First Grow Journal - DP Blueberry - NFT Hydroponic

Hi All

thought I'd start a grow journal (three weeks late!) if only for my benefit but hopefully for others too!!

Roughly five weeks ago having been thinking of growing for a while, I decided to go for it. My bank kindly gave me an overdraft and having done a bit of research decided to go with a hydroponic system.

My set-up is based within a BudBox grow tent (1.2m x 1.2m x 2m). I'm using a Hydrogully NFT system and 600w HPS light. I decided on Dutch Passion Blueberry. Although expensive I purchased 10 feminised seeds.

I directly germinated the seeds in rockwool using an Aeroponics propagator. Within three days 6 seedling appeared above the surface of the rockwool, all good. By day six the seedlings were couple of inches tall but no sign of the others. Curiosity got the better of me and I explored them. 3 had cracked but were apparently stuck under their casings. Using a steralised scalpel I removed the casing carefully. Within in a day theses 3 had sprouted above the rockwool. As for the fourth I could find nothing in the rockwool!!!!! Lighting wise for the germinating I used the HPS once the six had surfaced, but the aeroponics systems was on the ground and the light almost 2 meters above with some shading as well, not ideal but worked fine.

Day 8 I transfered all 9 seedlings (including the 3 that had not long surfaced) into the NFT system on a 18/6 light rotation. My ph in the water sitting at 6.2ph and conductivity about 13. I also have a separate bucket of water in the tent with a ceramic mister sat in it on a timer 20 mins every hour during 'daytime' keeping humidity 60-70%.

Its day 22 (14 since in the NFT) and you can see photos in my gallery of the young blueberrys. The first six are standing about 8-10" tall with the remaining three 3-4" but looking ok. The stem on these three is obviously going to be shorter and I guess this has to do with making the first six whilst in the propagator 'work' for there light, next time I will invest in fluorescents!!!

Thats it so far. Any questions, remarks or advice much appreciated!?!?

Cheers

Welcome to the forum. Nice looking setup and plants. One of the F boys. I think it's Filthy Fletch builds that type of setup and is an expert with the nft. You are right, trying to use a 400watt for seedlings is not energy efficient. Have you bought your cloning supplies yet?? Several great posts in this forum for cloning. Its the key to being successful. If you try two clones from each plant with 50% success, and from what you have shown so far you will do better than that, you would still have as many plants cloned and ready go. VV

VictorVIcious said:

Welcome to the forum. Nice looking setup and plants. One of the F boys. I think it's Filthy Fletch builds that type of setup and is an expert with the nft. You are right, trying to use a 400watt for seedlings is not energy efficient. Have you bought your cloning supplies yet?? Several great posts in this forum for cloning. Its the key to being successful. If you try two clones from each plant with 50% success, and from what you have shown so far you will do better than that, you would still have as many plants cloned and ready go. VV

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hi thanks for the input. Cloning is something I havnt really even thought o yet, but obviously have too soonish. My plan in the coming week is to top in the next week, I'll probably experiment on a couple first but from fit I've heard blueberrys really need topping to get the best? I'll prob flower in two or three weeks? i'll keep the journal updated, lol

Cheers

Hi

Day 26

Due to bloody neighbours complaining about the noise of the lighting ballest coming on at 10pm every night (strange noise to them) I've switched to 24 hour lighting for the rest of the veg period, need to find way to dampen sound for flowering.

Topped the two largest plants yesterday, they are looking good and will top the rest over the coming week depending on size. Otherwise all looking good.

Cheers

Get a digital ballast... mine is almost silent. However my 400w MH is traditional... yea she is loud.

r32 said:

Get a digital ballast... mine is almost silent. However my 400w MH is traditional... yea she is loud.

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Thanks for the info, never knew there was a different sort of ballest.

