GodAmJT's Perpetual Greenery

[GodAm4twizzle]

So, last update for the next few days for the Zambeza; she's tired and may need to take a long LONG dirt-nap.. I pulled off 2 more fan leaves as they were completely necrotic, and now I'm starting to see Chlorosis on a bunch of the leaves yet some of the older growth is still vigorous and still nice and green.. I'll be damned if I am going to trash this thing if it's still green, even if I only get a bowl-pack.. I'm going to see this through, "'til death do us part.."


The positive notes from today though:

#1 - Cleaned out the basement of the new apartment and realized I have a TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNN of room to setup my grown down there with very few modifications needed to make it very inhabitable for my girls.. I know the upstairs neighbors blaze, so there exists a small possibility that if I can work some magic, I can quietly keep the grow going without them being to sneaky and suspicious.. I have a spot that I can toss them behind some storage and other than figuring out how to quiet the inline fan a little, possibly figuring out a humidity issue, I may be okay!!

#2 - AKRs have been germing for about 30-ish hours.. Both have a small taproot although one of them is a little bigger than the other.. Tomorrow morning, they'll be going into rockwool cubes and into the humidome for Grow 3.1.2 - 3rd attempt, 1 strain, 2 plants.. No moves in sight, no harassment, and only a mild discouragement from this previous one that started out 10x better than my first..

#3 - Did a bunch of research on soil growing as high-brix today, which may become a small side project of mine.. I am actually thinking of running a soil and a rockwool side-by-side under the same lighting to see what kind of results I get.. I have a distinct feeling that will be a hell of a fun time, but a pain in my ass, since soil is so much different than hydro, so I will probably freak out and obsess once again, about nothing..


Maybe I should start some photo GDPs tomorrow....??


Damn, I love this hobby!!! She can be a cruel bitch, but she's a fair one..

 

[CCOiler]

Damn GodAm4twizzle, I popped in just as all hell broke loose. I was reading your horror story glued to the screen. First I got mad at your friends, even though I knew they tried. Then I got sad for you because your babies were dying & full of mites. I could feel your pain, crying out for help! I thought to myself "where's the capn" I know he's a busy man. Then on the next post BOOM there he was giving you some top notch advise. Now I'm sitting here with a smile on my face Capn to the rescue, I could feel you were back on track. By the way I could feel the cringe when the Capn's had to mention LED, yep, not good. The Capn is indeed a legend here and I agree with everything you said about "The Capn". GodAm4twizzle, I don't know if reps mean anything to you but it is the only way I know of telling you that I think your a Bad Ass for sharing such a tuff lesson you went through.

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

60cal: Thank man!!!! It does help and I suppose without failure, we'll never realize success, so hopefully this is just a small bump in the road to greener pastures My biggest hope when doing this kind of stuff is that if someone else who is having a similar difficulty came across this thread, and saw what others had offered, or what I had learned, that it may help them cure their issue quickly and without any loss of plants or time.. I have never been much of a fan of technology, with these few exceptions.. I can't imagine how guys like Capn, who have been doing this for years, and even back before during the "war on drugs," (when even books could get you on watch-lists), were able to successfully grow!!


So here's the to the next grow!!!

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

Once again, the Capn's advise has pulled my plant and I from the fire!!!!! Part of me is thinking that since the rockwool was damn near dry when I first picked up the plant, I probably should have used just distilled water the first night, just to get some hydration back in the root mass.. Theeeeeeen, I should have slowly re-introduced the nutes over the week.. Hindsight is...... I know, I know.. But the Capn once again calmed my nerves and got me thinking straight again!! I can honestly say that pH was an issue the entire time, because once I got the pH stabilized 2 days ago, it hasn't moved at all and the plant is rebounding very well!! Just finished her feed at ~450ppm (only been going up because I haven't topped off the res), and I may swap the res water today and try to get the pH dialed in beforehand.. She's starting to smell nicely, and her green is starting to come back nice and deep!! It's going to be touch-and-go the next week or 2, but if I can manage to keep the pH where it needs to be, she should at least give me some enjoyment down the road!!


