2010 #1 - Indoor Coco-Perlite Hindu Kush & Hailley's Comet 400w

McFonz said:

Its because they make the medium more ecidic as the nutes concentration builds up.
You shouldn't pH your solution.

The burnt tips might come from the H2O2.

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I thought so - but I see it on plants that didn't get h2o2. the top leaves are looking good, but some are showing the sligthest clawing down (just the tip, you can see on the pic).

and i don't pH - like you said once, with the usual amount of nutrients I get good pH both for coco and for soil. but then, i also think what you said about the hydro nutrients acidifying - should i try to counter that? if so how? everybody says add limestone/dolomite lime, but I hardly know how to call it in our language, let alone where to get it :\

what do you think about the buds fonz? look ok to you? proper size for 3 weeks in 12/12?

Don't worry too much about the pH. 5.5 is OK.

I don't see any pictures of any buds :-X

what do you think? a hermione? I suspect but can't be sure. it will hurt me to kill it.




what about the orange hairs on this one?

could it have been pollinated? I find it very hard to believe :\

life below:




today I bought powerzyme, and root accelerator by HESI. I will start giving them in hopes to improve the situation below ground, as I suspect it is less than ideal (even though you can see that in the canopy level everything looks pretty sweet). What do you think about that, considering that I'm almost 4 weeks in?

i'm also thinking on making some aerated compost tea to help my crobes both in the coco and in soil.

1. I'm not sure its a hermaphrodite, the picture isn't clear enough. Take a better picture and post it.
2. I don't see any orange pistils, and if you see a few - 4 weeks is where most strains pistils start to brown up.
3. Usually people chop down what's beneath the screen. This part is dying because it doesn't get enough light - not because the plants aren't healthy. If you want it healthier supplement with some bottom lightning. Usually people use CFLs for that mission.
4. Powerzyme and the Root Eccelerator should be great but isn't it a bit late for those?
5. I'm brewing some AACT right now Its nice to use that instead of just watering with water.
I use a somewhat strong air pump, mineral water, good store bought compost, home-made worm castings (this time I'm using EWC from seaweed fed worms) and molasses. Sometimes I add crushed oats.
I aerate for 30 hours or so this time of year.
Note that if your mediums EC is high the AACT won't do much for more than a few hours, unlike with low EC mediums where about 20% the microbes can survive for at least 3 days.
I'll be making some fungi dominant AACT next time (in 2 weeks I believe) to kick the end of flowering in the nuts.


Cheers.

McFonz said:

1. I'm not sure its a hermaphrodite, the picture isn't clear enough. Take a better picture and post it.
2. I don't see any orange pistils, and if you see a few - 4 weeks is where most strains pistils start to brown up.
3. Usually people chop down what's beneath the screen. This part is dying because it doesn't get enough light - not because the plants aren't healthy. If you want it healthier supplement with some bottom lightning. Usually people use CFLs for that mission.
4. Powerzyme and the Root Eccelerator should be great but isn't it a bit late for those?
5. I'm brewing some AACT right now Its nice to use that instead of just watering with water.
I use a somewhat strong air pump, mineral water, good store bought compost, home-made worm castings (this time I'm using EWC from seaweed fed worms) and molasses. Sometimes I add crushed oats.
I aerate for 30 hours or so this time of year.
Note that if your mediums EC is high the AACT won't do much for more than a few hours, unlike with low EC mediums where about 20% the microbes can survive for at least 3 days.
I'll be making some fungi dominant AACT next time (in 2 weeks I believe) to kick the end of flowering in the nuts.


Cheers.

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cool!

so yeah I guess it is a bit late for that, but will it hurt to still try? I guess I'll try today on one or two plants and see what happens.

and yeah I'll get some compost tomorrow and make tea

I'm not really expecting anything from the bottom growth, I'm using it more as an indication for plant problems and storage, so if I do have problems, I hope that the lower growth will show it to me before upper growth is damaged. I know this isn't necessary and if I weren't so stressed I'd remove them long time ago. Do you think it will stress them if I do it now? I fear to stress them to herm like I may have done to one already :\

but yeah, it's all good! looking forward to the wee-heekend.

I use enzymes up until harvest, but usually people use them to break down dead roots in order to free space for new roots.
At 4 weeks into flowering with indicas roots barely grow anymore.
I use them as they help breaking up the nutrients as well and as I already have a bottle.
I also use a root eccelarator up until 4 weeks before harvest if I believe there's still some root space available.
Later than that I want the plant to focus on budding, not making new roots.

Get the Beit Elazari brand and make sure it didn't sit in the sun too much (easy to see, the color wears off) and that the compost is somewhat moist - not bone dry.

Removing the bottom growth will aid in air circulation and barely stresses the plant.
Remove anything that doesn't seem like it would produce something worth triming.


Cheers

alas, it appears I have a real herm this time.

she's an important part of my grow right now and a good plant, but I don't wanna spoil it with seeds all over. then again i ain't killing her just like that. i'll take her out to the porch I guess. she not gonna like that one bit though.

the better alternative would be to leave her in and try to find her balls in advance to pluck. but it's very risky, i have a sq meter screen there with her branches going all over it, so it's not only hard to track the branches down but also problematic to start putting my hands in and plucking stuff that's full with semen in there. No, if I find another sack it'll be the porch for her.

other than that, I mulched my media with perlite the other day. still seeing gnats, but hoping they will go away soon. the main problem is that with the mulching and high RH, the pots never seem to dry now. I'm hoping this won't become an issue.

the hermie problem is worse than i thought. there seems to be one on every other branch, esp the little ones (but not the colas). some of them have popped already, and I believe my crop has been pollinated, probably quite severely.

It will be very hard to remove it from the scrog but I guess I have no choice. I think I'll spray the entire screen with water to make sure it doesn't pollinate when removing, and take it all out, put it in the porch or something.

The question is - is there any point to this now, that my entire crop is pollinated? or perhaps I can still save it?

fuck that. i'm not taking it out. i'll smoke with seeds if i have to, won't be the first time!

If you wish, keep plucking as many nanners as your can.
You will most like get a seeded crop, but the quicker you remove the balls the less seeds you will find.

Cheers.

week 6 update

still figuring stuff out. mulching with perlite has not really helped against fungus gnats. I think they're just going through the drain holes now (on the sides of the pot). perhaps i'll put some perlite in there too. the other thing is, with the mulching added to my pretty high RH now, the media won't ever dry. I'll try and get a desiccant today to try and counter that.

other than that, after a few days with not much leaf removal, today i saw some more upper leaves being shed by the plants, some of them are even getting light. I guess it's not very bad as I am past halfway through flowering, but I would still like to counter that. I started to water on friday with 1.0EC, but after seeing leaves falling (also on plants that had yet to be fed), I fixed it to 1.5. I gave aerated compost tea to two of my plants to see that this doesn't kill them or anything (it has an EC of 1.5 as well), and if not then I'll give it to all of the plants, someone said that this will help against the gnats.

other than that i'm liking the grow - getting some nice buds in there with plenty of frost. but I'm not expecting much yield, it just doesn't look like it's even gonna reach 200g :\

You are watering way too much.

so u think i should wait till dry? it can even take two weeks. i thought this might cause nutritional problems.

I do. And it doesn't cause anything.
You don't need to water a plant if it already has water.

Also, mulching with perlite is a bitch - it flies everywhere. It does help however.

week 7 update!

the desiccant has been helping both against humidity (keeping it 60% max), and the media seem to be drying a lot quicker.

the plants are doing very nicely, except one of them, the afghan kush, which has been low performing since the start of flower, and now I see that it's losing its upper leaves as well (unlike the hindu which keep their upper leaves shiny and green like new).

this week i've noticed what seems to be damage from thrips on the leaves, as well as one spider web which I can't tell to whom belongs. one thing's for sure, I sprayed thoroughly with the neem and pyrethrum mix they sell in the HS, and put some of it in my water to drench the soil with it. It should be systemic and help control both gnats in the medium and thrips inside buds, should they decide to colonize them.

here are some nice bud pics I took with the help of my most amazing girlfriend turns out i can get a very good light by just covering the hps (i used a cardboard) a bit.

Mazal tov - those plants are looking good!! A girlfriend who encourages pot cultivation is most amazing indeed - haha. How has your heat situation been these days? I found this the other day - you might be interested. It's along the same lines as the DIY air conditioner I posted about in my journal. http://www.thermoelectric.com/2005/pr/ssac/lhp.htm

Keep it up man, looking good!
Bob

Bob Lawblaw said:

Mazal tov - those plants are looking good!! A girlfriend who encourages pot cultivation is most amazing indeed - haha. How has your heat situation been these days? I found this the other day - you might be interested. It's along the same lines as the DIY air conditioner I posted about in my journal. http://www.thermoelectric.com/2005/pr/ssac/lhp.htm

Keep it up man, looking good!
Bob

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thanks! it was quite hot last week, over 30 outside in the day, but it was good in my box - max 83. so i think this batch will be alright weather wise, and I shall rest in the summer and enjoy the fruits

It hit 30 here today - man, I'm glad for central air conditioning! How did your first harvest turn out compared to average street weed? A good buddy tells me you can often grow your weed better than most of the stuff grown for distribution. When I see all the time and attention people give their plants, I can totally understand why

In that heat, I'd be enjoying my fruit with a cold goldstar hehe

Bob Lawblaw said:

It hit 30 here today - man, I'm glad for central air conditioning! How did your first harvest turn out compared to average street weed? A good buddy tells me you can often grow your weed better than most of the stuff grown for distribution. When I see all the time and attention people give their plants, I can totally understand why

In that heat, I'd be enjoying my fruit with a cold goldstar hehe

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well until recently, aside hash (which varies in quality from very bad to very good), they would only sell shwag grown by bedouins, it would come really cheap (200nis/50$ for 50g), but awful quality, full of seeds and sand and branches. nevertheless, i really liked the smoke of it, some sort of sativa or ruderalis. nowadays they sell hydro, very expensive (100nis per g), but usually of fine quality, indicas.

My previous grows were seeds from the bedouin strains - so my plants were also pretty weak, but a nice smoke, not much different than the bedouin, minus the sand (they did herm big time). what i'm growing now is totally a different story. i never seen such trichs on plants except for bud porn

week 8

not much to report today. i was hoping to have finished by now, but the big colas are still mostly white... so looks like i got at least another 2-3 weeks going. so much... so much for a short flowering strain!oh well. as long as i get that 0.5 gpw... i'm really stressed about that. if i get only a 100g, it will be a major disappointment for me. however, many lessons have been learned. the biggest mistake i made here was by far, not scrogging on time. i only put in on at 2 weeks flowering. and this cost me much colas.

also, the gnats, they have been a major PITA. I can't really tell how much damage they've caused, by i have a feeling I would be having it much better without them. Should have drenched neem oil on first sight of them. Overwatering at first (due to some very bad advice from an idiot friend) was also very detrimental. Other than that, it is definitely my best grow so far. I've kept the plants nice and green with hardly any nutrition problems, not much pest problems either so far, tfu tfu tfu. Another grave mistake I made was not trimming the undergrowth beneath the scrog in time. yep, big mistake there.

for my future growth, i'm thinking I'll never use a lamp horizontally again. even without a scrog, just hanging the lamp like that and placing plants even in various sizes, this sounds way more light economic. and of course, can also scrog around it and stick the branches on the screen. then again, I have to examine this in terms of heat and air circulation, but I think it can be done.

I'm also wanting to look into micro grows, very small plants, 12/12 from seed. Even using CFLs, and personal scrogs. my next grows will be much more hands on, much more doing and experimenting rather than sitting here trying to figure out if i'm gonna be killing my plants. yep, big plants. but for the summer - i shall rest.

I also wanna start going organic like fonz said. using compost and stuff. The thing is, i haven't been able to obtain any soil in my country that doesn't have time release nutes in it. only compost. But I guess I can mix say some coco with compost like has been suggested, the question is will it last me for an entire grow? and if not, how will I fertilize it? by topping with fresh compost, or humus... or with liquid fertilizers... organic fertilizers? it's not simple, and I have no experience with it. but I WILL experiment