The growing large plants, outdoors, thread...

[bringinbudsdown]

gotta question for all the supp. light users would one 23 watt cfl above each plant be enough to keep em veging? or should i spend the extra money and get the 45 watt cfl's

 

[fisher15]

The growing large plants, outdoors, thread...

The 23 watters will do it, just hang em near the plant.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

So whos already got their plants ready for next year? I got 3 LVPKs (las vegas purple kush) that have been vegging for two months now, they are pretty small though around 2 feet tall. wondering if they have the potential to become super massive giants.

also got 10 cherry kush clones that are a month old and about 1 foot tall...

i want to stick to only a few strains, more consistency. these will be done in 200 gallon smartpots using Fox Farms Ocean Forest mixed with someother things....grown in mendocino county about an hour from the coast.

 

[Eatatjoes]

Here's what I'm thinking for a foliar somewhat similar to brix mix but using things I already have.

Original Liquid Brix Mix formula is:

16.5% Molasses
16.5% non GMO pure Malt
25% Phytamin 4-3-4
24% Humax
16.5% liquid sulfur
1.5% Therm-X 70
My mix:
molasses
yucca extract
liquid pure malt syrup organic, a sugar replacement - from local grocery store
To replace the Phytamin, humax and liquid sulfur I'll use the three products below:
Floralicous grow/bloom
Ingredients: FloraliciousTM Grow is derived from protein hydrolysate from fermented plant
material, sea kelp, and humic acids.

Fox Farms Microbe brew and kangaroots contain:
Earthworm castings, manganese Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, protein hydrolysate, kelp.
They all have lots of protein hydrolysate to cover the Phytamin.

Floralicous has the humic acid, the Fox farm products have the sulfur and they all have kelp for micronutes and further chelation.


What do you guys think?

 

[Butte_Creek]

Running Tom Hill's soil mix for the first time, how many lbs of kelp meal per bed would you ammend Tom or anyone for the matter?


For who ever asked on the rep, I can't see who because I think I'm low on posts, I will fill a 400 gal smart pot only 300 gal for a few reasons. Tom Hill's recipe creates a little over 300 gal, which conveniently fills a 6' wide bed approximately 18" . 400gal smartpots are 6' x 24" deep. 18" deep is more desirable than 24", and recommended by Tom himself for large plants from clone. Also I am using 400 gal smartpots instead of 300 gal ones because of the extra width on the 400 gal.

 

[McDank8O5]

im using 27 watt (100 watt equivalent) daylight cfl's. have had a dozen clones out there since 2/20 and they are steady veggin' along, things are in motion down here on the central coast!!




im using the same construction lights humboldt local used from home depot however for this greenhouse i modified the last socket to fit 3 more cfl's on it for a total of 8 on one strand.

 

[Trinity Gold]

Butte Creek - Tom's soil mix doesn't call for any kelp brother. Only bone meal gypsum and chicken manure. You can go half gypsum half oyster shell flour if your pH is closer to 7...

Also 2' of depth isn't a problem. more soil the better..it's just past 2' there isn't really enough o2 to support a healthy root system. Cannabis makes more lateral roots. If you have a 400 gallon pot...fill it up all the way.

Whoever has those LVPK that are barely 2' tall after 2 months of veg...Those plants individually do not have the genetics to get huge, if you want to still grow that strain consider putting more than 1 plant per container..more like 4..

Last of this years plants going out in to the green house today. Woot.

 

[bringinbudsdown]

so i was planning on running 25 23 watt cfl's would 6 gauge romex ran to a 60 amp breaker be good? and what are those construction sockets called i cant find them at home depot. and one more question are you guys running 120 or 240v cfl's?

 

[McDank8O5]

was hoping we could briefly go over topping and early training. i know the info is present in this thread (thank god for search button) but if anybody had any new techniques to bring to the table that would be sweet to hear.

basically how early do you guys start topping clones? seedS? how often? before or after a transplant? etc...

 

[Dr. Purpur]

We dont top plants over here. We super cropp them. Thats a pinch and snap, and lay the top leaves over. I dont think Tom tops either.


I took all the Sativas and Hazes outside to finish budding a couple days ago. They are at 73 days now.

I did a big haze/Sativa breeding run this winter, and took clones of all plants 30+

9 plants are hanging, and will be ready to sample soon. All from seed. Mauis, Viet blackThai, greenHazeThai, Mango, Super Silver, panama, Oaxacan,double thai, and a bunch of hazes.

I will be running some old favorites this year, but hope to find some winners from the winter run, and see what they can do outside.

