K-Frat's Soil Skunk Diesel Closet Grow Journal -2012

[K-Frat]

What strain is it? Skunk Diesel
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Germination/Veg
If in Veg... For how long? 3 days
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor Closet
Soil or Hydro? Hyponex by scotts potting soil feeds for 4
If soil... What size pot? Starting out in seed starter tray
Size of light? x2 300w ps25 bulbs totaling 8340 Lumens and a 250w Mecury vapor light for flowering.
Is it aircooled? Small floor fan
Temp of Room/cab? 75-80 degrees
Any Pests ? None
How often are you watering? keeping moist until sprouts come up
Type and strength of ferts used? Shultz Plant food 10-15-10 for veg and a Schultz Bloom Plus 10-54-10 for flower

It has been a long time and im glad to be back and growing again. My job became long term and full time and eventually hired in so basically thats what I have been doing. These seeds were surprisingly out of some high grade stuff not really medical but real close. I was very excited to get them and decided then and there that i was going to grow them. This is going to be a long exciting ride because I will keep this going as long as I can with clones because of my sucess doing them last time. I am excited to be sharing with everyone and all comments/ideas always welcome!

 

[K-Frat]

Ok so here are a few pics first my grow room setup.

My seeds have finally emerged from the soil looks like i might only have 2 out of 4 but i will be keeping an eye on them

Im keeping a greenhouse effect on them till they get a little bigger. I will keep be adding more pics and updates as they come!

 

[donpaul.p]

hi, great start to your journal, the only thing i would like to add is about the fans, are they blowing air onto the plants or sucking the air and blowing it away from the plants, at this stage you dont want much air blowing on the plants, it will stunt growth and makes the leaves dry up and lose moisture, so if the fans are blowing onto the plants to keep the temps down the try and have the fans blowing above the plants so its not blowing directly on them, or have them blowing up at an angle towards the light so its pushing cool air in at the bottom and pushing the hot air out the top

 

[K-Frat]

hi, great start to your journal, the only thing i would like to add is about the fans, are they blowing air onto the plants or sucking the air and blowing it away from the plants, at this stage you dont want much air blowing on the plants, it will stunt growth and makes the leaves dry up and lose moisture, so if the fans are blowing onto the plants to keep the temps down the try and have the fans blowing above the plants so its not blowing directly on them, or have them blowing up at an angle towards the light so its pushing cool air in at the bottom and pushing the hot air out the top

Thanks for the tip! I went ahead and moved them so that they are not blowing directly on them. It seems I have forgotten quite a bit since my last grow and this is becoming a refresher course for me. I purchased a different lighting setup today simply because the lights I was using were keeping the room 80-90 degrees instead of the ideal 70-80 degrees. They are 24" Fluorescent Grow Lights 7800K per light. I ziptied 2 of them together and have them above the plants and almost touching them since they are cool to the touch. I forgot to mention my light cycle before, they are on an 18-6 cycle set with a timer.

 

[donpaul.p]

no probs, the temps should be roughly 78f give or take for the best growth so anything around that is good, have you tried any other lighting schedule to grow with like 20-4 and 24-0,

 

[K-Frat]

no probs, the temps should be roughly 78f give or take for the best growth so anything around that is good, have you tried any other lighting schedule to grow with like 20-4 and 24-0,

I have considered it but feel I get better results by letting the veg in the dark for 6 hours. 24-0 light cycle seem to almost stunt growth and make it seem like forever for them to grow. I am pretty sure they need at least some kind of darkness for root growth and a "cool down" period. I was leaving the lights on 24-0 while they were germing and once they peeked out of the soild it seemed they stopped growing until i put them on the cycle they are on now 18-6. In just a couple days of that they are now double in size I will post pics in the morning I just got in from work and need to get some shut eye

 

[K-Frat]

My other 2 seeds are starting to appear through the soil now! Here are a couple shots, one of my new setup and another of maybe not so much of growth but probally stretching Looks like I am on my way!

