Medical Marijuana grow and am limited to 6 plants at any given time, so I'm looking to maximize yield. Got 6 clones from my caregiver, and put them under fluro's for a week or two until they got their legs 3 Jack the Ripper 2 Green Crack 1 MTUSCA TF So I have no experience with the strains, and there will be 3 strains under the screen for this first grow. Soil Decided to put them in 12 gal tubs in anticipation of larger plants Miracle Grow soil was the base, and added to equal volumes of perlite, vermiculite, coco, sphagnum peat moss. ½ of an organic nutrient kit was added to the soil when I mixed the mix. Light 1000 W MH hortilux 5 feet from plants at start Light is sealed, and vented with a 6†fan outside the room. 6†inlet is from exterior outside fresh/cool air Atmosphere conditions Controller set to 80 deg, low humidity 7'x12'x8' room, ventilated with 8†465 cfm fan. CO2 added by compressed cylinders and regulated to 1500 ppm Water Using well water, pH 8.5, unknow TDS currently, not hard though no chlorine, no softner either. Watering approximately once per week or every 8-9 days so far, trying to keep the soil dry pH source water is 8.5 currently working on resolving the soil pH and EC Nutrients No nutrient additions for the first month as I expected the MG to provide enough to get the party started. I currently have an alfafa tea brewing kit going that I will add once I get the soil situation figured out. Picked up the following nutrients that I plan on using for flowering Humbolt Nutrients 0-6-5 Humboldt “deuce deuce†0-0-22
Some more plant pics, hard to tell if anything is actually getting uploaded. 2 different plants here, each taken on 1/9/10 JTR on the left, Green Crack on the right
Plants are looking great up to this point, these pics were taken on 1/17/09 Still watering with my well water once about every 9 days. screen is 6.5'x5' The MTUSCA TF (top right plant in 1st attachment) clone I got was about 3x as tall as all the others, and it has been a challenge to train it back down a bit. I started to notice a fair amount of stretching with all the plants, sometimes more than 2" between nodes in certain areas. I constructed some reflective panels to help increase the light desnity of the plant area. It was about this time that I contemplated adding a second light. Spending a lot of time training the plants out and down
Taken on 1/26/10 Ordered a pH/EC/TDS pen to start assessing soil and water quality. These are the first pics with the new light, it has a little more red in it than the other bulb I was using. New light is a 1000W MH The screen is approximately 36" above the floor Constructed framing to raise the 12 gal tubs off the ground for the following reasons: -even the height of the plants under the screen roughly as there are some definate height differences -allow 6" of space under the tubs to allow for easy water handling
Pics taken 1/27/10 Starting to get concerned about the conditon of the plants at this point, wondering if the lights are too strong, or possible nute issues. Starting to see some V-shaped leaves and some odd coloring on the tops, the leaf pic with the brown spotting was from lower on the plant, and is the only leaf on the plant doing that. The other pic shows some of the v-shaped leaves and discoloration.
Plants are looking kind of raggedy IMO. Aty this point I am going to raise the lights off the plants and see if the situation inproves Pics taken 1/28/10 First 3 are of the MTUSCA TF, which is pretty stretchy and my tallest plant, and which is why the screen height is so high as well. Seems like they are too hot with the light. Last two are from Green Crack, seems to be some high ridges in the leaves
First 3 pics are of Jack the Ripper, seems to be a bit droopy. 4th pic is an example of high ridges on leaves Next are general pics of the screen All from 1/28/10
Fix the ph ASAP, I would imagine that has a large impact on your plants. 8.5 is way too high. It looks like a nice op man, and rep for starting the journal. The light will be ok, as long as it is not burning the plants. 1000w is big, my 1000w is as high as I can get it. I would expect 3" or more off the plants. My lights are not air cooled, so if yours are then you have an advantage. The Miracle Grow has nutes in it that are at unknown levels unless you have nice meters. If you are adding nutes to the Miracle Grow, then you are adding nutes to soil that has time release nutes. It is best that you get away from the Miracle Grow. I like the operation that you have. I have something like yours, but I am in hydro. In my opinion hydro is makes a SCROG op more easy to run. You may want to look into something like that for the future. I am subscribed man, good luck.
