New Grower Canna Coco goes to Mephisto’s Wedding

[Shugrows]

I have been checking in on your MW grow as well. I think you also have yours in a 2gal Rain Science bag?

She is looking really good! That’s wild that she is 31 days old and still in veg, if I could get these to go that long before flower they should be nice little bushes.

She thrown pistols but just starting to really take off. I think she will be off here the next few days.plus its hard to tell how much they really stretch when you are pulling the branches down every 3 days but i think she is about good to let just go now pretty much.i miss spoke she is in preflower not veg. And yes she is in 2 gal rain science bags I love them man.

 

[MIAutomatic]

Plants are doing great! I have been fertigating every 48 hours, but I think I’ll need to shorten the watering interval soon as they start to drink more. I have increased the feeding solution to 7ml A&B/gal for a total EC of about 1.3. The runoff tracking exactly the same EC as the inflow, which I take to mean the plants are pretty much using up everything I am giving them.

Plants are starting to put on a little more vertical height and everyone’s side branching is coming in. I am still not entirely settled on my training approach other than I have decided not to top any of the plants this round. This is my first time using 2gal bags and I want to see what they do without being topped. I plan on doing leaf tucking and tying down some of the satellite branches to the LST grommets, but try to limit pruning and leaf removal. I have started a little leaf tucking already and will continue until the I get some branches long enough to tie down.

I got the LED lights running, lighting update forthcoming as soon as I cook (and eat) these pancakes.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

[MIAutomatic]

LED strips are up and running and they are doing about what I hoped for. They raise the DLI and PPFD around the perimeter of the tent to close to the same level as the area right underneath the light. The DLI in the center of the tent isn’t really affected and the temperature in the tent only went up by 1-1.5 degrees F from 78-79 to 79-81.5. As we get into cooler weather I expect it will drop a few more degrees.

The setup is comically DIY, but so far very effective. I have the ballast sitting on top of the CHM hood attached to a chunk of 2 x 4 and secured with zip ties so it can’t fall off the hood. Wires are going everywhere, and it looks pretty ridiculous. The ballast is a 120 watt Meanwell constant voltage driver. It has adjustment screws for both the voltage and the current, and according to a couple of sources online with both adjustments turned all the way up the driver runs at about 150 watts powering each strip to about 37 watts.

 

[uk420man]

Come on mate, never put something that can at worst ignite onto flammable material ala, 3 x 2 studding, at least put a ceramic tile under ballast between wood, i always err on side of safety, ya wanna see the amount of rcd's i use, along with contactor relays, and i'm only running a single 315cdm, i had two ballasts burn out internally a few years ago, only due to the my using rcds which had tripped out the electric did i find out, had i not been using them, i'd be brown bread now, i looked and checked everything and all looked good, my last only option was to open up both ballasts, melted everywhere wtf uk420man

 

[MIAutomatic]

Come on mate, never put something that can at worst ignite onto flammable material ala, 3 x 2 studding, at least put a ceramic tile under ballast between wood, i always err on side of safety, ya wanna see the amount of rcd's i use, along with contactor relays, and i'm only running a single 315cdm, i had two ballasts burn out internally a few years ago, only due to the my using rcds which had tripped out the electric did i find out, had i not been using them, i'd be brown bread now, i looked and checked everything and all looked good, my last only option was to open up both ballasts, melted everywhere wtf uk420man

I appreciate your concern, but there is absolutely no fire hazard here and our situations are not similar. I have wired everything correctly, both the wires and wago connectors are rated for many times the power flowing through them and both Meanwell drivers and LED strips run at MUCH cooler temperatures than HID lights and ballasts. Both the driver and strips are cool enough to grab with your hand after 18 hours of constant operation. The driver stays especially cool just warm to the touch, maybe 90ishF.

The only “danger” these lights present is possibly wasting a little $$ on power because 465 watts of light is probably overkill for my 3x3 tent.

 

[uk420man]

lol its your led driver ffs i thought it was the 315cdm ballast mate, safety first im sure your on it mate.
Uk420man

 

[MIAutomatic]

lol its your led driver ffs i thought it was the 315cdm ballast mate, safety first im sure your on it mate.
Uk420man

Haha!
Ya just the Meanwell driver. For the long run I do plan to get a piece of extruded aluminum to mount it on, but a piece of 2x4 is what was on hand. I also will eventually do something to address the wires everywhere situation, but I wanted to get it up and running to test things out on this cycle.

 

[MIAutomatic]

Plants have really exploded, one of the MW (front center) has already started to flower. She didn’t really stretch much, seems like it happened overnight. All the others are stretching and starting to grow alternating branching so they shouldn’t be far behind.

I switched to the 3k bulb on day 21, that should help to encourage a bit more stretch as they move fully into flowering. Plants are growing so well, and my runoff has been coming out .3-4 EC lower than the inflow so I have been increasing the dose of A & B a bit higher than I usually go. I usually top out at 8ml of each per gallon and I am already up to 9ml this grow. That puts my feed EC at about 1.5, and my runoff last watering was 1.3, so I think I am getting it dialed in now. I am loving the 2 gallon rain science bags. I wish I had just used 4 of them instead of 3 with the 2 smaller pots. I think 4 - 2gal per tent will be the plan going forward.

The LED strips are working great, they seem to really even out the light coverage at the edges and corners. With the single point CMH light source if I didn’t rotate the plants pretty regularly the side facing the light would always grow a little bigger and make the plants a little lopsided. The strips seem to mostly solve that problem. I guess the real question will be if the increase in watts will generate a comparable increase in yields.

 

[MIAutomatic]

Grow is going great! Most of the larger fan leaves were getting to large to continue effectively tucking so I decided to alter my original plan and do more leaf pruning. On days 24 & 25 I removed the main stem fan leaves and any branch leaf that was growing over or inside the canopy. After pruning I gave them a light foliar of rhizo, silica and Canna start and they carried on as if nothing had happened. Now on day 27 they have already filled back in and the lower branching has improved their horizontal and vertical positioning significantly, so I think leaf pruning was the right call.

Feeding steady at 9ml each canna A&B and have reduced rhizo to the maintenance dose of 2ml/gal. Current feeding EC is 1.5. They are not quite ready for fertigating twice a day so I am aiming for about every 18 hours. The exception is the overachiever Double Grape in the .5gal pot, she is 20 inches tall and already needs feeding twice a day. She is a little lanky but developed almost ideal branching without any training other than leaf tucking.

I had to ditch the 25 inch drain saucer I was using in favor of my 3 ft drain table. The plants were getting too big and I needed the extra corner space. The only drawback is I lost a few inches of vertical height to the drain table and the plant risers. I still have 5-6 inches of vertical height and I think that’s the most the plants will stretch at this point, so fingers crossed I don’t run into height issues.

 

[uk420man]

They are flying along, man i am envious.
Uk420man