250w HPS wardrobe grow

[Guest]

Tonight all 10 of the egyptians have poked their heads above the soil, so far they seem really healthy and vigourous.

The CG x GFB f2s are a mixed bunch, some look fine, others have yeloowing, two have wierd funky leaves. I think I added a tad too much superthrive and that has caused the yellowing and twisted leaves, although one of the seedlings looks like it might be a mutant, then again, they usually grow out of it.

And here's the really funky looking one:

The OG Kush and Cheese clones still look okay, haven't wilted, but they do look a little yellow for my tastes and the tips are yellowing, so I fed them some very dilute seaweed.

 

[guest5703]

hey hows it british_hempire? Good looking clones so far, you should see the roots explode all over that cup their in. Coco is so light, it lets the roots breathe way easier and acts like hydro so when they grow they grow fast! Good looking start for sure, my friend just started using seaweed with his blueberry, silver haze...He said the seaweed helps so much with everything, can't wait to see your outcome, good luck bro!

 

[Guest]

Hi Cali

I really suck at cloning, so I am very nervous about these two little girls, being elites. I swear by this seaweed extract, been using it on my soil plants for years, always keeps em nice and healthy and never burnt a plant with it.

 

[inuyasha]

very nice you def gave some ideas fo my own , you could put more wattage there, you sure can if needed do some good update, good project

 

[EddieShoestring]

that Egyptian sounds v interesting-look foward to seeing how it turns out-if i were you i'd be more than a little excited

eddie

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the interest guys.

Sadly, the seedlings are a motley bunch and not the healthiest. Blame my lack of experience with coco as the CGxGFB f2s in coco have really suffered. First I gave them a bit too much superthrive which is probably wht some of them have twisted leaves, then I let them get really hungry, and I think some of them are a little bit nute burnt as well. I expect several of them to either die or be culled because they are not gonna recover. I fed them with a dilute nute solution of Atazyme, Ionic Formulex and a drop of Superthrive. Fingers crossed I can get at least some of them growing healthily. The one that took forever to sprout out of the rockwool cube shrivelled and died, do down to 10 now.

The Egyptians haven't suffered the same nute problems (guess I'm learning! lol) but they have a strange problem, some of them just fall over, not seen this happen before, healthy seedlings just bend in half and the stems shrivel a bit. I doubt the ones that have fallen over will survive much longer, those stems don't look good. I may start some more of these beans in soil, see if they also do this neck breaking thing.

The 8 Purple Afghans (claimed to be a an old time IBL/landrace) all sprouted and I potted them in cups of soil - John Innes #1 for seeds. Strangely, the soil turned into mud when watered, I have used this soil many times before and this has not happened. Must be a bad batch, wish I'd cut it with perlite, but the seedlings don't seem to mind. Instead of the cotyledons being yellow then turning green, these were pale purple then turned green so hoping to see some colourful buddage on these.

To make up for the problems and probably deaths of some of the CGxGFB I started 5 Colombian Gold x Herijuana beans, all 5 sprouted and I potted them in square pots of coco. They are healthy so far, have to avoid the nute problems of the others! I also tried sprouting some Mexican IBL x C99 beans but as suspected, they were immature and only got one to sprout. Fingers crossed its a lady as the Mexican mother was a beauty, I am sure from the Pacific coast as she looked like an Oaxacan highland, she was the spitting image of the Oaxacan pictured in DJ Short's book. She didn't really produce indoors so hoping the C99 influence will solve this and shorten the 20+ week flowering period.

One of the Heri x CG has three cotyledons, wonder if it will be a trifoliate or grow out of it?

The Cheese and OG Kush clones are doing okay, after having some burnt tips (probably from the superthrive solution I soaked the rockwool cubes in) they had got hungry so I fed them some Atazyme, Formulex and Superthrive and they seem a bit happier. The Cheese has mostly regained it's green colour, whereas the OG still looks hungry - greedy bitch!

