Northern Lights Micro, 16"x16"x32"-- 97 watts LED, Low Odor.

[phunkeeboodah]

i thought the same but turns out if there is enough soil the water and most of the roots never make it down that far anyway since there is less oxygen and moisture(?). in the mother cupboard i keep plants in 250ml and 500ml plastic margarine containers/tupperware and those plants have roots at the bottom but the sand at the top helps regulate watering and the moisture level at the top of the soil and so far the plants are perfect

that top sand layer though really helps because the soil stays moist along the surface all the way to the edge of the pot and it stays regulated. it's basically upside down bottom watering. the sand holds all the water at once and slowly brings it evenly downward across the soil surface

 

[singlecoiled]

i thought the same but turns out if there is enough soil the water and most of the roots never make it down that far anyway since there is less oxygen and moisture(?). in the mother cupboard i keep plants in 250ml and 500ml plastic margarine containers/tupperware and those plants have roots at the bottom but the sand at the top helps regulate watering and the moisture level at the top of the soil and so far the plants are perfect

that top sand layer though really helps because the soil stays moist along the surface all the way to the edge of the pot and it stays regulated. it's basically upside down bottom watering. the sand holds all the water at once and slowly brings it evenly downward across the soil surface

I might try the sand trick you mention, I've heard this helps to prevent fungus gnats as well, I'm not sure. Very interesting techniques your using.

 

[phunkeeboodah]

yes that was the initial reason i tried it and they were gone almost instantly

 

[singlecoiled]

End week 4 flower--5 weeks to go if I can make it, I'm seeing some brown on the leaves --Not good this early!

 

[BuckEye420]

Ive grow Nirvana Northern Lights four times now. Its a very consistent strain to learn from, all of my plants have been exactly the same. I am a relatively new grower and am using this as an opportunity to learn. My past three grows used Bloom/Flower nutrients after flipping 12/12. This grow I will be using Dyna Grow Foliage pro only, to see what happens.

To answer your question, I am using RO water and Dyna Grow Foliage Pro. Thats it. Very simple and very cheap. The soil is Fox Farm Coco Loco (coco/soil mix) with added perlite and a cup or two of rabbit manure from my pet rabbit. I'm growing in a 3 gallon cloth pot and watering every 3 days or so. Coco loco really holds the water, almost too much ! My watering frequency might increase as she enters mid flower.

I'm feeding Foliage Pro at around 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp per gallon every watering until heavy runoff. I monitor PH in and PH out as well as PPM's... I do not use PH up or down, I use Dyna Grow Protekt (just a little) to PH my water to around 6.0-7.0 range.

I do have a bottle of Cal Mag just in case, but am trying hard to use the right amount of Foliage Pro so that no deficiencies begin. Thats the nice thing about Foliage Pro, its got everything a plant needs, 12 bucks a bottle and it has lasted 4 grows now using less than 1/4 of a bottle....

Not to nitpick here.....but you are not using Dyna-Gro Foilage Pro "only" as you say, Coco-Loco has organic inputs and on top of that, you are using rabbit droppings, so you can't really judge how the plant does just on Foilage Pro alone when you are adding other inputs, just saying. For what it's worth I also use Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro with Pro-Tekt in a canna coco/perlite blend with a 50/50 water of RO and tap pH'ed to 6.0-6.5 in AutoPots with a 13 gal. resivour for my autoflowers. Your plants look awesome!!

 

[#1cheesebuds]

So how did she turn out?

 

[FunkyHomosapiens]

I would be happy if you could finish the diary
Im in flower week two , Also a smal grow box.

 

[phunkeeboodah]

until we hear back this is my current low odour grow with 150w hps from canadian tire. this is three seeds of ortega (nl5 x nl1) and i'm dropping light schedule 40 minutes per week right now just over half way through flower it seems

rubbermaid tub no holes pro mix soil and pellets (both omri) from lowes and two inches of sand on top (game changer). pre mixed a bunch of the pellets into the soil and then only had to top dress once early flower

 

[phunkeeboodah]

two weeks later and the light schedule is now 10L/14D which i will keep it at until harvest

can only really smell when near or in the grow space and it smells just like fresh flowers. perfumy and sweet with some funkiness in there

one plant is ahead of the others in resin production (cat pee). will have to wait for the smoke test though to decide the keeper

 

[backtobasics]

Hi!

I like your setup pretty much dude!
What are you growing for the moment?

Cheers,
btb

 

[phunkeeboodah]

since i'm still not busted (remember back in the days of half finished grow reports lol)

this picture is from last week and the plants now a week on from then are i would say no more than a week to finish. i will let them dry on the vine btw

really no identifiable odour outside the garden accept when right next to it. they have just smelled like flowers with a bit of funky berry juice concentrate mixed in

i took a small bud of each pheno and am water curing for an early potency check

am realizing more and more how important it is that these plants do not smell. i had one plant a few years ago in veg and it reeked the whole apartment up with a nasty nose burning skunk smell

 

[phunkeeboodah]

the first smoke test with the water cured buds show a clear winner and that is the cat pee. this was noticeably the frostiest plant. has sweet fruity/berry resin although i have yet to try it non-water cured so will see how it turns out

isn't the easiest to clone but has some really cool variegation. what a relief i found a keeper and no/minimal odour

 

[coiledsingle]

Harvest: Massive Colas, weighing in around 3 ounces each wet. Each cola is almost identical in size and shape, around 10-12 inches in length, frosty and rock solid after bucking off the stem.

