My First Grow: Aeroponics, LED veg, Super HPS flower, CO2 sealed room

The clones have sexed and I now know which mothers I want from groups 1 & 2:

C99 - 'Grapefruit'
C99 - 'Pineapple'
A11 X C99 'Alpha'
C99 X BB 'Bravo'

Everything has been in the flower room with the exception of one cloner used to sex the plants - that's in the veg room. My plan is to hang the veg lights (Procyons, any T5s I may want) in the veg room, move Group 3 there and take cuttings from the mothers in groups 1 & 2 to clone and ultimately use as mothers. These clones (2 for each mother) are to be placed in rockwool cubes for ease of transplant into the dutch buckets & put into the cloner unit where if all goes well they will sprout roots & be transfered into the permanent home of the mothers: the dutch bucket system.

There's a ton of construction that must be done - manifolds for the chiller/icebox units, hanging the ducting, the HPS lights, etc. but it should not take too long before "Phase Two" will be up and running. Right now It's about making some space in the flower room, getting clones that will eventually serve as mother plants and setting up the veg room. Stay tuned.

Here are pictures of the plants from 10/05/09:

Here are some pictures and some info about where the plants are as of today.

Group 1 is now 15 weeks + 1 day old (3 1/2 months). Mother plants 'Grapefruit' & 'Pineapple' are looking bushy and healthy. I removed one plant from the system that was between the two as it was very, very small and not worth flowering in my opinion.

Group 2 is 11 weeks + 5 days old (2 1/2 months). As you can see, several plants have been culled: A 'delta', B 'delta', B 'golf', C 'alpha', C 'bravo', C 'charlie'. Again b/c they were just too small to even consider flowering out (or they sexed male). Plants that are female are: A 'alpha', A 'bravo', B 'bravo', B 'foxtrot'. The others are likely females - but have taken a while to sex and the plants I wanted most as mothers have proven to be female. Group 2's mothers are A 'alpha' & B 'bravo'. They stand out heads and shoulders above the rest. The others will be kept to flower out, the new Key for Group 2 no looks like this:


* connotes the plants slated to be used as mother plants.

Group 3 is 7 weeks + 3 days old (1 3/4 months) and shooting us like, well, weeds. The deformed blueberries have not improved, however there are about 3 acceptable specimens in the group. This group is to be moved into the veg room while the other 2 groups (1 & 2) will be kept in the flower room & flowered out very shortly. They are too young to take cuttings from to sex them just yet & I may need to move them into flower units to give them more space to grow. I should mention that in addition to spacing them out to 3 units, group 3, unit 3 was put under 3 T5s on 10/3/09 and appears not to have suffered for it & is thriving.

Here is a last look at the plants as they are in the flower room:

Subscribed. How are you likin the Procyon?

Lovin'JK said:

Subscribed. How are you likin the Procyon?

Click to expand...

I'm pleased with what it's doing for me so far. It's got a lot of blue in the spectrum so I've just recently trained it on my oldest plants to contain the stretch during flower (more on that soon to follow). Heat hasn't been a problem for me. They have pretty good penetration - I'd say to a definite 2 1/2 feet - 3 feet if you want to be generous. I wouldn't flower with it on it's own, given the very blue wavelength for one and the intensity needed for those very dense, large flowers. For now, I'd say LED only grows are only feasible for small scale growers, just in my opinion, I have a friend who's absolutely loving his LED only grow - but he's in a much smaller space than mine - for him it cleared up many of his issues, heat being a top priority. But now I'm using it to keep a handle on those plants that have gotten kind of tall and are now flowering. How effective that will be should be interesting and I'll definitely be reporting on that.

ETA: I've also used T5s for vegging the Unit 3, Group 3 plants and as you can see - the results are lovely. True, they are my indica dominant or totally indica strains, but they have that nice tight internodal spacing and lush growth. They're under 4 T5, 4 foot bulbs that I hung together - price wise, the set up costs as much as one Procyon - I've been extremely happy with the results from both - I guess it would come down in that case to your preferences & needs.

