KJ's T5/CFL 1st Time Grow

Got the light laid out better, not perfect because I'm short a timer and had to share on for the T8s and the cords aren't long enough to reach!

One thing I noticed when moving things around is that these plants are now as tall as several in the 1st grow. It's getting close to flower time for the 2nd grow and I still haven't taken the clones for the 3rd grow! I'm now going to have to build another clone machine and get that clone closet out of the 1st grow room.

BTW, the 3rd HPS brought the temps up to 81 so I need to get on those vents soon, that 5000 BTU A/C isn't cutting it.

Busy, busy, busy...
 
I just remembered that CA215 said his Rascal was a bit behind mine and I think he started flowering at about the same time. Maybe the size of the bud is just a Rascal thing. It's my 1st grow ever so I really don't have anything to compare it to.

I do know that some said 2x or 3x growth in flowering, but I haven't seen anything close to that, so I really don't know.

My 2nd grow is still in veg and some of them are taller now than the flowering ones from the 1st grow. Which reminds me that I need to get going on the clones so I can get the 2nd grow into flowering. At this point, it looks like I'll have 36 plants in flower and whatever the 3rd grow ends up being.
 
Grow 3 is officially underway! I took the clone tonight and they are in the DIY clone machine!

I selected mostly Rascal OG from the "branchist" plants. I mixed in some Mr NiceGuy as well. 11 mr nice and 16 Rascal.

I picked the longest lower branches I could find from the best plants.

Based on the last clone set, they should root in 10~14 days.

I'm thinking about making another clone machine and taking some more in about a week or two so I can get the timing closer between grows.

Several of the 2nd grow are taller than the more mature plants in the 1st grow, and they've been in flower for near 8 weeks!

This 2nd grow could be a MONSTER grow, it's 26 plants and the 1st grow is 10 + 1 little stubby one!

I don't know if making a 2nd clone machine would be a good idea, that would put me at about 50 plants in a grow and I just don't know if I have the room for that.

I'll probably move the clone closet as soon as I move it out of the 1st grow room and add the vents I should have added last time.

I really don't think I'll be able to get the timing right this round, I think next time I should end up with better timing. In other words, these clones should have been taken a month ago, so I'll hold the 2nd grow from flowering and clone them again in a week or two, at that time, the 3rd grow should be in the 18oz cups and fully rooted.
 
Here's the pics of grow 3:
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Update: Watered the 1st grow with just KoolBloom and Molassas, using 5ml/gallon. I'll see how they react in the morning. The new clones are looking fine, no signs of stress. I have them sharing one of the MH lights and some CFLs, so they should be fine there.

Fired up the portable A/C and it dropped the 1st grow room by 7 deg. I'm going to start running that during lights on until I can get the big A/C unit setup. HD didn't have the vents I needed, I want 2 large vents per room, probably 12X12 and I'd like them on separate sides of the room to create some cross flow. One will be A/C in and the other will be air drawn back to the A/C for cooling. I might have to make a custom manifold setup for this so I don't end up with a bunch of ducting all over the attic.

Local grower suggested that my temps might be too high and that could be causing some problems.
 
KarlJay said:
Update: Watered the 1st grow with just KoolBloom and Molassas, using 5ml/gallon. I'll see how they react in the morning. The new clones are looking fine, no signs of stress. I have them sharing one of the MH lights and some CFLs, so they should be fine there.

Fired up the portable A/C and it dropped the 1st grow room by 7 deg. I'm going to start running that during lights on until I can get the big A/C unit setup. HD didn't have the vents I needed, I want 2 large vents per room, probably 12X12 and I'd like them on separate sides of the room to create some cross flow. One will be A/C in and the other will be air drawn back to the A/C for cooling. I might have to make a custom manifold setup for this so I don't end up with a bunch of ducting all over the attic.

Local grower suggested that my temps might be too high and that could be causing some problems.
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Dude I enjoy reading the updates! I am shocked how much you have going on. I have a day job and its all I can do to find time to manage my 5 plants nearing harvest and my 2nd grow of 4 plants in the clone cupboard lol. I am about to harvest the first ever grow, then clone from all of my 4 new ones (which were clones) and then throw them into flower. I haven't decided if I should keep one mother (a clone of the best producing plant from the first grow?) or just keep cloning from all the clones before flowering them...

