Thought I would throw together a little grow recap and illustrate a bit about my simple grow. Hempy is a really simple and effective system.
First take your container, your options are pretty unlimited on what kind of container to use. Just pick one that is appropriate to the size plant you plan to grow, mine are 1.32G/5L to give you an idea of how small your bucket could be. Larger buckets would be better, but don't go too large. You wan't to find a balance point between early veg and aggressive bloom water uptake. Shoot for about 4-6 days for complete dry out in early veg and 1-3 days in aggressive bloom. You can tell when you need to water by simply lifting the bucket and judging the weight, a dry bucket will feel very light compared to a freshly watered one.
Next pick your medium, I use perlite partly cuz it's cheap and easy,but the options are fairly unlimited. Just need a somewhat absorbent, stable material. I've seen a guy grow some really impressive plants in foam from old couch cushions, pretty cool. Once you have a bucket and medium, drill a small 1/2" to 7/16" hole in the side of the bucket, about 2" from the bottom. This hole is simply to create a water rez and for drainage so don't make it too big. These folger can hempys are going to hold some 12/12 from clones to fill space in my next grow.
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I like to use a small square of vinyl screen to cover my hole before filling with prewashed perlite. I wash my perlite fairly well do remove dust. Then just plant your clone or seedling like you
would in dirt.
View attachment 2667077 I usually give plain water for the first 5 days or so and I will tip my buckets sideways to drain as much water out of the rez as possible, leaving just the water absorbed into the perlite. This helps to prevent the newly transplanted roots from sitting in too much water and cause them to expand out quicker in search. You can also do this throughout the grow if one plant is not uptaking as much water as the others.
I ph to 5.8 almost all thru veg. Of course monitor your girls and adjust accordingly. There is some debate on how often to water your hempy buckets. IMO
let your buckets dry out almost completey Don't let them get to the point of wilting but make sure there is very little water weight in them. Pick your buckets before and after watering and daily from there. Get an idea of how much water is still there by the weight of the bucket. After a few times you will have no problem judging when they have dried out nicely. I feel drying out is the best system as it helps to maintain high oxygen levels to the roots, stimulating the most growth.
After about 5-8 days your newly transplanted girls will have shot roots all the way to the rez. They should be taking water and you can start feeding. Being a passive hydro system, hempy IMO needs nutrients on every feeding if possible. Start your feedings our light say 1/4 to 1/2 str. I use the GH 3 part and usually start feedings at 1mL of each, supplemented with 5mL florablend and .5 to 1 mL cal/mag. After about 7-10 days you can top your girls and start training.
Topping for a scrog setup is almost a must. You need to stimulate as much branching as possible. After topping, once you have some decent branches, you can begin LST. I use nylon string and duct tape for training. Simply loop the string around a branch and pull down slightly, then duct tape the string to the bucket.
View attachment 2667011 Start with the apex, or highest tip and pull down to even or slightly below canopy level. Then pull any branches that rise up to apex, back down to canopy level. The idea here is to force the plant to direct growth to other areas in order to achieve an apex. Once the branches are longer you can start to train the tips downward and train the middle sections of the branches upwards. This will cause the small growth tips to explode upwards, vertically off the horizontal branch. This is the same branch off my blue cheese taken three days apart. Notice the new growth tip start growing upward to become a future top.
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I feed very aggressively starting about day 12 of veg, bumping up to 5/mL grow, 5 micro and 2.5 bloom. I bump up the florablend to 10 mL, cal/mag to 2.5 and start adding floranectar at 2mL. I continue to feed at these levels till I notice aggressive growth. Then I bump up to 7.5/5/2.5, 10 Fb, 3.5c/mg and 2.5fn. This is a baseline and you should adjust according to your plants. I do feed very aggressively and try to push the threshold a bit, start your levels off a bit lower and increase a small bit at a time.
Continue training your branches horizontally and train your new middle growth to fill in empty areas of the screen. I like to have 4 nice main branches to train to each corner of my screen, and utilize all the small branching off these to fill the middle portion. If the middle starts to outpace the growth on your end branches, let the branches grow upwards a bit to slow the middle down some. Try to shoot for about 60-75% screen coverage before flipping.
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About 2-4 days before flipping I like to flush with a clearex solution mixed at 7.5mL per gallon. I don't have a TDS pen but you could also use a low E/C solution to flush with. When I flip I shut the light down for approx. 36 hrs before changing photoperiod. If you flushed shortly before flipping, your buckets should be good and dry by now. I feed pretty aggressively here to accommodate the plants stretch needs. I feed along the lines of my aggressive growth at 7.5/5/3.5, and bump c/mg up to 5mL and florablend and floranectar to 7.5-10mL. I feed at these levels till about day 14, then I look to flush around day 18 or so. After flushing I let the plants dry out extremely well, a day more than I usually do, then I feed them an early bloom mix at 5/5/5 and sups the same.
I bump my ph up to 6.0 at this time.
During this 21 day or so stretch period continue training branches to fill the screen. During the 1st week train branches back down under the screen and try to keep stretching above the screen to a minimum. After that let the stretch go above the screen, I like to shoot for 4-7 inches of stretch and they should fill in nicely. Day 12 blueberry, just about right.
View attachment 2667058 Around day 14-21 start to trim the undergrowth out and remove any leecher branches that won't reach the canopy. Start with the lowest stuff 1st and move upwards the later you get into stretch. After day 21 or so remove anything that is not above the screen. I should have removed more above the screen, but at day 20 or so you should look like this.
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Continue feeding until day 33 or so, reducing the amount of grow and increasing bloom slightly each time. I add liquid koolbloom at 1mL/gallon after my first flower flush, around day 20. Around day 33 flush again with 7.5mL clearex and let them dry out really good again, about 4-5 days with my buckets. Then feed an aggressive mix. My complete feeding schedule thru day 49 of flower is on pg. 29 post #284. I also
bump my ph to 6.2 around this time until week 5.5 or so.
I think the flushing and drying out really makes them blow up and gain some size. Blackjack day 20 & day 34.
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After the stretch portion of flower, the rest of the grow is really low maintenance. Just trim any low nodes that may spring up and any leaves that are congesting things and blocking light. I cut leaves off right up till harvest, so don't be afraid to trim that stubborn leaf off if it's blocking light. Just continue to feed and flush every 14-21 days, and always let the buckets dry out good.
Around week 6 I bump the ph up again to 6.4-6.5.
Hope this can help someone out at sometime, just adjust things according to your situation and enjoy.
Peace.
Hope it is just humidity. Peace!!