Getting a grow back on for first time in 4-5 years!

[zeroG]

I just drill holes in the side of the pot and screw in screws, then you can tie anything to them...thats with plastic...Fabric is more of a headache. I used tent pegs in the past, and I used cable like that before too, but I always broke down the 3 core and used it single core...Then again I dont usually start the tie down until the plants are about 6/8 inches tall and topped/bushy, then you can start to select the branches youre going to use. Not all the main branches carry the same vigour for this style of grow, but if youre just gently stressing them into productivity then its different.

 

Are you going to main-line them ?

 

 

[btk1977]

10 hours ago, zeroG said:

I just drill holes in the side of the pot and screw in screws, then you can tie anything to them...thats with plastic...Fabric is more of a headache. I used tent pegs in the past, and I used cable like that before too, but I always broke down the 3 core and used it single core...Then again I dont usually start the tie down until the plants are about 6/8 inches tall and topped/bushy, then you can start to select the branches youre going to use. Not all the main branches carry the same vigour for this style of grow, but if youre just gently stressing them into productivity then its different.

 

Are you going to main-line them ?

 

 

 

Yeh all my plastic pots have holes drilled all around the rims from past grows, was always my got to way to train photos, but would be starting it much later when the plants are sturdier, but figured with the ticking clock that autos are and not being able to prune as I would do extensively with photos, I was best starting soon. All a bit of a learning curve with this being only the 2nd time I've done autos, but trying to make up for the fact that I can't prune as I would with photos.

 

Not quite confident enough to try main-lining with them but can't wait to get a photo grow on (grow after next) to do it. I'm trying to get as close to the main-line shape as possible without any pruning or trimming. Although there is one plant that I (very intentionally of course ) topped, going for a different shape with her as no long have the primary stem to run horizontally.

[MindSoup]

10 hours ago, zeroG said:

Are you going to main-line them ?

Not sure that's a good idea with autos.

[btk1977]

18 minutes ago, MindSoup said:

Not sure that's a good idea with autos.

 

Can't see how they would have time to recover and not end up with a reduced yield, one I'm saving until I'm back growing photos.

[btk1977]

Day 19:

 

Really happy with their progress, the plant that was unwell is fine now, although she's definitely a bit behind the others, but she's happy again which is the main thing. Have been checking bottom of the pots and there is a substantial amount of roots at the drain holes. Today is also the first day I have spotted some pre flowers and the smell is definitely starting to develop.

 

I've been tweaking the LST training roughly every other day, tightening up the wires and for the the branches that are pegged down i've been moving the pegs along the branches as they grow to encourage them to go out laterally for bit longer before I will let them shoot up. I've also moved the pots around, have settled on a rotation where I have them in 3 columns, I move each column along one position every day and the pots within each column up and down the column each time they're moved. I'm taking them out for regular LST work so might as well rotate them too.

 

Outdoor temps have dropped substantially last couple of days and its caused a drop in temps in the tent, root temps dropped to a low of 21c, going to fit the 600w bulb when I get back tonight to try and get temps up a bit without reducing the airflow, if it doesn't increase them enough will have a tweak of the SMSCom settings.

 

I gave the fabric pots a small feed yesterday (approx 1.5l for the 30l pots and 1l for the smaller one), the plan of watering/feeding them less but more frequently seems to be working well. The plastic pots haven't needed any water since my last update, from a feel of the pots and a quick check of the compost, looks like they should be ready tomorrow night if I can get temps up a bit.

 

Humidity levels have finally gone up a bit, although that hard to say how much is due to the temps dropping.

 

Nothing has changed yet feed wise, the instructions recommend 3-4ml/l in soft water but the leaves are a good colour so going to stick with 2ml/l for now, would rather slightly underfeed rather than risk nute burn. With photos I'm happy to push them more as if they take a hit can extend veg a bit to let them recover, but can't do that autos so will play it safe.

 

Feed: Shogun grow 2ml/l; H&G roots excelurator 3ml/10l; Shogun CalMag 1ml/l

Temps: 21c -29c; humidity 50%-70%

Lights: 400w HPS; 150w MH (rotating around the edge of the parabolic reflector twice a day)

 

The groupshot:

 

 

 

Closeup of some of the LST on Cream Caramel:

 

 

This is the Cream Caramel that I ended up topping by mistake about 2-3 days ago, doesn't seem to have held her back at all and she's got a real nice shape now, will be interesting to compare the yield to the ones that haven't been topped.

