My Mystery Indica Reveg

greengostarr

greengostarr

New Member
So, as a quick intro to this journal, I'll give you a little of my background and the background of this grow.

I have only really grown outdoors before in a very hot and arid environment. My only real experience with indoor growing was about 30 years using fluorescent. However, due to the stupidity of someone else, everything was rather hastily confiscated by LEOs.

So, on to this grow. To be honest, I didn't initially plan on this grow and it all came about serendipitously. To cut a long story short, sometime around late August this year I decided to trim a very tall and severely overgrown yew hedge that stands between the garden and the road. This road is in a very small rural town somewhere in Europe and is a popular place for parking with cars parked virtually 24/7.

As I was sweeping up the clippings I was shocked to find a pathetic looking plant that I immediately recognised growing amongst the accumulated leaf litter. She, for I immediately recognised her as a she, was only about 8 inches high with four branches with the start of buds at the end of each and little else. She looked as if she had been somehow topped as there was no main vertical growth. She was severely undernourished and suffering from light deficiency as well. Being a caring horticulturist, I couldn't let her die and resolved to save her.

Being quite familiar with different strains, I could quite easily tell she was either an Indica predominant cross or a pure Indica!

As she was just growing on the leaf litter sitting atop the asphalt, I managed to easily remove her and repot her into some rich compost without causing her too much stress.I left her in the sunniest position in the garden to see what I could salvage from her. As the days lengthened and the temperature dropped, it soon became apparent that she would amount little more than a few bowlfuls.

This would be such a shame, I thought, so resolved to bring her in out of the cold and reveg her. Naturally, this incurred the immediate purchase of equipment to help her reach her potential. As this was to be a semi secret project, kept hidden from an elderly family member who watched energy consumption like a hawk (he is heavily into energy efficiency and had just refitted the entire very, very large house with LED light bulbs), I decided to look into LEDs as a light source and settled on a 450W panel.

Along with the lights, I also purchased a 1.2m x 1.2m x 2m Budbox Pro White grow tent, a small pump and accessories, some expanded clay pellets and the General Hydroponics three part Gro series nutrients and set it up with a drip feed system and pressed play.

For the first few weeks in her new home she did very little and, if anything, looked as if she was going to die. I became slightly worried and even contemplated acquiring some seeds so as not to waste my new investment. I shouldn't have worried as she soon came to crept back to life sprouting those weird, curly and single frond leaves that I had been anticipating.

Once the first mutated looking leaves had sprouted forth, there was no stopping her and she was on her way. As the buds were doing nothing I simply snipped them off and watched her grow. I have always used LST in the past as it just made so much sense from a yield perspective so I was familiar with the increased internodal growth, but I was not prepared for how she reacted. She went mental, throwing up branches left right and centre with the internodal branches growing almost as quickly as the main shoot.

As she kept going crazy in her growth, I snipped off the odd leaf here and there to allow as much light as possible to the growing shoots. It was and is my intention to train her into a SOG to maximise the growing space available. As she kept growing I very quickly realised that there are just not enough degrees in a circle to train all the shoots to grow horizontally. I soon came to realise that, although it pains me to do it, I am going to have to trim off some of these rampant shoots to allow room for others to develop and reach their potential and this where I am at right now. I have just sorted out a camera and have taken a few pics of her as she currently is before I attack her for her own good.

She is currently on a 20-4 light regime and has been inside now for about six weeks now. I understand that, because I want to get her to fill the horizontal space, I will have to veg her for much longer than the regular six weeks that seems so popular.

So, this is she and just have a look how dense and bushy she is! It is almost her bed time so I shan't attack her tonight, but will do so in the morning.

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Cheers Weasel :thumb:

I like that you have attached your SCROG frame to your pots. I was/am contemplating SCROG and was trying to figure out how I could move the plant if I did as I have an open reservoir system that I like to keep clean. I might look into this!
 
As an addendum, i suspect that she may be suffering nitrogen toxicity even though I've been sticking with the recommended dosing and keeping the reservoir topped up. So, along with trimming the shoots, I'm going to drain the reservoir and flush for a day before adding a weaker nutrient solution.

