VV is singing the blues. From seed to Perpetual Weed.

Soo.... Germinated Sunday night, planted Monday night and here they are on Friday, Maybe we can just call then Hemp-Warp. VV

Soo...Easter Sunday, I promise I will get all of the watering information caught up with costs analysis... soon GK.

I decided to wait until the plants were telling me they needed to be watered, late Saturday night, they were getting a little droopy. They had been watered on Tuesday, so this fits our idea of a watering schedule for vegging plants closely. If I had watered them on Friday, they wouldn't have had to tell me, I am one of those anal kind, I like to try and make sure what I think is what actually happens. Because I had pretty much let them 'go dry' this will be another 'soaking', 1/2 strength nutes, all the additives, PH'D water (Pats Himself on the Back).
The method is still the same, the dose starts a little higher after going this long between watering, four basters, approximate 250 ml, wait 15 minutes, do it again. If you get runoff, its enough. If you don't add more about 15 minutes later until you do get runoff. I use right at 3 gallons and got 2 qts. of runoff. The next watering we wil go to 3/4 strength nutes and then put them on a flood and drain table. Next week we should be full strength with the nutes. WIthout the early operator error we would have probably been ready for that now, we lost that week to let them recover.
Here are the four Blueberry's before the one puked on me. The stem had gotten twisted a little bit and that was cutting off tranfer to the top of the plant. I tried to replant it, that didn't work.
Here's the Skunkberry, and a close up, the color is that dark green, I think. For a four" or five" tall plant this is a decent stem. And then we have the Northern Berry's.
Last, I pulled the picture of the Hemp-Warp from Friday and Sunday, still doing ok. Probably should start preparing for that final transplant of these by the end of this week.

Looks great. Thanks for all the updates. I am learning a lot..

Hey VV Looooking Good, One Day At A Time.....i Must Agree With E10... Im Gettin Some Schoolin....when I Read You,,,the 2nd Time, I Do It With 2 Books I Front Of My P/c....
J. Cervantes In Dr, Bible & The Canna. Grw. Bible By G.green
And This Is Just So I Dont Ask Stupid Questions........teach....!!
Your Are Deffinatly Adding To The Protfolio In Me Brain.......
TOO GROWING THE FOREST.....DBB. VV.

OHH!!! YAAA!!,,,,,, I NOTICED THE PENCIL, TEACHING THEM TO WRITE,,????? DAMMMMMMMM !!!!!!!

Hey Dirt bag, I have Cervantes book too. Most of the 'practical information' came from right here at rollitup. I took a few shots of the Hemp-Warp, first watering since the transplant. There are a few of them that still dont look that healthy, all are starting to form their first sets of 'true leaves', and about 3" tall, very spindly at this point.
The pencil is jsut an idea I borrowed from Garden Knome Book. He used objects we are all familiar with so we could really 'see' the size. VV

Good,, There For A Second I Was Thinking My Plants Were Just Stupid,,,they Just Sit,,there.....lol....dbb.
I Cant Wait For The Sexing......one Of The Things Ive Yet To See..
Sk.berry Is Looking Very Healthy....dirt Bag Like.....dbb.

I watered these plants on Sunday, when i moved them today the pots were light, moisture meter agrees. We are going to move them to a flood and drain table, set it up at 3/4 strength nutes, and see what happens, I like what i see so far. VV

I have been getting some questions about the Flood and Drain system, and it just happens to fit our schedule. You can see, we just moved the blues to the table last night. Then we turned on our RO system and let it fill the reservoir while we slept. We are right on target, hoping to have them all inflood and drain at full strength nutes at four weeks, so a couple of days off, not bad after the early operator error.
I put my ph tester in and got a beginnign ph of 6.4, ppm of 10 and 17c temperature. Added Ionic Grow to ppm of 850 to 900 ppm. The added 16 oz Fossil Fuel, 4 oz of Root Stimulant Concentrate, 4 oz of Grow Stimulant Concentrate, 7 1/2 tsps Dark Energy and 2 1/2 tsps Super Thrive. AT this point we had a ph of 5.9, ppm of 910 ppm and still 17c temp. Waited an hour and checked it again. Ph of 6.4 right back to our original reading. 2 tbslp of PH down now at ph of 5.8, ppm 910 (3/4 strength) and water temp 17c. not to shabby.
So, now we have our reservoir set up, lets finish the process. Here is the top of the table. And the reservoir, with some junk handing around. I use two air stones and a double outlet air pump. Here is the line running up from the pump to the bottom of the table. The pump is controlled by a timer, here is the top of the timer. We cover our res to keep debris and light out. At 7:00 the pump turns on, Floods the table and shuts off. I use a little plastic try square and find that in 7 minutes my 450gph pump will flood the table to a depth of 3", about 1/2 the height of the pots, and then drains back through the pump into the reservoir waiting for the next automatic watering. This puts our plants 'in water' for 15 minutes, a good cycle for the medium I am using. VV

looking good vv

VERY NICE VV, EVERYTHING IS PRESENT, RUNNING AND LOOKING KILLER.
RUBBER STAND MATS, PLANTS ARE SITTING ON.??
AFTER SEEING YOURS IM SURPRISED, MY SHT GROWS...DBB.

