Ice, Rocklock and Crystal, grow. Foliar feeding experiment, started 12/12 Sept. 25th

Hey guys, this is my first grow journal, and actually, my first grow that has been going great, so I'm quite happy with it. Here's some details.....

-5 Nirvana Ice, and 1 Rocklock, from seed. 2 Crystal clones, that I've been cloning since last winter. I love the white strains.

-4 gallon pots, Fox Farms Ocean Forest and Happy Frog, 50/50 mix. About 10% perlite added.

-Vegged 7 weeks,(12-16") of which I'm not proud of. I lost as least 2 weeks, due to my own laziness. Next time, I plan to have the same results, in 5 or less.

-Veg nutes so far. Calmag Plus at 1/2 strength, started 3 weeks before bloom. All other feeding was foliar. Approx every 3 days for the last 3 weeks, I've been foliar feeding with a weak MG, Calmag, and Protekt mixture. Has been working great, and will be included in all my grows, from now on. I intend to use it til about week 4 of flowering.

-Everything PH'ed to around 6.7, varying from 6.5-6.8. Water is 6.9 from the tap, at 35 PPM.

-Veg lights, are two 6-bulb T8 fluoros, with 6500K bulbs, set to 18/6.

-Flowering lights, are a 400 and 600 watt HPS, on a light rail, set to move 9" back and forth. No shading, yet still providing many angles of light, reaching the plants.

-Flowering nutes. I will be using Dynagro Bloom, as my main bloom fert, as needed, in addition to the foliar feeding. Calmag Plus, and Protekt(silica) will be used frequently, as well. Hygrozyme, from time to time, about every 2 weeks.

-I FIMed one of the Ice plants, and used "bending" in two of them. The Rocklock was 'bent' than later topped, when I snapped the main grow tip, accidentally.lol Worked great though.

-I took 2-3 clones from each, the same day I moved them to the bloom room, and put them on 12/12. That was September 25th.

-Temps hovering between 73-77*, and humidity between 40% and 50%. I have aircooled hoods, but aren't using the cooling. The carbon filters keep the room temp, in check. Night-time temps are about 65-70*.

Okay, that's enough for now, time for some pics. These are 3 days into flowering.(Sept 28th) Today, they have just started stretching, and grew about 2" already. Preflowers were already showing, by 5th week of veg.

This will be a quick overview of veg, getting everybody up to speed, so to speak. I'll post pics taken periodically, showing their progress, up til bloom started.

Starting at 14 days from germination, I'm posting 2 pics, two weeks apart, showing progress from August 12th, til September 14th....

Nice garden bro......like Eden..... soon....lol

I like how you are Keeping em Green and Bushy too!

And here's them a week later,(Sept 22nd) at 3 days before being put on 12/12...

They just exploded before my eyes.....lmao

Nice man!

lime73 said:

They just exploded before my eyes.....lmao

Nice man!

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LOL, Thanks man. Yeah, they really started taking off, after I transplanted them to the 4 gallon pots. Also, I'm certain that the foliar feeding(started 2 weeks ago) helped them alot. I wish I wouldn't have screwed around with those party cups, for so long. I waited til they were starting to show deficiences,(family problems, delayed things) which was my fault. It won't happen next time though, lemme tell ya.

Looing good ! Nice green and bushy ! How you mixing your foliar spray ?

kingofqueen said:

Looing good ! Nice green and bushy ! How you mixing your foliar spray ?

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Thanks, the T8's are working beautifully.

For the foliar feeding, I mix a liter of water with Calmag at 1/2 strength, add 20 units(from a insulin syringe) of Protekt, a bit of regular MG fert(estimated at 1/8 strength), and a drop or two, of dish soap.(w/o ammonia, bleach, etc..) The Protekt work like PH Up, and keeps the mix at about 6.5. I fed them in two sessions, about 1/2 hour apart,(drying time in between. also, fans are off) 1/2 liter each time, soaking both tops and bottoms of foliage, thoroughly.

Sounds like you got a nice mix there , I haven't tryed foliar feeding but would like to try , MMM guess I could try molassas for cal mag , and some mild nutrient , I got some coco wet I could use too . Wonder if I would notice a difference if i tryed that ?

kingofqueen said:

Sounds like you got a nice mix there , I haven't tryed foliar feeding but would like to try , MMM guess I could try molassas for cal mag , and some mild nutrient , I got some coco wet I could use too . Wonder if I would notice a difference if i tryed that ?

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The only part I'm not sure about using, is the molasses. I'd use epsom salt, rather than risking having sticky leaves, from all that sugar.lol I've heard of guys using it, but still don't like the sugar thing. Sugar isn't useable, in sugar form, and would slowly deposit on the leaves. IDK, never really looked into it, once I realized sugars need to be broken down, before plants can use them.

Try this, and I think you'll be quite impressed.... Give your plants a good foliar feeding, using a mild nutrient(1/8-1/4 strength veg or bloom. I prefer veg), and that coco wet(a soap replacement, I'm assuming, by the name)(wetting agent), and I think you'll be impressed. The plants will perk up visibly, within the next couple hours, with the leaves all positioned slightly upwards, basking in the light, lovin life(okay, now I'm getting carried away.LOL) I feed mine every couple days, or as needed, when the leaves lie flat again.

Sweet, got roots in 6 days,(minus 2 hours) matching my old record. I had a suspicion that Ice was going to be an easy-cloner. Crystal is a real bitch.lol

I used rooting gel and water, that's it. Temps in the upper 70's, with my heating pad kicking on and off, every 15 minutes. Running it constant, made them droop badly.(too hot) They look a little droopy right now, but that's because I just soaked 'em.lol

Okay, I just started something totally new to me, one week into bloom, just starting the 'bloom stretch'. These two plants have been left untrained,(I haveone moreuntrained, and am leavingthat one go natural) are quite branchy, but the main cola was getting too tall for my liking. So, I decided to use 'bending' to get it under control. I'm hoping that this'll take advantage of the stretching period, and send all their side branches shooting skyward, even faster than they do, if you use this method in veg. Then, I'll release the tops, and still have my main colas.

Heigth is currently 18-20". Temp is 73*, and humidity is 35%.

The first couple pics are the 'befores' and the rest are the 'afters'.....(same day)

That sounds like a good plan bending should help you out there . I used my foliar mix and it worked great I was surprised . The molassas seems to be so diluted that it doesn't make your leafs sticky .

kingofqueen said:

That sounds like a good plan bending should help you out there . I used my foliar mix and it worked great I was surprised . The molassas seems to be so diluted that it doesn't make your leafs sticky .

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Awesome, I'm glad you are happy with foliar. I've seen lots of people using molasses for foliar, so I'm assuming that as long as you alternate straight water into your routine, there won't be any sugar buildup. Keep me posted, I think you'll never give up foliar feeding, from now on. I'm quite impressed with the results, as well.

Great grow! I will be watching closely as I have 3 Ice from Nirvana. they have grown very fast and bushy. I love the veg stage results from this breed. I can't wait to see the end result. Keep it up!

^Thank you very much. How far along in veg, are your's? What lights are you using? When I'm able to afford it, I'm going to upgrade to either a 600 MH or a 400 CMH for veg, along with a light mover, set to move 1' or less. I'm trying to knock a week or two off veg time, so that my perpetual is setup to run smoothly. Since flowering time is 8 weeks, I want to be as far as I can in veg, at week 4, including cloning time. Do you plan to start a journal? If so, send me a link. I'd like to follow your's, as well, and pick up some tips and/or offer advice.

Okay, well, it's safe to say that grow plugs don't work any better than peat pellets. I didn't pick up any of the clones and look under them for roots, but, there are now 7 easily visible, with roots showing. Just onder 7 days. Good, because I like the pellets, and they're cheaper anyway.lol


The bad part, is now I have to transpalnt that damn things.lol Tomorrow night, I think I'll do it. Tonight, I think I'm going to flush all the big ones. That'll give them a nice fresh start, right as there starting their stretching phase. I'm going to go give them all a little water to loosen things up, then decide. I might just end up feeding them, putting off the flush for a couple days, because I'm pretty tired tonight. We'll see.

Also, I've decided to do the 'FF vs. MG soil', comparison, with this generation of clones. I'm putting two of them in MG with the controlled release nutes, adding some perlite, then finding out the truth, for myself.

Okay, I decided against the flush tonight, being that they look pretty good right now. They haven't been fed yet, either, so there shouldn't be much waste in the soil. I did, however, 'till' some pelletized dolomite lime into the top couple inches of soil, with a long skinny probe(knitting needle.lol), before feeding. That should help keep the PH in check, til they're done. Also, tonight was their first feeding, and I can tell already, that they were hungry, especially the Ice. It was only an hour later, and all their fan leaves were standing up, praying to the light gods, happy as shit.lol They were fed full strength Dynagro Bloom,(3-12-6) and full strength Calmag Plus, PH'd to about 6.7. It took a full 2 liters each, to get any runoff.

This was their first real feeding.

I also trimmed some of the lower branches off all of them, and opened them up for airflow.(it sucks throwing away all the good cuttings.lol)I might end up removing some more next week, but don't like to get too carried away, at one time. Here's a couple pics....

P.S. All 5 cuttings in Rapid Rooters have roots showing already, so, they might indeed be the way to go, over peat pellets. I'll know for sure, tomorrow.

Hey Jawbrodt whats going on. Good idea using the cal mag, Ice seem to have a little problem with calcium def, besides being a nitrogen hog. Couple of things that I do for the calcium issue are....Keep the ph of the watering a little higher than usual like high 6s, add steamed bonemeal which is very high in calcium to the mix and also add lime to the soil as a sweetener to raise the ph. Just started doing that recently and helped tremendously.

I have a batch of Ice at 4.5 weeks, the Ice get a little special treatment...they have their own little budroom seperate from the other one lol

Hey I would love to hear, detailed step by step, how you get your clones to root so fast!

Highlander