1st Medical Grow, 3 Strains in 2x4 Hydrohut

[Icemud]

Re: 1st Medical Grow, 3 strains in 2x4 hydrohut..

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read/check out my 1st grow attempt!!! I very much appreciate the love!!

Crower, the purpose of a SCROG or Screen of Green is to assist in training your plants to grow there full size, or closer to it, without having to have a huge tent, high ceilings ect.... It is a great way for people like myself who have limited space but want to maximize the yield and utilize all available space in the tent or grow op. Basically what you do is let the plants grow up thru the screen a few inches, then you pull the branch/stem back thru the screen and stretch it out as far as it will go. What this will do is a few things. First it will allow your plants to grow really bushy and stretch out wide, instead of growing tall and lanky and making you raise your lights, which in turn will lower there intensity every inch they protrude away from your plants. For instance, and these numbers aren't correct, but for example, a 600w HPS will put out about 90,000 lumen's, at 8" away from the plant, the plant is receiving something like 60,000 lumen,s of light, but when you pull the light away another 12" you are reducing the light to somewhere around only 18,000 lumens or somthing, and it keeps going down drasticly depending on the distance away from your plants....(see inverse square law)

So with that in mind, when you spread your plants out wide, instead of tall, you are able to bring the light closer to more percentage of the plant, therefore giving it more light to grow and bud. 2ndly the SCROG method will allow all the lower bud sites, nodes and fan leaves to receive more lighting because the top canopy is not shading the lower levels as much because the plant is being constantly stretched out. What this in turn will do is instead of having just a few top's or cola's for each plant, you can turn this into many top's cola's and have a full screen of nugs.....

Here are some links I found valuable for SCROG methods.....

Screen Of Green (SCROG) Grow Box. How to grow marijuana using the screen of green method.

YouTube - ‪Stretching the scrog‬‏

https://forum.---------.com/plant-training/48363-scrog-method.html

 

[Icemud]

Re: 1st Medical Grow, 3 strains in 2x4 hydrohut..

Sexykushmama...thanks for the recommendation on the Azamax! I have read many great things about that product and will definitely keep it in mind for future grows. Sorry to hear about your thrip infestation but glad you got it under control. I still haven't seen any more gnats or any other pests so the mosquito dunks really worked like they should have and the neem spraying and also spraying of Safer "End All" seemed to work great, minus me being stupid and frying the leaves by spraying during the light period...duh...lol

Thanks Bambee for taking the time to check out my grow and for your positive encouragement!!! I can't wait until I cut the lights and see my ladies showing off there goods!!! lol sounds dirty...hahaha

Zigzag...glad you were able to check out my grow and I am so glad that everyone says I am doing well on my 1st time....thanks for your positive comments and I hope I don't let you guys down!

anyone thats local to OC can come try them, when there done!! (medical cards only!! )

 

[Icemud]

Throughout the day I kept an eye on the ladies to see there reaction to the feeding with the coconut water and they really seemed to like the feeding. Many new sprouts of leaves popped thru and the existing leaves all showed a sign of health per say...I looked at how the branches were growing and left the plants alone for the most part, but my front right Blue Dragon seemed really bushy and bunched up so I decided to give a few of the stronger outside lower branches some LST to help position them for where I want them to stretch to.
This really opened up the inside of the plant to a ton of light so I imagine the next few days may be very interesting. I also have noticed as the days go by, the plants seem to be recovering more and more from the neem light burn which I am very happy about!! I am hoping at this rate I may be able to switch the lights within a week from today...lets see...Before closing up the tent for the night and the lights went off I mixed up a folier spray to assist in washing any existing neem off the leaves as well as feeding them with things I have found they like.
I mixed up 2 1/2 cups of distilled water with about 1 ml of each...just did a drop of each of the following: hygrowzyme, europonic humic acid, earth juice catalyst, general organics bio weed (algae). I checked the ppms and they were low so after a little ph up the mix sat nicely at 6.2ph and 150ppm. I sprayed the tops of the leaves fairly good and gave a mild upward spray to the bottoms as well. I turned up the humidity as high as I could after foliar feeding, I was reading when done just as the lights turn off with higher humidity the leaves will keep more
stomata open longer to "breathe" therefore you will have a better uptake of the foliar spray. I did this and cranked up my fans as well as gave a good shake to my 3 co2 bottles and closed up the tent for the night. Lets see tomorrow how much they have changed.

