Icemud's Grow 5.0 - Perpetual Grow - Gas Lamp Routine - Mineralized Soil

[Icemud]

Welcome everyone!!! I am back with my all new style of growing, the perpetual grow. I am sad that I will not be featuring the ever popular and beautiful V-Scrogs and my past 4 grows but I think this may be a new chapter for me in growing, making it easier to prune and care for the plants, as well as offering quicker harvests to eliminate the 5 month waiting period forcing me to go buy dispensary buds...(I know poor me>>>lmao)



The Setup:



Veg tent:
1 400w Ceramic Metal Halide bulb phillips
1 400w magnetic HPS/MH ballast
1 carbon scrubber
1 high output can fan (probably upwards of 400+ CFM)
2 Mothers (blue dream, skywalker og) 2 Pre98 bubba's awaiting the flowering tent once they grow larger and many future possible strains...
Lighting is set on the Gas Lamp Routine (12 hours on, 5.5 hours off, 1 hr on, 5.5 hours off)

Soil mix as posted in my last grow..
using 3 gallon plastic pots to measure and a plastic measuring cup.. I added:
3 pots of Promix HP
2 pots of Happy Frog
1 Pot of worm casings with kelp and volcanic rock
1/2 pot of alaskan forest humus
1/2 pot of volcanic pumice

Thats my base soil...now for the mineralization
3 cups of calcium carbonate
2 1/2 cups of soft rock phosphate
1 1/2 cups of gypsum
2 cups of lava sand
1 1/2 cups of azomite
1 1/4 cups of glacial rock dust
1 cup of greensand (lowered the ratio from last grow due to high potassium value)
2 cups of mycos maximum
1 1/2 cups of humic acid powdered
1 cup of dry molasses (lowered the ratio from last grow due to high potassium value)
a few shakes ( a light sprinkle of some epsom salts)
1/2 cup of high P bat guano

I mixed this really well and filled up 5x 3 gallon plastics plus one of my #3 smarpots and half of another #3 smartpot.

Vegging plants will be started in Root Riot plugs, moved to 2 gallon plastic round containers, and transplanted to 5 gallon square plastics when switched to veg tent.

Upon the transplant I re-used all of my soil from my last grow and didn't add any new amendments or anything, just mixed up and used... I have high hopes for this grow as I have read that re-using mineralized soil will make the quality go up and up each grow

I plan on doing little feeding in the veg tent and waterings will mostly consist of plain r/o water for younger plants in veg and with the older plants I will give a monthly soil drench of General Organics and Earthjuice in which I have been very happy with in past grows...

The Flowering Tent:
1 400w Ceramic Metal Halide in a 400w magnetic HPS ballast, cool tube
1 600w HPS Ushio optired bulb, 600w dimmable lumatek ballast, vented hood
1 carbon scrubber, 435cfm fan, speed controller set to run on low for 24 hrs a day
1 carbon scrubber, inline can fan (prob about 400cfm) set to run only when lights are on (this one cools the lights when illuminated)
Running lights at an 11/13 schedule

The soil:
I re-used the soil from my last grow which originally was mixed like this in 3 gallon round plastics..


4 pots of promix HP
1 Pot of Happy Frog
1 Pot of Perlite
1 Pot of Worm Casings (with added volcanic rock and sea kelp)
1 Pot of Alaskan Forest Humus

Then for the mineralization additives...
2.5 cups of Calcium Carbonate
2 cups of Soft Rock Phosphate
1.5 cups of garden gypsum

1 cup of lava sand
1.5 cups of greensand
1 cup of humic acid powder
1.5 cups of azomite
1 cup of mycos maximum
1/2 cup of dry molasses
1 cup of high P guano
1 cup of high N guano

And when I transplanted I mixed up a similar mix...here are the amounts

8 pots of pro mix HP
2 pots of happy frog
1 1/4 pot of alaskan forest humus
1 1/4 pot of perlite
1/2 pot of worm casings (would have added more but I ran out)

and for the minerals/additives

2 1/2 cups of calcium carbonate
2 cups of soft rock phosphate
3/4 a cup of gypsum
2 cups of lava sand
2 cups of greensand
2 cups of mycos maximum
2 cups of dry molasses
2 cups of powdered humic acid
1 1/2 cups of glacial rock powder
2 cups of azomite
1 1/2 cups of high p bat guano..

