World Of Hempy

jmcdaniel0 said:

Hello Fellow Green thumbs,

I have been doing soil grows for a long time. So far I have had mostly good luck, and just the few bumps all of us growers go through.

I live in the middle of nowhere, and decent soil is hard to find, not to mention the amendments needed, I was thinking about switching to Hempy style. I have been reading up on it and it really seems like a much easier way to go. I have several bags of hydroton (clay pellets) laying around for my aquaponics set up, would I be able to use that effectively instead of perlite. I can get perlite from Lowes, the next time I am in town, but I would rather save the money if I don't need to spend it.

Also,

I grow Autos mostly, since I only have the one tent right now. The packet of Beans I have right now is Heavyweights, Fast and Fast, What size pot would be recommended. I have 5 gal grow bags right now. I have several 2.5 gallon pots laying about would that be big enough?

I am toying with the idea of using a large rubbermaid tote like this.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rubbermaid-54-Gal-42-1-2-in-x-21-1-2-in-x-18-3-5-in-Hi-Top-Storage-Tote-FG3A05H2MICBL/100673965

I am thinking of filling about half way with the clay pellets or so, and drilling a quarter inch or so hole in there and running some pvc pipe to a collection vessel.

Any reason that wouldnt work? Also, Ill have to order some nutes, I am out of those either way. What would you recommend?

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I'm not going to say that straight clay pellets won't work, but if you read through all 450+ pages here there hasn't been a successful attempt. You can use it in your rez area but Hydroton just doesn't wick up water. You need some sort of wicking action in your medium to make a hempy work. As far as growing autos in hempy you should check out @ISK grow journals. He has several rounds with autos using 2 liter pop bottles. Which leads straight into your tub thoughts. That is way to big for what you want to do. Heres a shot of a tub grow I did with a smaller tub with 2 plants if your not looking for this kind of growth you need to use a smaller container.



You don't need a large container to get a lot of growth. And use something other than hydroton as your medium.

Ok, I appreciate the great info.


Would you recommend, say a 2.5 gallon pot?

Also, I am reading mixed reviews on using a verm./perlite mix or just straight perlite, any advice?

Ill ditch the clay idea, just had it laying around, is all.

Ill look up Isk, and see whats what. I appreciate the info man.

I'm using 3 gallon totes and pull about four zips per plant. 100% perlite and GH flora series nutes. I also use RO water with calmag. At first I went with the lucas formula and tap water but had a serious nitrogen issue. Since then I've been pretty much feeding from the chart with a little tweaks here and there. I generally harvest every 4 months and have wanted to add the verm but I've had such excellent results with this so I figure if it ain't broke don't fix it!

jmcdaniel0 said:

Ok, I appreciate the great info.


Would you recommend, say a 2.5 gallon pot?

Also, I am reading mixed reviews on using a verm./perlite mix or just straight perlite, any advice?

Ill ditch the clay idea, just had it laying around, is all.

Ill look up Isk, and see whats what. I appreciate the info man.

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I would say the 2.5 or 3 gallon bucket would be great, I have used them before with good results.

The tub you linked is more wide than tall, which I believe is not what you want, a cylinder shape seems to work better in hempy

100% perlite seems to need watering/feeding more often, so I often use 75/25% perlite/vermiculite with 2L pop bottles, but with a larger bucket it's not as important....so I would say either or would work for you

Here's the link to my past grows....hope you can find a few helpful hints
https://www.rollitup.org/t/my-past-grows.698675/

Below is an auto-fem grown in a 2.5 gallon hempy bucket (with a soil-cap) grown with indoor sunshine



Good Luck!
Indoor Sun King

ISK said:

I would say the 2.5 or 3 gallon bucket would be great, I have used them before with good results.

The tub you linked is more wide than tall, which I believe is not what you want, a cylinder shape seems to work better in hempy

100% perlite seems to need watering/feeding more often, so I often use 75/25% perlite/vermiculite with 2L pop bottles, but with a larger bucket it's not as important....so I would say either or would work for you

Here's the link to my past grows....hope you can find a few helpful hints
https://www.rollitup.org/t/my-past-grows.698675/

Below is an auto-fem grown in a 2.5 gallon hempy bucket (with a soil-cap) grown with indoor sunshine

View attachment 3959010

Good Luck!
Indoor Sun King

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Nice, I am going to head in to town in the next few days to pick up the stuff. I ordered the nutes and stuff already. I'll be getting the rest of my stuff cleaned up and ready to go. I hope to start my beans next week. By the time they germ I'll be set to go. I really appreciate the help guys. If you have anymore tips please give them to me!!!!

I just chopped yesterday, and I have pics of the grow. So here's the crib notes on a complete Hempy grow

Seeds Grand Daddy Purple New release regular Photoperiod. Lost one seed when opening pack, planted 6
Seeds started in solo cups of soil all 6 popped. water with RO for only no food 2wks.
Transplant into 2 qt nursery pots of happy frog cut 2 parts soil 1 part perlite, add 1 tbsp Osmocote +. No other feeding. Water as needed with gal mix of 50/50 RO and Tap with 1 ml CalMag, 8 drops Floralicious +, 2 drops Superthrive (just in veg), adjust ph 6.8 - 6.5.
Early veg under single 400W CMH Late veg and flower under dual 400W CMH

3/14 a few days after topping


3/26 a few days after transplant to 2gal hempy bucket. Soil core placed in bucket filled with recycled chunky perlite. Layered with 1 tbsp OC + and 3 tbsp OC 14-14-14. Water changes are increase CalMag to 2ml/gal and drop ph to 6.2-5.8 always shooting for 6.0.


