First Proper Grow Attempt - DWC Vs Soil Testing

[GlaucomaMeds]

Oh my goodness today has been like Christmas, doorbell keeps ringing with deliveries. Almost all the stuff I ordered arrived today! Only thing I'm missing is the actual set of 8 bubblebags and a pressing screen (yeah the key bit lol). Hopefully I'll be able to get a big update in later, but I have a lot to set up and have to wait another hour or so before lights are on.

Side note:
While looking at my vegging plants the Tangerine Dream and the Red Cherry Berry both have female preflowers on them. They were feminised seeds, but its always nice to see it yourself for sure.

Back later hopefully.

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Ok so update:

Temps still good between 26.5°c and 20.5°c. Humidity floats between 45% and 55% so thats all good too.

I installed a temperature controller today so it can turn on my cool air intake if it gets too hot. I also got a small storage heater (750W) for if it gets too cold as winter is coming. The display works fine its just the lights and camera hate each other.

The DWC has 100% recovered from the supercrop she had. Now my previous fear of how close she is to the light is back. I like to keep the light 12 inches or more away from the plant however, right now she is 10 inches away and I can't go up much more than 6 inches higher on the light. I'm leaving it for today, but will have to raise it to its final height tomorrow or the day after I think.

She has one gnarly stem now.

Now the new light, yes it arrived, yes its already installed and running, and yes, its awesome. Much much brighter than my other one in my veg tent and 3x the size, runs waaaay cooler. All around very happy so far, now only time will tell if I truly made a good decision, the proof is in the pudding as they say.

As for the two in soil they are doing just fine, still got some thrips about though so might try neem oil this time. If that fails I'll order so ladybugs but they are expensive to get here so hopefully the neem does the trick.

Gave this one 1L of water today with 1ml Bio Bloom, 1ml Top Max and 1/2 ml Algamic (all BioBizz)

The veg tent is coming along nicely now too. As I mentioned earlier the 2 Barney's Farm plants (TD + RCB) both have female pre-flowers on them already which is awesome news! I will be taking cuttings of these in the next couple of weeks and hopefully flowering them right after. I did have to re-top the RCB as it was only growing 1 stem at the site I topped it, all fixed now though there's 2 for sure. I've pretty much made up my mind that I'm going to cull the 2 bagseed at the back that share a pot, also the p.o.s. in my flower tent. I want to stay under 9 plants and I have the Black Diamond OG seeds on the way and I want cuttings from my TD and RCB so something has to go...
Red Cherry Berry re-topped:

Tangerine Dream:

Overview:

Finally my bubble hash maker (camping washing machine) arrived today too along with a 220micron pyramid bag to go inside (looks big enough to hold a good 100g of trim plus ice). Just need the set of 8 filter bags to arrive and I'm set for bubble hash. Though I do need to accumulate some trim also lol.

 

[Ditchweed242]

Looking good GlaucomaMeds. I will join in the fun.

Cheers.

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Looking good GlaucomaMeds. I will join in the fun.

Cheers.

Thank you, glad to have you onboard .

Looking forward to seeing where this grow takes me. Its so nice to be able to talk to people on here and share my 'accomplishments' as I can't really talk to anyone I know as its somewhat less than legal here. Got lots to learn, but I'm confident with everyone's help on here I'll get there.

 

[Scoooter]

Wow Christmas day for you for sure!
Keep us updated on the new light and how that goes for you. Do you have a par meter?
Give a rundown when you use your hash maker too. I'm interested in that.

Looking good!

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Wow Christmas day for you for sure!
Keep us updated on the new light and how that goes for you. Do you have a par meter?
Give a rundown when you use your hash maker too. I'm interested in that.

Looking good!

I don't have any kind of light meter unfortunately, I can tell you that I had to put sunglasses on in my room or it hurts my eyes now. My 600W HPS alone didn't have that effect, so its bright enough for me haha.
I will definitely keep you all up to date when I get round to the hash making, I'm really looking forward to giving it a go. Might be a while before I have enough trim to make any, though I did put in a phone call today to try and source some.

Have a great day all.

