NuLife's - Soilless - Raspberry Cough - Grow Journal - 2016

[willymac22]

As for the nutrients be careful, it's pretty though in veg but when it gets into flowering don't over do it. I nearly lost my plants at the end, my own stupidity.
I'm still trying to work out how much or little nutrients to give. That's why I'm on here now.

I just bought an ec or ppm meter and I think mine is reading quite high but I don't know what it's supposed to be and how to lower it.

Sent from my SM-G900I using 420

 

[Nulife]

Mine got huge. Too big for my tent. So I recommend topping at least once and fim it a couple of times and plenty of LST.

Good to know thanks, yes I will definitely be LST training the plant, with topping an fimming. I think I will try different techniques between the 2 Raspberry Coughs I have. May I ask what kind of light did you have yours under? Did you grow one or multiple? And how much bud (weight) did you harvest from one plant?

I vegged it for about six weeks which was why it grew so big if you want to keep it short don't veg it for long.
It pretty much tripled in height from veg to flower.

Also good to know, thanks. So 4 weeks veg it is.

As for the nutrients be careful, it's pretty though in veg but when it gets into flowering don't over do it. I nearly lost my plants at the end, my own stupidity.
I'm still trying to work out how much or little nutrients to give. That's why I'm on here now.

I just bought an ec or ppm meter and I think mine is reading quite high but I don't know what it's supposed to be and how to lower it

May I ask what you think you did wrong beside over nutes?

PPMs should be high in the flowering stage I believe, if you adding them slowly week from week, but I also believe you should be giving it just ph water every other nute feeding. Again, I'm no expert, just a newbie. Depending on your medium you can check out this site for nute/ppm help. https://www.------------.com/ppm.
If the link doesn't take you there, I would google "grow weed easy" then once on the site do a search for ppm or nutes or the medium you're growing in for details on both.

How to lower your PPM is probably to flush the plant (basically ph only water). Then making sure the Ph going in and coming out of the plant is within the appropriate levels. I test my PPM after I add my nutes to the water (before watering) and I test the run off water both for PPM and PH. The Ph level lets you know if your plant is even taking in the nutes you're giving it. At least this is my understanding as a newbie, and not an expert. So do your research and let me know what you come up with.

I got my PPM and PH meter after I started seeing problems in my plants flowering stage. At first it looked like nute burn, then tried to remedy that, that didn't help. Then I figured out, it was because I went from growing them in CFLs during veg and some flowering weeks, then removed CFLs and added a 240w LED, and added it a bit too close the plant. That made it even worse. So after talking with the LED company found out, I shouldve introduced the LED in veg stage, not just in the flowering stage, it basically shocked the plant. I also found out from them the light should be higher. So after remedying the light issue, by raising it. It improved a tiny bit. But after more researching more came to realize cal-mag deficiency is an issue in poor soil, like I had, and I had never added it to the plant ever. So I got a PPM & PH meter in the middle of flowering and found out the PH was too high, and the PPM was way too low like 400 give or take a couple of digits. So I suspected cal-mag deficiency and after flushing the plant, making sure the root pH was correct that's when I started slowly adding my Bloom nutes with Cal-mag raising the amount week by week. And the leaves stopped yellowing, just browned a bit. No new leaves came yellow, and the plant has bounced back the best she can considering how many f'ups I did. She's been very forgiving, and I do appreciate that.

I have to say once thing I learned was after reading the sites, I really appeared that I had nute burn, because some leaves were a bit yellowish around the edges not and they were clawing down. But in my gut I just felt that it couldn't be true, cause I was only giving it 1/4tsp of DynoGro Veg nutes per gallon. I believe flushing it actually made the deficiency worse, so I did keep researching the problem to make sure to figure it out. So do your research, take what you read and what people say with a grain of salt, and trust yourself a bit if you're paying attention to her daily and you're tracking what you're giving or doing to her, the info you know is very important. My first grow has very much like a science project, honestly I wasn't expecting to get any bud out of it, I just wanted to learn from any mistakes so when I got my good seeds, wouldn't ruining them too bad, and I would get bud. So even though I will get bud (all be it, small popcorn buds), my new goal for my new grow is to get real size dense buds. Once I nail that, then I will work on quantity. First I want to nail quality.

