First supersoil grow, no nutes, just pure H2O

I will be attempting my first soil grow using Subcool's teachings (via his posts), his super soil recipe, and his genetics, Qrazy Train, which I bought at the 1st annual High Times Medical Cannabis event in SF after shaking his hand and sampling his bubble melt. I have about 3 grows under my belt and this is in a newly constructed basement grow. Please feel free to comment.

Grow details
Stage I - All aboard
Using 2x4 tent
(6) light T-5 flo's
Rapid Rooter starting plugs

Seeds dropped in 9/20/10
Transplanted to soil 9/27/10
10/10 popped and stood 1.5 inches tall at time of transplant
Moved them into 1/2 gal plastic containers with Roots 707 soil
Water is 0 PPM water from local water store. This is the cleanest water I could find, no chemicals were used to clean it, just one big RO system that the owner shows off. Supposed to be almost NOTHING in this water, and reads 0 PPM with PH of 7 every time.

So my plan is as follows:

1. Leave seedlings in Stage I area until they are 5 - 6 inches tall, then top them to produce a plant that has 4 main colas.

2. Once the stress has worn off, leave them until the plants roots tell me to move them, then over to stage II, a 5 x 5 x 7 tent with 1000 watt MH light.

3. At 20", flip them to flower and start Stage III. Same room but with 1000 watt HPS.

4. See if the super soil works and can take these babies home!!!

The whole time I plan on using just the purified H2O. However I've read that the RO process takes out the calcium that I need so I may have to add in CalMag. We'll be watching for calcium deficiencies.

In this run, I am going to create a mother plant from a mysterious seed I found in my work area. Now i only smoke my own product and have never had a herm, but during one of my trimming sessions i found a single beautiful little seed I have since dubbed JesusWeed. I suspect it may be SuperSilverHaze because that's the only plant I've taken in that i didn't grow myself, but we'll see.

That one will be raised in soil but with the full line of Advanced Nutrients products. My plan is to make a mother plant, grow the main stem out to sample her, and if she is truly a gift from Heaven, practice making clones from a mother plant. These clones will form the basis of my next experiment where I will mix supersoil with Advanced Nutrients additives (Big Bud, F-1, H-2, Rhino, Etc, all but the base nutrients) to see if i can combine old school, growing with 21st century chemistry.

I dig it! Keep us posted on the Jesus Weed.

I decided to change things up a little and split the initial 10 seeds in to two groups:

(I didn't want to miss the chance to really get a good healthy mom from these seeds and I needed to do something to try and save #9, you'll see)

Q.T. #1 - Q.T. #5 Only purified H20 (with .5 mL/l of CalMag)

Q.T. #6 - Q.T. #10 Would get the following mix:



.5 mL/L CalMag

.5 mL/L NoShock (I know this is probably not organic, but oh well. I don't have F-1 and I wanted the fulvic acid, I figured this was a good low grade food to start them out with)

.5 mL/L HygroZyme

1 mL/L VooDoo Juice

1/8 tsp. Piranha

1/8 tsp. Tarantula

.5 mL/L CarboLoad

This mix was also fed to the JesusWeed since it is going to be in soil until it's ready to become a mother. I will be feeding it an all organic regiment of Advanced Nutes.

All look healthy, but I did notice a few things:

Anamoly #1 and #2 - Extra spacing between first true leaves and cotyledon leaves


I noticed that Q.T. #2 and QT#7 have a small gap between the leaves. This may not be anything, but in case it does I thought I should note it down. Since there is one in each test group, this will be a good thing to monitor.

Anamoly #3 - Q.T. #9 is looking rough.

Q.T. #9 is looking pretty bad. Since it was in the second group, I decided that this was the group that would be getting the special sauce that I detailed in my last post. We'll see if it comes back.

What is that weird looking container?
AirPot for JesusWeed

Here is the Air Pot that I am trying out. My hydro guy gave me a few demos to try out, so I wanted to try it here. The idea is that the root will grow out out one of the holes and get air pruned, increasing the amount of roots per plant since there would be many air prunings. It comes as a flat piece of plastic that you wrap around and connect with these little screw connectors. When you move it to the next pot, you just undo the screw and the outside pops off. We'll see how it goes. I've heard some people swear by these, so we'll see how it goes. I also have a pair of 1 gallons that I'm going to use in a microgrow, and a 7 gallon that I will use in the future when these go to the 5 x 5.

One thing I did notice, it's a little hard to water these. You have to water very slowly, otherwise it just runs out of the holes near the top. You have to water it very slow, let it sink in, and then water it some more. Eventually, it makes it to the bottom and comes out the bottom drain holes.

Update: Seedling phase over, Veg phase starting

So I've decided to use the 2-week mark as the end of the seedling phase and the beginning of the veg phase. This doesn't mean much for the water only batch, but for the test group and for JesusWeed this is the first week of feeding the full AN organic line, so I'll be looking for nute issues.

Week 1 of Veg formula
2 ml/L Iguana Juice Grow from AN
2 ml/L Hygrozyme (I actually feed Hygrozyme during my water only day)
1 ml/L Organic B from AN
1 ml/L CalMag from Botanicare
1 ml/L Fulvic Acid (FlavorFul from Humboldt)
1 ml/L H-2 from AN
1 ml/L VooDoo Juice
1 ml/L CarboLoad
1/8 tsp/L Piranha
1/8 tsp/L Tarantula

So here are Q.T. #1 - #5. These plants are now in the third week of life since they were dropped in soil. The water is 0 PPM, PH 7, and I do add CalMag and Hygrozyme. This is because the water needs the calcium, magnesium and iron put back in after the RO process, and HygroZyme is 100% organic and enzymes are good in any situation.