 

 

 

Other Closeups (some outside the tent, others inside under the MH only) 2nd one is Fast Bud:

 

[JusaGrwR]

Looking good mate bit jel of that new green growth haha

[zeroG]

@MindSoup& @btk1977 - my bad, I missed the 'auto' part... no mainlining what so ever, 11L pot, 18hrs of light, You can get them to pull against themselves though, by that I mean, just taking the tension, and making the plant pull against its restriction that will make it naturally sturdier, and make for bigger bud sites - you can keep winding the string round the screw too as it starts to slacken...its like the rack for the poor fuckers ..  they bulk up to counter it  it s persuasion over the grow cycle lets say.

 

I wouldn't advocate this unless you're a gambling man, but you can supercrop autos. That will direct a lot of the starting growth back down to the first secondary branches, done early enough, like 2/3 weeks, you'll se a marked diff in your yield. I say brave cause you're not looking to fold the top over in a usual sc way, but just flatten the stem, to make the bruise, you only want to redirect the growth hormones, not stop its height necessarily - but try to keep it upright. It will stop growing, and the other branches will monster to catch up. You can also splint this straight break with a tooth pick and some tape until it strengthens again in 2-3 days to keep it upright. You wont notice a slow or loss of growth, quite the opposite. You've created a superhighway for your growth above the sc break. I have sc'd when a plant is 3-4 inches high, 3 sets of leaves. If I know its a female, Ill have that superhighway dosing up the whole plant from the off.

 

they do look nice as well, perfect for smashing about the place a bit and being tying down quite stringently I noticed...is that a latent fettish being lived out in your gardening?  . Mind you they wouldn't get pampered on the Siberian Tundra/plains, and you can bet Genghis wasn't all that gentle when harvesting which is where the stock genes for your autos come from, Ruderalis genus, far far North epic ness. 

 

I'm following your grow because back in April I returned from a 6/7 year Hiatus, immediately dropped the HPS, and decided if I was going to remember all the stuff I forgot, I might as well learn something new...so I went to coco from a 25+ year soil career, and to hi spec full spectrum LED from CFL and HPS, all in a month...

 

Good luck chap

 

 

 

 

[btk1977]

9 hours ago, zeroG said:

@MindSoup& @btk1977 - my bad, I missed the 'auto' part... no mainlining what so ever, 11L pot, 18hrs of light, You can get them to pull against themselves though, by that I mean, just taking the tension, and making the plant pull against its restriction that will make it naturally sturdier, and make for bigger bud sites - you can keep winding the string round the screw too as it starts to slacken...its like the rack for the poor fuckers ..  they bulk up to counter it  it s persuasion over the grow cycle lets say.

 

I wouldn't advocate this unless you're a gambling man, but you can supercrop autos. That will direct a lot of the starting growth back down to the first secondary branches, done early enough, like 2/3 weeks, you'll se a marked diff in your yield. I say brave cause you're not looking to fold the top over in a usual sc way, but just flatten the stem, to make the bruise, you only want to redirect the growth hormones, not stop its height necessarily - but try to keep it upright. It will stop growing, and the other branches will monster to catch up. You can also splint this straight break with a tooth pick and some tape until it strengthens again in 2-3 days to keep it upright. You wont notice a slow or loss of growth, quite the opposite. You've created a superhighway for your growth above the sc break. I have sc'd when a plant is 3-4 inches high, 3 sets of leaves. If I know its a female, Ill have that superhighway dosing up the whole plant from the off.

 

they do look nice as well, perfect for smashing about the place a bit and being tying down quite stringently I noticed...is that a latent fettish being lived out in your gardening?  . Mind you they wouldn't get pampered on the Siberian Tundra/plains, and you can bet Genghis wasn't all that gentle when harvesting which is where the stock genes for your autos come from, Ruderalis genus, far far North epic ness. 

 

I'm following your grow because back in April I returned from a 6/7 year Hiatus, immediately dropped the HPS, and decided if I was going to remember all the stuff I forgot, I might as well learn something new...so I went to coco from a 25+ year soil career, and to hi spec full spectrum LED from CFL and HPS, all in a month...

 

Good luck chap

 

 

 

 

 

I made the mistake of starting in 6.5l which were definitely on the small side, I've potted all bar one of them into 11l pots or bigger and they are doing noticeably better than the one still in a 6,5l pot, apart from the one that got some root damage during the transplant which is doing about the same. I have seen a couple of posts online claming to mainline autos but will definitely be leaving that for when I start doing photos again (I miss having control of the veg length).

