Bomb Shelter HO-T5 and LED Perpetual Harvest Shelf Grow

[George Parker]

Hey FN, I was over at DocBuds new journal and he happen to post his "Monsoon" water method yesterday. I wanted to thank him firsthand for sharing his method. I though I would post his description so you can see the original Notice the bold type

Well, here is my veg and early flower watering method. After 4 or 5 weeks of bloom I leave out the humidity part:

1.)Water when lights come on. Six hours prior to lights on, turn up the RH to 80%.

2.)Mix up nutes, teas, snowstorm...whatever you're going to feed. I run about 3 gallons through a 2 gallon pot each time I water.

3.)Water the plants when the light comes on and decrease the humidity back to normal, 50-60%

4.)I let them really dry out between watering, almost to the point of wilting, but not quite.

I don't know if this is the "best" way to water.....but it has allowed me to grow some very large plants in relatively small pots.....like plants that yield 5 oz in organic soil in 1.5 gallon pots.....that was what a couple of the Querkles gave me. Ya'll see the pics I post.....I'm trying to get really resinous plants. My theory is that they go through the summer monsoons, get big and healthy, and then temps drop, it gets dryer and they finish.

I'm sure you could vary and adapt this technique in many ways, but I think the humidity thing has real merit. The growth rate after a watering in veg is pretty remarkable.

Warning:This will leach a bunch of nitrogen from the soil....and everything else. You either have to have really rich soil, or OC+ for this technique to be effective. (Or you can feed every time you water) It's great if you want your plants to fade, and they taste really, really good .

Talk with you later.

 

[farnorth]

Papatater- Thank you for coming by and for the kind words! Dont be a stranger in here! This grow has been a huge learning experience for me. The help coming from others on this site is remarkable. Thank you to everyone who is following my journal! And great job to those whose journals i am following!

Dime- Always coming through clutch! Thank you for posting that. I need to go over to his journal and check things out. That technique really is working great. Since starting this with my plants. I have not missed a feeding. In the younger plants, i have never seen such perky, lush green plants before. So thank you for posting, and thank you to docbud for putting in the work to discover and share this.

This will be a somewhat short update as i want to spend some time catching up on everyones journals.
Not much new is going on in the garden since im not taking any clones right now. But as a summary
The goal of this grow is to create a perpetual harvest in a sog style using shelves and two sections to achieve a weekly crop. I am growing 8 different strains using a diy ezcloner as well as using fluorescent lights and led's with c02 as a supplement. Roots organics nutrients was the choice as this is purely an organic grow.

This grow consists of 8 strains. 3 different bagseed mothers as well as Blackberry, Whiteberry, Purple Haze, Power Kush, Cali Hash Plant. The goal is harvest at least 1/2 oz, around 14g per plant, with 10 plants per group. There are 11 different bagseed on day 43 flower. Currently there are 6 groups of plants in flower with veg times ranging from 7 days- 33 days, and flower times ranging from 6 days- 43 days. The ideal weekly harvest is not quite weekly, and slightly sporadic. With chops falling 11 days, 12 days, 7 days, 4 days and 2 days apart for the first batch. Maintaining weekly plant count increases is proving to be quite a handful. I am learning an extreme amount about the plants that I am growing however because I can see so many of the same plant at different stages of growth and compare directly, as they are all receiving identical treatment with water and nutrients (age depending). Hopefully by the time I get my cloner back with the changes I will be able to create an easier maintainable garden.

There are 4 4ft 6tube HOt5 (30k lumens ea.) As well as 8 4ft 2tube HOt5 (10k lumens ea.) used as side lighting and two 12w led flashlights that i hang from the 4ft t5 in different positions in the garden. There are a total of 200,000 lumens of T5 lighting plus 24w of LED currently, with more lighting needed to expand. I do like the t5 setup, and really am amazed at the results thus far. I think they woul definitely lose their effectiveness if one was to try a large plant garden. But for small plants, and especially with side lighting, these lights do a phenomenal job. I do have to clarify that the hype about these lights not being hot is definitely not true. Maybe in comparison to HID lights, however, they definitely do put off enough heat to notice, and if ventilation is not adequate, temperature will definitely be high. It is virtually the same as running un-aircooled 250w lights. Given this is a fluoro grow, but there are still over 2k watts in a 7x7 room with 3' tall shelves to trap the heat. I would like to add more leds to the mix, and once the a/c unit is up and running, I think I will even see more improvement in later crops.

