GreenThumb J's Perpetual Multi-Strain Journal!

[Greenthumb J]

Thanks Reg!!

That Pink Kush was a pain in the ass to hold up while the GF got the picture of the roots!! Definitely not the lightest of plants!!

I'm eagerly waiting the 10 weeks for this Pink to flower out, because i know how amazing the smoke is.. Just the smell alone of the chocolatey coffee kushy scent is enough to get me high!!

 

[CronicHempHog]

Sweet Update Brotha GTJ

 

[NorCalNuggets]

Looking great Greenthumb !i should be getting on my way myself real soon here!!

 

[Greenthumb J]

Wicked man thats awesome to hear, i look forward to it!


I've now reached the boring part of the grow. Nothing to do but wait haha!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Hi Greenthumb. Awesome journal
I just finally got my subculture m&b in the mail, after six weeks of waiting, lol. I hope it puts an end to my pythium, which I am getting extremely sick of, so I can start cloning again. I emailed GH about the feeding schedule which you mentioned early on in this journal and put a couple questions to them. I asked from the point of view of growing in soil and I could easily see why it would be different than hydro where you're contantly flushing. I should have taken the time to get them to clarify the schedule with Hydro as well. Oh well. Anyway...they said:
Re. The alternating M and B innoculations-
"When growing in soil/soilless media it is best to inoculate every 2-3 weeks. Start in early veg with the Sub M. Wait about 2 weeks for the colony to establish, then you can apply another round of Sub M prior to transitioning. Every 2-3 weeks after, apply Sub B. You could apply them together if you want after the first Sub M inoculation. I hope this clarifies things. "

Re. Feeding along with nutrients
-"Keep them separate if your total ppm is more than 1200, otherwise together is fine."

 

[Weaselcracker]

Here is the subculture application info from the GH website.

Looking at the hydro part of it now, I see that it's identical to the soil "optional root drench". (The other option being to dig it into the soil). This leads me to believe that I would have got the exact same answer from my email if I had asked about Hydro applications.

I guess I should point out what seems totally obvious- that I'm not saying that you are "doing it wrong"with your schedule of root drenches. It's 110% obvious you aren't. Just trying to satisfy my curiosity.

I think I get from this that there seems to be a bit of wiggle room here. Maybe more to learn for us and GH both. I would have asked them more questions but thought it was probably beyond the scope of whoever I was talking to, and didn't want to annoy them further. Probably need a mycologist/microbiologist to answer the details on the question "why".

I might try brewing the stuff up in a tea. Probably/hopefully not necessary but I'm curious about it. I can't find ancient forest in canada. Can you, or do you know a substitute? Thanks man.

 

[Greenthumb J]

No i do not know of a replacement for Ancient Forest, but essentially you could supplement your crop with any high quality humic acid supplement. I was using Floralicious plus because it contained humic acid as well as seaweed, plus its supposed to increase resin and essential oil production and increase flavour.

I have since stopped brewing any teas, and simply use the Subcultures alternating each day. Its simply put, less hassle than treating my water for chlorine, brewing a tea for 36 hours and then applying it, and i'm sure its just as effective as the tea i was brewing up.

The thing with hydroponics, is theres so many applications of the word. Ebb&flow, Recirculating top feed, DWC, RDWC, aeroponics. All have different ways of suspending the plant and roots in medium and delivering nutrient solution.

That being said, each method has their ways of delivering microbes to the root zone. RDWC and DWC i think are just kind of pointless to try and "inoculate" your reservoir although If you are growing DWC like myself and have your plants in rockwool cubes as the medium in the net pots, then you surely can inoculate your root ball.

I normally grow in a recirculating top feed system, where i have no worries of high ppm solutions harming or killing the microbes being put into the growing medium, since the nutrient solution drains back into the reservoir. I irrigate once a day, right when the lights come on for the day, and i add my M or B sometime around noon or so as a root drench. My roots have never been whiter. When i dont apply the beneficials daily, my roots aren't as white and my plants dont grow as vigorously.

I'm trying my hardest to get some Great White or Recharge sent up to me here in BC, but thanks to Agriculture Canada's strict regulations on horticultural products like that, those products, as well as Ancient Forest, are not allowed into Canada. I'm contemplating having a friend in the states buy some for me and mail it to me and hope for the best!!

About the pythium, try and find some Aquashield or Hydroguard from Botanicare. The specific strain of Bacillus bacteria within Hydroguard (Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens) is very effective against pythium. That (Aquashield) got rid of my pythium when i first started growing,. Botanicare has since changed the formula slightly and renamed it to Hydroguard.

From that point on, i have always maintained a live environment within my reservoirs or root zones, as a sterile environment in your res or root zone is much harder to maintain, and usually invites anaerobic bacteria into your root zone or reservoir. I've never had any root issues since starting using beneficial bacteria



Hey everyone.. its been awhile for an actual update.. i have better things to do than sit here on 420, and thats care for my plants.

That being said.. remember how i said i was going to give that Twilight LED that i have another chance? what a waste of time!!

The Pink Kush under that Twilight LED has been in 12/12 for 17 days now, and it has done nothing but get a little bit bigger!! Its just finally putting out pistils, whereas the Pink kush under my HPS are in full bud production and are HUGE!

No worries folks!! I'm just waiting for the place where i get my lights and tents and such to receive their shipment of ballasts so that i can get another 600w CoolTube package for the 4x4 tent, although i'm thinking of getting one of their air cooled hoods instead of a Cooltube, as they might have a slightly bigger footprint.

