1st PLL / Cab grow

[oldone]

What an adventure...I planted bagseed in November '09 in soil and had many problems. Slow growth, red/purple stems and lower leaves yellowing then dying.

I think my problems started with cold temps about 10°C up to 18°C max lights on. When I cut down on ventilation the temps improved somewhat. There is no room for a heater in my small veg section.

Next is I'm hopeless with soil. There was no way I was over watering and I have Ph and TDS meters coupled with FNG and FNB nutes and RO water. I know I had perfect feeding solutions but the plants never responded. They ended up looking like this (at 12 weeks!);

Out of desperation I unpotted the above plant and stuck it into an improvised 50/50 perlite/vermiculite wick bucket (no pic) and it worked. Washing all the soil out was a pain but the plant responded well. New growth looked great but I found it difficult maintaining correct nutes because it used them so fast. The wick bucket was a small one I just whipped up out of parts that were laying around. So finally I moved it into my E&F flowering chamber 3 weeks ago and gave 10 days veg. Here it is 10 days into flower:

Here is a closeup. You can see some older damaged leaves and I'm still getting red stems on the newer fan leaves, but what the hell;

So I guess the moral of the story is never give up.

FYI, the plant is in 100% hydroton under 220 watts of 3000K PLL lights fed RO/FNB nutes at 2.4 EC and 5.5 Ph.

Question; I'm finding my Ph goes high (6.4) in 4 days. Is this normal?

Best regards,
OO

PS many thanks to ScrubNinga and all the others who helped out.

 

[oldone]

uodate

uodate

Here we are at 28 days flower.

and a closeup (kinda, my camera is not so good)

The E&F system is performing great. After cleaning and calibrating my Ph meter, Ph has remained stable. I'm changing nutes every 2 weeks and adding water only as needed.

OO

 

[ScrubNinja]

Duuuuude! Great to see! And thanks for the shoutout

I saw someone else have poor results with floranova and soil - I don't get it - it's a hydro nute, it's not really meant for soil is it? I've not used it btw. Anyway, looks like that's not an issue anymore. Looking forward to updates! You officially have a reader now!

 

[oldone]

Hiya Scrub,

Well the "soil" I used was a sphagnum moss seedling mix (thats all I could get) and I didnt read the label carefully enough. It has no nutes in it at all. I was paranoid about over-feeding/watering and I'm sure I didnt do enough of either. Combined with very cold temps and you get that poor thing in the first pic.

How do you think she looks at 28 days? I'm keeping the nutes aroung 2.5 EC. Is that enough?

Nice talking with you as always,
OO

PS BTW, FNG says its for soil or hydro right on the bottle...

 

[ScrubNinja]

Ah cool. Fair enough. Yeah she looks great to me, man. A little leafy perhaps but I assume it's bag seed?

I use a much lighter EC in coco but I *think* yours sounds about right but really it's whatever level the plants like. Maybe it's a coco thing again, but I had the red leaf stems pretty bad (and have for a while) but I found that lowering the ph .2 fixed it. Before that I added more P and that cleared it up too. The best news is that P is so important for flowering, so when you fix that up, you should see a positive improvement. When using a quality nute like yours or mine, I tend to look at any deficiency as a ph problem now. Peace.

 

[oldone]

Yes its bagseed alright. I thought it best to work out the bugs with my new cab before using the good stuff. In this case the good stuff are seeds I bought 18 years ago; Afgani, NL x Hash plant and Hindu Kush. I have 5 of each stored in their original sealed containers in the dark.

Since I had so many problems with soil I wonder if I should try it again for these potential moms. Or maybe go with a soiless mix like a hempy bucket.

I gotta do something soon because I'll be harvesting in 3-4 weeks.


Anyway day 34 of 12/12;

Oh BTW Scrub, your EC strength comment made me research a bit and now I'm running it at 1.8. They sure are leafy though, I wonder if the high EC made them do that. I dont care I havent had any smoke for months.

see ya,
OO

 

[oldone]

Hey Oldone your grow looks great. That last pic looks like more than one plant its huge. How much longer you gonna let flower

I dunno. The last pics were at day 34 of 12/12. Today I'm at day 46. I have a shitty microscope I'm using to watch the trichs and I'm still seeing mostly clear. I have to decide on when to start the flush. Gotta be soon though.

She's all one plant but she's actually quite small compared to others I've seen. Check out ScrubNingas and other's grows.

Have you got anything growing?
OO

 

[leflll]

I'm hoping to be up and running next week

 

[immaculate]

Dooooope! Around the same stage in my process. Probably about 15 days..need to get a scope soon tho...they're maturing up top faster than down low it seems...look forward to peeping your harvest..peace

 

[oldone]

I'm hoping to be up and running next week

Go for it bro, you wont be disappointed...

