12/12 From Seed Experiment - 21 Strains

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Welcome to my journal! I encourage you to ask questions, provide suggestions, or leave feedback.

OVERVIEW:
There will be a total of 53 seeds representing 21 different strains. These will be distributed among two different pot sizes. The pots I have chosen to use are called Tree Pots and, after carefully considering the 2L bottles, have decided on these two:

Model MT310: This is a 3" square pot that is 10 inches tall.
Model CP412CH: This is a 4" square pot that is 12 inches tall.

If anyone is interested, the company that sells these is here:
https://www.stuewe.com/products/minitreepots.php

OBJECTIVE:
The objective is to find the most suitable strains capable of generating a dominant single cola with minimal side branching in order to maximize the available space and light.

Plants will likely be pruned one or more times to remove side branching and large fan leaves.

Most growers gauge their yields by grams per watt and grams per square foot. Both of these fail to take into account the time aspect.

This experiment will attempt to estimate grams per square foot per year and grams per killowatt hour.


CONTAINERS
( 18 ) 3" x 10" Mini-Tree Pots
( 35 ) 4" x 12" Tree Pots

MEDIUM
Approximately 60% Coco Coir and 40% Perlite, both thoroughly rinsed.

NUTRIENTS
Blue Planet 3-Part High Yield System

PH MANAGEMENT
Target PH level between 5.8 and 6.0.
I bought the Extech PH50 Waterproof pH Pen from Amazon

WATER
Will be using well water. I ran some pretty thorough tests on it (for drinking purposes) and it's really quite good as far as well water goes. It has about 170 ppm of stuff in it.

LIGHTING
Single 600 Watt Digital Ballast
I started the 1st 10 or so days with MH but switched to HPS today

REFLECTOR
Sun System Blockbuster sealed air-cooled reflector

All of this gear is inside of a 4x4 Gorilla tent.
I will provide much more detailed information on the physical setup in a subsequent post as I already anticipate some issues.

GENETICS
Barneys Farm Seeds Tangerine Dream
Barneys Farm Seeds Top Dawg
Barneys Farm Seeds G13 Haze
Barneys Farm Seeds Chronic Thunder - Chronix X x Alaskan Thunder
Barneys Farm Seeds Red Dragon - Himalayan Kush x Utopia Haze
Delicious Seeds Critical Jack Herer - Critical Mass x Jack Herer
KC Brains Northern Lights Special
Reserva Privada Sour Kush AKA Headband - Sour Diesal x OG Kush
Sensi Seeds Skunk #1
Sensi Seeds Silver Haze #9 - Unknown Indica x Haze
Barneys Farm Seeds Critical Kush - Critical Mass x OG Kush
Bomb Seeds Bubble Bomb
Connoisseur Genetics Seeds East Coast Sour Diesel Haze - East Coast Sour Diesel x Unknown Haze
Strain Hunters Seedbank Seeds Flowerbomb Kush - Green Crack x OG Kush
Seedism Seeds AppleJack - Jack Herer x White Widow
Barneys Farm Seeds Blue Cheese
Delicious Seeds Critical Sensi Star
Dinafem Seeds Critical Cheese - Unknown
Dinafem Seeds Diesel - Sour Diesal x NYC Diesal
Samsara Seeds Green Love Potion
Seedism Seeds Cheese

Some of these were freebies. Once I get past the 2nd week I will post specific numbers on what I have going.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Btw, del6666, this experiment goes out to you man. You are my inspiration for this!

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I know these 1st set of picture suck...but it's my first time so I'm still learning how to use the site.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Day 10 Update

Plants are recovering nicely from the premature feeding. I have 9 plants that are on probation and will likely be on the chopping block in a few days. Once that decision is made I will post final information on which strains, how many and which pots are they in (3 inch or 4 inch).

