Crane's Organic Soil 315W CMD OG Kush Grow Journal, 2018

[Crane]

Day 10. I have the temps a bit more comfortable now, and the light is kept at about 20".

I gave them just maybe a cup of water on day 7, with 0,5 ml/ltr of BioBizz Grow. The bigger pots still feel pretty heavy,the 2 gal a little less so.

But what's up with the size differences?! The plant number 3 (affectionately named) is already pushing out it's 5th node, while numbers 1&2 look puny compared to it. The one in the smaller pot is also doing well.

Should I just cull numbers 1&2? What's the possibility that they would catch up? I should maybe also clone the number three.... gotta start practicing quadlining with it too in a couple of days.

 

[bluter]

everything looks nice and healthy. wouldn't get rid of them unless you need the room. things grow at their own pace, to their own size. hard to tell at this stage how they'll turn out.

 

[Peppers]

everything looks nice and healthy. wouldn't get rid of them unless you need the room. things grow at their own pace, to their own size. hard to tell at this stage how they'll turn out.

I agree with you blunter they could turn into monsters in their own time. Had it happen in the past the smallest in the start ended up same size as the rest but slightly more of a yield on her so I'd definitely say they're worth keeping. Hope this helps you Crane.

 

[Crane]

Yes definitely helps they are only 10 days old,maybe the small ones are normal and the number 3 is the weirdo monster.

 

[Big Sparks]

I think i'd better pull up a set for this one. You're off to a good start!

 

[Crane]

Welcome,there's plenty of space left!

 

[Crane]

Day 12. I topped Number Three above the fourth node, as per the instructions I got from @Asesino85 for quadlining. This plant is growing so strong that it's a bit scary! It was already pushing out branches from every node including the first? A mutant of some sort....

I can see how starting in big pots is problematic as I can't water them and give them nutes. On the other hand,maybe there's plenty of nutes in the big amount of substrate that they have?

 

[Crane]

Slow day at work and I got the greatest idea: plants number 1&2 are so puny (they haven't had any growth in several days), so I thought why not germinate a couple of different seeds to replace them?! They'll get a couple of weeks less veg but who cares, at least I'll get some variety. I have been lamenting planting only one variety,so this is my excuse to change that

 

[Crane]

I went and did it. Boy it feels good I got Sensi's "Hindu Kush" (my secret indica fantasy fulfilled) and Dinamed's "Cheese CBD" (for the Mrs.). Gonna crack just one of each. They should both be fast flowering so I hope I don't end up with totally different harvest times.

 

[philthegeek]

Hi Crane.

Wouldn't worry too much about a few light hiccups. Will all be good.

Me, i started growing again after years of hiatus about a year ago. done a lot of tinkering with my tent setup in the shed. Here, like for you high temps are an issue.

I have a Cooltube reflector arriving next week that i can directly vent out of the tent. Which is not really applicable to your light i guess. And your setup has the ballast dumping its waste heat into the growspace as well as the lamp. My HPS has the ballast outside the tent. Not sure if it would work but any way you could hang a "hood" of some sort over and close to your light and use that as an intake for your extraction fan?? hot air of the electrics rises straight into that and gets sucked out straight away??

Currently my grow is at 28 C with the lights on ( 82 F) . From previous grows they do well even up to 36C (96 F). My variety may be a bit better at handling heat and lower humidity? Its White Widow that's been crossed with a local industrial variety (lower THC, higher CBN) that i got roundabout from a local breeder who was trying to develop a higher CBN plant better suited to growing in local outdoor conditions.

Plenty potent enough for me though. The quarantine and import issues of somewhat less than legal plant material here means there is no way i take a chance on buying seeds online.

Seems you plants going well, congrats. My 2c worth?

"Quadlining" / LST would i reckon certainly be the way to go with your setup, but you may end up spending a bit longer in veg than you were planning??

Be careful of over watering in the early stages. I use a soil mix of 50% perlite to get a nice aerated root zone, and bottom up watering. Plenty of airspace in the root zone and its hard to over water after the roots have established. Get them gently to the point where their roots are developed with a week or two of judicious top down watering and you'll be fine.

Nutes....less is more, particularly with seedlings. I consider them such until i have 4 nodes and can top them above that to start setting up for some LST. I dont use anything except water till then and nothing at more than 1/2 strength till the plants are in flower. For me, Thrive, some Neem oil, with some home made Worm juice or Seaweed extract has worked well. Low strength every 5 - 10 days AFTER the plants are well established, but that said i do have a small amount of fertiliser (Growers Blue and Osmocote) in the initial mix.

My main way of stuffing up?? Interfering too much. Its only on this, 4th grow, that i have even bothered with the pH levels of the water. They call it weed for a reason. Generally it will do its own thing quite well.

Trick is to relax, chill and let that happen as much as possible. Which for me is hard as i like to tinker.

