Multi Strain, Sensi, Mars TSW 2000, NFT Grow

[OceanicBud]

First Grow Journal so here goes it...

Seeds from Sensi = 2x Sensi Skunk (Fem) + 1x Big Bud (Fem) + 1x White Widow (Fem)

Germination = 18hrs in glass of tap water then moved into wet paper-towel method between 2x plates on a heat-mat, all 4x sprouts out 15mm within 24 hours & moved into 2" Rockwool cubes pre-soaked in PH 5.8 water and placed under propagation dome and 45w blue / red spectrum LED.

Seedlings @ 7 Days (White widow late to sprout - possibly too deep)

Sensi Skunk

 

[OceanicBud]

Seedlings @ 14 days

White Widow last to root and clearly behind the others, air pruned the others on mesh up to this point.

Not sure if this 45w Chinese LED is an effective option, quite cheap, appears to have correct light spectrum but the growth is extremely slow, distance from light 6".

RH @ around 60% and Temp @ around 24c in the propagation tent

 

[OceanicBud]

Into the main tent / system they go

Week 1 of Veg transferred into 6" pots of clay.

All responding far better to the Mars LED's (set at 50% output for first couple of days) and NFT with added drip system, White widow still behind about a week.

Feed =1/4 strength nutes introduced with some Canna Rhizo.

Current challenges - After lights set at 100% output tent hit 31c today so will look to move LED drivers outside tent on the weekend. Flip-side to combating the temps is RH with full ventilation on lowers to 30% so have ordered a nice 5.8Lt Humidifier due in a few days, with this and drivers placed external should allow for stable conditions (Fingers crossed)

 

[OceanicBud]

Week 2 of Veg done and there has been good amount of growth showing now roots have established well into the medium (Polyester wadding) from the clay pots.

3 of the 4 now have been topped above 5th node

Upgraded the reservoir from 27lt to 45lt poly to future ready the thirsty girls. EC up to 1.2 today with the Dutch Master nutes + Rhizo, was a little sign of tip yellowing on the new growth for a couple of days but is under control.

Yesterday temp hit 30c and early signs of heat stress for the 2x Sensi Skunks, have the cables ready now to mount the LED drivers on the outside of the tent this weekend.

White widow is slowly catching up and has found her feet, Big bud going strong on far right, showing no signs of slowing.

 

[StoneOtter]

Hey Oceanicbud The grow looks great! Nice work.

 

[OceanicBud]

Hey Oceanicbud The grow looks great! Nice work.

Thanks Stoneotter, have been unable to grow the last 8 years with rostered work away (was a one off grow anyhow) so pretty much re-learning everything from scratch.

Super happy with quality strain beans and new equipment.

 

[StoneOtter]

Thanks Stoneotter, have been unable to grow the last 8 years with rostered work away (was a one off grow anyhow) so pretty much re-learning everything from scratch.

Super happy with quality strain beans and new equipment.

Things are different these daze. Enjoy

 

[OceanicBud]

End of Week 3 of Veg complete and while I had limited amount of time to dedicate to the tent it both could have gone better but it could have also been worse.

Progress: Got the LED drivers off the reflectors and mounted outside with the timer box on some board, this has helped greatly with internal heat control, drivers were also raised off the wood to A) allow for airflow and B) for safety.

Humidifier arrived and the 6lt tank allows for 24-30 hours humidification, goodbye 30% hello 60% RH

White widow now topped above 5th Node and catching the others. Cleaned up underneath and around each main stem, no major defoliation yet.

Challenges: Yellow spots appearing on a few fan leaves and suspected Magnesium deficiency after initially thinking Calcium, added some CalMag to the mix and there was no additional negative growth afterwards, although inside left Sensi Skunk is thin and struggled a bit with some blistering looking new growth prior to CalMag.

Worst moment was yesterday when beginning the LST to go wide, the bushy Big bud far right was rigid and a main branch broke (one of the 5th node Y branches) so applied first aid and it's touch and go if she recovers life in that one, i think it was an rookie mistake and perhaps I should have pinched and supercropped even though this is HST technique?

After some advice on when to apply a scrog net, i have 2x adjustable for each side of tent, elastic, so want to start training these to go wide. I think I can veg these into week 4-5 as they have very little stretch (mostly Indica >80%) and without LED drivers the low profile lights should raise to 1.85m

 

[Jack420]

I will hang around I’ll b running the ts 3000 nice set up

 

[OceanicBud]

I will hang around I’ll b running the ts 3000 nice set up

Hey cheers, and the 3000's should prove a hit, are they still on pre-order ?

 

[DonkeyDick]

Great strains.
Good growing.
I’m in.

 

[OceanicBud]

Well folks, that's Week 4 of Veg wound up.

Progress: Not a great deal to report, Scrog net in place now for the 2x Sensi Skunk, the last of the topping and some minor super-cropping is done even though I could have pushed them some more.

Challenges: I'm going to straight up say the unevenness in size of the 4x, this is totally my own ambitious fault for doing my first decent grow with 3 different strains, the 2x Sensi Skunks have a good amount of stretch between nodes making them ready for scrog and flipping whereas the White Widow and Big Bud are still smallish, very bushy and compact it's difficult to even work on them, be it bending, LST, super-cropping they just want to grow into themselves...

Other minor issue is the cheap PH pen is starting to read numbers that vary more than I'm comfortable with, I'll likely get a better one to play it safe.

Side Notes:
Bit of odor staring to emerge from these little ones which is pleasing, something I've missed for 8 years since first grow.

