Soil/LED Air-Pruning Grow

[JJ Bones]

I decided to take the plunge into LED grow lights after my last grow involving a simple two plant test with one UFO LED.

I am not going to name the LED light I am using out of respect for 420MAG Rules and their kind sponsors. Please accept this moving forward with my journal, 420mag is my home and I'd like to keep it that way.

That being said...

3 GAL Smart Pots
3x3 tray
Advanced Nutrients full line: G-M-B
Growlab Tent
Greenpad CO2 pads

These are the basic components to my grow. For more insight please read below:

I started this grow not even knowing I'd be using LED's to this extent, more-over I started this grow not even knowing I'd be using AN (Advanced Nutrients).

So my soil is a custom blend which is rich and typically provides 4-5 weeks of solid nutrients without needing to mix my water.

Long story short: After realizing how this grow was really going to play out, I did my best to rid the soil of it's nutrients, by getting the plants to uptake as much as they could. I want to truly test AN for myself as best as possible.

Strains: Grand Daddy Purple, OG Kush

NOTE: To prevent myself from abandoning this journal, as I regretfully have in the past I am going to only update at key points of the grow and not every couple days. I feel I'll be more inclined to update if I have a bunch to share rather then just some new photos.

 

[JJ Bones]

420th post kicks off my first update of my current grow. Sweet. Love 420mag and want to be apart of this community as long as possible. Thanks for all the information and knowledge throughout the years.

Anyhow here's the entire veg experience:

 

[JJ Bones]

Veg Story:

So I ran into some heat issues early on, because my carbon filter fan was not strong enough and because I had blocked out my window due to neighbors. Plants still grew however you could see they weren't totally happy. Can't remember exactly which day I got the stronger fan, however when I did it totally fixed my issues. So if you see a pic where they look sad, it's heat. Was around 90-95 degrees, with new fan it is 80-85.

I ended up beefing up my fan, the one is this pic is the smaller one.

Venting the heat into my furnace vents (furnace is unplugged) because didn't want to use bedroom window due to neighbors.

May 16, 2011

GDP

OG Kush

May 24, 2011

GDP

OG Kush

May 27, 2011

Took some pictures when lights just turned off, sorry for the glare it's from the T5 strip I was using for light. Wanted to get some pics to really see the leaf color.

GDP

OG Kush

May 29, 2011

GDP

OG Kush

Roots starting to pop out of the pots, pretty sweet.

May 30, 2011

Did the pruning today, I always prune lower portions to focus energy. However I went a tad bit overboard this time, lol they came back nicely though.

GDP

OG Kush

Roots!

June 3, 2011

GDP

OG Kush

June 8, 2011

GDP

OG Kush

That's all for now! Oh btw June 3rd and on is technically flower pictures.

 

[JJ Bones]

Update: 5 Weeks Later

Time for another update, finally got a better camera so some nice pictures in this update.

June 15, 2011 - Week 1 Day 5

OG Kush - Showing flowers

GDP

June 19, 2011

OG Kush

GDP

I choose to super crop some of the GDP's because they were much taller then the OG and were getting pretty close to the light. Normally I wouldn't do this whilest already flowering, however I kind said screw it and see what happens.

June 22, 2011

OG Kush

GDP

Three days later the plant is already almost totally back up towards the light from the SC.

Don't be cheap, it will only cost you more money in the long run. I was having some high humidity issues so I went with the Eva-Dry 2200, which worked and reduced humidity down by 10%

However it still wasn't enough so I ended up having to buy a 60 pint dehumidifier and now I'm stuck with two...again don't be cheap.

June 27, 2011 - Week 3 Day 3 (At last a better camera)

OG Kush

GDP

Clean bottom area makes for easier watering and better air-flow. Also many time PM begins down in these parts so keeping it clean assists your plants in avoiding the fungus.

July 1, 2011

OG Kush

GDP

July 6, 2011 - Week 4 Day 5

OG Kush

GDP

That's all for now, should have another update around harvest time in the next 3-4 weeks.

 

[Jozo-sha]

Very nice job, clean set up, healthy ass girls!

 

[Jack Dos]

what happens when your rooting goes out of the bag...when you upgrade to bigger bags do you take them out of the current bag or leave them in?

 

[Twelve12]

Awesome grow! Waiting to see more!

 

[JJ Bones]

First off, thank you Jozo-sha and Twelve12 for the positive vibes, always appreciated.

what happens when your rooting goes out of the bag...when you upgrade to bigger bags do you take them out of the current bag or leave them in?

The roots don't get very far once they begin to come through the pot. They end up dying off before they get far, they don't grow out of the pots like rockwhool for example.

In my case I have 3 gallon bags, which is plenty for my grow, because I didn't veg very long.

In scenarios where you may be growing outdoors or possibly just want to grow big plants indoors for some reason, yes I would recommend getting them into bigger pots, preferably bigger air-prune pots.

Geopots are better then Smart Pots (what this grow is using) IMO because they're the same price however made much better, stronger.

Geopots also offer velcro pots, which are specifically made for easy transplants.

 

[JJ Bones]

Update: 7/14/11

July 11, 2011 - Week 5 Day 6

Things are going pretty well so far. Gave my first dose of Overdrive, so looking forward to see the effect (if any) it has; I consider it similar to Shooting Powder and know SP works well.

OG Kush

GDP

GDP definitely appears to be developing faster than the OG. I've noticed more of a swell on the GDP, along with the pistol colors. I'm hoping to see the OG fatten up in the coming weeks.

Trichome development looks lovely as usual with LED. Curious to see how dense or fluffy things turn out. Last LED grow was much smaller then this one, however nugs were pretty fluffy, but everything else was okay.

Curious what anyone's take is on using dehumidified water for feeding? I haven't done it but thought it may be useful to recycle; any opinions are welcomed.

 

[Twelve12]

The GDP looking great! Too bad it's clone only strain. For the dehumidified water for plants, you can try it on one and see how that works out. Should be safe to use. I don't have dehumidifier but my relative got some and they recycle them by watering house plants instead of tossing it out. Keep the tank clean to prevent anything from growing down there as the water being collected.

 

[SteveHman]

JJ,
Nice looking garden. It looks almost like a time-lapse journal, from seedlings to buds on one page. They look very frosty, should put one of them into the Nug of The Month contest in August.

 

[Jozo-sha]

JJ,
Nice looking garden. It looks almost like a time-lapse journal, from seedlings to buds on one page. They look very frosty, should put one of them into the Nug of The Month contest in August.

Agreed! Fantastic job, brother!

 

[JJ Bones]

Thanks everyone, I most likely will submit for the August POTM and then September NOTM

Right now I'm trying to understand what this is: What kind of fungus?

 

[endive]

Looking fan-freeking-tastic!

 

[JJ Bones]

Looking fan-freeking-tastic!

Thank you, hoping to keep things looking good all the way to smoke time. I've had issues before keeping things looking nice through drying and curing.

 

[JJ Bones]

Update: Week 7

I had some tan-brown discoloration on the water leaves by the tops of a few GDP's, and thanks to members of 420mag and other colleagues figured out that it is burnage from the LED being too close.

Also after pulling some out, I noticed the portion of the leave that was being covered by the bud had no brown, which tells me it's not fungus for sure.

Anyhow I'm currently on Week 7 day 5 and things are going well. Here's my update:

July 19, 2011 - Week 6 Day 4

Same mistake I had made in the beginning I made towards the end, went one day too long without watering (3 days total) and two of the OG's didn't like it much. No other plants besides the two showed negative signs, so this two may very well be runts of the liter that I never saw because things were smooth otherwise. Oh well, they turned a bit orange in the hairs because they thought they were goners however they bounced back ok.

OG Kush

Day I discovered my mistake, soil had dried up. The older they get the thirstier they become!

GDP

July 21, 2011

OG Kush

Lower/Smaller bud

GDP

Getting some purp to it

Lower/Smaller Bud

Just about a week or so away from chopping em' down!

 

[SteveHman]

Looking good. Another way to be sure it's not bud rot, is to gently pull on the leaf, if it comes out real easy, then you have a problem. Learned that lesson on grow 3.

But I'm positive you just crisped them a little.

 

[JJ Bones]

Looking good. Another way to be sure it's not bud rot, is to gently pull on the leaf, if it comes out real easy, then you have a problem. Learned that lesson on grow 3.

But I'm positive you just crisped them a little.

Thanks for the tip, also thanks again for helping me in the other thread, you pretty much sealed the deal being an LED grower as well.

The leaves gave resistance to being pulled off.

 

[RickyW]

Hey nice looking colas bro for sure! Do you mind me asking how many watts your LED is?

 

[JJ Bones]

Hey nice looking colas bro for sure! Do you mind me asking how many watts your LED is?

Thanks man, of course I don't mind, should have probably included that in the beginning of the thread heh.

I have four LED total each one pulls 200 consumable watts. 800 watts total.