TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

[Flower Child]

Hi and welcome to our new journal. I'm Flower Child and I will start out by giving you a bit of background about us. This is the start of our fifth grow and it's still a lot of fun. And it's the second time we are growing eight strains in a 4 x 4 space. We veg in a 2x4 tent under t-5's, and flower in our 4x4 with a 600w HPS.

So what's the experimental part this time? Soil and training!

SOIL - we are using "Ideal Soil" It comes fully loaded with all the nutrients the plants will ever need according to the manufacturers description. Previously we have used Foxfarm soil.

Ideal Soil was a sponsor of a cannabis concert we recently attended. After researching them I ordered the soil and then found a couple days ago that they are sponsors on 420 as well!

TRAINING- we currently have the same eight strains that will be grown this time in flower (3 1/2 weeks in). Due to some medical issues they received no training and have their natural shapes.
This new batch of plants we are starting now will have lots of lst and topping to keep them bushy with lots of tops.
It's going to be a lot of fun to compare the yields we get from trained vs natural shapes.

Well that's about it for me. TokesALot will be along shortly to tell you about the strains and our planting schedule.

 

[shadowman]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Subbed Flower Child. Looking forward to following another Ideal 420 Soil grow.

 

[trichomes]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

 

[Light Addict]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Here of course

 

[Flower Child]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Hey guys!
TokesALot and I had hoped to do an update with lots of cute baby pics but unfortunately that won't back happening this weekend. At the tender age of 15 days all 4 seedlings are dead. They were started in root riots and put directly into the ideal soil as soon as roots showed. They never grew and slowly fried and died till we gave up on them today. RIP sweet babies!
I am currently talking with the folks at Ideal and mailing them the same sad pics you are about to see.

I'll post an update when I hear from the folks at ideal.

 

[Light Addict]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Damn sorry for your troubles!

 

[shadowman]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Hey Flower Child, I replied to your question in my Ideal 420 Soil journal. I hope it helps you out. I hate to hear about seedlings dying. I'd rather a seed not germinate than the seedling giving hopes of what's to come and then wasting away. Tough luck, I hope we can solve this problem and get you under way. I love the soil so far and I'm sure we can tweak things to make it work. Let's stay in touch, we can help each other.

 

[Flower Child]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Damn sorry for your troubles!

Thanks LA

Hey Flower Child, I replied to your question in my Ideal 420 Soil journal. I hope it helps you out. I hate to hear about seedlings dying. I'd rather a seed not germinate than the seedling giving hopes of what's to come and then wasting away. Tough luck, I hope we can solve this problem and get you under way. I love the soil so far and I'm sure we can tweak things to make it work. Let's stay in touch, we can help each other.

Hey Shadowman. Thanks for the awesome response on your journal. After reading it, I'm thinking ,the problem is using airpots with this soil- soil needs to be moist in order to fill the pockets when transplanting and then it drys out unevenly due to all the holes. And that must release too much nutrients. We're still trying to make 4 new plants grow in it and will be posting an update shortly.

 

[Flower Child]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

A guardedly optimistic update!
After talking to the guys at ideal 420 soil, we decided give it one more try. They recommended transplanting larger plants with big root balls able to handle the strong soil (instead of seedlings like we did). They also offered to refund for the soil and for cost of seeds lost if we give up on this soil. Very nice folks!

Soooooo.....

We started 4 new babies on 8-4-2013
They were vegged in 1 liter pots of.light warrior soil- when their roots had filled the pots and were 3-4 sets of leaves each - we transplanted into 3 gal airpots of ideal 420 soil on 8-26-14.
And they got sick too- quit growing- dull leaves- yellow spots..........so we watched and watched and only watered once and today we are celebrating because they are finally throwing out new leaves and growing again!

This next pic shows how far behind they got from transplant shock. The little girls to the right in the liter pots are 10 days younger but already the same size plant.

TokesALot is transplanting the 10 day younger girls into 3 gal airpots of FFOF in the am. And since all 8 plants are the same size we will veg them all another 3 weeks and put them into flower together. This will allow us to compare yields between the two soils a bit and we will post updates of any differences as we go along.

 

[scottish]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

definately count me in shame about the soil

 

[MedFarmer]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Saddened by your earlier loss but glad to see you're up and running again. I'm in for this and wish you luck all the way.

 

[shadowman]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Glad you are underway now, I think you will be pleased with the soil now that you've gotten past the seedling stage. I'm not going anywhere.

 

[KingJohnC]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Subscribed

 

[LadyGreenthum]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Glad you got things up and running after and early set back. Good for you for giving the soil another shot! Do you think they were a little overwhelmed by the nutrients in the soil? Maybe they need to come out with stages of soil... If you are still in contact with them pass along the idea.

Can't wait to watch them grow!

Stay medicated and enjoy life, you only get one!

LadyGreenthum

 

[Flower Child]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

definately count me in shame about the soil

Thanks Scottish-it's been a real learning experience for us

Saddened by your earlier loss but glad to see you're up and running again. I'm in for this and wish you luck all the way.

Welcome MedFarmer!

Glad you are underway now, I think you will be pleased with the soil now that you've gotten past the seedling stage. I'm not going anywhere.

ThanksShadowman!

Subscribed

Glad you got things up and running after and early set back. Good for you for giving the soil another shot! Do you think they were a little overwhelmed by the nutrients in the soil? Maybe they need to come out with stages of soil... If you are still in contact with them pass along the idea.

Can't wait to watch them grow!

Stay medicated and enjoy life, you only get one!

LadyGreenthum

Hi LadyGreenthum! Thanks! We've been on a long vacation to California (my daughter watered for us) and came home to a nice surprise! All our plants looked great. I'm doing a long overdue update today!

 

[Flower Child]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Due to a iPhone glitch the update today will be a small one.
The girls are now in flower. When we put them into the flower tent they were all the same size. The girls in the Ideal 420 soil are 10 days older but due to their early struggles they had a bit of a setback- kind of good in a way cause they all start out even now.

I'll post more tomorrow with new pics when the lights come on!

 

[Light Addict]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Looking damn healthy my friend nice broad leaves in the foreground!

 

[Flower Child]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Looking damn healthy my friend nice broad leaves in the foreground!

Thanks LA- sorry to respond so late- they've turned into trees again! Update to follow- really pleased with the Ideal 420 soil!

 

[Flower Child]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

Update time!
After losing seedlings due to the hot 420 soil and then watching the current 4 struggle for the first few weeks after being transplanted, I really had doubts about the ideal 420 soil. However, now that they have been in flower a couple weeks, We've been impressed and are now planning to use it again for next years grows. The Ideal 420 soil girls have greener, shinier bigger leaves and simply look a lot better than their sisters in fox farm. And the buds- oh my!

Here's a pic of all the girls- the ones in ideal soil are in the front.

This girl has the dark green leaves all the plants in ideal 420 soil have. Really pretty!

The buds are bigger too.......

In fairness to fox farm I know I don't fertilize enough to do a true test- the FFOF girls have only been fed flower food x1 and We had to add cal mag to the FFOF girls because we found a few leaves showing def.

Next time we water I'll get a few more pics of the individual plants for comparison.
Have a great weekend!

 

[CronicHempHog]

re: TokesALot & Flower Child's 8 Strain Experiment

subbed