First Grow: White Kush 1 In Soil, 1 In Hydro/Coco, 1 In Perlite, Who Will Win?

[SmokingBud]

@odinsmaster So I was overwatering the coco, I figured when it looked wet this morning, so I didn't water - yea me
[x] 1 thing done right
I will keep that coco PH right in 5.5 - 6.0. Thanks for joining my grow!!!

 

[odinsmaster]

@odinsmaster So I was overwatering the coco, I figured when it looked wet this morning, so I didn't water - yea me
[x] 1 thing done right
I will keep that coco PH right in 5.5 - 6.0. Thanks for joining my grow!!!

This part is just what I do in veg. I don’t mind a little stress in veg. I will let it dry until it droops, then feed. I want the roots to search that hole pot. I’ll do that 3 or 4 times. Once I think the root system is healthy enough I will water daily for about a week. If that goes good I will go to 3 times a day.
Watering too much too early can cause root rot.

 

[SmokingBud]

@odinsmaster Odin that's very helpful! I will let the leaves in the coco droop before watering a few times then. Thanks!

 

[Grand Daddy Black]

I'm in for the show Smokingbuds!

Looks like you're getting excellent advice and learning a lot of stuff early. The 420 family is like that.

I recall from your introductory post when you were trying to decide what medium to use. I got real tickled when you decided to go in 3 different directions. I thought, "He couldn't make up his mind!"

Your decision will make this an interesting journal, a page-turner with plot twists galore!

I'm looking forward.

 

[SmokingBud]

I'm in for the show Smokingbuds!

Looks like you're getting excellent advice and learning a lot of stuff early. The 420 family is like that.

I recall from your introductory post when you were trying to decide what medium to use. I got real tickled when you decided to go in 3 different directions. I thought, "He couldn't make up his mind!"

Your decision will make this an interesting journal, a page-turner with plot twists galore!

I'm looking forward.

@Grand Daddy Black You are so right, Grand Daddy about the tough decision of which medium to use. I kinda regret going with all 3 but hopefully that just means I learn 3 times more Hopefully, I it will be a page turner with plot twists galore. As long as the end result is a good time with my buds

Thanks for following!

 

[Emilya Green]

I will bite too... this is a VERY ambitious project @SmokingBud ! I suspect by the pejorative use of the word "dirt" when describing the Ocean Forest, that you might have a bias toward the hydro side of things, so I predict that either of your hydro methods will "win". We will see what happens here, but generally I would say that the 24/7 nutes of any hydro system will grow bigger plants than a typical soil grow, but I like to think that soil brings an additional something that adds to the quality of the pot. So who wins is going to be depending on a lot of personal judgement but in the final analysis I want to say right at the start that it is YOU who will win here, with all the knowledge you are going to pick up on this grow! A huge pat on the back to you for taking this initiative!

As far as finishing out first... that is genetic and the grow method is not going to change anything in the internal clocks of the plants... they will finish when they finish.

Let me end this by saying that "dirt" is what you dig up from the ground in the back yard. Fox Farm Ocean Forest is a carefully balanced and designed organic "soil", and should not be referred to as dirt.

 

[SmokingBud]

@Emilya I'm honored to have you here. You're article on the proper way to water a potted plant was mind blowing I have read it twice and think I need to read it 50 more times for the light to fully go on in my brain I agree the "winner" will be subjective, but there may be winners in different categories and you seem to have a good idea of how that will shake out. After 5 days, I have no idea which I like the best as they all seem to have their merits. As they become more mature, it will be interesting.

But before I get ahead of myself, I need to get through this Manganese deficiency and then we are rolling

 

[SmokingBud]

Day 5 Plants 4 - 6"
The growth over the last few days has been great! They seem to love the FoxFarm nutes and the 1000watt MarsHydro!
Daytime - 72 degrees, humidify 60%, PPFD about 400 for 18 hours
Nighttime - 68 degrees, humidity 10%
The orange spots appear to be getting worse, but I'm hopeful the worst has pretty much arrived.
My PH is on the low side right now to help get Manganese into the plants.
Nute mix for FF dirt is 1/3 general strength with PH of 6.3
Nute mix for coco/hydroton plant and perlite plant is also 1/3 general strength with PH of 5.6

I did not water the FF as its still very wet.
I watered about 1/4 cup to the hydro's to give them some of the lower PH for Manganese absorption.

