dRtJmPr's t5 LST grow

Discussion in 'Indoor Grow Journals' started by xXx_dRtJmPr_xXx, Nov 19, 2011.

  1. Well, winter is here and I've been enjoying the vitamin D from the t5's. I've been wanting to do a journal for a couple years now. I'm using some feminized Durban Poison seeds that I've collected from a previous indoor grow of mine, plus I have a random seed from when I was trimming at the caregivers place.

    Anyway, I have two separate t5 compartments on my custom box. There's a carbon scrubber and can fan in the "mechanical" room of my box. The box principle works on a negative pressure system where fresh cool air is pulled in from down low and the warm air from the lights is pushed out. There's some ducting involved.

    I have one 4 ft' 4 bulb t5 for the veg compartment, and one 4 ft' 4 bulb t5 for the flowering chamber.

    The chambers are painted with flat white paint and I have a panda film drape that helps seal the negative pressure when I close the cabinet doors. There's one fan in each compartment.

    I've gone back to a soil grow, my last indoor was soil-less. I feel that I get a better culture of beneficial microflora. The mix is perlite, vermiculite, coca coir, worm castings (approx 20% of mix), Fox Farm Ocean Harvest organic soil mix, a bit of rock phosphate, cottonseed meal, bunny droppings (I have 2 rabbits), green sand, pasteurized horse manure (I cooked), and kelp meal.

    Waterings consist of worm casting/kelp meal tea (not every time, just as part of their feeding schedule.

    They have also been given waterings with coconut milk (diluted into water) because it's rich in cytokinin, thus promoting root growth and helps stabilize the plants female sexing (I've had hermies from these DP seeds).

    I sprayed on the 13th with BAP-6 300ppm with fulvic acid. I took clones that day off my oldest (which is about 2 1/2 months veg). This Durban has an extremely uniform growth. It's being trained on a training board that I made so that I can keep an even canopy and increase light penetration. This lady is in a 30 gallon smartpot. I trained on the 13th, just trained again today. I feel the BAP has already increased budsite development. Today was her first day under the 12/12 red spectrum. I increased my worm tea concentration and mixed in some "Great White" mycorrhizae culture into the watering. She's extremely healthy at this point with lots of LST. I estimate over 50 bud sites easily. I'll have to do some thinning if it doesn't stretch.... right now, it's very compact but I figure it will double and I'll have to add a training board extension.

    My other two are experiments that just got started in veg a few weeks back. I treated one heavily with a colchicum extract that I made. I was hoping to get a seed to germinate a polyploid plant. I had a germination rate of 2 out of 15 seeds when I tried this. It was an extremely low pop rate. The first set of leaves developed in an extremely strange way. I'm not sure if there's anything special about it yet but I'm looking forward to its development. These have been transplanted once from ye ole' red dixie to 5 gallon smartpots. I plan on planting them directly into 30 gallon pots when the time comes with a high phosphorous flowering mix that I'll create. It's probably their 3rd week breathin'.

    I posted some photos in "show your LST" thread but now I'm ready to update this. I'll get some new pictures up next week showing the new developments. I'm hoping the humidity domes I made for my clones will keep them alive. I couldn't find my Clonex gel, so I made up a dipping solution of 3000 ppm IBA , liquid vitamin b6, and I crushed some fresh tulsi leaves into the initial water solution. So, I'm also hoping that the clones actually root.

    Welp, looking forward to this little adventure. Essentially it's a delayed perpetual grow. Pictures and updates to come. Just changed out the flowering chambers t5 bulbs to new ones as well.
     
  2. Update: Clones are still looking good, I'm hoping that they'll root soon. As I said before, I misplaced the jar of clonex that I had... so I mixed up 3000ppm IBA and supplemental liquid vitamin B.

    The attached pictures are from yesterday. I did a little bit of training but mainly just watered them. The one in the flowering drinks nearly every day. I think I may need to make some bunny poo tea with a little bit of earthworm castings to help with the heavy organic feedings.
     

