Coco: Mimosa Evo, Critical, Blueberry & Autos: Orange Sherbet, NY Diesel

[BirdieNumNum]

Photoperiod in the Coco and the Autos in DWC.
Initially using tents for the photoperiods and a sun drenched conservatory for the autos.

Want to use CO2 and UVB supplementation in the tents

Here we are at about a week old.

Photos

Autos

 

[BirdieNumNum]

The photoperiods in main tent doing well enough under a couple of lollipoped Autos a week or so off harvest.

They will be joined by the DWC Autos which are in netpots - since they will fit in here.

It is warmer in the tent than outside it becasue I have a heater on in there, no central heating in the house and it has been extremely unseasonally chilly here in the UK which has probably stunted their growth...

I

 

[BirdieNumNum]

Sometimes you got to get a bigger grow tent..

Autos at back in 100l tanks - DWC
Photoperiod in 15 gallon fabric pots - Coco
Just started to supplement CO2 using a plug and play CO2 controller with presets for room size
PH issue - I think with the Autos - which have been neglected due to admin issues my end trying to reorganise the grow....Wont recover but i may get a useful crop..
Have some other photoperiods on the way which may end up in here too or replace the autos

I need to get this lot to chop by end of September...Need to flip lights to 12/12 no later than 18th July..and wil make it real tight on the extra photoperiods as seed arrives in 24hrs...

So we are on a lightmover (second one for autos is bust (gearbox gone)) have another135w QB to put in and 2 90w QBs.

So total lighting is
1 x 245W "QB"
3 x 135W "QB"
2 X 90W "QB"

Set up with CO2 is

CO2 is on a 5 minute cycle - pump in preset amount of CO2 every 5 mins
Lights are on 18 Hrs
Wall fan comes on approx 16 mins every hour
Exhaust fan and intake fan come on approx 15 mins every 2 hours lights on and a few times lights off - lights on cycle is to reduce humidity and temps (primarily) as well as bring in some fresh air - in case this CO2 controller is messing up as i would rather lose some CO2 than risk the crop being a lot smaller than would be without CO" due to a cock up somewhere along the line...

Hailea v60 air pump for the reservoirs and its really "boiling" the water - i think my older pumps used on the last grow are not giving me enough air, noisy - so this new pump is taking that issue out.

On Dutch Pro A plus B grow nutes
Just added Canna Rhizotonic (330 ml per 100l tank)
Using Canna Cal Mag (may have had some calmag or ph issues with the coco plants

CO2 has cost me about $90 as I had to buy the bottle 5kg should last a few weeks or more $35 for a refill
Rhizotonic cost me $30 ish
Used 130w "QB" $120 - its a decent one with old but S6 Samsung LEDS
Wall fan - possibly free due to an ebay mix up - otherwise $110
Tent was about $300
much bigger exhaust fan - used $210
Filter - $145 (on the way)

So the upgrade has cost ...much nicer easy to work with set up than 1.2m x 60cm X 200cm high tent and a 60cm X 60cm X 200cm tent

UK ..so even with a medical reason, we run the risk of the Filth, Pigs, Cops, Police, Rozzers confiscating the kit the crop and getting a criminal record, suspended sentence, prison time etc....fewer plants .. lot less risk - some say under 12 others 6 plants is the lowest level of "crime" avoiding a charge of "Production"

 

[BirdieNumNum]

From left to right - front in fabric pots

Mimosa Evo
Blueberry
Critical

LST - snapped as couple of branches badly and taped them up with paraffin tape, hemp wick and a dollop of honey. Hopefully they will recover.

Critical (right) was done 20 hrs ago. as was Mimosa(left with badly snapped branch) Blueberry just done.

Bought a CO2 monitor - but it is crap and doesnt work. In a bag with co2 pipe pumping into it and it still reads circa 430 ppm for CO2

 

[BirdieNumNum]

Flipping to 12/12 right now....leaving me approximately 78 days before I need to harvest the last of them.

Mimosa Evo has a relatively long on on packet, 65 to 70 day flowering period..