I sorely miss hydro. I have a chemistry degree, and another in water/wastewater engineering, and used to love my aeroponic system. I loved the fact that at any time I could drain the solution, and put in new stuff that I knew with confidence what was happening in terms of pH and nutrient strength. Dirt seemed a little more forgiving, and I travel for work every now and again, which means that my girlfriend has to take care of them for stretches, and it can be problematic. I'm happy with the dirt so far, plants seem pretty good. You are correct, the pH issue needs to be addressed ASAP. I am running a few gallons through each tub today with pH adjusted water and am collecting the runoff during each rinse to collect pH and TDS data. I'll put it in a spreadsheet to make sense of the numbers. I agree with you in that overfertilization is going to be my biggest problem. Not all the miracle grow soil I used was time release. Once I get a good idea of the runoff pH and TDS, I will have a much better idea of what the soil will need. Miracle Grow will not be in another tub of mine as long as I can help it, but I can't do anything about it at this point, and hopefully some intelligent soil management will result in success They are looking so much better today without the second light, and I'm feeling much better about them, especially with help from the group. Thanks again for the feedback
Good looking grow so far. Like someone else above me said, holy crap you need to get that pH in line lol. Having someone else take care of your plants while your away can really make it difficult to determine what's really going on with your plants when you get back... out of curiosity what made you want to grow in soil this time around? Be sure to post that excel file, I love reading excel reports Peace!
Ok. Things are sure looking better, and I feel a lot better after getting a good glimpse into the secret life of my soil. I was able to obtain calibration and cleaning solution for my pH/EC/TDS pen Today I performed a mini flush of all 6 plants, by running approximately 2 gallons of pH ammended water through them in 1 gallon increments. I collected the runoff, and collecrted a sample from each plant in a masonry jar and took pics. Jars are from plant 1-6 left to right, with the first rinse being the top jar, second rinse the bottom jar. Anyway, perhaps I'm going a little far with this grow journal, but why not have some nice visual data to correlate to TDS/EC levels?? Trimmed a fair amount of vegetation from down low and deep inside the plants as well Pretty happy with how they are looking post watering Data is in the attached word file
Call me stupid, buit I spent a fair part of the day making arrangements so that I can hopefully work in an additional 1000W, for a total of 2 in the space. Pulled each light up to the ceiling as far as they will go. I also rerouted the light's ventilation from the 6" to an 8" vent fan that has some pull. It reduced the temp of the hoods from hot to cool to the touch, which I am happy with. Then connected the 6" to the room ventillation, and it seems to be a bit inadequate, I am going to have to order another 8" to keep the room cool, the 6" takes too long to cool the room. Added another oscillating fan on the other side of the room to keep the tops cool with the additional light. I also dropped the temp on the controller to 75 to keep tops cool. Topped about 8 shoots on the MTUSCA TF, that strain seems a bit stretchy, and is already well developed under the screen. I plan on flowering here in about 3-4 days. I'd like to give another good rinse, and give them a weak nutrient mix to handle the initial flower stretch.
You have mentioned that your MTUSCA TF is a bit stretchy. I think that it is mostly sativa and is just a tall strain.
looking good man just make sure your alwasy in the garden working cause you should get a lot out of that setup peace man looks good
Some more pics from day 4 of flowering. Screen is filling up nicely. Probably doing about 20 minutes of training each day. Need to change my bulbs from MH to HPS. These things look great to my eye. They are growing pretty fast each day, but it is still a bit like watching paint dry.
excellent grow dude! i love doing scrog.. it's a great excuse for messing around w/ the plants everyday
Amen to daily messin around with the plants! Loaded up 4 more pics from day 7 of flowering. Gave them a watering last night, added 1 tbsp/gal molasses, a small amount of micronutrients, and a wee bit of the "Deuce Deuce", until I had an 800 ppm solution and then adjusted the pH down to around 5.8. Used about 4 gallons total for this watering. Also changed my bulbs from MH to HPS last night. The plants are still moving pretty fast, and I am managing to keep up with the training. The canopy is getting so thick thast it is hard to move stuff around at this point.