Starting Mephisto Form Stomper indoors, will move outdoors 1 May

Some more LST and rearranged the order. Two ’leggy” plants on the ends, two bushy ones in the middle. I see the beginning of the big stretch coming on, that’ll be exciting. They are spending the day indoors so the branches I bent over can turn upwards toward the suspended LED. JFM…

Retired engineer said:

I think I’m gonna skip the extreme horizontal training this time. That was a cool experiment, this year I’m going for maximum height, and have already pulled all the lowers out into the sun. I’m working my way up the stalk with LST clips to get the next nodes headed that direction, and will keep that up until everything is in the sun, and the main cola is totally exposed. I’ve been adding Si into the feeding schedule so the main stalks are now “unbendable”; the size of soda straws and nearly as stiff as a pencil.

running them horizontally took more attention and time - I’d work the ends of the horizontal stalks a coupe times a day and tie them to the wooden dowel that ran across the top of the crate; I’m in Ron Popeil mode now - “set it and forget it”…

I have some plants that are younger at the GFs house so might mess around with some horizontal training in them…stay tuned…

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I would try topping one or two of the ones at the girlfriends house. If you can get to it at the fourth node up before like day 21 you'll be in good shape. That strain would really like it I'm betting.

FirstCavApache64 said:

I would try topping one or two of the ones at the girlfriends house. If you can get to it at the fourth node up before like day 21 you'll be in good shape. That strain would really like it I'm betting.

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Thanks I’ll give that a try…I have some square tomato cages that will work well with the milk crates too…

Retired engineer said:

Thanks I’ll give that a try…I have some square tomato cages that will work well with the milk crates too…

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That will really be nice I bet. I've been debating using those indoors. I'm sick of bamboo and pipe cleaners. By the end of flower my plants look like a big top circus.

Few more LST clips applied, minor defoliation. Good dose of fish shit and NFTG Athena’s Aminas and ph 6.4 water. One more day in side and out in the sun when it presents itself…

Lots of water followed by FF Wk4, and out into the full sun. I’ll drench them with some more water around mid-day when I move them again. Then back indoors for more lighting overnight. They’ve been 24/0 since seedlings; maybe another week or 2 of LST then let them stretch into flower…

I’m gonna be bold and declare pre-flower stage; so fed them 800ml NFTG guano tea, let sit for 30 min, then 600ml of ph 6.4 water. I have about a foot of vertical space left in the tub, and then they’ll be relegated to outdoors. Since they’ve been at 24/0 since seedling, I’ll start adding in some dark time at the midpoint of the overall lighting schedule so they get used to that. I think I have maybe another week indoors.

I‘ve managed to expose all the flower sites I can out in full light with a whole bunch of wire loops and LST clips. Still have 1 plant that is more bushy than leggy and I’ll continue to work on that one, but if she wants to stay stocky ain’t gonna fight that too much.

I changed all the T5 bulbs (ten 4-foot and four 2-foot) to a mix of 3,000k and 3,500k. I did have to leave a 6,500k in place since one of the 3,500k bulbs burned out and 6,500k was all I had left. I’ll remedy that with a couple new T5 bloom LED bulbs. Those are not too easy to find…

The tallest one is within about a foot of outgrowing the tub, and the others are not too far behind…I swear the tallest one grew 3 inches over night. Couple days of iffy weather predicted with some heavy rains so they will be indoors for another few days. I’m gonna do some research and determine if I should add in some dark period periodically to prepare them for the permanent move outdoors. As much as I’d like to finish them inside I don’t think that’s gonna be possible, which is not really a problem anyhow.

I gave them 400ml of ph 6.4 water, waited an hour and 800ml of NFTG Herculean Harvest (bone meal) and GH Si, ph adjusted to 6.5. nectar for the Gods has some pretty informative videos on their products on YouTube, and they recommend the bone meal throughout the plant’s life, so it will be in regular rotation from here on…

I’ll start boosting the P levels with Mammoth P, GH Ripen, GH Kool Bloom and other stuff, and add in a weekly Fox Farms feeding based on the week in which they happen to be.

I’ve only had to clip a few fan leaves that were showing stress and/or drying out which has made leaf tucking pretty critical, and I’ve got probably around 30 LST clips thru the 4 plants. I’ll start pulling those in a couple weeks when the stalks are more set into their permanent positions which the Si will help.

It is amazing what they do in a day; all the flower sites I cranked downward with LST clips the other day made the 90 degree turn upwards and are completely vertical. Not too many more opportunities for LST with the clips, so now focused on using the crate and some binder clips to extend the lower branches to the edge of the of the crate. Last couple pictures below are of branches that have made the turn after being bound to the crate edge, and a recent tie down; this one will be vertical by this time tomorrow. I have a plan to get the lowers extended even further, outside the footprint of the crate, but that will wait until they go outside in a week or two.

due to space limits, I can only get this (pulling branches down to the edge of the crates) accomplished on one side of the plants. I might consider just growing 3 on the next indoor run this fall to give them a bit more room to breath, and allow me to pull all the lower branches downward to the crate.

pretty shitty weather for the next couple days so inside they’ll be. The tallest is withim around 8 inches of the suspended LED but showing no signs of stress…i’ll dial back the LED to 50% power if needed, and if I have to ditch the LED, the plants will still have ten (6 from the front and 4 from the back) 4 foot and four 2 foot T5s (at an angle from the sides) bearing down on them.

mixed in with the 4 foot T5s are two 3,000k LED T5 replacement bulbs. I just ordered 2 more of these and will put all 4 in the fixture on the back. Some of the normal T5s are 3,000k and some are 3,500k so I got the spectrum covered…

hope y’all have an awesome (wicked, fucking) day…

I think the vertical stretch is done and hope that’s the case. The tallest plant still has a bit of headroom left and the weather is predicted to be lousy for the next few days so they’ll benefit from the side lighting they are getting 24/0. I pulled a few more branches down with binder clips on the milk crates and removed some of the LST clips that were starting to constrict the branches, and clipped one solitary big fan leaf that was showing signs of distress.

lots of flower sites out in the light, and not too much larf developing interior to the canopy. Larf is good for other uses so I just let it go as far as it can.

I’ll definitely reduce the plant count to three on the next indoor run so I can use the crates to get all the lowers extended out on all sides, and rotate them around for optimum exposure.

I’ll take some portrait quality shots with a full size camera in a couple days, and probably some stacked focus shots of developing flower sites for S&G.

Recharge/Fish Shit and Si are on the menu today for them. Mammoth P and bone meal tomorrow.

It was getting pretty crowded in the first floor tub enclosure with four plants, and the weather here isnt right yet for them to go outdoors, so my idle mind set about to find an interim solution. bingo!

I bought a California Lightworks Extreme 500, grabbed some unused LEDs (a Phlizon and a blurple I've had for a long time), some Mylar covered foam core boards I had laying about, and moved two plants to a third floor tub. Used two shower curtain rods to hang the lights, and another to hang a cut to size Mylar covered panel at the front opening of the tub. I put the plants in their milk crates directly in the tub because I can’t get enuff headroom between the tops and the Extreme 500 If I use a platform. Seems to be to their liking and now I can be less concerned with runoff since it’ll go down the tub drain. Another grow space!

the plants that remained on the first floor are much happier now, and there is much more light penetration and coverage for all four plants. I replaced all the T5 fluorescent bulbs on the back wall of the first floor enclosure with T5 LED replacement bulbs and damn, they are intense. Less power draw, less heat, more penetration, winners all the way around! Gives me a bunch of spare bloom fluorescent bulbs too.

I might move the first floor plants directly into the tub as well; can water/feed to runoff with no worries, and get the flowering parts of the plants a bit lower so I can rearrange some lights.

i Also ordered four square tomato cages to affix to the tops of the crates so I can continue to get flower-ended branches out into the light away from the main canopy. Those will be here in a couple days and I’m stoked to try this out.

Last picture is the inventory of CMH/HPS lights I don’t use anymore. Too hot, too much power draw, and I think the LEDs do as good a job TBH.

life is good…the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades…she blinded me with science…etc…

Retired engineer said:

Because of a ton of solar lights on my patio, I exclusively grow autos, After last year’s outdoor run in round pots in milk crates the autos did a pretty fair job of filling the pots with root balls, and I could see on the perimeter a circling of the root ball around the perimeter of the pots - anxious to see what growing in a cubic space does for the roots.

The milk crates also get the bottoms of the pots elevated from the stonework on my patio to allow for better drainage and a bit of airflow at the bottom of the root zone. I use light grey colored ones vs black also to cut down on the heat transfer to the cloth pot…looking for every advantage possible.

Funny thing - I live in Hampton Roads VA, and a week after I first posted pictures of the milk crate use, ya could not find one anywhere with 10 miles…guess it is a good idea…

happy growing!

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also in Hampton roads. Also have milk crates. Lol nice plants sir. Good luck.

Dan,

great to hear from ya! Wish the weather would make the final turn to summer soon, but the plants are benefitting from all the side lighting while indoors. The lighting from 90 degrees perpendicular into the plants lets me stretch the lower branches out horizontally out from underneath and within the canopy. I use binder clips and pipe cleaners to affix them to the edges of the crates when they get out that far. Believe it or not, the prodigious bud sites lowest on the plants all come from the first and second nodes…

I found these square bags on Amazon that fit exactly in the milk crates - another winner, winner, chicken dinner!



happy growin’!

Mitch

another change to the downstairs enclosure; my mind spins stuff in background sometimes and then presto - an idea!

I took out the diamond plate and styrofoam containers, and put the plants in their crates in the tub, sitting in some 4 inch plant stands, and changed the orientation of the pair of two foot 2 tube T5 lights from horizontal to vertical. I kept the 2 leggiest plants here with that in mind. The more improvements and adjustments I make the more inclined I am to just keep these indoors to harvest. They might still rotate out into the sun when it finally shows up, but cloudy days and nights will be spent indoors, under light. I might be able to manage a full 24/0 grow to harvest.

I broke out my old blurple light for extra oomph to finish out my run and I forgot just how powerful it really was. It has UV and is supposed to be about 8" higher than my Timber Grow Light. My bubba kush started kicking out these cool little foxtails and throwing some new white pistils from light stress letting me know it was too much. I raised it as much as I could and I'm getting a few foxtails but I'm fine with them. The buds are getting frosty and I think the extra 250 watts are worth trimming around them. Can't wait to see your girls start stacking on some weight and congrats on the new setup. It's gotta be nice to have the extra space to spread them out some, especially with the way you like to train them.

Foxtails are not necessarily a bad thing at first…more mass and surface area for tricromes…my gut feel.

I think I need to start phosphorus loading…whatcha think? Since I’m in flowering that’d be my guess. I have an arsenal of stuff to get in front of this…

Is that under your new light by chance? I noticed that it's a COB. If that's one of the plants under the new light I'll bet it's a bit of light stress mixed with magnesium deficiency amped up by the sudden increase in direct and intense ppfd. Your girls are under some good amount of light regardless with the side panels and top lights. My girls can do that when my ph gets just a little out of whack when I was using salt nutes under the Timber's. They'd express deficiency signs pretty rapidly. That's why I'm loving this dry amendments style of growing so much. I don't hardly ever see deficiencies and when I start to see them they seem to be smaller and move slower than in a sterile media. Try dimming the light or raising it up if it doesn't have a dimmer and check the runoff ph just to be sure it's in the ball park. Some Epson salt at 1 tsp per gallon can help cut off the magnesium problems. That way your not adding calcium too by dumping Cal Mag on it. If it's phosphorus it's probably a lockout and not a deficiency as I think you feed plenty of nutes. Checking the run off will give you an idea.

This one is in the original enclosure - the ones I moved upstairs under the COB don’t show this. I think it is light stress, I’ve had them under 24/0 from every conceivable direction…it is like the face of the sun in there…

I think I’m gonna switch to 20/4 for a week, then 18/6 for a while. Since they are more “comfortable” in their new digs, I could keep Them inside for a bit longer. The T5s firing in from the sides are on a different timer so I might dial them back too. The suspended LED is at 100% and I can dial it back and move it up a bit as well.

I’ll grab some epson salt tomorrow and do a slurry test in the morning when they are dry. Since they are sitting in the tub I might give them a full dose of just water to runoff tomorrow at around ph 6.5. I’m thinking sitting in the tub when they start flowering (vs up on a platform) is gonna be the standard approach from now on…

thanks for the help, saves me a bunch of time in research and angst…

Hope it helps. I love the UFO light enclosure you had in the basement but I figured it could be part of it or the new cob's as they are laser beams right under the lights. I can't find any ppfd map for California Light Works. I was going to check them out as the one you bought is the same price pretty much as my Timber and just a little less watts, 400 vs 425. I wanted to see what the par looks like in comparison for when and if I ever upgrade. It would have to be pretty impressive though as I love Dan's lights. I just need to hit the lotto so I can afford to cover my whole tent, mine is just a little bit too small for a packed 4*4.

Yeah they are pricey, but I’m sold on them after seeing what they can do in my makeshift tub enclosure. The lighting is a little dim at the ends, but some plant rotation will even things out and the side lighting helps out.