200w+ CFL scrog in the attic

I'm proud I was able to resist posting for more than one full day! Though, to be fair, not much has happened since the last post, other than the significant growth and stretch getting started. Here are photos showing the 3 days of growth since my last post (notice I didn't take a shot on Day 4, though):

Day 3 flowering (day 28 from seed):



Day 5 flowering (day 30 from seed):



I also noticed some odd growth patterns on the growing tips yesterday, and posted a thread about it in the Indoor forum. Basically, I noticed that among the 4 growing tips, two were producing three leaves per node, one was producing two leaves per node, and one was producing one leaf per node. Here are a few shots showing the 1- and 3-leaf nodes:

1-leaf:


3-leaf (two different tops):



Other than that, today was the first day I watered since I transplanted her on 4/27. That large soil mass sure managed to hold water a long time! I imagine it'll dry up faster now that the plant's roots have been spreading into it. I didn't use any nutes at this time since I put such a healthy dose into the soil when I transplanted. I'll probably give the first dose of bloom nutes as soon as pistils start appearing around the growing tips, though.

I've already given my most recent photo of the plant, so instead I will finish with charts showing my temps and humidity lately:




It's been really hot these last few days -- probably 95 degrees in my attic this afternoon -- but the box has managed to keep below 86 degrees even at the hottest time of the day. Seems like my a/c setup might be doing the trick! I am still probably going to add a second exhaust fan at the opposite end of the box, to make sure both ends above the lights are pulling out hot air (and hopefully pulling more air in from the house ducts).

As always, comments and feedback are welcome!

Looks good man, that should end up a nice canopy for sure.

stoneslacker said:

Looks good man, that should end up a nice canopy for sure.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm more worried that I'm going to run out of space at this point! So far I'm at the end of week 1 of 12/12, and still not a single flower has appeared! Well, I see what look like immature flowers on some nodes, but no pistils yet. Here are a couple pictures of my canopy tonight right after the lights came on:





Here's one showing the branching underneath the screen -- I definitely don't doubt this plant's sativaness anymore!



As a matter of fact, the canopy was spreading so fast that I realized I lacked sufficient light coverage, so I added another two bulbs. Now I'm up to the following:

2700k bulbs (watts and lumen rating):

42w 2800
32w 2200
32w 2200
26w 1700
---------------
132w 8900 lumens

5000k bulbs:

23w x 4 1570 x 4
-------------------------
92w 6280 lumens

Grand totals:
224w 15,180 lumens

Here's a photo showing the light setup:



I definitely need to come up with a solution that will allow me to more easily adjust the lights once the plants start to grow vertically (after the screen surface is filled). Ideally I'm going to try to attach all the lights to a single panel/board/etc. that is hanging from above with chains or a thin rope. However, that's a project I haven't tackled quite yet. Speaking of projects, here's the nearly-final mother/clone box:



I've basically light-proofed the box now except the exhaust and two air intake holes. I plan to use some perpendicular tubes to block the intake tubes, and some ducting for the exhaust. Once that's done I'll be able to move it inside the flowering chamber on hot days without interrupting the 12 hr dark period.

Nothing else to report, other than an update on the temps and humidity lately, which has pretty much stabilized within a reasonable range:



Until next time................

WE HAVE FLOWERS! They're still small and more like "pre-flowers" but they have pistils! Here's a closeup:



That's from today, which is Day 10 of 12/12, or day 35 from seed (whichever you prefer to count at this point). Here are a few pictures of the whole plant from different angles:







No changes to the number or mixture of bulbs yet, though I'm planning to rig them into a single reflector/hood/fixture/thingy as soon as I get my lazy ass around to doing it.

In other news, my clones aren't doing so great. Their root development was minimal when I transplanted them last week, and one of them is nearly dead looking now. The other just looks stunted (and slightly overwatered, which is why I'm now only misting the leaves occasionally, nothing for the soil until it's bone dry). Here's a photo:



I'm wondering if maybe I should have put them in pure perlite to start, and left them there a lot longer (with less frequent watering). I'm considering taking some more cuttings before the main plant gets into the full swing of flowering, and trying to do a better job of cloning this time. Any thoughts?

Finally, I've noticed some of the old fan leaves underneath the canopy (which are getting minimal light now) are splotchy and crispy looking. I snipped one that was receiving no light at all so I could take a better photo:





I'll probably hold off on posting it to the forum for sick plants until (and unless) it starts spreading or getting worse. Any guesses what that might be? I haven't really started hardcore nutes since I mixed some Espoma Plant-tone in with the soil when I transplanted into this container. I figured I'd start bloom nutes in a week or two. Still need to pick a brand and buy them, though!

And I'll finish with my latest temps and humidity charts:

great job bro im subbed

i could be way off, but that looks looks a lockout of some sort.. maybe zinc? is your pH spot on?

i like how fast your stuffs goin' tho! great job

Looking good man, Rep

OVOXO said:

Looking good man, Rep

Click to expand...

Thanks!

oOrtclOud said:

i could be way off, but that looks looks a lockout of some sort.. maybe zinc? is your pH spot on?

i like how fast your stuffs goin' tho! great job

Click to expand...