The Sensi's are bang on ready to flip to 12/12 IMO although I think I'll wait until the weekend (Just short of 5 weeks veg) to give the Widow and BB a bit more gain and the subsequent scrog to train through for couple weeks of flower stretch (Hopefully)

 

[OceanicBud]

Half way into Week 1 of flower having done the flip, this allowed for approx 14hrs of darkness followed by a quick system flush with fresh water and then onto the new nutes (Cyco platinum bloom A/B) + will give another week or 2 of some low dosage silica and CalMag.

Scrog net applied to the White widow and Big bud side early in the week with enough gain to tuck a few top outwards.

Challenges: Nothing major to report, the Sensi Skunk's again seem to have a Sativa like stretch to them with the Widow and BB remaining short, thick and bushy. This hopefully does not pose a problem as there is 2x seperate lights with 2x Scrog nets to accommodate height accordingly, so at least they can function independent.

Notes: Currently indecisive on when to take clones, I'm thinking after a week or two tops into this 12/12 cycle as I need to buy time so that the smaller tent does not get too far into veg and too big before this 7-8 week flower and clean up is complete for the flowering tent to go again (I'd rather have more time than not enough, my 2nd only grow and 1st attempt at perpetual grow)

2x Sensi Skunks (LHS)

Big Bud & White Widow (Right to Left)

 

[StoneOtter]

PH pen is starting to read numbers that vary more than I'm comfortable with

You might find the glass ball and the other probe that gets dunked dirty. I use a soft toothbrush and (dish soap) soapy water to wash it up. Then re cal. Just a stab.

 

[OceanicBud]

You might find the glass ball and the other probe that gets dunked dirty. I use a soft toothbrush

Thanks man, I've always made sure to rinse in fresh but cleaning the glass probe helps maintain better numbers I see now, got another one coming with higher accuracy and can always fall back on this one for redundancy and cross checking calibrations.

 

[OceanicBud]

Well and truly into week 2 of flower now and almost wishing the stretch on the skunks would slow a little as they are indica dominant I underestimated these and expected a closer alignment to the Widow & BB, I've still got light height so not sweating yet.

Progress: Taken some cutting part the way through the week, not sure of the success rate on these as they were a week plus into flower but wanted to but time considering i'll need the flowering tent for another 6-7 weeks. Cuttings are from the Big Bud & White Widow.

Challenges: Higher humidity, however, alas I've received the de-humidifier and installed last night, still in the low 50's but I think these girls are due for defoliation over the next fortnight so this should (fingers crossed) help lower RH %

 

[StoneOtter]

Looking great today!

 

[OceanicBud]

As Week 3 of Flower is nigh it's apparent these girls are slowing the flowering stretch as the Budlets develop (Thankfully for the Sativa looking Super Skunk's (Apparently 80% Indica)

Progress: Nutes being taken up well @ 1100ppm, adding the Ozi Magic Big Bud to hopefully fatten that bit extra the Colas over coming weeks, a comfortable 22geg C for water temp, stable 6.0 PH water, so much so there are roots that have explored the pipes and come out into the reservoir.

Challenges: RH , even with the new dehumidifier on 24/7 the humidity is still around 55% bottom of tent and 65-68% top of tent so if this can't be bettered then I'll need to increase air circulation at minimum for the remainder of grows.

You can clearly see how disparate the heights are with so much stretch in the skunks going Sativa like.

 

[OceanicBud]

With Week 4 of Bloom almost out the way and plenty to report on:

Progress: Cuttings taken 2 weeks ago rooted well, took best 4 of the 6 that rooted from 10 and the small veg tent is active for the first ever perpetual cropping, these cuttings are 3x Big Bud 1x White widow, the parents proved short and stocky, ideal candidates, unlike the Sensi Skunks.

Growth appears to have gained a couple of inches this week before stopping. Buds are beginning to stack on the stems nicely for the BB / WW with node spacing still apparent on SS.

Challenges: Had a 40c degree day over the weekend here in Aus and summer is about to start in a couple of weeks RH while lights on is still an issue when hitting 68% and dropping back to optimal 40% lights off.
Rust spots and curled burnt leaf tips began half way through the week, the girls are taking up more H2O than nutes so levels increased from 1100ppm to 1400ppm so this could be nutrient burn and or possible Calcium or Magnesium deficiency, hard to diagnose and no expert by any means. Wound back nutes to 900 – 1000ppm and monitoring twice a day to play it safe.

Wk 4 conclusion: Lesson learned with mixed strains in same tent / reservoir, with SS reaching max light height I can only see the apparent 20% sativa stretch in these, thus why clones have only been taken from WW & BB

Will start a new journal on these little ladies shortly.

 

[OceanicBud]

Week 5 flower almost complete:

Progress: Not a lot to report, slowly swelling bud sizes on the Big Bud and White Widow, increasing levels of Trichome production.

Challenges: More than progress, the Sensi Skunks have reached light heaigh and stopped vertical growth, there are some areas that had to be diverted from being too close to light. We had two 40c days of heat this week so tent could only intake 35c+ temps with not havnig an A/C.

Increased rust color edges of fan leaves, primarily on the Big bud, some on the skunks and very minimal on the White widow, appears like Magnesium deficiency, however I'm thinking Nute burn as the levels have been >1100ppm as the heat forced more water inntake than nutes, water temp itself has been up to 26-27 so realising this is not ideal the fix is not simple without A/C