Autos

Autos all looking OK, with one stretching and in flower (NY Diese; ?) although very airy and suffering from some nute issues, other two not yet in flower a whoping 11 weeks since popping ! Roots in DWC look good. These would have been a lot better if i had moved them into DWC tanks sooner and can I really have held off flowering this long or have I got two ropey seeds here ? I guess we will find out in a week or so once we are well into 12/12 light schedule.

My cheap PH and EC meters are on their last legs, I am eeeking out the last of my Dutch Pro Auto grow nutes and I should have organised my space better so the autos are not getting much attention but I am hopeful they will pull through with a useful harvest.

CO2

I definitely spunked my 10kg (2 x 5kg) of CO2 as I used it all up in three weeks. Did it do any good ? I am not so sure I have my set up sufficiently fine tuned (enough light, right nutes, humidity, ventilation, timings) to have made CO2 as useful as I could have but it is all XP.

Photoperiods
3 in coco at the front of shot with 3 autos in DWC behind them against the back wall

The snapped branch on the Mimosa appears to have at least partially healed as there is no wilting and new growth on the branch but it is seriously stunted. I will rotate to the middle of the three shortly to se if I can get it to catch up and produce useful Colas.

Blueberry and Critical both looking good.

Given the breadth of my lighting which essentially only covers 2/3 of the space, these plants are now big enough and much as I would like to try and grow relative monsters - and extra week or two in flower may be preferable given i will most likely need to chop at the end of September....

Dont want to go buy more lights and I have two 90w quantum Board rip offs I took out as they were in the way I can so I will need to get them in back in here pronto. Once they are in we will have a total of about 965 Watts LED power in here effectively on a canopy of approx 5ft x 8ft so ...24watts per foot which is just about right

 

[Rexer]

Hi @BirdieNumNum

Mind if I tag along? That's quite the impressive setup you've got going!

 

[TriangleCheese]

Flipping to 12/12 right now....leaving me approximately 78 days before I need to harvest the last of them.

Mimosa Evo has a relatively long on on packet, 65 to 70 day flowering period..

Autos

Autos all looking OK, with one stretching and in flower (NY Diese; ?) although very airy and suffering from some nute issues, other two not yet in flower a whoping 11 weeks since popping ! Roots in DWC look good. These would have been a lot better if i had moved them into DWC tanks sooner and can I really have held off flowering this long or have I got two ropey seeds here ? I guess we will find out in a week or so once we are well into 12/12 light schedule.

My cheap PH and EC meters are on their last legs, I am eeeking out the last of my Dutch Pro Auto grow nutes and I should have organised my space better so the autos are not getting much attention but I am hopeful they will pull through with a useful harvest.

CO2

I definitely spunked my 10kg (2 x 5kg) of CO2 as I used it all up in three weeks. Did it do any good ? I am not so sure I have my set up sufficiently fine tuned (enough light, right nutes, humidity, ventilation, timings) to have made CO2 as useful as I could have but it is all XP.

Photoperiods
3 in coco at the front of shot with 3 autos in DWC behind them against the back wall

The snapped branch on the Mimosa appears to have at least partially healed as there is no wilting and new growth on the branch but it is seriously stunted. I will rotate to the middle of the three shortly to se if I can get it to catch up and produce useful Colas.

Blueberry and Critical both looking good.

Given the breadth of my lighting which essentially only covers 2/3 of the space, these plants are now big enough and much as I would like to try and grow relative monsters - and extra week or two in flower may be preferable given i will most likely need to chop at the end of September....

Dont want to go buy more lights and I have two 90w quantum Board rip offs I took out as they were in the way I can so I will need to get them in back in here pronto. Once they are in we will have a total of about 965 Watts LED power in here effectively on a canopy of approx 5ft x 8ft so ...24watts per foot which is just about right

Hi BNN

I was just checking in for the Mimosa Evo as I'll drop a bean in a couple of weeks. Then I saw your confusion on CO2. I can share some insights to help you understand the concept.

It is all about photosynthesis. By adding more light or CO2 we increase the photosynthesis rate hence the harvest. But how do you decide the levels?

You'll be needing a CO2 PPM meter as well as a quantum PAR meter. Most growers doesn't spare a budget for these type of equipment as they are not very cheap. I'm designing and manufacturing grow lights so I have these equipment and I used them in a lot of test grows.

First thing to mention is that there is not too much light in there, considering the space you are working with. Your plants are also fairly big for these lights. I'm sure you can't read more than 700 micro moles per second on most bud sites and that means insufficient lighting.

If you pump CO2 without the required amount of light, then you are not doing much good for your plants. Average CO2 levels in a city would be around 550 PPM. With that much CO2 presence, you can use a lighting setup like yours. However things change when you add the extra CO2 and seal the tent.

I'm growing near extreme settings and the average PPFD on the canopy is 1200 micro moles per second per meter square. The CO2 PPM is around 1050. Temperature is fluctuating between 31-33 degrees Celsius in daytime.

The logic is simple. Plants need more CO2 as they get more light. And they also need high temperatures to intake that extra CO2 and use it for photosynthesis. With one of these three factors missing, all the extra effort and money spent becomes a waste. You need to increase all of these proportionally.

Personally, I use CO2 in the summer as it gets hot anyway. By doing this I turn the summer heat to an advantage. I increase the PPFD in summer and add a big ass champagne yeast CO2 reactor to the system to be refilled every 4 days. In the winter, I let my babies chill in the night time and produce some lovely colors. I can close the windows and simulate a summer setting but I'm too lazy to prepare yeast mix frequently all year round


I hope these will help. Good luck on the grow

 

[BirdieNumNum]

^^ Cheers fella - burnt through that CO2 and what if any benefit i have gotten I dont know but the room is now almost all canopy

Added a couple of second hand HPS lights - 1 x 600w and 1 x 400w
Temps holding nicely around 27 C
Topped up the 3 DWC tanks with Autos in so they are now on full bloom nutes with added PK 13/14 and Boost at 40ml per 10l
Bit of lolly popping and leaf stripping

Some serious split stems on the photos in coco thta i have taped up

All 6 plants now showing flowers

 

[TriangleCheese]

Good to hear that you added more light. Keep out for the stretch as some of your plants are dying to go up. You can use MH instead of HPS for the first 2-3 weeks of flowering to prevent extra stretch and keep nodes stacked for bigger buds.

 

[BirdieNumNum]

We are now 5 and a half weeks since I flipped to 12/12 and flower on the photoperiods.

It is a jungle in there at the moment.
Some pics shortly once I have sorted out some issues

Have had to buy some kind of gardening net and cable ties to begin the process of holding up a mass of colas on the Autos.

All 3 flopped over and a lot of stems bent as a result of topping up the tanks which were down to about 1/8th of capacity. The weight of bud on multoiple small stems plus my main air circulation fan added to the problem.

Adding water refloated the roots that had been holding the canopies of these Autos in DWC up.

$10 of net and cable ties should do the trick and I have done about 50% of the work tonight.

Photoperiods are doing great too.

 

[BirdieNumNum]

Mimosa Evo

 

[BirdieNumNum]

Had some mould issues on Blueberry and Critical - 1 or 2 colas - probably from being bent and in a wind free spot. All trichomes are cloudy. Probably going to harvest some of the top buds and thin out to reduce risk of more mould and try and recover some of what I have lost to mould (1 oz or so) by exposing lower bud sites for a couple of weeks.

Put another fan in on 24/7 to increase air movement in one corner of the tent.

Autos looking good - could harvest now - might get some more out of them if i leave them for a week or so as no/little amber trichomes.

Mimosa Evo has grown wide and short, buds look great - no mould spotted and want to push these for another 2 to 3 weeks if possible.

 

[BirdieNumNum]

So as I near the end of this grow...

Fastbuds Orange Sherbet - AUTO
"extremely productive cultivar that will flower from seed to harvest in 9-10 weeks" These seeds were started in the first week of May 2021. We are now in Week 19 - few amber trichomes

NY Diesel - AUTO
"FLOWERING TIME 56 days"
These seeds were started in the first week of May 2021. We are now in Week 19 - few amber trichomes


Photoperiods (Mimosa Evo, Critical (Free Seed), Blueberry (Free Seed)) are all on time as per spec sheets after flip to 12/12

I have previously not grown Autos and Photoperiods in the same tent.
Autos have almost always been under a 24/7 light schedule

Temps were less than ideal for the first month or so but have been bang on for the last 6 weeks or more.