 

[bambee]

You're welcome! I'm excited to read more about your coconut water, it was very interesting to me when you wrote about adding it to your mix. Glad to hear the girls seem to be responding to it nicely!

 

[Icemud]

May 16th...

Took a look at the ladies this morning and shot some photos. Wow, overnight they really seemed to respond to yesterdays feeding as well as the light foliar spray at night. My University Hill's OG's are continuing to stretch up almost a 1" or 2 a day, very long regions between the nodes and budsites, which from viewing the video on youtube of the mother of this clone, it seems to be characteristic of this strain. (here is the video of the mothers from YouTube - Blue Dragon, University Hills OG, Socaldam OG, Holly Grail OG, Chocolope c6, Donkey Smurf Kush ) My 2 middle chembands are also showing explosive growth, the back one is really bushing out and showing many future budsites, counted at least 16 tops!! The front chemband is the one that has been the most abused/stunted of all of the plants and it too has really shown many new growths overnight. My blue dragons, well, all I can say is they just keep getting wider and taller and are growing like weeds....lol ....um wait a minute... They are also featured in the above video of where there mothers are... I still was able to pick up the pots slightly and wow, they really sucked up a lot of water overnight. My blue dragon felt almost 60% wet and my front chemband, which was the one that was drawing least amount of water felt about 70% wet. I wanted to really start getting the microheard ready for flowering, so I mixed up a very very simple batch of distilled water...only 3/4 a gallon, about 2ml of hygrowzyme, 3ml of humic acid, and a drop of Earthjuice Micro, and then adjusted the mix to 6.3ph, ppm was only at 230 after ph adjustment... I fed each of the plants only 2-3 cups of water, making sure to concentrate most on the inner 3/4 of the pot to avoid it just slipping down the sides, and slowly added it while I watched where it saturated making sure to cover all of the soil from middle to side of pots slowly. There was no runoff because of the light amount of water and the plants seemed to perk up even more, but showing now negative signs such as curling or sagging!! So far recovery is going awesome!! I think my goal of flowering next weekend might be reached!!

Anyways...here is some photos of the ladies today in all there beauty!!

 

[Icemud]

A full tent view as of this morning

My University Hill's OG's,

My Chemband's

My Blue Dragon's

Another full tent view running both lights, gallons on bottom are Cheap CO2 production

A flat view of the tent and SCROG

Photo a little later in the day.

 

[bambee]

Oooh!! The girls are starting to look very nice! I still can't get over your tent set up It's so awesome looking with your SCROG. Hopefully you reach your goal for flowering next week! I look forward to reading the rest of your updates.

 

[Icemud]

This afternoon I checked on my ladies....paying close attention to the front left University OG and the front middle chemband. This morning when I posted the pictures, I noticed that the new growths on these two looked a little more lime green than they should, see photos...(from what I have read new growth will tend to be a little lighter than older leaves, but not as extreme as mine are showing). Last time this happened I found out it was a ph issue with the soil being too high.

There was a little run off from earlier today so I decided to check it as well as use my cheap soil testers I bought from Home Depot. (the kind with 2 and 3 prongs and a gauge that checks moisture, ph, and light. The other checks ph and fertility). On not only the 2 soil gauges but the runoff was a bit higher than cannabis plants liking. My runoff and gauges were showing a soil ph of 7.8 which for me is too high but expected by how the leaves were acting. I know I already watered a little today but I need to bring that down.

I mixed up a batch of 1 gallon distilled water, 2 tablespoons of sulphured molassass, 20 ml of Earthjuice grow, 10ml of humic acid and my other secret ingredient which I know is low ph "naked green machine" fruit smoothy. I read somewhere that when fruits are broken down, they typically will run on the acidic side so my overall goal of lowering the soil ph with common sense hopefully will work. The ph of the mix was way low..4.2ph so I added some spring water which has a low concentration of minerals and a high ph of around 8. I added about a half gallon hoping to raise the ph and it did, but it was still sitting at around 4.8ph. I wanted to give them nutrients somewhere around 5.2 (way lower than usual feedings but to counteract the soil I figured this should knock it down at least .5 closer to the acidic range.) I fed the plants, including all 6 because since 2 were showing signs, I expect that the rest will follow since they are all fed the same nutrients, same soil and only difference is the strain. After soaking the soil with all the 1 1/2 gallons of mixture, i tested the runoff and it was sitting at 6.8-7.0 for all of the pots.....whew.... brought it down quite a bit, still would like it to sit lower in the 6.6 range but I will take 6.8 over 7.8ph anyday..... lets hope they thank me for all the care in the end!!

 

[Icemud]

Question....love to hear everyone's opinion. I am within 1-2 weeks from flipping over to a 12/12 light regiment and would like to know, from seeing my setup and pics....would it be beneficial for me to re-pot my plants from the current 3 gallon pots to somthing larger like 5 gallon pots? If I do this will it add any additional days to my veg period? Also, would this cause a noticeable difference in yield?

 

[SexyKushMomma]

Bigger roots, bigger yields We had a noticeable growth after switching our girls from 3 to 5 gallons. I don't think you would need to add any additional days to your veg period since you said you were still 1-2 weeks from flowering. Seems like a reasonable amount of time to recover. Watering with B52 after transplanting also speeds up recovery time and helps them adjust. We also used voodoo juice right after flowering to help expand the root system so we get a larger yield and sturdier plant. I don't know much about scrog screens, but I am looking forward to learning from your journal.
BTW lovin' the Blue Dragons!

 

[ChicagoJoe]

To maximize your efforts of re-potting, you should let the roots full extend into the new soil before flipping. If you do re-pot, you might have a short recovery period followed by an growth explosion.

Also, most people fill up their screen to about 75% full before flipping the lights. Then the next couple weeks of stretch should help fill the rest.

Good luck. It looks sweet.

 

[Crower619]

I wouldn't stress on transplanting them into bigger pots yes it will make a little difference in yield but its really up to you I have my ladies in 3 gals an dont even bother trying to mess with them after 3 weeks into veg kind of funny were pretty much on the same schedule I'm 18 days into veg

 

[Icemud]

Hey, thanks everyone for your comments about re-potting my ladies. I still haven't fully decided if I am going to re-pot and have a few more days that I can finalize my decision, but I am leaning against re-potting this round.

Since I am doing the SCROG and I am near the point where I want them to be, I am deciding to just leave them alone and keep up with there steadily increasing growth. I do agree with everyone, larger pots, larger plants but from what I read, the general rule is 1gal = 12" or so. So I am figuring 3 gal, 3 foot plants, which should be fine because right now I am at about 18" plants, and since there supposed to double to triple during flower, I think I am in the clear this time. Next time around though, I will most likely be doing 5 gallon pots, really I guess we will see this round.

Yesterday, May 17th I did a little more pruning/trimming of the old/damaged leaf burn fan's just to clean up the underbrush as well as keep any infections/molds from moving in. Any fans that were more than 50% discolored were removed, there were not very many. ( I would say maybe about 15 fans total out of all the plants were removed.)

I also noticed that my 3 gallon pots had a good 1" to 2" of unused space between the top of the pot and the soil(on each of the pots), so I mixed up some fresh soil to fill in this space. ( I filled up one 3 gallon pot with about 50% Happy Frog potting soil, 20% earthworm casings, 10% organic mulch, 10 perlite, and about 10% Jamaican bat guano and just a splash of peruvian seabird guano. I filled each of the pots to the top, gently packing the soil down, not pushing hard because that eliminates the available air from the soil. I added a good amount of the Jamaican bat guano because now I am near flowering and the JBG is full of potassium and phosphorus.

Other than this, I didn't do much else to the ladies besides add more sugar to each of the "poor mans CO2" bottles. From what I read, a yeast, water, and sugar CO2 production needs to constantly be fed sugar to keep producing. I added about a cup of sugar per container, gave them a lil shake and closed up the tent.

 

[Icemud]

Here are the photo's from May 17th and 18th
May 17th full view

May 18th full View

May 18th University Hill's OG

May 18th Chemband's

May 18th Blue Dragons

May 18th Full View

 

[kingredeye]

hey Icemud very nice first setup man. serious. this entire journal and your process is very amazing and you have it down to a science already. good job man. as to your question should you get a bigger pot to trasnplant i would say yes. the longer you veg the better and bigger your buds are gonna be. your doin everything perfect bro. your lst crop is looking bad ass. im guessing you did your homework if this is your first grow very nice (borat voice) i'll be watchin how you scrog this. good luck and cant wait to see the nugg

 

[Icemud]

Thanks Kingredeye for tuning in to my grow and checking it all out. Thank you for the kind comments regarding my grow...very much appreciated. I did do quite a bit of homework before starting my grow. Seriously I spent about every night (2+ hours or more) for 2-3 months reading everything about growing, lighting, soils, training, etc and I have gathered some really great information. (A lot of it was from reading others posts and journals on this site Definitely stay tuned because we are coming up to the part were all the effort shows!! Flowering!!! I should be flipping the lights next weekend, thats my goal at least, and the SCROG is right now about 25% full. I'm really just waiting for my Blue Dragons to stretch up more budsites past the screen but it is staying a lot more bushy then my chemband's and University Hill's OG's. Should be soon but want to max out my potential so I am not rushing any steps. I still am considering a transplant out of the 3 gallon pots but am hesitant since my ladies are just finally showing explosive growth from there "neem light burn" stunting that I promoted a week ago....I would hate to stunt them again...but we will see...

Thanks again everyone who has taken the time to check out my first grow!!! I just hope that the final product turns out as good as my expectations...

 

[Icemud]

May 19th.....

Yesterday I felt the pots of the ladies and they were getting pretty light. My blue dragons felt like they were only about 30% wet and my chembands about 50% wet. Yesterday I mixed up a brew of my full nutrient line added to 1 3/4 gallons of distilled water. (Earthjuice full line, Grow 60ml, bloom 7ml, micro 15ml, metak 7ml, catalyst 7ml), added blackstrap molassus (eyeballed but about 2 tbsp), General Organics bio root 5ml, Gen Org Bio Weed 5ml, botanicare cal mag 10ml, europonic humic acid (15ml), hygrowzyme (10ml), and 1 drop of superthrive.

I have been having a rather high soil ph the last few weeks, was able to bring it down to 6.8-6.9 range my last feeding but still would like to see it sit around 6.5. I was reading that with organic feedings, it is best to bubble them at least 24 hours before feeding the plants, because it takes a while for the ph of the bio active nutrients to rise and what I essentially was doing was feeding them too early, adding ph up to bring the mix to normal and feeding, what I wasn't doing though that lead to the PH soil issue was waiting to feed my plants after bubbling the mix for 24 hours. This was causing my ph balanced feedings to raise up quite a bit after added to the plants, essentially raising my soil ph past where I wanted the target range to be.

Today I checked the ph of the bubbling nutrient blend and the ph was higher than yesterday, but was still sitting around 4.7ph which is too low, even though I want to bring my ph of the soil down, I also want the feeding to be immediatly available to the plants. I added a very small amount of ph up until I got my mix to sit at 5.2ph. (ppm was around 1100ppm. I know this is rather low for a nutrient feeding but I also know with organics, the soil acts as a buffer and my idea was to undershoot the target area by quite a bit, in order to help flush out the higher ph in the soil. I added the feeding to all the ladies, wow were they thirsty.....after splitting almost 2 gallons of water between the 6 ladies and waiting, there was virtually no run-off in any of the drip trays....so I was unable to test my soil ph this time. My next feeding is going to be a dousing of distilled water as a pre flowering flush to help wash out some of the nitrogen in the soil and prepare it for blooming.

 

[Icemud]

Here are the photos for May 19th..

University Hill's OG's to the left, Chemband's to the right

Chembands to the left, Blue Dragon's to the right

Full view, look at how many budsites/tops are poking thru the screen!!!

 

[Anomoly23]

Hey Ice, I am loving the SCROG set up very nice, I am definetley Subed for this one.

 

[SexyKushMomma]

Wow!! I'm impressed with the work of that SCROG screen! It was probably a good idea that you didn't transplant into 5 gal; those girls are growing fast and lookin' like they're gonna be big!