While I am not new to horticulture, I am new to growing my own meds. There are a number of unique principles that apply to growing MMJ, but it's a wonderful learning experience...even for the not so new to growing person.
My current adults have been through the ringer and have finally begun to make it back. Given the fact that they had been nearly destroyed by mites (thanks to the dispensary I picked them up from, I learned how to treat spider mites THE HARD WAY! Lesson learned: Always check your new additions and QUARANTINE them BEFORE adding to your grow room!) In all my years of gardening, I've never experienced mites until now.
So, being they are nearly 6 months old (or more) I figured I would do some testing on them before putting them in hydro.
Variety: Skywalker
As I mentioned, they went through several months of treatment for spider mites. GAWD those things are a PITA! Used horticulture oil spray and a little goes a LONG way. It worked wonders, however it does NOT kill the eggs, so repeat is necessary to gain control of these onerous pests. It doesn't take them but a short time to suck the life right out of your precious plants! I did no topping on the girls...just did all I could do to save these poor dying plants.
Dec 4, 2011 -
So, the plants did a pretty good turn around but had very sparse foliage. As I said, these plants are about 6 plus months old and have been grown in soil. I decided to change them to hydro and knowing that the stress level could cause problems, I simply did it anyway, just to see what they would do. To do this, I removed their pots and gently washed all the soil mixture from their roots, in a 5 gal bucket with room temp water. I used some light weight screen and made a baggie around the root ball and filled it in with a mix of perlite and vermiculite. At that point, I placed them in an ebb and flow system with 1/3 of suggested botanicare grow cycle nutes and buried their root balls in hydroton. I slowly worked the nutes up to about 3/4 strength. They didn't seem to struggle at all, in fact they began growing beautiful new growth and started filling in with dense foliage. I was amazed at the almost immediate change in them. Little immature buds started forming and white hairs are already showing. I was so happy to see new GREEN leaves without browning tips. All of the new growth is lush and green.
These plants have 15 or more tops now, so I cut the main growth out of the top and watched the other tops "catch up" to the main top. They started getting thick growth and looking GREAT! It's pretty funny to see the long woody stem with nothing on it, then this big puff ball of green. Almost looks like I purposely made topiaries out of them.
Dec 15, 2011
Well, these two girls have been through such hell and came back, so I figured I could test out another strategy on them before starting their flowering stage. They have been in hydro now for 1.5 weeks so I'm testing "super cropping" before starting them in flower stage. Today, we damaged all the tops, making sure they all are still well attached and not too far damaged. They still look beautiful! The breakage hasn't even caused any wilting. I have to admit, I broke one yesterday, just to "test it out" first. It was already healing and turning toward the light this AM.
I can certainly tell that this variety is an easy to grow/hardy strain...but with all these two have been through, I'm amazed they actually came back.. Can't wait to see their production!
Dec 19, 2011
Started trying some LST on the fast growing branches. After my test of "super cropping" did so well, I figured I would try out this method as well. Branches are all healed from super cropping, so it's time to tie down and spread out this ball of green.
The current light is a 4 tube T-5 with 2 grow(blue) and 2 flower(red) tubes. Just had to replace my 400 W HP Sodium lamp as it was defective and I'll be placing that over them for the flowering stage.
Dec 27 - Set up 400w HPS lamp today and started flowering. These plants have AMAZING tops now! Changed out all water and nutes - started with half strength of recommended botanicare and will work up to 3/4 - full strength. (Did run 2 days with no nutes and took clones.)
Dec 29 - noticed a few leaves turning brown and crunchy, so I checked PH level. Not quite sure how, but it was clear up to 7, even though I treated it when I changed out the water! So added PH down and have it hovering around 5.9. Cleared all the dying leaves (there weren't too many THANK GOD!) and hopefully the PH change will resolve the dead leaf issue.
Dec 30 - No more newly dead leaves, so it looks like the PH change did the trick. Noticed LOTS of new white hairs. It's only been 3 days...these girls were READY!
Also figured I would measure the plants. They are 42 inches tall today and have been growing nearly a half inch to an inch per day. They are also shorter since tying down branches with LST. Guess I will have to continue more LST for the next 8 or so weeks to keep them from reaching the ceiling.
I really want to try a few clones from these plants in flower stage. So I'm doing my homework in order to hopefully have a problem free trial. Took several clones prior to flowering and they are doing beautifully, but would like to try them after some of those extra hormones get moving through their veins.
I'd love to hear any suggestions or input. Without feedback we don't learn
My current adults have been through the ringer and have finally begun to make it back. Given the fact that they had been nearly destroyed by mites (thanks to the dispensary I picked them up from, I learned how to treat spider mites THE HARD WAY! Lesson learned: Always check your new additions and QUARANTINE them BEFORE adding to your grow room!) In all my years of gardening, I've never experienced mites until now.
So, being they are nearly 6 months old (or more) I figured I would do some testing on them before putting them in hydro.
Variety: Skywalker
As I mentioned, they went through several months of treatment for spider mites. GAWD those things are a PITA! Used horticulture oil spray and a little goes a LONG way. It worked wonders, however it does NOT kill the eggs, so repeat is necessary to gain control of these onerous pests. It doesn't take them but a short time to suck the life right out of your precious plants! I did no topping on the girls...just did all I could do to save these poor dying plants.
Dec 4, 2011 -
So, the plants did a pretty good turn around but had very sparse foliage. As I said, these plants are about 6 plus months old and have been grown in soil. I decided to change them to hydro and knowing that the stress level could cause problems, I simply did it anyway, just to see what they would do. To do this, I removed their pots and gently washed all the soil mixture from their roots, in a 5 gal bucket with room temp water. I used some light weight screen and made a baggie around the root ball and filled it in with a mix of perlite and vermiculite. At that point, I placed them in an ebb and flow system with 1/3 of suggested botanicare grow cycle nutes and buried their root balls in hydroton. I slowly worked the nutes up to about 3/4 strength. They didn't seem to struggle at all, in fact they began growing beautiful new growth and started filling in with dense foliage. I was amazed at the almost immediate change in them. Little immature buds started forming and white hairs are already showing. I was so happy to see new GREEN leaves without browning tips. All of the new growth is lush and green.
These plants have 15 or more tops now, so I cut the main growth out of the top and watched the other tops "catch up" to the main top. They started getting thick growth and looking GREAT! It's pretty funny to see the long woody stem with nothing on it, then this big puff ball of green. Almost looks like I purposely made topiaries out of them.
Dec 15, 2011
Well, these two girls have been through such hell and came back, so I figured I could test out another strategy on them before starting their flowering stage. They have been in hydro now for 1.5 weeks so I'm testing "super cropping" before starting them in flower stage. Today, we damaged all the tops, making sure they all are still well attached and not too far damaged. They still look beautiful! The breakage hasn't even caused any wilting. I have to admit, I broke one yesterday, just to "test it out" first. It was already healing and turning toward the light this AM.
I can certainly tell that this variety is an easy to grow/hardy strain...but with all these two have been through, I'm amazed they actually came back.. Can't wait to see their production!
Dec 19, 2011
Started trying some LST on the fast growing branches. After my test of "super cropping" did so well, I figured I would try out this method as well. Branches are all healed from super cropping, so it's time to tie down and spread out this ball of green.
The current light is a 4 tube T-5 with 2 grow(blue) and 2 flower(red) tubes. Just had to replace my 400 W HP Sodium lamp as it was defective and I'll be placing that over them for the flowering stage.
Dec 27 - Set up 400w HPS lamp today and started flowering. These plants have AMAZING tops now! Changed out all water and nutes - started with half strength of recommended botanicare and will work up to 3/4 - full strength. (Did run 2 days with no nutes and took clones.)
Dec 29 - noticed a few leaves turning brown and crunchy, so I checked PH level. Not quite sure how, but it was clear up to 7, even though I treated it when I changed out the water! So added PH down and have it hovering around 5.9. Cleared all the dying leaves (there weren't too many THANK GOD!) and hopefully the PH change will resolve the dead leaf issue.
Dec 30 - No more newly dead leaves, so it looks like the PH change did the trick. Noticed LOTS of new white hairs. It's only been 3 days...these girls were READY!
Also figured I would measure the plants. They are 42 inches tall today and have been growing nearly a half inch to an inch per day. They are also shorter since tying down branches with LST. Guess I will have to continue more LST for the next 8 or so weeks to keep them from reaching the ceiling.
I really want to try a few clones from these plants in flower stage. So I'm doing my homework in order to hopefully have a problem free trial. Took several clones prior to flowering and they are doing beautifully, but would like to try them after some of those extra hormones get moving through their veins.
I'd love to hear any suggestions or input. Without feedback we don't learn