 

[Rexer]

Hey Birdie! I'm sorry to see that you've had such a difficult time with this crop. Though I must say: I love your grow room!!!!

 

[BirdieNumNum]

Thanks.

I am overall really happy with this grow and issues are mainly down to me doing my usual of taking my eye off the ball at key stages and bodging things as I go along.

This time (so far) I have at least ...:
- assumed one large wall mounted fan would move enough air to stop any dead spots ;
- didnt plan ahead for/appreciate the need if growing bigger plants, to support colas beyond having a few yoyos around;
- needed to plan and position my lighting better when building the new tent so I had enough lighting and in right place ;
- compromised my chosen strain crop by growing free seeds with equal preference ;
- too heavy handed and fairly inept at "LST" ;
- positioned my tent so as to give too little room for access on 2 sides

But on the positive side :

- All strains I started to grow will produce a crop - and a decent weight too ;
- learnt more about growing in coco;
- improved my DWC growing ability (including better air pump,using more space) ;
- proved that I have dialled in my nutrient regime and choice pretty well resulting in consistent success with low effort;
- reduced my reliance on pH and EC meters (essentially not using them at all now);
- used a lot of rain water as well as RO water and reintroduced municipal tap water as a standby

It is going to be a year or so before I can do another cannabis grow (moving house, buying house etc) but perhaps I will try my hand at some outdoor hydroponic veg in the meantime or squeeze in a micro grow for fun...

 

[Rexer]

Thanks.

I am overall really happy with this grow and issues are mainly down to me doing my usual of taking my eye off the ball at key stages and bodging things as I go along.

This time (so far) I have at least ...:
- assumed one large wall mounted fan would move enough air to stop any dead spots ;
- didnt plan ahead for/appreciate the need if growing bigger plants, to support colas beyond having a few yoyos around;
- needed to plan and position my lighting better when building the new tent so I had enough lighting and in right place ;
- compromised my chosen strain crop by growing free seeds with equal preference ;
- too heavy handed and fairly inept at "LST" ;
- positioned my tent so as to give too little room for access on 2 sides

But on the positive side :

- All strains I started to grow will produce a crop - and a decent weight too ;
- learnt more about growing in coco;
- improved my DWC growing ability (including better air pump,using more space) ;
- proved that I have dialled in my nutrient regime and choice pretty well resulting in consistent success with low effort;
- reduced my reliance on pH and EC meters (essentially not using them at all now);
- used a lot of rain water as well as RO water and reintroduced municipal tap water as a standby

It is going to be a year or so before I can do another cannabis grow (moving house, buying house etc) but perhaps I will try my hand at some outdoor hydroponic veg in the meantime or squeeze in a micro grow for fun...

When put that way- you accomplished a lot. It's nice when you can look and see the positive like that.

I can't imagine doing it without my meters, it feeds my bit of OCD.
I found a fan that oscillates and does bursts of speed instead of a constant, which helps eliminate dead spots in my tent.

If you do get another Journal going feel free to tag me as I'd happily follow along. And if you ever have hydro questions I'll always do my best to help find you an answer.

Best of luck on the house hunting- it can be fun, but with current market prices it's a bit wild. We lucked out with ours- and I hope you do too!

 

[BirdieNumNum]

When put that way- you accomplished a lot. It's nice when you can look and see the positive like that.

I can't imagine doing it without my meters, it feeds my bit of OCD.
I found a fan that oscillates and does bursts of speed instead of a constant, which helps eliminate dead spots in my tent.

If you do get another Journal going feel free to tag me as I'd happily follow along. And if you ever have hydro questions I'll always do my best to help find you an answer.

Best of luck on the house hunting- it can be fun, but with current market prices it's a bit wild. We lucked out with ours- and I hope you do too!

Thanks a lot . much appreciated

 

[BirdieNumNum]

It will take me a while to get through this.

So that me done growing for a little while.

I have been growing continuously now since I started in Spring 2019 in hydro DWC with some Easy Bud from RQS.

I am sure that after trying Coco and ending up with a 2m x 2m tent I will be back with hydro DWC in a year or so as I have gotten the best yields from it and its involved less daily work.

I wouldnt have made it without all the advice support and encouragement from you lot ...