Lastly check out my journal for the Raspberry Cough in KindSoil. Basically it's a type of soil that you don't have to worry about adding any nutes. The soil at the bottom has everything it requires, when the plants needs something supposedly the roots will reach for the bottom and get what it needs from its soils food source. I hear it's one of the easiest ways to grow. Which is why I'm trying it out. You basically put the KindSoil at the bottom of the pot and CocoLoco mix (or other recommended mediums) on the top and you just water it with 6.5-7 ph water. That's it. I'm doing everything KindSoil's site recommends for that grow. And so far it's a pretty hearty looking plant. So check it out... it might be an idea for the future.

 

[Nulife]

Well I was going to try to stick to a schedule of watering all my girls every Weds with nutes, and Sunday just Ph water, but my girls have other plans apparently. lol They don't seem to be interested in any watering today. They're very perky and the pots still heavy. Though while inspecting this plant, even though she looks perky as hell, I just noticed some very faint yellowing around the edges of about 4 leaves. This plant has about 4-5 nodes and I would say 2 leaves from the 2nd node down from the top are showing signs, opposite of each other. And 2 small leaves at the bottom of the plant.

So welcome to helping me figure out problem solving mystery number 1. lol

I have only given week 1 of the nutes schedule on page1. So she's only had in her life 1tsp of calimagic and that was on the 13th. Today I was going to feed her again with week 2 of nutes but she doesn't look like she needs water/nutes. She's perky and the coco mix is still damp and pot still heavy. I suspect she's having a cal-mag deficiency since I'm growing in coco mix and I know plants require that in this medium. Does anyone have any suggestions or input? And do you think I should feed her today even though she's perky just to give her the nutes she probably needs? But I'm worried about her not getting the oxygen she needs from the pot not drying out a bit.

Last question, what is the difference of yellowing at the tips from yellowing at the edges? Are these the same problem or different problems? Thanks in advance for everyone's help.

Here's the Two upper leaves opposite each other, that are showing slight signs of yellowing...

Here are the 2 lower leaves showing signs of edge yellowing...

Here are 2 over all pictures showing that she's looks perky and happy...

 

[Emilya Green]

I suspect that as Heirloom indicated, you are starting to have problems with calcium and magnesium. The nutes are being supplied, but it is my belief that your pH needs to be more carefully adjusted to allow these nutrients to be mobile and able to be taken up into the plant. The way you are using your coco as if it were soil has implications as to how you adjust your pH and use your nutes. The recommended range on your nutes is 5.5 - 6.3 and I would play with those values a bit, and I am thinking that from your descriptions, you are adjusting your pH too high for a soilless grow. I think that 5.8 would be a good value to shoot for every time in order to make sure that you can uptake these trace elements and I have heard people say that 6.1 is a good place to adjust coco. Remember too that the way you are using this coco, simulating a soil container grow, that there is going to be appreciable pH drift in that container as the soil dries out between waterings. This is why we adjust to the low end, and let the drift take things up into the high end and if you water at 5.8, by the time you needed to water again, the pH inside that rootball would be up need 6.3. Also, make sure that you are adjusting this pH not just for plain water when you give that, but also after you have added your nutes to it.

 

[Emilya Green]

Check out the left side of this chart for your non soil garden. As you can see here, if you water with solutions above 5.8 pH, calcium is not mobile.. if you water with pH much higher than 6.1, you are also going to have troubles picking up the much needed phosphorus, iron, molybdenum and the other trace minerals.

 

[Nulife]

Check out the left side of this chart for your non soil garden. As you can see here, if you water with solutions above 5.8 pH, calcium is not mobile.. if you water with pH much higher than 6.1, you are also going to have troubles picking up the much needed phosphorus, iron, molybdenum and the other trace minerals.

Wow this is amazing help. I get it. OK, I will definitely work on the ph more, I really thought it was in the right range, but I will see if lowering it more helps. Do you think I should give nutes every time I water, or should I stick to the nute schedule I originally posted with nutes one day and just ph water another day, so on and so on? Lastly do you think I should water today giving it nutes, even though she seems perky?

 

[Emilya Green]

Wow this is amazing help. I get it. OK, I will definitely work on the ph more, I really thought it was in the right range, but I will see if lowering it more helps. Do you think I should give nutes every time I water, or should I stick to the nute schedule I originally posted with nutes one day and just ph water another day, so on and so on? Lastly do you think I should water today giving it nutes, even though she seems perky?

