Ganesha Says If There's Water Below, Things Will Grow! First SIP Grow

[Fenderbender]

Say how do cats tell time?
It's almost time for the light to pop on and they are waiting in front of the tent meowing.. to get some leaf to munch.. but how do they know it's time???

 

[Fenderbender]

We finally got some buds going.. they feel nice and firm, they'll be there soon.

Since I suspected roots in the reservoir, I pretty much just kept the res topped up, if I don't top it up it's empty within 24 hours anyway.
So the process has become a bit more involved as I'm now just pouring buckets into the plant.
I'm very curious what happened inside the pot, can't wait to have a look at the root system and where they entered the res.
And I'm also not sure do I prevent this.. or do I run with it as soil dwc seems to work fine

 

[Bill284]

We finally got some buds going.. they feel nice and firm, they'll be there soon.

Since I suspected roots in the reservoir, I pretty much just kept the res topped up, if I don't top it up it's empty within 24 hours anyway.
So the process has become a bit more involved as I'm now just pouring buckets into the plant.
I'm very curious what happened inside the pot, can't wait to have a look at the root system and where they entered the res.
And I'm also not sure do I prevent this.. or do I run with it as soil dwc seems to work fine

Pretty sure you want them in the res.
I'm not a super though.
Buds look great, nice work.
Take care.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

 

[Fenderbender]

Pretty sure you want them in the res.
I'm not a super though.
Buds look great, nice work.
Take care.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

I guess you meant sipper
Well no technically the roots should be kept out of the res for a sip, the medium should wick, not the roots themselves.. but when a plant develops water roots it's clear that they don't mind being in the res and just slurp it up.

 

[Fenderbender]

I filled the res for the last time on Monday, it was dry by Wednesday, today is Sunday and all leaves are praying, so it's waiting for the droop..
The buds are rock solid when you press them.

 

[Fenderbender]

Still no droop, lots of fan leaves are turning yellow but everything remains pointing upwards.. but tomorrow is only day 7 of drought.

All in all.. SIP-ping is highly recommended.. I'm getting quite the collection of pots now, regular pots, air-pots, smart-pots, I have two different styles of hydro pots, and now a SIP pot.. and I must say growth is indeed comparable to hydro as it is quite vigorous, but the effort is very different, there's a nice soil buffer and there's no run off or a recycling res to deal with.
All I measured was the PH and I dosed according to the bottles and filled the res.
And the results are better than watering with a wet dry cycle as this plant has had way more access to water and nutrients than I could have supplied in a regular pot.
And it shows as all the buds are pretty girth-y and well developed.

My aim was actually to mainline the plant for double the size as now they are 25-30cm stacked maybe a bit longer but I cut away a lot of fluff at the bottom. I could get them to 60cm with proper mainlining but now I'm wondering is that even doable with the current LED situation. I'm already cutting away fluff that doesn't develop right on this as it's shaded.. and with 60cm well add the space from the top bud to the light there's not much energy to be had down there as that drops of quickly with LEDs.. So it's better to aim for exactly what I have now as that seems to be the distance where it's all well developed, just need to veg longer for more of them.

 

[AutoNautPsychoFlower]

Im sooo excited for you and for SIP-ping my way through my next grow! Lovely lovely plant she grew up to be! Have any further away? Id love to see more of your grow

 

[Fenderbender]

Thanks AutoNaut!
Yep I'm a SIP convert as I always was curious about these, and it works like I've always hoped growing plants would be like.. I just pour stuff in and it does its thing.
I'm just going to rinse and repeat for the next run, only veg a bit longer to have more bud sites.

@AutoNautPsychoFlower I'm actually thinking about cutting all the time as it's already April and I want to get another grow in before end of July as I'll be leaving for one of the biggest psychedelic festivals in Europe. A week of otherrealmly bliss and psychonauting and lots of movement, dancing, swimming, walking, movement therapy & exercise, good foods and loads of water under the scorching sun.

