Skywalker OG, Hempy Bucket Grow, Area-51 LED's

Love the light Jela, the girls look happy too...I did not know it had different modes.

I just checked the area 51 page, I may consider purchasing a couple of them, I'm watching...

Damn man you go big with every thing, not only are your plants/buds huge but you have Godzilla leaves on your veging foot tall plants too, you must have a secret supply of some radio active nutes or something cause those leaves are gigantic, looking forward to the rest of the grow man...

psilo-dude, my grows are nothing like yours. You rock that SCROG man! Now I'm really under pressure with you watching. Too, this is the first time with my own clones instead of seeds so I don't know what's gonna happen cola-wise. We'll see....thanks for swinging bye!

Day 12, I told you I was going to do anything I could to keep stretch down. Yesterday I spotted the next 4 stretching growth tips and supercropped them. After 24 hours two came back from hanging down to just "horizontal" and two were still hanging down but healthy. I usually supercrop in week 3 of flower when things are racing to the lights and stems are thicker. This is my first time during veg. I didn't want these tips hanging and forming a permanent 90° knuckle so I simply cut some soda straw segments lengthwise and slipped them onto the stems. They will be good as new in a day or two but the knuckle will be straight. These knuckles formed by snapping the stem are as rock-hard and sturdy as you could image hemp fiber to be...great for donkey dong support later on.

jella,,, subbed to watch this through. I'm really interested in your assessment of the new LED, I've always thought that a pure white led would out perform the multi individual narrow spectrums that led's have been based on.

I agree with you on the new designer seeds, it seems that in the rush to get something new to the market, that they don't take the time to really isolate the killer pheno.

And I've been waiting for this medium combo from you. One question for you, do you think that the grow stones could be recycled???

Looking great Jela....

Wattsaver, I think reuse is gonna be easy. Heck you could let the old bucket dry out completely and drop the pre-shaped res plug into the new clean bucket. Folks here are figuring out that old roots in the reuse medium aren't bad. I'd definitely throw some cannazyme in the mix ...as i already do.

Well a mishap in the big tent (fallen plant) forced some change this weekend. Out came the big girls for harvest and into the flower tent went the Skywalker. Gonna veg a few more days and let them get used to both SGS-160 panels as they only saw one thus far.

Watering rings installed first here.


Then into the tent under these beautiful SGS-160 panels for a few more days of veg.
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Love the setup

jela10 said:

I've grown fond of Grodan's mini-rockwool cubes and have been playing with them as additions to the coco. Where they seem to be working best is in the hempy reservoir. There is a strange phenomenon I and others have noticed with growing in coco. If there is a layer of perlite in the bottom of the hempy bucket, the roots stop at the bottom of the coco and will not pervade the 2" perlite zone. That's funny since the original hempy bucket was all perlite and roots went right down into the reservoir.

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Thanks, Jela, for the informative thread. I'm just in the process of setting up my first Hempy grow and I have a few questions. First off (first off, how do make paragraphs in these thread boxes?), do you use any perlite at all? Looking at your two gallon buckets, it appears it's straight coco. The guy at my local hydro store said to put some perlite in the coco -- for air circulation, I presume -- so in the starter cups for my clones I mixed a 3:1 ratio of coco to perlite. Second, I'm wondering if there's a difference in the growth of the plants when using the rockwool mini-cubes in the reservoir as opposed to perlite. You mentioned that with perlite in the reservoir, the roots grind to a halt and don't penetrate that layer. Does this stunt the growth of the plant? Conversely, do the plants have better growth when they grow into the rockwool cubes deep into the reservoir? One other question, your new lighting system aside, it sounds like I have a similar set-up to you: a 400watt HPS for flowering in a 3.5' x 4' cabinet with about a 6' ceiling. So I've been growing a maximum of eight small plants -- in what appear to be 3 gallon buckets -- in Promix-perlite. (A dusty combination, especially when you're mixing inside during the winter, so I like the idea of ditching the perlite for mini Rockwool cubes). In your opinion, is eight buckets in that space too many?

