Rurumo's Mars Hydro FC6500 grow journal

RottyRzr said:

Where do we read about this "Solo cup trick"? Link?

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Scroll down page 1 of this journal a bit, and I showed how I take individual cuttings.

afterburner said:

Yes an LED grow light just for clones, seedlings, veging. I’m mostly relying on the sun. I want something high quality and small doesn’t use much power. Do you recommend any brands or models?

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How big of a space do you want to light up? If it's just a small area, like a 2x2 tent and quality of the light is your main concern, then I'd go with a small 150 watt light from HLG-it's hard to beat them for quality. But the thing is, a lot of these lights use the exact same components, like samsung leds and meanwell drivers, so it really comes down to how well they were assembled, so honestly I think you can get very decent lights from the cheaper companies. If you want a bigger area, like a 3x3-I've had great luck with my Mars Hydro FC-3000. I think 2x4 is a great size for small mothers/cuttings though, and with that size another option is a 4 bulb/ 4 ft T5 fluorescent fixture-I use a Durolux model. T5 fluorescents are still awesome for moms/cuttings and are a little easier to "dial in" than LEDs. Someone linked this light the other day in the "deals" thread here and would be a great choice for a 2x4 footprint if you want to go with a quality LED https://www.growlightscience.com/progrow-320.

Rurumo said:

How big of a space do you want to light up? If it's just a small area, like a 2x2 tent and quality of the light is your main concern, then I'd go with a small 150 watt light from HLG-it's hard to beat them for quality. But the thing is, a lot of these lights use the exact same components, like samsung leds and meanwell drivers, so it really comes down to how well they were assembled, so honestly I think you can get very decent lights from the cheaper companies. If you want a bigger area, like a 3x3-I've had great luck with my Mars Hydro FC-3000. I think 2x4 is a great size for small mothers/cuttings though, and with that size another option is a 4 bulb/ 4 ft T5 fluorescent fixture-I use a Durolux model. T5 fluorescents are still awesome for moms/cuttings and are a little easier to "dial in" than LEDs. Someone linked this light the other day in the "deals" thread here and would be a great choice for a 2x4 footprint if you want to go with a quality LED https://www.growlightscience.com/progrow-320.

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Thanks I’m wondering if I can keep some mothers from flowering and going to bud in the fall time when the days get shorter by bringing them under a light after dark. I wonder if the combination of sunlight and artificial light will stress them. Have you heard of any outdoor growers keeping plant in vegetative state this way? Just putting plant under a light at night to prevent flowering?

afterburner said:

Thanks I’m wondering if I can keep some mothers from flowering and going to bud in the fall time when the days get shorter by bringing them under a light after dark. I wonder if the combination of sunlight and artificial light will stress them. Have you heard of any outdoor growers keeping plant in vegetative state this way? Just putting plant under a light at night to prevent flowering?

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Yes, I've known people who've done that for various reasons, and it's also common for greenhouse growers to extend the day period using supplemental light at night. One thing to be careful about is if you are bringing your plants inside, it's easy to bring in pests along with them, so just be careful if you keep other plants inside already-like mother plants/clones. As long as they are getting around 18 hours of light combined sun/artificial they will stay in vegetative growth.

afterburner said:

Have you heard of any outdoor growers keeping plant in vegetative state this way? Just putting plant under a light at night to prevent flowering?

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The plants continue to do well. I've lowered the EC to 1.0 EC and still add Spirulina to one feeding per day. I've started experimenting with topdressing small amounts of other biostimulants that are good food for the soil, like brewers yeast and barley malt. The plants seemed to respond well to a 1 tablespoon topdressing of brewers yeast, which is loaded with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, hormones, organic acids....basically all the things that make up a good biostimulant-I'm going to get more organized with my "living" coco/mineral salt experiments next grow. All of my good pics this morning are close ups-so when my light comes back on I'll try to get some whole tent pics so you can see what the canopy looks like overall.


