Harvest a Pound Every Three Weeks!

DIRTHAWKER said:

Ive got a serious question...my flush has begun, this morning before lights out i drained the res and cleaned it twice, and let the pump run on tap water for an hour before adding my 150 ml of clearex and then back to 1 on 5 off. Tonight at lights on my ppm to my astonishment was at 590. I changed the res again and repeated...guess what? 590. I filled up a glass of my tap water and guess what? 590.

I studied the flush chapter and it says you keep your ppms below 50 at flush. wow this just sent me for a loop!!!

If my tap water is 590, and ive been keeping my ppms at 2000, does this mean that in reality my nutes have been kept at 590 below 2000?

Could this be the reason why the buds didnt seem to be as big as i thought they should be?

It just never really occured to me to check the tap ppm,, and what shall i do?

Thanks.....the worried pregnant mother...

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Yo Dirt - I think you are fine. Your plants are beautiful! Most nute charts are based on the assumption that your water is below 200PPM - ideally 100 or less. You may be on to something as higher PPM's can alter nutrient intake... I guess an RO unit is your next purchase in the quest for the ultimate harvest? I can't wait to see your final product. Following your progress has been truly inspirational!

Our local hydro store is stocked on RO units as we have 700+ PPM's in our area... I personally have to deal with 700 - 800! yahoo! Are you running AC? The waste water from AC or deumidifier is often close to 0 PPM's. I read an article in TreatYourself (I think - or some other trade mag) where a guy was using a TOTALLY closed system with a 5 ton AC/dehumidifier - using the waste water to fill his resi's... he was close to 100% circulation!

Can anyone please answer my post on page 219? There are 2 different ones asking a few different questions. Please help.

latinrascal said:

ok need a question answered guys and gals. Say i have some plants started from seeds in my veg unit where they have been for not yet 3 weeks. These plants are growing like mad, about 8 inches in diameter and on the 8th to 10 node already. I think they are more then ready for the flower unit but i got a problem. The roots have matted at the bottom of the tub and i know the only way to remove them is to cut the roots. Question is what should i expect from cutting the roots? If cutting is out of the question what do i do as i cant remove them from the veg unit if i dont? Thanks for your help.

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latinrascal said:

ok i have a few more questions. In my veg unit i have 4 plants that are for sure female which come from clones and 11 unknown that come from seeds. Question since my roots are already matting and i want to know before i put them in the flower unit can i start to flower them now in the veg unit to weed out the males and then switch them to the flower unit? can i start this process with my current cfl's or do i need my hps to start the flowering? Like i said this wednesday they will be 3 weeks. Problem at least one of the 4 clones is not big enough for flowering in my opinion should i sacrifice this one or will it be ok. It is very small like 3 inches and only has a few branches compared to the others that stand at least 6 inches minium but are very bushy and thriving at least 8 inches in diameter. I have limited ceiling height of 7 ft before the light and about 6.5 after so height is an issue.

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Some pictures would really help.

You can flower your veg unit no problem--to weed out the males. However, if the roots are growing together now.. they will obviously get worse. You could try pulling one plant out now and carefully cutting the majority of it's root mass awayfrom the root mat.. to see if it dies. That is the problem when roots grow together--separating them by cutting too much root will kill the plant, and possibly the others. That being said, roots are pretty sturdy... I have no problem ripping roots apart, as long as they aren't totally grown together.

At the 8th node you should be able to microsex during vegging.

You can start the flowering process with CFL. I would expect ~1.5 weeks of flowering before you can tell sex 100%.

I would keep the 6" clone. Why not? You have 2 months of flowering... it will grow! I will be starting all of my clones to flowering at about 6" or shorter if possible.

things are going GGOOOODD. thanks bra.id rep u agin but it says i cannot.

Thanks for the reply Repvip. About the root matt, not all of the plants roots are matted together just about 5 or 6 and only what has grown at the bottom of the 18 gallon container so there are plenty of roots still attached to the plant that are hanging. It just started to matt as they were starting to grow into the lower container. I thought about just cutting one and see how it does but i was worried about root rot so when i do it i think i will have to cut them all and remove the matted mess. Do you really think that cutting the lower portion will cause death? I was thinking at worse stunted growth until they recover but i didnt think they would die seeing that they will still have at least 80% of their roots still attached. I dont know where i messed up. I followed this thread and directions and my seedlings just took off like crazy. I cant believe that i am the only one in this situation. seeing that they are not yet 3 week old i didn't think this would be an issue but like i said these baby's are like baby Hughie, lol.

Also can i micro sex even though they are not even 3 weeks? i have been looking but i don't see anything. I guess i need a better magnifying glass.