Pcinta, thx for stopping in. I stopped any and all perlite in the res and have never-ever mixed it with coco upstairs. Your hydro guy isn't wrong about mixing perlite in the coco...lot's of people do it, but I have lots of experience with plain coco up top and it's a killer medium on it's own. I have grown some monsters in little 2g buckets with plain Canna coco coir above and perlite below. I only ditched perlite because of the root zone examination. Although not noticeable to the growth structure of the plant above, I finally broke the 4oz per plant personal best with the 400W HPS in the cooler months and 4.5oz soon became the benchmark. I grew some G13 Pineapple Express to 4.7oz per in 2g buckets of Mapito (rockwool and couch foam) but it was painful to clean and pre-charge. I kind'of regard perlite as something grandfathered in from the original hempy bucket and look forward to other mediums to make it fun and rewarding. It's kind of hard to improve on the hempy's simplicity but there is some "low hanging fruit" if you look for it. On a side note, I preach that less plants is usually a bigger yield too. As for bucket size, I dropped from 3.5g buckets to 2g beacuase I had a strain that outgrew my tent so I regrew it in 2g buckets again. It outgrew the tent too...so I stumbled on a sweet little bucket size that only takes 1g water per plant and lasts 3 days min between feedings during heavy flower. Never went back to 3.5g...I might go there again for a single plant SCROG or something like that. Also, 1g feeds per plant is really freaking easy to mix up to your nute charts when you are stoned. (LOL)

So I took down the "Crazy Miss Hyde" plant today and the fat-assed Blimburn Mango is back in the veg tent on it's own waiting on a few ambers to happen. Here's the upper part of the plant grown under ProSouce 180W Jumbo LED's. My colas are usually this long but more filled in. I blame this on the super stretch it made late in week 3 and to keep height manageable I supercropped (snapped the stems over) when the buds were only 4" long. Too the shorter plant next door kept that light down low so this plant only saw 180W from the LED above it. Still a nice little harvest that will weigh 3.5 oz at best. Note the knuckles formed at the base of the colas from the supercropping.
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Why am I not subbed already, argh. Sorry I'm late, they look great! Keep it up!

Might be a silly question, but do you PH your nutes at all, or just follow the Canna schedule? My pen ran dead a couple weeks ago.. haven't bothered to replace the batteries.. growth looks fine though.

Highocaine said:

Why am I not subbed already, argh. Sorry I'm late, they look great! Keep it up!
Might be a silly question, but do you PH your nutes at all, or just follow the Canna schedule? My pen ran dead a couple weeks ago.. haven't bothered to replace the batteries.. growth looks fine though.

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Highocaine, glad to have you over hempy brother. I use R/O water which is a consistent 5.8. I add the alkaline ingredients first to buffer the solution (Cal/mag, Rhizotonic) which takes it up to 6.0-6.2. Then I add the acidic base nutes and additives that takes me back down to 5.6 -5.8. Since my R/O water is always the same, I don't ever check it anymore. I don't even look at PPM anymore unless I'm precharging a medium like Mapito. I run back & forth between Canna Coco A&B and Canna Substra Vega/flores A&B depending on the non-coco percentage of the medium. Canna Substra has a hard & soft water version and I use the "soft" version for R/O water. Some will tell you the hempy bucket is less sensitive to pH and I really can't agree/disagree. I just keep consistency in my feedings and follow the strain's needs if it's a weird one.

Day 15, the girls are ≈20" above the coco and looking ready for the flip so I set my timers and flipped the SGS-160 switches to the flower spectrum. the last photo here is with the flower switch on and the red LED's illuminated. In just a minute or two they go to sleep for the first time since sprouting the mother plant. We are gonna fill this tent...just watch.

About this Area-51 LED panel. I don't have a light meter but I can truly say these 5W Cree "white" LED's and their focus are running neck and neck with a 400w MHD I have. I didn't know my tent leaked until I put these bad boys in there. With the red LED's on the ambient glow almost appears to be the intensity of my Digilux 400W HPS...It would be awesome If I didn't have to pull those out anymore in cooler months. My camera really likes these LED's over the older "pink" technology and the HID's. Check out my tent zipper now. I may have to glue in some "battens" to stiffen the tent's inner door flap/flange.

Geeezzz.... Holy Macaroni Batman, I smoked just a couple of hits of scissor hash from the "Crazy Miss Hyde" trim yesterday while watching "Orange is the New Black". For a second my heart raced and I knew I was in for a wild ride. Suddenly in my mind I'm a woman in jail as the show portraits. Not just a woman but a lesbian....the buzz got more comfortable when I realized that I am a lesbian, just in a man's body. Better watch that strain when it cures and I smoke it again...those "out of body" experiences can get pretty weird. Now I know where they got the name "Crazy Miss Hyde".

LOL Jela, sounds like a weird trip to me....and I don't do cat chow.....better put on a seat belt for the next trip...sounds fun!!!

Whats Up Brother Jela.2 Thumbs Up On A Great Harvest.Im Subbed Up For Your Grow.What Height Are You Running.I Find 16 To 18 Inches To Be A SweetSpot For The SGS-160's