DIRT BAG, THINKS YOU SHOULD STILL TEACH THEM TO WRITE...!!!

https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/22115-diy-flood-drain-table.html I posted all of that in the build. Anything that allows the water to drain completly away from the bottom of the pots will work. I already had the mats so it saved me about $30.00 per table.
All of the 'micro nutrients' that I am adding are in good soil already and don't need to be added. That is the trade off to hydro growing. You lose the soils contents. If you noticed I made this a mixed medium grow. I used peet Pellets for starting the seeds, potting soil for the first transplant and coco-coir for the final pot size. Up to this point we have been top watering, appropriate for soil grows. If I were growing in soil this would be the point I would make that final transplant to the 3 to 3 1/2 gallon finish size pot. And my ph would be higher.lol The strain dependant result you are seeing would be the same. VV

We put the Blue's on the fllod and drain table and fired it up last night. This is a picture of the reservoir from yesterday and here it is today. It was down a little over 6 gallon. I guess they needed to be watered. First we check our vital statistics, ph is 6.1., ppm is 1120 and the temp is 22 c. Now we add our ro water, and check our vitals again. ph still 6.1, ppm back to 880 (3/4 strength) and temp is 20c. Just in time for the second watering of the day. Here we go, on the road again... here we go...Picked up a bag on sand to play with. The idea here is to see if putting sand on top of the coco-coir will stop fungus gnats from damaging our plants. The process is so easy you won't believe how easy it is. Here is the before after and sand. Sand, according to the folks that study the Michigan Dunes will only pile to a 34 degree grade, any higher it spreads out like water, seeking its own level. So we just pour a mound of it on one side, tip it a little and it spreads out to level. And now they are all back home.
Pulled the Hemp warp out, looks like they need some water, Moisture meter confirms it, and I am as tired of posting it as you are of seeing it. Someone will post tomorrow, Help what is Wrong I water my plants everyday. thye are dropping , what can I do???Please help me I dontwant mybabaies to die. Get a moisture meter and only water when necessary. VV

Looking Very Nice Vv. Dirt Bag Like. Dbb

I am getting taken to school. This is not my first grow, I have done a couple. According to what is happening with these plants, I wasn't growing hydroponically. Oh I was using a flood and drain system, confused all the time. I would read posts about using huge amounts of water and always wondered why mine weren't using that much. They are using some now. Here is the drop in water level from 24 hours ago, two watering cycles per day. Needed 3 1/2 gallons to fill it up today. Over 11 gallons of water have been used up and its only Saturday.
Here is a picture of the whole Blue Family, and one of the NorthernBerry plants, typical of that variety so far, you can see the stem is a thick as the pencil now, so I expect they will start writing soon, and I guess I need a longer pencil.
We checked the root development of the Hemp Warp last night, they are ready for final transplant, the one in the center is the worst looking one in the bunch, and it ain't too bad.
You know it usually about this time someone will ask, so Vic, what do you think is making this difference in the uptake of water?? Usually someone will ask me that....... VV

Usually someone will ask me that.

So Vic, What Do U Think Is Making The Diff. In The Uptake Of Water, Now...dbb.

SO VIC, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS MAKING THE DIFF. IN WATER UPTAKE, NOW. DBB. VV

ITS DIRT BAGS FAULT.... ITS ABOUT TIME, WE DONT LIKE STUPID PLANTS....
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL: "PENCIL'S FOR DUMB PLANTS" PROGRAM IN YOUR AREA....

I'm glad you asked me that question, I was getting worried there for a minute. I think that making sure you have the proper ph, not one that is just close will make a difference. Which of course is the reason I bought the tri-meter. I have mentioned a time or two, what we need to do is concentrate on getting the 7 basics right, First.
And here is the tri-meter, along with a couple of things I use to make it easier for me. I quicly discovered that having it laying down was not convenient. They had these little red trays at Menards, work great and the plastic container is perfect for keeping the probe wet. Always use 'fresh' water in your little container.
This is the process I use. I check the ph, ppm and temp of the fresh water. Since I now know what the ph of my 'fresh' water is, I can use this to make sure my probe is calibrated and operating properly. I set everything in place on the table I'm going to work with. Check ppm, Ph and temp. Before I added the 3 1/2 gallons of water it was @950ppm. Our ph while 'in range is not 'spot on' and this needs to be corrected.
We will add a teaspoon of ph down, check again, 5.9, better, still not right there, another 1/2 teaspoon ph down, mix it with a 'wooden spoon', check it again. 860 ppm, 5.8 ph and water temp of 18c/64f.
I think I am getting things in balance and a few points difference in ph does make a difference in hydro. Thanx dbb. VV

VictorVIcious said:

I am getting taken to school.

Click to expand...

What...Who...Your putting up some good competition
VV. It's def. making me work harder.

Loving that Tri-meter. I'm going to look into one
of those. Got a link?

JonnyBlunt88 said:

What...Who...Your putting up some good competition
VV. It's def. making me work harder.

Loving that Tri-meter. I'm going to look into one
of those. Got a link?

Click to expand...

Not really, its a BlueLab Tri-Meter, you could try contacting Peter at my grow shop, you would probably have shipping charges. The price that was in the Hydrofarm 2007 catalog of $250.00 is what I paid for it. its their item code HDBLCOMMTR, Page 200. If you live by Lansing Michigan I could take you there.
Competition?? there is a competition going on?? Old people are always the last too know. Well gotta go use that tri-meter on the old grow. VV