Mephisto Genetics Mephisto Genetics in 2x2x4 under LED

[Saven]

They look great for Day 51. Better than how mine looked haha. Great work man.

 

[elcoloan]

I do not think she can look much better, honesty.

They look great for Day 51. Better than how mine looked haha. Great work man.

Thanks! I agree she looks well... and definitely better than other plants with which I've used supplements... MC really can produce nice plants by itself. Might add some Bud Explosion a bit further on, but I'm trying to hold back on it.

I feel she wants bit more nutes because some bottom leaves are keep yellowing, and the ppms on the tray go down and pH goes up by 0.5-0.7 which I've been told means I should increase EC a bit until ppms stay stable and pH doesn't rise as much.
Today she'll have a new tank/reservoir change with MC at 500 ppm / 1.0 EC plus 85 ppms of the tap... will report on Monday how she takes it but i suspect she'll really like it.

EDIT: A quick pic of her main cola today... hope she fills up all that stalk with bud.

 

[Nosias]

Thanks! I agree she looks well... and definitely better than other plants with which I've used supplements... MC really can produce nice plants by itself. Might add some Bud Explosion a bit further on, but I'm trying to hold back on it.

I feel she wants bit more nutes because some bottom leaves are keep yellowing, and the ppms on the tray go down and pH goes up by 0.5-0.7 which I've been told means I should increase EC a bit until ppms stay stable and pH doesn't rise as much.
Today she'll have a new tank/reservoir change with MC at 500 ppm / 1.0 EC plus 85 ppms of the tap... will report on Monday how she takes it but i suspect she'll really like it.

EDIT: A quick pic of her main cola today... hope she fills up all that stalk with bud.

View attachment 1278840

At day 50 I am using 1 gram per liter. This is the max I go. Your 500 PPM on the 500 scale is fine. You will be happy.
Here is a good read from Muddy. He left AFN this year to be member of the Dream Team of Auto. He will be missed.

New Grower - The life cycle of auto flowering cannabis.

Another common question I see is when to switch autos from veg to bloom. Many people are under the impression that as soon as they see the first flowers it's time to switch. Perhaps a little explanation of the life cycle of autos will help to clarify this. Weeks 1 - 3. Once you've started...

www.autoflower.org

 

[elcoloan]

At day 50 I am using 1 gram per liter. This is the max I go. Your 500 PPM on the 500 scale is fine. You will be happy.
Here is a good read from Muddy. He left AFN this year to be member of the Dream Team of Auto. He will be missed.

New Grower - The life cycle of auto flowering cannabis.

Another common question I see is when to switch autos from veg to bloom. Many people are under the impression that as soon as they see the first flowers it's time to switch. Perhaps a little explanation of the life cycle of autos will help to clarify this. Weeks 1 - 3. Once you've started...

www.autoflower.org

Thanks! I think that the max I'll go with too, maybe just add some epsoms or Bud Explosion on to that if it seems necesary.

 

[low_and_slow]

Hey gang, just catching up to this thread, but I'm a long-time coco grower so I had some questions/observations:

1) Why are you targeting 6.0+ for your pH? With the purple petioles and blue tinge on the leaf edges, I'd suspect you're a bit too high and would aim for 5.5-5.7 for a few waterings. As far as I'm aware, Ca is only weakly available above 6.0 and is most available around 5.6

2) I may have missed your numbers, but what are your temps/RH lights on and off? I've also noticed the blue tinge and purple petioles in low RH/temp grows, especially when things get cold and dry at night with the lights off.

3) Did you notice how when went to top-feeding, a bunch of deficiencies magically disappeared? That's a classic case of lockout, especially in coco. Your leaves were yellowing and crisping on the bottom likely due to the strange interactions of K/Ca/Mg/N when the plant can't flush itself of unused salts and metabolic waste in the roots. The root rot and corresponding bud rot were likely both caused by those imbalances weakening the plant and making them more susceptible to those pathogens.

4) Why limit DLI? I've watched all of Bruce Bugbee's content on YouTube and he seems to imply that more is always better with cannabis, assuming you can control your other environmental factors. If you're able to keep your plants watered and at the right temp/RH, why pull-back to 60W instead of just pound them with as much PPFD as they can stand?

Really curious to hear your thoughts since your grow space and style are so similar to mine!

 

[elcoloan]

Hey gang, just catching up to this thread, but I'm a long-time coco grower so I had some questions/observations:

1) Why are you targeting 6.0+ for your pH? With the purple petioles and blue tinge on the leaf edges, I'd suspect you're a bit too high and would aim for 5.5-5.7 for a few waterings. As far as I'm aware, Ca is only weakly available above 6.0 and is most available around 5.6

2) I may have missed your numbers, but what are your temps/RH lights on and off? I've also noticed the blue tinge and purple petioles in low RH/temp grows, especially when things get cold and dry at night with the lights off.

