Donpaul.p's Latest 400 Watt HPS Grow

[RainStacks]

I liked some of the points made, but I don't know if it's just me but the text seems to exude a condescending and elitist undertone, and sort of came across as a put down. Other than that it certainly does bring up some good points. If you are liking it, I am sure that it has some very good content. I know that I personally over watered and overfed my plants in my first grow big time! There is no denying that. But I can also say that I have learned from my mistakes, and am always striving to improve. My experience and knowledge is very limited, but there is one point I did not agree with.

"myth 4, cloning requires a 45 degree cut.
The claim is that cutting the clones tip at a 45 degree angle increases the surface area roots can grow from.
Let's use a 6 sided dice as a visual example for this illustration, The 45 degree slice you cut is but one of 5-available sides roots can grow from, that means each side is 20% the total available area. If you allow the cutting time to continue rooting it will push roots out of all 5 sides instead of just the bottom.
Now tell me how important the 45 degree cut is compared to slowing your roll and allowing nature to do her thing"

In my humble opinion cutting at an angle allows a cutting to take up more nutrients because the stem has greater surface area directly on the areas which absorb water and nutrients. The other point I would like to make is that although 5 divided by 1 is 20%, you put the stem far enough into whatever rooting medium you are using typically that the part cut would not constitute 20% of the total surface area available for rooting. This is the reason people slightly scrape the stems as I understand it. I honestly don't think this is a major issue either way. Just my opinion on it. I would prefer the writer focus on what he does well rather than putting down anyone. But to each his own. I am always open to learning, I see growing the same way I see life, an experience that I am constantly learning from. Perhaps the writer realizes that people like drama, and his style of writing is simply the embodiment of this reality.

 

[donpaul.p]

ok time for the latest pics, again feel free to post comments good or bad, if you see any signs of problems let me know as im currently using Dogget Simpson nutrients and after reading Spimps comments i checked the ph of the nutrients after mixing up a batch and found the ph was a bit on the low side, over time it did rise up and when the lights went out the ph was 5.9 flashing 6.0, so ill check it again in the morning, im sure the soil plants will be fine so the dwc would show problems first but so far no signs of any problems, ill put my pics up in a couple of posts as im not sure how many pics i can post per post, i had to move a load last time to the next post as it would not let me post all that i had chosen.

pics are labled so should not need explaining but ask if you want further info and ill provide the info you request.

the burned leaves in the next pic are due to the light been to close for to long, i was moving the plants around so didnt have the fan running, ive raised the light much higher now as it gives a better spread of light, having the light to low was not covering the plants as much as i wanted, so the burn on this leaf is because its the highest leaves on the plant and it got a bit toasted when it was directly under the hps

the male below is growing on a window sill and is going to be used for pollen and crossed with an auto so it produces a higher % of auto seeds, i think ill need to back cross 3 or 4 times before all seeds turn out auto after what ive been reading online,

the jack flash below was 12-12 from seed so i can sample the buds, its a long flower time of 11 weeks but seems to of flowered quicker than that but maybe because its 12-12 from seeds its flowered a bit quicker, the buds are rock hard and pretty big, if im happy with the smoke report then ill grow the clone out and grow a big plant as it will produce well with buds as solid as these, plus it is foxtailing and its not showing many cloudy trichs at the moment

in the pic below you can see a bit of the bud thats foxtailing, its the pistils sticking out from the left hand side,

below is auto bubble in case you cant read it, both the auto northern lights dwc and the auto bubble was grown under 17-7 and then under 12-12, ive also been reading info in SNS grow book that 18-6 is ideal for autos then 12-12 when their in flower, now not sure on this info but ill give it a try with my own autos and comare results, i can safely say that 24-0 is not the best light schedule for autos,

below is our diesel, sorry about the light glare on the paper, it says that this plant only produced small leaves, none got big, fan leaves where the same size across the plant, it looks like it will produce well though so maybe this is how it grows, the leaves you see are as big as they get

