Tokists' Soil Afghan Kush Grow HPS vs. CFL

[Tokist]

Greetings! I'm sure nobody remembers me from my last grow log as it was rather short-lived and resulted in a spectacular failure. They told me not to do hydro your first time out, but I didn't wanna listen. Noooo... I was too smart for them. I read all the threads, I knew everything there is to know, right?

I tell you what, nothing will humble you faster than trying to grow marijuana for the first time.

Here're the quick and dirty details.

What strain is it? To be perfectly honest, I'm not 100% sure on this. My dad went to a dispensary in Washington and scored me five seeds while I was visiting for Christmas. We think it's the same strain as the bud we bought, which would be Afghan Kush.
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? By the leaf formation, I would guess Indica. The leaves are fat, fat, fat! The interval between each calyx is pretty tight too.
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Still in Veg. About three weeks in.
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
Soil or Hydro? Soil
Medium? Fox Farm Ocean Forest
What size pot? 32 oz. Styrofoam cups. I'll be transplanting them into something else, I'm just not sure how big I can go. Space is an issue.
Size of light? I'll be doing two simultaneous grows. One with a 150W HPS and the other with a 300W CFL are for flowering. Right now they're under some generic cool blue CFLs I bought at Home Depot. I think it was like 14 bucks for 18 bulbs.
Is it aircooled? Yes? There's no permanent fan in place, if that's what you mean.
Temp of Environs? Fluctuates. Peaks at 77F and drops to as low as 68 when lights cycle off. AVG ambient temp with lights on is 74F.
RH of Environs? Fluctuates between 45% and 60%. Usually hovers at around 55% since I put the Chia in there.
PH of soil? No freakin' idea. I know, blasphemy, right?
Any Pests ? Roaches. Our apartment has them in spades because the dirty immigrants living upstairs are breeding them I suspect. I don't know that that will affect my crops, but I saw a roach crawling around the lights, checking things out. If they lay eggs in there it's all over.
How often are you watering? Approx once a day, at around 1700. Maybe half an ounce to an ounce of water per plant, if that. I don't really measure it, I just go by feel.
Ferts used? The soil I'm using has enough ferts in it for now to keep my plants happy. When it comes time to start flowering, I'll be investing in Fox Farms Big Bloom. I'm toying with the idea of making a compost tea (somehow) and using it as a foliar spray.

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I'm trying to keep it organic, cuz I hear the taste of organic smoke just cannot be touched. If an issue arises that can be easily rectified by using non-organic methods, then I won't hesitate to do so. I've seen too many newbies lose their shit because they were die-hard organic and I don't want two failed grows in a row.

I also aim to answer for myself the age old question of whether or not a CFL can rival an HID light. The CFL comes out twice as high in the wattage, so we'll see.

VS. ​

That big ass CFL bulb cost 17 bucks (give or take) at Home Depot. The reflector for it cost me 30 at a local hydroponic shop. The 150W HPS setup was all inclusive and cost me 120 bucks at the local hydro shop.

And now, a few pictures. Keep in mind, they're a couple weeks in already, grown from seed.

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and i have a runt. here's a side by side comparison of it and a regular sized plant. the runt is in all the same stages as the other plants, it's just smaller in stature. it and another plant were the last to sprout, but the other plant caught up rather nicely while the runt just stayed behind.

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i would say that i'll end up using the runt to make clones, but... do i really want to propagate from a defective gene pool?

i plan to keep these plants out in an open area once they start to flower. i don't have the closet space anymore to keep them couped up.

this should be a pretty casual grow, i don't expect too many complications. my goal is to net enough smoke to last me til the next batch is done. i intend to pull clones off of these plants when they get a bit bigger so the next batch can already be starting before the current one is finished.

any thoughts? anything i can do to make it better? it's a pretty down and dirty setup right now. pest control is coming next monday so i gotta keep it pretty portable til after they leave. after that, i'm free to improve.

 

[JB42]

Hey Tokist man,
Il pull up a chair if you dont mind. Really interested in the soil grows and you 150HPS vs 300CFL. I use soil and CFL but going to flower HPS this time.

One tip if you want to go organic. You said if you cant sort a problem with organics you wont hesitate to use chems. If you do they will kill the living microbial life in you soil , basically killing the soil and resulting in the plants being dependent on constant feeds from then on. As chem nutes pretty much feed direct like Red B*ll to a human, but crashes soon and needs feeding again. Whereas soil is like a good diet, constant energy. The organics break down over time and work into the soil and with the microbes who will poo all over you soil feeding your girls.