For flowering tent feedings I will be doing a mix of Earth Juice Tea's, Compost teas, Fish/Squid feedings, and spacing them out with soil amendment feedings and plain water. I was very happy with the past results using General Organics and Earthjuice products, so I figure I will give it a try, with my re-used mineralized soil...best of both worlds right? lol we will see

 

[Icemud]

The Plan:

The plan for this grow will be to have constant harvests of 1 or 2 plants, about every month to month and a half. Vegging will be done in my veg tent and I will be keeping 1 mother of the blue dream and 1 mother of the skywalker og, which are definitely the real deal cuts, very very amazing strains and some of my favorites Other strains will come and go and I may consider a 3rd tent to keep my mothers isolated from vegging plants to help keep away pesties and unwanted disease (mostly if I get clones from vendors) but space in my apartment is limited as well as power so this may be a pipe dream for now...lol

I do have some seeds that I would love to sprout which include some landrace hawaiian sativas from a grower friend of mine, some unknown "experimental/unreleased" purple genetics from DNA, some random bagseeds from some really good strains including some strong master kush's, lavender, grand daddy purps and a few other unknowns... so I have been wanting to get these going as well so the future is pretty unknown. I also would love to get a cut of the real "girl scout cookies" strain which is amazing...but they are hard to come by right now and expensive, however, a buddy of mine said he can get me one so we will see

As far as feedings I will be using my knowledge of high brix and mineralized soil and trying to keep as healthy of a soil environment I can with lots of rock powders and such as mentioned above. I also will try re-using my soil and see what the results are and I have a felling I may surprise myself

As far as my Bloom feedings I will be combining things I've done in the past and should have a 3 part rotation going with feedings:

1st feedings will be my soil drenches which will either be Earthjuice Teas, General Organic enzyme digested Cal Mag..

My 2nd Part of the feeding schedule will be a compost tea using pre-mixed soil, molasses, and may slightly adjust depending on successes and plant health.

My 3rd part of the feeding schedule will be the soil amendment phase including,Organic enzyme digested Cal/Mag, 2-4-0 fish fertz, cold pressed seaweed, hygrozyme, Orca or Mycos Maximum, Humic and Fulvic acid and carboload by AN.

My goal with this is to replenish the organic materials with feeding #1, give a boost to the microlife on feeding #2 to help use the added organics from feeding #1, and with the 3rd feeding to add the micronutrients, PGR's, enzymes, acids and other goodies back to the soil, and then repeat the process. Depending on soil health and plant health I may throw in a 4th feeding which will either be another compost tea, or just plain R/O water to help leech salts and keep the soil from building up to toxic levels. I also plan on getting a soil probe EC meter in the near future so will monitor soil conductance through the cycles and see how it changes. I also will be taking random brix readings to monitor the plants and see how they like the new cycle...

Foliar feedings will be used but not in excess like past grows, I have been reading that less is more with foliar feedings and depending on the macro/micronutrient, intake at the leaves is different for each type added, some absorb instantly, some take a few days.. I will be doing a foliar feeding about 1x per 2-3 weeks instead of 1x or more per week, and will try to target the natural ingredients that work in improving plant health and brix... but still want to do more reading in this area because wrong applications, timing can ruin potential.

Well here is the progression so far with my perpetual grow, some of the photos were posted in my last grow, but I decided to bring them over to complete the experience

After transplant and some moved to Flowering...

 

[Icemud]

Today's Day 9 of the flowering tent, unsure about the amount of days in veg for the others, but the flowering is the only one I'm really concerned with as far as time..the veg is based on when their ready to move to flowering

I am surprised to see that they are not showing signs of flowering yet, and I believe this is due to the transplant, root scoring and then thrown right into flower. I think that they were slightly shocked and this postponed the flowering, however today I am seeing signs that all of them are just beginning to flower... Note to self...leave a week after transpant before moving to flowering to allow a recovery period.

So far the flowering tent is looking amazing, the plants health looks really good, all the leaves have been reaching upwards towards the light, color has become even more vivid, and the leaves are gaining a nice shine to them as well

As far as the veg tent things are also looking really good, the skywalker is recovering from topping of the meristem and the blue dream is up next as far as some topping because it is getting really large. These are the mothers so the bushier the better The Pre98 Bubba's will be going to flowering in the next month or so, they are just such slow growers I really want to give them time to get large before flowering so I can at least get a decent crop out of them...

