PhotoTron Grow with Ebb N Flow

[Propa Gator]

Naming weed like a woman, Munki. She look good, smell good and smoke good too? I call her anything she let me. Often

Dollar a pound for carbon? My Scotch ancesters grinnin in the grave.
DIY scrub that stinkin diesel dame to where your wife happy? You done good, keep it up. Make a bodacious garden no trick with the gold, lo dough grow something else.

 

[dfw-guy]

I'm not so sure about the grow instructions... less than 7 weeks to flower? We'll see I guess.

 

[Munki]

Dollar a pound for carbon? My Scotch ancesters grinnin in the grave.

Heh. I guess price is relative. Making your own charcoal from wood if you had a forest would be much cheaper, but for one who lives in a place with few trees and no ability to burn them anyway (wild fire threat too high), purchasing it is the best option. Now compare a buck a pound to what can be bought at a brick and mortar store like Petco, the savings become painfully evident.
Moonshinin' is a whole nother topic though. Got a friend who does the whole beer brewing thing and recently got himself a nice little distiller to venture out further into his hobby.

 

[Munki]

I'm not so sure about the grow instructions... less than 7 weeks to flower? We'll see I guess.

Oh I hear ya. They say all kinds of things in that book that had me scratching my head. Their views on male plants is pretty out there. I'm going off what I heard from the guy I got this from. He did a few grows with it and got his best results sticking with their method. We shall see. It was worth trying and documenting it here for posterity. Let's just say this journal is my gift to all of you so you don't have to do it. I know this phototron is much maligned on the web. I wanted to get some first hand data back out there as most comments come from what people heard, not what they had seen or did personally.

Thanks for stopping by. Go ahead and pull up a chair to see what happens. I should know in 6 to 8 weeks.

 

[Munki]

Here is those promised pics from my work last night and how the plants looked upon waking to day 27. I will show the partially completed scrubber, then how I installed it. BTW, the filter is 8 inches in diameter.

Below, you can see the inline fan towards the top of the ducting work.

Now, here is where the ladies are at. Oh, they grow up so fast!

 

[Propa Gator]

Love your scrub looks good like a pro
My old can of useless crap gotta go
My cat likes stinky but a wifes nose knows
Olfactory notice is no way to go

 

[Keith Lake]

redolent of weed
the stink we need
he seeks
she peeks
need to heed

 

[Munki]

Looks like we got ourselves a weed poetry jam!

 

[TorturedSoul]

it appears that they want the cycle to go to 12/12 for 45 days throughout which you remove buds whose white hairs darken. That should occur at 7 to 10 days after they first appear. Then remove all buds 1/2 inch or larger at end of 45 day period.

Switch to 24/0 for 14 to 21 days and remove any remaining buds as they mature. Then, cycle back to the 12/12 and repeat.

This is pretty different to most other grow methods where the plants are cropped. In this system, the plant is more like a fruit tree.

Following those directions will get you unripened fruit.

 

[Munki]

Following those directions will get you unripened fruit.

Yeah, that is what I expect too. I'll probably run it through one of their flowering cycles and veg it again. Then, flower it all the way out and harvest it. That should show what it can or cannot do. I'll be itchin' to do a grow under an HPS by then.
You would laugh out loud if you heard their stance on males.

They say if you see males to not kill them. Quote: "The sex of these plants can be changed during the next budding cycle." Hmmmm.

Quote: "Only two reasons can cause male expression in your plants. First is incorrect temperature and second is nutrient imbalance. If the soil temperature falls below 70F/20C and/or the unit temperature falls below 85F/30C, your plants may turn male. If your nutrients have been contaminated by using non-distilled water, your plants will turn male. If your nutrients are low either from overwatering, underwatering, (blank space on page here) conditions are right for your plants to turn male. Male sex can reverse during the next budding stage if, and only if, temperature and nutrient balance are corrected and maintained by the start of the next light cycling period."

Like I had said before, their stance on growing would be considered unorthodox to say the least around here. I thought it would be worth it to run a documented grow through one and live with the results.

 

[Munki]

I was just thinking about it, and I bet that due to its florescent light source, it would be inherently weaker as a flowering box. They only kick the lights down for a pretty short period mainly to start the budding process. Once 10 % of the hairs on the new buds turn color, they want the tron to be kicked back up to 24/0. Harvest the buds as they mature in that cycle until the remaining buds start getting less pliable and more woody. Then, all remaining buds are removed.

My guess as to why they do this is to compensate for the low intensity of the floros by running them for twice as long; 24 hours a day. It takes a couple of weeks for the plant to change its hormones around to get back into the veg state so they effectively double the photon quantity that can be sent to the plants during that time. that would get the system approaching a 400 watt HPS. What do you all think?

 

[Chameleon1]

Nice grow you got goin man!

 

[Munki]

Nice grow you got goin man!

Hey thanks for stopping by. I'm really interested to see the results. If I only had a time machine so I could poke my head in to see the results ahead of time. Darn reality with its linear time progression!

 

[dfw-guy]

Hey thanks for stopping by. I'm really interested to see the results. If I only had a time machine so I could poke my head in to see the results ahead of time. Darn reality with its linear time progression!

Time doesn't seem so linear when your high lol.

 

[Propa Gator]

Uh Munki my friend, you're starting to creep me out. Isn't this the part of the movie where I go get some popcorn or something? I thought you would use the lights and hydro feed to grow some weed, but you seem serious about Dr Biologics' nefarious plan. Don't you have some dandy lions in your yard to torture? We have ferris wheel grows, spinning round we have lo stress sadists, tying them down but you have chosen Tron the Dom, to give ancient ritual its' day in the Sun. I'm gonna try and stay with you, I'm sure you mean well but my main sphincter ain't what it use to be so I might have an accident.

OK, so the real reason I got attytood is Tom Watson didn't win the claret jug, so as a target of opportunity, Tron can take the hit.

 

[420NV]

My white widow, which filled the chamber with big beautiful rich coloured leaves, turned out to be male. =( He went down this morning.

 

[Munki]

Uh Munki my friend, you're starting to creep me out. Isn't this the part of the movie where I go get some popcorn or something? I thought you would use the lights and hydro feed to grow some weed, but you seem serious about Dr Biologics' nefarious plan. Don't you have some dandy lions in your yard to torture? We have ferris wheel grows, spinning round we have lo stress sadists, tying them down but you have chosen Tron the Dom, to give ancient ritual its' day in the Sun. I'm gonna try and stay with you, I'm sure you mean well but my main sphincter ain't what it use to be so I might have an accident.

OK, so the real reason I got attytood is Tom Watson didn't win the claret jug, so as a target of opportunity, Tron can take the hit.

I wanted to get documented proof that what it can do for a full cycle. I just do not think it is built for a full flower period due to the florescent bulbs' relatively low intensity versus HPS. A workaround had to be employed and that grow system of theirs is what I hypothesize was done. It could be used as a mothering chamber in the future I guess in a HID based grow setup.

I have a kill-a-watt meter running on the powerstrip running the whole show. I'll know the total KWh used so I will be able to calculate useful ratios like grams of bud/kWh which I can ultimately tie to electricity cost.

 

[Munki]

Time doesn't seem so linear when your high lol.

Heh. That's when you know you have some of the good stuff!

 

[Munki]

My white widow, which filled the chamber with big beautiful rich coloured leaves, turned out to be male. =( He went down this morning.

Sorry to hear that. You could just say "f-it" and see if you could make some seeds. Make sure you clean the machine down really good after you harvest to get any stray pollen. I'm not sure how long pollen lives; does anyone know offhand?

I have read that males tend to be the more aggressive growers out of the gate and will mature first. Still, little consolation when fuzzy balls are starin' you in the face.

 

[Munki]

Here are some pics I just took. They are about to go to sleep for the day. One month in.