....amen! I've never grown any myself and wouldn't consider them indoors... but I've thought about making a large order of regular autoflowers to harvest seeds....once I have the seeds, plant them outdoors, then pull males. I'm pretty sure I could get 3 crops annually....then again, I hear the ruderalis takes away from the potency, so don't know if it'd be worth the work...but it would definately be an option if a guy was trying to hide from the choppers!...around my area, a guy could pull a harvest before the choppers even start to run.
There's probably an entire subforum somewhere on RIU devoted to guerrilla growing with auto strains.
But just so I'm perfectly clear. You keep your lights 700mm away from the tray and not the canopy, regardless of how tall your plants get?
They're roughly 700mm above the trays, but my lights are hung with
yo-yos, so I can adjust the clearance whenever it suits me. Usually about 200mm above the tops.
And unfortunately for me, I don't know that I'll be able to afford cooltubes and AAWs, so I may just have to stick with what I have.
When you consider the returns on an op the size you're considering, you can afford a fair bit more than you think you can.
And you're right, the hoods I currently have don't spread light as well as the large AAWs, but they are more intense to the plants directly beneath them. In all honesty, I'll have them over 4x4 trays, so I would prefer the AAWs in this scenario, as I think that great spreading of the light would be slightly more valuable than great intensity directly beneath.
With the hoods you've got, you will need to shuffle plants around frequently to get even development on all your plants. The large AAWs permit fine adjustment of beamspread such that the plants furthest away from the lamp tube are actually getting slightly MORE light than the plants directly below the lamp. Worth doing.
Al, are you worried about the air cooling the arc tube of that vent system? The colder bulb will cost a loss of voltage.
No. The quartz arc tube itself is insulated by the glass envelope. Cooltubes don't affect the luminous output of HPS jugs.
Do you have any recommendations on which tester I should use for a ebb and flow?
There's no better nutrient strength meter than the
Bluelab Truncheon. Ultra-durable, easy to read. You'll only ever buy one. Eutech makes some excellent pH meters. Buy one of their waterproof models like the
Tester 10. Avoid Hanna meters.
hey Al. thanks for all your posts. I've been doing your method for a couple years now with a couple twists.
I use 2x4 trays because they are easier to move and clean and transport in a normal car
I use 28 pots in each tray. I want to say they are 5inch pots but maybe 6inch. The cheap black ones you get at the grow shops.
I use perlite as my medium. I have found that it doesnt get heavy like hydroton, its cheap, it fills in well by just shaking the pot as you transplant the clones in.
Works for me!
One thing I have always sucked at is cloning. I've gone back and forth from your method to aero and i'm just coming off a run of just buying clones. (just beat down an infestation so its time to go back to my own stuff, dirty clones suck).
Cloning requires practice. Hardest thing is getting the watering right. Super-easy to overwater clones in RW cubes.
The 40mm cubes don't take up THAT much space- and they hold enough water without saturation to get through 12 hours on a heat mat.
I was going to try to mimic you every way I could other than that but I cant fit the slab into a salad spinner lol.
That's a bit of a problem, isn't it?
So after soak I will just shake the shit out of it.
You'll probably end up crushing the material and losing the airspaces.
Second issue with those trays is the additional watering.
I was just putting the slab onto a net bottom tray then that tray in a normal tray (with a humidome) So I could just lift up the inner tray and set it in another tray with water.
This of course soaks the cubes which why my results are like 50% and take 3 or more weeks.
Sounds like you're seriously overwatering. Humidomes are not necessary- and they're not helping your overwatering problems. If the stem cut is clean & sterile, the clone can get all the water it needs without having to limit transpiration with humidomes.
So I need to figure a better way of watering.
Use the 40mm wrapped cubes so you can tailor the watering to each individual clone. A properly damp 40mm cube weighs about 20g. Heavier is too wet.
And I thought you got a new job and disappeared? Welcome back !!!
I did, still doing it, but I drop in here when I can.
hey ALB what size t5 would be best to do say 20 cuttings at a time ? does 2 x 55w sound ok ?
cheers mate
Wouldn't use a T5, far too big. Clones don't need much light. My clonebox has 3x 18" twin-tube fluoro fixtures- and that's even a bit of overkill, 2 twin-tube fixtures would be fine. I think the lamps are 18W each.
for in rainy humid areas what would the best filter be for the intake fan coming from outside ? would it be better to suck air into a first room then into the tent from that room ? or just suck fresh air from outside then direct into the grow room/tent via a filter to avoid mould etc ? what does a carbon filter do in the extraction of air out of the room ? is it just to filter the smell ? thank you heaps for your time to answer my questions ,,cheers