The Hexapus's Garden

Sue: I also love the 23W CFLs. Not too big, not too small. I did try a couple of the larger CFLs but their coverage wasn't what I hoped and raised the heat too much. So I put them away and went back to the 23's for Veg.

I'm using the 2 mars 300s just for flower, with auxiliary 23 W cfls. At first, I saw a difference, but things have slowed down due to the periodic heat waves we are getting. I don't see any size development in all the flowers on Frilly Lady, and that worries me. Maybe my 9-10 hours of daylight is TOO short.
 
AKgramma said:
WC, I cannot deny how beautiful your ladies look and the size of your harvests.

However, I wonder if by creating a canopy, we're not missing opportunities for good bud all the way down the plant. I am no expert by any stretch of the the imagination, but by putting lots of auxiliary lighting along the sides and bottom of the plants, wouldn't we increase our yield, even tho the top colas might be smaller?

This question is meant to stimulate a conversation on the pros and cons of trimming off all the lower branches when using the tie-down method in a small grow, as compared to opening her up early on, using auxiliary lighting and getting the whole plant to bloom? I really am not trying to be critical at all, esp on your journal. Just testing out an idea.:Namaste:

You get a lot more traffic than I do on my journal, and that's why I ask here.
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AKgramma said:
Sue: I also love the 23W CFLs. Not too big, not too small. I did try a couple of the larger CFLs but their coverage wasn't what I hoped and raised the heat too much. So I put them away and went back to the 23's for Veg.

I'm using the 2 mars 300s just for flower, with auxiliary 23 W cfls. At first, I saw a difference, but things have slowed down due to the periodic heat waves we are getting. I don't see any size development in all the flowers on Frilly Lady, and that worries me. Maybe my 9-10 hours of daylight is TOO short.
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How long have they been stalled? I'm assuming you've maxed out lights? Can you add in another 1/2 hr to see if it makes any difference? It gets a little crazy taking the light up instead of down, so ignore that. You may be right though. It's light that drives the grow. They'll grow and flower through, but it may be a smaller yield and less resin. Only time will tell.

I pretty sure Dr Ziggy runs his as low as 9-10 hours. Haven't been there in way too long *sigh*. Can't seem to be everywhere at once, no matter how hard I try, but I seem to recall him playing with that lighting schedule, and he's always happy about his harvests.
 
Tead said:
For me, getting rid of soil and moving to neutral medium really made a huge difference. I'm smack dab in the middle of the insect hordes and I have had no problems (knock on wood).
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So the move to soilless will reduce the amount of mites I have to battle? I thought mites lived and bred on the leaves, not in the soil, like fungus gnats.
 
AKgramma said:
So the move to soilless will reduce the amount of mites I have to battle? I thought mites lived and bred on the leaves, not in the soil, like fungus gnats.
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excellent q
 
Ya know... at some level it doesn't make much sense to me either. I mean, especially in the case of spider mites.
But, in my garden, the evidence speaks much louder than any logic... and I'm a fan of logic.
When I grew in soil, the spider mites were a fairly common visitor. Leaf miners were a constant companion. I had to use constant Neem applications and drenches combined with the occasional pyretherin (sp?) sprays for mites. It was no fun.
After I switched to soil-less mediums, those problems just went away... like completely.
 
Tead said:
Ya know... at some level it doesn't make much sense to me either. I mean, especially in the case of spider mites.
But, in my garden, the evidence speaks much louder than any logic... and I'm a fan of logic.
When I grew in soil, the spider mites were a fairly common visitor. Leaf miners were a constant companion. I had to use constant Neem applications and drenches combined with the occasional pyretherin (sp?) sprays for mites. It was no fun.
After I switched to soil-less mediums, those problems just went away... like completely.
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Maybe there is a link in the chain of life we're missing with soilless media. If the mite population goes down in my grow, like dramatically, Then all the more reason to keep the experiment going.
 
Ok so now let me say I've been growing strictly in soil all my life and never saw spider mites... however I see aphids and then bud worms later in the season which indoor growers only heard of, so it's all environment related not only medium in my opinion.
 
Bud worms,,???? Oh my,, sounds swell,, i think that might turn me off growing sounds so gross,, ha
 
Look up corn borers cause bud worm is a nickname cannabis growers made up. They lay the eggs on the bottom part of the leaf, and larvae enter the stems eating up cellulose while travelling up the bud leaving big holes. Outdoor nightmare for southern growers.
 
conradino23 said:
Look up corn borers cause bud worm is a nickname cannabis growers made up. They lay the eggs on the bottom part of the leaf, and larvae enter the stems eating up cellulose while travelling up the bud leaving big holes. Outdoor nightmare for southern growers.
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I liked that post as it was good info Conradino, but I really don't like that post lol. I'm googling nothing until I already have something that needs googling :rofl:
 
Here in Oregon, mites are a fact of life. I've seen mites and thrips in soilless grows as well. Key is early detection and hardstops. Not sure about science behind leaf miners and soilless grows but it's a misconception to think grow medium will cure bug issue.

