The 10 Clones

[navigator]

What Strain is it? Nirvana's Chrystal
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? it's a hybrid - i don't know the percentages.
How Many Plants? 10 clones
Is it in Vegetative or Flowering Stage? flowering since 25 november - or before, actually, since they are clones.
Indoor or Outdoor? indoor
Soil or Hydro? soil
If Soil... What is in your Mix? ocean forest
If Soil... What Size Pot? 3 gallon
Size (Wattage) of Light? How Many? two 250 watt led SK450 | Super Grow LED
Is it Air Cooled? no
Temperature of Room/Cabinet? 71
RH of Room/Cabinet? 41%
PH of Medium or Reservoir? 6.7
Any Pests? nope
How Often are you Watering? using blumats with drippers
Type and Strength of Fertilizers used? earth juice nutes and VilliageIdiot's tea with some cal mag and silica thrown in...
Size or Square Footage of Room? room is 5'x5' and grow space is 2' x 5'

greetings to all. this is my second journal on 420. my other journal in progress is Nivana's Chrystal 11 Weeks Into Veg - Advice Welcome! where VilliageIdiot is walking me through saving the 4 plants that i nearly killed...from which these 10 clones were taken (before they got sick). the four patients are in a 3'x3' tent. the 10 clones are in the grow room.

it's confusing, having two grow spaces doing two different things at once, so i decided to start another journal for the 10 clones so as to track what i'm doing in the grow room vs the tent...and also for advice. i'm a relatively new grower with a lot to learn and i make lots and lots (and lots) of mistakes.

this is my first experience with clones. they seem to be doing pretty well - they've been benefiting from VilliageIdiot's insights on my other plants, and his tea.

i was thinking that i need to put them in bloom now and thought to just flip the switch and let them do their thing and then i was thinking of scrogging them (never done that)...i don't know if that's a good idea at this point...considering their height and all...and then i was thinking of just training them to keep their same heights amongst the canopy without the screen. there are lots of bud sites...

i spent some time with them today, clearing out the lower growth and bending them over for a bit of training.

here are two pictures of the clones. the first one is before i bent them over and the second one (obviously) is after.

canopy is currently about 23" tall (bent over)...lights could go as high as 64"-66"

i welcome any comments/ideas/suggestions. i'm here to learn...

this is a picture of two clones from the same mother...the one on the right is troubled in so many ways...but it is hanging in there...the one on the left is doing so much better...weird...i can only surmise that i must've done something different for the one on the right...

 

[navigator]

24 december, 2015, christmas eve, i gave all 10 clones a shot of cal mag & silica...

3 january, 2016, i turned them onto 12/12.

i'm not going to scrog them because i don't really know how. but i am going to try to achieve a similar result without the screen. yesterday, i trimmed all the lower branches that showed no promise of ever reaching the light. then, i bent them all down with some lst. pictures to follow...

these are the closeups...

clones on the right...

clones in the middle...

clones on the left...

and this is all the clones together...

 

[Psomi]

Looks great, nice and healthly!

 

[navigator]

hi fiveslow87 and thank you for stopping by and for the kind words!

i'm hoping to keep them looking great...since i've just put them into flowering, time will tell!

 

[navigator]

i've decided to try to scrog these clones...so yesterday i rigged up a screen from some stuff laying around and laid it over the clones...picture below. i've never done a scrog before, but figure if the plants are healthy it would be hard to screw it up too badly.

i also gave them each 2 cups of tea ph'd to 6.9 and chased by 2-3 cups of water ph'd to 6.3. this tea is amazing...if you look closely at the picture below, you can see that the 4 clones on the left are darker and healthier looking than the 6 clones on the right. the 4 clones on the left were given a dose of tea 21 december...

 

[navigator]

today, i cleaned all/some/a bunch of the undergrowth and took some more pictures...i was late taking the pictures, so most was already trimmed...the cuttings that looked like potential clones, i saved. these plants have been in flower mode for 17 days, so i want to see if i can put some clones back into veg for awhile...it's about the journey, right?

this isn't a proper scrog, as it was not raised as a scrog and only became last sunday, but so far i'm pleased with the flowering action!

also thinking i need to reconfigure my little room. it's 5'3" X 5'3" and i like having them all on one side of the room so i can sit on the other side, but it's very hard for this old woman to reach into the back and do a proper trim...

so here are the pictures....first, this is the room i need to reconfigure...

here is an attempt to get an overview of all 10...didn't work real well...

so here are the 6 on the right and then the 4 on the left...

these guys are going to have to be fed at some point...so far all they've gotten, besides ph adjusted de-chlorinated water is the tea.