As far as the flowering should i just start them on 12/12 now first or should i cut the root matt mess then give it time to recover then do 12/12? I really want to get rid of any males before going into the flowering unit.

DirthHawk a question for you. I remember reading how you had to veg a few plants alot longer for some reason, did you have this root matt problem in your veg unit? if so what did you do?

I think you will be fine, when I went to take out my biggest plant and put it in the flower system I had a few problems, had to cut the roots at the ball in the bottom, then I had to cut a giant root growing out the side of the netpot inorder to get it into the fence post, after all that truama she is still a giant beast! I have seen no ill effects so i wouldn't worry, the root systems regenerate so fast that it doesn't seem to matter.

torrey420 said:

I think you will be fine, when I went to take out my biggest plant and put it in the flower system I had a few problems, had to cut the roots at the ball in the bottom, then I had to cut a giant root growing out the side of the netpot inorder to get it into the fence post, after all that truama she is still a giant beast! I have seen no ill effects so i wouldn't worry, the root systems regenerate so fast that it doesn't seem to matter.

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I second the notion!

I am almost positive you will be fine cutting them at the lower end AND flowering them at the same time. Like you yourself said.. those roots are growing like crazy! Even if they do take time to recover... you probably won't notice

I have mothers in dirt at about 6 weeks flower, and clones in a flower unit at just over 3 weeks. I cannot believe the difference in trichome distribution! Even the fan leaves in the aero unit have trichome tipped edges--the stems are covered! More so than I have ever seen before.

On the discussion of RO units. A cheap one from home depot how do you hook it up?? Can you hook it up to a faucet without cutting anything? I live in an appt so I can't drill or cut out up the space. Even though I have a ro unit 50 feet from my door I would rather not have to go out side. And to dirth when you used your tap water did you let it sit out to let the chorine dissapate? I have heard using tap isn't that big a deal, especially the way your plants look. great job bro

latinrascal said:

DirthHawk a question for you. I remember reading how you had to veg a few plants alot longer for some reason, did you have this root matt problem in your veg unit? if so what did you do?

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Yea.. so far every batch that has come out of my veg unit has had very large roots..sometimes they are so thick and grown together that they wont come out of the 2 inch holes....At first, i was skeptical and reluctant to cut them, but it was absolutely necessary. I cut them, and at the time it felt like i was cutting my own throat

but I have had 100% success with every single plant thus far....now i just chop away when needed.





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Picasso345 said:

64 ppm sounds entirely within reason for some bottled water.

I'm no expert, but I would stick with the tap water for now, at this point you won't gain much by dragging bottles around, IMO. Like StinkBud said, be sure and skip the CalMag. I don't think taste will be affected either. The real gain in not using your water in the future will be the ability to raise your nutes up an additional ~590 ppm and no chlorines, etc in the water.

I got my RO system off of ebay. Generic six stage, 100 gpd. Works great.

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DragonPhoenix said:

I'm no expert but I think your buds will be fine...obviously from this point forward I'd use a RO system if I were you. As I mentioned earlier I've been using a RO system this entire time and it' s a little bit of a pain but not bad once you get a system established for how you are going to do it.

DP

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StinkBud said:

That's really high bro! Anything over 200 should be filtered through an RO machine first.

Don't worry though, It's probably just calcium in the water. Do you end up with a lot of white deposits on your shower head? That's Calcium.

What you want to flush is the N, K and P. Try increasing your dose of Clearex and run it for and extra day or two. 150ml is the minimum recommended dose. 450ml is max.

If you have the cash go buy an RO machine at Home DePot. The bigger ones are faster but not better. Smaller ones are fairly cheap.

With clean water you should see an improvement in growth since you will be adding 500 PPM of nutrients (N,K,P) instead of 500 PPM of Calcium (hard water).

One solution is to stop using CalMag in your nute formula. You don't need it. Then just save your water from the dehumidifier for your flush. The dehumidifier water is clean and perfect for flushing. I always drain my dehumidifier into the flushing res (if I have one going).

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Thank you all for the help. Latin and Lion,, thanks for the help also . Im looking into an RO system.

After all... this whole endeavor is geared toward supplying my local club, and the sick and terminaly ill with the very best meds i can possibly grow.


You all will be as REPVIP says "Riding the Karma Train.