Thoughts?
 
Hmmm, what are your temps KJ? I don't think its heat on the count of my tent hits 92f sometimes and rascal seems to still be kickin it. Did you look up flowering times for the rascal OG also? I keep finding 40-50 days, then I'll find something saying 50-60, and some people growing till day 75.. Figure we let them stick it out until we see some of that amber on the buds? Just wanted to throw some of that info at ya :thumb:EDIT: Ok research for the rascal OG. Found a forum where a guy was growing rascal out to 68 days, he said these plants are a little tempermental, N and CalMag whores.. But nute wise they are very strong and tolerate. If I find some more info Ill bring it by
 
ontariogrow said:
Dude I enjoy reading the updates! I am shocked how much you have going on. I have a day job and its all I can do to find time to manage my 5 plants nearing harvest and my 2nd grow of 4 plants in the clone cupboard lol. I am about to harvest the first ever grow, then clone from all of my 4 new ones (which were clones) and then throw them into flower. I haven't decided if I should keep one mother (a clone of the best producing plant from the first grow?) or just keep cloning from all the clones before flowering them...

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Thanks, it's nice to know someone's reading what I post :D

As far as cloning goes, I'm keeping records to determine what's most effective for getting the best plants. However, there's a reason I've now got 64 active plants! If I screw up a few, I've got a few to spare, and I don't have to be as concerned when a few don't end up being rockstars.

I looked thru grow 2 and I see one plant that has at least twice as many branches as another. She actually has two branches at one node and about 1/2" up another node. This one has at least twice the potential bud site as the 'lanky tall ones' do. So I cloned her heavy for the 3rd grow.

Also, with 26 plants in veg, and looking to clone maybe 54 off those, I only need to pick an average of 2/plant... In other words, I can be VERY picky which plants and which branches will be selected for clones.

I don't know which is more important, genetics or environment. This is an age old question about humans... Kids from 'great' parents end up bad, kids from 'bad' parents end up great. (use whatever standard for great and bad parents, but you get the point)

I'm pretty sure I started my 1st grow poorly, several mistakes. So I'm not going with 1 mother. I'm keeping records and I see tall skinny plants and bushy plants. I'll go back and look at the linage of the bushy ones.

In starting grow 3, I pulled heavy from a few plants and skipped many plants. Kinda like a dog or horse breeder... But at the same time, I'm growing as many as I can to put all the odds in my favor. I don't like being dependent on 1 single factor and I wouldn't like being dependent on a few mother plants...
 
CA215 said:
Hmmm, what are your temps KJ? I don't think its heat on the count of my tent hits 92f sometimes and rascal seems to still be kickin it. Did you look up flowering times for the rascal OG also? I keep finding 40-50 days, then I'll find something saying 50-60, and some people growing till day 75.. Figure we let them stick it out until we see some of that amber on the buds? Just wanted to throw some of that info at ya :thumb:EDIT: Ok research for the rascal OG. Found a forum where a guy was growing rascal out to 68 days, he said these plants are a little tempermental, N and CalMag whores.. But nute wise they are very strong and tolerate. If I find some more info Ill bring it by
Click to expand...

I don't have a temp gauge at the top of the grow, it sits on the clone cabinet. It was reading 82 and the 2nd A/C brought it to 77~75 So I know it made a big difference overall. I like the idea of making the plants think fall is coming.

Ok, so the Rascal is an N and CaliMag whore? Good to know. What do you use for these? That CALiMAGic isn't the cheapest stuff. What do you use for the N? How often do you add for the N and calimag?

68 would be close to where I'm at pretty soon!

I watched a few more vids on utube and I'm seeing 10~15% and another saying 30% for a harvest point. I'm expecting to see amber any second now :D
 
Gotcha. Atleast you know where it hovers that's good. My tent is at, 86 right now yikes. Better than 92! LOL. I don't supplement anything to my plants N, Ca, Mag, I let them roll with the waves :surf: seems to be working well for her at the moment. I might have to possibly look into some additives to fix some issues I'm having with my purple kush.. Best of luck to you KJ, :thumb: CA
 
Here's a few more pics, shows how I setup the 3rd HPS light for the 1st grow, thinking it'll pick up the pace a bit.

