Bruce Banner Marries A Watermelon - SIP Grow

[Ke0ncp]

I am also thinking by next weekend I should be able to get in and do some defoliation on all three plants and start to prep them to focus on the upper portion of the bud sites and lose all the lower stuff.

Is there a general rule of thumb on how much to trim back, like the bottom 1/3 or bottom 1/2?

 

[InTheShed]

Everyone has their own method, but I delarf after stretch is finished but I leave all the fans. I take the lower branches that I don't want to bother trimming (because they won't amount to much based on location) and I take the lowest buds on the "keeper" branches that I don't think will connect to the next ones up.

I don't think it necessarily adds total weight to the harvest to go #nolarf but it definitely makes your top flowers heavier and makes trimming much easier.

Like I said though, I leave as many fans as possible wherever they are on the plant.

 

[Chuckeye]

I am also thinking by next weekend I should be able to get in and do some defoliation on all three plants and start to prep them to focus on the upper portion of the bud sites and lose all the lower stuff.

Is there a general rule of thumb on how much to trim back, like the bottom 1/3 or bottom 1/2?

Growers choice

I usually clean off all bud sites on the lower third and eventually remove the fan leaves too.

By the second week or so of flower they are basically in the shade and have done their job.

I might leave a few just to judge when to up nutrients.

BTW > on your last full on pictures the lights looked WAY too high.

Your 400w total so roughly equal my 600w HPS.

With my light in a parabolic reflector, distance from the bulb to the bottom outside of the reflect is roughly 20".

As soon as the plants reach that height I raise the light three or four inches.

I am pushing the light a bit but the only indication is a slight canoeing of the top fans, growth is still spot on.

Cheers

 

[JiggiLotus]

Day 51 and day 13 of flower

I have not noticed much of a change in coloring between yesterday and today. And I am seeing purple stems now in the WG as well.

I will likely have to reconfigure the exhaust fan location as I’m about out of room to raise the lights anymore and I think that will need to happen this weekend most likely.

We have snowpocalypse upon us here this weekend and into next week so I should have time to get it done.

Not much else to report.

WG Day 51

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 21, 2024

WG canopy day 51

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 21, 2024

Watermelon day 51

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 21, 2024

Watermelon canopy day 51

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 21, 2024

Banner Day 51

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 21, 2024

Banner canopy day 51

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 21, 2024

Snow apocalypse
Enjoying your thread, them girls really put on a stretch! They look lovely

 

[Ke0ncp]

Thanks for the advice and it’s pretty much what my plan was going to be. Clean up the bottom portions and leave the alone for the most part.

As for the lighting when you high, you mean in height right? I was way to high when I read this last night and got stuck in a loop reading it hahaha.

I am going by DLI for my lights now and I’m probably still a little on the high side of DLI. I could lower the power and get the lights closer to achieve the same DLI but I’m not sure that really makes a difference? My thought process was to get the lights as high in the tent as I can to get better light spread while maintaining my DLI goal.

 

[Chuckeye]

Thanks for the advice

Hope you find it helpful in "reading" your plants !

As for the lighting when you high, you mean in height right? I was way to high when I read this last night and got stuck in a loop reading it hahaha.

Light height, yes that is what I was referring to !

I am going by DLI for my lights now and I’m probably still a little on the high side of DLI. I could lower the power and get the lights closer to achieve the same DLI but I’m not sure that really makes a difference? My thought process was to get the lights as high in the tent as I can to get better light spread while maintaining my DLI goal.

With my "room" I can only marginally control the temp and humidity so DLI is meaningless....

Temperature I like to keep under 85F, best I can do with humidity is around 50% at that temperature. A month ago with colder outside temperature it was more like 40%.

I measure the light intensity with a fancy meter, the back of my hand. As close as possible

Two fans on the floor pointed up at about 30 degrees help keep the heat down to those levels.

Just for fun, this is a par map from cocoforcannabus dot com for a 600w HPS @ 16" in a wing reflector.

Very roughly I have added the space my plants occupy. To get the most out of the light I go as close as I dare (20") without any adverse effects. As I said before, the only issue I can see is a slight canoeing of the top fans of the two tallest plants. Most sources I've found suggest my light is capable of producing a par reading of 1000. As the light spreads it falls off.....

My "walls" have been spread to 5' x 5' and I rotate the plants once a day.

I will eventually put a 24" - 30" hoop on each plant...

Where this falls in DLI I have no idea

Cheers

 

[Ke0ncp]

This data is from when I first got my controller until right now. I have made lots of tent adjustments so that the swings are no where near as dramatic as it shows here. But my averages look good for VPD

DLI I use my Uni-t meter to determine what that is. Tomorrow I am spending some time in the tent and will make some more adjustments to allow for more light room.

 

[Chuckeye]

Sorry, old school here !

I read the plant, not some electronic instrument and somebody else's idea of ideal conditions, probably with unlimited resources

Light and water/food....

You'll figure it out !

Cheers

 

[Delps8]

This data is from when I first got my controller until right now. I have made lots of tent adjustments so that the swings are no where near as dramatic as it shows here. But my averages look good for VPD

DLI I use my Uni-t meter to determine what that is. Tomorrow I am spending some time in the tent and will make some more adjustments to allow for more light room.

I think I saw that you were at a DLI of 35. A lot of growers go by conventional wisdom and a DLI of 35 will certainly will get you a good crop. If you increase your light levels to 800-1000µmol, you'll tend to get a bigger crop with better quality, assuming that light was your limiting factor.

Re. your C69 data - averages are of marginal value, for example with my head in an oven and my feet in liquid nitrogen, the average temperature could end up at 98.6°, right?

Re. VPD - per the folks at Pulse, try to keep overnight VPD as close as possible to daytime VPD, the closer the better.

With temps being 74-76, you should shoot for an RH of 46-52%. That'll get your VPD in the 1.2-1.5 range. I'm assuming you're in flower at 35 DLI.

Re. hang height - as hang height increases, the PPFD map will tend to get more even. Best way to check is to sample the canopy with your meter.

When plants are in veg or early flower, I sample in a grid format and view the data a la:

That's from my current grow, a shrubbery, in late veg.

Once there are a lot of buds, I switch to this format:

That helps me see the hotspots so I can adjust the individual buds.

With two lights in the tent, you're going to have a complex light pattern. Taking readings in a grid pattern and then plotting them will help understand how much light is falling in the different parts of your plant.

 

[Ke0ncp]

If you increase your light levels to 800-1000µmol, you'll tend to get a bigger crop with better quality, assuming that light was your limiting factor

I was closer to that earlier in the grow when I was seeing major yellowing. I moved my DLI into the range of all the charts I could find in efforts of eliminating environmental aspects as a cause of the yellowing.

Re. your C69 data - averages are of marginal value, for example with my head in an oven and my feet in liquid nitrogen, the average temperature could end up at 98.6°, right?

Totally makes sense and there are huge swings there due to tent set up. I’m still working on keeping that daily VPD swing minimal. Right now my fight is with humidity and I see a dehumidifier in the near future.

Re. hang height - as hang height increases, the PPFD map will tend to get more even. Best way to check is to sample the canopy with your meter.

I like the charts your doing and will probably incorporate that into the new sheet/log I’m creating.

My goal with all of the numbers is to try and create an optimal growing environment for them.

 

[Wastei]

I second to let the plant tell you what it wants. Adjust pH according to plant response, not recommendations.

I say this again but I would raise pH instead of lowering it. You're growing in peat and when I did I tried to aim to have my input higher than runoff at about 7.0 and sometimes even higher in late flower. If you see Mg def followed by N the recommended thing is to raise pH to make both accessible for uptake.

Hope you get it sorted but that's still my two cents.

Cheers!

 

[Ke0ncp]

Day 53 and day 15 of flower

I’m feeling pretty OK with how they are doing. Are they perfect, no. Are they horrible, no. Are they moving in the right direction, yes.

I swapped my intake fans so that I can control the pressure in the tent and maintain a negative pressure. This allows me to open the door to the grow room and help keep the humidity down in the tent, thus keep my VPD a little more in check.

Measure the height of all 3 for the first time today and will start reporting back daily growth.

I’ve top watered them 2 times today in smaller increments to try and fill the reservoirs and mix in the sulfur I added yesterday.

I think that’s it for now.

WG Day 53

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 24, 2024

WG Canopy day 53

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 24, 2024

watermelon day 53

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 24, 2024

Watermelon Canopy day 53

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 24, 2024

Banner day 53

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 24, 2024

Banner canopy day 53

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 24, 2024

 

[Ke0ncp]

Day 54 and day 16 of flower

Still getting greener, slowly but surely! I’m still ph’ing nutes to 6 and I will see where the media is this weekend. Figure give the sulfur a week to kick in.

For measuring height, I need to mark the branch I am measuring for each plant. As today the Watermelon showed 2” of growth by the WG and Banner showed no growth. But I don’t really pay attention to what the fuck I was measuring hahaha


Getting my VPD spread a little tighter and made the move for the goal to be 1.3 today. Humidifier kicks on at 1.5 and fans increase to max at 1.2. I just need to keep the grow room door open during the day to let our excess humidity and then closed at night to help with heat. Humidity really only becomes a problem when it gets to about 80° and then it seems to jump up a bit.

WG Day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

WG canopy day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Watermelon Day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Banner day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Banner canopy day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

 

[g-one-three]

Day 54 and day 16 of flower

Still getting greener, slowly but surely! I’m still ph’ing nutes to 6 and I will see where the media is this weekend. Figure give the sulfur a week to kick in.

For measuring height, I need to mark the branch I am measuring for each plant. As today the Watermelon showed 2” of growth by the WG and Banner showed no growth. But I don’t really pay attention to what the fuck I was measuring hahaha


Getting my VPD spread a little tighter and made the move for the goal to be 1.3 today. Humidifier kicks on at 1.5 and fans increase to max at 1.2. I just need to keep the grow room door open during the day to let our excess humidity and then closed at night to help with heat. Humidity really only becomes a problem when it gets to about 80° and then it seems to jump up a bit.

WG Day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

WG canopy day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Watermelon Day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Banner day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Banner canopy day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

No plants ever going to be perfect but yours look nice and healthy, keep up the good work.

 

[JiggiLotus]

Day 54 and day 16 of flower

Still getting greener, slowly but surely! I’m still ph’ing nutes to 6 and I will see where the media is this weekend. Figure give the sulfur a week to kick in.

For measuring height, I need to mark the branch I am measuring for each plant. As today the Watermelon showed 2” of growth by the WG and Banner showed no growth. But I don’t really pay attention to what the fuck I was measuring hahaha


Getting my VPD spread a little tighter and made the move for the goal to be 1.3 today. Humidifier kicks on at 1.5 and fans increase to max at 1.2. I just need to keep the grow room door open during the day to let our excess humidity and then closed at night to help with heat. Humidity really only becomes a problem when it gets to about 80° and then it seems to jump up a bit.

WG Day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

WG canopy day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Watermelon Day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Banner day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

Banner canopy day 54

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 25, 2024

They're definitely growing!

 

[Ke0ncp]

Day 56 and day 18 of flower

Missed yesterday’s update but they are still moving in the right direction as far as coloring goes. I might still be seeing some signs of nutrient deficiency. More on this later this afternoon or tomorrow’s update.

I didn’t have a chance to measure their height, I am going to mark a branch on each for where to measure

Banner is starting to get frosty sugar leaves, will grab pics of that on tomorrows update

Wedding Gelato does not seem to have started stretch yet as it is falling below the overall canopy again. Hopefully in the next couple of days she starts to stretch a bit.

WG Day 56

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 27, 2024

WG canopy day 56

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 27, 2024

Watermelon day 56

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 27, 2024

Watermelon Canopy day 56

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 27, 2024

Banner day 56

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 27, 2024

Banner canopy day 56

• Ke0ncp
• Mar 27, 2024

 

[InTheShed]

Nothing wrong with tight nodes and solid colas!

 

[Chuckeye]

Day 56 and day 18 of flower
I didn’t have a chance to measure their height, I am going to mark a branch on each for where to measure

Common practise is to measure the tallest branch !

Cheers

 

[Ke0ncp]

Common practise is to measure the tallest branch !

Makes sense to me so long as that branch remains the tallest branch through the grow

 

[Ke0ncp]

I was running behind today and just made it in time feed snap a couple of pics and the lights went out. So here is what they are looking like in natural lighting. Not the best of pics but gives a better idea I think.