I can't think of any reason to starve your plants half of the time. Your nutes are designed for hydro systems, where they are getting nutes full time, so use your nutes as designed. Feed your plants. When you change feeding mixes for the different stages of growth, flush one time in between with properly adjusted water. Some people like the Lucas method too... you might want to investigate what that means as far as giving nutes.

Regarding watering today... only you know if she is ready. Perky usually means for me that they are in full transpiration and really trying hard to get the very last water out of the container. "Perky" doesn't necessarily mean the same as "happy", I equate it more with the plant being "very busy" and "xylem water pressure at maximum." It is my experience that this "perky" look happens near the end of every wet/dry cycle, and it is an indication that watering time is near... but not quite yet there. You have been having good luck by letting her dry to light weight and not aerating your mixes... I see no reason to change what is working for you now. If it is time to water, then by all means give her some nutes, and again as Heirloom said, get out that Calmag... you could use a supplement of calcium at this point. I think that your biggest problem is pH however, not lack of nutrition. If your plants were starving for macronutrients they would be looking yellow and you would be losing leaves down low. This is not that... this is a specific element deficiency for now.

 

[willymac22]

May I ask what kind of light did you have yours under? Did you grow one or multiple? And how much bud (weight) did you harvest from one plant?

I only have a quiet small 200w Lux grow LED its ok for one plant, not enough for 2. I grew 2 plants the first time. One of my plants sprouted earlier and was much stronger so it grew a lot bigger and cos I didn't have much room in my tent it shaded it the smaller one all the way through flower.
I just added in a few homemade warm white cfl lights to help with the spots that weren't getting much light, made a big difference!

I never actually weighed the bud that I got for some reason, guess I was just too excited to smoke it. If I was to guess I would say4 to 5 ounces but that's a very uneducated guess, not great at judging the weight.






May I ask what you think you did wrong beside over nutes?

PPMs should be high in the flowering stage I believe, if you adding them slowly week from week, but I also believe you should be giving it just ph water every other nute feeding. Again, I'm no expert, just a newbie. Depending on your medium you can check out this site for nute/ppm help. https://www.------------.com/ppm.
If the link doesn't take you there, I would google "grow weed easy" then once on the site do a search for ppm or nutes or the medium you're growing in for details on both.

How to lower your PPM is probably to flush the plant (basically ph only water). Then making sure the Ph going in and coming out of the plant is within the appropriate levels. I test my PPM after I add my nutes to the water (before watering) and I test the run off water both for PPM and PH. The Ph level lets you know if your plant is even taking in the nutes you're giving it. At least this is my understanding as a newbie, and not an expert. So do your research and let me know what you come up with.

I got my PPM and PH meter after I started seeing problems in my plants flowering stage. At first it looked like nute burn, then tried to remedy that, that didn't help. Then I figured out, it was because I went from growing them in CFLs during veg and some flowering weeks, then removed CFLs and added a 240w LED, and added it a bit too close the plant. That made it even worse. So after talking with the LED company found out, I shouldve introduced the LED in veg stage, not just in the flowering stage, it basically shocked the plant. I also found out from them the light should be higher. So after remedying the light issue, by raising it. It improved a tiny bit. But after more researching more came to realize cal-mag deficiency is an issue in poor soil, like I had, and I had never added it to the plant ever. So I got a PPM & PH meter in the middle of flowering and found out the PH was too high, and the PPM was way too low like 400 give or take a couple of digits. So I suspected cal-mag deficiency and after flushing the plant, making sure the root pH was correct that's when I started slowly adding my Bloom nutes with Cal-mag raising the amount week by week. And the leaves stopped yellowing, just browned a bit. No new leaves came yellow, and the plant has bounced back the best she can considering how many f'ups I did. She's been very forgiving, and I do appreciate that.

I have to say once thing I learned was after reading the sites, I really appeared that I had nute burn, because some leaves were a bit yellowish around the edges not and they were clawing down. But in my gut I just felt that it couldn't be true, cause I was only giving it 1/4tsp of DynoGro Veg nutes per gallon. I believe flushing it actually made the deficiency worse, so I did keep researching the problem to make sure to figure it out. So do your research, take what you read and what people say with a grain of salt, and trust yourself a bit if you're paying attention to her daily and you're tracking what you're giving or doing to her, the info you know is very important. My first grow has very much like a science project, honestly I wasn't expecting to get any bud out of it, I just wanted to learn from any mistakes so when I got my good seeds, wouldn't ruining them too bad, and I would get bud. So even though I will get bud (all be it, small popcorn buds), my new goal for my new grow is to get real size dense buds. Once I nail that, then I will work on quantity. First I want to nail quality.

