Photoperiod SWICK bed grow: Pink Kush, Tangerine Dream, Amnesia Lemon and Alpha Dog!

[lazylathe]

Been missing for a while on this forum...You know how life gets in the way sometimes? Well life happened for numerous years and we now find ourselves settled in our new house and nice and stable! Then the Coronavirus shows up! 2020 has been interesting so far...

With the new house came a massive, unfinished basement and the wife and I decided on a section to use for a grow room!!
I built the room and spent a lot of time researching growing methods that would suit my needs. Work can keep me busy for hours and my plants can suffer as it is sometimes work,sleep,shower,work, repeat for a few weeks at a time.
I needed a robust, tried and tested system that was quick and easy to maintain and could go a long time without really needing my presence.

I grew in Hempy buckets for a while and enjoyed that but was time consuming.
This lead me to sub-irrigated planters, I like the idea but not the water just sits contacting the soil etc. I very nearly went with a modified system...
I then stumbled upon SWICK, Self Wicking beds! The perfect system on paper but still requires some forward thinking and planning.
Add in a Quantum Board LED and we also need to supplement cal/mag.

And after the first run I have learned a lot and will implement those findings in this grow.

I will be running mostly Barney's Farm Gear this time as I am done with shady online seed vendors and their so called "genetics".
2 Pink Kush from Old School Breeders Association and 2 or 3 Alpha Dogs.
2 Pink Kush from BF's, 2 TD's from BF's and one Amnesia Lemon.
I have run TD before and it was absolutely amazing all around!
Pink Kush is my all time favorite bud and never grown it, so I am very hopeful I can do it justice!

They will all be grown in full organic soil that has been amended and has lots of earthworms doing their thing.
They get fed every few days and are multiplying like crazy! The soil smells so good and I love having my worms in the basement!
This soil will be it's second run this time! Gave it some rice water and the soaked rice as well, some good carbs for the soil!

Most of the seeds have popped and have shed their helmets. The Pink Kush are almost there and should be up and ready tomorrow.
I mixed some seedling soil today so it can activate and warm up for the transplanting.
First into Solo cups, may do clear inside red to watch root development but not sure yet as the red cups are larger.

I will update with some current pics once they are transplanted and the humidity domes are off!
For now, enjoy some grow room build pics and some of a few past grows!

Walls going up!

Around a 5X5 room behind the door. Also mounted the QB ballast outside to remove heat source. It now has a fan on it constantly while on and it runs super cool!

Chinese clone QB running very good boards for the time of purchase. Need to look into adding some red during flower.

Some happy ladies.

One of my favorite pics from soil level in a pot!

Some sparkly gold.

And some nice purples on this nug.

 

[lazylathe]

The Barney's Farm ladies have all been transplanted except for the one Tangerine Dream.
She is still in the SOLO cup and struggling but not taking up any time, so she can stay for now. Same with the Alpha Dog that is growing at a snails pace. They may not stay for too long as the other ladies are growing like crazy since the transplant!

I have topped fimm'd all the Old School Breeders Association ladies, Reeferman Pink Kush and Alpha Dog (Tuna Kush clone).
Old habits die hard, I always top all my plants at least once.
Never done this before so let's see what happens!
The all received a watering today of Kelp, 1/4 strength compost tea, 1/4 strength cal/mag and Microbial Mass.

I decided to also give the seedlings a bit of that water and then some regular RO water to dilute it more.
They have doubled in size in one day since transplanting, so I figured they must be hungry!!

Temps are around 26/27 degrees Celsius and around 65% Rh with very good air movement at all levels.

Light is at 50% power and 4 foot above the plants.

First pics of the grow!
Just a quick side view, the back left AD is the biggest plant with hand sized leaves already...

A top view

My Big Momma Alpha Dog!

Reeferman Pink Kush

And this is the poor little TD who lost the tip of her taproot and has been unhappy since...

I love gently rubbing under the leaf and smelling what these young plants will grow up to be.
Nice and stinky already and only a few weeks old!

 

[lazylathe]

I seem to be suffering from cal/mag deficiency quite early this stage!
In the pics above, you can see slight lightening between the veins of the leaves. I also spotted a small rusty spot on a leaf.
Out with the organic cal/mag at 1/3 strength for the ladies and a lighter feeding for the smaller ones.

