Icemud
Well-Known Member
First off I would like to say thank you to all the growers who have shared there information, research and secrets on this page. I truly have learned an incredible amount of information from your site and look forward to learning even more. With that said, this is my first post, as well as my 1st Medical Grow and I wanted to share the magic with all of you. I have done heavy research into what is needed to grow properly and I believe that for my 1st go at it, I am doing quite well. Feel free to comment, Positive only, and give helpful advice if you see anything that I may be doing wrong or right.
This will be a very long 1st post but and I know that it ranges from April 8th until current, so you will be able to read everything I have done from transplant to current 3rd week veg...
I also am trying to stay organic as much as I can....
Here are my 2 youtube video's so far....
YouTube - 1st Legal Medical Marijuana grow....all organic under 400W MH in a 2x4 Hydrohut grow tent
YouTube - Icemud's 1st Legal Medical Marijuana grow under California Prop 215, weeks 1-3 veg under 400W MH
Here is my setup: (COPY AND PASTED FROM MY PERSONAL JOURNAL)
April 8th, 2011
2- Blue Dragon (sour diesel x blueberry) (flowers 8-9 weeks)
2- University Hills OG (OG Kush x Free Tibet x Professional 3-way) (70 day flower)
2- Chem-Ban (headban x chemdawg)
Equipment used:
Hydrohut 2x4x78" tent (actually 28"x58"x78" Silver edition
Hydrofarm 6" 400CFM fan
6'x24" carbon filter
digital humidity gauge with temp readings at canopy and light level
humidifier with programmable on/off and RH% settings
one 10" circulation fan mounted top blowing down
1 6" ducting fan circulating air in
4" desk fan in 6" inlet tubing supplying additional intake and lower air movement
Lighting:
400w Ushio hps (enhanced red), average room temperature increase with light...3-4 degrees. (bloom)
400w Ushio conversion MH (enhanced blue spectrum, Ushio) (veg)
in 6" cool tube with ducting out of tent
Soil mixture...
3 gal pots..
1/2 pot super soil mix...(used at bottom half of pots)
2 pots happy frog organic soil
1 pot organic compost
1/2 pot of perlite
3/4 pot of worm castings
1/8 pot of bat jamaican bat guano (1-10-2)
1/8 pot of peruvian seabird guano (10-10-2)
Soil ph at 7.0
top 1/2 of pots less harsh soil mixture.
2 pots of organic happy frog soil.
1 pot of organic compost
1/2 pot of perlite
1/3 pot of worm castings
1/8 pot of peruvian seabird guano...
soil ph at 7.0
Nutrient Line up
EarthJuice line (grow, bloom, meta-k, catalyst, micro)
Superthrive
botanicare cal mag plus
olivias cloning solution
hygrowzyme
bio weed-general organics
bio root-general organics
humic acid-Europonic
wholesome organic molassass
Advanced Nutrients Liquid carbo load
Humbolt countys purple max
Humbolt countys Gravity Flower Hardener
Humbolt counties Snow Storm Ultra
GROW PPM FEEDING CHART
PH throughout grow should be targeted at 6.2PH
Clones/Seedlings ppm 220-350
Week 1-2 ppm 400-550
Week 3-4 ppm 550-700
FLOWERING PPM
Week 1-2 ppm 700-850
Week 3-4 ppm 700-1000
Week 5-6 ppm 850-1000
Week 7-8 ppm 350-700
Flush...
EarthJuice Feeding Schedule used is Recirculation Schedule
All other nutrients were used as directed on bottles for Normal/heavy feeding
Clones received on April 8th 2011
Transplanted on 4-9 to 4 gal pots from rockwool cubes. Plants looked overall healthy but a little wilty
with a little dryness to the leaves and a little wilty. Gave 1 3/4 gallons of distilled water between the 6 plants. Added 4 ml of hygrozome, a drop of
superthrive and 10 ml of Olivia's cloning solution.
Light at this point is set for 24/0 with MH conversion light.
Started a organic feeding tea based on 1 cup worm casings, 1 cup organic compost, 1 cup happy frog soil, 2 tbl spoons of seabird poop, 5 teaspoons of molassas. This
was placed in a old nylon and hung into a 5 gallon bucket with 1 3/4 gallons of distilled water and a air stone with air pump. After an hour or so the brew was active.
Did not have any neem oil to de-bug the clones but did read that worm casings will keep bugs away if sprayed on foilage.
so I mixed some of my home brew organic tea, which at this point had been brewing for around 9 hours and had a nice earthy sweet smell and nice foam
on top of the bucket. I filled the bottom of a spray bottle with a 225 ppm solution of "organic tea" and lightly sprayed the plants covering the tops
and bottoms of the leaves. I also read this is a great way for nutrients to feed to the plant and for the stomatas to stay open longer so I figured it w
was good to go.
Late in the evening I checked my tea and fed about 2 cups of organic tea to the plants. ph was 6.2 and ppm was 229.
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April 9th, because of the weather, the relative humidity is very low today, indoors around 20%. I read this
is not good for newly transplanted clones and it should be around 65-80% at this point. I began to boil some water to
raise my overall room humidity which worked only temporarily and was wasteful. About every 2-4 hours I gave the walls and the soil a light
spraying of distilled water to aid in evaporation and raising the humidity, but the MH 400w I have is not producing enough
infra red heat to evaporate the water quickly. This helped raise the RH to around 33% but not nearly enough. Plants didn't seem to take on
the green from the light and watering that I had expected and after reading about how low humidity will force
the roots to keep feeding the leaves and not stretching so I got a evaporative humidifier and placed it in the
tent. The plants about 2 hours later seemed to be more lush and green and seemed stiffer. Now the constant temps are reading 78-80F and Rh is around 52% which is about the highest I am able to get in the tent, even with fans low.
Gave the plants a watering at 1am because they seemed dry by shoving my finger about 3 inches into the soil. Mixed up 1 gallon of distilled water
with 3/4 cup of Olivia's cloning solution. 230 ppm and ph was high at 7.8 so after adjusting it to 6.2 it was ready for the plants. Evenly gave
about 1.5 to 2 cups of water to the plants, not wanting to overwater them and that seemed to cover the soil nicely. Temp is at 78 F and Rh 51%.
Also today dumped out the remaining organic tea because its sweet smell had disappeared and seemed to be more of decomposing soil. Didnt want to risk damaging the plants
so I dumped the batch.
Took Photos!!!
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April 10th...
Plants looked even greener and stronger today. The newer leaves that were curling downward yesterday have now
straitened out more and have taken on a more lush look. No need for soil watering as it has been lower temps and lower
humidity, the soil is plenty moist from yesterdays watering. I am guessing it will be 2-3 days before I have to water
again. I did mix a very light foiler spray to give the plants a lil boost of N and some hormone. I added to 2 cups of distilled
water 1 very small drop of superthrive and about 2-3 ml of Botanicare Cal Mag. PPM of mixture was at 350 and the PH was 6.2.
Sprayed very lightly the leaves from underside and very light misting of soil and tops of leaves...gave each one a minor shake a few mins later
to knock off any water bubbles and blew some breaths on them to knock of any additional drops.
Temps today in tent remained at almost a constant 78F and RH of 50%.
Also was reading today that classical music played in 3 hr segments can increase plant growth and yield so I played some bach and beethoven today
while i was cleaning up...dont know if i was just high or not but the plants did seem happier.
Switched to 20/4 cycle for the remainder of the week.
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April 11th....
Plants seem to be doing well and look healthy. My 2 University OG's are already showing new leaf growth, my chem-bands are strenghening but not showing much growth yet.
Got my earth juice line today. All except Meta-K which is induced the next week of the cycle. Plant soil is plenty wet today from watering 2 days ago. Mixing up a batch of Earth Juice for use
tomm or Wednesday. Will be airating a tea today for use within 24 to 48 hours from now. Mixed up 1/2 gallon which should be about right for watering all 6 plants. Went by grow schedule ppm 350, ph 6.7, added 2ml grow, .7 of all others + 2ml of cal/mag, and 5 ml of olivias rooting)
Moved my 400w MH light closer to the plants today, its within about 12 inches because it is air cooled and not hot running.
Also got my neem oil and another gnat killer (organic which i will be applying just before lights go out tonight)
Applied the Rasta brand gnat killer and neem oil, sprayed in heavy amounts to the leaves. The gnat killer smelled really good, like rosemary, and the neem was well not pleaseing smelling. Did
notice a few little fly type bugs that took off when sprayed. Nothing on the leaves shows infestation though.
Soil at 2am is dry about 1 to 2 inches deep, the pots feel much lighter today, will most likely water tomm with earth juice.
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April 12th
Plants are looking real healthy, both OG's are taking off with very tight internodes, the chem band is not looking so healthy and is quite wilty
and showing no signs of new growth, both of the blue dragons are also taking off and show new growth. Gave a watering of about 2 cups of pre bubbled
earth juice mix. Went off the growing schedule. Also added CAl/Mag to the nutrient mix. only 2ML.
After the watering about an hour later the leaves took on a very green look, plants looked happy, even the chem-band which was struggling looks healthyer and greener.
Temp inside has stayed right at 78F with a RH of 50%.
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April 13th.
Left plants alone for the most part today. Did some LST to 1 of the University OGs that was growing a bit lanky as well as the 2 blue dragons
which are growing rather nicely. I didn't LST the other UV OG because it was growing very slowly upward with very tight internodes so I left it
undesterbed to let the nodes develop more. The 2 chem band are still taking off very slowly but not showing any signs of stress. I believe it may
be because these 2 clones only have 3 leaves (too many times topped on mother?) and I believe that is what stunted there growth. Also the clones all
showed signes of flowering and I think that may be why these are taking longer to convert back to veg.
Shot video of plants today
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April 14th.