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  3. Today's pics as well. I trained the two five gallon plants. Currently they're pinned down and I'm trying to get them to grow in a circular fashion before I put them on a board. Should turn out female but no signs as of yet on those as they were straight from seed as well. I don't really care that much if one of them is male... the rabbits will love eating it.

    Anywho, I gave the clones a foliar feeding and to increase the humidity within their domes. I have my bucket of water in there as well to increase humidity in the veg chamber, in turn, this increase the humidity slightly for the flower chamber above... not much though.

    I included my scarlet bean runner in the pictures. She's in the flowering chamber too. That's what the red flowered plant is. :yummy:
     

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  4. One more detail, I raised the flowering t5 light to about 4 inches above the canopy. This will promote a little stretch so that I can train and thin it out more. It currently looks like a thick jungle canopy or dear I say cluster-fuck.:eek:
     
  5. They're stretching a little bit and looking good. I'll be able to train nicely and hopefully be able to tuck leaves underneath stems to give the budsites more direct light exposure without having to trim them out. Judging from how much stretch I expect, it will run the entire length of the 4 ft. T5.

    I know this for sure, after a month in the veg room, I'm going to need to move one up to the flowering chamber. I may have to add a light and build a panda film room in my bedroom. I may just go get a 400W or 600W HPS and let her go. If I go 600W HPS, I'm leaning towards a dual-spectrum bulb to get a little supplemental light-band.

    One of my clones will be going to my buddy who's a caregiver. He has durban but I'd say my genetics are different. Although he grows with chem nutes so we shall see the difference. Maybe I can get him to change it up and start going organic.
     
  6. #6 Bob Weaver, Nov 28, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 30, 2011
    Following. Looking good. About to start under t5s myself.

    About a month ago I took a cutting from a late-blooming outdoor femVeneno from EVA (edit: not ACE) seeds. Rooted her into a rapid rooter then a coco/perlite blend in a 1L. airpot. Grew her out for the month under a single 26 watt 6500K cfl. Now taking cuttings from her to lightly veg then flower under a 2ft by 8 tube t5 inside a 2x3x2 propagation tent.

    Once these 3 cuttings show roots I'm going to put them in their own 1L airpots with the same coco/perlite blend and veg one for 1 wk, one for 2 weeks and one for 3 weeks before flowering in the tent. Each will veg under her own 26W cfl.

    I'd like to go organic but to this point have had better luck with botanicare cns-17 nutes. tried organic outdoor this summer but think my soil ph was off. got to get the mix right. until then it's easier to ph the solutions going into my coco.

    Sounds like you have plenty of background and I hope to learn lots! Good luck!
     
  7. Thanks Bob! I look forward to your updates as well. I've gone the complete soilless route in the smartpots during my last grow. I found that using organic nutes and complete soilless will yield airy buds and it was difficult to balance the pH. Soil has a greater polarity to attract water and the nutrients into the root system with organic nutients. I found my mix of vermiculite, perlite, coir that's about half the mix, then half soil to start, then adding a quarter worm castings and the appropriate slow and medium release organic nutrients has been working well. I use soil sweetener to balance the pH before the plants go in.

    Anyway, are you planning to LST or SCROG? It's key under T5's. I just retrained my flowering plant (approx. 2 wks in). Looking super healthy. I gotta add a second fan for air movement because the canopy is thick and heavy. Keeping the lights close and flat to the set up with fans creates a great environment. Plus training them and bending branches helps generate and concentrate plant growth hormones.

    Thanks again for staying tuned. After work, I'll take some new pictures and post tonight.
     

  8. Actually, with this concept, I don't think either. I have LST'ed in the past, with pleasing results. But that was in a smaller space with 78 watts (3x26) of CFL on one plant in a 1L airpot. It worked well but was pretty high maintenance towards the end due to the small pot size (watering frequency/flushing/etc.).

    I think this time I'm leaning towards a SOG method. Then I can harvest 2-3 smaller plants every 2-3 weeks. Right now I'm playing with plant size (via length of time in veg) to determine which works most smoothly through the cycle.

