Bender you are turning into a master indoor gardener! Everythings looking dope... I'm sure you already posted this info but how long did you veg and how tall and how many tops did the plants have when you flipped to 12/12? Im guessing you lollipopped the bottom third? did you remove any lower/inner nodes as well?
What size pots did you veg and flower in?
That casey jones is linked up nice and ideal like...would you say that it is going to be the big yielder of the bunch? I think I heard that it yields huge right? The chemdog doesnt have such a great rep when it comes to yield but it is obvious top quality gear.
You got me considering giving scrog a try but im super turned off by the extra work, but my main concern is not being able to move/rotate the rotate my plants... but i have been considered trying scrog for many years and is long over due... when do you throw your screen up? do you think the scrog is making a big difference in yield for you?
Anyways, very nice grow buddy.
Sorry for bombing u with all the questions but I always do that when I see a above average looking grow... -just trying to find and confirm the common links of success and I always keep a open mind to learning new grow techniques... I'm not one of those people who thinks I know everything and my way is the only right way and I know thats kinda how you feel as well... so what would you credit your success to? maybe its the bender tea lol? or long veg? or your screen training methods? what do you think is the main things that are making your grow stand out so much when compared to others?
Your plants look as good or maybe even better then mine (i'll post some pics of my current grows later) and it seems like it was just the other day that you were asking me grow questions and now im the one asking you... wtf? lol...I'm stoked for you, keep up the good work bend!
Hey Bro, hope all is well with you man. Firstly I want to say thank you so much for your kind words. Coming from someone who has helped me so much, really means a lot bro. My results in many ways are a reflection of how good of a teacher you are.
Please always feel free to ask as many questions as you like and post as many pictures in my thread as you'd like. Mi thread es tu thread. I will answer everything to the best of my abilities.
Casey
Indeed a very high yielding plant. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest, I'd say some phenos are can reach a level of 8-10. Joe Schmoe's cut is probably one of the best CJ cuts going around. Very difficult to find now, a lot of fake Joe CJ cuts going around. This is my second time growing her, first time I yeilded 9oz from 2 plants in a 22in x 36in place under a 600w. That isn't great yield for a 600 but I was really limited on space, barely 2x3 ft space. This round she is in a 2.5x4.5 ft tent under a 600w so we will see what she does.
I was on the hunt for the highest yielding strain with high potency. I must have gone through over 200 journals in a months over various forums, and saw a Casey grow, where this dude got 3.9 lbs in a 4x4 under a 1K with CO2. From what I read it was very potent, so that sold it for me. I did put in a lot of time looking for it and had to do a bit of driving but I got very lucky and did end up with Joe's Casey Jones cut, apparently from a second generation mother, which is great compared to tons of other tired cuts going around.
SCROG
My opinion of screens is that it is very strain dependent. Some strains, I possibly cannot imagine growing them without training/screens. Strains that have a good stretch usually make the best candidates for screens.
Obviously for someone with a 50K setup, training isn't even an option. But for someone like me with a small setup screening will absolutely increase the yield. For a lot strains, it will make the use of space more efficient.
BTW CJ is an absolutely fantastic strain for SCROG. For CJ SOG, you literally have to bloom right after rooting, it is a very vigorous growing strain.
Screen Timing
Way too many variable here to declare a time to put up the screen.
I usually train with sticks and garden wire soon after rooting, I bend the main branches and all the long side branches almost 90 degrees. That is my initial training, after a little practice it really takes very little time to do this.
This training literally turns your 1 plant into multiple plants. After the branches have grown straight up from the bent branches I add the screen and bend into it for a week and, then flip them.
For vigorous plants a second screen on top of that will need to be added for cola support. For Casey the support screen is a must.
Various paths you can take with the screen, you can put the screen up as soon as it is rooted.
What I have been doing is creating a mental image of what I want the final grow to look like then I work my way backwards to create a rough schedule of all the timing of training and putting up the screens.
Lollipop
I lollipop the fuck out of them 1 week before the flip then 2 weeks in the flip. My plants call me the lollipop monster as I am very aggressive with it. I just go by my eye and see how deep the light is penetrating. I remove everything that receives low light, notice I say low light not no light, I feel that has been contributing producing large colas, even on lower yielding strains.
Pot Size
When I started growing in Sept 2009, I thought that the bigger the pot the better. After a lot of experimentation I came to find out that it is actually a matter of balance, big pots weren't necessarily better because I wasn't able to feed as frequent, hence less oxygen and not as good of a root structure.
At the moment watering once a day with hand is the most convenient option for me so for that 5.5in plastic square pot or 1g smart pot for veg. Then potting up to 3-5 gallon smart pots before the flip, depending on how big I am planning on growing the plant.
Veg
I never keep track of vegging time, I flip when the plant has taken up 60-80% of the horizontal space, then flip them. Everything I am running vegged for different durations. I would say that for my style of growing, I need at least 4 weeks to veg. With Casey this round I think I vegged for 8-10 weeks, way too much, I didn't have time to flip them due to some unforeseen circumstances.
Success
You know JB, I have wondering the same thing, I really do want to find out what exactly is responsible for things getting kicked up a notch this round.
It don't think it is the long veg or the screen, I have tested these two factors to a good extent in the last 3 grows. I think if I was to do a SOG with no veg time the flowers would be similar.
The main credit goes to my the nute selection/dosing/timing. You are a fucking professional when it comes to selecting the proper ingredients.
Due to the long veg time I ended up with really tall Casey's thus I had to place the plants on the floor of the tent, so there is no where for the run-off to go. I knew when I flipped the girls that I wouldn't be able to have any run-off the entire run. So I really had to put in a lot of time in figuring out the dosing. My final goal was to have a situation where I only feed the plants what they are going to eat until the next feeding so I could avoid, salt build up hence less flushing.
To have a good grow without a single flush I felt that I need to find some good chelating agents to take up the salts in the pot. I also felt that enzymes for me were of utmost importance, as they would keep breaking down the dead matter and keep my pots fresh.
That is when I stumbled upon fulvic acid and after reading some scientific studies, I felt like I found the miracle that will help me with salt build up. I def feel that fulvic has played a huge roll in the success.
For the enzymes, as you mentioned bottled enzymes are a little iffy, and that made a lot of sense to me. I figured why not try to grow as much beneficial bacterias as possible so they could keep the supply of enzymes very constant. I found out that most of the bennies we are interested in are aerobic, so I went with making some teas with airstones, similar to compost but using the great white and myco madness. After playing around with the tea a bit, I was able to get it where I could visually see some beautiful live layer of foam on top with an extremely wonderful earthy smell, from reading around that is what we are looking for when making compost teas.
Even though it was unfortunate to end up in a situation where I cannot have any runoff, it paid off at the end because I feel like I was able to become one with the medium and the plant. I feed much lower dosages than a lot of folks out there. I have barely gone over EC 1.2. I have experienced lockout, nute def, and nute burn this round, but each time I had an issue I dealt with it by adjusting the next feed and in one day the problem would start to subside.
Say if I feel like I have def due to lock out, I would feed keep the ratios of nutes the same but drop the strength down to EC of may be 0.5. The next day the def starts going away. I have had cal/mag def/lockout before in coco and if it isn't dealt with it goes bad really fast, but this round out of 100s of leaves I saw some ca def spots and felt it was from lockout, I fed them low EC for 3 days and the problem has stopped at those 3-4 leaves.
I only experienced a NPK def in the beginning while the coco buffer was establishing. So I upped the dose and got some burn, backed off on the EC and the tip burn stopped.
Closing thoughts
As you mentioned bro, I was asking question just the other day, so I am still a noob in many areas. Even though plants have turned out much better than expected even with temps as high as 95 and rh as high as 65%. My gut says that being one with the medium where I only feed what it needs, has been the key here. Although I am sure all the nutes are working in a cooperative manner but I feel that the focus on beneficial bacteria and use of fulvic has really helped everything.
Sorry for the extremely long reply, you have given me so much great info, so I wanted to share all my thoughts with you. I am always open to new ideas and suggestions.
Do you think I am overlooking some key ingredients or am I on the right track, what do you say?
I always got a positive vibe from you man, for the amount of knowledge you have you are a very humble person, and I am glad you see that I am a very open minded person and really open to any suggestion, criticism, etc. If we weren't to team up and learn from each other it would probably take half a decade to just try a handful of different boosters and bases. All the leads you gave me def helped me save tremendous amount of time in testing everything out myself.
Let me know if I forgot to address something, looking forward to the pics.
Best wishes to you and the girls.
Bender