Today I LST'd the other 3 remaining plants, the one UV og and also the 2 chemband plants. Since they were not showing stress I figured it may give them
more light to the lower nodes and allow more growth as well as for them to bush out. I also mixed up a 420ppm folier spray of earth juice grow, distilled water,
earth juice micro and a small drop of cal mag and super thrive. I gave the babies a light misting after making the ph sit at 6.2 and also gave a very small (about 1/2 cup) per
plant to the roots. I followed it up with a very light spray of Rasta Bobs Death Mite (app #2) for preventive measuers against pests. The plants that I LST'd yesterday are already
reaching for the light and showing healthy new growth.
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April 15th...
Plants were looking great today, all of them have now seemed to adapt to the soil and produce rapid growth. Even the chem band plants that
were taking forever to root and show growth are now in the stage of showing new leaves. Today I didn't give any water to the soil. Wanted to let them strech out roots to find
water and let the soil dry out. Did tie down the plants a little more using LST so new nodes are exposed and will give room to verticle growth.
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END OF CLONE TRansPLANT WEEK 1
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April 16th..
Plants soil was dry about 2-3 inches down and so I mixed up a very light feed batch. Mixed 1 gal of distilled water
with 8ml of hydrozyme, 10ml of grow, 4ml of cal/mag, and a drop of superthrive. Ppm sat just about 550ppm and the ph was adjusted to 6.3 Gave about 2-3 cups of water per plant
covering the entire top soil of each pot and a little drainage water came out the bottoms.
I have to leave for vacation so I had my lights set at 18-6, carbon filter fan set at medium, intake fan set on while light was on 18 and also
set every other hour on, then off thruought the dark period. I also put a small fan on my balast constantly on to keep it cooler while gone and reduce room temp.
Plants were given also 24 hrs constant classical music thruought the time gone...did research which showed that classical indeed does promote positive growth.
Now I know there is a week that will go by while on vacation and over some debating of either not watering the entire week, or letting a neighbor water about mid week. I decided
since the plants were young and needed to root as well as were healthy enough to be stressed, I would let them go an entire week in a hotter than normal situation so that the plants
would go into "drout mode" and slow production of growth and enhance streaching of roots in search of water. I know that this can be risky to let them be alone for a week and anything
could happen from power outages to ph issues but I decided to take the chance and figured even in the worst case scenerio, the plants would be able to be brought back to life...
Here goes nothing...
Vacation 16th thru 26th....
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APRIL 22 END OF VEG WEEK 1
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Vacation till 26th
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April 26th...
Photos taken....
Very excited to see my babies after a week vacation. As soon as I walked into my place whoa it was hot and humid and immediatly I worried about
my babies. I checked temperature inside the tent and 86F at above light level and 84.7F near plant canopy so I was not too concerned and my fans
worked well while I was gone. The soil was almost completely dry about 4-5" down so immediatly I knew my babies were thirsty and had to give them a drink.
Since I starved them a little over the period of a week, with one watering and slightly above normal temperatures, I knew that this condition would cause the
plants to streach there roots in search of water so I indended on this to happen over much debate. Upon looking at my plants, HOLY shiz!!
Most of them have really taken off, but one in particular caught my eye. My Blue dragon #1 is taking off above all with a very thick stem and over 8' of growth for the week. My Blue dragon #2 also shows a lot of tight but short growth but looked very healthy.
My 2, 3 leaved Chem Bands that were the smallest of the bunch have now caught up to the rest, and have developed thicker stems and many new healthy leaves, showing about 3-6 inches of growth over week.
One of my University OG's is really streaching and taking off showing about 4-6" of new growth, #2 UOG is however very sick. It does show about 2-4 inches of new growth however all of the new and some of the older leaves have turned a bright green/yellow with veins still s
showing green. After some photo diagnosis, it seems to be a lack of zinc which is causing the plants growth to stunt and yellow.
Since there was much vertical growth between the plant nodes, further tie down/LST was applied to all plants (see pictures).
I took 2 gallons of RO water and evenly watered all 6 of the plants, with the exception of the UHOG that is stunted in which I gave a double dose of RO water to flush any salt/nutrient build ups
After a good amount of water filled the drip trays on each pot, I knew the soil was thouroughly soaked and the plants were fed. Also to give a little nutrient fix/boost to the hurt/stunted UHOG I mixed a folier spray of
Olivias clone solution 2ml, EJ catalyst 2ml, ej micro 2ml and ej bloom 2ml to about 2.5 cups of water, ppm was about 550ppm and the ph was raised to 5.6. Added to spray bottle and gave a very heavy folier spray to all of the plants
but an extra amount to the yellowed UHOG plant. Followed up with a light spray of Rasta Bobs death mite and then the plants were blown on and lightly shaken minutes later to remove excess drops on leaves. Temps now are around 78-79F and humidity is around 45%.
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April 27th
Today getting started with mixing up my next EJ feeding for 2-3 days from now. As reccomended I am doing in a 5 gallon bucket with airstone circulating oxygen. According to a buddie of mine,
he recommended going with the EJ schedule under "recirculation" for my nutrient amounts. He produces some of the best nug I have ever tasted so his advice is golden. Anyways, mixed up
45 ML of Grow, 17ml of Micro, 10ml of catalyst, and 5ml of bloom, and 10ml of cal mag plus. and 5ML of molassas for 1 gallon +8 cups of water. Even though I'm not using for a few days, tested the ppm and it sat nicely at 550ppm. I mixed these
nutrient amounts to 1 gal of RO water + 8 extra cups of RO water.
After all of the plants yesterday were LST'd again and tied down, they have already rotated the leaves to position for best light and all of the nodes and stems are facing the light.
Just before lights came on this morning I gave the plants another folier feeding of the mix from last night and gave them a lil shaking to knock off extra water drops.
I am really worried about my UVOG which is almost completely yellow leaved. Some of the other plants are also showing signs of yellowing between the veins on the leafs but not on new growth, only on a few middle leaves. After much research I have found that there are 2 things that
could be going wrong, one is a zinc deficiency and the other is a lack of potassium (K). From what I read a lack of potassium can stunt growth, hold back water transfer and also cause zn, mag and other micro nutrients to sieze up. After brewing my EarthJuice tea I decided not to wait to
apply since soil was still soaked from last nights flush so I evenly applied the Earthjuice brew to each of the plants. I consistantly checked back every few hours to see if I noticed any greening of the leaves or signes of more stress and didnt notice any changes.
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April 28th
Still not seeing any change besides a slight changing from yellow to green of the UVOG that is stunted. I also didn't notice any changes in the stessed leaves in the other plants so I believe my plants are lacking potassiom. Since I did not have the Earthjuice meta-k yet I decided to take
a trip to the hydro store to purchase some as well as some soil conditioners and root stimulators. After leaving the store I now have EarthJuice Meta-K, Europonic Fossil Fuel Humic Acid, General Organics Bio Weed (algae), General Organics Bio Root (many naterial nutrients), Advanced Nutrients Liquid Carboload.
Being that I am growing soil and organic, I realize the importance of keeping a healthy root and soil environment for my plants and knew that humic acid and the other additives would not over furtalize my plants but would allow for better nutrient absorbtion. I mixed up 1 gallon of distilled water, 5ML of EJ meta-k, 15ml of humic acid, 1tsp of Bio root, 1tsp of bio weed, 6ml of hygrozyme and
3ml of liquid carboload. I fed each plant about 2.5 cups of water until a slight trickle filled the bottom of my drain areas. I know about the dangers of overwatering plants and did not want to give them another watering so soon, however, with the soil lacking potassium I didn't want to see further hurt done to my babies so I figured what would be worse and decided to give them this feeding
to promote healthy soil and allow nutrients to better reach the roots. Now lets wait and see. The mixture before ph adjustment was sitting pretty high around 8.5ph so I brought it down to around 6.4ph. and the ppm was sitting nice at 294ppm.
After thinking more about what could have caused this nutrient lockup I also remembered that before I left for vacation I bought some RO water from the gas station instead of the usual distilled water and have been using the RO water since. I thought to myself that soil must act as some kind of filter for the nutrient/ph salts that are added to keep the mix at a 6.4 range, the remaining HIGH PH water would pass thru to the lower roots and alkalinize my soil. I tested the RO water's
PH and found that it was really high, around 8.4PH which was very unusual I though for supposedly near pure water. I also checked the water with PH drops vs my Hanna PH meter and found that my Hanna was also not giving accurate results, which could have led to my soil runoff being close to around 7.5-8.2 range. (Now I understand what was stressing my plants.)
I quickly ran out to the store and bought distilled water, undercut the ph around 6.2 and watered again the plants with over 2.5 cups of water each to drop the soil ph and "flush" the plants one last time to rid any ailments or over fertalization. I checked the runoff of the water this time and all of the plants now were showing a runoff of around 6.5-7PH which made me more comfortable.
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End of Week 2 veg
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April 29th....
Today is the true day to see if the problem has been corrected with my soil ph and so far I am very happy with the results. MY OVOG that was almost completely yellow yesterday is now showing the lower smaller leaves to have changed back to healthy green and the newer and top
fan leaves have all begun to fill in the yellowing (chorisis) and now are returning to healthy colored and showing very little but are showing new growth... All of my other plants that were showing very minimal signs of phospherous/zinc issues and ph problems were now all very dark green
and looking very healthy and showing much new growth, (some 2-3" overnight). I used a fork to easily airate the top soil of each of the pots about an inch down, all new growths were LST'd and tied down to maximize bushing and new shoots light exposure and the pots were all rotated to maximise their light available.
The temperature today was staying cool in the upper 70's and humidity was low around 30% so I turned off my humidifier to help draw more water out of the plants and thru the roots and the plants really started to give off a nice aroma after a few hours with the lower humidity. After about 8pm I then turned back on my humidifier at a low
setting to ride out the remainder of the night. No watering was necessary at this point and will probably be 2-3 more days before they are watered again. Twards the end of the day my UVOG that was sick is really looking healthy and there are NO "completely yellow leaves" anymore and they have all started to turn back into a healthy green color.!!! yes!!
My UVOG #1 showing healthy growth and returning to natural healthy color
my UVOG #2 is growing very well and is in second place for largest and healthiest plant. It continues to thrive and has over 9 shoots and bud nodes already.
my chembands- were the slowest to root of all my plants are now showing very dark and healthy green fan leaves, they are now caught up to and may be even larger than my UVOG's
My blue dragons are the healthiest of all, the largest is my prize winner, many fan leaves, about 8-9 main chutes and very thick stem, my other blue dragon is growing very tight, tons of nodes and chutes but not really streaching, but very healthy.
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April 30th...
I was going to wait another day or 2 to water but with the finger check about 3" down was really dry and the pots felt pretty light so I decided to feed my ladies some nutrients since the flush the other day. I mixed up a batch of 1.5 gallons of distilled water, Used recirculation chart on Earthjuice.
I mixed up 45ML of Grow, 5ML of Bloom, 5ML of Catalyst, 5Ml of Meta-k and 10ML of Microblast and added to airated distilled water. I also added Advanced nutrients Liquid CArboload 3ML, 10ML of Botanicar Cal Mag+, 15ML of Europonic Humic acid, 1 tsp of Bio Weed by General Organics and 1 tsp of Bio Root by GO.
I bubbled the mixture for a good half hour to hour before I tested the ph...whoa it was low...sitting around 4ph. I brought it up with PH UP to the 6.2 range and gave each of the plants about 4-5 cups of water until the drain pans which left the drain pans half full. tested the soil run off and also sitting nicely at 6.2!!!
I measured the ppms as well and it was at around 740ppm.
The stunted UVOG is looking even healthier today and after tying down the main stalk, it has already turned to the light and showing new growth. All of the other plants that showed a fan leaf or two with stress have now fully healed and are thriving and my 3leaf chemdogs are now producing 5 leaf fans!!
The temp is cool today, at around 75F in my tent but the humidity is very low so I cranked up my humidifier full blast and my tent is hovering around 40RH.
Overall the plants are looking happy and healthy.
Photos taken of overall plants and also nutrient lineup
My next feeding will be an organic tea, 2-3 days from now...
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May 1st
Today I cleaned the cool tube that my 400wMH is in. Made a big difference in light amount reaching the plant, even a little dust on the inside wiped off
made a huge difference. I also re-arranged the layout of my grow tent, shifted the humidifier to the right side for easier access now that my ladies are really starting to take off
All of my plants are showing very strong growth and they are really starting to bush out. I am contemplating another light added to the tent, either a 400hps or a 600w hps but affordablility is the top concern.
No watering needed today, soil is still moist about an inch down and further. Humidity has been really low lately, in the low teens and under 20%RH. I cranked on my humidifier very low to give a little moisture to the air and raise the RH to 30%. I know at this point of growth lower humidity is better
because it increases transpiration in leaves but I also turned on the humidifier because it does have a nice evaporagive cooling effect and keeps the temperatures in my tent down around 81F.
Adjusted a few of the plants with LST to make more light accessable to the lower nodes and leaf growths. I also did a very mild supercropping to a few of the plants with thicker stems and showing more growth.
photos taken
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May 2nd.
Today the tempature is very hot and humidity is very low...under 20% and around 82F outside temps. My tent however with humidifier set on low is keeping a consistant temp under 82F and RH sitting nice about 30%. THe pots are beginning to feel a little light due to the low humidity and a lot of evaporation so today
I started brewing my organic tea for watering within the next day or two depending on soil condition.
In 2 gallons of distilled water with an airstone I loaded an old nylon full off 2 potting shovels of Happy Frog potting soil, 1 shovel of organic compost, 1.5 shovels of worm casings and a good 1/2 shovel of peruvian bat guano. Also added to the organic tea I put in 3 caps of "naked green smoothy" (which was experimental but had a lot of natural sugars, green algaes, green foods and cloraphyl).
I also added around 30ML of Earthjuice grow, 1 tbsp of molassus, 10ml of BIOROOT, 10ML of BioWEEd, 15ml of Europonic Humic acid and 20ml of HYDROzyme, and 5ml of Cal Mag. I also took 1 (1000mg) spiralina pill (human) and crushed it to powder and put it in the mix. After a lot of reading about algaes and spiralina and the benifits, I decided to give it a try.
This mix even though somewhat standard also has some experimented additions due to making a healthy environment for the soil. THis mix will be airated for 24-48 hours until sweet earthy foam and smell arize as well as pots/plants are needing water.
Plants look very healthy today and even my stunted UVOG is now almost completely green and showing much new growth, so I know that the ph/zinc/potassium defficiency is now corrected.
photo taken
At the end of the day today the soil was very dry about 2" down and the pots felt very light, so I decided since I wanted to test out my microbrew but not overdo it, I would give each plant just 1.5 cups of the tea at about 8pm to see how they react.
About an 2 hours after feeding the leaves look a very dark healthy green under the MH and no sagging leaves or any signs of stress at all!!! I'm so far happy. If all else looks good in the morning I will most likely give them a watering.
photo taken
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May 3
Today early in the morning I fed my experimental microbrew tea to the ladies. I am a bit nervous because the addition of spiralina and 3 capfuls of Naked Green smoothy added. I checked the ph and it was sitting at 7.0ph so I lowered it around 6.2 and the ppm was sitting nicely at 780ppm. I gave each of the ladies about 3-4 cups of the nutrient mix.
Water drained off very little in each of the drip pans and the plants within an hour have already taken on a very dark green lush look. I did a lil more LST of the loose branches to even out the growth on each plant and did a FIM training of each plant 1-2 per plant. I didn't want to overdo it so I kept it minimal to see how they react.
About 6pm today, luckily while looking at my ladies...the power went out for a few minutes. I couldnt get my MH conversion bulb to fire back up, takes a good 10 mins at least to cool down so I immediatly switched out my MH and replaced it with my HPS bulb. Didn't want the babies to be deprived of light too long. Wow the HPS is bright and twards the end of the day
the ladies really started to like the new HPS and really showed signs of reaching for the light. I also know the simulated red spectrum of the HPS simulates evening/fall sun so it may in fact cause the plants to strech more. I only will be using this thru the remainder of todays lighting cycle and switching back for the remainder of grow period.
I also have been reading alot about light placement and I have realized with my air cooled hood, and my 400w MH, I have had the light way to high up for the plants to maximize the light usage. I normally was keeping it around 12-18" but I lowered it within about 8" instead and the plants really seem to like the additional light being provided.
photos taken
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May 4th.
Wow, the plants really liked my organic tea. Today they look even healthier, bushier and have grown what seem to be an inch or 2 overnight. I switched around my plants, gave my chemband plants front and center since they were a little less bushy then the rest. Even my UVOG that was stunted a week ago is now fully green and showing much new growth. The
plant stems now are getting really thick and many fan leaves have started forming with new bud sites all over because of the LST training. I began to plan out the construction of my scrog screen and within the next week I will be adding it to the tent to really start the streching process and maximize yeild. I am very impressed in how fast these ladies are growing.
The roots must have really taken on to there pots and are sucking up water like no other. Today already my pots seem lighter than a new watering by a lot and I believe within 2-3 days they should be ready for there full nutrient feeding. I may introduce a flush in a week or 2 but right now since they were heavily flushed with the ph issues, I will keep feeding them until I see any stress signs.
Since I am gettin close to the end of week 3 and my babies are really filling out, but still not as big as I would like them to be for flowering, I most likely will go 4-5 weeks for veg before switching on the 12/12 light and inducing bloom.
It really will be dependent on how full my SCROG screen is at the end of week 4. I plan on making a screen that is not completely flat so it will utilize more light on the edges of the screen, these will be at around a 45 degree angle from the middle half of the screen to the edge. I figured that this will give me more surface area to SCROG out the plants as well as make use of the verticle space that otherwise wouldnt be used.
I also have really been keeping a watch on my digital ph meter, it seems to be accurate sometimes but then other times it will give me 2 different readings for the same liquid tested. Will be on my way to the store today to pick up some calibration liquid as well as the storage cleaner for it.
photos taken
What a score!!! I just got a great deal and will be buying a 600W lumatek digital ballast, another vented hood by hydrofarm, 2 ushio 600w bulbs, another carbon filter, and another inline fan...for a killer price... Cant wait to pick these up and add 90,000 more lumens to my tent...hope i can keep it cool. My plan is to run the 400W MH in the mornings for the first 10 hours. At 8 hours into the light schedule I will have the 600w HPS light up for the remaining 10 hours of the cycle, so they will overlap by 2 hours. From what I have read plants respond better to both spectrums of light and my goal here is to represent the sun's cycle. Blue light in morning, full spectrum high intensity mid day, and red light twards evening. I do want to do this for the remainder of my veg cycle and then when bloom 12/12 i will do a similar approach, but have blue light for 2 hrs in morning, then both for hrs mid day, then 2 hrs of red at night... What do you pros think about this technique?
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May 5th
photo taken
Plants are looking really healthy and showing a lot of larger fan leaves now. After LST yesterday they again have streched for the light and are promoting good 2ndary bud node development. I felt the soil pots today and they feel quite light already,
I mixed up my full nutrient batch. (eJ grow 45ml, ej micro 10ml, ej cat 5ml, ej bloom 5ml, and ej metak 5ml) with 5ml of bio bud, 10ml of bio root, 5ml of cal/mag and 15 ml of humic acid. Also added 3ml of liquid carbo load by advanced nutrients and I am bubbling with airstone i 1.5 gal of water for 24 hrs.
After brewing the tea for 5 hours I checked the ph of the mixture and whoa...3.9ph. Added some GH ph up and brought it right to 6.2ph. Fed all of my babies about 3-4 cups of feeding until very light drain out bottom of pots. I made sure to evenly water the soil paying special attention to the sides of the pots because from what I have read,
the roots will shoot strait out from the taproot just like the stems off the main stem and they will wrap the edges of the pot. I made sure all the soil was completely soaked and now my pots feel heavy again. Within a few hours of feeding, the plants seem to look greener, have a even stronger aroma and really have enjoyed there meal...
Will be 2-4 days before next watering which will be a lighter nutrient mix.
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Today I got my additional lighting for a great deal, cant wait to feed my ladies both light spectrums and see how they react. I picked up a Lumatek digital 600w ballast with 2 Ushio HPS bulbs. Got a 600w and an extra 400 watt for my other ballast. Also in the deal got a 4" inline fan, extra carbon scrubber with new charcoal and also a hydrofarm air cooled reflector. I really wanted to add both light spectrums for veg and especially bloom since Ive been reading the UV from the blue really will help create more potent buds as the red spectrum will help produce fatter, and tigher buds.
I hooked both lights up in my tent, and installed the new carbon scrubber in addition to the existing one. I wanted 2 because I am having heat issues already just running the one 400w MH and adding an additional 400-600w I knew there would be even more issues.
I hooked the new carbon scrubber up to the ducting on the 2 hid lights, and out the other side of the tent, where I have the 4" fan hooked up and blowing near my ballasts to help keep them cool, especially the magnetic one which gets pretty hot.
I now have one which will only run when the light cycle is turned on, which will help cool the tent and lights when on, as well as provide additional smell reduction.
My other carbon scrubber is hooked up to a fan speed dial and a thermostat so I can keep it running all the time and dial in the correct setting according to the inside temperature of the tent.
I have the lights set to replicate the natural color of the daytime sun. I have my 400W MH running for the first 10hours of the day. I have my 600W HPS ( set to 400W for veg) running for the last 10 hours of the day of an 18 hour cycle, meaning that in the middle of the day, both lights are on providing nearly 90,000 lumens of light. This replicates the blue color of the mornings, bright overhead and intense mid day sun, and the red color spectrum of the evenings. I have read that people who have used both spectrums of light produce very well compared to using just one or the other, I got a great deal online, and so I said what the Fkk...
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May 7th
May 7th...
Checked all the ladies and my blue dragons are definitely the monsters of the bunch so far. One of my Chembands and one of my UVHOG is doing great today and showing lots of new growth and nodes on the lower stems. I LST'd all plants again today to spread out the branches even
farther giving the lower nodes more "auxions" therefore tricking them into thinking they are the top of the plant. My 2nd chemband and UVOG2 are still taking on rather slow and their pots feel much heavier than those of the rest. Is this because they just havent established as large of
a root ball yet? They do look healthy but growth is slow. I will not be watering them for at least another 2 days until the pots feel lighter. As for the others which are thriving, the pots feel much lighter (dryer) and they may be ready for a watering as soon as tomm. I will be using
just a ph balanced dose of pure distilled water to give the soils a good flush and allow for me to monitor the soil runoff to see where my slower growing plants are at. Otherwise they really seem to be liking the dual light setup and all seem to have perked up even more and all are exhibiting very thick stems at this point.
Today all but 2 of my pots felt very light and were needing watering, however my 2 slower growing plants, (the UVOG and Chemband) that were both stunted with ph issue a few weeks back, don't seem to be uptaking as much water as the rest.
I watered the 4 dry pots with 4-5 cups each of 6.2ph distilled water, no nutrients this feeding. The other 2 that felt still very moist I gave only 1 cup to each plant of the distilled water. I am going to starve them for a few more days to see if maybe the roots just haven't taken on yet from the ph issue. Any other suggestions why they may not be taking up water like the rest. I measured all of the overflow/drainwater from the pots and they all range between 5.9 and 6.2.
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Today is May 8th..
So last night before the lights shut down, I removed all remaining LST on the plants to start preparing them for the SCROG screen I will be installing this week. I really wanted them to start reaching for the lights and developing stronger stems, not being supported by the LST strings.
Today when I awoke and checked them, they all have really turned towards the light and started becoming more bush form and seem to have grown an inch or so overnight, as well as standing up much straighter!!! My 2 slower growing plants in the middle (UVHOG and Chemband) are now catching up to the rest and the stems are thickening quite a bit. They still don't exhibit as large of growth as there sister plants in the bunch, but this is understood due to a nutrient lock up in week 2-3. Overall they are growing heavily now and I assume will do very well in the next coming week.
I felt all the pots and my Blue Dragon #1 (the big one) sucked all the water out of the drain pan and even the soil seemed lighter today than right after a watering should...wow, I am going to have to water her every 2-3 days now.. The middle two stragglers pots now feel fairly light, not dry yet but are showing much more water usage than last night...(and RH was around 45% so it wasn't just evaporating) All of the other pots felt as normal, lighter than yesterday but still 3 days away from next watering, which will be again full EJ line with additives....
Later this afternoon I had looked inside the tent to check on the babies and what did I see!! Mother truckin fungus Gnats. I spotted a few larger ones and a few tiny ones flying around inside...Immediately I started sending them to hell with the clap method and after I saw no more gave the plants and pots a good shaking to see if there were any more... After seeing no more fly out I started looking closer at the pots and noticed a few tiny baby ones crawling up the pots...I dropped a load right there!! I grabbed my neem, mixed up a medium to heavy batch of distilled water, neem oil and a few drops of palmolive dish soap that it recommends. I first cleaned the entire bottom tray of my tent to rid any dead materials, soil or other contaminants and then I raised my lights and soaked the hell out of my ladies...top and bottom of leaves, soil, pots, even the drain holes with exposed soil at the bottoms of the pots. I even gave a good layer to the bottom of my tent so any of these little bastards would have a horrible puking death...I followed this up with a very light spritzing of Rasta Bob's Death mite and then air dryed the ladies with a big rubbermaid container top.
After the spraying and the leaves had dried,which only took a minute or 2 with the dry humidity today...temp around 75f at canopy 80 at top of tent and RH was 38%. I shook the plants a few more times to rid any droplets left and also knock loose any other possible gnats that may have strapped on for dear life!! lol I didn't see any...
Proceded to check throughout the night for any signs of more of them flying around, even shaking the plants ever few hours and giving them a good air rush with the rubbermaid container top to see if any gnats cruised around or went to the light....NONE!!!
So as the instructions state, I will give them another spraying within 2-4 days to make sure none hatch in the soil. I also will be going to buy some yellow sticky tape for preventive measures as well as I put a glass of red wine and dish soap out in the tent, to draw them in and drown them. Hope it works...
As for the ladies...no signs of stress what so ever, they really seem to be thriving in the dual light setup.
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May 9th
Today is exactly 1 month from the date of transplant!!!! I will be adding the SCROG screen this week and vegging for another 1 to 2 weeks depending on how fast they are filling the screen. 1 month birthday!!! lol
Today upon the lights turning on I immediatly inspected the ladies for any signs of more fungus gnats. I found only 1 flying around which I killed via the Mr. Miogi Method...(not really chopsticks). I also checked the sides of the pots as well as the soil and found in my front right Chemband plant
1 fungus gnat larve and 1 newly hatched crawler, not quite flying yet. I destroyed them as well and then gave the ladies soil another good top spraying of Neem/dishsoap solution. A few hours later I checked back to see if I spotted any more flying ones and I only found one nestled in the soil, looked like the
bastard was trying to lay eggs again. Squashed him and then turned around the top 1" of soil in each pot and followed it up with a good soaking of (Safer brand, End All Killer). This product is rated organic and says it will kill flying, eggs and larva so I figured why not since its organic and kills all 3 stages.
I also bought some sticky yellow sheets and put 3 in my tent. 2 of them are near the top of the tent by the vents and one is at canopy level. I also put one by my kitchen sink because this is where they I first started seeing them by my garbage disposal. I will check each day on for signs of any stuck to the yellow cards
and I will follow up in 2-3 days with another spraying of soil and pots. I also bought some misquito dunks which are to be used with watering. However I am going to wait a few days before any watering to let the first few inches of soil dry up. I read that the fungus gnats will reproduce as long as there is moisture available for them
to lay eggs in. If you let the top soil dry out, then the eggs will die. So i figure with a combination of organic pesticide and soil conditioning, I should be in the green but it will take a few days for the test to really show. I also bought today a ph 4.01 and ph 7.01 calabration solution and storage solution for my hanna. Wow I was off
by at least .8PH...may be why my babies were locked up a few weeks ago. RE-Calibrated the hanna ph meter and now its readings are right on the money. I bought a timer today also because my ventilation fan I had to make sure to plug in and out in morning and at night because I was lacking a timer...so now that issue is coorected and everything is electronicly controlled.
My ladies look healthy today, but the leaves seem to be a little saggy from the neem heavy dosage yesterday. My front right chemband plant does show a little yellowing/browing on just a few of the newer upper fan leaves by where the fan leave stems meet the branch. I believe this may have been caused by light burn because this plant was closest to my HPS when the neem treatments were done
and the browning only is showing in spots where the neem solution would have pooled up/collected. Throughout the day I have been checking up on it to see if there are any further signs of stresses or further coloration but there is none. so far I believe my diagnosis is right.
Today the outside temps are lower to mid 70's and RH is only sitting at 35%. Inside my tent the canopy is reading 79F and upper tent is reading 81F.
Watering wont be needed for at least 2-4 more day's due to pots feeling about 60% wet still by feeling the weight of the pots and also I want to dry out first 3 inches of soil due to the above mentioned fungus gnat issue.
Wish me luck!!
This will be a very long 1st post but and I know that it ranges from April 8th until current, so you will be able to read everything I have done from transplant to current 3rd week veg...
I also am trying to stay organic as much as I can....
Here are my 2 youtube video's so far....
YouTube - 1st Legal Medical Marijuana grow....all organic under 400W MH in a 2x4 Hydrohut grow tent
YouTube - Icemud's 1st Legal Medical Marijuana grow under California Prop 215, weeks 1-3 veg under 400W MH
Here is my setup: (COPY AND PASTED FROM MY PERSONAL JOURNAL)
April 8th, 2011
2- Blue Dragon (sour diesel x blueberry) (flowers 8-9 weeks)
2- University Hills OG (OG Kush x Free Tibet x Professional 3-way) (70 day flower)
2- Chem-Ban (headban x chemdawg)
Equipment used:
Hydrohut 2x4x78" tent (actually 28"x58"x78" Silver edition
Hydrofarm 6" 400CFM fan
6'x24" carbon filter
digital humidity gauge with temp readings at canopy and light level
humidifier with programmable on/off and RH% settings
one 10" circulation fan mounted top blowing down
1 6" ducting fan circulating air in
4" desk fan in 6" inlet tubing supplying additional intake and lower air movement
Lighting:
400w Ushio hps (enhanced red), average room temperature increase with light...3-4 degrees. (bloom)
400w Ushio conversion MH (enhanced blue spectrum, Ushio) (veg)
in 6" cool tube with ducting out of tent
Soil mixture...
3 gal pots..
1/2 pot super soil mix...(used at bottom half of pots)
2 pots happy frog organic soil
1 pot organic compost
1/2 pot of perlite
3/4 pot of worm castings
1/8 pot of bat jamaican bat guano (1-10-2)
1/8 pot of peruvian seabird guano (10-10-2)
Soil ph at 7.0
top 1/2 of pots less harsh soil mixture.
2 pots of organic happy frog soil.
1 pot of organic compost
1/2 pot of perlite
1/3 pot of worm castings
1/8 pot of peruvian seabird guano...
soil ph at 7.0
Nutrient Line up
EarthJuice line (grow, bloom, meta-k, catalyst, micro)
Superthrive
botanicare cal mag plus
olivias cloning solution
hygrowzyme
bio weed-general organics
bio root-general organics
humic acid-Europonic
wholesome organic molassass
Advanced Nutrients Liquid carbo load
Humbolt countys purple max
Humbolt countys Gravity Flower Hardener
Humbolt counties Snow Storm Ultra
GROW PPM FEEDING CHART
PH throughout grow should be targeted at 6.2PH
Clones/Seedlings ppm 220-350
Week 1-2 ppm 400-550
Week 3-4 ppm 550-700
FLOWERING PPM
Week 1-2 ppm 700-850
Week 3-4 ppm 700-1000
Week 5-6 ppm 850-1000
Week 7-8 ppm 350-700
Flush...
EarthJuice Feeding Schedule used is Recirculation Schedule
All other nutrients were used as directed on bottles for Normal/heavy feeding
Clones received on April 8th 2011
Transplanted on 4-9 to 4 gal pots from rockwool cubes. Plants looked overall healthy but a little wilty
with a little dryness to the leaves and a little wilty. Gave 1 3/4 gallons of distilled water between the 6 plants. Added 4 ml of hygrozome, a drop of
superthrive and 10 ml of Olivia's cloning solution.
Light at this point is set for 24/0 with MH conversion light.
Started a organic feeding tea based on 1 cup worm casings, 1 cup organic compost, 1 cup happy frog soil, 2 tbl spoons of seabird poop, 5 teaspoons of molassas. This
was placed in a old nylon and hung into a 5 gallon bucket with 1 3/4 gallons of distilled water and a air stone with air pump. After an hour or so the brew was active.
Did not have any neem oil to de-bug the clones but did read that worm casings will keep bugs away if sprayed on foilage.
so I mixed some of my home brew organic tea, which at this point had been brewing for around 9 hours and had a nice earthy sweet smell and nice foam
on top of the bucket. I filled the bottom of a spray bottle with a 225 ppm solution of "organic tea" and lightly sprayed the plants covering the tops
and bottoms of the leaves. I also read this is a great way for nutrients to feed to the plant and for the stomatas to stay open longer so I figured it w
was good to go.
Late in the evening I checked my tea and fed about 2 cups of organic tea to the plants. ph was 6.2 and ppm was 229.
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April 9th, because of the weather, the relative humidity is very low today, indoors around 20%. I read this
is not good for newly transplanted clones and it should be around 65-80% at this point. I began to boil some water to
raise my overall room humidity which worked only temporarily and was wasteful. About every 2-4 hours I gave the walls and the soil a light
spraying of distilled water to aid in evaporation and raising the humidity, but the MH 400w I have is not producing enough
infra red heat to evaporate the water quickly. This helped raise the RH to around 33% but not nearly enough. Plants didn't seem to take on
the green from the light and watering that I had expected and after reading about how low humidity will force
the roots to keep feeding the leaves and not stretching so I got a evaporative humidifier and placed it in the
tent. The plants about 2 hours later seemed to be more lush and green and seemed stiffer. Now the constant temps are reading 78-80F and Rh is around 52% which is about the highest I am able to get in the tent, even with fans low.
Gave the plants a watering at 1am because they seemed dry by shoving my finger about 3 inches into the soil. Mixed up 1 gallon of distilled water
with 3/4 cup of Olivia's cloning solution. 230 ppm and ph was high at 7.8 so after adjusting it to 6.2 it was ready for the plants. Evenly gave
about 1.5 to 2 cups of water to the plants, not wanting to overwater them and that seemed to cover the soil nicely. Temp is at 78 F and Rh 51%.
Also today dumped out the remaining organic tea because its sweet smell had disappeared and seemed to be more of decomposing soil. Didnt want to risk damaging the plants
so I dumped the batch.
Took Photos!!!
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April 10th...
Plants looked even greener and stronger today. The newer leaves that were curling downward yesterday have now
straitened out more and have taken on a more lush look. No need for soil watering as it has been lower temps and lower
humidity, the soil is plenty moist from yesterdays watering. I am guessing it will be 2-3 days before I have to water
again. I did mix a very light foiler spray to give the plants a lil boost of N and some hormone. I added to 2 cups of distilled
water 1 very small drop of superthrive and about 2-3 ml of Botanicare Cal Mag. PPM of mixture was at 350 and the PH was 6.2.
Sprayed very lightly the leaves from underside and very light misting of soil and tops of leaves...gave each one a minor shake a few mins later
to knock off any water bubbles and blew some breaths on them to knock of any additional drops.
Temps today in tent remained at almost a constant 78F and RH of 50%.
Also was reading today that classical music played in 3 hr segments can increase plant growth and yield so I played some bach and beethoven today
while i was cleaning up...dont know if i was just high or not but the plants did seem happier.
Switched to 20/4 cycle for the remainder of the week.
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April 11th....
Plants seem to be doing well and look healthy. My 2 University OG's are already showing new leaf growth, my chem-bands are strenghening but not showing much growth yet.
Got my earth juice line today. All except Meta-K which is induced the next week of the cycle. Plant soil is plenty wet today from watering 2 days ago. Mixing up a batch of Earth Juice for use
tomm or Wednesday. Will be airating a tea today for use within 24 to 48 hours from now. Mixed up 1/2 gallon which should be about right for watering all 6 plants. Went by grow schedule ppm 350, ph 6.7, added 2ml grow, .7 of all others + 2ml of cal/mag, and 5 ml of olivias rooting)
Moved my 400w MH light closer to the plants today, its within about 12 inches because it is air cooled and not hot running.
Also got my neem oil and another gnat killer (organic which i will be applying just before lights go out tonight)
Applied the Rasta brand gnat killer and neem oil, sprayed in heavy amounts to the leaves. The gnat killer smelled really good, like rosemary, and the neem was well not pleaseing smelling. Did
notice a few little fly type bugs that took off when sprayed. Nothing on the leaves shows infestation though.
Soil at 2am is dry about 1 to 2 inches deep, the pots feel much lighter today, will most likely water tomm with earth juice.
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April 12th
Plants are looking real healthy, both OG's are taking off with very tight internodes, the chem band is not looking so healthy and is quite wilty
and showing no signs of new growth, both of the blue dragons are also taking off and show new growth. Gave a watering of about 2 cups of pre bubbled
earth juice mix. Went off the growing schedule. Also added CAl/Mag to the nutrient mix. only 2ML.
After the watering about an hour later the leaves took on a very green look, plants looked happy, even the chem-band which was struggling looks healthyer and greener.
Temp inside has stayed right at 78F with a RH of 50%.
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April 13th.
Left plants alone for the most part today. Did some LST to 1 of the University OGs that was growing a bit lanky as well as the 2 blue dragons
which are growing rather nicely. I didn't LST the other UV OG because it was growing very slowly upward with very tight internodes so I left it
undesterbed to let the nodes develop more. The 2 chem band are still taking off very slowly but not showing any signs of stress. I believe it may
be because these 2 clones only have 3 leaves (too many times topped on mother?) and I believe that is what stunted there growth. Also the clones all
showed signes of flowering and I think that may be why these are taking longer to convert back to veg.
Shot video of plants today
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April 14th.
Today I LST'd the other 3 remaining plants, the one UV og and also the 2 chemband plants. Since they were not showing stress I figured it may give them
more light to the lower nodes and allow more growth as well as for them to bush out. I also mixed up a 420ppm folier spray of earth juice grow, distilled water,
earth juice micro and a small drop of cal mag and super thrive. I gave the babies a light misting after making the ph sit at 6.2 and also gave a very small (about 1/2 cup) per
plant to the roots. I followed it up with a very light spray of Rasta Bobs Death Mite (app #2) for preventive measuers against pests. The plants that I LST'd yesterday are already
reaching for the light and showing healthy new growth.
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April 15th...
Plants were looking great today, all of them have now seemed to adapt to the soil and produce rapid growth. Even the chem band plants that
were taking forever to root and show growth are now in the stage of showing new leaves. Today I didn't give any water to the soil. Wanted to let them strech out roots to find
water and let the soil dry out. Did tie down the plants a little more using LST so new nodes are exposed and will give room to verticle growth.
_________
END OF CLONE TRansPLANT WEEK 1
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April 16th..
Plants soil was dry about 2-3 inches down and so I mixed up a very light feed batch. Mixed 1 gal of distilled water
with 8ml of hydrozyme, 10ml of grow, 4ml of cal/mag, and a drop of superthrive. Ppm sat just about 550ppm and the ph was adjusted to 6.3 Gave about 2-3 cups of water per plant
covering the entire top soil of each pot and a little drainage water came out the bottoms.
I have to leave for vacation so I had my lights set at 18-6, carbon filter fan set at medium, intake fan set on while light was on 18 and also
set every other hour on, then off thruought the dark period. I also put a small fan on my balast constantly on to keep it cooler while gone and reduce room temp.
Plants were given also 24 hrs constant classical music thruought the time gone...did research which showed that classical indeed does promote positive growth.
Now I know there is a week that will go by while on vacation and over some debating of either not watering the entire week, or letting a neighbor water about mid week. I decided
since the plants were young and needed to root as well as were healthy enough to be stressed, I would let them go an entire week in a hotter than normal situation so that the plants
would go into "drout mode" and slow production of growth and enhance streaching of roots in search of water. I know that this can be risky to let them be alone for a week and anything
could happen from power outages to ph issues but I decided to take the chance and figured even in the worst case scenerio, the plants would be able to be brought back to life...
Here goes nothing...
Vacation 16th thru 26th....
_____________________________
APRIL 22 END OF VEG WEEK 1
______________________________
Vacation till 26th
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April 26th...
Photos taken....
Very excited to see my babies after a week vacation. As soon as I walked into my place whoa it was hot and humid and immediatly I worried about
my babies. I checked temperature inside the tent and 86F at above light level and 84.7F near plant canopy so I was not too concerned and my fans
worked well while I was gone. The soil was almost completely dry about 4-5" down so immediatly I knew my babies were thirsty and had to give them a drink.
Since I starved them a little over the period of a week, with one watering and slightly above normal temperatures, I knew that this condition would cause the
plants to streach there roots in search of water so I indended on this to happen over much debate. Upon looking at my plants, HOLY shiz!!
Most of them have really taken off, but one in particular caught my eye. My Blue dragon #1 is taking off above all with a very thick stem and over 8' of growth for the week. My Blue dragon #2 also shows a lot of tight but short growth but looked very healthy.
My 2, 3 leaved Chem Bands that were the smallest of the bunch have now caught up to the rest, and have developed thicker stems and many new healthy leaves, showing about 3-6 inches of growth over week.
One of my University OG's is really streaching and taking off showing about 4-6" of new growth, #2 UOG is however very sick. It does show about 2-4 inches of new growth however all of the new and some of the older leaves have turned a bright green/yellow with veins still s
showing green. After some photo diagnosis, it seems to be a lack of zinc which is causing the plants growth to stunt and yellow.
Since there was much vertical growth between the plant nodes, further tie down/LST was applied to all plants (see pictures).
I took 2 gallons of RO water and evenly watered all 6 of the plants, with the exception of the UHOG that is stunted in which I gave a double dose of RO water to flush any salt/nutrient build ups
After a good amount of water filled the drip trays on each pot, I knew the soil was thouroughly soaked and the plants were fed. Also to give a little nutrient fix/boost to the hurt/stunted UHOG I mixed a folier spray of
Olivias clone solution 2ml, EJ catalyst 2ml, ej micro 2ml and ej bloom 2ml to about 2.5 cups of water, ppm was about 550ppm and the ph was raised to 5.6. Added to spray bottle and gave a very heavy folier spray to all of the plants
but an extra amount to the yellowed UHOG plant. Followed up with a light spray of Rasta Bobs death mite and then the plants were blown on and lightly shaken minutes later to remove excess drops on leaves. Temps now are around 78-79F and humidity is around 45%.
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April 27th
Today getting started with mixing up my next EJ feeding for 2-3 days from now. As reccomended I am doing in a 5 gallon bucket with airstone circulating oxygen. According to a buddie of mine,
he recommended going with the EJ schedule under "recirculation" for my nutrient amounts. He produces some of the best nug I have ever tasted so his advice is golden. Anyways, mixed up
45 ML of Grow, 17ml of Micro, 10ml of catalyst, and 5ml of bloom, and 10ml of cal mag plus. and 5ML of molassas for 1 gallon +8 cups of water. Even though I'm not using for a few days, tested the ppm and it sat nicely at 550ppm. I mixed these
nutrient amounts to 1 gal of RO water + 8 extra cups of RO water.
After all of the plants yesterday were LST'd again and tied down, they have already rotated the leaves to position for best light and all of the nodes and stems are facing the light.
Just before lights came on this morning I gave the plants another folier feeding of the mix from last night and gave them a lil shaking to knock off extra water drops.
I am really worried about my UVOG which is almost completely yellow leaved. Some of the other plants are also showing signs of yellowing between the veins on the leafs but not on new growth, only on a few middle leaves. After much research I have found that there are 2 things that
could be going wrong, one is a zinc deficiency and the other is a lack of potassium (K). From what I read a lack of potassium can stunt growth, hold back water transfer and also cause zn, mag and other micro nutrients to sieze up. After brewing my EarthJuice tea I decided not to wait to
apply since soil was still soaked from last nights flush so I evenly applied the Earthjuice brew to each of the plants. I consistantly checked back every few hours to see if I noticed any greening of the leaves or signes of more stress and didnt notice any changes.
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April 28th
Still not seeing any change besides a slight changing from yellow to green of the UVOG that is stunted. I also didn't notice any changes in the stessed leaves in the other plants so I believe my plants are lacking potassiom. Since I did not have the Earthjuice meta-k yet I decided to take
a trip to the hydro store to purchase some as well as some soil conditioners and root stimulators. After leaving the store I now have EarthJuice Meta-K, Europonic Fossil Fuel Humic Acid, General Organics Bio Weed (algae), General Organics Bio Root (many naterial nutrients), Advanced Nutrients Liquid Carboload.
Being that I am growing soil and organic, I realize the importance of keeping a healthy root and soil environment for my plants and knew that humic acid and the other additives would not over furtalize my plants but would allow for better nutrient absorbtion. I mixed up 1 gallon of distilled water, 5ML of EJ meta-k, 15ml of humic acid, 1tsp of Bio root, 1tsp of bio weed, 6ml of hygrozyme and
3ml of liquid carboload. I fed each plant about 2.5 cups of water until a slight trickle filled the bottom of my drain areas. I know about the dangers of overwatering plants and did not want to give them another watering so soon, however, with the soil lacking potassium I didn't want to see further hurt done to my babies so I figured what would be worse and decided to give them this feeding
to promote healthy soil and allow nutrients to better reach the roots. Now lets wait and see. The mixture before ph adjustment was sitting pretty high around 8.5ph so I brought it down to around 6.4ph. and the ppm was sitting nice at 294ppm.
After thinking more about what could have caused this nutrient lockup I also remembered that before I left for vacation I bought some RO water from the gas station instead of the usual distilled water and have been using the RO water since. I thought to myself that soil must act as some kind of filter for the nutrient/ph salts that are added to keep the mix at a 6.4 range, the remaining HIGH PH water would pass thru to the lower roots and alkalinize my soil. I tested the RO water's
PH and found that it was really high, around 8.4PH which was very unusual I though for supposedly near pure water. I also checked the water with PH drops vs my Hanna PH meter and found that my Hanna was also not giving accurate results, which could have led to my soil runoff being close to around 7.5-8.2 range. (Now I understand what was stressing my plants.)
I quickly ran out to the store and bought distilled water, undercut the ph around 6.2 and watered again the plants with over 2.5 cups of water each to drop the soil ph and "flush" the plants one last time to rid any ailments or over fertalization. I checked the runoff of the water this time and all of the plants now were showing a runoff of around 6.5-7PH which made me more comfortable.
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End of Week 2 veg
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April 29th....
Today is the true day to see if the problem has been corrected with my soil ph and so far I am very happy with the results. MY OVOG that was almost completely yellow yesterday is now showing the lower smaller leaves to have changed back to healthy green and the newer and top
fan leaves have all begun to fill in the yellowing (chorisis) and now are returning to healthy colored and showing very little but are showing new growth... All of my other plants that were showing very minimal signs of phospherous/zinc issues and ph problems were now all very dark green
and looking very healthy and showing much new growth, (some 2-3" overnight). I used a fork to easily airate the top soil of each of the pots about an inch down, all new growths were LST'd and tied down to maximize bushing and new shoots light exposure and the pots were all rotated to maximise their light available.
The temperature today was staying cool in the upper 70's and humidity was low around 30% so I turned off my humidifier to help draw more water out of the plants and thru the roots and the plants really started to give off a nice aroma after a few hours with the lower humidity. After about 8pm I then turned back on my humidifier at a low
setting to ride out the remainder of the night. No watering was necessary at this point and will probably be 2-3 more days before they are watered again. Twards the end of the day my UVOG that was sick is really looking healthy and there are NO "completely yellow leaves" anymore and they have all started to turn back into a healthy green color.!!! yes!!
My UVOG #1 showing healthy growth and returning to natural healthy color
my UVOG #2 is growing very well and is in second place for largest and healthiest plant. It continues to thrive and has over 9 shoots and bud nodes already.
my chembands- were the slowest to root of all my plants are now showing very dark and healthy green fan leaves, they are now caught up to and may be even larger than my UVOG's
My blue dragons are the healthiest of all, the largest is my prize winner, many fan leaves, about 8-9 main chutes and very thick stem, my other blue dragon is growing very tight, tons of nodes and chutes but not really streaching, but very healthy.
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April 30th...
I was going to wait another day or 2 to water but with the finger check about 3" down was really dry and the pots felt pretty light so I decided to feed my ladies some nutrients since the flush the other day. I mixed up a batch of 1.5 gallons of distilled water, Used recirculation chart on Earthjuice.
I mixed up 45ML of Grow, 5ML of Bloom, 5ML of Catalyst, 5Ml of Meta-k and 10ML of Microblast and added to airated distilled water. I also added Advanced nutrients Liquid CArboload 3ML, 10ML of Botanicar Cal Mag+, 15ML of Europonic Humic acid, 1 tsp of Bio Weed by General Organics and 1 tsp of Bio Root by GO.
I bubbled the mixture for a good half hour to hour before I tested the ph...whoa it was low...sitting around 4ph. I brought it up with PH UP to the 6.2 range and gave each of the plants about 4-5 cups of water until the drain pans which left the drain pans half full. tested the soil run off and also sitting nicely at 6.2!!!
I measured the ppms as well and it was at around 740ppm.
The stunted UVOG is looking even healthier today and after tying down the main stalk, it has already turned to the light and showing new growth. All of the other plants that showed a fan leaf or two with stress have now fully healed and are thriving and my 3leaf chemdogs are now producing 5 leaf fans!!
The temp is cool today, at around 75F in my tent but the humidity is very low so I cranked up my humidifier full blast and my tent is hovering around 40RH.
Overall the plants are looking happy and healthy.
Photos taken of overall plants and also nutrient lineup
My next feeding will be an organic tea, 2-3 days from now...
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May 1st
Today I cleaned the cool tube that my 400wMH is in. Made a big difference in light amount reaching the plant, even a little dust on the inside wiped off
made a huge difference. I also re-arranged the layout of my grow tent, shifted the humidifier to the right side for easier access now that my ladies are really starting to take off
All of my plants are showing very strong growth and they are really starting to bush out. I am contemplating another light added to the tent, either a 400hps or a 600w hps but affordablility is the top concern.
No watering needed today, soil is still moist about an inch down and further. Humidity has been really low lately, in the low teens and under 20%RH. I cranked on my humidifier very low to give a little moisture to the air and raise the RH to 30%. I know at this point of growth lower humidity is better
because it increases transpiration in leaves but I also turned on the humidifier because it does have a nice evaporagive cooling effect and keeps the temperatures in my tent down around 81F.
Adjusted a few of the plants with LST to make more light accessable to the lower nodes and leaf growths. I also did a very mild supercropping to a few of the plants with thicker stems and showing more growth.
photos taken
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May 2nd.
Today the tempature is very hot and humidity is very low...under 20% and around 82F outside temps. My tent however with humidifier set on low is keeping a consistant temp under 82F and RH sitting nice about 30%. THe pots are beginning to feel a little light due to the low humidity and a lot of evaporation so today
I started brewing my organic tea for watering within the next day or two depending on soil condition.
In 2 gallons of distilled water with an airstone I loaded an old nylon full off 2 potting shovels of Happy Frog potting soil, 1 shovel of organic compost, 1.5 shovels of worm casings and a good 1/2 shovel of peruvian bat guano. Also added to the organic tea I put in 3 caps of "naked green smoothy" (which was experimental but had a lot of natural sugars, green algaes, green foods and cloraphyl).
I also added around 30ML of Earthjuice grow, 1 tbsp of molassus, 10ml of BIOROOT, 10ML of BioWEEd, 15ml of Europonic Humic acid and 20ml of HYDROzyme, and 5ml of Cal Mag. I also took 1 (1000mg) spiralina pill (human) and crushed it to powder and put it in the mix. After a lot of reading about algaes and spiralina and the benifits, I decided to give it a try.
This mix even though somewhat standard also has some experimented additions due to making a healthy environment for the soil. THis mix will be airated for 24-48 hours until sweet earthy foam and smell arize as well as pots/plants are needing water.
Plants look very healthy today and even my stunted UVOG is now almost completely green and showing much new growth, so I know that the ph/zinc/potassium defficiency is now corrected.
photo taken
At the end of the day today the soil was very dry about 2" down and the pots felt very light, so I decided since I wanted to test out my microbrew but not overdo it, I would give each plant just 1.5 cups of the tea at about 8pm to see how they react.
About an 2 hours after feeding the leaves look a very dark healthy green under the MH and no sagging leaves or any signs of stress at all!!! I'm so far happy. If all else looks good in the morning I will most likely give them a watering.
photo taken
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May 3
Today early in the morning I fed my experimental microbrew tea to the ladies. I am a bit nervous because the addition of spiralina and 3 capfuls of Naked Green smoothy added. I checked the ph and it was sitting at 7.0ph so I lowered it around 6.2 and the ppm was sitting nicely at 780ppm. I gave each of the ladies about 3-4 cups of the nutrient mix.
Water drained off very little in each of the drip pans and the plants within an hour have already taken on a very dark green lush look. I did a lil more LST of the loose branches to even out the growth on each plant and did a FIM training of each plant 1-2 per plant. I didn't want to overdo it so I kept it minimal to see how they react.
About 6pm today, luckily while looking at my ladies...the power went out for a few minutes. I couldnt get my MH conversion bulb to fire back up, takes a good 10 mins at least to cool down so I immediatly switched out my MH and replaced it with my HPS bulb. Didn't want the babies to be deprived of light too long. Wow the HPS is bright and twards the end of the day
the ladies really started to like the new HPS and really showed signs of reaching for the light. I also know the simulated red spectrum of the HPS simulates evening/fall sun so it may in fact cause the plants to strech more. I only will be using this thru the remainder of todays lighting cycle and switching back for the remainder of grow period.
I also have been reading alot about light placement and I have realized with my air cooled hood, and my 400w MH, I have had the light way to high up for the plants to maximize the light usage. I normally was keeping it around 12-18" but I lowered it within about 8" instead and the plants really seem to like the additional light being provided.
photos taken
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May 4th.
Wow, the plants really liked my organic tea. Today they look even healthier, bushier and have grown what seem to be an inch or 2 overnight. I switched around my plants, gave my chemband plants front and center since they were a little less bushy then the rest. Even my UVOG that was stunted a week ago is now fully green and showing much new growth. The
plant stems now are getting really thick and many fan leaves have started forming with new bud sites all over because of the LST training. I began to plan out the construction of my scrog screen and within the next week I will be adding it to the tent to really start the streching process and maximize yeild. I am very impressed in how fast these ladies are growing.
The roots must have really taken on to there pots and are sucking up water like no other. Today already my pots seem lighter than a new watering by a lot and I believe within 2-3 days they should be ready for there full nutrient feeding. I may introduce a flush in a week or 2 but right now since they were heavily flushed with the ph issues, I will keep feeding them until I see any stress signs.
Since I am gettin close to the end of week 3 and my babies are really filling out, but still not as big as I would like them to be for flowering, I most likely will go 4-5 weeks for veg before switching on the 12/12 light and inducing bloom.
It really will be dependent on how full my SCROG screen is at the end of week 4. I plan on making a screen that is not completely flat so it will utilize more light on the edges of the screen, these will be at around a 45 degree angle from the middle half of the screen to the edge. I figured that this will give me more surface area to SCROG out the plants as well as make use of the verticle space that otherwise wouldnt be used.
I also have really been keeping a watch on my digital ph meter, it seems to be accurate sometimes but then other times it will give me 2 different readings for the same liquid tested. Will be on my way to the store today to pick up some calibration liquid as well as the storage cleaner for it.
photos taken
What a score!!! I just got a great deal and will be buying a 600W lumatek digital ballast, another vented hood by hydrofarm, 2 ushio 600w bulbs, another carbon filter, and another inline fan...for a killer price... Cant wait to pick these up and add 90,000 more lumens to my tent...hope i can keep it cool. My plan is to run the 400W MH in the mornings for the first 10 hours. At 8 hours into the light schedule I will have the 600w HPS light up for the remaining 10 hours of the cycle, so they will overlap by 2 hours. From what I have read plants respond better to both spectrums of light and my goal here is to represent the sun's cycle. Blue light in morning, full spectrum high intensity mid day, and red light twards evening. I do want to do this for the remainder of my veg cycle and then when bloom 12/12 i will do a similar approach, but have blue light for 2 hrs in morning, then both for hrs mid day, then 2 hrs of red at night... What do you pros think about this technique?
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May 5th
photo taken
Plants are looking really healthy and showing a lot of larger fan leaves now. After LST yesterday they again have streched for the light and are promoting good 2ndary bud node development. I felt the soil pots today and they feel quite light already,
I mixed up my full nutrient batch. (eJ grow 45ml, ej micro 10ml, ej cat 5ml, ej bloom 5ml, and ej metak 5ml) with 5ml of bio bud, 10ml of bio root, 5ml of cal/mag and 15 ml of humic acid. Also added 3ml of liquid carbo load by advanced nutrients and I am bubbling with airstone i 1.5 gal of water for 24 hrs.
After brewing the tea for 5 hours I checked the ph of the mixture and whoa...3.9ph. Added some GH ph up and brought it right to 6.2ph. Fed all of my babies about 3-4 cups of feeding until very light drain out bottom of pots. I made sure to evenly water the soil paying special attention to the sides of the pots because from what I have read,
the roots will shoot strait out from the taproot just like the stems off the main stem and they will wrap the edges of the pot. I made sure all the soil was completely soaked and now my pots feel heavy again. Within a few hours of feeding, the plants seem to look greener, have a even stronger aroma and really have enjoyed there meal...
Will be 2-4 days before next watering which will be a lighter nutrient mix.
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Today I got my additional lighting for a great deal, cant wait to feed my ladies both light spectrums and see how they react. I picked up a Lumatek digital 600w ballast with 2 Ushio HPS bulbs. Got a 600w and an extra 400 watt for my other ballast. Also in the deal got a 4" inline fan, extra carbon scrubber with new charcoal and also a hydrofarm air cooled reflector. I really wanted to add both light spectrums for veg and especially bloom since Ive been reading the UV from the blue really will help create more potent buds as the red spectrum will help produce fatter, and tigher buds.
I hooked both lights up in my tent, and installed the new carbon scrubber in addition to the existing one. I wanted 2 because I am having heat issues already just running the one 400w MH and adding an additional 400-600w I knew there would be even more issues.
I hooked the new carbon scrubber up to the ducting on the 2 hid lights, and out the other side of the tent, where I have the 4" fan hooked up and blowing near my ballasts to help keep them cool, especially the magnetic one which gets pretty hot.
I now have one which will only run when the light cycle is turned on, which will help cool the tent and lights when on, as well as provide additional smell reduction.
My other carbon scrubber is hooked up to a fan speed dial and a thermostat so I can keep it running all the time and dial in the correct setting according to the inside temperature of the tent.
I have the lights set to replicate the natural color of the daytime sun. I have my 400W MH running for the first 10hours of the day. I have my 600W HPS ( set to 400W for veg) running for the last 10 hours of the day of an 18 hour cycle, meaning that in the middle of the day, both lights are on providing nearly 90,000 lumens of light. This replicates the blue color of the mornings, bright overhead and intense mid day sun, and the red color spectrum of the evenings. I have read that people who have used both spectrums of light produce very well compared to using just one or the other, I got a great deal online, and so I said what the Fkk...
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May 7th
May 7th...
Checked all the ladies and my blue dragons are definitely the monsters of the bunch so far. One of my Chembands and one of my UVHOG is doing great today and showing lots of new growth and nodes on the lower stems. I LST'd all plants again today to spread out the branches even
farther giving the lower nodes more "auxions" therefore tricking them into thinking they are the top of the plant. My 2nd chemband and UVOG2 are still taking on rather slow and their pots feel much heavier than those of the rest. Is this because they just havent established as large of
a root ball yet? They do look healthy but growth is slow. I will not be watering them for at least another 2 days until the pots feel lighter. As for the others which are thriving, the pots feel much lighter (dryer) and they may be ready for a watering as soon as tomm. I will be using
just a ph balanced dose of pure distilled water to give the soils a good flush and allow for me to monitor the soil runoff to see where my slower growing plants are at. Otherwise they really seem to be liking the dual light setup and all seem to have perked up even more and all are exhibiting very thick stems at this point.
Today all but 2 of my pots felt very light and were needing watering, however my 2 slower growing plants, (the UVOG and Chemband) that were both stunted with ph issue a few weeks back, don't seem to be uptaking as much water as the rest.
I watered the 4 dry pots with 4-5 cups each of 6.2ph distilled water, no nutrients this feeding. The other 2 that felt still very moist I gave only 1 cup to each plant of the distilled water. I am going to starve them for a few more days to see if maybe the roots just haven't taken on yet from the ph issue. Any other suggestions why they may not be taking up water like the rest. I measured all of the overflow/drainwater from the pots and they all range between 5.9 and 6.2.
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Today is May 8th..
So last night before the lights shut down, I removed all remaining LST on the plants to start preparing them for the SCROG screen I will be installing this week. I really wanted them to start reaching for the lights and developing stronger stems, not being supported by the LST strings.
Today when I awoke and checked them, they all have really turned towards the light and started becoming more bush form and seem to have grown an inch or so overnight, as well as standing up much straighter!!! My 2 slower growing plants in the middle (UVHOG and Chemband) are now catching up to the rest and the stems are thickening quite a bit. They still don't exhibit as large of growth as there sister plants in the bunch, but this is understood due to a nutrient lock up in week 2-3. Overall they are growing heavily now and I assume will do very well in the next coming week.
I felt all the pots and my Blue Dragon #1 (the big one) sucked all the water out of the drain pan and even the soil seemed lighter today than right after a watering should...wow, I am going to have to water her every 2-3 days now.. The middle two stragglers pots now feel fairly light, not dry yet but are showing much more water usage than last night...(and RH was around 45% so it wasn't just evaporating) All of the other pots felt as normal, lighter than yesterday but still 3 days away from next watering, which will be again full EJ line with additives....
Later this afternoon I had looked inside the tent to check on the babies and what did I see!! Mother truckin fungus Gnats. I spotted a few larger ones and a few tiny ones flying around inside...Immediately I started sending them to hell with the clap method and after I saw no more gave the plants and pots a good shaking to see if there were any more... After seeing no more fly out I started looking closer at the pots and noticed a few tiny baby ones crawling up the pots...I dropped a load right there!! I grabbed my neem, mixed up a medium to heavy batch of distilled water, neem oil and a few drops of palmolive dish soap that it recommends. I first cleaned the entire bottom tray of my tent to rid any dead materials, soil or other contaminants and then I raised my lights and soaked the hell out of my ladies...top and bottom of leaves, soil, pots, even the drain holes with exposed soil at the bottoms of the pots. I even gave a good layer to the bottom of my tent so any of these little bastards would have a horrible puking death...I followed this up with a very light spritzing of Rasta Bob's Death mite and then air dryed the ladies with a big rubbermaid container top.
After the spraying and the leaves had dried,which only took a minute or 2 with the dry humidity today...temp around 75f at canopy 80 at top of tent and RH was 38%. I shook the plants a few more times to rid any droplets left and also knock loose any other possible gnats that may have strapped on for dear life!! lol I didn't see any...
Proceded to check throughout the night for any signs of more of them flying around, even shaking the plants ever few hours and giving them a good air rush with the rubbermaid container top to see if any gnats cruised around or went to the light....NONE!!!
As for the ladies...no signs of stress what so ever, they really seem to be thriving in the dual light setup.
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May 9th
Today is exactly 1 month from the date of transplant!!!! I will be adding the SCROG screen this week and vegging for another 1 to 2 weeks depending on how fast they are filling the screen. 1 month birthday!!! lol
Today upon the lights turning on I immediatly inspected the ladies for any signs of more fungus gnats. I found only 1 flying around which I killed via the Mr. Miogi Method...(not really chopsticks). I also checked the sides of the pots as well as the soil and found in my front right Chemband plant
1 fungus gnat larve and 1 newly hatched crawler, not quite flying yet. I destroyed them as well and then gave the ladies soil another good top spraying of Neem/dishsoap solution. A few hours later I checked back to see if I spotted any more flying ones and I only found one nestled in the soil, looked like the
bastard was trying to lay eggs again. Squashed him and then turned around the top 1" of soil in each pot and followed it up with a good soaking of (Safer brand, End All Killer). This product is rated organic and says it will kill flying, eggs and larva so I figured why not since its organic and kills all 3 stages.
I also bought some sticky yellow sheets and put 3 in my tent. 2 of them are near the top of the tent by the vents and one is at canopy level. I also put one by my kitchen sink because this is where they I first started seeing them by my garbage disposal. I will check each day on for signs of any stuck to the yellow cards
and I will follow up in 2-3 days with another spraying of soil and pots. I also bought some misquito dunks which are to be used with watering. However I am going to wait a few days before any watering to let the first few inches of soil dry up. I read that the fungus gnats will reproduce as long as there is moisture available for them
to lay eggs in. If you let the top soil dry out, then the eggs will die. So i figure with a combination of organic pesticide and soil conditioning, I should be in the green but it will take a few days for the test to really show. I also bought today a ph 4.01 and ph 7.01 calabration solution and storage solution for my hanna. Wow I was off
by at least .8PH...may be why my babies were locked up a few weeks ago. RE-Calibrated the hanna ph meter and now its readings are right on the money. I bought a timer today also because my ventilation fan I had to make sure to plug in and out in morning and at night because I was lacking a timer...so now that issue is coorected and everything is electronicly controlled.
My ladies look healthy today, but the leaves seem to be a little saggy from the neem heavy dosage yesterday. My front right chemband plant does show a little yellowing/browing on just a few of the newer upper fan leaves by where the fan leave stems meet the branch. I believe this may have been caused by light burn because this plant was closest to my HPS when the neem treatments were done
and the browning only is showing in spots where the neem solution would have pooled up/collected. Throughout the day I have been checking up on it to see if there are any further signs of stresses or further coloration but there is none. so far I believe my diagnosis is right.
Today the outside temps are lower to mid 70's and RH is only sitting at 35%. Inside my tent the canopy is reading 79F and upper tent is reading 81F.
Watering wont be needed for at least 2-4 more day's due to pots feeling about 60% wet still by feeling the weight of the pots and also I want to dry out first 3 inches of soil due to the above mentioned fungus gnat issue.
Wish me luck!!
The University Hill's og was the tastiest...very smooth smoke, very potent head high and incredible kush/fruity taste... The chemband was the most potent and largest producer and it is hard to even finish a fully packed bowl to yourself... The blue dragon even though beautiful, was the most disappointing out of the bunch....the back plant somehow stressed itself on half of the plant and many of the buds either hermied or forced seed pods...so those are going to be used for edibles or oil's... the good ones though were delicious...leaving an almost blue dream taste in the mouth and in the air... the high was very upbeat and cerebral and you can easily focus with this...great daytime smoke.. 
