Laughing Buddha 600w Powergrower Scrog (first grow)

24/10/11

Strain- Barneys farm laughing buddha
light- 600w air cooled hood with growlush digital ballast
ventilation- hood is vented through a 150mm in line fan, there is another 250mm in line fan and two small peg on fans
growing medium- hydroponic bubble system(powergrower) with extra holes and air is supplied by a upgraded air pump with variable speed and an added airstone
nutrients- 3 part flora series with added floralicious, flora nectar and flora blend

ok so im a little premature as i have only just tucked my seeds into some paper towel to germinate but im just a little excited so i thought i would start my journal

here is a photo of my grow room



any advice along the way will be greatly appreciated as i am a definate noob

27/10/11

ok so the seeds have popped and i have transferred them to the hydroton. a little nervous as i know some other people have had trouble at this stage. i think i should be fine as my powergrowers really throw some water around, all the hydroton is well saturated. the upgraded pump i have really makes the powergrower spit and sputter water everywhere so i think as long as i keep the res full i should be fine.

31/10/11

2 days

ok so update is they shed their seeds and opened up their water leaves 2 days ago so they are 2 days old now.
still just using ph'd r/o water to feed they are looking ok. survived the transplant so that's my first stumbling block passed. i dont know what i was worried about really.

heres some photos. i know they are a bit boring at this stage but being my first grow im going to document the whole thing

this is my secondary grow room. its where im going to test new nutes and techniques and hopefully being a bit smaller it should finish sooner (less veg time) so i can get a sneak peek of what my main plant is going to taste like.

it is a second powergrower under a 400w light with a 125mm computer fan drawing air directly off the bulb and a larger 250mm inline fan exhausting the rest of the tent. the scrog is 1x2 feet. nutes will be the gh 3 part plus additives i mentioned above. i will be using flora nova bloom all the way through on the main plant now as it looks alot easier to manage ph and stuff that way and i want to be sure i get results with that one.

any way here it is



and here are the girls


600w

400w

so guys heres my update... im sad to say this grow is ending. first grow fail. day 7 and nearly no new growth. im not really sure what is wrong but i suspect my ph. just dropped 2 vanilla kush seeds into some paper towel so if these two ladies dont improve before the vk is ready there gone. if they come good then i will have two outdoor vk.

well i dialled my powergrower back to 1/2 hr on 1 hr off schedule and im starting to see some growth now, the laughing buddha might be back on looks like i might have a little outdoor vk grow on my hands

yeah give the hydroton a little bit more time to dry out...a seedling in such a huge container really needs less at this point

You could probably just have it kick on for 10 minutes and it would be fine

ok so its update time. and things are looking up. i had all but written these ladies off all together but now im glad i didnt.
it would seem that i was either over watering or the hydroton burnt my girls. next time i will have seasoned hydroton so it should be ok but i think i will still start one of my girls in the rockwool just in case.
because the girls were looking really sickly i did give them a feed of nutes at 100ppm that was 2 days ago and they have responded quite well picking up a little. and no the damage on the leaves is definitaley not from nute burn i did the feed well after the damage had occured. they still look a little yellow in the photos but i think its mostly from the hps

anyway heres some pics. you can see the damage done and see how far behind they are at this stage but they are coming back thats the main thing.

this first one has got some fat leaves on her and would seem to have more indica influence than the other. she has had a little taste of flora nova bloom and has had a good little growth spurt as a result. she is still rather pale though. i think this will pick up though in time.



the second girl has much thinner leaves and the new growth has a purple type colour to it. i think this girl leans more to the sativa side. i have given this girl a small hit of the flora 3 part nutes. she has responded better than the first one really greening back up again. although growth is a little slower at this stage i have a good feeling about this one.



and on a side note the 2 vk seeds i put down have now popped and i am growing them in soil outdoors

just wanted to add a little note at this point. the girls are coming along nicely now so i have started to run the powergrower 24/7 again to see what effect this will have. also it is worth noting that the plant on the 3 part formula is really vibrant and green now but the plant on the nova bloom while still larger than the other seedling and growing just as fast is still a little yellow. unfortunately grow room temps and humidity have skyrocketed. there is absolutely nothing i can do about it though. its still only spring here in aus and the ambient temps are already hitting 36c with humidity at about 60. we are getting crazy heat through the days massive storms in the afternoon and then the heat starts again in the morning bringing all that moisture up out of the ground. the only good news is that i have my grow running very efficiently with it only being 1 or 2 degrees hotter inside my grow area than outside but still its very high. for the everyone not from aus 36c is about 97f its way too high. im going to invest in some sillica today. does anyone know of anything else i can do for the ladies to help them. im afraid as summer comes its only going to get worse

another quick note. the plant on the 3 part formula has a crazy root system now but the other one isnt even showing through the bottom yet. also the weather has eased off and temps are back down to about 28c which is under 90f.

thats a nice little set up , how long u planning on veging ? it seems like it takes forever for one plant to fill that whole screen, good luck . hope all goes well

thanks jess. i have absoluteley no idea as its my first grow, the bigger screen of the two really is a little daunting its going to be alot of time and work. but it will be fun. hopefully though the smaller screen will not take too long to fill at all so i will have something to keep me going while i play with the big one.

everything is looking good im really starting to see that growth that waterfarms are famous for. i check the girs once before work and once again when i get home and i see substantial growth everytime now its crazy. i bumped the ppm up to 400 yesterday and no sign of nute burn or anything this morning so fingers crossed i didnt overdo it.

Plant 1 really is about double the size of plant 2 but although she is looking healthy now her colour is still a little off when compared to the vibrant green of plant 2 (there actual colour doesnt seem to show properly under hps). im putting this down to the fact that plant 1 is only on bloom nutes so probably isnt getting as much n. i think that now the ppms have gone up she will have more n available and should green up even more. Plant 2 however is looking great although very small she has crazy roots, shes very stocky and solid. the fan barely budges her but Plant 1 sways all over the place. Plant 2 is bright green and is really responding well to the 3 part solution. i also think that the son-t agro bulbs are working a treat as they seem to be staying very short and stocky with minimal stretch even though im keeping the lights relatively far away for now. i could move them closer but i figure the girls are just going to get closer on there own anyway

here is a couple of picks of the new growth.

Plant 1




Plant 2

ok so i went to work this morning and both girls were looking great as above but when i came home this afternoon this happened



ignore the burnt tip on the lower leaf that is old damge. its only on plant 2. (my favourite one, aaaaargh). i am making so many little stuff ups its killing me.

anyway i will describe what is happening in detail. all the leaves are drooping the top leaves are also developing some brown/orange dots but not on the tips.
and here is what i have recently changed. i upped my nutes to 400ppm (a little high i know) yesterday and i also changed back to a 24/7 feed schedule.

im fairly sure its not nute burn although i could be wrong because i know that 400 ppm is a little high at this stage but plant 1 is thriving on 400ppm and i have done a lot of research on nute burn and im led to believe it will start on the lower leaves first and start on the leaf tips. leaf edges may go crispy. im not seeing any of those signs. i am wondering though if the brown dots im seeing are some sort of early sign of nute burn and im just not experienced enough to see it?

i think its overwatering. i know other waterfarmers dont have this problem but im really starting to think because my pump is soooooo big its causing issues. the leaves sagging is what i would expect from overwatering and the little brown spots i think is probably caused by all the nutrient rich water splashing all over the leaves then burning off under the hps.

i have dialled it back to the 1/2 hr feeds again hopefully this helps. i also diluted the res with some r/o water just in case
if anyone out there reads this and has any advice at all im all ears.

im really kicking myself right now for changing more than one thing at once. at least if i did that i could be fairly sure what the cause was

on a plus note plant 1 is reacting exactly as i expected and is now super healthy and green with exceptional growth today

i got a few barneys farm just germing, im exited too , got 2 tangerine dream 1 pineapple chunk and 1 blue cheese. they all sprouted thats a + i heard alot of good stuff about barneys. i think that little seedling is gonna be ok have u got any "superthrive"? its a hormone and vitamins. i just found out about it , it brought a bunch of clones i had bak to life , totaly worth 14 bucks

hey jess.
wow its nice to have some company in here lol. yeah she will be fine i woke up this morning after fixing the over watering issue and she is fine.

yeah its my first indoor grow but i have grown some of barneys honey b before outdoors and the quality blew me away. i have another 2 vanilla kush going outdoors atm too, plus some morning glory, red dragon, tangerine dream and blue cheese seeds for the future, amongst others from other companies. i really doubt you will be disappointed by barneys.

superthrive? no i really will have to look into that sounds great

update , ya super thrive , aka super shit, those clones i sprayed it on have bounced back , it also is supposed to relive stress from transplanting, good shit , i also popped a reserva privada og kush 18 supposed to be sour er then the rest

ok so its update time not too much to report seeing some good growth on plant 1 with plant 2 being a little slower.

plant 2 did get a little bit of nute burn but mostly just where the nutes were splashing on its leaves so i added foil under them to stop this situaton.

heres some photos

plant1


plant2

Also am I the only one that thinks laughing Buddha looks very indica considering its supposed to be a Jamaican x Thai sativa

I've heard foil on top of plants is bad, something about reflecting heat back up or something or nothing, i dunno, look into it if u can b bothered. Set up looks good which is always a good start, don't worry about those leaves with a little nute burn on em, those sets of leaves aint important! As long as u've got some new healthy foliage as well. Keep it up, i wana see how fast ur thing grows under a 600W in hydro. sub'd

Thanks Indian. Im not expecting my growth to be quite a quick as some of the other waterfarms out there as being in aus coming in to summer I'm starting to have some heat issues which I think is going to slow me down a bit. Fingers crossed. The foil its dull side up so should not be to bad