1st Medical Grow, 3 Strains in 2x4 Hydrohut

[Icemud]

May 19th...(cont..)

Today there was not much to do with the ladies...just the waiting game. After much debate I decided to switch my Chemband's around with my Blue Dragon's because the Chemband's seemed to be growing similar to the University hills OG. (stretching a lot as well as longer distances between budsites. My blue dragons were really tight and not much light seemed to be getting to the lower nodes and not as many bud sights seemed to be forming. The way my screen sits it will allow me to stretch out my shorter, fatter blue dragons and allow more light to reach all of the plant. After trading there positions I carefully re-trained all of the tops there own directions to aim for filling the entire screen. The SCROG looks nice, I still am thinking that Sunday may be the day to flip the lights but I am not pressing the issue, I really want my Chembands to reach the screen fully before knocking the lights back so we will see in these next few days.

 

[Icemud]

Here are the updated photos of the SCROG after switching the Blue Dragon's to the middle and the Chemband's over to the right side.
My Blue Dragon's all spread out

My Chemband's, they need to stretch about 3-5 more inches before I flower, at least

My University Hill's OG's, there growing like weeds man!!

A view of the tent with lights off, sprayed leaves down with distilled water to wash off any dirt, dust, or nutrients that were left on them from foliar sprays.

Blue Dragons in middle

My University Hill's OG's

My Chembands on the right.

 

[surfinstoned]

Very nice looking plants you have there!!! The screen came out really good as well. I think this will be a great first grow for sure!!!

 

[Crower619]

Looking good its always best to swap them around usually the girls that are struggling head to the front lines lol good work cant wait to see them girls in the flower stage..Im throwing my ladies into 12.12 monday

 

[Icemud]

Hey everyone...Yesterday I did my 3rd video for my grow log/journal. Check it out on youtube...lemme know what you think....The music in the background is some of my old music...

YouTube - ‪Weed 5 Veg, ICEMUD's SCROG, 400w MH & 600W HPS, Organic, first grow‬‏

Anyways...

Today May 21st was a busy day for me and the ladies. I decided that it was time to give them more growing room and re-pot them. I measured my pot's and they were only 8" x 8 " round which I thought was a 3 gallon, I think only was a 1 1/2 gallon. Anyways, went to the hydro store today and picked up some 5 gallon pots. They were about 2" taller than my previous pots and much wider, prob by 4-6" wider so my ladies will be very happy. I also bought a 61 spot cloning tray, dome, heat pad, and rapid rooters and some clonex gel which all came for around 30$. Since I have checked around with the 3 strains I have, seems that not many have these strains so I wanted to hopefully clone them and have them available for my next round, or even to trade with others for some new strains. Anyways for the cloning equip and the new pots and trays, spent about 65$ which wasn't bad.

Re-Potting:

So I watched some youtube videos, read a bunch about re-potting and seems to be pretty easy. I got a large Rubbermaid container, mixed up my bloom mix of soil. This time I used 3 parts happy frog potting soil, 1 part organic compost, 1 part per-lite, 1 part worm casings, and I added in a good 1/10 or more of Peruvian seabird guano...(mostly for the pre-flower/veg), 1/6 parts Jamaican bat guano( 1-10-.2), and 1/6 part Indonesian bat guano (.5-12-.2).

