Blue281's Soil Northern Light & Sweet Train Wreck Grow 2017

[Blue281]

Hello everyone and welcome to my first grow journal. This is my fourth grow ever but first grow with two plants at the same time and obviously my first journal. So please feel free to give me as much advice as possible and let me know if you feel I should change anything! I hope you enjoy the grow as much as I do

The Set Up
For my Set up I have gone for a stealth cupboard grow. Here is a list of everything I use for my set up;

Grow tent (W 900 x D 500 x H 1600)
Drying Tent ( W 500 x D 500 x H 900)
1 Advanced Platinum Series 150w
1 Vipar Spectra 450w
4" extraction set up with carbon filter
Temperature controlled 6" fan for cooling fitted into the extraction set up (keeping temperatures between 24c-28c)
6" Vortex Fan for air circulation
10l Air Pots
Gravity fed drip ring system for feeding
Screen for supporting Buds

The Plants
1 Auto Northern Lights (royal queen seeds)
1 Auto Sweet Train Wreck (sweet seeds)

Both the plants are grown in the 10L Air pots (first grow using these pots) in light bio mix soil.

The Nutrients
Advanced Nutrients B52
CalMag (because of the light mix soil)
Advanced Nutrients Micro
Advanced Nutrients Grow
Advanced Nutrients Bloom
Advanced Nutrients Big Bud
Advanced Nutrients Overdrive

I know people don't always rate Advanced Nutrients, however I was a sucker for it when I first started my grows a year ago and now I've got it I may as well use it. It does seem to be doing the job quite well tho.

Photo's of everything set up

Planting
Unfortunately I'm not starting on day 1 but to fill you in. I planted the seeds in there 10l pots last Friday, I always start in the pots I'll finish in. I then gave them a soaking of 3L of water PH'd to 6.5 and left until they broke the soil.

Day 1
By Monday they had both broken the soil and there was first set of leaves. The sweet train wreck growing a little taller and bigger that the northern lights already.

Day 3
By day 3 the soil had already dried out. I know air pots are suppose to dry out a little faster but this fast, is it normal?

So I gave the plants a water with 3L each of water, 1.5 ml of CalMag and 3ml of B52 all PH'd to 6.5.

Day 4
Now that you are up to date, this is how they are looking on just day 4. I'm very happy with the response from the plants under the LED lights. However I have been looking into upgrading the pair of lights to a single light, possibly a Mars Hydro II, a PS Dwarf Sun or a PS 500 as they all have high par readings and great spectrums. Any advice would be great

Sweet Train Wreck

Northern Lights

 

[123D]

re: Blue281's - Soi -, Northern Light & Sweet Train Wreck Grow - 2017

Hey Blue, really nice looking setup! Your babies are going to like it in there.
I've also just started using air pots, and had the same 'wow' reaction to how fast they dry out the dirt. Perhaps it's normal? I water by hand, and simply moved to two waterings a day, instead of one. Thinking out loud here, I wonder if we put a humidity catch around the pots (similar to the way clones are started under a plastic hood) would be possible? Or maybe that's overthinking it.
Anyhow, keep us update on your progress. Any idea how hard your exhaust fan is working to maintain the temperature?

 

[Blue281]

Hello 123D, thanks for stopping by!

I've read online that they do dry out fast just didn't expect it this quickly. I also water by hand kind of, I put water into the grey bucket and the water then slowly trickles down to the rings around the plant. It was suppose to be automated feeding using a moisture sensor to check when the soil is dry but I just can't get the code quite right for my arduino.

Yeah I'm sure you could fabricate some kind of hood to go around the pots. However is the better air flow to the roots better for them? And could a hood prevent some of this?

As for the temperature, the exhaust fan goes on and off intermittently, maybe once an hour for 15 minutes. I try to keep the room the cupboard is in reasonably cool so it doesn't get over worked. Also the exhaust blows the air outside to ensure the cupboard doesn't circulate the same warm air.


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[Blue281]

Day 6
Not much changed with the ladies, the soil isn't quite dry yet so will wait until tomorrow to feed again. I have however fitted a go pro that a friend has lent me to make a time lapse of them growing that will be added to the journal at the end.

I've set the Go pro up on the near side right hand corner facing inwards to the tent.

Pictures of the ladies.

Sweet Trainwreck

Northern Lights

 

[123D]

I like the drip system. Keep at it with the code. I've been wondering about automating more myself, but I would miss my five minutes of peace with the plants each day. The go pro time laps will be fun to watch.

 

[Blue281]

Yeah I really want to get the code sorted. It's more so if I need to go away for a few days or even holiday I know the ladies will be ok. If I do get it working I'll make a tutorial so others can copy it . Yeah hopefully the time lapse turns out good!


