will the wickedness never end?

[greyfader]

this is my first thc pheno hunt in 3 yrs. for the last 3 yrs i've been working in a cbd facility in an illegal thc state and so only grew one strain for stash for my wife and i.

now i'm going back into personal production and desperately need some attractive strains. some that have the wow factor. when something about the plant gets a loud "wow" from veteran tokers you know you're on the right track.

anyone for a swim?

the seedlings were popped on jan 7, put in 18 0z solo cups of turface until the 21st, when they were transplanted to these 2.5 quart containers.

these are mostly perlite with a little turface still on the rootball.

all seedlings are ethos. the ones with the yellow clips are "candy store", the blue clips are "planet of the grapes", and the green clips are "orange kush cake".

29 of 30 germinated. i kept 7 of the candy store as they are very uniform. four each of the planet of the grapes and the orange kush cake.

in the background you can see clones i am keeping for now. the tall, skinny ones are "mean mug" from mean gene of mendocino. there is one lemonhead also. i kept 2 of my queso negro x og kush.

i see i got 2 shots of the same thing. what i was trying to show is the hole 3" down from the rim of the bottom container.

the next one just shows the tailpiece and how it protrudes into the bottom container.

overall view of the set up

 

[greyfader]

just some shots of the monster! 1680 watts. 3860 diodes. two circuits, one inner and one outer splitting it in half for dimming purposes.

i have a par meter and this array produces 1500 umols at 26". what's astounding is that it also produces 1000 umols at 36". 10" only loses 500 umols. depth of canopy.

this is a subject that most of the led manufacturers don't want to discuss.

120 14 watt walmart bulbs with the diffusers removed. 60 2700k and 60 5000k.

the little monster! she's 14 months and thinks she weighs 300 lbs. she stalks and attacks my wife and i from under the bed. all soft paws though.

she's a maine coon that did not express to the breed standard so we got her cheap. her siblings sold for $2800.

she was the runt of the litter and half the size of her siblings. she stays right with me while i work on plants.

 

[greyfader]

these graphs show normal home type led spectral distribution. if you were to superimpose the 2700k and the 5000k the combined spectrum is excellent for cannabis.

the walmart bulbs are made by the tcp corp and are very reliable. actually seem to be more reliable with the diffusers off.

if you were to only buy one bulb the 4000k would be pretty good but i think the combo is better.

 

[JL2G]

just some shots of the monster! 1680 watts. 3860 diodes. two circuits, one inner and one outer splitting it in half for dimming purposes.

i have a par meter and this array produces 1500 umols at 26". what's astounding is that it also produces 1000 umols at 36". 10" only loses 500 umols. depth of canopy.

this is a subject that most of the led manufacturers don't want to discuss.

120 14 watt walmart bulbs with the diffusers removed. 60 2700k and 60 5000k.

the little monster! she's 14 months and thinks she weighs 300 lbs. she stalks and attacks my wife and i from under the bed. all soft paws though.

she's a maine coon that did not express to the breed standard so we got her cheap. her siblings sold for $2800.

she was the runt of the litter and half the size of her siblings. she stays right with me while i work on plants.

I did one similar to that, ran somewhere in the 420 watt range. Worked extremely well, was just too big for my purposes. Gave it to a friend growmie, and he's still using it yrs later now.

40 bulb setup, all 60 watters for 15 real watts each.

 

[greyfader]

the 60 watt equivalents are 9 watts actual so that should be 360 watts total

i like the holes for heat to escape upward.

i'm building another one right now that has 72 14 watt bulbs for a 1000 watt display.

for the curious the swimming pool catches the overflow from watering. usually i pump it out afterwards but i'm in a leaky old farmhouse until i get my house built so i let it help me keep the rh up.

i can't turn the whole light on because i have to open the door to dump heat and i can't do that until the plants get a little bigger and start transpiring more. i am barely maintaining 45-50% as it is. with the door open it's in the 30% range.

no co2 here.

i was going to do the pheno hunt in these small containers watering passively but since i got so many uniform "candy stores" i think i'll go ahead and build a full recirculating system and run them alone the first time.

 

[greyfader]

i guess it's time for the "week-end update".

still slow growing them under low light and nutes until about two days ago when i increased the light to about 550-600 umols at the seedling tops and brought nutrient strength up to about 750 ppm or ec 1.5 for the metrically inclined.

the medium is mostly perlite with a little turface still around the root ball, maybe about 1/2 cup. the perlite is in the tube also and acts like a capillary wick, of course.

but perlite alone is a little too airy and allows for too much evaporation. it also has virtually no cation exchange capability.

so i am experimenting with a topping mix. for a solo cup of worm castings and a solo cup vermiculite i add 1/8th cup diatomaceous earth.

this is applied at the rate of 1/2 cup to each of these 2.5 qt containers and then just watered in whenever i top water. about twice a day right now.

only using jack's and yara calcinit and 85% phosphoric acid for ph down. plus 1/2 tsp maxigro kelp powder per 30 gals of solution.

the topping works it's way down through the top of the medium and greatly increases water retention in the top portion of the container thereby causing roots to occupy more of the container.

the worm castings provide a lot of beneficials and the diatomaceous earth in powder form is taken up by the plant as silicon.

i have used mammoth and other innoculators before but i think using the worm castings this way is probably just as effective.

i still haven't been able to turn on the other half of the light because of heat and humidity issues but as they grow the rh is creeping upward.

i am waiting for some basic gear to arrive and then i'll build the system and make some selections.

these were popped on the 7th so this is 23 days. i'm usually much further along by now when i can control the environment a little better.

forgot to add for my own record keeping that these have been in these containers for 7 days.

