Get a Harvest Every 2 Weeks

Check out Foxfarm. They have a good organic line of nutes that is good for hydro or soil. I have had good luck with the Foxfarm nutes. My plants seem to love them.

i guess i was wrong....... sorry..... i just...... ill save the excuses. lol

hows it going al? i wish i could give you a hand trimming your beautiful herb plants at no charge

While it's on my mind (and before I tear off to go do more harvesting), I'm going to bust a few marijuana growing myths, for those just joining this thread.

Critical thinking 101 - mind the buzzwords - "hydro" ain't "tha bomb":

* There's no difference whatsoever between the resin/THC yield of a particular strain raised in hydroponics as opposed to a good soil mix. Plants raised in hydro will develop more vigorously and will gain overall size faster only due to greater levels of oxygen supplied to the roots. You'll get lots more bud out of hydro and it'll be quicker than soil in comparative development by a couple of weeks, but absent slower performance and lower yield, the THC you get from soil grown as opposed to hydro will be identical for any given strain.

MO and MO!

* MORE is almost NEVER better. Plants are not V8 engines, where more air & fuel always equals more output. With plants, there's 'too little,' 'just right' and 'dead.' MORE will get you in trouble every single time with nutrients/ferts and watering. The only things where more is ALWAYS better (up to a certain practical limit where 'more' makes no appreciable difference) is with luminous intensity applied to the plants and ventilation. You get more luminous intensity from a brighter light, not by putting more dim lights in the same area.

Beware snake oil.

* It's traditionally been hard to get good information about growing cannabis, but forums like this help the situation quite a lot. Makers exploit your ignorance to line their pockets. The vast majority of 'magic sauces' on sale in hydro shops are somewhere between utterly useless and harmful. They are profit makers for the hydro shop, not grand and magical plant growing adjuncts. It absolutely amazes me what a cool looking package label will do for sales. Since most dope growers are young men, magic sauce sellers often leverage the 'high performance' image of popular motor oil packaging. There's not much between the appearance of a jug of Castrol oil and most products in a hydro shop.

Before you buy anything, aside from deadset basics like nutes and H2O2, search the web for real scientific botanical evidence from independent researchers (preferably peer-reviewed writings from the horticultural colleges of big universities) that the active ingredient actually has some benefit. In hydroponic systems, there's zero benefit to adding any carbohydrate, sugars (including molasses), etc- and in fact, these 'carbo load' sauces will cause probs in non-organic hydro ops. Carbs are great for feeding bacteria, mould, fungi, etc. but cannabis plants won't absorb them at all. There should be no organisms (beneficial or otherwise) in a non-organic hydro op aside from the cannabis plants. Don't get me started on crap containing beeswax and brewers' yeast.

Drinking water from your tap is great for hydro ops, chlorination is your friend. Chlorination suppresses pathogens in the pipes and will protect an open tank of nutes for 2-4 days, until the chlorine evaporates. My fully organic veggie patch out in my back yard gets most of its water out of the garden hose. In just one example, I've got a cherry tomato plant that is 11ft tall and threatening to get bigger. RO & distilled water are expensive wastes of time. Unless you have highly saline bore water, tapwater is just fine. In 20 years of growing, I've never seen a problem in a grow op caused by municipal water.

It's amazing how LITTLE you really need to grow great plants. Start with ONLY nutes, pH correction as required and H2O2. Once your op runs reliably- and you are able to tell the difference between problems caused by a new additive and a problem induced by a fault in the grow room's operation, THEN think about adding things, one by one and very carefully observing the plants for changes.

New growers should not try to innovate. Find an example of an op that's making great plants and copy it to the letter. If it works well for someone else, it'll work well for you.

If you have some problem in the op, go back to first principles. Make sure your op is providing the conditions it should be- don't rush out and buy some magic sauce to try to cure problems.

Al B. Fuct said:

While it's on my mind (and before I tear off to go do more harvesting), I'm going to bust a few marijuana growing myths, for those just joining this thread.