 

[AutoNautPsychoFlower]

Thanks AutoNaut!
Yep I'm a SIP convert as I always was curious about these, and it works like I've always hoped growing plants would be like.. I just pour stuff in and it does its thing.
I'm just going to rinse and repeat for the next run, only veg a bit longer to have more bud sites.

I jump for joy at this! I just want to be able to clean up after a grow an flip to next grow and keep growing. Quit making it more complicated than it needs to be. I figure on having a separate tent for the more experimental things I want to do but thats after I has plenty of cured harvest jarred and ready lol.

@AutoNautPsychoFlower I'm actually thinking about cutting all the time as it's already April and I want to get another grow in before end of July as I'll be leaving for one of the biggest psychedelic festivals in Europe. A week of otherrealmly bliss and psychonauting and lots of movement, dancing, swimming, walking, movement therapy & exercise, good foods and loads of water under the scorching sun.

Im not jealous. Im not jealous. Im not jealous. LMAO! I love this and would be going to one or two stateside this summer as well but we are buying a home. Sooo no social psychonautica fun this year. Oddly, I only have time for this grow Im getting ready to do with a couple autos because of time frames too. All my empathy!

 

[Fenderbender]

I've started the cut, cause I want to grow more buds! I want to see a fresh set of leaves popping out next week. And I'm in week 11 after flipping I believe.
I'm pretty happy as the buds have a great consistency but I feel this is about as well as my light can do.. as what I've noticed I couldn't get the plant to grow to the corners as she wouldn't want to leave the footprint of the light, she would bend back towards the light.. my light falls short, it's great for autos as I can raise it so the spread is better and increase the hours to give enough energy to everything corner to corner, but with photoperiods it seems I'm bound to the footprint of the light. And with hanging distance in mind I get about 8" height of perfect bud zone covering 25"x19" which is not bad, it's just not the full area of the tent.

 

[Fenderbender]

Im not jealous. Im not jealous. Im not jealous. LMAO! I love this and would be going to one or two stateside this summer as well but we are buying a home. Sooo no social psychonautica fun this year. Oddly, I only have time for this grow Im getting ready to do with a couple autos because of time frames too. All my empathy!

Well that's understandable.. although I don't think a house would stop me as for me it's been since 2019 as the gatherings of 2022 were those of 2020 and I had no tickets to those.. but now we're back on track.. I usually do a couple of week longs a year with a bit of travel in between linking them and then I'm basically good for the year Then when people ask you want to party I'm like naah I'm good, done that this year.
And I doubt anything on offer can compare, as the psychedelic community got their festivals right.

 

[Fenderbender]

Still have some buds going as turns out the shop I get my soil is closed, some Easter reason.. so let's leave them a bit longer. With a couple gone light can reach a bit better.
I really need to focus a lot on mainlining & scrogging.. equidistant spacing.

 

[AutoNautPsychoFlower]

Well that's understandable.. although I don't think a house would stop me as for me it's been since 2019 as the gatherings of 2022 were those of 2020 and I had no tickets to those.. but now we're back on track.. I usually do a couple of week longs a year with a bit of travel in between linking them and then I'm basically good for the year Then when people ask you want to party I'm like naah I'm good, done that this year.
And I doubt anything on offer can compare, as the psychedelic community got their festivals right.

It might stop you if you were me lol.
I actually havent done weeks worth of psychonaut style fests since the early 2010s but yes like you I spent entire summers teaching/attending workshops, living out of a tent and exploring the realms and taking notes. Mostly at Starwood festival from mid 90s onward. Miss it but also... my wife and I need a house. lol. Sooo maybe next year Ill run into you at something an don't even know it

Yes... yes they did

 

[Fenderbender]

Sipping definitely payed off.
Hmm I just saw I have some Runtz seeds.. never tried that before.. might be up next.

 

[Fenderbender]

Okay I'm gonna update all this here as well for completion.

