Evil-Mobo
Well-Known Member
I'm not even 7 days into flower and my Sativa is going crazy I have less than a foot left for my light at max height still keeping it 18" from the canopy lol.......
cob | sip | scrog
- Thread starter Humanrob
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I'm not even 7 days into flower and my Sativa is going crazy I have less than a foot left for my light at max height still keeping it 18" from the canopy lol.......
Evil-Mobo
Well-Known Member
Super crop, you squeeze an area of the stem until it bends over then when it heals it will become a huge knot like when you manifold........
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
I've never done any super cropping or manifolding, but I guess I'll give it a try if they keep growing.
Evil-Mobo
Well-Known Member
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Another option is simply to bend the stem sideways and hold it down with twine.
GroErr
Well-Known Member
Me last week, the taller/lanky one front-right against the wall. Came into the flower room after being away a couple of days and the main had grown like 8-10" taller than all of the other branches and was almost hitting the light. If you zoom in you can see that main resting flat on top against the wall. Just pinch a groove into where you want the bend and slowly bend it until it's 90 degrees (a little more because it will bounce back up). Not something I'd normally want to do in flowering but if they're out of control I've done it a few times with no ill effects.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the photo and notes. There are only a few that are directly under COBs and growing right up into them, so I'll see if I can bend them. The light that is suspended (from the main light) and therefore lower than the others are the 5000k's, and they are on a dimmer switch so I turned them down. In the big picture I remind myself that these are good problems to have, as problems go.
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Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Sunday Update
Took everyone's advice, only had to bend the tallest two, so far they've survived. They finally stopped stretching as the 4th week approached.
My last two grows have had huge differences between the height of the plants. The last one had four plants, three of similar heights and one super short one I propped up on an empty pot. This run is just two plants, and they are ridiculously uneven. Since I'm using huge-for-the-space SIPs and a double scrog, there is no way I can raise the shorter one. The short one (Bruce Banner #3) is so much shorter than the tall one (Chemdawg OG x Rugburn OG), that I threw an Optic 120 I'm not using at the moment in on the low side to try and make sure the BB was getting enough light. The weather is holding out and I can handle the additional heat so far.
I've been using Hygrozyme in the res's, and the level tubes don't fog up as quickly or as much, barely at all now. I also don't let my water sit out before using it, I just take it straight from the tap and put it in, so there is come Chloramine in it (I think that's what they call it).
It all seems to be working so far.
Here's some pics, day 30 of flower:
The uneven canopy, and one to show full growth below the top screen
Bruce is stacking nicely, its just doing it all between the screens
And they're getting frosty
Took everyone's advice, only had to bend the tallest two, so far they've survived. They finally stopped stretching as the 4th week approached.
My last two grows have had huge differences between the height of the plants. The last one had four plants, three of similar heights and one super short one I propped up on an empty pot. This run is just two plants, and they are ridiculously uneven. Since I'm using huge-for-the-space SIPs and a double scrog, there is no way I can raise the shorter one. The short one (Bruce Banner #3) is so much shorter than the tall one (Chemdawg OG x Rugburn OG), that I threw an Optic 120 I'm not using at the moment in on the low side to try and make sure the BB was getting enough light. The weather is holding out and I can handle the additional heat so far.
I've been using Hygrozyme in the res's, and the level tubes don't fog up as quickly or as much, barely at all now. I also don't let my water sit out before using it, I just take it straight from the tap and put it in, so there is come Chloramine in it (I think that's what they call it).
It all seems to be working so far.
Here's some pics, day 30 of flower:
The uneven canopy, and one to show full growth below the top screen
Bruce is stacking nicely, its just doing it all between the screens
And they're getting frosty
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
I don't like to think of myself as superstitious, but every time I find myself wanting to type something like "it looks like it will be just adding water from here on" -- I stop myself, like its inviting trouble. LOL Yes, the SIPs definitely simplify things.
