BluePhoric's Best Coco Grow Method: RQS Haze-Berry, Blue Dream

[BluePhoric]

Hi there ! This grow is almost done. Flowering is in the last phase. A few weeks left.

Since this is my most beautiful (and also simple) grow yet, I thought I'd share my methods.

 

[BluePhoric]

Nutes : General Hydro MAXI GROW and MAXI BLOOM
Lights : CFL (seedling) / MH 450W (600w @ 75%) / HPS 450W/600W
Medium : Botanicare Coco brick mixed with 25-30 % perlite
Pot : 2gal fabric pot.
RH : 45%-55%

That's it for the recipe !!!

 

[BluePhoric]

History :

On my last grow, I tried automatic watering multiple times a day. I tough it was excessive watering.
But it was in 100% coco... that's why I added some perlite on this grow.

I was on the fence to decide wether I'd do auto-watering or not.
But as the grow went along (hand watering)... It went so well that I decided not to change a thing.

 

[BluePhoric]

Methodology (After the seedling phase) :

- Prepared in advance : Mason jar with very hot water (Microwave). Add a good quantity of powdered nutes (Grow or Bloom or Both depending on plant phase.) Not to much nutes, it has to dissolve almost 100%. Let cool and put in the
refrigerator. After a few days, re-heat/mix nutes when jar is empty or almost.

- Everyday, after watering, I'd fill a bucket with 3.5L fresh TAP-water (PH ~ 7.2). Let stand until next morning.
(Tried "bubling" for a while : Not worth it/no difference)
- Next day, take that bucket :
- add 50ml Cal-Mag with an eyedropper.
- add pre-mixed nutes (mason jar) and measure for target PPMs with meter. (My max dose was ~800). Adjust according to plant needs.
- add 5-6 drops of phosphoric acid. Measured PH only first times... then occasionally, but I always gave 5 or 6, randomly, to reach target 5.5~5.9 PH.
- Hand water the whole 3.5L with abundant runoff.
- Fill bucket with fresh 3.5L tap water for next day.

Time needed for mixing and watering : ~ 8 minutes total. A little more if mixing new nutes in mason jar. A little more occasionally when doing plant care, bending/trimming/defoliating etc.

It wasn't long before every morning, the medium was completely dry. But the plant NEVER drooped or sagged.
So she was quite happy. She had a great balance of water/nutes/oxygen, she liked that 24h watering cycle.

 

[BluePhoric]

PESTS : NONE - NONE - NONE

Not even a single Fungus Gnat (witch I had on every grow). That's because the medium had a great wet/dry cycle and the roots were very healthy.

Enzymes : I wanted to try enzymes... I thought I needed them for better root system/solve Gnats problem : but it was completely un-necessary with this method.

 

[BluePhoric]

Veg / Bloom nutes :

Many growers suggest using only the bloom nutes (GH MAXI Bloom), but for me, that's wrong.
1- It's so cheap... why not buy the grow nutes ?
2- The plant really needs high Nitrogen levels, for a long time. The bloom nutes are not the right N-P-K ratio for all phases.
3- In fact, I switched to 100% bloom nutes only after 4-5 weeks into flowering.

Yellow leaves : NONE

To tell the truth... I had a few yellowing leaves at the beginning of flowering, when I tried to back off the grow nutes and transition to Bloom nutes.

When yellow leaves appear at the bottom of the plant: she needs more Nitrogen. I upped the Grow nutes (almost 100%) until the plant stopped suckin N from big fan leaves. I adjusted the grow/bloom to have no yellowing leaves AND no nute burn or dark green leaves. Stayed around 800PPM with a high ratio (>75% Grow) for quite a while. It's only after 4-5 weeks into flowering that I went 100% bloom. Plant was quite happy with that.

I always had 2 mason jars, one with Bloom nutes, the other with Grow nutes. I could easily vary the Bloom/Grow percentage every morning, as needed.

In coco... with good runoff... it's like starting anew everyday. Adjustments are easy and results are quick.

 

[BluePhoric]

Manifolding / Mainlining : I wen with Nebula’s Manifold. Good easy method.

Training : Super-cropping exclusively. When I wanted to shape something, I bent an cracked a stem. Sometimes I would simply re-bend the same stem on several occasions/days.

You can see many "joints" on the photos, where I bent the stems.

 

[BluePhoric]

Lights : 450W (600W ballast dimmed at 75%), most of the time.

I switched straight to 12/12 for flowering (from 24/0). Also switched immediately to HPS light.
I went at 600W HPS for a while (maybe a month), but there were signs of light/heat stress, crowning on the top buds, and I backed off at 450w.

 

[BluePhoric]

Defoliation :

As allways... when the plant becomes too crowded and no air from the fan can pass thru, I remove some leaves. I did that many times and the plant recovered immediately.

I wanted exactely 16 big colas. I shaped the plant so I got that, but a plant alwasy tries to start new shoots here and there. I removed those as soon as possible. Even on those 16 main stems, the first flowers shes grew on the bottom were removed. I kept only the top ones and not those that would be far from the light.

I kept big fan leaves on the outside perimeter. But removed everything that could cause shade over the colas/buds. I like to keep as much leaves as possible (buffering in case of nutes imbalance), but not if they shade the buds.

So I kind of did a moderate "lollipopping".

I removed more fan leaves a few days ago, preparing for the last phase of the plant, the maturing.

 

[BluePhoric]

PHOTOS !!!

Here is the structure... see the bent joints here and there.

A shot of the whole plant :

From the top :

The colas :

One cola up close :

Another cola up close... She's getting quite frosty !

Thanks for watching !!!

BP.

 

[Pennywise]

Hey Blue good to see you! Nice plant!

 

[BluePhoric]

Hey PW, nice to see you.

Pretty happy with plant. My most thick and beautiful one yet.

 

[Pennywise]

It turned out very well actually!

 

[MotaFina]

Wow Blue, that's gorgeous! Tre frosty!

 

[BluePhoric]

Question...

I'm in the last 1-2 week(s) of flowering.

My RH was always around 50% during most of the grow.

Now, with the weather and all, cant get it under 60% much.
My De-humidifier doesn't help much except for raising temperature.

Do I run a high risk of getting mold/bud rot ?
Am I better off at lower temperature with 5% more RH or higher temperature with 5% less RH ?

I was pretty happy with temperature at 19-20C (67F)... now with de-humidifier its at >23C (73F).

Thanks,
BP

 

[Pennywise]

60% should be good if your buds aren’t rock hard.

 

[Tio Hector]

73 deg isn’t high
I usually run my room between 70 - 78

 

[BluePhoric]

She's a beauty... but she'll go down very soon.

I'm a bit surprised, as I was expecting her to finish in one or two weeks.
But looking at the trichomes, she's pretty much where I want.
So I need to be flushing her...

Have a nice Sunday !
BP

 

[Pennywise]

Looking gorgeous!

 

[BluePhoric]

I thought I should toss a bottle of wine... so show the scale ;-)

16 Colas, pretty much all the same size.

Have a nice one,
BP