I am also running c02 as an additive, through the timer method. Here is the article for the method I use. Grow Room c02 timer setup. This is a cool method, and I am releasing .38 cubic feet of c02 into my room at a rate of 1.52 cfh. I am definitely noticing an increase in health, size, and color in my plants. AS well as helping the plants cope with the high heat in the garden.
I am also growing these plants with pure organic nutrients. Using the 7 part nute series. I am adding Botnicare Huvega for Mg and Calplex for Ca. Also I am using Humbolt purplemaxx as a foliar feed in weeks 3-finish and in soil week 1-1 week prior to chop. Also Adding Sweet starting in week 3-finish, and trying a sample of Advanced Nutrients Nirvana on my first group of plants. Overall I am happy with these nutrients, however, it is extremely hard to reach high ppm's even with following roots organics feeding schedule. When going full nutes with huvega, calplex, sweet and nirvana added nutes are still under 1000, Around 930. Rather cheap compared to other organic lines, and having a friend swear by it, I figured I would try it out.
Until recently, I was feeding on a full strength, half strength, pure water alternating schedule. Thanks to Dime, dirtinmyears, for shedding some light, I am now fushing everytime I feed. As doc bud, I run alternating 5 gal and 10 gal flush prior to feed every other watering. Then I follow with 5 gal of alternating full strength and half strength +purple maxx for nutrients. Each group has 8-11 plants, and receive either 10gal or 15gal of water total depending on the schedule. This technique has worked out amazing. SO thank you Dime and Docbud. This is something that I will be doing in every grow. I will tamper with the amounts and schedule as i go, but this general method is definitely not something to be ignored.

Like said above, there are 6 groups in flower, accounting for a total of 55 plants. The veg times after cloning has varied for these groups as well. I am trying to determine the stretch and growth rate of each strain so i can configure the schedule of my garden to flow a little more smoothly and to maximize space. All my plants are in 1gal grow bags, about .20cents a piece. I have learned 33 days is far too long to veg from seed for 1 gallon pots. The next group which is 10 days shorter in veg time are showing no signs of being rootbound, and older than the first group when it began showing signs. I think depending on the size of the clones I take, 7-10 days is the perfect veg time with my height restrictions. I am also defoliating. I go all fan leaves under the canopy at 21 days. And slowly move up every week.
Group 1 appears to be rootbound. With no more available height to put them in larger pots, I will be letting them finish, and cutting early is not out of the question if their health were to plummet. With that being said, There is not much I can do beyond comparing them to younger plants. In my first grow I had a couple of rootbound plants and they were showing very similar possibly even identical signs as thise group. Started with ramshorning, followed by yellow leaves, followed by a combination of nute lock and salt buildup. But even with heavy flushing and no feeding, the symptoms continued. Not all plants are so severe however. The majority of the plants in group 1 are still very healthy with slightly yellowing leaves.

