After two grows with autoflower strains, I thought i'd make the transition to Photoperiod. A friend supplied me with some clones, and so far they all look very healthy. I have them in a 70/30 coco coir/perlite mix, and with all my previous experience being with soil, I really notice the difference in growth rate using coco, they are speedy! I feed them once daily, and water until I see some runoff. For lighting I have a Black Diamond Perfect Sun Dwarf Star led light - supposedly 400w output with 230w power usage. I have given them a bit more Rhizotonic than usual for this first week to help them establish some healthy roots. This is my first time growing under something other than H.P.S, so combining that fact along with a new growing medium, I am expecting a lot of changes in outcome from my last grow! Lets see how this goes
Photoperiods plants are great you'll see bro, you can Veg them has long has you want, it let you the time to top it and to supercropp it has you wish, and you can let them recover in case of any stress before putting them into 12/12 cycle
@Book_of_Thoth, Yes, these kind of strains are named "commercial strains".
The Royal Queen Seeds Skunk XL can yield 600-650 gr / m2 indoor without growing too tall.
@JUNGLE_B4RNS, I did four and a half weeks, that three day difference obviously didn't go very far! I now have two tents and three lights, and for the next time around I am posed to run a couple plants with a bit more space for each of them. I really think I could have utilised my vertical space more with the veg and had some taller bud towers. Tell me, any personal picks for high yielding potent strains? ๐
@DabCrab, Thanks! I think the stem color could be down to my colder nighttime temperatures. Neither can I, I just hope they keep growing and growing ๐
@Book_of_Thoth, I 100% agree with you can never truly attribute nutrients unless a fair test is carried out, which is not easy to do or practical. Believe it or not bud the biggest and very good quality I have achieved in all my years of growing was with 12 royal queen special kush plants in a flood and drain hydro system with clay pebbles. I had them 13 hours lights on 11 lights off. I vegged for 3 weeks and foliar fed with dutch master liquid light and a triacontanol mix every other day for all of veg and first 3 weeks of flower. I used genesis formula nutrients from green air. The buds turned purple during the last 3 weeks. It was the first time I used a 1000w 400v gavita pro at max setting, I had an 8 inch fan blowing over the canopy because it was in a tent the gavita put out a lot of heat on the canopy hence the 8" fan. Anyways I achieved a few grams shy of 1100g in a 1.2m area. I am trying to (sort of)recreate this grow using wwXbb which is currently in week 2 of flower in my diary. when I say sort of I'm using 2 400v 600w lamps this time not gavita, and I'm using triacontanol foliar again which I have not used since the special kush grow.
@BreakingBud, I have found that this crop of mine is definitely very odorous, but to attribute that to the guano is something I cannot do with 100% certainty. I believe rhizotonic is organic, but the Flairform nutrients I use are not. In my opinion the Guano works great but maybe doesn't provide everything the plant needs on its own. Now my turn to ask you a question ๐ You seem to have grown a fair few strains so far, what has given you the biggest buds and the best quality?
@Book_of_Thoth, have you found guano improves aroma at all? are your base nutrients organic? thanks for the info bro. I have heard many great things about guano, they sell liquid guano in my local area and many of the soil mixtures come pre mixed with guano.
MM is running out of Mag (if your not guilty of over watering), the symptoms are here , dark green leaves ๐ with purple stem
Others plant a running out of Mag to, Mag deficiency symptoms are , dark green tacos ๐ฎ leaves with purple stems . Mag deficiency start by leaves getting dark green , purpling start from the petiole (where the stem join the leave) on top of the stem , then the leaves start to look like a taco ๐ฎ shell and the stem of the leaves start to get dark purple, and the main stem is stripped with purple lines .
It's the number one problem in a healthy garden , it's mostly due to over watering, the roots doesn't get enough oxygen , if not , that means they have done a lot of exercise (photosynthesis activity) and they are really suffering from Mag deficiency (not over watering).
Have a look on my dairie Y Griega , she has suffered from Mag deficiency (in week 5), she is just recovering , you can see the difference between the bottom of the plant whit dark green leaves and purple stem and the top of the plant (new grow) where the leaves are healthy
@Book_of_Thoth,I go through about 1 L/week (and only water every 5-7 days)- mine are in 5 gal air pots, but I use a LED light source so there's less heat. I still have purple stems, am adding Cal-Mag and I'm lowering my Ph which was a bit high. The leaves got crispy dry and grew in jagged and deformed before.
Don't be afraid to let the pots get dry. A 10$ soil moisture meter can help. I have gardened a lot before growing cannabis, and plants need a little motivation to reach to get to water to grow roots. You can get a lot of other issues from overwatering like fungus, pests and mildew so be careful.
Good luck. Pineapple Xpress is one of the few sativa dominant hybrid strains I've tried that I love.
@Book_of_Thoth, 1.5 l per day ! This is the amount needed per day for a homo sapiens of 175 Pounds ๐
Mag def is mostly due to overwatering in a lot of case ๐
@TheFairyBudMother, sure is, woke up to snow today! ๐ฌ My light is a 'Black Diamond Perfect Sun Dwarf Star', no complaints about it so far!
Our leaves look quite similar, yours are definitely a healthy shade of green, but we suffer from sporadic spotting that is for me hard to diagnose. I somehow suspect the led could be to blame, perhaps small dots of dew cause some intense light refraction of the led's laser like beams, causing burns? There's my paranoid stoner hypothesis for you!
Sounds like your plants have received a very comprehensive sonic upbringing, what a responsible parent you make!
I think you are being quite hard on yourself - it looks like you're doing great, I think my one piece of advice after looking at your journal would be for next time, another week of veg would have gone a long way, as there is definitely some valuable real estate under your light that is not being utilised! Which you touch on yourself, so you've got this :)
@Book_of_Thoth, Wow, a bit chilly in your area! What light are you using?
The leaves are looking a little troubled on mine but I am keeping positive. I'm happy to have learned some things about these plants and all 3 are pretty different. I play them really good music: everything from Grieg, Tibetan throat singing, some classic ELO, Anderson .Paak, and of course Radiohead.
Your plants are gorgeous. Good work!
I'm not sure my TDS is calibrated but it was supposed to be. Luckily I keep spring water for emergencies.
For my next grow, more plants, seeds instead of clones (might try one of those macs), maybe hot soil and compost tea, better water, proactive pest abatement, individual trellises because my it's really hard to check what's going on in there, and longer veg/more training for scrog.
@TheFairyBudMother, Thanks! No AC but I have a small heater, other than the fan pushing air there's only passive air intake too, as I currently have outside temperatures of 5c, at night dropping to 0 or lower. So to keep them warm I have to keep the same air in there to a degree.
The biggest changes in this grow as opposed to my last in my opinion are the led light with uv spectrum - I think this has contributed a lot to my trichrome count, growing in coco coir has helped me with my watering, and stopped my soil from compacting over time which really stunted things in the past. And the water where I live is really great. I notice you say yours isn't so clean, my house is still fed unprocessed rainwater from the mountains. That being said though, your girls are looking beautiful too!
Damn your excitement about the pineapple makes me want to grow it sooner ! Have you tried using bending techniques instead of a scrog before ? If so what are the biggest differences ?
@Book_of_Thoth,i see what you mean,it's possible i'm gonna try it my next grow aswell, only problem is that it'll be quite annoying to get the plant out of the tent, in case i'll need to flush or something
@Bstoner, Additionally, in my past grow when I used solely bending, a lot of other factors were different too, such as autoflowering plants, unideal grow conditions and inexperienced watering and nutrients by me to name a few. But I think that beyond bending large branches, it's hard to maintain that level of attention down to every branch, and scrog leads to a more even canopy at a finer level. Which compensates for the extra effort
@Bstoner, Glad my excitement is good for something! I think the only strain whose smell excites me equally is super lemon haze. I've tried bending techniques too, and if you look at the past weeks of this diary you will see i've actually used both. I used bending to dually retard the growth of my largest branches, and also to form knuckles on the stems which eventually work to increase the nutrient flow capabilities of the branch. Or so I read online ๐ What I find most useful about scrog, this being my first time, is it helps to gradually even out the canopy, whereas bending works moreso immediately if you know what I mean. Scrog helps to even out your plant over time, after it's been prepared by bending. A difference would be that scrog is very low impact to the plant, whereas bending will require the plant to 'bounce back' from a sudden change. Hope this helps!
@Book_of_Thoth, Nice bro! ๐๐ It came out well. An easy idea, if you would like to save some time is to add a cfl 59w or so to the grow tent so you can use it for pics. ๐
@CANNASIM, Thanks bro! I was trying to edit the photos back to natural lighting in photoshop (It's my job when not growing weed) and it wasn't seeming to work out. I found out that because this particular light has UV spectrum light as well it creates quite a natural lighting, so you are seeing the plants in their true colours as these are, in the close ups at least ๐
The Pineapple ๐ Express leave is showing some micro deficiency from your past overwatering bro, keep in mind that the problem has started 3 weeks ago and it's showing now, if you stopped overwatering it shall not spread to others leaves (but that leave won't recover) .
Hey man girls are gaining size! Looks good. This injuries on the leaves could be also some kind of ph fluctuation issue watch the ph cloasely, and the watering frequency, they will replace this with new healthy leaves. Happy growing! โกโก
@CANNASIM, Thanks man, going to be an exciting time watching some buds form! I moniter the ph and ec, I think this must have arisen from overwatering/watering frequency as you suggest. Happy growing to you too ๐
Dude I would be willing to bet the pineapple will be some of the best you've had. Always seems to be so much better when it comes from my own garden. Of course I've never sampled dispensary quality to compare it with.
@Grimbol, I really hope so! Can't think of anything better. No dispensaries in my country either, but some of the most memorable nugs that have passed through my hands (and lungs) were pineapple. So far so good