JoJo's Hempy SOG 'n SCROG - LED - C99 - Northern Lights - NL99

[Tead]

And now for something completely different.....
Love me some Monty Python.
So... I've been thinking about altering my feeding cycle and I really have no compunction regarding invading your grow thread with my own issues.... sorry.
I currently do a M/W/F feeding schedule with my hempy girls. The temps are falling a bit and I've always felt that my feeding schedule may be a bit much. Thinking of a M/Th routine.
What's your current feeding schedule/routine? Any random thoughts regarding your feeding schedule?

Thanks!

 

[madsdad4ever]

jojo ur cab sounds awesome would love to see more pix it sounds as tho u have put a lot of thought into ur design

 

[jojo677]

@Tead - Oh you know I don't mind you going off-subject in my journal, I encourage it! Plus, this is good info! I've been watering every 3-4 days (when I remember) and having pretty good luck. During flower, I had to water every 2-3 days because it was warm and they get thirsty! So I forget sometimes. It would be much easier to pick a 3/4 day schedule with Mon/Thurs, like you said! I think you'll be fine. I let the little Hempy get really dry between waterings because the res wasn't big enough and she didn't keep up with her bigger sister! She drooped quite a few times and turned out great. I'd just watch how much they drink. What size container are you using?

@mads - pics coming soon...

 

[jojo677]

Update (67/18 days old):

Hello fellows!

I took a few more pictures for mads, and I'll try to describe them a little better. I'm going to have to take off the LED access panel soon, so I'll take more pictures when I do that.

Here's the veg cabinet. Or at least it will be when I start flowering plants (soon). I don't have any lights hanging yet, but I will be using several 23W CFLs. On the right corner, you can see the veg air intake/flowering air exhaust. It flows past the heatsinks on the LED panels, travels through the cabinet and is exhausted through the filter at the top.

And then there's the flowering cab (but it's on 18/6 right now). I think it will be plenty tall enough for my adventures. You can also see one of the LED panels mounted up close. Not my best work, but not too bad for a circular saw job!

Now for those wonderful plants! The seedlings are looking great! They're on their first week of light nutrients and they are loving it! I really do like the feeding schedule I'm using. I do, however, have to lower the nutes for flowering. They are just shooting up now - not bad for 18 days old. I'll let them get a bit more height, and then I'm going to cut off the top to clone. I'll then let the lower section recover and grow a bit before flowering, since the containers are so small.

Take a look from the top. You can see there are 4 NLxC99 plants and a straight NL plant. It's cool seeing the indica/sativa traits. The straight NL is in the top center, surrounded by different degrees of phenotypes. Cool!

Charlie is a different story though... Not looking so great... I'm feeding with 1/4 nutrients and I can tell she's not getting enough food, but I'm afraid to feed her anymore. I gave 1/3 nutrients last week and got nute burn. She's eating up all her lower growth, which wasn't in my plan for this grow.

I'm considering cutting all the branches off and starting over with her. I could start my SOG that way...

What do you guys think?

The clone has rooted! I really thought this little mistreaded girl wasn't going to take, but I started misting her 2 days ago and she rooted today. Still 100% success with rooting this way!

Hope you're all doing well!

 

[Bamalabrat]

JoJo,
Hope you don't mind if I come to the party late. I am subbed and very excited to see what you are doing here. Great work and thanks for posting some great information.

 

[Bamalabrat]

Also, NL will always have a place in my heart. It was the first quality smoke I ever had. First tried it in 91 and just fell in love with it. I would love to go back and tell that young me to keep the seeds!

 

[jojo677]

Welcome Bama, glad to have you! I chose these strains because they are supposed to be low odor, but it just so happens that they are classics! I do really enjoy both of them, and am excited to see what the hybrid is like!

 

[J189RFC]

Oh no JoJo! I'm sorry I didn't realize what I had was contagious!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Nice work on the room JoJo.
With Charlie. Are you sure you had nute burn? I don't see any burnt tips? Maybe it's just underfeeding?
You know how I am with my own deficiencies and issues though...
Confused as hell!

 

[jojo677]

Oh no JoJo! I'm sorry I didn't realize what I had was contagious!

Why did we do this to ourselves!! I guess we have to make lots of mistakes to learn a little bit..

Nice work on the room JoJo.
With Charlie. Are you sure you had nute burn? I don't see any burnt tips? Maybe it's just underfeeding?
You know how I am with my own deficiencies and issues though...
Confused as hell!

Sorry I didn't include any good pictures of the nute burn, but it's on the new growth, on almost all branches. I just chose the best one to take pictures of!

I fed with 1/2 strength nutes 2 days ago and the runoff smelled nasty again, so I'm sure those roots are just sitting in a nasty vermiculite sludge right now and dying. I'll probably just cut all the branches for clones to start my SOG 'n SCROG. Sad, but I think that's my best option!

I'll put up an update later tonight with some pictures.

 

[jojo677]

Update (71/22 days old):

Ok, well the grow room changed a bit today. I decided to chop Charlie and now have 7 clones... The rest got tossed, as I don't even need this many. I'll turn some of these into SOG plants, and 1-2 mini-SCROGs.

I'll mention my cloning process. I can't say I've taken too many (maybe 20-25?) but I have a 100% success rate. You saw how bad this last clone looked, and she still shot out roots! First I soak rockwool cubes in pH 5.8 water for awhile, take my cuttings, trim down to a size I want and clip about 1" of stem down from the first branch. I cut at a 45° angle and scrape the stem with a razor blade, as far as I plan on planting them, which is usually up to the first branch. I then dip in water then cloning hormone powder. I then press into the rockwool to the first branch because most of the current growth is never going to get bigger and I want to keep these plants as short as possible. I then pop them in a humidity dome and mist them daily. I think the misting really helps. I didn't do it with my last clone and it looks terrible! I usually get roots in about 10-11 days. It's no aero propagator, but it's way cheaper!