Lastly check out my journal for the Raspberry Cough in KindSoil. Basically it's a type of soil that you don't have to worry about adding any nutes. The soil at the bottom has everything it requires, when the plants needs something supposedly the roots will reach for the bottom and get what it needs from its soils food source. I hear it's one of the easiest ways to grow. Which is why I'm trying it out. You basically put the KindSoil at the bottom of the pot and CocoLoco mix (or other recommended mediums) on the top and you just water it with 6.5-7 ph water. That's it. I'm doing everything KindSoil's site recommends for that grow. And so far it's a pretty hearty looking plant. So check it out... it might be an idea for the future.[/QUOTE]

 

[willymac22]

4 weeks veg should be plenty, flowering takes forever as its sativa dominant and as its you first grow you not going to want to wait nearly 4 months til you can get some bud.
Apart from giving it too much nutes I made a few more mistakes. I had no tap in my reservoir so I had no way to empty the water from it this is what contributed to nutrient build up and a big mission at the end to actually drain the water when I nearly killed them.

So this time I have installed a tap/valve on one side and I have the reservoir elevated so I can fit a bucket under the tap, makes life so much easier.
I can now test much easier and empty the tank without disturbing the plants.

 

[willymac22]

I relation to the PH and PPMs. I have always stayed on top of the ph with regards to the water thats one thing I knew from the start. One thing I did learn was to make sure that the meter is properly calibrated.
I get the guys in my local hydro shop to calibrate mine and the last time I took it in it was reading way too high. Not sure how long it was like that but when I got home and tested my water it was a 3.0, so make sure you keep on top of that!

 

[Nulife]

You Rock Emilya, I will definitely tweak the Ph better, thank you so much for the chart you gave me, that made it very clear for me. I totally get what you're saying about the perky vs happy vs busy, good point. I think I'm going to water today like planned and adjust the ph properly, and see if that helps before next watering Sunday. If it doesn't help I will nute again on Sunday not just Ph water.

Again,

 

[willymac22]

I never bothered with an ec or ppm meter in my first grow, which was another mistake. Turns out its a must have for a dwc grow and I would have never given it too much nutes if I was measuring the ppm. Another lesson learned.
You mentioned that you give it plain water every other time. I think the only way of checking if it needs more is by testing the ppm, so I would recommend investing in a good ppm meter.
I never had any cali mag for my first grow either which was another mistake. There was a lot of brown spots on the leaves. The plant still produced but I imagine that the size and quality was affected and it probably slowed down the growth.

If you are looking for real big dense buds then I would recommend looking into defoliation. Only once flowering has started though there are some that will say defoliate in veg but I don't think so.
The only reason your removing leaves is to get lights to the flowers/buds and in veg the leaves are doing all the work soaking up all the light, they are the plants solar panels after all.
As a new grower you do need too be careful with defoliation, when taking fan leaves from the top near the buds only take one at a time from each cola so as to not stress the plant too much, another mistake I made, not the end of the world if you do it just slows it down.
The first time you defoliate you probably only want to take about 6-8 big fan leaves, only ones that are shading the flowers to let soome light get to them.
On your second you could do more and definetly clean up the bottom of the plant as the light will not reach down there and any buds that grow will not develop into anything worth while, all they will do is drain nutes from the top buds.
You would probably want to clear all growth from the bottom 3rd of the plant seems like a lot and once you start seeing buds form down there its hard to get rid of them but its for the best.

 

[Nulife]

I never bothered with an ec or ppm meter in my first grow, which was another mistake. Turns out its a must have for a dwc grow and I would have never given it too much nutes if I was measuring the ppm. Another lesson learned.
You mentioned that you give it plain water every other time. I think the only way of checking if it needs more is by testing the ppm, so I would recommend investing in a good ppm meter.
I never had any cali mag for my first grow either which was another mistake. There was a lot of brown spots on the leaves. The plant still produced but I imagine that the size and quality was affected and it probably slowed down the growth.

