Brightlight's Strain Fest: Organics & LED

[brightlight]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

A few last pics from last harvest......

Illuminati Delusional OG
Think a bit needy & fussy. A few clawed leaves midway. Spurts of fast development & heavy trichs. to sluggish almost dormant stages. Likely on me but I have to treat them all the same when growing multiple strains at once. One of my 60% off sale packs. Imagine $80 packs for $32! Same breeder Chem 104 (91 x 13 Roses) down to $16 pack. I was throwing all kinds of stuff into the cart. What a way to shop. A seed fiend paradise. Got this one to try bc the Goji OG in her. Good citrus terps but a harsh smoke. Velvet Cookies from same run was so smooth it's crazy that 2 so different in same grow. Might give her another go based on genetics & breeder but not soon.

IHG Square Dance
The DPD (Double Purple Doja) x DoSiDo freebie was 1st IHG's out of the gate for me along w/ Dolato. Good enough to buy a pack of Square Dance. The DPD freebie was never released. DPD x DSD was a top 10 all time color plant. Plus I liked her smooth mellow sativa side. Real nice herb x w/ the DSD. Square Dance has DPD in it but GDP too, which changed the whole deal. Not an up active cookie hybrid.....instead non sleep quality placid relaxation w/ a real slowed down but still clear mind. But notice no purple....you'd think Buckeye Purple & DoSiDo would bring it on the color? Next time maybe? I get a few flashy color showboats & want more. Lol. Blame the cookie strains.

Cali Connection 818 Headband
I love this strain...started in clone days, then orig. Sour OG seeds. All outdoors. Always a standout. 1 reg. seed left...hehe. This plant was from later fem pack of 818 Headband. Naturally well shaped/structure.....how about only 2 fims? Lucky....wouldn't mind this more often. The happy, easy cruising positive nature of this herb has always done it for me & I reach for it often.

The New Batch
Quick run down...... Maiden run in new veg area. Temps & environment doing ok. Use a humidifier inside tent around the clock. Summer veg giving some fast growth. Will flower as soon as filter changed out. All at 9 or 10 nodes.

7 days
Stretchy seedling middle right. Toothpick support. I usually see short thick stems w/ LED, this was more T5 like.

14 days
Always love this early stage... untouched naturally shaped youngsters.

23 days
Rode hard & put away wet. Getting pushed around to shape. Droopy & sleepy after 18, wet from foliar, want some water. Turn off the lights.

32 days
Target was ready to flower in 40 days....gonna do it.

 

[Twox]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Nice buds.. I like seeing the veg plant pics progress so quickly. They bushed up nicely.. what strain(s)?

 

[AllSmiles]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Looking great BL! Veg plants are off to a nice start. Going to be a ton of buddage. Do you have to water the plants every day in those 2 gallon pots with how long you veg for? I was thinking about picking up some 2 gal pots and growing 6 plants at a time to go thru my stock pile of seeds

Right there with you on the 818. What a great smoke. I have to pick up some more of them beans.

 

[Pennywise]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Very fast in veg, gotta love it.

 

[imtoasted]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Nice only 40 days.. thats pretty much perfect. Yea those are some tasty looking buds, especially that headband.. i love headband strains. Need to catch one of those fancy sales.. .

 

[NorCaliwood]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Very pretty starts.. Was wondering whats what up,, now I see.. Keepem Green

 

[4Dutchess]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Mornin BL. Are those smart pots 2 gal??? Just when I thought I had to go from 3gal to 5 gal I see you running 2 gal?? I like the catch pans. I could barley lift the 3 gal to drain my individual pans in flower and wonderd how I was going to get the excess water out with the 5 gal.and the dude at the grow shop said use a wet vac. Golden!!
Feeding the yard grow and the different strains at different stages all getting the same mixture had me thinking another benefit to organic. I figure Im almost there with my fish and Fox Farms. Im afraid to add a salt water fish and the Asian fish market has it all but planter trout. I need to go to back to the bait store and get the fresh water threadfin shad that live in the beautiful norcal delta. I need to go before I write a book. My yard grow looks great! the Bananas are monsters and looking good for feminized seeds. I know your a fan of feminized. Started my 3rd tent grow!!
Time to get high BL, just doing a drive by, Great Day!

 

[brightlight]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Hope all your gardens are flourishing! Wow time seems to fly by faster & faster.....time to catch up a bit.

Nice buds.. I like seeing the veg plant pics progress so quickly. They bushed up nicely.. what strain(s)?

Switching from 2x4 to 4x4 veg tents made a big deal of difference in shape/structure. Here's the line up...

91 Star - Top Dawg
A-Dub x Aliendog - OBSoul33t
Blood Orange OG - Pisces
Dedoverde Haze - HSO
Josh D OG - Josh D
Lost Coast OG - ETS
Puckin Genius - Cannarado
Slo’ Flo - CSI
Wildberry - Annunaki

Looking great BL! Veg plants are off to a nice start. Going to be a ton of buddage. Do you have to water the plants every day in those 2 gallon pots with how long you veg for? I was thinking about picking up some 2 gal pots and growing 6 plants at a time to go thru my stock pile of seeds

Right there with you on the 818. What a great smoke. I have to pick up some more of them beans.

I'm watering every 2-3 days. I'm heavy aeration this run....40-45% so drying faster. Also more coco = more often. More peat = less often. Oh definitely.... more pots, more strains. Shorter veg time.

Very fast in veg, gotta love it.

Welcome pennywise. Happy to have here. Join in anytime....

Nice only 40 days.. thats pretty much perfect. Yea those are some tasty looking buds, especially that headband.. i love headband strains. Need to catch one of those fancy sales.. .

You got it on the Headband....a classic. Some banks have email notice of drops & sales, get on lists. My 60% was at FS.....it has "clock tick down" to start. Site was clogged in minutes after start. You just keep clicking until it takes for ea. pack. Crazy ass fun.

Very pretty starts.. Was wondering whats what up,, now I see.. Keepem Green

You know how they say time passes faster the older you get? It's true.

Mornin BL. Are those smart pots 2 gal??? Just when I thought I had to go from 3gal to 5 gal I see you running 2 gal?? I like the catch pans. I could barley lift the 3 gal to drain my individual pans in flower and wonderd how I was going to get the excess water out with the 5 gal.and the dude at the grow shop said use a wet vac. Golden!!
Feeding the yard grow and the different strains at different stages all getting the same mixture had me thinking another benefit to organic. I figure Im almost there with my fish and Fox Farms. Im afraid to add a salt water fish and the Asian fish market has it all but planter trout. I need to go to back to the bait store and get the fresh water threadfin shad that live in the beautiful norcal delta. I need to go before I write a book. My yard grow looks great! the Bananas are monsters and looking good for feminized seeds. I know your a fan of feminized. Started my 3rd tent grow!!
Time to get high BL, just doing a drive by, Great Day!

Yes, those are 2 gal. Root Pouch. Greenhouse Megastore right up your way. Less than a buck each. Wouldn't think a salt water fish has more salt than a freshwater fish, but you may be right. ??


GARDEN UPDATE

45 days from germination. 39 veg. 6 days flower. 10 nodes on every plant at flip. 11 plants too big for one 4x4 so using both 4x4's. Hate using double flower level electricity! A Wildberry showed me a flower in 3 days. The other 3 had some "male bumps". My close up eyesight is getting crappier so I waited to be sure. Sure enough a 91 Star & the 2nd Wildberry were boys. The 2nd 91 sure looked like a boy lean but damn nice surprise she's a girl. Averted disappointment as I am pretty excited about this strain.

Knock on wood but they're pretty happy right now.....

The 6 smallest went to the flower tent under the Mega (650w). A couple of larger OG's stayed downstairs in the veg tent w/ all the regular seed plants under the Neosol. The Neosol has a dimmer, which is a great tool in veg. I germinated at 250w & incrementally bumped wattage as they grew...up to the full power of 516w at 12/12 start. To minimize any aspect of stress I could. Same thinking by germinating in final pot...no transplants. Defoliation is slow & steady....already 10 occasions. Anything to avoid/minimize stress.

6 days of 12/12

Close up of Lost Coast OG. Short & squat....complete opposite of this strain outdoors, which produced real big girls each time.

Soil pH & PPM
Many organic growers don't feel they need to bother with pH......which is basically correct. A few are too smug about it imo. My sh*t level hard tap water made me get into it even outdoors. Indoors in small pots it became critical for me. Another thing...I've always wondered what was left in my soil when I got into flower. Sure...I could build soil that would only need water through veg into flower....but what was left when I got into bloom? That's why I started testing soil ppm's. Won't tell me specifically what's in there or what's needed, but total food level.

I'm sure the old experienced salts don't need to know how to do or even care about a slurry test. But maybe this might be of interest to some newer growers. What you see is a equal mix of soil & pH neutral water (I use distilled & hope it's close to 7, as my RO is slightly acidic). Let is sit for 20-30 min. then test for pH & ppm.

I've been getting 6.8 soil pH readings. I target ~6.4 - 6.5 but usually end up higher. The ppm level is interesting. At late seedling early veg I got a 600+ ppm reading. To me that said plenty of food. So I fed pretty light & not very often through veg & 1st wk. of 12/12. Today I get 6.8 pH & 250 ppm. Still going to try to dip pH a bit but that 250 ppm level actually got me excited. Expected higher. They are healthy & happy but can now be fed more aggressively in flower.

Again, this is surely not essential, but I really like the precision & added info it gives me. Also less plant stress by not being stuffed/overfed. I believe plants feed better & more efficiently in leaner soil conditions.

OK....so full speed ahead into flower!

 

[Skunkworkz]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Yo BL looking good!! .
Q: Where'd your Josh D OG originate?

 

[Pennywise]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

I backed off on my ppm and i think my plants actually grow faster with lower ppm.

 

[brightlight]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Yo BL looking good!! .
Q: Where'd your Josh D OG originate?

Thanks Skunk. Great question....it is NOT the 92 OG aka Legend. He calls his 92 cut "TheRealOGKushStory". Josh D OG is a magnificent 3 year breeding done by Karma. Karma chronicles the entire process from beginning to end on that "icy" site. Great read! All his how & whys...I really enjoyed it. This Josh D OG is Triangle x SFV x Hells Angel.

 

[Graytail]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Beautiful girls!

And I love your use of pH. If I could get a meter that told me my mineral content and ratios, and maybe a DNA reader chip for bacteria and fungi measurements, I'd be a soil tech nerd. Meanwhile, I jus' gotta trust the black box I'm using and hope the soil minions are happy and fruitful.

Always love visiting your garden - you make it seem easy.

 

[brightlight]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Beautiful girls!

And I love your use of pH. If I could get a meter that told me my mineral content and ratios, and maybe a DNA reader chip for bacteria and fungi measurements, I'd be a soil tech nerd. Meanwhile, I jus' gotta trust the black box I'm using and hope the soil minions are happy and fruitful.

Always love visiting your garden - you make it seem easy.

Thanks GT....always like hearing from you. When you find that meter or invent one....I'm in! Wish I knew more soil science....another entire world of learning. Believe me I never think it's easy.....maybe I'm no longer a "nervous nellie" but my respect for growing makes me pay attention & never lets me get over confident.

 

[imtoasted]

Re: Brightlight's Outdoor & LED Gardens

Plants are looking great brightlight.. do you use cobs? They seem to work very well. That lost coast og looks like an indica pheno.. i like her, shes sexy lol. Slurry tests are interesting for sure.. helps you diagnose problems if your soil is building up salts too. But you probably don't have that problem with organics. Helps you know when to feed them rather then when to back off. Seen some bad salt build ups before.. usually occurs when they feed at higher ppms. Been using lower ppm feedings like pw and its been working very well for me too. The highest I've given is 450 and they let me know i needed to back off some. Havent been having hardly any run off watering every 2-3 days now.

 

[brightlight]

Re: Brightlight's Outdoor & LED Gardens

Plants are looking great brightlight.. do you use cobs? They seem to work very well. That lost coast og looks like an indica pheno.. i like her, shes sexy lol. Slurry tests are interesting for sure.. helps you diagnose problems if your soil is building up salts too. But you probably don't have that problem with organics. Helps you know when to feed them rather then when to back off. Seen some bad salt build ups before.. usually occurs when they feed at higher ppms. Been using lower ppm feedings like pw and its been working very well for me too. The highest I've given is 450 and they let me know i needed to back off some. Havent been having hardly any run off watering every 2-3 days now.

The Next Light Mega isn't a COB....uses 2500 1w LED's running at ~25% power. The belief that organics doesn't involve salts is an old wives' tale. Less for sure but generally still there. Plants take up nutrients via dissolved salts....just less concentrated in organic soils & taken up more slowly by plants. Compost & manures have salts. Plant based compost is lower in nutrients & salt. That's why on this run I didn't use my old favorite compost...Bu's Malibu (from dairy cow manure) & omitted all guanos. The nitrogen cycle is still hard for me to fully understand but by lowering nitrate form as best I could I see bushier plants....less rocket ship take off elongation in transition. It's all an ongoing experiment for me....always trying to learn more.

 

[Conradino23]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Soluble nitrogen comes in three forms, as a nitrate (anionic), urea (neutral) and ammonia (cationic). Nothing can run without nitrogen, but excess leads to stem elongation, floppy branches, wild foliage growth and also to lowering of Brix, which leads to pests, PM and other fungal infections. This happens cause too much nitrogen has negative effect on phosphorus and calcium uptake as well as positive effect on potassium uptake, which makes it harder for microfungal population to thrive and for root system to grow normally. Good practise is to start with low nitrate levels in veg and kick them up occasionally to provide energy for the plant instead of building them up to dominate over cations, especially in pots where anions can easily become flush with a lot of watering that moves them up the plant straight away and will cause mentioned above. Nitrates can be flushed out, but the problem that a lot of growers don't understand is that first thing that happens when you start pumping copious amounts of water in soil is the opposite thing, nitrogen is being absorbed in a massive stream by the plant and overall balance is destroyed!

I'm trying to experiment with nitrate to ammonia ratio these days, which is supposed to be another way of keeping things under control. Studies very often show positive outcome when both are provided in equal amount. Food for thought.

 

[brightlight]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Thanks for good info con.....some choice tidbits in there. Might just be me but the whole nitrogen cycle thing as said is a tricky thing to understand. Knew urea wasn't for our plant...46-0-0 rocket fuel. As a kid I burned up our lawn with it. Dad was pissed....until I reminded him that he bought it. Been lowering nitrate all across the board. That leaves ammonium...cationic always better right? Lately I feed more amino acids than actual nitrogen & plants seem to love it & stay more in control in our limited tent spaces. Thanks again brother!

 

[Conradino23]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

You know you may be cutting edge here, man! It's pretty novel solution to feeding plants and there haven't been enough field trials to prove it's working or not. But your plants look top of the line, so I wouldn't worry

 

[NorCaliwood]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

I don't even use anything on my plants in veg cept alittle blood meal and alittle ewc. Unless I see a problem or something. One of the most common mistakes,, least in my eyes, I see people bombing their veg plants with shit up around 1000 PPM in soil. I've fried all my brain cells to many times to get into all the technical jargon, just isn't any room in there. JK But it's sure nice to have access to all this info. I hear that Con, BL has been knocking them outta the park with his grows.......
Keepem Green

 

[Van Stank]

re: Brightlight's Strain Fest - Organics & LED

Soluble nitrogen comes in three forms, as a nitrate (anionic), urea (neutral) and ammonia (cationic). Nothing can run without nitrogen, but excess leads to stem elongation, floppy branches, wild foliage growth and also to lowering of Brix, which leads to pests, PM and other fungal infections. This happens cause too much nitrogen has negative effect on phosphorus and calcium uptake as well as positive effect on potassium uptake, which makes it harder for microfungal population to thrive and for root system to grow normally. Good practise is to start with low nitrate levels in veg and kick them up occasionally to provide energy for the plant instead of building them up to dominate over cations, especially in pots where anions can easily become flush with a lot of watering that moves them up the plant straight away and will cause mentioned above. Nitrates can be flushed out, but the problem that a lot of growers don't understand is that first thing that happens when you start pumping copious amounts of water in soil is the opposite thing, nitrogen is being absorbed in a massive stream by the plant and overall balance is destroyed!

I'm trying to experiment with nitrate to ammonia ratio these days, which is supposed to be another way of keeping things under control. Studies very often show positive outcome when both are provided in equal amount. Food for thought.

Love this info, thanks Con!