Grow Mediums New Grower using Hempy Buckets and LED with Canna nutes.

[Betelnut]

***Update*** Day 31 (Over one Month!)

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies and the advice!!

I tried to fix my white balance issues and sharpen up my photos so you could see the situation a bit better.

I might have over done it, and next time I can get to them during "lights out" (which is only a four hour window) I will try to take some in more natural light.

But this is only a wide representation of what I am seeing.
Due to certain security issues I can only get in "The Room" at best once a day and I have to get all my work done in as short a time as possible, so sometimes it is hard to take the time to get good photos. But I will try to get some good leaf close ups as soon as possible (probably tomorrow).






I am giving them more waterings, and I have bumped up my CANNA Nutes to 0.8 EC, soon to go up to 1.0 EC. The last watering was Ph 5.5

I also added all the normal supplements I am using, CANNA Rhizotonic, Advanced Nutrients beneficial bacteria and fungi (all three types), Cal-Mag+ & Silica Blast from Botanicare, and I add a 25% dose of the CANNA Boost supplement even though I am not in flowering stage yet just to give the fungi and bacteria some carbs to live on.

I am also planing on lowering the lights by about half the distance, and adding one more as soon as I can afford it.

Cheers,
Betelnut

 

[Waira]

....sounds good bro', it still looks like Ca-Mg defc. to me, but it's the natural light that reveals the colors like yellow and brown that are key to diagnosis,... do what you can mate, I understand your limitations! Even a pic with flash in the near dark will suffice,... meantime, I highly suggest a foliar spray of the plants with that Ca-Mg supplement; this is the fastest way into the plants, and it looks like several are showing signs, so hose them all down! Do you have a wetting agent, or water spreader? This is critical for foliar spraying; it takes the surface tension out of the solution you're spraying, so it coats and sticks evenly instead of beading up and rolling off,...or worse! They must dry before lights out, to avoid potential mold issues; normally, I'd tell you to remove them from direct light until they dry, slowly, to give the stuff a chance to get absorbed, but if you keep the lights up to reduce intensity and heat (I know LED's are fairly cool, so no worries there), they won't potentially burn.... follow directions on the bottle for rec. dosing for foliar, or if they don't say, use at about 1/2 strength; spray tops and bottoms of plants! Between this, and the water spreader, you'll maximize the surface area covered form max. absorption....oh yeah, treat soil regardless!

 

[SkatterBrayne]

Very good advice above. Foliar sprays are fantastic in general, but specifically a great way to correct magnesium deficiency, as magnesium is an immobile nutrient. The only addition I have woukd be to add some seaweed extract to your dollars. Maxicrop makes a very affordable liquid seaweed extract, and it goes a very long way.

Anyway, looking good.

 

[Betelnut]

***Update*** Day 51

Hi Guys,

I know 20 days if far too long to go with no updates, but, in my defense, I have to go through a lot to safely post, for various reasons.

Also all of my extra time is spent fighting with these girls (So far 100% female!) to stay where I want them.

Definitely next time I am going with chain-link or some other harder wire as my SCroG base. These girls treat being tied to the netting I setup as a "Suggested Guideline" rather that a "Strict Rule"

But once I actually started watering them enough they just exploded. The Think Differents went from being the smallest runts to being monsters in comparison.

Also, next time I won't use those "Peat Starters" they stay way too wet, and that was one reason we were so afraid of overwatering that we ended up seriously underwatering, I will most likely just use rockwool cubes.

But this has been a great learning experience, and I expect my next grow to be even more successful (for one thing there will only be one, or at max two strains, instead of the FIVE I am trying to keep happy now). Also the new lights will be coming in by next week, so each row will have its own light with one extra as a backup just in case of a bad row of LEDs or something.

I have to keep this short, so here are some current picks, note the mesh netting was set at 10 inches, a balance between the eight recommended for some of the strains and the 12 inches recommended for others. One more reason to only do one strain at a time, or have two separated into different screens and different water etc. (Right now I only have two water tanks I am trying to keep five strains happy with, not a good plan on my part.)

If your cameras has a white balance control you can use a pice of something white to set it so it takes out the red color. Put the white something under the light, aim camera and tell it to adjust. Works on my Nikon SLRs.
Peac

Here are some pics, I didn't have time to do the White Balance trick mentioned by wwwillie above (even though my camera can in fact do it, but I was seriously rushing to get the work done, and I had to focus on getting that right first) so they are a bit pink, but you should still be able to get the idea:




So there they are, the 75~85 day strains are already getting Flowering-nutes, and the Auto Extreme and Think Differents (the ones to the direct right and left of the middle row respectively. The middle row, in the black containers, are Auto-Blueberries) will be on veg-nutes for about one more week I think. I don't have my notes in front of me right now.

Anyway I gotta run. Thanks again for all your awesome advice!!!

Cheers,
Betelnut

 

[Betelnut]

***Update*** Day 57

Hi Guys,
So these girls are going nuts.
Next time I definitely need to limit myself to two strains max. The different speeds of growth are making it really hard to keep the big-girls from overcrowding the smaller ones.

But Hopefully we can keep everyone happy until the first batch of 70~75 day girls (more like 80~90 days) get cut down, and the Think Differents and Auto-Extremes can use their last month or so with the extra room, and more dedicated lights to good advantage.

Certainly I can tell that my first week and a half of under watering has done some stunting. This one Critical+ in the back right corner never even made it up to the screen, but she is just one giant nug of goodness, so whatever. It is all a learning experience.



Here are some other quick shots of the room and some of the Auto-Extremes getting big.
I swear as soon as I can I will get out the DSLR and take some good bud shots.

In the meantime here is the situation:




Once again thanks for all the advice!

Cheers,
Betelnut

 

[Betelnut]

***Update*** day 62

Hi Guys,

No pics for now (sorry), just though you should know that the medium 70-75 day girls are on pH balanced pure water now, an one of the Auto-Critical Jacks looks like she might not even make it until next weekend (our planned first harvest). Her sun leaves are almost totally yellowed and the tips of her bud leaves are starting to go as well, but her buds are huge and sticky, basically she is signaling that she is over it, and ready to come down.

I am using a homemade "finishing Agent" so I hope only one week of pure pH balanced water will be enough to clean her out, but the rest will get the full 10~14 days of flush. The 85+ day girls (Think Different, Auto Extreme, and one Auto-Blueberry that was right in front of the cooler and I think we found the One Way to slow an Autoflower...) are on flowering nutes and looking AMAZING. The Auto Extreme is looking like the idiotic mini-drought we put them through in the beginning is having no effect on her final growth. In fact she is pulling my SCrOG screen off the walls as she explodes into monster growth.

But the Auto-Critical+ the Auto-Critical Jacks and the Auto-Blueberry (except one, see above) are going into their final days.

I will have a few more minutes in "the room" with them today, so I hope to take some shots with the DSLR worthy of showing what these girls have done for me.

Cheers,
Betelnut

 

[Betelnut]

**Small update** Day 65

Hi Folks,

I had to take down one of the critical Jacks, she was just ready, at day 64, it was just her time.

On her top most buds her biggest leaves, and her bud leaves, had already yellowed down to the calyxes and were looking like the buds themselves were about to yellow.

Some of her lower branches looked like they could go a bit more, but we figured to just take her down and save the big-buds, and also use her as a test of our drying set-up.

Besides, next time those smaller, lower buds probably wont even be there, so she can focus on the big-girls.

So far drying is progressing very slow but very steady.
Just what we wanted.

I also had the chance to take some good DSLR pics that I will be able to upload soon. I have a Photo Cleaning System that totally removes all EXIF and other metadata that I have not had a chance to run through yet.
Yes it involves converting to .BMPs etc., but I am a bit paranoid so there is more to it than that.

Also I only ever post from temporary VPNs that I can set-up on-the-sly at certain server locations. That is the main reason my posts are so slow, but so long, lol.

Anyway, I hope to have those pics up soon, maybe tonight, stay posted!

Cheers,
Betelnut

 

[Betelnut]

***Update*** day 68

OK,

I am getting very busy. I will take the time to do a proper post explaining the changes and stuff in my FIVE Freakin’ strains I am growing simultaneously (Protip: never ever, ever, try to do that) at some point in the near future.

Over the next weekend the last two Critical Jacks might come down, freeing up space and lights for the Think Differents and the Auto-Extremes. But I will also be busy as hell dealing with it all.
I will definitely try to take some pics of the process though.

In the meantime, here are some shots I tried to take with my DSLR.
I still did not get the White Balance correct even though I used the setting where you point the camera at something white and set it off that. I either messed up that process, (very likely) or the room is just too unbelievably pink for the camera to figure out (also a possibility).

Anyway, here are the shots and short explanations of what they are:

These are some “Wide-Shots”:

In the first one you can see the Critical Jack that just up and died at day 64 against the far left wall right in the middle almost behind the fan (honestly she could have gone a few more days I think, but we were risking yellowing on her top buds, and that ain’t cool).




The second is her sister in the back “Filling the Corners” where it was just too hard to reach, and we simply had no space to tie her down.




The third is the Auto-Extreme overgrowing the Auto-Blueberry and the Critical+ on both sides (Once again: Never, ever, ever grow five different strains at the same time, at least not in one space). These three girls have at least another few weeks to a month of growth, and are just now on Flowering nutes.




The “Early Grave”

This Critical Jack just up and started dying on us. I let her go to day 64, which was like three days after these photos were taken, and her top buds were starting to yellow too much to let her go any longer. Some of her lower buds (That probably should have been clipped anyway since they were below the canopy and only popped out towards the end) were still showing green bud leaves, but they were much smaller and we decided not to risk it.

______


The “Bud-Shots”
These are mainly of the Auto-Extreme showing how much potential she has to go big in the next few weeks. Not real impressive now but let’s see what she does on Flowering nutes and with a few extra lights on her for about a month.

______


And last, and possibly least, but also totally cool as hell:

The “Tyrion-Shot”
As anyone who read the first pages of this journal knows, I accidentally under-watered these girls for like the first a week and a half of their short lives. I feel terrible about it, and I think I will feel even worse when the final weigh-in is over.

But one funny, and kind of neat, thing came from it.
This one critical+, one of the free seeds you get when ordering from Dinafem, was stuck up in the corner, with the least light, and a terrible drought while she was just a little sprout.
But she survived!
And even though she was so stunted she never even reached the SCRoG I had set-up, she is one dense, thick, huge bud. She has four smaller buds that are also pretty damn impressive growing from her sides, but, having never been tied down, her main cola, while small compared to some, is fucking amazing. It is as thick as my forearm in the middle, and just covered in a sticky mass of resinous trichomes.
So even though she is a girl we named her ‘Tyrion’. And we hope to bring her down within the next week. I hope to take more pics then, but for now here she is in all her Glory:




Cheers,
Betelnut

 

[Betelnut]

***UPDATE*** day 74

Hi Guys,

So we took down the two remaining Critical Jacks, and the three Critical+ plants, and they look to have produced a fairly good amount.
Personally I wanted to go another week on the Critical+ and at least a few days on the remaining Jacks, but we had the only three people involved there, and we all had four hours free. So we took down all five and cleaned them up in about four and a half hours.

They were all on the sides of the room and got the least light, plus the Critical+ seeds were free anyway, so we are pretty happy with the yield, even though it was pretty small for five plants. It is extremely obvious that the first week of under watering hurt these plants the most though. The Auto-blueberry and Auto-Extremes seem to have handled it with no real issues. I think the Think Differents are going to have been hurt by it too, as they aren’t as big as the A-Extremes are. But we won’t know that for a few more weeks I think.

Anyway we had three guys spend four hour hours cutting and trimming etc. And I only have this one pic.



It is of the tiny plant we named “Tyrion”, and that is the whole plant. It was small, but it was just one giant bud and four decent side buds. All together a pretty good yield considering.

Anyway, I still have 9 plants to work on so I will have plenty of more chances to show the trimming/drying operation.

Cheers,
Betelnut

 

[Betelnut]

Uhg, back then I took all my pictures under LEDs...