below is white widow x skunk#1 grown under 17-7 till flower

The rest of the pics will follow in the next post, not sure how many i can post at a time so ill start a fresh post,
what i can safely say is that this grow has been the best by far, my plants have grown so quick compared with other grows, the main difference was letting the pot totally dry out, the roots need oxygen and after watching a few grow videos i thought ill try and replicate the process, they only did it during flower but i started it in early veg and all my plants grow like crazy and not far behind the dwc plants in speed of growth, i wasnt over watering before as i was following the correct checking procedures but now i let the pots get totally bone dry so the pots weight next to nothing, this has clearly paid off and the roots are getting the oxygen they clearly needed, im pretty sure if i had gone with bigger pots then the plants would of get even bigger, so over the next grow ill cut my numbers right down and just grow 3 or 4 plants but in big pots, then hopefully i will hit the same yields but with less plants,

 

[waknbak88]

Plants look awsome man! I like the diesel with the small leaves, I like strains that have their own distinct characteristics!

 

[donpaul.p]

@Spimp, yep 15myths in total but didnt want to post them all, and yes the same three sins as well, is a pretty good book and ive learned a lot from it, im sure others would also learn a lot from this book/magazine

@RainStacks, i know what your saying but as i only picked out certain parts of the mag its hard to understand why it sounds the way it does, but if you read the mag from the start then you would understand the way its written and why its worded how it is, so i totally understand what your saying as them comments do sound like that, but its just where i chose the writing from, its got funny comments through out the book so it would need reading to understand why its wrote like that and why it sounds the way it does,

as for myth 4, the cutting dont take in nutrients until it has roots on the stem as far as i know, we provide the water it needs by keeping the humidity dome on, so they only need nutrients when the roots have started growing, my bubble cloner i made just had water in it and nothing else and all my clones rooted and had pretty long roots considering their was nothing but water in the res.
your also spot on with the info about surface area and the 45 degree cut, with the clones i take i notice the first place roots grow is along the side of the stem and not out the 45 degree cut, my bubble cloner was the same, it produced roots out the sides of the stem before it produced them out the bottom where it was cut at an angle, the only time i notice roots did grow from the bottom was when i cut slits into the bottom so it sort of fanned out into 4 parts, that then made roots grow out of each splayed out part,

of course its all open for discussion and its why i posted it, it gives you an incite into the book and provides a talking point to discuss the points made, theirs a lot more in the book and you really would be pretty amazed about some of it, so its well worth reading and does really make many many good points and when you sit their and think about the points made you can see that it makes perfect sense,

so with the clones i never used to cut the 45degree and still had clones rooted, i have rooted clones without rooting hormones, but when i have transplanted clones and the soil has fallen away then most the new roots grow out of the sides where we scrape the outer layer away, so does the 45 degree angle improve the cloning method, i really cant answer to be honest, if i cut 45 degree they root and if dont cut 45 degree they still root, but i know my bubble cloner started growing roots out of the sides of the stem and not directly out the bottom where the 45 degree angle was cut, i use the 45 degree method and it works but does it work better, who knows, i get clones rooted no matter what way i cut or if i use rootinh hormone or not.

thanks for the comments, i dont think its fair to post anymore info as its not my book, all i can say is what i have read so far is pretty good info and its written in a way thats easy to understand,

 

[donpaul.p]

@waknbak88, thanks mate. it certainly has it own distinct growth pattern, you usually get big fan leaves growing off the stems and then smaller leaves at the nodes, but even the fan leaves are small, its not a genetic problem i dont think, i just think its who the plant was bred and maybe it will produce very well, only time will tell,
my next post will be the next batch of pics then the post after that will be pics as well, i think theirs just under 90pics in total

 

[waknbak88]

90 pics......reps for that! It takes me for ever to do pics I can't figure out how to do more then one at a time cause when I add more then one file it doesn't upload but one of them, but I'm not computer smart so it's prolly a problem on my end lol

 

[Spimp]

@Spimp, yep 15myths in total but didnt want to post them all, and yes the same three sins as well, is a pretty good book and ive learned a lot from it, im sure others would also learn a lot from this book/magazine

Its a very good read. Ive read it at least 20 times. Some of his terminology is 'off', like supercropping but I really like it.