3) Did you notice how when went to top-feeding, a bunch of deficiencies magically disappeared? That's a classic case of lockout, especially in coco. Your leaves were yellowing and crisping on the bottom likely due to the strange interactions of K/Ca/Mg/N when the plant can't flush itself of unused salts and metabolic waste in the roots. The root rot and corresponding bud rot were likely both caused by those imbalances weakening the plant and making them more susceptible to those pathogens.

4) Why limit DLI? I've watched all of Bruce Bugbee's content on YouTube and he seems to imply that more is always better with cannabis, assuming you can control your other environmental factors. If you're able to keep your plants watered and at the right temp/RH, why pull-back to 60W instead of just pound them with as much PPFD as they can stand?

Really curious to hear your thoughts since your grow space and style are so similar to mine!

Hey, thanks for passing by and for the questions!

1) I came into growing with coco from doing only perlite hempy and with the perlite hempys I usually used 5.8 max 6.0 as pH. But doing this with the coco i have available here, i've found it always gave me Mg def which wouldn't go away by adding more nutes, specialy with the autopot system. So I started decreasing and increasing pH and the Mg def stopped only with pH above 6.1. Then i started doing slurry tests of my coco before using it and noticed it has a ph below 5.7.. sometimes even as low as 5.1! So i guess that's why in my case I have to try to go a bit higher with pH to avoid Mg def. And I've only had noticeable Ca def when adding too much of Epsoms or other sups or when RH was too low. And well, the pH charts I follow indicate better absorption of both Ca and Mg above 6.0 and in my coco grows that's what i've come to find as well.

2) My temps with lights on are usually around 25 C / 77 F and around 20 C / 68 F at lights of, with RH usually in the 60s at lights off, at the 50s lights on.

3) Well, the rot only really went away when using bennies, not just top watering. In other runs (mine and of my growfriends) when we've had root rot in the auotpots, we wouldn't use any bennies (it was really difficult to find them here) and we only did top waterings to help the problem and it wouldn't solve the rot but did help keep it at bay until harvest. After being able to find bennies, specially the amylo bacilus, not a single hint of root rot... well and also making sure the roots are well spread in the pot before turning on the autopot. But I also agree with what you say... we've encountered problems of all kinds when messing up with the nutrient's ratios and top watering helps avoid many problems. Also consider that I use tap water which I'm sure comes with stuff that is promoting the rot even though it is not too hard.

4) I'm not trying to limit DLI per se... just power consumption... my electricity here is quite expensive. Additional, I did begin this tent to test what things would turn out like if i used half of what was considered optimal since I never found it necessary for my needs to reach numbers that were considered optimal when growing with HIDs, and just using about half of that would be enough for me, so I assumed with LEDs it could be the same and it has worked great so far. And also, I'm not a heavy consumer, so I don't really need huge amounts of bud and since my RH is really high where I live and can't aford a proper dehumidifier yet, I'd rather avoid big dense buds.

Sorry for the wordy answers. Please tag me if you have any journals going on!

 

[low_and_slow]

Hey, thanks for passing by and for the questions!

1) I came into growing with coco from doing only perlite hempy and with the perlite hempys I usually used 5.8 max 6.0 as pH. But doing this with the coco i have available here, i've found it always gave me Mg def which wouldn't go away by adding more nutes, specialy with the autopot system. So I started decreasing and increasing pH and the Mg def stopped only with pH above 6.1. Then i started doing slurry tests of my coco before using it and noticed it has a ph below 5.7.. sometimes even as low as 5.1! So i guess that's why in my case I have to try to go a bit higher with pH to avoid Mg def. And I've only had noticeable Ca def when adding too much of Epsoms or other sups or when RH was too low. And well, the pH charts I follow indicate better absorption of both Ca and Mg above 6.0 and in my coco grows that's what i've come to find as well.

That's interesting that you're seeing your coco that low, that would definitely necessitate higher feed for sure. Sounds like you were really deliberate and scientific about honing in what works! What kind of coco do you use, I'm sorry if you put that in the first post already, but does it claim to be pre-buffered and is it brick or loose-bagged?

2) My temps with lights on are usually around 25 C / 77 F and around 20 C / 68 F at lights of, with RH usually in the 60s at lights off, at the 50s lights on.

That's about where I sit, but I'm aiming for 82* lights on/off; there's a guy on another forum that has a really well documented log testing temps and under LED he swears by 80+.

3) Well, the rot only really went away when using bennies, not just top watering. In other runs (mine and of my growfriends) when we've had root rot in the auotpots, we wouldn't use any bennies (it was really difficult to find them here) and we only did top waterings to help the problem and it wouldn't solve the rot but did help keep it at bay until harvest. After being able to find bennies, specially the amylo bacilus, not a single hint of root rot... well and also making sure the roots are well spread in the pot before turning on the autopot. But I also agree with what you say... we've encountered problems of all kinds when messing up with the nutrient's ratios and top watering helps avoid many problems. Also consider that I use tap water which I'm sure comes with stuff that is promoting the rot even though it is not too hard.

The bennies make sense for the same reason top-watering resolves the problem; when cannabis is highly metabolically active it exudes a ton of waste products through the root zone. In a system that doesn't rinse them away frequently like an auto-watered hydro grow, you can use bennies to consume those and protect the roots. My guess is that when plants sit in their waste products, either by virtue of the watering system or an unhealthy organic soil, or also due to being excessively root-bound, the reason they get sick is because their roots become susceptible to pathogens and allow in mold and bacteria.

It's basically diaper-rash for plant roots.

4) I'm not trying to limit DLI per se... just power consumption... my electricity here is quite expensive. Additional, I did begin this tent to test what things would turn out like if i used half of what was considered optimal since I never found it necessary for my needs to reach numbers that were considered optimal when growing with HIDs, and just using about half of that would be enough for me, so I assumed with LEDs it could be the same and it has worked great so far. And also, I'm not a heavy consumer, so I don't really need huge amounts of bud and since my RH is really high where I live and can't aford a proper dehumidifier yet, I'd rather avoid big dense buds.

Sorry for the wordy answers. Please tag me if you have any journals going on!

Makes sense, and the results don't lie! If your canopy is the right depth from tops to bottoms, running an LED at low-wattage but very close is not only a more efficient way to spread the light, but also the most efficacious way to run an LED.

No journal at the moment, but I'm getting ready to start one here shortly...

 

[elcoloan]

That's interesting that you're seeing your coco that low, that would definitely necessitate higher feed for sure. Sounds like you were really deliberate and scientific about honing in what works! What kind of coco do you use, I'm sorry if you put that in the first post already, but does it claim to be pre-buffered and is it brick or loose-bagged?

It's a no-brand coco, comes in white bag. I live in Colombia, and i think we are quite behind in terms of quality hydroponic materials, but slowly catching up. Still, most stores just sell the cheapest thing they can find from China; and the few good quality things you can find are just too expensive for hobbie growers like my self.

That's about where I sit, but I'm aiming for 82* lights on/off; there's a guy on another forum that has a really well documented log testing temps and under LED he swears by 80+.

Oh, I'm aware I should be aiming for higher temps, but the city were I live is quite cold and my home isn't well insulated. Last two runs i began having lights on during the night and of during the day to help with temps and it did give me a little bump in temps and plants do seem to like it better that way.

Makes sense, and the results don't lie! If your canopy is the right depth from tops to bottoms, running an LED at low-wattage but very close is not only a more efficient way to spread the light, but also the most efficacious way to run an LED.

Yup, that's why I regret a little not having trained or topped this Deez Nugs. But well, it will be nice to see how it turns out.

 

[elcoloan]

UPDATE

Day 56 - Well, this Deez Nugs is filling up and smelling sweeter by the day. Main cola leaves were tacoing a lot since they were very close to the light and I wasn't being able to lower temp there. So I got the lamp a little further away yesterday and tacoing stopped and colors even look a bit better up there today.

A little more info on the light: As always still dimmed to just 60 Watts. It sits right now at 5.1 inches / 13 cm from the tallest top. To compensate for the longer distance and keep similar DLI, I increased photoperiod from 18/6 to 20/4. Right at the tallest top I'm registering 885 ppfd for a DLI of around 63 there; and the next tallest top registers 490 ppfd for a DLI of around 35 there; the lowest top registers 228 ppfd for a DLI of 16.4 down there.

In terms of nutes, I think I reached my max EC with the MegaCrop because ever since I increased it to 500 ppms / 1.0 EC, I started seeing more and more burnt and yellow tips; and tray ppms are just a bit under the tank/reservoir's ppms, and tray pH is just 0.1-0.2 above tank/reservoir's pH. I'm setting tank pH at 6.0-6.1 and let it rise up to 6.4 before bringing it back down. I will set the pH of next tank refill a bit lower (5.8-5.9) to make sure micros are not being left out.
Other than the MC she only gets 85 ppms from what ever comes in the tap water and hydroguard.
Still on the fence about adding a bit of Bud Explosion or at least a bit of Epsoms... we will see how this week turns out before adding anything.

And that would be it for now. Here are a few pics taken today:

And a few other with lights out:

 

[elcoloan]

QUICK-PIC UPDATE

Day 58 - Deez Nugs