My cloner is currently down, not because of it not working, but until I fix the flooring in the shelves, get more light, as well as an a/c unit, I dont have the room to have any more plants. However, this cloner has worked AMAZING for me. On my first roun I had a low success rate at only 50%. This was due to cloner malfunction, constant messing with the cloner, a cfl falling on the clones etc etc etc etc. Once completely rebuilding the cloner 3 times, in 3 different rubbermade totes, my results changed. I read some articles about the importance of cleaning cloners- After reading, and following through, and seeing the success this was part of my reasoning for rebuilding my cloner yet again as cleaning and removing the thing was near impossible.) After cleaning, and changing some things I have had 100% success rate in my cloning. My cleaning method is a few pages back, but post cleaning, i refill and add 35ml of thirvealive, I think I might increase this slightly. And then adjust ph to around 5.8-6.0 and mist 2x a day with a thrive alive liquid seaweed combo. I have roots in some plants in 3 days, and they are all ready to transplant in under 10 days. When transplanting, I have tried both using plain water, and using nutrients. As of now, I am leaning towards to nutrient feed with transplant. I did this with 1/5 strength feeding for seedlings and young plants. I think I might drop the recommended nutes to a 1/4 strength Buddha Bloom and 1/2 strength thrive alive for a roughly 130ppm mix. My tapwater comes out at 93. So only a small increase.

Sorry for the fucking essay ha. Didnt really have much of an update for you so thought id write a "quick" summary. Before i started writing, I thought id also have a quick joint. 2 hours later here i am.
Here is some budpron.
Who says t5's cant come through for flower?
Day 40-43 Week 5

Purple haze at day 30 flower.

 

[papatater]

Love!!!!!Love!!!!!!!!!!Love BUD PORN i think Jimi would be proud to have a plant named after his song HMMMMMM brings back good memory's all thru my brain

 

[farnorth]

THanks man. really appreciate it!!!! Working right now, update will come sometime in the next few hours.

 

[George Parker]

I'll tell ya a secret... I try and wait to read you posts around lunch time. That way I can have food and a show . looking forward to the update

Oh, I gave the seedlings their first "Monsoon" watering and they loved it!

 

[farnorth]

Haha awesome Dime! Well i will try an get an update up before i leave. Im ging on a short 3 day vacation tonight, so been busy in preparation to get everything ready for that.
Still working though! Almost 12 full hours in the garden tonight!
Saw a couple of fungus gnats, so i did a super deep cleaning wiping everything i could get my fingers on down with clorox wipes and 409. Vacuuming, feeding, tying over, reworking light hangers, taking notes, taking pictures, smoking weed, pruning, alot of smelling and staring, ha.
Exhausted but I am definitely looking forward to a 3 day break!
So hopefully i will have an update for you around lunch!

 

[papatater]

Hope all is well farnorth and your vacation done you some good keep up the good work pics are lookin great

 

[HorseBadoritz]

Hay farnorth, what's shakin ?

 

[farnorth]

Hey everyone! Ive been absent for longer than I would have liked..
Went on vacation for a few ays, and unfortunately came down with a terrible cold on the plane ride home. And have been feeling extremely under the weather, so wasnt up to updating or taking many pictures. But i have been busy busy at work, taking twice as long due to my cold, but i have been working in the garden. And holy moly things are looking nice.
Thanks for checkin in on me!!! definitely appreciate it.

As far as progress goes. Where the hell do i even start. I will make this a very quick update, and upload lots of photos however.

Group 5. day 15 flower.
This group jsut started week 2 of flower and is moving along great without any problems. However, one of the powerkush was growing very strangely, and tonight i found some nuts! So group 5 is now down to 11 plants.
One of the white berry is very very interesting. Some type of weird mutant plant. With a flat stem opposed to round, and the node sets come in three. Not three blade leaves, but instead of two leaves across the stem from each other, or alternating nodes. They come in sets of 3?? Ive never seen this, but the top bud formation is absolutely insane. so if its not broke dont fix it!

Group 4b day 17 flower. group 4a day 23 flower
This group is chuggin right along as well. These groups both have a terrible habit of growing into the light, which is quite unfortunate because there are two plants that the tops are quite burned, not to mention a handful of lightburned leaf tips which youll see in the pictures.. Oh well, cant win them all!

Group 3 day 30 flower.
This group just hit its fourth week of flower. This group is made up of clones, one from each of group 1. WHich is really cool to see because im not having the rootbound problems, and with the monsoon water technique, im really reaching the potential of these bagseed. These plants look exponentially better than there mothers, and there are a couple that i really cannot wait to see.
This group was put through some light lst, and they just love it. I am definitely sold, and think i will begin doing this with any plants that reach over 20inches in height. Not full lst, but just to open up the undergrowth. I need to remember to take pictures of these plants when they are out of the garden because the structure is awesome.

Group 2 day 42 flower.
Today is week 6 for these plants, and they look right on schedule, if not even a little behind. Not quite the bulk that group 1 had at this age, but the health is amazing. Trichomes everywhere, the stench would be unbearable if it was anything other than cannabis. The whiteberry is an awesome plant. It literally smells like blueberry candy but looks like a sourpatch kid with trichomes!!!. If a blue berry sourpatch kid punched you in the inside of the nostril thats what this smells like.

group 1 day 54 flower.
I just wrote a nice entry for this group and accidently hit the back button. thank god it didnt delete the whole post. Im not going to rewrite the whole entry, but what i can say.
I cut some sample nugs tonight from one plant whos tops seemed to have stopped growing. It was a small plant with very small tops, and i cut about 5 little nugs from this plant.
4 plants will receive their first flush tomorrow, the rest will get one, or possible two more waterings before starting their flush. But the first plants come down in 7-10 days depending on plant health during the flush! WHooooop
ANyway here are some pictures!!

On a side note real quick. I am SOLD on these t5 lights. I think with even a few more and some leds added to the mix. You could have some real beauties on your hands. I think people should take a serious look into these lights as an alternative or suplement to hid lighting.

 

[Giantsfan24]

Gee whiz those look so good! Awesome job!!

That poor JD bottle looks sad though being empty like that. Kind of depressing actually!

 

[HorseBadoritz]

Lookin good farnorth, I love that purple plant

Cold medicine?

Ha!

 

[farnorth]

god i wish! i needed some of that to open my sinuses up!

and GF i know what you mean! hey are much more appealing when they are full.

 

[Barry Manilow]

They girls look great farnorth

All your hard work is coming to fruition

 

[George Parker]

Glad you posted that update my man.... I haven't had lunch in like a week .

Everything is looking so good. I really love those last few pics with those huge NUGS

 

[farnorth]

Bluedog and dime. thanks alot! Glad you could stop in an have some lunch!! Unfortunately i still dont have a microscope, so this round is going to have to be cut by pistil/bud appearance... Which im a little nervous about, but there are a couple girls that are definitely almost done. Only a couple more days tops..
ANyone know any good articles, preferably with pictures of ready to cut plants judging by pistil/bud appearance?

 

[Barry Manilow]

Bluedog and dime. thanks alot! Glad you could stop in an have some lunch!! Unfortunately i still dont have a microscope, so this round is going to have to be cut by pistil/bud appearance... Which im a little nervous about, but there are a couple girls that are definitely almost done. Only a couple more days tops..
ANyone know any good articles, preferably with pictures of ready to cut plants judging by pistil/bud appearance?

Hey bro ask and you shall receive. This has been bouncing around on other sites so I hope they don't mind it showing up here as well, I found this post to be extremely helpful and I'm a believer in almost everything he says. I don't know much if anything about the 64 cannabinoids, but I do know that for me the high got waaaaay better over that last 7-10 days. Now I rarely bother to check the trichs, I just look at the plants.

One thing he didn't mention that I've noticed is that the plant will drastically cut back on how much it's drinking/feeding when the end is near. I look for that and for the leaves to turn color as the plant devours the nutes left in them. The leaves turn first, then when she stops feeding you know she's about finished.

===============================

A guide on when to harvest.

Is it ready yet?: SpruceZeus's take on marijuana ripeness.

This is by no means meant to be the definitive guide to knowing when to chop your plant, only my views on the subject.

I'm personally of the opinion that 90% of the growers on this site (And probably in general) harvest too early. By letting the plants go a little longer you're ensuring that they've plumped as much as they're going to.

Despite popular opinion to the contrary(and don't fool yourself, the jury is still out on this one) Recent studies have shown, contrary to what was previously believed, that THC itself (And its predecessor THC-A) are quite guilty of causing the confusion and drowsiness associated with burnout and other cannabinoids (our friend CBN, and a handful of others) to be the catalyst (along with THC) to being 'high' rather than 'baked'.

Regardless, whether or not there's any substance to the aforementioned study, its easy to get the high you want.

If you want a soaring 'cerebral' high: Get yourself a tropical sativa that contains a high level of THC-V and grow it until it is ripe.

If you want the narcotic couchlock stone, grow a rugged indica until its ripe.

Notice a pattern of growing it until its ripe? It's a really good rule to live by.

OF course we have to remember that there is more to a good high than just THC. At last count there are at least 66 cannabinoids, and we don't know what most of them do.

Now a lot of people will tell you that you should harvest based on the color of your trichomes. But (again, in my opinion) that is far too simplistic and there are too many variables to make that an effective strategy. I've made that point a million times before and I'm not going to re-hash it here (maybe just a bit), but rest assured there is more to the picture than just trich colour.

A ripe marijuana plant will be filled in, will have an amber tinge to the buds. The pistils should have browned (or orange-d) off and receded into the buds. The seed bracts should be swollen and the trichomes should be sticking straight out with bulbous ends. Also, because you're coming close to the end of plant's life cycle, the leaves should have yellowed off and started to die.

one of my plants, 3 days before chop-chop.

Another very important (imho) reason to let your plants mature is Terpenoid production. Terpenes are responsible for alot of the complex (and enjoyable) flavours that cannabis produces. Some of the most intense flavours are produced on the "downslope" of cannabis's life cycle.

My personal experience with this first came when i was growing GH cheese. One of the plants i harvested at 8 weeks and it tasted pretty nice and had pretty dense buds. The other i grew until about 9 1/2 weeks and it had most amazing, sour, skunky, delicious taste with rock hard buds.

Here is my interpretation (and maybe exaggeration) of a scenario i see all too often...

Quote:noob mcboob
I'm a new grower and i've been reading all this great information about when its time to harvest. Theres pictures and everything!!!

Look at my trichs, they look nice and milky with a touch of amber just like the ones in the picture that says its harvest time now!!!


So i just have one question....

Does this look ready to you?


That plant is 4 weeks into 12/12. Granted not all of the trichomes are that far along. And most people aren't going to harvest weed that looks like this. But my point with this is that you have to look at the big picture. Stop being so scientific and start being practical.

I'm not anti knowledge, i just cant stand these "rules" that more often than not lead people down the wrong path. Lets cut through the bullshit and spread good information in a way that is not so absolute. Or at very least explain the growth stages of cannabis making sure to mention that the pistils should have receded back into the bud before you chop. Regardless of trichome colour.

If I could offer one piece of advice on picking the right time to harvest, it's all about watching the pistils. Not so much the colour, but the movement. They should have receded into the bud and the seed bracts should be swollen.

It should look less like this

And more like this.

Trust me when I say, it is worth the excruciating wait.

 

[farnorth]

awesome! You and dime shared the same article almost the same time!
Thank you very much. reps would be in order, but it still wont let me rep you, so apparently not.
but thank you guys regardless.

 

[George Parker]

awesome! You and dime shared the same article almost the same time!
Thank you very much. reps would be in order, but it still wont let me rep you, so apparently not.
but thank you guys regardless.

Haha! That's a great article and I'm glad Blue posted it . That would've taken me an hour to do on my phone.

It looks like the buds in your last few pics (IIRC) are about there.

I'm glad the "Monsoon" watering is working for you, I have been doing sort of the same with my seedlings each time I water by submerging the cups. They are growing fast!

Take care and I'll talk with ya later.

 

[Xlr8]

How was I not subscribed to your journal?!

Can't wait to get caught up!

 

[papatater]

Lookin good as always these journals are so much fun to read i get great pleasure reading these stories i feel like i know the people in this community and everybody is so helpful it gives me faith that there are still good people roaming around us and i feel lucky to cross paths with a few of them thanks