New Grower Dutch passion auto blackberry

[Nuglet]

Hi all, so having a 2nd grow in DWC. First was a bit of a mess. Had far too many plants in the cupboard. I purchased an all in one solution that was supposedly for 6 plants. Soon found out that was reaching too far! It was a messy grow, made up of GSC, Pineapple Express and Med Gom

Yield was low, not enough light penetration and I had a runt that went ballistic and stretched right to the top of the cabinet

Different strains meant different arrival times so it was a challenge to harvest and I didn't flush as the GSC was last out of the gate.

Anyway, got about 6 mason jars of product out of it - all useable. A lot of airy buds and personally didn't like the effect I got from Pineapple Express - left me to jittery so will give Sativa's a miss for a while. GSC was my fav out of the 3 and produced the most.


So here we are - attempt 2!



Box is 3' wide x 6' tall x 1½' deep

Lighting

720 Watt, Switchable, 11-Way, 5w Diode Duo-Drive LED Light

2 X 300 Watt UFO style LED

18 litres of useable DWC (water level to bottom of net pot)

3 air stones and recirculating pump

Drip feed heads

RO water (15 PPM)

3 X Dutch passion auto blackberry in Rapid Rooters/Hydraton cups

Lights are on 24:0 at the mo - veg & bloom lights are running

I'm LSTing

So 3 weeks in now, just after seeds sprouted had to go away for 10 days at the last minute so switched on the auto PH doser. Think it caused me some big PH swing issues as on my return there was a lot of necrosis on the bottom leaves - cut most of that out - left in the ones that still have substantial amount of green. One plant was at least a 3rd bigger than the other 2.

I had only added formulex before I left, 5ml per litre.

Good roots had formed and then switched to the GH flora duo feed i used last time

Switched off the drip feed heads

Followed week 2 ratio which gave me a ppm of 1100

After a quick visit to the infirmary forum (thanks guys for all your help), I've reduced the PPM now and we are at 700. Fresh batch of nutes mixed at the week 1 amounts which works out at 22.5ml of Grow & 12.5ml Bloom

Added Rhizotonic & Calmag - both half prescribed strength

Cab temp is around 25c humidity 50%

DWC water temp 19-20 c

PH is 5.9

Girls seem to look better since that nute switch or that might be just me willing them on

Pic attached.

I've got al the lights on running 24:0 - read conflicting reports on this so would like to hear peoples thoughts?

One other random thing - not sure if anyones come across it. I've got an American Marine PH reader/doser with a probe that sits in the solution and a separate hand held cheapo. Both calibrated in the same cal solutions fine. But give different readings from the DWC solution! The cheapo is reading 6.5 & the probe 5.9

Its a new probe as well.

 

[jingo]

Hey Nuglet

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on starting your first Diary.

You know, every time I purchase Pineapple Express in a dispensary I've had the same jittery feeling that you described. I've grown it out in coco and deep water culture using general hydroponic nutrients and never had the jittery feeling. I tend to take my plants a little longer than others, and harvesting too early with sativas is a No-No if you don't like the Jitter.

Haven't really done the recirculating type of hydro myself. Usually you want to control pH swings by getting the proper nutrient level. That's preferable to adding or subtracting any ph up or down. Your manual meter probably can only be calibrated at one point and is more suspect than your more expensive meter. What you need to do is a two-point calibration. You either use 7 and 4 or 7 and 10. That would give you the best accuracy.

I'm still using the GH nutrients in Coco and when I get to the point where I see preflowers I switch to the transition schedule and I hold that until I've got some pretty heavy flowers starting. If I make any changes at all it's usually to drop the grow down one mil per gallon. I might make a few custom adjustments to my Bloom and micro later on but that's all by personal preference.

Anyway, if you have any questions you can just put the @ symbol in front of my name @jingo.

 

[Nuglet]

Thanks @jingo

Looking fwd to doing a grow diary - wanted to on the first attempt but to be honest I was totally embarrassed by the state of the grow and knew I'd made mistakes so thought I'll try an learn some bits then go again. Didn't start off to well having to disappear for 10 days and leave the girls to their own devices at the perils of a PH auto doser - but hopefully I'm back on track now and haven't done anything too serious to them.

