150w HPS Club and Resource Guide......

[thinkin]

end is near, final curtain for the girls.

end is near, final curtain for the girls.

Just cut the last pair down

Diesel Kush and Skunk
Hang drying now
probably would over fill 9X13 pan

Pair of Skunks already cut and in freezer.
Filled (to the top) a 9X13 pan

Burned the lot of buds on cool tube. DOH!
Cabinet was too packed. Couldnt manage anything.
Lost yield. Lack of scrog and general trimming.

Projected yield: atleast 4 zips. original goal was 6.
pics to follow at end of cure. ~10-14 days

Cabinet is shutdown after less than a year. Fifth and maybe last harvest for the cab. Tons of buds. Tons of mistakes and some decent tragedies. Greening my thumb along the way. No regrets. Super happy.


Note: On reducing light, dont recommend changing light schedules for moms. If the moms have vegged for awhile, very easy to trigger flowering by changing any part of the light schedule. (Shifted the schedule by 1 hour, thats all it took to flower them.)


now back to trimming...

oh yeah.. have to experiment..
working on a few grape flavored buds.

Peace!

 

[guest 77721]

Hey Pipedream good to hear from you again. I don't mind being less production minded when it comes to the plants. I revegged last summer and only had two 13W lights and the plants were in big pots that only needed a weekly watering with a weak nute mix. I cut so much salad off those little mothers it was rediculous.

Anyway I just got back from my trip and the plants were in super shape. I'm glad I had the option to repot so I didn't have to pull lighting.

Hey Bongdaddy. I'm just wondering if you can time your 3 week trip when the plants are revegging or can be made into mothers and just parked for a few weeks under low lighting.
I don't think you can be in flowering or pre-flowering veggging without weekly attention.

 

[BongDaddy]

You read my mind on that one red. There are only a couple of plants that I really want to save the genetics of, so I was considering re-veging them under low lighting just like you suggested. Before I leave I'll either transplant them into large pots and water them once (I use Pro-Mix HP for my medium), or maybe I'll use a long term pet watering dish and a wick. I have one that has a 3 gallon reservoir and my cat is scared of it (doesn't like when it bubbles lol), so she doesn't use it. That will probably work out well. I'll just put a low watt bulb over it and stick it in the garage. Like you've pointed out (and I think PD has too), with low lighting its watering requirements drop considerably.

The point is just to keep it alive, and I don't think that'll be a problem.

 

[guest 77721]

I've revegged lot's of times and have it down pat. The trick is not to disturb the original rootball until there's true leaves growing. I water about 1/8 the pot size with a mild veg nute and leave it under 24/7 lighting until it comes back to life.

It will take a month for a few piddly leaves to dry out a 2 gal pot. I can go all summer with a bi-weekly watering and will cut the plant back as needed. Just don't water more than 1/8 potsize with low wattage light.

Check out my last run. It was with 2 reveggers. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=2633883&postcount=234

 

[Bulénath]

Red - It was so good to read these words of yours. So many newer growers get so involved with how to get every last lumen out of their lighting and gram of growth out of their plants that they forget how things actually grow in nature and react to real-world conditions.

For years I've increased or decreased my lighting as situations required it, mimicking the changes in nature. At one extreme flodding them with every bulb I could jam in and light, and at the other, keeping a cloning-mom alive as a houseplant for several years with only a single 17w CFL as light.

Newer growers need to realize that while your plants may not exhibit much growth, once well established, they can be kept alive and healthy with a minimal of light. The added advantage to doing this is that their liquid consumption drops at the same time, and the need for ventilation is greatly reduced as well.

So plan properly guys and you'll be able to hit the waves for a nice vacation this summer. Or just don't panic the next time you HPS blows and you don't have a replacement readily on hand. Just throw anything in their with them and they'll have a nice cloudy-day break.

Here is an example of what Pipedream is talking about...

I converted my old 150HPS cab into a veg cab to keep my clones in relative stasis. These clones have been in those 4" square pots for about 3 months now, no problem. Lights are six x 6500k 19w CFLs, 45-50w/sqf. Hard to believe they can survive so nicely for so long in such strange conditions.




It is all a balance between light size, type and cycle. Pot size (root size), plant size, and nutes. Also, dropping the temperatures down into stable low 60's helped to stunt the rate of growth.

 

[BongDaddy]

Hey Bongdaddy. I'm just wondering if you can time your 3 week trip when the plants are revegging or can be made into mothers and just parked for a few weeks under low lighting.
I don't think you can be in flowering or pre-flowering veggging without weekly attention.

I think this is what I'm going to try. I can't find where you said it, but somewhere you mentioned that re-vegged plants after a flowering run make great moms. I learned that recently after my first ever re-veg. I'm flowering it out again and it's pumping out sprouts like you wouldn't believe. I re-vegged it for 3-4 weeks and then threw it back on 12/12. It's now on day 30 of flowering and it's still pumping out little sucker shoots that I don't need! Not that I'm complaining, you can't fault a plant for vigorous growth and/or trying to keep itself alive.

Now I'm curious about something else - what if you flowered a plant for say 5 weeks and then threw it back into veg, would it throw out as many shoots as a plant that was flowered all the way to maturity and then re-vegged? I was considering doing that with a couple of Northern Lights # 5 and Blue God beans that I have. It would be so cool to come back to plants with a bunch of shoots ready to clone.

 

[guest 77721]

I've found that any flowering growth continues on when back in veg lighting but it doesn't thrive. Only new growth that begins as the single smooth leaves and then regular veg shoots take off.

You'll see guys that flower to show sex then return to veg end up with the plant stuck for a few weeks and normal growth is on new shoots.

I'd say that if you threw a 5 flowering plant back into veg, it wouldn't bulk up or finish right. I would try to finish and then return the rootball with a bit of foliage back to veg.

 

[BongDaddy]

I'd say that if you threw a 5 flowering plant back into veg, it wouldn't bulk up or finish right. I would try to finish and then return the rootball with a bit of foliage back to veg.

Good to know. I'm leaving in early July so I was considering starting the seeds, throwing them directly to 12/12, and then vegging them under low light while I'm gone. But knowing they wouldn't respond very well to that kind of changed my mind. I'm just so eager to get right back at it once I get back. Just seems like it'll take so long to start some seeds, wait until I can get some cuttings, sex them, etc. Now I'm thinking it's probably better to wait and start clean, at least when we're talking seedlings.

I'm still going to re-veg a couple that I already have flowering now though. They'll be ready to chop about a week and a half before I leave. I'm probably going to put them back to veg as soon as I chop them, and then maybe re-pot them in larger containers right before I leave (right now they're in 1L milk cartons).

The medium I'm using is straight unamended Pro Mix HP. I've read that you amend your mix with dolomite lime, and pro mix has some in it. If you're familiar with that medium and how I could optimize my results with a 3 week period of going unattended, I'd welcome any advice you'd have.

 

[guest 77721]

I think revegging is your best bet seeing how you will be finishing up a grow and will have a few plants to make mothers out of. It takes 2-3 weeks to for healty growth to start but once it starts there so many shoots the veg time is really short. When you come back from your trip and find healthy little mothers, crank up the veg lighting for a week and put it in 12/12.

I mix promix 2 parts to 1 part perlite, 1 part vermiculite or 2 parts promix to 2 parts perlite to improve drainage. I add the dolomite lime as a cal-mag source.

Here's a reveg tutorial I did a while back

Hey guys,

Seein' how the Lodge is pretty quiet, I'll show you a cool growing technique that I've used several times with great success. If you want to make a mother for clones or just want to grow your special plant a second time, Revegging is the way to go.

The method is pretty simple actually, just keep a few leaves or popcorn buds on the plant stalk after harvesting and return the plant to vegetation using 24/7 lighting.

The plant will take a few days under 24/7 lighting before it decides to start growing new leaves. The first leaves are wierd looking single leaves with smooth edges. This is perfectly normal as the regular leaves will start growing next.

Because the rootball of the plant is already developed, the speed that the plant grows back is phenomenal and is much faster than starting over from seeds or even clones.

When I harvest the plant, the soil has been flushed previously for two weeks and only watered with pure water so there is no nutes left in the soil. I water sparingly with lightly fertilized water. The rootball is fully developed to support a small bush so there's no need to soak the soil with only a little puff of leaves on the stalk.

I repot to fresh soil when the plant starts to really come back to life. I also cut the rootball back to the size of hardball, so that the plant has lot's of nice new soil to grow in. Don't worry, this won't hurt the plant one bit.

After repotting, I change my lighting to 18/6 lighting from 24/7. The rest period gives the plant time to develop roots better and the transition from vegetation to flowering is smoother.

The revegged plant will produce a ton of shoots. Don't be afraid to prune the plant to remove excess vegetation. You'll have lot's of shoots for clones from a reveg.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Nice demonstration, red.

I remember R2!

 

[BongDaddy]

Just wanted to show a few pics of my progress with my 150 grow. Today is day 32 of flowering. Things look yellower than they are because of the HPS, even though I did use a flash on some of the pics.

The first is a group shot and the others are my Indica Diablo girl. Yes, that's pink hair that she has. I'm tickled, well, pink that this happened. It was a complete surprise for me.

I'm a little worried at how much the lower leaves are starting to yellow (you can see it best in the group shot). I know it's normal in flowering, but isn't day 32 a little early for it to be that advanced?

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Might be a bit early but you prolly won't lose yield. I'd continue feeding until you're ready to stop but I wouldn't try to make up with extra feed. It'll just make you flush more necessary.

Nice and frosty.

 

[BongDaddy]

Thanks Disco.

Kind of off topic, but how do I attach photos so that they're not thumbnails?

 

[guest 77721]

I'm on day 30 and have a some of the underbrush showing a bit yellow on a large plant with 98% of it still lush. It's growing hard and is pulling nutes from stuff that doesn't get any light.

How are you figuring your flowering date from? I use the start of 12/12 lighting.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Thanks Disco.

Kind of off topic, but how do I attach photos so that they're not thumbnails?

Click the thumbnail in your journal to expand before dragging to your thread post.

 

[BongDaddy]

Oh, so it has to be in a journal first. I was trying to just attach photos directly from a folder on my computer. Thanks!

 

[BongDaddy]

I'm on day 30 and have a some of the underbrush showing a bit yellow on a large plant with 98% of it still lush. It's growing hard and is pulling nutes from stuff that doesn't get any light.

How are you figuring your flowering date from? I use the start of 12/12 lighting.

My yellowing is more advanced than it appears in the photos. I'd say I've lost at least 50% of my lower fan leaves on most of my plants already. That could also be because they're getting less light now that the colas are beefing up a bit, I'm not sure.

I'm still struggling with the right nute strength (I'm using Holland Secret's Bing Bang Bloom 3 part nutrients). It seems I either go too strong (leaf tips yellowing and getting crispy) to possibly not enough (general fan leaf yellowing then dying). I find it's way too hot when I mix it to their recommended strength. Anything more than half strength (of their recommended mix) seems to burn the plants. Last night I thought about trying a really weak nute strength, like something around 1/8 strength, and use it with every watering, instead of something a bit stronger spaced out more.

Oh and I count my flowering days from the day of 12/12 switch too.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I'm still struggling with the right nute strength (I'm using Holland Secret's Bing Bang Bloom 3 part nutrients). It seems I either go too strong (leaf tips yellowing and getting crispy) to possibly not enough (general fan leaf yellowing then dying). I find it's way too hot when I mix it to their recommended strength. Anything more than half strength (of their recommended mix) seems to burn the plants. Last night I thought about trying a really weak nute strength, like something around 1/8 strength, and use it with every watering, instead of something a bit stronger spaced out more.

Oh and I count my flowering days from the day of 12/12 switch too.

Sounds like you've got advanced Mg def. Adv Mg def burns leaf tips not unlike over feeding.

Sounds like you need dolomite lime. 1 tablespoon per gallon is usually a good estimate. Peat heavy mixes might need as much as 2 tablespoons per gallon. Too much lime might raise the pH too much and you can't go back w/o adding more peat or other acidic ingredient(s). For this reason it's usually better to err on the acidic side than the alkaline side.

IMO, you're underfed due to pH imbalance. Your mix is probably too acidic for Calcium and Magnesium absorption. Lowering your EC strength caused the Nitrogen def that's a large percentage of your yellowing. You might have K def too (burning on the margins.)

CalMag is handy to have but it's a supplement, not necessarily needed. Sometimes it's strain dependent, aka "mag hog". I've found that most of the strains I grow don't need CalMag if the pH is dialed.

Calcium ( and to a degree Mg) will build up in soils if the pH drops lower than ~6.4 in soil. I like 6.5 to 6.8. A slight pH range is better than static. So added CalMag won't help if your soil pH needs to be raised.

Chem nutes sink pH. Liquid pH up can be used to raise pH back to the desired level. If your mix has enough lime, you won't have to raise water pH as high, the lime will buffer it.

My tap is ~7.5. My nutes lower it to ~5.5. Raising the feed water to ~6.0 with liquid pH up is fine as long as there's enough lime to level it out at 6.5 to 6.8.

Hope this helps.

 

[StealthDragon]

any 150w members using a galaxy dual 150w digi ballast?

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I've read good Galaxy reviews but I've also read that 150 digitals are prone to generate EMI, even with shielded cable.

EMI could mess up your tv or radio reception. It could mess up the neighbors. I've read about EMI causing cable techs to locate and identify the interference. If this happened you might get a request to inspect to verify whether you're causing it.

Have you tried the advanced search? There are threads that discuss 150 digis and the frequency they operate that may render shielded cable less effective.

It might depend on proximity and or other variables. Might be a matter of trial and observation.