My Return to Growing by BudRanger!

[KushCultivator]

They're really coming along!

 

[BudRanger1919]

They're really coming along!

Thanks man I am doing my best haha, the help the users here give is invaluable, I cant believe I didn't join a place like this sooner.

Here is a canopy shot, I have done my best to keep everything as even as I could and I am very happy with the spread.

Apologies for the colour of these next 3 images, but when I take pictures under the LEDs the colour of my plants change !!! Does anybody know how to counter this witchcraft?! Maybe if I dim the lights before I take a picture or something? As soon as I get out from under my LEDs the colour goes back to normal. My camera seems to really hate the LED light.

I went in to do branch inspections for LST and I figured I would take pictures of the final branches progress. Here are the branches that have almost caught up.

2 inches to go. This plant has pretty nice branching because 1 whole branch is actually missing! Its there, but it never grew, not even an inch.

3 or so inches to go, a little behind but this plant is the best pheno so far. The other 2 are okay but this plant has been a pleasure from day 1 and if I take clones it would be of this pheno because she has been a breeze. Her branching is beautiful and much more bushy than the other 2.

1 inch from being tied down! I could probably tie her down now but I need them to be at the same height as the others after the tie down so I will wait.

 

[BudRanger1919]

I am now back to tap water. My tap water is great, VERY low PPMs (130ppm) and it comes out at around 7.5, chlorine only. After bubbling for 24 hours the pH dropped to 7.1. I have read that pH is not even an issue for living soil but I thought I would make a note of it.

It has been almost 1 week since I transplanted and watered them. I felt around the bottom holes of the pots and I still feel plenty of moisture, and my plants are still happy. I gave them 5 litres so they may take another day or 2 to dry out fully. I know the first dry back is important for root development so I am keeping a close eye on it.

I went in today and did a light defoliation. Most large fan leaves that were being shaded or of poor health have been cut off. I also removed a number of fan leaves that were right on top of each other or mixed up together in the canopy. If you look at the top left hand of the picture you can see a new branch has also been tied down! She really grew fast as the new cola and I was able to tie her down today.

I erred on the side of caution, as you can see I didn't go crazy and I didn't remove any branches, I only wanted the clean up the clutter. Almost all of the branching on the 1/3 bottom of the plant is going to be stripped, wanted to get an opinion before I did anything. Often I like to wait for the branches to be large enough to clone, then I cut'n'clone them so nothing is wasted. But I wont be cloning these ladies, so really I am free to chop suey if I wanted to right now, what do you think? I am 1 week from flower.

 

[Sunin]

Apologies for the colour of these next 3 images, but when I take pictures under the LEDs the colour of my plants change !!! Does anybody know how to counter this witchcraft?! Maybe if I dim the lights before I take a picture or something? As soon as I get out from under my LEDs the colour goes back to normal. My camera seems to really hate the LED light.

I just have to always drop it into photoshop and take exposure out and brightness. Photos under LEDs are very difficult. Made me think about how plants are receiving it after seeing how lens does

I would clean those jibby jabbies there on trunks. all energy up it always give them nice boost - I mean lets face it- in nature many things munch on cannabis and on fans there's bugs size of dinner plates- they like to be touched and mangled

 

[BudRanger1919]

Gave them their first strip. Only did the bottom 1/3. I only stripped the first 3 nodes of branching, the rest didn't need it as I have trained it pretty well.

Plant 1

Plant 2

Plant 3

 

[Sunin]

now you can fully see how nice that spacing is

 

[BudRanger1919]

It has now been 8 days since their transplant and first water and the pots are still drying out, but I noticed the roots on all 3 plants have appeared at the bottom of the 28 litre pots. Soil around the bottom of the pot is still slightly moist, so no watering yet! I was hoping to do it today, but alas they are still drinking.

Yesterday I turned my Spiderfarmer up to 45% (220w). Unless I notice any change in the next 2 days I will increase it to 50%.

I am pretty happy I haven't managed to fuck anything else up thanks guys and girls, you are all very helpful.

 

[BudRanger1919]

The pots are still drying out . No sign of needing water yet.

I was bored, and I noticed a bit of wear and tear on my old 5x5 Gorilla flower tent. Good news and bad news. The good news is that it is only the front and top of my old tent that needed a clean, every other side is clean. The bad news is I had to take it down first to make sure and it took me like an hour. Here is the front, some dust and some discolouration but in very good condition.

Here are the sides, as they were pressed up against the wall they are in very god condition. I told you its an oldie but its a goldie! Zippers are still good too.

Tent back up.

I will need to replace these zip ties before I hang everything back up.

Here is what I attach my large fan and power boards to.

Some of my old equipment no longer in use.

 

[BudRanger1919]

Yesterday a number of leaves on each plant had begun to droop, so it was finally time to water. This dry-back took 8 and a half days. I watered with some kelp and rhizo, still using the soil brand products without problem. Last time 5 litres was a bit too much, so this time they got 4 litres each.

The next day I removed a few fan leaves that were blocking nodes and airflow.

The 5x5 is almost operational!
I used ratchet hangers to hoist up my ventilation system and carbon filter. The inlet fan sits on top of my tent, and the ducting runs straight down. Ventilation size is 8", everything is hooked up to a controller. My large oscillating fan is NOT going to fit into this build, but I already have extra oscillating clip fans I will use instead.

I put my SF730w together and hung it up. I have yet to plug everything in, I just wanted everything in place for when its time.

 

[BudRanger1919]

The 5x5 is done and I plugged everything in, complete with cable management. Now that its operating I am going to leave it running for a few days to monitor it. After its been cleared I am going to make the move.

I purchased a new power board, secured it to my tent board and plugged in the ventilation and oscillating fans. Everything is off the floor. I dialed ventilation in for slight negative pressure and right now running on the lowest setting due to temperature. I have a temp/humidity unit fed into the tent and its set up next to the fan controllers.

The 730w LED is plugged in to its own power socket so it does not share power and can be ran on a timer. For the run-test over the next few days I have it set to 40%.

 

[Sunin]

what cm you will start with on that 40%?
I have cleaning & assembly waiting too for now I keep girls open plan in the lung room and procrastinate. I prefer to watch your assembly

 

[BudRanger1919]

what cm you will start with on that 40%?

Hey! I am going to keep the height at 30" and slowly crank the wattage up over many weeks, but I will note it here don't worry. The worst that could happen is they get a little stressed and I turn it down. This will be a jump from 200w to 300w. I think you and I are both new to LEDs so this will be a learning experience for us both lol.

My plants main colas are trained sideways and are at a height of 25", shorter other branches. The other branches reach a height of 30+ inches. I just set up my trellis net at a level of 25" so my side branches can be trained sideways and spread out. Its going to be pretty easy to fill out the tent because all of the branches are quite tall and they bend quite easily.

I have cleaning & assembly waiting too for now I keep girls open plan in the lung room and procrastinate. I prefer to watch your assembly

It took me half a few days to psyche myself up to setting everything up and it took me hours yesterday and then today, so I feel your pain haha. After setting everything up I kind of just want to get everything in there, so I think I will move my plants in tomorrow.

 

[Sunin]

Hey! I am going to keep the height at 30" and slowly crank the wattage up over many weeks, but I will note it here don't worry. The worst that could happen is they get a little stressed and I turn it down. This will be a jump from 200w to 300w. I think you and I are both new to LEDs so this will be a learning experience for us both lol.

My plants main colas are trained sideways and are at a height of 25", shorter other branches. The other branches reach a height of 30+ inches. I just set up my trellis net at a level of 25" so my side branches can be trained sideways and spread out. Its going to be pretty easy to fill out the tent because all of the branches are quite tall and they bend quite easily.

It took me half a few days to psyche myself up to setting everything up and it took me hours yesterday and then today, so I feel your pain haha. After setting everything up I kind of just want to get everything in there, so I think I will move my plants in tomorrow.

Heyo
I will be also interested in your temps in tent trial run if that's not the trouble
I will have to do the same- set it up and check with driver in and out of tent.
I have 0-20%-40%-60%-80%-100% on my light.
Going with the lowest will be around 40W above of what they are getting now. Seems safe
Fingers crossed for your first run with plants under May the LED Gods be with ya

 

[BudRanger1919]

I will be also interested in your temps in tent trial run if that's not the trouble

Its no trouble at all! Right now I am looking at 18-21 degrees on 40% power after 24h of running, which is just a few degrees over the air temp going in. I have my ventilation on the lowest possible setting, and 2 oscillating fans also on lowest setting.

The 5x5 is now operational and in use.

I moved the girls into the flower chamber and set up my trellis net. It will take a few days for all the tops to turn back up properly. Before defoliation.

After defoliation. Being so close to flower I didn't want to remove too much, as I usually do a final defoliation a few weeks into flower.

I spread out the side branches to try and fill out the net the best I could. Here is my canopy level

 

[BudRanger1919]

Branches have turned back up towards the light.

12 hours ago I upped the light to 50% (364w), taking it well so far. If I don't notice any stress tomorrow I will increase it to 55%. Flipping to flower in a few days.

 

[BudRanger1919]

I decided to keep the light at 50% for now.

They needed a water yesterday. Their last water was 4 litres 5 days ago, and the bottom of the pots were dry today. This 3rd water was just plain water, as last water included a feed for the soil. I gave them 4 litres each again.

A slight change of plans. At the suggestion of GNick in another thread, instead of flipping straight to 12/12 I am going to reduce the hours gradually over a few weeks starting today, so the "flip" to flower is going to have a delay. I should have voiced questions earlier as I didn't know a straight 12/12 flip was stressful, its just how I had always done it.

 

[Eledin]

They are looking healthy!

 

[BudRanger1919]

They are looking healthy!

Thank you man! I have a few more weeks of "veg" to fill the net too, so hopefully before the true flip there will be far more squares filled out. They are taking to the net very well. Some of the smaller branches below have really stepped up after the stripping.

 

[Eledin]

A few more weeks? You have plenty of space in the front because you only have one but the ones in the back already took all the net, keep in mind that the first 3 weeks after you flip theyre gonna grow like crazy, some strains can double or triple their height. If it does happen, I think we've all been there anyway, you'll have a few tall branches on the sides that you wont be able to pass through the net anymore but thats not the end of the world.

 

[Eledin]

Hell, Im facing the same problem right now because I misscalculated how much they would grow when I bought bigger and tubular pots, it got out of my hands hahaha but nothing serious.