Yea thanks for the detailed response. So I guess it is true then, no LED's for flowering huh? The main reason I was looking into it was the heat issue. If Im running a 1000W HPS that heat has to go somewhere and undetected. Currently in my veg Im using 4' Fluorescents as well which seem to be giving them plenty of light especially in the blue spectrum with the cool bulbs, however still without ventilation figured out or an efficient way to flower(apparently not LED) w/out heat im kinda stuck.

Lovin'JK said:

Yea thanks for the detailed response. So I guess it is true then, no LED's for flowering huh? The main reason I was looking into it was the heat issue. If Im running a 1000W HPS that heat has to go somewhere and undetected. Currently in my veg Im using 4' Fluorescents as well which seem to be giving them plenty of light especially in the blue spectrum with the cool bulbs, however still without ventilation figured out or an efficient way to flower(apparently not LED) w/out heat im kinda stuck.

Click to expand...

Well I wouldn't say no LEDs for flowering - if you have the money you can replace a 1000 Watt bulb with LEDs and get, it appears, superior results - all the density of an HPS plus the health & potency of an LED grown plant. However, it's going to cost money. As far as costs - I'm goin to be putting up a post detailing my grow room specs - I'm growing in a room & have constructed a flower room within that room, sealed it and insulated it with reflective insulation. For cooling I'm using 2 1000 att HPSes in vented hoods & I'm pulling cold air in from outside (no worries of detection if you're pulling in pushing out is a different matter as you well know. The temps in my room are handled well with the ventilation - I must add I also have a chiller to make up the difference & cool a separate icebox if needs be. However for now, it's just cold air pulled in from a discretely located basement window, passed over the lights & pulled out by a fan vented (for now & possibly for good) into the surrounding room. I did redirect the vented air in an opposite direction from whence it came b/c it was blowing on my chiller which is currently cooling my CO2 generator, forcing the chiller to essentially work against itself. With excess heat one way to deal with it is to release it into a larger room here it will dissipate mix with the surrounding temperature so you're not stuck with one jet of high heat - just a slightly elevated temperature in a larger space - that's another reason I'm currently venting into the general area of the basement.

I do have 2 other strategies you might be interested in: if heat becomes an issue - I'm thinking of utilizing that heat to help heat my home by either venting up into the space between the drop ceiling & the floorboards or venting it into a grate in the floor of the room above the grow - I can do this b/c the air pulled in is not scented w/MJ as it's part of a sealed system. If scent becomes an issue or I don't want to vent into my house for whatever reason I have the option of venting the exhaust into the space between my basement walls and the concrete foundation. If none of these solutions apply to your situation I have heard about venting your hot air out your dryer vent - that way it just looks like you're doing a load of wash. Other people suggest venting into an attic - personally I'd make sure that that attic was well insulated before I did that. Another suggesting I've heard is to vent up your chimney - I'd do this only in the day as I have heard FLIR cameras cannot read in the daylight & at night it would look like a plume of heat coming form your chimney - yes you could have a fire burning in there, but again, like the dryer venting idea - I'm not sure if it would be as stealth as no venting at all.

10/18/09 Update:

Begin flowering of Groups 1 & 2:

The flower room has been set-up in it's final form with three exceptions - I'm using a portable air-conditioner as a dehumidifier, as my little dehumidifier has not arrived yet. Two: the icebox cooler is now attached to the can filter instead of to the vented hood system where it will ultimately go - as the lights are being cooled by drawing cool air from outside the house, I thought this was a better use of the icebox. Three: The second lighting set up hasn't been hung yet as it is not needed at the moment.

The 1/3 HP chiller is running, cooling the 50 gallon reservoir which contain 2 pumps: one 1800 GPH MagDrive Pump directing water to the Co2 generator & the icebox (soon to be iceboxes) and a 1200 GPH MagDrive Pump directing water to the chiller. The Co2 maintains a constant concentration of 1500 parts per million per cubic square foot of Co2 during the day time & shuts off at night. There is also a kill switch attached to the UVB light circuit located outside the grow room so I need not expose myself to excessive UVB. There are circulating fans about to circulate the Co2 - the Can fan also pulls air up from the floor (Co2 is heavy & tends to sink) & jets it up into the air.

