Dro's DWC 2nd Run: 420 Edition Autos, Clones & Others

[Dro]

Week 1 4/20

Hello everyone, I recently purchased a new tent so I can veg and flowering on a consistent basis so no better time to start a nice little run than 4/20!

The Plan:
Start 3 Autos, 4 clones (but only 2 will be kept), and 4 photos. The idea is to keep autos in the veg tent for the entire cycle, the 2 clones and 4 photos will switch tents once flowering tent opens up. I might have to split the 4 photos and keep vegging longer. We will see.... My main goal here is to keep some variety of different strains on hand so I am not necessarily going for a lot of yield but will he happy with some decent buds.

The Rig:
6x4 Tent (2 in 1 style)
2- 5 gallon totes for 8 plants
They will be moved to individual 5 gallon buckets when they get bigger.
1200Watt Betsva for Vegging (may get updated to QB288 quantum boards half way). QB288s @3K spectrum for flowering

Nutes:
General Hydroponics Flora Nutrients, CaliMagic, RO water, Z7, Hydroguard and ArmorSI. Floralicous plus, diamond nectar, liquid bloom for flowering stage.

Strains:
Autos: Barney's Pineapple Express, Humboldt's Lemon Juice, CropKing Northern Lights
Photo: Barney's Gorilla Zkittlez and Blue Gelato 41, Seedsman Jack Herer, Green Crack

Here are some.pics. wish me luck! Hopefully I don't mess up again this time.

 

[Lewydeville]

I’m subbed up Dro. Very nice set up and I’m loving those 4 pot totes, they look a handy size. How long you planning to veg for?

 

[Barney86]

Hey dro think I'll sub up for this one. Quite like the look of those bubblers too.
Im pretty handy with hydro if there's anything you need to know.
What went wrong the last time? Ive just revegged mid bloom and ruined my crop if it makes you feel any better lol.
We all make mistakes man. Just gotta smile and try again

 

[Dro]

I’m subbed up Dro. Very nice set up and I’m loving those 4 pot totes, they look a handy size. How long you planning to veg for?

Vegging will be 8 weeks but I might have to get creative with training as there will be some overlapping weeks and they might get out of control. I might try your technique @Lewydeville

 

[Dro]

Hey dro think I'll sub up for this one. Quite like the look of those bubblers too.
Im pretty handy with hydro if there's anything you need to know.
What went wrong the last time? Ive just revegged mid bloom and ruined my crop if it makes you feel any better lol.
We all make mistakes man. Just gotta smile and try again

Thanks @Barney86 . My last grow was my first and I didn't know what I was doing. Initially I got some root rot and while trying to correct that I changed res so many times that the average water temp the plants got was around 54-58F. This caused a bunch of deficiencies and my Northern lights Auto was about 12 inches tall after 8 weeks. My green crack plant was a phototype so I managed to bring her back to health and she is great now.
I feel I have a pretty good handle of the process so decided to give autos a second chance.

 

[Barney86]

Thanks @Barney86 . My last grow was my first and I didn't know what I was doing. Initially I got some root rot and while trying to correct that I changed res so many times that the average water temp the plants got was around 54-58F. This caused a bunch of deficiencies and my Northern lights Auto was about 12 inches tall after 8 weeks. My green crack plant was a phototype so I managed to bring her back to health and she is great now.
I feel I have a pretty good handle of the process so decided to give autos a second chance.

Haha sounds about right for a first grow mate. Happens to most of us. I got lucky and someone spotted mine falling apart and pulled me out the shit. Was really lucky though, ive still only met about 6 guys that use the same system and wouldve known how to fix it. Had a few faliers tho. Done a Dwc experiment to see if I could do a full grow without a res change.... whole plant collapsed about 2 weeks before due date. Won't be trying that again lol.
As long as you learn from your mistakes though then they were worth making
When it comes to autos you've really gotta be careful with them the first 2 weeks. After that I just treat them like photos. They're pretty indestructible once they're rooted up but fragile as fuck untill then.

 

[Dro]

Mid Week update
Well, unfortunately my feminized green crack plant turned out to be a male plant so it had to be cut down. Although this was very disappointing after spending 4 months growing, it offered a great learning experience and a new opportunity.
Now that the flowering tent is open and got rid of all clones, I have decided to add more plants into this grow. Here is the new line up.

Autos:
1 Barney's Pineapple Express
1 Humboldt's Lemon Juice
1 CropKing Northern Lights (no sign of life yet..)
2 Humboldt's Blue Dream
Photo:
2 Barney's Gorilla Zkittlez
2 Seedsman Jack Herer
2 Seedsman Bruce Banger

I also have a Northern Lights Auto in a solo cup full of coco for the 420 Solo cup challenge.

Here in Michigan we can have up to 12 plants and i am planning on keeping a semi perpetual grow while staying within the limits. I am hoping that by mixing some autos and photos I can have harvest every 8-10 weeks. Ideally I would like to have 4 plants in early veg, 4 auto flowering growing, and 4 plants in flowering tent. This will definitely be a challenge once the autos are getting big and the photos are closer to be moved to the flower tent. I will have to control the photos grow through LST and defoliation.

Here is the new line up of strains and you can see those strains that are eager to grow!

 

[Pennywise]

Off to a good start, I'm subbed for this one.