 

[donpaul.p]

below is sensi star from clone, the clone was taken from the last dwc i did, it produced very dense buds and super frosty, id say the dwc version was the 2nd best buds ive smoked, the strain ive not had anything beat is the ak47 x uk cherry cheese, my 420 mag nug jar has got the sensi star buds in it so i will make sure i save some then i can compare how the soil grown buds compare, as this is the clone of the dwc sensi star then it will give me a good chance of seeing how different the end results compares

all ready the sugar leaves are getting pretty frosty, which is usually a sign its going to be a nice frosty plant, if it produces high levels of trichs in early flower then this usually follows through into harvest and should produce frosty buds like the parent plant did

below is the same plant but shows the node spacing due to it been heavy defol during veg,

node spacing is about 1cm, the defol method made the plant grow more nodes than if i didnt defol, it did take longer to veg to achieve these close nodes across the whole plant, im hoping that all the nodes when budding will join up and produce big buds instead of having smaller buds at the lower nodes, they should all grow into each other and form one big bud

below you can see 10 nodes on one branch and this is a lower branch thats not very long, these lower branches wont produce much but it was more an experiment to see if its possible to control node spacing using defol method

todays defoliation

below is the small shoots i remove, anything not getting light or stretching to get to the light gets taken off the plant and either binned or turned into clones, in this case everything i removed from all the plants was binned, this allows the plant to focus its energy on the buds getting light which results in bigger buds

everything below canopy or anything not getting light is removed, here you can see what happens to leaves when they get no light, they turn yellow and die, if their not doing the job their intended to do then the plant dont use them and these leaves die due to lack of light,

now this plant below is the one ive been working on for well over a year now, its a kc45 auto ive been working with pheno types and back crossing with pollen from big males, i then used the pollen on the most frosty kc45 autos that grew well with good node spacing,
i pollenated it very early in flower, you will see the results below, but as you can see the pistils are still growing and buds getting bigger, so all the seeds are under the buds and at the nodes, its possibly going to be pollenated again in the next couple of days, i may even pollenate 1 bud with the gdp cheese pollen and just use them seeds to grow and smoke and not as part of my breeding project, the lower buds on the kc45 auto was not pollenated as i kept them pollen free in case i want to use different pollen on them

you might just see 2 seed pods in the middle of the screen either side of the stem, the seeds are ripe and some have fallen out of the calyx,

only a few more pics which ill put in my next post, thats it for the flowering plants, next up is the clones and seedling

 

[donpaul.p]

below is 2x white widow x skunk#1 reveg clones, i put 2 in because i was removing lower shoots to lollypop to some extent so just stuck 2 in just in case 1 dont root, i want to try and keep this strain and produce fem seeds so took 2 clones as at least 1 should root, if not ill take another couple of clones and if it turns out that its one of them strains that dont clone well then ill reveg the plant after harvest

below is the hps room, its pretty crowded but only 1 plant is still stretching the rest have now stopped and have started flowering, so should just about be ok for room, plus the jack flash and kc 45 auto are not far from done so will free up some room

thats it for now, hope you like my pics, if you have any comments or suggestions then feel free to say what ever you like good or bad, if you spot any problems i have missed then let me know,

im confident this time round is going to be a very nice harvest, im pretty chuffed with the results from the watering method im using, i thought it would stress the plant but even when the pots are bone dry and really light the plants still dont wilt so its not causing them any major problems, ive not let them get as far as wilting but the soil gets bone dry all the way to the bottom of the pots and so far it seems to be working out very well.

ill possibly be going with the flushing method as well during flower period, ill possibly flush 2 or 3 times like they do in the videos ive been watching as it seems to produce amazing results,

but please only try what your comfortable with, we all grow different and in different climates so do what you thinks best for your plants, its hard to copy someone else as different strains behave different and different climates will produce different results, their are many different growing methods such as fim,topping,defol, lst and hst, all produce great results and all i can safely say is these plants are pretty tough and will survive pretty much anything we do to them, so its best to get to know the plants over your first couple of grows then experient with different methods after,

get the growing conditions right and the plants dont take long to recover from anything you do to them, but if you top,fim or even defol plants then if their are problems in the grow space or a problem with the plants then recovery time is going to take weeks instead of days, so work on getting your grow area as good as you can, get to know what the plants need and how they grow, once you have got everything working as good as you can then experiment, it will then pay off, but having problems will put you back weeks if you try any training method and you have problems with the grow, ive been their and had plants stunted for 2 weeks or more, it means longer veg times and smaller yields, so work on getting everything as good as possible then the plants will produce the best they can and will recover quickly from any sort of training you do,

thanks for looking at my pics, feel free to post comments or ask questions and ill do my best to answer

 

[donpaul.p]

@waknbak88, when i use internet explorer i have to upload one pic at a time, but when i use firefox as my browser then when i click on gallery then upload pics, if you then scroll down to the bottom it says in a small box select files for upload, click on this then it opens up the files on your computer, navigate to where you saved the files then click on the first pic in the list then hold down shift and go to the last pic in the list then when you click ok it will then upload all them pics in one go, its takes a while for it to upload them all but it does it in one click, then you just click process and it processes the first 10, then their is a box that allows you to choose how many to process next time and i change it to 100 and it then processes them all in one go, then 15 to 20min later all the pics are uploaded and then you can copy n past them into the journal,

i know internet explorer i had to go and find each pic one at a time then click on the next box and go and find the next pic, but when i use firefox it lets me highlight all the pics in the file and uploads them all with 1 click,

so what i do is on my desktop i create a new folder called phone,
then i connect my phone to computer or plug in the memory card.
then i open the empty file i created on the desktop called phone or camera or what ever you choose to call it.
now i copy all the files from my phone or memory card to the empty file on the desktop, again you just click on the first pic then hold down shift and click on the last pic, then they are all highlighted, you can then drag them over to the phone file on desktop or you can right click and choose copy then paste them into the empty phones folder,

then use firefox as your browser instead of internet explorer, i could only upload 1 at a time using internet explorer so i use firefox, then open 420 mag and have my journal open in one tab and the other tab i click gallery, then upload images, then scroll down to bottom of page and click on select files for upload.
a box then pops up on screen so i click on desktop, then double click on the phone file and that opens up and shows me all the pics i had taken or shows the file name of each pic, click on first pic then hold down shift and click on the end pic, all should now be highlighted, then click ok.

then they upload to the site in one go but it takes a while depending on computer speed, once its uploaded you will see 10 pics and it will say process at bottom, when you click on process it ask how many you want to process next time, i choose 100 then when its processed the first 10 it then shows a list of all the other pics, click process again and it will then process all of them but again it will take a while depending on speed of computer.

it takes a lot longer if you do this method from the memory card or phone as it has a slower read/write speed, so always copy the pics onto the desktop in a empty file, then its a lot quicker when its uploading them to the site.

the only downside with posting pics is you have to copy n paste the image location into your journal one at a time, so thats what takes the most time for me, when i was using internet explorer i could only upload 10 images at a time and then had to upload another 10, but firefox lets you upload as many as your like,

videos are much easier and a lot quicker to do, just record a video and create a utube act thats not one you use for personal reasons, then upload the vid to that utube act then you just copy n paste the url into the video link in the journal, its why i used the video method last time as its much quicker,

 

[RainStacks]

Awesome updates DP. I really enjoyed the pictures. It looks like you have got a mountain of work keeping all those plants so happy. I can totally see how the excerpts from the SNS book could easily be taken out of context. I will keep an eye out for a second hand copy. If you and Spimp agree that it is worth buying, that is all I need to hear.

That WWXSK1 is unreal. Those leaves are just unbelievable. You don't have tiny hands right?

Thank you for putting the pics of the reveg as well. Mine is looking just like you said it would, funny single blades for now. The mother plant is looking pretty good, so I am glad I have a clone, just in case it ends up being special.

