Cali med garden. Any input grately appreciated.

[saltesp]

First time grow.
heres a few pics of the action to show whats going on.

Pots have since been rearranged, this is how I plan to have them laid out in flowering, just testing space here.

How they are sitting now, with the strugling, small ones put further away from the intense light. The worst two are out of the frame.

One of the really strong 7.

ROW 1

ROW 2

ROW 3

A lagging one, and a struggling one, does it even have a chance?

Soil is FOx Farm Ocean Forest, ran about 3/1 with some chunker perlite.

Set up what I feel is a legit room, put in a wall AC unit, and have two reflectors hanging, carbon filter etc. one with a 1000w MH i'm using for veg, that will be switched to a hps for flowering and another with a 600w HPS Ill be kicking on and rearranging plants into a 3x2 and a 2x3.

As of now, I have 13 going, two are barely hanging onto life, and 2 more that are lagging behind the 9 that are kickin strong. Clones came through 2 seperate dispensaries, both, Purple Kush from oaksterdam. THE ones laggin all all from the same batch, go figure... IT is a co-op between my roommate and I. Were going to keep it at 12 matures and at the legal limit, that is, if we can save one of the two that are barely hanging on.

Running tap h2o, that tests out to 340 ppm. Running terra vega, rhizotonic and cannazym all at 8 ml/g. after nutes it tests to +- 20 of 1000ppm.
Giving the strong ones about 5 oz of water and the smaller ones about 4 every day right after the lights kick on in the afternoon.

Temperatures are not dialed yet, but its been between 68- 83F. Is this ok? ITs only going to be getting warmer for summer, I can keep it lower no problem. but the nitetime, even with the light on gets into the high sixties every night. Whats optimum range if temps cant be consistant and will vary bout 10 degrees day to nite?

As for pest control, I used a heavy fogger before setting up, and drenched the room sterile, no problems whatsoever as of now, but what should I be using for preventative control? IM using 3 in 1 Garden spray by "safer" brand. Local hydro shop recomended it, but how often should I be spraying if at all? haven't hit em since they were freshly potted. Can anyone recomend a full organic treatment I can use for strictly preventative measures?

Plan to run co2 through flowering. Don't have the money to invest in a full tank /reg. system for this grow, so I'll be running some tablets. Not sure about things like this,
http://www.htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=46265
and wondering how often co2 tanks will be blown through, And if a regulator is still needed on top of the controller, I assume It is.

So, I think I have a good start, and am looking for any input on what may help my garden thrive, Looking for specific advice on LST or supercropping, as well as general things people may see that myself, a supern00b cannot.

THANKS!!!

 

[DR. RESINTHUMB]

Great start man...could use a baking soda-vinigar mix for co2....for pest control i have used neem oil works great as it is absorbed by insects and causes them to not be able to breed,they suffocate...lol little fukkerz...ne ways make sure to use neem oil only when light are off and rince in the am when lights come on...only need to use a couple times but deff a good cure if ya need pest control

 

[MediMaryUser]

ive heard that for to kill pests (but not to control them) you could just filll up the area the plants are in with a shit load of co2 and they will die and the plants will be fine.

actually i think ive only heard of that working for mites lol


Great start youve got tho! + rep

 

[morrisgreenberg]

dude you need to chill with the nutes bro, that fox farms dirt is loaded, infact loaded enough to keep them happy for the next 6 weeks, also chillout with watering every day, your keeping the roots always wet and not letting them dry, thus depriving the root zone of oxygen, what i would do and anyone who is experienced with soil is water once until you see runoff and let dry for the next watering, you can tell when the pot is wet...your tap water is also terrible, watch your PH and test the Runoff PH, i can tell all of this by seeing that one fried clone in the back....cooked and you keep feeding you will kcook the whole crop...please for my sake plain water

 

[morrisgreenberg]

as for the co2, dont waste your money on that model, its nice that it keeps everything in order, i was gonna get that one instead i got a seperate thrsmomter for the a/c for 60 bucks, and all my other eqiupment runs off of timers, it doesnt monitor co2 PPMs, it only shuts it off when lights go out, and it doesnt even regulate how much comes out, the mopdel that does all that is the sentinel for over 600 bucks, your better off calculating it, theres a co2 calc on this forum and use a 15minute timer, but like i said i n my last post, chill with nutes and monitor PH and your aces for now, the rhiza and cannazyme are great, but i assume the vega is canna's high end nutrients...fox famr soil alone usually give me nute burn, thats why i say caution

 

[morrisgreenberg]

How-To : LST (Low Stress Training)
Well here we go, LST (Low Stress Training) the ultimate way to maximize your yield.