So all in all, it's proving more difficult to switch to coco than I expected, but I have plenty of beans to keep trying! lol

I've almost finished building a recirculating dripper system to put some of the coco plants in eventually, just need to fit the pump and test it. I'll post a thread on how I designed and built it (really low cost) shortly, but for now, here it is in my wardrobe, just testing it for size:

 

[Guest]

Hi folks

well, the seedlings got off to a bad start and I had all kinds of problems, you can read all about it here:

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=1149907

I still don't know why some of the seedlings damped off and died and others right next to them were fine. Anyways, after clearing out all the dead and dying sad cases here's what I'm left with.

They are all looking healthy now, the new growth has a nice green colour and they all seem happy, the burnt ones in coco have grown out of the nute problems, I'll hit them with a weaker seaweed solution next watering tomorrow, I gave them 1ml per litre which burnt them a tiny bit so I'll give them 0.5ml per litre, once they are a bit bigger I'll give them 1.0ml per litre again. Ah well, in the week and a bit since the first seeds broke ground on this coco grow I've learnt a lot, so it's not all bad, and I have more seeds in towels as we speak to refill the space.

You can see one of the two surviving Egyptians bottom right, they had severe nute burn on the tips of their first true leaves but managed to pull through, two tough little buggers. They will be joined by some other Egpytians shortly as I popped 8 more beans in paper towels. The bigger plant above it with the burnt leaves is the sole SSSDH fem, she had recovered and the new growth looks good. Glad I didn't loose this one as I gave the 3 others SSSDH beans to a friend to get him started.

On the left in this next shot you can see two of the surviving Cg x GFB f2s, they were burnt quite badly but have pulled through and are going fine now. The bottom right is the runt Purple Afghan, it has wierd really rounded leaves but has started growing now, fingers crossed she catches upto the others.

Here are four of the Afghanis, they are doing fine, nice broad, fat leaves.

The sole Pacific Mexican x C99 seedlings has also bent over, looks like this one will die too. I squeezed a lot of moisture out of the coco iun her pot day before yesterday and I hoped she would be okay.

Just to prove not everything I plant in coco dies, here are the Cheese and OG Kush cuts. hey were hungry and yellowed so I fed them and now they look fine, although they have some signs of slight overfert - clawed leaves and a shinyness to the leaves, but they are growing and ooting fine, give em a couple of days for the clawing and shiny effect to wear off and I'll feed them a bit more. The Cheese is rooting incredibly fast, everytime I check the bottom of the cup there are loads of new roots.

 

[guest5703]

hey hempire hows it? Do you check your PH levels? also with coco I've read you want to keep it pretty moist, the coco is light so the roots will be able to breathe well even if there is a lot of water in the coco. The coco is supposed to be way different from soil, it acts like hydro almost. Theres no noots in it, and you have to keep it constantly moist, the plants will like it. Take it easy man, peace

 

[Guest]

Hi Cali

I ordered a ph pen and an ec truncheon and they still haven't arrived, but I know my tap water is very good, comes straight off the mountains and has very low tds levels, no need for ro filters here. Our water here tastes just like water should! lol

I;ve been keeping the coco moist, but I am now sure that the problem with damping off was caused by the coco being absolutely saturated, I used 8 or 9 litres of water to expand the coir block, and I now know 3l would have been just right, so my coco was 3 times as moist as it should have been. I've expanded another brick using 3l like I was advised and the difference is massive, this second batch has a light, fluffy consistency, much better.

No more seedlings have died and all have begun to grow nicely now, back to health. They are quite stunted do to the rough start, but will grow up to be nice plants nonetheless. The Afghans in soil that have been healthy from day one are a lot larger than the rest, but the CG x GFBs in coco are cathing them up.

I decided to take some 2l plastic bottle, cover them in tape, cut the top off and cut drainage holes in the bottom:

Then I filled them with coco and planted the two largest Afghans and the two largest Cg x GFB f2s into the bottle using the Bog method of not tranplanting, just plating the smaller pot into the bigger one. I cut the bottom off the little plastic cups and the roots will have a good ten inches of coco to send that taproot down into, so should help them grow faster.

