Hot Diggity Sog - Chapter 5: The Big One

Hot Diggity Sog said:

If you love to grow and like to be in control over everything, hydro is great. If you prefer to be more on auto-pilot, maybe not. I love it but I also just love trying new things and learning. I think my next one will not be hydro.

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Yeah soil can def feel like auto pilot sometimes, nothin auto pilot about my next run mate, 12 plants in 4x4 with two diy kits.... going to be a big one, that’s in a metre by metre so least 4x4 will give them more room, I have anothe r3 that don’t fit in there so I guess we will see how it goes

Bongsmoke420 said:

Yeah soil can def feel like auto pilot sometimes, nothin auto pilot about my next run mate, 12 plants in 4x4 with two diy kits.... going to be a big one, that’s in a metre by metre so least 4x4 will give them more room, I have anothe r3 that don’t fit in there so I guess we will see how it goes

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Those look great, man!

Day 78 - Good progress and 4 more LED's

Things continue to go well and she has responded extremely well to the russet treatments thus far. Fingers crossed, but I'm checking her twice daily trying to find anything alive.

The way I've had the QB 288's oriented has started to be a bit problematic. The left to right coverage has been fine, until recently - she's become too wide with too much girth. I briefly considered building two more towers but really didn't want to go that route. I decided to rotate the boards and then stagger their positions slightly. WOW - it worked, and holy shit is it bright in there now.

I've been stretching her out but haven't done any tying - I may, I may not. Have been doing a lot of leaf tucking instead of pruning but that could change.
We've got a massive girl with massive roots and a massive amount of light. Things look great.

(10) QB 288 V2's @2100 mA ~ 114 watts each at the wall for a total of 1140 Watts.
Room Temps - With the addition of the 4 new LED's brought on today, 77 with lights on and 68 with lights off (running a 6 on, 2 off schedule)
Water Temps - 68/69
Air Stones - NONE
Nutrient Strength: Between 0.6 and 0.7 EC

Very nice.

Kami Samurai said:

Very nice.

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Thank you kind Sir

Day 81
Flowering - Day 2

I decided to trigger flowering and she had her first 12 hours of darkness Sunday night. I'm calling Monday, Day 1 of flowering.

Day 86
Flowering - Day 7

Things are going pretty well. She looks to be about ready to start stretching...at least I hope. I need her to at least double in height. The biggest change I made from last week was to halve the nitrogen and triple the magnesium. Being an OG Kush, she seems to be pretty sensitive to N. Will be doing some defoliation tonight. This will likely stunt her just a bit but I've done this before and I do think it will be beneficial.

Day 87
Flowering - Day 8

Humming right along. She is now drinking 2 1/2 gallons of water per day! To put that into perspective, my 63 plant POD, in full flower, was consuming 5 gallons a day. I think she will likely hit 4 gallons a day.

Reducing the nitrogen and increasing the magnesium has been very positive. After listening to a Kevin Jodrey video in which he suggested exactly that for OG Kush, I gave it a try.
Hoping/Expecting to be adding 4 more Quantum Boards towards the end of this week. I feel like I need to introduce some of the 3000K boards. Right now it's all 4000K's.

My battles with the russet mite seem to have gone very well (Knock on Wood!!!).
The treatments were a bit rough on her but she is doing very well. The severe red/purple stems are starting to disappear on both new growth and old growth which was most likely due to the stress of treatment.

It's starting to get cold where I live. Grow room temps are averaging 73F during lights on and peak at 75. Lights off they drop as low as 68F. Very happy with that range, so far.

She definitely is starting to stretch out both vertically and horizontally. I sure hope I can get some good vertical stretch out of her. She is 30" tall and 36" wide, as of today. I would really like to see a vertical height of around 7 feet...fingers crossed.

Day 88
Flowering - Day 9

Treated her to a fresh rez change this morning. Figured I should make her happy as tonight was pruning time.
Removed a full 5 gallon bucket worth of leaves and branches. She was so dense that there was no air movement inside. I found a few small leaves that had died and actually had a bit of mold on them...not cool.

So I gave her a pretty aggressive pruning. I thinned out her interior quite a bit but there is more to do. I began stretching her out again and tying parts of her down. There are lots of branches that are very strong and doing great but there are lots that are weak and frail. The weak ones have 7 to 10 days to improve or they will have to be culled.

I've been contemplating this for about a week and I think I've made my decision. Tomorrow I'm going to go buy a new Eye Hortilux Super HPS 600 Watt bulb and use it in a reflector above the girl. Right now, I have (2) Quantum Boards on top.

This should accomplish a few things:

• Increase the heat a bit and increase the difference between lights on temps and lights off temps. Right now I only have about a 6 degree difference.
• Introduce a different color spectrum
• Increase the light intensity - especially from above.

I think all of these will factor into how much she stretches and should encourage more stretch. I'll report back tomorrow once implemented.

Day 90
Flowering - Day 11

Just a minor update:

The pruning that I did 2 nights ago stunted her for about 48 hours but she has resumed and the stretch has officially started. She still looks pretty banged up but I've found that heavy defoliation/pruning usually takes around 7 days to fully recover from.

The bottom 1/3rd of the plant is pretty disappointing. There are certainly some strong branches but much of it is just terrible. I really thought my lighting strategy would make the lower stuff be amazing but it has not really played out like that so far. Oh well...it's early...maybe I'll be surprised.

I removed the two overhead LED's yesterday morning and placed a 600 HPS up top. After about 8 or 9 hours of it, she started to show signs of stress: Leaf curl and droop trying to avoid the light. But after the 12 hour dark cycle, she looked ready to go and tonight she didn't really exhibit much stress at all so she got used to it quickly.

Still have the 4 LED towers but I did make a change tonight. I replaced the lowest LED board with a 3000K. Up until now, I've been running all 4000K's.
So, from top to bottom, we basically have:

HPS ~ 2700K
LED - 4000K
LED - 3000K

(I promise to turn the HPS off for all picture taking from here on out)

Man you are a talented grower an very clean.

jzs147 said:

Man you are a talented grower an very clean.

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I just love this plant and am trying to learn as much as I can!

Day 92
Flowering - Day 13

Well...only 4 days after a substantial pruning, she has rebounded strong. This is both good and bad. It's good for obvious reasons. It's bad because - oh shit - she's getting really friggin dense again. I think pruning this girl is going to be an almost daily task moving forward. I'm continuing to do LST by using string to stretch her out - focusing on the lower 1/3rd, mainly.

The 600W HPS above is working fantastic. I think I will keep this running as long as I can. Bringing the 3rd row of LED's won't be needed for a while as long as the HPS is running.
I feel very fortunate that I was able to defeat the russet mite. I'm fairly certain that my level of infestation was very low and that's why I was able to defeat them.

All in all, I couldn't be happier. Blue Planet Nutrients is working fantastic for me. Yes, it's a bit more work and yes, it took a bit longer to get dialed in. But it is performing as well, or better, as it did in my very 1st experiment (Chapter 1) when I was using Coco. Kudo's to Rob and his team for both their product as well as their support.

Onto some pics!

Day 94
Flowering - Day 15

Things are going great. One thing I noticed was her water consumption dropped off considerably since I did the big round of defoliation - maybe that's part of what happens when she gets "stunted". At any rate, her water intake jumped dramatically yesterday and into today.

I've been letting her PH swing up and down...something I believe is important. If we call 5.8 her home base, I like to let her drift up into the 6.1 and 6.2 range. I will let her dip below 5.8 but I won't let her stay under 5.8 for nearly as long as I will above 5.8.

One thing on the PH topic that I find fascinating - I think the beneficial bacteria and roots are actually in control of the PH. I know this sounds crazy but hear me out:
My two previous hydroponics (NFT) experiments used a product called ZONE which created a sterile environment. Without fail, here is how the PH worked: I would change the reservoir with fresh nutes, PH to where I wanted it (5.8 to 6.2, generally) and then manually adjust as I saw fit. But the point being, the PH would not change - I was in complete control. At least until the 5th or 6th day at which point the PH would start dropping all by itself and rather suddenly. I'm not seeing this behavior this time. I will do a fresh rez change and the plant will determine where it wants to be. Sometimes it will be at 5.7 or 5.8 and other times it will be at 6.0, 6.1 or 6.2. I can add PH up or down, and it will change, but I have to add more than usual - it's as if the plant is saying "hey...I want to be here...quit fighting me". Call me crazy, but this is what I'm seeing and I love it...fascinating.

Nothing else really important going on. 75% of the branches that are tied down no longer have tension on the string which is pretty amazing. I did all of the tying on Tuesday - started in the morning and did a bit here and there during the day and into the night. Tomorrow morning I will remove all of the string, let her be natural until the evening, and then start all over - tie down what needs to be tied down. Looks like I need to focus on the middle areas now a little and not just the bottom 1/3rd.

Some pre-flowers are showing. The tops have that cool thickness to them where you can see the new growth is much more dense than usual. I love this part...I just love it.
The stretch is still going on but I really wish she would get taller quicker. She hit 36" tall today but has only been growing around 0.75" to 1.0" per day. It's still early so there is a chance she can pack on some height - we'll see.

I was a bit bored before posting so I spent like 20 minutes counting all of the branches that look like they will yield legit cola's. I didn't count anything that fell into the popcorn category. I ended up with over 100 and kind of stopped counting after that

Until next time,
HDS

Day 98
Flowering - Day 19

Things are going great. She is continuing to stretch which is fantastic. I'm not really sure what the final height is going to look like. I'll set the over/under at 32"/16". My personal guess is that she will end up around 22" taller from where she is now - she's exactly 40" tall right now (measured from the net pot, not the floor)

I briefly bumped up the nutes this week and actually crossed 1.0 EC but it was too much and quickly toned it back. All of the growth on the lower 1/3rd of the plant quickly turned really dark green. I do think that bumping the Magnesium and cutting the Nitrogen by 1/2 has been working great. For those that are wondering, my Magnesium bump equates to 2 ml/g of CalMag and my Nitrogen cut equates to me running my Micro portion at 12.5% of the suggested strength.

I began the next round of LST today by stretching her out and tying her down. I still have quite a bit to do but I made good progress and should finish this round tomorrow.

I decided it was time to bring more LED boards on board. The 4 towers weren't getting the coverage I want all the way around. After pondering my options, I came up with a new board layout - the 3rd layout since the beginning. I'm actually pretty pleased with my towers and how flexible they have been. I started out with a clear plan on how the LED lights would be oriented. Then I changed a few weeks ago and now I've changed for a 3rd time. Not only are the towers performing great, but this 3rd orientation is amazing. I'm getting fantastic 360 degree coverage. I do still have the 600W HPS on top - I have to be careful of my intensities and watch for stress and burn. So far I've seen very little. 3 of the 4 towers have the new LED orientation - the 4th will be done tomorrow. This new orientation, coupled with the height of the girl, means that all 16 LED boards will be online tomorrow.

We finally have some little furry bud tops so lets check out some pics, shall we!

Hot Diggity Sog said:

Day 98
Flowering - Day 19

Things are going great. She is continuing to stretch which is fantastic. I'm not really sure what the final height is going to look like. I'll set the over/under at 32"/16". My personal guess is that she will end up around 22" taller from where she is now - she's exactly 40" tall right now (measured from the net pot, not the floor)

I briefly bumped up the nutes this week and actually crossed 1.0 EC but it was too much and quickly toned it back. All of the growth on the lower 1/3rd of the plant quickly turned really dark green. I do think that bumping the Magnesium and cutting the Nitrogen by 1/2 has been working great. For those that are wondering, my Magnesium bump equates to 2 ml/g of CalMag and my Nitrogen cut equates to me running my Micro portion at 12.5% of the suggested strength.

I began the next round of LST today by stretching her out and tying her down. I still have quite a bit to do but I made good progress and should finish this round tomorrow.

I decided it was time to bring more LED boards on board. The 4 towers weren't getting the coverage I want all the way around. After pondering my options, I came up with a new board layout - the 3rd layout since the beginning. I'm actually pretty pleased with my towers and how flexible they have been. I started out with a clear plan on how the LED lights would be oriented. Then I changed a few weeks ago and now I've changed for a 3rd time. Not only are the towers performing great, but this 3rd orientation is amazing. I'm getting fantastic 360 degree coverage. I do still have the 600W HPS on top - I have to be careful of my intensities and watch for stress and burn. So far I've seen very little. 3 of the 4 towers have the new LED orientation - the 4th will be done tomorrow. This new orientation, coupled with the height of the girl, means that all 16 LED boards will be online tomorrow.

We finally have some little furry bud tops so lets check out some pics, shall we!

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What a beast! Nice and healthy also. Props!

Once the final tower has all 4 LED boards, we will have reached peak insanity regarding the lighting.

Very impressive hot! I like the towers alot!

SoMe_EfFin_MasS_HoLe said:

Very impressive hot! I like the towers alot!

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Thank you!