 

[navigator]

yesterday, tuesday 19 january, i put 1 ounce eleanor's vf-11 and a bit of pro-tekt into 5 quarts of de-chlorinated water ph'd to 6.7 and gave each of the clones 2 cups. in a week, i will give them each two cups of tea.

as the picture shows, the clones are the left are making the clones on the right look kinda sick! lol...i hope the clones on the right can catch up...

 

[navigator]

yesterday, sunday, 24 january, i mixed 2 tsps calmag in 5 quarts of water and gave each clone 2 cups. today or tomorrow i will start bubbling the tea to feed them...i'm seeing signs of what i believe is a need for phosporus on the lower leaves of a couple of the plants...eleanor's is 85% phosphate and they got a dose of that last tuesday and they are getting the tea this week...that should supplement them well...

 

[navigator]

just got the tea mixed up and bubbling...and 5 gallons of water de-chlorinating...so each will get 2 cups of tea chased with 2 cups of water ph'd down to low 6's to compensate for the high ph in the tea...more plants are showing signs of deficiency. i still think it's phosphorus since being put into flower...not all are affected, yet.

 

[navigator]

yesterday was a busy day! the tea came in at ph of 7.8, so i ph'd it down to 6.9 and each clone got 2 1/2 cups of tea, then i chased it with 2 cups of water ph'd to 6.4. that didn't create much run-off, so i put another 2 cups of water through each one.

since the plants are in a sort-of scrog and i'm using blumats to water them, they are not very mobile, so i empty the drip pans by placing towels between the pots with their corners tucked into the drip pans and the towels kindly wick all the water from the pans...works really well.

the plants are needing nutrients. they got vf-11 on tuesday, the 19th, then they got calmag on sunday, the 24th and yesterday, wednesday, the 27th, they got the tea. seems like i should be seeing improvement in the leaves...

clones on the left still way outdoing clones on the right...but i just have to say that this is the best grow i've done so far...i've been at this for 2 years and it's kinda nice to see healthy plants! lol...

i still think it looks like a phosphorus deficiency...i think there is a considerable amount of phosphorus in the tea...but really need to track down all the ingredients to be sure...

 

[navigator]

today, i think i found the cause of the problems i'm seeing in the leaves...the ph in the reservoir was 7.7!! i mean...good grief! how can anyone expect a cannabis plant to thrive with a ph of 7.7! i've been fighting the ph in the reservoir for awhile now...kept finding it high and bringing down by adding ph'd water at 6.3 or so...but then it climbed right back up over 7...

root cause was the pro-tekt silica i put into the reservoir, thinking it would be good for the plants...and it probably was for a week or two. but then the slime grew and plugged up the outlets on the reservoir...(i'm using blumats)...so i swapped out the slimed reservoir for a clean one...put fresh water ph'd to 6.5 in it and hooked it up to the plants. here's hoping that it's all good, now and that the tea they got wednesday will be useful to them. i drove that tea with water ph'd to 6.3-6.5 so hopefully, that will help.

 

[navigator]

yesterday, before closing up the room, i checked the ph of the reservoir and it was high...don't remember how high, but too high...like 7.1. so i brought it down too far with vinegar...had it down to 5.9...so i mixed some dechlorinated but higher ph water...like 7.7 until i had the ph in the reservoir around 6.34. checking it this morning, it's back up to around 6.60. so...point there is to check it daily and make sure it doesn't drift too high!

i gave them the tea last wednesday, so tomorrow i will feed again, either eleanor's vf-11 or maybe some earth juice nutes...they haven't had anything stronger than vf-11 and the tea since they were planted.

 

[STIHL LOGGER]

Great looking garden you have there Navi.

 

[navigator]

thanks, stihl! it's been a long haul for me (2 years of trying), but it's worth it...and i could've never done it without the help of the folks here at 420...especially VilliageIdiot...he has been very patiently walking me through the process of saving 4 plants that i nearly cut down because they were in such poor condition...they were the mothers of these 10 clones...

you can see my journal here...we've been working on it since 06 december 2015...so nearly two months...and i've learned so much in that time...really made the difference for me!

Nivana's Chrystal 11 Weeks Into Veg - Advice Welcome!

 

[navigator]

wow, things have gone from bad to worse really quickly, though the 4 that got the tea are handling it a whole lot better than the other 6. and some of the plants show way more damage than the others...

because of this journal, i do have a sequence of events, so i know how i got to where i am...but now i have to figure out how to get out of the ditch and it's so much harder because i am deep into flowering (half way)!

apparently, the ph in the reservoir at 7.7 (discovered last friday) is now being manifested in the poor, broken leaves!

here is the sequence of recent events:

tuesday 19th january gave them vf-11 fertilizer & silica
sunday, 24 jan gave calmag
wednesday 27 january gave tea
friday 29 january discovered slimed reservoir with ph of 7.7

looking back at my notes before i started this journal, i see that on 24 december, i "fed them the calmag and some pro-tekt." i think that is when i put the stuff into the reservoir. i do not know when the ph in the reservoir got so bad, but i think it was very recent. i started noticing the problem on about 25 january.

