Med grow 2

[pineappaloupe]

After fair success in my last garden I am really looking forward to what is to come. I learned alot in the past few months dealing with very sick plants from the start, minor bug problems, heat, etc.

So here it goes
As of now I am using mostly seeds of two types. Last run the blunderberry had some balls on it somewhere, although I was never able to find any evidence. So I have an accidental cross of the unknown purple indica and blunderberry, as well as some pure blunderberry. The cross should be a nice one, adding some chunkiness to the super tastey blunder berry.
I also had some bubba kush given to me that were cloned way too late. It took them close to 2 months to stop making flowers under 24 hour light. They are still kinda messd up.

Organics is still my main focus. I plan on using soil amendments with compost tea and not relying on bottled ferts or guano teas.

Soil mix: roughly 6 parts promix HP, 4 parts FF ocean forest, and 2 parts perlite. I change it up a bit depending on what I think of the texture. I am topdressing with some nice local compost, about 1" on the top.

To the soil I add less than 1 tbs/gal dolomite lime, EWC, 1tbs/gal kelp meal, and 2-3 tbs/gal of Rainbow Mix Grow (will be bloom in the future)
Until I know the potency of the rainbow mix I am keeping it on the mild side, the bag says 2-4 tbs/gal.

Currently I am in 1/2 gal bags and moving onto 2 gal very soon. The soil mix has been sitting in the 2 gal pots for over a week now, watered with molasses and some enzymes. Should be nice and alive by the time i repot.

For lighting I am using a 6 bulb T5 that is not a garden specific brand ( TCP ) that was $240 shipped. I started with only 4 bulbs on the lamp when the plants were smaller and today I added the final 2 bulbs. I am very impressed with the T5 and plan on using it as my only vegetative light source. The T5 seriously kicks ass, very compact growth, minimal heat, great spread, and cheap.

I am moving to a perpetual harvest cycle and will probably expand my box with another 600W air cooled HPS, upgrade my ventilation and filtration. More on that later, right now I am figuring out how fast and large I can veg.


thats all for now. pics to come

 

[Dr Dog]

Seems like you got some nice plans for this grow
How did you prepare your soil with the molass? You just add it and let it sit?

I have been looking into T5 systems as well, D rock has done a very impressive grow using his T5 lights.

Good luck with your grow

 

[pineappaloupe]

I put the soil in pots as if there were plants in them, watered with molasses as per 3LB's guide, and let sit. The idea is to provide some food to the microbes that should be in the soil. I wasnt able to keep the messy buckets in the warm house and the box in the garage was not on so the temps were low.

since picture uploading is broken for now, no pics.

if you want a cheap T5 check out TCP lighting. They dont sell single orders and the only place ive found that carries them is businesslights.com .

 

[pineappaloupe]

Picture time

the plants were put under the T5 (using only 4/6 bulbs) Nov 1. These pictures are from 12/6. Growth was slowed due to the 16oz dixie cups having poor drainage and also the new soil mix in the 1/2 gal bags is very light and required more water than i was used to. Now I have a real good feel for things.













I will have more pics soon to show the progress in a week. The "lady 2" plant is really taking off... it has nearly doubled in size and is now in a 2.5 gal pot.

T5's and maxicrop.. i will never grow without them

 

[p0thed]

Hello pineappaloupe,

Your girls are looking pretty sweet.

 

[pineappaloupe]

Allright well... all was going very well, I repotted 12 ladies and moved them do the box with 2 600s. I went in to check the temps 6-8 hours after firing up the lamps and was greeted with a nasty buzzing noise. Like a bug zapped on crack. Lights flickering...

FUUUUCK
So dont buy a Gro Pro dual 600. It is being sent back to sun system for the second time in... 6 months.


On the bright side, I had a back up 1000W MH. I can't put it on a timer (its 120 and i dont trust those little plastic timers).

That was 2 days ago. Here are some shots from an hour ago:



















All the ladies are now given letter names. Letters A-D were repotted the earliest, and are seen in the previous pics from the T5

peace!

 

[pineappaloupe]

allright so everything is going very well. **** that damn gropro dual 600 though


so, I made this pots that have windows. i forgot to convert the pics of them off my camera, but ill have em soon.
so the plants went from 1/2 gal bags to the 2.5 gal pots (weird i know) on Dec 12. I had been away for 10 days and I came back to see this:



my buddy said that the roots were visible 5 days ago, so that means i am filling up the 2.5 gal pot in... 2 weeks or so. the ladies are definitely loving the soil mix.


here is the group shot from today



i trimmed the hell out of them after taking that pic. had i not been gone for 10 days i would have done this a week ago.

For example here was lady G before the trimming:




and here she is post trim.






i am flipping these ladies to 12 12 as soon as they recover from the trimming. it was probably a little stressful but they are very healthy. what a change from my first run.

I am also going to repot them in a few days. i really like the window pots i made because they allow me to monitor my growth rates, helping me to get dialed in sooner.


peace!

 

[pineappaloupe]

here are the solo shots of each lady. i am doing this so i can compare topping and training strategies, and since some of the seeds are different I might find something cool. I have noticed some differences in growth rates and structure. nothing too drastic though..

A


B


C


D




E


F




G


I


J


K


L



So the bubba kush finally turned around. check out these fat stems



compared to this




more to come. thanks for tuning in.

 

[Dr Dog]

I like the convertible pot idea, very nifty.
Plants are looking good, nice and healthy

 

[pineappaloupe]

here is a look at the progress over a few weeks. no new pics, yet.

any input is greatly appreciated. everything is going well but i know i can eventually grow them faster and bigger

group shot from dec 6:






group shot from dec 12:



and from dec 30







and plant by plants:

lady K aka bubba kush on dec 12


and on dec 30



Lady D dec 12



lady D dec 30



Lady A on dec 12


Lady A on dec 30




and

lady D dec 30



lady D dec 12



im am flipping to 12/12 soon as this winter storm is over, and repotting to either 5gal pot of 7 gal bag

i have been feeding only using soil amendments, started some compost tea
i will probably use some guanos teas in teh future, maybe 14/ strength to start with


thats ti for now. more new pics will come soon

 

[pineappaloupe]

here is a quick update

i watered with a nice compost tea (ewc and compost bubble for a few days)
what a difference. anyone doing soil w/o compost teas are really missing out. before the tea i only watered with molasses every other watering. after the tea all of the leaves were more rigid and upright, with new growth seen in light colored leaves all over.


so here they are 30 mins ago



compared to 12/30 after a big trim


and long ago on 12/12




peace

 

[ZeusOGrefugee]

lookin great pineapple...cant wait to see the rest of the show!! i got u tagged

- z

 

[BaBaBooeyVT]

looking good

 

[pineappaloupe]

Thanks for the interest. I will be updating as regularly as is needed.

currently: I need to flip the ladies to 12/12 soon, but my ballast just got fixed, and I do not trust a simple plug in timer to control a 1000w MH ballast I know people who do it all the time but from a electrical safety perspective, I do not like hot plastic devices near 9amps of current.

i still have not used any nutrients other than soil amendments. for anyone using the Rainbowmix Grow/bloom products, I used 2tbs/gal, which is the lowest of the recommended usage on the package, and would not use any more. i notice very slight tip burns (no longer than 1mm) on leaves and the rate of growth is very nice.

compost tea is some amazing stuff. I am still trying to perfect the timing of the brewing process but it still works nicely.

I will get some individual shots of the best documented ladies in the next few days, but here is a group shot taken yesteday. it is hard to tell but they are atleast 3" taller than a week ago

notice the fat leaves of the bubba kush...






peace

 

[pineappaloupe]

so i repotted all of the ladies into 7gal bags. i really wanted buckets but the 5 gal buckets were not even close to 5 gal. more roots = bigger ladies. in this case, i like big ladies.
i was unable to brew up the soil before the transplant. too cold in my free space, distractions, etc. i know life would be much better if i had watered the soil mix with molasses for 2-3 weeks, but oh well.

so i did it anyway. we'll see how it goes. my previous transplants were flawless, no shock at all. i attribute that to two things: plants were not very root bounds (roots were not mashing against the walls) and soil was more active to start. one can take a week off of their veg time with proper soil building and transplanting time.

so the ladies arent as perky as they were. it has been almost 48 hours so im not worried. nothing has gone downhill. some plants show signs of nutrients deficiency but that is probably due to a decrease in transpiration from distrubed roots. i foliar fed with maxicrop, compost tea to help things along.

more to come. i expect them to be back to normal in another 48 hours.

peace!

 

[pineappaloupe]

OK so here is another update. things are getting much more fun.
So, after the 48 hour period all the ladies looked fine. so i switched to 18/6 and started to see this:



with some help from jiggy and others we decided that it is cold stress. two days before that pic i forgot to turn the heater on and temps dropped below 50F during the dark time, the droop was on most plants tops and was more dramatic. also the plants in the corner closest to the wall that connects to the heated house (and covered air heating duct) did not show any droop

So here are the pics from 1/23. i took some on 1/18 but things are very buy lately, but i will keep trying to update every week.


top of a most recently repotted blunderberry (went from 6 bulb t5 to HPS)



here is a wider shot of the drooping top of the bubba kush




oh and here are some spots i noticed on a leaf. i havent had time to read through the nutrient deficiency literature here, so if you have any idea id really appreciate it. it is only on 2-3 leaves per plant, and not on every plant.




Here are the group shots, starting on the left and panning right (2 rows of 6 plants for reference)






OK, almost forgot, I have one more mystery. see the plant in the bottom left of the previous pic? the leaves are noticeably lighter green than the rest (same strain). ive hit it with compost tea with maxicrop, foliar maxicrop... but it still seems healthy other than the color. hmmm


peace!

 

[pineappaloupe]

ok. space heater is working. i am ordering a kill-a-watt just to see how much it is costing, and if it is worth it to spring for a thermostat controller and a more efficient source of heat.

i flipped the ladies 2 days ago, so this is day 2 of 12/12. it should be a good 68 days as long as i dont slack off.

oh, the stork came by 5 days ago with a special delivery of more little ladies. now i have some airbourne G13, chocolate thai (dna genetics), schrom, dabney blue, sweet skunk, and green queen. since there was space in the ez cloner i put in some bubba kush, and some of the cuts from the blunderberry/ unknown purple indica that are dominating the current grow. i hope they come out to be some decent medicine.


peace

 

[pineappaloupe]

I forgot to mention that I did a major pruning. any side shoots i didnt think would get enough light to get thick were removed. I have been LSTing this grow, and the plan is the have no more than 8 tops.
if anyone has input on pruning let me know. i have been trying to be more rough with the pruning because i think it decreased yield last run.


Left Side:

Right Side

and just for the hell of it, here is the 2 headed bubba kush. i plan on tracking this lady closely as i expect some great things form her.

 

[schrooomy420]

Right on D
How are the clones coming along?

 

[pineappaloupe]

Well well well. long story short that dual 600 is dead. again. this is the third time. it was tripping the breaker while it was on. at first it tripped after 9 hours. then 4 twice. then i ran if on 120V (to test if my T104 timer was bad) and it was ok until i unplugged it, let it sit for 20 minutes and added a burly timer from a friend. then i got the clicking noise, breaker tripped. etc.

all i can say is: always have a back up ballast. its the only insurance policy you can get.