Jackberry ladies from seed, Vertical SCROG, 1k Bare Bulb.

I popped 10 Jackberry F3 beans half way through June. This is my first attempt at documenting my journey from seed to smoke. I'll do my best providing updates. I started flowering today, after about 3 and a half months of vegging from seed. I will be flowering in a 5'6" x 5'6" x 7' tent with a vertical 1kw hps - I may add another smaller light later in flower depending on how cold it gets outside...

I'll include some pictures from the beginning:

I started with 10 Jackberry seeds, 9 of which germinated quickly. The last one germinated slower - it was tossed.
Recently popped, 6/12/2011


6/14/2011

One of the seedlings sprouted a buddy, I read up on "twins" and it seems they end up being weak due to have to share the root space... the twin was culled..., 6/17/2011



Babies looking healthy before being topped, 7/9/2011

One plant didn't like to be topped. It got stressed out, produced mutant leaves, and eventually continued to grow 1 main shoot...eventually #3 in flower tent.


Due to vegging for so long and because I kept my lights out for 24 hours before reverting to 18/6, I was able to determine which were female by the plants' pre-flowers. Out of 9 plants, I wound up with 5 females.
After vegging in a closet, then a cabinet, my 5 ladies finally find their final home (there is still a 6th I was unsure about in the photo), 9/5/2011

4 of the 5 on 9/5/2011 - Notice the yellowing (deficiency) on the first..




Built some screens and weaved some branches, 9/27/2011

A couple pics from 9/27/2011



I got quite busy since then and haven't been snapping any pictures. The plants are quite a bit bigger now and I have had to prune leaves and weaves/zip-tie branches back. I will take current pictures and updates shortly.

Regarding the yellowing deficient plant - I narrowed it down to a zinc deficiency, and I think I am right. I foliar fed 'Power Pack' and added it to my feedings, and the plant has recovered quite well. Several of the plants still have a few random yellowing/patchy leaves. One plant has very twisty leaves. It seems like all 5 ladies are slightly different - how many phenotypes are there to be found? They all have been receiving the exact same treatment. They are in 5 gallons of Canna Coco. Vegged with Canna A+B, Rhizo, AN Rhino Skin, Liquid Worm Castings, occasionally Cal-Mag, (and more recently) Power Pack (which has all sorts of micro nutrients).

Suggestions/feedback is welcomed,

More to follow...
G

October 11th was day 2 of flower. The plants were flipped a couple days prior at the following heights:

#1 - 21-22 inches tall
#2 - 30
#3 - 32
#4 - 31-34
#5 - 32

Some plants have a range because they have multiple tops...

All of the following pictures were shot today:

Goup Shots


Plant#1, The shortest one and most Indica leaning of the bunch, from the look of the broad leaves. The only plant with very twisty leaves, too... deficiency?


Plant#2, Looking quite healthy. A few patchy (like very pale yellow/white patchiness on certain leaves, usually only half a leaf..?). Seems very good for vscrog.



Plant#3, This plant didn't like to be topped and reverted to only growing 1 main shoot. One of my favorites, now. I just topped a clone of this girl, and she seems to be growing fine, so I will see if it was a fluke or if this pheno doesn't want to be topped...


Plant#4, This plant loves the screen. She is the most Sativa leaning of the bunch, and shows it. She has skinnier and longer leaves. She also grows lankier. She also drinks the most of the bunch. I have high hopes for this one.


Plant#5, This plant has been the most trouble thus far. She has suffered yellow leaves for a bit, though it had gotten considerably better, but still not perfect. I believe it is/was a zinc deficieny and the yellowing has been getting much better since feeding 'Power Pack'. Internode spacing has shortened considerably, too. Purple stems.



These are a few babies + clones of the big ones in flower now. I am keeping a mother of each until I narrow down a keeper (I hope I find a keeper...). Amongst the babies are 2 #3 plants, one is being LST'ed, as are the other babies, while one was topped to see if I get mutant leaves again...


These are the nutes I am working with for the first week of flower.. I have a slight dilemma.. see below.


I hand water 5 gallon coco pots. I am mixing 25L of water, each plant gets about 5L.

For the 25L I used the following:

Sensi Bloom A @ 2ml/L
Sensi Bloom B @ 2ml/L
CalMag @ 2ml/L
Power Pack @ 1ml/L
Bud Blood @ ~6G/25L

I fed the Sensi A+B and the Bud Blood at half the recommended dosage. The Power Pack is at its recommended strength. CalMag is slightly diluted. I ended with a PPM of 910 (Hanna Meter)...

I did not use Cannazym, Bud Candy, BioWorm(castings) or Rhino Skin for fear of nute burn...

I feed every third day currently. Nutes, Nutes, Ph'ed water ... Should I feed half the products on the first round of nutes and the other half on the second round, or am I better off feeding less of each product on both the nute feeds...?

I also have AN Bid Bud (which will take Bud Blood's place after week 1) and some Canna Boost. I plant to foliar the Boost with Saturator starting in a few days..

Any feedback on my 'potion' would be great...

More to come,
G

I transplanted the 4 little ladies I have in veg yesterday evening. I transplant with mycorrhizae, the plants seem to like it.


Some of the clones are just starting to poke out roots...


If anyone can offer some opinions as to what might be the problem by looking at these leaves, it would be greatly appreciated..
Some of the plants have a few leaves with patches of pale yellow.. can't be rubbed off..





Plant#1 has these funky twisty leaves.. she is treated like the others.. only one to have these twisted leaves. Not sure what to make of it.

This leaf on Plant#3 isn't the same as the patchy pale yellow... it seems burnt? Temps in the tent have been reaching 85f at times.. can it be due to temps?

Plant#5's issues are also different then the others with patchy yellow leaves.. this is what I believe to be a zinc deficiency. I have been using Power Pack which has helped the plant(s) quite a bit, but some of these leaves remain..




Any and all feedback would be great,
G


-----------

I talked over the deficiency issues with a friend and he seems to think they might be related to me letting my coco dry out too much. The coco may have accumulated salts and might be causing certain lock outs..

I bought some Drip Clean and I will feed only A+B (at a total of about 500 PPM) for a watering or two to let the plants recoup a little. The addition of drip clean will also allow me to feed nutes every time rather then nute, nute, only water.. I will also start watering every other day rather then every third day. At this point, the plants seem to dry out a little too much when left for 2 days with out water.. I also bought Epsom salt. I will be using Epsom salt, CalMag and Power Pack, so I will be using less of each..

I'm bummed that I have to cut out all my additives right at the beginning of flower, but I'm sure it is for the best. In the mean time, so that the plants still get a jump start on flowering, I will be foliar feeding Canna Boost.

More to follow,
G

I tied down the little girls in veg since they had been repotted... I'm not sure if I should just let them grow naturally for this vert scrog.. For now, I am encouraging multiple tops and hope that those tops will grow quick enough to fill what will eventually be a screen over them.. I just started flowering so they will have roughly two months before they get thrown into bloom. Once they are a little bigger I'm going to get another tent, this time a 4 foot x 4 foot x 7 foot, for veg, and I'll throw a vertical 400w mh in it, or something like that. That way I can veg vertical and encourage lateral branching so the plant is properly prepped for the bloom tent.

Currently in the veg cabinet


Cut#2 got tied down and I chopped leaves quite aggressively, to experiment with the 'Hi-Yield Defoliation Technique' (see google).

Cut#3 and #4 both got tied down again. A few leaves were plucked from each to unshade the lower bud sites.


The Cut#3 baby that I topped doesn't seem to be pushing out mutant leaves... maybe not the pheno, after all?


It's day 5 for the ladies in bloom... I fed them a lower strength A+B feed (550 PPM) with some Epsom salt (100 PPM) and Drip Clean for a total PPM of about 650. I hope this will take care of whatever salt build up I have and address and Mg deficiencies I might have. I will have updates on them soon.

G

looking good
im new to Scrog how exacty does it work with vertical nets? can you post a tutorial because im liking it alot +repp

Saldaw said:

looking good
im new to Scrog how exacty does it work with vertical nets? can you post a tutorial because im liking it alot +repp

Click to expand...

A vertical scrog works the same way a horizontal scrog does, with a few alterations:

I place my plants right behind the screens and weave branches through, so that they are on the light's side. Once there are lots of branches on the right side of the screen and they start growing out, I continue to weave them or zip-tie them back to the screen. The idea is to weave/zip-tie branches side by side so that they don't block light from each other, this way the bud sites get maximum light exposure. For the same reason, I prune leaves here and there. Similar to horizontal scrogs, there are lots of branches that won't get light. With horizontal scrogs, you would generally lollipop your plants (cut off all the lower branches that don't make it to the top of your canopy). With vertical scrogs, most shoots from the back of the plant can get trained to the front. The shoots that can't be bent to the front get pruned. Same goes with all the leaves in the back (primarily for air circulation).

The benefit of growing vertically is the increase of your canopy size. See below (not my diagram):



If you have any specific questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer,
G

Day 5 of flower. I have loads of vertical space left. I hope these girls stretch a bunch...


Group shots / The wall being formed







I added a little fan at the bottom of each pot blowing air up the back the plant the keep the leaves dancing




I'm pulling air into the tent from outside - the cooler air goes straight to the middle of the tent and then up at the burning 1k



Ladies #1 through # 5 in order








Keep it green
G

Today is day 14 of flower. The ladies are looking great so far. The only concern is whether Lady # 4 will turn out to be a hermaphrodite. She is pushing out pistils, but it still looks like she might push out balls, too. I check her several times a day for signs.

Ladies # 2, 3 and 5 are showing purple hues where the shoots meet their main stems. Here is Lady # 5:




Here is a shot from the tent's door, then a shot of #3:




Some development:




Branches reaching for the light. The formation of my wall of green:



Temps outside are dropping... so why not throw a little 400w to brighten up the bottoms of the plants. Hopefully this will help me get decent buds from head to toe
I am thinking about switching the 400w HPS bulb for an MH bulb to provide a larger spectrum.. thoughts?




Comments / criticism always welcome!

More updates soon, cross your fingers for no hemies!

G

Brilliant set-up. I'm subbed for sure.

I got quite busy/lazy lately, so I haven't taken a bunch of pics, but here are a few from Day 19-21 of flower:




















I am going to have to do some aggressive pruning to unshade some of the bud sites. I think I am going to have to prune a lot of the smaller less developed branches, too. There are just too many branches, and I think I'll probably just get airy larf from most of the bud sites that are currently only showing a few white hairs. Hopefully the removal of some of the dinkier branches will get me bigger nugs at the main bud sites.. we'll see.

G

I've been pruning leaves over the past few days as to not shock the plants too much at one time.. the buds are developing so it seems to have worked as planned...

Day 24 - Ladies # 1 through 5 's canopies, then a couple bud shots











Keep it green,
G

I have neglected to mention that wafter week 1 of bloom, I substituted the AN Bud Blood for AN Big Bud. I have been using that, along the Bud Candy, and several other things up until now. Starting tomorrow, I will swap out the Big Bud for Canna PK 13/14 for about a week, before I switch to AN Overdrive.

Here we are at Day 28 of Bloom, pictures are in no particular order. Notice that I have swapped the 400w HPS bulb for an MH bulb... I am hoping the broader light spectrum will make for better, more resinous meds.













More to come,
Comments/criticism always welcome...

G

Today I am just going to focus on Lady # 5 - I think she may turn out to be the keeper, but it is very early, still.

Her clones rooted in about 10 days. I topped the mother (which I neglected to take pics of for now.. will follow up at some point) and liked what I found - nice thick hollow stem. She also vegged faster then the others, she is very vigorous. She has great structure, too. I rubbed some branches, and I could not resist rubbing a sugar leaf - she stinks of sweet grape-berry-gum-goodness.The pics below are from Day 31-32 in flower... not the best pictures, I know.. I tried to show some of the frost on the underside of the leaves.. I am no photographer. The photos do not do her justice... she is very frosty.










I hope she turns out to be as special as she seems right now...

More to come,
G

Looks beautiful, don't know if I'll stop by again, but good luck with #5.

looks good I like your setup and yes that plant is super resinous

this looks pretty nice sir

this looks great, i'm still tossing up between a 2 tiered vert scrog and a normal scrog for the next grow.
gotta do the maths!

Thank you everyone who has stopped by -

Things are coming along pretty nicely - I think most of the ladies are going to go 9 weeks.
The buds could be bigger, I think... but we will see if they will swell a lot in the next 3 - 4 weeks..
Today is day 36 of bloom - Photos were taken minutes before lights on:













I am back to using 2 HPS bulbs - the MH bulb I had purchased was defective.. and I swapped it for some nutes, as I was low on certain ones.. I didn't want to go back and fourth switching from HPS and MH, and I got some feedback that the addition of MH would be negligible. I would have still liked to see for myself, but circumstances have changed... I do plan to run both HPS and MH together in the future to experiment for myself, though.

I also think that I could have easily stepped up my pot size. I am in 5 gallons now... I think I could have doubled that, but we will see what this harvest brings.

At this point, Ladies # 2, 3 and 5 are quite similar. All of them stink of an intense lemony-berry sweetness.
Lady # 4 has the most sativa looking leaves and buds - she, too, smells fruity at first, but the fruit is followed with a funky-foul stench. I am curious what she will cure to.
Lady # 1 will likely be tossed eventually, after the harvest is in and we see what she yields. She is about half the size of the others. Much more indica leaning - she is short and stout, and has FAT leaves. Her leaves also have a funky crinkling, which I have learned is likely a mutant trait from the blueberry line. She has the most amazing sweet smell - no lemons here. She has a super strong blueberry gum odor. After rubbing a sugar leaf and taking a whiff, I am seriously tempted to pluck a bud and eat it... lol.

More to follow,
G

very thorough journal man I'm lovin what your doin here. been waiting to see a scrog like this ever since I read that article where you got that diagram =P best of luck dude I'll definitely be stickin around

WoW. if anything makes me want to do a verticle scrog this is it! Amazing job Picture 9 from the top of your last post i think shows the true potential of the system. and it is easy ... well more easy than a hydro vert set up!! lol Again, amazing job imo.