The Secret to Sea-of-Green?

Oh how the grass is always greener!

My first few grows were all Micro status. A double decker fluoro cab with about 300w of 2ft t8s in each level. There was approx 21" of headroom between the lights and the top of the containers I was using (1.5L poland spring bottles), so I did High Density SOGs and flowered with very little veg time. The strain, White Rhino from Nirvana, always seemed to stretch a little more than I needed. (See Gallery)


Now I have moved up. I have a 4x8 HydroHut with 2 digital 600's, and a 1000w under my loft. Now I face the OPPOSITE problem. I have LA Confidential, Sour Cream (supposedly), two phenos of Chocolate Chunk, and a sour d pheno that Im revegging. It seems that these dont stretch that much at all, especially when grown as bushes, the stretch gets distributed between so many branches its hardly noticeable beyond normal growth.

Ive read so many articles that talk about flowering 6 - 8 inch clones and getting OUNCES per plant. In a Kyle Kushman article in high times "To Veg or Not to Veg", he describes seeing a 10" clone turn into 5 oz of bud. Is he kidding? Am I missing something? Last grow under my 1000, after several weeks of veg, the clones were still only 8 - 10in tall, so I flowered, and they stretched a few more inches, yielding no more than 7 - 10 grams in the long run.

Anyway, in an attempt to get closer to my goal of perpetual flowering, I am looking for advice on technique, strains that DO stretch, easy cloning strains, etc, that will help me get perpetual.

I currently have 6 18gallon rubbermaids under each 600 in the tent, with 2 plants in each one, for a total of 24. Usually, DWC creates huge bushes for me , but Im having problems getting these to grab. Its bumming me out, because Im running my bloom wattage 18 hours a day, when I should have started flowering a WHILE ago, and they just dont have the momentum they should.


To those who have perpetual experience, or have had any yields weigh in at 1gpw or better, let me know what I can do to fine tune my garden.

Each room has a tune,
Each gal wants her own way,
Go over all of your basics,
The instrument in tune, will play.

CHeck your air, ph, and temps, roots, how can they be improved?
H

I'd say the biggest factor is the strain and what it requires.

Personally I grow mostly Jack the Ripper....it has quite a bit of stretch which is one of the reasons I love growing it, but it also takes a lot longer to get roots when cloning. It requires less veg time because it keeps growing vertically until about 4 weeks into flower. Its a hybrid about 60% sativa if I remember. If you are dealing with a more indica its gonna stay shorter, especially if its a pure indica, so you are going to need a longer veg time in order to pull the same wize buds. I would also recommend pruning all the lower bud sites....but for how long also depends on the strain. For Jack the Ripper I nip all the lower bud sites and 90% of the lower fan leaves until a week to a week and a half in flower. Sounds drastic but they keep growing so much, like I said till the 4th week of flower, that they end up being super huge colas, and no small crap....much more girth this way. With a more indica I wouldnt prune the lower branches nearly as long. Basically you have to know your strain, and keep track of when it stops growing vertically, and when the lower bud sites stop stretching, and will stayt as part of a main cola. If you dont know your strain just wait till lower branches start stretching to become their own branch (about 3-4 inches long) and you will know for sure they should be removed. Practice it a few times with whatever strain you have and you will figure it out.

I think kush strains look like theyd be really good sog strains as well....I dont have personal experience with them but every pic I see of them they really like to stick to the main cola which would give you less to prune off, since all those lower branches wont be branches and will be nugs instead.


Edit: Hmm just looked closer at your pics, and that is a not so dense sog setup. With what I said before Id go with 1 plant every 6"x6" or maybe 8"x8" tops. If you gotta keep it like you have I would quite pruning a plant that will stretch when you turn to flower, rather than a week or 10 days later. Indica variety I dunno maybe quit a week before that....

Pack the clones in tighter together. Under all those lights you can fit in maybe 55 square feet (roughly, based on 4x4 for a 600 watt and 5x5 for a 1000), which should be in the range of up to 200 plants. If it were me I'd drop the 1000 watter, cut back to under 100 plants for legal reasons, and pull around 20 to 25 plants every two weeks.

Also, do not reveg. Ever. If your yield is going to be a little low that's not ideal right now, but with sog you want to maximize your yield over time, not just on each crop. Revegging is going to take on the order of three weeks, followed by more vegging time, followed by flower. You've just lost six weeks on what should have been an eight week grow. At that rate you'd have to double your output to make it back up, and that isn't going to happen.

The idea with sog is to flower as many plants as possible, as quickly as possible, as often as possible. Vegging defeats the purpose of all of this.

Im gonna have to agree with the post above mine. Your plant numbers are severly on the low side for a sog grow. A 2x2sq/ft space should be able to accommodate at least 16 plants. Almost any strain will grow into a single cola structure dependant on the height that you flower it at, just got to experiment to find the right height for your particular strain/phenotype.

INJECTTRUTH, HEY DUDE YOUR SET UP LOOKS GOOD. I JUST THINK YOU NEED TO AJUST A LIL BIT . I SEE YOU DO NOT HAVE I FEW THINKS YOU NEED IN THERE LIKE A BLOWER/INLINE FAN, CARBON FLITER, ETC. UNLESS YOU HAVE IT AND IT'S NOT SHOWN.

HOW ARE YOU DOING WATER CHANGE OUT'S?