Once i get back from my Vegas trip in June, i plan to upgrade all my reflectors in my flower tent from Cooltubes to Magnum XXXL air cooled hoods.

I recently moved my AC outside of the tent and have it situated to blow directly inside.

This is proving to be much more effective as the AC was sucking in hot air before, and trying to cool it before blowing it out. This was causing the AC to actually overwork itself, and constantly freeze up the condensate pump, which would in turn need to stop cooling the air and defrost the pump before trying to cool down the hot air again. It basically rendered my AC useless while it was inside the tent. Now it sucks in cool air and can actually cool it before it is blown out of the AC.

The difference is night and day. Its almost too cold to go into the tent to do any work on the plants haha! I'm kidding, but the temps were hitting 26-28 on my hygrometer, but now the temps read around 18 degrees constantly. For me running DWC without chillers on my totes, thats a game changer! My temps are absolutely perfect at the moment. I'm expecting huge amounts of purple to come out in this particular harvest.

SO heres some pictures of how things are shaping up here!

My Blueberry Headband that i germinated around new years is slowly coming along, despite the description of the strain stating it was a vigorous growing plant in veg. I have determined that i have gotten an incredibly indica-dominant phenotype. The plant is so short and squat, and the fan leaves are small, but very thick leaves. It already stinks to high hell. A very hashy, diesly scent to it with some slight undertones of red berries. The scent is extremely narcotic and intoxicating.

Heres the Pink Kush under the Twilight LED. Once this plant gets a 600w HPS over top of it, I estimate it will stretch at least 4 inches, but i have a scrog built and ready to suspend over the plant to keep the colas away from the HPS light.

Looking at pictures of it from 10 days ago, it has actually doubled in size, however, the extremely low powered LED light is having a really hard time growing any sort of buds, and the penetration is absolutely piss poor.

And heres a few random shots of the flower tent that i took either last night before lights out, or this morning when the lights came on... I cant really remember, but who really cares?

This is my runt of the Pink Kush plants i have in this tent:

Heres the only OG Kush i have in flower at the moment, off in the corner there. This particular pheno is a huge yielder. This plant should exceed 16zips dry, and it turns an amazing shade of purple when the flush begins. Added with the 10 degree cooler temps i can provide with my AC being outside the tent, this plant should turn pure purple by harvest day.

a couple random shots of the larger Pink Kush plants in flower:

And heres the newest strains being added to circulation. On the left are an unknown Purple kush from bagseed, and on the right are Reserva Privada Strawberry Banana's. I recently set up one of my 2x4 flood tables for these plants. I have them directly in 1gals whereas i would have normally put the rockwool cubes into a 4" square pot.

And that's it guys. Really not a whole lot. Just waiting for these plants to flower out so i can harvest! Hope everyones gardens are flourishing!

happy growing!

 

[CronicHempHog]

Everything looks Great Brotha GTJ

 

[Trenchtownroc]

Hey GT, plants look awesome!! I've been following with admiration. I finally got a chance to germinate some seeds on Sunday. You and the other members have been feet helpful so far. These are pictures from today. 3 out of 4 look great! Standing straight up. One is falling over. They all have a single root growing through the bottom of the RR plug. They seem very "lanky" to me. Any advice?? Thanks in advance.

 

[Trenchtownroc]

* very helpful...

 

[Greenthumb J]

get your light closer to those sprouts.. thats why they stretched so much.. you're light is too far away.

Use something like a cheap CFL or a cheap T5HO with a mini reflector and get the light right over top of those babies to keep them from stretching more.. hydro stores sell them for like $20 with a humidity dome to sit the light on top of.

Your sprouts should look like my seedlings above. in the picture you can see my T5 fixture only a mere inches above the plants. T5's do not put out a lot of heat, so you're able to get them pretty close to your plants without any harm done to them.

Shoot me a PM and lets chat about your grow room set up!

 

[B A R]

Way too far away Trench. Looking good Thumbs.

 

[CronicHempHog]

yep too far too stretchy Happy Skunkday Brotha GTJ

 

[Trenchtownroc]

Awesome guys! Thanks for the responses. To be honest I didn't think they would shoot up so quick. Came back from work and that's how much they grew. I have a t5 and will install today. So the sprouts are still usable/viable? I was thinking of trying to prop up the one that's falling over with a Popsicle stick or something. GT I will definitely take you up on the offer. Thanks again ..

 

[B A R]

As long as they survive. When you plant them just put half of those long stems under the soil or whatever medium you plan on using.

 

[SBG]

also a nice gentle breeze from a oscillating fan will cause the stem to vibrate and send out more roots for strength and thickin up the stem otherwise they will grow up and be unable to hold up all those beautiful buds we all like.

 

[CCOiler]

Looking great GT

 

[Greenthumb J]

SILICA! SILICA! SILICA! SILICA!

Once you see your first set of leaves coming in (more than one blade), give those babies some silica. Silica helps strengthen your plants stem structure, helps ward off pests and disease and helps fight heat related stress and drought. Couple that with all the advice these awesome guys have suggested, and those little babies of yours should thrive!

Now that you have roots out the bottom of those rapid rooter plugs, you need to transplant them into their first container, or you will start air pruning the roots, and this is WAY too early to be doing that!

What kind of medium are you going to grow in?

 

[Greenthumb J]

60... welcome back brother!

 

[CCOiler]

60... welcome back brother!

Thank you GT, it's a honor to be on your journal.