My Current Grow - 10 Varieties

Just a quick intro to my new grow - I'll post a lot more, but the plants are just vegging after repotting. All plants are in soil, and I'll be using the Canna suite of nutrients on this run. At the moment, nine out of the ten are here - my Jamaican is still in the nursery, as it's too tall compared to the rest - I'm going to give these girls another week under the HID and then bring in the Ja plant. They're currently under 600W, and I'll add the other 600W lamp later in the grow.

All the varieties are listed in the first pic:

interesting strains. hope for the best brud

Just a few stats and facts for the technically-minded before we go any further (and as I don't really care about posting such matters generally, it's probably the first and last time!):

The Malawi Gold, Skunks and Flo are all from seed - the rest are from clones I've had for a while. The G13 I think is possibly a G13 hybrid - maybe G13 X Skunk, based on what it looks and smokes like. The NL X BB is tried and tested, and the Mystery Strain is well-documented in my threads as being one of the most amazing varieties ever - I never stop speculating just what it is, but it will become one of the grandparents of my first proper variety over the next couple of years, so it's probably pointless worrying about that anymore.

I'm in the UK, so branded potting soil is limited - I'd already bought a few sacks before I realised Canna produce their own potting soil (next time!), but my mix is generally fine - just 50% Multipurpose compost and 50% John Innes No. 3, with a liberal amount of Perlite/Vermiculite mixed in for good measure. I don't add anything else to soil, but usually mix more John Innes in for the more sativa-leaning varieties, which keeps it nice and sandy at harvest - I found less food is better toward the end.

The pots are all 9" and 10" diameter - I have no idea on capacity, but would guess around 8-10 litres each.

Nutrients are Canna Terra - I just fed plain pH-balanced water for the first week with Rhizotonic added, and this week I'm feeding with a one-third strength solution of Terra Vega plus some Cannazym. I'll feed the Rhizotonic with plain water until flowers develop, alternating between feeds. I'll fade in to Terra Flores about the beginning of the proper bud development, and also use Cannaboost and PK 13/14 as required.

As mentioned, light is currently 600W, upping to 1200W for peak flowering - I'll drop back to 600W for the last two weeks. Photoperiod for vegging is 16/8, (I use this for all vegging plants), and after another ten days I'll switch to the flowering cycle. I'm changing the flower period this time from the usual 12/12 and will run the following schedule:

7 days @ 14/10 hours
7 days @ 13/11 hours
28 days @ 12/12 hours
7 days @ 11/13 hours
7 days@ 10/14

I may extend the 12/12 period to five weeks if development is slow, but I don't think I'll need to - I'm quietly confident that I'll have all the plants budding before 12/12 stage kicks in. As to the end of the cycle - the Malawi Gold and Skunks 'A' and 'C' will run over to 12-13 weeks, so I'll maintain the 10/14 regime until they come down. I don't think it harms yield particularly, and I definitely feel it increases the psychoactivity and flavour, especially in sativa-leaning varieties.

So that's it for now - I'll post regular updates as and when required. Hope it stays interesting for everyone!

Looks like a great set up. Interesting about the flowering times. I generally stick to the 12/12 but by accident two of my plants have had a couple of weeks in 14/10, but now on 12/12. I doubt i will see much difference but interested to see how your plants turns out.
I'm rooting for the Ja plant, although i think the malawi is going to be hard to beat
Good luck with the grow!

oh me oh my

Im keepin an eye on this thread

Great pots, lotsa good dirt and room looks sufficient from those shots
Just wonderin if you have heat issues?

Thanks for sharin brother

James - no heat issues at all at this time of year - I grow in a sub-room I built within a room in my cellar, so it's pretty chilly ambient temps most of the time. Plus, I grow at night to keep it even cooler - the lights currently come on at 4pm and go off at 8am. The average ambient temp of the cellar in winter is 54F, and in summer it's 60F. Inside the growroom with one 600W 24" above the plants, it's about 75F at plant level. When I add the second 600W, it can get pretty hot - in summer it's pretty much a case of venting permanently. In winter, I can just raise the lights until it's cool enough. The space is 6 feet X 5 feet X 7 feet tall, so there's plenty of room, and 1200W in that space is dazzlingly bright.

