The goal:
As fast as possible take 12 regular seeds of a Purple Kush, 8 week flowering strain through a life cycle, finding females of which cuttings are taken and more.
Precedent:
I've done this a few times with a variety of strains, although its not my preferred way to grow out the plants it definitely serves its purpose to sprint through an exploratory cycle in a relatively easy and cheap way. This technique takes advantage of the stretch in flower along with topping and training. The hardest part as usual is the first couple weeks until the plants are established and having your hydro 'ducks in a row' is the way to get the fastest run. I won't go to in depth with the hydroponics and plant training here but your already on the right site to find all that good stuff.
Timeline:
Germination-however long this takes, usually 3 or 4 days.
Seedling/veg- 2-4 weeks, some plants may lag a few days growth behind the leader. Plants are topped as soon as safely possible, like 3rd node.
Flower- I flip the lights at week 2 or 3 of veg.
Cuttings- Taking advantage of the stretch cuttings can be taken within a week of starting flower.
Sexing- by week 5 or 6 sex should be apparent. Clones should be rooted by now, throw away males and cut males out of the tub.
harvest-
The system:
A black light proof rubbermaid tub large enough to place 12 two inch net pots into the top, fill with hydro clayball/rock/glass of your choice. This whole operation is on the smaller size, the tub holds about 5gal/20L of nutrient solution while running. Simple half inch plumbing fittings, a drain out and tube near the bottom and another fitting about an inch under the bottom of the net pots as a reservoir return to a 5gal control bucket; Insert and plumb air pump, air stones and water pump. No chiller but my grow spaces are pretty optimal for temp. humidity and such.
I use General Hydroponics 3 part nutes with a little cal/mag and silica into Reverse Osmosis water. The most important part of the nutrient solution is a microbial tea, I cannot stress enough the importance of having some beneficial microbes to prevent any brown algae cyanobacteria world ending shift from forming; not to mention the beneficial relationship to the plant. No joke learning and using to use this stuff took my hydro to the next level and is the key to years off problem free hydro, I could talk microbes all day so I'll stop there...
My veg room is a small to medium size and my flower room is about 4 times the size of veg. The tub sits in the corner under flourescents for the first couple weeks, transitions under 400w dimmed hps for last week in veg and then under 600w hps in flower where it fits in somewhere under a 6x600w hps light setup.
Operation:
Paper towel germination, when tail/radical is 1 inch they go straight into hydroton expanded clay balls and for the next week or two roots are coaxed into the nute solution with hand watering and spritzing. At this point before the roots tangle too much the plants can be moved around and organized, biggest on the four corners and what not.
Plants should be topped as soon as possible so they can have a few days to a week before flowering light cycle change. I've never witnessed a hormonal problem taking cuttings within the first week of flowering from fairly immature plants. When you take them at 3 weeks flower that's when things can get weird. I always take 2 clones each, some plants you will have to take what you can get but for some its a chance to trim down growth.
Having found the males they can be cut a few inches above the clay and removed, or the best male can be kept to pollinate the tub. There will be no separating the root zones but its interesting I haven't found any decomposition in the shared root zone from the long dead males by the end of the run; like the others use and take advantage of it. I'm sure this is down to the beneficial symbiot microbes, the cut stem ends turn mushy and change color.
Now there should be some room to train the females into a trellis if you can but simple training techniques can help fill spaces and relieve bunched areas. Eventually you will know which plants are best and can proceed with your clones and onto harvest.
Conclusions:
With this system and technique I have achieved 11 weeks from watering a seed to harvest day with an 8 week flowering Purple Kush. Either Indica or Sativa have a similar time frame but with differing flowering lengths. The harvest yields aren't very remarkable whether its the tight spacing, small plants entering flower or thet the tub is usually lower on priority in flower and gets shuffled to the outskirts of the light array.
Hope this helped someone.
As fast as possible take 12 regular seeds of a Purple Kush, 8 week flowering strain through a life cycle, finding females of which cuttings are taken and more.
Precedent:
I've done this a few times with a variety of strains, although its not my preferred way to grow out the plants it definitely serves its purpose to sprint through an exploratory cycle in a relatively easy and cheap way. This technique takes advantage of the stretch in flower along with topping and training. The hardest part as usual is the first couple weeks until the plants are established and having your hydro 'ducks in a row' is the way to get the fastest run. I won't go to in depth with the hydroponics and plant training here but your already on the right site to find all that good stuff.
Timeline:
Germination-however long this takes, usually 3 or 4 days.
Seedling/veg- 2-4 weeks, some plants may lag a few days growth behind the leader. Plants are topped as soon as safely possible, like 3rd node.
Flower- I flip the lights at week 2 or 3 of veg.
Cuttings- Taking advantage of the stretch cuttings can be taken within a week of starting flower.
Sexing- by week 5 or 6 sex should be apparent. Clones should be rooted by now, throw away males and cut males out of the tub.
harvest-
The system:
A black light proof rubbermaid tub large enough to place 12 two inch net pots into the top, fill with hydro clayball/rock/glass of your choice. This whole operation is on the smaller size, the tub holds about 5gal/20L of nutrient solution while running. Simple half inch plumbing fittings, a drain out and tube near the bottom and another fitting about an inch under the bottom of the net pots as a reservoir return to a 5gal control bucket; Insert and plumb air pump, air stones and water pump. No chiller but my grow spaces are pretty optimal for temp. humidity and such.
I use General Hydroponics 3 part nutes with a little cal/mag and silica into Reverse Osmosis water. The most important part of the nutrient solution is a microbial tea, I cannot stress enough the importance of having some beneficial microbes to prevent any brown algae cyanobacteria world ending shift from forming; not to mention the beneficial relationship to the plant. No joke learning and using to use this stuff took my hydro to the next level and is the key to years off problem free hydro, I could talk microbes all day so I'll stop there...
My veg room is a small to medium size and my flower room is about 4 times the size of veg. The tub sits in the corner under flourescents for the first couple weeks, transitions under 400w dimmed hps for last week in veg and then under 600w hps in flower where it fits in somewhere under a 6x600w hps light setup.
Operation:
Paper towel germination, when tail/radical is 1 inch they go straight into hydroton expanded clay balls and for the next week or two roots are coaxed into the nute solution with hand watering and spritzing. At this point before the roots tangle too much the plants can be moved around and organized, biggest on the four corners and what not.
Plants should be topped as soon as possible so they can have a few days to a week before flowering light cycle change. I've never witnessed a hormonal problem taking cuttings within the first week of flowering from fairly immature plants. When you take them at 3 weeks flower that's when things can get weird. I always take 2 clones each, some plants you will have to take what you can get but for some its a chance to trim down growth.
Having found the males they can be cut a few inches above the clay and removed, or the best male can be kept to pollinate the tub. There will be no separating the root zones but its interesting I haven't found any decomposition in the shared root zone from the long dead males by the end of the run; like the others use and take advantage of it. I'm sure this is down to the beneficial symbiot microbes, the cut stem ends turn mushy and change color.
Now there should be some room to train the females into a trellis if you can but simple training techniques can help fill spaces and relieve bunched areas. Eventually you will know which plants are best and can proceed with your clones and onto harvest.
Conclusions:
With this system and technique I have achieved 11 weeks from watering a seed to harvest day with an 8 week flowering Purple Kush. Either Indica or Sativa have a similar time frame but with differing flowering lengths. The harvest yields aren't very remarkable whether its the tight spacing, small plants entering flower or thet the tub is usually lower on priority in flower and gets shuffled to the outskirts of the light array.
Hope this helped someone.