45 days of vegging and still no roots?

[Ngozer]

I find myself getting a little over ambitious on the scale of my operation. I must remember that it is just a personal grow. I am limited to just 6 mature plants. Is a SoG a good choice in my case? I am also planning on having 2 mothers plus clones. I saw another grower's op that included 6 plants in a SoG and the results looked great.

I have read your thread about the cyclical grow and I would like to imitate that but on a smaller scale. Do you think it'll work to stagger single plants? I would be more than happy to be able to pull a ounce or two off each time.

I think you've convince me of using a ebb/flow system for my flowering plants and a DWC op for my mothers.

What do you think? Feasible? Any recommendations?

It'll take every bit of 7-10 days of proper watering before you see roots popping out of the bottoms of your existing RW cubes. Make sure your nutes are about 1400 @ 5.8. pH has got to be right. Once new roots start forming, the distortions in the foliage will resolve.

Well, so far I've had the solution around 750 ppm @ 5.5 pH. Is that a problem? I read that pH ranges are different for different nutes. Since the pH rises throughout the day, I have always aimed for 5.5 and hoped it would rise.

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate (pronounced 'miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite'), if Outback Steakhouse were really Australian, they'd serve nothing but kangaroo, emu & wombat off a sizzling Holden bumper bar, with a yummy sauce made from bugs scraped off the windscreen.

Mm'mmm wombat... are they are tasty as they look?

Not like Americans would actually know if a faked Aus accent were used- after all, you fuckers think French fries are French!

What the fuck is a French fry? Are you talking about Freedom fries?

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Oy! Cranks bloak. Bob's your uncle!

...cranks bloak? ...wtf?

Bloody oath cobber, I hope ya chooks turn into emus and kick ya dunny down!

I find myself getting a little over ambitious on the scale of my operation. I must remember that it is just a personal grow. I am limited to just 6 mature plants. Is a SoG a good choice in my case?

Yeah, but you can do that many SoG plants in less than 2 sq ft!

If you have a strict 6 plant limit, you'll get more bud by doing a 'mainstem lopped' grow, the opposite of SoG.

This method requires that the plants to be flowered have their mainstems lopped while they're still very short (soon after clones set root) to encourage branching. Then they get vegged for a couple-three weeks to make the branches large enough to yield well before flowering. The results look like this:

These look like they are in wk 7-8 of flowering. Each one of these looks like 4-6oz.

Downside is that you can't do perpetual harvest with this style unless you have a separate area for vegging.

I am also planning on having 2 mothers plus clones. I saw another grower's op that included 6 plants in a SoG and the results looked great.

I'm sure it did!

I have read your thread about the cyclical grow and I would like to imitate that but on a smaller scale. Do you think it'll work to stagger single plants? I would be more than happy to be able to pull a ounce or two off each time.

You bet you can. You can scale my op to any size or harvesting frequency you like.

I think you've convince me of using a ebb/flow system for my flowering plants and a DWC op for my mothers.

What do you think? Feasible?

Yes, feasible... but...

Any recommendations?

I'd run them all in flood systems, in pots of either pellets, perlite or Fytocell.

Well, so far I've had the solution around 750 ppm @ 5.5 pH. Is that a problem? I read that pH ranges are different for different nutes. Since the pH rises throughout the day, I have always aimed for 5.5 and hoped it would rise.

Yes, big problem. 5.5 will lock out P & Mg. The pH requirement is set by the plant, not the nutes. It should be 5.8 for all hydroponic nutes. 750 is too weak. 1400 is more like it.

If pH is jumping up, it's probably due to pathogens in the roots. Using H2O2? That ought to stop it.

Using RW floc as the main medium will do it too, but it won't rise much, maybe 0.1-0.2 every few days.

What the fuck is a French fry? Are you talking about Freedom fries?

Um, I might be.

 

[Ngozer]

Yeah, but you can do that many SoG plants in less than 2 sq ft!

If you have a strict 6 plant limit, you'll get more bud by doing a 'mainstem lopped' grow, the opposite of SoG.

