Mephisto Genetics Canna-Cheese 1:1 in AA aero grow

[Larry3215]

Hi folks! Ive been lurking for a while, and like what I see so I thought I would put up my first Mephisto grow.

Details:
Tent is DIY, 28" x 38" x 48" inside, and sits on top of a work bench.
320 watt DIY LED
Root chamber is 24" in diameter x 29" tall or aprox 57 gallons. Its made from 2ea 30 gallon fabric growing pots stitched together. The ceiling of the root chamber is also the floor of the tent and is 1" thick foam to help keep tent temps out of the root chamber.

The Air Atomized aero system has two nozzles in the bottom of the chamber pointing up. They are on separate timers. At the moment Im only growing two plants at a time in 3" net pots. The roots have a bad habit of filling the space, and that makes it difficult to get mist distributed evenly around all the roots.

I started on 24 Oct soaking 3ea Canna-Cheese in water for 24 hours. I then put them into the system in a sort of baby crib thing I am experimenting with. In the past, I have always soaked seeds the usual way with paper towels, then put them into small dixie cup 'hempy buckets' until they got to be about 3" tall. Then I put them in the foam pucks and into the system. It usually takes from 2 to 4 days for them to get over the transfer shock and start growing strongly and develop fuzzy roots.

Oh - I should mention that Im obsessed with fuzzy hairs on roots. Thats almost more important to me than yields, or almost anything else. Im kind of an odd ball that way. So expect lots of root porn and not so much bud porn

Anyway, two of the three seeds poped and they were left to do their thing until they get big enough to put them in the pucks. The third seed looked like it was trying to pop, but it just couldnt get there, so I tossed it. The plan was always to pick the two fastest ones to keep anyway, so no big loss.

After two days total they looked like this.

Once the new tap root was long enough, I covered it with some more fabric, but that didnt work the way I hoped. After some trial and error I ended up convincing the new roots to grow down instead of sideways, and the seed cap to start growing UP.

This is where they were a couple of days later. One of the babies is growing quite a bit faster than the other.

Darn - gotta run. Will finish later....

 

[Garage_Grower]

Got any pictures of the complete setup? Inside of the root chamber? I’m curious :smoking:

 

[Larry3215]

Its been 8 days since I started soaking the seeds. The larger one got put in the foam puck yesterday, and the much smaller one today. The smaller one is really lagging behind.

 

[Larry3215]

Got any pictures of the complete setup? Inside of the root chamber? I’m curious :smoking:

Its not easy getting good pics of the inside because I only have small openings. Here a few from when I did a remodel, and some prior grows that may give you some idea.

One of my growing helpers checking out the new chamber.

This is an older configuration, but similar to what I have now. This is looking down without the ceiling/floor in place. Thats a drain in the center.

Here are some old root pics from a few different grows.

These next two are actualy from an HPA grow I did before changing to AA. This is a single C99 plant in a 3" net pot in the chamber. The roots filled the entire chamber - including growing from the ceiling - by the end of the grow.

Some different roots in the same chamber but with the AA nozzles. These are all auto grows.

Here is the inside of the tent. with that C99.

 

[Towlie]

Nice set up and lady's

 

[Garage_Grower]

Damn man! That’s some serious root porn there

 

[Larry3215]

Damn man! That’s some serious root porn there

Nice set up and lady's

Thanks guys! Appreciated!

If you want more details, I have several grow logs, build details, and about a million or so pics on OG. Same user name.

So, my experiment with trying to germ the seeds directly in the system has sort of worked out ok. Not perfect by any means. I think I have saved some amount of stress - but - not all of it.

The new tap roots on both babies had started to develop fuzzy hairs before I moved them from the cotton pads to the foam pucks.

Unfortunately, in all the handling during that process, I managed to squish almost all the fuzzy hairs down flat. Fuzzy hairs are very delicate and are easy to damage.

The larger, more vigorous baby has started to come back nicely, but the runt is still way behind. In fact it has hardly made any progress while the bigger baby is growing nicely.

EDIT: I just took a close look at the runt and it looks like I may have pinched the root too tightly in the foam puck. I re-positioned it. Hopefully that will let it start growing again.

 

[Larry3215]

I culled the runt today. Its just not growing. At all.

Im going to stick something else in that hole and hope to salvage something more from this grow. I have to say I am disappointed in these seeds so far.

On the plus side, the remaining baby is progressing more or less normally and looks happy.

 

[MissUniverse]

Now this is interesting. As a dwc grower I've always wondered what you can do with autos in that kind of set up. I know with dwc there's more than one or two times you'll get runts from seed that just don't make it because of it being the nature of dwc with autos/from seed so i imagine that's how you'll find it with this set up too. Very cool set up though. I will have to try aeroponics soon now that there is someone around who knows aeroponics

 

[Larry3215]

Now this is interesting. As a dwc grower I've always wondered what you can do with autos in that kind of set up. I know with dwc there's more than one or two times you'll get runts from seed that just don't make it because of it being the nature of dwc with autos/from seed so i imagine that's how you'll find it with this set up too. Very cool set up though. I will have to try aeroponics soon now that there is someone around who knows aeroponics

Yeah, its like anything else in life - stuff happens sometimes. Its still disappointing.

In my past grows, with autos and photos, I have never had all the plants perform equally well. There is always a true leader and, to one degree or another, some that lag behind. Thats been true for every grow starting from my soil days, as well as my LPA, E/F, Hempy buckets, NFT, Membrane Miniscus, and HPA grows, as well as earlier AA grows. I think the only types of hydro I havent done are DWC and Kratky.

Starting earlier this spring, I began a series of experiments that seriously abused a bunch of seedlings, and baby plants while I was trying to improve on the system. I killed off at least a dozen babies - on purpose - when a particular experiment was done so I could start a new test. However, Ive never had a baby plant perform this badly once I put it into the system - even when I was trying wild new techniques and really pushing the limits. Early on I screwed up some calculations and ended up adding around 10 times the chlorine I should have to the system, and the bebaies still did ok - just with no fuzzy hairs.

I will have to wait and see how the rest of the grow progresses, but unless this survivor does extremely well for yield, and is the best dam stuff Ive ever used, I doubt I will be growing any more Mephisto seeds. I just cant afford $55 per seed.