The Church Hydro

8/16 saw first gemination from seed on paper towels. 8/17 transferred to seedling box in coco. 8/20 put 5 largest into hydro. 2 other sprouts still in seedling box, waiting on 3 more. Using no medium, 3" net pots with neoprene collars. Foreword note: The things I do with these plants through this grow shouldn't be seen as "the" way to do any of the techniques I'll use. If I use a ScrOG net and don't really do ScrOG correctly, that's to be expected. But I call it ScrOG just to fit into a category of and so noone mistakes me for claiming anything original, when it's just ScrOG. What I do is 90% stuff that I copy imperfectly from what people share online, and 50% of stuff I just make up or do because I feel like it. I don't claim any of it is the right way or even my way. It's just the way I do it. The grow space for this is 16" deep by 32" wide, which is 3-1/2 square feet or 0.33 square meters. Vertically a have 8" for roots, 8" for stems, and a 14" high flowering area. I will have the flowering box surrounded by light on top, sides and bottom during flowering. I'm hoping to pump a lot of yield out of a essentially a 30 gallon flowering volume.

7 seedlings growing at different rates and levels of vigor. Wavy leaves may be a sign of oxygen deficiency for the roots, so a stronger air pump is arriving tomorrow.

I changed to this air pump https://tinyurl.com/y5ca227a and it's made a big difference. This one pump with 2 outlets has all the roots dancing in foamy airy nutrients. It's very quiet too. I also added a fan to keep the leaves wiggling and fresh. Each of the 7 growing at different rates. I'll probably top them all next week at the same node, and that should help equalize this grow.

Topping and beginning training, I've done this a little early, so I'm trying to be super gentle with these young plants. Training these with manifolding in mind. I also add a teabag of rich soil from my backyard to the reservoir, to provide any trace nutrients that the packaged commercial nutes may leave out.

I've just about finished the manifold training on most of these plants. I've been experimenting with different methods of securing the limbs to the armatures for training. I'm doing this so early so I'm concerned with finding something firm enough but gentle. I tried bent copper, wire ties, and ended up with the rubber band solution in the photos. I'm thinking I may move these up to the flowering buckets/shelf next week. I've followed the manifold technique taught at growweedeasy, but am trying one change in this grow. GWE's technique has me let each half grow and then trim except for 2 stems(+leaf) at node 1 and 2 stems(+leaf) at node 3. This is recommended because they grow laterally at 1 and 3 and stacked on 2 and 4. The change I am making is I am not trimming off the top stem(+leaf) at the second node. That would send up 5 stems on each side. The reason I'm trying this is I damaged 2 or 3 embryonic stems during training, so I wanted to have an alternate branch ready to utilize if the plants don't recover from the damage I did. Later I don't know if I'll trim extra healthy branches or try to accommodate them all; ScOG grid is already set up for 48.

Sorry I didn't update yesterday. Been bending limbs down to keep a consistent height. Using LST and HST this time. Soon I'll be identifying which branches from which plants will make the final cut. I've been very rough on these plants and they all continue to thrive. But I've noticed a clear distinction between some that are fast growing and some that are slow growing, under the exact same care. Since this is a relatively new breed I'll be interested in how they differ at harvest. I'm noticing most of my challenge now is to get the branches all at a consistent height for the switch at the ScrOG net. The challenge is not among individual branches, but among slower and faster growing plants. This would be much easier if I had a way to raise or lower whole plants in the grow. Not likely in a hydro setup, water seeking its level and all.

I'm getting impatient, I want growth. I increased nutes, I defoliated. I got the feeling the plants would like more light so I increased the light by 50%. When I started topping the plants in week 3, I saved the cutting from my 2 healthiest plants. They established roots and outgrew their 3" pots--so I put them into a larger pot together. I'm only growing these for seeds, so I'll be feminizing one with colloidal silver, and pollinating the one next to it. And the lizard is Sal. He hangs out at all my grows. 10/5, day 51, just decided to go 12/12 tonight. I will count on the stretch to get my slower growers up to the starting gate. But I can't keep waiting forever.

Defoliated yesterday. Not up to the screen yet, and I'm impatient. If it's not there next week, I'm going to raise up the pots. When I switched to 12/12 I also began spraying the taller plant in the dirt pot with colloidal silver. Soon that pot will leave for the honeymoon suite.

The plants are about level with the screen. Today I defoliated and trimmed. All leaves look healthy. Still some plants are growing faster than others, and I cut away some of the manifold branches that just weren't going to keep up.

Moved a bit, trimmed a bit, made some decisions about the branches that had their chance but aren't going to make it to the light. Moved the light up a little. I'm seeing little flowers begin. All healthy leaves and stems. Roots look good, though the GH nutrients tend to dye the roots brown-ish, so it's always hard to say for sure. But it all feels healthy and good.

I've noticed my water temperature is getting up to 80F, so I've ordered some Hydroguard to protect from root rot, which I'll add tomorrow when it arrives. I have bubble stones as well as recirculation pumps in each bin. The pump just keeps a general jungley spray going in the root chamber. I'm leaving one turned off today to see if that pump motor is what is raising the water temperature. I'm happy about the canopy coming together as it should where it should. Changed the nutes today and defoliated. As noted in a late edit to last week, I have lights all around the canopy. I'm pushing for a lot from a small space. Plenty of air movement, plenty water, plenty light. We'll see! FYI The reservoir with the pump motor left on measured 10-12 degrees F higher than the one with it off. I'll be going with just bubbles during the light time for a while.

pushed one branch down a bit that was higher than the rest. changed the nutes. just letting them do their thing.

Getting taller than I'd hoped...but if they stop growing here it should be ok.

Like Freddie Prinze used to say, Looking good!

Coming in a day early this week because tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Plants are growing nicely, pistils and colors and frost, all good stuff happening. None of the colas are fat and solid like a pinecone yet, but we're on track for a nice harvest. I'm thinking 4 more weeks.

I noticed a couple buttons on my light timer were not firmly in the off position around 2am. I hope the light hasn't been coming on for an hour at night. :-/

Not happy with how not-dense the colas are. I was thinking about harvesting next week, but I may have to delay in hope that they thicken up. :-/

Sorry to be a couple days late this week. We celebrated my daughter's 21st and my focus was all her's. I had hoped to harvest this week, (and i have sneaked a bud or two) but I'm getting foxtails with fresh white pistils still showing up. From the start I had planned to force as much out of this flower box, sufficient nutes, plenty water, plenty airflow, plenty light top/sides/bottom. Also, last week as I noted, I noticed a couple buttons on my timer were pushed partially in where they should have been out, possibly resulting in an hour of bright light in the middle of the night--I can't know for sure if it happened or for how long it had been. So I don't know which of these things cause this continued new flowering, but regardless I'm taking measures to bring this in for harvest. I've unplugged the brightest, the top lights, and curtailed the light schedule to 10/14. And while you see the nutes all zeroed out, what I'm actually doing is just adding fresh water as needed to keep the level up. There were 2 plants from this grow, clones from the 2 healthiest, that I put into dirt together and feminized one with colloidal silver. They were segregated, and the 'male' plants has since been discarded. I'm seeing lots of healthy feminized seeds maturing. This batch of plants varied quite a bit in identical growing situations, but these 2 best plants I cloned performed really well from sprout to harvest, so I'm hopeful that I'll have consistently best plants from my seeds. I accidentally clicked veg for this week, and don't see how to correct that. Oh well.

I am convinced the faulty timer sabotaged this grow with an hour of blinding light in the middle of the night for I don't know how many nights. I'm cutting them down and hanging to dry, and while their is a decent harvest here, I am disappointed with the new growth mixed in with mature buds. 100g dry bud weight.