Back to Charlie - I'll dig through the roots to see what was happening down there, but I don't suspect too much good. Most of the branches were dry and woody, telling me that the root system was drying up too. You can see her showing all kinds of deficiencies, but the up-close shows the nute-burned leaves' tips curling up. The clones all have a bit of nute burn too, but they should survive. Below is a before and after.

2 Week Comparison:

The NL and NL99 are looking great! I'm seeing more variation in their traits now, and it's cool to have the original strains growing right next to them!

Now a quick update on the room. I just changed out the 3x smaller fans for 2x larger fans which are WAY quieter. Stealth accomplished!

Take care guys!

 

[madsdad4ever]

looking bro sorry to hear bout ur loss

 

[jojo677]

looking bro sorry to hear bout ur loss

Hah, thanks bud! But with death comes rebirth - in the form of a bunch of clones! They should be pretty fun to play around with. I'll probably flower some as soon as they root and Scrog the others.

What do you guys think of some mini-SCROG plants. I'd likely use 2 gallon buckets with 12" x 12" screens on top. The plants would still be pretty small, but I figure I could fit 4 of them under one light, with the SOG plants under the other. I don't really want to let 4 plants grow into 1 screen, since maintenance and watering would get more painful, so I figured I'd keep the screens separate. Kinda like my last big Hempy, but scaled down! Thoughts?

 

[J189RFC]

I dont see this as a loss for you at all! If anything this will move flowering forward a couple weeks. You got lots of good clones, some new starts. This got a whole lot more interesting, and to think you can thank a sick plant!

 

[Bamalabrat]

Sounds complicated. Why not sog them all? Don't get me wrong I love the scrog method and will be doing it myself with my grow. But unless you just want to experiment why do 2 different methods at the same time?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I've got 8 scrog screens going and like them just fine. I don't remember exactly your system of legs for supporting the screen and I'm too lazy to go look right now. With the way I do mine I can raise and lower the screen, which is helpful - and tilt the screen however I want. This turned out not to be particularly useful, as I shuffle the screens around a lot, and a tilted screen limits how I can do that- so now I usually leave them level. I think mini scrogs would be cool, and cute!

 

[Bamalabrat]

JoJo, Weaselcracker has the experience and gives a great endorsement. I would follow his advice. I was just saying the first thing that popped into my mind when I read your post, but do not have any first hand experience with either method yet. If you feel down for it, you should go with whatever you like.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Bamalabrat, don't worry about what I say . I'm not super experienced in scrogging. Your 2 cents is worth exactly what mine is. I'm just saying whatever comes to mind- same as you. More fun that way, hey?

 

[jojo677]

I dont see this as a loss for you at all! If anything this will move flowering forward a couple weeks. You got lots of good clones, some new starts. This got a whole lot more interesting, and to think you can thank a sick plant!

I agree man! I think these clones will recover fine and I'll have a new start. Though I made some discoveries on the roots today... More to come on that.

JoJo, Weaselcracker has the experience and gives a great endorsement. I would follow his advice. I was just saying the first thing that popped into my mind when I read your post, but do not have any first hand experience with either method yet. If you feel down for it, you should go with whatever you like.

Nonsense! I do want your opinion and questions. I think that's one of the best parts of a journal! To answer your question:

I'm not really sure which method I'll like more and I'd kinda just like to experiment. I was going to Scrog the big plant, but it didn't recover well and all the leaves, which I planned on having died, so I figured I'd still do some little Scrogs. I've only done one Scrog (my last grow) and it was my C99 (the dead plant's mother) and it was awesome! I'd like to try with my NL and NL99 as well, but I don't have the room/capacity to Scrog all of those at any decent size.

I really like the Scrog growing style, but SOG interests me too... The main reason? Trimming. If you do SOG plants right, you basically end up with one big cola per plant, and trimming is much easier than tons of tops. Though I'll admit I had way too many tops last time. I'll put a pic below for both you and Weasel. 6 hours of trimming - that'll wear you out!

Sounds like a good idea to me. I've got 8 scrog screens going and like them just fine. I don't remember exactly your system of legs for supporting the screen and I'm too lazy to go look right now. With the way I do mine I can raise and lower the screen, which is helpful - and tilt the screen however I want. This turned out not to be particularly useful, as I shuffle the screens around a lot, and a tilted screen limits how I can do that- so now I usually leave them level. I think mini scrogs would be cool, and cute!

You don't remember my screen? You must follow a LOT of journals, no wonder I see you everywhere!

My screen was attached to the bucket in the last grow, and I'll do something similar on this grow. I'm curious though, when do you raise/lower the screen? To support those monster colas!? I very well might find that I need to do that when I do WAY fewer tops!

Here's my last plant a few days before chop!

 

[jojo677]

Surprise! Update (71/22 days old):

Ok, I have a few more things to add since yesterday! I decided to check the roots on the stinky Hempy... What do you know, nice and white roots growing a bit more than halfway up the container. Looks like I was wrong again! I think you guys, Weasel and others, were right about the deficiency. I need to work on being more humble! Live and learn. At least now I have 7 plants..

I also decided to top/clone my seedlings - already! I chopped them down to 3 nodes each, and trimmed up the cuttings, which were for the most part big enough. Except that scrunched up little NL clone. It's stem was super short, so we'll see how that works out (last pic). I showed a bit of my cloning station. Clean up the stem, snip at 45°, scrape the stem, and dunk in rooting powder.

Also, if you look closely you might be able to see it... I wasn't quite sure how to keep track of all of these clones to their mothers, so I labelled each one with A-D. I just used a Sharpie and wrote on the leaf! I don't know why it wouldn't work!