Sour Crack Sub-Irrigated (Soilless/Hydro

Sub-Irrigation with OctoPots, as soon as I had started the Sour Stomper I stumbled upon these contraptions and realized shit this is fucking exactly what I need. It is a combination of soil and hydro techniques. Using a grow sleeve that has a wick in the bottom to absorb moisture from the water reservoir it allows a plant to create two root zones and will allow me more ease of growing. No pumps or air stones required because the soil/soilless substrate acts as a buffer for ph and oxygen to maintain nutrient solution. No water chiller either because the substrate handles that. There is NO TOP WATERING involved after initial planting, this is because the initial watering creates capillaries that lead down to the water reservoir through the moisture gradient created by the hydrowick absorbing water. This moister gradient means that near the bottom of the fabric sleeve will be damp and the middle will be less damp while the top layer will be dry. Think of it like trees, water deep in the earth so the trees roots spread chasing the path of moisture expanding where it needs. With the OctoPots we will be able to imitate this on a small scale and hopefully reap the benifits of soil and hydro! The only concern I have is that the Sour Crack will be such a fast flowering strain that the 6gal sleeve will be to large. But, in theory, the capilaary action and drought in the top layer should cause an increase in root expansion in order to reach a viable water source. If I remember this is Hydrotposim which means the plant essentialy senses the water so will work harder to go towards it. This is why top watering is not recommended with the Octopot systems because it confuses the plant making it expand its roots inefficiently. Once the plants roots reach the hydro reservoir the roots will change to hydroponic roots, the whiter less dense roots, this allows the plant to absorb nutrients as needed without the risk of total plant loss due to root rot or burn....or haha in my case ph fluctation. And so far they are off to a good start. The 4 Sour Crack are all alive and growing. Will start foliar feeding during week two to try to encourage root expansion with a Kelp/Fulvic mix.

End of week 2 and the plants are really starting to veg. Will defoliate 2nd set of fan leaves to encourage lateral growth, think that after more stretch towards the end of the week I will start LST. The Octopots are working great so far. I’ll check for hydro roots later in week 3 to see if they actually migrated into the water reservoir. Like I said with the Sour Stomper, having less moving parts in a grow system is ideal. No pumps to circulate water in buckets and to circulate through water chiller. Having the soiless mix to act as a ph buffer grants great reassurance. The instructions for the system also advises keeping a moderate nutrient solution so 1.0 EC is probably where we will sit at until mid bloom. Here’s to hoping for more impressive growth.

Plants are doing great. The plants have migrated their roots into the water reservoir so there no worry about the size of the pot which is fucking sick. Watering is a breeze as well. Using about 1/4 a teaspoon of MegaCrop and 1/8 a teaspoon of Sweet Candy. The bottom right plant is showing lead damage like it’s stunted but I am still see new growth. All of them have handled defoliation well. Leading up to week 5 there may be minor LST to side branches but I am letting the main colors ride. I am defoliating around the main colo so I can expose the surrounding branches.

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Plants are doing great. The foliage on these Sour Crack is intense. I find my self mainly defoliating them and they come back with even more leaves. Going into week 6 I hope I have them under control to help keep the humidity at 50. Not sure what else to say, sub irrigation has been a huge win so far. The ease and benefit of two root zones working together is fucking awesome to watch. Here’s to hoping the rest of the grow goes smoothly and we get some nice dense plants.

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The time for harvest is nearing! Very excited for the next couple weeks as the buds continue to fatten. Only issues would be the bottom right plant was stunted and seems to be about two weeks behind so that harvest probably won’t be for another month. The other three are riding high with THC development and the smell is starting to set in. The top left is already nearing finish so I believe that one will be done within the next week. Been thinking about the next grow, will run four 4AM in this set up and then I will set up another tent to run Samnsquanch OG, Super Orange Haze, or Sweet N Sour. 2nd tent will be smaller and use less lighting (MIGRO LED Array 120 Watt) but still with Octopots. Sub-irrigation all the way!