Trying to reclaim the hydroballs and get to the bottom of this..
As I thought right from the get go what would happen is.. since I planted in it.. she just threw a huge root puncturing straight to the reservoir... casting out some big feelers along the way but not colonising the soil at all, the soil actually hardly feels used, I think I can reclaim that as well.. there's not much root mass in it, it still smells fresh and is moist, I haven't watered in weeks , droughting this container will be a no go.. I've not seen any droop, the plant just keeps praying, I'd need to stop watering weeks in advance.

Cat inspection, she deemed the pot a bit too big for the rooting I got going on there.. I mean this is basically hydro with just some soil support as she seems to care more for the water channel than for well hydrated soil.

And looks like underneath it all she cast a web of water roots..
Now there was no penetration into the res, but I do suspect since she clogged up the entire water channel with roots and these biocanna nutes are a bit caky that that is what messed with the metering.

 

[Fenderbender]

And now the question is which seed to put to water.
I wanna finish before last week of July as I'll be out of the country.
I got Runtz, Critical Kush, & Critical.
Runtz says 8-9 weeks, Kush 8 weeks (which turned out to be twelve anyhows) and regular Critical says 7...
So I'll probably pick the one with the least mount. And then do a Runtz when I get back and then I can go back to Kush.

 

[Fenderbender]

Put the regular Critical in water, that was the freebie seed and since I wanna rush it, I'd better use that up instead of one of the more expensive seeds. Although I'm mostly looking forward to the Runtz, mainly because I've been going Critical Variants for a while..

I've cleaned out the SIP, that's looking good, I'm not looking forward to washing the hydroton.
I'm gonna reuse everything, only a fresh sprinkling of soil to replace what was lost.

And after this grow I'm finally gonna up the light so I can use the entire space better, and get two smaller SIPs so I can put two side by side.

 

[Azimuth]

Sorry I'm late. Got dropped from this thread a while back but I'm all caught up now. Too late to be much help this round but thought I'd share some thoughts on your posts for you to consider going forward.

So the process has become a bit more involved as I'm now just pouring buckets into the plant.
I'm very curious what happened inside the pot, can't wait to have a look at the root system and where they entered the res.
And I'm also not sure do I prevent this.. or do I run with it as soil dwc seems to work fine

No need to try to prevent it, but you might reconsider your pot build. Having a full layer of hydroton on the bottom will encourage the water roots to take up residence and mostly by-pass the soil as you've seen, but I don't think that's much of an issue though you do lose some of the buffering that soil can provide.

The way I use the hydroton is to place it in between the dome I use to define the reservoir and the overflow hole. It looks like you are using a hydroton layer to define your reservoir? That structure works too, but you get a different type of root development as you've seen.

Just shows how flexible and robust this SIP concept is.

Well no technically the roots should be kept out of the res for a sip, the medium should wick, not the roots themselves.. but when a plant develops water roots it's clear that they don't mind being in the res and just slurp it up.

If you keep the same pot structure in your next grow, you could try putting some pockets of soil all the way down to the bottom of the container, say in the 4 corners. Doing it that way would give you a root structure more typical for standard SIPs.

But the roots will do what they do. If you have something in the reservoir other than air and water, that agregate will give the roots something to take hold of and they  will populate the reservoir. Then they just mainline the nutes you pour down the fill tube.

Still works great though as you've seen.

All in all.. SIP-ping is highly recommended.. I'm getting quite the collection of pots now, regular pots, air-pots, smart-pots, I have two different styles of hydro pots, and now a SIP pot.. and I must say growth is indeed comparable to hydro as it is quite vigorous, but the effort is very different, there's a nice soil buffer and there's no run off or a recycling res to deal with.
All I measured was the PH and I dosed according to the bottles and filled the res.
And the results are better than watering with a wet dry cycle as this plant has had way more access to water and nutrients than I could have supplied in a regular pot.
And it shows as all the buds are pretty girth-y and well developed.

Agreed.

Im sooo excited for you and for SIP-ping my way through my next grow!

Do it!

I've started the cut, cause I want to grow more buds! I want to see a fresh set of leaves popping out next week. And I'm in week 11 after flipping I believe.

Ummm, after the flip and stretch the plant doesn't add much in the way of new roots or leaves, so what you've got at that point is what you'll have to work with all the way through harvest.

I really need to focus a lot on mainlining & scrogging.. equidistant spacing.

Have you had a look at Quadlining? One cut and then some LST. Faster than many training methods and produces a very nice looking plant. Link in my signature if you want to read up on it a bit.

And looks like underneath it all she cast a web of water roots..
Now there was no penetration into the res, but I do suspect since she clogged up the entire water channel with roots and these biocanna nutes are a bit caky that that is what messed with the metering.

Yeah, that's the "downside" of defining the reservoir with a substrate rather than a void. All good though as you've seen.

I've cleaned out the SIP, that's looking good, I'm not looking forward to washing the hydroton.
I'm gonna reuse everything, only a fresh sprinkling of soil to replace what was lost.

If you're concerned about any nasties in the hydroton, put them in a pot on the stove with some water and boil them to sterilize. The great thing about those balls is you can reuse them forever.

Congrats on your successful grow.

Are you stating a new thread for the next round or planning to continue here?

 

[Fenderbender]

Ummm, after the flip and stretch the plant doesn't add much in the way of new roots or leaves, so what you've got at that point is what you'll have to work with all the way through harvest.

Oh yeah I meant a fresh pair of leaves as in new plant!

As for there rest I've exactly been thinking that, should I go with the layering system again, or should I try to pack it differently.. As I kinda do like this, it was clear once I dug under the soil the roots completely changed in the hydroton layer spinning a quite impressive carpet in between and underneath, that would be a lot of surface area so that's indeed a straight injection into the plant which it certainly did not mind as that's like a huge sponge covering the bottom.

I'm just gonna rinse and repeat.. see if this is easily repeatable, I mean this clearly worked well, why fix it.
If I want bigger & longer buds I first need to take care of the light as that's the limiting factor now, I can't get it too close cause it's all concentrated in one bar..and I couldn't get the plant to grow out of the ideal footprint, she simply refused by turning back.
So that's kinda next, I mean if I continued with Autos I wouldn't need to the Mars SP150 is great for my size tent for that as I can adjust height and timing to get the perfect DLI all over, but with 12 hours I'm confined to the exact flowering footprint.

I might continue to post back in my old thread and just complete this so it's just first SIP grow experiment completed successfully. Or I might add the critical here as well..

I'm not that concerned about nasties everything is looking pretty clean..roots looked great and smelled fresh, and despite the foul fishy smell I noticed at some point it was actually quite allright, shaking up the res and pouring it out did clear some drab as those nutes do settle and that's probably also the source of the odour.. but other than that everything felt remarkably fresh and clear, the roots, the hydroton, the soil.

I can't seem to open the res.. I thought they said it comes off, I thought it had huge plastic screws, but it appears to be some pinching clamping plastic and it looks mainly to be snapped together and that's it.. it probably can be unsnapped but not without some instant heavy wear on those parts.

And thanks for the SIP, they should come standard with grow tent kits.. after all the pots I tried this has the been the least involved method with the same results as the most involved method.

 

[Fenderbender]

@Azimuth
Okay I'm very curious about packing the sip with soil only.. as ugh cleaning that hydroton was a pita as the only way I could get it separated was per small handful and rinsing and picking it clean. So I'm gonna try that next time and see what the difference is versus wicking with hydroton.

I got the pot packed, filled the bottom with hydroton, used some of the previous soil and the top half is fresh.
I put the metal circle back in and made a perlite-soil layered centre for the seedling again but finishing with soil so the dry perlite doesn't fly away and I pulled out the metal tube so the roots can explore sideways in the top half as well.
Once I have some plant I'll cover the top with hydroton as well, as the last grow was very clean because of it, no splashing or per accident scooped soil.

All I got for now is this, spot the seed
but there's already a long root as I kept it in the glass for too long and only plonked it last night. by the evening I bet it will be upright.
This will only get a very short veg time.. no topping, just bend it over and flower.
And then when I get back, two SIP pots and a bigger light and then I'll be finally using the little space efficiently.