The light for this area of space is one 1000 Watt Super HPS Solarmax confined in a Magnum xxxl 6" vented hood, flanked on one side by a Procyon and on both sides by a 3 foot UVB bulb which are about 25" - 30" away from the canopy - the UVB only goes on for 5 hours each day. I will be monitoring the effects of the UVB on the foliage to avert possible damages.

Both reservoirs for Groups 1 & 2 were changed & a full strength Transitional Expert Recirculating formula of 10 gallons each was added to the reservoir - PH adjusted to be around 5.5 - 5.8 (my PH pen which was supposed to be a replacement for my first defective PH pen has proved to be, well unreliable to say the least & I'm back to the color dropper method). I added a root drench of 1/4 strength SubCulture M to all the plants by pouring the mixture directly onto their roots & into their pots as was suggested by the makers of the product. I'm giving the mycorrhizal fungi a week's head start to establish themselves as the bacteria in SubCulture B can out compete them if added to the system at the same time as the fungi. The SubCulture B will be added next week. Bio balls, 45 in each reservoir have been added to provide access to oxygen & surface area for the beneficial micro-organisms to live on - this will also prevent the beneficial bacteria & fungi from forming a thick, clear slime on the surface of the water which has the potential to clog the sprayers and the pumps. Signs of clogging or over-population will be monitored closely.

The plants in Groups 1 & 2, with the mothers being selected, cloned & the clones showing signs of viability, plus the plants getting rather large were put into 12/12 on 10/18/09. Group 1 was 4 months, 3 weeks old (16 weeks & 1 day) at the time of flowering. Group 2 was 2 months, 3 weeks, 5 days old (12 weeks 5 days).

Group 1:
To deal with height issues, I've applied several techniques: the Group 1 mothers are large and quite thick stemmed - too thick to bend. For now, I'm training the Procyon on them in the hopes the added blue wavelength will retard stretching. As they begin to grow & stretch, I plan on first bending down the side branches and if possible, slowly & incrementally bend/ or very lightly break the main stem to get the plant to grow in a more horizontal fashion. As a last resort - I may have to top them. I'm considering doing it now, but would rather take my chances & hopefully not have to do it. As it stands now, they are about 1 foot away from the glass of the vented hood. The other 2 plants in Group 1 were flexible enough that I was able to bend them nearly to container level. I had not anticipated using LST or other training/ bending methods - so this should be interesting - I'm excited to see what comes of it.

Group 2:
The plants in Group 2, being younger than the plants in Group 1 were more flexible and bent far easier - with some bending right down to the "ground." The larger, less flexible plants have been tilted horizontally and had their branches tied down. One plant I decided to try a more severe training method on - I bent the meristem until it broke - it did not separate from the plant, it just became pliable, I trained this in the direction I wanted to it go & waited to see if it would survive - low and behold it did! The plant remained in the position I put it in and the top, the area above the break continued to grow and turn up towards the light in 2 days. As the flowering of the plants grown from seed is a secondary grow to the establishment of the perpetual grow system, I'm taking this opportunity to try some things that are challenging.

There are still some plants in Group 2 whose sex is undetermined - they will be watched closely & males will obviously be removed quickly.

Note - I was told you cannot remove plants from the flower units as their remaining dead roots will cause the remaining plants to die - so far this had not happened. I've removed as much of the roots as possible, but the washing action of the water flow may be removing the remaining dead roots where they are eventually fished out & removed from the reservoir which would explain the lack of problems from the removal of plants.

I should also mention here that I've had issues with roots hanging out of the end of the flower chamber - I just hack these off with scissors - the plants don't seem to mind at all. I've done the same thing with roots in the veg units & cloners that have grown too long or wrapped themselves around the sprayer apparatus - as they are long thick taproots & plentiful, the plants do not seem to mind.

All in all, this week or phase has a few unknowns and things that could go either way - this should be the beginning of an interesting part of the grow. It doesn't show in my notes - but I am seriously running around excited & happy!

10/18/09 Update of the other units:

Here are some pictures of the plants in Group 3 not in flower. I as able to take 23 clones from them which are now in the flower room to determine sex.




I've already decided on my Blueberry mom & my Sugar Blossom mom if they do indeed turn out to be females.




