Progress

[The Celt]

@bobrown14, do you not ever top any plants? I know I have been away a few years and thoughts change but for indoor grows from seed, I top mine and train to give a even canopy for better light penetration, outside grows I leave them grow natural.

Just curious as to the reason you don’t top plants.

 

[bobrown14]

Only time i top is when a VEG plant wont be making it into flower. Missing the boat if you will. I only do that because up putting 4' tall plants is a pita. Doable but a pain.

I grow big plants indoors. Find the not topping I get better yields.

Here's an example. No topping. Plenty of side branches.

I add malted barley ground fine at 1 cup / cu.ft. to my soil and foliar on pure coconut water in VEG and flower. Get plenty of branches.

 

[The Celt]

@bobrown14

That makes sense. I guess from my perspective, my plants go from the 1qt pots they start in directly to the 14gal pots (18 of them in a 4x8 tent) and this grow I will be pheno hunting.

The plan had been to see turn around time from seed to harvest topping 2x (for 4 tops per plant) and then into flower. That is still more or less the plan, but the girls are going to be delayed being topped due to other priorities, taking precedence in personal life.

Maybe as I have 18 plants going into this tent, and they are all the same strain from the same batch of seed, I will follow my original plan of topping for 9 of them, and leave the other 9 au natural and see if one way works better in my setup than the other.

Thanks for the input Bob, gives me something to consider

 

[bobrown14]

Pheno hunting. I get that for sure. Wow 18 - 14gal pots gonna be a lot of weed. I like to get in there and move plants around and clean some since I'm perpetual.

The perpetual thing comes into play for me, that and I run a lot of different strains at the same time so finish times vary for every plant.

pheno hunting for me = the cuts that root are the keepers. lol

Edit

@The Celt welcome back brother..

 

[The Celt]

I like your pheno hunting strategy lol

For me, due to my job, I have to have a set-and-forget type of grow as I can be away for a week at a time, and I am finally getting it dialed in so it works for me.

As for the pheno hunt, this batch of seed was from a recent self cross of Blue Dream. First grow of this strain was from Humbolts seed and there where 4 phenos. The clone of one of the phenos that was very Sativa dominate didn’t take. I am hunting for that pheno again as it had an amazing terpene profile and taste as well as a great smoke when I needed to be active but also needed pain control.

 

[AdaminCO]

I ran topped earlier last year, and currently finishing off two uptopped. I had a considerable amount more yield on the topped, compared to what the untopped is looking like.

Not topped

Topped w/LST

The top two plants are clones from the bottom plants. It could have been from other factors, yet the buds were definitely bigger on the topped.

Topped Jack Herer

Untopped Jack Herer

Not saying one way is better, I just have better results with topped plants.

 

[bobrown14]

Very nice - what are you using for watering?? You have automated I'm assuming?

BD is a big plant. Probably some of the largest I've ran indoors other than Durban

I ran a whole room one time. I had weed out my ears. lol

@AdaminCO - whats the time frame on the un-topped vs the topped versions and I'm assuming you're comparing clones of the same plant??

 

[AdaminCO]

Very nice - what are you using for watering?? You have automated I'm assuming?

BD is a big plant. Probably some of the largest I've ran indoors other than Durban

I ran a whole room one time. I had weed out my ears. lol

@AdaminCO - whats the time frame on the un-topped vs the topped versions and I'm assuming you're comparing clones of the same plant??

It was roughly the same. 10 weeks for the Jacks, 13 for the AKs, and 16 for the Afghans. The two remaining are the Afghans.

These are from their topped mama.

Nontopped w/LST

I did a lot of different experiments with those 6 and the 6 clones I pulled from each. I had two of each so I ran half one way, and half the other.

 

[The Celt]

Hey Bob, love my BD.

I live in an older house (likely as old as I am, maybe older) and like many houses in this province and of the same generation, they built it to low so during late fall, winter and early spring, the water table here is only a few feet below grade. As such, I have a sump pit and pump to keep the basement from becoming a swimming pool in these times, even in times of dry, the hole is filled with water just below the basement floor.

I put a small pond pump in the hole, on a timer, that waters my plants. When my parts eventually get here, coming on a slow boat from China, I will replace the experimental system that had drippers, with a more permanent system of pipes and halo rings for each plant. This is another reason that I will always grow the same strain (or strains with similar water needs) in the 4x8 tent much easier to manage.