Neil - the Ja plant will go in probably about four days - it's a good 6" taller than the rest, and is definitely 'vertically-oriented' genetically! It looks very much like Flo branch-wise, and in color too, although the leaf-shape is totally different - in fact different to everything else I have. This will be an interesting one.

I've been away for a couple of days, but the plants look great and are really starting to move now - a week more of veg I think, and then I'll put them into flower. I'd rather let them get larger this time - I've been disappointed with stretching since I switched to soil - i.e. not enough! I keep putting them into flower expecting a doubling in height, and only getting a quarter extra. So this time, I'm aiming for a metre tall at completion - I want this room filled!

EDIT - here's the thread on my Jamaican as I haven't any more recent pics:

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=42420

I was unsure about it's genetic heritage when I posted it, but I'm now tempted to think it may be closer to the real deal than before - I've subsequently seen other pics of very similar looking plants, including on Gypsy's free DVD. And it smokes like a Jamaican, that's for sure...

good selection of genes and a nice clean setup! this one is going to be good!

EM,

I am looking forward to following your grow especially with the "natural" light schedule.

What sweet spot are you trying to replicate?

Peace

Well given that some of my strains will flower at 15 hours, I thought it best not to travel too far south in my 'virtual sweetspot'! I veg on 16 hours, and so the plants will hopefully 'think' they're more in Northern Cali or Spain than rainy England.

I'm trying to simulate more of a natural flower cycle, but compressed, and with an extended mid-period - should be interesting to see what happens.

Veg Update...

Veg Update...

Well, what a difference six days makes - the plants are undergoing explosive growth, almost as fast as hydro, which is amazing - I've never had growth like this before in soil. Something here is working amazingly well - the nutes/additives I guess. The branching in particular is seriously vigorous, and some are getting extremely thick already.

The Jamaican has been in there a couple of days and is still getting adjusted - it was getting a little starved of light and food in the nursery room, due to its height, and has a few fading leaves, and is a bit grubby from a recent neem spray. However, in two days, this one will be motoring, so I aim to put the room into flower (i.e. 14/10) probably on Saturday.

I took a bunch of clones of the most mature strains tonight, and I'll do the rest on Saturday - plenty of copies, just in case - I can't really keep mother plants any more due to space problems, so I just take clones before I flower them, veg them out, and use those for the next crop, etc. Much less hassle, but also much more risky...I've already lost one strain this way...

Anyway, here's a few pics - I discovered a much better white balance on the camera halfway through the shoot, hence the mix of colors. Also I've moved several since last time, so apologies if folks get lost - didn't have time to label these! But it's pretty good growth, when compared to the first pics in the thread...

All together:








Skunk:




NL X BB:




Jamaican:



Purple Flo (green Flo in foreground of first pic with albino splodge!):

great, some nice variety in the garden is always nice.

ill be staying tuned to this thread, keep it green

Flowering Update - Day Zero

Flowering Update - Day Zero

I just switched the timer to 14/10 to start the flowering photoperiod, giving a target date for the 8-week strains of around the 17th March. Just as a reminder, I'm doing a week each of 14/10 and 13/11, four weeks of 12/12, then a week each of 11/13 and 10/14. I don't think the Skunks and Malawi will take as long to finish this time, as they're from mature clones, not undeclared seed plants, so I'm hoping for 9-11 weeks on the Skunks and 13 weeks on the Malawi - we shall see.

I'll increase to 1200W for the 12/12 period in two weeks, as I'm hoping they will have finished stretching by then. But as the plants are growing so fast, I daren't let them veg any longer - ideally I want three-foot plants maximum all around (they may need some training!), with a reasonable harvest this time - around 700-800g would be my ideal.

HALO Update...

HALO Update...

