420 Magazine's Official Girl Scout Cookies Comparative Grow By BoBrown14

[Furcifer]

Nice light, a little jelly I only have the FC 4800.
Good luck with your grow!

 

[Mars Hydro]

 

[Icemud]

Hey Bo Brown! Hope you don't mind if I pull up a chair and enjoy the show

 

[dr.h00k]

... ...cheerz......h00k...

 

[Big Sparks]

Good morning to you Bob! Hope you dont mind me pulling up a seat to enjoy the show. Haven't seen you run a journal for awhile now so I am very excited for this one. That new light from Marshydro is a straight beast! They've come a very long way from the old blurple lights that they started out with. I've still got mine even though now I've been running the Quantum Boards for the last few years.
Question- when you say "GSC's comparative grow..." do you mean that you're going to be running different types of GSC's? Or like a pheno hunt? Or more of other people chiming in to compare different Cookies grows? Sorry for all of the questions but I'm glad to see you up and running again.

 

[Bill284]

Good morning to you Bob! Hope you dont mind me pulling up a seat to enjoy the show. Haven't seen you run a journal for awhile now so I am very excited for this one. That new light from Marshydro is a straight beast! They've come a very long way from the old blurple lights that they started out with. I've still got mine even though now I've been running the Quantum Boards for the last few years.
Question- when you say "GSC's comparative grow..." do you mean that you're going to be running different types of GSC's? Or like a pheno hunt? Or more of other people chiming in to compare different Cookies grows? Sorry for all of the questions but I'm glad to see you up and running again.

Hey @Big Sparks how are you. GSC comparative grow is sponsored by weed seeds and there about 30 or so members participating. They sent us all seeds to grow together. You missed the deadline to get your own seeds. Sorry.
Bill

 

[Big Sparks]

No worries. I can still just tag along and watch. I've always been a fan of Bobrown's work so I'll still be watching. @Bill284 Thanks for the heads-up about the comparative grow. Much appreciated.

 

[bobrown14]

Hey Bo Brown! Hope you don't mind if I pull up a chair and enjoy the show

Its an honor! Thanks for stopping by.

 

[bobrown14]

Good morning to you Bob! Hope you dont mind me pulling up a seat to enjoy the show. Haven't seen you run a journal for awhile now so I am very excited for this one. That new light from Marshydro is a straight beast! They've come a very long way from the old blurple lights that they started out with. I've still got mine even though now I've been running the Quantum Boards for the last few years.
Question- when you say "GSC's comparative grow..." do you mean that you're going to be running different types of GSC's? Or like a pheno hunt? Or more of other people chiming in to compare different Cookies grows? Sorry for all of the questions but I'm glad to see you up and running again.

I still use a Mars Hydro blurple for my seedlings. It's probably 10 years old and still going 24/0. Hard to believe actually and I think I got it used off e-pay a very long time ago.

The GSC comparative grow is a bunch of 420mag growers we all growing the same strain from sponsor Weed Seeds Express. Many are long time 420mag sponsor supporters.

Here's the link to the seeds we are growing:

Girl Scout Cookies seeds (feminized) | WSE | Delivery Guaranteed

I received the seeds direct from Amsterdam in like a week. That was super fast for overseas shipping.

Mars Hydro was for sure my very first lamp I ever used for indoor growing.
They have come a long way.

A lot of companies are using the LM301b chips as is Mars Hydro - for the Mars Hydro lamp I'm using its got Bridge-lux chips. I'm excited to see the results.

I've been using similar Bridgelux cobs the last several years with good result. They have the lower 2800-3000K than the LM301b which I believe is more of a 3K chip.

 

[Big Sparks]

Yeah, honestly Marshydro was my first indoor grow light too! After being referred by multiple older members from here at 420mag. Still have 5-6 lights that all work. Had to send 2 back to get fixed but overall was not a big hassle at all. Very glad to have been apart of the early years for them, and glad to see that they've kept up with the new innovations and new tech of the "daylight" spectrum lights.
Anywho- also glad to see you still going strong with your 6 year old organic soil mixes. I think after asking you many a question is what made me finally get on board with the living soil Coot-style of growing. Been very happy with the results and have never looked back.

 

[Slammy Pajama]

You bet yes. The soil I'm currently growing in is 6 years old. I just re-use it. Turn and burn.

Plants harvested out of the containers. Container sits a few weeks or until I get around to loading them back up and back into flowering. I use the same pots and same soil over and over.

