TeSmp's Critical Sensi Star - 6 Sq/Ft SCROG - Single Plant

[GreeenFingers]

Coool Cool... Well here is how it went...

2 plants (grapefruit) / 1.5 month veg / 5 gallon pot / soil = 2.5 ounces each

2 plants (white widow) / 3 weeks veg / 3 gallon pot / soil/perlite = 1.5 ounces each

1 plant (giesel diesel) / 0 veg / 2L bottle / soil/perlite = .5 ounce

1 plant (Purple Kush) / 0 veg / 2L bottle / Perlite/vermiculite = .67 ounces

1 plant (Purple Kush) / 0 veg / 2L bottle / 2L DWC-Hydro = .96 ounces

1 plant (Critical Sensi Star) / 1 month veg / 5 gallon DWC / 8.5 ounces

You can clearly see where I'll be doing my future grows, and that will just be in a DWC... However, if I were to recommend any of these for a SOG it would be:

10 x 2L bottles / DWC-H each with their own air stone / 1 week veg / lollipop... You would be looking at 8-10 ounces in 8-10 weeks. However, your taking the risk of having 10 plants plus a mother and possibly other clones you are starting. I just got that same yield with one plant in the same time constraint.

Thanks for the thorough response TeSmp

I really do understand the immense difference in yield with Hydro as your results are one of the more impressive that I have seen but I very strongly want to stick with soil and organics as you know how I feel about it from a previous post a few pages back ha ha

The number of plants does not really bother me weather it be 10 or 1 as I really want to have a mix of plants for my next grow and if I could keep them all as one big cola I should be able to achieve the variety in such a small space

So would you think good or average yield from a 2L could be about a 1/2 oz ?

If I have each of the plants in a 5L pot SOG style do you think it could be possible to pull an ounce from each pot hopefully yielding a possible 10 ounces all together ?

Thanks for letting me bounce ideas/thoughts off of you

 

[donpaul.p]

id say from a 2ltr hempie style grow from seed you could easily hit 1/2oz per plant, im not sure how much difference lolly popping makes but when i did it it was 12-12 from seed in dwc set up and it give me 1 big bud at 20g dry, so in soil i can see you doing 14g pretty easy, now how much difference it makes when you use clones i dont know as ive only done hempies with seeds, but teSmp did his with clones.
but if you want to stick with soil and do some hempies then get a 2ltr pop bottle and cut the top few inches off and cover the bottle so light cant get to the roots, then poke holes in the bottom and fill with compost and plant your seeds or clones. then just trim any side branches longer than 1.5 inches if you plan on having 1 big bud.
but i would of though you can get 14gdry per hempie in soil, i think that would be easy to achieve, if you did not lolly pop then you would need slightly more room as they can spread out like the 2 i got going now, but i can clearly see im getting over an oz per hempie but i did give 7 days under 24-0 to boost them slightly, but the one is 4ft tall.

but if you was doing 12-12 from seed in soil then you would hit 14g per plant, if you used clones then you need to give some veg time because a clone will flower as soon as you flip it to 12-12 so it might not get 14g, but ive not used clones so teSmp could tell you more.

as for the 5ltr pots, now if you was going with the 5 litre pots then to achieve an oz from each in soil then id give the seeds 7 to 10 days under veg cycle, then flip them to flower, with clones id give them a couple of weeks of veg before flipping to 12-12, just show they dont flower when they are still small.

but if it was seeds then you could go 12-12 from day 1 and end up with plants 2ft tall, what shocked me was the plants ive got in 5 gallon pots and vegged for 30 days, finished smaller than the hempies 12-12 from seed, im not sure why maybe its to do with the roots not having room to spread outwards so it forces the plant to grow upwards,
but i can easily see you hitting an oz from 5ltr pots if you gave seedlings a week or 2 of veg,

im sure teSmp will jump in if i given you any wrong info, i have only done a couple of hempies and my other plants are grown in 3gallon or 5gallon pots, im am only hitting around an oz per plant even with 30day veg in soil, im not sure why but the plants grown 12-12 from seed tend to grow taller than the plants that have vegged and tend to yield around the same,
so the plants i vegged for 30days and then flowered got me an oz or their abouts, but these hempies that have only had 7 days of veg are looking like their going to give me an oz easily, plus they are taller than my other plants by up to 2ft, the only difference is the plants in pots are grown in soil the hempies are dwc hempies, so clearly the dwc is giving them some boost.

