Indoor Olderfart back at it again.

[Olderfart]

The pollen girls are nearing the big reveal (female or no), soon to be dosed in CS daily. The Double Grape seems to have shown her pistils today at Day 23, but I will leave the jury out for another day or so to make sure that I actually see what I think I am seeing.

Since the pollen girls are each moving to their own new isolation chamber, a new design for me, this update will show what I am up to.

Here are two chambers now occupied by the DG and WDA, now occupied and the lights turned on:

The third chamber is waiting for the Anvil plant to show sex. Fingers are crossed. The holes in the top allow air circulation, more on this later. The two lights are two ~14watt 5500k screw in LED's with the globes removed, the same as I use in my main 'drobe. The 5500k rating is deliberately intended to keep plants compact due to the high portion of blue in the spectrum. I don't want large plants, just big enough to make pollen. The wires are mounted to the lights by using a standard ceiling receptacle which I trimmed by removing most of the skirt.

Here are photos of the pollen girls in place, first the DG, then the WDA, both happy and healthy:

The bamboo stakes are anchored inside the solos, and allow me to easily lift the plants out of the bucket for trimming, treating with CS, or whatever.

Here is the inside of the chamber showing the solo support hole in the bottom of the bucket:

The hole in the bottom allows the solos to hang down so that the entire height of the bucket is available for headroom. The holes in the side allow air to get into the bucket. I will not be using fans, the plan is for the heat of the two LED screwins to generate a gentle chimney effect, moving air out the top through holes in it, while drawing air in through holes in the bottom. I am hoping that the moving air will be sufficiently gentle to not move a lot of pollen out of the chamber. I do not care about yield, as long as the plants make male flowers, all is good.

And here is a view beneath the shelf supporting the chambers:

This shows how the solos hang through holes in the shelf. The solos drain into jars attached beneath the support shelf, and the jars drain into a common drainage bucket.

She is a work in progress, no doubt a few lessons remain to be learned. Happy pollenating peeps.

 

[Frogger]

Somebody has been very busy this fall

 

[Olderfart]

Somebody has been very busy this fall

All this is seat of the pants stuff. The isolation buckets are jury out for the moment, the two girls in there looked a bit droopy this morning, maybe a bit cool in the room, maybe not enough air movement in the buckets, maybe too warm in the buckets?... I have moved the girls back into the 'drobe for now. I'll check on temps and RH in the buckets, but at this point it seems that I need more ventilation holes. and maybe some humidification. It was 35C and 15% in there when I first tested after moving the plants. Bit of a surprise that, and maybe the problem. There is enough air chimneying through the bucket, but temp is too high and rh too low for now. I will keep working on it. Another grow, more lessons learned.

 

[Olderfart]

And we have the first Anvil to show sex, and the verdict is pure and unadulterated male, nice little hangy balls. Sigh. Ah well, I will get pollen even if it is regular auto. The second Anvil candidate, which I took to be female due to slightly smaller size has not declared yet, so a reversal my still be in the cards. And now the male is bigger than the second. Maybe good news... Fingers are crossed.

 

[bearhair]

Hello Olderfart, mind if I tag along?? Looks interesting..

 

[Olderfart]

Hello Olderfart, mind if I tag along?? Looks interesting..

welcome to the grow mate, you are more than welcome!

 

[Olderfart]

Time for an update peeps.

The 'drobe in all its glory:

The new seedlings Double Grape, WitchDoctorxAnvil, and Anvil, all at Day 3.

DG and/or WDA may turn out to be multipots. The jury is out, snip, or no snip, choices, choices. Anvil is regular, so the wait continues until the two of them sex.

Next up, the Dinamed Auto CBD Kush multipot at Day 16, and the Oasis Genetics Auto PKxMephisto 24C at Day 14:

The CBD Kush is looking a tad hungry, so nutes are edged up today. PKx24C seems to have monster status on her mind. and she looks all indica.

Next, front left Seedsman 30:1 CBD Kush at Day 15, front right Cosmic Queen at Day 12, left rear Double grape pollen plant at Day 27, right rear, Anvil pollen plant at Day 27:

CQ has finally decided to get on with life. She came pretty close to being binned. CS soaking starts today for DG. Sadly, it looks as though the second Anvil pollen contender is also male, so feminized Anvil seeds are likely off for this grow. I may do some auto regs, dunno yet. I find regs a bit of a pain.