 

[SmokingBud]

Day 7 Plants 5-7"
Manganese deficiency appears to have stopped getting worse on upper leaves where it barely started. I compared a leaf with 4 small spots 2 days ago in a picture and it looked exactly the same. Apparently, the very minimal watering with lower PH appears to be working. - so here's to that

My FF nute mix is still at 1/3 strength. I plan today will be my last small bit of watering until I see them looking for water.
Temp 72 during day and 68 at night
Humidity 70 percent during day and 10 percent at night

They seem healthy and growing otherwise, but I have a few questions:
1. The plants seem tall and not full compared to other peoples plants at this time. Should I snip the top to encourage some new lower growth that will fill in those leaves that are all going bye-bye in the near future per @MochaBud ? I know its controversial.
2. Is my PPFD at 400 about right for this time of plant growth?
3. Should I try to increase my daytime temp?

 

[SmokingBud]

Day 7 Plants 5-7"
Manganese deficiency appears to have stopped getting worse on upper leaves where it barely started. I compared a leaf with 4 small spots 2 days ago in a picture and it looked exactly the same. Apparently, the very minimal watering with lower PH appears to be working. - so here's to that

My FF nute mix is still at 1/3 strength. I plan today will be my last small bit of watering until I see them looking for water.
Temp 72 during day and 68 at night
Humidity 70 percent during day and 10 percent at night

They seem healthy and growing otherwise, but I have a few questions:
1. The plants seem tall and not full compared to other peoples plants at this time. Should I snip the top to encourage some new lower growth that will fill in those leaves that are all going bye-bye in the near future per @MochaBud ? I know its controversial.
2. Is my PPFD at 400 about right for this time of plant growth?
3. Should I try to increase my daytime temp?

 

[SmokingBud]

@odinsmaster
@MochaBud
@Emilya
@Grand Daddy Black

Hey fellow 420ers,

Day 12 Plants 8-10"
First of all, thanks for the advice on not watering until needed!!! Without that advice I would have probably drowned them all by now

My FF nute mix is still at 1/3 strength.
Temp 75 during day and 65 at night
Humidity 70 percent during day and 10 percent at night

I was disappointed I didn’t get any answers to my previous 3 questions ☹ But we all have things we know well, so I get it.

So here is the update. The manganese deficiency appears to have fully stopped - whew! I have multiple layers of new leaves and they are all free of rust spots associated with the manganese deficiency. They seem healthy and growing great! I was worried I might lose them, but I think I’m past that point now and I feel good about these girls growing up and fully maturing for me

I have not watered the FF dirt yet in a week and it’s taken off like crazy the last 3 days – I’m really shocked at the growth! I watered the coco/hydroton this morning, along with the perlite. The perlite should have probably been watered a little bit a few days ago. But perlite is my weird thing.

I actually pinched the tops off yesterday because it seemed like they were going to be palm trees. Now I get to see if that was a big mistake.

Otherwise, I think they look good and I look forward to any other pointers I should know about the next phases coming up.

Thanks 420 supporters!

 

[odinsmaster]

Looking good. Are you going to train any?

 

[SmokingBud]

Looking good. Are you going to train any?

I love the idea Does anyone know of a good reference here to start learning how to train branches? And when would I start doing it?

 

[SmokingBud]

@Reave @Grand Daddy Black
The FF dirt is going so well, I almost pee my pants when I see it It went from 1/3 less than the others to 33% or 50% more than the others. It seems like it's going through the Arnold Schwarzenegger "How to get pumped up" video each day. So thanks @MochaBud for the FF dirt nudge and @Emilya for teaching me how to water a dirt plant

However, I still think the coco/hydroton could be the most ideal in a larger scale automated grow, but I don't have the experience as @odinsmaster to dial it in properly . . . yet

As for the perlite, it's almost embarrassing, but I'm watering twice a day to try and salvage my stupidity and today it seems to be helping.

I changed the light to Vivostar 315 CMH with PAR of the same 420ish. As they grow the top will get more PARish

Back to the FF dirt, the problem of the day is drooping leaf ends. I really want to keep the FF dirt plant happy, so what do the drooping leaf ends mean (right side of humongous plant - comparatively speaking)? I watered moderately yesterday with PH of 6.5 (was 6.2 a week ago when I last watered).

Thanks my 420 buds

 

[Emilya Green]

so what do the drooping leaf ends mean?

That is not so much a droop as an outright pointing. The plant is pointing to its feet. This is always a complaint, and generally it means it is finding too much of something... the plant is reacting, and not favorably. Then I look a second time and I see the other clue... the slightly burnt leaf tips all over the plant. I believe your plants are both saying that the last nute mix was a bit hot or something isn't quite right. You say that your pH was 6.5 and was 6.2 last time? How does that work? What exactly are you measuring to determine this pH, or did you intentionally water at the middle of the range this time and at the bottom of the range last time? Your words are a little confusing on this point and I do want to understand what is happening here and why.

 

[SmokingBud]

That is not so much a droop as an outright pointing. The plant is pointing to its feet. This is always a complaint, and generally it means it is finding too much of something... the plant is reacting, and not favorably. Then I look a second time and I see the other clue... the slightly burnt leaf tips all over the plant. I believe your plants are both saying that the last nute mix was a bit hot or something isn't quite right. You say that your pH was 6.5 and was 6.2 last time? How does that work? What exactly are you measuring to determine this pH, or did you intentionally water at the middle of the range this time and at the bottom of the range last time? Your words are a little confusing on this point and I do want to understand what is happening here and why.

@Emilya. Thanks for the quick response.

The chart I have shows PH should be 6.3 - 6.8 for dirt. About 10 days or so ago, I learned I had a manganese deficiency as the plants were full of rust spots on the lower leaves and they looked terrible. So I added Cal-Mag and lowered PH to 6.2 to get that Manganese in the plant, which appears to have worked perfectly . A week later, the dry tips appeared. So before watering for the first time in a week, I upped the PH to 6.5 to help other nutrients get in.

I have a BlueLab PH measuring tool to measure.

 

[Emilya Green]

so you are measuring the pH of the water mixed with nutes, immediately before applying it to the soil? Are you giving nutes each time you water or are you throwing a plain water watering in between feedings, as is needed in a soil grow?

So your chart says 6.2-6.8... where does it say in there to pick a number inside that range? Since the pH immediately begins to drift upward upon hitting the buffers in the soil, and continues to climb as the nutes are used by the plant, at whatever pH level you initially hit the soil with, you climb upward from there. If you come in at 6.5, then you totally miss the lower part of the range, from 6.2-6.5 and whatever nutes that are mobile in the upper part of the range from 6.5-6.8 are what is seen by the plant.

You already learned that it was beneficial to come in at the lower part of the range but what you havent realized is that by doing so, you hit the ENTIRE range between waterings as the pH drifted back up to the base pH of the soil. Coming in at 6.3 was the only time you adjusted the pH properly... and look how good it did for the plant! You didn't just pick up the one element you think you were missing... you picked up the entire range. Do that some more. The proper pH to adjust to is 6.2-6.3.

So now the pointing... are you not going water/feed/water/feed, carefully also adjusting your water only pass to 6.3 pH? If you are loading your soil up with nutes each time you send fluids toward the plant, this will be the cause of the pointing and the burned tips.

 

[SmokingBud]

so you are measuring the pH of the water mixed with nutes, immediately before applying it to the soil? Are you giving nutes each time you water or are you throwing a plain water watering in between feedings, as is needed in a soil grow?