I am doing light waterings sometimes every day sometimes every other day. Using straight well water with 5ml of CalMag added per gallon. Hope to start mild feeding soon...going to wait until 3rd set of leaves.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I was hoping I could create a poll from here but I guess I can't. I'm skeptical that the 3" x 10" pots are going to work but because I can get 16 of them per sq/ft I had to try. I feel pretty good that the 4" x 12" pots are going to be fine as they are relatively comparable to the 2L Hempy's that a lot of people use.

3" Pots - What do you think? Total failure? Total Success? No Idea?

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Day 11 Update

No pictures today. I know the anticipation from a 10 day old seedling to an 11 day old seedling must be excruciating but you'll just have to wait.

The big news is that I have 10 new seeds coming...C99 BX-1 from Mosca. The Cinderellas are regular seeds whereas every other seed in this journal is a fem.
Not exactly sure what the plan is yet but will most likely involve some pollination! Strains like C99, the Apollos, and anything from Bodhi is on my wish/todo list. I wish I had read about these before making my initial seed selections. Oh well...still excited to see how we do.

Also have some new experimental containers coming. Even smaller than the 3" square ones but I won't spoil the surprise until they get here.

I have a lot going on in my mind regarding the room. Probably going to ditch the tent, go back to my MH bulb for a bit and redesign the ventilation/odor control system. I still have plenty of time before odor is a concern but I better get on it now.

 

[akhiymjames]

I like what your doing bro. Not too many people do 12/12 from seed so its good to see someone doing a major project with it. I'm gonna be doing some 12/12 from see as I wanna sex mu reg seeds sooner and I'll prolly flower some all the way through after I see he differences in phenos. Looking forward to seeing you progress so I will be watching. Peace

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I like what your doing bro. Not too many people do 12/12 from seed so its good to see someone doing a major project with it. I'm gonna be doing some 12/12 from see as I wanna sex mu reg seeds sooner and I'll prolly flower some all the way through after I see he differences in phenos. Looking forward to seeing you progress so I will be watching. Peace

Thanks for stopping by man and I'm glad you're here!
I have some outrageous goals and this is kind of the proof of concept. It may work, it may not...I have no idea but it's gunna be a blast finding out.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Day 13 Update

So today I made the bold decision to do away with my tent. Once I have the room cleaned up I'll take updated pictures of the space.
5 plants were removed. 2 or 3 more may be removed...I'm going to give them another 2 days before deciding.

Attached is the Menu that has the Number/Strain for reference.
I also took 2 plants out for close-ups. Both of these are in the 3" x 10" pots. Northern Lights on the left and Critical Kush on the right.
I've been watering with 5ml of Cal Mag per gallon only until tonight when I did my 1st feed (I'm not going to count the *real* first feed when I almost killed them).

I did 20% strength of the Blue Planet along with the 5ml of Cal Mag. All in all things seem to be going pretty well. There are a lot of 1st's for me. First time growing in 20 years. First time growing in Coco. First time using nutrients other than Miracle Grow. First time with Carbon filters and ventilation systems.

My C99's and new experimental pots shipped today so I expect to have them in a week or so.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Day 15 Update

Plants seem to be progressing slowly. My PH pen broke after only one use so I got some paper strips and also am relying on the tester that came with my Ph Down. Discovered the run-off was crazy high...approximately 8.5 or so. I did some testing with Ph Down and it appears that 1 ml per gallon drops it a whole point so I prepared a mixture of 1/4 strength Blue Planet 3 part, 5 ml CalMag and 1.5 ml Ph Down per gallon and did a flush. I will be monitoring the situation very closely from now on until I can get my recipe dialed in. The plants don't look sick...they are just coming along slowly. The last 2 1/2 days have shown very little growth. The other discouraging thing is that my run-off is brown. When I prepared the Coco I did 3 rinses over 3 consecutive days and I ran so much water through it each day that I'm kind of shocked I'm getting brown run-off.

Picture below is just an overview of the arrangement. Tent is now out of the equation and we are in the 17'x13' room that I built. Currently being exhausted with a 500 cfm fan with passive intakes. The ventilation design is going to get revamped now that I'm out of the tent.

