What's new
  • ICMag with help from Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest in November! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!

Rockwool Trees

F

Fields~of~Green

I would just like to say don is well alive and kicking think he left given the current situation

dynamite and don = best flock wool growers around
 
G

Grow4Flow

Member
No doubt, everyone here is helpful.

So, I have mother plants in 10 gal pots with Happy Frog soil, can i take the whole soil plug from the pot and put directly into the 20 gal pot full of Flock? if so, would i be PH'ing for the soil or the flock?
 
Firebrand

Firebrand

Active member
Grow4Flow said:
No doubt, everyone here is helpful.

So, I have mother plants in 10 gal pots with Happy Frog soil, can i take the whole soil plug from the pot and put directly into the 20 gal pot full of Flock? if so, would i be PH'ing for the soil or the flock?
Click to expand...

The flock should be pre-adjusted, this was described earlier in the thread, not sure if that info is still available. The adjustment said something about washing out particulate calcium until the proper PH was achieved, I think there was a 24 hour soak involved, but I'm not certain.

As for the mix you have in the 10 gals now, that will also need to be checked and adjusted accordingly too. Hope this helps.

PH testing was done using runoff I believe.
 
Boo

Boo

Cabana’s bitch
Veteran
talked to don recently and all is well...most of his community got hammered but he's in a restored area...
 
LyryC

LyryC

Active member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
tog1 said:
talked to don recently and all is well...most of his community got hammered but he's in a restored area...
Click to expand...

I sure hope they are all okay with this HAARP bullshit going on.

Thank you for letting us know. Send him our regards :tiphat:
 
Boo

Boo

Cabana’s bitch
Veteran
I tried mixing pro mix with coco...crazy pH swings...I'd not recommend mixing soil with wool...
 
G

Grow4Flow

Member
Finally trying this flockwool too now and loving it. no maint. This is about 3 weeks from teen. Wondering at what point now i should start flowering, the tall one is already about 4ft tall

picture.php
 
hush

hush

Señor Member
Veteran
I'd like to request for someone to recreate this thread with the information any of you saved. Some of you said earlier that you copied the earlier information that is now missing?

I just finally decided to click on this thread for the first time, and it was failure seeing that first page with all the blank posts. I just read the last few pages and figured out what happened, and I'm disappointed now. Apparently I missed the flockwool boat. :cry:

So, I vote someone starts a version 2.0 thread, who's with me?
 
B

BudGreene

New member
I would love a re-creation. This is what I remember.
Soak the wool in ph of 3 for a day or so.
Upsize the container when the root system dictates, target watering frequency is once per day.
Only water after the wool has dried out to the point where you only get dampness when you squeeze it between your fingers.
Water to %15 run off.
Feed 3-5 times before giving a pure watering to flush salts.
Make sure drip system can water the whole container evenly for salt flushing.
I know there was much more, but I believe these were the basics.
 
G

Grow4Flow

Member
For whomever is looking, here ya go, copy now!



PREPPING BULK WOOL

to properly counteract the alkalinity of the rockwool, one must soak the wool in a ph of 2.9-3.0 for 48 hours. After 48 hours of sitting in this low ph solution the water will have risen from 3.0 up to 6.0 due to the low ph dissolving the lime deposits into the water and it will leave the medium with a perfect ph in the mid 5's. Low ph solutions dissolve lime, that’s why standard rockwool is soaked in a low ph and then flushed to flush out the dissolved lime deposits

CHARGING THE WOOL

Now comes the medium charge, and depending on how expensive your nutrients are and how much wool your soaking, there are 2 ways to go about this

First way: mix full strength nutrients in with the soak water, then ph down to 3, then after 48 hours you can pack the pots with wool and put the plant in with little to no flushing. Doing it this way is quicker but it wastes more nutrients and it’s not as good for stabilizing the medium

Second way: do the soak with plain water. Then once the wool is in the pots, flush the pots with a full strength nutrient solution to flush out the lime and super charge/stabilize the medium, I test the runoff and keep flushing until what’s coming out is the same thing
that's going in, ph and ppm wise, usually takes about 7-8 gallons of nutrients to charge and stabilize a 20 gallon pot of wool and flush out all the plain water; this is the way I do it

A Few Notes

-DO NOT squeeze or compress the wool, as it changes its structure.
-When you soak it’s easier to use 2x the amount of water for the medium you have. Example, put a 45 gal bale in to 90 gallons of water, this makes it possible to stir the wool around more and loosen the lime deposits, as well as assures the wool doesn’t get compressed

-The wool you want is "water absorbent" that is all I use. The water "repellent" can be mixed in to prevent it from holding too much water...a 50/50 absorbent to repellent mix has the same water to air ratio and water retention as grodan cubes and slabs...a mix would work well for smaller plants (SOG etc.), but with large trees id go 100% absorbent.


