Indoor Testing the eazyplug pyramid mini.

[The Iconoclast]

Greetings to all fellow grower!

I am lovin' this 32in X 80in tent being long and narrow is turning out to be the perfect fit. So I've been working on ways to optimise my overall set up with my ultimate goal of doing the least amount of work and also it must be easy on the eye. I've gone back to the ease of my shallow water culture hydro with a full pot of expanded clay and external tank, basically it is no work at all to run. I just change the res once when they flip to flower, then I'll just top up with more nutes.

They pyramids are too much work and too expensive anyway but I wanted to become familiar with hand watering in case I ever need to set up a stripped down grow sometime. What I've learned is the big pyramid is pretty well foolproof, and cannot be overwatered. The small pyramid requires a bit more attention.

However, I thought that because I can grow for two weeks in the small pyramids that if I started them two weeks before my current grow was finished then that would shave two weeks off my time, and even better it would eliminate that very slow two week period where not much happens. Shaving two weeks off would be worth the cost of a mini pyramid. So that's what I did with my newly arrived Double Seeds beans.

After getting good results from Terp Treez and Taste Budz, I went for another unknown (to me), Double Seeds, because they are double the amount and I'm always looking for a bargain. The one on the left is Blackberry Gum, although it doesn't look like a blackberry strain although it is supposed to have some blue tints in the flowers so we shall see. The one on the right is a Northern Lights, but it's not looking how I envisaged, but she is looking chunky.

Both these were chosen for their fast flowering times and they have not disappointed, in fact they were showing preflowers at two weeks, so for the first time I may have stunted my NL a bit, because the Blackberry Gum has overtaken her. latest updates coming soon.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Has it only been two years since I went on the eazy journey. Welp I have some new thinking, that reevaluates some old results. Long story short I actually blamed bad beans on the eazy pyramids when now I understand how regularly do autos throw up bad beans. I tried to ditch my hydro for all eazyplug mini pyramids, then I went back to hydro in a tent and a smaller space, which is where I was with the Double Seeds Blackberry Gum and Northern Lights.

However I have come to a place now where I am retiring my hydro permanently and moving to single strain grows using 3 large eazy pyramids at a time, and a random assortment of smaller back up mini pyramids. What follows is the story to how I got here. First an update on the Double Seeds buried after two weeks in my hydro.

The final result of the buried pyramids, was a normal grow. They did not drown so this is a way to shave two weeks. Would be cool to see how a buried pyramid works in soil. So far this year we have had 4 days free of rain up to the end of the Buried Pyramids. 100% humidity outside most of the time and blazing hot temps, 28C at nights, and up to 40C in the days, as a result the two hydro that were going to follow the Double Seeds, keeled over and passed on to seedling heaven. Ergo I've been out of weed for a few weeks, soon to be rectified.

So lets first have a look at how the Double Seeds Blackberry Gum and Northern Lights ended up considering they were finished about 8 and 9 weeks but I could not harvest because it was so humid and the extreme heat meant that I could not use a dehumidifier. I made a decision to leave them growing for an extra week or two hoping for the weather to change, which is did not.


The DoubleSeeds N.L and Blackberry Gum, both flowered when the weather was hot and humid. 90% humidity through the whole flowering. Northern Lights was very fast but then suddenly Blackberry Gum shot up and took over. N.L had the type of bud and stem that is prone to bud rot, and they probably both could have been harvested at 8 weeks but I was afraid to hang them in a sauna, I thought they'd be better off alive on the plant but by 10 weeks and no letup in the crazy weather I had no choice the weather was not going to ease up.


I lost 1/3 of the N.L to bud rot, not too bad under the circumstances, but Blackberry Gum powered through like a champion, and it was also possibly my frostiest bean yet, she dried fast enough that when the crystals set it was like a rock. Fast and crusty, the kind men like. Even during the punishing weather.

Here is N.L of which I lost 1/3, quite a pretty plant, and one that I will grow in a mini pyramid but not a large pyramid, I'm saving them for beans that I know have some stability.




Here is the final buds of the Double Seeds Blackberry Gum auto. Notice no blackberry colours at al, but some blue in the leaves. This is an incredibly crusty plant, and extremely hardy, was not affected by stupid humidity, all leaves remained pretty well good till the end, and very fast however there are two quite different phenotypes for the Blackberry gum which I did not know at the time but more on that later.