 

Thanks for the info on supper cropping! I used to always do a lot of it back when I was growing photos, its such a good technique but hadn't really considered it being an option with autos, good to know that it is. I'm probably towards the end of the window of it being doable on them as they are part way though their 3rd week and they're putting out pre flowers already (still baffled at how quick everything is with autos!) might give it a go on one of them,or leave it for the next grow and do a proper side by side. Will have a think about that today.

 

How did you find your return from a big break? I've found I remember way more than I realised I did, was a bit rusty to start with and doing a lot of second guessing myself, doesn't help that there's a lot of pressure on getting this one right as desperately need to stop haemorrhaging money on rip off street weed, what with prices getting more and more ridiculous.  Proper getting back into the flow of things now though. I'd also forgotten just how much fun growing is.

 

How are you finding coco & led? Funnily enough I'm strongly considering making the switch to coco on the next grow and getting led for the summer. I decided to stick with tried and tested as much as  possible on the first grow as can't afford (literally )to mess it up, but coco seems like a really tempting option and I couldn't believe how much led have improved, they were still a joke when I was last on here, struggling a bit to see them as a serous alternative to HID, but sounds like they're better yielding if anything. 

[growinggold]

Beautiful looking group shot there buddy. 

Love the pebbles on top, do you think this would work tropf blumats to?

[btk1977]

4 hours ago, growinggold said:

Beautiful looking group shot there buddy. 

Love the pebbles on top, do you think this would work tropf blumats to?

 

Thanks!

 

Thinking with them is it stops that top level from going bone dry when doing the wet/dry cycle with allowing the roots access to a bit of extra soil to grow in, not sure if it makes a noticeable difference or not. I've got no experience of blumats (assumed they were some sort of mat that went under the pots from the name  had to google it as they weren't around when I was last growing), I've just done a bit of reading up on them and looks to me like it should work, can't see that the pebbles will interfere with the clay reservoir that opens and closes the valve.

[btk1977]

Day 20 Mini Update:

 

I've finally got round to changing the light in there, the buzzing off the 400w ballast (its one I bought second hand and that looks like it has come out of an industrial setting, looks nothing like a normal grow ballast, all the component are visible and screwed onto a metal plate) had reached a point where I couldn't ignore it anymore, its ridiculously loud compared to even my 1000w ballast.

 

Took a bit of rewiring as my 600w ballast doesn't have the starter incorporated into the ballast, its at the reflector end where the bulb screws in, but I want to use it with my parabolic reflector. Rewiring was fairly simple, I was able to detach the metal box the starter is contained in from its reflector and contain all the wiring inside there. I was planning on incorporating it into the parabolic shade but didn't have time to do that today as will require a bit of fabrication. That can be a tidying up project for in a couple of weeks time when I have more spare time.

 

Its on now and working a treat, not too sure what height I need the reflector at with this bulb (Osram Nav-T Super) so I'm giving it 45min or so and then I will see what the temps are like and raise/drop it if needed.

 

I've also finally got a bit more air movement in there. I used the trick I spotted in @Alys diary and have rewired a couple of PC fans I had lying around to some 12v dc transformers I also had spare. I've only got one in the tent at the moment, when I've got a bit of spare time in the next day or two I will work out a better hanging/positioning system for them and get the second on turned on too.

 

I've tweaked a couple of the LST pegs and bent a couple of leaves that were blocking light to branches I'm trying to chunk up. They're not quite ready for a feed  yet, plastic pots are a bit too heavy still for my liking and the fabric pots are due their next one tomorrow. 

 

I've got some slight tip burn on the newish leaves of one of the fabric pots, not sure why its just affecting one of them, but I will drop the feed for the felt pots for their next couple of feeds.

[Ajimango]

Looking great. These girls are gonna grow massive. Will follow if you dont mind.

[btk1977]

12 hours ago, Ajimango said:

Looking great. These girls are gonna grow massive. Will follow if you dont mind.

 

Thanks! Yeh it definitely looks that way, couple of weeks ago I couldn't picture how they would fill the tent, now I'm contemplating setting up another tent and moving 4 of them out of there in a week or two, just need to think how to sell the idea to the other half  

[KC]

On ‎25‎/‎11‎/‎2020 at 5:15 PM, btk1977 said:

Took a bit of rewiring as my 600w ballast doesn't have the starter incorporated into the ballast

Is it a Cannatronics one? I was wondering about trying to dismantle mine so I could change reflector but I chickened out  

[btk1977]

Day 23 Update:

 

The girls are absolutely monstering on, really impressed with them, quality genetics from @Sweet Seeds -Jaypp thanks guys for delivering!

