Upcoming grow Dutch Style - SOG in soil, recommendations?

Hey Guys!

I'm soon done with my first grow which hasn't been very succesfull, suffered from many issues. Ph-problems, bugs in the soil, nutrient defficiencies from early bloom, EC-values being too high in soil and from my tap water, too high humidity during nights in bloom and now mold. Well as you can hear alot of issues that is off course connected, so not much expectations of a good harvest, small and don't know how potent it will be if I can't keep them alive properly until harvest which should be about 14 days from now. I thought that I had been studying sufficiently to get decent results in my first grow, but obviopusly I still have a lot to learn. So that can be said to be the positive side of my first "malfunctioning" grow, I have observed many problems and now have an idea what I have to try to avoid and how to try to handle the issues.

Here's a couple of pics from my current grow, 3 hashberrys and 2 white satins from mandala seeds, shows how it went wrong, may not look crazy bad, but basically their growth stunted significantly from 3 weeks in bloom and on, not much has been happening lately.











I am and have been very appreciative of help received from MynameStitch, so this help hopefully will help me get it better next time.

Enough about my first grow, will gladly answer questions if anybody wants to hear about the basic factors that I now believe had led to an unsuccesfull first run, but the basic idea of this thread was to try to hear if any of you felt like commenting on my thoughts on my ideas of things to come.

Okay my setup is a closet with the dimensions width 4", depth 2.5", height 7" (metric is easier for me, w 120cm, d 75cm, h 210cm)

This whole space has been used as veg and flower room with first 220w of cool white cfl's and for bloom 400 w hps.

I have gotten taken some clones from all of my current plants and intend to select the favourite and run this exclusively next run or maybe 2 of the favourites, hehe.

But my intention is to create a room for bonsai mothers and clones in the botton about a height of 1.5 "(45cm), put three 18w cool white light tubes in there, and produce enough clones to fill up in the upper flower room. And here my intention is to put about 18 plants in smaller containers, about 1 gallon containers. So the next run won't be until I have quite a number of clones for this. the idea was to get the rooted clones about 5 inches in the lower mother/clone room and put them in the flower room and veg for about a week and then flower, what do you guys think of this plan?

I have the room ok equipped I guess;

Ventilation is; 5 passive intake holes in the bottom(which now I some how will have to lead through the mother/clone room), in the top a carbon filter -> 240 cfm fan -> aircooled hood for the 400w hps -> out the closet.

Sides of closet are white plastic for reflection

Honeywell fan for air cirkulation of the plants tops

So guess this will be ok.

The more important things I consider relevant for avoiding this grow issues are;

Will son get a RO filter because my tap water has a high EC of about 0.8 and definitely hasn't been to good for my first grow.

Have gotten me an EC-meter which I haven't had until lately, should mean better control of EC-levels in the soil.

Soil, for this grow I primarily used Bio-Bizz's All-Mix, and this is for me one of the most important things to avoid in the next grow, it has a high of 2.4, a bit high PH, 6.3-6.6 and have a hard time keeping this soil in the ok range due to its high EC and PH, and its combination of organic nutrients doesn't seem to be the best. Have heard of quite a few others who have had the same experience with this soil as me, everything is good and nice during veg, but shortly in bloom everything gets bad and hard to control. Also I have had bugs in the soil, but can't really blame the all-mix for them, that might be due to me watering to frequently and not because of the soil. But I will definitely advice everybody to avoid this soil, has meant nothing but trouble for me (I can only blame myself that I didn't suffiently read the breeder of my strains, MandalaMike's advices sufficiently, he strongly advices people not to use this particular soil, so lesson learned the hard way for me) So I'm going to use some "regular" potting soil sold locally, which local people seem to experience good results with, the brand of the soil is pindstrup and this brand is actually adviced as good soil from MandalaMike, so hope that will have a significant effect on my plants health. The soil has a PH around and is lightly fertilized.

Nutrients; In the current grow I was using BioBizz's organics, thought it would be good alongside the organic soil. I can't really say that much about those nutrients, other than in the next grow I have no intention of keeping it organic because I had problems with doing it this time, so I intend to use Canna Terra Vega and Flores as I think that I might be able to have better control of this and see it's effects, but basically I really intend to keep nutrients really low, as low as possible.