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Thanks for the help guys, i really appreciate it

latinrascal said:

ok i have a few more questions. In my veg unit i have 4 plants that are for sure female which come from clones and 11 unknown that come from seeds. Question since my roots are already matting and i want to know before i put them in the flower unit can i start to flower them now in the veg unit to weed out the males and then switch them to the flower unit? can i start this process with my current cfl's or do i need my hps to start the flowering? Like i said this wednesday they will be 3 weeks. Problem at least one of the 4 clones is not big enough for flowering in my opinion should i sacrifice this one or will it be ok. It is very small like 3 inches and only has a few branches compared to the others that stand at least 6 inches minium but are very bushy and thriving at least 8 inches in diameter. I have limited ceiling height of 7 ft before the light and about 6.5 after so height is an issue.

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You can sex them in the veg unit. You may have to cut the roots that grow together . No big deal.

Preflowers don't show for 6-8 weeks

happyface said:

things are going GGOOOODD. thanks bra.id rep u agin but it says i cannot.

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Wow! Your plants are looking great Happyface!!!

I feel sorry for the one little plant. Her Sisters are showing no mercy.

Keep up the good work and keep the photos coming!

Roots 101:

Plants have evolved over millions of years in soil. With soil all the nutrients are in the top layer but the water table may be quite a bit lower. In some cases the water source may be very deep.

To handle these variables the plant has evolved two different types of root systems.

The first roots the plant sends out are the tap roots. The main purpose of these type of roots is to establish a water source and give the plant a strong foundation. In soil the tap root can grow very long if needed.

The other type of roots are the ones used to collect nutrients and Oxygen. These roots are tiny and look like little hairs. These are the roots that grow in the top part of the soil.

In soil the root mass grows huge. You don't see it but the roots below the soil are as large as the plant above.

In aeroponics the roots are very small in comparison to the size of the plant. This is because the plant can easily receive all the nutrients they need from a small root system. The plant dosen't need to grow many tap roots because water is always available.

One of the main reasons we see such huge growth rates is because the plant is growing leaves instead of roots.

So the important roots are the ones growing close to the plant. When we cut the roots we are mostly cutting the tap roots. Even if you cut off half of the roots, the plants would still have more nutes and water available than they could ever use.

Remember, the plant's limiting growth factor is usually light first then CO2 next. Water and nutes are a non issue in my system.

So it's no big deal to hack the roots. What you can't do though is leave the chopped off roots to rot within the other roots. All the plants must be separate and clean when they go into the flower system.

So there you go...everything you never wanted to know about roots in one post.

Thanks SB. I was worried about the cutting of the roots until a few of our member jumped on and said all will be good and now hearing from you just reaffirms what everyone said thanks again. As far as the preflowers showing at the 6th to 8th week, is it possible for them to show sooner? The reason i ask is i had one grow some balls since i last checked them and through a decent microscope (30x i believe) they are most def BALLS hanging from tiny stalks. The other one looks like a her. She has what i would describe more of a leafy looking growth coming out where the preflowers would Thinner and longer with no stalk. They will be 3 weeks from germ this Wednesday so am I just seeing things?

DIRTHAWKER said:

Thank you all for the help. Latin and Lion,, thanks for the help also . Im looking into an RO system.

After all... this whole endeavor is geared toward supplying my local club, and the sick and terminaly ill with the very best meds i can possibly grow.


You all will be as REPVIP says "Riding the Karma Train.





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Hey Dirt,


Awesome grow....you have proved that this formula is foolproof! thanks so much for sharing your progress.

I'm planning on doing a setup exactly like yours. Question about your lights. If you have one 600w over each Stinkbud Unit where do you position the 4th? Can you show me a simple diagram?

Thanks for your help and may the deities bless you....

Thanks Jim the 4 lights are positioned just off center of the middle flower unit.

DIRTHAWKER said:

Thanks Jim the 4 lights are positioned just off center of the middle flower unit.

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Very cool!

thanks Dirt. I hope I am as successful as you!

StinkBud said:

My buds have to be trimmed perfect. I like to trim a little tighter than most people. My buds have virtually no leaf.

One of the advantages of trimming the buds tight is you end up with a lot of dank leaf to make bubble hash out of.

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I had not thought of this for years, but when I was a kid, my dad was a machinist and one item that they had specially built was a chicken plucker. It was a tool that ran off of an electric motor. It had two paddles that would go around in a circle timed so that it would pull the feathers out with a lifting motion and did not actually cut anything. I will try to draw a picture, scan it and load it if anyone is interested. I would do a CAD if I had any idea of how.
This thing would work great because it would be similar to a barbers electric clippers but instead of cutting, it would just pull the leaves out.
Hmmmmm...maybe I had better shut up, this could be a good invention....never mind.....

i am subscribed man.. I appreciate u helping the people in need. +rep..

p.s. i love ur set up ur plants look excellent.