So your chart says 6.2-6.8... where does it say in there to pick a number inside that range? Since the pH immediately begins to drift upward upon hitting the buffers in the soil, and continues to climb as the nutes are used by the plant, at whatever pH level you initially hit the soil with, you climb upward from there. If you come in at 6.5, then you totally miss the lower part of the range, from 6.2-6.5 and whatever nutes that are mobile in the upper part of the range from 6.5-6.8 are what is seen by the plant.

You already learned that it was beneficial to come in at the lower part of the range but what you havent realized is that by doing so, you hit the ENTIRE range between waterings as the pH drifted back up to the base pH of the soil. Coming in at 6.3 was the only time you adjusted the pH properly... and look how good it did for the plant! You didn't just pick up the one element you think you were missing... you picked up the entire range. Do that some more. The proper pH to adjust to is 6.2-6.3.

So now the pointing... are you not going water/feed/water/feed, carefully also adjusting your water only pass to 6.3 pH? If you are loading your soil up with nutes each time you send fluids toward the plant, this will be the cause of the pointing and the burned tips.

@Emilya Yes, I have been measuring the PH of the water/nutes to 6.5 before applying it each time. As you suspected, I am giving nutes each time, which I will stop doing. I will follow your recommendation of nutes every other time. I believe your point is the phrase “too much of a good thing, can be a bad thing”. I should also have mentioned that plant in FF dirt is also very dark green, which is probably another sign that it’s getting too many nutes.

As for randomly picking a happy PH number each time, I thought 6.5 was the place to be, but now I understand how 6.2 - 6.3 is the sweet spot as the PH increases while it passes through the FF dirt. I will decrease that nute PH from 6.5 to 6.3 and get a container of plain water at 6.3.

Thank you so much for helping me understand my latest mistakes!!! Your insights are awesome! Here's to learning about life from a weed

 

[SmokingBud]

Day 26 or 10 days later, the plants are doing great!

My FF nute mix is still at 1/3 strength.
Temp 75 during day and 65 at night
Humidity 70 percent during day and 20 percent at night

The FoxFarm dirt plant continues to grow the best with the least effort like @MochaBud told me in the welcome board before I started.

They say hydro plants grow so fast, but my hydro plant in perlite was getting further and further behind, probably because I wasn’t watering it properly. I was trying to follow @Emilya advice for letting the plant tell me when to water, but the leaves were not curling up or showing signs of needing water, just getting lighter and lighter green. Maybe that was the tell tale sign . . .doh! I just didn’t want to overwater and/or over nute it again.

So my pure hydro perlite plant (white dream 3). . . drum roll please . . . . migrated into the FF dirt a week ago. It hardly missed a beat without a lick of transplant shock and quickly started taking off. The very very light green leaves have turned nicely green. So I’m super glad I made the change.

The coco/hydroton recommended by @odinsmaster has been doing a lot better this last week with more watering. It’s such a different animal than dirt. I suppose when you know just what to do and have your automated watering system do it, then it’s effortless and growing like crazy. I'm doing that with tomato plants in a tent but it took me a while to figure it out - 2 waterings daily for months - but I over-nuted early on . . . yea bad habits die hard

Watering - I watered the large FF with no nutes about a week ago and then with nutes yesterday. It seems to be pointing down again. Hopefully, I can work out this problem in the next 10 days. I’m trying to follow @Emilya but I’m getting there slowly.

Pruning - I trimmed some tops off the big plants again for the last time. I also cut off 2 humongous fan leaves toward the bottom of the big FF dirt plant. It seems kinda controversial as some people say they gotta go and others think it’s the dumbest thing until the plant is closer to flowering. They were just drowing out light from lots of branches at the bottom. Let me know what you think. I can handle it.

Training – I started training the biggest plant and plan to train the others this week. Let me know if I did anything wrong or if you know a better way.

Oh and don’t mind that green pepper sticking out on the left side. Soon it will find a nice home on a burger

Otherwise, Thanks for all the help in getting me here. You guys have been great!!!

 

[MochaBud]

Looking good in there @SmokingBud

At that size, and I mean all of them I'm already feeding full strength, with full strength cal-mag but I only feed every third time...water...water...feed, and some times I feed more than full strength, if they're asking for it...you'll learn, give it time