 

[The Iconoclast]

I've always gone for variety, but I've had a few of of the small pyramids turn out some really shite results, including 5 FB Gorilla Cookies, stunted and twisty I think one was OK. However I had a bit of an epiphany since then. At the time I blamed it on me maybe going a bit too gung ho with the watering. This didn't really makes sense considering I've done plenty where I've just dipped the whole plant in the nutes from about three weeks, and it was why I was worried about burying the pyramids, I still think it's better to keep the small pyramids not fully soaked for the first few weeks to encourage the finest of the fine root hairs to be able to live. After the pyramids handled it well I gradually came to the realisation after 6 years of autos that all the rubbish pyramids were not me but the beans themselves. Then I realise I was being jerked around by the autos.



I went back through my past grows and I have understood that there are three types of bad bean. There is the one with excessively curly leaves, this is not that common and usually grows out to some extent but it's alway behind the eight ball. There there is the one with very twisted leaves that begin from an early age and are very ugly fortunately not that common. But the most common bad bean is the one that is stunted at an early age. Below is a twisted G.C by F.B. These cannot be topped and they usually produce an oz if I'm lucky. But I'll never grow one of these to finish again, they will be disposed of no later than day 10 to 12 harsh, I know, but fair, certainly well before the two week mark.

The one that I have to be careful of is what I refer to as the standard stunted, it may also be twisted POS as well but the standard stunted reveals itself by being a bit small when compared to it's brethren, but is more easily identified by the first and second pairs of true leaves bunching up on each other. Again I've grown these out and it's a waste of time.




To confirm my suspicions, I decided to do from here on in, only single strain grows to check. I was very impressed with both the speed, the resiliency and the quality of the Blackberry Gum, see previous post. So I planted 5 x Double Seeds Blackberry Gum in three hydro pots. I've grown two and one time three seeds in a pot so I knew I could handle it. As it turned out it realised my epiphany and the blinding light of truth. Of the 5 beans, two were normal, two were stunted, and one was double sized.

As this was still an unknown strain and was also cheap because you get double the amount of seeds I was happy to plant 5 to grow three. Stunted seeds do not reveal themselves in the first week. As I was later to discover, the Blackberry Gum have two distinct phenotypes, short and tall. You could easily mistake them for two different plants.




So here they are at two days old all looking normal. Two beans in the far left pot, two in the middle and one on the right. I did have a bit of luck the way that particular beans were planted together.



One week old nothing suspicious yet, maybe in hindsight. Bean two and three were stunted


more to follow... where things take an interesting turn of events

 

[The Iconoclast]

Here is the good green crack bean, topped at day 17 and today all the sub branches are looking great and I put a copper ring on the top to hold the leaves out of the way. Actually this Green Crack auto freebie is in fact a SeedStockers. not an expert seeds.



I also planted another Gorilla Glue #4 Which is an Expert Seeds freebie




And while waiting to plant the Banana Purple Punch I thought I'd put four different strains in a large pyramid together. They are doing OK but a little bit wobbly probably due to being planted directly into the firm Large Pyramid and also being close to the edge. This is just for the lulz, as a one off experiment.




And we are all caught up. From here on in it's eazyplugs all the way.

 

[The Iconoclast]

When we last left Green Crack she had been topped I think and a Gorilla Glue #4 was five days behind. Both were growing well but Green Crack failed to stretch and Gorilla Glue overtook her, both are now fattening up with Gorilla Glue looking pretty with all her leaves turning red which is very rare for me. And the Green Crack while short also has very packed buds



And Gorilla Glue #4...



Next 4 beans in one large pyramid update.

 

[The Iconoclast]

4 Beans in on Large Pyramid update: They all got topped at around d15 at the 2nd true node, and they were very wobbly for a long while and kind of looked a bit weird but they are only taking up unused space so whatever they produce will be a bonus. I wondered why I was doing this at one point but now that I am close to running out of weed, I am glad now they are beginning to flower. I might run some of these through the Slug33 Fat Mac. Still a few weeks to go by which time the gorilla glue and green crack will be out of the way.

Next FB, BPP.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Banana Purple Punch
So ThePlan was to grow same strain in large pyramids for my main grow. And maybe throw in a few mini pyramids when the space is there. I had pretty much discovered that fb provided an entire batch of rubbish gorilla cookies and had written them off but I got tricked by their bs 30% THC ad. Anyhoo so I researched this strain and was worried would 3 beans in big pyramids fit into a 5 foot wide tent by 32in deep. Turns out that these can be big or small. So this is a test to see if I grow three contemporary fb beans in perfect conditions and identical conditions am I going to get three good plants or will there be a piece of shit amongst them. Spoiler alert POS.


