Organic Grow With a Mix Of Strains (Newb Alert)

DrDukePHD said:

Get a HD Webcam inside your tent, watch the tape when a leaf dissappears!

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I do have one in there but the clarity isn't the best so i wasn't able to detect anything. The plants look a little unhappy, i got visitors who stayed overnight so i couldn't disappear to water but they will perk up shortly. Also i noticed the big Mimosa x Orange Punch middle row on the left is looking pale around the lower leaves. I definitely need to up the pot size and give it some EWC and amendments.

Day 27

Day 32 since sprout

Things are going ok with the grow. On a couple of plants a few of the lower leaves are yellowing a bit. I wanted to have things re-potted sooner but i tweaked my back. I even had the wife water a couple of nights while on video chat so i could walk her through it and ph the water etc haha she done good. So here is the current situation, the tent is filling up fast.



The biggest plant and the odd looking plant are both Mimosa X Orange Punch. The big plant has a bit of yellowing on the lower leaves, and a touch of intervenal chlorosis. I re-potted it from the solo cup to 3 gal pot on day 9 which was long before the others so i'd say she was getting hungry in the small pot. So she got re-potted in to a 7 gal a few days ago and is starting to look a little better, but for 32 days old she's a big girl.



I also re-potted the 3 skunk plants today, one Blue Cheese and the Bodega Bubblegum. When i re-potted the skunk plant with the wick, i just cut the wicks off and setup new wicks the same way as the previous pot. The root development was definitely better on the one with the wick installed, but with the foliage and growth there's no real advantage. But my hunch is it will pull ahead now they are needing more water.

Wick plant in the middle.


The Gorilla Zkittlez that got eaten has bounced back, these are taken 16 days apart:


The Sour Diesel Auto's are starting to flower already, i dont think they will yield big but it's still exciting to see them budding up.


I also topped them and trimmed a few lower leaves. Then watered with Ocean Potion and Aqua Marine grow formula (by High Powered Organics that produce the soil i'm using). So between that and getting things in bigger pots i should see improvements.



Most of the plants have short node spacing despite me running the lights on a low PAR, and apparently IR light helps increase node spacing. The Spider Farmer SE7000 only has warm white, cool white and rich red 660nm but it doesn't have Infrared or UV LED's.

So i got a Mars Hydro UR45 which has 30 watt UV (365-420nm) and 15 watt IR (730-745nm). I am only using the IR for 30 minutes now and it turns on 15 minutes before lights out and turns off 15 minutes after lights out. Will it help... i have no idea.



Bit of a picture dump today. So that brings things up to date for day 32.

Day 35 since sprout

The 5x5 is starting to fill up fast. I ordered some EWC and Mykos mycorrhizae which both arrived today, so i managed to repot the last of the plants. I just mixed the EWC in with the soil when re-potting, and the ones that were already re-potted i top dressed with the EWC.

I wish i had the castings before i re-potted the skunk plants, but hopefully top dressing with it is just as good as mixing in with the soil.

So all plants are in either 5 or 7 gal pots now, and the 2 Sour Diesel auto's hiding in the back/right corner are in 3 gal pots.


So hopefully the yellowing on the lower leaves on those couple of plants will come good now. I've been under feeding them because last time i grew i overdone it on the feedings, and i've reused that soil which had a very high EC on a slurry test. Also having such a huge range of strains and trying to cater to each one is hard when you only partially know what you are doing.

The weirdo Orange Mimosa plant in front of the tower fan, i added some 3D printed LST clips that bend the branches about 75 degrees and i'll see how they go. Some of the others i've just been bending branches and squeezing the stem just lightly to get the canopy flattened out. A few of the branches i topped a second time which i've never done.

So now i think i need to focus on training more, and working out where and how to cut the clones.

The 3 skunk plants, the bottom one is the wick pot i think it's pulling ahead slightly.


The big Mimosa X Orange Punch is getting real big, it's 62cm which is just over 2 foot. I dont know why the growth is so vigorous but i'm not complaining, i'm keen to try cloning this one.


This is what the environment generally sits on (26c is about 79f), and i'm sitting on about 500 PAR at the canopy of most plants. The taller Orange Mimosa is about 700 PAR (using the Photone app).


Once they settle in to the new pots i will up the amendments and follow the High Powered Organics feeding schedule more closely. But so far things are going well i think.

So my last post and pictures were all taken yesterday, i didn't get a chance to finish the journal entry last night. But i unzipped the tent this morning and everything seems to have grown a lot in under 24 hours or at least looking happier.

Day 36 since sprout. The 5x5 is starting to look real small...

Day 40 since sprout

I've been unable to spend much time getting things done with a stuffed back atm, plus come down with something... it's been 3 days since i watered and the girls were not impressed. So this evening i gave half their water, then come back 2 hours later and gave the other half to slowly saturate the medium thoroughly.

Also got a few issues happening, some lower leaves are showing yellowing and a few rust looking marks. The odd thing is strains i have 2 of there's only 1 with issues while the other is happy when they have had the same everything. So i dont know what's up.

But what i do know is the AC Infinity oscillating fan tried to fucking kill me. I noticed it wasn't working, and i went to unclip it from the pole and it went bang and sparks shot out between my fingers where the power cable entered the fans housing, gave me a 240v tickle. Not impressed, about $150 here in Australia....junk!

Also this will probably be the last pic of the girls under the one roof. I'll split some plants off in to a 4x4 because it's becoming a jungle in the 5x5, i just haven't worked out what's going where or when i will flip each tent. But i want to cut some clones to try cloning, and i will veg one of the tents longer so they ripen staggered and i dont have hard labor in trim jail!

Anyhow enough shit talking, on to the show...





Party lights with the IR bars, they come on 30 min before lights out and turn off 30 min after main light off. Antidote-ally the IR seems to work, there's some good stretch starting to happen on the Blue Cheese, Bodega Bubblegum and the Orange Mimosa plant is a big girl.



On IR Only



Anyhow at 40 days along i was hoping i would be a bit further, but i guess it's not such a bad run... yet! Just need to do some work and split them so every plant has space, light, airfow and not laying on top of each other creating humid spots, bacteria etc..

If you spot anything not right with them please let me know. Not doing anything drastic with feeds, top dress, amendments, lolly-popping, pruning etc. All i done with tonight's water is Ph to 6.5, air stone for half the day. Then dumped in a handful of EWC, handful of Gro-Dirt and a 1/2 tsp of organic unsulphured black strap molasses.

Oh and out of the Skunk SIP/Wick pot and the 2 other control tests all in fabric pots, the SIP/Wick version is still gaining the lead.

Day 41 since sprout

One last pic of them all together, they are much happier today properly hydrated.



That one Orange Mimosa is frigging huge for it's age, i didn't realize just how big it is until i pulled it from the tent today. It's over 2ft high and 2ft in diameter without any training. So just 4 plants like it would fill the 5x5, and i have no idea how it will stretch or if it will grow in to the lights.



So i heavily tied it down now i've divided the plants between 2 tents.



Now i found this on one of the plants, is this what i think it is? If so I'm a frigging moron because i got side tracked, didn't take note of what plant it was and put the plants back in to the tents in a rush. If so fingers crossed it wasn't the big girl or the Bodega Bubblegum.



I'll post up pics of both tents and what is in each tomorrow.

Day 45 since sprout

Today I've decided to flip the 5x5 things are fairly healthy and after moving 6 plants out of the tent the remaining plants have filled the gaps. So in the 5x5 i have

3 x Special Skunk
2 x Mimosa X Orange Punch
1 x Bodega Bubblegum
1 x Blue Cheese

I also took clones of those strains yesterday i followed a tutorial on YouTube, so fingers crossed the clones work.



So in the 4x4 there is

2 x Sour Diesel Auto's
2 x Charlottes Dream CBD
1 x Gorilla Zkittlez
1 x Blue Cheese
12 Clones



Unfortunately the nanners i found in my last post were from the tallest Sour Diesel auto. There were only 4 and i plucked them off but i will put that plant outside. It's the middle of Autumn/Fall here, and daytime temps are around 25c/77f for the next month and night time temps around 13c/55f with 12 hours of light so it should be ok.

I may even pop a few more Sour D auto seeds.

The yellowing around the lower leaves have cleared up on all but the 2 autos. When it started to happen i was worried and instinct was to dump more feed on them, but i noticed some clawing. So i done plain water for the last several waterings and it's helped a lot, the 5x5 plants are even praying now.

Here's the clones, i trimmed some leaves in half like the video and left some full to see what works best.


So that brings the grow up to date. Do folks prefer if the images are just added as thumbnails or full size? Dont want to bog the page down too much. Cheers.

2 days since flip

Bit worried about them stretching in to the lights but I can't complain about how healthy they are. The Blue Cheese is starting to shoot up fast and catching the big Orange Mimosa in height.

The clones have no visible roots yet unfortunately but they look ok still.

Still not feeding the plants much due to how hot the soil was at the start but I think I may have to. I read soil can take 14 days for amendments to become available which means what I add now won't take effect until end of the stretch. More reading required on that.

Don't think i mentioned, i grew some auto's and overdone it on the amendments and screwed them up a bit. I reused the soil on this grow and the EC from a slurry test was through the roof. So I've hardly fed them at all this grow.

Anyway some of today's picks of the 5x5 one from the security cam, the 4x4 hasn't changed much.

There's not much interest in this grow, so i'm going to discontinue updating this journal. Cheers.

LowRange said:

not much interest in this grow, so i'm going to discontinue updating this journal.

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Sorry, man i keep forgetting to like stuff. I hope at least you can post some pix of the final product?

Doing well my friend

LowRange said:

But what i do know is the AC Infinity oscillating fan tried to fucking kill me. I noticed it wasn't working, and i went to unclip it from the pole and it went bang and sparks shot out between my fingers where the power cable entered the fans housing, gave me a 240v tickle. Not impressed, about $150 here in Australia....junk!

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Holy $h*%!!!

These companies manufacturing "always on" devices meant to be used in humid/hot environments need to do better.

You're lucky it just electrocuted you & didn't burn down your home. I suggest you open a ticket with AC Infinity, explain everything & demand a resolution. They are reputation conscious & will likely replace it, although, do you even want another one? Damn man sorry to hear that!

Also, hope your back is better my friend. I'm right there with ya, it sucks!

LowRange said:

There's not much interest in this grow, so i'm going to discontinue updating this journal. Cheers.

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doughper said:

Sorry, man i keep forgetting to like stuff. I hope at least you can post some pix of the final product?

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Thanks mate, i can still post up some progress shots but it didn't seem like there was much interest in the grow. With a lot on my plate at the moment, just jotting a few grow notes in the shed is easier. But if folks are keen then i will keep going with it.

DrDukePHD said:

Holy $h*%!!!

These companies manufacturing "always on" devices meant to be used in humid/hot environments need to do better.

You're lucky it just electrocuted you & didn't burn down your home. I suggest you open a ticket with AC Infinity, explain everything & demand a resolution. They are reputation conscious & will likely replace it, although, do you even want another one? Damn man sorry to hear that!

Also, hope your back is better my friend. I'm right there with ya, it sucks!

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Yes exactly it could of turned out real bad. Kind of worried me a bit, so i've beefed up the extension cables and power boards to better quality ones, added a fire extinguisher just inside the shed. I contacted AC Infinity and they have actually been good which i didn't expect because i purchased on Amazon and i'm not in the USA. This morning they asked for a video showing the unit is defective, so fingers crossed. Cheers mate.

jungle666 said:

Doing well my friend

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Thanks Jungle, i appreciate it mate. Hope you've been well.

14 Days since flip

The grow is going pretty well good, actually much better than expected considering there's so many different strains which all like different nutes, environment etc.

The 2 Mimosa X Orange Punch plants continue to impress, the breeder Barneys Farm calls them "super compact" plants that grow to 70-80cm indoors and 1.5 to 1.8 meters outdoor in ideal conditions. Mine are around 1.4 meters (4 feet 6 inches) and still stretching a bit. https://www.barneysfarm.com/mimosa-x-orange-punch-552

Not sure why they are so big, i only vegged them for 45 days... but it's a good problem to have i guess as long as they dont get any bigger. This is the 5x5 today, the tall ones are the Mimosa's.



On the pole you can see the 120cm/4ft mark i drew, i need to add more markings.



And the bud development for 14 days is starting.



Now for the 3 Skunk Special plants, the middle plant is the one i setup the cotton wicks in the fabric pot to test the sub irrigation watering.



It's not a real accurate comparison using seeds instead of clones i guess, but in person the one using the wick system looks more lush and healthy, it's slightly bigger and i feel it will yield the most out of the 3. So i'm definitely going to experiment more with this type of thing next grow.

The Bodega Bubblegum and Blue Cheese are doing ok, their flower development is a bit slower than the others so far but the plants are doing well.

Also don't laugh, but i 3D printed some corner brackets for the tent so you could slot in 16mm wooden dowel to brace the sides so the exhaust doesn't suck the walls in. It works, but i decided to add a wifi LED light-strip to it for some probably useless party lights. I just done blurple for laughs, i'll run it as a warm white. Oh and i stuck one of these bubble levels on the light left over from my camper van.



Definitely helps to hang it level.

Now the 4x4 tent, it's been slow but i have not tried to push it at all. Firstly the bad news, i forgot to plug the cloner in after cleaning it one night and completely screwed them without the pump running. So i cut a few more and they are starting to pop roots... Happy about that, first clone!