Next up, front left DMK at Day 16, front right WDA pollen plant at Day 27:

Miss DMK was the seedling I couldn't bring myself to bin. It's sucha bitch when all the extras shine so brightly. CS soaking starts today for WDA.
That will do for now peeps, happy growing all.

 

[Olderfart]

Well peeps, it seems that the auto irrigation system is now functioning as intended, so here it is. @Dale's Proper Bud, you asked about this stuff.

The setup starts with a ~60 liter plastic tote used for a reservoir:

The photo shows the pump, a submersible sump pump, pretty much only plastic other than a tiny amount of exposed stainless motor shaft and a few screw heads. The pump sucks nute mix in around its base, and outputs it to a hose that exits the tote through a hole in the side.

This view shows the filter setup:

The hose from the pump exits the tote and goes into the filter. The mix exits the filter to a tee fitting which goes to two valves, one leading to the grow drobe, the other back into the tote. With the drobe valve closed, and the return valve open, leaving the pump on stirs and aerates the nute mix during mixing, testing EC or ph. In this picture, the valves are set up to pump to the 'drobe.

The pump is controlled by a digital timer programmable to seconds. This is the one that I am now using:
Timer Outlet, Nearpow Multifunctional 7-Day Cycle Programmable Plug-in Digital Timer Switch for Appliances, Extra Large LCD Display, 19 Programmable Settings, Seconds-Interval, 15A/1800W, Lighting Accessories - Amazon Canada As recommended by Cocoforcannabis.com, you must have a timer programmable to seconds. Most are only programmable to minutes.

After testing the setup, reviewing what I did with solos last year, and seeing how the plants respond, I have set it up to fertigate once every four hours, six times per day.

The feed from the pump splits to feed two manifolds which feed individual plants, this is one of them:

The aluminum clamps reduce flow to the solos, the unclamped tube goes to the one full sized pot currently on auto irrigation. The fittings on the manifold allow easy removal of the tubes. If a plant needs to be on different nutes for a while, the tube is removed and a plug inserted to the manifold while manual fertigation takes over.

By first setting how long the pump stays on, fertigation of the large pot is adjusted to ~20% or so runoff. Once the large pot is adjusted, solos are then set by adjusting the valves. At this point, the pump comes on for 30 seconds each time, which nicely fertigates the large pot through the unvalved line from the manifold. The valves on the solo have kept flow to the solos to ~10-20% runoff without difficulty. So far, it works a treat. I was not sure that it would be feasible to combine both solos and larger pots on the same pump, but it works.

Here are the results as of a couple days ago:

The photo shows the lines to the pots from the manifold shown in the earlier photo. Note well that the solos have been elevated, they are not sitting on the drobe floor. The irrigation rings must be higher than the highest water level in the reservoir, or the reservoir will siphon into the drobe.

Happy nuting peeps.

 

[Lil Dab]

With the drobe valve closed, and the return valve open, leaving the pump on stirs and aerates the nute mix during mixing,

Love the detail to your post thank you ... I do have simple question I hope how often are "cycling" those valves to aerate the nute mix?


I use a separate smaller pump on a separate timer to stir the tank.. I have it set to come on every couple hrs for 15 min I have also used a air stone in combination with the stir pump with good luck no weird effects

 

[Olderfart]

Love the detail to your post thank you ... I do have simple question I hope how often are "cycling" those valves to aerate the nute mix?


I use a separate smaller pump on a separate timer to stir the tank.. I have it set to come on every couple hrs for 15 min I have also used a air stone in combination with the stir pump with good luck no weird effects

I don't fuss with it regularly, I just use it when mixing up more nutes or checking/adjusting the pH. It could be used for aeration, but I have never noticed an issue with aeration, so I don't chase it. It probably only gets left on for a bit every day or two, and each event would be less than 5 minutes or so. It will be on longer when I mix a new batch of nutes, which looks to be about once a week for now.

Pumping is back up to 40 seconds each time, the large pot was not getting quite enough at 30 seconds.

First LST on the big pot today. The DMK girls are kicking butt.

Thanks for your interest with this mischief, keep the questions coming any time.