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Brief update today, everything is much the same as yesterday, watered the veg plants and my p.o.s. plant. Still can't face culling the three I need to get rid of, but it will happen soon enough. Temps and humidity all good. PH was a little low in the DWC 5.1 so I upped it to 5.5. Not sure quite how that happened as it has only gone up so far, never ever down, don't want to buy PH Up so I just scraped a bit of chalk dust into the bucket. Seems to have worked ok.

A quick overview of the flowering plants, to anyone that may have missed it, the DWC and Soil plants are the SAME AGE! Look at the size difference!

Have a great day folks.

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Quick note, seeds arrived today.

Huge thank you to whoever works for Humboldt that can't count and put 6 seeds in my 5 pack. You legend!

Due to their small cock up I now have 11x Black DOG seeds and 1x Amesia XXL Auto freebie.

Now off to work out culling/new genetics strategies and hopefully get some of these started in the next week or so.

Edit: I should add, these are easily the largest, healthiest, most mature seeds I've ever had, 10/10 so far Humboldt Seeds.

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Hi all so quick update,

All going ok temps and humidity are fine.

DWC continues to stretch! When will it end?? Haha I have a feeling quite soon.

I was recommended this by several people, staff and customers, at my local hydro shop so giving it a go. Supposedly it will stop stretch completely and very quickly. Hoping it works as its my last option to save the plant from getting burnt on the light.

Soil plants doing fine, not looking hungry so watered with plain water again today.
Soil 1:

Soil 2:

Overview:

Sorry for short update today as had a manic day and want to go to bed.

Will do a bigger better one with lots of pics tomorrow hopefully.

 

[Scoooter]

Hey GM.
"Stop Grow"? Never heard of it. What's in it? How does it work?

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Hey GM.
"Stop Grow"? Never heard of it. What's in it? How does it work?

That's a good question that I really should have asked myself. I read that its made from fish and plant extracts (so nothing too nasty hopefully).

This is the most info I could find on it online:
"Stop Grow by Pro XL-is a revolutionary product for foliar application that besides-boosting the bloom-will make-plants stop growing and start to flower earlier. It is ideal for large indoor plants.

Keep the size of your plants under control-as you never could before. As soon as plants absorb it, they will-stop growing suddenly-to start producing the first hairs that let us know they have reached the bloom. Thanks to this product we'll be able to control the size of our plants indoors,-preventing them from growing excessively during the flowering stage.-Shorter and more robust plants implies also-we can have more of them-and that-buds will be thickersince the weight won't be a problem for our sturdy specimens.

It is-sprayed in little doses-taking care not to-soak the leaves because-it shouldn't get in contact with the roots."

Loads of people use it where I live apparently.

Cheers

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

We're making moves today guys and gals.

Temps and humidity still good.

I still have thrips...eww sounds like an STD.
Is it ok to spray neem oil on budding plants? If not I may have to just tolerate them on these plants and try to treat other plants before they get into the flower tent so hopefully the thrips don't spread to them. I plan to run it as a kind of perpetual flower tent so I need to find a way to get rid of them soon as I don't want to have them forever and neither do I want to have to empty out my flower tent completely and start over to get rid of them.

The 2 bagseed plants are no more, I killed them to death with scissors. The culling has begun.

I have germinated 2x Black D.O.G. from HSO and 1x Amnesia XXL Auto from Dinafem (freebie). I put them to soak in straight tap water (my tap water is PH 8.0 ) overnight last night and today (after sinking) they went into some biobizz lightmix. The Ammo has gone directly into a 20L fabric pot, the Black D.O.G.s are in 3.8L fabric pots and will be potted up as and when required. Nothing to do with them now except wait and hope they all come up through the soil and make it.

On top of germinating the seeds I went ahead and performed some minor amputations on the Tangerine Dream and the Red Cherry Berry for the purpose of cuttings. Only took 1 cutting from each, hopefully they will both take as I'm planning on moving their respective mothers into flower as soon as I'm sure the cuttings have rooted successfully. Very straight forward here, just cut at 45° below a node, dipped in clonex gel then stuck in a rapid rooter cube which has been potted up in a small pot of Biobizz Light Mix. I then cut the bottoms off 2L drinks bottles to make each cutting its own little humidity dome that can be easily sealed or vented. I used the pots that were lying around near me which is why they are different sizes, but it shouldn't make a difference really will just have to transplant the smaller pot one sooner.
Some pictures of the cutting process (done in the bath for ease of cleaning up after) and the veg tent.