It doesn't seem to be getting worse or spreading, I'm going to go with the theory that it was leaves that came into contact with the soil, which seems to be retaining a lot more water than I'd normally want. Going forward I'm going to mix this soil more like 50/50 with perlite, I think. And as far as liking the fast growth rate... me too! It seems like the rate is just accelerating sometimes, too, though that's largely stretch at this point, I guess.

So here are some photos of the plant yesterday (Day 12 of 12/12, Day 37 from seed):







And today (Day 13 of 12/12):





The healthier of the two clones is starting to really look healthy, other than what is probably a little fert burn (I might have made the soil a bit hot). Here's a comparison just from yesterday to today (though the pics were taken from different angles, so it's not a perfect comparison):



I'm starting to call her Mother, since it's looking likely that will be her role. The other clone is still clinging to life, and the growing tip looks like it might make a recovery:



I'm calling her Runt. If she does make it I'll probably put her in the flower chamber once I transplant Mother to a wider/shallower pot.

That's all for now! Well, except one thing... one of my clamp lights slipped at some point in the last 24 hours and burned a few leaves. Pretty amazing that my highest wattage bulb (42w) only did this much damage to a leaf after being in direct contact for who knows how many hours:



So here's a tip for any new CFL growers: Don't Fear The Lights! Well, at least if they're 42w or below. I imagine an 80+ watt bulb would have caused some more pain.

Until next time....

Update time! The plant is finally starting to begin what I'd call truly flowering, on day 17 of 12/12. Every node is now producing a pair of flowers along with each leaf node. Here are a few example pics:



The stretch also seems to be slowing at least a little bit. Just in time, since the screen is filling up:



I'm working on attaching all my CFLs to some kind of fixture that I can raise and lower as one unit, but for the time being I still just have separate clamp lights, as you can see.

I'm glad to say Mother is looking downright vibrant in her chamber:



Runt is somehow still clinging to life, but I'd say the prognosis isn't good:



I've moved her to the flowering box so she can die (or live, if she chooses) without interfering with Mother's light and growth.

That's about it for now. I'm going to be installing a second exhaust fan on the other end of the top of the flowering box soon, since my temperatures (and humidity) have been flirting with "too high" and we haven't even had any stifling summer days yet:



And, for those who are keeping track, today was my second watering since transplanting to the scrog container on 4/26 (and even then the soil had been watered a few days before, I didn't water at that time). So yes, that means I'm averaging one watering every 10 days or so. And she is loving it!

As always, comments are welcome and encouraged!

I'm really loving your grow man. And your pictures are amazing what kind of camera are you using? My only negative comment, and I'm surprised noone else pointed this out, but you have your temp humidity monitor way up in your grow room, but your lights and canopy are below. It is likely that the temp directly under the light, where your plants are, is higher than the temp where your monitor is. However; your plants look great and don't look stressed at all, so I guess there's not much to worry about there.

georgyboy said:

I'm really loving your grow man. And your pictures are amazing what kind of camera are you using? My only negative comment, and I'm surprised noone else pointed this out, but you have your temp humidity monitor way up in your grow room, but your lights and canopy are below. It is likely that the temp directly under the light, where your plants are, is higher than the temp where your monitor is. However; your plants look great and don't look stressed at all, so I guess there's not much to worry about there.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'm using a Sony NEX-3 with the 18-200 lens. It's like a DLSR but without the viewfinder. As far as the temp/humidity monitor, it was only high compared to where the plants were when I first installed the sensor. Now that I've transplanted them into the final container, it's about the same height in the box as the lights, or just above the canopy:



I intentionally have it a little ways back from the lights, though, because I want it to pick up the air temperature inside the box, rather than the radiative temperature directly under the lights. Plants can handle really high radiative temperatures as long as the air temperature is within a safe range. I have a fan blowing air across the canopy/bulbs to make sure it doesn't turn into a little oven under there, too, though.

Speaking of the canopy and lights... as you can probably see in that picture, I finally got my act together and made a reflector/fixture so I can lower and raise all the lights as one unit. Here are some more pics showing that from above and below:





I made it out of a solid cedar plank, which I then covered in mylar. Here's the plank pre-mylar:



I don't have enough Y-sockets right now, but I'll be adding them so that every hole there has 2 CFLs coming out of it. Right now I have the following bulbs, though:

42w 2700k (2800 lumens) x 2
32w 2700k (2200 lumens) x 2
26w 2700k (1750 lumens) x 5
23w 5000k (1570 lumens) x 2

That makes it a total of 324 watts, so well over the "200+" I originally planned for the grow, and they are producing a total of 21,890 lumens. Not too shabby for such a small area!

In other news, the flowers are finally starting to look purrty. I'm looking forward to watching this thing flower for another 11-12 weeks...



I believe I've already mentioned that I'm planning to transition to a perpetual SOG setup after this ScrOG finishes. Well, I'm going ahead and forking that into a separate journal (here), so any updates having to do with Mother and her clones will be posted in the other journal, while this journal will be used to document only the ScrOG.

That's all for now, folks. Until next time!

So this is just a quick rant about temps... I'm really starting to regret my decision to have lights on at night and off during the day.