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[Pat999]

Sup Blue buddy I will sub up for this one. I am also interested in doing some sort of automated feed for my next grow. But would love a tutorial of how you set the drip up. Would also help me alot if I do need to go away. Only me looking after them

 

[Blue281]

Day 7
Time for a feed for the ladies! I've noticed some deficiencies on the sweet train wreck, I guess the half dosage of CalMag last time wasn't enough for her. This time I've got a total of 6 litres of water, added 6ml of CalMag and PH'd all to 6.5. This is then split between the ladies.

Here's a couple of photos.

Sweet Train Wreck

Northern Lights

 

[Blue281]

Thanks Pat999, I've already created a automated gravity feed system that can work off a schedule if you are interested? I'll make a tutorial this week for that. It's just the code for an automated system that checks the soils moisture levels that I can't get quite right but I'll carry on working on it

 

[pufpufpas]

hi! may I lurk here? Saw you somewhere and stumbled in here, but now I'm here so I didn't want to be rude and not say Hi. I usually don't have much to add, and also blurt out random thoughts sometimes. I wanted to add. (stoner voice) "hey man I hope that ring is big enough" I was just imagining a huge stalk busting that thing! well keep things tight.' I'll keep out of the light. happy plants man happy plants!

 

[Blue281]

Blue281's - Soil - Northern Light & Sweet Train Wreck Grow - 2017

Hello pufpufpas, lurk away my friend everyone is welcome here!! Aww man I hope the stalks grow that big! The rings are like 4 inch diameter


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[Blue281]

Day 9
The Sweet Train Wreck is showing some impressive growth compared to the Northern Lights. This may be due to some slight heat stress as you can see some slight curling on the side of the leaves. So I've moved the 6 inch vortex fan down so it blows lightly over it hopefully removing a hotspot that was there. The Sweet Train Wreck may be growing slightly quicker too as it's only an 8 week grow compared to the 10 weeks of the Northern Lights.

New position of fan

Sweet Train Wreck

Northern Lights

Notice the slight leaf curling

 

[Blue281]

Day 10
I've brought another cheap vortex 6 inch fan as now I'm doing two plants at once I'd rather ensure that there is no hot spotting across the tent.

Today is the first feed with nutients. As it's first feed I'm starting them on 1/4 of recommended strength. The nutrients I'm using is Advanced Nutrients Micro, grow and bloom. So that's 6 litres of water with 6ml of each plus 6ml of CalMag all Ph'd to 6.5, this is then split between the two plants.

Tent with both fans in

Sweet Train Wreck

The Sweet Train Wreck is growing well.

Northern Lights

The Northern Lights has some catching up to do! Hopefully we will see her start to shoot up soon!

 

[Blue281]

Day 13
Feeding time again! Sweet Train Wreck is flying ahead with this grow, I don't really know what's going on with the Northern Lights. Slow growth but no real reason why. If anyone has any idea it would be appreciated? Also I'd like to add that this grow will soon also be using a dwarf star from perfect sun!! This will be replacing both my current Lights which I'm very excited for!

Anyway back to the point, time for a feed. I made a mix up of 6 litres of water with 6ml of CalMag, Micro, Grow and Bloom from advanced nutrients all PH'd to 6.5. This was then split between the two ladies.

Sweet Train Wreck

Northern Lights

 

[Blue281]

Day 15
About a week to go until they start to flower. So this is the stage I like to do some training, I've only ever done low stress training after reading somewhere that you should never top an auto. However now I've done a bit more reasearch, what I read previously about topping autos is wrong and it can be done!! Out of the two ladies i decided that only the Sweet Train Wreck is ready for training as the Northern Lights hasn't even reached its 5th node yet. So I've gone ahead and topped her just above the 5th node as you can see.

Sweet Train Wreck before topping

Sweet Train Wreck after topping

I then proceeded to do some LST, using pipe cleaners I tied down the main stem and then continued to spread the rest of her to expose all of her to the light allowing for great light penetration!

Sweet Train Wreck before LST

Sweet Train Wreck after LST

 

[Blue281]

Blue281's - Soil - Northern Light & Sweet Train Wreck Grow - 2017

Day 18

Just a quick update, the dwarf star has arrived!! This thing looks great, the build is solid and looks very clean! Now time to test it

 

[Blue281]

Blue281's - Soil - Northern Light & Sweet Train Wreck Grow - 2017

Day 19

Today I decide the Northern Lights was finally ready for some training so I topped her and LST'd her.

Before topping

After topping

After LST'd

 

[Blue281]

Day 24
Both plants have accepted the topping perfectly well! They are also doing well under the new Black Dimond Dwarf Star. Since my last update I've feed both of them twice, bringing the nutrient level up to 3/4 of recommended dosage. So that's 3 litres of water, 4ml CalMag, 9ml AN Micro Grow and Bloom for both plants. Both plant have also started to flower showing lots of little white hairs!

 

[PrincessFiona]

Northern lights looks like it might prefer a cooler temp other one loves it tho lol

 

[Blue281]

Northern lights looks like it might prefer a cooler temp other one loves it tho lol

Yeah it's a bit strange as the temps are running at 26 degrees and if it goes any higher a fan kicks in to bring it back down.


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