Holy Smoke: Strawberry Diesel - 400w Waterfarm

Been a few days since I've posted an actual picture of the plant. SO. Today is day 20. Tomorrow will be 3 weeks since seed sprouting. Drinking about 1/2 a gallon ever 24 hours. PPMs are down to 150ish because I've been adding straight distilled water to res. Res change out is Monday, going to up ppms to 500ppm. Hopefully it takes and isn't too strong. May end up going with a bit lower ppm. Maybe 300. I was going to go according to the bottle and see how that goes, it says for this stage of growth use 1 tsp per gallon which is 500ppm.

Looks to me like she could use closer to 4-500 ppms with the way the leaves are looking a bit of a lighter green... and you wouldn't have to worry about over-nuting at that amount = worth the risk I'd say. Actually, one thing I don't remember mentioning in my journal - I added a little bit of the waterfarm's packaged grow nute to give it a bit more nitrogen early on as well - maybe she could use a little of that in your nute mix - never hurts.

She's staying nice and short which is good from what I've seen with mine at that stage - if you have any side-branching or nodes appearing part way down, you could also start some LST in a few days by the look of it. Have a look at posts #62 and #80 in my journal to see what I mean by lower nodes/branches showing their 'distinction' and you'll see what I mean.

I'm not sure how much of a hurry you're in to flip her to flower (you'd mentioned 25 days), but with some heavy LST work you could probably take her twice as long in veg and still have enough head-room I'd say. =)

Dayzt said:

Looks to me like she could use closer to 4-500 ppms with the way the leaves are looking a bit of a lighter green... and you wouldn't have to worry about over-nuting at that amount = worth the risk I'd say. Actually, one thing I don't remember mentioning in my journal - I added a little bit of the waterfarm's packaged grow nute to give it a bit more nitrogen early on as well - maybe she could use a little of that in your nute mix - never hurts.

She's staying nice and short which is good from what I've seen with mine at that stage - if you have any side-branching or nodes appearing part way down, you could also start some LST in a few days by the look of it. Have a look at posts #62 and #80 in my journal to see what I mean by lower nodes/branches showing their 'distinction' and you'll see what I mean.

I'm not sure how much of a hurry you're in to flip her to flower (you'd mentioned 25 days), but with some heavy LST work you could probably take her twice as long in veg and still have enough head-room I'd say. =)

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I was just thinking that, so I made up a gallon of 500ppm solution and filled the res with it since it was about 1/2 gallon low. I did some LST with my bubblelicious last grow, don't really like to but I'm still debating on if I should with this or not. There are quite a few secondary branches. With the way they are growing they seems like they are going to be taller than the main steam soon enough by mid week. I think it's still a tad bit too early to start lst. I took one last shot of the roots. Not going to expose them to light anymore, don't want to be risking root rot.

With the day 25 veg. The plant grew an inch yesterday morning to today from 4" to 5". SO assuming it grows 1" every day that means theoretically Thursday it will be 10" tall. So I MAY wait a little longer than Thursday. I'd like to get it to a foot before I switch the light. I'm not soo worried about how tall it gets now. The light doesn't get hot enough to burn the plants, it's almost cooler than the cfl bulbs and with the space the cool tube still puts off plenty of light to cover the entire tent.

Those roots are looking awesome! Sounds great man - only you can read your plant appropriately to know how/what to give her! =) Everything is looking spot on so far - should be a massive, healthy plant!

Dayzt said:

Those roots are looking awesome! Sounds great man - only you can read your plant appropriately to know how/what to give her! =) Everything is looking spot on so far - should be a massive, healthy plant!

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Thanks, I added 1 tsp to the res, took the ppms up to 450. See how she takes over the next couple days. 170 is kinda low for the plant at this stage of growth. Sooo many more roots than when I took that picture this morning. Unbelievable.

How long are you gonna veg her for?

Bluezdude said:

How long are you gonna veg her for?

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I'm thinking 25 days. So until next Thursday. No longer than the 22nd. That would be 4 weeks.

Still looking good bro cant wait to start watching the flowering of this one!

bigbud888 said:

Sub'd, gonna ride shotgun witcha on this one.

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Thanks for the sub. Yesterday I started some "LST" not really tying the plants down, more of moving the fan leaves around and under the secondary growth. They always bounce back up but doing that for a few days the secondary really gets enough light to grow tall enough to not have to do it much. Today is 3 weeks since seed sprouting.

PPMs are down to 350 so it's taking in nutes, pH is about the same at 7.0. Still has a steady uptake in water, filled it up this morning and it's already 1/4 or so low.

Why so high of a PH?

Hobgoblit said:

Why so high of a PH?

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Not sure, can't really find out much about it but plant isn't dying so I'm not worried about it. pH should be lower once it's in flower.

mr2shim said:

Not sure, can't really find out much about it but plant isn't dying so I'm not worried about it. pH should be lower once it's in flower.

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Mine rises from 5.5 to 6.0 kinda fast after adding water or nutes, but once I PH it back to 5.5 the second time it crawls up and literally takes days to rise to 6.0. Sometimes stopping @ 5.8 for a long while...

Hobgoblit said:

Mine rises from 5.5 to 6.0 kinda fast after adding water or nutes, but once I PH it back to 5.5 the second time it crawls up and literally takes days to rise to 6.0. Sometimes stopping @ 5.8 for a long while...

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Most likely the hydroton, that's what usually makes the pH rise from what I've read. I wouldn't worry about pH as much as ppm. Too high a ppm for a few days can kill a plant in hydro easy.

Before I bought the seed, I read a lot about Holy Smoke: Strawberry Diesel seeds going hermie. SO, I went ahead and broke out the Dutch Masters Reverse and went to town just to be safe. Read a lot of people actually use it regardless just to be safe. From what I've read and my previous experience with it, it does work and works well. I know for a fact my bubblelicious was going hermie and it can be seen in my thread for those curious what it was looking like before I sprayed it and after. Completely knocked out all signs of hermie. Anywho, I'm going to post the pictures here for those who are curious but don't want to search through all of those pages. Myself included. I will be spraying again 10 days later as per bottle instructions.

Bubblelicious trying to hermie


Bubblelicious 7 days later



Sour Cream non hermie (same day as bubblelicious first picture)


Those are actually pretty good pictures for people to compare what male vs female looks like.

My understanding is 5.5 to 6.1, nothing above or below this. How you're not locking that plant up is beyond me. I have heard of people venturing up or down a little and doing just fine. Normally when I see 7.0 in a hydro thread it's bad news, or at least that's my experience with the reading I've done. To me, PH is most important, because if you're not in the right zone, or venture out of that zone repeatedly, you can lock a plant up, or miss out on important elements. Right?

Hobgoblit said:

My understanding is 5.5 to 6.1, nothing above or below this. How you're not locking that plant up is beyond me. I have heard of people venturing up or down a little and doing just fine. Normally when I see 7.0 in a hydro thread it's bad news, or at least that's my experience with the reading I've done. To me, PH is most important, because if you're not in the right zone, or venture out of that zone repeatedly, you can lock a plant up, or miss out on important elements. Right?

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You can have nute lockout, but it's dependent on strain how quick it can. It seems to me like this strain pretty good with higher pH and isn't that fragile. It really seems like it perfers a higher pH. I've knocked it down to 5.8 and it'll go right back to 6.8ish. Looking at various hydro pH nute uptake charts it's hard to really say 7.0 is too high and it'll lock out. Different charts show different things. In veg they need more nitrogen than phosphorus or potassium, and during flower they need more potassium than nitrogen or phosphorus, and nitrogen doesn't lock out until 9+

For example this chart.



In veg growth the plant doesn't look like it would lockout unless you had a terrible high pH or a terribly low pH, but this chart..



Tells a very different story. In the end, I think it's best to watch your plants and not go by these "pre set rules" because every strain is different.

Basically, always go according to what your plant is doing. If it's showing signs of nute lockout then adjust accordingly. If not then why bother?

Mine stops @ 5.8 on the dot. Doesn't move till I top off or add water. Really strange how the same plant can be so different

Hobgoblit said:

Mine stops @ 5.8 on the dot. Doesn't move till I top off or add water. Really strange how the same plant can be so different

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Not really the same plant, indica, sativa, ruderalis. Very different, genus the same (cannabis) species are all very different, then when you mix the strains. Very different characteristics. Kinda like saying a Great Dane is the exact same as a Maltese. If they were the same you wouldn't have thousands of different strains, that all taste, smell, and have different effects.. It'd all be the same if the plant was the same.

Like I said, I'm not going to freak out and shit a brick because the pH is a bit high according to charts. As long the plant is growing healthy and up taking water and nutes(it is) I'm fine.

Dayzt said:

Hey mr2 - been catching up on your journal, looking really great!! - it's funny, because I went through almost the EXACT same thing as you with the water ppms... this early on in the game, don't worry about the higher ppms or even the pH in the 6-7 range. Mine did that too - just keep using the store-bought RO water for now. Believe it or not, even though you've already rinsed the hydroton thoroughly, it will still cause abnormally high ppms for the first month or so. Once your nutes are up to around 5-600, the flora nova will take care of the pH, and it won't even by necessary to check it for the rest of the grow! My plant didn't mind the high pH at the start either - no worries. Pretty soon those first few sets of leaves will be irrelevant, and the slight browning tips won't even be viewable!

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I'm not having a high PH issue, it is very manageable in 20 gallons, I think my issue has been watering. See, I don't have a top feed on this system, and my water level is just below the pot, maybe 1/2 to 1 inch, maybe I should raise the water level? I'm watering by hand through the top now and seems to bring them to life.