 

[Butte_Creek]

trinity gold-thank you, i'll definitely fill em up now. got stuck on the simplicity and laziness of tom's mix doing 18" perfectly..
although i know what's in tom's soil mix, i thought adding kelp meal would only be beneficial to his mix, and easier than fertigating or foliar spraying with kelp, especially after i found out brix mix is discontinued. i'd really like to just water during veg, w/ the occasional cal25 foliar and aact.

i'll ask again though, how many lbs of kelp meal would one add to Tom Hill's soil mix?


local place i go has best prices on bulk amendments and they have a recommendation for how many lbs per sq. ft. or cubic yard etc, but it's always light and tailored towards feeding veggies in my experience.

 

[squarepush3r]

trinity gold-thank you, i'll definitely fill em up now. got stuck on the simplicity and laziness of tom's mix doing 18" perfectly..
although i know what's in tom's soil mix, i thought adding kelp meal would only be beneficial to his mix, and easier than fertigating or foliar spraying with kelp, especially after i found out brix mix is discontinued. i'd really like to just water during veg, w/ the occasional cal25 foliar and aact.

i'll ask again though, how many lbs of kelp meal would one add to Tom Hill's soil mix?


local place i go has best prices on bulk amendments and they have a recommendation for how many lbs per sq. ft. or cubic yard etc, but it's always light and tailored towards feeding veggies in my experience.

ill take a guess at 10%

 

[Trinity Gold]

10% kelp ? are you serious?

If you are planning on mixing up your own brix mix and spraying it you will be spraying kelp on your plants...

 

[nomaad]

Neither Tom nor I topped or trained our Blue Dream last season, but if I remember our last conversation on the subject, we are both reconsidering the wisdom of that decision. I am probably going to mess with things a little more this year. We did, of course, train branches into the trellis netting throughout veg and stretch.

Making decisions about training/topping seems to me to be largely strain-dependent. I grew a Pineapple Thai last season that got 8 feet tall, but was basically one huge cola. Had it been topped or properly trained, it would have done a lot better.

I had gigantic success with Brix Mix last year. Not only did my plants get huge, but sap tests indicated a brix level between 12 and 14 at all times during veg. Complete absence of mites during the period of weekly Brix Mix foliar applications. Not sure whether this resulted in a worse mite situation when we stopped the brix mix for flowering. Unfortunately, I am a bad scientist. I lent out my refractometer in the middle of last season and never got it back so i did not have the opportunity to do sap testing during flower when the mite situation started to be an issue. I just ordered a new one that I will not be lending out.

The point I started to make was that i will be mixing up my own Brix Mix this season. No doubt. Very upstanding of PVGS to fork over the recipe. I guess not so much if you consider that they sell all the bulk ingredients we'll need to make them. Regardless, thanks to TG for tracking down and posting up the recipe.

The funny thing about caring for monsters is that you are always looking at their skirt as you walk amongst them. What seemed like a terrible mite problem at eye level was really no problem at all at the 6 and 7 foot tier. Certainly not at 12'.

I've got my cloners full. Last year my plants were the result of clones that were cut between M20 and A10. Tom's were mostly cut in Early to mid March. We have been discussing the comparative benefits of younger clones vs. bigger clones and wondering whether a younger, smaller clone, put into its final pot in early June will do better that the same clone straining 6 feet tall in a 10 gallon. HL/Ganja D's plants were the biggest I have seen with my own eyes and they were started very early in their final as small plants. I don't have the data to know whose plants were most efficient.

I know it sounds crazy, but I am hoping for smaller, more efficient plants this season. In other words, I would like to achieve the same yield as last year, but without having to work 12 and 13 feet off the ground when it comes time for caterpillar checks.

Anyhow. That's my $.02 for now. Its good to see everybody gearing up for another go round. Best of luck to all.

 

[Eatatjoes]

Here's what I'm thinking for a foliar somewhat similar to brix mix but using things I already have.

Original Liquid Brix Mix formula is:

16.5% Molasses
16.5% non GMO pure Malt
25% Phytamin 4-3-4
24% Humax
16.5% liquid sulfur
1.5% Therm-X 70
My mix:
molasses
yucca extract
liquid pure malt syrup organic, a sugar replacement - from local grocery store
To replace the Phytamin, humax and liquid sulfur I'll use the three products below:
Floralicous grow/bloom
Ingredients: FloraliciousTM Grow is derived from protein hydrolysate from fermented plant
material, sea kelp, and humic acids.

Fox Farms Microbe brew and kangaroots contain:
Earthworm castings, manganese Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, protein hydrolysate, kelp.
They all have lots of protein hydrolysate to cover the Phytamin.

Floralicous has the humic acid, the Fox farm products have the sulfur and they all have kelp for micronutes and further chelation.


What do you guys think?

Does anyone see any drawbacks to using this recipe?

 

[mapinguari]

HL/Ganja D's plants were the biggest I have seen with my own eyes and they were started very early in their final as small plants.