    Since the plants are going to be smaller I'm hoping that both watering frequency will decrease and LST won't be needed, but I'm flexible. If it looks like LST will be the best way I'll do it. I pulled almost exactly 1 oz of highly compact killer bud from under the 78 watts of CFLs. With the reduced veg times I may not pull as much per plant, but hope to harvest much more regularly. If the t5s won't give me the quality (density) of bud I'm looking for, I'll adjust accordingly. But I'm increasing from 78 watts cfl to about 200 watts of t5. I hope I should have enough light? no?

    As always, any feedback/insight offered will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
     
  9. Yep, the SOG set up will work due to multiple smaller plants. I take it that's where the bonsai mum comes into place. Because you're creating a continuous harvest, some plants will be much taller and more mature. You'll want to raise the newer pots (wooden 2 X 4's, plastic trays, bricks, something to increase height) to make the base canopy more level with the light. T5's lose their light penetration quickly, I always keep mine within 4 inches. Hell, I've let them grow to just barely touch the lights. As long as there's a fan moving air along the actual lighting tubes, I've never had a problem even when they touch for a day.

    I will say, be careful getting water on your plants under T5's when they're close. I've burnt a few leaves when carelessly water. It's intense light when it's close.

    If anything, think of it as a staircase where you'll be moving your production line down the case as they grow and the buds develop larger. Worse comes to worst, you'll need to raise the lights. I like your continuous grow concept. I've got a buddy that does it as a caregiver on a warehouse level and it's a lot of work at that size. I'd consider mine to be a delayed set.
     
  10. hey man interesting grow! nice lst work
     
  11. Thanks fif3l! It's coming along and it brings me a little peace of mind when I work on them, especially in the winter due to the shorter days.

    The buds are developing and looking promising. This is nine days later from the previous pics. Today I made up a strong nutrient blend because I've only been giving it water for the past two or three waterings. Made up a 5 gallon batch of tea which consisted of a little greensand (potash/micronutrients), cottonseed meal, earthworm castings (small dose to help regulate microbial activity), and indonesian bat guano. Technically, a buddy gave me some liquid bat guano which had higher nitrogen so I added that as well (and that stuff was potent in smell). I made added a small pinch of kelp meal as well. Either way, that should provide anything that is lacking for the next few drinks of water that she'll need. Anyway, all organic nutrients and starting to get crowded on the sides of the training board.
     
  12. Pick update:
     

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  13. Lil "unorthodox" but i like it man
    They look good!
     
  14. Thx! It's one plant well trained.
     
  15. Hell yeah she is. Good job mayne
     
  16. She's looking better with each day. Update next week to see the bigger difference.
     
  17. Trained some more tonight. I'm trying to let the lower buds get the benefit of the light. It's now under two fans so the lady is a dancing. I broke 2 leaves while training so I feel it went well overall. The bunnies eat the benefits. Anyway, I fed the organic nutrient feed again today, followed by some regular water to throughly soak it. All the plants drink a lot at this point. The 5 gallon smart pots are daily. The 30 gallon can go 2 days and MUST be watered early on the 3rd. Regardless, my flowering lady is doing extra well. She has been trained to a super flat canopy, I'll probably need to raise the lights a tiny bit tomorrow though.... like I said, I'm letting the small guys get bigger so I have an overall consistent compact set. I'm excited with her progress. It's a lot more progressive than my first few grows indoors and I feel it has to do with applications that I've brainstormed.
     
  18. Damn man!was just thinkin...
    Ur gonna have a bitch of a trimming job. :eek:
     
  19. I prolly put in 50 hours of trimming this summer alone for the care-givers. This one plant will be a cake-walk in reality. If it's the only major hassle I get out of it, it'll be worth it :D
    My other LST's weren't too terribly bad... I just untied the wires holding the branches and went to town removing kolas. You're right though.
     
  20. Good for you for using T5s....have you seen this thread? LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

    Talks about how important it is to use the right bulbs for flowering. Basically the focus should be to use bulb in the red and blue spectrum versus focus in the middle.
     

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