4x4 hybrid grow, comments welcome

Chemicals/Supplements Used (not all at once): Fox Farms Trio, CALiMAGic, Super thrive, Azos, Mykos, earthworm tea, bone meal, Epson salt, Molasses, PH up, PH down, azomite, flower fule.

Lighting: Veg: 600w MH, 70W (true) LED

Temp: Veg: 70-79 F

Humidity: Veg: 30-60% (average 45-50%)

Strains: Blackberry Kush, Banana Kush

Space: 4x4 total, 3x3 growing tray

Two plants started early: Ban 0 and Berry 0 were started 2 weeks early to test conditions before other plants were added. Only 4 containers will be flowered (due to state limit)

Banana Kush 0 and Berry Kush 0 on 2/23 (sorry for LED, was fixing a lighting issue)

Feb 28, full room. Still have some tomatoes and cucumbers sheltering from frost inside, Ban 1 and 2 are off to the left

Feb 28 closeups:

Banana 0



Berry 0:

March 12:

Berry 0 and Ban 0 transplanted to 5 gal fabric pots couple days ago:

March 17. Ban 0 (back left) is vegging fast and smells like a skunks ass, getting pruned lots. Berry 0 (Back right) is growing nicely with LST only, still haven't pruned a single leaf from her. All pre-flowers confirmed female (fem seeds to start)

March 18: Banana 1 (1 gal pot) has been mainlined/quaded, Banana 2 (5 gal pot) has been LST. Berry 2 entering LST. Can only flower 2 of the following: Berry 2, Banana 1 and 2. Choice will be made around April 1. Banana Kush 1 and 2 are in the early lead, these plants stank.

Starting to enter the last week and a half of veg for these gals. They just went on a 3 times a day feeding schedule and they smell awesome already. Cut the MH back to 400w and plants are loving it.

This is my first grow in 10 years and I have to say I’m really impressed by the quality of these cheap lights compared to my last experience. I spent a total of $240 on lights, $145 for a Vivosun 600w dimmable digital wit reflector and $95 on a “600w” cheap LED. These easily outperform the $1000 switchable ballast I used to have. Less heat too. One note i would say cheap LED claim about a 6:1 wattage equivalence, they are in truth closed to 2:1 in growing capacity watts. I’m running 120 true W of LED with 400w of MH. I’d run 200W HID but bulb color shifts too much at under 50% power.

Photos of the same plant taken 3/21 and 3/25, plant has basically doubled in size in 4 days. Making the 1 hr per day switch to 12/12 this week.

3/21:


3/25:

Day two of 12/12, my funky set of led and hid is delivering 30,000-41,000 lux at the canopy. Still running MH and have a few more watts to kick in the LED. FIMed the tallest shoots to let the rest catch up. Smelling lovely.

After one week of 12/12 grow space is filling out nicely. The banana kush bush in the back is really performing well going to tie it with bamboo laterally to let the rest catch up and main levelish canopy.

Black berry kush that is supposedly has the same stretch expectation as banana kush is already starting to pistil all over while the banana is just ramping up into full stretch mode. Hard to judge a strain from one bush but this had a stretch of about 50%, pistils popping after a week. Still running MH, will swap for HPS wed or Thursday.

Smell is lovely. Really pleased with the effects of molasses and earth worm tea. Day after application room stinks, fades after about 2 weeks at which point I have been reapplying. Also used Azomite on transplant to 1 gal, 3 gal and 5 gal. containers.

Plants on the rights are two weeks younger than the ones on the right. Row of cheap supplemental burple and 27K side LED are being used to maintain 30,000+ lux at all points across the canopy. RH 45% in day, 60% at night. 3x watering per day.

Photo taken yesterday

Very please with the effects of flower fuel on top of fox farms trio so far. Showing very even pistle development in all parts of the plant in both strains at 12/12 + 12 days.

With pistils comes color shift; MH out, HPS in. Brings canopy light level up to 50,000-78,000 lux

Coming along nicely Zeus...sorry I didn't see it sooner. That's soil? Looks like coco...must just be dry.

This obviously isn't your first rodeo. I used to do the MH through till end of stretch thing. Now using cmh plus led so I can bump up reds with a knob.

I really like the 1-34-32 ratio on your flower fuel. Some go way high on P and not enough K. Excellent choice and I'd buy some except my kilo of Kool-Bloom will last till long after I'm dead. lol
Cheers,
JD

JohnDee said:

Coming along nicely Zeus...sorry I didn't see it sooner. That's soil? Looks like coco...must just be dry.

This obviously isn't your first rodeo. I used to do the MH through till end of stretch thing. Now using cmh plus led so I can bump up reds with a knob.

I really like the 1-34-32 ratio on your flower fuel. Some go way high on P and not enough K. Excellent choice and I'd buy some except my kilo of Kool-Bloom will last till long after I'm dead. lol
Cheers,
JD

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Thanks this actually is my first rodeo in 10 years. Grew in college for $$, now I just grow for me b/c medical quality in nm is awful and $9-$15 a g. I’m really surprised with how good the cheap grow equipment is now.

I’m doing sorta coco. I mixed in earthworms, bone meal and a bit of compost. From talking to the nice guy at my nice hydro store I think I might try just calmag next time. 10 years ago i amended by coco to basically provide a micro nutrient, bacteria and calcium buffer. Now it seems they sell all that in liquid form

Hey Zeus,
Been almost that long for me. Now in new location and new room...with new technology. It's a personal grow for me too and I also have issue with dispensary quality up north here in Washington. So "grow your own" is my new motto.

Used to live in Silver City. Hung out at the Buffalo. Loved the weather there...but missed the ocean.
Cheers,
JD

JohnDee said:

Hey Zeus,
Been almost that long for me. Now in new location and new room...with new technology. It's a personal grow for me too and I also have issue with dispensary quality up north here in Washington. So "grow your own" is my new motto.

Used to live in Silver City. Hung out at the Buffalo. Loved the weather there...but missed the ocean.
Cheers,
JD

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I’m familiar with it. Live down in Las Cruces now but I like to stay at the bear mountain lodge in silver city. This is weird but im sorta following you, moving to Portland in August

ZeusBarks said:

I’m doing sorta coco.

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Well I would normally advise agaist that...but you're doing well with it. I grow in coco and just yesterday I cleaned and buffered a batch for re-use. Hope you don't have any issues.
JD

JohnDee said:

Well I would normally advise agaist that...but you're doing well with it. I grow in coco and just yesterday I cleaned and buffered a batch for re-use. Hope you don't have any issues.
JD

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Ya I got that advice from a lot of people. I think I’m going to skip amending my coco next time to see how it goes. I’m real old school, basically just look at the plant and go from there. Trying to get all scientific now, got a spreadsheet an such.

Still I got to say, I tried some manifolding and early topping on two of this plants. Im not convinced anything other than LST and minimal FIMing is wise.