I show a pic of the near done flowering plant next to one from the 2nd grow and they are pretty much the same height. If this 1st grow continues to drag I might have to run two flowering rooms and pull out the clone closet for veg, but I did want to pull the 4th set of clones in a fairly soon so I can get more even flow between the rooms.

Got the HVAC ducts just need to fab up a manifold and install the jumbo A/C. It's too heavy to lift and I don't think my crane will get it up there.

Took out the same plant as last time for some regular light photos, searching for amber trichs, hard for me to tell, some seem to be amber.

Also, put up a ruler to get a size compare, someone suggested they were small and would get much, much larger later... It's hard to get a size compare from a pic, so I added a ruler to help out with sizing...


These are from a 1/2 dead leaf where I pinched off the dead part for this pic, the edges look amberish

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Here's a compare of the 1st grow and the 2nd grow side by side.

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Here's a size compare so you can get an idea of the "actual size"

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Here's the temp light layout. I know it's too close to the other lights, but I haven't setup the ceiling bars yet, so I really don't have too many choices.

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Let me know if you spot any ambers... we're doing an Amber Hunt :D
 
CA215 said:
Gotcha. Atleast you know where it hovers that's good. My tent is at, 86 right now yikes. Better than 92! LOL. I don't supplement anything to my plants N, Ca, Mag, I let them roll with the waves :surf: seems to be working well for her at the moment. I might have to possibly look into some additives to fix some issues I'm having with my purple kush.. Best of luck to you KJ, :thumb: CA
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I can run my temp up to 86, 60% Rh and look out.......they grow like overfed children! Circulation.......ventilation.........no rot or anything...I do blow the moisture out before lights out.....If using co2 you can run temps even higher!......I don't ever go over 96 degrees with co2...and I try to keep it below 86 or 87 without.
 
mcloadie said:
I can run my temp up to 86, 60% Rh and look out.......they grow like overfed children! Circulation.......ventilation.........no rot or anything...I do blow the moisture out before lights out.....If using co2 you can run temps even higher!......I don't ever go over 96 degrees with co2...and I try to keep it below 86 or 87 without.
Click to expand...

Anything that's not clear or cloudy is amber....you are at....uh....errr......30 % amber IMHO. That is on the ones with the mostest.
 
Got the clone closet out of the 1st grow room, now I can setup the lights so I can move the 2nd grow into flowering. I don't know if they'll both fit in there so another option is to have both rooms as flowering room for a few weeks and then use the clone closet as the only place for veg.

The only big problem is that I wanted to take more clones, but not now. I wanted to take more clones in about 2 weeks.

I don't think you can clone off plants that are in flower, if I start the 2nd grow into flowering, I won't have anything to clone for a while and I don't know how long that'll be. These are about 2 months old so and the clones I was able to take were pretty prime. I don't want to clone off short branches, I'd rather take the longest branches I can.

Probably down to 2 choices:
1. make another clone machine, take more clones.
2. wait for the new clones to grow out, about a month, then see if they are good for cloning at that point.
 
Took a small sample today near the top of the most mature plant. Didn't see any amber when I did a spot check, but I'll have someone do a compare in a few days.

Also, I came up with a solution to the falling branches. It was just one plant that had the problem so I used strings running up to bamboo supports that are duct taped on the sides of the bag.

Still working on the ceiling rods so I can reconfigure the lights and move others in there for flowering.
 
Got some of the ceiling bars in place and moved 16 of the biggest plants from grow 2 into flower.

I did this just at lights out, so they'll start the 12/12 next cycle after the dark.

This leaves me with 10 of the smaller plants to clone for grow 4.

I'm moving the 4th HPS light over to the flower room after I setup 1 more ceiling rod. I think it'll be pretty tight in there, but I'll find a way to sort it out.

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I noticed the clones where not liking the open room, so I got them into the clone closet where I can up the RH. Went from 30's to 50's + and they seem to like it much better. Now I have to drop some more elec lines, as I'm running out of plugs.

One advantage of the gull wing HPS lights is that I can hang them on 2 of the 4 hooks and it makes it more of a side light, so I'm doing that until I get all the lighting sorted out.
 
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