this is why i am going to run a side by side grow with a soil hempie and a dwc hempie, ill set this up tomorrow and document from the start to finish, then everyone can clearly see the difference, their may not be any difference or their may be a huge difference, my money is on the dwc finishing sooner, producing more and growing a lot quicker, but i might be wrong, i wont know till i set it up and start the experiment

 

[teSmp]

@donpaul!! Kind of disappointed with what you were saying up there ^ I don't think the 2L test should have any, ANY grounds for determining whether or not you run a real DWC system. I've done all of the above and the 2L hydro versions still aren't even close to comparable to what a 5 gallon DWC will do.. Don't get me wrong I'll be watching your experiment but I don't think it should affect your decision in any way, and the only way I think it would be fair is if it was from clones. Seeds can have different genes expressed, clones are identical copies.. YOU BETTER DO A REAL DWC!!!

And one thing you must be confused about up there is that said "you should veg clones a few weeks while seeds are fine from 12/12..." This isn't the case, with clones you should be taking them from a mature mother plant, as soon as they're rooted they are also mature plants ready to flower.. It would be in ones interest to get a good root system before flowering but it is not necessary. You can go 12/12 from seed but it's not a mature plant, still works good though.

One thing you also HAVE to do to keep things even is mix up your nutes say in a gallon jug and then split it into two separate jugs and adjust pH accordingly to each type of growing medium. If you don't it won't be a controlled experiment because the plant that favors that pH range will do quite a bit better.

Anyways I'm kind of getting tired of convincing people to try hydro! Well I'm not trying to convince you it's just that I know what your after and I know the easiest route that will get you there and your still skeptical. Like I've said before this isn't my opinion, it is a fact that hydro will produce bigger plants, faster with a higher yield compared with soil under the same conditions. It's a FACT, not my opinion.

@greenfingers, you could easily get a half ounce with each plant in a 2L bottle... Especially with your skills of getting the soil just how you want it I'm sure you could get more.. Starting with clones would be my suggestion again, and go with a week of veg time after the "cloning" period is done. So hopefully when you switch to flower you would have 6-8" clones and they'd end about 14-18" tall. Lollipoping would be your choice, I would do a mix of both and you could see what works best. I'll go as far as saying that the lollipop'd ones will yield more but if anything the difference will be negligible but you'll have larger buds rather then smaller ones, something I prefer. I don't know if you can use organic nutes in a 2L DWC, I would sure try it if I had some, at worst the plant dies

If you go with bigger pots you'll want to increase the veg time obviously and the growing method will vary depending on how big the plants get. The advantage of a SCROG is small veg time, small space per plant, high yield per sq/foot, only disadvantages is the amount of work to maintain all of them and the number of plants.

 

[SurfBuddy]

Dwc scrog!

 

[invi]

Well this could mean a few things... 1. your grow shop is trying to up sell you??? 2. I didn't calibrate my meter enough, did it make a difference with my grow, no.. Not at all. To be completely honest I didn't calibrate it once during the entire Sensi Star grow, I ran out of solution and never got more. I buy little packets of calibration solution from the hydro shop and they're always like a $1, sometimes they give them to me for free. I have a cheap $7 pH meter, the yellow one if you eBay pH meter.... Every time I checked it previously it was always set right where I wanted it. I adjusted it one time for +- .1 accuracy. I'm not saying you shouldn't check it but we already let it run through a range of 5.5-6.1 so if it's off .1-.2 then I really think it's going to be fine.. If your pH meter is changing 1.0 or something then I think you need a different one.

Weird i tried quite a few shops (not just growshops). The pen did shift at least 1 during a week, but none of the shops promised otherwise.. Once after few weeks of not using the pen it showed a negative value for the 4.0 buffer.... then i gave up on it - rather got an RO filter to save some money and skipped the whole pH stuff...

Is yours like this?
Digital Ph Tester-Pen-Meter Kit Water + 2 Pouches of PH Calibration London Ship | eBay

 

[donpaul.p]

@teSmp, i am giving hydro a go mate, not matter what, once these plants are out the way ill be giving hydro a go, so even if the soil hempies do by some miracle give me a bigger yield then ill still be giving a dwc set up a go, ive got the buckets and lids, im just waiting on ordering a ppm tester, im not even srue how to check ppm or what the best ppm range is for these plants, so ive got a lot to pick up before i start, but ive got a couple of weeks before ill be setting it up, ill be running the hempie experimet along side the dwc scrog, i am going to give the dwc scrog a go, i think that will give me a good start with how much yield i can get from 1 or 2 plant scrog, not decided on 1 or 2 plants yet either,

but i am giving dwc a proper go, with my soil plants i need to mix some new compst for the plants i got left, they are all going to be finished soon, then ill move my hydro set up into the hps room and give it a try, then i can see for myself each day how it works and how different it is to growing in soil, so it wont be long before you see me setting up my hydro set up, ill give you a shout when i do so i can pick your brain about the correct ppm etc etc, as i know nothing about ppm, ive been checking ph and i should be using a small amount of ph up for my soil plants if i wanted the ph in the perfect range, but its not far out so never needed to buy ph up, but for the dwc ill need both ph up and ph down so i can adjust the ph as and when needed,

 

[CanuckGal]

That'll be an interesting experiment...