I also really liked the seed pictures, those things were beautiful! Oh one more thing, next time I put clones in the bubble cloner, I am going to try the cutting the X method you recommended. Thank you for taking the time as always my friend

 

[Techman]

Hey Donpaul,

I'd like to read that book. Just from the brief parts you mentioned it seems as though I can relate very well. I have been growing since that first bean plant in the 2nd grade. When I started growing meds, I was involved with a real young guy who did nothing but read crap on the internet. He never grew a plant in his life. Needless to say we parted ways as I could not take all the "we got to do this, the plants need that. 15 bottles of chemicals. I was like, Holy shit dude...there fucking plants for crying out loud and a weed at that. Let them do their thing. Growing does takes skill and patients. Anyway. Glad to have found your journal. and if you can, PM me about this book.

 

[donpaul.p]

oops, i forgot to post some pics so here they are,

Thanks to BAR and Skybound for everything they did to help try and sort the postage out for the SNS prize i won, i know BAR did a lot behind the scenes with speaking with other members and skybound was speaking with SNS, so again thank you both and thanks to everyone who offered to help,
so heres the pics of the products i have got and can sample and see how well they work, if anyone has used the veg or flower feed can you let me know if its to be used as well as my regular nutrients or is it a stand alone nutrient on its own, it says it can be added to water and water the plants, or used in hydro, it also says can be used as a foliar feed, ill try and find out what i can as i dont want to give my plants to much when they are growing this well

SNS 203 is a soil drench spray, it can be used to water plants with like a dunk or can be used as a spray, its for fungus gnats/white fly/larvae, i suffer from fungus gnats so will be using this to kill any larvae left, ive kept it under control so its not a major problem but now its winter and the heating is on then this may encourage the larvae to hatch as they lay dormant, plus come spring i will be able to use it then and stop the problem before it gets to bad.

SNS 209 is a sytematic insect control
for spider mites/white fly/thirps(think it means thrips)/ root aphid/fungus gnats/leaf worm/leaf cutter/scales, i think this is a soil drench as well as it says 8ml per gallon and feed plant

SNS 311 is a plant surface cleaner. prevents and cures bacteria/fungus/insects/dirt/oils/shock/virus. its to be used as a spray only, spray infected area, spray until runoff or fog

604A, now these next 2 are the plant feeds called growth supliments, vegetation,this one can be used for cloning, root growth/stalk growth.
for cloning it says soak seed material continue as needed or until sprouted. 1/4oz mix well and apply to root area daily during vegetation cycle, can also be used as foliar feed. (can anyone help me and let me know if its to be used alongside other nutrients or is it a stand alone nutrient

604B flowering organic growth supliment (again not sure if its a stand alone product or can be used alongside by nutrients, im thinking these are called supliments because they can be used at same time, ill contact SNS if no one knows what its best to do,) again this can be used as foliar feed or water the plants with 1/4oz per gallon and apply to root area daily during flowering and budding cycle.

SNS 217 spider mite spray, kills mites and eggs, ready to use just spray every 2 or 3 days as needed

SNS 244 fungucide spray, again another spray bottle ready to use, works on the following problems, powdery mildew/downey mildew/black mold/root aphids larvae/fungus gnat larvae

below is the grow guide from SNS that i was writing the posts from, ive found it a very interesting book and ive only really had a quick flick through it so cant wait to sit down and have a good read, cover shot and index shot so you got some idea of whats inside.

its got lots of great info and well worth a read, not sure if you can buy a downloadable version but looks like they bring out so many issues a year as ive got issue 4, so ill check their site and see how often they come out and ill get subscribed to it if i can and if they will ship it over here, if not ill see if they produce an online version.

 

[Techman]

You just showed me 5 chemicals to spray on my plants.....WTF!!!

If you got that many bugs, your doing something wrong.

Less water, clean environment, perimeter spray.....

