43 Total Days
4 Bloom Cycle Days
Flipped to 12/12 cycle after 39 days. A few days early and I probably could have flipped even sooner and still filled the space. As is, I'll potentially have to HST some of the taller plants, but a couple smaller plants will benefit.
These pics are right before an irrigation. Some plants are less perky than normal, but the bent over coals on left side are from me shaping the plant. You can also see on far right-back row I need some garden wire to spread out that plant and even it out relative to the rest of the canopy. It had a late growth spurt even before flip to flower. It was one of the smaller plants early on, but not anymore.
Bti dunk is suspended at water level in a mesh bag to keep irrigation pipes and tubing clear. I'll fertigate with less dryback going forward. All the root mass promoted by a more pronounced wet-dry cycle in vegetative phase will start to pay dividends.
Pictures of nute station and reservoir added. Rez is kept at mid-60F and dark at all times.
Plants were looking too lush the last ~2 weeks. I've reduced the caclium nitrate component nearly 20% the last 2 irrigations and continuing to do so going forward until i see a reason to revert. May need to adjust TSP portion to mitigate loss of Ca, but we'll see how the plants react the next couple weeks before assuming anything.
After a little more training on a couple plants, daily efforts will be reduced to virtually nothing but flipping a switch to water for ~3 minutes/day. About to hit my favorite 7-8 week period of the grow.
-------- Side note / yield expectations
I have a much more controlled canopy this cycle than recent grow cycles. This canopy is by far the best I've had in a couple years. I snapped a cola off one plant (oops), and one plant has 12 colas on accident, but will use that as a rough comparison for future adustments to canopy management / how many colas per plant etc. Only 4 days into flower phase and it's nearly filled in. Some gaps, yet, but even the smaller plant(s) should mostly fill it in. Only 1 plant is concerningly under-sized (front-far right). One of twelve isn't so bad.
Haven't been this happy about a grow cycle in several years. Minimum target of 50g/sq ft and 1.5g/w will be easy as pie to hit barring catastrophe out of my control, and upper-threshold of 60g/sq ft and 1.8g/w still achievable even with 1 under-sized plant. Relative to growing from seed, these are acceptable outcomes.
-------- New equipment....
Picutres show a lights off/on 24-hour cycle.
The previous dehumidifier could barely keep up with a 38-39 sq ft canopy - even required stripping a few leaves (~10% defoliation, give or take) that I'd rather not strip off in the future. This dehum should be able to keep up as it can remove 140% more moisture in AHAM conditions. It's a fucking 68-lbs beast. It's hygrometer reads 10% below actual, but it's a consistent offset, so that is not a problem going forward.
I'll know better in 3-4 weeks when the canopy is fully grown as far as performance compared to the previous unit. Should see some electricity savings and reduce peak temps a couple degrees F as long as it doesn't have to work as hard to accomplish its task. Plus, I can avoid removing leaves unnecesarily. Win-win-win
I'm not used to seeing the RH fluctuate so much in the graphs. The previous unit barely maintained max RH, so the "valleys" were truncated. It would cycle off due to autodefrost feature and not because it reduced RH% to a particular level as the current unit is currently doing as seen in the graphs.
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Fertilizer:
Jacks 5-12-26
Calcium nitrate 15-0-0
Epsom Salt
Triple Superphosphate 0-45-0 (*not 100% soluble)
1.4EC adjusted down to 1.3EC with 20% reduction to calcium nitrate, recently.
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Forgot about the cuttings. Added a picture. They are 8 days old. Vents were slowly opened further over time. Now, taking off the dome each day for an hour or two. Shouldn't be too long for roots to show. Some are already looking perkier as if they have some initial rooting but cannot be 100% certain.
@Krisis, When i up-pot 16 to 1-gallon pots, I'll pull the unused seedlings out of the seedling pots by their stems just to hear their little screams... and as a warning to the others. Muahahaha!
@001100010010011110, But but but .. I don’t want the generic. I came to talk shit here and I don’t want a thank you for that. DUH
Say no to plant murder! Coming to throw a can of soup on you!!!