Well, I know that the SoG will produce those dense buds which are what I am after. Will lopped style result in fluffier nuggets? I would rather sacrifice a bit of quantity for a bit of quality. So far I'm still planning on "gettin' SoGgy with it," or however they say it down there.

These look like they are in wk 7-8 of flowering. Each one of these looks like 4-6oz.

Wow, if I could get 4 oz. per plant I would have my whole year's supply done in one go. But then where's the fun in that? Heh.

In your perpetual harvest thread you said you were getting about 1/2 to 3/4 oz. per plant. Is that by choice or is that the general limit you can pull per plant in scrog? If I have 6 SoG plants powered by a 250w HPS with all the love and attention in the world can I get 1 oz. each? That way I can have enough to look like a real baron handing out free homegrown to my buddies!

You bet you can. You can scale my op to any size or harvesting frequency you like.

It's gonna be so sweet...

I'd run them all in flood systems, in pots of either pellets, perlite or Fytocell.

Most likely I will have only two mothers. I think one would be more than enough, but I'd like to have a little variety. Would it be economicable to have a whole ebb/flow ops set up for just two plants, or am I over complicating e/f system? Also, the cabinet for the mothers is only 2x5x1, so the floor area is limited.

Yes, big problem. 5.5 will lock out P & Mg. The pH requirement is set by the plant, not the nutes. It should be 5.8 for all hydroponic nutes. 750 is too weak. 1400 is more like it.

Check.

What about Mn?

If pH is jumping up, it's probably due to pathogens in the roots. Using H2O2? That ought to stop it.

My pH is definitely changing. I mix about a gallon of soln every 3 days. By the third day there is always some goop and changed pH. I use 1 tsp of h202 for my soln. I have started refrigerating my soln and giving it about a couple hours to warm up to ambient temp before feeding.

 

[Ngozer]

Update:

Here are some new pictures from today (day 54 from seed).


The Runt and Largest.




My Second Largest.

I don't understand what is wrong with this plant. It has curled leaves, straight leaves and then more curled leaves. Does this mean I am still over-watering it? I am using the same 40-60% system and am fairly confident that I'm not oversaturating it.


The Runt. She looks decent enough. Kind of scrawny though. There are two things about her that I am curious though.

First, why does she have all of these burns?










Crouch shot. (very little internode growth throughout)


Topside.

And second, she has started to produce single stems instead of pairs. My Largest has started too, but not my Second.



This is a good thing right? Like it's maturing?


Also, my Largest is growing crooked. Should I do something about it or just leave it be?

Thanks!

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Well, I know that the SoG will produce those dense buds which are what I am after. Will lopped style result in fluffier nuggets? I would rather sacrifice a bit of quantity for a bit of quality. So far I'm still planning on "gettin' SoGgy with it," or however they say it down there.

Yes, the lopped style does produce smaller and in many cases fluffy buds on the lower extremes of the branching. Such is the nature of flowers on smaller branches.


In your perpetual harvest thread you said you were getting about 1/2 to 3/4 oz. per plant.

That's an old figure, it's closer to 1.25z avg these days.

Is that by choice or is that the general limit you can pull per plant in scrog?

That's just what the plants were doing at the time, pretty ordinary. It was as a result of a few factors I had wrong, which have since been corrected.

If I have 6 SoG plants powered by a 250w HPS with all the love and attention in the world can I get 1 oz. each?

I could see it happening if you had all conds correct. A 400 might be more reliable for making 1oz stalks.


Most likely I will have only two mothers. I think one would be more than enough, but I'd like to have a little variety. Would it be economicable to have a whole ebb/flow ops set up for just two plants, or am I over complicating e/f system?

Flood systems are pretty simple. Tray, tank, pump, a couple of plastic fittings for fill/drain & overflow tubes, done.

Also, the cabinet for the mothers is only 2x5x1, so the floor area is limited.

If you have enough floorspace for the plants, you have enough for the watering system. All you really need is some vertical height.

What about Mn?

Yes, Mn looks locked out in this graph. I don't know how the nute mfrs get around that nor the significance of Mn.

