Afghani Grow. 2 x 1000w (Flower Pics)

Welcome,

After reading through many grow journals I was inspired to begin my own. Unfortunately, I am currently on day 11 of flowering so I can not provide veg. pics for this grow, I do have pics of my clone cabinet though.

To bring you up to speed..

THE MISSION

I began this cycle on Dec. 23 2009 with 11 Afghani clones and 1 White Rhino clone for a total of 12 (for those who can't add) I am focused on netting at least 2 lbs. on completion.


THE GROW ROOM

The room that I have chosen is the cold room (fruit cellar) in my basement. The area is 6.5' wide 4.5' deep and approx 7' high. The walls are concrete block that originally I painted white, however humidity issues from condensation forced me to line the walls with styro foam insulation. The bottom 4 feet of the room is lined with reflective insulation.


LIGHTING

I have 2(TWO) 1000w switchable (MH-HPS) ballasts. Veg - 2- 1000x Artemis MH bulbs. Flower- 2-1000w Hortilux HPS bulbs

VENTILLATION

Currently I am just using a 90 CFM exhaust fan on a speed control that runs constantly through a 4" duct into my attic. On the intake i have bored a 5" port and placed a 5" duct fan in the port to bring in fresh air. I have a 12" oscillating fan blowing on the lower level of the plants and a 16" oscillating fan blowing across the canopy. Next week I will be installing A can fan and filter combo and using my current exhaust fan as the intake, removing the duct fan. Also, I use a heater with a thermostat to keep temps from dropping below 65 ish when the rights are off.

MEDIUM

Currently the plants sit in 6 gal (14")pots with Pro-Mix. They began in 6"pots, then transplanted to 10" before finally being transplanted into the 6 Gal pots. I transplant threee times to allow the plants to receive as much light as possible.

NUTRIENTS

I am using the Dutch Master Gold series of nutrients for the first time and so far I have nothing but positive comments about them except for the price. I mix my nutrients in a 72 L resivoir that is aerated and pH'd at 6-6.5 after mixing.
I follow Dutch Master's online nutrient calculator however I do find that I still needd to add a little more at the end to make it to the reccomended levels off PPM.

VEG. CYCLE SUMMARY

Week 1
On Dec 23 2009 I placed 11 Afghani clones and 1 White Rhino clone into 12 6" pots filled with promix. I gave them 500 PPM nutes for week 1 and they were all under 1 - 1000w MH for 24 hrs.

Week 2
Light cycle cut to 18/6. Nutes to 800 PPM. Very noticable growth, transplanted to 10" pots. A little bit of a gnat problem remedied with sticky traps and trpling the amount of Dutch Master Zone (root conditioner)

Week 3
Nutes 1000PPM. Rapid growth (especially with lights off?) Transplanted to 14" pots due to growth and now under 2 - 1000w HM. 32 clones where taken (20 Afghani 12 White Rhino)

Week 4
Nutes 1250 PPM. The Afghani plants have blown me away. The White Rhino had been in a 6" pot under 4 CFL's for 4-5 weeks prior to the start and the Afghani where just freshly rooted and now they have all outgrown the Rhino...what an impressive strain!!! I switched to flower on Jan 20th starting with a 30 hr dark period. Also treated for spider mites as a percautionary
mearsure twice and physically washed the plants once.

Week 1 Flower

Switched nutrients to Flower formula, switched bulbs to 2 - 1000w Hortilux HPS. Nutes at 1250 PPM. I feed and then flush about 3-4 days later when dry. Hairs began to show at about 2 days.

Week 2 Flower (see pics)

Buds are forming all is going well. 1500 PPM nutes.

Have a look, comments or advice are welcome, these pics where taken in the dark, better pics to follow tonight!

The pics just show a look inside of the room which is quite congested!! Also the line up of nutes I used/am using. A seemingly innocent looking cabinet the next pic shows the door slid open to reveal 32 clones (W. Rhinos are in blue cups, Afghani in red)

looks great! +rep

turkish420 said:

looks great! +rep

Click to expand...

Thanks + rep back at ya

Here are some new pics

I feed/water my plants using the wet/dry method. At the beginning of each week I feed tham to the specs provided by Dutch Master and then allow them 3-4 days to soak it all in. Once dry, I use clear water and flush them to prevent salt and mineral build up on the roots. And then I repeat. So basically each week (so far) I feed once and flush once. Does anyone else use a similar method? Do I need to flush between every feeding?

During the vegetative cycle I FIM'd the hell out of my plants as well as some mild use of LST. The end result is compact plants with many "arms". Fortunately, these arms have grown to roughly equal heights and are forming great bud sites at the top of each of them. Because there are so many "arms" multiplied over 12 plants I am left with over a hundred of these "tops". Due to the fact that the plants are so compact and bushy they have literally filled the room wall to wall. Looking in the room all I can see is about 30 sq. ft. of these colas across the entire canopy. However, this does not allow a great deal of light to penetrate the canopy. Should I be trying my best to get more light into the depths of the plants or should I just play the hand I have been dealt and focus on the tops kind of like SCROG minus the screen? The pots (12) are laid out 6 across and 2 deep. I shift each plant to the right one position daily and give them each a quarter turn clockwise to allow the most possible direct light to hit from as many angles as possible. Over the course of 12 days each plant has made a complete trip around the room and is back to where it began. I will continue to do this as long as possible.

Any feedback good or bad from experienced growers is welcome, Thanks!

Well..... I am overwhelmed with all of the replies and I will try to address them one at a time hahaha....

All jokes aside, the grow room is functioning at a nice steady balance right now. No issues with heat or humidity, good circulation, the plants have a vibrant green color and the canopy is somewhat even. There is a very calming effect that comes over me when I open the door to this little Oasis and I am enjoying growing inside as a hobby moreso than the guerilla nature of outdoor grows.

I will be beginning Week 3 of flower on Wednesday the nutrients will be cranked up to about 1800 PPM when I feed then Wednesday night. After that I will allow them to dry out and on the weekend when I would normally give them a flush I will add a half dose of Advance Nutrients "Big Bud" formula to otherwise pure water just to accelerate the bud growth somewhat. I will do this in week 4 and 5 as well. In weeks 6 and 7 I will add Advance Nutrients "Overdrive" (half dose) to help promote a strong finish, and once again, I will only add these nutrients to otherwise pure water. I have never tried this and will have to observe the results of the first helping og Big BUd before I continue.

Here are a few quick shots from tonight..
#1 Is an over view of the centre of the grow space
#2 Is a picture to show how the plants are maintaining a generally even canopy
#3 The HPS glow makes this preemie look look the sunrise
#4 Same shot less glare

Thanks for reading!

Well the buds are starting to swell now!

It has been a busy week. I will start with my clone cabinet. I have posted pictures in earlier posts of my cloning cabinet. I had 32 clones rooted and in cups that I took from my plants in week #3 of veg. I had 20 Afghani an 12 White Rhino, 20 of my clones have now found new homes and I will be keeping 12 for my next cycle (all Afghani). I was able to take 12 new clones off of the plants before they left me. I obtained cuttings (4) from a Great White Shark and (5) from a Napanese Grizzly. So I have 21 new clones that are rooting right now and 12 3 week old clones that I have transplanted in to 6" pots with ProMix and given a 600 PPM feeding of the Dutch Master Gold series of nutrients, all of which are stuffed into my cabinet under 2 23 w CFLs, oh yeah, a also have 5 cups with germinated Hindu Kush seeds that I am trying to sprout.

The Grow Room
Well as I started off by saying, the buds are starting to fatten up. I have installed a 155 CFM Can Fan and the Can 9000 filter into the room and I now use my previous exhaust fan as an intake and I blow the fresh air at my 16" oscilating fan and let it spread all the CO2 rich air across the canopy. I am now feeding at 1800 PPM and still have only good things to say about Dutch Master Gold nutrients. The weeks are passing quickly and I know that soon I will be cutting these beauties down.

I took the 6 plants in the front row out so I could feed and rotate the back row easier, it made for a good photo chance I also snapped a couple of my clone cabinet. You can see the 12 Afghani's in pots and to the right you can see a tray with 5 day old clones in it. Wedged between the pots are the cups with the Hindu Kush seeds. You can see in the picture of the 6 that I took out of the room and lined up, that line up of plants is over 12 feet long!

Thanks for reading

afgan said:

Thanks for reading

Click to expand...

Is anyone following this?

More pics tonight!

The buds are now thickening like crazy, my light cycle runs overnight so when I wake up for work in the morning I can see a difference after 7 or so hours!! They seem to be doing a lot of ripening in the dark as well....which is good! I am becoming quite confident that I am going to have a good yield. The plants ar drinking like crazy, I feed them on Sunday night and today (Tuesday) they are quite dry, in 1.5 days the 12 plants have sucked up nearly 20 gallons (between them). Afghani is a very sticky bud and does not grow much crystal at all, the White Rhino has some similarity to the Afghani's in growing style but has some differences as well, I will try and get a comparison pic up on here later tonight....

Feedback anyone???

Thanks for reading!

any Updates?

Update? Yields? Differences? New Thoughts?