Sweet Seeds Back with a Sweet Nurse CBD and Ice Cool Grow

[4d-Rock]

Hey Guys, I was wondering if I could get your guys’ opinion on something. Maybe @Mañ'O'Green or one of the other experienced guys hanging around can help decide my next steps.

Due to the lightening of the leaf tips, Last night I decided I’d up the volume of water to 2L per pot to get a bit of runoff as opposed to the 1.5L i have been feeding so far which gives no runoff. In previous grows, I’ve always watered to 10%-ish runoff and thought on these two I’d try no runoff after seeing good results on other people’s grows.
Additionally I reduced the MC to 3 g/gal and kept with a light 0.25g/gal BE. My water has a base of about 55ppm, after adding this it brought it to about 550ppm.
When I watered each I measured the runoff and I was getting between 1300-1500ppm. Now the plants are looking healthy, maybe a bit N heavy, but the tips starting to burn is starting to give me flashbacks to previous grows. Where things are going great and then it first starts with some tip burn, then moves on to lockout and then deficiencies. The pots are also quite white on the outside from salt buildup, you can see in the below side pic.

This is where I need some experienced input, should I:
1) Ignore this and continue my alternating feed - SC/SK schedule, while slowly increasing my BE
2) stay with the same schedule like 1) but go back to always watering with runoff
3) Throw in an extra plain water before next feed
4) Some sort of flush
5) Another idea?

Thanks!

Day 36

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Steady as she goes Don't alternate nutrients just use a little less of each but with every fertigation. I always start at 50% strength and up my nutrients by 10% each week until I get a little bit of tip burn then back off 10%. Always fertigate to run-off I go 15% to 20%. Based on looking at your plants you do not need to do a flush. I consider a flush as a last resort method to cure a problem that cannot be fixed any other way. If you are fertigating to run-off this is like a mini-flush but you are not washing away the rhizosphere. Yes hydro has a rhizosphere it is just not as populated as a soil one. I use Mykos in my rock wool. If you had a salt build up this will wash out pretty fast. You don't talk about PH but 6.0 is the sweet spot for coco.

As far as the mix 3g MC/gal. and 1g Bud Explosion (along with kelp, B1, Humic Acid, optional). Then as flowering progresses reduce the MC to 2.5 g /gal. and BE 1.5 g/gal. in late bloom go with 2g MC 2g BE last 2 weeks add Sweet Candy or Cane molasses

Your plants do not need as much nitrogen in the flowering stage and it is a luxery nutrient so the plant wastes energy utilizing it first. They do need some so watch the color of the top - newest leaves - if they start to turn lime green add a little more nitrogen back in. This is always a judgement call and some phenos defy logic.

 

[Garage_Grower]

I haven’t made one up yet, I’ve been taking pictures along the way, and I was going to write it up in one post once it’s all done. All Dinafem strains, Blue Cheese(2gal), Cookies(1gal), and CBD Kush(2gal).

 

[4d-Rock]

Awesome, thanks for such a detailed response @Mañ'O'Green . I’ll keep my volume at 2L per pot to ensure run-off. And I’ve been keeping all my input pH to 5.8-6, it’s pro-mix hp a peat-based medium Rather than coco, but similar pH.

Did you mean that I should be feeding on every watering with all nutes together but at lower concentrations?
The next watering was going to
be Sweet Candy at .5g/gal and Sea-K at .4g/gal. Those are pretty low strength already and will keep them there.
If I continue to do it this way, Would you maybe recommend doing 2 of these SC/Sk waterings before the next MegaCrop feed to get the pot ppm down a bit?
I fed MegaCrop at 3g/gal last night and will keep it there and increase BE to 0.5 or 1g/gal Depending on how they are looking. Then continue as you mention through the Flowering stages. Though I’ve used Sweet Candy through the full grow and will keep with that rather than molasses
Fingers crossed that things stay healthy.

Another quick question. Ive been following you and many of the other great growers here and have been working towards a fully healthy plant from start to finish. My next goal (sorta simultaneous to the first) is the grow some bigger plants as mine never seem to grow up with the same vigor as others. I look at @Garage_Grower plants he just posted and I would love to be able to grow plants like that. I realize there are so many variables it makes it near impossible to directly compare. But, what do you think my limiting factors or potential things that need to be addressed or upgraded? Is it because of the light size/strength, seed genetics, tent size, pot size or purely the care/environment?
Thanks!

 

[4d-Rock]

I haven’t made one up yet, I’ve been taking pictures along the way, and I was going to write it up in one post once it’s all done. All Dinafem strains, Blue Cheese(2gal), Cookies(1gal), and CBD Kush(2gal).
View attachment 1183116

beautiful plants there @Garage_Grower ! That’s going to be a nice and tasty harvest

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Awesome, thanks for such a detailed response @Mañ'O'Green . I’ll keep my volume at 2L per pot to ensure run-off. And I’ve been keeping all my input pH to 5.8-6, it’s pro-mix hp a peat-based medium Rather than coco, but similar pH.

Did you mean that I should be feeding on every watering with all nutes together but at lower concentrations?
The next watering was going to
be Sweet Candy at .5g/gal and Sea-K at .4g/gal. Those are pretty low strength already and will keep them there.
If I continue to do it this way, Would you maybe recommend doing 2 of these SC/Sk waterings before the next MegaCrop feed to get the pot ppm down a bit?
I fed MegaCrop at 3g/gal last night and will keep it there and increase BE to 0.5 or 1g/gal Depending on how they are looking. Then continue as you mention through the Flowering stages. Though I’ve used Sweet Candy through the full grow and will keep with that rather than molasses
Fingers crossed that things stay healthy.

Another quick question. Ive been following you and many of the other great growers here and have been working towards a fully healthy plant from start to finish. My next goal (sorta simultaneous to the first) is the grow some bigger plants as mine never seem to grow up with the same vigor as others. I look at @Garage_Grower plants he just posted and I would love to be able to grow plants like that. I realize there are so many variables it makes it near impossible to directly compare. But, what do you think my limiting factors or potential things that need to be addressed or upgraded? Is it because of the light size/strength, seed genetics, tent size, pot size or purely the care/environment?
Thanks!

Yes you need to feed all nutrients at the same time. When you alternate nutrients they are not in balance and can lead to lock-outs. Think of it like this even though .5g sweet candy is not much it is 50% of what you are feeding and goes into the pot at a high level compared to what remains in the pot. This can lead to an out of balance profile in the pot. Does that make sense to you? By the way Sweet Candy is not needed until the last couple of weeks. The plant will not be using it. It does not hurt but it is just wasted.

Genetics, Light volume and quality along with the media size all contribute to plant structure and size. If you want big plants (careful what you ask for), get longer running autos strains that have longer veg times or go photo. Provide a minimum 38 moles DLI of full spectrum light. The math is out there for your light. 3 gallon pot minimum. You need a lot more Fluorescent in veg than you are running. It is the growth in early veg that will ultimately determine the plants final size.

 

[4d-Rock]

Thanks @Mañ'O'Green , the nute balance does make sense. I wanted to give this a try to see how it went as I saw some others doing it on the forums. Could I still mix the Sea-kelp with the plain water when not using nutes?

I’m surprised about you mentioning that sweet Candy is only for end of flowering. Everything I’ve read has said start to finish. Definitely don’t want to be wasting if it’s not helping things.

I appreciate the Grow tips. I’ll keep them in mind for future grows.
is that 38DLI for late flowering? And lower through veg? I measured 16-20k lux across the canopy or 16-20 DLI after calculation with 20hrs light. Maybe I’m just not giving enough light then. After The stretch Stops maybe I’ll start lowering the light to see how much they can handle.
As for the colour temp, I figured the 3000K is a bit red for the early veg. I do have 3500K COBs as well, but I may have to look into a 5000K fixture at some point to supplement during Veg.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Yes, 38 DLI should be adequate for autos in flower you can go up all the way to 60 but after 50 is past the point of diminishing returns. I would not be afraid to run 45 DLI for autos and 50 for photos. Just keep an eye on the plant if you run that high.

 

[4d-Rock]

Yes, 38 DLI should be adequate for autos in flower you can go up all the way to 60 but after 50 is past the point of diminishing returns. I would not be afraid to run 45 DLI for autos and 50 for photos. Just keep an eye on the plant if you run that high.

Alright. Well I'm definitely not up that high. In the center below the light is currently sitting at approx. 19 DLI.

A good portion of the Sweet Nurse's serrated edges are slightly turned up and I had interpreted that as it being nearly too much light which is why I've kept my light at the top of the tent (~30" from tops of plants). Though the Ice Cool has pretty flat serrations.

Another observation ive made is that the Sweet Nurse's leaves 'pray' and are up and perky more than the Ice cool which is generally a bit flatter and more droopy at times. Likely just a difference in how the strains handle the light.

Both are still stretching vertically but slowing down. I'm going to wait until it seems to have stopped and start lowering the light a bit at a time to see what they are able to handle. Maybe work my way up to that 38-40 DLI unless they really don't like the higher intensity.

 

[4d-Rock]

Good day all. Hope everyone is happy and healthy. If there's anything keeping me sane besides the family, it's keeping busy with my plants.

A few days ago I decided it was time to clean the pre-filter on the carbon filter because it looked pretty bad. Holy was it worse than I thought! I used my air compressor and blew it out and the change is night and day. So much better exhaust. Just a PSA, clean your filters regularly.

I've also made a few modifications to my feed/water regiment. I'm still alternating, but I've moved the Sweet Candy to be included with the MegaCrop and Bud Explosion. So I'm mixing the Sea-k on the 'plain' water. Also, I increased the volume to 2L per pot from 1.5L to ensure runoff (getting 200-400ml).

Day 39 - Both received an initial 2L with a weak 0.4g/gal dose of Sea-k (95ppm). The Ice Cool had a reasonable amount of runoff but still a bit high at 700ppm. The Sweet Nurse I had to add an additional 500ml to get some runoff. It was still very high at 1300ppm. I'm hoping things start leveling out before things start to go down hill.

Day 41 - Feed day where both received 2L (base 55ppm) with 0.5g/gal SC (140ppm), 3g/gal MC (515ppm), and 1g/gal BE (645ppm, ph'd to 5.8. Both had a reasonable amount of runoff but still quite high at 1000ppm. Although the difference isn't quite as great as the last plain watering. I'm noticing that the tip burn is still very slight so that's good, but it's progressed a bit on a few leaves. Also, the Ice cool (right) has some of the lower leaves lightening up. This may just be normal processes, which I hope, but it could be the start of some salt-induced nutrient lockout...fingers crossed it stays minor like this.

Lastly, here's a picture of the side of my fabric pots. Should they really be this white with nute salts? Is this an indication of something other than salt buildup that I should be addressing? Is there anything I should be doing (wiping/washing it off?) or will the watering with runoff be enough to keep the soil in good shape and the pot buildup is nothing to be concerned about?
Thanks!