I took each plant one by one and tried the method of just grabbing the stalk/stem and giving the pots a tap around the edges but the pots didn't fall off as easily as most of the videos and material I read. What i found to work was taking a long butter knife and slowly running it around the edges of the pot to loosen up the root ball from the pot. I was able to use my thumb and push upwards thru the drain holes on the root ball to loosen it up even more. Finally with a very light pull by the stem, I was able to pull out the entire root ball.
Now before removing the pot. I had already set my 5 gallon pots out and filled the bottom of them with my new soil mixture about 1/4 the way. At this time I grabbed each plant by the lower stem (right by the soil) and picked up the entire root ball and plant in one hand, and with the other hand while holding the plant over my Rubbermaid of soil, I gently "combed" out the circular roots from the bottom and sides of the root ball. The goal of doing this is to break the circular roots cycle of "thinking" they are at the edge of the container, and making them want to sprawl out into the new soil medium. After gently loosening the bottom soil on the root ball and the sides gently, I placed it in the middle of my 5 gallon pot, making sure that it sat about 2-3 inches from the top of the new pot. 2 reasons I did this, first, to make sure the plants were at the same level as before (would be more difficult to work them in the SCROG 2" higher. The 2nd reason is that one of my knowledgeable grow friends told me to keep about 1" from top of pot to top of soil. This way when watering, you can fill it up to the top with water, and know that it soaked the dirt evenly.
After placing the plant in the new pot, I filled in the gap between the root ball and new soil, pushing it down firmly but not packing it in, you don't want to squeeze the oxygen out of the soil by compacting it too much. (your micro herds love it).. I also have extra soil left over from the re-potting so I saved it and will use it to fill in the pots after watering has brought down the soil levels.
After letting the ladies sit in there new soil for about 5 hours, I mixed up a very light batch of 2 gallons of distilled water, 15ml of humic acid, 20ml of EJ grow, a drop of superthrive, 2 tbsp of molasses and also added 1tsp of a MYCO mix that was given to me by the hydro shop...Not sure what brand cause it was unlabeled but was really happy because this stuff is not cheap. I also was told this small packet was good for up to 200gallons, so will be plenty for this grow and prob my next 2. I bubbled the mix for about 2 hours and ph balanced it to 6.2 and fed my babies.
After about 9 hours since re-potting, the ladies look happy as ever and there are no signs of shock or anything bad which I like!!!!

Cloning:

Today as mentioned earlier I bought everything I need to clone my ladies and keep them around for future grows. I got a 7" humidity dome, 61 spot tray with rapid rooters, some clonex gel came with it, and a heating pad. After reading about cloning it didn't seem to hard and decided to give it a go. What I needed were sharp scissors, a cup of distilled water to get started. I chose 4 clones off each lady (a total of 12) and chose lower branches because I read these have more rooting hormones and stronger growth hormones than the top branches. I also made sure I didn't cut any main stems or shoots and chose smaller side ones, with a large fan leave and good top growth. I cut each clone about 4" below where the large fan leaf was attached at a strait angle and immediately put the cutting in the cup of distilled water. After taking my cuttings I took a large flat pan, poured distilled water in it, and took each cutting, gave it a 45 degree cut at the bottom of the clone (underwater), also slicing 2 cuts above the 45 degree cut, just to increase rooting areas, and then dipped it immediately into the clonex cloning gel, and then into the middle of the rapid rooter peat pellet. I repeated this step for all 12 clones. Next step was to cut 1/2 of all the lower fan leaves off. This causes the plant to focus less on transpiration and more on rooting, but still leaving green leaf to aid in photosynthesis. After chopping the fan leaves I gave the ladies a good misting of distilled water with 1/4oz of olivia's cloning solution. I then covered the dome with the 7" lid and put a 23w (i think) cfl light on top and plugged in the heating pad. From what I read you want to keep clones at a very high humidity because then the leaves wont have to work so hard at providing nutrients and moisture, because at this point, there is no roots to suck up moisture and they will die. We will see what happens but I have high hopes, it doesn't look too hard.

 

[Icemud]

May 20th photos... (before re-potting)

Full tent view

Blue dragon on the right, University Hill's Og's on left

Blue Dragons on Left, Chemband's on right

 

[Icemud]

Here are today, May 21st's photos. (includes photos of root ball, clones and re-potting)
My chemband getting repotted.

The root ball on the Chemband...glad I decided to re-pot

These 5 gallon pots are monsterous compared to the 1 1/2 or 2 gallon ones I was using.

The tent all back together after the re-potting..

Blue Dragons to the left, Chemband's to the right..

University Hill's OG to the left, Blue Dragon's to the right

My new babies in there happy new clone dome home..