First off, here are my latest temp and humidity charts:



As you can see, the high temps are starting to trend up. However, my low temps are also trending lower... how could this be, you ask? Well, since my grow box is tapped directly into my central a/c, the box gets extra cold when the a/c is full blast (mid-afternoon), but the a/c only runs occasionally during the latter part of the night, since the house is cool then. So when the lights are really starting to heat up the box, the a/c is hardly running at all, and when the a/c is blasting the box with cold air, the lights aren't there to balance it out.

D'oh!

I didn't realize that about your sensor my bad man, you obviously knew what you were doing. 12 more weeks!? I don't know if I could handle waiting that one out, but once you start it's just silly to pick 'em early. How many weeks you gonna have between harvest on the sog? You're doing perpetual right?

ourkansaw said:

So this is just a quick rant about temps... I'm really starting to regret my decision to have lights on at night and off during the day.

First off, here are my latest temp and humidity charts:

View attachment 2178735 View attachment 2178736

As you can see, the high temps are starting to trend up. However, my low temps are also trending lower... how could this be, you ask? Well, since my grow box is tapped directly into my central a/c, the box gets extra cold when the a/c is full blast (mid-afternoon), but the a/c only runs occasionally during the latter part of the night, since the house is cool then. So when the lights are really starting to heat up the box, the a/c is hardly running at all, and when the a/c is blasting the box with cold air, the lights aren't there to balance it out.

D'oh!

Click to expand...

That sucks about the a/c problem man! Worst part is you made the right decision flowering at night if the a/c wasn't a factor. Damn, ah well the best, well laid out plans are only good until the first problem arises. You could just become a nudist during the day and an eskimo at night!

I am also hoping for a cooler next couple months so maybe Mother Nature will help us both out. Good luck with the temps man I'll be following you here. Peace

georgyboy said:

I didn't realize that about your sensor my bad man, you obviously knew what you were doing. 12 more weeks!? I don't know if I could handle waiting that one out, but once you start it's just silly to pick 'em early. How many weeks you gonna have between harvest on the sog? You're doing perpetual right?

Click to expand...

I'm such a sativa guy that I think it's well worth the wait! But yeah, that's part of the reason I'm shifting to a perpetual SOG next, so I won't have to wait 100+ days for each harvest. My goal is to harvest and add one clone every 10-12 days. I'm currently only smoking about 1-2 oz per YEAR, so even if my yields are really low I imagine I'll be producing enough to keep me supplied.

stoneslacker said:

That sucks about the a/c problem man! Worst part is you made the right decision flowering at night if the a/c wasn't a factor. Damn, ah well the best, well laid out plans are only good until the first problem arises. You could just become a nudist during the day and an eskimo at night!

I am also hoping for a cooler next couple months so maybe Mother Nature will help us both out. Good luck with the temps man I'll be following you here. Peace

Click to expand...

Sometimes it seems like the half-assed plans might be better than the well-laid-out ones... that way you only fix the problems that actually arise, rather than hypothetical ones. Oh well!

I'll be following your new grow, too -- those clones look like monsters! Here's to hoping the weather cooperates with both of us....

Just a couple quick photos, probably the best ones I've taken so far. Now that I can raise the lights, I can get decent shots of the entire canopy. These are from today, Day 24 of flowering, Day 49 from seed:





And some closeup shots of the colas starting to form:







As you can probably tell, I've decided to upload photos to an album and then link to the image, that way you don't have to click on them to see the pics. What this also means is I've compiled the photos into a user album, in case you want to just look at pictures without having to read all this posting text nonsense.

That's all for now..... as always, comments are welcome and encouraged!

ourkansaw said:

I'm such a sativa guy that I think it's well worth the wait! But yeah, that's part of the reason I'm shifting to a perpetual SOG next, so I won't have to wait 100+ days for each harvest. My goal is to harvest and add one clone every 10-12 days. I'm currently only smoking about 1-2 oz per YEAR, so even if my yields are really low I imagine I'll be producing enough to keep me supplied.

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Ha ha wait you smoke 1-2 oz a year and are about to start harvesting a plant every ten days? Yeah man I think you will meet your needs quite well. I love the way the plant looks as the cola first starts to form, it's all so exciting. My oldest plant is just behind yours, and I'm wishing I had used a screen like you did.

Nice canopy man, looks like you nailed it.

georgyboy said:

Ha ha wait you smoke 1-2 oz a year and are about to start harvesting a plant every ten days? Yeah man I think you will meet your needs quite well. I love the way the plant looks as the cola first starts to form, it's all so exciting. My oldest plant is just behind yours, and I'm wishing I had used a screen like you did.

Click to expand...

The screen really does help a lot with training. For my perpetual SOG, though, I'll be adding cuttings directly to the flowering box, without letting them veg at all, so I'm actually expecting very low yields (like maybe 5 grams dried per plant). That would have me producing around 150 to 200g per year, which is only like 2-4 times my consumption. I imagine my consumption will at least double when it's available and plentiful, so I don't think I'll have some huge abundance of surplus pot. But if I'm wrong, I'll just have to become extra generous when my friends are over!