My 600W perpetual grow

[blackone]

It's been a while since I posted pics here - used to do diaries but I kinda got lazy I don't have any chapters any more now since I grow perpetual;p It's a lot of fun harvesting every 1-3 weeks but of course there are problems too - pests never rest and since I've always got some plants in late flower spraying is a no-no. I've got thrips and they do hurt my plants a little but I kinda just let them live now... might think about some predatory bugs.

First an overview of the whole room:

Some tops are missing - here they are - some swt#3 head colas I harvested to let the lower buds mature:

A single fms grapefruit plant from clone day 45 flower - for some reason it's doing a bit better than the other clones of the same pheno:

Check out this sidebud - this is where a lot of the weight is in this strain.

 

[guest101]

Hey blackone!!
Nice bud right there my friend.

I never liked the ideia of harvesting every 2-4 week or somethin cause i couldnt use the cab to dry the weed with less smell, couldnt optimize light and cannopy and wouldnt cure my weed ...
Hearing your story sure adds a couple more factors! LOL
Had to share it bro!! hehe

Nice sog with lots of fat colas!!!
Do you smoke the bugs or they get lost once theyr habitat runs out of life lol ?

 

[blackone]

Hey Frank thanks for stopping by.
Well the thrips are so small I don't know what happens to them They leave the buds alone .. perhaps they die a sticky death just like fungus gnats.
I used to have a lot of gnats and although they didn't hurt my plants they were a bitch to find in a resinated bud. They seem to be gone now... I wonder if my trichomes killed them all

 

[Quazi]

That looks sweet man. I can't wait to see what kinda stuff you pull out of this perpetual.

Pullin' up a chair if you don't mind.


-Q

 

[Dr. Bloom]

That's pretty sweet man! What kind of light do you use for vegging? If you don't mind me asking. Keep it growin'.
-Dr. B

 

[blackone]

Thanks for taking a look people.
I'm vegging under 4*36W of 6500K flourescents - it's working quite well as long as I keep working to have those veggies close to the light - sometimes they get a little burned when I get lazy and let them touch the tubes.
Atm I'm growing Bubblegum (Bifrost from sagaseeds), Swt#3 and grapefruit.
Got a couple of revegged clones of a Satori pheno that I decided to hang on to - was actually flowering my moms but changed my mind because it's such a wonderful plant to grow.
I also have a few plants of my own cross: SatoriXswt#3. I also had a couple of gfXswt but i kinda got the seedlings of my crosses mixed up... and now the 6 plants I have all seem Satori dominant so the gf crosses must have been among the males.

 

[Young Giver]

perpetual grows are very convienient so i hope that you keep it that way.....staying very clean is a big factor....

 

[Smeden]

Hi Blackone m8

Nice crop you pop... looks dank dank like always from your side.
How many plants, you start up each 2-3 weeks interval?

About the thrips... I had big problems myself. And after trying; homade soap, boght soap and neem oil (none of these really made a difference) I bought 250 ml "Naturalyte" with spinosad.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Conserve-Natura...5166008QQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116
Only like you sprayed once before flower and ALL thrips was gone for 2-3 weeks, but then they came back slowly and now I wont spray because of flower, like you. But it really looks like a kick ass product, and no visible sideeffects like the stinky sticky neem oil (hate that pretty much)

Hope you dont mind me bumping your thread with the "spinosad ad" hehe.

Cheers n stay safe

 

[blackone]

Yeah - pyrethrum also knocks them down for a couple of weeks if you apply it thoroughly. I have considered spinosad but have been a little too paranoid ordering it from outside Europe (no idea if customs know what it's for - or if they know that it's illegal to import pesticides).
I've since found a local source but my problem is that I'm always in flower If I wasn't growing perpetual then I could easily spray them down in week 2-3 flower and they would be almost finished before the thrips would have time to build a population again.
I might consider using it in the veg room... at least then they won't go into the flowering room full of thrips and there might also be some systemic effect (I think I remember reading that spinosad also kills the larvae that feeds off the plants but I'm not sure)
Next year sometime I'm gonna have to shut down the flowering room temporarily because of going on vacation - I'll probably try and exterminate the population totally then but atm it's live and let live...