 

[Dro]

I am pretty happy with germination rate of all the seeds that I got from @SeedsMan So far 100%! 1 of the Jack Herer already has a root in the water!
On an another note, the Northern lights in the 420 solo cup finally made an appearance.
Looking forward to this variety of plants!
These girls get a lighting upgrade next week. No more burple pics!

 

[Pennywise]

They'll love the white light!

 

[Dro]

Ok, had to get the other tote going and make some room.

We got ourselves a full house! This is going to be interesting!

 

[Dro]

Week 2 update
Plants are continuing to grow into seedlings. Gorilla Zkittlez and Jack Herer appears to be the ones with the fastest root grow with roots touching water already. Top feeding some of the Blue dream autos and Bruce banger until we have some roots.
On an exciting news, I upgraded the burple light in the veg tent with some quatum boards. The output and spread is fantastic! With 3 boards I can cover the entire 4x4 while only consuming 342 watts. I dialed it down for right now to about a ~200PAR value.
Here are some pics for those of you following along.
Also, don't forget to calibrate your tools.. it's first day of the month!

 

[Dro]

Week 3 update

Well... Looks like some root rot may have got some of the plants. Water temps have been borderline 69-70 but have been bringing them down with cold water bottles. Unfortunately looks like some got hit harder than others and some don't seem to be sick at all.

Interesting enough, some plants within the same the tote were not affected at all even though they all have roots in the res now....

So after treating them with H2O2 for a couple of days I changed the water today.

The healthier plants are now placed together. These are Jack Herer, Gorilla Zkittlez, and both Bruce Bangers. Added some light calimagic and 3 part GH Flora series for a total 0.5ec (250ppm), plus z7 and hydroguard. pH 5.5

The middle of the pack group of plants get straight pH water with z7 and hydroguard. These are: pineapple Express auto, lemon juice express auto, jack Herer and gorilla zkittlez. Let's hope these recover... I don't have much faith on the autos anymore based on previous experience but hoping Jack and gorilla recover.
On the last tote we have the two blue dream autos. One appears to be a runt so if she doesn't start growing in the next two weeks it will be done.
So once again I have managed to mess up the start of the grow. I am starting to rethink dwc and maybe go hempy buckets next.. I dunno, it's starting to become a bit frustrating. Anyhow, time to light up a bong with some gmo strain that I was gifted the other day. This strain smells like a mushroom Swiss onion burger and tastes fantastic!
Side note, the QB lights are awesome! I have them dimmed 60% for now.

Some pics for those reading this journal.

 

[Dro]

End of week 3 update.
Anyone still reading this journal? Well hopefully some of you are because things are about to get a bit interesting.

I was gifted 5 very mature wedding cake clones from a grower friend when he heard I was having some issues with root rot.

Since these clones came from soil I couldn't do dwc so instead I decided to give coco a try!

After a couple of days of research I chose to go the hempy bucket way with coco/perlite mix as media with some stone bottom. This method seemed interesting to me as it is still hydro but a bit less maintenance.

I have been watching some of my DWC seedlings struggle with some root rot while a northern light auto that I threw in for a solo cup challenge in Coco has done great with almost no maintenance. This was the main reason I finally decided to give a different growing style a try.

Due to the addition of these clones I had to perform the first culling. A jack Herer, gorilla zkittlez, and blue dream auto have been removed and the lemon juice express is in the chopping block.

Let's hope these clones like their new home and I don't manage to fuck it up.

Anyone out there doing hempys?

Here are some quick pics of the current veg tent and the hempy buckets. It's getting a bit crowded in there! Clones will get moved to flowering tent in a couple of weeks after they have made some larger roots.

@Lewydeville I am not sure I will be able to do your technique with these but I will definitely be doing some LST.

 

[Lewydeville]

Nice touch getting the clones it’s a strain I really want to try. Sorry I’ve not been following along, for some reason I’ve not had any notifications. I’m quite interested in the Hempy bucket method myself as it cuts down on all the pumps and electricity use. It looks a great way to grow. Hope these go a little smoother for you.

 

[Pennywise]

Hey grab some Z7 from Flying Skull for your RDWC, it'll prevent your root rot issues.

 

[Dro]

Nice touch getting the clones it’s a strain I really want to try. Sorry I’ve not been following along, for some reason I’ve not had any notifications. I’m quite interested in the Hempy bucket method myself as it cuts down on all the pumps and electricity use. It looks a great way to grow. Hope these go a little smoother for you.

I am pretty excited when he offered and I would have never turned them down. I did put them in different tent for a day to inspect for bugs and sprayed the crap out them with Neem oil just in case.

I know what you mean about notifications. It has happened to me several times. It has been pretty radio silence at 430 forums for a bit there. Will have to manually make my way around to check on updates lol

 

[Dro]

Hey grab some Z7 from Flying Skull for your RDWC, it'll prevent your root rot issues.

Been doing z7 since the beginning of this grow
Since this was a new bigger tent I put the air pumps inside and I think this was a contributing factor to my water temps and initial issues. This week the water temps have not reached 68f.

What is strange though is that some plants didn't get affected although they were the same strain in the same bucket. Everytime I think of pythium I think a plague that takes over all roots!

 

[Pennywise]

If they were all exposed they should all show signs. It’s most likely something precipitating out of solution.

 

[Lewydeville]

Have you checked everything for light leaks in the res? I had it once when I left the lid with a 6 inch gap for a few days after checking the ph. I got it fairly bad but it’s all part of learning the trade with hydro.