Hey man, Got the UC back under control. Everything is doing great right now. I've never been able to find a good study on this topic. I've heard some growers say they don't start their flowering feed schedule until pistols and first bud bracts arrive in 12/12 and then run a 6 week feeding for an 8 week finisher utilizing 1 full week of flushing. I don't. subscribe to that philosophy. I start my first week of flower feeding just a few days after my flip. I start adding BUDXL at week 4. I keep pH between 5.5-5.8. Nothing special to know about BUDXL. If you smell/taste it it's kinda sweet. It's obviously some type of sucrose/glucose mix along with it's secret ingredient. I find adding additional sugar/carbo loads added along with BUDXL causes weird build ups and makes things gross in the res. Other then that it's pretty straight forward. Hope this helps ~HD
Man I'm glad you got everything under control! Thank god. Did you end up revamping the entire system with the thinner walled PVC piping? That's pretty cool about the Bud XL too. I've not even cracked it so once I start with it next week I'll give her a little sniff. haha. I'm really hoping the bud production starts to pick up by that time. They are getting decently sized now and are more then enough of them, I guess i just had a different image in my head.
No, I replaced the cracked pales with home depot buckets. I ordered replacement buckets (on back order) and the next water change is when I will swap out everything. Between now and harvest if any more pales crack I will have back ups on hand. I manufacture my own equipment for my business and in the past have had component failures that were out of ordinary too. Some customers get furious and refuse to give you a chance to redeem yourself. I don't want to be that way. Before I write off the whole Undercurrent I want to give it a fair trial. After harvest I'm upgrading some things and adding additional lights (some horizontal and some vertical). I will also buy two UCEXXL13 systems from CCH20 with some back up parts and give it a few more runs. There are many things I really like about it and hoping my defective pales were isolated incidents. I spoke in great detail with Ropac's mold department who makes the UC buckets. They had some changes recently and some of their food grade products had unusually high rates of failure. These issues have been addressed so new stock should be stronger. I'm hoping this is true and they aren't blowing smoke up my ass. ~HD
Boy oh Boy...these UC girls are huge. Almost done with week 5. Hitting them with Top Booster tomorrow for 3-4 days. Will get some new pics up soon. Besides the cracked buckets I'm loving the solid, thick, lush growth. Looking forward to the next run.
let me ask you something about TC. how long does it take to go from the petrie dish to what most people consider a viable plant? i understand the concept, just dont understand the timeline.
I'm back after some vacation time. I've had multiple back to back harvest from indoor and greenhouse keeping me busy. The UC plants have all been harvested (sorry about no pics) and trimming has begun. I did this UC to compare against my proven rockwool technique. After hearing about alleged "huge" UC harvest I had to see for myself. Here is my pro/con list Pros - low plant count - large plant size - lots of tops (bushes out) Cons - Water changes are a bitch - root rot can start and spread easy - Root zone pest thrive - PPM/EC imbalances are frequent. Water is a poor buffer against. - Bud quality isn't a high as rockwool - Bud Size is smaller however, more bud sites then rockwool - Buckets crack - Overall weight has been grossly over stated. This is just my experience. My background is horticulture goes back almost 20 years with 11 solid years of indoor controlled environment agriculture. I hate to sound arrogant but I know a quality product and the UC doesn't meet my criteria. several cracked buckets and hundreds of dollars in House & Garden nutes wasted in the floods the effort in my opinion was not worth it. The Rockwool test group had high quality buds, great tri production, amazing smell and look. The UC system buds were less tight, smaller and bottom branches were wispy with a noticeable difference in smell. The last few weeks the UC plants looked embarrassing in comparison to the rockwool plants. The lacked the luster and vitality the rockwool plants exhibited. Close inspection of root system showed roots in UC to look healthy but deep inside ball there were signs of root rot despite high oxygen levels and proper care including temp control. Rockwool roots where perfect and healthy. UC and rockwool gardens grew side by side in exact environment. I am removing the UC system and restoring my room to rockwool. The grass isn't always greener on the other side. Thanks for following. ~HD
1 tissue sample will multiply growing several new shoots/nodes in 3-5 weeks. Lets say it grew 3 solid nodes. Cut out the 3 nodes and place original sample and three new samples into new jars . Now you have 4 jars with samples. 3-5 more weeks you will have three more nodes per plant. So 6-10 weeks you will now have 12 new perfect, identical, disease free plants. 3-5 additional weeks those 12 are now 36 perfect plants. 3-5 more weeks those 36 make over 100 perfect plants. so on and so on. Once you have the number of plants you desire each perfect little plant is placed into a jar with root hormone. Roots will form in 4-5 days. PLant that tender fully rooted plant into a rockwool cube inside a dome with 80-100% humidity. Treat that tender plant like a clone until it can survive outside the dome. The time line is based off you need. Lets say you need 100 plants. start up time is 20 weeks. After that you will have your next batch of 100 plants rooted and ready for transplant with in 8 weeks. Those 100 plants will take up about the size of a shoe box under a single t5 light. It's pretty impressive once you see it and do it yourself. It's far superior to cloning. I will be doing a complete do it yourself step by step TC guide once my room is converted back to rockwool and my next batch is moved in. ~HD
How about using a small water pump to remove the left over water, in the bottom? It will save water, which is a great thing and save you times too.
I use rubbermaid totes. I think the UC Buckets are flawed in construction. The plastic is too brittle. The plastic is firm, but thin. Rubbermaid have a flex to them. i use 18gal totes for 2 plants, with 10gal of nutes in each tote/bucket. the buckets are not full therefore pressure and volume is low. this supports the stress we created by cutting 1.5" - 2" holes in them. Works for me. do you dis-agree?
SAD DAY FOR UNDERCURRENT Got my test results back. Rockwool: 22.7 % THC Undercurrent: 7.06% THC Coco: 22.2% THC Same exact strain, same environment (same room at same time), same nutes. I'm putting the UC to rest. It's not worth the money and the quality of product is even close to other methods. FYI - Was tested on GC system from a nationwide testing company. No tricks, no gimmicks. I don't work for a rockwool company either. ** cocco test was ran prior to undercurrent in different room. I added results to show strain is stable and performs well under varying conditions.