The Sour Diesel auto's are looking ok and getting a nice aroma:



The others such as the Charlottes Dream and Gorilla Zkittlez are staying smaller and the stems are quite woody and tough. But i top dressed everything today with the HPO Stone Age and Herb Superb plus a little worm castings.

Need to go away for a week with the wifes surgery, so been busy automating everything and will install the Bluemats for watering in the next few days.

But the one thing i really learned for the next grow is better canopy management and making everything as even in height as possible across the whole tent rather than having 1 1/2 feet difference in height from one plant to the next.

Surgery? I hope it all goes very well for her and u.
4 feet? Wow. u growing sativas, or what? love that horizontal light strip too, great idea.
thanks for posting and info. I'm all in on your success, bro.

Hell yea now its a party tent! Love it. Let us know how the blumats are to setup & if they work out, I need to work on automation myself, never know when the backs gonna take a week off unexpectedly. Regards/positive vibes for the wifey! Hope all goes well homie.

doughper said:

Surgery? I hope it all goes very well for her and u.
4 feet? Wow. u growing sativas, or what? love that horizontal light strip too, great idea.
thanks for posting and info. I'm all in on your success, bro.

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Thank you mate, yes she's got a 17cm fibroid non cancerous (or at least the biopsy sample of the outside was) so the poor girl looks like she is 9 months pregnant. It's got me worried but trying not to let on.

And thanks, the strip light around the tent definitely looks cool. But i don't think just one strip will put out enough light to have any significant benefit. I think it needs one starting a foot off the floor, and another every foot up to the height of the light. So maybe 4 or 5 of them.

Another side benefit is i read that green light doesn't interrupt the plants dark time like other colors, so if ever i need to open the tent after lights out i can turn the strip to green and down low.

DrDukePHD said:

Hell yea now its a party tent! Love it. Let us know how the blumats are to setup & if they work out, I need to work on automation myself, never know when the backs gonna take a week off unexpectedly. Regards/positive vibes for the wifey! Hope all goes well homie.

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I feel your pain mate, you can be on top of the world one minute looking forward to doing a list of jobs a mile long and then the sciatic nerve grabs and puts the brakes on everything. Very frustrating, so positive vibes to you as well.

As for the Blumats, i set one up in an empty pot 36 hours ago and the soil moisture % has stayed fairly rock solid. One thing to note is they use 8mm and 3mm hoses, which is different to regular garden irrigation and dripper hoses and fittings. I went to town to get some extra fittings, taps etc and no luck at any garden center. So need to Macgyver shit together as there's no time to order anything.

19 Days since flip

I've dropped the temp during lights on a little from 26c/79f down to 24c/75f. Stretching has slowed right down thankfully so it seems growth is now going to bud development. I'm getting a bit of yellowing around the bottom leaves, i'm thinking it might be a bit of nute excess after top dressing and EWC 5 days ago because otherwise they seem quite happy. But i'm just giving them straight water during my week away so i hope it's an excess rather than a deficiency.

After the auto's turned out shit last grow i'm trying the less is more approach this grow and not trying to "fix" things by throwing a bunch of stuff at them at the first sign of an issue... so far it's worked.

Throwing up gang signs



I noticed some bleaching on the top buds, and checked the PAR using the Photone app and it was around the 950 mark. Yikes, backed it down to 800 but unfortunately the smaller plants are now getting only around 600. So trying to keep the canopy flatter next grow is one thing i really need to work on.

So far the Skunk Special plants aren't giving much of a skunk smell, it's more just a fruity aroma but i assume it's still too soon. The Orange Mimosa plants do have a flight citrus smell. The Blue Cheese and Bodega Bubblegum not much smell yet.

The 4x4 is still on 18/6 and the strains in that tent are staying more compact. I'll flip it when i get back home, and also the 2 Sour Diesel auto's i think may be ready when i get home also. The clones have really exploded with roots, below is one of the Orange Mimosa's. So happy these worked, first successful clone woot!

But... i dont have enough Blumat's to do anymore plants so i have no choice but to leave the clones in the cloner and hope for the best.



And a Happy 420 to everyone, with a 420 security camera shot of the 5x5 and 4x4

LowRange said:

There's not much interest in this grow, so i'm going to discontinue updating this journal. Cheers.

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Don't stop Updating or Journaling! I can sympathize with your position, as I've been there before too. It's almost like a second job to do a thorough journal that's detailed and is accompanied with pictures. BUT..... your grow looks great and there's not much to critique. I'd be willing to bet that's the reason for the slowed interactions. That being said... your certainly a skilled and intuitive grower.

LowRange said:

non cancerous

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That sounds good to me, bro, let's hope it's not.

LowRange said:

side benefit

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Oh, yeah, i see what you did there. (about side lights?)