Anonurse's Soil - Grow Tent - Sour D - 2015

[Anonurse]

Yeah I wanted to top them all but didn't want to wait for them to recuperate for 1+ weeks before flowering. I read somewhere that plants can double or triple vertical height in flowering so I might just train them. Need to read up on it first since it's new to me.

 

[Anonurse]

From left to right: 1 is male, 2 is female, 3 is male I will use for making seeds since it is tallest and has the most nuts.

For anyone who cares (most likely my loyal and awesome subscriber villiageidiot) ... all is well. I just installed a Ventech carbon filter for the inline fan and a Honeywell HEPA purifier for the room because it's getting a bit aromatic. I also just realized why my medium has been consistently acidic... I've been pH'ing the water before adding nutes! The Earth Juice nutes I use totally acidify the water, so I started to measure pH after adding nutes to water (P.S. I'm an amateur lol). The results are that the input pH now equals output pH. pH for all grow mediums now averages 6.25, I'm trying to get pH between 6.5-7.

 

[Papageno]

LOL...I think you made me laugh 3 times there... pshshshsh pHing correctly...thats for the birds..

Glad to see you figured that out!!!


So the real problem with not Topping or training is you have a big difference in height between the top flowers and the bottom ones. So the tops will be ready for harvest and the bottoms will not. It isn't that big a deal as you can take the stuff off up top and let the rest keep going but they wont ever get as big and full as they could have.

This is the real reason to SCROG. In your space I would do 1 or 2 plants and scrog them to an even height Then you have what we call a canopy and all the flowers will ripen evenly. The problem with taking the top off and leaving the rest is the plant gets stunted and takes a while and the bottom ones will mature but not really fill in and get to their potential.

Here is a pic I took of my plant 2 days ago. There are 4 in my grow space but this pic is of just one plant I have SCROG'd out to 33" x 28". I cleaned up everything under the canopy that would not ripen with the rest. Now all of those flowers from the 1 plant will ripen evenly and I can adjust the light height optimally for the entire plant not just the top ones. By cleaning up the stuff under the cannopy not getting light all the nutes will go only to the flowers that matter.

If you don't train over that top you will get a big fat flower up top and a few more around it and a ton of disappointment near the bottom. All that said...you are doing great and for a beginner grow sometimes it is best to just go with your gut so you can learn about what I just described first hand.

 

[Anonurse]

Yeah my space is pretty compact now. I have a 4 day weekend so I'll get rid of plant on far left and read up on making an even canopy. I had no idea the bottom branches would under-develop.

 

[Papageno]

Outside all the branches are roughly the same distance to the sun. It isn't as big a deal. Inside in artificial lighting in a space with only 1 bulb there is a dramatic difference every inch farther away from the bulb.

Keeping everything at the same height just make it so you can adjust the bulb height for everything not just the top.

The only people who don't train and who know what they are doing are ones with a setup that has many bulbs with overlapping coverage. large rooms with 10 bulbs or more can be set up so all the bush is getting good light from above. Also in grows like that they are looking to do high turn over so they are not doing anything to slow down the plant. For you taking 1 or 2 extra weeks to double the weight in your grow is well worth it.

 

[Anonurse]

So I made this for one of the male plants and put it in the garage where the temperature is about 41 degrees F. I hope it stays standing until harvest, then for next grow will have a better setup. It tucks against the wall nicely and is somewhat concealed.

I definitely plan on training over the course of my next grow. I would have to build a scrog and drainage system. I usually take the plants out for watering and I'm assuming the plants would be stuck in the tent when in netting.

 

[Papageno]

Well you will want to be careful with the tie foil. it has a tenancy to burn plants. it doesn't reflect well the kind of light the plants like and it wont disperse it and causing intense spots which could cause burn spots. But that is okay it is just a male so we don't care how great it does. We just need a few sacs to be good. O would get a bit more aggressive and chop a lot off. We want to stunt it and slow down the growth and not have a lot of sacs. we want to remove all the sacs but the ones we have covered in a sandwich bag. So the fewer branches the easier that is.

Good job though ...I hope it doesn't get too hot in there given that it is in a paper house.



As far as watering in a SCROG goes there are a few ways about that. We can talk about it when you get to that in your next grow.

 

[Anonurse]

It's been a while so I thought I'd post an update. This is the second week of flowering. I "harvested" the males on Jan 3rd but kept one male like thus:

So I can still get pollen. Should I cut slits in the bags? It gets very humid in the bags but I'm afraid of cutting a slit because pollen can escape. .
The female looks nice. Buds formed 3 days ago. I'm excited seeing these buds grow since this is my first time growing anything...ever.

This female is 33" tall, soil pH is 6.7 and soil ppm is 740 last check. I'm having to water at least every other day now.

 

[Anonurse]

Now that I think of it, I'm going to cut one of the male branches and put it in a cup in the garage; so I can compare both methods.

 

[Anonurse]

So this morning the male plant in the garage is dropping pollen so I just got rid of the male plant from tent.

 

[Papageno]

I am not available online for a few days but humidity in the bag wont hurt. Taking a matured cutting s a good way to get it quick you just won't get as much but it goes a long way. Congrats.

 

[Anonurse]

The male stem I placed in garage dropped pollen almost instantly. I used a paint brush to brush about 4 bud sites. Also, I tried making bubble hash but there was absolutely zero hash to be made from male plants.

 

[Anonurse]

So I may have just ****ed up. I was trying to tie down/ bend the main stem to make more of an even canopy and the main stem snapped! I should have done this during veg when the stem was more pliable as suggested by villiageidiot a while back lol. Live and learn.
It's an incomplete tear.

I put a stake in the pot to keep it from leaning over too much.

Think it is ok as is or should I straighten it back up and splint it? Any suggestions peeps?

 

[Papageno]

It will be fine either way. If you want to straighten it that will work. If you leave it it will heal fine and you have a more even canopy.


It wont hurt them. I have done way worse. Some people do that on purpose before bloom.

 

[Anonurse]

Cool. Yeah its growing normally and buds pointed towards lights again.

 

[Anonurse]

Nearing 4 weeks flowering... Enjoy Here's the main cola.

I doubled the amount of Earth Juice formula on 1/14/16 because I'm reading conflicting info on the webz. This burnt the **** out of the plant. Luckily the lower growth took the hit, leaving upper flowers ok.

 

[Papageno]

yup that's a mess LOL... Live an Learn.

The flower looks nice.


Your next one will do much better!


The second photo was at one time trying to show you magnesium def. which is typically caused by pH issues not a lack of mag.

Baby steps bro. You will get there.


Don't know if I showed you this chart before. itis a chart for hydro but a lot of it applies in soil like temps and humidity. The EC line is the nutrient concentration in the res. so think of that as the nutes your are adding. very soon you will start to want to drop the nutes off and near the end very fast. Especially in soil.

It all goes back to fan leaf production. The nutes are just used in a supporting role around photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is done primarily by the fan leaves. Fan leaves stop growing mid bloom and then stop working near the end of bloom and then the plant starts to steal back the stored up nutes just like trees in fall. Do not try to correct the yellowing at the bottom of the plant as you near the end of life. That is normal and if you go to correct it then you will do more harm then good.

 

[Anonurse]

Still having trouble with my baby. Since I last posted leaf yellowing has been traveling up the plant, I have red stems... had to hack off a few fan leaves cuz they were so badly damaged. Problem with NPK or MG or pH.
Here's data from last water/feed on 1/18:
-1 gal RO water mixed with EJ grow 2mls, EJ bloom 6mls, EJ catalyst 1.3mls (then all pHd' to 6.44) ppm intake was 64
-Output pH was 7.02, ppm was 457

Am I underfeeding at 64 ppm? I give the plant this same mix every other day. I wish there was a reliable EJ feeding schedule to use but I haven't been able to find one. I've just been using the same one from their website.

 

[Papageno]

64 seems way too low. Are you sure you don't mean 640? Even at half the recommended dosage you should be in the few hundreds.

 

[Anonurse]

No I did mean 64 lol I was using feeding schedule off of EJ website but hace since ditched it. I will now be using this board for info on EJ feeding: https://www.-----.com/ic/showthread.php?t=125402
Not sure what the rules are on posting links to other websites...sorry 420 Magazine! Desperate times call for desperate measures. I just watered.
Intake: ph-6.3, ppm 512 (used 10mls bloom, 10mls grow, 5 mls catalyst)
Output: ph-7, ppm 1220
I guess next watering I'll have to use very acidic water ~ 5.0 in order to bring down pH. Idk why the pH is alkaline...