Why not try adding some Mycorrhizal Fungi to double your root mass and some Worm castings to get extra micro life in the soil, they all work together. The plant feeds the Fungi and microbes sugars, while the fungi and the microbes feed the plant by breaking down dead materials into food for the plant.

 

[Tokist]

Hey Tokist man,
Il pull up a chair if you dont mind. Really interested in the soil grows and you 150HPS vs 300CFL. I use soil and CFL but going to flower HPS this time.

One tip if you want to go organic. You said if you cant sort a problem with organics you wont hesitate to use chems. If you do they will kill the living microbial life in you soil , basically killing the soil and resulting in the plants being dependent on constant feeds from then on. As chem nutes pretty much feed direct like Red B*ll to a human, but crashes soon and needs feeding again. Whereas soil is like a good diet, constant energy. The organics break down over time and work into the soil and with the microbes who will poo all over you soil feeding your girls.

Why not try adding some Mycorrhizal Fungi to double your root mass and some Worm castings to get extra micro life in the soil, they all work together. The plant feeds the Fungi and microbes sugars, while the fungi and the microbes feed the plant by breaking down dead materials into food for the plant.

dude, thanks so much for that tidbit. it's so hard to find advice regarding organics that isn't completely vague. i have no idea what i'm doing in that regard so i opted to just buy a pre-packaged organic nute and hope for the best.

i'll definitely do what you suggested as soon as i can. any other recommendations are very welcome. about the only thing i really know about organics is that by the time you really notice something's wrong, it's too late to fix unless you're some sort of plant whisperer.

i also notice that a lot of organic growers that have a badass organics regimen almost never, EVER share it. they'll simply say they use a combination of such and such in conjuction with their secret c-tea recipe. it's pretty frustrating.

either way, you think i'd be alright just using a bottled organic nute from fox farm?

 

[Tokist]

although, i've just checked out your grows and i see that you're quite the opposite of the typical organic grow logs i've read....

 

[JB42]

No probs mate. Yeah I give my soil recipe, BUT BUT BUT, its not fully tested yet, working really good up to now, growing really fast!!

Yeah if your using FF then FF nutes will be made for it. But obviously it will have enough feed in the soil for 2-3 weeks. When you plants look hungry start small 1/4 recommended dose and work for there.

You can make a compost tea out of the FF compost your using, just bubble it up for 24-48hr and feed. As the food is coming from the same soil they live in there will be no shock. Also during flower add some Mollasses to the mix to get the microbes multiplying and to give you plant some Potassium and iron for flower.

 

[Tokist]

No probs mate. Yeah I give my soil recipe, BUT BUT BUT, its not fully tested yet, working really good up to now, growing really fast!!

Yeah if your using FF then FF nutes will be made for it. But obviously it will have enough feed in the soil for 2-3 weeks. When you plants look hungry start small 1/4 recommended dose and work for there.

You can make a compost tea out of the FF compost your using, just bubble it up for 24-48hr and feed. As the food is coming from the same soil they live in there will be no shock. Also during flower add some Mollasses to the mix to get the microbes multiplying and to give you plant some Potassium and iron for flower.

bro, excellent idea on the soil! my wife grimaced at the notion of me boiling/simmering dirt for 24 hours though, lol. i'm probably going to need to buy another bag of ff soil, im already halfway through it and i still gotta xplant these babies into larger pots soon. not sure how long til they outgrow the cups they're in but i don't imagine i have much longer.

 

[JB42]

No dont boil the soil , bubble the soil with an airstone to keep the water moving and add CO2 to the water. There some vids on youbube about compost teas. You dont NEED an air stone but its better with one.

 

[Tokist]

No dont boil the soil , bubble the soil with an airstone to keep the water moving and add CO2 to the water. There some vids on youbube about compost teas. You dont NEED an air stone but its better with one.

ok, so no boil. just airstone.

i read up a bit on making c-teas and most all say to let it sit for 24-48 hours. then the information starts to get diluted.

one source said the tea will lose its potency mere hours after you make it. i find this difficult to believe as most people make batches of c-tea by the oil drum. i dont imagine they use it all in one go either.

but how long does it really stay good for? i know that if water is left to sit for a few days with bacteria in it (good or bad), you're going to get mold. will keeping an airstone on it 24/7 mitigate this? if so, for how long?

i'm overthinking again... my bad. this is what did me in last time.

 

[JB42]

Mate I dont stop thinking about this 24/7 If your putting mollases in the mix you have to put the tbsp of it in a cup of warm water to mix it in as its like treacle when you get it. The air stone keeps everything moving and full of co2, while the airstone is bubbling the microbe number double every hour or so I read. Maybe not exact that but there abouts. I think if you turn of the stone and let it sit then reproduction slows down, so it's best to be fed after the 24 or 48 hr.

My airstone only 3watts so running it forever no problem. I bubble all my water as when the air stone goes in the air coming out of the gallon bottle smells like the swimming pool (chlorine) a LOT more than just letting it sit. My girls seem to love it.

I also mix the compost tea to 50% water to thin it out. Not tested full compost feeds yet but will be doing in my current journal. So if that soil mix works fine there is a Recipe for people who need one there.

If it needs anything through the grow I can add it to the mix next time

 

[Tokist]

okeydoke, so i've gone ahead and made the ctea as per your advice using the fox farm potting soil i have. even went out and got some unsulphured molasses and put it in there. i took an early dose from the tea bucket and watered my girls with em last night. they seemed to like it! there was a bit more growth last night than usual. a mixed blessing, really, because now the leaves are starting to overlap each other, blocking light from one another.

i took the green onions out today to show my wife the progress and their roots were crawling out the bottom like crazy. so i checked my girls and sure enough, they're all doing the same thing. it looks to have happened pretty recently because the tips are still snow white...

does this mean my plants are potbound? or do i still have a bit of time? as i understand it, cannabis root systems go straight down first, then they fill the sides up. THEN they're potbound. right?

last time i had plants there were truly potbound, it was pretty obvious from their behavior. but my girls aren't showing any signs of it.

once i transplant them, it's flowering time. i'm sorta hoping to keep them in their current planters for at least another week. more if possible.

 

[JB42]

If the growth isnt slowing and there arent any cupped root bound leaves they may be ok. Put up a picture lets see. But if you think they filling the pot then re-pot them.

Like you say they go straight down and love to do this , so if you think they need re-potting , do it mate.

 

[Tokist]

judging from the genetics, these girls seem to have tight nodes. which seems to me that it would be rather difficult to do a scrog of any kind. especially since they're already almost a month old and they're still not very tall, but they've already got five sets of leaves.

i'm guessing this strain was probably meant to be an indoor strain, so i ought to grow it as such. but with my low wattage i want to maximize every thing i can to get the best yield. perhaps they need to veg longer and get a bit taller?

im not really sure what route i should take next. LST? SuperCropping? SCrOG?

should i start cutting off those big ass leaves at the bottom so more nutes are directed to the top?

i know there are hundreds of routes i can go from here, but basically... i dont know which one to pick and if y'all wouldn't mind, maybe nudge me in a good direction.

 

[Tokist]

If the growth isnt slowing and there arent any cupped root bound leaves they may be ok. Put up a picture lets see. But if you think they filling the pot then re-pot them.

Like you say they go straight down and love to do this , so if you think they need re-potting , do it mate.

yea, i did a bit of research and i was right. they aren't showing any signs of being root bound so i should be ok for at least a few more days. i'll post pictures as soon as these dish network cats leave. i wanna smoke a bowl so bad....

my last crop was rootbound (ha, i said potbound earlier) within a couple of weeks because i only had them in eight oz cups. i figured 32 oz would buy me way more time before transplanting into flower.

and since these fresh white root tips only recently exfiltrated the cup buttoms, i dare say they're on their second plunge downward and now they're going to start filling in the sides of the bottom region. which holds less dirt than the top half of the cup... sooo... i think i have a week tops.

 

[Tokist]

good evening fellow growists!

since i've put the c-tea on these plants, they've grown like... well... weeds. yesterday i was just starting to see signs of the axillary buds on all the plants (even the runt) and this morning those leaves had blown up. by the time the dish network guys left a few hours ago, the axillary buds have already shot outwards on their own stems and are starting to proliferate all over the place.

tonight's feeding will consist of two day old ctea with molasses. i think what i'll do is i'll just keep the ctea bubbling until i run out. i figure i have enough for maybe three more feedings.

on to the pics!

here's the girls from up above. i've removed the green onions as they were taking up too much real estate. the cannabis forced them off their land. i suspect before this is all over, the onions will receive reparations and occupy their own reservations. the chia will soon suffer the same fate.

