First Hydro Grow

UPDATE!


Veg, day 28:

Things are looking healthy! They arnt as big as I had hoped for at this point, I don't know if its the strains I'm growing or my early missteps that may have slowed some growth. I added a 1000w HPS to the room, I'm hoping that the added light will bump up growth rate a bit. I was hoping to switch the girls over at 5 weeks but I might go 6 weeks now.


My veg room is almost complete, I will post some pics of that when it is done.

PK

PKHydro said:

Beauty man, thanks for the clear straight forward advice. I will raise the lights, and drop the ppms some more, then just sit and be patient.

Why don't I see more people growing trees? I never really understood the reasoning behind growing a bunch of little plants rather than just I few big ones. Anyway to each their own I suppose, this is the only way I have ever seen it done.

Click to expand...

Why? Because of time. Just think about it. By the time you've vegged for x amount of time, flipped to flower, harvested etc someone who is doing sog has already finished and started again.

PKHydro said:

A few quick pictures from today @ 21 days old.








Now I want to trim some of the bottom crap off of the plant so I'm not left with a lot of fluffy or small popcorn bud, but I don't know when I should start the pruning process. If I start pruning in flower is it too late for the plant to really focus on getting big tops?

Click to expand...

You can trim up to the 2nd week in flower. Let the plant stretch then you will see what lower stuff isnt going to produce. Most people usually cut the bottom 3rd off.

Rotating photos is easy and very helpful

​I don't really understand the principle behind those different growing techniques. But with my system ill be harvesting the 11 plants every 8 weeks. Hopefully ill reach my goal/necessity of about 12lbs. I could build a bunch of small rooms and harvest 1 plant a week I suppose but it's just not worth the work and cost of all the separate systems. Does a SOG grow not have an 8 week flower period?



2nd week of flower, perfect thanks. I figured its about the bottom 3rd.


Sorry man, I'm just using my iPhone to post and upload pics. If my computer was working I'd be using it....BTW, I have to say, you win the award for worst avatar on the net, lol.

Well Tuesday was 5 weeks for my plants. But I decided to push them another week before I flip to 12/12. I really wished I had my shit together for the first few weeks of this grow as I feel I was running about a week behind the whole time.


In my 5 gallon buckets, above the drain holes, I cut a 1-7/8" hole and plugged it with a 2" PVC cap. This allows me to pull out the cap and remove the roots from the drain holes, it takes a while but doing this untill the root mat develops will eventually train them to stay outta the drain.


The weird thing is I pulled my plugs to check the root development and there is 1 plant that is WAY farther along root growth wise than all the rest. All of them, except "The Freak" as I'm now calling it, have only a few roots that have made their way to the bottom of the lava rock in the 3 gallon bucket and have started to dangle down. But "The Freak" is outta control.

The first picture, which needs to be rotated to the right but I can't on my phone, shows the root growth in 10 of the 11 plants. The second picture shows the roots of The Freak.

As far the actual plant growth The Freak is one of the more dominant plants in the room, but not distinctly big. All the plants are growing and average of 2.5" per day. And by this coming Tuesday I hope they are big enough to flip over to flower.

Exactly how big did you expect at 28 days 😳 look pretty good to me!

Lol, bigger!!!

Basically, all I have to compare it to is my friends grow. He does his own clones and they are MUCH bigger than the ones I purchased. So when I tried to follow his feeding schedule my clones burnt a bit...as you could see in my first post. So I cut back for a week, and by week two I was at his week one target and so on and so forth. And my growth rate basically followed suit with my feeding schedule about a week behind what his would be growth wise.

Anyway here they are at day 35...7 days to go until flower.

That is just great..you really got yourself a nice growth.

Thanks, I can't wait till these girls finish!

I'm confused!! So you have a 90 plant licence, tons of room, tons of light, why 11 plants? I understand its not a money making venture but why would you not do way more with what you have already at your disposal re lights, pump, space, etc. all that is needed is more pails? Again realizing that its not for profit is it not a waste of resources not to utilize what you have. Get enough to shut it down and save energy till need to do it again, just curious is all lol. Im amazed that you can get a licence to grow that many plants the first time around. The canadian government as of yesterday just made all private medical grows illegal and meds now have ti be purchased from large scale commercial grows at $10-$15 per gram. The only licensed one as of yesterday is known for their less then stellar meds. Canada IMO has taken a huge step back!!!! Again nice grow, you must be very proud. But way prouder with a hundred i would suspect lol.

Well I'll actually have 22 plants once my veg room is up an running. But basically my thinking is...these 11 will hopefully fill my room once done. And the amount of work that is involved in tying the plants up to my grid for support (2 guys 2.5-3hrs) and then pre-picking all the fan leaves off the night before harvest (3 guys 3-3.5hrs) then harvesting (8 guys 6+hrs) and curing all the bud off of them....if I had 100 plants to do it would be crazy. Not to mention the amount of water that 100 plants will drink. I'd be in there filling my 55gal drum on an hourly basis. As it is right now these 11 are drinking over 10gal per day.


So yea I suppose there are two schools of thought. I could have done as many as legally allowed, they would have to be much smaller to be manageable. And probably done in soil to be easier. Or you can grow a few in a small simple hydro system and they will be big enough to yeild what I need. This is what I was taught, and I've seen what a setup like mine can produce and that works fine for me.

I hope this makes sense....super high right now, feels like it migh have been a bit of a ramble.

Pk

PKHydro said:

Well I'll actually have 22 plants once my veg room is up an running. But basically my thinking is...these 11 will hopefully fill my room once done. And the amount of work that is involved in tying the plants up to my grid for support (2 guys 2.5-3hrs) and then pre-picking all the fan leaves off the night before harvest (3 guys 3-3.5hrs) then harvesting (8 guys 6+hrs) and curing all the bud off of them....if I had 100 plants to do it would be crazy. Not to mention the amount of water that 100 plants will drink. I'd be in there filling my 55gal drum on an hourly basis. As it is right now these 11 are drinking over 10gal per day.




So yea I suppose there are two schools of thought. I could have done as many as legally allowed, they would have to be much smaller to be manageable. And probably done in soil to be easier. Or you can grow a few in a small simple hydro system and they will be big enough to yeild what I need. This is what I was taught, and I've seen what a setup like mine can produce and that works fine for me.

I hope this makes sense....super high right now, feels like it migh have been a bit of a ramble.

Pk

Click to expand...

Thats what makes this hobby fun. Try something new! Dont just do something because its how you were taught. If I were you I'd definitely throw more plants in there and scrog. You only really need help when the harvest come around. You can also pick up bigger reservoirs 100 gal for example.

Alright update....the girls were flipped to 12/12 on tues. My room is filling up nicely and I can't wait till I can't even walk around in there.

At the moment I am running 7000w in my bud room, ill be adding more as it gets colder out. My 12" MaxFan is managing to keep my room cool enough.

Ok week 1 flower update...

I have some pistils popping out already and the stretch has definitely set in. The Green Crack is by far the smallest of the 3 strains. The Purple Candy has been the biggest throughout, but the Old School Purple Kush are coming on strong and looking like they will be monsters!

I'm up to 9000w now BTW.

Pics.....

Looking Sweet M8

Thanx for the share.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

Thanks man, I'm fucking jacked at how this is all turning out!

I went away for the last few nights, I had a caretaker come over to do my chores while I was gone. I'm hoping when I go in there tonight that things haven't gone sideways.... I really didnt want to go and I tried to make a stand...but the women always get what they want!!!

Flower day 10!

Well the caretaker didnt fuck anything up. He is amazed at how early these plants budding. He said he normally doesn't even see pistils for the first week and a half to two weeks. But holy hell, these girls are going nuts!!

What do you think? What's the average time it takes untill your plants actually start flowering?

Day 20:

Things are still going smooth, thank god. I was really worried that there was going to be a lot more hiccups throughout this grow. Being my first indoor grow and deciding on the hydro route. But so far other than a little nute burn in the beginning there hasn't been any serious issues. Last night however I noticed a few of my leaf tips curling down, the day before I miss measured and gave a bit too much food, so I attribute this as the cause. I skipped a feeding and just topped up with water, so we'll see if they improve.

The plants didnt really stretch at all. Maybe 6"-7" total, instead they are just packing on the bud and the frosting to go along with it!

Looking Sweet M8.

Frosty mornings ahead for sure.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice