The OBBT Grow Show!

[LadyLargely]

Hehe, I know my little jars are a bit taboo around here. But come on, its just a little mycelium! The fungus in those jars could be anything!

Thanks for the warning though, that's all we'll be seeing of those guys. I will refrain from posting glorious cock shots when my PE starts to sprout! I just wanted to let you guys know that incubators built for fungus cultivation are perfect for incubating seeds. Mine is just two identical plastic tubs, some water and a 50 Watt aquarium heater.

As for my pre-sprouting style I am glad I'm not the only one who does it. I've had some get quite tall on me in the towel. Sheerah! surprised me this round, usually her seeds crack open to reveal enormous sprouts that get 3 inches long in the towel. This phenotype has been much more subtle so far.

I find sprouting this way does a lot to eliminate early stretching. If you let the first set of serrated leaves appear before going in the ground then the first round leaves never get very developed. When you sprout the traditional way the round leaves get HUGE and are the only ones working on the plant for several days. I find seeds that are traditionally sprouted also always get 2-3 inches tall when they emerge, no matter what!

Seed surgery results in much stouter plants. Mine are cracking away on their fourth pair of serrated leaves and aren't even an inch tall yet! They look nice and big in the pictures but if you squat down so that the edge of the tubs are at eye level you can't see the plants! They are so short that they aren't even taller than the tubs yet!

The larger sprouts are easily 3-4 times wider than they are tall, which is perfect.

I for one appreciate you sticking around to help us now that DM has left the building. I realize this documentation is almost a job. So thank you.

I ask questions regarding your product choices because I am going to great lengths to acquire the exact products you have used. I could probably use some of the products I have already, but I don't want to risk anything.

Aww geeze rrog, you don't have to do that! You say you want to get exactly the same products as I use in order for your grow to be low-risk, but as I have explained copying my techniques verbatim is actually quite risky!

This is the hottest medium I have ever worked with, as well as the hottest spray I've yet to produce. The schedule is gonna be mad and I am flying with no backups if I throw a male. This is some serious tightrope-walking shit right here. I am redlining the technique for all it is worth, pushing it to within an inch of what is possible. This has got to be one of the most n00b-unfriendly renditions of the OBBT that is possible. Its going to take nerves of steel, a dark green thumb, unflappable confidence and quite a bit of luck to pull a grow off exactly how I'm doing it.

I encourage you to seek out the products I use because they are high quality, but don't go to huge lengths to do so. I do not want lots of people emulating my grow style. What I want is for you guys to understand the fundamentals so that you can do the OBBT your own way. This is why I keep listing nutrient ratios instead of recopies! It doesn't really matter what organic nutes you use so long as the ratios are correct. Go mad! Use what you have on hand, I am the first one to say that there are no real advantages for copying me perfectly, especially for a first-time OBBT gardener (which at this point, you all are).

Anyway, stay tuned in everybody! There will be a big update sometime later this week as I start to use the veg spray. Until then!

 

[rrog]

Duly noted to back off the myco and nutes and run less hot.

 

[jaykush]

Hehe, sorry mate, have to admit that I only skimmed through your stuff after I saw a mention of you in a post by DM. I saw the instructions and that some step said "week". Just riding a little high on my quick culture, had no desire to shoot ya down buddy!

no offense taken, its all good. it really depends on your area. when its winter time here. the culture does take a week or more. the higher the temps the faster the bacteria can do there stuff. ive found around 90 degrees to be real good. everyone is collecting slightly different bacteria as well so the variables are many.

I know that the culture is good for a while, specially in the fridge, but I think I even saw you mention the percieved benefits of right-there-and-then freshly churned out culture. I have to admit I get a little voodoo about my grow techniques some times and fresh Lacto B (or whatever the fuck it is, all I used to know that the stuff was basically curds and weigh) is part of that regime.

i totally agree, ive had cultures last for a few months, but i prefer to use it within a few weeks at most. some people just dont want to do that, and its ok. the cheese like substance, animals love it. my chickens go nuts over that stuff.

