meangreengrowinmachine
Well-Known Member
hahaha 4H enrollment is going to sky rocket now!!!
SIP thread -- (Sub-Irrigated Planter)
- Thread starter Humanrob
- Start date
Tim Fox
Well-Known Member
way cool, i never thought of that, my daugher did horse 4h and pig 4 h,, now there will be Cannabis 4H club
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
It's been legal to brew beer, make wine and distill whiskey for decades now, but they are not 4H approved. Neither will Cannabis.Would that make it 5 H? head, heart, hands, health, and high.
For the over 21 crowd, sure.
Tim Fox
Well-Known Member
aww man come on dad,, let us have some fun,, hahaha
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
I was the kid who got yelled at for looking up winemaking in high school.
Tim Fox
Well-Known Member
in 8th grade we had a science teacher who wanted to show us what phosphorus did in a glasss of water,,, i was sitting about 3 row back,, the teacher accidently put too much in the glass, and it not only caught fire like it was supposed to,, but the reaction was just too much, and the glass of water exploded, and sent shardes into the first row of kids,, several had to be taken to the er,, talk about a wild day at school
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
My parents sent me to a religious school (K-8 ), where in 8th grade I was the only kid in the history of the school to get busted for smoking pot (most likely because I was the only kid in the history of the school who had ever tried it). One of my idiot friends was bragging to others on the bus about what I was doing and some well meaning little shit who overheard probably felt certain that "god was watching" and thought turning me in was their moral duty. In retrospect the whole thing is laughable, at the time in meant the principal came to my house to talk to me and my parents about how to deal with my dangerous and troubling situation. Ah, it was 1978, and no one could escape it. Not even god could protect us... Ha!
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Tim Fox
Well-Known Member
You are such a rebel
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
Nice clean lower canopy. Have you switched to flower? I had my net a bit too low and made it difficult to clean up the lower junk. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of space above the net for stretch. But, next time I'm either going to go without a net or raise the net. I liked how the Autopot modification to a true SIP has worked out. So, I am thinking next time trying four pots and going with a short veg./ smaller plants and no net. I think it might be nice to be able to remove the plants from the closet and do the pruning/ cleaning up that way. Then I won't have to crawl around on my hands and knees trying to prune up under the plants. Also, I might try and reduce the amount of bud sites and give each bud a bit more space to fill out and breath a little bit. Although, this new plan is based on increasing my light from 250 Watts to around 400 Watts.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Today he'd be hauled off as a terrorist!
Dumb fuck, mixing explosive ingredients in a glass container.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Thanks, and I switched to flower 5 days ago. Today was the 5th time in as many days that I took a giant handful of leaves a baby stems off the underside. I fear I'll shock the plant with a "death by 1000 cuts", but I'm having humidity issues (often staying around 70%) that won't clear up until summer actually gets here and the air dries out.
I hear you, 100%. My last run in this tent I was testing seeds, and I ran 9 plants in 2 gallon fabric pots -- and it was fun. I could take them out and put them up on a bench and trim and inspect them at chest height. Those were basically 12/12 from seed (with a couple of clones that had a 2.5 week veg). They turned into stout little trees, with no net. I really enjoyed that run. Each method has its benefits.
Since this one has RH issues, I've had to spray a couple of times (mostly Neem and GreenCure), and reaching to the back under the scrog and pointing the bottle forward and up to get the underside of the back of the plant... you can imagine. It sucks. But... big SIPs have benefits too. These are big enough that I drag a garden hose in to fill them, so far that's been about once a week (I've only let them get down to where there is about 2" of water in them).
My many passes of trimming have been to thin the foliage to discourage PM, and also to try and eliminate the small branches to get the plants to focus on fewer bigger ones. Honestly, I think that is easier to do without SIPs, since I've found that plants in just regular fabric pots don't put out nearly as many small branches.
This is the first time I've run two of the same strain side by side, it would have been a good time to do a sip vs non-sip comparison... but this grow came together last minute and these are CBD med plants, so I didn't want to mess around with them. It's on my wish list, not sure when I'll get to it.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Oh, and another thing...
The smallest SIPs I've worked with were 3 gallon bins stacked, and while I could lift the weight of that much water and wet soil, I'm not sure how stable those small rubbery Rubbermaid bins would be if I tried to lift them out. So far for me, it's either have non-moveable SIPs or go with fabric pots. I'll have to invent a SIP where the pot and wick are on some sort of turn-table floating over the res....
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
How big is your space? Currently I'm running in a 3x3 with about 325 watts.
PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
I ran my humidity around 70% with temps around 82F until about midway through flower and then dropped my humidity to mid- 50's. I was trying out the VPD chart. But, I can't get much lower then 55 RH based on the same issues you're having... Oregon.
That's pretty interesting you've noticed more branching of the plants with SIPs. I guess I did notice the plants pushed out a lot of low suckers even after I would prune the low stuff. It would be interesting to determine if SIPs encourages more branching or suckers.
PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
The nice thing about the Autopot is I can lift the pot and wick out of the reservoir. The reservoir, tray and fill valve are all separate from the pot. The limiting factor is the largest pot size is 6.6 gallons. But, then again, I wouldn't want to lift anything larger than that anyway. I do think I'm a bit limited on how long I can veg. I think I pushed them to their max. at 5-6 weeks of veg. In retrospect I would probably limit my veg. to around 4 weeks and therefore increase my plant number to four. The other thing I will do next time is leave the soil level a few inches lower than the pot edge to allow for more top dressing with compost through the grow. I left the soil about an inch low, but it was a little tight trying to fit more compost and EWC.
PDX Joe
Well-Known Member
My closet is 3ft. x 2.75ft. So, I'm at about 30 watts per sq.ft. which is a bit low. Although, the light pulls a bit more than that in reality... about 270 watts. I suppose I only need about 330 - 350. But, I'll stick the additional COBs on a dimmer and run them softer than that, and then if I want the extra power then I have it. I also wouldn't mind having the additional heat as well. The exhaust fan can really knock the heat down too much. These tiny little micro-climate grow rooms can be a bit tricky to fine tune.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
The Autopots sound cool. At some point I'll have to look into them.
One of my best COB grows was at 37.5w/sf (300w in a 2x4 tent). I've gone 50w/sf a few times which has worked well, but when I've pushed it further I find I run into issues. I have more lights and can add them if the grow seems to need them, but that might be limited by heat issues. The grow tent is an old detached 1 car garage that now is partially insulated and has a small window that actually opens (I'm in the process of doing improvements to the structure). For winter runs its not a problem -- I run a dehumidifier and HID lights and need no additional heat. It was nowhere in my plan to do a summer run in there, a total last minute impulse. We had a few 90º days already this year, and I've seen how the space builds up heat. These Cannatonics can go 10 weeks, which would take it into August. Hopefully I can pull this off.
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