Also, we have contact on the AKRs, and they're starting to emerge from the rockwool!!! So for a minute, I'm gonna have 3 plants going.. The best part about the AKRs is that I can officially begin LST, at my own apartment, and not have to worry about moving the plants!!!! Gonna have to do a little research to find people who did AKRs in hydro and see if we can compare notes..


Much to do!!!!! Now for the slightly-less crappy camera pictures!!! Found the camera this morning on accident, when I was looking for my pH/EC pens.. I messed with the white balance a little and finally figured out how to get this camera to let me adjust it without making the pictures look worse..

 

[TheCapn]

Hey Twizzle, you are having too much fun in there. Good to see things are rolling along and I see the little seeds breaking ground. Good job on those. Don't forget to give them some love in the form of beneficial bacteria. Not is when they need it most. Mycos, etc.

As Sky was saying, when we make mistakes, that's usually when we learn the most. I learned the most about growing in the 3 month period when I had an awful case of root rot / pythium that took down my entire room.

That PVC drip ring looks familiar!

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

Capn: I'm gonna end up owing you my first born!!!! lol Every method you've detailed and that I've tried (with the exception of HID lights, which after this grow going on, may become the reality), has worked flawlessly!!! I've picked up the stuff to make the tea and I had a question, not sure if I should post it here or in your tea blog.. Does it matter what container I bubble it in (dark so light doesn't get in??) or can I just bubble it overnight in a tupperware container I have? I'm off today, so I wanted to get it brewing because I think it'll help bolster the current flowering plant!! Also, for seedlings, about how much of the tea would you use? Say, 1cup, or maybe 1 quart per? And I would just run it through to waste per your instructions?

 

[TheCapn]

Capn: I'm gonna end up owing you my first born!!!! lol Every method you've detailed and that I've tried (with the exception of HID lights, which after this grow going on, may become the reality), has worked flawlessly!!! I've picked up the stuff to make the tea and I had a question, not sure if I should post it here or in your tea blog.. Does it matter what container I bubble it in (dark so light doesn't get in??) or can I just bubble it overnight in a tupperware container I have? I'm off today, so I wanted to get it brewing because I think it'll help bolster the current flowering plant!! Also, for seedlings, about how much of the tea would you use? Say, 1cup, or maybe 1 quart per? And I would just run it through to waste per your instructions?

Very good questions.

FWIW, I've found it is best to use a bucket and brew at least 3 gallons. When I try to brew tiny batches it doesn't seem to work as well. Doesn't make sense really but that's how it is. You'll have lots left over. Give it to your house plants or your grass, or if you live in an apt, give it to ONE flower in the landscaping and watch it grow faster than the others

It's not necessary to brew it in the dark, simply because it only brews for 48 hours and that's not enough time for any algae to grow. It's ok if it gets a little ambient light.

For seedlings in the rockwool blocks, I've literally dipped the block in the tea. You can do this if the PH of the tea is 5.6-6.8. You can't use too much tea, in drain to waste. In recirculating with the big girls, you'll want to use about 10oz per plant. It is organic, and too much organic matter in the reservoir could cause a PH swing.

PS, I don't need any more kids, but thanks for the compliment ;-)

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

Been a few days, and a few solid improvements, so I figured this would be a great day for an update..

Go...


So the Zambeza, in all her ruggedness has outlasted not only 4 of her sister-seeds, it also out-witted spidermites once, caught a case of them twice, but is still fighting tooth and nail!! Phenomenal new growth, despite all of the ups and downs.. And when I say ups and downs, I mean SERIOUS ups and downs.. I think I may have found what I believe to be a seed/vagina on this thing, but it could be confused with new growth because to be honest with you, it doesn't look like a "nanner" nor does it look like it has balls.. This thing will not die, which is great!!!!