 

[donpaul.p]

@RainStacks, its cool not a problem, the reveg just take time to get going thats all, once their back in veg you then get the crazy growth, just go easy on the nutes while the plant is small then when its back in veg you can start upping the dose again, im sure you will be amazed by the results, you end up with some crazy bushy plants that yield well.
the ww x sk has got huge leaves but in flower the leaves dont seem to want to grow as big, so i guess it just grows as big as it can during veg so it can keep up with the rapid growth, its the fastest growing plant ive grown so far, its why i pulled it over on its side, it was planted at same time as the others but was nearly 3 times the size so had to pull it over to try and stop it getting to tall to quick, but it worked out ok as ive got 15 plus main bud sites now so should do ok,
the mag is well worth buying in my oppinion, if i hadnt of read some of it then i probably wouldnt of bought it myself unless i was told about it, but now ive had chance to read it ill see how often they bring out new issues as if their as good as this one then their will be lots of good info in all of them, ive not checked how much SNS charge for it but it has that price on the cover, so ill try and find out if thats what they charge.

@Techman, welcome to my journal and if you have any questions ask away and ill do my best to answer, i think the SNS magazine in the pics above must be something they bring out a few times a year by the sounds of it as the issue ive got is issue 4, it was not listed in the prize package but it was in the box with the SNS products, it might be something they even give away in their store to customers, ill try and find out, id say its worth the money though as its direct to the point and dont give a load of crap, so the info is really good and its very easy to understand and covers everything, not sure if all issues are the same with some updated parts or if this was the one grow guide they produced,
but ill see what i can find out as im sure lots of growers would benefit from it, i only wrote a few myths from the first few pages but the whole mag is full of stuff like that, it told me more than most grow bibles or other grow books, so id have to say its worth getting hold of a copy.

ill see what i can find out about it then drop you a pm with the info and post it here as well, theirs a lot of info on the internet on the best ways to grow but this mag basically tells you whats good info and whats poor info just to make profit, i mean if your grow conditions are spot on then bloom enhances may add that bit extra to the end result, ive only read less than half and the info really opens your eyes to what the plants need and dont need, so im very glad they put a copy in with my prize package.

thanks for stopping by my journal, ill find out about the mag then let you know how they are distributed or if they can be downloaded online.

 

[Techman]

You just showed me 5 chemicals to spray on my plants.....WTF!!!

If you got that many bugs, your doing something wrong.

Less water, clean environment, perimeter spray.....

Sorry Dude, that's the cheap ass Bush talking....

Let me defend my self. I live in a swamp. I cant even open my door without 15 bugs flying in, there are spiders, aphids and white flies everywhere. 6' copperheads, water moccasins and gators. My grow room does not have a bug! Why? Because i use common scene. Something that now seems to be an ancient relic. KISS.

p.s no more cheap beer!

 

[Spimp]

I got a notification that the sns products have shipped. Im excited.
Your grow looks very good. I like some of the yield your getting on the autos. The dwc is cool stuf too. Those roots are sweet. I likethat the 604a and B are organic. Ill be interested to see how they perform. If the d&s stuff keeps performing it will be tough to not just use it. Did you add any stage 1 to your existing girls?

 

[CronicHempHog]

Chronic Weekend to you Dp

 

[KingJohnC]

how long after pollination do you give the plant to produce mature seeds when you manufacture seeds?

 

[Spimp]

It’s all in there! SNS 604A & B is a concentrated blend of plant and marine extracts. SNS 604A & B is a one part nutrient additive to be used throughout the plants growing and flowering cycle. SNS 604A & B contain the natural building blocks of life and are used in addition to your regular fertilizer program. SNS 604A & B enhance mineral nutrient uptake and transport in your plants. The SNS 604 technology facilitates the conversion and biosynthesis of complex secondary aromatic compounds plus enhances metabolic growth, promotes root and flower development, encourages fruit swelling, and facilitates essential oil production. 604A & B will also encourage beneficial microbial activity in the root zone. With SNS 604A & B your plants with increase in flavor, yield and color!
^^exerpt from SIERRA NATURAL SCIENCES webpage