 

[The Celt]

Awesome looking bud mate, those look like the terminal buds from my first grow outside.

 

[AdaminCO]

I like your pheno hunting strategy lol

For me, due to my job, I have to have a set-and-forget type of grow as I can be away for a week at a time, and I am finally getting it dialed in so it works for me.

As for the pheno hunt, this batch of seed was from a recent self cross of Blue Dream. First grow of this strain was from Humbolts seed and there where 4 phenos. The clone of one of the phenos that was very Sativa dominate didn’t take. I am hunting for that pheno again as it had an amazing terpene profile and taste as well as a great smoke when I needed to be active but also needed pain control.

Find a Jack HererXGirl Scout Cookies strain.
Some call it Jacks Girl and I cant remember the other one. Really good strains separately, but haven’t had the opportunity to grow it. The GSC mellows the upper of the Jack. The Jacks I ran were crossed with OG... still a bit bit too racy for me. I even held one of them a bit longer before harvest to see if I could tone it down some. It finally does after a good 4 month cure. Lol.

 

[bobrown14]

Hey Bob, love my BD.



I put a small pond pump in the hole, on a timer, that waters my plants. When my parts eventually get here, coming on a slow boat from China, I will replace the experimental system that had drippers, with a more permanent system of pipes and halo rings for each plant. This is another reason that I will always grow the same strain (or strains with similar water needs) in the 4x8 tent much easier to manage.

Oh that's a great idea. I need to get the water tested in the stream runs past our house. It doesn't freeze in the winter even at temps at -15C like yesterday. brrrr I could easily bury some tubing.

 

[The Celt]

Ground water is great @bobrown14, even that in streams. It is well aerated and filtered moving through soils and stream beds.

Unless you are using nutrients and need to watch pH, or live in an area with extreme Ca (stream water won’t have the Ca issue unless running through lime or gypsum deposits) I wouldn’t worry about having it tested. Stream water is usually “soft” water with low levels of Ca.

Just some thoughts for you.

 

[bobrown14]

Thats interesting about the Ca - I never thought about it that way. We do have a lot of Ca and Mg in the well water for sure.

We live in Western Upstate NY and we live on a mountain that I know for sure some of the rocks are Dolomite Limestone. I'm like an amateur rock guy, interested in rock formations mostly and there's a shit ton of limestone around these parts. Used to be part of an inland sea that was moved up out of the water with plate tectonics.

We aren't on top of the hill... close but not on top and there are Amish farmers they own the top of the hill and there's a big community they all farm of course. I sorta worry about nitrate and nitrites running off from the animals and the manure. We of course have an extensive water softening and filtration system in place to manage our plumbing hardware.

I tried straight well water. It damn near killed all my plants in about 3 weeks. Switched to RO and the plants came back around. Was pretty quick too. The plants started looking like Mg toxicity. Without a water test tho really could have been anything. PPMs of the well water is 290ppm and faint smell of sulfur which is common around these parts and it beats the hell out of the plumbing.

Since water softener the plumbing good but we had to replace all the faucets and drains. I'm getting good at plumbing. Next up showers.... I gotta build up my plumbing confidence for them. No shutoff but main shutoff (that I know of). lol

If it aint broke....

 

[The Celt]

Lol @bobrown14 ,

Welcome to fixing up old houses, that is why I am around so much lately, I took a leave-of-absence to bring my house in order and make it accessible for Krista as she can no longer walk unassisted.

I have not done much with plumbing and electrical yet, although it is “magical”, it can wait until I finish the Renos needed for Krista.

If you have a faint sulphuric smell, that can be a sign of high iron in your water which is often accompanied by high manganese.

You mentioned high Magnesium in your well water, not sure but using nutes, that could cause potassium lockout. Bad in veg, deadly in flower.

 

[The Celt]

Here in the part of N.S. where I live, gypsum is a big part of the geological makeup and Wells are shallow for that reason, but as such, during dry weather, we often run out so houses generally have a cistern to collect roof water for backup.

 

[bobrown14]

Sorry to hear about your Krista. I will keep her in my thoughts and prayers.

Many blessings for happy and healthful future.

Does the gypsum damage the plumbing over time??

 

[The Celt]

@bobrown14,

Yes, gypsum is hard on copper plumbing. The calcium sticks to the pipe walls and restricts flow. Once I finish the rest of the house, I want to redo the plumbing and replace copper with PEX or PVC, the calcium doesn’t build up in them.