 

[Smeden]

Hi again

Totally agree with you. But If you get too tired of them... I think that 2 or 3 runs of spinosad kills it all. Again, theres none visible sideeffect. And I put about 1 cl to mix 0,5 liter water. (the day after, none "kalk" spots, smell or anything. So I allmost think it wouldnt make any damage...

About the shipping. About the pesticides your prop right, but as long as I use only 1 cl and have ernough to spray 2-3 times - im not so concerned about the environment.
When you do some searches on spinosad, it appears as an normal "house fly" cure. (in powderform, where small amount should be placed in small concentrations = no more flys) so dont think the customs would think cannabis. And its also "just" an normal product agains thrips... etc.

Cheers and have a nice weekend, when time comes...

P.S. Just found this thread, all only positive feedback on the spinosad. And one says its a living bacteria = harmless... (for your information)
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=70895&highlight=spinosad

 

[blackone]

Thanks.
I'm not worried about the toxicity actually. It's approved for vegetables until 3 days before harvest.
I'm more worried about spraying anything - including pure water - on buds that are in late bloom (I always have buds in late bloom, hehe) because of mold.

 

[xen_dau]

Checked out your SWT #3 thread as well... Very Niiiiice!!! (Both threads)

I too bought some SOL - SWT#3 (Inspected Bulk) and actually just cut one of the 2 ladies I got from it down. (think I took the first a little too early) Top notch smoke!!!

 

[blackone]

Yup it's a good smoke indeed - too bad you only got 1 lady so you couldn't experience the different phenos.
I wish I hadn't lost my swt dad - he seems to add citrus aroma to the cross with Satori. It would have been so cool making some more swt seeds to preserve the genetics.

 

[DougInglis]

very nice grow! i'll definitely be checking in on the progress

 

[GorillaGreenz]

sick grow, great pics!

 

[blackone]

Thanks
Just bagged up the buds from 3 swt#3 plants - 90 grams, so an average of 30 grams/plant. I actually thought it would be just a little bit more but it's all good - I could fit 20 plants like that in the room no probs so it looks like I'm slowly getting there. That was a pretty succesful trial of vegging in 13cm pots before putting the plants in the room. Only bad thing is that such large plants dry out too fast in 6.5L pots. Watering every second day is not really enough when they're in mid-flower and drink a lot of water.
I think I'll aim for 20g per plant and try to fit 30 in the room instead.
2 more plants (grapefruit) vegged in 13cm pots were harvested a few days ago and need to dry a bit more before bagging. They look like they might ding at 25-30g each.

The plants I'll be harvesting in the weekend are mostly smaller as they have only been vegged in 10cm pots, but some of them have some very nice buds, like the grapefruit I showed earlier. Got a few more pathetic looking ones as usual, hehe.

 

[blackone]

Harvested the last of what's ready 2 days ago and put in 17 new plants yesterday.
I now have 28 plants in there - I shot some pics and will get them up soon.
I'm trying something new with the soil - I mix 1/3 standard potting soil, 1/3 used potting soil that has been allowed to "rest" for a couple of months and 1/3 mushroom compost. I measured the PH of a sludge made with the reused soil - it's only down to 6.90 so that's pretty good (I must admit that I used tap-water and not distilled water but anyway I'm also using tap for watering). Mushroom compost is slightly basic so I think it's gonna be ok - will try to get some runoff PH measurements. I also hope the mix won't be too hot I don't think so, because the used soil hardly affected the EC of the tapwater when I measured (0.6) and could use some spice. I didn't use any nutes for watering - wonder how long the mushroom compost will last and if possibly I can go all the way through bloom without Bio Grow - only with Bio Bloom.

 

[crzygirl]

Hey Black!
Twenty eight plants, thats alot of greenery! Sounds like your doin' it right though, so keep up the good work and the free weed!

 

[blackone]

Thanks crzy I want to have 30 plants in there but the SatoriXswt#3 are too big for that, so the front and back rows are only 4 plants each. I'll probably get some pics up one of these days of my cross - they seem to be building some nice buds.

Got some pictures up now - first a bit of a mess in the downstairs bathroom, my girlfriend would kill me if she saw this - good thing I know how to use a broom (don't tell her I do, hehe):


Gotta get some work done - it's thirsty work making holy smoke.


Almost done - can you believe all of that soil can fit in that small pot?


Everything in flower now. Bud in front is SatoriXswt#3


How's it hanging?

 

[dontstepongrass]

looking good!