Flushing and LST Advice (Late Veg) LONG POST

Hey everyone!

So, I'm on my second grow now, and things are going pretty well (so far). I'm at the mid-late Veg state, and I have a couple questions to ask for the experts about how to proceed with (hopefully) even more yield this time.

I'm going to break this post up into three parts. First will be a general outline of my setup as it currently stands, followed immediately my questions about flushing, then LST afterward.

So, without further really ado...here's my Summer 2019 grow.

The Setup

I have three girls, all feminized, in a 4x4x6.5 tent. Strain is True OG from Canuk. They're each in a drain-to-waste setup, in 5 gallon fabric pots of coco/perlite mixed roughly 60/40.


The current light is a 600w MH bulb, but I've also got another 400w fixture ready, bringing my total up to 1000w potential. Both ballasts came with HPS bulbs for flower as well, which I'll be switching to shortly.

For air circulation; a stationary fan blowing air towards the light bulb (which is incredibly hot), and an oscillating tower fan, stirring up air inside and around the tent.


As far as climate control, I've been forced to stop pulling air in through the 6" ducting that I have hooked up directly to the bedroom window, since the air (now in the summer) is often warmer than the air-condition interior of the bottom floor of my house. Temps in the tent are taken by a sensor at canopy level, with a readout at the opposite desk.



Each of the girls is propped over a large disposable oven tray, across a painted steel mesh that allows the fabric pots to drain their excess water/feed. As you can imagine, this make for a very labour-intensive pain in the ass for draining, which I've only had the patience to do weekly.


I've recently just picked up a tiny, submersible water pump with 1/2" hose that should make for easier feeding, and (especially) flushing. As you can tell, the coco needs a good washing. I got it from a pet store, with packaging that claimed it was "washed and ready for reptile use", but going by the color or the runoff...I've been putting off a good flushing until now. And today is the day.


The Flush

So, as I just said above...this coco appears to need a washing. I haven't done so yet, and the runoff is coming out rather dirty. Each plant has received about 2-3L per day of water (PH balanced to 6.0) mixed with GH Flora trio nutrients, plus added CalMag for good measure. Solution typically reads 300-450 PPM, and comes out reading closer to 600 or 800 PPM. This worked nicely for my last grow, and has been treating me well for this one.

Now that I have extra buckets, and finally have my hands on a submersible pump, I'm ready to do the first big flush. I've had some leaf problems that I'd love to rule nutrient deficiency (or excess) out for. My current plan involves four separate 5-gallon buckets, with three being pumped one-at-a-time into the pot standing over the fourth, emptied periodically. Each plant will (hopefully) get about 12-15 gallons of water over the course of 30-45 minutes.

My question is this: Seeing as coco optimally needs PH balanced water between 5.7 and 6.3, should I go to the trouble of mixing ALL of that flushing water, bucket by bucket, to the appropriate acidity? Or do I save myself that incredible pain in the ass, and just rinse the coco with regular tap water, only adding the proper PH water afterward?



Time for (late for) LST

I had also meant to try my hand at some LST this time around, since I had great results with topping and FIMing on my first grow. I never really got around to it, though. The girls are now about 7-8 weeks old, and are only about a week (at the most two) away from beginning flower. Each is between 16-22 inches tall, and has been topped once, then two more times, to make four main colas.

I realize it's pretty late to attempt much LST at this point, but I've done the research and apparently, it's still better late than never. I DO have a 5x5 (shrinkable to 4x4) stretchy grid netting to sling across and try some Scrog, if this LST goes well.

I can't seem to attach any more pics to this post, so I'll attempt to do so immediately following, as well as my plan going forward and the questions I have.

 

This is the tallest plant. She's a gangly bitch, and has four main colas. They're reaching about 3-4 inches above the other two plants, so I figure these will be the tops I start my ghetto LST with.


If I bring those down gently to roughly canopy height with the shorter two plants (especially since four tops gives me the opportunity for a nice left-right-left-right spreading), and set the netting there, I figure they will grow sideways and allow the alternate nodes to reach upward after. From my understanding, this is the basic gist of LST, yes?

I know this isn't a technical LST. I know it would ideally be done earlier, and more symmetrically. The shorter two plants might not have much time to grow past the netting before flower, but then again...they're gonna stretch a bit after that. I'm just gonna work at this point with what I have.

So what do y'all think? How are they looking so far? Anything you'd change, based on what you can see? I'm including more pics for context. Thanks all!

 

About to start with flush. 10-12 gallons of water going through this fabric pot.

Here's another angle of the tallest girl, at 22.5 inches.

 

If if makes you feel any better, I'm still mixing all the nutes and acids to gallons of water with a 1ml syringe. It's literally about 40-45 fills and pushes every day.


Also don't mind the dirty hand. I'm a welder by day.

 

I mean for just the nutrients lol. About 10mL of Flora Micro, 12mL of Flora Gro, and 8 mL of Sensi CalMag per 4 gallon bucket of water. Counting this same syringe for adding the acid (which is another 5-6ml per bucket), it's around 35 syringe squirts per day lol. But the submersible pump seems to be making flushing easier.