Eleven Roses Hydro Under MH

Dusted

Well-Known Member
Another summer has come and almost gone, so it's time. The hydroponics system has been circulating with pH 7.8 aerated, hard water, inoculated with bacterial/fungal spores after the last harvest and root removal, for six months. I switched out the water, neutralized to pH 5.8 and added nutrients appropriate for seedlings today.

Also started germinating 5 Eleven Roses (fem) so in three days I should be planting. I had to choose between those or Sensi Super Skunk or THC Bomb. Too many seeds, too little time. The GG4 is massively potent but the terpene profile is a bit lacking. Still have two grows worth of those seeds left as well.

I still have a shitpile of GG4 from the last harvest, and a bunch of Blue Cheese from before, so I really don't need more, but it is more of a hobby than anything. In the dark of winter it's always nice to go sit in bright light at 28 C surrounded by vegetation which has a wondrous odour. It also gives me a reason to use my expensive camera and lenses to capture pictures of this beautiful plant.

My system pictures are on file and you don't need to see seeds germinating, so no pics. Update in a few days. Enjoy the last days of summer.
 
I checked the seeds this morning (3.5 days) and they had all germinated. I should have looked last night since they went a bit further than I like before planting. A couple of tap roots had grown through the paper towel and I ended up breaking the tip off one of them trying to remove it. We shall see if it will make it. I have included a picture of my germination method since it is so successful and others may be interested. I have the light set at 500 W and 18/6 hr. I don't bother to move the light up and down since it is so bright at 1000 W once the leaves get big enough to handle it.




 
Day 11 since the planting.
Had a bit of a scare this week when moving the clay rocks around. A tiny black fly of some sort flew out of the rocks. We haven't had a frost yet and I may have taken something into my grow room on my clothes, or it was just attracted to the light in the basement and flew in the door. I have had fungus fly infestations in the past. Brought some home on orchids once. If they get into the rocks and breed you end up with flies stuck to your buds. Yummy. Thankfully I haven't seen any more. I do have resident spiders that I allow to wander, so long as they don't spin webs in the plants!

A shot of the seed package


I couldn't resist buying these seeds simply because of the name. During the summer I grow tea roses


Not much happens up top with the seedlings during the first few weeks because the roots can grow unrestricted. I have the water chiller set to 21 C in the recirculating drip system. I like it a bit cooler than recommended until I have enough vegetation to shade the rocks. I will then increase it a bit and turn up the light.

I still have the seedling nutrients in the system. Once the plants get larger I switch out the nutrients weekly, but they don't use a lot the first few weeks. I am using General Hydroponics Flora series at the levels they recommend. They are much better at feed rate recommendations than companies 20 years ago, when they wanted you to use way too much. They sold more that way and hydroponics got a bad name for harsh tasting buds.


 
Day 20

I have turned the light up to 750 W and increased nutrient levels. These plants are not what I expected to be so far. I have only grown hybrid plants before and these are supposed to be 100% Indica. The fan leaves are not as large as I expected. The GG4 had huge fan leaves at this stage. I also got two sets of tri-leaves in a row on several of the plants. It also seems that these plants are developing a bit slower than other types. I realize that Indica don't grow as large as Sativa or hybrids so I will be vegging a bit longer than usual to get larger plants. It looks like the seedling I broke the tip off the taproot, is going to make it. Things should get more interesting now that they can handle more light and nutrients.





 
Day 28

As you can see I put the cages up before the plants made it difficult. Since the roots are well developed and they are putting out a set of leaves per day I turned the light up to 1000 W. Thankfully I have the water chiller, or the nutrients would be hitting 25-27 C. Once the leaves fill out and cover the rocks, and I flip to 12 hrs, the cooler doesn't work nearly as hard. That is still one to two weeks away.