4/4


4/8 Switched to flower on 4/6 light cycle 11/13. Prior to flip cut 2 clones from each. Found out my humidity dome will only hold 12 so 2 plants had a single clone tried to pick ones that I thought were males, picked one male and one female which really hurt because in the end I only got 2 girls out of the 6.






Intermission time through stretch. Decided to make seeds this run and pollinated on 4/29 (wk 3.5) During the bucket period waterings started out at every 5 day, and shortened down to every other day by wk 4, at which time I started to add 1/4tsp Cha-Ching booster.
5/13





3 female clones and the last 3 GDP seeds for next run. This just moments before transplant into 2 qt nursery pots.

GDP grow part II
Not much to say they just keep growing and getting stickier. This is the stinkiest strain I've ever grown, the wife made me buy a new carbon filter due to the stench in the back yard
5/20



5/27

WattSaver said:

GDP grow part II
Not much to say they just keep growing and getting stickier. This is the stinkiest strain I've ever grown, the wife made me buy a new carbon filter due to the stench in the back yard
5/20
View attachment 3959380
View attachment 3959381
5/27
View attachment 3959382

View attachment 3959383

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Looking good there Watt, long time no see, what have you been up too?
Check out my new grow when you have a chance, not doing Hempy's now, doing coco in a vertical grow.

GR

GDP grow III

Finish and chop. Plants were done by 8.5 wk's but I let them go another wk to get a full 6wks of time for the seeds. Stopped Cha-Ching at wk 7.

6/2






Next run


Flash photos right before chop
6/10






The wife wouldn't let me hang this stinky bud in my office as usual, so have to use the grow room.


GDP is not a huge yielder, but the buds are very dense.
I've been wanting to do a GDP grow for yrs in Honer of Moe, and after experiencing the stench I can see why his secret got out. If you live in an area where growing is still looked down upon be sure your filter system is ready before growing this shit.

gr865 said:

Looking good there Watt, long time no see, what have you been up too?
Check out my new grow when you have a chance, not doing Hempy's now, doing coco in a vertical grow.

GR

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Hey gr,

Still stumbling around, trying to keep the med cab full. Went golfing this morning and did some great landscape work, it was a 2 sand bottle day.

Great posts Watt. Appreciated.

I look forward to getting back to hempys....have been running huge numbers in
small containers for some time now, but I have 10 or so phenos worth going larger
with and so I think that I will.....probably in the fall.

WattSaver said:

Hey gr,

Still stumbling around, trying to keep the med cab full. Went golfing this morning and did some great landscape work, it was a 2 sand bottle day.

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Ahh Buddy,
You are the kind of golfer I loved on my courses, don't know how many times over my 35 year golf career that I would stop a group that was about to leave a tee, or in a fairway and show them the correct way to fill a divot. And fixing ball marks was my pet peeve, at junior clinics that we would host, I would speak to the kids about maintenance and how to not leave their mark on the golf course. You know what I mean.
It's funny, at a dinner prior to a men's invitational I gave the same talk, with slides on divot and ball mark repair. The next day during the tourney I must of had two dozen grown men, who have played golf all their lives come up to me and tell they never realized they had been repairing ball marks all wrong all their lives. LOL

GR

Damn, growing this kind of grass is so much more fun. I have been doing my own cannabis oil now for a few months and my back has actually allowed me to go out to the range and hit a few. Not ready for the course yet but this is great it has been over 6 years since I have play a round of golf.