Yep the Pineapple - i was quite disappointed. This was my first own grow in over 30 years of herb loving and heard about how great it was - so after years of buying whatever it was weed I was looking forward to a tasty smoke that did all the med stuff it proclaimed it would.

The 2 PE girls didn't produce that much, about 1 full Mason jar in total. But i did check on the trichs to make sure I'd got the milky ones in there as had been reading up about the effects - so was quite surprised. The med gom was also a Sativa dominant strain. again kind of jittery - not as much. The whole run went for over 14 weeks in the end, think the lack of light over corroding & inexperience didn't help but boy was I surprised to get 6 full mason jars.

But the GSC for me ticked all the boxes in want i need out of a smoke or should say vape. So gonna stick with Indicas for a while now. And read great things about the Blackberry auto so thought I'd give that a go.

The PH meters were calibrated on a 2 point solution 7 & 4 and both bang on. Only when you put them in the DWC they seem so far apart. I've ordered another cheap one so will see how that fares. The american Marine cost quite a few bucks so would hope its a more reliable reading.

So with GH experience do you think 700 ppm in 18 litres is about right for week 3 of veg? Half of what the GH chart indicates. I had read a few posts saying follow it to the letter with Flora Duo, but it does seem very high in comparison to some diaries I've been following & advice I've been given by some kind members on here.

Any thoughts on my lighting setup and 24/0 running?

Nuglet

 

[jingo]

I run my lights 24/7 that helps me keep my environment stable. You know I got to thinking that Dutch Passion Auto Blackberry has a sativa phenotype I really like it. If you check out the Dutch Passion blog at the end of July I'm in there. I grew out a auto blackberry kush at that time so there's some good pictures. Actually if you just just Googled Jingo and Dutch Passion and blog you'll probably go right to the Post.

 

[Nuglet]

@jingo

Wow, just wow. They looked amazing - you sir are my benchmark!

Wish I had the room to let them grow to their own groove, LSTing is such an ugly business!

 

[Nuglet]

@jingo this was what I was hoping for with PE, mellow nice high good tropical flavour.

Instead i had hide from people shakes and the taste of a teenagers sneaker!

http://thestonermom.com/pineapple-express/

 

[jingo]

@jingo this was what I was hoping for with PE, mellow nice high good tropical flavour.

Instead i had hide from people shakes and the taste of a teenagers sneaker!

http://thestonermom.com/pineapple-express/

Yeah, I think she's wrong. This is one sativa that's can give you the Jitters if harvested early in my opinion. One that I grew out that I really like is Mephisto no wait a minute, I'm a little stoned I guess. It was fast buds Mexican Airlines. That strain is about as close to the old mellow Columbian gold as I've had. Although, I wish world of seeds would make an Autoflower version of their Columbian gold that's a really really great commercial Columbian gold. Anyway that Mexican Airlines is really good and that's a real mellow one.

If you want to stick to the indicas, there were 10 of us that grew out short stuff gorillas OG recently over in the short stuff seeds section. It throws one sativa type phenotype for every two Indica phenotypes at least that's what we found. The sativa is really interesting is got to sativa head high that will mess you up, but it also has a lot of the muscle relaxation that you get with an indica it's really interesting. Then the bushy phenotypes the Indica types are very potent great evening and afternoon smoke.

I dictate to my cell phone and I'm at the mercy of Google sometimes and how it decides to translate what I say.

 

[Nuglet]

Few more days since last pics all variables pretty much the same - ppm now 550. PH has been pretty stable only a few drops of down needed to keep it at 5.9

LST seems to be working, roots haven't developed massively yet but look good and DWC is clean

@jingo new handheld ph meter readings inline with American Marine one so that's all cool

 

[jingo]

It's nice when everything's worked in just right.

 

[Nuglet]

So start of week 5 of veg, nutes are running at half strength.

All 3 looking ok - I've run out of plant ties so need to get a bit more.

Using flora duo, calmag and rhizo

Water change stats as of today

Ppm 700

EC 1300

Ph 6.09 added down - now 5.8

Water 20 degrees

Cab 24 degrees

Humidity 53 percent

Any ideas when to stop LSTing?

I have a scrog net and was waiting to get an even canopy/bit more height before bringing that into the mix. Would love to hear thoughts on this as have never used it