Knucklemonkey's Infinite Multi-Strain Grow

Hello and welcome to Knucklemonkey's infinite multi-strain grow, officially beginning February 17th, 2009 in Nyvangsvej, Denmark. I have grown only once before and it was a closet grow. Just finishing it up now actually. I allowed them to veg for 4 months in a closet and they ended up an average of 84 inches tall before I started whacking the tops off to keep them below the light (which I had moved to the ceiling). Still harvesting the 3 amazon women. Primitive grow but a decent result. I figure it's time to get it right though. This is 100% for personal use as I smoke pretty much all day every day and consume quite a large amount.

So I built two grow boxes, each 48x48x75 one with a 600W HPS and the other with a 400W HPS, both with 4 inch in-line hi performance exhaust fans. I have now made an attempt to germinate 23 seeds of 3 different strains.

I dropped the seeds into 3 separate cups on the 12th, each cup a different strain. I added some water and then a drop or two of "super thrive" and gave them a couple of days. After 2 days (the 14th), 11 of them had "split" or opened up and had their little tongues sticking out. The other 12 had not started looking like clams when I planted them.

I moved all 23 to egg crates and placed them in an airtight tupperware container. Of the 23, 5 of them have burst from the earth and aquired names. I named them by the first letter of their origin and of course all female. Males will be removed when identified. Can't be a proper pimp unless you have all women working for you.

Bella (B - for really good bagseed)
Bunny (B - for really good bagseed)
Fawn (F - for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with White Widow order)
Farrah (F - for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with White Widow order)
Felicity (F - for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with White Widow order)

I also have some seeds from the homegrown I am now harvesting so they will be named with "H". The idea is to clone each and name the clone the same thing prior to flowering. Once the males are identified, they will be removed along with their clone.

My plan is to get a neverending or infinite grow going, which I imagine is possible with a veg room and a flowering room and the dedication. So I will try to post here frequently to share my experience (I'm quite excited) and to solicit advice from anyone willing to give it.

As I say, I welcome advice, suggestions, complaints....whatever you want to contribute. This is my first serious grow and I very much want to get good at it. Thanks for taking the time to check out Knucklemonkey's infinite multi-strain grow!

[note: attached pictures are from the first signs of life]

 

So we are in the VERY early stages of my first real grow and today i decided to take the 5 new little babies and put them in 2.5 gallon pots. I bought some soil [5-4-3] and after planting them in their new homes, I put them under the 600w hps light for 18-6.

My wife thinks it's too early for the light cycle but I figure "this is how it works in the outdoors" so what the hell. If that isn't a good idea someone let me know.

I'm hoping the soil I bought will be ok. 5-4-3 but most of the soils I found don't have any NPK ratings at all so here I am. If someone has a better soil idea I'd sure appreciate it. I REALLY want this to turn out well.

None of the other babies have poked their heads out of the soil yet but I plan to keep this train rolling until I get to at least 10 ladies in the veg room. Here are todays pics, although not much to see.

 

I have a volcano vaporizer too! I think it was $500 or something a couple of years back. Thanks for the tip too.

The MAIN problem I have right now is room temperature. It gets up to 92 degrees in the box even though it is 70 degrees in the room the boxes are in. I could use a tip on that. Perhaps the 600W HPS gives off too much heat.

The pics below... 1. 6 of the 7 babies that have started 2. closeup of bunny and 3. closeup of felicity. Felicity seems to be stretching quickly. So far just water of course for food. I need a better camera too. Not enough megapixels going on here

As always tips and critiques are welcome!

 

Been pretty busy here lately. The 7th baby was mangled by my dog but I think she will survive. "Farrah" took a tough lump but seems to be hanging on. An 8th lady is ready for the 2 1/2 gallon pots and the lights but I haven't moved her yet. I also have 10 more seeds germinating in a dixie cup with Super Thrive.

More pressingly is a significant temperature problem. It was up at 98 degrees in the cab when I opened it the other day! 70 in the room and 98 in the cab so I'm taking extreme measures and relocating both grow boxes to a part of the crib that stays around 60 degrees. Hopefully it will be enough to drop the temp enough. It is normally around 90 in the cab where the boxes are currently (if the cabs are closed up).

So it is a huge task but I'm taking both boxes completely apart and relocating them as we speak. Also getting humidifiers for both cabs to get the humidity where it needs to be. Knucklemonkey isn't messing around with the infinite multi-strain grow!

[note: 2nd pic is bunny. 3rd pic is felicity]

 

Good stuff! I moved the first box (veg box) to the cold part of the house and am happy to report temps in the 75ish range now. At night it drops to 60 degrees which seems to be the lower end of the acceptable scale.

As the first pic shows, I have gotten the humidity up to 30-35 range but the little humidifier I bought doesn't seem to be able to get it any more humid in there. I could use some advice on the humidity issue.

I have not gotten the soil mix I ultimately want yet, either. I want a 50% perlite, 25% soil and 25% worm castings breakdown but have not gone to the nursery to see about that yet.

[Note: 1st pic is the temp/humidity. 2nd and 3rd are of the first 6 ladies. 4 and 5 are of Bunny. She's the fastest out of the gate so is likely male but I'm hoping she's a she. And yes, I'm going to buy a better camera.]

 

Thanks for the tip but that cloner is for hydro, yah? How about a soil cloner? How would that work? I know having my little babies under the 600W is not the way to go so teach me...learn me something about a soil cloner.

So today...humidity is better and in the mid 40's. It got down to 57 in the cab last night so that might need a little tweak of some sort. Not sure how because if I warm the room at all I get into the 80's with the light on. 57 with the light off....let's see what happens tonight.

I'm using FoxFarm Big Bloom right now as per their feeding schedule (but using half what they suggest). It seems to be working pretty good as all 6 original women are spouting up nicely. 2 more have been added, Hortense (H = Homegrown seed myself) and Farrah, the one my dog ate. She has mostly recovered but is still quite small and fragile. I'm sure it is too early for the 600W HPS but without a cloning/seedling solution it's where I'm at. 8 women total...gunning for 14 for the veg room and then clone away from there.

Still don't have a new camera and likely won't for awhiule but enjoy the pictures anyway.

[note: 1st pic is the temp etc, 2nd is of Bunny, 3rd is of Fawn, 4th is of Bella and the last 2 are of the 8 ladies.]

 

I'm a little crazy about having things just right so having the temperture and humidity where they currently are is pretty boner-rific. If I can keep it like that year round we just MIGHT be able to continue the infinite multi-strain grow on a very high quality level.

Nothing too new today except that the ladies seem to be loving their setup as they are jumping up and spreading in the fake sun.

[note: 1st pic is temp etc., 2nd and 3rd are bunny and the 4th and 5th are of all 8 ladies.]

 

Woke up today to 8 new ladies popping their heads up! I also made a small LST move with Bunny. I used a wire coat hanger and wire cutters and made a hook, simple and cheap. I plan to do some topping / fimming any day and want to LST aggressively as well.

[note: 1st, 2nd and 3rd pic are of the 8 new ladies, 4th is temp etc., 5th and 6th are Bunny and the 7th, 8th and 9th are of all 8 of the initial ladies.]

 

I started LST on 6 of the 1st 8 ladies. I figure if I can gently bend the ladies and hold them in place with my home-made wire hooks then why wait? Well it appears to be paying off. Check out Bunny in 2 of the pictures below. I also have the new 8 ladies looking a little more vibrant. I'm going to try to grow them out of the HPS for a little longer than I did the others. I watered yesterday but did not water them today.

I have white flies. I think they are left over from my amazon closet grow but nevertheless I ordered ladybugs. I don't want any pests. It was only a few bucks so I figured what the heck. Gonna release a small wave of lovely ladybugs soon.

[note: 1st and 2nd pics are of the 8 new ladies, the 3rd and 4th are of the 8 existing ladies and the amazon re-veg and the 5th and 6th are of Bunny in her 2nd day of LST.]

 

So we now have a total of 14 ladies growing in the veg chamber. Well, 6 ladies and 8 babies (seedlings). I need a better solution for seedlings and cuttings before my cloning begins. Seriously though. The original 6 ladies started this way but hell, I need a cloning chamber or something.

I need more pots and whatnot as there are 5 more babies under the little light just waiting to be added to the mix. The LST is looking good and all 6 of the original ladies are looking strong and green.

note: 1st and 2nd pics are of the 14 ladies and the re-veg amaazon project, the 3rd is of Bunny and the 4th is of Fawn.]

 

So I finally found a place locally for some "sterile" soil. No ferts mixed with this stuff so the latest 4 ladies are planted in the right stuff now. I'm not replanting the first 14. I kind of want to compare the final results between the two soils. But all future soil will be sterile from this point on since I finally found the right stuff.

There are now 18 women competing for my affection. Most of them are too young to be where they are right now (12 of the 18 are still too new really) but the first 6 were started this way and without a cloning/seedling solution yet this is what we're doing. I will need a cloning plan soon though since I need to clone before I move any ladies to the flowering box.

I fed them tonight with a liiiiitle big bloom in it and we'll see what's up in the morning.

[note: 1st pic is of the new soil mix I got today, 2nd is of the 18 ladies (larger/older ladies on the outside), 3rd is of Bunny before feeding and the 4th and 5th are post feeding. I'm digging the growth resulting from the LST!]

 

Point taken bro and thanks for the tip! I especially dig the metaphor too .

I put down a visqueen floor today and made sure to tape all of the creases and cracks while the ladies were out of the cab. Gave me a chance to move some things around too. And I want to make sure the ladybugs don't get out too easily and take over other parts of the area the grow boxes are in. The ladybugs will be here soon. I plan to keep as many of them alive as possible and release them on our outdoor garden in the spring and as the summer progresses. I dig the idea of growing my own ladybugs.

Oh yeah my dog ate about 65% of Hortense while she was outside the cab for those 15 minutes today. I'm hoping she comes back from it but is likely stressed to the point of going herme if she does. Assuming she's a she that is.

[note: 1st pic is of all 18 ladies, 2nd is of Bella, 3rd is of Bunny and the 4th is of the original 6 ladies that were just popping their heads out of the ground just over 2 weeks ago.]

 

Mild feeding this morning with Big Bloom. Here is a roll call of the current ladies. Of course we hope they are ladies. I expect at least 6 of the 18 to be male. Call me an optimist. Remember, the name of the plant is based on the first letter of it's origin, so B's are for Bagseed, F are for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with my White Widow order and H are for seeds from my personal Amazon homegrown. The date is the first day under any light at all (really the plant's birthday from seed).

Fawn - 2/18 (F for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with my White Widow order)
Felicity - 2/18 (F for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with my White Widow order)
Frangelica - 2/18 (F for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with my White Widow order)
Bunny - 2/18 (B for really good bagseed)
Bella - 2/18 (B for really good bagseed)
Bambi - 2/19 (B for really good bagseed)
Farrah - 2/27 (F for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with my White Widow order)
Hortense - 2/27 (H for homegrown by knucklemonkey hisdamnself)
Beatrice - 2/28 (B for really good bagseed)
Frankie - 3/2 (F for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with my White Widow order)
Fannie - 3/2 (F for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with my White Widow order)
Frenchie - 3/2 (F for free from AmsterdamMarijuanaseeds.com with my White Widow order)
Bessie - 3/2 (B for really good bagseed)
Baily - 3/2 (B for really good bagseed)
Britney - 3/3 (B for really good bagseed)
Bula - 3/3 (B for really good bagseed)
Bianca - 3/3 (B for really good bagseed)
Brenda - 3/3 (B for really good bagseed)

[note: 1st pic is of all 18 ladies, 2nd is of Bunny, 3rd is of Bunny's new growth a little closer up with a leaf pulled away and the 4th is of the original 6 ladies).

 

I had a problem with these little white flies during my closet grow so I decided to just get ladybugs. I ordered them online. Ladybugs are like an organic pesticide. I'll drop a raisin or two in the pots to keep them fed when the bugs are eaten but bugs always come back. And there are lots of bugs in this part of the world. AND I can use them in my outdoor garden.

I have little 10 inch plastic saucers under each pot. Like these right here. If/when I get a little water in a saucer I leave it for a few hours and then pour it over a plant that does not have any overflow in her saucer.

 

I switched from 18/6 to 24/0 yesterday so the plants seemed a little thirstier today than they have been. The ground was a little drier than normal so I gave them all a small plain water feeding this morning and then a small rainwater feeding this evening from about 1 1/2 gallons of rainwater I collected a couple of days ago. I figure rainwater should be a good treat from time to time so I flip a trashcan over when it rains these days.

A lot of what I have read says that 24 hour vegging is better so I'm giving it a try. Especially since I have so many small, young plants. 12 of them still wouldn't normally be under the lights if I had a seedling/cloning station of some kind researched. I've read that younger plants root better in a 24 hour on veg cycle.

[note:1st pic is of all 18 ladies, 2nd pic is a closeup of Bunny's new growth. I have been bending the fan leaves out of the way to expose new growth and they are sprouting like mad. The 3rd pic is of the original 6 ladies from 2/18.]