It is worth adding that the dosage has only recently been increased.
 
Hey Weasel, just wanted to bring your attention to the following quote I found while perusing the Lights section referring to the same light as I have.


PlatinumLED said:
You mean 27+ ounces from one plant under 100% LED..

:Namaste:
Click to expand...

*ETA The original quote to which the above poster was responding said one P450; guess I should have gone to the source before posting as even the title of the referred journal says it's 2 lights.

HSO Lost Coast Hashplant - One Plant 2 Lights One Love
 
So, I have diluted the nutrients 50% and will wait till morning to empty the reservoir ready for the flushing and given her a severe pruning and a little bit more stem crushing for supercropping, the results of which can be seen below. It's interesting that the colour hue has changed from a purple cast to a blue cast in the pics.
 
Thanks for the link. :thumb: I read through a bunch of it. It would seem like Curso got 1.5 grams per watt under those LEDs. Amazing.
I can't help but feel sceptical about people who claim such high yields. Not that I'm saying that it's not true- and I don't have any particular reason to doubt someone's word.
It is high though. Most people on this forum don't seem to reach 1 gpw. That's pretty much the upper limit from what I can see.
 
You would have noticed that his grow took 6 months and I suspect that this has a lot to do with his yield. It seems many people are looking for the quickest turn around and veg for 6 weeks and perhaps that is why their yields are not as high. From what I've seen and read, these LEDs seem to have the penetration to support much more than a six week veg, even with a sativa.

As you know, I'm looking for yield over turnaround time and will veg as long as I think is necessary to fill the tent to maximise yield from this one lady. If I can achieve 1.5 gms per watt, I will be stoked. Perhaps you should think about setting up your 'winnings' and see what you can achieve.

As I've mentioned, this is my first full indoors, first hydro and first LED, so, with your experience, if you feel like screaming wtf are you doing? please feel free. This is a huge learning curve for me and I just wish I had had the internet when I first started growing all those years ago. That being said, there is no experience like personal experience, but it's awesome to be able to climb on the backs of others.
 
I did a ton of research. Google was my best friend! Both my dad and step dad grew helped too so I had some knowledge which helped. Some of the best advice I ever got.
 
greengostarr said:
You would have noticed that his grow took 6 months and I suspect that this has a lot to do with his yield. It seems many people are looking for the quickest turn around and veg for 6 weeks and perhaps that is why their yields are not as high. From what I've seen and read, these LEDs seem to have the penetration to support much more than a six week veg, even with a sativa.

As you know, I'm looking for yield over turnaround time and will veg as long as I think is necessary to fill the tent to maximise yield from this one lady. If I can achieve 1.5 gms per watt, I will be stoked. Perhaps you should think about setting up your 'winnings' and see what you can achieve.

As I've mentioned, this is my first full indoors, first hydro and first LED, so, with your experience, if you feel like screaming wtf are you doing? please feel free. This is a huge learning curve for me and I just wish I had had the internet when I first started growing all those years ago. That being said, there is no experience like personal experience, but it's awesome to be able to climb on the backs of others.
Click to expand...



I only got internet where I am not long before I joined 420. Spent quite a few years growing like a Neanderthal previous to that- but have learned ten times as much since I joined the forum than I did in those years. Definitely no expert but happy to follow along, and help if I can.

The 1.5 gpw idea does kind of make me say wtf- but we can talk hypothetical yields all day and it's fairly pointless, especially at this point in the grow. There have been many threads on the subject of yield and always a few people who come along to claim huge numbers, but the evidence always gets very shaky when people start claiming yields much above 1gpw.

Almost all growers try to fill their growing area by vegging till it is full. Scrogging and training helps spread the plant canopy out to get the most out of the light. Some strains yield more than others. But at the end of the day there is only so much physical space under the light for buds, no matter how much vegging and training you do.