I love that I came by your page, I really like what I see!. If you have time to spare, please come over I have 5 diaries going on at once. Would be fun to have you over! Good luck with everything and I’m sending my best wishes for you and your future grows! /LST 😃🌱
Hey nice! Just found out you are an actual Human not a Robot🙀 (im joking oc)😄
I just have to ask what kind of pump are you running to water them ? ( i run a 2000l/h ) Is it one System for 12 Plants with only one Dripper for each ?
Kinda overdone my watering system, and just checking around to see some alternative builds to compare and improve mine.
Nice Setup btw... so much space, fixed Nets and even a runoff tray 😍
@Mooncat, @Mooncat, Beep boop, 110011 1011 1101 101
That's just a generic 5.?gpm, 45-70psi booster pump - typically used in an RV. Same type of pumps that come with the hydrolock irrigation kits - how I sized what i needed. think the name brand ones are orange? but, if they look the same, they probably roll off same factory line in china.
I use 2 of the 8-jet sprinkler emitters per pot. They share a 1/4" line to two 6-port full flow manifolds on a 1/2" riser (per manifold) from 3/4" pvc connected to a 3/4" 15' hose from pump. It's pushing 24 fairly high flow emitters with room to spare. -- I'd use different emitters in hindsight. I'd put 5-6 of those slow dippers in each pot or however many a 1/4" line can handle to get a more effective water distribution. they self-regulate so no adjusting to even flow out. The sprinkler type gets a little erratic at times. I meant to add an air vent this year but was lazy.
Runoff tray leads to a float switch pump. Those are polycarbonate roof panels. Entire platform and roof panel accessories to make it is maybe 100-120. I often regret diy, but this is not one of them. Garden trays of this size (4x8) are highway robbery.
Think there is a video of the irrigation running in first week of 2023-2024 diary.
Choice of emitters is the key.. find soemthing low maintenance and consistent flow. "Adjustable" usually just means you have to constantly adjust them. Think the pressure regulated slow drippers are the way to go. soak'em in vinegar once in a while and no adjustments needed. Someone told me to avoid adjustable manifolds and i ignored them... then i repeated that mistake with these sprinklers. Fertilized water is extremely hard water, so anything with tiny holes is probably constant cleaning/soaking to ungunk them.
I went the high psi pump route because it gives more options for emitters. Even the slow GPH drippers work most consistently at a certain psi range that aquarium pumps typically can't do - especially enough for 12 pots. Using 3.8L/gal, My pump is ~1100L/h, but even that isn't necessary. that could water my pots in a little over 2 minutes at max flow. 5-10 mins would be fine, I do have some shut-off valves built in so i can shut off half the emitters, because i wasn't sure if it would be enough when i initially built it.
If you want to do something even better, run fertigation directly from your home's tap. Need a stop valve to prevent fertilizer entering home's water pipes and a 100:1 fertilizer injector. Would also need to use dry nutes in order to make a concentrate for the injector. Pop a new 1-gal jug on as needed. Wouldn't need a pump. Just turn the faucet on/off to get the job done. This is my next step once motivated. No rez and all the work that comes with it, too. I have a 55-gallon barrel sitting in front of my utility tub, which is not convenient. Oh, would need 2 injectors -- one dealing with high concentration Ca++ component and one for the rest of the fertilizer (a third injector if you add silica). Makes the pvc work slightly more complicated but there are diagrams.
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It's a huge tent because i scaled up and had no idea what i was doing. A canopy that large puts out a ton of moisture. Half a tent worked better.
@AsNoriu, The 3 strains I ran last year were fine. The freebie testers are the ones that had issues for me. I am stupidly depending on 2 Cherry Diesel testers this time, too, lol. Ethos is a lot better than the average bulk reseller and not too over-priced.
I might try MSNL zoap and oreos in the next run. Haven't decided, yet.
Hopefully after this year I'm not buying any seeds except to introduce new genetics to my home-brew lineup of fem seeds :P Had it not been for a failed 2nd seed run last year, I probablay wouldn't have bought these.
FFS the bb x gs seeds I made a few years ago are the best plants each cycle against so-called professional breeders. Consistently dense buds, yield and potency. Flavor has some variability but always similar, which is actually beneficial to me. And, that was just randomly pairing 2 strong plants. These breeders selecting from large samples for perspective parents have no excuses.