The Sugar Blossom is a beautiful, tightly stacked plant with fan leaves larger than my hand! She's a beautiful indica pheno - she's actually a 50/50 indica-sativa mix. She's also a delightful yellow-green with long, strong, plentiful roots like her Blueberry counterpart. Very uniform phenotype, and there were many perfectly good girls to choose from, again - praised be Joey of Joey Weed!





The Blueberry - after all the runts, I had resigned myself to either not getting a mom - there were only 3 passable plants - only 2 which were 'good' and one that turned out to be outstanding. The pictures absolutely do not do her justice. She has dark purple leaves and lovely red-purple stems. Her leaves are large and she exhibits the same tight inter-nodal spacing as the Sugar Blossom girl. There is some bleaching on her top leaves due to her growing so fast & into the T5's, but I'm not terribly concerned about that. I'm working on finding a way to photograph her & capture what's so special about her. Again - good job Joey!

Now, these plants have not sexed under the 12/12 yet - they could conceivably be males - although they do have those large bubble swellings were the side branches connect to the main stem - I've heard that is an indicator of female sex, but I don't know if this is reliable. Also, the have very prominent side branching & are short and stocky compared to others whose side branches are nearly nonexistent & exhibit a lankier body. I like these 2 so much, I'm cloning them and putting them under the cloner with the 24 hour lights as soon as I get those first mother clones out of the cloner. I'm excited! On an irrelevant personal note, just looking at them makes me happy - I think they are beautiful and I've become quite fond of them already. What do you all think? Are they little ladies or gents?

10/18/09

My gamble on mycorrhizae

This scenario applies to all beneficial organisms I will add and have already added. The Floralicious Plus contains beneficial bacteria and has caused no problems yet, but it is nowhere near as concentrated as SubCulture M or SubCulture B. The SubCulture M & B may prove to be either a nightmare, a blessing or a nothing.

Nightmare scenario: the mycorrhizae fungi & the beneficial bacteria explode in numbers clogging my sprayers & possibly clogging my pumps. The Bio balls prove inadequate in containing them and they form a thick slime on the surface of the water in the reservoir. Removing them by cleaning the system proves to be extremely difficult as they are stubborn, microscopic & get into and on every little part of your apparatus. Alternate nightmare scenario: the mycorrhizae & beneficial bacteria don't survive or are too small in number & enemy pathogens collect on the root system harming & possibly killing my plants.

Blessing scenario: The mycorrhizae & beneficial bacteria establish themselves on my plants roots, protecting them from enemy pathogens, aid in nutrient uptake which lead to overall better plant health, less use of nutrients & bigger buds w/o over reproducing themselves & sliming my system. They contain themselves to the root system & the bio balls I've provided in the reservoirs.

Nothing scenario: The mycorrhizae & beneficial bacteria don't survive and no enemy pathogens take hold. Or the mycorrhizae & bacteria do survive, but are too insignificant in number to substantially effect the health of the plants. Or the beneficials establish themselves just fine, but due to various reasons, perhaps the type of nutrients I'm using or the systems I'm running (aeroponic/NFT & Hydroton in dutch buckets), they provide no observable benefit.

Why I chose to do what I did:

I decided to inoculate my plant's root system with a root drench of SubCulture M at quarter strength b/c of several reasons. One being I had added a carbohydrate supplement, FloraNectar: Pineapple Rush!, and felt insecure leaving it to chance that the bad bacteria & pathogens could use this as an ideal breeding ground with a plentiful food source. My thinking being that the mycorrhizae would at least protect the plants from harm by establishing themselves before the bad guys had a chance to establish themselves.

I chose to do it at quarter strength b/c that was recommended to me by more than one user of mycorrhizal fungi, but in particular a poster by the name of Rocky Mtn Squid, who has used mycorrhizae in his aeroponic system & was kind enough to give me the lowdown on his experience and what to expect. You can always add more, it's more difficult to reduce what's already been added.

In addition to all this I thought about my system - many people use highly oxygenated DWC systems which can "super-charge" beneficial organisms causing them to sometimes become more of a hinderance than a help. My thinking is I do not have aerated reservoirs, the oxygen the organisms have available to them comes from 2 primary places - for the beneficial bacteria it's primarily on the bio balls that float on the surface of the reservoir, for the mycorrhizal fungi, it's on the plant roots themselves & in the aerated sprays of water. I'm hoping this relatively limited amount of oxygen access will curb population size to a manageable levels.

