SunWorshiper
Well-Known Member
Grow in progress but I will start with posting pics from near the beginning and progress to current time asap. This is a medicinal offgrid grow. Nothing has been easy as power is made from solar and or generator. Also being in Montana sunshine is an issue as well as freezes and harvesting on time. The strains are blue dream, diesel, bubblechem and Bruce banner. The marshydro reflector 48s are used for supplemental during vegging and for flowering, also clones were taken under 48s with no sunshine just pure marshydro. This is my first time growing with led so I can't say how they compare withe othere led. I would say they did ok w the clones but am thinking fluorescent may have been a little better. Still they did good and saved me from having to buy fluorescent. Now as supplemental lights they are awesome and I'm pretty impressed to put it mildly. Hope to do a standalone grow this winter when I get forced inside. I can justify making enough power to run one 48 reflector 100w closet grow I believe only allowed 4 big plants here so my other three will be vegging for next year's greenhouse. So the greenhouse is, uh, unique...lol... it's two story concrete room back filled to the top with two layers of opaque poly sheeting for a roof and triple wall for next year. Since this is a high desert climate I am using a homeywell swamp cooler. Thing is awesome, just awesome. Cools the air, humidifier and has a great oscillating fan. Auto water hose hookup. Cats meow. The rooted clones are under the sun in another room and get gas lantern at midnight to stay in veg but save the little power I do have. The 4 big girls are being forced flowered with the flower initiator. I am a bad reviewer for that light as this is my first grow in this state. Pics start when the plants are maybe 3 months old. First they are inside my house then moved to the greenhouse. The first few transplants were into 707 mix which I found to be great stuff. The Bruce came sick and was always behind the rest. I just gave water the first few weeks which was just one feeding. The plants only drank about every two weeks. A couple times I did see signs of underwatering but rarely, they just didn't drink much. I am a fan of underwatering and under nutrients. Well at least it's the side I lean towards. During the first few months I was growing in 707 or promix hp myco all while waiting to make my order with Doc Bud for a kit and then for it all to cook. In that time I gave my girls sensi grow to hold them over. Usually 1/4 dose every feeding. Normally I would try to work my way up to half strength and water between feedings but these plants only wanting water every two weeks I decided to give them nutes every time but just 1/4. No water in between. They seemed to love it. A few times once I started drenching I added pure water to top off water to desired hieght. So maybe ended up being 1/8 strength and that did cause the jack to fall off again. Man I mean bruce sorry. Just miss the Jack I guess lol. So that told me Bruce needed more juice than the rest. It looked like nitrogen deficiency but who knows. My greenhouse is always battling high temps as it takes power to keep it cool so I play that game and walk that fine line. I also have an a/c in the room for backup. I did have a week here and there where I lost power and had to use backup genny. That's when I bought the co2 tank. Between the co2 and swamp cooler and hours here and there with the a/c we made it through the summer solstice. Made it to final transplant into DocBud's highbrix 3-14 days before flowering was initiated. That was flipped on the Thursday with the swift tuttle meteor shower. Plants seem to love the highbrix soul and sprays. I did have a thrips infestation a few months ago and contained it with natural plant soap but had to finally go to Spinosad to fix the problem totally. This is my first highbrix, scrog'ish, montana, 730nm, gas lantern, greenhouse grow. First time w these strains. I have some other experience growing just nothing in the last 15 years. Being registered now and free to Google for help is amazing. None of this was an option back in the day. I can't wait to see all these techniques and technology pay off. Thanks to Docbud for paving the way in many regards. Ok so before I forget my water is mostly creek water from a spring I developed years ago. About 75 ppm. I use my deep well water to top stuff off and it is about 350ppm. Triple filtered to .5 micron carbon filter and softened and uv filtered. PH high, 8 maybe. I do not test pH or ppm of feeding or runoff water anymore. Things still look good so off I go to make hay. That pretty much sums up my grow other than I can not wait to try washed buds if I can pull all this off to vest. Even though it's not true highbrix start to end I can't wait to see how it goes with what they have. Also can't wait to see if I can harvest before snowfall lol. A friend stopped by and told me the bubble chem looks great for this time of year, meaning ahead of schedule. Time will tell. To me the 730nm did seem to speed things up a little. So far all the products involved and people have been great. I really like the challenge of doing all this offgrid. It's hard to convey all the extra stuff involved w a grow like this. Good times. Stressful but still good. Not sure I could have handled this stress and the stress of growing during prohibition. Glad I at least don't have the stress of helicopters and jail time now. Just left with the stress of tinkering and weather and acts of God lol. That's where 420mag comes in. Nice to have people smarter or w a different angle than myself there for support. Speaking of which, now to try and post a pic lol. Ok thanks for stopping by, see you on the flip side.