My hypothesis is that the DWC will easily out perform the soil, it's easier for the roots to navigate and grow in hydro

 

[donpaul.p]

im with you on that, i think the dwc hempie will perform better than the totally soil hempie, i have not got clones of the same age to use clones so ill be using seeds,. i know they can still grow different to each other but it should still be a good test and the difference should be seen, i know how quickly the dwc grew the hempies and when i compare this to my soil grows its perfectly clear the hempie grew twice as quick if not 3 times as quick, so i still think it would be a pretty fair test,
so ill get the test started later on then ill document it, the hempies i got in flower are not to far from ready, so i can get these started and by the time their growing the other hempies will be finished so i can still keep my numbers down,
the seeds ill be planting are seedism big red femenised, it looks like a nice strain so its something i want to try and this is a good excuse to try it, while im doing these hempies the other plants will be finishing off and then i can set the dwc scrog up, i am giving hydro a go, just got to get the plants im growing now out the way and flowered off, not to long to go,

 

[jandre2k3]

Wow, i had to spend $50 or more just on buffers 4.0, 7.0, 10.0, cleaning and storage solution! I used up my 4.0 buffer in a month (the pen seemed to vary values quite often) Am i looking at a wrong brand of pen or been doing something wrong?

Thanks a lot for the info, really apprecited!

It was probably the pen you were using... or an unstable nutrient solution if you're going through that much buffer. I have the same pints of pH Up and pH Down that I bought Oct 2011, and have only used 4 sachets of calibration fluid.

i would of thought the easiest set up would be the dwc that teSmp has used, its a bucket with an air stone in the bottom, plus you would need some sort of tap in the bottom of the bucket to drain and clean the res out, so you would need a bucket for the res, an air pump and stone, then all you would need is the nutrients and ph tester and ppm, then ph up and down etc, and then you should be good to go, no pumps to control the water, just a simple bucket with an air pump in it, then as long as the nutes are checked and the res changed often you should be ok, i know res temp can be an issue so that would need checking.

but i am giving it a go and maybe i should of tried it sooner, but ill give it a go and try some clones so i can compare the hydro with the soil grow, i know its not a full hydro but more dwc set up but i can still compare the rate of growth between the 2 grows, if it means i can get the same amout of bud or more with less plants then that makes sense to me, im not decided on what to go with, ill either do a 3ft by 3ft scrog with longer veg or 2 plants and 30day veg, or go with 4 dwc buckets and no scrog, i want to try and pull 3 or 4 oz per plant, im only getting just over an oz per plant with soil, so im either doing something wrong or the yields are really that low with a soil grow with 30days of veg,

While yes, the SET-UP of a bubble bucket/DWC is simple, I was looking at set-up plus maintenance throughout the grow. To change your nutrient solution, you do not have to remove the plant from its house at all, or risk damaging roots when you change out buckets, and whatnot. The plants sit in the hydrotone throughout the whole process and remain undisturbed. To change res, check pH, check EC, make adjustments, it is done in the remote reservoir, instead of constantly lifting the plant to do these things. Anytime you move roots, you run the risk of damaging them by some unlucky mishap, a drop, slip, misplacement, and whatnot.

So yes, while the concept is simple, the practice, is a lot more complicated.

 

[teSmp]

Weird i tried quite a few shops (not just growshops). The pen did shift at least 1 during a week, but none of the shops promised otherwise.. Once after few weeks of not using the pen it showed a negative value for the 4.0 buffer.... then i gave up on it - rather got an RO filter to save some money and skipped the whole pH stuff...

Is yours like this?
Digital Ph Tester-Pen-Meter Kit Water + 2 Pouches of PH Calibration London Ship | eBay

Correct, except my caps are black... Cheap little meter but it was always correct with the calibration solution, spot on! You'd be checking pH once daily (some people do more, I don't) so it should stay pretty consistent.