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here's a side shot with one of the girls bent over so you can see the large axillary shoot with full leaves already on it towards the bottom right (those were tiny little baby leaves sticking out of the node last night).

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a nice top-down shot.

and of a different plant.
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and a couple more side shots.

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so far so good! as stated earlier, the roots are poking out of the bottom of the cups but i'm not too concerned about that. mid next week i'll transplant them into 3 gallon pots and that'll be their final home, i reckon. at that point, i'll flip to flower.

i'm hoping there'll be enough axillary shoots by then so i can take a few clones and get the next batch started.

thanks for reading!

 

[JB42]

Reps on your healthy Grow Tokist, very healthy!

If I was you I'd put them into veg pots now. Or even thier final pots now. I would.

Dont let the tea brew for more than 24hrs. It should be used then. Think it deteriates after that. I just make a new one if needed.

 

[Tokist]

Reps on your healthy Grow Tokist, very healthy!

If I was you I'd put them into veg pots now. Or even thier final pots now. I would.

Dont let the tea brew for more than 24hrs. It should be used then. Think it deteriates after that. I just make a new one if needed.

thanks for the reps!

the ctea teks ive seen online almost all say that 24 hours is the minimum one should go. on average, they'll tell you that after 72 hours you'll wanna use it. any more than that and you're pretty much just maintaining peak production, so long as you keep feeding those microbes.

i read a thread somewhere else on the internet about this OCD guy who sat and tested his water during bubbling and post bubbling. he claimed that the good microbial activity would die within two and a half minutes of becoming anaerobic. essentially claiming that you would have to water your plants within two and a half minutes or else you're wasting your time.

this of course led me to believe this guy probably had a large hole in his head where all his brains leaked out but it prompted me to read a bit more.

turns out that so long as you have the bubbles going, the microbial activity will continue to flourish off of the additional oxygen pretty much indefinitely. the moment you turn the bubbles off, activity dies pretty fast. if left anaerobic long enough, the mix will become rancid.

so i figure as long as it's bubbling, it's ok. the molasses i added should be enough foodstuffs for all those microbes to chow on til i use the last of the tea.

all i know is... these ho's love it.

 

[JB42]

Thought it was 48hrs mate, mistake writing 24, I meant at least 24hrs.

Well yeah you can probab;y keep it going longer by sound of things. Im surely no expert on compost teas. I'm learning organics at the min.
We can test the living crap out of organics mate Share the knowledge.

Yeah I always pour mine into the feeding jug with the airstone still running. But only compost fed my fruits and veg, not cannabis yet, only water as my soil is s Super mix.

 

[Tokist]

Thought it was 48hrs mate, mistake writing 24, I meant at least 24hrs.

Well yeah you can probab;y keep it going longer by sound of things. Im surely no expert on compost teas. I'm learning organics at the min.
We can test the living crap out of organics mate Share the knowledge.

Yeah I always pour mine into the feeding jug with the airstone still running. But only compost fed my fruits and veg, not cannabis yet, only water as my soil is s Super mix.

oh, and im not sure if you've been doing it or not, but the leftover goop in the bottom of your ctea bucket is still viable and should be thrown back into the dirt to be used. not strong enough to make the same level of potent tea as the first time around, but still more than enough nutrients to be used in a pot.

which is good to know, cuz i was totally gonna throw that dirt in the backyard.

i bet you could feed cannabis off of nothing but ctea, but you would have to adjust the ctea recipe once in awhile to compensate for the additional nutes the plants will need as they go into flower and so on. i dont know enough about what sort of nutes these plants really need to throw out fat buds so i dont trust myself to make a proper ctea.

i'll be supplementing with fox farms big bloom when the time comes. unless... someone knows an organic food recipe?

 

[JB42]

Well obviously Phosphorus is the start of flower and up until week 6 and Potassium is the fattening/dense food.

I'm going to use Soil and worm castings with some bone meal for veg and for flower use soil, sea bird guano and bone meal.
1tsp molasses veg
1tbsp molasses flower
As molasses has Iron and Potassium which is good for flower and Little N for Veg.

 

[Tokist]

wow, seriously?? that's all i need?

i dont have to go out and spend fifty bucks on a gallon of big bloom??

so you mix all that into the soil? the feed is time released throughout the rest of the grow? or do you add something when you water?