Before we begin lets get some knowledge on what you will be looking at.

Light Brown : Pot Outline
Green thick Lines : Main Stem
Small Thin Lines with Green Balls on top : Fan leafs
Yellow Lines : Side Branches
Red : Tiedown Metal Hooks (or thread whichever item you use, i use Hooks its easier)

The Text in the box : First digit is Step No. and Second Digit is Pot Size, below the numbers is the type of view your looking at (either from the SIDE or from the TOP)


Now that thats out of the way lets get it on..

Please note, you dont have to do it this way, its just the idea of how to do LST, this is the way i did it and you can see the end result of 4 weeks of growth this way in my signature picture where it says FIM/LST. Some may opt to use the eggcrate method where you utilize an eggcrate around the pot and tie it down to that with zipties instead of using string or hooks running from the pot itself... this way you can cover more square footage and maximize your yield even more.

Ok heres the STEPS PICTURE for you to follow along with.

STEP 1 : Grow your plant from Seed or Clone to 3 or 4 leaf sets, some use 5 but i always use 3 because after 3rd leaf set the main stem starts to harden and it will be harder to bend over your plant properly without breaking the main stem.

STEP 2 : Using a metal hook (i cut small sections of cloths hanger and bend a U shape at the end as a hook) bend over your plant with metal hook at the last internode (space between the last set of fanleafs and the next to last) and stick the metal hook into your dirt to hold down the stem.

STEP 3 : This is really not a step, just waiting time... Take note of how the top of the plant that was bent down will bend back upwards towards the light, this could take anywhere from 3 hours to 1 day. Under my 1000 Watt Metal Halide light it does it in under 3 hours.

STEP 4 : Veg and dont tie down until you have a new leaf set. You will notice Side branching has started already because good light is getting to the main stem areas next to each fanleaf stem intersection with the main stem.

STEP 5 : Depending on your starting pot size you may have to transplant. If you started out with a large pot, repeat step 2 over and over again holding the main stem down with hooks until you reach the end of the pot. In this illustration to save time and drawings, i started out with a small pot and it reached the end of the pot after the first tiedown. I repotted it into a 10 inch pot which will be my final pot size for this plant in order for me to continue the LST Bends around the inside edge of the pot.

STEP 6 : Now that your new leaf set has formed you have enough length in growth since the first bend(s) to allow you to start bending the stem horizontally around the inside edge of the pot. Use metal hooks again to keep this bend in place. Side branches should be coming along very nicely.

STEP 7 : Continue repeating steps 4 and 6, allowing the plant to grow and then keep tieing it down along the inside edge of pot using metal hooks (or whatever your using) Side branches should be forming and growing up towards the light.

STEP 8 : Continue to repeat step 7 until you are all the way around the pot... when you reach the point where your plant first met the edge of the plant Top the plant (cut off the very top of the plant ) and hold it down horizontally with a metal hook.... During all this time of repeating step 7 you should also be tieing down horizontally the new branches that have formed from the main stem as much as possible until you use up as much space as possible inside the pot as well , the outter branches growing over the outside edge of the pot you can hold down as well with string to keep those tops even with the inner branches.

STEP 9 : After you have used up all possible space inside the pot (or your eggcrate) its time to just let it flower.. This is a side view of how it will and should look by that time with all the side branches growing upwards towards the light.... these will all become Collas unlike a non LST plant will only have one colla.

During flowering and even before due to lack of light on the main stem fan leafs which is all the way to the bottom almost against the soil those fanleafs will die off anyways, i usually cut these off the main stem right after the branch has grown out in that area, keeps things neat down below where you will need good airflow during flowering.. so go ahead and take off any fanleafs coming off the main stem that is going around the inside edge of the pot.

Set your timer to 12/12 and watch it bloom

There is no Step 10 in the picture but we all know what that is

HARVEST!!!

 

[morrisgreenberg]

Using this method, i wound up with 9-11 main colas on each plant, see my avatar

 

[morrisgreenberg]

but, i vegged for a long long LONG time, more veg = more yield but if you dont have the proper space forget it

 

[saltesp]

but, i vegged for a long long LONG time, more veg = more yield but if you dont have the proper space forget it

Morris, thanks so much for your input, This is exactly what I needed.