Temps stable at 75 during lights on and 70 at night. RH stable day and night at 45%.

 

[akhiymjames]

Not harping on you in anyway but those babies look a lil small to be getting fed right now. I know your in coco but you should be able to just water those girls with plain water for a while till they get much bigger. I start all my beans now in perlite and just feed high pH tap water 8.5-9 the first couple weeks. When you flush why do you add calmag and blueplanet? Just use pH'd water. Hope they start to take off soon for you

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Not harping on you in anyway but those babies look a lil small to be getting fed right now. I know your in coco but you should be able to just water those girls with plain water for a while till they get much bigger. I start all my beans now in perlite and just feed high pH tap water 8.5-9 the first couple weeks. When you flush why do you add calmag and blueplanet? Just use pH'd water. Hope they start to take off soon for you

Yeah? Crap, okay. Should I reflush them with just Ph'd water now or wait for them to dry some?

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Yeah? Crap, okay. Should I reflush them with just Ph'd water now or wait for them to dry some?

I did not *drench* them...just enough that I got run-off.

 

[akhiymjames]

I don't want you to drown them since they are small so just wait and see. If they're still looking bad after a few days then I'd flush them again with just pH'd water. How often are you watering them? I know coco holds water not much as soil but it retains it

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I've been watering them everyday about 1 oz of water. Just enough to keep the 1" x 1" rockwool cube wet that they were started in. Today was the 2nd time that I did a more aggressive watering...approx 4 oz for the 3" pots and 6-8 oz for the 4" pots.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Unless they take a turn for the worse, I will continue to water 1 oz or so of just PH'd water daily as the rockwool cubes get dry. I won't use any nutes or Cal Mag again and will continue to post updates.

 

[akhiymjames]

Well your not over-watering them. Just keep doing what you been doing with that and just water till you see growth pick back up then try 1/4-1/3 nutes. See how they handle that then bump up nutes to 1/2

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Awesome, will do and thanks!!!

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Day 16 Update

I have to say I am so pleased! The flush last night worked! Even though it was not a true flush since it has stuff in it...lol.
The amount of progress over the last 24 hours is more than what I saw over the last 3 or 4 days combined so I feel so much better now!!!!

akhiymjames...thanks a lot for you help last night.

The plants were sitting in their run-off since last night so what I came up with is shown in the pics. Tomorrow I'll drill a few holes in my titan pans so they can drain through the shelf into the plastic bins. Based on how they are looking today, and since the roots are all the way at the bottom already, I feel like I should stop the little 1 oz baby waterings to keep the rockwool moist and instead just go for the more aggressive waterings that generate run-off but only do this as needed. The 3" pots will probably need it every 2 to 3 days but the 4" pots can certainly go longer. They hold a ton more than the 3". What do you think?

I also swapped my HPS back to MH for a little bit. I am compelled to confirm my belief that using the MH during Veg and into the stretch will be optimal. I paid $120 for this bulb so It better kick some ass! (Eye Hortilux Blue (Daylight) Super MetalHalide Bulb).

2 More plants did not make the cut. I gave them every opportunity but they just did not progress.
Have a total of (15) in 3" x 10" pots and (30) in 4" x 12" pots.

The NL-CK photo is the same 2 plants I have been pulling out. This is the easiest way for me to track daily progress so I will continue to do so.
#7 is the Northern Lights and #11 is Critical Kush.

 

[akhiymjames]

Glad everything is going much better. Don't mind helping at all bro that's what we're here for.

Plants siting in runoff can cause slow growth so it's a good thing fixing that problem. Since those roots are at the bottom already your gonna want to transplant soon. Don't let them girls get root bound. Go ahead and fully water those girls that way when the medium starts to dry out the roots will stretch towards the bottom for water.

Thinking of getting one of those Hortilux bulbs. I know a site where you can get then cheap. Not dirt cheap tho lol but let me know how your bulb does. I like vegging with HPS as you get a lil more stretch with it.

Won't be long before you start getting down to a few ladies. I hope you find something you really like