Good luck!

 

[Crane]

Hi Crane.

Wouldn't worry too much about a few light hiccups. Will all be good.

Me, i started growing again after years of hiatus about a year ago. done a lot of tinkering with my tent setup in the shed. Here, like for you high temps are an issue.

I have a Cooltube reflector arriving next week that i can directly vent out of the tent. Which is not really applicable to your light i guess. And your setup has the ballast dumping its waste heat into the growspace as well as the lamp. My HPS has the ballast outside the tent. Not sure if it would work but any way you could hang a "hood" of some sort over and close to your light and use that as an intake for your extraction fan?? hot air of the electrics rises straight into that and gets sucked out straight away??

Currently my grow is at 28 C with the lights on ( 82 F) . From previous grows they do well even up to 36C (96 F). My variety may be a bit better at handling heat and lower humidity? Its White Widow that's been crossed with a local industrial variety (lower THC, higher CBN) that i got roundabout from a local breeder who was trying to develop a higher CBN plant better suited to growing in local outdoor conditions.

Plenty potent enough for me though. The quarantine and import issues of somewhat less than legal plant material here means there is no way i take a chance on buying seeds online.

Seems you plants going well, congrats. My 2c worth?

"Quadlining" / LST would i reckon certainly be the way to go with your setup, but you may end up spending a bit longer in veg than you were planning??

Be careful of over watering in the early stages. I use a soil mix of 50% perlite to get a nice aerated root zone, and bottom up watering. Plenty of airspace in the root zone and its hard to over water after the roots have established. Get them gently to the point where their roots are developed with a week or two of judicious top down watering and you'll be fine.

Nutes....less is more, particularly with seedlings. I consider them such until i have 4 nodes and can top them above that to start setting up for some LST. I dont use anything except water till then and nothing at more than 1/2 strength till the plants are in flower. For me, Thrive, some Neem oil, with some home made Worm juice or Seaweed extract has worked well. Low strength every 5 - 10 days AFTER the plants are well established, but that said i do have a small amount of fertiliser (Growers Blue and Osmocote) in the initial mix.

My main way of stuffing up?? Interfering too much. Its only on this, 4th grow, that i have even bothered with the pH levels of the water. They call it weed for a reason. Generally it will do its own thing quite well.

Trick is to relax, chill and let that happen as much as possible. Which for me is hard as i like to tinker.

Good luck!

Thanks for the ideas. And I definitely hear you about the urge to tinker way too much with the plants would have to have like four grows going at the same time, so there would always be something to do!

 

[philthegeek]

Lol! Yup, i say all this shit and know to back off and chill, yet find myself tinkering anyway.

Looks like my current grow will be reasonably productive and i have enough in the cupboard that i have upwards of 4 oz decarbed leaf (from this grows defol so far), an oz and a half of buds in various stages of curing, and most recent defol leaf hanging in the tent slow drying at the moment. Will cure that to use to dilute buds to get a smoking mix that does.t leave me gaga, and the decarbed leaf for butter / tinctures.

Also have several bottles of tincture in storage. My issue when harvest time comes is what to fracking do with it all?? One of the benefits of doing tinctures is that by concentrating it down can store it long term in the dark.

Now that i know i have female seeds with good germination rate and planning on an attempt at DWC grow. Just to try it out yah know.

Will do as a Spacebox grow under my 2 COB "600W" led, and try germinating the seeds straight up in the perlite i will use as a media so no transplanting issues. Saw a reference on another thread to "hempy cups" which looked interesting.

Sam's Fall & Winter Grow 2018

Have to trial a couple of things. Will use 90 x 90mm tall square pots with a load of holes drilled in the sides instead of the cups. Can get nursery type frames to hold these nicely stable and support a polystyrene top to keep the light off the nute solution and roots. Aquarium pump and stones to keep everything aerated.

May use an Autopot Smartvalve mounted up at my desired water level in the tank to make sure the level gets maintained??

Am going to keep the nutes really simple and see how well or not that works.

Arghh....have to spend today working on car though.........

Seeyahs!

 

[Crane]

Yeah hydroponics will give you more to tinker with, that's for sure

It's day 14 here. I watered the Number 5 in the smaller two gallon pot. Also mulled in about a half cup of milled barley malt into the top soil. Gave a small amount of BioBizz Grow,too,and read that it's mostly molasses from a brochure I got from the GS. Lol. I just went through some effort to find and buy molasses,and here I had it all the time.

Number Five is the bushiest of the three OG's, I've been quite surprised with the amount of variety these seeds seem to push out. I guess fifteen years or so ago when I last grew weed I always had some pretty stable strains, like Northern Lights or some old school Kushes, so they were a lot more uniform. These new girls seem to be all over the place.