SO, your saying for the watering part, add water and saturate soil till it runs off through the bottom of the pots? then test ppm in comparison to the water before?

Seems like thats a whole bit of water and I was worried before about over watering seeing as they are in 5 gallon sq pots. I suppose I need to invest in a legit ph meter? I am using the little container/drop system that i know sucks, I do have a nice ppm meter already.

For plain water, do you mean to continue running tap? Should I invest into a RO filter or just make regular runs to the water jug filler station thing? Also I Was told If I run RO I have to add extra nutes to add back some of the stuff that was just taken out, this doesn't seem correct, but thats what the hydro guy said.

SO, no nutes whatsoever, or continue to run the cannazyme/ rhizo ? but at a lower amount? i'm just following the nute chart from canna as of now, and within the reccomend ppm levels. I assume this is because the chart is for hydro where no soil is used?

As for the LST, How much training should I use on them, and how long should I extend veg time? Seeing as im limited to the space of the pots pretty much.

 

[morrisgreenberg]

see its so easy to get confused about overwatering, if we have a 5gal pot and say we felt like running 5 gallons of water thru it, u would easily say "wow thats too much" but its not, over watering is when we do it too often, i use 5 gallon pots myself and it usually takes a quart to 1/2 gallon till i get water coming out the bottom, now when i said you may need to flush(this fixes many problems) you would need to run 2-3 times the water to pot size, for example we need 10-15 gallons of water to flush the soil i k now its a ton but its the way to go until you get a good feel of when your dirt is properly flushed, we can get into that later. like i said in my other post as critical as water is, oxygen is as much important, thats why when we water we let the soil dry until atleast the first 3-5 inches of top soil is dry, or when you feel the pot is either light or leaves droopy, this is why the perlite is good to have, it dont retain water like say dirt or vermiculite, its keep the soil airy and drains great, i also use a p'lite-vermiculite to grow in with no soil

 

[morrisgreenberg]

as for PH testing, i think the little PH drops are great, to make sure my digi meter is accurate i use that aswell, 6.0-6.5 is prime, but with the drops in the yellow is perfect, PPM is good to have for soil too, not as critical, but both good meters are essential if you were going hydro, with high PPMs in the water you may have to flush a little more often bcus we dont want salts to build up, you get plenty of salt biuld up from nutes, i try to avoid any issues like this with a monthly maintenance flush...all this flushing is the reason i went to aeroponics...as for nutrients, like i said your soil has plenty for atleast the next 6 weeks, if you start to see your tips burning you may have to flush to water down the soil and start your feeding regiment sooner rather than later, i know most people on here dont have to do this, they love Ocean forrest, i use happy frog...so when i say "plain water" i really mean add your rhizatonic and cannazyme...those additives dont have any nutrient values in them like N-P-K, but i am not sure since i dont use those products, but when you start using nutes better to go less at 1/4 strenght and work your way up

 

[morrisgreenberg]

you may need R/o, i am in a big city and tap around here is 7.0 and 25ppms, personally i do not know the effect of bad or hard water, all i know is about the PH should be always checked....as for flowering i love the square pots, i am sure you paid good money for them and you can fit plants in there nicely, but you need to space them out a lil bit when you start flowering, good rule of thumb is a minimum of 1 sq ft per pot, thats the very least, now when they are getting bigger your gonna want to trim the bottom 1/4 of the plant for good air flow, its gonna get dense like a jungle in there and need the air circulation to keep mold and fungus at bay...as for size, if you have indica dominant plants they tend to get bushy and full and sativas get taller and lanky, but no matter what strain, say if you have a 12inch plant, you can expect an indica to grow 1-3 inches per day at the start of flowering for the first 2-3 weeks of the 12/12 cycle...so that 12 inch plant should fnish around 24-36 inches...this is called the stretch period, after the first 4 weeks of flowering they will start to add weight, expect little height growth.

 

[morrisgreenberg]

now if your space is limited and some plants are getting taller than the others, we dont want that bcus the taller plants will block out light, we want good even canopies, the tallest plants should be bent or traineds so the other can catch up, this is were LST, Topping and Scrog comes into play, these are various forms of canopy managment.....you can go to the advanced cultivation section and look up that thread, its very popular and i believe the author of it is Suubcool...this guy is constantly featured in high times...if you want decent sized plants to produce you may want to get one of those stakes that are used for tomatoes, they are good cus you can traine the plants any way you like, plus your going to need support for the monster buds your gonna gro

 

[saltesp]

Wow. Every post you make, I get so much info. And then have so many more questions!

SO, ill continue to run the rhizo and cannazyme. And try to scrape some duckets together for an RO filter. Until then ill make my trips to the distilled water place.

DO I need to flush? I already see some tips burning.

And even if I do, is the monthly flush necessary? If So, ill do what I need, just haven't heard of this necessity before.

Ill read up onto the canopy management stuff, thanks for the direction, once again!

 

[morrisgreenberg]

see heres the issue with bad quality water, you dont want to flush useing that stuff, if your plants tips are getting burnt rapidly then yes flush em, but if its not bad just a tiny bit than she should be able to handle it, monthly flushing is not mandatory, but i like as much control over my plants as possible, with soil you dont have that, by flushing every so often you can make sure salts arent building up, keeping soil PH in check, the possibility of lockout will be lowered, now if you did have a nutreient deficiencie, i like to flush with 1/4 strength nutes mixed in, but thats just me and i wouldnt recomend this unless you know exactly whats deficient, i love a good flush just to have a clean slate to work with if i made any mistakes...so basically its a clean slate and some control is what im aiming for...its a ton of work though, so i would suggest you try hydro or aero next time around, his hobby of ours gets pricey

 

[saltesp]

see heres the issue with bad quality water, you dont want to flush useing that stuff, if your plants tips are getting burnt rapidly then yes flush em, but if its not bad just a tiny bit than she should be able to handle it, monthly flushing is not mandatory, but i like as much control over my plants as possible, with soil you dont have that, by flushing every so often you can make sure salts arent building up, keeping soil PH in check, the possibility of lockout will be lowered, now if you did have a nutreient deficiencie, i like to flush with 1/4 strength nutes mixed in, but thats just me and i wouldnt recomend this unless you know exactly whats deficient, i love a good flush just to have a clean slate to work with if i made any mistakes...so basically its a clean slate and some control is what im aiming for...its a ton of work though, so i would suggest you try hydro or aero next time around, his hobby of ours gets pricey

Went out and got a few 7 gallon jugs, And distilled water that tests to 10ppm, running the cannazyme and rhizo. Just going to start watering how you mentioned and not flush right now, seeing as they aren't very burnt, just a few tips.

AS for hydro, id rather keep it soil, I jsut prefer the smoke. Next round will be off of subcools journal using his super soil and very little nutes.

 

[saltesp]

Plants are coming in at different heights, what sort of height management should I use to keep them leveled off?

Also do I need to be pruning at all? There's a lot of growth around the stem but not really away from it.

I don't think the area im growing in is large enough to use LST and take advantage of the larger amount of colas, not sure though.

 

[morrisgreenberg]

pruning can and should be done during mid to late flowering, just a little bit in my opinion, some will say dont ever touch it, and others agree with me, i like to take a fan leaf "here and there" to get light to some lower flowers, basically ONE leaf per plant, as for now you dont have to worry, you will see when a plant is getting blocked, i personally like to bend over a plant, this technique is called "FIM" or supercropping, this is done by pinching an area on the stem till it is soft and folding it thus making the plant the same height as the others, this allows you to control height, like imagine if you let it get too big and shes about to touch the light, this is what is done, but mainly this is done to increaase yield by allowing light to penetrate lower through the plant since you are bending some fan leaves away...i dont know if you seen this but go to youtube and look up "seemorebuds" and watch all 3 videos, or you can support the guy, hes on this site by buying his dvds....honestly its a must watch

 

[saltesp]

Things are looking better, training them to keep a bit even of a canopy.

so, how long before I should start 12/12 and flowering, A few are a bit behind, but space is limited, so training is as well.

 

[morrisgreenberg]

they look good, bending the plant over not only evens the canopy, but it gets light to the lower plant, flowering depends on how large of a plant your aiming for, for example if you have a 12inch plant and decided to flower, you can expect 1-3 inches of growth per day for the first 2-3 weeks of the flowering cycle, thus giving you a 24-36in plant depending if its indica or sativa dominant, sativas grow much taller, so it depends on your space and what you want to accomplish