Critical thinking 101 - mind the buzzwords - "hydro" ain't "tha bomb":

* There's no difference whatsoever between the resin/THC yield of a particular strain raised in hydroponics as opposed to a good soil mix. Plants raised in hydro will develop more vigorously and will gain overall size faster only due to greater levels of oxygen supplied to the roots. You'll get lots more bud out of hydro and it'll be quicker than soil in comparative development by a couple of weeks, but absent slower performance and lower yield, the THC you get from soil grown as opposed to hydro will be identical for any given strain.

MO and MO!

* MORE is almost NEVER better. Plants are not V8 engines, where more air & fuel always equals more output. With plants, there's 'too little,' 'just right' and 'dead.' MORE will get you in trouble every single time with nutrients/ferts and watering. The only things where more is ALWAYS better (up to a certain practical limit where 'more' makes no appreciable difference) is with luminous intensity applied to the plants and ventilation. You get more luminous intensity from a brighter light, not by putting more dim lights in the same area.

Beware snake oil.

* It's traditionally been hard to get good information about growing cannabis, but forums like this help the situation quite a lot. Makers exploit your ignorance to line their pockets. The vast majority of 'magic sauces' on sale in hydro shops are somewhere between utterly useless and harmful. They are profit makers for the hydro shop, not grand and magical plant growing adjuncts. It absolutely amazes me what a cool looking package label will do for sales. Since most dope growers are young men, magic sauce sellers often leverage the 'high performance' image of popular motor oil packaging. There's not much between the appearance of a jug of Castrol oil and most products in a hydro shop.

Before you buy anything, aside from deadset basics like nutes and H2O2, search the web for real scientific botanical evidence from independent researchers (preferably peer-reviewed writings from the horticultural colleges of big universities) that the active ingredient actually has some benefit. In hydroponic systems, there's zero benefit to adding any carbohydrate, sugars (including molasses), etc- and in fact, these 'carbo load' sauces will cause probs in non-organic hydro ops. Carbs are great for feeding bacteria, mould, fungi, etc. but cannabis plants won't absorb them at all. There should be no organisms (beneficial or otherwise) in a non-organic hydro op aside from the cannabis plants. Don't get me started on crap containing beeswax and brewers' yeast.

Drinking water from your tap is great for hydro ops, chlorination is your friend. Chlorination suppresses pathogens in the pipes and will protect an open tank of nutes for 2-4 days, until the chlorine evaporates. My fully organic veggie patch out in my back yard gets most of its water out of the garden hose. In just one example, I've got a cherry tomato plant that is 11ft tall and threatening to get bigger. RO & distilled water are expensive wastes of time. Unless you have highly saline bore water, tapwater is just fine. In 20 years of growing, I've never seen a problem in a grow op caused by municipal water.

It's amazing how LITTLE you really need to grow great plants. Start with ONLY nutes, pH correction as required and H2O2. Once your op runs reliably- and you are able to tell the difference between problems caused by a new additive and a problem induced by a fault in the grow room's operation, THEN think about adding things, one by one and very carefully observing the plants for changes.

New growers should not try to innovate. Find an example of an op that's making great plants and copy it to the letter. If it works well for someone else, it'll work well for you.

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this is in my opinion is some of the best advice I've seen on RUI.
any aspiring grower should read this. well done, Rep point coming your way.

We TaRdED said:

hows it going al?

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just busy.

We TaRdED said:

i wish i could give you a hand trimming your beautiful herb plants at no charge

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I wish you could, too. However, it's just so hard to find a blind, deaf manicurist with severe memory problems these days.

I follow my own advice about being a one man band really very strictly. I don't allow anyone to help with my op. When I move buds, I use my own transport (never a borrowed vehicle nor as a passenger in another's) and am always alone. If I ever get busted, I'm going to wear the lot, not share it.

very good points al. the only way i could get the medium ur using is to order it and i know you cant reuse that stuff this would be the first for me to see that kinda of medium..

My dream set up would be two 1000 watt lights over four trays for the first four weeks of flowering and then an individual 600w for the last 4- Producing hopefully 18-25 ounces a week. But when starting, I'm going to flower a few strains all the way through in one tray to see which produces the best bud for SoG.

I forgot, what strength and mixture of nut solution do you dip your clones in?

Also, do you think if you vegged the clones for another 1-2 weeks you would get a bigger yield per plant?

BEEFCAK3 said:

very good points al. the only way i could get the medium ur using is to order it and i know you cant reuse that stuff this would be the first for me to see that kinda of medium..