I'm still undecided as to manifold vs Scrog. I like the massive size of the colas and the identical size and distance from light, but drying took 2.5 weeks at 50-60 RH !!! (with wet trim) Talk about high risk of mold. After drying, I cured in jars burping daily for around a month, and then cured another 2 months before sampling. I wound up with 2.5 ounces after removing all stems and sugar leaves (the stems were MASSIVE) I also wound up with a huge bag of trim for edibles.

Smoke report:

Mind blowing, this grow came out fantastic ! Two hits is too much and (I take very small bong hits every night.) The taste is fresh, citrus, pine and an interesting earthy flavor. (probably not everyone's cup of tea but it grows on you).. And did I mention smooth? You can easily take too big of a hit of this without knowing whats to come......(no coughing at all)... Pat myself on the back, my hard work curing payed off !

I'm still no where close to finishing this bud and it has been jarred way too long now, but it seems to get better and better, I don't mind losing a little potency... This stuff sneaks up on me everytime and I wind up uncomfortably high !

Sorry to get back so late here all, I had to recreate my account, I'm terrible with passwords....

 

[coiledsingle]

Tric shot: Just starting to show amber... Around 5-10%

Went around 9 weeks flower...( NL is a fast flowering plant, I've found 60-65 days is just about right for Nirvana NL, any longer the plant starts to lose potency and bag appeal...)

 

[coiledsingle]

Odor report: Welp, here is my biggest problem, even with a low odor strain, I barely got away with this grow. A slight weed odor got past my carbon filter and I was stressed out for 2 weeks... My basement smelled like pine dipped in honey, luckily it was not skunky smelling, I was able to get through the last two weeks with incense, air diffusers, and terpentine...

WTF? Did you say terpentine? YES ! It smells almost identical to northern lights. That must be why they call it TERP entine.. Don't worry, it was no where close to the plant.. I just used it in rooms close by to mask the small amount of odor that was escaping. (worked like a charm)

Next grow will include the addition of a 6 inch carbon filter and fan outside the grow cabinet to scrub the odor that is getting by my internal fan and filter...

 

[coiledsingle]

Not to nitpick here.....but you are not using Dyna-Gro Foilage Pro "only" as you say, Coco-Loco has organic inputs and on top of that, you are using rabbit droppings, so you can't really judge how the plant does just on Foilage Pro alone when you are adding other inputs, just saying. For what it's worth I also use Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro with Pro-Tekt in a canna coco/perlite blend with a 50/50 water of RO and tap pH'ed to 6.0-6.5 in AutoPots with a 13 gal. resivour for my autoflowers. Your plants look awesome!!

Nahh, its cool. I see what your saying. The point of my "Foliage Pro" only wasn't really talking about the medium (soil, coco, rabbit manure etc) but more about trying a grow all the way to flower WITHOUT bloom nutrients. This was an experiment as many say, bloom is not needed.... So, this came out pretty good without high P and K... BUT I feel it was a bit too leafy and could have benefited with a little dose of bloom.

As far as the rabbit manure, I'm not sure how much P and K it provided, it may have been plenty.

Next grow will be Foliage pro and bloom... (easy on the bloom) combined with rabbit manure and Happy Frog. I wont be using Coco Loco again, it held too much water.

 

[coiledsingle]

Hi!

I like your setup pretty much dude!
What are you growing for the moment?

Cheers,
btb

Thanks man, I appreciate that.

Not growing anything now, I need to finish one more jar of Northern Lights or my weed gets old. (it piles up fast and I cant keep up) I also need work on getting my system to go completely odorless, a work in progress.

An ounce of Northern Lights lasts me around 3 months or more smoking nightly...

 

[MedScientist]

WooHoo!

I really enjoyed seeing you pull that off!

 

[coiledsingle]

WooHoo!

I really enjoyed seeing you pull that off!

Thanks ! This was an experimental grow and I learned much. As I made mistakes, (I lost around 4 weeks in Veg) I was also curious to see what an extended veg would do... It does a lot ! By going 4 extra weeks in veg, the frame of the plant and the stems of the 8 colas were the size of a fat pencil... Monsters !

I wouldn't recommend doing this, but it was cool to see how it turned out.

Looking at my fellow grower, (phunkeboodah), you can see a good contrast between a SCROG grow vs a Mainline... To be honest, I'm thinking a lot of small tops produces more quality (more harvest) than a mainline... I'll probably go back to a trellis net without mainlining for future grows..

​

But if your in no rush and don't mind extra veg time, its pretty amazing how beefy a little plant can get.


Week 6 Veg ! Building a monster frame in a very small grow cabinet...

before 12/12 flip. Nice thing about Mainlines, its "set it and forget it", cruise control from here on out. All 8 colas stayed perfectly even without any training...

 

[coiledsingle]

since i'm still not busted (remember back in the days of half finished grow reports lol)

this picture is from last week and the plants now a week on from then are i would say no more than a week to finish. i will let them dry on the vine btw

really no identifiable odour outside the garden accept when right next to it. they have just smelled like flowers with a bit of funky berry juice concentrate mixed in

i took a small bud of each pheno and am water curing for an early potency check

am realizing more and more how important it is that these plants do not smell. i had one plant a few years ago in veg and it reeked the whole apartment up with a nasty nose burning skunk smell

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If this is a contest, I'd say you got me... Your buds are looking a lot more buddy than mine, I had a hell of a lot of sugar leaves.


How did your grow turn out?