Here are the two largest CG x GFB f2s, they are small but are now healthy and growing properly, with the extra rootspace I'm hoping these will now take off:

I then placed these repotted plants into my wardrobe under my 250w MH, there are already four plants in there revegging. I also repotted the OG Kush ad Cheese cuts, these have started growing nicely now, particularly the Cheese, which seems a very forgiving plant, the OG Kush seems very touchy to nutes, fed them a little 1ml per litre seaweed extract and the Vheese lapped it up, the OG Kush got some yellowing on it's new growth, but that has passed now.

I finished off the wardrobe and it's looking quite neat now, I patched up all the gaps in the mylar coating using mylar crisp packets (chip bags to you US citizens! lol) and double-sided tape. I reckon I'm making the best possible use of all my lumens now as it's really shiny in there with no gaps! lol

 

[Guest]

The seedlings seem to be loving the extra lumens of the MH, my 160w of coolwhite fluoro tubes put out 13200 lumens, the MH about 25000 I think, so they are getting double the amount of light, and now have many times more rootspace to root into, so I'm expecting them to really take off. The Afghans appear to be doing so as they look a lot bigger after only 8 hours under the MH. I also added the SSSDH fem and two more Afghanis after repotting them in the same way. Plastic drinking cups, plastic soda bottles and duct tape, god I'm cheap! But hey, if it works, so what!

 

[petal]

BK
good to see your up & growing again , sure is
a ghetto looking wardrobe set up youve got there .

i found your previous low wattage sativa grows inspiring
& am looking forward to these more indica based grows
that youve got planned .

i noticed youve got LEB27 seeds , im really keen to
find lebanese seeds , it was the first smoke i ever
had , back in the day :smile:
so far ive managed to find bluehemp lebanese &
zenseeds LEB30 , is your LEB27 from zenseeds also ?

anyway

good luck with the grow

petal

 

[Guest]

I've planted the remaining CGxGFB f2s & Afghanis into bottle of coco now and the wardrobe is filling up, the growth rate of the Afghani's is very good, I think they must have rooted into the coco pretty quicky and they have been lapping up the feeding, I watered them once with 1ml per litre of seaweed then yesterday and today fed them twice once with 1ml per litre seaseed with a drop of suprthrive and once with 2ml per litre of Formulex. The CGxGFB f2s are looking a biy yellow and hungry and the three feedings haven't fully cured the yellowing so I'm going to carry on feeding them until they show signs of the beginnings of overdose.

 

[Guest]

Today I added two more plants and things are looking good, the Afghans are really rocketing along now and the other plants are starting to grow properly.

Here's some shots of the Afghans, I like the look of these.

Here are the Cheese and OG Kush cuts.

And here are the CG x GFB f2s and the sole SSSDH fem. Sorry about all the pics but its true with growing that pics speak a thousand words.

 

[Guest]

Today I took the two surviving Egyptians from the ten planted in coco and repotted them into 2 litre bottles with the top cut off and wrapped in tape. These have been a bit yellow-green from day one so I have fed them every day for the last couple of days and gave them a good dose of 2.5ml/litre seaweed and 2.5ml/litre formulex.

One of the Egyptians has a webbed leaf, I think it's just a minor mutation that won't resurface as the other leaves are normal, would be nice to find a weebed plant, but don't think this is it.

The Afghan runt has started growing at the same rate as the others now, and is loving the MH lumens, it's got some catching up to do on the bigger ones, but looks quite normal, just a slow starter.

I've upped the feeding of the plants to twice a day, once with 2ml per litre seaweed with a drop of superthrive and once with 2ml per litre formulex with 2ml per litre atazyme and they seem to be liking the increase, the CG x GFB f2s and SSDH are still a bit yellow for my liking and I'm just slowly stepping up the nutes till they tell me to back off. The Afghans just seem to lap up whatever I chuck at them, no signs of overfert, they just grow quicker, which is nice to see, I hate finicky strains.

