First NFT hydro grow with my own crossed strain "white sun".

[Kaiser]

Hi folks, this whole diary is going to be full of firsts for me. This will be my first hydroponic grow, I have been growing in soil for about 14 months now and have had several decent harvests. I have been using 3 x 200W Envirolites and so this will be my first grow using a 400W HPS.
I have been growing two strains in soil, white widow and Arctic sun. Over the last grow I had my first Arctic sun male and decided to have some fun with it. I succesfully pollinated an arctic sun and white widow female.
I certainly didnt expect the entirety of both plants to seed after pollinating just 1 small cola on each plant, live and learn!

This diary will concentrate on growing my crossed strain using the NFT techinque of Hydroponics, I have decided to call this crossed strain White sun.

So without further adoo....

HYDRO GROW SPECS:

3 x White sun from seed
1 x 400W HPS light with batwing type reflector
1 x NFT tray
1 x water pump
1 x ventilation fan
1 x extractor fan with (home made) carbon filter
1 x PH probe
1 x EC meter
Lots of white plastic sheeting
Canna Aqua nutrients (flora and vega as reqiured)
Not forgetting the PH products.




2 wks in, 3 x White sun babys in rockwool surrounded by clay balls and coverd by old tea cosys (place mats for cups) to prevent Algi growth. I have been feeding these a very weak soloution of Canna's terra flora. They look terrific, ive not had babys in soil that look this good! These I have vegging in an old fish tank with a daylight flourescent. I'm going to leave them in the fish tank for a week or two yet untill they have grown enough to use the full output of the HPS light. (in truth I have a white widow finishing off under the 400W HPS "just to test it" .



Close up.







Here's the tray for NFT Hydro. .

 

[easyrasta]

good luck
nice looking babies
Peace
Ez

 

[Truth]

if you aren't planning on it, hopefully you throw in those 3 x 200w lights you have in the middle of veg and keep them running along side the HPS. good supplementing. try some cheap co2 if you run all of them, and you will see those plants grow enormous buds.

 

[Kaiser]

Hi and thanks folks. Great idea adding the Envirolites aswell but im going to be using them to keep my "back up" soil grow going, I have an Arctic sun harvest next week and then that will make room for 2 x blueberry, 2 x arctic sun and 2 White suns, all in soil. I'm interested in the use of co2 though, havent tried it yet. Do you think it would be worth getting some for just the 400W hps? Maybe I could use it in the grow room anyway as the soil and hydro wil be in the same room next to each other infact. I'm interested to know if the expence would be worth the return in terms of higher yield?

 

[Kaiser]

Hi folks, 4 days ago I put the young ladys into the NFT tray, i coverd the spreader mats with clay pebbles. Dont have an EC meter till next week, so just using 1/4 strenght Canna aqua vega nutes. P.H is stable at 6.1.







I have been watching them closely because they may be developng a problem this early into the grow. Some of the leaves are starting to develope yellowing along the edges and tips and early signs of lower leaves wilting, see photos below... Some of this is my fault as one or two leaves got burnt by touching a flourescent whilst still firming out to put in the tray. The new grow sems to be ok for now. I am not sure on the duration I should run the water down the tray. I currently have it set to flow for 15 minutes every hour, im worried this may not be enough or even to much! Any advice anybody has would be appreciated. In addition to all this I have an aqarium air pump bubbling the water to keep it oxyeginated.

 

[Kaiser]

Incase anybodys interested ive reduced the watering time to 15 minutes every 2 hours and have seen an improvement in the general health of these young ladys. Also added a little more nutes.

 

[Kaiser]

Spent a silly amount of money on a Bluelab Nutrient Truncheon and standard soloutian yesterday. the first reading I took told me the nutes were to high at 20CF, this suprised me as I had only been dosing 1/4 strength nutes. The ladys seem to be yellowing on the lower leaves with a little wilting to. There are also spots of brown dead leaf developng on the leaves that are yellowing, not to bad nut along the outer edges. Would really apreciate thoughts on this. I realise my nutrient mix is to high, have brought it down to 12CF by dilluting with more water, would this cause the yellowing and brown spots?

 

[Kaiser]

I'm back! I Thought it was time to check in with some juicy piks....
Bad news is that from the 3 babys one was male, but thats ok because check the pictures out and bring a drip tray for the drool!!

This ladys are in full bloom and should be ready by mid June, apologies for the picture quality as I only have my trusty camrea phone to take these.









Extreme close up!





Im not sure if these little ladys are turning into trees or what!





And finally the juicy sign of times to come

 

[Guest]

not nft

not nft

who told u to use pebbles ?
the idea of nft is to create a runing stream over the developing roots using no medium other than a starter pot or 4"cube on top of the tank with some spreader matt,,like in pics below






pumps should be on 24/7
once roots start to build up on the tray u then increase the flow rate on the pump as the plants start drinking more,,normally those tanks come with very good instructions ,if u havent got them u can go to nutricultures site and get them,

your growth looks ok but it wouldve been lots better had u actually used the tank as an nft ,,

any questions just ask

 

[Kaiser]

Thanks for the info mate, its not really an NFT system is it. More like ebb and flow. When this one is done I will have a crack at nft and the info you have just posted will be very usefull indeed.

peace

 

[tngreen]

damn man! those plants are lookin awesome! good job on the cross!

 

[Kaiser]

Today was harvest day, been busy most of this afternoon trimming up. All the effort has been worth it though. I reckon theres maybe 5 Oz of shit hot weed from two plants.

Nearly had a disaster 3 weeks ago as my nute pump failed, luckily i spotted it just in time, the ladys were pretty sick but I managed to bring them back. Also being using topmax bloom boost. Thats stuff is amazing, I highly recomend it. I also added another 400W HPS for the last 3 weeks, I think it made a bit of a diffrence!


Pictures taken today before I started cutting.








And the yield, I say this lot might be 5oz when its dried, its hard to tell. I hope its more though.