Anyway- don't mean to spend a bunch of time arguing about it. Just trying to point out that your estimates may be a little high. Personally I rarely worry much about yield in my own grow. Job number one is to grow healthy plants of a strain and quality that I like. Yield follows plant health.
Will be following and I wish your plants the best of health. :thumb:
 
So, it is a while since I have updated and feel the time is now ripe.

Previously, due to burning of the tips of the leaves and the 'claw', I concluded that the little lady was suffering from nute burn. As I proposed, I cleaned out the reservoir and flushed it for in excess of 24 hours before restarting on 50% nutes. However, she still did not seem to be responding very well and the ph was climbing crazily - from less than 6 to 7.5 in less 12 hours, but let me back track.

When researching PH control, I thought I could use vinegar as a ph down solution and decided to check. Many people suggested this was fine, whilst others said DO NOT USE VINEGAR without explaining why. So, I used vinegar to lower the ph and I was chasing my preferred ph of between 5.5 and 6 three or four times a day in an effort to try and control it, but all to no avail. I suspected that I could have an algae problem, so completely covered my reservoir with black pvc in an effort to combat this. Yes, there appeared to be some slight green algae in the expanded clay pellets, but nothing that would convince me that algae was responsible for the rapid ph rise. I noticed there was a creamy coloured gelatinous slime growing on the sides of the reservoir, but I would never have identified that as algae (yes, I know it can be different colours). I have since determined that this is the residue of the vinegar breaking down!! Finally, I happened upon a post somewhere that claimed that vinegar was actually responsible for the ph rise due to the manner in which it broke down (pity I didn't keep the link). Therefore, I resolved to get some phosphoric acid ph down. However, due to my physical isolation, I had to resort to ordering online. That shit took nearly a week to arrive, so I was left in the catch 22 situation of using vinegar to control the spiralling ph or changing the nutrients on a daily basis. When the phosphoric acid finally arrived, I completely cleaned out the reservoir and started the 50% nute solution again. Problem solved! Sure, as the darling took up nutrients, the ph rises slightly as expected, but very slowly and manageable.

Advice to all noob hydro growers - Never, ever use vinegar to lower your PH. Pay a little bit more for a high percentage acid and set your mind at at ease.

Even though she was suffering, she was still bushing out like crazy and I've had to severely prune on two separate occasions.

Let me just add that most of my outdoor experience has been with sativa dominant strains with a relatively large difference between internodal growth compared to this stocky bitch, and I have always LSTed to improve yield. My original goal was to super crop, lst and scrog to get this girl to fill my 4' X 4' space, but she has had other ideas, with the lateral shoots growing almost as much as the main tip and, therefore, being far too bushy (I understand that this is probably due to being revegged) . In retrospect, I should have take clones earlier on in the reveg phase and used quantity to fill the space rather than rely on the vertical growth converted to lateral growth to achieve the same result with one single plant. Rather late to the party, I have now done just that and taken two growing tips and used them in an attempt to fill the space instead. As an FYI, I do not have cloning root powder and always act on the spur of the moment, so have simply stuck the clones in the expanded clay pellets with the dripper affording a constant source of moisture - after 13 hours they are pert and lively. What all this means is that my harvest will be delayed by at least an extra month from what I anticipated, but should still come close to providing my expected yield.

Furthermore, I have not set up a scrog screen, but have been utilising supercropping and coat hangers as weights to hold the growing tips down. Now, this is cumbersome and not very practical so I will purchase lead fishing weights and will attach them with plasticised wire ties rather than using a scrog screen as I believe this is a far more practical solution for me than affixing the screen to the growing pot as weaselcracker has done.

I'll take and uploads pics tomorrow as I can't be arsed doing so right now. I just wanted to pass on my experience to other noobs who can benefit from my trials and tribulations and avoid the same mistakes.
 
Hey AngryBird,

I've been a little slow to upload pics as I wanted to wait until I weighted her down properly and coat hangers would not get in the way. As it's been below freezing the last few days, I've been hibernating and only ventured out to get the weights today. :)

As per usual, the pics are of crappy quality being taken with my laptop and under the LEDs, but you get that. As you can see, even after being heavily pruned at least 3 times, she is still bushy as fuck.

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