The Cheese cut is liking the increased feeding too and is growing well, the OG Kush is touchy and although is growing at a decent rate, it keeps having slight burning then green growth, then burning, it's just a PITA but I'm hoping once it gets bigger it won't be so fragile.

 

[Guest]

The Afghanis are 14 days old now and I'm really pleased with their progress, really healthy and growing fast. All the traits I expected are there - short internodes, thick stem, broad, dark leaves, classic Afghan. The purpling on the petioles and stems is definitely genetic as they have been fed well and if you look at the tips of the largest fan leaves, they have turned down indicating ever so slight overfert. I'm told that most of these turn a very deep purple, so fingers crossed for something colourful. I would love to find a good male from these to cross to my Herijuana and Deep Chunk cuts to add some vigous as both are ultra slow in veg. The other good thing about these Afghans is they all look the same and the only variance is in size and a lot of this is that some have been under the MH in tall pots longer than others.

 

[Guest]

major pic update BH, i dig it, your garden is coming along very nicely...

 

[guest5703]

yea for sure dude great update! I love how you just cut the bottom out and keep them growing in their cups with more root space added to the bottom. Great pics, good work they are looking super healthy now. Those roots go right through the coco huh??? My new mix is like 60% coco and 40% Fox Farms soil. It works really well and with hot places like in a flower box they wont dry out as fast with the FF soil in the mix. Great job I'll be arouuuund. peace

 

[Guest]

Cheers guys, after a rough start it's going alright now, I've been having major doubts about my ability to grow in coco because of the disaster with the seedlings, but I'm 99% sure it's the crappy coco I bought that caused that problem. The seedlings that did survive in coco grew noticably more roots than the soil ones, noticed this when I cut the bottom of the cups, but the ones in soil got off to a better start. I can't take credit for the idea of repotting like this, it's an old BOG technique. The Afghans seemed to root straight into the bottle of coco as they experienced a growth spurt and still are growing like mad. Cali, I recommend ading 25% vermivulite to a soilmix that you need to retain lots of moisture as the vermiculite is very good at holding moisture.

I reckon these next pics pretty much prove its the coco that is at fault with my shrivelled seedling problem. I started 6 more CG x GFB f2s to replace the dead ones and to test further and try and be sure what the problem is, I planted 3 in soil 3 in coco. The 3 in soil are doing great, the 3 in coco have shrivelled and are almost dead. Not one single seedlings planted in soil of any strain has done this, so it's the coco, I will buy some canna coco soon and try starting seeds in that, if those don't shrivel I will be 100% certain I bought bad coco. I used the same coco in the plastic bottles and the plants seem to find that fine, it's just toxic to seedlings for some reason. When my ph pen arrives I'll check the ph from he run off after expanding my last coco brick and the ec too, see what nasties are lurking in there.

As you can see, these seeds do great in soil:

The 3 Pacific Aire seedlings in soil are also off to a good start:

As are the two Durban Poison, one is taking it's time to get going though:

 

[i_score]

cheers British_Hempire, nice grow, im a coco user and also a 250 watter, if i may sujest you should do a nice rinse and let the water clean that coco that may be oversaturated with salts, some brands rinse the coco in salt watter so we have to make shure it´s not the case, the canna coco and the coco from plagron are nice, the canna one is better but more expensive,at least for me, another thing, dont let the coco dry that mucth, because the seadling root will have a hard time if the top layer of the coco pot isn´t moisted enouf.
great grow keep us updated. peace

 

[Guest]

Hiya i_score, thanks for stopping by. I've decided to use up the last of this coir to fill up another hald dozen plastic bottles to round out this grow and just treat this first coco run as a learning experience, preparation for my next attempt which I'm gonna buy Canna coco and nutes for, seeing as so many folks recommend them and are having great success with them.