Dooooope! Around the same stage in my process. Probably about 15 days..need to get a scope soon tho...they're maturing up top faster than down low it seems...look forward to peeping your harvest..peace

Cool...Hi immaculate

I have found that most of my bud's pistols turned brown at the same time, which is kinda weird. I expected a steady aging progression. I thought that she turned hermie at some point but have not found male flowers. Some other buds (in the minority) seem to have many fewer brown pistols. Its a puzzle... She is a bagseed plant where I was *assured* it was indoor weed. All I know it was good smoke and I am pleased with the results so far, seeing as how much she has been through. I'll try and post updated pics tomorrow when the kids are in school. LOL

Good luck with your grow,
OO

 

[oldone]

Update Day 47 12/12

Update Day 47 12/12

Here we are at almost 7 weeks and I'm going to start the flush today! its been a long wait.

My sorry-assed microscope is showing about 10% amber, 50% cloudy and the rest clear. Weird plant.

Anyway...

closeup of the same bud shown above on 4/14

I have some Arjan's Haze#3 on the way so I'm looking forward to the second run.

I gotta figure out how to add a gravity fed top-up system to my rez. Its a PITA to draw samples to check PH and TDS. There must be a better way...

OO

 

[ScrubNinja]

I saw a thread on here about automating top ups. All's looking swell, yummo.

 

[oldone]

Update Day 56 12/12

Update Day 56 12/12

Well day 56 flower and day 10 of flushing and I got the itch to chop...its very hard waiting.

Here is the whole plant. The buds are getting heavy enough to pull the branches down

And a closeup.

She's a small plant and I might get 1 or 2 zips from her. Not bad for a bagseed first run.

 

[lolraymond]

Dammmnn. I'm jealous. That's a legit setup man. Those are lookin' beastly! I'm hoping to get 1/2 ounce off my two plants! Hahah.

 

[oldone]

Chop Day!

Chop Day!

Dammmnn. I'm jealous. That's a legit setup man. Those are lookin' beastly! I'm hoping to get 1/2 ounce off my two plants! Hahah.

Thanks lolraymond, good luck...


Well the microscope showed many more amber trichs so she got the chop today;

Obligatory bud porn:

I'm going to do a lesson's learned post later today...

 

[Harinama]

excellent work turning this grow around. Cannabis is an amazingly resilient plant. Get it in the right media and env. and it will take off.

Enjoy your harvest, can't wait for the smoke report.

What is this strain again?

 

[ukganjafarmer]

nice work man, is this under 220w?

 

[oldone]

lessons learned

lessons learned

Wow there have been many;

1. Too cold a rootzone @ 10C. Causes many symptoms from slow/weak growth to nute lockouts that can be mistaken for other environmental issues. I did not find much about cold temps here or elsewhere, maybe I was not asking the right questions.

2. Dont be afraid to feed your plants lightly early. My plants got very little the first 8 weeks because I was dumb enough not to read the composition of their soil.

3. My E&F rez needs a lot of work. Maybe its just trying to cram an E&F system into 32" of vertical space is not a good idea. Changeouts, adjustments and just adding water was a PITA. delta9nxs has a very interesting idea in his PPK thread. Its a low maintenance wick system where he only changes the nutes at the flip. I like it and it may be better for my low chamber height (I'm lazy too )

4. My stealth cab really has been stealthy. A ~370 square inch flat scrubber with about 1" deep carbon has killed all smells completely. I have 2 DELTA AFB1212HHE-F00 fans blowing up into the scrubber and they are speed controlled down to about 50%. I had to install a baffle under the scrubber because the fans would just blast the carbon layer right off. My 2 smaller circulation fans are more noisy. Things will probably change when summer comes and I have to crank the Deltas. But a window fan will mysteriously appear to mask the sounds.

5. The AH Supply 55W PLL lights have been flawless. And I used the cheap 4000K and 3500K PlusRite bulbs and they have been fine as well.

6. I had calibration problems with my Milwaukee 600 PH meter. After much farting around I now store it in PH 7 solution and its been very steady.

7. RO water rocks...

8. Keeping my mouth shut has been hard but I did it. Only 2 other people know about it and it will stay that way.

9. These ICMag forums are great. There are many awesome helpful people here who share their time and experience.



Changes for the next run;

I bought GH Arjan's Haze#3 femmed seeds. Attitude rocks.

As mentioned above, I'm thinking of ditching the E&F system and going the wick or passive hydro route. I had a wick bucket working but the rez was too small and there was no auto topoff. Need to find small float valves.



Anyway thanks to all for watching,
OO

 

[VERMI]

Nice micro hydro oldone. I dont see a lot of micro hydro grows and was wondering how did you setup the micro ebb/flow.? If you dont mind asking.

 

[oldone]

excellent work turning this grow around. Cannabis is an amazingly resilient plant. Get it in the right media and env. and it will take off.

Enjoy your harvest, can't wait for the smoke report.

What is this strain again?

Hi Harinama, I keep telling myself this is a weed and should grow almost anywhere...Its bagseed

nice work man, is this under 220w?

Hi ukganjafarmer, yep 4 x 55w 3500K...


see ya,
OO