At the moment it looks like one is a dud. Two of them are very vigorous so that the first internode with the single leaf is usable and stem is very thick with normal internode spacing. I haven't seen anything grow this thick for a while. However one of these two is taller and more vigorous than the other but still very similar. And then there is the suspect bean, where the leaves are small and crinkly she looks stunted but she is not stunted still growing normally normal development, normal height, but half the stem and leave thickness such that I don't have to do any tucking. Curiously the root system is growing normally coming out on four sides and apart from being small (not short) she looks healthy and normal.

But as I said earlier I have outsmarted the beans because I wanted to have at least two similar normal beans, I was worried I would not be able to fit three this one weedy one has made no difference. Had I just planted two and one was the bad one i'd have been pissed. But she still might be ok just a thin pheno. However because the bad bean is in a big pyramid and I already suspected it at two weeks, so I'll grow her out because she's still growing OK, and see the final result, if it's bad all the way through then I will have more confidence to rip out bad plants, because I don't have the space to waste on an unproductive bean.

This is at one week the best one is looking normal in the middle, nothing special yet, the one on the right is a bit slower but the first one, you see a twisted leaf, this is a big red flag for me



Below is the three beans at 14 days twisted leaf one has smaller leaves



Soon it develops bubbly textured leaves, but it's still growing at normal pace, so let's see what happens.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Just to clarify, when I speak of ratios like 1:2:1, I'm not referring to NPK, I am referring to Micro, Grow and Bloom 3 part always in that order. And when I talk about a bucket, I'm referring to a standard 9L bucket. I also have a 5L container of 6% H202, and I add 10ml to a bucket when I remember.

So even though the pyramids already have enough nutrients for a while, I still soak them in a weak solution of 1:1:1 to around 300ppm, they will only need plain water up till 14 days.

From around 14days on I will mix up 20ml, 40ml and 15ml of Micro Grow Bloom, in a bucket. I will be alternating with this mix and plain water throughout veg.

At 28 days I'll back off the N with 20ml 10ml and 30ml of Micro Grow Bloom in a bucket.

After that it will be either plain water or a bucket with 15ml Micro and 30ml Bloom, or maybe more of each depending on how the plant looks.

These numbers are flexible and not really that important because the plug appears to hold a buffer of some kind. These days I am going to be giving them a couple of buckets of plain water at the end of veg so I can check the runoff and clear out the nutes for the flowering nutes. I've just done that on the BPP so see how it goes.

Depending on the level of evaporation that will affect how often plain water is used depending on the strength of the nutes. At the moment I'm using a strategy of a strong solution for vegging which seems to be fine but I'm giving her a big flush before flipping. But another strategy is weaker nutes and less plain water. I think you have to play it by gut feeling.

 

[The Iconoclast]

5 weeks for the banana purple punch. The two short ones look like like are going to remain short. blackcurrant type flowers appearing on one, unfortunately the tall genes all went to the worst bean, however while the leaves are rubbery and thick and haven't needed any defoliation like the other two, all three nevertheless have a thick covering of trichomes on the bracts that I can see which are just barely visible on the two green phenotypes.

Two blackberry gum, in two pyramids look normal so far, will aim to germ 3 Jedi Kush in a few weeks. Meanwhile all other plants have been chopped.

 

[The Iconoclast]

7 weeks now and purple pheno is chunking up severely, thank fuck that we have entered a prolonged dry spell with low RH, the similar shape but not purple pheno is chunking in a similar fashion but it appears to be 10 to 12 days behind! Right now I can only see some deeply buried calyxes, on the other hand the purple one is very frosty and sweet smelling. The third one with it's thick curled textured and leathery leaves with pale green/yellow colouring, is beginning to chunk up, not like the two short ones, but enough to make it worthwhile to have keep it.

The two short ones had extensive defoliation, and the bad one had none and so much light still gets through the crappy shrivelled leaves that the moss on the pyramid is bright green and completely covering it. Some dark purple is showing through the buds so they have an interesting look, I can see a good covering of trichomes though. The purple one had short fat pistils, the not purple has green/yellow pistils, and the bad one has skinny white pistils.