 

They are really loving the switch to the 600w light, temps are sitting happily at 26c with the intake on at a decent rate supplying plenty of fresh air. Going to leave the 150w MH on in there for at least another week or two, I'm going to leave it in there until I switch over to the 1,000w HPS. I'm not sure yet whether to switch to the 1,000w mid way through stretch or when the stretch has come to an end, anyone got any thoughts on when makes the most sense to switch?

 

Took advantage of the black friday deals to pick up some goodies. I've picked up Shogun Silicone which I'll use from now, a bottle of Shogun boost which I'll start using in about a week, Shogun Terra Bloom which I'm expecting to start transitioning over to in about a week. I'll be using all 3 until about a week before crop time. I've also got a bottle of Geisha foliar spray which I used in the early hours of this morning on all but one plant (to see what difference it makes) and I'll be using it once a fortnight. Quite impressed with the foliar spray, can already see a difference. I'm going to spray the one I skipped tonight.

 

I also picked up an 8" clip on fan to add to the mix seeing as it was on sale. I've positioned the active intake duct so it blows fresh air diagonally across the middle of the tent, slightly above canopy level, as I don't want the duct too low due to the air being a bit too cold for the roots. Ive then placed the clip on fan and the PC fan on either side of the air stream blowing it down into the canopy. This should give the leaves a good supply of fresh air whilst getting blended with the warmer air from the lamp so its not too cold by the time it hits the roots.

 

I did a bit more tweaking of the LST last night. I'm not doing anything major from now on, just some gentle string work to open up the vertical stems to try and improve light diffusion. I also clipped off a small number of fan leaves (approx one on each plant) that were blocking the light to vertical stems I'm trying to encourage to chunk out. I was very tempted to do some suppercropping based on @zeroG recommendation, used to love suppercropping when I grew photos, but didn't have the time to do it earlier in the week and they are too far along now, so going to save it for the next grow.

 

I took the decision to cull the runt. She's been improving, but still looks atrocious and I've been getting paranoid she might hermie, so decided it made no sense to risk it when its clear very little weed will grow on her and I have more than enough (if anything slightly too many) healthy plants. I also needed to use her pot as a stand for the cane I was planning on fixing the clip on fan to. Was surprised at how few roots she had, its no wander she was struggling.

 

The plastic pots need at least another day before they are light enough to water/feed but the fabric pots were due a small drink last night. I'm sticking to the reduced levels of grow for the fabric pots due to one of them having had some tip burn on her new growth. Looks like I need to reduce the nutrient levels a tad to counter the more frequent feeding they are getting.

 

I'm also really grateful for the advice I got on here about the pot sizes, the one plant that is still in a 6.5l pot is noticeably smaller than the ones in the bigger pots. There doesn't appear to be much of a difference between the  12l/20l/30l pots but planning on weighing what comes off them separately to see for sure.

 

Temps: 25c-27c  Humidity: 45%-55%   Lights: 600w HPS & 150w MH

Fabric pot feed: 1ml/l shogun grow; 1ml/l calmag; 3ml/10l h&g roots excelurator; shogun silicone 1ml/l

Plastic pot feed: 2ml/l shogun grow; 1ml/l calmag; 3ml/10l h&g roots excelurator; shogun silicone 1ml/l

 

That should be more than enough rambling now, so time for the photos, starting with the obligatory group shot (anything with a white label is a Fast Bud, the rest are Cream Caramel):

 

 

 

A selection of photos trying to show what I'm doing with the LST, could do with an extra set of hands to hold leaves out of the way to make it a bit clearer, but this i best I could do without a tripod (something I might try and sort for the next diary):

 

 

 

Closeup shot of the progress of the roots, excuse the blurriness was a heavy pot to hold with one hand:

 

 

 

A photo showing the ventilation setup I described above. The PC fan is cable tied to the parabolic reflector so its roughly at the same height as the clip on fan when the reflector is at its normal height:

 

 

 

Some general closeup shots

:

 

 

Last but not least, a closeup of the one plant that I accidentally topped fairly early on in the LST process. Really doesn't seem to have held her back and its led to a really shape, think I will do this with a few more on the next grow: