SuperBud, WhiteRussian, HYDRO, 1st Grow!

A very few of you might recognize a few of these pictures and remember my previous grow journal, that I just started about 5 weeks ago. Well, I got really paranoid one day and deleted it. I am now continuing that journal.

In this post I am going to put up pictures of the plants at 2 weeks. They are now at 5 weeks and the recent pictures will be in the next post. Out of the 4 plants that are 5 weeks old, 3 are from very good midgrades, and 1 is SuperBud. 1 week ago, I started 3 White Russians in soil, and 2 new SuperBuds in hydro drip buckets. I will post pictures of those with current pictures in my next post. (directly after this one)

Bagseed/SuperBud/WhiteRussian

5 week old plants started under HPS for first 3 weeks, then I bought a conversion HPS-MH bulb. Since then the plants have flourished. I started off on day one watering 15 minutes for every 60 minutes off with the drip system. I altered that down to 3 times a day. It is now back to 15 ON 60 OFF, I will explain why in my next post.

Home-made drip bucket system
400W MH (HPS for bloom)
I also have 2 200w equivelent warm white CFL's to enhance the spectrum and lumen output for both VEG and BLOOM
I am using Technoflora B.C. Boost, B.C. Grow, B-1 complex, Sugar Daddy, and MagiCal in VEG

The yellowing between veins is magnesium deficiency, I cured this by using epsom salt. Turns out you should NOT use epsom salt if you are using a cal-mag solution in hydro, because once you feed it more magnesium through the use of epsom salts, a calcium deficiency is probable. In a system like mine, or any other hydro system for that matter, I have learned Cal-Mag or in my case 'MagiCal' (same thing) is the best thing to use for a calcium or magnesium deficiency.

Edited by brianSR, 14 October 2008 - 01:09 AM.

DAY 35

As you can see, I am using LST and keeping the girls down real low. I have a scrog screen ready to go up anytime, probably right before I start to flower. All 4 samples have alternating nodes on side branches. Can anyone help me out and tell me if that means they can be flowered? I am in no rush, I am just curious.

I am going to share a VERY IMPORTANT lesson I have learned from drip systems. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, USE MORE ROCKWOOL THAN THE LITTLE PIECE YOU START OFF WITH. With a drip system, it is a lot better for the root system of a plant to transfer from the starter rockwool directly into grow medium. Extra rockwool makes it far more unlikely for your roots to explode out of the basket quickly. After two weeks, using the large pieces of rockwool, I could barley see roots coming out of the basket of all 6 of my plants I started with. (only have 4 now, I chopped 2 weaklings) At barley a week using only the starter rockwool I can see roots exploding out of the basket, fast. Thats what you want. Which leads me to another point. These two paragraphs go HAND IN HAND.~

~Water cycles for drip systems. People have told me numerous times to water only 3 times a day, even the guy in the youtube videos. I have learned through personal experience and research into professional growers, that a water cycle of at least once every 2 hours will provide optimal growth of roots if you are using a free hanging root-from-net technique. Watering only 3 times a day makes the roots that are hanging out of the basket dry up too quickly, often resulting in them dying off. Less than 48 hours after I switched back to 15 mins ON 60 minutes OFF cycle (from 5 times a day) I seen an explosion of roots growing past that 1-2 inch barrier it seemed to have hit whilst recieving less water. The reason I switched in the first place is because the plants looked overwatered, when in reality they were over saturated in nutrients, mostly due to the large pieces of rockwool I used on the 5 week old plants. Nutrients run off and stay out of hydroton a lot easier than rockwool. They build up in rockwool quick if using a large piece.

Anyways, these are the current pics. 2 of the WR are mutant retards. Oh well can't do anything about it. All the pic names say what they are. The 5 little ones are all 6-7 days old.

Edited by brianSR, 06 October 2008 - 08:21 AM.

Here's a quick update with a picture of the roots on the superbud. They are far more elaborate and grown out then any of the 3 bagseed plants.

Those large ones hanging down have spurred up in the past 7-10 days, after changing pump cycle from 5 times a day to 15 minutes on/60 minutes off.

Hey man! Great looking grow! What caused ya to get paranoid before? actually don't tell me, you'll send me off on one!

And look at your fancy 'alt' text!! Now that's good labelling.

Plenty more pics please! Subscribed!

Hey thanks for checking out my journal.