They seem to be very hungry for this stage of the game!
Seems like these OSBA genetics take growing quite seriously once they are comfortable.
That is the ones that germinate...LOL!

I also scratched a bit of Gaia Green Glacial Rock Dust and some All-Purpose Fertilizer into the top of the soil.
This was done after the cal/mag watering and it will be watered in about 2 to 3 days time, so as not to overwhelm them.

The ladies also receive a 3 times daily foliar spray with a kelp additive.

The QB was also turned up to 260Watts at the wall.

What would be the best organic soil additive to combat the cal/mag issues?
I am drying eggshells, grinding to a dust and adding to my worm bin/organic soil bin now to try and help but that soil is for the final transplant till harvest only...
Help!!

 

[lazylathe]

Finally an update!!
I transplanted the Barney's Farm ladies into 7 gallon fabric pots using my organic soil from my worm bin.
About halfway up I added some Gaia Green All-Purpose fertilizer to give them some extra food when they get watered.

The Barney's Farm gear all looks amazing!! You can tell the seeds are fresh and the genetics are good.
The Old School broken gear looks sad and they have been troublesome since the start...
All are in the same soil from veg to flower, so not sure why they were so picky.

As you may also notice, my topping did nothing except create a few odd shaped leaves...LMAO!!
I topped a few and have left some to their own devices.

The two plants I was going to discard, have also been repotted but only into 3 gallon pots as experiments!
The Alpha Dog I don't really care about but it is growing nicely although it is 1/4 of the size.
The BF Tangerine Dream that I broke off about a 1/2 inch of the tip of the taproot is still surviving!
She auto topped herself and had one crazy leaf coming out of the split. I removed the leaf and have done some serious bending!! Lets see how she handles it!

The group. A Pink Kush is in the back right corner.

Side angle of the group

This is the Tangerine Dream mutant! She actually looks good but is the same age as the others, she is tiny!

I will veg them for another two weeks or so and then flip to 12/12.
They will all still be hand watered for the remainder of the veg and then i will fill the SWICK.
This is also the first time I am using hay as a top cover. The only hay available for hundreds of kilometers was Timothy hay, so that is my cover. Smells awesome as well and since I sprayed it down with water, the humidity is solid at 62%!

 

[lazylathe]

Small update for today.
Still vegging away and looking good. The Timothy Hay is starting to sprout patches of small green grass like leaves.

Since I purposely only filled the pots to about 3/4 full I have space left for more soil top dressing.
I added one bag of the Destiny Grow Systems Dark Matter and about a 1/2 bag of EWC and mixed well.
The hay was removed from each pot and the amount of earthworms was crazy!
I removed some of the lower branches and leaves to open them up a bit as well.
I added some Bokashi Pro Gro under the hay about a week ago and have a nice white layer of mycellium growing.
I broke this up and gently mixed the top bit of soil before adding some more Bokashi and then a nice layer of new organic amended soil.
The hay was packed around the top again and given a good spray down.

Tonight I will switch to flower and the SWICK will be filled in a week or so.

Pics soon!

 

[lazylathe]

Pics!!
It's looking pretty good to me! A few small issues here and there but nothing major.
Slight tip burn and a bit of clawing but they all settle down and look great!
Lets see what this soil does to them now! Will be refreshing it at week 3 again!

Top left to right - Tangerine Dream, Pink Kush, Pink Kush all Barney's Farm
Middle - Amnesia Lemon, Amnesia Lemon Barney's Farm
Front left - Tangerine Dream BF
Front and middle right are Old School Breeder seeds Alpha Dog and Reeferman's Pink Kush.

And this is the poor Tangerine Dream that I broke off the growing tip of the tap root when transplanting, a good inch...
It's quite a bit behind but I cannot wait for it to catch up, so I will take what it can give me!

 

[lazylathe]

Around 8 days after flip. These girls are looking good so far!
The will be given a medium strip next weekend and a clean up around week 5.
At week 5 they will also be topped up with some more Dark Matter soil and EWC. I will also be giving them the odd top watering to add some cal/mag.
Otherwise only pH'd water in the SWICK and forget about them! LOL!!! They are my children and get looked in multiple times when I am home!!

8 days ago they looked like this...

Today they look like this...

