Nuts First Time Grow. Babies to Monsters!

As the title states, this is a tale of 25 clones handed to me to be grown into beastial plants.
I am growing them in a Ebb n Flow w/ hydroton in three gallon buckets on a 35 gal res and the pictures will show my nutes.
Followed the schedule (800ppm-1000ppm) to flowering until a friend hinted that i should be somewhere in the 1300ppm for my stage.
Pushed them till slight burn then backed off a bit to get them properly fed. Currently feeding twice a day (15 min).

I keep my pH between 5.7 and 5.9.
My daytime temp. is 80 degrees and night is 67 degrees. I am using CO2 enrichment from a 20 lb tank in a 10X10 area. (set for 1385 ppm). Have an A/C for temp and humidity control. Buying a dehumidifier soon.
Two fans, one oscillating.
Four 600W HID lamps. (MH for veg and HPS for flower) Magnum XXXL 6" air-cooled reflectors. (in-line can fan) If I forgot anything, ask, I will gladly fill in any blanks. I also ask that anyone with hints or advice, please share. I am a perfectionist and I know there is something I could be doing better. More info will be strung in with picture series.

------------pictures-----------
New clones
alt view
Biggest
Runt

a few more
2 Purple Kush
uh-oh
23 Dutch Passion PowerPlant
gro
GROW
GROW!

GrowingfortheGold said:

I'm Scribed.

Looking great man! How do you like ebb and flow buckets? Advantages that they can grow lots of large plants very easily. On the flip they require a lot of water if you have a lot of tubes and pots. Also a long time to fill...My old grow I had 48 3 gallon pots and it took 30 minutes to fill them all. Nice canopy! Make sure you get good airflow in there. If it gets too dense it's gonna be a HUGE detriment to growth and yield and promote powdery mildew and other diseases...oh and your done for if you get spidermites. Oh and you aerate your reservoir right?

Click to expand...

I have two 6" air-stones in my reservoir. I should get a few small fans for under-canopy thanks for reminding me.

Inducing Flowering . I FIM'd and then trained them back to how I wanted the plants. Turned out I vegged them for too long. Could have flowered a week (+) earlier.

power
purp K
hot shot
under-can (looks like blue sky beyond those green leaves)

I thought it was a case of under-fert (severe nitrogen def) and now it is looking like a phosphorus def. It has stabilized since it began with flowering ( i know some leaf loss is normal at this stage)

what does the forum populace think?

the first pic is of the progression
the leaves are dying below
but uptop things are great (
checked the roots - how they look?

Going into my sixth week of flowering, MY GIRLS HERMED!!!! I had a light leak at the beginning of flowering that I noticed a week in. I thought I fixed it and everything was fine, until a few days ago I found male pistils randomly on random buds. Pictures will come soon.

ARRRGH! The guy I got my clones from said he's seen this stuff go through some tough situations and it never hermed. If I'm "tripping" why the hell did this male flower top show up on one of my GIRLS? It started with random male flowers on random budsites. This is the only shoot that I've seen go full herm. I had a light leak early in flowering, ive fixed it since then. I'm 2-3 weeks from harvest (by calender).

Any stress can cause them to herm. They could be packed too closely. pH fluctuations, burn and deficiencies, could all contribute.

since this is my first grow, any are possible.

I read somewhere to spray the pistils with hydrogen peroxide to oxidize them so they dont seed. I don't like the idea of spraying my buds, let alone forcing oxidation.

I am diligintely removing any male flowers I can find.

I am pulling the light schedule back to 11 light/ 13 dark to make sure the full 12 hour light period is achieved (my lights are slightly off sync due to being 3 different types of timers (one two output 120V, two single output 240V)] They are timed to within 3-5 minutes of each other.

Any help or suggestions would be vastly appreciated.

lookin real nice sorry to hear about the hermie...did they all do that or just a couple...

blaze1camp said:

lookin real nice sorry to hear about the hermie...did they all do that or just a couple...

Click to expand...

about 15+ tops had one or two random male flowers

I have only found one shoot that did a full conversion- it was about 2 inches long growing out of a junction between two bud clusters.

pruned it out. Been watching like a dog to find more

I may have noticed a small trend among the heavily hermed shoots. Among the side shoots, the growth goes from staggered to symmetrical. Out of the symmetrical bud sites the heavily hermed bud grows. 8---o <-herm (looks phallic, i know).


I have concluded that the problem is bad genetics due to powerplant being inbred. Also the seeds were feminized. lameness. I am making the best of the crop. I added shooting powder last week and I'm adding double dose soon for that final explosion of growth.

Harvest is close, I can smell it.

some random pics. somewhat chronological. The first is a continuation of the herm

some more pictures

The use of shooting powder caused a significant BOOM in growth. New pistils all over and vigorous bud growth on some colas. Getting hardcore crystallized. PK looks done.


Starting flush tomorrow and harvesting after 3-4 days.

I made it.



Now for the tedious job of trimming, drying, and curing everything properly



Pics soon