Slye's First Discreet Closet Soil Grow 2012

[Slye]

Wowza, these things grow like weeds!

In barely 3 days the two new seedlings have just exploded with growth!

So I'm watering with my dip method once/twice a day. Water is 5.8 pH and about 68-69oF -- ambient tent temperature. The water has full strength Rhizotonic, and since the cotyledons are out and little serrated leaves are showing, I've added in Canna Aqua Vega A+B at 15% strength. Also picked up a ppm meter, which tells me that my tap water is 250 and my prepared water is 270.

My thinking on the nutes is that they've probably used up most of their internal energy supplies by now. Since rockwool and plain water doesn't offer any new energy, it's up to me to supply them with it. So light, light, light nutes. A little more next week and a little more the week after that.

A little concerned about nighttime temperature drops. Last night the tent dropped to 65oF and 30%RH ... not ideal.

Also wondering when I should increase the available light. Plants currently doing their thing under 2 54W HO T5s. General advice seems to be 30-50W per plant, which would suggest adding another tube. But, since the plants are in line with the tubes I think each plant is effectively getting the same quality light. Other suggestions I've read are to wait until the roots are better developed ... too much light too early will encourage foliage growth over root development. I think I'll just relax for now and let them develop more.

 

[Slye]

Oh, also, I removed the rightmost pot. The seed had germinated and sprouted, but the rockwool hole was too deep and the seed ran out of energy before it could reveal the cotyledons above the rockwool. I pulled the rockwool apart so I could see what happened and it looked like it got trapped below its own seed husk. Also, my last seed that was germinating was showing no signs of progress so I dumped it. The three you see are the three that will be!

 

[Muttt]

They look great.

 

[Grand Daddy Purp]

Nice to see a bit of green.

 

[Slye]

Such a pretty little thing

 

[Slye]

Long power outage last night. Instead of the usual 6hr dark they got almost 11hr. That in itself isn't too troubling but a lack of light also means a lack of heat. They had a long overnight around 65oF -- cooler and longer than I would prefer.

Nights for the little ladies are consistently between 63-67oF so I'm hoping a) they're used to the cool and weren't too stressed by it, and b) they won't hermie later on down the line.

Been trying, and failing, to get a consistent relative humidity. Swings from 30% to 70%, depending on what I do, but doesn't stay constant for very long.

The storm has passed and we were spared the worst of it. Godspeed to those who were not.

 

[Muttt]

That's good to hear.

 

[Grand Daddy Purp]

Bummer about the power outage but I am glad you made it through. Still windy and a little rainy in these parts.

 

[Slye]

They grow up so quick! One week, give or take a day, later.

Looks healthy pretty to me

Doesn't look as good, but she's got her reasons

What kind of stress does that look like to you?

 

[Slye]

Introduced my rockwool cubes to small pots of growstone. This stuff drains really nice, but doesn't dry out too quickly. It's too bad that little tray the pots are in isn't a flood table, but that's a project for another day.

The weak plant on the left is really noticeable Feel'n good vibes!

 

[Grand Daddy Purp]

Over water or ph is the most likely issue as it was a seed. Otherwise it could have been a N deficiency.

 

[Slye]

She was dropped on her head, so to speak, at an early age

This one is actually a week or so older than the other two. I didn't put it under a light soon enough so it was born jaundiced! Lol ... no light = no photosynthesis, so green it wasn't. *facepalm* The yellow tips on the leaves are from the yellow leaf turning green, rather than a green leaf turning yellow.

It has good roots though! The next set of leaves should look better.

 

[Slye]

Over water or ph is the most likely issue as it was a seed. Otherwise it could have been a N deficiency.

pH might be part of it. I prepared 1.5L of 5.7 pH nutrient solution to use throughout the week and was surprised at how pH rose throughout the duration. I checked and adjusted at least once. I'm preparing water more than once a week now though, but I've made a mental note to check my reservoir at least twice a week when the time comes.

I was thinking low humidity as a factor. RH has been 30-35% ... kinda low, ya think?

 

[Grand Daddy Purp]

Humidity can play a roll but from my experiences so far it is only important on clones when rooting.

 

[Slye]

Doing some reading around about inter nodal length and found this:

According to Cannabis Culture :
"Plant internodal length is directly related to the difference between day and night temperatures – the warmer your day cycle is as compared to your night cycle, the greater your internode length will be. The opposite also holds true; the closer your day and night temperatures, the shorter your internodes will be."

Source

Incidentally I've reduced the temperature difference this week from ~24oF to ~12oF (i.e., reduced the temperature difference by half). I keep the whole house slightly warmer at night with the furnace, adjusted my ventilation, and raised the lights (150W T5HO) to ~14' off the tops.

 

[Slye]

I'm thinking about setting up the flood table and reservoir this weekend but I wonder, what's the youngest you'd put your plants onto your flood table? Do you wait until they reach a certain height, number of nodes, weeks old, watering frequency?

 

[Slye]

Been about two weeks so I figure I'd whip up this update.

First, photos of each:

"Clarice"

"Betty"

"Anne"

The GLR light method is absolutely two thumbs way up! My timer doesn't have 30 minute resolution, only hours, so I'm doing 12/5/1/6. They look and smell especially good in the morning! Maybe it's just the strain I have, or sativas generally, but these gals don't love too much heat or light. This light schedule would be maximized by running daytime at night, but since I've still got so much to learn, I'm not doing that.

Nutrients are running at 1.0 EC, about 50% of what the label recommends. It's no wonder people burn their plants when they read the bottle and go straight to 100% strength. Added 50% Rhizotonic this week ... in another 2 or 3 weeks when the bottle is empty I'll replace it with Canazyme.

I'm still very unsure about whether I should top/fim/supercrop/tie down/throw kitchen sink at these wee dears. Would love to hear from anyone who has scrogged before on this!

On the one hand, if I do nothing, it'll be a little like a tomato with one main stem that should be relatively easy to weave around horizontally. On the other hand, I think the screen will fill in faster if I top/fim. So, still not sure what to do. Maybe try something different with each plant? (but I want to do the best thing with all three! lol! )

 

[Slye]

For the curious, here's a picture of what's underneath the table. Incredibly simple setup.

First of all, I know, the hoses should not be transparent! One of many n00b mistakes I have or have yet to make

The hose on the left is 1" overflow. On the right is 3/4" inflow from a small submersible aquarium pump. Reservoir is 12 gallons. Connected to an Intermatic digital timer that can store something like 28 on or off events. So I can flood the table up to 14 times a day. Simple, simple, simple. Except the reservoir weighs a ton!!

I should cut a piece of plywood to fully support the full base of the flood table. It exceeds the table it's on in all dimensions and sags a bit when flooded. I'm sure the plastic can bear this but I'd rather just support it properly!

 

[Slye]

I like the way it looks

So another good lesson learned --

Plants were all looking very sad last night. Droopy and languishing and looking like they needed water. I'd added a larger fan over the weekend and have had it on more than off. I even forgot about it one night and left it on all night. The ambient humidity has been low and I think all the air circulation dehydrated the plants. I increased the flooding frequency, repositioned the small fans, and am leaving the large fan off for now. The small fans are pointed so that they gently stir the leaves -- not directly on the plant! Looking better already!

 

[Muttt]

Looking good. Nice setup.