The veg tent is ready for a feeding soon, I really haven't been giving them much at all for nutrients so I figured they were due for a little soil recharge and mixed up some EJ grow and some General Organic Squid to give them some N, P and little K with many other benefits from the organics being added. I also added a little cold pressed seaweed and will add cal/mag right before feeding.

The flowering tent received plain water about 3 days ago, so it will be due for its feeding #1 soon and I will start this most likely in 3 days.

Well here are today's photos...

Veg Tent...

Flowering Tent

 

[mcloadie]

I'm sub'd ice...Good luck!

 

[Curso]

Wouldn't miss this one Ice!!! Great start to another stellar journal

 

[fish cake]

I like it a lot!
going to take it on myself to find a place to sit and have a gander at your grow.
loving the soil mix
and of course the ladies

 

[miwa]

Good start..

 

[jon705]

looks like im not the only one that got rid of the screen Im subbed up for this one and reps for the great start ice if I can rep you twice

 

[jon705]

on credit

 

[Hash Hound]

Looks like you are off good start Ice.

 

[Aaron Quix]

Subbed

 

[Hiker]

great job on that last harvest! Looking forward to watching this one.

 

[BigIrishDoode]

you know damn well im gonna be here as sure as the sun will rise and eventually send a solar flare/corneal burst and fry us all!! i am a big fan of reusing the soil i have stopped adding pearlite for the most part since so much of my soil ends up out in the garden and the "snow" all over the yard looks unappealing, i replaced it with coco, and im not adding it to coco grows i also read that no beneficial will grow on it and reduces overall microbiology, just what i was reading not 100% sure, i think freeing yourself from the scrog is gonna be fun and open you up to other fun stuff, i loved my scrog it yielded very nicely but had some big downsides for me im not very agile and access to the back plants was difficult i had to get spiffy to do it and trim below the screen for me, so i cant do it again till some things can be changed,any way i have a feeling your gonna have some great results mr ice!

 

[Icemud]

I am so happy that everyone came to cheer me on!!!! I so much appreciate all of you and I am excited to start my new "chapter" in growing with this perpetual grow!! It is definitely going to be different without my beautiful v-scrog and I'm kind of sad to leave her...lol but I have a feeling that the constant harvests will outweigh the awesomeness of the v-scrog...lol

 

[Icemud]

So today I fed my girls in the veg tent the brew of Earthjuice, squid and other additives today and started up my feeding #1 for the flowering tent. This will be bubbled for a day or 2 and then the girls will get their bath.

5 gallons of 0ppm D/i water with:
120ml of earthjuice grow 2-1-1
60ml of General Organics cold processed and enzyme digested squid 2-3-1
8tsp of General Organics Cal/Mag 5:1
30ml humic acid
40 ml of Earthjuice Microblast
1 tbsp of unsulfured molasses.
30ml of AN liquid carboload (5 different simple sugars)

This is my soil drench feeding so the purpose is to add organic materials to the soil.. next feeding will be the compost tea to add microlife to the soil and help them break down the organic materials faster from feeding #1. The third feeding will help aid in soil health and other goodies to the soil such as enzymes, micronutrients, PGR's (seaweed), humic/fulvic acids to help the nutrient uptake in the soil and then repeat process. Well thats all for now...

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed

 

[direless]

I'm in, looking to learn a lot, ask a lot of questions and hopefully be helpful in some small way.

 

[BigIrishDoode]

yupvscrog is awesome but as a grower trying new methods is almost mandatory! perpetual is nice in many ways ,frequent harvests,fresh bud often,easier isolation,less veg time,easier breeding,etc etc. i loved my scrog but there were some issues i told you about before, im about to start a new journal with my new 4x4x7 tent &cool tube, since the title of my current journal and what im doing dont match at all lol plus 50+ pages is kind of intimidating to start from the begining not sure when ill start it but i will be sure to let all know lol

 

[mobudds]

Subbed I'm not one with soil it doesnt like me at all lol but I like to watch others run it

 

[dkloud83]

how does the glr working for you? And what does it work best for? How are you using it?