If you are looking for real big dense buds then I would recommend looking into defoliation. Only once flowering has started though there are some that will say defoliate in veg but I don't think so.
The only reason your removing leaves is to get lights to the flowers/buds and in veg the leaves are doing all the work soaking up all the light, they are the plants solar panels after all.
As a new grower you do need too be careful with defoliation, when taking fan leaves from the top near the buds only take one at a time from each cola so as to not stress the plant too much, another mistake I made, not the end of the world if you do it just slows it down.
The first time you defoliate you probably only want to take about 6-8 big fan leaves, only ones that are shading the flowers to let soome light get to them.
On your second you could do more and definetly clean up the bottom of the plant as the light will not reach down there and any buds that grow will not develop into anything worth while, all they will do is drain nutes from the top buds.
You would probably want to clear all growth from the bottom 3rd of the plant seems like a lot and once you start seeing buds form down there its hard to get rid of them but its for the best.

Good advice. I did try defoliating in my first grow, and it definitely stunted my plant. I believe I was defoliating too much too fast.

 

[Nulife]

4 weeks veg should be plenty, flowering takes forever as its sativa dominant and as its you first grow you not going to want to wait nearly 4 months til you can get some bud.
Apart from giving it too much nutes I made a few more mistakes. I had no tap in my reservoir so I had no way to empty the water from it this is what contributed to nutrient build up and a big mission at the end to actually drain the water when I nearly killed them.

So this time I have installed a tap/valve on one side and I have the reservoir elevated so I can fit a bucket under the tap, makes life so much easier.
I can now test much easier and empty the tank without disturbing the plants.

Awww you did hydro, yea that's a different beast. lol May I ask how did you install a tap value? And have you found any leaking issues? I plan to do a top-fed dwc next. I was planning to use the water pump already in the tank for the manifold to pump out the water into a bucket. By just popping off the manifold, and connecting a longer 3/16" out 1/4" inner tube to suck on the water with the same same pump since it's already in the tank. It seemed to work flawlessly, in my test run.

 

[Emilya Green]

I have never been a fan of defoliation, knowing that after the deed, a long recovery time is needed. I have found that it is a whole lot less trouble to use LST and topping to create just as complex of a plant, in just about the same amount of time. I veg for 2 months or even a bit longer accomplishing this task, and I am confident that my plants produce similarly to a defoliated plant, with a whole lot less effort on my part.

There are as many ways to grow this weed as there are gardeners. Some people enjoy defoliation; I simply consider that to be extra work, sort of like running a SCROG, where you have to work extra hard for a few weeks for an added gain in production. Everyone should try these methods to learn how workable this plant is and to what extremes you can go in shaping her, but I have learned that there are much easier and more time efficient ways to accomplish the same things.

 

[Nulife]

7/20/16 Veg Stage Week 2 - I decided to water her today, but I adjusted the ph level since checking out the chart Emilya posted. I decided to keep to the nutes schedule but adjust ph so the plant can take in more of what she needs, then I'll see if that changes anything after I water again on Sunday with just ph water.

Today I did Week2 of the nutes mix schedule. ph in 5.68 out 5.74 - PPM in 835 out 2450

Not sure why the PPM is so high on the runoff. Especially since I give nutes every other watering. I'm going to assume it's because my ph was a bit too high at 6.3 previously. But I've also read that you're not suppose to test ppm for runoff on coco coir mixes. So if anyone has any in put, please chime in.

 

[Emilya Green]

Of course the ppm and the pH of the runoff is different... it just percolated through the entire container, picking up dissolved solids as it went. I have never measured my runoff... I see no reason to do it, nor do I see a correlation to anything that matters in that measurement. Just make sure your incoming fluids are at the right ppm and pH, and you will be fine.

 

[Nulife]

Of course the ppm and the pH of the runoff is different... it just percolated through the entire container, picking up dissolved solids as it went. I have never measured my runoff... I see no reason to do it, nor do I see a correlation to anything that matters in that measurement. Just make sure your incoming fluids are at the right ppm and pH, and you will be fine.

Thank you that confirms what I've have read, but wanted to be sure. I'm happy to have one less thing to worry about or track. lol

 

[Nulife]

7/23/16 - Veg Stage Week 3 - Decided to FIM and I lowered the light to 32"

 

[Nulife]

7/24/16 - Veg Week 3 - Water Day no Nutes - ph 5.75 in 5.90 out