 

[dadums]

Nice start will that merc vap light put out enough red?

 

[K-Frat]

Nice start will that merc vap light put out enough red?[/UQUOTE]

I dont think it does from the reading i did. I believe I am going to use it but it will not be my primary lighting more for penetrating the canopy. i am going to wait till flowering to use it and i will be replacing the bulbs in my flo fixture and adding 2 sets of 3 way cfl adapters i have yet to buy.

 

[dadums]

Are those t8's you can double the ballasts and double the output. I used 4' shop lights first. Cool white for veg and warm white for flower. They did better than the "grow" bulbs for me and I didn't know about upping the output. I can pm a link.

 

[K-Frat]

they are 24 inch w**m**t special grow lights 10.97 each lol. never looked into a t8 setup or heard about doubling up the output. how much would that kind of setup cost?

 

[donpaul.p]

loads of growers use hps for veg as well as flower and get great results, some even use mh for both stages but get less yield then using the hps for both stages of growth, some hps now are dual spectrum and have an extra element in them that produces the blue spectrum needed for the veg stage, i got a dual spec 400watt hps and its been used for flower now, but once these are done i will be using it for veg and checking the results, im pretty sure with the hps that you can just buy a dual spectrum bulb or if your ballast will power a mh bulb then you could just put on of those in for veg, hps wont work in mh ballast but mh will work in most hps ballasts.

now with the lighting i tend to agree, i think plants need dark time, their was a test done and it found that 18-6 produced the most active root growth, this then makes the plant grow quicker and be healthier in general, but i found that letting the roots build up early on in the grow then taking the lights up tp 20-4 really gave me more growth, but it would vary from strain to strain and lights etc etc.

their is also another growing schedule called gas lantern routine, or glr, basically this is 12-12 from day 1, but during the 12 hours of dark period you give the plant 1 to 1.5 hours of light, this prevents it going into flower, i tried this with young plants and found that it didnt get them growing as quick as say 20-4, but in older plants say 2 or 3 weeks old then this glr method comes into its own, or it would be perfect to be used on clones that are old enough to show sex, basically what the glr method does is gives the plant 12 hours of light, then 5.5 hours of dark, 1 hour of light, then 5.5 hours of dark then start again with 12hours of light,

what this does is tricks the plant into stretching as it thinks its coming into flower so its starts doing its stretch stage, but by giving it the 1 hours light during the dark period it stops the plant going into flower ( some plants will flower on the odd ocasion, mine never and ive read many journals that use this method) so this extra hours light keeps it in veg but it also keeps the plant in its aggressive growth stage. a lot of growers swear by it, some use the hps or mh for the 12 hours of on time and for the 1 hour of light during the dark period they use a few cfls so as not to switch the hps and or mh on and lower life of the light. you would need 2 timers and set one to 12-12 and then set the other to 23-1, and then plus the different lights into the timers, you can use the hps or mh for the hours light if you wanted.

just thought id give you a heads up on another schedule some growers swear by, i have tried it for a while but i will try a grow from start to finish using glr, then when you go to flower under glr you can either go 12-12 and lose the 1 hour light in the dark period so you can flower them off, or their is something called deminishing light schedule, what this basically means is that it follows the way nature does things by making the dark period get longer as the flower stage goes on, its a lot to take in and if you wanted try it in future then i would read up on it, its pretty new to me but i did get rapid growth but only with older plants, my younger plants grew quicker under 20-4 when i did a test of the light schedules, i tested 12-12 from seed, 24-0 and 20-4, i found the best growth came with the 20-4 and the 12-12 and 24-0 gave the same growth to look at, i never tested 18-6, but i always grew under 18-6 when i grew years ago, but it seems growing got a whole lot more technical now

 

[dadums]

Not much cost just add a ballast. I'll PM the link.

 

[K-Frat]

Donpaul: Thanks for the info I found that thread on there forum and its something I might have to expierment with.

