New Grower MoAB, Caramelicious, Jackberry first grow

[beachbuds]

Setup
600W LED Vivosun
23w 6500K CFL for germination
3gal fiber pots
Fox Farms Ocean Forest
Blumat carrots with distributors
190cfm exhaust with carbon filter
8” side fans

Seeds
Amsterdam Seeds MoAB, Caramelicious, and Jackberry

Week 1-2:
germinated seeds that were stored in the fridge for about 2 years. Went straight into peat pellets (no water soak) inserted into solo cup with OF. 3/3 Sprouted in 3 days under single 23w CFL 4” away. Flipped on the LED at day 7 at about 20” away. Temps and humidity ran a bit high at days 7-9, averaging 29c but maxed out at 32c for a few hours for 3 days before I upped the ventilation to max draw on the exhaust and high on the side fans. Since then steady ranging 24-29c. Humidity was in the 50% range during sprout and seedling stage. Day 10 transplanted solos into 3 gal fiber pots. Easy peezy to not disturb the roots and didn’t notice any lag in growth

Week 2-3
Blumats went in on day 15. Pretty easy setup if you follow the directions and burp the air out of the headpiece with the transfer pipette they provide. Tuning was easy and honestly, so far so good. Left on a 3 business trip and came back to happy plants, no issues. Originally bought em for this purpose but I might just keep em in the whole time. Super compact plants but looking good I think...?

Week 3
Not much space in between the nodes to lst, but I’m trying to pull the main stem over as much as I can. Leaf tucking as well. Started worrying about being too bushy so I raised the light to 24”. Thought the older leaves showed a little cal/mag issues as apparently is common with the acidic OF. I ph’d the runoff and it was 5.1. Been watering with local hose water at pH 6.5 and it’s pretty hard to boot so top dressed each plant with dolomite lime (3tbl per pot) and watered it in. Hopefully that will buffer through the grow. pHd the runoff after I flushed in the lime and it was up to 6.3. Also saw a handful of fungus gnats so I covered the soil tops with sand. Blumats again a nice add so shouldn’t need to disturb the sand much until I start feeding, which I won’t do until preflower I think. Humidity is now in the 70% range daily and temps are 25-27c steady.

Check the pics and let me know if you have any questions/suggestions etc. Lots to learn so fire away.

 

[beachbuds]

Oh yeah, forgot to add I’m running 24/0 light schedule and my tent is 3x3x5’ quicktent.

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

looking good nice kit and set up could run 20/4 or 18/6 if it would help with temps .one manky leaf could be a splash/sat on soil,iffy ph.keep an ey out if other leaves go thesame.
good luck n keep er lit

 

[beachbuds]

Just finished week 4, D28 since germination. Doing LST and leaf tucking as much as I can to open these little shrubs up. No evidence of pistols yet. The sand treatment really knocked out the fungus gnats too. Easy and clean. Very interested to see if they stretch much when flowering starts. Blumats still working very well, love these things.

 

[beachbuds]

Day 35. Shrubby as all hell still...very little overall node length. The back right girl of the trio tent shot and the cfl bud site closeup is the Jackberry, the tallest of the trio. Still only 8” tall. Been running the veg and bloom lights since germination as the spectral overlap was practically identical. Wondering if that was too much intensity (600w Vivosun). Wait and see I guess. Blumats still working great, started 1/2 veg nutes this week. The three are drinking about a 1/2 gallon a day. That sexy blurple photo of the budding site is the Caramelicious (back left of the trio)...looking like early preflower possibly?. Leaves look green and clean. Fungus gnats handled easily with sand. Not a single bug seen in 2 weeks.

Any suggestions if these were yours are welcome!!

 

[420Forever]

ppp

 

[beachbuds]

D41 update: did some defoliation and bud site cutting in the deep dark nodes today. Felt like I removed a ton but there was so much veg buried deep in all these plants that had no way of seeing light. Felt philosophical and contemplated how cutting if any kind on a plant we work so hard to make sure every leaf is healthy is such a personal choice for growers and is completely context dependent.

Learned an important Blumat lesson on why it’s important to NOT add nutes to the reservoir, even synthetics. Algae funk starting growing, reservoir got stinky and blumats clogged. Bummer. Cleaned the whole thing out, added straight tap only to the res plus 3% H2O2 at .1oz/gallon. Didn’t reset the carrots as they are buried deep in the soil and under all the sand. Flushed the lines with 3% H2O2 before reconnecting to the carrots. I’m going to experiment with bottom feeding the plants bloom nutes. Fiber pots wick really fast so it’s pretty painless. I’ll dial back the blumats just a bit and focus on weight of the plants to determine feeding schedule. Have another couple of work trips coming so Blumats are still on. Finally, added another small fan so each plant has a dedicated air movement source.

Still don’t see much flowering happening...? Bud site pics are of the Caramelicious, back left of the trio shot. The other plants are not showing any pistils at all. Oh well, guess patience is called for.

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

I don’t run the Blu mats but Bigsmo from the cob shop.net forum has lots of good information on them. I remember him going through lots of variations of lines and valves to keep out absolutely ALL light. It’s not always the nutrients that clog the lines. It can be the slightest bit of light causing algae in sitting water. Cool system when the work correctly.

looking good
FB

 

[beachbuds]

Thank you FB for the tip on the total darkness needed in the system. My current resevoire is opaque but not blackout, gonna need to change that looks like.

 

[beachbuds]

Day 48. Leaves showing a deficiency (I think?), most prominent on the back right plant. Not sure what it is and would love some support from the experts. Growing in OF, been bottom feeding for about a week now with 1/2 strength Big Bloom/Tiger Bloom combo, about 1/3 of a gallon of this each every 2-3 days. Still dripping the blu mats constantly with water only now and they are drinking about 1/5 gallon a day each of this.Blumat watering slowspH of my tap water always been a steady 6.5 and after addition of the nutrients it dips to 6.3 before I feed. Can’t really pH the run off post watering since I’m bottom feeding however I did top dress dolomite lime about 3 weeks ago, 3tbs/plant. Flowering still slow, seeing some pistils forming on all plants but nothing really taking off yet. Temp steady between 20-24c and RH ranges 50-70%. 600w blurple 24/0 with both veg and bloom switches on on at 18” away.

Cal/Mag issue or....? And should I be trying to thin these plants out a bit to get airflow deeper into them? These pics taken with 23w CFL 6500 lighting.