Just switched to flowering after changing the reservoir for it's weekly switch out. Decided to do it sooner due to my plants being almost three feet tall, and potentially doubling in size with the flower stretching. This is even with topping. Things I've learned during the vegetative stage for my first grow: -LED lights are crap unless using quantum boards. I switched to LEC (CMH) 315s and saw double the growth after the switch. -Water quality is important. I've seen a lot of bad advice that tap water is fine, and I took that advice because it is less work. However; I think the quality of water out of the tap highly depends on what area you live in. My water has a ppm of 220 so I switched to rain and distilled water week 3. This helped a lot with the stunted grow issue I was having early on, along with the LEC light change. -Individual DWC bubble buckets start to become a pain in the ass when the plants get big. For this reason my next grow will be RDWC. Switching out three 5 gallon buckets with three foot plants is not fun. -Topping recovery time is about 1 or 2 weeks depending on strain. I found the sativa liked it and the two indicas had slow growth for about 10 days before recovering. It took my sativa about 5 to fully recover. -My sativa loves the Lucas formula. I may try it on all the plants for my next grow in RDWC but I have the other two strains on 1/2 of what the recommended nutrients are from GH Flora series. This is more in line with the proper PPM nutrient schedule for each stage. I've slowly climbed up to 900 PPM. -pH is important. I was psychotic about checking it daily and found that the plants did better when I left them alone. As long as they are within the 5.6-6.2 range they are fine. Let's see what flowering has in store! Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I got it all figured. Simple aint it? Check you RO systems for the kitchen sink, or portable ones that take a water hose. 140 bucks for the RO in house and comes with a little spicket. You won't drink you tap water no more it you do. And you'll get say 8 -- 12 PPM's. Good luck brother
Update: Buds are just barely starting to show on week 2 of flowering. I'll be trimming fan leaves and adding more light (my original LED) week 4 of flowering. I definitely have a runt of the three plants. My hybrid Jack Herer is barely 3 feet tall, where the other two are almost 3 and 1/2 and much wider due to topping. The hybrid seems to like different nutrients too and was the only plant to ever show signs of stress throughout the veg stage. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Looking good. bad thing about a rdwc system, you must grow all the same plants. different strains like different things. these BF LSD plants like a high PH where it would kill or stunt most plants. weird
There's ups and downs to both. I think for my first grow I definitely went all in to get experience with different strains and going forward I'll only grow one strand. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I grow many different strains in the same reservoir without any troubles. My experience is that the plant that wants the most fertilizer is happy with eating what the least hungry plant wants. Variety is the spice of life.
@bkarnaze Yeah, agreed, but this last garden of Barney Farms LSD liked the PH at 6.1 where most plants would be locking out of zinc, potassium and phosphorus. And that's why the little NL plant in there with the other 3 looks like shit I think
I can see both sides of it. Sativa's like more nutrients from my experience than indicas. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Buds are forming nicely. Plants are almost four feet now. Hoping this stretch is almost over otherwise they'll be taller than me. Added some LEDs to help in the shaded areas. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
They aren't and haven't been since week 6 veg. I cleared out my storage room in the basement which had some gym equipment and made it into a grow room. I was reluctant to use it before due to the cold temps downstairs but I added a space heater, and the LECs have a built in ballast that gives off a lot of heat. Temps are between 64 and 72. I put white and mylar siding in the room for light reflection. The walls before were concrete with the back wall being white dry wall. The plants are currently growing in a 5x5 area and are taking off. I'm almost week 4 into flowering, so I'm hoping the grow will slow some. I've added two LEDs for side lighting for shaded areas. Just blurples, nothing too extreme. I topped the plants twice and they are bushy as hell so the side lighting was critical. The room is sealed up pretty good during the lights off phase to prevent light from coming in. For ventilation I have two huge fans. One blows air in and the other blows air out. I only use these when the lights are on. I added a dehumidifier to keep the room in the 30s and 40s for rH while budding I've seen fast growth since moving them out of the tents. I think tents are awesome and easier to control however; for me it was becoming too hard since the plants were growing fast. I'm hoping the side lighting prevents me from having to cut some of the fan leaves. I've seen mixed reviews on pruning while in the flower stage. There is hardly any shade. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
25 days since the switch. Buds are getting bigger. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Nice dude. You have done your research and you are getting rewarded with fine plants. I see some sugar crystals starting to form on them buds.
Week 6. Up to 1100 ppm on the nutes each. They all have a great smell to them. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Just wanted to update. I chopped the Critical Purple and Jack Herer down 3/12 after 65 days of flowering. Trichomes were cloudy on both and pistles were about 60% Amber. I harvested about 4 oz per plant, 8 oz total. A little more on the Critical Purple. I chopped down the sativa about 10 days later after 75 days of flowering and trichomes were milky and 60% Amber pistles. Got about 3 oz off of her. I let all strains flush for 10 days prior to chopping them down, and they dried out in dark areas with 50% humidity at 65 degrees for 10 days. They spent a week in jars in a dark area, opening the lids every 8 hours or so for fresh air. Now I open the jars about every other day for fresh air. The buds are still pretty sticky and have tons of trichomes on them. They smell fantastic. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Grasscity Forum mobile app