Were those from clones, though, nomaad? If so, kinda gives the lie to the idea that you can get bigger from seed...or else, makes ya wonder how tall they'd have been if they were from seed!

 

[Trinity Gold]

Does anyone see any drawbacks to using this recipe?

Considering no one has actually tried what you're proposing do not get your hopes up on a reply...as any input would be pure speculation. Try it out and report back and let us know how it went for you.

Mapin - Ganja D's plants were from both clone and seed.

 

[Trinity Gold]

Neither Tom nor I topped or trained our Blue Dream last season, but if I remember our last conversation on the subject, we are both reconsidering the wisdom of that decision. I am probably going to mess with things a little more this year. We did, of course, train branches into the trellis netting throughout veg and stretch.

Making decisions about training/topping seems to me to be largely strain-dependent. I grew a Pineapple Thai last season that got 8 feet tall, but was basically one huge cola. Had it been topped or properly trained, it would have done a lot better.

I had gigantic success with Brix Mix last year. Not only did my plants get huge, but sap tests indicated a brix level between 12 and 14 at all times during veg. Complete absence of mites during the period of weekly Brix Mix foliar applications. Not sure whether this resulted in a worse mite situation when we stopped the brix mix for flowering. Unfortunately, I am a bad scientist. I lent out my refractometer in the middle of last season and never got it back so i did not have the opportunity to do sap testing during flower when the mite situation started to be an issue. I just ordered a new one that I will not be lending out.

The point I started to make was that i will be mixing up my own Brix Mix this season. No doubt. Very upstanding of PVGS to fork over the recipe. I guess not so much if you consider that they sell all the bulk ingredients we'll need to make them. Regardless, thanks to TG for tracking down and posting up the recipe.

The funny thing about caring for monsters is that you are always looking at their skirt as you walk amongst them. What seemed like a terrible mite problem at eye level was really no problem at all at the 6 and 7 foot tier. Certainly not at 12'.

I've got my cloners full. Last year my plants were the result of clones that were cut between M20 and A10. Tom's were mostly cut in Early to mid March. We have been discussing the comparative benefits of younger clones vs. bigger clones and wondering whether a younger, smaller clone, put into its final pot in early June will do better that the same clone straining 6 feet tall in a 10 gallon. HL/Ganja D's plants were the biggest I have seen with my own eyes and they were started very early in their final as small plants. I don't have the data to know whose plants were most efficient.

I know it sounds crazy, but I am hoping for smaller, more efficient plants this season. In other words, I would like to achieve the same yield as last year, but without having to work 12 and 13 feet off the ground when it comes time for caterpillar checks.

Anyhow. That's my $.02 for now. Its good to see everybody gearing up for another go round. Best of luck to all.

In my experience brix levels do not drastically drop off, but the readings can go down if things like environment, root zone etc., become stressed or stressful ...for example if part of your yard becomes more shady in the fall than it was in the summer the brix will probably go down because of less light hitting the plant to keep it in the high state of metabolism it was when the brix was say 14...I've also noticed different readings at different times of day and different parts of the plant showing different too.

For example you said up top you had almost no mites well that is your newest most robust growth..down on the bottom 3-4 feet of your 12' lady that is some growth thats been alive since March or whatever you were saying.

The newer fresher growth probably had a higher brix level than the lower part of the plant...flowering is very stressful for the cannabis plant it is when it begins to experience that it will die soon, that old growth is just so tired that it's given up all its juice.

I remember reading you don't prune anything..I would seriously reconsider that this year. Treat your ladies like fruit trees..

PS >> Can you believe I'm going to have some Blue Dreams this year?

PPS>> I think one of my problems last year for sure was transplanting out of smart pots. Hella stressful. Combined with the shitty weather I shot myself in the foot. Another thing I'm doing is keeping my plants on 20/4 till August 1. Hoping to induce flowering more like indoor so I can actually bring the blue dream in. If it works the way I'm hoping she will get 82 days of flowering when I would want to pick her in ideal fall weather.

 

[Eatatjoes]

Considering no one has actually tried what you're proposing do not get your hopes up on a reply...as any input would be pure speculation. Try it out and report back and let us know how it went for you.

Thanks for the reply Trinity, I'm thinking those ingredients should be ok to foliar feed I'm just curious what the pros think of it. I'll be trying it in a couple months.
Does anyone know of a source of yucca extract where I can buy a pint or less for cheap, I won't need an entire litre.

 

[Butte_Creek]

trinity gold- yeah, i am seriously considering making my own brix mix. we'll see. even a weekly fertigation of humax, hydrolyzed kelp, and molasses wouldn't be bad. gotta check price comparison of kelp meal vs. liquid kelp weekly..

10% kelp seems to be far too much.