PH & PPM/DTW VS. RECIRC/MONITORING RUN OFF & COUNTERACTING SALT BUILD UP

When running bulk wool DTW with salt nutrients, salt build up has to be taken into consideration as does the ph of the medium and run off. Rockwool is spun limestone made in the same way that they spin cotton candy; this gives the rockwool a high ph which will always raise the ph of the watering.

The bulk rockwool, being unrefined, has more lime deposits in it and therefor raises the ph after watering higher than standard rockwool would. Due to this, one has to adjust the nutrient solution in a ph range to when it passes through the rockwool it’s never allowed to rise above a certain ph.

Example, if you were to feed this wool with say a ph of 5.5 your runoff after 24 hours would be roughly 6.2 or so, water source dependent and being in hydro one wouldn’t want the ph to go beyond 6.0 as you will begin to birth a phosphorous deficiency.

What I do is ph my nutrient solution down to a ph of 5.3 and after 24 hours of passing through the rockwool, the runoff will rise up to 6.0 and go no higher; this gives me full nutrient availability of all elements every 24 hours using a ph swing of 5.3-6.0..and I’ve found that in hydro, using a ph swing to cover a wide range of elements is much more effective than locking it down to any one ph like 5.5 or 5.8

if running this wool dtw, its best to monitor the ph and ppm levels of your run off and tweak the next day’s watering’s according to the previous days readings; doing this will assure that the medium is stable in ph and ppm levels...if your phI s over 6.0, lower the next feed .1 for every .1 the run off is over

If running dtw, one must also either allow a lot of run off each watering or alternate with plain watering, the best way is alternating plain watering, even with 10% run off, salt build up after 5 days/5 feeds will usually be 300-400 ppm’s higher than ingoing water has ever been.

Example, if I fed for 4 days and every day I fed at 700 ppm’s, the runoff on day 5 would be past 1000 ppm’s even if I’ve never fed past 700..i found that depending on how salty your nutrients are, giving the plants a plain watering every 4th or 5th feeding will counter act this salt build up and keep the medium in the range of 700-900ppms when feeding at 700 ppm’s.


HIGH HUMIDITY AND LARGE TREES

High humidity and large plants go hand in hand. I read something a while back that stuck, it was something like “The largest most vigorous trees and plants grow in the most humid place in the world, the rain forest.” I feel larger plants growing at faster rates need more humidity to thrive.
I like to keep my rooms between 60-70% RH. I’ll even go as high as 75-80 RH in veg and through stretch with some strains. I've never had mold, rot, or pm. The key is never let temps go below 68 and have tons of air flowing around your plants. If you don’t have enough humidity, the environment will suck moisture from your plant and it will never grow to its fullest potential.
For some reason there is a stigma surrounding high humidity from people who live in fear of mold or pm and it’s unfortunate. People never figure out the wonders of high humidity because they think anything over 50% will rot, but what they don’t understand is that those things (pm/mold) can only exist if you give them the environment suitable to do so. Keep your airflow up, don’t let temps go below 65F and let the humidity crank, your plants will thank you

NUTRIENTS

The nutrients I use are Dutch Masters Gold A & B, Calmag, and Protek silica, that’s it. I feed at 700 ppm’s most of the grow cycle and never go above that. When using RO water, I add 6ml per gal of Calmag, 2ml per gal of silica and the rest is DM Gold, I use this for all veg and first half of flower. I cut out the Calmag and Silica at week 5 or 6 and pump the base nutrients up for the remainder of the grow cycle.

I foliar feed twice a week with base nutrients @250ppms and a ph of 5.8 up to day 7 of flower...after each foliar feed I spray down with plain water to wash off salt residues.
 
Firebrand

Firebrand

Active member
Grow4Flow said:
Sorry FB,
that's all i have and really, it's all you need. It contains all the pertinent info to get through your grow.
Click to expand...

Thank you for posting what you have, much appreciated.

I don't suppose you saved any of the photos of the trees from the first page?

I am now going to search the thread for any morsels I might have missed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Latest posts

Top