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Well, use soil with proper fertilisers or inert media with hydroponic nutes, one or the other. Check your local building supply for rockwool insulation, which if it is the absorbent type of rockwool (as opposed to water repellent type) will work just fine.

There would be a glass fibre inhalation hazard with dry bulk fibreglas, but it would work OK as a medium if you keep it damp to prevent a lot of glass fibres from floating around.

Kuji said:

I forgot, what strength and mixture of nut solution do you dip your clones in?

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I have experimented with a nut solution and find that almond and macadamia make an interesting if messy slurry but the clones don't like it much.

No nutes in clone watering solution. Clones are watered with plain water that has been pH adjusted to 5.8. Clone watering soln should get 1ml/L of 50% grade H2O2. If you use a bucket of clone watering soln for more than 2-3 days, dose the soln with H2O2 @ 1ml/L again- or make up a fresh bucket after 2-3 days use.

Kuji said:

Also, do you think if you vegged the clones for another 1-2 weeks you would get a bigger yield per plant?

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No. This is a question which is asked really rather often.

Vegging clones between rooting and flowering defeats the purpose of zero-veg time, which is to keep plants relatively short so the bulk of the bud mass is within the highest luminous intensity coverage area of the lamp.

If you veg clones before flowering them, you'd wind up with excessively tall plants by wk 8 with poor bud development down low on the plant.

Moreover, you'd be unnecessarily adding a couple of weeks into the schedule.

On top of that, you'd need to provide an entire separate grow room/light/ventilation system for vegging; obviously, you can't veg in the same area with your flowering plants.

stickyicky77 said:

Check out Foxfarm. They have a good organic line of nutes that is good for hydro or soil. I have had good luck with the Foxfarm nutes. My plants seem to love them.

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'Organic' and 'hydroponic' IMNSFHO shouldn't be used in the same sentence, much less the same grow op. The word 'organic' does NOT mean 'good.' It means 'sourced from rotted/composted biological materials.'

Organic nutrients (and media such as coco coir) are incompatible with H2O2. H2O2 is used in standard hydro ops as a steriliser and root oxygenator. It will break down organic based fertilisers as readily as it will break down pathogens.

Your plants don't care whether their nitrogen comes from ammonium nitrate or chickenshit. May as well make your life easier and use 'chemical' based hydroponic nutes and inert media.

Hey AL , i need some advice. My plants were grown from seed and were planted on 2/24 and 3/03. They are in week 3 and 4 of the Foxfarm feeding schedule http://www.foxfarmfertilizer.com/hydrofeed.pdf. I should be able to start telling the sex of the plants and start taking clones soon. Should i keep feeding my vegging mothers the week 4 nute mixture and continue taking clones off of the when i need them? The schedule shows week 5 is the first week for flowering nute mixture. So should i start the clones with this mix when i put them in my tray? Will i still need to flush after week 6 since they are clones in a seperate rez and tray? Does this sound right to you?

stickyicky77 said:

Hey AL , i need some advice. My plants were grown from seed and were planted on 2/24 and 3/03. They are in week 3 and 4 of the Foxfarm feeding schedule http://www.foxfarmfertilizer.com/hydrofeed.pdf. I should be able to start telling the sex of the plants and start taking clones soon. Should i keep feeding my vegging mothers the week 4 nute mixture and continue taking clones off of the when i need them? The schedule shows week 5 is the first week for flowering nute mixture. So should i start the clones with this mix when i put them in my tray? Will i still need to flush after week 6 since they are clones in a seperate rez and tray? Does this sound right to you?

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Seedlings must be vegged until they are sexually mature (showing preflowers at nodes). This is normally 6-8 weeks from sprouting. Once they are sexually mature, they can be sexed.

You can determine sex by covering one branch of a plant for 12h/day while keeping the plant in veg cycle lighting. You can also take a cutting from an unknown sex plant, get it to set root and then put it in to a 12/12 flowering light cycle to cause it to display sex.

Clones should get no nutes at all until after they have set root. Nitrogen in nutrients slows rooting.

Don't give flowering nutes until your clones are in 12/12 lighting.

I'm not convinced that plants need to be 'flushed' before harvesting. I find no smoking difference between plants which have been starved for the last two weeks and those which have not been. On occasion, I have the space available to continue flowering for another couple of weeks. Plants do store about 2 wks worth of nutes. If I have stopped nutes in wk6, the plants will begin to get a bit N deficient by the end of wk 8. If I keep giving the usual 1400ppm, I can continue flowering past wk 8 if I have the space.

Al B. Fuct said:

Seedlings must be vegged until they are sexually mature (showing preflowers at nodes). This is normally 6-8 weeks from sprouting. Once they are sexually mature, they can be sexed.

You can determine sex by covering one branch of a plant for 12h/day while keeping the plant in veg cycle lighting. You can also take a cutting from an unknown sex plant, get it to set root and then put it in to a 12/12 flowering light cycle to cause it to display sex.

Clones should get no nutes at all until after they have set root. Nitrogen in nutrients slows rooting.

Don't give flowering nutes until your clones are in 12/12 lighting.

I'm not convinced that plants need to be 'flushed' before harvesting. I find no smoking difference between plants which have been starved for the last two weeks and those which have not been. On occasion, I have the space available to continue flowering for another couple of weeks. Plants do store about 2 wks worth of nutes. If I have stopped nutes in wk6, the plants will begin to get a bit N deficient by the end of wk 8. If I keep giving the usual 1400ppm, I can continue flowering past wk 8 if I have the space.

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Yeah, i should be able to tell the sex starting next week. So should i just continue to feed my mothers the week 4 nute mixture since it shows that as the last week of veg on the schedule and then start the clones whith week 5 after they root and i put them in my tray and switch them to 12/12 ?

Whatever mixture results in a high N ratio is what you use for vegging. No nutes for clones til they set root (didn't I just say that?)

I gotta tell you, a lot of nutrient mfrs make this far too complex, with multiple part sauces and wildly varying recipes which are pretty easy to muck up. Believe it or not, nutes are a very small part of the end result. The vast majority (>80%) of what causes the plant to grow is energy from light, not the nutrients.

One of these days, I'm going to run a batch with Miracle Gro just to prove a point.

Al B. Fuct said:

One of these days, I'm going to run a batch with Miracle Gro just to prove a point.

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That sounds like a good idea...

Yeah, but all the same, I don't need to jump off a cliff to prove I can't fly.

You can successfully extrapolate an accurate result if you know the variables and the science.

Al B. Fuct said:

Whatever mixture results in a high N ratio is what you use for vegging. No nutes for clones til they set root (didn't I just say that?)

I gotta tell you, a lot of nutrient mfrs make this far too complex, with multiple part sauces and wildly varying recipes which are pretty easy to muck up. Believe it or not, nutes are a very small part of the end result. The vast majority (>80%) of what causes the plant to grow is energy from light, not the nutrients.

One of these days, I'm going to run a batch with Miracle Gro just to prove a point.

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I will take that as a yes.

Al B. Fuct said:

WDWYFL, I happen to be a distributor for hydroponics equipment. I checked one of my supplier catalogues and I find this notation under the listing for RW floc I buy:



It'd be a pretty good guess to say that the sort they sell and hence the sort I have is 'absorbent.'

I've always thought that this sort of floc holds too much water, prompting my shift to Fytocell. It's possible that a mix of absorbent and repellent RW floc might be a better solution to excessive absorbency of the Grodan floc than Fytocell. Fytocell has some serious drawbacks; it's messy, doesn't clump and it floats.

I'll look into sourcing some repellent type floc and have a try. Thanks for asking this one. Perfect example of why I bother posting this stuff. I occasionally get great tips like this.

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have you gotten a chance to look into this yet?

bigal10 said:

have you gotten a chance to look into this yet?

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Yeah, I'm having trouble finding the repellent type of RW floc.

Hey Al, I took a bunch of clones a few weeks back and now they've rooted. I however took much smaller clones than you do (didn't have big mothers). They are between 5 and 7 inches tall right now. Do these look ready to go into flowering for SOG? If you have any pics of what your clones look like at day 1 of flowering, I'd be very interested to see them. I've seen your pics of how you clone and also pics at 4-8 weeks flowering, but none between then. Thanks a ton; advice is very much appreciated!