My pH is definitely changing. I mix about a gallon of soln every 3 days. By the third day there is always some goop and changed pH. I use 1 tsp of h202 for my soln. I have started refrigerating my soln and giving it about a couple hours to warm up to ambient temp before feeding.

Not enough H2O2. It'd be nice if you could get a 10ml syringe and measure in ml. A tsp is a half-dozen different sizes around the world. Refrigerating the soln will help slow down pathogens, no need to warm it up before using it.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Update:

Here are some new pictures from today (day 54 from seed).

All looks pretty good.

Worry about your new growth, old growth won't change in appearance, won't repair itself or anything.

gotta get on my own grow now, cu in a few days.

 

[dR. HerbLove]

Good luck Al! See ya soon.

 

[Ngozer]

Good luck, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate! I hope you get a fat harvest.

 

[ceerock]

good job... looks waaaaaaay better than the last time i was here..

You got some good expert help here....

 

[Ngozer]

good job... looks waaaaaaay better than the last time i was here..

You got some good expert help here....

Thanks for checking in ceerock! Yeah, they seem to be doing a lot better. Al is definitely a bonafide bud baron. I'd have a couple of sad, sad plants right now if it weren't for him.

My runt still hasn't perked up yet and still looks kinda sad though.

 

[Ngozer]

All looks pretty good.

Worry about your new growth, old growth won't change in appearance, won't repair itself or anything.

gotta get on my own grow now, cu in a few days.

How's your harvest coming Al? Any pictures? Don't hurt your back moving all those pounds of weed, bra.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Still at it, had to take the weekend off, family commitments, etc.

How's things going for you?

 

[corral hollow kid]

Classic overwatering. Rockwool is highly absorbent and if kept saturated (as might happen when being drip fed or exposed to a mist from an aero/DWC system), all oxygen will be driven out of the material, causing poor root formation. Pic #5 shows the RW saturated with brown, dead roots. That's the problem.

Plants in either large blocks of rockwool or pots of RW floc as their primary medium should be watered from the bottom with a flood system, 1x/day only, and only if the plants are large/vigorous enough to remove a significant porportion of the stored water in 24h. Small plants won't take up much water; you should water RW when about half the water (by weight) stored in the material has been taken up by the plant. Very small or sick plants may not need watering but every second or third day.

Not sure what you're trying to accomplish with the pellets on top of the RW. Wrong place for them. You can start plants in RW cubes and later nest the rooted cubes in plain pots of pellets which are watered by flood (or netpots of pellets watered by an aero/DWC mist), but the flood level should not touch the RW cube nor should RW be directly exposed to a constant mist from an aero or DWC system. Recipe for disaster, as you have found.

The reason for potting up in pellets is because roots in pellets can be flooded much more often than roots in RW, due to the low water absorbing capacity and large air spaces between pellets. Being able to flood frequently exposes the roots to more O2, but the medium used must support frequent flooding by being not terribly absorbtive.

Flooding RW while it is still saturated doesn't do much because it won't take in any freshly oxygenated solution, rather it will help hold the old O2 depleted water in the cube. The main way out of the cube for water is through the plant, but also via evaporation to a certain degree. With pellets, most of the water drains out when the flood cycle is finished, which also happens to draw in more O2.

When making the transition from a RW cube to pellets, the cube should be nested in pellets so that the cube is about 1/2" ABOVE the flood level. The roots will seek down into the damp pellets in a few days. You can handwater plants in RW cubes newly introduced to pellets, but water ONLY the pellets around the cube, not the cube itself.

To fix this, presuming a DWC op and netpots, you need a thick layer of pellets between the RW and the mist coming from the DWC. The pellets can be kept constantly dampened by the mist but the RW must NOT be directly exposed to the mist. Use 50% grade H2O2 in the nute soln at 1ml/L of solution, every 3-4 days. Your root development should sort out in 7-10 days.

I have learned sooo much from you...

Thanks!!!

 

[Ngozer]

Still at it, had to take the weekend off, family commitments, etc.

How's things going for you?

Nice, sounds like good times.

Things for me are looking good and bad. My second largest is having her second wind and starting to look really good. Even, my runt is looking better.

My largest, however, is not doing so well. New growth looks pretty good, but almost half of her leaves are dying. I tried searching for what the problem is, but none of the guides seem to describe it. Here are some pix:









Is this normal? To me, other than the massive yellowing and burns she looks pretty good.

 

[Ngozer]

On further research, it sort of looks like Mn deficiency according to this site:
International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums - The Complete guide to Sick Plants,pH, and Pest troubles!

Al, I am curious as to how we are to avoid these deficiency if many of the nutrients are locked out in pH ranges of 5.8 (i.e., Mn). What can I do to resolve this? Thanks.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Looks like a nute burn to me. What's the pH & ppm?

 

[Ngozer]

pH is always @ 5.8 +-.1 and tds is usually at around 1300-1400 ppm.

Edit: Also, the link mentions red stems which it looks like my plants have. They are tons of little red freckles that are turning all of my leave stems red.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

OK, probably isn't a nute burn with 1400 @ 5.8.

When I see red stems & petioles, I usually think of a P deficiency, but you're right your leaf damage looks like that pictured for Mn def.

On further research, it sort of looks like Mn deficiency according to this site:
International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums - The Complete guide to Sick Plants,pH, and Pest troubles!

Al, I am curious as to how we are to avoid these deficiency if many of the nutrients are locked out in pH ranges of 5.8 (i.e., Mn). What can I do to resolve this? Thanks.

From the chart:

It appears that Mn is locked out at 5.8, not 'many' nutrients. 5.8 is where most nutes are most available. I don't know how nute makers get around this. Mind you, I didn't draw up this chart. I'd have to check with St0ney over on gardenscure.com to find out where he sourced this data from.

The page you cite says:

Hydro and Soil less Mediums

Manganese gets locked out of Hydro and Soil less Mediums at ph levels of 2.0-4.5
Manganese is absorbed best in Hydro and Soil less Mediums at ph levels of 5.0-5.6 (Wouldn’t recommend having a ph over 6.5 in hydro and soil less mediums.) Best range for hydro and soil less mediums is 5.0 to 6.0. Anything out of the ranges listed will contribute to a manganese deficiency.
Solution to fixing a Manganese deficiency
Foliar feed with any chemical fertilizer containing Mn., or mix with water and water your plants with it. Any Chemical/Organic nutrients that have Manganese in them will fix a Manganese deficiency. (Only mixing at ½ strength when using chemical nutrients or it will cause nutrient burn!) Other nutrients that have Manganese in them are: Manganese chelate, Manganese carbonate, Manganese chloride, Manganese dioxide, Manganese oxide, Manganese sulfate, which are all fast absorption.

Seems like a way to sort it is to foliar feed with Mn.

Why I've never had a Mn def in my op is unknown to me.

OK, I'm back to my own op or a few days, will ck in as I can.

 

[Ngozer]

Update:

Things are looking kinda bad. I'm worried that this problem going to burn up all of my largest plant's leaves.

I've been doing all the reading that I can about foliar feeding, but it seems like every source has a differing opinion. I decided on the info that seemed to be the most agreed upon and gave it a spraying yesterday. I did it an hour after the lights had turned off to allow plenty of time to dry. I used a solution of 1300 @ pH of 5.6. I gave them all a thorough spraying on both the top and underside of the leaves.

I have also been continuing regular hand feeding everyday. My second plant is showing signs of burning as well, but much less and only on the tips of a few leaves. I'm not sure if it's the same problem. My largest is losing about a leave and a half per day to necrosis. Many guides warned about nute burn with foliar feeding since the plants are getting extra nutes from the spray. How can I tell the difference between the types of burns? As long as all of the plants aren't burning up it can't be nute burn, right? They are theoretically all getting the same amount of soln.

Why aren't my plants cooperating?!

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Update:

Things are looking kinda bad. I'm worried that this problem going to burn up all of my largest plant's leaves.

got pix? 1000 words, all that.