 

[greyfader]

no pics today but major progress has been made.

there is enough plant mass in the room now to maintain 45% or better rh with the door open. which i have to do when running the whole light to dump heat.

i turned on the other half of the light. the center 60 bulbs. now we are running 1680 watts on 25 sq ft.

now i have adjusted the height to where i'm getting about 1000 umols at the seedling tops.

i have been on a 24/7 veg light schedule to keep the heat up and stabilized for seedlings and clones.

now that everything is good and rooted today i went to a 8-4-8-4 light schedule for veg.

i have been using this for about ten years and get better growth than 18/6, 20/4, or 24/0.

i think that 8 hours of intense light with a 4 hour break to give them time to process synthase produces a healthier plant.

1000 umols x 3600 sec per hr x 8 hours is 28.8 moles of light. with two such periods per day we get 57.6 moles per day. a huge amount of light that will exceed anything in nature except equatorial latitudes.

the university of arizona has been recording sunlight for a long time and the highest readings they get are in the 72 moles range.

i am trying to pull off a couple small grows in a leaky old farmhouse with very little insulation in mid-winter and it ain't easy.

 

[BH]

Amazing start! love the setup and all this passion

Keep it up & excited to see what happens in here!

 

[Jewels]

now i have adjusted the height to where i'm getting about 1000 umols at the seedling tops.

By calculation, estimation or plotted average ?

 

[greyfader]

By calculation, estimation or plotted average ?

by par meter.

i just checked the center most plant top and i'm getting 1127 umols with the light 30" above the closest part of the plant which is a little more than i want right now so i will raise the lights a little to bring the flow down to about 1k umols.

these plants are 4 days short of a month since germination.

after applying the top dressing sunday i now have a root shooting up out of the medium in one plant.

i normally don't run seedlings for production but i am this time so i will select 6 plants to go into the automated hydro system.

these 6 will be transplanted into larger containers with about 3 gals of media each.

as i mentioned i have 7 "candy stores" that are very uniform. i could run 6 of them but i also have "planet of the grapes" and "orange kush cake".

i kept 4 of each and 2 of each are really strong-looking, vigorous plants.

my biggest concern if i run 2 of each strain is that the differences in growth characteristics will make the canopy harder to manage.

the candy stores are shorter, more indica leaning than the other two which look like they will have some stretch.

 

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here's the lineup!

the four "orange kush cake"

four "planet of the grapes"

7 "candy store"

all germinated 27 days ago.

 

[greyfader]

.31 days from germination.

they have really put on some mass since i applied the topping and turned on the other half of the light.

there are roots coming up out of the top of the medium on some and a few have roots coming out of the tailpiece.

so they are obviously ready for transplant. i will probably build the hydro system tomorrow.

still struggling with low humidity but usually in the 45-50% range.

 

[Texagonian]

.31 days from germination.

they have really put on some mass since i applied the topping and turned on the other half of the light.

there are roots coming up out of the top of the medium on some and a few have roots coming out of the tailpiece.

so they are obviously ready for transplant. i will probably build the hydro system tomorrow.

still struggling with low humidity but usually in the 45-50% range.

Beautiful! How will you be transplanting?

 

[greyfader]

Beautiful! How will you be transplanting?

very carefully!

i have done one previous run in this swimming pool. i had 31 of the queso negro x og kush in these same 1/2 gal blue containers.

got about 2.5 from them watering passively. it is not a high yielding plant.

but restricted root zones make smaller plants and i really don't want to run that many plants.

i think i will put them all into 3 gals of media. i was thinking 6 in the recirculating system in the pool and the rest outside the pool watered by hand.

the light will cover a much larger footprint than the swimming pool.

i'll get premium yield from the ones in the system and good yield from around the edges. i will clone from almost all of these seedlings and track them.

 

[Texagonian]

very carefully!

i have done one previous run in this swimming pool. i had 31 of the queso negro x og kush in these same 1/2 gal blue containers.

got about 2.5 from them watering passively. it is not a high yielding plant.

but restricted root zones make smaller plants and i really don't want to run that many plants.

i think i will put them all into 3 gals of media. i was thinking 6 in the recirculating system in the pool and the rest outside the pool watered by hand.

the light will cover a much larger footprint than the swimming pool.

i'll get premium yield from the ones in the system and good yield from around the edges. i will clone from almost all of these seedlings and track them.

What medium are you using? I see chunky perlite but curious if there’s any coco in there. I’ve tried finding turface but am coming up with nothing around here at the moment.

 

[Jewels]

Also called calcined clay and landscape shale.