Buds are finishing up and U have to say that I am more then impressed with the Sour Crack. Resin production is in full swing and even the girl that was stunted is on her way. Going to update the title and add sub-irrigation to it. I understand that soulless/hydro can be misleading and make it seem that I am only using a soilless mix. In all actuality I am using a soilless mix on top of a hydro reservoir. Two root zones are at play and I believe it shows. There are a few things I do want to change. I’m going to take out Bud Explosion next grow and just use the MegaCrop with Sweet Candy. I want to introduce Mammoth P. And either drop or compare AN to a more concentrated microbe product. Problem is I don’t want to fuck with clones so the comparison would be speculation without a control.

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Well this has been an exciting grow. The Sour Crack is a beautiful strain. One plant finished on day 65 and was a nice small auto flower with a very strong sour gasoline stank with sweet berry undertones. Two more took a little while longer to finish but they came out beautifully. I will continue to post week 11 as the girl that was stunted finishes. During the week I’ll update with the weight from the other two. This grow was pretty smooth. I love the Octopot and can’t believe I had a small auto fill out a 6 gal pot. The high from the small plant is great and flavor, density, and potency are all there. We will see if the bigger plants carry the same potency but fucking hell the plants are covered in trichromes. This definitely shows how the ph fluctuation with the Sour Stomper affected the overall quality of flower. If the Sour Crack came out this fucking dank then I couldn’t imagine actually nailing the Sour Stomper. All in all though I fucking love Mephisto.

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Plant took a lot longer then the others. This could be due to it being stunted but it pulled through. As I chopped her down looking at the shear number of buds I feel that she may end up the biggest plant of the four. My wife walked in and said “it smells like pure mango...” and this is what I noticed too. There is a huge lack of gasoline and pungent sour that the other three exhibited. The sweet berry smell that was undertone has now become the most vibrant and pungent smell. Will post with harvest next! Fuck Yeah! Very excited to see the total yield on this grow. The potency has been there so far, I agree with Mephisto on the density scale and it being highly potent but if I was using a 600watt HPS or LED using that wattage the yield would be way more the 60g. Each plant wanted to produce and I could only imagine what people with the professional set ups are pulling off this shit. Pump some CO2 get those big motherfucking lights and watch this small little auto produce! Bahaha it’s honestly maddening to think about the potential...

This was a very fun grow.🤗 Plant 1 = 49 Plant 2 = 81 Plant 3 = 60 Plant 4 = 68 Total g = 258g Sour Crack has huge potential. Just like it was stated in the strain guide, Sea of Green Method works tremendously well. I should delete the LST entries because I bent two side branches and then decided to only defoliate. And man that was a great decision. It helped with lateral branching and exposing much more of the plant. It was also what kept the stunted plant growing. She had some funky growth in the earlier weeks but I just couldn’t leave her alone! Defoliate dad much as I felt possible and she came back and gave me a good yield of the most sweet berry smelling of the four. This leads me to believe that there are at least two phenotypes. One would be the earlier finishing more squat plant that yielded 49g, I could have chopped her around day 55. She stayed square but formed tight buds that wrecked like gasoline and sour. The other two that finished the same time had more diesel with the sweet sour berry undertone. Then there’s the girl that finished late, the lack of diesel could’ve been due to the extra stress from being stunted or a third pheno that leaves behind the gas smell. The octopots performed tremendously well and I can’t wait to unlock their full capabilities. A longer vegging strain could really harness the hydro reservoir and I am still amazed at the concept. My majors setbacks for this grow was probably Not pushing my nutrients as far as they can go. The plants responded well but I was scared of burning them. I also feel like there’s a shit ton of beneficial bacteria that I’m missing out on. The goal for next time will to be dialing up the soil food web system in the octopot. The implications of sub-irrigation leaves me watering at the mouth! I want bacteria poring out of my fabric pots! Actually, on that note I forgot to take picture of green algae that was growing on the pot...green algae is a photosynthesis machine! Motherfuck me! If they were working in conjunction with the roots then holy shit 🤤! Haha, no real way to prove that but green algae can be used to assume healthy microbe populations exists. Next I shall take on 4AM and I have recently got a smaller tent set up with half the amount of light so now let’s tackle efficiency!! 💪