Somewhere between 99-100% of the feeding happens during transplant. I put about as much dry time release nutes into the soil as I normally would during the whole run. That's how I've been growing for several grows, just dry nutes. I add them into the soil when I up-pot into their final pots. But, normally, when I flip to flower, and then again 4 weeks later, I top dress and add more nutes. So in my normal runs dry nutes would be releasing over time, especially each time I top watered. In addition to that, I tend to add Cal-Mag to most waterings (COB/LEDs and all), and tea, and occasionally Pro-Tekt.
On this run I said 99% because even though my plants haven't shown any signs of deficiencies, I tried to add some stuff anyway. I put some 2" PVC pipe through the top plastic (which in my set up I can't remove and replace easily) and about an inch into the soil, and I added a mix of liquid stuff I had on hand -- Botanicare Tea, Cal-Mag, and Earth Juice Bloom, and poured it down the tube. I put about 3 or 4 times as much as I normally would, and only put it in about 2 cups of water (per SIP). I did that at around day 25 of flower, and around day 39 I'll pour another cup or two of just water to flush it a bit. But that's just me making stuff up, no one suggested that would be a good idea. I've been told I'm a "belt and suspenders kind of guy", I over-build, I over-compensate, and often I do things that are totally unnecessary just so I feel like I've done all I can. I have no idea if there was any added benefit or if I was just throwing away nutes.
There is a lot of discussion about whether top-feeding SIPs is beneficial, necessary, misses the point... whatever. While I love to do experiments, in the end the primary objective is to squeeze the most meds from each run in the tent that I can. So in this case, I'm experimenting with one method of boosting the soil mid-grow. One interesting thing I've picked up, is that with SIPs the dry nutes can be very concentrated. The instructions that come with an Earthbox, for instance, show digging a small trench the length of the box and pouring in a continuous pretty heavy line of dry nutes, and then just covering it up. They don't mix it into the soil. What this implies to me is that in nature there are "veins" of nutrients in soil, and roots find their way to them and utilize them as necessary without getting burned. Which is why I am not concerned about adding stuff in concentrated spots. The plants will tap into it as they need it (apparently?).
Long answer to a short question.
Evil-Mobo
Well-Known Member
I don't like to think of myself as superstitious, but every time I find myself wanting to type something like "it looks like it will be just adding water from here on" -- I stop myself, like its inviting trouble. LOL Yes, the SIPs definitely simplify things.
Somewhere between 99-100% of the feeding happens during transplant. I put about as much dry time release nutes into the soil as I normally would during the whole run. That's how I've been growing for several grows, just dry nutes. I add them into the soil when I up-pot into their final pots. But, normally, when I flip to flower, and then again 4 weeks later, I top dress and add more nutes. So in my normal runs dry nutes would be releasing over time, especially each time I top watered. In addition to that, I tend to add Cal-Mag to most waterings (COB/LEDs and all), and tea, and occasionally Pro-Tekt.
On this run I said 99% because even though my plants haven't shown any signs of deficiencies, I tried to add some stuff anyway. I put some 2" PVC pipe through the top plastic (which in my set up I can't remove and replace easily) and about an inch into the soil, and I added a mix of liquid stuff I had on hand -- Botanicare Tea, Cal-Mag, and Earth Juice Bloom, and poured it down the tube. I put about 3 or 4 times as much as I normally would, and only put it in about 2 cups of water (per SIP). I did that at around day 25 of flower, and around day 39 I'll pour another cup or two of just water to flush it a bit. But that's just me making stuff up, no one suggested that would be a good idea. I've been told I'm a "belt and suspenders kind of guy", I over-build, I over-compensate, and often I do things that are totally unnecessary just so I feel like I've done all I can. I have no idea if there was any added benefit or if I was just throwing away nutes.
There is a lot of discussion about whether top-feeding SIPs is beneficial, necessary, misses the point... whatever. While I love to do experiments, in the end the primary objective is to squeeze the most meds from each run in the tent that I can. So in this case, I'm experimenting with one method of boosting the soil mid-grow. One interesting thing I've picked up, is that with SIPs the dry nutes can be very concentrated. The instructions that come with an Earthbox, for instance, show digging a small trench the length of the box and pouring in a continuous pretty heavy line of dry nutes, and then just covering it up. They don't mix it into the soil. What this implies to me is that in nature there are "veins" of nutrients in soil, and roots find their way to them and utilize them as necessary without getting burned. Which is why I am not concerned about adding stuff in concentrated spots. The plants will tap into it as they need it (apparently?).
Long answer to a short question.
I recently dug a trench in my two SIP's and added my Happy Frog fruit and flower and covered with soil. Plants are not burnt at all, like you said with the SIP's and the soil the plants will go and get what they need to use. I did water on top a little when I did this just because. But no issues so far. I think this might be the last (and only) feeding these plants will need, I guess we will see.
I might throw my baby auto into a third SIP as a test. I do not know if it would survive and just do it's thing or if I would need to top water/feed for a bit until the roots grow bigger, but my largest auto in a reg nursrey pot is showing what looks like a Calcium deficiency (Thanks @Tim Fox ) and I have not had this issue with the SIP's using the same soil. So far I love the ease of the SIP's and how well they have performed. I am very torn on whether or not to try my hand with coco/jacks 321 as I see others having good results with that, curious how that would work in a SIP setup maybe I should use one of my freebie seeds to test this out?
Keep fighting man you're almost there. I'm still waiting to see flowers on something lol......
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Jacks is a "salt-based" nute, and may burn the roots. If you use it, because it's more easily water soluble you might need to be careful about top-watering (even during transplant when you do the initial watering) because you can wash the nutes into the res, and this might (?) be bad. Most of the Earthbox-type of commercial SIPs seem to stress using soil, but Octopot says you can go either way. They also say you can feed the water... this is how it gets complicated... LOL
Evil-Mobo
Well-Known Member
Guess some of us are just going to have to get to some testing and document our findings
I am not in a position right now, but will be in the near future, part of the reason for my expansion.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
DON'T use high doses of soluble salts like Jacks, because they aren't time release or require organic processes to make them available to the plants. They'll hit all at once and ruin the run.
Use soluble salts to feed the water you pour either through the soil or into the bottom; my own lack of experience with SIPS shows in that I can't recommend one approach over the other.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Guess some of us are just going to have to get to some testing and document our findings
I am not in a position right now, but will be in the near future, part of the reason for my expansion.
You do a lot of research, so you've probably seen this already, but the Octopot FAQ page is an interesting reference in terms of SIP information. They seem to be willing to share the why behind the how, which makes the information more useful. I'm not sure how much of what they say is specific to their design though, or in what ways that I can't see (not having one) their design might be unique. But they do tend to suggest going full hydro-hybrid for "best results", and doing the whole feed the water and check for ph and ppm thing... that I think most of us here are trying to avoid. I'm in it for the simplicity, I'm OK with less than record breaking quantity as long as I've got quality and a grow method I can live with.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Thanks for clarifying.
Humanrob
Well-Known Member
You've done hydro before? Will you check the PH and PPM etc. as you go? Very interested in hearing about how that run goes.
Evil-Mobo
Well-Known Member
Same here which is why thus far I have just been feeding tap to my SIP's and the plants have been fine. I moved from a DWC setup to this and not doing the ppm, ph, thing etc has been wonderful. Same with carrying buckets of water around and waiting for R/O to fill a container etc. Easier to always have a gallon jug of tap on hand and fill as necessary for me.
I will go read on their page thanks for the info. And yes I like to read and do a lot of research to find what works best for me. I also am not after record breaking yields, as this is all for personal use, what I am after is the best quality fire I can grow. This is like exercising with weights, focus on your form, and the strength (yields in this case) will follow once everything starts to get dialed in.