I had a pH excursion the last week that I was too lazy to correct. I gave the nutrients a bit too much acid and ended up at 4.5. Knowing it wouldn't cause major nutrient deficiencies in a week, I just left there. Back to pH 5.8 this week. A few grows back I let my pH meter get out of calibration and ended up growing plants for three weeks at pH 3.5. I figured it out when the leaf margins all started turning purple and the growth stunted. Plants grew well after I fixed it.

We have finally had a couple of good frosts so that should kill off most gnats that have been flying around outside. Unfortunately the fungus flies I noticed in my grow room seem to have moved in. Every day or so I will see one fly out of the rocks. Oh well. I will have to sterilize the rocks with hydrogen peroxide after this grow.

My familiar friend, stem rot, is back. It doesn't kill the plants unless you allow them to fall over. It starts as a dark green streak up the stem and then develops into a lesion about 1 cm above the media surface. I have had some fall over in the past. If you splint the damaged stem and support the plant it will form a canker and heal over. You would think it would affect the roots, but they always appear healthy. I just expect it now and deal with it. That is also why I put the cages up so early.








 
Day 35

I'm getting some pretty vigorous growth on a couple of the plants. They, of course, are the ones without stem rot. The worst plant (the one I broke the tip of the tap root off) has almost collapsed onto itself. It is being held up by the leaves on the cage. I can't get any pictures of that stem but there are a couple of others I was able to get to. The fungus seems to only attack the support structure leaving the vascular system intact, so they should make it. I'm getting tempted to flip the light cycle but I want the smaller plants to grow a bit more first.












 
Day 42 (flip day)

I decided to flip the light cycle last night. These plants are six weeks old and that is the longest I have ever kept plants in vegetative growth. With hybrid plants I can usually flip at 4-5 weeks. I was just starting to see development of pre-flowers and the bigger plants are definitely ready. The two that were hit worst with stem rot have perked up and started to grow so they might catch up during stretch.

I have only done a couple of previous grows in this room so I'm still figuring out the best setup. I noticed that the huge fan leaves on these plants were wilting a touch over the day. The room temperature was at about 27-28 C at the end of 18 hr days which seems to be a bit warm for this strain. I moved the circulation fan to the doorway and blow cool air in the bottom, which forces the warm air out the top of the doorway. I also closed all the furnace ducts in the basement. The large fan leaves are standing up better now that the temperature is down to 25 C. Now that I have 12 hrs of darkness the night temperature got down to 19 C before the light came on. That is not cool enough to get the best colour development during bud ripening but it's good enough for now. I'm not sure I want to punch a duct hole in my foundation and then try to meter the cold outside air in at the proper ratios when it's -35 C outside.














 
I realized today that I hadn't used any beneficial bacteria and fungi since the end of my last grow six months ago. I added some prior to circulating the system, after harvest, for the summer to reduce dead organic material. A lot of people use enzyme for this purpose, and I have tried it, but I find it to be too expensive to use on a regular basis. I have a background in microbiology so I know that the enzymes are extracted from fungi and bacteria and I might as well grow the bugs that grow the enzymes.

I tried to find Great White inoculant in Canada, but found that it wasn't approved for sale here. All I could find in the local hydroponic store was a bacterial based inoculant, without any fungal spores! Health Canada must be concerned about inhalation of fungal spores which can be deadly for immune system compromised people. On a related note, we also can't access anti-thatch agents for lawns as consumers. They must be applied by registered pesticide applicators and only available through them. I was able to source some Great White out of the US though, and use it with care.
 
I’m a bit annoyed with General Hydroponics for their feed rate table, and myself for just following it. I flipped the lights this week and adjusted the nutrient levels according to GH. I noticed when dosing that they recommended a reduction in N this week along with increases in P/K, and thought it strange. The plants are about to double or triple in size and I am giving them less N? Sure enough I find all of the new growth stays lime green most of the day. I expect that colour to disappear within an hour of the lights turning on! Will adjust accordingly.

I don’t really blame GH that much since they have no experience with Cannabis nitrogen requirements. The US government has prohibited any research into the plant since it’s the same as opium poppy in their eyes.

Sorry. Old man rant
 
Day 49/7

Thankfully these plants are really hardy, and it takes a lot to hurt them, although you wouldn't know it from all of the newbie help threads. Anyway it turns out that my pH was quite a bit off. I knew there was a problem with my pH pen because I was getting weird readings. I went to try and calibrate and got low battery error. Go buy three little button batteries for $15, install and try to calibrate. Now I get an electrode failure error. This was a free, used pH pen from work when I got it 15 years ago so it's not a bad life span for a well used instrument. Had to go to the local hydroponics shop and buy a new one for $120. Hydrate the electrode for 24 hrs, calibrate, check nutrient reservoir pH and find 4.5. I try to run my system at 5.8 so that is quite a bit out. I wasn't seeing any deficiencies yet but they could have been doing better than they were. You have to run pH 3.5 for several weeks to get any spectacular nutrient deficiencies. Ask me how I know.

It's weird that I only got stem rot on three out of five plants, since the fungal spores must be circulating in the air and nutrients. Maybe it's individual plants resistance to this fungus. The two worst plants have mostly recovered and formed a canker over the lesion on the stems but are still quite a bit behind the unaffected ones. I haven't done any defoliation yet so I couldn't get a picture of the healing stems. I will have to get rid of some fan leaves and lower branches soon. I just hate removing any green growth which is supplying energy to the plant. First indications of flowering showing after a week.

These plants really liked the drop in temperature. Daytime high is now 24 C and lights out gets to 19 C. I personally don't like it as much because it's not as warm to sit in, but that's the price I will pay for healthier females.






 
Day 56/14

I have given up worrying about pH. The new pH pen shows that after 4 days the pH of the reservoir goes down to pH 4.5. It briefly gets a spike up to 6.2 when I top up the reservoir daily. This is the first time in 40 years I haven't added acid to my nutrients and I end up this low anyway. Must be the ammonium salts in the GH N solution. For 20 years I made my own N solution out of Calcium Nitrate and had to add acid to get the proper pH. If my previous two grows survived at the really low pH levels they were seeing I'm not going to fret over it anymore.

My reservoir developed a leak. When drilling out the hole for the fitting I used a 1 inch hole bit only to find it needed the next size up. There is no way to re-drill the hole larger once it is done so I tried cutting it with scissors and cracked it a bit. Silicone sealant worked for over a year but finally separated. Thankfully I had my original reservoir, which I wasn't using, to replace it. It is not quite as large so I'm able to reduce my system volume down to 40 L from 60 L. Saves on nutrient cost too.

I have done a bit of defoliation to remove unproductive branches and shaded fan leaves. Even though I hate doing it I also took off a few of the upper fans that were covering the interior of the plants exposing the growth sites. It also make it easier to stuff the side branches into the cage. One of the fan leaves I measured had 9 inch long blades. They are chugging along nicely. The stem rot lesions have mostly healed forming a canker.













 
Day 63/21

The flowers are not developing as quickly as I have seen in the past. I'm not sure if it is the genetics or the lower temperature this grow is seeing. The two stunted plants are now growing well and stretching out a bit. I doubt they will ever catch up but they will be worth a few ounces of bud when done. I continue to defoliate a little bit at a time just to open things up. These fan leaves are huge. I wasn't able to stuff all the side branches into the cages so I will have to tie up some branches later.

I am going to try and find some nutrients that don't contain ammonium salts. The pH by day three drops to 4.5 and then starts to climb. This morning it was up to 5.9 at day 5 of this nutrient cycle. It probably doesn't hurt and could possibly help get some nutrients to the plant but it just bugs me.

I had planned on running THC Bomb for my second grow of the winter but I just got involved in a SeedsMan comparison grow. I don't have the free seeds yet and I won't be able to start until Jan1 so hopefully some others will delay germination till then as well.












 
I had to replace my grow room circulation fan. The existing fan was a commercial grade 12 inch floor model that is at least 5 years old. Heavy duty but recently it started making a squealing bearing noise a few times a day. Tried to find one locally but it seems they are a seasonal item. Had to resort to Amazon which I am trying not to support. Type in fan. 22K hits. Crap. Finally filter enough to find relevant fans. Ended up with an 18 inch floor model that sits nicely in the doorway. Much quieter and pushes more air. I do want to see all leaves in the grow room move.

With the plants getting larger the vegetation is soaking up all the IR radiation released from the big mofo light. My water chiller never runs anymore. In fact the nutrients are too cool now with an average temperature of 20 C. The room temperature is cooler so that probably influences it as well. I really should contact the breeder and find out the optimum day time temperature for this strain. I’m only at 23 C during lights on and down to 17.5 C at night.
 
Finally getting some odour off the plants. Typical onion garlic skunk. Hopefully they aren’t as stinky as the Blue Cheese I grew. That was too intense without exterior venting. They are also stretching a bit and flowers filling. Still triple leaves coming off the cola’s. I have cut back on the Flora Grow, per instructions for this point in the grow, and the pH isn’t going wild anymore. I have to add 4 - 6 litres of water to the reservoir daily, so they are sucking up the water. RH is about 50% in the room and 38% in the rest of the house.
 
Got the temperature up a degree C by moving the fan a foot inside the room instead of at the door boundary. That way I get a blend of recirculated air and cold basement floor air. It was too cool for me in the room so I figured it was too cool for them and they seemed slow growing. It is almost up to 24 C which I think should be optional.
 
Got the temperature up a degree C by moving the fan a foot inside the room instead of at the door boundary. That way I get a blend of recirculated air and cold basement floor air. It was too cool for me in the room so I figured it was too cool for them and they seemed slow growing. It is almost up to 24 C which I think should be optional.
You think if it's around 18-19° it'll stunt the growth? Because that's what the temperature in my tent is for the autos, one is in dwc and I didn't want it too warm.
 
You think if it's around 18-19° it'll stunt the growth? Because that's what the temperature in my tent is for the autos, one is in dwc and I didn't want it too warm.

At that temperature I would expect a slower growth rate. It probably doesn’t hurt the plants but they may take longer to finish. It also has to do with the strain being grown. Indica plants will do better than Sativa’s at cooler temperatures. I read that the optimum nutrient temperature for root development is 21 C and for nutrient uptake is 23 C. I used to have problems with my nutrient temperature until I got the water chiller, so I understand your concern.
 
Day 70/28

Everything is going well. Stretch is pretty well done. The plants range from 80 cm to 115 cm in height. Lots of water usage daily at about a litre per day per plant. Picture day!












 
Day 77/35

Temperature has been great in the grow room. Daytime high of 23.5. Nighttime low 17.5. The RH is higher than I like (just over 60 % at night and mid 50's during the day) but there are a lot of leaves releasing water in there. When it gets colder outside and the RH gets down to nothing that will lower the numbers as well. Now that I am only adding small amount of the GH N source the pH doesn't get below 5.5. Because I am monitoring the pH and TDS more closely, I am also changing the nutrients out after five days instead of seven.

I think I found a new nutrient manufacturer. There was a banner above this website advertising nutrients, just as I was pissed at GH again, so I clicked it. Fired off an email asking if they used ammonium salts in their N. They don't, and it looks like my hydroponics shop stocks their stuff. They are based out of Maple Ridge BC, which is a big bonus since I would prefer to buy Canadian. Cant mention the name since they are not a sponsor but it sounds promising.

The flowers are starting to bulk up a bit but they aren't developing as quickly as the Indica/Sativa hybrids I have grown in the past. The most amazing to watch so far has been GG#4 (last grow). The scent has changed a bit and I now detect a banana like odour off the plants.

Fungus flies are established in the rocks. Thankfully they very seldom venture to the canopy and there's not too many of them. I will have to do a peroxide wash after this grow to get rid of them.

I got picture happy today so there is a bunch:

















 
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