Well guess that was my basic thoughts/guidelines for me getting a better experience the next grow around. Hopefully you'll give me some input if you got some and hopefully there's somebody that can use my bad experiences to keep theirs better

hello mate, good choice of beans, mandala is my current grow and its awesome to smoke too!
mandala strains dont really need a lot of nutes, ive never fed them any grow nutes, only really weak feedings of bloom nutes when in flower and only if they look like they need it. think you'll do better with your soil choice.

get yoursewlf a hygrometer too, it'll let you keep track of the humidty and temps and stop the mold before it can take hold.

just remember for your sog that you need to put your clones in regularly, split your grow room floor into quarters and rotate the plants in different stages through these areas.

if you want to harvest 5 plants every 2 weeks you'll need to keep putting your clones in at two week intervals, that way you'll always be harvesting sfter your first 8 week bloom.

can i suggest you take more clones than you'll want and selectivly choose the best looking girls, that way you wont be pushing along weak plants, you just bin them.

keep at least two or 3 mums bonsai them if you dont have much room, but you'll need a couple or it just wont cope with the amount of cuttings being taken.

good luck and keep us posted.

bhuda master

Good lluck bro...and remember if you got to the harvest point it was successful....Even if you learned what problems you can avoid next time it was a success....Your next grow should go much better from the sound of things....

Hey bhuda-master and sophisto, thanks for dropping in!

@bhuda-master,
yes I really think that Mandala seems to have some really good genetics, definitley hope I can get them better tuned in the next grow, less potent soil and less nutes, cause as you say, they can really grow sweet without much use of added nutrients I believe too.

I have a thermometer/hygrometerm, it is placed inside the closet, so therefore it took me quite a time before I discovered how high humidity was at night, I observed the daytime humidity which was only ab out 40%, but a while ago I used the hygrometer min/max function and realized that it had gone as high as 76% or something at night. So lesson learned, gotta keep a better eye on night humidity and fight it somehow, might have to get me a dehumidifier or something.

When I say sog in the sog in the title of the thread it might be disleading. I don't intend to have the flower room divided into quarters and rotate the plants, I intend to have smaller clones and plenty of them in there, short veg time and then flower them all and then put in a new selection of clones. But otherwise, off course you're right if I wanted to harvest 5 plants every 2 weeks, that would be the way to go, might do that later on, but this run will be more dutch style it thought was the expression used for this kind of grow.

And yes, I'll try to get as many mums and clones as there is room for so I can use a selection of the healthiest ones, good point.

@sophisto, Thanks for the kind words, definitely a positive way to look at my first grow, that if I get to harvest it was succesfull, that I can use to cheer myself up and yes it is definitely also a "good" first grow considering the experiences made, hope I have gotten wiser and will get something good to show for it later.

So yeah I hope it will go better, thanks for the input guys.

hi there GoneGrowing,

most problems in flowering are caused by low nitrogen. People believe that it is not needed and that Phosphorous is THE element.

So my recommendation to you is give your plants a good dose of nitrogen when u switch to flowering. The plant will use it while streching and the rest will get stored in those fan leaves for later use.

Plus, what other growers have told you.

Good luck man

Nitrozime works wonders for the extra neede N in Flowering.....Just a little dab or controlled spray will do ya....For that matter any kelp or algae based additive will help....This all is a much better alternative to adding to much N and smoking N bud....We all know that doesnt taste good....Let my fans drop in week seven of an 8 week cycle and I am happy.....Needs the extra N usually in the beginning to end of middle in flower... Late middle to flush time no more adding N...Unless we are dealing with long flowering time sativas.........

Hey ganjaLeaving and sophisto!

@ganjaLeaving, thanks for your input in the nitrogen, from my pics it is obvious that my plants were missing some nitrogen, so good idea to give them some when flowering starts, but again my lack of nitrogen might very well also be caused by my soils composition, not the best ratio of NPK and plus I had a bit too high PH which might have caused a lockout of nitrogen. But I'm gonna go easy on nutrients to keep the EC and PH levels quite stable, but I will definitely consider the nitrogen when flowering starts. So thanks, really looking forward to the next grow.

@sophisto, hey again, Nitrozime, hmm haven't heard of that, who produces that? Well I can guess what it primarily contains, so I can hear from you guys that it's a very good idea to be keen on gettting plants what they need of nitrogen in the first half of flower. I used BioBizz grow and bloom in this grow, but as I have stated intended to use Canna Terra in the next, but I guess BioBizz's organics is kelp or algae based right? So I could try using this again, several people seem to be fond of biobizz's products, so maybe I should try it next grow, it wasn't really the liquid nutrients I think that was the reasons to my problems as much as the soil from biobizz. But is it possible to measure EC levels in organic nutrients like biobizz's products properly?