I decided to take a little gamble tonight - my local growshop begged me to try a free sample sachet of HALO - the harpin protein spray. The gamble being that the plants are already going like the clappers, and I'm a little concerned about the size they might attain. So this was a once-only application, right on initiation of flowering, as recommended.
As most plants were putting out some very fast-growing stalks, I decided to do one final pinch-out of all the tips before applying the HALO - given the photoperiod is 14/10, I don't think it will stress them too much (doesn't usually), and should hopefully retard vertical growth for a few days whilst the bud sites develop. I don't mind metre-tall plants, as long as I can keep them within a fairly neat profile for ease of access, etc.

Anyway, spraying them gave me the chance to spread them out, so here's a couple of new pics - the tallest plant (Skunk#1 'B') is 15 inches tall and just as wide already!:

Looking good! that halo is interesting stuff! really interested in your results.
good luck with the grow!

Neil - I'm going to have a look at the room in ten minutes after a night (daytime nights) of them sleeping under a HALO blanket! We'll see if there's any change. They'd better not all be brown and shrivelled...

Nope! All big, green and healthy! Phew...

Flowering Update - Day 4...

Flowering Update - Day 4...

Just a few more pics to show the amazing growth rates I'm experiencing at the moment. I'm really amazed frankly - I've never had this kind of growth in soil before. Everything is perfectly dialed-in so far, admittedly, (I forgot to mention earlier that I'm also using CO2 - yeast method) and the advantage of a really cold snap hitting the UK is perfect timing for me at least, it means I can run the growroom more efficiently, due to the lower temps.

The pinching-out I did the other night before the HALO spray seems to have done the trick, and slowed down the vertical growth - no obvious results from the HALO yet, but it does say three days before it really kicks in - however, the secondary branching is so extreme at the moment that I think I'm going to end up with some serious bushes - I'm getting what I can only describe as hydro-level stem growth - in soil, this is very impressive. As can be seen from the first two pics, there's plenty of room for expansion as they grow, but I'd still rather keep them to a metre maximum or less even, if I'm to get an even canopy, and still get in there!

I'm hoping to see the first small buds appear on the NL X BB and the Mystery strain at the weekend - if my theory holds correct, the 14/10 photoperiod should start dragging the more indica strains into flowering shortly. This is where it really gets fun for me, as I can finally track exact trigger-points for every variety - something I've been banging on about for ages. Whatever flower-day the buds appear, I can count back 5-7 days to work out what time it was - admittedly it's in crude jumps, but it's still very handy info in the long run...






Some SERIOUS branching...






Skunk leaf and the two Flos...

Flowering Update - Day 8...

Flowering Update - Day 8...

Just a quick update here as it's late, but the gamble with the HALO seems to have paid off - I'm getting unprecendented branching on all strains at all sites. Frankly, I've never seen branching like this - if it were hydro I could just accept it, but in soil, it's completely insane. The pinching-out before spraying really helped - they've only put on maybe four, five inches in height, but all have more than doubled in volume. The NL X BB in particular is growing shoots so vigorously it barely looks like weed.

I switched to 13/11 last night, so another six days, and it'll go to 12/12 - I'm just seeing the first hints of multiple pistils on the NL X BB, which will be the first to begin budding. I'm just praying they don't stretch too much - it's still cold here, which means I can keep the light way close compared to normal - plus, they're creating far more humidity now, which is helping a lot. It's so close to perfect so far that I'm almost waiting for the first thing to go wrong...so far, they all look very happy indeed...

It's too late for photos now - it's way past my bedtime. But tomorrow I'll post some new ones and show the difference.

Flowering Update - Day 9...

Flowering Update - Day 9...

OK - here's some pics of the crop so far - still going great, with manageable height up to now. I'm really praying they keep to this rate of growth vertically. I haven't raised the light yet since they were put in, which is pretty good - still chilly outside, which is really helping...

As for branching - take a look at the two pics of the NL X BB - this is one week exactly after the HALO treatment, and it's pretty conclusive IMO that it radically increases branching sites and speed of development - also average leaf size is huge.

All my plants are showing hydro-level growth and vigour in soil - I'm still struggling to take it in - though I'm not complaining at all! As mentioned above, they're on the second day of 13/11, so I'm expecting to see some tiny buds any time now.

Bring it on...







NL X BB post-HALO:

where the females at