Some of the leaves are bigger than dinner plates, see bottom right leaf.
After transplant a few showed these odd bright green/yellow blotches on some leaves and tips but they are all gone now.
I would imagine it was from the adjustment to a slightly hotter soil amendment. Will be doing the same type in a few weeks so they should have another big boost of growth!
Also had to turn on the exhaust and carbon filter, these ladies are super stinky!

 

[lazylathe]

6 Days after the post above, brings us to today!
15 days since the flip and they are monsters!

Each plant was removed from the SWICK and pruned!
Everything from the ground to about 6 inches was stripped as well as some of the larger fan leaves.
A vast difference from what they had grown into!

So far zero deficiencies have been seen, so I am very happy with it to this point.
Still 2+ months of flower to go...LOL!
I think the last topping with Dark Matter soil and EWC has done wonders for the ladies!
Roots are growing out of the bottom of the fabric pots as well, so the root system is good to go for full SWICK action.

So far I added 8 gallons to my SWICK a week ago and the perlite was still slightly damp and the pots had a damp line about 6 inches high from the bottom. Pots were dryish on top under hay but damp 2 inches down, worked perfectly for drawing the root system down!

Tonight at lights on after the prune, everyone was very slowly hand watered till run-off was seen from the very bottom of the fabric pot.
Tonight's cocktail was:
EM-1
Microbial Mass
Kelp
Compost Tea
Organic cal/mag
all mixed in R.O water and pH'd to 6.5

This was before the haircut and water
Canopy shot

Full frontal, these ladies are straight from the 70's!
Full bush mode...

After a few hours of work, the canopy looks like this.
Much nicer and more light penetration and better air circulation!

And I moved the ladies to the 20th century!
Full frontal is nice and clean now!

I also discovered that my earthworms are turning into eels!
They are escaping the pots and living under the pots and in the SWICK...
When I find them on the sides of the fabric pots, they seem to be glued onto the fabric and are difficult to remove.
They seem happy and the things keep multiplying in the pots, s o they must be happy!

And some of the Timothy Hay is starting to sprout!

And lastly I had to do all this with the pad of my right hand baby finger missing...
I sliced it off at work on Friday afternoon, oops! Damn thing would not stop bleeding for almost 16 hours.
100% would not recommend!

Next weekend will be week 3 of flower, so they will get their last soil based topping and first flower amendment then.
It will be a mix of Dark Matter, EWC and Gaia Green Flower Booster dry amendment.
They will continue to receive pH'd R.O water with EM-1 and cal/mag for the rest of the grow.
Towards the end of flower I may add another type of flower booster, not sure yet!

 

[lazylathe]

Around day 33 of switch to 12/12 lighting.

All the ladies are doing really well and almost everyone is doing well! Two of the ones from the inferior seedbank threw some cal/mag issues on only 2 leaves...Gave that batch a bit of extra cal/mag to sort them out.

Also decided to add some Advanced Nutrients Nirvana to the mix! I know it is not certified organic but it is pretty organic...LOL!

I am also loving the odors starting to form in the room! Very sweet and skunky!

I cleaned up underneath the canopy again and removed any branches that were not receiving light, most;y thinner sucker shoots and some of the smaller fluff that forms on the stems. Looking nice and clean!

Up above, it is quite hard to take a pic of the entire grow due to how the room is designed, as well as the number of plants...
Next time it will be only 5 5 gallon pots!!

Tangerine Dream is bulking up nicely!

Supposedly Reeferman's Pink Kush...

And an Alpha Dog, Tuna Kush variety.

They are all starting to form resin glands all over the place which is a great sign so early on.
Around 2 months to go before harvest time.

I have also bought a HerbsNow herb dryer to experiment with.
There are some big plans for this harvest and for all future harvests!
When i get everything right, harvest time, dry time and the potency where I need it to be, I will be processing a lot of it into rosin as well as bubble hash that I will press into hash rosin.
I will also keep some for vaping of course!

 

[lazylathe]

The Mighty Mini Tangerine Dream...

Broke the last inch of the taproot off but planted her anyway to see what happens.
Grew slowly but steadily and self topped herself at the first node.
For 12 hours she sits on a bucket so she can get light, poor little girl!
She has been happily flowering away when I noticed this interesting bud formation!

A polyploid bud!