Jelly Breath-nice little plant, I'm sure the smoke will be good, extremely dense nugs-probably will not run again


Jelly Breath


Flap Jacks-I love the freaky frosty buds this plant produces, it turned out to be a fun plant. The way the trichs carpet the bottom of the sugar leaves is hilarious.


FlapJacks


Apples and Bananas/Medellin-this plant smells so dank-The Chem is really dominant from the Medellin side, which is a GREAT thing-the frost on this isn't just for looks, I think it's going to be extremely potent. No fruitiness whatsoever.


A&B/M


NSFSHEEESH-I'm glad I finally grew out a GSC to see what the hype was all about over the years. They get a lot of the good points of the good OGs, but the terps are watered down into a form suitable for mass marketing-I totally get it, these are very marketable plants. I love my OGs and will stick with them over GSC strains for sure, BUT, I think a lot of fun crosses could be made with this plant so I'll keep it around. I'd like to chuck some landrace stock with it and see what I get. They sure are pretty!


NSFSHEEESH


NSFSHEEESH

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you guys are having a great weekend.

RottyRzr said:

Where do we read about this "Solo cup trick"? Link?

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Anyone try air layering cloning method?

My little Chinese hepa air filter died, so I bought one of these Blueair 211+ filters to replace it, since I live in the Rockies in an area that has more smoke than air for like 4-5 months per year. I always seem to wait until the smoke gets bad before I realize I need to replace the filter and then of course they are all sold out, so I decided to go with this sweet Swedish tech early in the fire season. This filter is amazing! At its "eco" setting, it is 100% silent and it only uses 60 watts total-probably down to the massive surface area of the filter/intake. This is my favorite IPM device inside a living situation where you don't want to run a reactive oxygen generator. When the smoke is thick outside and I have a filter running plus my plants growing overtime, I feel like I'm living in a cheap version of that Pauly Shore movie Biodome, which is a CLASSIC by the way...



Here is my doggy

afterburner said:

Anyone try air layering cloning method?

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I have not used air layering on cannabis plants, but I have on a few fruit trees in the past. Cannabis is really easy to clone once you get used to it. It's all about sticking to the basics of proper temp/rh/and moisture level in the rooting media. Keep the clones in a dome under a mild light that's on 24/7, like a t5 fluorescent, you can grow in a cube/rooter or soil/coco, just keep the media moist like a wrung out sponge. Keep around 78-80 degrees. If you use rapid rooters or root riot cubes (my favorite), you can moisten the rooter, then squeeze it moderately hard until most of the moisture drips out-exactly like a wrung out sponge. Then just check it a couple times per day and re-moisten the rooter if you need to. Spray the inside of the dome, but don't spray the clones themselves-spray the inside of the dome whenever it dries out.. If you clone inside a 1 gal ziplock, you hardly ever need to re-moisten the rooter. When you first take the cuttings, put the stems in a glass of water for an hour, then dip in rooting hormone and stick into your cube/media, then cover it with the dome or bag. It might root very quickly or it might take weeks, it all depends on genetics and the conditions you provide.

Quick week 8 update-not much has changed, just swelling going on at this point. I'm finishing up the plant with my last leftover Maxibloom just to use it up and because I want to keep using the spirulina, but lower my overall N input at this stage. The Apples and Bananas cross is packing some weight-it's hard to tell from the canopy shots, but that plant has solid golfball nugs all the way up and down the branches with very few leaves mixed in, the larf on it is actually quite nice looking and solid. I'll just wait and see how things ripen up but I'm guessing they're all between 2 and 4 weeks from ripeness.


family photo!


Jelly Breath-this plant has nice solid larf too. Lots of hash coming from this grow.


Here is the wildcard, the Flapjacks. It's all crazy foxtails and frost. Might end up as great smoke!


Apples and Bananas X Medellin-Hard to tell because it's in the back and hard to reach, but I'm loving the strong chem influence in the terps on this one-it keeps getting stronger. I'm impressed with the Apples and Bananas cut for the vigor and yield it imparts, I bet there is real gold among the many A&B crosses that have been pumped out in the last year. One row of these that is directly under an LED bar is showing some slight light damage, so I think my distance this time around is just about right.


A&BXM


NSFSHEESH-my precious is doing very well





I've been having major phone issues, and taking these pics is one of the only things that is working right now, so I bought a new phone yesterday. I was saving up for a nice camera, but the new phone has a pretty nice camera on it too, so I'll just use that for a while. Hopefully my next week's update will have some nice pics! I'm going to be messing around with it a lot I'm sure. Thanks for stopping by!

Your puppy is adorable! She looks playful and happy. Those buds look great too!

Tvanmunhen said:

Your puppy is adorable! She looks playful and happy. Those buds look great too!

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Thank you! He's actually 12 years old, but it's hilarious how often people think he's a puppy irl. I'm very happy he's remained so healthy, probably because I work from home so he's pampered and gets taken on walks 5 times per day-still has a ton of energy.

It's that happy kind puppy face. He looks like he is ready to run and play lol. Tell him I'm sorry for calling him a girl puppy.

I got my new box of Promix Connect to test out. Just to show you guys some of the shenanigans going on with Myco products, I thought I'd compare this product to a very popular Mycorrhizae product: Mykos. First off, Connect is expensive, no doubt about it, I got mine on sale for $50, but usually I'd expect it to be double that price. So, how come? Where does the value of a Mycorrhizae product lie? One good way to compare these products with different spore counts and different sizes and weights is by comparing to TOTAL amount of spores in your package. So, one 8 ounce package of PM Connect contains 1,500,000 viable spores. A 2.2 lb bag of Mykos contains 79,840 (actually slightly less, I rounded up the grams). So a single 8 oz package of Connect has 18+times the number of spores than Mykos. All I did was multiply the spores/g by the # of grams per package-you can do it with any myco product for comparison. I only bring this up because Mycorrhizae products are one major scammy portion of the grow industry, and I hate to see people being ripped off. Myco products are largely selling bags of filler, the same way bottled nutrients are primarily selling the world's most expensive water. I will review this product with my next grow.




I also like the method Connect asks you to use to apply this product. Rather than sprinkle it on your root ball, they actually have you mix up a slurry of Connect and water, then have you dip your root ball into it. Very nice.

Rurumo said:

I got my new box of Promix Connect to test out. Just to show you guys some of the shenanigans going on with Myco products, I thought I'd compare this product to a very popular Mycorrhizae product: Mykos. First off, Connect is expensive, no doubt about it, I got mine on sale for $50, but usually I'd expect it to be double that price. So, how come? Where does the value of a Mycorrhizae product lie? One good way to compare these products with different spore counts and different sizes and weights is by comparing to TOTAL amount of spores in your package. So, one 8 ounce package of PM Connect contains 1,500,000 viable spores. A 2.2 lb bag of Mykos contains 79,840 (actually slightly less, I rounded up the grams). So a single 8 oz package of Connect has 18+times the number of spores than Mykos. All I did was multiply the spores/g by the # of grams per package-you can do it with any myco product for comparison. I only bring this up because Mycorrhizae products are one major scammy portion of the grow industry, and I hate to see people being ripped off. Myco products are largely selling bags of filler, the same way bottled nutrients are primarily selling the world's most expensive water. I will review this product with my next grow.

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I also like the method Connect asks you to use to apply this product. Rather than sprinkle it on your root ball, they actually have you mix up a slurry of Connect and water, then have you dip your root ball into it. Very nice.

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Great White reports 525,000 CFU's per gram. Not sure if that represents "spores". Also its a longer list of spore types, weird.