Hey man! Great looking grow! What caused ya to get paranoid before? actually don't tell me, you'll send me off on one!

Haha no worries man, I just realized there is no way they would bust petty growers like us, through the internet, when there is so much child porn and i.d. theft rampant. They have their resources tied up for the next decade.

Once you think about it the worries go away.

I need some people to tell me if it would be a good idea to start flowering now or should I wait it out to get a larger yield? I feel like if I started now, I would mostly fill out my screen by the time the plants do the flower-stretch.

Whatsup brianSR, Plants look good. Is this the WR you were talking about?

Personaly I would go ahead and start flowering now.Theres no way you'll know how they stretch. And they're perfect height to see how they respond to the scrog.


Peace
GL wit your grow

Whatsup brianSR, Plants look good. Is this the WR you were talking about?

Personaly I would go ahead and start flowering now.Theres no way you'll know how they stretch. And they're perfect height to see how they respond to the scrog.


Peace
GL wit your grow

No sir these are 3 bagseeds from very good mids and one superbud from HGS.

I have 2 more superbuds and 3 white russians I started about 9 days ago. The 3 white russians are in soil, and the two superbuds are in the same drip system as my other 4. I am going to transfer the two superbuds into DWC buckets soon because the roots are coming out of the baskets.

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to decide tomorrow night if I want to go into flower or not. I guess I don't see why not. I was planning to see preflowers first but they are getting big fast so I'll just cut the males out of the screen.

This is going to work out perfect timing wise. If I start flower in the next week, by harvest time I'll have clones ready from superbud and white russian (assuming I get atleast one female of each) to replace and grow 6 guaranteed females.

yep, I see exactly whats going on with your grow now.

Good call on the timing!

Hey bro, just checkin' out your thread here, and I'm quite impressed with your progress so far. I think you mentioned somewhere that the nodes were starting to alternate on some of the side branches. This is another sign of maturity and readiness to flower, besides the preflower pistils. I'm kind of surprised that you would see alternating nodes before hairs, but who knows what variable has made this possible. I would bet that if you switched the lights now (or soon), you'll find at least one hair in the first 48-72 hours, if not sooner. It's kinda good that it hasn't shown yet, because males typically show their sex before females; but not by much...
The amount of stretch in the first week or two of 12/12 cycle is absolutely ridiculous, too. You won't have any problem filling out your screen, I'm sure.
I wish I knew what was up with your WR tards, but I can't put my finger on it right now. Part of it looks like bugs, other parts look like mold, and still others look like possible root rot... I think that if the new growth looks healthy, then it was probably just a fluke. But yeah, man... Lookin' real good, and nice description of your rockwool findings. Someone will find this useful. As for the big ones, flower at will. I repeat, flower....at.....wil..... hahaha me so high.
Peace
DM
Peace
DM

Hey thanks for checking out my grow Dopey!

I have decided to wait at least 2 more days to start flower, probably up to a week.

*reasons:

1. I want root structure to grow on the bagseeds. A long time ago I read that a plant will produce buds based on the size of the root structure. Anyone care to elaborate? Does the root system continue to grow post-flower?

2. I want more of the scrappy/undeveloped side branches to stick up so they are near the screen. Will they also come up during flower?

3. (the main reason it has to be at least 2 days) I have to build 2 DWC buckets and a seperate VEG area for my smaller plants.

This is another sign of maturity and readiness to flower, besides the preflower pistils. I'm kind of surprised that you would see alternating nodes before hairs, but who knows what variable has made this possible.

Even if it is just a few branches on givin plant? Will buds produce on the nodes that are even?

Anyways, more pics. One of them is of one leaf that had this wierd turn brown then yellow thing going on. It is the only leaf that did it so I'm not worried.

I took pics of the half retarded white russian as it seems to have caught up in growth to the healthy one, and new growth looks very healthy. The 3rd full retard is still retarded, and alternated on the second node. I didn't take a picture of it because it's too retarded, and will probably end up in young retarded marijuana plant heaven.

young retarded marijuana plant heaven

Ive sent two plants there, and I really think it was better off for them than to suffer here on earth.lol

1. I want root structure to grow on the bagseeds. A long time ago I read that a plant will produce buds based on the size of the root structure. Anyone care to elaborate? Does the root system continue to grow post-flower?

2. I want more of the scrappy/undeveloped side branches to stick up so they are near the screen. Will they also come up during flower?

roots will continue to grow in flower for quite some. I was still seeing new roots last week (or so) and the plants have been flowering for about 6 (maybe more) weeks

the scrappy branches will keep growing, it may even throw new shoots during flower

one thing to be said about HGS genetics - they THRIVE!
Growing my third strain from them and am totally impressed with all of them (the russian is my favorite so far)

I'm about 10 days into flower with my single blue ATF clone. Mine has already almost doubled its size and that is below and above (6-7 inch, now 12) the growth medium.

Edited by Duplicity, 11 October 2008 - 06:54 PM.

Thanks for the answers IMgreen and Duplicity! I really appreciate it.

One thing I have noticed about the superbud (HGS strain) compared to the 3 bagseeds is that it took heavy concentrations of nutes VERY well. The 3 bagseeds have multiple signs on older leaves of nute stress (and very little nute burn) while the superbud hasn't shown one sign of overnutes, in fact, the superbuds shade of green is a tad light and I expect it could very well handle more nitrogen, but I won't raise ppm as bagseed plants would be mad at me for doing so. I have been feeding my 2 new superbuds 1100-1200 ppm SINCE BIRTH, and they havn't had a single problem! (I didn't want to do it just had to out of convenience.) But it worked out well.

I have plans for tomorrow. I will be taking the 2 new superbuds and putting them into DWC buckets. I will also be taking the 3 white russian soil kids and setting all 5 into a seperate veg room so I can now start flowering my 4 bushes. I plan to post updated pics in the next few days.

Hey thanks for checking out my grow Dopey!
Even if it is just a few branches on givin plant? Will buds produce on the nodes that are even?

No prob, man. Even if just a few branches have started alternating their nodes, I would expect to see some preflower pistils somewhere on the main stem. Even so, it's not impossible to ever see this, just not very characteristic in my experiences. And yes, buds will produce on nodes that are even, as long as there is a branch coming out where the main stem and fan leaf intersect.
Hope this helps! Good news about your recovering retard, tough nuts about the other one. Peace
DM

you started your seedlings at 1200 ppm from go?

what do you feed them?

you started your seedlings at 1200 ppm from go?

what do you feed them?

B.C. Bloom, B.C. Grow, MagiCal, B-1 Red and Sugar Daddy... all are Technaflora.

I started them off in rockwool presoaked in a B-1 red solution. I use 0 ppm distilled water for everything.

For the record, I only started off the two superbud seedlings that are at 2 weeks off at 1100. It fluctuates up to 1250 before I add another gallon to drop it back to 1100. (water evaporates very quick in my dry enviroment, I have to do this every 36-48 hours) The 4 plants I have about ready to flower I started at 600ppm, went up to 800 after first change, then 1100 after the third.

As far as superbud goes, I only started the two off at 1100 because I really couldn't do a seperate resevoir for another solution mix and I needed to start them off in drip to put them into DWC buckets. It just happened to work out well. Superbud takes nutes well, I think it automatically takes in how much it needs and no more. (thats my 2 cents anyway)

No prob, man. Even if just a few branches have started alternating their nodes, I would expect to see some preflower pistils somewhere on the main stem. Even so, it's not impossible to ever see this, just not very characteristic in my experiences. And yes, buds will produce on nodes that are even, as long as there is a branch coming out where the main stem and fan leaf intersect.
Hope this helps! Good news about your recovering retard, tough nuts about the other one. Peace
DM

Thanks. This makes me excited to start 12/12 tonight!

Here's a pic update before I switch to 12/12.

The first 2 are examples of how I plan to weave the budsites into the scrog to control height. (and to promote new growth on sidebranches)

The other 3 are overviews of the scrog. Keep in mind these pics were taken after I had tied down or weaved almost every big sidebranch. The growth of budsites is substantial since introducing these plants to a scrog.

I have now moved my smaller superbud and white russians into a seprate veg area to mother out. I already have the timer set for 12/12, but I will be starting the dark period tomorrow since I want the dark period to be during the daytime.

I will post another pic update when my plants start to show sex. I will also include pics of my other 4 at that time. Peace.

looking awesome. keep up the good work. I'm planning on doing a 3.5x3.5ft scrog next year so i'm gonna keep watching this and see if i can learn a few things.