Shrubs Journal, Cindy, Toejam, Big Bud, God's Gift

[Shrubs First]

sorry man, this is confusing to me, an i know you know ur shit. I thought hydro was when ur plants sit in water at all times, but i guess that's a specific kind of hydro. all i know is all the people i know who grow told me to use ffof when i started. after finding the sunshine mix 4, the hydro shop owner told me it's the same as FF but i add the nutes. so in ur grow do you water a plant like it's in soil, only when its thirsty? what are the differences between ur grow, and someone doing a soil medium? thanks for the spot on knowledge though, really helps clear things up.

Not a prob dude, i can explain whatever. You are correct, that is a specific type
of Hydro, that you are talking about is Deep Water Culture, or DWC. And yes
you will be told to use Fox Farm when you start, I used it when I started, its
pretty much the go to fail safe for starting out, I mean your plants will look very
healthy if grown in Fox Farm. But I have come to recognize that Fox Farm flavor
and odor and I don't really enjoy it, it is very artificial, which is the best way to describe many of the ingredients in FFOF. Sunshine #4 is much much cleaner
than FFOF and you will have a much better flavor, the flavor of soil, with the
benefits of Hydro, although I would still say Roots Organics has a better soilless
mix.
Yes I water the plant as if it is Soil, near the beginning it was taking 5-6
days for my medium to completely dry out, and the plants stillll werent drooping. This isn't exactly ideal, which is why next time I will be adding more
Hydrocorals and Perlite, I would like to be able to water it every 3-4 days so I
can be more accurate with my nutrients..

The main difference between someone growing in soil and my grow is that there
is no decaying biomatter in my grow. Soils often have varying degrees of organic compounds in different states of decomposition.

My media was completely inert when I began this grow meaning if I want the
plants to have anything to eat besides pure h2o I would have to add it. The
problem with feeding organic in a media such as mine is that many people don't
realize your plant is unable to break down these organic foods. The roots don't
recognize them as food. The micro organisms and Mycorrhyzae and Trichoderma
see it as food, which makes it very very important to have thriving colonies
of them, they eat the organic materials and your plant in turn eats what the
micro organism basically shits out.. many feeding schedules nowadays include supplemention of these benificial
colonies, Fox Farm does not, which makes many of their organic claims seem
very fishy, if it were 100% organic where are their Mycorrhyzae supplementations
to help break that organic matter down?

And most Hydro media such as Rock wool, expanded clay pellets or perlite
can not host these beneficial organisms making organic hydro a complete
waste of time......................until COCO COIR! This stuff is inert, yet can
host allll of these benefical microbes. It is trully great stuff and very
inexpensive, I will probably never use anything else as a base media.

Hope that helps clear some stufff up..

 

[Shrubs First]

Week 5 Day 4 Pics

Enjoy, questions, comments bring em on

 

[Drella]

totally clear now, and thanks. i feel you on adding more perlite. i've felt this frustration of wanting to water more at the beginning. i feel comfortable more now with nutes, i like having control over them. best of luck to you, whoever get's to taste ur nugs are defn getting quality green. also props on continually striving to better ur grow techniques!

 

[boarderofsnow]

Not a prob dude, i can explain whatever. You are correct, that is a specific type
of Hydro, that you are talking about is Deep Water Culture, or DWC. And yes
you will be told to use Fox Farm when you start, I used it when I started, its
pretty much the go to fail safe for starting out, I mean your plants will look very
healthy if grown in Fox Farm. But I have come to recognize that Fox Farm flavor
and odor and I don't really enjoy it, it is very artificial, which is the best way to describe many of the ingredients in FFOF. Sunshine #4 is much much cleaner
than FFOF and you will have a much better flavor, the flavor of soil, with the
benefits of Hydro, although I would still say Roots Organics has a better soilless
mix.
Yes I water the plant as if it is Soil, near the beginning it was taking 5-6
days for my medium to completely dry out, and the plants stillll werent drooping. This isn't exactly ideal, which is why next time I will be adding more
Hydrocorals and Perlite, I would like to be able to water it every 3-4 days so I
can be more accurate with my nutrients..

The main difference between someone growing in soil and my grow is that there
is no decaying biomatter in my grow. Soils often have varying degrees of organic compounds in different states of decomposition.

My media was completely inert when I began this grow meaning if I want the
plants to have anything to eat besides pure h2o I would have to add it. The
problem with feeding organic in a media such as mine is that many people don't
realize your plant is unable to break down these organic foods. The roots don't
recognize them as food. The micro organisms and Mycorrhyzae and Trichoderma
see it as food, which makes it very very important to have thriving colonies
of them, they eat the organic materials and your plant in turn eats what the
micro organism basically shits out.. many feeding schedules nowadays include supplemention of these benificial
colonies, Fox Farm does not, which makes many of their organic claims seem
very fishy, if it were 100% organic where are their Mycorrhyzae supplementations
to help break that organic matter down?

And most Hydro media such as Rock wool, expanded clay pellets or perlite
can not host these beneficial organisms making organic hydro a complete
waste of time......................until COCO COIR! This stuff is inert, yet can
host allll of these benefical microbes. It is trully great stuff and very
inexpensive, I will probably never use anything else as a base media.

Hope that helps clear some stufff up..

Very helpful.. i was curious what the benefit of coco was.. makes sense now..

 

[Shrubs First]

Very helpful.. i was curious what the benefit of coco was.. makes sense now..

Yea it's an amazing substrate. Nothin better IMO.

 

[boarderofsnow]

Yea it's an amazing substrate. Nothin better IMO.

Which form of coco do you use? i've noticed that there are a few different coco mediums..

 

[Shrubs First]

I run a mix of a couple, This grow i'm doin 1/3 Canna Coco,
which is the best 100% coco medium i've used, 1/3 Roots
Organics Soil-Less Mix, which is Coco, Pumice, Perlite, Earthworm
Castings, Bat Guano, and Leonardite which is a Humic
Acid compound, and 1/3 Expanded Clay Pellets.

so
1/3 Canna Coco
1/3 Roots Organics Soil-Less Mix
1/3 Hydrocorals

It's a pretty airy medium, plus I'm
doing this grow in Smart-Pots which
allow for even more air.

 

[Shrubs First]

Week 5 Day 6 Pics (Day 34 Flowering)

Bigger and bigger, I'm hopin week 6 they plast off...

I just fed them tonight, I did it as a pretty heavy feed...

Ingredients as follows

10 Gallons Chlorine/Sediment Filtered Water
90 mL Master A
90 mL Master B
30 mL Cal- Mag Plus
40 mL Ginormous
50 mL Hum-Bolt
50 ml Flavor-Ful
150 mL Hygrozyme
50 mL Humboldt Honey ES
120 mL Budswel
Added Earth Juice Natural Down (Palm full)

Res Temp 72°F, pH 6.2, PPM 1600, EC 2.2

 

[Drella]

really like that first shot, the angel is perfect. im sure these are gonna thicken up amazingly for you. you can relly see how dense they are. doing a great job!

 

[Shrubs First]

really like that first shot, the angel is perfect. im sure these are gonna thicken up amazingly for you. you can relly see how dense they are. doing a great job!

I know, right???!?

I've decided a big thing I gotta invest in after this harvest is a digital camera,
I'm using the camera on my laptop for now... It's alll I got. haha, I'm just happy
it's keeping some type of record of this grow...

I'm really surprised how fat they are already, weeks 6 and 7 are usually my weight
gain weeks, so if they're here now, hopefully in 2 weeks they will be HUGE!!

 

[Drella]

they will, they will. one of the bushiest, definitely prettiest grows ive seen. your room setup seems so clean, and smelly! seriously those nugs are already scary, and intimidating. after refining ur skills more the next grow, i can't even see how this can get better!

 

[socialsmoker]

nice grow dude....... but with no veg there not as tall how talk r they? the buds r filling up a lot though just think how much more bud ud get if they were a foot taller u def have the lighting lol still a great grow

 

[Shrubs First]

they will, they will. one of the bushiest, definitely prettiest grows ive seen. your room setup seems so clean, and smelly! seriously those nugs are already scary, and intimidating. after refining ur skills more the next grow, i can't even see how this can get better!

Thanks man, ya alchohol and bleach, gottta keep the place SPOTLESS, no bugs or pests.... I'm hopin these buds get terrifying!!

nice grow dude....... but with no veg there not as tall how talk r they? the buds r filling up a lot though just think how much more bud ud get if they were a foot taller u def have the lighting lol still a great grow

I don't veg, thats the point... if they were to get any taller the quality of light to the lower buds
would be so weak it would be pointless to even grow the lower buds, Lights only
have so much penetration, and can be only so close to the plants (around 24 inches of penetration
and they have to be 12 inches away..) all I want is rock-solid nugs.. My plants are about 18 inches
tall..... Without growing the plants taller I get an even canopy of bud while using as much
penetration as efficiently possible... It also cuts down on my grow cycles by several weeks....

I don't want to be trimming whispy thin buds, that is a waste of time, only big
solid donkey dicks!

The amount of time required for them to grow taller doesn't make up for the
small amount of weight I would be gaining.

Who wants to grow stem? Not meee, only BUD

 

[Drella]

spoken like a true master! quicker, denser, yields. the quality of the nugs will be very apparent with this one! like anyone, i hate seeing stretch in my grow, which, i can't even see any stem on urs! keep it up mang!

 

[Shrubs First]

spoken like a true master! quicker, denser, yields. the quality of the nugs will be very apparent with this one! like anyone, i hate seeing stretch in my grow, which, i can't even see any stem on urs! keep it up mang!

The stretch is definitely something you have to learn to deal with, like in my grow,
I don't know what I would do with out the stretch, I was able to flower them at 6--8 inches, and now they are 16-18 inches, that is doubling size on some and almost triple on some, that is why the no veg strategy can work, if I were forced to
veg in order to get to this height it would set me back 2 weeks of veg growth,
learning to use the stretch to your advantage is key.

 

[Drella]

true, because the stech will occur no matter what, when you throw them into 12/12 at 6" do you use veg nutes still for a week? or bloom nutes, or half/half? this will be my first flower, so i really am still in the stage of just wanting to get through my first harvest, but trust me, scrog, of sog will defn be my next move. so yeah, im jealous.

 

[Shrubs First]

As soon as i start 12/12 cycle that is week 1 day 1
of flower, and my next feed would be for a flowering
week 1.. although i do very light feedings during the
first 2 weeks and then really start to make my mixtures
heavy.

 

[Drella]

right on sounds good, and the girls defn look like there liken it!

 

[Shrubs First]

right on sounds good, and the girls defn look like there liken it!

Yes my friend, they are loving it

 

[socialsmoker]

sounds like uve got your system down !!!