Green Knight Berry Bomb Hydro CFL - Experiment #1: Supercropped Defoliated ScROG

Yep your right Knight.. Soil grow! I'm still a bit nervous with Hydro but willing to learn. I see the wisdom in the screen for sure. I have been turned off in the past based simply on sloppy set ups. That said it really doesn't matter I guess. Its the Bud we want! Your set up looks clean and easy to navigate.
 
iSmokes said:
Are you talking about resevoir changes spring?
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Soil. sure seems it would be a pain in soil. At least for flushes and feeding it would.
 
spring2012 said:
Yep your right Knight.. Soil grow! I'm still a bit nervous with Hydro but willing to learn. I see the wisdom in the screen for sure. I have been turned off in the past based simply on sloppy set ups. That said it really doesn't matter I guess. Its the Bud we want! Your set up looks clean and easy to navigate.
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Thanks spring - it's also right next to the bathroom which is handy- it makes it really easy to do the res changes.

A soil scrog would be perfectly doable -you could always put the screen a bit higher so you can get under it to water, but you'll love hydro mate. It's so clean and easy, and doesn't have to be expensive to set up. It sounds much more complicated than it is with all the pH, EC and stuff, but really it's dead easy. You could do a simple set up like mine for one plant and get a feeling for it but you're unlikely to mess it up - even if its not 100% you'll still get loads of bud!
 
I already picked a lot of tips from GK springa.. He's so right about DWC lol, so convenient.. I'm doing little experiments with hydro to learn and I'm loving it. Once you know how much pH down your resevoir needs to get to the magic spot it becomes so easy. Just take your time figuring that out and it will become easy later :thumb:
I'm planning to start my hydro adventures with advanced nutes to avoid pH problems. I always like to eliminate variables and AN will pretty much take away ppm and pH troubles. GK I can honestly say you were one of the big factors that influenced my decision to switch to hydro. Cheers brotha :grinjoint: May your nugs be sticky, dense, and stinky :Namaste:
 
I have to say I'm still iffy about the screen :(.. I love how many growers make it work so well, but I move my plants a lot, I love taking individual plants out and just inspecting them in my living room while enjoying a fat joint :).. I don't know, maybe I'll get into that some time later, one step at a time :)
 
Thanks iSmokes, I'm flattered mate. And you're so right, it's those first couple of weeks figuring out the exact amount of pH down! You put a bit in, it's not enough, add a bit more, it's too much, add some up, oops, more down!! Then you find the exact amount you need to add each res change and suddenly there's no stress and everything's a doddle. I add the down when i mix the nutes and then the only pH adjustment I find i need to do is top the res up with a bit of plain water after 5 days and this brings the pH back to 5.8.

Canna also do a pH stable formula which I'd like to try, but I don't want to switch nutes halfway through this experiment cos it will complicate things with the next one. They're a really good idea and take away another variable to worry about, and I'm sure they're as good as non-buffered nutes.

It is nice to be able to move things about easily, particularly if youve got a few plants and the screen does make this more difficult. You could always build something like Vick074's porta scrog, with the screen attached to the pot so the whole thing can be moved without disturbing the plant, and you could put little wheels on it. Pimp my Pot.
 
LOL! Pimp the plant ride! Actually seems like a good idea. I am practicing with tomatoes now. Cloning them and gonna try a few in the DWC set up DP came up with. I have some AN PH down. Hmmm....
 
Thanks Tony, that's really kind of you. I think being to the point is more luck and laziness than intention and good judgement on my part though! I'm generally long-winded and verbose - why use 10 words when you can use 100!

Things should hopefully start getting a little more exciting soon as I don't think I'm that far off starting to flower.

Congrats again on the good news mate!
 
A mini sort of update. We're now at day 68 of veg. The screen has filled a bit more and there's a reaosnable amount now growing up through it. Yesterday I did a bit more general maintenance - supercropping and bending, defoliating to expose new growth and spreading out a bit more under the screen. I also topped two tops in / near the middle that were growing up through the screen and had nowhere else to go but had some reasonable side branches just below where I topped them (thanks to Jon for the advice here)

Before:
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So I smashed her about a bit and this is her today after 24h recovery:
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Underneath was getting very untidy so I also had a reasonable clear out last week, taking out any small branches etc that were unlikely to do anything and would probably be taken out anyway at a later date.

I have a slight dilemma in the sense that my plan yesterday was that it would be the last maintenance / stripping and she would have a few days recovery and then I'd flip the lights this weekend after a 24h dark period Friday/Saturday. Looking again today though I'm thinking she could probably do longer in veg.

I'm not going to fill all of the very last row on the left anyway due to the wires and plugs just above the screen (a planning error - the intention was the power points would be below the screen but above the res and out of the way of leaks, but it didn't turn out that way unfortunately), but there's still space on the right and, in particular, the front. What I don't want to do is massively overcrowd things, but I would also quite like a reasonably full screen. I'm thinking I could probably fill what's left with stretch but having not done a scrog or grown this strain before it's all a bit of a guestimate.

So my question is - given where things are do you think starting to flower this weekend would be reasonable, or is it too soon and I should wait?

Thanks in advance for any advice!
 
Thanks jon! You're always so quick in your responses to questions too, it's great, thank you.

And that's a really good point I hadn't thought of - yes, it's solid walls round the screen so the very last row would most probably have issues for airflow as you point out, and also probably a lack of light on the wall-facing side of the bud. I should probably view my screen minus the last row all the way round to give that little bit of breathing space.

The back unfortunately will always be a bit of a challenge because the plant is slightly off centre in the tote so I can just swing the front lid open for res changes/inspection etc. There is air drawn up through a vent at the back which should help a bit, and I plan to put another small fan under the scrog to keep air moving underneath. I really want to avoid bud rot - I had it in a grow ten or so years ago and it was really shit!
 
Wish i had more experience to offer you some advice. I will say she looks good and is filling out the screen nice. How much more growth do you expect once you flip? You have a point with the wires. I like to be nice and neat but looks like you may be able to re-arrange? Pain in the ass!
 
Cheers spring. I'm not really sure how much stretch to expect to be honest. I've been watching Jon's berry bomb closely but I'm not using GLR though so I think she may stretch a bit more. It's been so long since I last grew that I don't really have any feeling for it and because the last grow was an auto it doesn't really help in this area unfortunately. Looking at it gut feeling says the very last rows front, right and left wont fill (which isn't a bad thing on Jon's advice), but it will probably be a bit too crowded at the back.

I think it's safer to err on the side of caution because I have to repeat things exactly the same for the non-defoliated grow next time. Which unfortunately means if I'm true to my word I'll need to deliberately screw the next grow up if I accidentally screw this one up. Which will be perverse and incredibly frustrating - it's bad enough that I can't improve the next grow based on what I've learn from this one, let alone deliberately make mistakes I know will be detrimental!

I can neaten the wires up a bit but and put them through one square but unfortunately it's the sockets and plugs just above the screen - I installed a load of double sockets wired into the ring main and they're all properly chased into the wall, so moving them will be a bit of a ball ache. When we come to sell the house and I've dismantled the grow cupboard people are going to wonder why the hell anyone would go to the trouble of installing four double sockets in a cupboard at the top of the stairs. (Or they might be put 2 + 2 together.....)

Thank you all very much for your help! This weekend will be flip weekend. So Friday lights will go out for 24h, and 12/12 will then start. When the lights come back on I'll also do the res change. I'm using Canna Hydro and following their feed schedule so I'll add Boost and up the EC of the Vega nutes from 1.3 to 1.5. I'll monitor the EC closely and if it's a bit much I'll drop it down. In a week or two, once they've stretched and started flowering, i'll switch to Flores. Boost now gets added every week from flip until flush.
 
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