12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HPS

[TheFertilizer]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

I am on my second round of BBk and i figured out that they like a big pot to stretch out their roots their light eaters, and light drinkers, their stems and branches naturally go purple in flower and when the avg temperature is to low. She will grow in less than ideal conditions though and still put out some good bud mine never thrived until the avg temps were in the mid 80s

Thanks man that's some good info. I have been keeping it sub 80 so I might let that creep up a little. I am going to try putting them in 3 gallon pots.

 

[redmud]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Im growing outdoors this round I'll get some pics for you of my stems and branches we had two weeks of low 70s and 60s for high temps even the leaves started to purple, now were up to 92 today the last week she has grown fast and she is loving it the older branches and stems are all purple and the all the new growth is green.

 

[Far East Buds]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Im growing outdoors this round I'll get some pics for you of my stems and branches we had two weeks of low 70s and 60s for high temps even the leaves started to purple, now were up to 92 today the last week she has grown fast and she is loving it the older branches and stems are all purple and the all the new growth is green.

I forget are you running CO2? those temps sound painful. I never let mine hit above 80 if possible. I don't run 12/12. I do run alot of strains but none of those. Anyway. I think your issue is not what the plant is lacking and trying to correct it.. The k etc. I bet it is root/PH etc based. When the plant is able to take stuff back in then i bet it will get all it needs from feedings. Roots can only really be checked dryer than wet. so you could dry them again and check it. The pots are not too small though. If they where you could tell by how quickly they would dry. Get them roots/intake figured out and things will rocket. Just my non knowledgeable info.



FE

 

[redmud]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

I forget are you running CO2? those temps sound painful. I never let mine hit above 80 if possible. I don't run 12/12. I do run alot of strains but none of those. Anyway. I think your issue is not what the plant is lacking and trying to correct it.. The k etc. I bet it is root/PH etc based. When the plant is able to take stuff back in then i bet it will get all it needs from feedings. Roots can only really be checked dryer than wet. so you could dry them again and check it. The pots are not too small though. If they where you could tell by how quickly they would dry. Get them roots/intake figured out and things will rocket. Just my non knowledgeable info.



FE

Nope just what i have observed while growing the same strain. I'm outdoor right now but i love the smoke so i will be growing it again this fall you can bet my target temp will be around 82.
I'm pretty new but you can look back at my journal and observe for yourself I'm no pro but i have excellent deductive reasoning and comprehension skills. So last month we had a stint of 2 weeks in the mid 80's she grew fast and green then we had 2 weeks of 60's and 70's she wilted and started to show stress now we are in the 90's and she is a superstar and so maybe tell me whats the weather like in the Hindu Kush mountains i read they can hit temps of over 120 degrees, altitude makes a difference but with the lowlands at 120 85 in the mountains sounds pretty cool, how did the strain ever survive to make it to my garden in that heat.
I kept my indoor grow around the, 75 degree mark as well and had a lackluster BBK that had problems the whole time.
Even though i had a small plant when i was potting up the others i went ahead and did my BBK at the same time and every time even though smaller and by casual observance most would say she didn't need to be potted up, she had more roots than the others and was begging for more room again just actual observance of the strain. Treat them as individuals and give them what they ask for after you learn to read them is what i have been trying to practice
I have two Kush strains growing and they both love the heat the other two strains do not at all.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Any idea what your humidity levels were? I don't know about the Frankenberry but I think the Platinum Girl Scout Cookies should be able to handle higher temps, being OG Kush and Durban Poison.

It's kind of interesting though for a while my Platinum Girl Scout Cookies looked heat stressed while temperature wasn't even getting over 79.

I am going to check the root balls tonight, hopefully I see good things. I am thinking perhaps I should try to leach out the soil, I don't think I have wheen feeding heavy but maybe there's a buildup of something.

 

[Greenethumb42]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

I wouldn't be to concerned about the red stems..mine did the same thing..My Blackberry Kush got really big..1 plant 300 watts cfl 170 grams..I veged for 5 weeks and 11 flower

 

[TheFertilizer]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Well I checked the roots and they look okay. Then I cursed myself because I dropped a bunch of dirt on the pistils and newly firming buds Anyway they all seemed really dry and I foliar fed earlier in the day and they had perked up so I gave them nutrients and water.

I did... 5 mL/G Flora Nova Bloom 4-8-7
5 mL/G Crystal Burst 0-15-15
2.5 mL/G Armor Si 0-0-4

Oh I did notice that the stems seem really soft. I accidentally lifted one of the plants into my light hood, it felt like it barley tapped it but then when I looked at the top it was bent over and the stalk felt like gumby!

Think I might have figured out why they look droopy. The stems are weak

Here's some pics. I really hate the pot weight method. The PGSC fell just as light to me clearly they were not. I just can't judge weigh very well in general I guess. Oh well at least the other ones look better. I am liking this leaves pointing pointing up!

 

[Major PITA]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

For tougher stems you could try adding more cal-mag. Calcium and potassium make for stronger growth - especially calcium. But the plant will grab potassium first over the calcium and it sounds like they are getting plenty of 'K'.

The top(s) of the plant(s) in the last two photos look great! If the rest of the plants had that posture, you'd know things are firing on all cylinders.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

For tougher stems you could try adding more cal-mag. Calcium and potassium make for stronger growth - especially calcium. But the plant will grab potassium first over the calcium and it sounds like they are getting plenty of 'K'.

The top(s) of the plant(s) in the last two photos look great! If the rest of the plants had that posture, you'd know things are firing on all cylinders.

Yeah I learned something today too, apparently the tops will pick back up before the bottom of the plant. I just went in to check humidity and they're all looking great now. I guess it makes sense the smaller leaves would recover faster since there's less mass there.

I am trying to kick that humidity up a little bit and trying out keeping them in the low 80s as redmud suggested. I soaked a towel and rung it out and hung it in there, it's at 34%. I would turn my fan down but that's a whole different matter...

I am thinking I am just going to skip the 3 gallon pots this go around. I mean I am on disability and already total broke this month, have maybe 9 gallons of soil and 5 pots. So I think I could get away with up potting three, but then I have no trays for the run off and kind of like the tidiness I achieved. Then at the end of that I am wondering if it would stress the plant too much and delay flowering or if there would even be more root and vegetative growth at this point. That's a lot of reasons not to for the (small?) chance it would significantly increase my yield.

So I think next time I will...

Start in 3 gallon pots
Begin feeding them Silica earlier in life
Make a "ghost pot" to have a reference for how light a dry pot is

Edit: screw it might as well add more pics

Even the weird looking BBK is doing better. I wonder why it looks so much different than the rest. Different phenotype maybe?

 

[Major PITA]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

I think you made the right decision. The plants are small enough that I doubt extra soil would make much difference in final yield.

 

[redmud]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Sorry everyone about the rant its best anyway to make small changes one at a time. I cant remember accurately the humidity but i remember that it dropped to the mid twenties for the last two weeks of flower and i had spikes to 60%during veg. Sorry again to everyone

 

[TheFertilizer]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Huh ranting? Anyway of you mean your last post that's all good, I mean 80 percent of this journal is just me blabbing lol

I got my new fan today. Looks to be high quality compared to the Apollo and the Ventech, yet it cost less. I mean time will tell but I think I will be recommending SPL fans in the future. It's built real well from what a casual glance can reveal and even seems to have gone through a QC inspection so that's a huge plus. Only downside is that that it doesn't have a controller built in like the Apollo. I guess I ran that one full blast most of the time anyway, but it was nice to have. I started with mounting on the wall because the instructions made a big deal about not putting it where it could vibrate, so I downloaded a vibration meter for my tablet to read the accelerometer, anyway it turns out it vibrates less on the table than mounted to the wall. Anyway see? Blah blah blah lol

I do have to toot my own horn for thinking of using the furnace vent to hook the exhaust up to. Even though a portion of it goes into my living room, it really helps circulste air around my house and so by a happy accident it's been wayyyyyy cooler in here than it ever has been before. Been 100+ F outside and I haven't had a problem staying comfortable with two little 5k BTU window ACs. I am actually kind of wondering how long I will try to keep it at 80 in the tent, because I kind of don't like the ambient air to be that warm.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Well the hooked tips are back. I think it might have to do with low temperature. The weather around here is crazy lately, a high of 104 yesterday but today it's 73. I had wanted to try to keep the temperature up by keeping the AC off but most I could accomplish today was 75, and I can't sleep in a hot room so I turned it on last night and aparently I am a polar bear because I had it at 66. The bad thing is that my lights are on at night at off during the day, I did this to try to avoid using electricity while I was awake. The problem is their dark cycle is staying hotter than their light cycle. So I think I just need to keep the AC on at day and try to keep it consistent rather than try to get it into the 80s. I am not sure if the wet towel helps at all, but it was bone dry this morning so I soaked it and put it back in. At least the PGSC in the middle is looking nicer, the one in the upper left corner is stretching a lot and still showing me it's unhappiness with being watered too soon.

I think next time around I am going to do all BBK so I can try to keep conditions warm for it, and then do all PGSC, because they seem to like different environments.

The Frankenberry is looking pretty good, stretching out and she needs it, she's got a lot of growth bunched up together. I think I am going to have to prune some away but I am waiting to see where flowers are going to show up. There's a big fan leaf on the side that's shading like 3 tops that I might get rid of, but the tops are in some really spindly side branches so I am thinking of just cutting them instead.

Loving the progress on the 3 front BBK plants though. Bigger Bertha and Big Bertha are about the same size now but Bigger Bertha has more side branching. Ol Red Stems seems to have no branching going on at all, going to be one fat cola by the looks of it.

Upper left hand corner is a PGSC, the middle is a PGSC and the upper right hand corner is Frankenberry. The rest are BBK. The BBK are the only ones hooking tips this time, so couple that with whst redmud was telling me, I think maybe they dislike the cold temps. They didn't seem hooked yesterday when in the early 80s.

Oh, I am think of trying a diminishing light cycle since I already went from 12/12 to 11/13. So on the 18th, if the younger ones are showing bigger flower development, I will start 10.5/13.5 and diminish lighting by half an hour every two weeks. I have heard this really encourages resin development. My only hesitation is that while it promotes resin growth by making the plant think it's going to run out of light, I dunno if this will encourage any hermaphroditism too. I think I am just going to chance it though, because with plants this small and as often as I check them I think I should be able to catch any banners, and then I'll have pollen!

Frankenberry

Bigger Bertha

Big Bertha

Ol Red Stems

 

[Major PITA]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP


Looking good, TF!
Nice and tidy tent you got there.

 

[redmud]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

I have to agree they look nice. good insight about creating conditions favorable to a single strain at a time. The Lunar Landing pheno I'm growing does not like it over 80 at all i popped a bunch of seeds of LL that i cultivated and now i found two Lunar landing seedlings that liked the heat so i might try to breed a pair that likes heat to grow along side BBK since in combo they really help me to relax ease pain and sleep.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Ugh well I knew something would have to go wrong. I went and checked on them and for some reason my ballast didn't fire the bulb up, so they had been in the dark for almost 2 hours longer than they should have been. At first I thought maybe the HPS burnt out, and I tried the MH and it fired up but I have had a problem with this ballast not firing before so I unplugged it and put the HPS back in and it fired up. %/&$#%!

I don't know why it does that. Before I thought it was a problem with the grounding because my hood would shock me sometimes, but I fixed that and it didn't happen for a long time until now. I did notice that when I plugged my ballast back in with the female end going into the ballast versus the male end going into the wall, that it shocked me! I don't have grounded plugs so I have to run it on a power bar with the third prong removed otherwise the ballast won't turn on because it senses there's no ground.

I don't know what I'm gonna do now. I guess I gotta check that the light came on every night now. :-(

Does anyone know if any ballasts that don't have this stupid ground fault sensing? Maybe a magnetic one instead of a digital?

Looking like I won't be able to grow again if it's going to keep doing this crap

 

[millertm]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

HPS use pulse start, it could be your starter going out. MH don't use one. If you're MH starts but HPS is intermittent it could be an issue.

Cheers

Sent from my SPH-L720T using 420

 

[TheFertilizer]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

HPS use pulse start, it could be your starter going out. MH don't use one. If you're MH starts but HPS is intermittent it could be an issue.

Cheers

Sent from my SPH-L720T using 420

Well I did switch to HPS pretty recently, but I was using it for the first couple weeks before I noticed stretching and I didn't have any problems then, but I switched back to MH for a bit until 5 days ago :/

Should the socket make a grinding noise when turning the bulb in at all? Like maybe the ceramic is cracked or something, it just sounds and feels gritty. I think I might have over tightened the ground screw when fixing the grounding issue on the hood. I am not really sure how to check without further screwing up the light schedule.

 

[Far East Buds]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

Another option is one of those 99 cent plugs that you use a copper wire to ground the adapter plug and plug your strip into that. If that is indeed the issue.
Keep your chin up. There will be issues for a grow or two until you are dialed in. Weather the storm. Learn learn learn and things will smooth out..



FE

 

[millertm]

Re: 12/12 Bag Seed - Blackberry Kush - Frankenberry - Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HP

I'd get a new bulb then. No, it should not grind. These are electronic bombs if handled rough. Any crack or air leak into bulb is going to cause failure. I did not catch when you said your bulb was suspect, that makes more sense then ballast loosing it's pulse starter.

Cheers

Sent from my SPH-L720T using 420