Anyways thanks for pointing out the shenanigans! All these ultra-ripoffs are disheartening. Glad we have a community willing to point it out. Low income folks don't deserve to miss meals due to corporations greed

DrDukePHD said:

Great White reports 525,000 CFU's per gram. Not sure if that represents "spores". Also its a longer list of spore types, weird.
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Anyways thanks for pointing out the shenanigans! All these ultra-ripoffs are disheartening. Glad we have a community willing to point it out. Low income folks don't deserve to miss meals due to corporations greed

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Hey there, I'm sorry for not responding to this earlier, I missed your post somehow! I'm glad you brought this up because I never mentioned the difference between Ecto and Endomycorrhizae. Great White "seems" like it is just loaded with useful mycorrhizae at 219, 576 propagules per gram, right? The problem is, they've loaded it up with Ectomycorrhizae, which is a much cheaper type of myco to produce, but it doesn't associate with Cannabis-it actually only associates with less than 5% of vascular plants. This is another type of "filler" to make a product seem like a value. If you look at the Endomycorrhizae and add them up, it comes down to 387/gram. I would absolutely use up the Great White before buying anything else, but when it comes time to reorder, I'd shop around and try to find the best value in a product that doesn't try to confuse people by adding a lot of filler. Thanks for the comment! By the way, as far as endomycorrhizae go, Glomus Intraradices is the primary endomycorrhizae that associates with Cannabis in studies, so it's a safe bet to look for.

Quick update on this week 9 of my grow. Not much change at this time, I've just noticed some weight being packed on as branches start to sag. I don't see any amber trichomes yet, so it could be a few weeks out till harvest-most of these could go three more weeks.


Jelly Breath


Jelly Breath


Flapjacks-this plant is just exploding with new foxtails, definitely a strange bird


Apples and Bananas X Medellin


same


NSFSHEEESH-she just keeps packing on the frost-







New phone arrives today so hopefully next week I'll have an awesome update for you guys! Thanks for stopping by.

Rurumo said:

Hey there, I'm sorry for not responding to this earlier, I missed your post somehow! I'm glad you brought this up because I never mentioned the difference between Ecto and Endomycorrhizae. Great White "seems" like it is just loaded with useful mycorrhizae at 219, 576 propagules per gram, right? The problem is, they've loaded it up with Ectomycorrhizae, which is a much cheaper type of myco to produce, but it doesn't associate with Cannabis-it actually only associates with less than 5% of vascular plants. This is another type of "filler" to make a product seem like a value. If you look at the Endomycorrhizae and add them up, it comes down to 387/gram. I would absolutely use up the Great White before buying anything else, but when it comes time to reorder, I'd shop around and try to find the best value in a product that doesn't try to confuse people by adding a lot of filler. Thanks for the comment! By the way, as far as endomycorrhizae go, Glomus Intraradices is the primary endomycorrhizae that associates with Cannabis in studies, so it's a safe bet to look for.

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Wow, filler & nonsense abound in this industry. Let's start up "Cannsumer Reports" Rurumo! Thanks I'll definitely do my research & buy high Glomus Intraradices containing products.

DrDukePHD said:

Wow, filler & nonsense abound in this industry. Let's start up "Cannsumer Reports" Rurumo! Thanks I'll definitely do my research & buy high Glomus Intraradices containing products.

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This entire industry really could use a Consumer Reports type publication! There is just so much shadyness in every aspect of the cannabis growing industry, from diluted bottled products, seed chuckers, heavy metal contamination in fertilizers/media/ amendments, poor testing standards, etc. I do tend to go on rants about this stuff, but I figure, if it helps someone keep a few dollars in their wallet or make them a better grower, or in the case of heavy metals, a healthier grower, then that makes me happy. I think a lot of growers out there will be making the switch to powdered nutrients as prices go up and shipping costs for heavy items increase.

Hey Rurumo,

I just got all caught up on both your grow diaries. Thank you so much for the wealth of great information and congratulations on your absolutely gorgeous grows.

I noticed you mentioned bonsai a few times. I Have one bonsai I’ve grown from seed and I’m very fond of her. Have you cloned bonsai? Ive never thought to try to clone mine but now I very much want try your cloning technique with it.

Also, do you think you could talk a little bit about your germination methods? Also when, how and at what time you begin the fertigation at the seedling stage? My apologies if you’ve covered that somewhere in the diaries and I’ve missed it..

Anyways thanks again for sharing your wisdom with us and I’m looking forward to future updates on your grow!