These were the strongest, fastest growing seeds and I specifically chose them to be the control group because of this. I believe I have also identified two different phenotypes of the strain, one with very pointy leaves and one with very FAT leaves. In this group, Q.T.#2 is an example of the fat leaved phenotype and the others are the pointy leaf type. Of course I may be wrong, but again, something to note for later.

This group is receiving the nute mixture from my previous post, the Veg formula. Q.T. #8 is the pheno with the fat leaves, while the rest are the pointy leave pheno.

As you see, these runts have actually caught up for the most part. Even Q.T. #9, the one with the damaged first true leaves, has almost completely recovered and caught up with the others. Still a little smaller than the others, but it is quite compact and may actually make a good mom if she stays small and stubby.

JesusWeed
She seems to be coming along. Very short and stubby, healthy, and happy.

Stop by and say hi so that I know I'm not just talking to myself...

Let me start by saying that I know that everyone else has a different opinion. Before the flames start, just understand that I'm trying to help teach and showcase a little of what I am doing. If you're interested in my operation, please feel free to comment and we can discuss. If you just want to tell me how I'm over doing it, or you're plan is better, or you just this or that, please post it in your grow journal and we'll discuss it there. I want this to be about learning and open discussion with interested hobbyists. Thanks

So here is my rationing in terms of nutes I am feeding.

Base additives
So before I even start adding anything in, I add in CalMag+. This is because I'm using RO water and this process removes a lot of the minerals needed by plants. In past grows I started having major deficiencies. Plus, I was growing in coco coir which already has calcium and magnesium issues to my understanding.

If this is a water only day, I add HygroZyme. Enzymes do a world of beneficial things for your roots and are good as part of your watering routine to clean up dead rooting materials, decompose waste to food, etc.

Base nutrients
In this stage, I am using Iguana Juice. This is AN's organic nutrients and I want to try and stay as free from chemicals as is practical. I have used Sensi A and B and their three part before, so this is my first time with their organic mix. In future grows I'll pit organic against non-organic on the same clones and see if there really is a difference.

Beneficial Additives
VoodJuice, CarboLoad, Piranha, and Tarantula are all designed to work together to provide a very strong group of beneficial microbes that will live in the soil, promote root development, strengthen the plant, etc. These will only be used in the first two weeks of veg and flower to help develop a strong root system and keep the plant healthy while it's forming it's structure. The CarboLoad is a healthy food supply for these microbes and also helps the plant.

Other additives
Fulvic and Humic acids are important for their ability to help the plant use the available nutrients much more efficiently and thoroughly, while B vitamins are some of the most important vitamins for our plants. These will be included in nearly every feeding except for the 2 week transition to flower stage in which the idea is to stress the plants enough to induce flowering, and cutting off their vitamins and forcing the plant to make it's own is a very good way (from what I've read) to slow the stretch a little since the plant has to use it's energy internally as opposed to putting it towards vertical growth.

Hope this helps someone!

Subbed. Definitely want to see how this turns out, your plants are lookin' great at the moment!

Thanks! I'l be sure to check out your's too!

Definitely subscribed; looking good so far. I was wondering if you have any hydro experience w. hygrozyme? It says compatible with h202 in low ppm... I have no way to gauge if I'm making the hygrozyme useless with my h202.

very interesting thread.. thanks.. still reading..

I haven't used h2o2 before but I did read somewhere that your not supposed to use it in hydrop except just before you are going to change your reservoir. It has something to do with the enzymes (like hygrozyme) not being able to survive the super oxygenation h2o2 causes.

I saw that on one of the videos at www.hydroponicssecrets.tv. I think the one about enzymes. Just do some reading on that, it seems like potent stuff. I thought it was just as a root zone treatment?

Maximus cannabis said:

I haven't used h2o2 before but I did read somewhere that your not supposed to use it in hydrop except just before you are going to change your reservoir. It has something to do with the enzymes (like hygrozyme) not being able to survive the super oxygenation h2o2 causes.

I saw that on one of the videos at www.hydroponicssecrets.tv. I think the one about enzymes. Just do some reading on that, it seems like potent stuff. I thought it was just as a root zone treatment?

Click to expand...

Yeah no h2o2 with zymes, it'll kill em.

I like using h2o2 in any dwc, ebb and flows ets.. Works nice in flushes too...

Danks, gentlemen. I am now using hygrozyme along with my h202, and am pleased to report the results are definitely noticeable. Hygrozyme is compatible with h202 at "low ppm" whatever that means; I'm currently using 5 ml/gal 29% h202 and the hygrozyme is definitely still eating up dead matter and doing its thang. Excited to see more progress, Maximus.

Looks like all the seedlings are ready to be topped. The seedlings now have 5 - 6 inter-nodes and stand 4" - 6" tall. Some of the lower growth on some of the plants has started to stretch away from the stem as seen on the pictures. Q.T. #1's new growth is clustered close to the stem, while the other two show significant growth. I suspect these are males, but I'll wait to see what the flowering tells me.

I feel bad about having to cut them at such a young age, but I like the ability to maximize light penetration and yield without needing to introduce too much complexity.

I will also be rooting this top growth in rooting cubes and putting them into a 12/12 cycle to determine the sex of every plant. More to follow.

I will be using Uncle Ben's technique. Here is his post where he describes very clearly what I am doing.

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/151706-uncle-bens-topping-technique-get.html