Being a member of rollitup for a short while, I figure I would dive into this thread....reason being, is after 37 yrs of hydroponic growing...grew hempy before in the early 80ies close to 15 yrs before the name Hempy was attached, then drip systems, then ebb and flow, then rockwool (pain in the butt), then into water cultures.....for pure ease of growing, no pumps, chillers, reservoirs, drains, emitters, all that stuff that turns growing into an chore, I HAVE RETURNED TO HEMPY THIS YEAR.....the ONLY drawback compared to water culture systems, is Hempy requires full strength nutes for best success...water culture can be run at 500ppms all day long whereas Hempy during full veg and flower runs 1000-1200ppms...the constant flush in the dry mediums (perlite or perlite with 10-20% vermicite) keeps the systems well flushed and your plants happy....my knly modification, is that the bottom 2-3inches of each 5 gal bucket (what I use) has hydroton or similar ECA, AND an Air Stone....all successful Hempy growers have witnessed the EXPLOSIVE growth when your 1st root strands hit the internal rez...Well, when there is also an air stone, its even crazier...Not necessary for success, but is a cheap and wonderful addition...any little thing I can do for my plants that cumulatively add up to BIGGER gains, I DO IT...other than that, the simplicity is insane since, by design, the Hempy bucket has all the hydroponic concepts covered...for large commercial grows, it is not practical unless its automated with drips, but then its a drip system and not a hempy anymore...but for the average home grower, IT CANT BE BEAT....I prefer the DYNA line of nutes (GREAT single use formulas)...Cpl pics attached of my set up and current grow....5ft by 4ft room with 6 plants in 5 gal buckets..each is really only running 4 gal (vol) of medium so not to make a mess with medium spilling over the tops....container size depends on plant size u expect to have right down to plantlets in 2 litre size containers....hard to see, but u can, each bucket has a pvc drain at the 2 in high hole on the side of the bucket, which dumps into a larger pvc drain pipe which all gravity feeds to a runoff pan...cpl other pics of tops from previous crop...currently running 2 White Widow extm, 2 Cheese Candy, and 2 Incredible Bulks....next crop I have some Bomb Seeds going in (THC BOMB and Bubble Bomb)....Hempy is beatiful thing and IS NOT JUST FOR BEGINNERS...Y.T..
Oh, by the way, that current crop pic was taken on day 30 of flower...one more edit..that 2in. pc of verticle pvc inside each bucket protects my air line an I also WATER straight down that once my roots are established in the bottom rez...1000w light on a mover..
.

Great post.

I have seen similar systems and yes they do seem to rock consistently when done right.

I'd love to see the room in that last shot just before harvest. :0)

6 days since last pic...full crop pic, bud pic from each of 3 strains (white widow, cheese candy and incredible bulk), and pic of seedlings from Bomb seeds for next crop...regards, Y.T.

A better explanation of my Hempy bucket design...the 2 KEY FEATURES are the air stones AND the vertical 2inch pvc pipe attached to the inside of each bucket....I use (6) 5 gal.buckets.....IDEALLY, top watering FLUSHES the medium each watering, but for that to work properly with 5 gal buckets (or even 3 gal), your would need to water with MANY GALLONS...Too much time and a waste of nutes...When u water enuf to get a dribble runoff, your medium is also acting as a filter and trapping nutes as it flows downward...After 3 or 4 waterings, that dribble is causing a build up and making the PPMS in the bucket bottom twice (or more) than ur watering with...many recognize this and flush every cpl weeks, but again, thats a bunch of flushing (to do it right) and not necessary....once my roots bottom out, I just water straight down that vertical tube...I do keep the medium wet with pH'ed water and maybe 100ppms, because I use beneficials and they go dormant if the medium goes dry....I have a small hole drilled in the buckets that has a rubber stopper in it...at any time I can collect a few tbsp of water for a numbers check...if an adjustment is needed, I do it straight down the tube...my airstones will blend the adjustment mix after an hr or so...the bubbles create voids which naturally pull water towards them...plants like stable enviroments and that applies to below the surface...the medium is clean, and the buckets rez is perfectly tuned....better off keeping that bucket rez stable than have that up and down nute level thing going on, AND ITS FAR LESS WORK....pic earlier of bucket design, but attached again....Happy High-tech Hempy...Y.T.

Thanks for the detailed explanation YT appreciated

Anyway I'm copying you! Although I've got some ideas I think could help simplify feeding?

You have your res filled and positioned higher than your buckets for gravity feed, there's a small hose down your 2" pipe that sits just under your drain in the results water. So it just fills constantly as its used, then maybe hook another hose from your res down your 2" pipe to just above the water line so for 1 min a day you can pump a little waste out?

Cheers legend

Not sure I grasped all that...that hose going into the 2in verticals are air lines going to the stones....its all drain to a waste pan which I WILL NOT REUSE.....the oveflow waste that drains is minimal since I only water the rez in each one....when that is filled, I dump it into a another bucket and in a cpl weeks I give it to the wife to feed the tropicals in then beds outside....I water with a wand with a hose attached to a pump that I just drop into my water buckets that has my mixed nutes....end of the wand has a 90° elbow to make it easy to water into each buckets vertical watering tube....even nearly completely dry, a 5 gal bucket is PLENTY for filling all 6 buckets...there is no need to automate the waste water pan..there is not enuf to justify that....EVEN IF I HAD A NEED to flush the rez in each bucket (only an accidental feeding of a WEIRD MIX would cause that situation), I would then just drop a pump into the waste pan with a hose to a bucket....In 37 yrs of growing, I never accidentally fed my plants something weird...I ALWAYS dbl check my mix prior to watering...
Not sure that explains further, but it works out just fine, and is VERY SIMPLE AND EFFECTICE PROCEDUCE...

hey YT, can you post a picture of your pump/hose/wand? is everything like a 5/8 or 3/4" garden hose?

Will put one up later when lights come on, but its just a clear 1/2 tubing that fits the outlet on the Beckett water pumps I get at Home Depot...then the tubing is taped to a stick with a pvc elbow shoved in the end...If ur thinking High Tech, this is strickly functional, and made from scrap material in my garage...MANY of thr Beckett pumps have water sensors on them...little clear plastic pyramid shaped sensor on the bottom...only turns on when that is fully submerged...garden and fountain pumps that H.D. carries in house....