@teSmp, i am giving hydro a go mate, not matter what, once these plants are out the way ill be giving hydro a go, so even if the soil hempies do by some miracle give me a bigger yield then ill still be giving a dwc set up a go, ive got the buckets and lids, im just waiting on ordering a ppm tester, im not even srue how to check ppm or what the best ppm range is for these plants, so ive got a lot to pick up before i start, but ive got a couple of weeks before ill be setting it up, ill be running the hempie experimet along side the dwc scrog, i am going to give the dwc scrog a go, i think that will give me a good start with how much yield i can get from 1 or 2 plant scrog, not decided on 1 or 2 plants yet either,

but i am giving dwc a proper go, with my soil plants i need to mix some new compst for the plants i got left, they are all going to be finished soon, then ill move my hydro set up into the hps room and give it a try, then i can see for myself each day how it works and how different it is to growing in soil, so it wont be long before you see me setting up my hydro set up, ill give you a shout when i do so i can pick your brain about the correct ppm etc etc, as i know nothing about ppm, ive been checking ph and i should be using a small amount of ph up for my soil plants if i wanted the ph in the perfect range, but its not far out so never needed to buy ph up, but for the dwc ill need both ph up and ph down so i can adjust the ph as and when needed,

Lol k good glad your still going to give it a try! Yes you'll want pH up/down because you can always miss the calculation and have to go back down if you went to far up.. I would probably go with one plant but you could do two if you wanted. If you do two I would set each bucket towards the back of your grow room (left and right) and then grow the plants towards the front of your grow area, training back to front on the screen.

While yes, the SET-UP of a bubble bucket/DWC is simple, I was looking at set-up plus maintenance throughout the grow. To change your nutrient solution, you do not have to remove the plant from its house at all, or risk damaging roots when you change out buckets, and whatnot. The plants sit in the hydrotone throughout the whole process and remain undisturbed. To change res, check pH, check EC, make adjustments, it is done in the remote reservoir, instead of constantly lifting the plant to do these things. Anytime you move roots, you run the risk of damaging them by some unlucky mishap, a drop, slip, misplacement, and whatnot.

So yes, while the concept is simple, the practice, is a lot more complicated.

Yup that's correct, and easier to maintain for a newer hydro grower. However, I don't really believe its necessary to remove the buckets and clean them, ever! I didn't, all I would do is drain the reservoir through my sight/drain tube and fill it back up again. People think you need to scrub the buckets clean but if your res temps are where they need to be you shouldn't have any bacterial growth anyways, and I always ran 3 ml/gallon of 29% h202 anyways.

 

[Wiz22]

Hi can u help me with a 2 ltr bottle hempie do I keep it full of water all the time or water like normal every 3/4 days thank u

 

[Wiz22]

Also would u 12/12 lights on autos too thanx

 

[fish cake]

Also would u 12/12 lights on autos too thanx

I would grow your auto on 18/6also you want to maintain a constant level of water in your bottle.

 

[Wiz22]

Thanx for your help I've always auto at 18/6 but thought I read with 2ltr bottle Hempies to start at 12/12 for quick growth

 

[donpaul.p]

make sure its not just water in the bottles, i think you may know this, but id start with a weak nute mix and slowly up the dose, i have grown dwc hempies with both an air stone and without and their is not much in it, the air stone seems to use the nute mix up quicker, but not having an air stone early on means you will be stiring the water to oxygenate it, but once the plant is big enough you can water from the top and this will splash into the bottom and this will give enough oxygen, again this time ill be using an air stone in some and not others, i did not find much difference but i would need to test this with more plants to know for sure,
but i was growing 2 different strains and the afgan skunk was the one without the air stone and it was a better smoke, like i said this could be strain related, ill still use an air stone in most the dwc hempies, until i can test this with clones

 

[Wiz22]

Cool do I just top water up in the bottom or empty then fill. Thanx for your help

 

[CronicHempHog]

hey temp stopped by to say Wassup!

 

[donpaul.p]

when the plants are young i kept topping it up every couple of days then once a week id empty in completely and refill, plus make sure you water through the top as well to make sure that dont dry out to much, once the plant is big enough and in flower then it will use a res full of water each day, mine was empty between 24 and 36 hours so i was filling it up pretty much every day, plus when the root mass is at the bottom of the res you dont need to make sure the level is spot on as the roots will still be getting the water, so when its young id empty and refill the res every 7 days, but top up as need till the res change, once its big enough then the plant will use the liquid up within a day or more so it will just be a case if filling the res up each day or day and a half

 

[Truth Seeker]

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