The keen eyed amongst you will notice that the 'possibly GSC' clone is not in the veg tent anymore. I have moved it to my flower tent at the grand old height of 5 inches tall. To be honest I'll probably bin it too in a couple of weeks unless it does something spectacular before then which I doubt. Along with the p.o.s. plant in there too.
Its not all doom and death to the weak though, my DWC seems to have finally decided to stop stretching so much! Woohoo! Seems like that Stop Grow stuff worked a treat and VERY fast! I'll still spray it once more in a few days to be safe though. I'm not sure that my crappy photography will do it justice but actual buds are forming now, no longer just more leaves and branches.

I've also decided F*** it and tied her down on all 4 sides to tent. Might not seem bad plan on the surface, but I have to change that bucket every 2-3 days now. It may fix my height issues a bit, but it will certainly make res changes waaaay more labour intensive.

The soil girls are doing great still (except for the damn thrips) 1 of them has what looks to me like a tiny bit of a deficiency so I will feed it some nutes next watering.

There was also a fairly heavy amount of defoliation done today on the flower tent, hence the jug rammed full of leaves in the pic. Trying to open the plants up and make it a less desirable place for the thrips.

I think that's all for now folks. I can't help but feel like I'm forgetting something, not sure what though (funny that) so this is all you're getting for today .

Also, if anyone is asking me questions/replying to me etc in any other journals my notifications are currently broken on my app. Working on getting it fixed, but if I have ignored peeps it is not deliberate. I'll always be in here if anyone needs me. (Not that they would)

Apologies if this is full of typos, it was typed in a rush on a phone, forgive me.

Thanks for stopping in everyone.

 

[Scoooter]

Wow man busy day for you!.
The flower tent is starting to look nice and crowded. You are rotating plants so often I can barely keep track of them lol.
Curious to see if the Stop Grow works. Haven't found much on the net about it.

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Wow man busy day for you!.
The flower tent is starting to look nice and crowded. You are rotating plants so often I can barely keep track of them lol.
Curious to see if the Stop Grow works. Haven't found much on the net about it.

Yeah been busy as heck. I try to move them around each day so they get light differently and more evenly, not going to be able to move the DWC at all now though. I also planted too many plants to begin with as I had regular seeds, but they all turned out to be female so gotta keep the numbers down haha. Trying to stay at 9 or less. Gotta make room for the new plants in veg to go in the flower tent. Still its a nice problem to have deciding which ones to keep.

I found it hard to find much in English about Stop Grow. There is a few youtube videos in Spanish, but I don't understand them at all sadly. It seems to be working extremely well though, maybe I'll try a side by side with 2 identical clones at some point in the future and see what the difference is.

I've just seen yours, they are coming along nicely too man. You'll have a crowded tent before you know it haha.

 

[NorCaliwood]

Just a drive by,, your doing both hydro and soil? Thats cool. I didn't back read much cept your lights room etc. I'll yag along from here. Besides I look at pic and lurk. Girls look good and are off to the rodeo. From the first page I seen soom good looking rootage.
You know that Key was under water, you can catch snook and bonefish on the front lawn,, I''d damn near bet on that. I understand back pain,, I busted my fool neck back in 86' and been dealing with it ever since. It Sucks.. Pain pills don't even cut the mustard anymore after 30 plus years.
But girls look happy and heathly from what I see.
GL and Keepem Green

 

[GlaucomaMeds]

Just a drive by,, your doing both hydro and soil? Thats cool. I didn't back read much cept your lights room etc. I'll yag along from here. Besides I look at pic and lurk. Girls look good and are off to the rodeo. From the first page I seen soom good looking rootage.
You know that Key was under water, you can catch snook and bonefish on the front lawn,, I''d damn near bet on that. I understand back pain,, I busted my fool neck back in 86' and been dealing with it ever since. It Sucks.. Pain pills don't even cut the mustard anymore after 30 plus years.
But girls look happy and heathly from what I see.
GL and Keepem Green

Thanks for stopping in man, the more the merrier.

I remember fishing on the pier of Cheeka with my dad when there was a hurricane 3 days off the coast when I was about 15. Landed a 9ft Lemon Shark and hooked into but didn't land a HUGE (12ft+) Tiger. There used to be a 6ft baracuda called fred who lived under the end of the pier pretty much year round . Was a good holiday until we got evacuated, had no choice, we were told we had to leave and as tourists couldn't really argue.

Also I'm doing hydro and soil so as to work out which I want to go ahead with in the future. So far I much prefer the hydro, but I also have to take into account the cost of a proper RDWC setup x 2 (veg and flower seperate) as it would set me back a lot of money and then the nutrients are expensive and seem to get used up way faster. I'm leaning toward just going with soil or maybe even trying coco until I can afford to go all out on a top end RDWC. I also grow in a loft and ideally would like to change that before I have a huge RDWC res involved for fear of a leak.

 

[Scoooter]

Hey GM. Have you thought about raising the lower plants in your flower room to get even light with the tall ones or do you have multiple lights in there?

My other grow are autos in coco and I'm just getting the hang of watering coco. From what I can tell right now the coco may use more nutes than the dwc in the long run since you water to waste. I'll have data at the end of the grows.

 

[NorCaliwood]

Just my 2 cents I open my fool mouth like I do every now and then,, But what I like about soil is it's so forgiven. Hydro you fuck up just a tad and plants die....... The soil well you get time to fix problems.. And soil is more moble than a hydro. If you have to move them or do anything with hydro becomes a hassle,, soil you just grab the pot and are gone with it. Don't get me wrong,,, people do great with hydro,, and hydro puts out great smoke. And I've done it both small and larger scale... But soil to me at least seems to bring out better flavors. Especially total organics do.. Love the taste of bat crap in my flowers...... Sounds fucked but... I do see plants vegetate and grow 'alittle' faster in hydro than soil,, but I don't think it will go any faster in flower than soil... But hey,, got to play alittle before you get spanked...
I have afew of the water farm type top drip hydro setups, called ecogrow,, by GH. Alittle larger pot and resivior than the water farms. Great units,, but more work then just having to water plants, and feed every thrid watering. Bit later I'll tell ya about fishing down there. I was a kid too,, but we use to run to the Bahamas every weekend on the boat takin tourists out to fish.. I was there like I was 13-14, then again when I was 17-18 to help my Uncle on his charter service.. Seen afew fish believe me.. Hell we lived on the canels with ocean axcess, I usse to catch lemon sharks and throw them in the pool.. They live ALONG ass time in freshwater polls... A week or two,, so we use to swin with lemon and sand sharks... That was cool 3-4' foot sharks and we had a 6' alligator in a pen to. Till he got to be a problem at 8'. And we released him GL and Keepem Green

 

[veinz]

thats why i like soil too wood sooooo forgiving and the taste mmmmmm
and the stretch well i have that problem too once in a while and then i brake em' like i do outside for the neighbours not to see
or make holes in the side of pot and pull em down.... they like that shit anyway you'll be fine and the learning process is fun after that its all bout routine

 

[NorCaliwood]

They had a product called BushMasters here that had the growth regulators in it. They pulled it off the shelves here. Then General Hydroponics came back with Bush Load. Bush Load is a super concentrated (0.4% Paclobutrazol) plant growth regulator. Bush Load can be readily absorbed by plant roots and translocated to the active growing points.
Same thing as gravity and bushmaster!! As they say. But it's listed for ornamentals only. I used BushMasters abit before they pulled it, guess if you smoke 10,000 joints one nut might get abit larger than the other.. JK But I liked he stuff.. I still have a bottle in the office. Is the active ingredient the same Paclobutrazol???? Funny they can produce that growth hormone from seaweed... GL with it. Yours says spray leafage and keep off the roots,,, Bush Load advises a drench the roots..
GL and Keepem Green