Back at it!
1st a shout out and apology to Growerschoice seeds, I won a pack of 4 crazy Roses a couple of years back on the old site, but was unable to run with them at the time.
Now here I am, a new tent (after 9+yesr the old one is showing its age) my homemade cob lamps, some rockwool, some old pumps, tubes and nutes and a plan(of sorts).
All 4 Crazy Roses sprouted and went into the rockwool blocks under 2 5700k cobs at 35watts each so 70ish watts.
The plan is the same as always, 4 plants, topped to 16 mains each, 64 main total, in a 70cmx70cmx160cm Marshydro tent. Using LBH’s famous scrog method (I wanted to try 420Autoflowers method, but I am rather heavy handed and clumsy)
So anyways, if this is the wrong place for a journal, please enlighten me.. other than that, its all about patience and patience from now on.
So change of plan, the runt, bottom left, did not break the shell so I had to help by hand…Clumsy hands… but it does not appear to have helped. My home grown didnt pop either ;-( I will put that down to old age)
Anyway, New plan: continue to run with the 3 Crazy Roses, top the most vigorous of the 3 one extra time and train to fill the space. should take up and extra 7-10 days, but should be worth the extra effort. Thats it for now, you know how it goes patience, patience, patience…
I guess i can put it down to old age, senility and a new process.
So I washed the blocks with plain water @ 5.5 pH, but forgot to wash again with 5.5 and nutes at 1.5 EC… I also, for some absolutely unknown reason had the starter lamp at 20 cm instead of 30cm..
Anyway after moving the lamp to 30cm and slowly adding some nutrient solution @ 1.5 ec, very slowly the seedlings look a little healthier, although not much, the good point is that the runt that was trapped in its shell is beginning to show a little growth, and by a little I mean a little…
anyways, I have a couple autos left from (fastbuds?) and of course my own (royalqueen)seeds and some (blonde russian ladies) if this first attempt in rockwool is a total fail…
looks like we may be on the road to recovery… well all except the runt which is hanging on, but only just. Figure another week or so and I will decide whether or not to start again… i will continue to hand feed every 2-3 days, as I dont want to drown the little buggers.
patience is beginning to pay off and the mistakes seem to be mostly overcome.hand watered about 125ml @ 6+/- pH and EC1.5 over the caps for a easy spread,seems to work ok for home prints.being 7-10 days behind wont make too much difference in the end.
Nice to see these pulling through after the rough start. Hand feeding over the caps helps keep the distribution even in rockwool without oversaturating the blocks while the roots rebuild.
The three healthy ones should fill that 70cm tent nicely with the extra topping. Sometimes losing one plant and making up for it with more training ends up giving better coverage anyway.
yes, the caps seem to work quite nicely, I agree the 3 healthy-ish will fill the tent quite easily, it is a small area to fill, and in fact two would be quite effective, I just start with a well worked plan that has proven successful for many years, and, well you know, the plans of mice of and men etc,
Trying, learning, having a bit of fun, the curve is a little steeper than I was expecting, however, every failure, large or small is a lesson. patience, patience, patience.
this is the aim, (past grows)
4 plants approx 16 mains per plant.
I see, yeah rockwool is a different beast completely! My best advice, use something like hydroguard from Botanicare to keep your roots free from rot, I wouldn’t recommend hydro without it. Keep your pH and EC in check. And you will be golden!
Also because you’ll likely have extremely thicker and more vigorous growth and foliage, you’ll probs want to kick up your airflow from what you’re used to. Add an extra clip fan or two for when they get there
A quick look-in today finds the roots air pruning from the lower parts, I was quite surprised that such small plants have rooted so well.So i soaked the final risers in 5.5ph @ EC 1.5 +/-, and set them under the plants, This is as high as i intend to go, I actually think the 22.5cm height would have been enough, but hey, 30cm seems acceptable so lets see how they go.
I expect to be topping the 3 growers over the next 3-4 days, the runt is holding on and I am rooting for her, because, well, you know, we English love to root for the underdogs.
ps, the rockwool is actually 7.5cm slabs cut to 15x15cm and stacked, because I have a few of them left over from what I used on the balcony.
I had to extend the central feed pipe because I was not planning on going so high at first.
Topping will have to wait until tomorrow, need a little more gap on the rear left between nodes. Other than that, things are just trundling along.
Gotta keep in my head that my own mistakes has set them 7-10 days behind what I expect. Dli is now at around 30, 20hrs light, 4 off, light @ about 90watts, plants seem happy enough at that for a week or two. The runt is doing whatever the hell it thinks its doing
My phone cam s a bit poor for current lighting, so I have used Linux Thumb’s auto enhancement to offer a little extra clarity.
And things move on, have been feeding 2x a day for the past couple of days, also topped the 3 growers.. the Runt is… well, it is.
i have placed the scrog mesh, same one for the last decade..which of course makes it difficult to hand feed, so I mixed up 10lts @ ph 6.0 +/- and EC 1.6 +/-, and loaded the res’, the pump will run for 5mins at 4hr intervals, 5x veg-growth signals… starts 2hrs after lights on, 1st run 06:00-21:00 1.5hrs before (lights out 4hrs, just to give them a rest) average DLI is 28.5 according to ppfd meter and a “Uni-T ut383 BT” light meter.
From now on its just training and topping, monitoring the feed and dli and being patient.
I have noted that the room is pretty damn humid, bought a mini dehumidifier which pulled 400ml over 3 days but didnt make a difference to the overall room levels, so have ordered a larger one. its an expensive hobby this…
just a couple of shots of how they are moving along, I think its about 3 weeks days since they appeared above ground.
The Runt is picking up a little, maybe it will not be a total waste of space.
Roots are popping out of the blocks and spreading across the base..
Removed the water and replaced with fresh. in my limited space thats a new experience.
ph is maintained @ 6.0+/- However after every 4hr-10min run it seem to jump immediately to around 7.5… I did not expect that tbh, EC 1.6+/-, DLI 35 +/-
funny cuz I always tell ppl that..growing?will teach you patience 