Some of the pistils are starting to gain a little color, and if I can wait until the LEDs are out for the night, I have what I believe to be some possible purple/pink pistils which I'd love to get a picture of.. ppms are bumped up to 530-ish today with a fresh nute batch, but I will probably add another gallon of just pH'ed water tomorrow morning before feeding to lower the numbers a little.. She is so damn bi-polar with the nutes, it's a bit frustrating, but I hope that since she's on the up-and-up, all I should be seeing from here on out is rich green and lots of crystals.. Speaking of which, she's starting to build trichs!!!!! Fuuuuuuuuuck yeah!!!


Onto some slightly bad news: One of the AKRs died while I was away this weekend.. For some reason, no idea.. The one that was lagging, is the only one alive now, but has grown quite well and I've got some true leaves coming in!!!! Gonna feed her an 80-100ppm solution of quasi-grow nutes and keep the thing in the dome for now.. I'm getting kinda aggravated that I can't seem to keep 2 plants going at the same time, so I may germ a White widow and say "fuck it," and just keep them growing together..


Now, for what everyone came in for in the first place...... PICTURES!!!!!!!!!

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

I suppose in this world of vast technology, I think it's still appropriate to appreciate shitty cell phone pictures because honestly, I remember living in a time when cell phones were a dream.. To own one with a camera on it?!?? Are you kidding me?!?! EMBRACE THE SHITTY PICTURES!! It's a hell of a lot better than waiting a week to get 35mm developed!!

Zambeza is plugging along, starting to get frosty!! Super-lemony smell coming from the buds, and I expect the flavor to be magnificent, if the Jack Herer genetic live true!! I must admit, if I ever talked bad about Zambeza, then I am mistaken, because I've put this plant through hell, and it's still hanging on!! I decided to do some defol, although it was in flower-mode, I only took leaves that had spider mite eggs/carcasses on them, which was pretty much all of the original, nice and fat fan leaves.. Bummer, but the plant is responding well, as that was a couple days ago, and the frostiness has increased!! I may spray the plant one more time with the Spider mite spray just to be on the safe side..

I think I unintentionally stunted the AKR, but for some reason, the pH keeps going up and up over night.. I have flushed the block every day for the last few days with a 5.7-ish 80ppm solution of very light nutes and it's growing, but it just looks like I might have stunted her.. In the morning, I measure the run-off of the flush, and it goes up to mid 6's for a pH which makes me a little nervous, but this happened with my first grow, so I'm just going to keep flushing and keeping track of her.. The true leaves look good and green, and the cotelydons are still nice and green, so we'll see.. I have high hopes for this one, as I've read a bunch of grow threads and everyone loved the smoke and the taste! I've held off on germing another seed, as I realized that I would need to set up a separate reservoir or hand-water every day, since one will be on a slightly different nute schedule.. It is what it is.. If this AKR is good, I just may get some more of those seeds!!

 

[CCOiler]

Looking good GodAm4twizzle.

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

This plant is starting to really surprise me!! I went away for 2 days, and came back last night.. As soon as I came into my room, I could smell a little bit, since I had the tent opened slightly for venting since the AC was on, but had to leave the door open a crack for the gf's cats.. I opened the tent and was instantly amazed at the amount of frosting that had occurred over only 48hrs!!! The pictures really don't do any justice, but the smell is starting to really come out!! Very lemon-pepper smell, more lemon than anything.. TONS of pistils, and unlike my last plant, this main cola is truly just ONE cola!! I'm almost thinking that this plant, if it does what I think it's going to do, it may be as much, if not more of a yield than the last one!!


As for the AKR, it's going along, kinda slowly.. For some reason, it's starting out much like the Zambeza; looks a little stunted and isn't very big for having been over a week+ old.. It looks healthy, as in there's no odd coloring or wilting.. I'm using a 100ppm solution, running about 1.5 gallons of it through it a day.. I may have to bump the nutes a little bit.. I've been trying to find a decent hydro grow journal for the AKR, but most of what I'm seeing is soil, so I'm not sure what the nute sensitivity is of these things..

 

[TheCapn]

Looking good, twizzle. If the humidity in your veg room is at least 60, you can take that seedling out of the dome now. Give it some tea and it will start to surprise you too.

Good luck on your main cola. I hope she fattens up and gives you a good bag o' weed.

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

Thanks Capn!!! I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to start brewing the tea yesterday and got caught up doing stuff around the house.. I honestly think that was the major factor in why my plant rebounded as well as it did!! The pictures truly don't do any justice to how much better the plant looks now.. If for some reason this AKR doesn't come through for me, then I'm going to be germing photo-seeds, probably some of the GDP seeds he gave me.. None of them are sexed, so that should be a bit of an adventure for me!! I think he gave me 9 or 10 good seeds, out of the 30 or so that he had, so I would probably germ 5 or 6 of them; keep a couple on-hand for future grows..


I'm kind of at a crossroads now, with regards to my set-up.. Part of me wants to invest in a larger tent, and get an HID set-up to go with the LED panel I have, but I don't know if I feel like I'm ready to take on growing several plants, vice 2 at a time.. I think 2 at a time is about right for me, because I can pay more attention to all of the nuances, and even work on my LST/HST.. It seems like photos are much more resilient when it comes to a lot of things, so perhaps this may be a better choice for my next one?? I hope so..

 

[TheCapn]

Thanks Capn!!! I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to start brewing the tea yesterday and got caught up doing stuff around the house.. I honestly think that was the major factor in why my plant rebounded as well as it did!! The pictures truly don't do any justice to how much better the plant looks now.. If for some reason this AKR doesn't come through for me, then I'm going to be germing photo-seeds, probably some of the GDP seeds he gave me.. None of them are sexed, so that should be a bit of an adventure for me!! I think he gave me 9 or 10 good seeds, out of the 30 or so that he had, so I would probably germ 5 or 6 of them; keep a couple on-hand for future grows..


I'm kind of at a crossroads now, with regards to my set-up.. Part of me wants to invest in a larger tent, and get an HID set-up to go with the LED panel I have, but I don't know if I feel like I'm ready to take on growing several plants, vice 2 at a time.. I think 2 at a time is about right for me, because I can pay more attention to all of the nuances, and even work on my LST/HST.. It seems like photos are much more resilient when it comes to a lot of things, so perhaps this may be a better choice for my next one?? I hope so..

If I were you, here is what I would do. Get a 600W HPS in a cool tube in your tent. Give the LED light to a friend you don't like very much, or keep it for veg. If you can get a 4x4 tent, could could grow a lb in there. The ideal situation would be for you to pop all 10 seeds. You will end up with ~5 females. Take a clone of all 5 and then flower out the 5 in a tray. Then keep only the best one.... the one that produces the best bud (not always the one that grows the fastest).

Then, just sit back and grow only that one pheno, and enjoy.

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

Now see, that's how you got me into the Capn-style, and I think it just might work again!!!! lol Now in terms of getting all of the females to "flower," you mean to veg them all the way through? I think I have the idea right.. I remember reading your veg blog, and all the info is there!! Do you typically do some mild LST/HST on all of the veg plants to optimize the plants, "just in case"?? I may hold off on ScROGing until I feel good about the LST/HST... My Dinafem Critical Jack I had started doing some mild LST and it was working quite well until the spider mites got it.. I have a feeling that plant may have been the winner of this last batch!!


So now, I begin my journey to find a tent, some HID lighting and possibly buy my gf something nice in the process, so she isn't aware that I'm expanding my grow.. I'm still trying to get her to grow something, so she can get into it (not to mention, possibly doubling our yield lol).. I still have about 2 dozen bagseeds that I've accumulated over the last year or so, so I may have her use those to start.. I think I'll end up keeping my current tent as a veg/cloning tent, just for the sake of having it already, and I think it'd be a perfect size for it!!


I may go s1ingblade with the T5s though, since I feel like T5s work better than 6500K CFLs, as I'm currently vegging my AKR and have vegged my last few plants with a small T5 desk lamp my parents had kicking around that they were going to throw out.. I also found in their garage, a ceiling T5 fixture that is in great shape, which would probably be the one I'd use in the tent, since it's a 2ft light and it's 2 bulbs (I think 30w/each or something like that)..

 

[TheCapn]

In 18/6, females usually show pistils with 50 days of germination. Male pollen sacks take longer to form. After 60 days, if you have a plant with no pistils, it's 90% sure it's a boy. Throw it away.

T5 lighting is difficult to cool. With HPS in a cool tube you can suck the heat right out.

"LST / HST" are stoner terms, and are too broad to really define the technique. It is better to say what technique you are going to do. Topping, bending, super cropping, etc.

When strain hunting, topping is sufficient.

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

Excellent info!!! I hadn't read much about sexing, in terms of a sort of time frame for which things start to differentiate between male/female.. A few of the grow journals I've checked out where the individuals were breeding, showed pictures of the male plants, and they seemed much more spindly and possibly taller/lankier than the females.. Is that another sign, or is that just a pheno-thing??

Also, when you start ScROGing, do you wait until it's nearing the pre-flower stage before lowering the net, or do you try to do it a little sooner?? I think I've seen a few set-ups with multiple screens, maybe for different phases of the ScROG??




I think for me, using the T5 is more about initial cost, since I'm back at being a student, my fixed income isn't what it was when I was a "grown-up," so I've been trying to do as much bargain/DIY stuff as I can, but I definitely understand what you're saying and will do what I can to try and find something for veg.. That is, unless I just get the cool-tube and use a MH for the time being, and then when I have a little more disposable income, I can splurge on an additional fixture/ballast..


As for LST/HST, I suppose typical bending/topping would be what I'm going for.. I think super-cropping would be awesome, but I worry more about breaking a main stem or doing something stupid..

 

[TheCapn]

>>>A few of the grow journals I've checked out where the individuals were breeding, showed pictures of the male plants, and they seemed much more spindly and possibly taller/lankier than the females.. Is that another sign, or is that just a pheno-thing??

Not reliable at all.

>>>Also, when you start ScROGing, do you wait until it's nearing the pre-flower stage before lowering the net, or do you try to do it a little sooner?? I think I've seen a few set-ups with multiple screens, maybe for different phases of the ScROG??

I don't scrog until it goes to flower. No reason to.

>>>when I have a little more disposable income, I can splurge on an additional fixture/ballast..

Understood. The 24" cool tube is around 70 on ebay. You can get used 600W ballast for under 75, and the apollo 600W bulb is 23 on ebay.

 

[GodAm4twizzle]

Well, I just got me a 400/600 dimmable Galaxy ballast.. Not sure if I did it out of compulsion, but you've done more than convince me on a number of things, so I think I just need to do it!!!! lol


I think I may start germing those GDP seeds this afternoon, and I can throw them in with my AKR, since the lighting is set to 19/5 since they're autos.. Once I get my veg-box back up and running, I will throw the CFLs or T5 in there for the moment, and wait to get some more gear..


I feel like a kid right before Christmas now!!!!

 

[TheCapn]

Well, I just got me a 400/600 dimmable Galaxy ballast.. Not sure if I did it out of compulsion, but you've done more than convince me on a number of things, so I think I just need to do it!!!! lol


I think I may start germing those GDP seeds this afternoon, and I can throw them in with my AKR, since the lighting is set to 19/5 since they're autos.. Once I get my veg-box back up and running, I will throw the CFLs or T5 in there for the moment, and wait to get some more gear..


I feel like a kid right before Christmas now!!!!

Congrats on your purchase! You're on your way to the high rollers street. A buddy of mine just pulled 5zips from a 400W in a cool tube in a tiny 22" x 36" cabinet grow!

>>>I just got me a 400/600 dimmable Galaxy ballast

Pictures, or it doesn't exist.