I will amend the soil at up pot in the hole under the new plants root ball. Not a lot of amending tho. EWC/Kelp Meal and some malted barley maybe a little compost if I feel like it. Maybe a cup total of everything mixed together in the hole.

I did mix a new batch a few weeks ago. I will mix some of the old soil with the new batch just to keep the microbes going. Plants change the microbes remain the same. They are the most important part.

Nice! I haven't been amending the hole when I up-pot, ima start doing that! Now that I have a few bigger fabric pots of soil established, I was thinking about plunking some seeds straight into the final pots (I usually up-pot through a few smaller pots first).

How quickly do you like to get them into their final pots? And how big do you usually go? Always love to see and learn from another no-till grower!

 

[bobrown14]

I do solo cups then into slightly larger pots like #1 then into final containers. Sometimes I'll pull the old stem out after the roots compost then put the plant in the hole where the stem was adding in some amendments.

EWC
Kelp meal
Malted barley
Mycos

Maybe more veg or not.... depends on where I'm at with VEG plants.

 

[Vegan4life]

 

[DeeCee112]

Hey Bob, sweet light! I’m looking forward to following along this one to take some tips in. I just popped 3 seeds for this summer as well! As you know going to be trying living soil for the first time. Good luck with the grow not that you’ll need it! Hope you don’t mind me tagging along and asking a few questions here and there!

 

[Slammy Pajama]

I do solo cups then into slightly larger pots like #1 then into final containers. Sometimes I'll pull the old stem out after the roots compost then put the plant in the hole where the stem was adding in some amendments.

EWC
Kelp meal
Malted barley
Mycos

Maybe more veg or not.... depends on where I'm at with VEG plants.

How big are your pots? I'm considering going bigger than 40L now that I've finally got tons of soil sitting around haha. I try not to go below about 10 gallons, but do you see any benefit in going into bigger pots than that?

 

[BakedARea]

Count me in of course! That MH light is killer! I have their 5x5 tent too. It is my first and only tent. I think it is an excellent tent. A few things I would improve, but overall the quality and value are hard to beat.

I haven't started my GSC journal yet but I want to go with a LOS grow too. I have some finished compost that is cured and ready but I don't have a complete soil mix with amendments that is ready. I need to get my ass in gear! LOL

Looking forward to watching your updates. That light is going to blow those ladies up!

 

[bobrown14]

How big are your pots? I'm considering going bigger than 40L now that I've finally got tons of soil sitting around haha. I try not to go below about 10 gallons, but do you see any benefit in going into bigger pots than that?

Bigger roots bigger shoots.

Advantage will be larger plants and larger yields. I use 7.5gal hard plastic indoors. Outdoors as big as I can.

I'm going to be in 50gal bags outside this summer.

 

[bobrown14]

Last week I mixed up new batch of soil. I'm getting ready for some outdoor growing that I dont have soil for and am going to use the new mix with the GSG comparative grow.

I use what's called "Coots Mix". I've been using this organic soil mix for many years with great results.

Here's the recipe:

Amendment mix:

Acadian Kelp Meal @ 1/2 - 1 Cup per cubic foot
Neem Cake and Karanja Cake 50/50 Mix @ 1/2 to 1 cup per cubic foot
Crustacean Meal @ 1/2 Cup per cubic foot
Malted Barley @ 1 Cup Per Cubic Foot (ground fine in a coffee grinder)

Mineral mix:

Gypsum Dust @ 1 Cup Per Cubic Foot
Brix Blend Basalt @ 1 Cup Per Cubic Foot
Glacial Rock Dust @ 1 Cup Per Cubic Foot
Oyster Flour @ 1 Cup Per Cubic Foot

Mix with:

Quart of EWC (can be as much as 25% of the humus portion)
EWC = earth worm casting
1/3 humus = Compost/EWC/Vermicompost
1/3 aeration = Rice hulls or Perl-lite
1/3 CSPM = Canadian Spagnum Peat Moss (look on bag for country of origin = Canada)

Bio-char @ 1 cup per cubic foot.

Amend at up pot with 1 cup of the amendment mix and 1 cup EWC then into flower.

This is the soil mix I use - "Coots Mix" as it were. I thank Clackamas Coots for this soil recipe.

 

[bobrown14]

Here's the GSC seedlings from Weed Seed Express.

I've got 5 in cups now

They are just a day or above soil.

 

[Brett Blaze]