 

[Crane]

Day 18 veg. The three remaining OG Kush's are all totally different phenos: the giant, the bushy and the pale pencil neck. I have one Cheese CBD and one Hindu Kush on days 1-3. My plan is to give them 3 weeks veg and then flip, the others will be almost 5 week veg then.

I've added milled malted barley to topsoil on all of them. The bigger ones got some Grow. Quadlining on it's way on the Big Number Tres.

Today I noticed some slight smell too, which is always a nice sign.

Any tips with pale one? The whole plant is chlorotic, so I would guess sulphur or magnesium if it's a deficiency, but it's in the same soil mix as the big one next to it,and the soil is amended with gypsum? Should I try a little molasses with watering (it hasn't been watered yet at all), molasses have magnesium?

 

[bobrown14]

Dont worry about lighting at this point. You could run just about any amount above 12/12 and they will be fine.

I run seedlings 24/0 until hardened off. You can strengthen the stems by moving that little black fan back say a foot or so and blow it on the seedlings. Not too hard ...
This will harden them off. Similar to taking seedlings outside on a nice day for a few hours. It helps strengthen stems.

Hanging here and sub'd for the flower pics.

On the heat ... 90F or +31C is getting hot. It will stress the little plants. You don't really need all that light for seedlings.I use 2 12w LED normal house hold bulbs, 1 is 3K and the other is 5K - the seedlings bend toward the 5K bulb and 1 of them is relly enough until 3rd leaf set.

Next time for seedling stretch. I start seeds in a small container and up-pot to soil and burry some of the stem deeper and make the seedling shorter so you don't have to support the seedling. Must not over water tho... very important at this stage.

GL with your grow. I love to see people trying out organic soil. It's a lot easier than everyone makes it out to be.

 

[Crane]

Thanks man for all the tips! I've gotten the temps marginally lower by fine tuning the fan blowing directions, the max temps are now 29C. Not optimal but at least under 30 for the next run I'm really seriously thinking about DIY'ing a cob led fixture of some sort,should help with the temps.

 

[philthegeek]

"for the next run I'm really seriously thinking about DIY'ing a cob led fixture of some sort,should help with the temps. "

If you do go that way, avoid the cheap chinese cob chips that are only a few $ each. I did a fair bit of experimentation with those for work last year. Needed lots for coverage in a GH situation and made up a few small units to test. They suck power, run hot and dont last long. Much more cost effective to buy the ready built, plug in off the shelf units eBay. Seems that people who have had success with DIY cob chips have used the more expensive gear. Lots of info on other on 420 threads about this.

And...FFS pay attention to safety with the wiring and power supply if you DIY. I've seen photos of some peoples setups that make me wonder how they have not electrocuted themselves or burned their houses down.

 

[Crane]

"for the next run I'm really seriously thinking about DIY'ing a cob led fixture of some sort,should help with the temps. "

If you do go that way, avoid the cheap chinese cob chips that are only a few $ each. I did a fair bit of experimentation with those for work last year. Needed lots for coverage in a GH situation and made up a few small units to test. They suck power, run hot and dont last long. Much more cost effective to buy the ready built, plug in off the shelf units eBay. Seems that people who have had success with DIY cob chips have used the more expensive gear. Lots of info on other on 420 threads about this.

And...FFS pay attention to safety with the wiring and power supply if you DIY. I've seen photos of some peoples setups that make me wonder how they have not electrocuted themselves or burned their houses down.

Yes I'm always neurotic about electric safety, so that will be my number one concern. I've been watching Growmau5's videos on Youtube about led diy'ing, and I was thinking definitely putting some money into it to get quality components. Of course the commercial led fixtures are more safe, but 1500-2000$ is too much for me...

 

[philthegeek]

Interesting that you are currently using a 315W ceramic, but considering COB's? Can understand you have heat issues...but the COBs do need substantial heat sinks that need airflow for cooling and those heat sinks have to be right in the grow space.

May it be more cost effective to work out how to better get the waste heat from your current light out of your grow space?
From what i read the 315W ceramics are pretty good for output and spectral range and i'd think would suit the 3x4 space you have which isnt huge. Only thing i dont like on those lamps is that the ballast is attached to the reflector and that means the waste heat from that is right in the tent. More difficult to manage heat issues than "normal" a remote ballast HID.

Have you got access to a PAR light meter to measure the actual light levels at your plants in your current space?? Maybe map that and ask around other threads where people are using COBs and see if they have done the same??

Hey, COB seems to be an effective way to go if that's your thing...just seems expensive to set up properly.

 

[Crane]

Yeah they aren't exactly cheap,kinda feels like it would be a good skill to acquire,though,I mean building led fixtures, because one of these next years the efficiency is gonna be there for good. I really do like the 315W,if it wasn't for the heat it would be perfect. One with a remote ballast could be a really good alternative.

I don't have a PAR meter but just by the feel of it it's at least on par with a 400w HPS that I used to use back in the days.