Just switched from hydro to soil.

J2282p

New Member
I know that many of you have heard of switching from soil to hydro. This is my usual way to go; I drop a seed in water for a day or two until the tap root pokes out. I then fold a damp napkin over it and put in a sandwich bag with no air in my cupboard for another day. This adds a little length to the tap root. I plant that into the soil for about a week to sprout and leave until it has one or two sets of leaves after the cotyledons. I rinse the soil off of it and hold it in a net cup and carefully place clay pellets around and put in the dwc bubbler. This works great for me and the growth takes off.

I try to do experimenting to make the experience much more enlightening. I once had a bagseed hermie at beginning of flower. I then carefully removed every male preflower I saw after close daily inspections. Like Mendel did to his peas. After a week it never grew any more pods. All colas grew seedless except for one lower one that mysteriously seeded itself.

I know I am ranting but I am relatively new and these experimental things are interesting and hard to find.

Anyways. I grew a kush seed I got from seeds4free.com as described at the top of post. Before switching it to the flowering stage I took a cutting from it and put it in a cube of rockwool and into a little dwc bubbler. I grow it slowly with indirect window light because I only have lights to flower one plant at a time. Since veg is about a month and flower is two (for me). I veg slowly for two, for height restrictions. I use indirect sunlight and flourescent. Its about a 7 week old clone. It looks fine but the root system was very small for the size of the plant, about 5 4" root chutes and thats it. The days are getting close to natural 12/12 and I dont want to plug and move this plant around to veg and continue on to flower.

I flower with cfls and substitute natural sunlight when I can. But with dwc and 100 degree heat. Hot reservoir water is a risk.

Today I took the vegging clone in the dwc system and pulled the net cup out of the lid. I dumped the pellets out of the cup and were left with the rockwool and 5 roots. I straightened them out and removed the plant by grabbing the rockwool and it slid out of the net cup. I filled a bucket 4 inches up with soil and laid a root, covered it, laid another root facing different covered it and so forth. It was now a soil plant. It was cloudy out and I set it out into the cloudy partially sprinkling weather. when the sun started to peak and hit it with direct, it started to wilt. I thought I just killed the plant. So I took it inside and placed the pot into a large mixing bowl and filled the bowl with water which raised the saturated water level in the soil pot. Stuck an air bubbler tube with airstone to the bottom of the saturated soil pot and bubbled air into it. The plant regained its structure!!! So now I have a hydro to soil transition phase under flourescent long tubes in "recovery mode" hanging in there. Heres the pics. What do you think?
 

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bass1014

Well-Known Member
good luck with that.. i did the same and it seemed the plant didn't like it very wet or dry at least little bit so i had 3 die and one made it, but i can do the reverse and they are fine.. keep us posted.
 

J2282p

New Member
Note: The lower fan leaves naturally hung that way to face the window and pick up the indirect sunlight. I rotate the plant so thats how it grows. I had one that I didnt rotate and it sat in the indirect light window for 6 weeks and shaped like this. (This is the clone mother)
 

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J2282p

New Member
good luck with that.. i did the same and it seemed the plant didn't like it very wet or dry at least little bit so i had 3 die and one made it, but i can do the reverse and they are fine.. keep us posted.

I dont think it was going to make it at all until I saturated the soil. Thats why I put the airstone in there. Its been 6 hours and its stable.
 

fisherbushman

New Member
Been growing from seed for some time, am an avid outdoor grower myself. My germination stages went the same as you all but didnt bother with closing the seed off in a bag to let the root stretch. I feel comfortable moving them into a 6inch with some simple no fert , no nute soil. Once their under my t5's , and this is where ive noticed people have to jojo, or wire their girls up, I put a small fan some distance away to harden them up. Wind , just like anythihng else, is great for strengthening not only your root system , but the stock as well. If your going from indoor to outdoor, it can get nasty if your plant isnt hardened up before she goes out. Also try rotating your plants regularly so they dont get overburdened to one side, when their young you will notice this quickly. It takes alot of effort but it pays off.
Ive been buying rubbermaid tote containers to finish em off outside, drill 4 holes in the bottom for good drainage, and it works great. If you have 50 plants that need to be moved in a short period of time, this is the way to go.
If i had some pics from this years grow I would post, but dont.
Good luck.
 

J2282p

New Member
It's been 24 hours and its doing fine. I drained the water and removed the pump and I am checking on it. Right now its in very damp soil. If it doesn't wilt now it should be ok.
 
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