If this grow goes well then I may set up a second grow tent and was thinking of using the new compact fluorescent bulbs (250w) which are also ballest-less. Actually might just experiment with one grow to see what difference it makes.

cheers

Hi

topped all remaining plants. First six plants between 10-12 inches tall remaining 3 5-7 inches tall. Plan to switch to 12/12 lightining tomorrow (30 days since germination).

Find attached photo's taken today

cheers

Switching to 12/12 lighting today. I forgot to mention I've been clearing out the reservoir on a fortnightly basis. I did this yesterday raising the conductivity to 16 (using grow nutes), I'll switch to bloom nutes on next flush.

I use Vitalink nutes, augmented with Vitalink Bioplus and once or twice daily I spray the foliage with tap water with a weak solution of Canna Rhizotonic.

My main issue really has been the larger plants root mass pushing the pots up out of the hydrogully. I've tied the pots now down, hopefully to keep the roots growing horizontally along the gully.

cheers

Jus a quick update and some new photos. I now on the 12/12 lighting upped the nutes to 18, still on veg/growth nutes but topping the reservoir up with bloom nutes (canna). Swop to bloom nutes totally on next flush this coming thursday.

Really cant get over the growth, theres only 8 days difference between the last photos and these ones attached. Looking for signs of sexing, hopefully good they are from femenised seeds but think blueberrys can turn(!) into hermaphrodites!!

cheers

11 Days in on flowering cycle, early signs of white pistilies on plants. Largest plant now over 60cm. All looking good. One of the late germinators looks it might be a mutation, the main stalk has split into two stalks and is very small (16cm) leave, see what happens.

Had upped nutes to 18 but saw sum slight nute burn and the large plants top went bit 'floppy', reduced nutes back to 12-14 and everything is sweet again. As read, obviously Blueburry dosnt like too much nutes.

Away for the weekend hope to verify sex of plants on Tuesday.

cheers

Hi

can anyone tell me if 9 plants equally spaced in 1.2 square meter room is ok?

Must admit only thing that is worrying me its getting very dense in the tent/grow room. I've decided unless I really need to not to prune (at least anything healthy). Oh and also the height the largest plant is about 15 inches below the lamp and only 11 days into flowering. The NFT system dosnt help as its 24" (60 cm) above ground level (the gullys that is).

Any recommendations on number of blueberrys per square meter? My lamp is a 600w HPS. Is nine plants over doing it?

cheers

foedecide said:

Hi

can anyone tell me if 9 plants equally spaced in 1.2 square meter room is ok?

Must admit only thing that is worrying me its getting very dense in the tent/grow room. I've decided unless I really need to not to prune (at least anything healthy). Oh and also the height the largest plant is about 15 inches below the lamp and only 11 days into flowering. The NFT system dosnt help as its 24" (60 cm) above ground level (the gullys that is).

Any recommendations on number of blueberrys per square meter? My lamp is a 600w HPS. Is nine plants over doing it?

cheers

Click to expand...

no 9 is not ever doing it,i would put 12-16 depending on height put into veg.

Very nice man, those bad boys are blowing up since you 12/12'd it.

I'm growing some DP BB too, drop by my thread and check it out. I'm not gonna top but I plan on flowering around 12"-14". Did you have any strange looking plants from your seeds? Two of mine came out severely disformed. Just wondering...

Gwarrior said:

Very nice man, those bad boys are blowing up since you 12/12'd it.

I'm growing some DP BB too, drop by my thread and check it out. I'm not gonna top but I plan on flowering around 12"-14". Did you have any strange looking plants from your seeds? Two of mine came out severely disformed. Just wondering...

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Hi,

thanks for the compliments!!!

Yeah I have three plants which are behind, with one of those mutated/disformed of sorts.

The three plants were from the seeds which had difficulty 'ejecting' their cases. I had to gently help them along by removing their cases at germination (by which time they were almost 7 days behind the other six).

Two of those three are fine and basically just 7 days behind in growth (3-4" behind). The third has mutated a bit (strange split branches) and very slow growing almost 12" behind the others but fairly healthy looking otherwise. I seem to remember reading if your not careful enough with seedlings that need help removing there cases it will grow deformed and slower. I think I've also read DP Blueberry genetics means a small percentage will turn out like this.

Your tellin me they've bolted!!, lol. I'm a tad worried they are now 6-8" from the HPS?!?

cheers

trapper said:

no 9 is not ever doing it,i would put 12-16 depending on height put into veg.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. You obviously have more experience here, but must admit am surprised by your figures. My nine plants have swamped the tent already (fighting for space) it really is like a jungle already. Although they look healthy enough.

My NFT system is capable of taking 20 plants. I'll see how this grow goes (its my first) and take it from there.

I would prefer to have 9 plants produce a good crop/yield than 12 average yields, would increased density of plants not reduce the yield of individual plants?

cheers

some photos taken today, boltin n' boltin but showing white pistils!!!!

I wish I grew mine that big. I wont have enough BB to last me more than a couple weeks when its all said and done. Luckily I have some other plants that are big producers, but I too got my seeds from DP and only 1 of 10 turned out normal. The rest were so severely mutated they ended up in the toilet. I kept one of the mutants going, and topped it a couple weeks before flowering and it has some huge crazy lookin buds on it. I zap my plants with a UV light a couple times a day for about 2 hrs each time and the Blueberries have some SERIOUS resin on them, looking at them under a scope I don't see room for any more trichomes! good luck!

cjsesh00 said:

I zap my plants with a UV light a couple times a day for about 2 hrs each time and the Blueberries have some SERIOUS resin on them, looking at them under a scope I don't see room for any more trichomes! good luck!

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Why do you zap your plants with UV? Whats the benefit? Is this during "daytime" or when lights off? Is this related do you think to your BlueBerrys having SERIOUS resin?

cheers

look up 'UVB, THC and Me' on YouTube by the Marijuana Man. Its about 20 minutes long but he does a pretty good job describing it, and there is some pretty good research out there. The resin to the eye makes a plant appealing but its what's inside the resin that we need to be concerned with...there are many many different cannibinoids (sp?) in a marijuana plant. THC is only one of them, but is responsible for most of the psychoactive results after smoking or ingesting. UVB is very harmful to every form of life and apparently our plants will have more and bigger resin heads (that focus the UVB away from the plant, thats why the heads are round to gather more light from every direction), I say 'Zap' because I don't run the UV light all day because it can be even more harmful than productive if used for too long. I hear if you implement it during veg the plants can handle more of it in the long run. UV light is more concentrated the closer you get the equator, where the best plants are grown. I use mine during the day around the middle part of their lighting period (noon in theory).

cjsesh00 said:

look up 'UVB, THC and Me' on YouTube by the Marijuana Man. Its about 20 minutes long but he does a pretty good job describing it, and there is some pretty good research out there. The resin to the eye makes a plant appealing but its what's inside the resin that we need to be concerned with...there are many many different cannibinoids (sp?) in a marijuana plant. THC is only one of them, but is responsible for most of the psychoactive results after smoking or ingesting. UVB is very harmful to every form of life and apparently our plants will have more and bigger resin heads (that focus the UVB away from the plant, thats why the heads are round to gather more light from every direction), I say 'Zap' because I don't run the UV light all day because it can be even more harmful than productive if used for too long. I hear if you implement it during veg the plants can handle more of it in the long run. UV light is more concentrated the closer you get the equator, where the best plants are grown. I use mine during the day around the middle part of their lighting period (noon in theory).

Click to expand...

Hi

did a bit of googling after your post as well and understand better the reason for using UV (in particular UVB).

I'm thinking of buying a Zoo Med Repti Sun 10.0 UVB Desert Compact bulb, my only problem being the plants are that close to the "roof" it might be only a few inches above the plant top. The bulb mentioned dosnt (supposedly) produce much heat but not sure how good it would be that close to the plants from a UV point of view?

cheers