 

[greyfader]

What medium are you using? I see chunky perlite but curious if there’s any coco in there. I’ve tried finding turface but am coming up with nothing around here at the moment.

that's mostly perlite you're seeing. i like turface for seedlings but i clone in straight perlite. there is only a small amount around the rootball of these seedlings.

turface alone unscreened has an air filled porosity of about 20-22%. to be used effectively alone in this device it must be screened over regular aluminum window screen which will lose approx 30% of the original volume as fines but will drive the afp up into the 30% + range.

too much work by hand so you can take unscreened turface, washed thoroughly, and mix it 50/50 by volume with clean perlite and get 35% afp.

turface has a cation exchange capacity of about 32 meq/l whereas perlite has none.

i have been experimenting with straight perlite but just making the topping described above. the worm crap, vermiculite, and the diatomaceous earth all have significant cec's. also, every bit of it can be bought at home depot. i like cheap, readily available stuff.

as you can see from the photos it almost immediately penetrates down into the medium but gets lodged in the air spaces all the way down. the watering floats a layer of perlite but just below the surface you can still see the other material.

i have a dense layer of roots at the surface in most of these 1/2 gal containers right now.

it stops the perlite from drying too fast and gets roots into the top of the medium.

buffers nutrients in the medium and this helps control ph swings that occur as a medium dries down.

turface is hard to source and is getting more expensive so i'm moving away from it.

if you are on the west coast especially oregon you can buy a pickup truck load of pumice for 40 bucks. it is dirty and will need to be cleaned but it is cheap. i used it my last year in oregon cleaning it with a cement mixer with holes drilled in it.

but for ease of use maybe you should consider coco. the last three years at the hemp facility we used prococo "chips-n-fiber" with no problems after giving it a soaking in full strength jack's and calcinit. i would not cut this coco with anything because it has a nice afp of 35% after soaking.

 

[greyfader]

.i built the six plant modules today. as you can see both containers stacked are the same height as a 5 gal bucket.

this top container will hold around 3 gals of medium so it needs a 2" tailpiece. because no one makes one with a lip on it that size we use 2 of these oatey brand snap in drain fittings. one for the top and one for the bottom. in the top one the grating is cut out with a 1 7/8" hole saw.

the hole in the container is 2" and the fittings just pop in. i use glue to attach the 6" long piece of 2" to the fittings. if you think you might want to knock them apart and stack them for transport sometimes you can use #8x1/2" stainless sheet metal screws instead of glue.

notice the two 1/4" holes on either side of the tailpiece. these allow some of the solution to bypass the tailpiece and hit the top of the solution in the plant reservoir. this breaks the surface tension and prevents a protein layer from resting on top. this protein layer acts as a barrier to molecular flow of o2 much like a piece of saran wrap and causes the formation of surface nutrient precipitation.

forgot to add that the hole in the lid of the lower container is 3.5".

tomorrow i'll try to get it done but there is still a bit of plumbing to do.

 

[Texagonian]

that's mostly perlite you're seeing. i like turface for seedlings but i clone in straight perlite. there is only a small amount around the rootball of these seedlings.

turface alone unscreened has an air filled porosity of about 20-22%. to be used effectively alone in this device it must be screened over regular aluminum window screen which will lose approx 30% of the original volume as fines but will drive the afp up into the 30% + range.

too much work by hand so you can take unscreened turface, washed thoroughly, and mix it 50/50 by volume with clean perlite and get 35% afp.

turface has a cation exchange capacity of about 32 meq/l whereas perlite has none.

i have been experimenting with straight perlite but just making the topping described above. the worm crap, vermiculite, and the diatomaceous earth all have significant cec's. also, every bit of it can be bought at home depot. i like cheap, readily available stuff.

as you can see from the photos it almost immediately penetrates down into the medium but gets lodged in the air spaces all the way down. the watering floats a layer of perlite but just below the surface you can still see the other material.

i have a dense layer of roots at the surface in most of these 1/2 gal containers right now.

it stops the perlite from drying too fast and gets roots into the top of the medium.

buffers nutrients in the medium and this helps control ph swings that occur as a medium dries down.

turface is hard to source and is getting more expensive so i'm moving away from it.

if you are on the west coast especially oregon you can buy a pickup truck load of pumice for 40 bucks. it is dirty and will need to be cleaned but it is cheap. i used it my last year in oregon cleaning it with a cement mixer with holes drilled in it.

but for ease of use maybe you should consider coco. the last three years at the hemp facility we used prococo "chips-n-fiber" with no problems after giving it a soaking in full strength jack's and calcinit. i would not cut this coco with anything because it has a nice afp of 35% after soaking.

Thank you for all that. I found a local place that sells pumice for extremely cheap and all different sizes ( coarse, medium, fine) they also sell worm castings and all kinds of cool stuff for way less than any grow store especially since all of the small guys have been bought out by the big shops which I don’t support. I also ordered 10 of the tailpiece at 12” long so I can cut to length etc. now to piece one of these together and let the fun begin. I’m sure I’ll have more build questions so I hope you don’t mind.

 

[greyfader]

i don't mind at all! in fact, i enjoy helping people grow their own meds.

later today i'll try to show a completed system without the medium.