Another shot of the clone dome home...lol

 

[Icemud]

May 22nd....

Not much was done with my ladies besides a little re-training around the scrog screen. Otherwise no show of shock from the transplant and the plants really seem to be loving the new soil. On my front right Chemband plant however when looking closely at the soil, I noticed only this one was infected with tons of "fungus gnat" larvae. I checked all the other pots and it seems only to be the Chemband that is infested with the larvae. No notice of ones flying around thought so I may have caught it early enough. I sprayed Safer End on all of the soil tops, tilled the soil and then sprayed again. (all the plants) Today when I mix up my next feeding which will be a soil treatment watering so I will add in a little neem and also some Bti or mosquito dunks as there commmercially known as. As long as I kill them before they start flying around I think I will be ok.

Today May 23 I am reading much about Lollipopping my plants. What this is is removing the lower 1/3 of your plant, all of the branches and leaves that are not receiving light from too thick of a canopy are removed. This better helps the plants focus on new growth at the canopy and budding, instead of focusing on the lower leaves which will not to much for the plant with low lighting from under. Seems like a very easy process and I should be doing this within the next 2 days. I plan on flipping my lights next friday to 12/12. I was going to do it sunday however after transplanting them into 5 gallon pots, I really wanted the roots to stretch and start filling in the new soil before flowering. Right now I would say my SCROG Screen is about 1/2 full so it is nearing the 3/4 time anyways where the lights should be flipped. My next watering will be mainly a flush with a few soil additives to help the roots. I will be adding in mychorrizae, humic acid, mosquito dunk, Bio Root and some hygrowzyme.

 

[Icemud]

Here is the updated photos for May 22 and May 23
Full tent shot May 22

Blue Dragon's in middle

University Hill's OG's

Chemband's

May 23
Blue Dragon's

Chemband's

University Hill's OG's

 

[Icemud]

If anyone has done SCROG before....how much longer by looking at my pic's would you recommend me to veg??? I put the clones in on April 8th so its been close to 6 weeks of Veg...Should I flower this Friday?(today is Monday) I also plan on Lollipopping the lower branches that aren't receiving any light, especially on the blue dragon....When should I lollipop? vs Flower.
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I have read that you should lollipop during veg because it will stress the plants and you have a better chance of not producing hermes If done in veg vs flower..I also have read you can leave the lower branches alone in a Scrog...so what would be recommended by looking at my setup?
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Also....I know its kind of a random questions....What do you use to water your ladies that are in the far back???? I was thinking a hose and a pump might work well but also expensive...any cheap watering solutions for hard to reach plants?
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Since I'm using organics I have read it is not as essential to flush between veg and flower, would you recommend it anyways? And if yes is the answer, should I just use ph balanced distilled water, or should I add a flushing agent? (remember I am trying to stay as organic as possible)
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I am using the full EJ line including grow, bloom, micro, meta k and catalyst. I also have Humboldt purple maxx, snowstorm and gravity for bloom, botanicare cal/mag, advanced nutrients carboload and un-sulfured molasses. I enhanced my soil with two high phosphorus and potassium guano soil additives. Is there anything else I should add to my nutrient regiment for bloom?
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I have also read when switching from 18/6 to 12/12, some use a 24 hour dark period to induce flowering quicker and limit stretching. Should I consider doing a 24 hour dark period with the SCROG method since the screen is already 1/2 to 3/4 full? I have also read people not giving a 24 hour dark period and doing fine as well...and I read that some say to lower your lighting regiment slowly going from 18 to 16 to 14 to 12 in steps....What is best?
Any advice given will be considered and appreciated. Please feel free to comment.!!


Thanks everyone....stay tuned because the fun part is coming up....

 

[Icemud]

May 24th

Today I checked on the girls and all of them are really thriving from the re-potting a few days ago. They are growing at least an inch overnight if not more and every day require me to continue tucking and winding the new growth thru the SCROG screen. I am really impressed on how they are filling out the screen at this time and should be this Friday which I switch the lights to 12/12.

As for my front right Chemband which seems to have a soil infestation of fungus gnat larvae, I have caught it early enough and with constant cultivation of the top soil followed by a good soaking of Safer End All I have seemed to knock out at least 50% of what was there as of yesterday. In my feeding that I have been bubbling the last 24 hours I added 3/4 of a mosquito dunk and 10ml of Neem oil to wipe out the remaining population of fungus gnat larvae in the soil. Damn these lil bastards!!! As long as I kill them before they start flying around and laying eggs I will be happy!!! None of my other plants seem to have any signs of larvae in the soil!!! I was wondering why my front right Chemband's leaves were really warped looking, at first I thought it was due to the Neem Light burn that happened a few weeks ago but it seemed to be on all the newer leaves as well. I searched all over the internet for photos of something similar but no luck so I am really starting to wonder if the fungus gnats eating the crap out of my roots had something to do with the distorted leaves.....anyone???

I fed all of the plants the full nutrient tea ph5.2and as I have been reading, using chemical ph up and down with organics will potentially kill your micro herds, and when feeding organics ph isn't as much of an issue because the soil will correct itself. I do see how this is true but still with my EJ mix sitting at 3.9ph, it was just way too low for my comfort so I was very cautious in adding GH ph up and only brought the full mix up to 5.2ph. I will be going out when I have a little extra spending money to pick up the Earth Juice Organic PH up which is all natural and won't hurt my microbeasties but for now since I have been using the GH ph up, I decided to bring the ph up to 5.2 before feeding, which only added around 100ppm to my nutrient feeding, which is now at 1052ppm.

Originally in my previous post this was going to be a soil flush watering but after reading about organics, and all the info I could find, I decided not to flush the soil between veg and flower. The reasoning behind this is that plants even in flower, for the first few weeks, need nitrogen and by flushing the soil, yes you are ridding the salts out of the soil, but also eliminating much of the needed nitrogen. Since with organics, salt ferts are not being used, there should be no need to flush the soil at this point because organic fertz do not have the amount of salts that chemical fertz do....or so I have read...

I did also begin to do some lollipopping of the ladies but I didn't want to shock them too bad so I only took off any dead or weak leaves, very short low stems that wouldn't reach the canopy by flower, but that's it. I have read that doing this can shock your plants pretty bad and I wanted to keep the shock at a minimal since I still have a few days of veg left. I also noticed that with the semi-vertical scrog and dual light setup, there is quite a bit of light that makes it to the lower portions of the plants and even though not bright enough to produce buds, I figure it is still helping out the plant so I refrained from cutting/pruning any of the healthy growth. This technique is supposed to help the plant's concentrate more energy to the tops for budding and also help eliminate the possibility of mold under the canopy.

Well anyways...I would love to hear any comments about my grow and any useful tips that you can provide...

Heres today's updated photos..
Full tent under 400w MH in morning

University Hill's OG to the left, Blue Dragon to the right

Blue Dragon to the Left, Chemband to the right..(notice the front right chemband's leaves how they are distorted...anyone know why??)

Full tent view with both 400w MH and 600w HPS (running at 400w)

Full Tent view, dual lights running, with flash

 

[Crower619]

Ice throw them into flower they will still grow alot when you go 12.12 bro the ladies are ready

 

[Icemud]

Friday will be the day for sure to flip them to 12/12. I didn't want to rush into flowering because of the transplant last weekend as well as the fungus gnat issue with my chemband. Wanted to make sure that the screen was really able to fill up so I can have the tops grow taller vertically than just at screen level. If they get too heavy I will run a second nylon netting above my scrog to help hold them in place...

I am still debating whether to give them a 24 hour dark period or to just flip them. I did change up my lighting this evening and now have the 600w HPS (running at 400w) turning on 2 hours earlier now at 10am to 1am to give the overall lighting more red coloration simulating the fall sun. I figure this may or may not help them realize there fall is coming but at least I know there last week of veg will have a little more light thrown at them. I can't wait to watch them bloom!! I watch all these other grows and man my taste buds are already salivating...these ladies leave a real good stench on my fingers when working them around the scrog...

 

[Icemud]

Well Crower, took your advice and today will be the first day of flower, 12/12. The ladies look ready and have grown even another 2" over night so I know there loving the new soil and ready to make the change. Wish me luck!!! Cant wait to see what these ladies have in store!!!

 

[Icemud]

Alright!!!! Today was the day!!! I decided to put my ladies into flower. After much reading about giving a dark period vs not, I decided to go right into 12/12 with no dark period keeping my dawn at the same time. I will have my 400wMH come on at 7am and go until 6pm. My 600w HPS will come on at 8am and go until 7 pm. This will give them a total of 10 hours of 1000w of full spectrum lighting. I want to keep running the MH for at least the first 3-4 weeks until I see noticeable bud development. At that time I plant to switch my 400w MH out for my 400w Ushio HPS which will give me even more red spectrum and an additional 20,000 lumens. I am excited to see how all this hard work will turn out.... I know I still have a long way to go, but now I get to see my ladies perform!!!

I still am battling a fungus gnat larvae issue with my front right chemband plant. After much repetative cultivating of the top soil and spraying with a pyrethian and neem mixture, and mosquito dunks, I still see many of the larvae in the chemband's soil. None of my other plants are effected and I want to keep it that way and catch them before they start flying around...I think I will try that Azamax if it is good for a soil drench...any other suggestions...??? organic and that will not harm my micro herd?

I will be putting additional yellow traps up in there incase they start to fly around tommorrow, as well as I am going to try the potato slice method. I also read about using hot water, not boiling, but not lukewarm either, and it is supposed to kill them very well....anyone done this before??

Wish me luck..so far I am winning the battle...but I don't want to speak to soon..!!!

Here are today's Photos...Day 1 of Flower!!!!!!
Full Tent Shot

Blue Dragon's on the left, Chemband's to the right

University hills OG to the left, Blue Dragon's on the right

 

[zigzagburning]

Looking good man . Though I am wondering if you Ph is just a little low. I see some leaf curl or roll on the leafs to the front . If you do notice them going to a light greenish yellow this would be PH burn. Nute lock will or is happening. For soil rule of thumb is 6.3 - 6.5. But they are looking good but when flower comes into effect they might get a little more picky on the Ph. Do you have an idea where you soil is at on PH. 6.5 - 7.0 is optimal. Most plants enjoy low Ph but to low causes allot of problems because most nutes do not like Ph to low and they will lock up.
You got a 2 X 2 hut and I believe they are about 4' high or so I would flower them right away. They will take off like rockets and use up the 4' or 5' pretty quick.
Be gentle when or if you decide to up the ph . Don't just put it at 6.3 do it slowly in like 3-4 feedings this will cause less stress on your plants .

 

[Icemud]

Looking good man . Though I am wondering if you Ph is just a little low. I see some leaf curl or roll on the leafs to the front . If you do notice them going to a light greenish yellow this would be PH burn. Nute lock will or is happening. For soil rule of thumb is 6.3 - 6.5. But they are looking good but when flower comes into effect they might get a little more picky on the Ph. Do you have an idea where you soil is at on PH. 6.5 - 7.0 is optimal. Most plants enjoy low Ph but to low causes allot of problems because most nutes do not like Ph to low and they will lock up.
You got a 2 X 2 hut and I believe they are about 4' high or so I would flower them right away. They will take off like rockets and use up the 4' or 5' pretty quick.
Be gentle when or if you decide to up the ph . Don't just put it at 6.3 do it slowly in like 3-4 feedings this will cause less stress on your plants .

Hey Zig!! thanks for the comments and advice!!! Which photo were you referring to that had some curling? Is it the one that is on the front right? This one on the front right of the tent is my chemband which is going thru a fungus gnat larvae infestation. The leaves almost look like they have heat burn but the only thing I can figure is that is is from the fungus gnat larvae eating the roots....I'm going to the store today to get some azamax or gnatall and going to do a soil soak... These lil buggers are tough!!..

As for my PH, usually every feeding I have been checking my ph, however, since I am using organics, the more I have been reading, Organic farmers do not worry about ph of the feedings because a sound soil structure will naturally buffer and regulate ph...due to the micro herds in the soil. I have been doing a ph balance for all my feedings up until the last one, which I left alone at 5.2ph. The reason is, Earth Juice naturally when mixed is usually low around ph5. when bubbling or letting sit for 24-48 hours, the ph will come up quite drasticly. I was using ph up before when adjusting the balance however I noticed after every few feedings, my soil ph would creep up past 7ph...and this was due to me not feeding at the lower ph and waiting for it naturally to come up...I was adding chemical ph up and buffering it to normal, but when the micro herds started going to work, the ph would tip into the alkaline area. My soil ph now is sitting nice at 6.4ph.

My tent size is 3x5x78" so I should have plenty of room to flower, hopefully. I am not too worried about my blue dragons which seem to be more indica based by there charactoristics, however, my university og has really been stretching and this one I will have to watch. General rule of thumb for SCROG is flower when screen is 3/4 full....I am in between 1/2 and 3/4 so I figure the time is now....lol....

 

[Icemud]

Today went to the store to get some gnat fighting tools and purchased a single use Azamax and single use Azatrol and prepared the ladies for a good soil soaking. I have not seen one flying around in the tent or in my crib so I know that I have all the adults dead, and the soil of my 5 other ladies is uneffected. All are fine except my Chemband (front right in photos). I decided to treat all of the ladies, even though only one is infected for preventive measures as well as any ones that I have not seen yet. I've tried all other measures and it was time for some heavier stuff. I mixed up 2 gallons of distilled water and dropped 1/2 a mosquito dunk in and bubbled for 3 hours. I then added 1/2 of the recommended dose of each of Azamax and 1/2 of the recommended dose of Azatrol. I added 5ml of Bio Root, and 10ML of Humic acid and measured the ph...perfect at 6.5ph so no balencing was needed. I watered all of the ladies with 4-5 cups of the Fungus Gnat mix and made sure to flood the infected Chemband plant...Before adding the mixture to the soil...I gently cultivated the top of each of the soils about 1" deep, washing the spoon I was using between each pot to be careful of not transfering any bad pests inbetween pots.

After watering the plants, I checked the infested Chemband and found no moving worms/larvae...only dead ones...Each time I have checked it from the last few days it seems that there are less and less larvae...so I think that this may be the final needed attack!!! After the soil drys, tomorrow I will turn the soil again to see if any are remaining. After the top layer of soil drys out I will add a covering of perlite for preventing future infestations...lesson learned....water with Bti in veg, cover top soil with perlite next time, have yellow stickys up before an attack!! lol oh well, lot to learn on first grow!!

Other than the gnat issue, things are looking fairly good for the ladies. My back left University hills OG though is showing some "canoeing" and curling up on the sides. I have read plants do this when they really need to transpire a lot of moisture, sometimes due to high heat. The heat in my tent has pretty much ranged with lights on from 79F to 84F and cools down about 10-15 degrees at night with the lights off. RH remains usually between 39% and highest being around 51%...So it strikes me as odd that the leaves are doing this....any suggestions..? I see no discoloration of the leaves or any other signs of stress, and the plant still seems to be growing pretty quickly..

I can't wait till I start seeing buds....

 

[Icemud]

Here are today's photos! Temp with lights inside tent 83F. RH 42%
Chemband's to the right, blue dragon's to the left

Blue Dragon's in the Middle

University Hill's Og's to the left, Blue Dragon's to the right

Underside view of SCROG with mild lollipopping

Underside view of Scrog with darker contrast

Shot of pre-flowers on Blue Dragon

 

[Sonzor]

Hello Icemud, I am loving that screen. Very nice job putting that thing together. As for those plants they look amazing. I would think that you are going to have you hands full will all those plants and that screen, but not a bad problem to have. Very nice job and I am looking forward to watching your progress. Bless...