so...is their soil now out of ph range for the plants? i'm hoping that the ph'd water i gave them on the 19th, the 24th and the 27th helped to counter what the reservoir was giving them. each time i pushed low ph'd water through their soil.

and were they able to take advantage of the tea and the nutes and the calmag? or was the too high ph blocking their uptake and now the soil is full of stuff they can't access? or are they just hungry and i need to get them some nutes? i guess that's the bottom line question.

the leaves are displaying all kinds of problems...which makes me think it's a ph problem at the roots...but they are in flower, so can they be flushed? is there a alternative to flushing when the plants are in flower?

soil ph meter says the soil at the roots is 6-6.5...but i do not know how reliable that meter is or if it can be believed.
the water ph in the reservoir is about 6.7. every day it rises and every day i ph it back down...trying to keep it 6.2 - 6.5.

here are the sad pictures!

on this one, if you look closely at the edge of the leaves, you will see that they are turning reddish...

so...where to go from here?

 

[Papageno]

pH problems can take a while to clear out of soil. Then you have to take a good week for the plant to rebound and also bad leaves wont recover. You are still dealing with lockout.

I don't like this idea of using an external res for a soil grow especially for you. If all is good you need to mix up and water once a week until you get into heavy bloom. I am not sure what this res is you are doing but we need to drain that, clean it and only use pH'd water in there. You do not add anything to something like that for a soil grow. Nutes are a metered things that we add a specific amount when we need it not constantly and blindly.

Here is how I do it...maybe it will work for you.

I have a bunch of CLEAN 5 gallon buckets and a watering can. I fill them up whenever I use them and set them aside including the watering can. I place a bag or something over them so they can breath but noting gets in. Then the next time I need dechlorinated water there it is waiting.

Then I mix up what I need when I need it and don't have any poisonous water from some res sitting around going into my plants.

Then I watch the plants to see what they need. Since I am still playing with many seeds and don't have a clone program I am happy with yet I can't dial in exactly the nute regimen yet as it is strain dependent. So I let the plants tell me what to do while understanding basic feeding techniques.

In early growth, depending on the soil blend and a number of factors, mine will dry out about weekly so once a week I go in an heavy water until I have good runoff. In your case since you are not using only the tea you want to rotate every other feeding one then the other. So in your case, we talked about this a long time ago, maybe doing week 1 with VF-11 then Week 2 with tea then week 3 just water. That may still work for you or be too strong. You may want to Feed week 1, water week 2, tea week 3, water week 4. Either of those will probably work for you but you need to get your pH figured out girl! All your problems are pH.

The Tea is lacking a bit in Phos unless you go ahead and add in the bat guano. Bat guano has the phos so that is especially good to add in the bloom phase. If you add bat guano and follow that recipe it has all the macro and micro nutes you need and in a good soil is all you need.

Did you pot those clones in a soil blend like I described 1/3, 1/3, 1/3?

And lastly for now.

I don't think a scrog will help that setup. a scrog is used to spread out a plant over a larger area. but you have more like a SOG going there with plants bunched right up next to each other. in that case you want to bloom early and finish fast. If your intent is to SCROG you do about 3 plants in that space. The real nice thing about that is 3 is a magic number. But seriously... fewer plants to manage is easier.

You did a great job on the lollipoping so that is real cool.


So just ride it out. Get that pH back down and ride it out. Remember if you are in lockout then adding more nutes will just make it more toxic and not help. So for now pH it down and measure the runoff and get that stuff happy again.

 

[navigator]

thank you, V, for showing up! as usual, everything you say makes perfect sense...

pH problems can take a while to clear out of soil. Then you have to take a good week for the plant to rebound and also bad leaves wont recover. You are still dealing with lockout.

I don't like this idea of using an external res for a soil grow especially for you. If all is good you need to mix up and water once a week until you get into heavy bloom. I am not sure what this res is you are doing but we need to drain that, clean it and only use pH'd water in there. You do not add anything to something like that for a soil grow. Nutes are a metered things that we add a specific amount when we need it not constantly and blindly.

definitely a mistake to put anything in the res! i guess that's a lesson i won't forget...!

the res is for blumats...
"The Tropf-Blumat (Drip-Blumat) is a sensor that supplies plants with drips of water via thin tubing. As the soil dries, its natural suction power triggers the opening of the Tropf Blumat allowing the water to flow. When the soil is sufficiently moist, the Tropf Blumat automatically stops. The system functions fully automatically."

Blumats Retail, Professional and Wholesale

i swapped out the reservoir right away, when i saw the problem...and cleaned out all the tubing and everything...but i'm not using them the rest of this grow...for all the reasons you stated and a couple of others, too.

blumats are pretty cool, because once they are set up and operating correctly, each plant takes what water it wants, independently of the others. however, i can see how it would interfere with someone trying to learn cannabis...since it automates a function that keeps me in touch with my plants.

Here is how I do it...maybe it will work for you.

I have a bunch of CLEAN 5 gallon buckets and a watering can. I fill them up whenever I use them and set them aside including the watering can. I place a bag or something over them so they can breath but noting gets in. Then the next time I need dechlorinated water there it is waiting.

Then I mix up what I need when I need it and don't have any poisonous water from some res sitting around going into my plants.

Then I watch the plants to see what they need. Since I am still playing with many seeds and don't have a clone program I am happy with yet I can't dial in exactly the nute regimen yet as it is strain dependent. So I let the plants tell me what to do while understanding basic feeding techniques.

fascinating information there...so you customize the nutes you use to accommodate the strain you are growing?

Did you pot those clones in a soil blend like I described 1/3, 1/3, 1/3?

nope...they were already planted by the time i got that information...they are in ocean forest...

And lastly for now.

I don't think a scrog will help that setup. a scrog is used to spread out a plant over a larger area. but you have more like a SOG going there with plants bunched right up next to each other. in that case you want to bloom early and finish fast. If your intent is to SCROG you do about 3 plants in that space. The real nice thing about that is 3 is a magic number. But seriously... fewer plants to manage is easier.

well it was fun to set it up and see how it might work. i like messing with the plants and trimming them up and stuff like that...but i get what you are saying...and since i'm now in this ditch...i will pull the screen so that i can move them around and do what i need to do to clean them up.

You did a great job on the lollipoping so that is real cool.

hey thanks! like i said, i like to mess with them...i like to sit in the room and watch them...and just piddle around..my attic is really nice with the plants in there.

So just ride it out. Get that pH back down and ride it out. Remember if you are in lockout then adding more nutes will just make it more toxic and not help. So for now pH it down and measure the runoff and get that stuff happy again.

thank you, again, for showing up...and that is exactly what i'm going to do...this is best harvest i've ever come close to having.

and i think it's really interesting that the 4 clones that got the tea early are handling the ph problem so much better than the other 6.

 

[Papageno]

A good compost soil can handle just about any pH of water. If you search around online and read about organic growing having a living soil makes it nearly impervious to a bad pH.

Those microbes probably started a strong colony and are going to town in there. Since you had that constant drip they never dried out an died.

That said it is always best to have plant dry out completely before watering again. IN fact I wait until the leaves start drooping telling me it is under watered and then go water. This way I get fast vigorous root growth and a much healthier larger plant. If there is always water in there the roots don't need to develop much and the above ground plant can easily over grow the root system and then you have issues growing fatty resinous flowers.


Always best to let it dry out then water it...up to a point. Mid bloom the roots stop developing. at that point you don't need to wait for the thing to dry out and can go back to the automated watering.

 

[navigator]

hi V...i took some pictures...so now, instead of having 4 patients...i have 10 patients!! omfg..

ok then...i have dismantled the blumats and will be watering by hand...so this is what i'm going to do...the next time i give them water, i will ph the runoff...if it is reasonable (within parameters and not showing extreme), then i'm going to feed that plant very gently some tea with bat guano...i really think some of them may just be hungry...weird thing is, the 4 that got the tea are doing the best...but the 2 that are furthest from the reservoir (the north end) are doing better than any of them...anyway...here are the pictures...and what do you think?

these are the guys on the north end...the 4 that got the tea...the furthest from the reservoir...they are looking the best...

here is a closeup of the damage they are showing...the leaves are like claws, the way they curl up...

these are the poor guys in the middle...they're looking a bit sparse...but they do have some buds...

these are of the plants on the south end...they are pale but have some nice buds...

 

[Papageno]

Yeah same ol same ol with you.

Baby steps... we will get there.

That watering system you were running requires that the system stays clean and stable which is not that easy really. Until you have a solid foundation and know what early signs of failure look like and know what you are doing we need you to do things by the numbers.

Like I explained.

1) Fill up buckets and cover with news paper or something breathable ahead of time and let them sit to evap the chlorine (also gets the temp nice
2) When the plants look thirsty we mix up a solution and pH it
3) Water until 10-15% runoff

Honestly if you follow that properly it can't go wrong.


The blue mats system will not allow for the pot to dry properly which will also cause pH problems. You need the pots to dry out completely. preferably so dry the pant shows signs of it.

Up through mid bloom this is important. At some point mid bloom the plant stops grown roots and focuses on flowers. up to that point letting the soil dry out completely entices the roots to grow searching for water. Keeping it wet all the time allows for underdeveloped root systems which allows for the above ground plant to get too big for the roots and can cause all sorts of nute problems.


Keep it simple for now.