DangerP said:

(roughly, based on 4x4 for a 600 watt and 5x5 for a 1000)

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The better spacing on those lights is 3x3 for a 6, 4x4 for 1kw. The measurements you've got there are under 50wpsf, which you want to stay above for optimal growth.

u definately need more plants

Exactly what I was thinking Tiger. You are only running 37.5 watts per square foot and roughly 5625 lumens per square foot. I'd say get those watts up and what temps are you running as well. Bring up the watts and lumens as well as maybe even enclose those lights in order to run co2 or make sure that you have a constant flow of cool fresh air. To start get up those watts.

I am no expert but my first thought when I saw the pic was plants not packed in like a SOG, and lights too spread out.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I was really high when I posted. Sea of Green is what I aspire to next run, not this grow. Sorry for the confusion.

I am aware that the digi 600's are underpowering the area. I will be getting at least one 1000 in there next run, hopefully two, circuitry willing.

I have grown about 10 small scale SWC/DWC before without any ph adjustment or even checking. My very first rez actually contained the runoff from my soil plants, dead leaves, roots and soil. Got over 2 zips from a 125w CFL.

Two days ago I checked ph for the first time. Every tub was "8.5 or above" (using old school GH pool style liquid test). I mixed up some ph Down, applied, all bins were about 6.0 an hour later. Next morning, 8.5 or above. This cycle has been repeating daily since about Monday. What could possibly be making the ph go up over and over again after adding so much ph down?

Ive also noticed some foam and in a few bins, some serious slime on the roots. I applied hydrogen peroxide today, and it made most of my roots nice and clean. I scooped nasty foamy piles of slime and dead root out of the few bins when it was done foaming.

The plants are stretching an inordinate amount, but not all. A few are actually behaving perfectly. The difference among plants despite similar treatment is bugging me out.

Meanwhile, wait till I get some other pics up of my other room. I have some seriously nice DWC plants in 5 gals with no ph'ing whatsoever. :shrug:

your root and rez trouble is probably because of how much light is hitting your water and roots. cover those lids up pronto. Unless you have them painted on the inside, then i'm pretty sure thats your problem.
Since you never checked pH before 2 days ago, can I assume you haven't checked water temperature either? 68-72*F is the range you want.

If you are going to do DWC - Get a PH Meter and forget the BS test strips, Lol!

I can be so dense. Thanks Irish, I dont know why that didnt even cross my mind. I'll break out the reflective tape. You think covering just the lids will be good? or should I. gasp, cover the entirety of each bin?

I am getting a meter soon. $$$, you know the deal.

When did tubbler DWC, I had the whole thing wrapped in aluminum tape. When I ran buckets, I did the same thing, but things got a little warm, and I ended up with some root rot.

So yeah, cover those things as well as possible, and watch those temps. If it were me, I'd be doing a maintenance dose of Hydroguard right from the start.

I went to the sadly missed Positronics to "learn to grow" and got the following from the very lovely Peter.....

SOG [He is an Organic Soil man]

49 plants M², 6" pots set out 7x7
Flower the cuttings at 6" to 8" tall, you are aiming for 10g /plant

What I found.....

Hydro makes plants grow much faster.
Mother quality, vigour is all important,
A good Propagator with strong Flouro light after a few days
Pre plantout rooting table with "bare root NFT" produces violently healthy clones
Select the best for the table edges, shorter babes in the center, you want a Stadium, not a Mountain [viewing the garden from the side]
Producing X cuttings of identical size, roots and perfect vigour is everything
Uniformity is the goal, no use producing a 35g stonker if it shaded the neighbours to 2g,3g,5g,&7g.... you will always miss the 10g goal with an uneven crop [or the true potential]

10g/ cutting is a bit low in a SOG for a Ind/Sat Hybrid. I didn't really trim the lowers too much when I ran one. But, I did pack them in @ 4psf:




The Indicas usually did anywhere from 10-20g/cutting, hybrids and Sativas usually do a bit better, especially if the buds have any kind of density:

Closer to a Pure Indy, avg ~ 15g/plant:


Hybrid (went @ 10wks), avg 1.5oz/plant:


You could do even better by veggin the light stretching plants longer...

InjectTruth: as far as the other issue, try to take nute ec/ppm measurements daily. If the concentration is going up the PH *should* drop unless the plants are using a shitload of N, then it will tend to shoot up. Also if the Concentration is going down rapidly, PH is expected to rise. Depending on the strain, you may have to plan to ramp up the nute strength. Remember, making the nutes stronger by 200PPM (as an example) will tend to make the PH much more stable then if you were to add PH down. Also, by adding PH Down all the time, you will be throwing the nute profile WAY out of whack because normally PH Down is just N based and PH Up is P/K based. By correcting with PH adjuster rather than just topping off with stronger nutes, you're adding basically one element and may begin causing lockouts etc....

Each room has a tune

Click to expand...

Absolutely.

For true SOG 400's are best IMO. 600's are best for stationary growing in general, no light mover or plant rotation. For me SOG is basically 1 plant per 6" squared and flowering just rooted clones.

Man, I just have to order that meter. I dont have any way to measure PPM, but I was thinking my ph was high from adding too many nutes. Guess I had it backwards.

I suppose I will ph test them, and I know they will be 8.5, but this time, I will add some nutes instead of ph down, and then check again in a few hours. I have Monster Grow by grotek, and Maxigro from GH (i think).

Thanks for all the great pointers chaos, imnotcrazy, irish, nite.

Yeah, Buffered Nutes tend to LOWER PH as the concentration increases. Try to determine how much the full strength nute mix will lower the PH of the water supply you are using.

Remember the source water has a great affect on the buffering capability of the nute mixe(s) you are using, and tap water is usually Alkaline (mostly to prevent acidic erosion of the piping systems). Anything over 300ppm is kinda sketchy as to whether or not you will have lockouts etc...