it!

Both ladies are now well into starve. WW#1 was looking good and I decided to push her off just 2 days after WW#2. This means just a couple of her potential buds had to be culled. If any of your bud-sites look like this:



At the onset of first starve you should remove them. Only a little time seperated these culled sites from these:



Which where left on. A couple more days without starving could have seen those little ones make it, but it was time to move on.

If you look closely you will see that I also decided to pollinate.

Dutch Mystery#2 ended up living through the over-training kenetin-poisoning incident. As a result, a very curious thing happened:


Most recent picture of DM#2 before she was whacked. Still looks sexless like before right?


Look carefully. You will see one nut. One nut on a stem junction there.

DM#2 turned into what I call a weak male. He did not nut up all over his crown and make a big crazy inverted pineapple of nuts like males usually do. Just a lone nut or two on some of the internodes, that's it. Sortof like a hermie, but with no pistills.

So I let a couple of the nuts mature and pollinated some buds before pulling that plant out.

Sadly, as usual, I over-did it somehow. I'd say the majority of WW#2's nugs have a seed or two at least. WW#1 fared much better and had just a few select pollinated nugs as planned. Hope the resulting hybrid is cool, because I've got a shit-ton of them.

Anyway. Starve is scooting right along, all the signs have shown up:



Yellowing. Many of the smaller, less well-lit fan leaves have begun to yellow and die off. Larger, better-lit fan leaves are showing a uniform drop in color.


WW#1 _________________________ WW#2

Also seeing a good bit of reddening on the fan leaf stems. This indicates a P deficiency and means my nute program is continuing exactly as planned. Very little P or K was placed in the pre-loaded mix and only a very weak supplement has been given so far. We are very close now to the first large flowering nutrient dose. It will be the first every introduction of heavy P to the system. WW#1 is bitching about it much more than #2. But they are both wining for flower nutes and that's good. Couple more days to let them get good and hungry and then angry high-potency nutes will finally be making a return!

Till then, buds are filling out really nicely. By now the horizontal colas are starting to take shape. Tricome coverage is really encouraging this early in the game. They look remarkably potent for having another 4-6 weeks to go!


WW#2

WW#1

Mmmm, can't wait

Training has been over for a while, but I have made an adjustment:


George Washington, my favorite stoner, kicks it in the foreground for scale.

Floros are brightest in the middle. Some of the better nugs on my plants rested very near the ends. That would be fine if I where using the middle bit, but I wasn't. If you look above you see 4 tubs now instead of 5. Took the center one out with great difficulty (broke it in the process) in order to scot the two plants further towards the center.

All in all though, all is well. The recent move let me take this picture:



George hanging out with the stem of WW#1. I can't get over the diameter of some of her lower offshoots. They're like 1/2 that of the main stem!! The first couple offshoots that are really close to the root-ball like this always tend to go all huge and woody for me, like they are their own plants!!

Looking like I'm gonna finish out decently well, despite all the setbacks. After a few more days of starvation I will smack the ladies with their first dose of heavy flower nutes. Simultaneously, I will suddenly have the need for these:



Because my UV-B treatment will finally begin! Next update those bastards will have been up for 3-4 days. Results of their effects should have already become apparent by then.

Till next time!!

 

[bengie187]

Have any of you guys/gals tried useing smaller buckets say around 8 liters....just wondering if it matters on the size of bucket to get a good grow??

 

[LadyLargely]

Hey mate, thanks for the interest!

8 liters, that's about.... 2 gallons ish? DrunkenMessiah once built a 2 gallon OBBT proof-of-concept. It was never used for cannabis (I think he did basil or something) but it did work. The only trouble with going smaller on an OBBT is container dimentions become less flexible. This is because a functional OBBT needs at least 8-10 inches of vertical height to work at all. This is fine with larger containers but when you go smaller it starts to limit your options. Really, a 4 inch by 4 inch square container that was like a foot tall would be the ideal mini-OBBT container, but I've never seen such a thing.

I know for sure the process can be scaled down to a 1.5-2 gallon container (right around your 8 liter number). And my intuition tells me that a functioning OBBT could be made as small as 3 liters, although there has yet to be any real-world evidence to support this.

Keep the interest high and the questions coming!

 

[RipVanWeed]

Much Respect LadyLargly,

Sideways to the max. You grow Cannibus that looks like Iceplant. Gonna have a flat field 'o bud very soon here. Your experience with OBBT, and a jolly green thumb to go with, makes me wish you had more light to really blow things up.

The plants in my flowering room have adjusted to the OBBT environment and have started to pop. Now I have 8 primed buckets (brand new) on the sideline. They'll have to wait till I build a bigger room. I am surprised at how fast the new set molded up, I started up the system on Sat. eve. and by Thurs. there was a layer of grey wool on top!

The little girls in the box seemed yellow so I've hit them with bubbled Fish Emulsion, Kelp Extract, and molasses. Got a noticable improvement in 1 day.

I'll document how I top, train, s/crop with a trellis. The 3 Master Bubba Kush are ahead of the others, but have had no early training. I picked them up as well rooted clones from a dispensery, 12$ each. When I bought them I sprayed them with Neem and Spinosad before putting them in my little starter box with the the clones I've taken from the strains in house. Besides the 3 Kush, there's 1 Jack Herer, 2 Swiss Bliss (Paradise Seeds), 1 Super Silver Haze, and 1 White Russian.

I'm not an indica/kush kinda guy, but my patients are calling out for Kush. If anyone has any advice on growing Kush...strain specific, I would be most thankful.

Speaking of thankful, that's how I feel for DM posting up his stuff right when I was trying to figure out how to deliver more air to the microherd. You know, another benefit to this OBBT method, is the selfcontainment. I struggled to handle the runoff required when using soil or soilless medium. Using OBBT buckets, I didn't have 1 drop of anything on the floor of the box, I never drained them either. I'm glad the drain plug is there if I were to ever need it, but any thing more complicated down there is overkill.

If all goes well, I'm thinking of adapting the Organic Bubble Bath to the Outdoor environment. I have 5 Jack Herer still going in the garden, I can only imagine hoe those babies would blow up with supercharging.

Hey, Supercharged Organics, might be a catchier handle for what we're doing! Supercharging, in the combustion engine sense, means blowing extra air in to the system.

Gotta go, if you ever talk to DM, please pass on my thanks.

Respect,

 

[h.h.]

Any thoughts on supercharged organics in soil? Underground reservoir full of bio-char?

 

[MrGreen]

Your ladies are beautiful, Lady You are amazing, I might be able to get my grow started in a few weeks now that we're legal!

Could others (like Rip) post how they've set up the drain/overflow on your buckets? Also, what would be the best place to buy the buckets themselves? I've got just about everything figured out, now I just need to go blow all of the cash we've been saving