Cheers

Sent from my SPH-L720T using 420
 
millertm said:
Here in Oregon, mites are a fact of life. I've seen mites and thrips in soilless grows as well. Key is early detection and hardstops. Not sure about science behind leaf miners and soilless grows but it's a misconception to think grow medium will cure bug issue.
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the logical side of me has to agree with this comment,, i think spider mites hang in the soil as well, but i think they hang in the screens, the lights, the walls, everywhere they dern well please, buggers

i also live close to oregon, and mites are a fact here as well,, i have big red ones outside my studio, and i saw a video of spider mites that were big enough to ride,, they be everwhere, indeed

but, however, and still,, i like the idea of soilless,, just not too sure how far i wish to go,, the thot of not having to water near ever day appeals to the lazy ass in me

i mentioned earlier that i have discovered a hydroponics store not far from me hause,, so i can see for myself now, and ask q's galore, which i plan on doing,,

i saw another video of a comparison between hydro and soil,, oh my,, :jawdropper:
 
Hydro will give monster yields. But hydro can be killed with one mistake. Soil is more forgiving but smaller yields. Either way will produce so choice is yours. Since you have grown hydro should be easy switch.

Cheers

Sent from my SPH-L720T using 420
 
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Here are the new plants I've started. Clockwise from front left- Peyote Purple, Y Griega, Snow Moon, Delicious Candy, a Lemon Skunk cross, and Golden Tiger. The two pots on left are hempies, middle are regular pots with perlite, two on the right are coco. The sprouts aren't all visible in the picture but they're there.

So I'll set up the hexapus for the four plants on the right. Would be nice to have six plants and call it a proper hexapus instead of a quadrapus or tetrapus or something. So I'm still thinking on that. Don't want to run out of space (and rainwater). I hope to run the hempy pots the regular way and hand water them but if that doesn't work out in my schedule I'll either drill more holes in the pots so they become regular pots like the other four, on autowatering- or possibly hook up an autowatering system on a schedule just for the two hempies. (Which sounds like a pain in the butt and sort of defeats the purpose if it's going to get complicated like that to do the hempies)
 
groovy to see you go hempy, least a hempy here or there,, gonna watch with very much interest,, cheers weaselhead,,
 
I had to go back and re-read the conversation of the last couple days here. :thumb: Managed to get myself extremely busy again all of a sudden. Sharks around here each want a bite of me it feels like some days. I rearranged things a little to get back here from work sooner based on what Tead said on his thread about the hempy babies possibly needing a little water every day or so. Turned out all the pots were nice and moist still- not surprisingly since I was only one night away. I don't mind being careful at this stage though. Besides, I'd had enough of being shark food for the day. I'll baby them for a couple days and, based on how they act, probably set up the hexapus for sporadic waterings.

I watched Lembatoast's epic battle with the bud worms last year. I'm not sure who won that battle but it seemed like everyone got lots of bud in the end- so I guess they both won. No bud worms here though. No spider mites either, at least not in nature. They can certainly live indoors, in greenhouses and grow rooms. I had mites for a couple years and it sucked. I got them as a gift on some clones.

It's odd how in all the threads I read about how to get rid of mites on cannabis- no one seemed to really know their habits and life cycle. Probably I'd only have to look outside of cannabis growng forums to find that out. As we know, they're an extremely common pest in the world. I'm sure their travels are well documented and it should be easy to know exactly what those bastards get up to and where they hide when you can't find them. Instead, with myself included, it was always a case of 'I think I've got rid of them all!' Followed by 'Oh shit they're back! With very little in between.

One of my mite outbreaks occurred in the middle of winter when everything was frozen solid. Everything had been miteless all winter. Then I made the mistake of importing a pot that had been stored in my greenhouse shed. Because of the weather I didn't rinse it with the garden hose like I normally would. I remember clearly thinking 'I hope this isn't a terrible mistake and I really should rinse this pot'. Within a couple weeks the mites were everywhere again and it seemed to me that they'd been laying dormant somewhere on the dirty pot. Anyway... Glad I haven't seen those little shits in many years.

One thing about bugs- they hate plain white surfaces. Being exposed like that make them feel very insecure, and its possible that perlite makes a bit of a barrier for them because of that.
 
Interesting thoughts on bugs and white surfaces. Thinking back, they don't often land on the white wall. :laughtwo:

I get such enjoyment out of your rambling posts. I so glad you do a journal. :battingeyelashes:
 
A couple more pictures of the Thai Stick plant from last night. Not that these pictures add anything new, but I went to the trouble of uploading them to post them on Potchimp's journal so I'll post them here too.


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The branch sticking out to the left is the one I sprayed with silver. I sort of overdid it, and some other buds in the line of fire turned hermie on me too. At one stoned point I thought the whole plant was a flaming hermie and thought I might have to axe the monstrosity, but realized later that I was just stoned and it's the odd shaped pistils that this strain has. I actually chopped a few limbs off and dissected them only to figure out they were properly female.


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A couple shots looking down the stem of the Critical Cheese. I topped the plant a couple weeks ago and nothing grew back on the top node which is kind of odd. I don't think I've seen that before...


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Goodnight folks. Gotta get up early again to feed the sharks in the morning...
 
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