Finally, if I have this dialed in right there are some pretty strong benefits to having these little guys around I refer you to this study which rather impressed me on the benefits of adding SubCulture to your grow: SubCulture Study

So, if ll goes well - this could be a big benefit to my system. If not, I'll clear it out with some FloraShield.

Some of you may have wondered who does that hairy arm holding up my prized Sugar Blossom & Blueberry plants belong to, as it is clearly not of the feminine persuasion. The arm that doesn't match the little white hand you've seen once or twice in my previous pictures. No, it's not my arm (but that is my little hand)! That's my friend, isthisyourhomeworklarry?. So now I think is a great time to introduce him & say a few words about my friend isthisyourhomeworklarry?, whose assistance in times of need has been a key element to the success of this grow.

isthisyourhomeworklarry?'s a man, a man with a van Seriously, that van has been a lifesaver (and a back-saver). larryshomework is a person I know in real life & who is a member on these forums. As some of you may know - I have some chronic health issues that every so often debilitate me for days and are very painful to boot - most times, things can wait: reservoirs can be changed later, walls can be erected next week, plants can be flowered somewhere further into the future to accommodate the inevitable "downtime." However as you all know sometimes a deadline comes up and mother nature waits for no man, during those times, isthisyourhomeworklarry? has helped me when to move when something needed to be done that very day. He's been there to save my grow when I 've been helpless, at a sensitive time in the life of the plants. He's made runs to Home Depot, the hydrostore & Lowe's when I've been too in pain to move or even tolerate weak daylight without feeling like I had a knife in my eye - these runs could have waited & been done on my own when I was well again, but he generously offered to do them so I could remain on schedule. He's also been there when I've been feeling good - helping out here and there while I worked on the construction & planning of the project. He took direction & assisted me, I couldn't ask for a better assistant. But just as important - he was good company - it's fun to work with a friend at your side, and he never ever gave me any grief and always did his best which was always excellent work.

He's also very computer savvy & has hooked me up great by walking me through the installation of this wonderful proxy server, JAP/JonDo, which I highly recommend to everyone for their anonymity & security over the internet - I've persuaded isthisyourhomeworklarry? to put up a tutorial on how to get it up and running & how to use it to access sensitive sites such as these - if you're interested I highly suggest you check it out.

The only folks who know about this grow are me, isthisyourhomeworklarry? & my little brother - the two people I've known for at least a decade & the only people in the world I know I can trust with my life or a secret as dangerous as this one. So on that note I'd like to pay special thanks & praise to my old friend: a helpful assistant, an occasional savior, a hard worker, a fascinating conversationalist, a generous soul, a brilliant mind & an all around decent human being - to isthisyourhomeworklarry?!

Oh and it goes without saying - isthisyourhomeworklarry? will be given any fruits of this labor that he wishes to have - absolutely gratis & given gladly with my gratitude.

10/19/09

Transplanting mothers to Rockwool:

2 cuttings were taken on 10/11/09 from the 4 plants I want to use as mother plants, making them 8 day old clones as of today. Today they showed enough yellowing of the leaves, white root bumps & one or two small root branches to convince me it was time to move them to the rockwool cubes.

Cuttings prior to transplant:


Clones of Group 3 taken to determine sex, done on the same day as the above mother clones:


Some of the cuttings had to be taken further up the plant - predictably the plants that had less available matter towards the bottom (C99 'grapefruit' & 'pineapple') showed less advanced development than the plants with cuttings taken closer to the base - C99 X BB being the standout.

For the guidance & confidence to embark on this latest phase: credit must be paid to Al B. Fuct and his Rockwool Cloning Guide for providing a reference for me to work from as an earlier test run on clones I had taken & put directly into rockwool didn't take b/c, I believe I left too much leaf surface. I've been trimming off & cutting large leaves in halved ever since.

The rockwool starter plugs were soaked in plain PH 5.5 water & shaken out to remove excess water. Then they were placed on a tray of wetted perlite underneath the fluorescents (T-12s) in the unit previously used to nurture the seedlings and kept under 24 hour lighting on a heat mat. Prior to placement in the cubes, they were dipped in Olivia's cloning gel for good measure.



The mother plants chosen were C99 'grapefruit', C99 'pineapple', C99 X A11 'alpha', C99 X BB 'bravo'

Additionally, I took 2 cuttings each from the most desirable Blueberry plant & Sugar Blossom as they have a clear stand out in each case, as for the Blue Apollo, Sugar Berry & Apollo 11, I'm still waiting for one to catch my eye above the others and waiting on the results of the cloning for sex. I also took two back-up cuttings from each of the plants I ad moved into rockwool cubes, plus one other C99 X BB I had not cloned before: 'echo' she was a runner up to 'bravo' & since I had the space I thought, what the hell, why not? Maybe her smoke/yield/wahtever will be better than the one originally selected. These were placed in the aerocloner where the clones I just removed came from. I changed the water to 150 ml Clonex & adjusted the PH to approximately 5.8 (my PH meter finally became so unreliable I had to break out the old color drops - a new meter is on it's way) to see if the addition of a small amount of seedling fertilizer impeded the sprouting of roots at all.



I will be watching them like a hawk in the coming days. Fingers crossed here, people. The mamas have just entered flowering, even though C99 & C99 crosses tend to clone well, even from flowering plants, I'd prefer not having that extra, difficult complication.

Update 10/20/09: Rockwool clones look no worse for wear, but the cubes had become dry - I soaked them in PH adjusted water (5. - a little less than I normally do, but still wet. And the watch continues, albeit with less anxiety as there are backups in deck should it turns out I loused up this batch.

The bottoms of my plants - the Cinderellas & Cinderella crosses in groups 1 & 2 specifically - haven't looked so great, I thought it was solely due to lack of light penetration, but 3 days after the 1000W HPS was turned on, the condition seemed to worsen - given C99's reputation as a magnesium hound, I think it's time for me to add my cal-mag + to the regimen.

After examining the dying growth, the inter veinal chlorosis - turning papery & white in the worst cases. The teeth of the leaves curling up - which I've had a problem with since early in the grow (you can see it in the pictures) - I attributed this toheat/nutrient stress and the stress reactions of the plants when the LEDs were too close to them and thought this would resolve itself once the specifics had been dialed in. However while those issues have been dealt with - this particular condition has been a stubborn constant, which furthers me to suspect a cause I had not previously considered. The "dryness" and crinkly quality of some of the leaves - I'm thinking it's a Mg deficiency. Since I changed the reservoirs yesterday and I hear that you should mix cal-mag + in BEFORE you mix your other nutrients I will foliar feed a 2% solution of cal-mag+ until I change the reservoir next week - if the condition improves it will confirm that this indeed was a magnesium deficiency.

The pictures included show various degrees of damage to the lower canopy of Group 1 - the most severely effected group. Note the shriveled, claw-like small clusters of leaves. One picture is a picture of a leaf with one blade turned that papery texture & white - but still retaining it's green veins even in this state, making me rule out Nitrogen. Most of all note the inter veinal yellowing & the smallness of the old growth. All thoughts are welcome - but the more I see, the more I think Mg deficiency. Just for your information, in the other pictures I've posted - especially the new ones of Groups 1 & 2 and even Group 3 (some of the teeth are pointing up on them), you can see the damage I'm talking about b/c the plants have been bent & trained, exposing their undersides much more than before - I mistakenly thought the symptoms were due to lack of light and the natural dying off of older tissue.

Update: 10/21/09 - plants are looking better after the spraying, so I guess it was Mg deficiency - I guess I just underestimated how much Mg this plant/strain needed or ho low the Mg content of the GH was. The loss of the lower canopy should stop now. From here on in I'll be adding Cal-Mag + 5ml/gal to all the reservoirs on their next change. For now I'll continue to foliar feed up to the next reservoir changes. It's probably a good idea to note here that my water has a PPM of around 90, which I believe is considered a bit low, plus the micronutrients already present in the tap water sometimes aren't in the most readily available form - my guess is that would vary region to region.

hey Apollonia,

your grow's looking great! +rep


do you have a preliminary read on how the subculture's working on your rhizosphere? any leanings yet for any of your three outlined scenarios?

'will be watching this one!


cheers
-g

georgi345 said:

hey Apollonia,

your grow's looking great! +rep


do you have a preliminary read on how the subculture's working on your rhizosphere? any leanings yet for any of your three outlined scenarios?

'will be watching this one!


cheers
-g

Click to expand...

Welcome Georgi! And many thanks for the +rep! I look forward to hearing from you if you have any comments or questions or just want to follow along. Welcome!

The SubCulture M: the the mycorhizzae... I'm watching daily & carefully and will update thoroughly as there is not much data on the use of mycorrhizae especially in aeroponics - hopefully I can add many observations that will help others make decisions with regards to their own grows - even some failure is a bit of a success to me then b/c at least I've provided a resource, a documented instance.

Signs so far are very early but leaning towards the more benign or the neutral side - it appears I'm not in danger of becoming overrun with fungi to the detriment of my system, which was my #1 concern. However, as to a few other concerns I had, I'm cautiously optimistic. My fear was that the Mycorhizzae could not take root in a mediumless system - but there is a a thick carpet of roots lining the bottoms and even the sides of the nft system which I believe will be able to host the fungi quite well.

As for the clogging of the sprayers with roots - there seems to be more danger of roots clogging the sprayer heads than mycorhizzae right now. The roots have turned brown after the addition of the SubCulture M - I'm wondering if the fact that they seem to be staying brown indicates the fungi may be taking hold. All these are very, very early guesses really, but it's what I have for the moment. Let's say I was cautious before, then cautiously optimistic and now, a little less cautious in my optimism. I'm hopeful & more confident the microorganisms will be a helpful addition to my dutch bucket system.

The SubCulture B which contains the beneficial bacteria to work in conjunction with the SubCulture M, will be added this coming Sunday - one week after the innoculation with the mycorrhizae. I will certainly be adding to this as I get more information. Are you familiar with these types of additives? Any recommendations what to look for? What would yo look for? Remember I AM a newb!

thanks for the kind welcome, Apollonia.


a good study done at UCAL Davis on the effect of subculture in hydroponics can be found here ==> http://lieth.ucdavis.edu/RepLim/RepLim221 GH_2006_SubCulture_Report.pdf

the gist is that 19.6 g dry subculture product per 66-liter tank seems to be an optimal ratio and gives a significant increase in yield. as well (though not particularly from the UCAL Davis study), root exudates (particularly organic acids) will indeed provide a media for the microherd to take hold. [see here for some good reading ==> http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/132/1/44 ]

coloring of the roots could be simple discoloration from your nutrient solution but, while not necessarily likely given the apparent hygiene of your setup, it could also be a sign of pythium [!]... are the roots getting darker and soft&slimy? is your reservoir water cloudy? is your pH stable?
can you post some pics of the root mass?

in any event, 'will be looking forward to your continued updates.
best of luck!
-g

georgi345 said:

thanks for the kind welcome, Apollonia.


a good study done at UCAL Davis on the effect of subculture in hydroponics can be found here ==> http://lieth.ucdavis.edu/RepLim/RepLim221 GH_2006_SubCulture_Report.pdf

the gist is that 19.6 g dry subculture product per 66-liter tank seems to be an optimal ratio and gives a significant increase in yield. as well (though not particularly from the UCAL Davis study), root exudates (particularly organic acids) will indeed provide a media for the microherd to take hold. [see here for some good reading ==> http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/132/1/44 ]

coloring of the roots could be simple discoloration from your nutrient solution but, while not necessarily likely given the apparent hygiene of your setup, it could also be a sign of pythium [!]... are the roots getting darker and soft&slimy? is your reservoir water cloudy? is your pH stable?
can you post some pics of the root mass?

in any event, 'will be looking forward to your continued updates.
best of luck!
-g

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Whoa! +rep right back at ya! Thanks for those great links - I read them all - I'm using the strenth solution (1/2 strength) - that gave the best results in the UC Davis study.

I'm pretty sure the browing is due to nutrient staining. No slime to speak of. What I do fear is removing plants whose roots have become entangled with those of the other plants, leaving behind essentially dead matter. Thinking of adding Hygrozyme in an effort to break that down & neutralize it before it becomes a problem. Also I hear the brown, slimy root phenomenon - when it isn't pythium, is actually an annoyance called brown algae - common to systems like mine. I'm hoping my roots don't have that problem either, although I believe the worst that does is gum up your pumps etc. What do you think? Think the Subculture can deal with the dead root matter issue effectively or am I looking at a situation that may require an enzymatic solution to gobble up the nasties (and the food for the nasties) Btw, I will post a root pick in my 10/25 update.

Very informative and well mainted journals. i love it. thanks for sharing. keep posting!
this is my first grow and i need as much advice as possible

My first too! But if you have any questions you think I can help you with, please ask, thank you for reading my thread!

Update 10/25/09 - End of first week of flowering

Not too much to report here, just a few pictures. Since there is little to report - I thought I'd break from the format I'd decided on of one update per week and show some extra pictures & some side by side comparisons of the plants just with two days difference between them b/c the growth is quite pronounced - I didn't even realize how much until I looked over the pictures myself.

I hung the second 1000 Watt light & uvb supplemental lights & set up the ventilation.

Since I added the SubCulture M last week at quarter strength, this week I added the bacteria supplement SubCulture B at 1/4 the recommended strength.

I'm using the aggressive bloom expert recirculating formula from GH's calculator page - I changed both Group 1 & Group 2's reservoirs to this on 10/25/09 - the previous week, they were given the Transitional formula & I probably should have added the cal-mag+ then, but decided to foliar feed instead as I thought adding it after the fact would just cause lockout. I figure what with using 2 1000 Watt lights, the uvb and the supplemental Co2, if there ever was a time to push flowering, it is under conditions such as these.

In all units I'm adding 5ml/gal of Cal-Mag + with every reservoir change.

By the way - I got a new PH meter and it is working great.

I've been tying down branches as they get too close to the light. The largest C99 plant is now touching the glass of the reflector. I'm not too concerned, it's only warm to the touch, but I will likely be dealing with this either one of 2 ways: by tying down the up-stretched branches or by gently making little breaks in the meristem to bend the plant over. Perhaps this last technique can be accomplished by merely pulling at the top of the plant with a slipknot, for example, and gradually increasing the bending over time. There will need to be steps taken as it looks like the plants, in Group 1 especially, has jumped nearly a foot in length in one week!

Several plants in Group 3 have sexed, the males were discarded. Group 3 is on a full growth schedule (not the aggressive growth formula). A single plant in Group 2 showed it was male and was removed as thoroughly as could be in the flower unit. 'm adding Hygrozyme (10ml/gal) to deal with any potential ill-effects of removing plants from units whose roots get tangled with each other & may leave dead organic matter behind. I've checked and there is no negative interactions with anything I have already put in my reservoir, I was worried in particular about the beneficial fungi & bacteria, but it explicitly states that it is safe to use in conjunction with them.

I'm watching the Blue Apollos, Apollo 11s, and Sugar Berrys for one plant (or more) to assert itself. Curiously - the Sugar Berry - which is described a real couch-lock indica & is 1/2 Blueberry, shows a predominantly sativa-ish phenotype. Actually, the three strains mentioned all look rather the same. Only the Sugar Blossoms & Blueberrys have shown that typical squat indica look - and Sugar Blossoms is my half indica, half sativa girl.

As this is a set-up in progress, I've added some elements that will only be temporary & am waiting on others. One notable addition is a fan I've ducted to the window to pull in cold air to the general area outside the grow rooms, dissipating the heat the rooms expel. This will likely have an effect on the requirements & function of the environmental controls operating in the rooms. The fan is attached to a speed control set to 68 degrees - when the temperature sensor reaches 68 the fan slows down, when it goes up the fan resumes at a higher speed. At least the basement is now more comfortable for me.

In addition to the fan added to the general area - a Can 50 filer & fan has been added to the general basement area, just to catch any stray odors. Can't wait to see how it all performs in week 4 of flower.

Here are some pretty shots of the canopy where you can see the first baby flowers, the largest plants have been FIMed & topped, shots taken on 10/25/09:

10/25/09 Flower Room:


10/27/09 Flower Room:


10/25/09 Group 1:


10/27/09 Group 1: