Graytail's Cupwinners in High Brix Soil - 4x4 - 600W HPS - Perpetual

[Graytail]

Hiyas fellow 420Magsters!

Today, I start my first journal! I've had my grow going for a few months and it's a perpetual, so we kinda start in the middle of things. My grow has three parts.

In May I started my first three seeds, Nirvana Northern Lights Autos, and just harvested the last one on Sunday - got 40, 44 and 48 grams from them. I wanted something simple, and they sure were that! If you're a beginner, I highly recommend autos. I grew them in FFOF with Osmocote Plus - all they needed the entire grow was ... water! Two of them went 84 days and one (the 48g) took 105 days, not the 9-11 weeks Nirvana claims, but they spent their first six weeks under CFLs before I replaced them with a 600W HID, so that probably slowed them down a bit.

Once I had them going, I pored over seed strains and decided to go with sativas and sativa dominant Cupwinners. I got a Jamaican Dream, a Super Lemon Haze, a Hawaiian Snow, a White Panther, and a Caramelo (not a cupwinner - it just appealed to me). I also got freebies including 5 Kerala x Skunk #1. By then, I had read enough on 420Mag to know that I wanted to go with live organic soil, specifically Doc Bud's recommendations for mineralized high brix soil, which is Pro-Mix with a 6-5-3 ratio of high calcium limestone, soft rock phosphate and gypsum, plus azomite, mychorrhizae and worm castings. The Jamaican Dream, SLH and Hawaiian Snow went into that soil along with 2 Keralas. These were all started June 1st with the Jamaican and SLH ready to finish a couple weeks from now. I've also been using Doc's foliars and drenches with these.

The third part of the grow is in Doc's True High Brix kit, with custom mineral amendment for Pro-Mix, plus foliars and drenches. I have two Jamaican cuts in this soil as well as another Kerala, and I just sprouted a White Panther and a Caramelo.

As part of the high brix method, I'll be using a refractometer to test brix and I'll post the numbers on a regular basis. It's been going pretty well so far - even the FFOF w/OC+ produced some pretty high numbers. At chop, two of my NL autos read 15. The last readings of the mineralized soil plants were all above 13. Doc's kit should do even better. Wish me luck!


What strain is it? Jamaican Dream, Super Lemon Haze, Hawaiian Snow, Indian Skunk, White Panther, Caramelo
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? Sativa and Sativa Doms
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? some of each
If in Veg... For how long? typically one month or less
If in Flower stage... For how long? 9-14 weeks
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
Soil or Hydro? Soil
f soil... what is in your mix? mineralized Pro-Mix/Pro-Mix with Doc Bud's kit
If soil... What size pot? 6 gallon square pots
Size of light? 600W HID for flower/CFLs for veg
Is it aircooled? not air-cooled
Temp of Room/cab? high 75-85, low 67-77
RH of Room/cab? 50-75
PH of media or res? Dunno - don't check it
Any Pests ? some fungus gnats
How often are you watering? when the pots are dry
Type and strength of ferts used? some fish emulsion

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed

 

[Graytail]

Pics!

Here are the NL Autos:

Eenie and Meenie at 10 Days

NL Autos Eenie, Meenie & Moe under CFLs - 33 days and 26 Days

Autos under HPS at 42 and 35 days

at 50 and 42 Days

Eenie at 70 Days

Meenie at 70 Days

Moe at 63 Days

Eenie at 77 Days - I started smokin' 'er from the bottom up!

What remains of Eenie at 85 Days - Chop

NL Auto Meenie 84 Days

NL Auto Moe - 77 Days

Eenie Chop

Moe - 84 Days - Chop

Meenie - 98 Days

Meenie - 105 Days - Chop

Eenie, Meenie and Moe in their jars

 

[TanR]

Wouldn't miss this for the world! Thanks for sharing your grow with us Graytail.

 

[KingJohnC]

congratulations on your harvest!

 

[ataxian]

CFL = Veg
400watt = Flower
Hydroponic in my situation

 

[hodder356]

Plus reps for sure amigo! Gotta love the simplicity of soil, I know I do! Keep up the great work and happy growing!

 

[Graytail]

Part 2 of the grow - mineralized Pro-Mix:

I sprouted the Hawaiian Snow, Jamaican Dream, SLH, and 3 Keralas (non-fems) to be sure I got a female - whaddya know, all three were female, so I ended up with more Keralas than I wanted. I potted 2 and stuck 'em in 12/12 and put the third in 12/12 in its Solo cup for the heck of it - it showed female flowers so I put it back under 24/0 and topped it at the 6th node.

Kerala, Hawaiian Snow and SLH - first day of 12/12 - 15 Days old.

Kerala, Hawaiian Snow and SLH - 22 Days old.

I held the Jamaican Dream a couple weeks back to get 2 cuts from her before flowering

Jamaican Dream - 34 Days

Hawaiian Snow - 37 Days

SLH - 37 Days

The girls at 50 Days
Hawaiian and Kerala1 in the back, SLH and Moe in the middle, Kerala2 and Meenie with Moe behind her

Whew, this uploading and posting of pics takes time! Need a buzz break - more later

 

[Graytail]

Wouldn't miss this for the world! Thanks for sharing your grow with us Graytail.

TanR, my friend - great to have you here!

 

[Graytail]

congratulations on your harvest!

Thanks, KingJohn! I've read a bunch of your posts!

 

[Graytail]

Plus reps for sure amigo! Gotta love the simplicity of soil, I know I do! Keep up the great work and happy growing!

Thanks a ton for the reps, hodder! I jus' love the idea of living soil, and after seeing the results other growers have achieved with it, I want to see what I can produce!

 

[Graytail]

The girls at 65 Days, August 4th

Kerala2 - 63 days - 36 days 12/12 - 27 since pistils

Super Lemon haze - 64 Days - 49 Days 12/12 - 35 since pistils

Jamaican Dream - 65 Days old - 35 Days 12/12 - 28 since pistils

Kerala1 - 65 days old - 50 Days 12/12 - 35 since pistils

Hawaiian Snow - 65 Days old - 50 Days 12/12 - 15 since pistils

 

[stealthgrow]

Wow, your plants are amazing!! Very nice stuff you got cookin'. Subscribed for sure. Congrats on your harvest, and the next generation looks great, keep em coming.

 

[TanR]

Beautiful girls Graytail!

 

[Graytail]

Thanks TanR and stealthgrow!

This mineralized soil is the tits. I even topdressed the FFOF & OC+ with the 6-5-3 and azomite, and I swear it made a big difference. I sure didn't expect to get 15 brix from OC+!

 

[Graytail]

OK, so I left off at 65 days old on August 4th. Here they are a week later:

August 11th

Jamaican Dream - 72 Days - 42 Days 12/12 - 35 since pistils

Super Lemon Haze - 71 days - 56 days 12/12 - 42 since pistils

Hawaiian Snow - 72 Days old - 57 Days 12/12 - 22 since pistils

Kerala1 - 72 days - 56 Days 12/12 - 35 since pistils

Kerala2 - 70 Days - 42 Days 12/12 - 34 days since pistils

 

[Graytail]

We're getting there. This is last Sunday, Aug 18th.

Hawaiian Snow - 79 Days old - 63 Days 12/12 - 29 since pistils

Jamaican Dream - 79 Days - 49 Days 12/12 - 42 since pistils

Super Lemon Haze - 78 days - 63 days 12/12 - 49 since pistils

Kerala1 - 79 days - 63 Days 12/12 - 42 since pistils

Kerala2 - 77 Days - 49 Days 12/12 - 41 days since pistils

 

[Graytail]

So, that was part 2 of my grow, the ones in mineralized Pro-Mix. The SLH should be done in 10 days or so, and I hope the Jamaican Dream follows close behind. I like both of them - they're dense with trichs. The SLH didn't stretch worth a darn, though, so she could have been a lot bigger - finished at a tidy 23 inches, grrr. I think I'll reveg her and try again with some cuts. If this is simply a short pheno, I can deal with that - in fact, it'd be kinda welcome. It also looks like she'll finish a week earlier than Greenhouse says - just 9 weeks from first pistils. A short, fast Super Lemon Haze? Ya, I can deal with that.

The Jamaican Dream I really love. Mph. She's amazingly vigorous - just a beautiful strain to grow. And I've taken test buds twice, a week apart, and yep, that's the buzz I'm looking for - kinda happy, chatty, relaxed. Yum. Here's a nice photo of her.

 

[SativaHaze]

Graytail, it is my honor to finally see "your" grow journal. you have been commenting on mine for a couple months! They look beautiful!!!!DB

 

[Graytail]

I've been keeping weekly brix records on the mineralized plants since July 7. I've been taking multiple readings of the same wad to get an idea of how the measure works - as many as 5 readings from the same wad, and the brix almost always increases. These are the first two readings of each wad.

.................... Jul 7 - Jul 14 - Jul 21 - Jul 28 - Aug 4 - Aug 11 - Aug 18

Hawaiian ......... 9/9 - 13/15 - 15/18 - 14/15 - 15/16 - 12/15 - 13/14
Jamaican ...... 11/12 - 12/15 -- 9/11 - 11/11 - 9/12 - 10/11 - 13/14
SLH ..............12/14 - 14/14 - 14/15 - 12/13 - 10/13 - 13/13 - 13/14
Kerala1 .......... 9/10 - 15/17 -- 9/11 - 11/11 - 9/12 - 10/11 - 12/14
Kerala2 ............................... 7/10 - 10/10 - 10/14 - 10/11 - 13/14
Meenie .................... 10/11 - 8/10 -- 9/10 - 12/14 - 12/13 - 15/16


Whew, that was tough to format - hope it's legible.

For those of you who take brix readings, I'd love to discuss methods and interpretations. Have you nailed down the "noise" levels in your readings? How do you choose your leaves? How often do you get erratic, out of scale readings?