Measuring out nutes in standardized cups instead of by the handful was a new experience for me!

haha you sound like me, i tend to not measure anything.

 

[Chesire Cat]

that bat looks like he got ahold of your stash

where am i at man let go of me screech!!!

 

[LadyLargely]

Haha, Damn! I should have kept that bat!

How about some fresh bat guano?

Just a mini-update here. Just a day after pointing out the impossibly small little green nub that represented a new shoot, I have this:



New leaf pairs jumping out of the very first main stem nodes. These are from White Widow #1 Fucking perfect.

Growth on them has been very rapid, especially considering how fast pre-existing foliage has been ballooning in size!



First 5-node leaves are present and accounted for. 5th and the tiniest begennings of the 6th main stem nodes are emerging. Every single part of the plants are now growing. Well, except for height! Haha. They are all still well under an inch tall!



And there's Dutch Mystery #2. It and WW #1 are currently out in front. Sheera! is about a node behind and WW#2 is 2 nodes behind but shows no sign of burn like the others do. It seems to have stunted rather than bitchily curl at the edges like the others have. They are all still lifting off nicely though, I think things should even out a bit as we go through week 2 of veg.

 

[ripman]

Is this all the effect of the way in which you take care of the seed or have you already started spraying your tea on the plants? Does your tea keep internodal distance low or do you use it for other effects?
The plants look very good, according to you, is vegetatie growth rate as good or even better than hydroponics?
Looking forward for the next pics

 

[LadyLargely]

The plants have not been 'treated' with anything at all whatsoever.

I want to take this time to address some mention I heard of soaking seeds in solutions of hormones and stuff like that.

I may have been over-emphasizing it's use during prep talk. I dunno. Doesn't get used a ton. Maybe some clarification is needed.

I think I've already insisted that with this method you will experience a fairly short veg. I guess I don't count the early sprouting and rooting phase as real veg. I figure you are veging out once the plant has at least some 5 or 7 node leaves. The early rooting phase can be a lot quicker, took forever for me and tub #2 has resisted it entirely.

Ripman

Your question about speed comes in here. Hydro and what I do is slightly apples/oranges. I'd say veg for this rig is pretty furious but a bit slow to get going. Time wise it may be similar to organic hydro or maybe even a bit slower since the hydro guys run a lot of mature clones.

The tight internodal gaps comes down to a few things. at this early stage I would credit much of it to my seed surgury. Having the first set of serrated leaves present on the sprout before it ever hits soil its just a huge advantage for this!

To keep things tight as we go along, and it has surely helped already is the largely 6500K color temp of my lighting. High penetration from overdriving and a very low lamp placement make lighting veg perfect for now. A lack of long-distance penetration will quickly catch up with me and hold the plants back, but ScrOG fixes that beautifully.

And ScrOG takes time!

This round I plan on doing some fairly extensive weaving of the main stems. This is the reason for the staggered plant placement. None of them are smack middle in their tubs.

Currently, it looks like I'm gonna pack on 4 or 5 nodes per inch of vertical stem, at least for the first inch or two. After the stem begins to fatten up it won't be quite as tight. I might actually raise the lights too much to encourage some stretch so as to have enough stem to weave in the screen. Right now the foliage is far too dense for weaving!

Spray comes here in a bit, very shortly now. Stay tuned

 

[Citizen024]

I have seen babies do the super short and stacked thing when the nute levels are high- basically induces dwarfing. They will come out and blast off, hopefully your nutrient levels aren't so high they get really stunted. It can take em awhile to come out of that.

But your lookin good overall for sure!

I think you will be all good; but out of curiosity (and maybe what you might do with #2)- how would you deal with a tub that you have added too much dry fert to? I am guessing its the blood that did it, as its a fast source of nitrogen, and everything else you have is slower releasing. Pure speculation there though as to cause.

I would say my solution would be to pull the medium, cut it down by 20-30% with none or lightly ferted medium, mix and place it back and incubate for a bit. The older medium should establish it's microlife very rapidly in the new medium and have you back on the road in days.

 

[ripman]

Oh I see, so will you supercrop anyway, even though you are going to scrog, or not? If yes, will you use supercropping to bring all branches at the same height or will you do that for other reasons?
Fluorescent light is interesting. I believe that with scrogging in different application it can allow you to stack grows using more efficiently vertical space. Have you overdriven your lamps before? How many grows can you make before you have to change the lights?
As far as my lights go, I'm switching to CMH lamps to get more natural sunlight. I'm planning to do a vertical grow, though. But I would use PL-L CFL lamps if I were to grow scrog.

 

[LadyLargely]

citizen024

Yea, not sure what's up with tub #2. I joked about it being hotter than the others but I'd be really surprised if that where really the issue. I didn't mix up each tub individually. The medium and nutes where combined in a massive 30 gallon container and then distributed evenly to all the tubs.

Its just been a combination of bad luck and impatience. The first two seeds I picked for the spot where fairly pathetic. I like runt seeds and tend to try to get at least one per grow. But this time it bit me in the ass! The first runt seed wasn't strong enough and the second one might have been but I berthed it too early in my hurry to get it caught up with the others. DM #4 is looking ok, its just a week behind now...

ripman

yea, I tend to supercrop no matter what. The idea is to get all offshoot branches even with the main cola at canopy level. No nug left behind!

I'm actually considering a stacked setup myself. Having started this grow I've been pondering what to do next round. My box is amazing but the grow gear could use an upgrade. I was thinking of cool-tubed 250 watt CMH lamps. But it occured to me that two rigs identical to the one I have now would stack very nicely in my space. If I get this fucker to yield well this time a round I may just be sticking with it for a while.

Been using this lamp for a year and a half. Its been overdriven since the beginning. This is why I'm confident in my potential yields here, I've seen what it can do when used correctly. I'm running a fresh set of tubes here, they are new for this grow. The previous ones lasted pretty well though. My old veg tubes made it through 4 grows and the flower tubes made it through 3 (they get used more). UV tubes where replaced after 4 grows. Best to swap everything out on something resembling an annual basis if you are always growing.

PL-Ls seem pretty sweet, specially the High Output ones. But the cost! I just can't get over how pricy the bulbs and fixtures and such are for that gear. My full 344 watt lamp with 2 sets of bulbs cost under $110. On top of that I would be surprised if PL-Ls could match my rig in terms of penetrating power.

The reason I run this configuration is because its the only one I know of that flowers worth a shit. Yea, sure, you can get bud with any floros, but I'm talking about something that can hold up when compared to bud grown under the equivalent HID lamp. Mine won't quite have that 'rock hard nuggies' density but the quality will be right up there with the best of em'

 

[dontae1000]

all that dam work for what??? oh yeah u havent discovered coco yet...my bad.

 

[ripman]

Hey Lady, I know that you do Lactobacilli (I do as well). Right now I'm considering switching to EM-1, have you ever considered it as well? It looks like we could get some additional beneficial organisms. I know we have already lactos and mycos, but it looks that also the Purple Non-Sulphur Bacteria can do much good. Awfully cheap to make too, a 30$ bottle can be used for 20,000 liters of water! I guess milk for making lactos costs more

 

[Citizen024]

I just had someone else in another thread about spider mites tell me about EM-1. Seems to be something worth looking at. Apparently it can be effective as part of botanical controls on them. Very helpful if that is the case.

The other thing we were discussing was using bacteria with botanical extracts for fighting mites. This is called a "microbially enhanced botanical extract". A fancy name for lacto's etc, and tea made from hot peppers,tobacco and other herbs. Using garlic or lemon you have to be careful, cause they are anti-fungal/biotics.

One of the tricks I learned many years back for brewing up strong strong teas for fighting bugs was to use a percolator. You can really get it pretty damn strong that way.

Interesting stuff for sure. .

On a side note I just played with brewing bacteria/fungus nutrient tea all in one- slightly different then you all have, but it came out looking like chunky kombucha so I assuming it went well. Simply 3 scoops Roots Oregonism, 3 cups or so worm casting in a sock- 5 gallons of water with 5 tsp of blackstrap mollasses and aeration. After 24 I feed 4 gallons to my babies with other nutrients added. I added back 4 gallons of water, and 5 more tsp of mollasses and continued to brew. Now it got REALLY cloudy and chunky in another 48 hours. . added organic nutes, and watered away. For less then about $3 I made 10 gallons of gooooood stuff with tons of replication by the mircoherd from the starter.

Even after the first watering growth took off- they are in fresh coco 3rd week of veg and well rooted. Slow veggers, and I have to take em to 15-17"s to flower since they stay short. I am excited to see what happens in the next couple days as the fungus meets the roots.

 

[Citizen024]

Okay LadyL, since you have all eyes on you on this page, and I have run my mouth so much- that is it time for me to FINALLY post up my pics of my Pura Vida coco.

Sorry to thread jack- you can have it right back. Besides, they are so pretty!!

----------------------- Copy and Paste----------------------------------

Here they are finally, just a few more days to go!! This is the Deep Chunk x Nor Cal Afgoo.

I ended up using rather simple formulas really, started brewing my own microbes, and dropped the enzyme treatment. Did just fine on MagiCal, Pura Vida, EJ Catalyst, Sugar Daddy. Foliars of Nitrozyme.

Have had a few mite webs show up in the last 24 hours, but they come down in 48 hours, so there is nothing to do really just pick em off every day.

These pics don't show how thick they are really well, but they is CHUNKY! Dense and thick, good coverage down the stems.

I'll post up the Grapefruit pics next!

Yeah!!

 

[RipVanWeed]

Looks good Citizen24, huge calyxes you got there!

Here's a few pictures to update my grow.

2nd week of 12/12



4 Dabney Blueberry, 2 White Russian, and 2 Super Silver Haze.

This is only my 2nd grow, the 1st using OBBT. I let the preloaded ferts do their thing, only adding some AACtea a coupla times. Once this system gets started it's almost hands free.

Since switching to flower, I've used a little Earth Juice Bloom thats bubbled for 24.

This next set of pictures are from my Outdoor Garden.



Most of my O/D plants are smaller than I hoped. I was late planting them due to my son's High School Graduation Party in my backyard. 5 J Herer, and 3 Swiss Bliss from seed. 3 White Russians and 1 UK Cheese from clone. I'm still learning the cloning game, this set went through a lenghty reveg and did not grow to their expected potential. Anyway, the goal of the O/D is to pick the best pheno of the JH and SB, to make a mom and run indoors.

Gotta love the OBBT,s

 

[Citizen024]

That's a pimpass little set up you got going there my friend! I like it!! Love small vertical setup with the trellis.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Noice pics everybody!

Heres my baby, 5 weeks into flower

 

[rrog]

Wow what a fun bunch of pics! Thanks to everyone.

Rip that garden with the rocks is so cool! Very Zen. And that IS a very cool grow there. That's a Vertical?

Citizen those buds are good enough to eat, man. Wow.

Surfer such a tidy level canopy you've created. I can't wait to start!

 

[RipVanWeed]

I just rev'ed up my girls by adding some AACT, made with alfala, cold water sea kelp extract, fresh EWC from my worm bin, molasses, a dash of Earth Juice Bloom, and a pinch of MycoMadness. Bubbling for 24 hrs resulted in a beautiful brown froth over the top...yummm!

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Hey yeah i really like that vert style too. Looks like an extremely effficient use of space.

Thanks rrog. So when you ready for action?

Hey citizen are you still going to make that table you were thinking about??

Growhard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!