Dadums: I have been looking the past couple days at a 4x6 steup from one of the sponsors here on the forum i couldn't believe how inexpensive it was. I also priced just the ballast at my local stores and again inexpensive.

Day7: I lost one of my babies didnt take to the soil i guess when i checked it out the tap root wasn't there so it just kinda withered and died so I am down to 3. Second set of spike leaves are starting to come in on two of them. And my runt so to speak is starting to catch up a little bit. I haven't name them yet will do that when i trasplant them.

Keeping two of my pc fans trained on the lights which is keeping them cool enough I can keep them less than an inch from the light. im trying not to adjust the light too much as they grow to prevent streching because they are already long enough as it is! My temps changed alot from 78-84 to 66-72 when i went from fixture I was using to the grow lights im using now I actually put the other fixture back up more less for the heat temps are holding at around 80-86. Requires a little more water but other than that they love it!

I have some quick questions about nuets. I have Schultz 10-15-10 mixture, I have been looking at getting something better as from what i read this is pretty low end stuff. My queston is is that ratio good enough? Is there maybe something i should be feeding along with this mixture or would i be better of spending the money for something more rounded like a FF mixture. Also when can i start with a mild 1/8 mixture and start feeding?

 

[donpaul.p]

the NPK on them nutes is leaning towards a flower stage feed as it has higher P rating than N, you need something higher in the N than the P and K and for flower you need something higher in P than N, so thats what your aiming for.

as for feeding i wouldnt start feeding anything yet, its to early, wait till you transplant witch i think will be soon and then wait till the new growth starts to look a lighter green and then start adding the nutes, normally when you put the plants in bigger pots you should be able to go a couple of weeks before giving nutes, but you can start earlier if you wanted but id at least wait till you are in bigger pots.

are you sure your not over watering the plants, could be why you lost the 1, only water when the pot is totally dry, i was watering once a week with mine in veg and they seemed to prefer it to watering every 2 or 3 days, but as you are in small rooting pots then it would need water sooner, but try and let it dry out before each water, but so far so good my friend

 

[K-Frat]

I went ahead and repotted the two bigger ones last night. I am glad that I did because the roots were showing all down the side on one and I could start to see roots on the bottom on the other. They are now chilling 1 Gal Blueberry pots. There were 8 drain holes on each on the bottom so I plugged the four middle ones by cutting a piece of foil and placing it in the bottom before adding the soil. Seemed like that many drain holes was too many and i don't want the water just to go right through the pot. I also mixed the soil with some seed starter to help promote root growth. I dunno what exactly it will accomplish but thought i would give it a try it has a nice mix of Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss And Perlite to help with moisture, airation and root growth. I am going to just water for another month or so unless the ladies tell me otherwise that they are ready for nuets.

 

[K-Frat]

My how they have grown since i repotted them!

 

[K-Frat]

Day 17

Ordering Nutes this week I am going with Blue Planet Nutrients Elite Grow-Micro-Bloom trio pack (gallon)

Got some great rain water and used that to water its been about 4 days since my last water and the soil was completely dry. After pricing out some lighting options I seen around other grow journals mainly NLnovice's setup but also "Y" splitters in dome reflectors, I have decided to just buy another set of the grow lights I have from WM and then buying the other bulbs for flower at that time I will probally buy a couple "y" splitters and add cfls with the dome reflectors I already have. Im just trying to not go overkill on this grow. They seem to love the lights and I don't want to switch up what is working great. I also have completely abondoned the option of using the MV light I used in my last grow due to the cost of running it,spectrum of light/kelvens,final product and the heat issue I would have if I used it. Now for some pics.

Side View

Mary she is starting to be a stinky little girl alerady

Amy

Jenny my "runt"

 

[dadums]

You won't go wrong with BPN

 

[K-Frat]

Ordered from Blue Planet Nutrients today had my grow journal updated to reflect what I will be using. Should arrive in the next week or so......stay tuned!