The Crystal Palace is back, now with a Spiderfarmer SE5000.

Lights just went out. Im not sure what day I'm on anymore, but they're lookin good to me.

LED side

HPS side

Nug shot

Ace!

lol, you don't know which day cuz you are super exhausted or that you never care for the day count but the trichomes?

PK1 said:

lol, you don't know which day cuz you are super exhausted or that you never care for the day count but the trichomes?

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lol the only reason i know what day i'm on is because i set calendar reminders otherwise i'd fuck up the scheduling of tasks to do. otherwise it's 100% what are the plants doing when.

tobh said:

lol the only reason i know what day i'm on is because i set calendar reminders otherwise i'd fuck up the scheduling of tasks to do. otherwise it's 100% what are the plants doing when.

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ya, except for reminders i dont really see a point to count days for photoperiods. We veg to what the area allows, and in flower the trichomes. Except if it was auto's than i would say the day count matters, but i never grow auto so i dnt know.

PK1 said:

ya, except for reminders i dont really see a point to count days for photoperiods. We veg to what the area allows, and in flower the trichomes. Except if it was auto's than i would say the day count matters, but i never grow auto so i dnt know.

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same. i've never trusted breeder flowering times, try to shoot for eight to ten weeks regardless of strain. except this run, these girls are lookin awfully ripe for this early in flower.

PK1 said:

lol, you don't know which day cuz you are super exhausted or that you never care for the day count but the trichomes?

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Both. But I looked back in my calendar and it's actually on day 32 of 12/12. I generally don't count days or weeks, I adjust things based on how the plants look. Visual cues that stretch is over for example, then cues that bulking is done and ripening has started.
It's the only way imho. The day count is more just for reference. Especially If I plan to grow the strain again.

Dirtbag said:

Both. But I looked back in my calendar and it's actually on day 32 of 12/12. I generally don't count days or weeks, I adjust things based on how the plants look. Visual cues that stretch is over for example, then cues that bulking is done and ripening has started.
It's the only way imho. The day count is more just for reference. Especially If I plan to grow the strain again.

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ya, i'm totally with you on that although lack of experience from the 1st day of growing makes this process difficult, but i am glad i've done it this way as it has teached me many aspects of growing.

tobh said:

same. i've never trusted breeder flowering times, try to shoot for eight to ten weeks regardless of strain. except this run, these girls are lookin awfully ripe for this early in flower.

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exactly, I love the fact that the grower has full control on how much time he wants to grow in veg stage. Some like to grow trees

tobh said:

same. i've never trusted breeder flowering times, try to shoot for eight to ten weeks regardless of strain. except this run, these girls are lookin awfully ripe for this early in flower.

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I can't help but wonder if the higher ec is causing them to ripen a bit early? I have had crops do that if I got a little too hot with the phosphorus.

PK1 said:

ya, i'm totally with you on that although lack of experience from the 1st day of growing makes this process difficult, but i am glad i've done it this way as it has teached me many aspects of growing.

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For sure it is experience based. Still though I think newer growers should learn about the different stages of flower and observe and take notes etc rather than relying on what it's "supposed to do" on a specific timeframe. There is a learning curve for sure but unfortunately trying to make a flower cycle fit into a box of predetermined actions and expectations just makes that learning curve longer imho. Cause plants are just gonna do what they do.

Dirtbag said:

For sure it is experience based. Still though I think newer growers should learn about the different stages of flower and observe and take notes etc rather than relying on what it's "supposed to do" on a specific timeframe. There is a learning curve for sure but unfortunately trying to make a flower cycle fit into a box of predetermined actions and expectations just makes that learning curve longer imho. Cause plants are just gonna do what they do.

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plants definitely do what they do along with everything we tell them to do. well, at least photoperiod once. We definitely have come a long way to create a mother nature environment into a box for plants to flourish and technology will keep moving forward. I mean there are now vertical farming which are able to perform mass production of produce.

ya, im very happy that i took that learning curve. Plants did suffer, crops could be better but the learning process will only get better. However, i do have to admit that through forms like this and generous people allot of expensive mistakes would be avoided.

Dirtbag said:

I can't help but wonder if the higher ec is causing them to ripen a bit early? I have had crops do that if I got a little too hot with the phosphorus.

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yeah, i was thinking about that. you can see obvious tip burn in these photos:




And with the darkness of the leaves on the second one, I know for sure N has been too high for a bit. Trying to combat the calcium deficiency comes with a trade-off with the nutrients I'm using, and I'll for sure be remedying that for the next run. I've also been on the veg feed cycle this entire flower cycle, and just switched to a higher PK ratio since it's that stage where the final bulking and ripening will be occurring. I also dropped res EC to ~1.3-1.4 from ~1.8, so hopefully will see some positive gains in the coming weeks.

Either way that second pic looks like it's trying to finish up already. Trichomes are still 100% clear but the upper most flowers are certainly progressing towards an almost finished appearance.

I'll be continuing to drop the EC by a point every other day until I'm down to ~0.8 over the next couple weeks and then will drop the MOAB and that should put the EC ~0.6 which will continue to be driven down as the this run wraps up in probably three or four weeks, depending how the plants behave.

tobh said:

yeah, i was thinking about that. you can see obvious tip burn in these photos:

View attachment 1202582
View attachment 1202583

And with the darkness of the leaves on the second one, I know for sure N has been too high for a bit. Trying to combat the calcium deficiency comes with a trade-off with the nutrients I'm using, and I'll for sure be remedying that for the next run. I've also been on the veg feed cycle this entire flower cycle, and just switched to a higher PK ratio since it's that stage where the final bulking and ripening will be occurring. I also dropped res EC to ~1.3-1.4 from ~1.8, so hopefully will see some positive gains in the coming weeks.

Either way that second pic looks like it's trying to finish up already. Trichomes are still 100% clear but the upper most flowers are certainly progressing towards an almost finished appearance.

I'll be continuing to drop the EC by a point every other day until I'm down to ~0.8 over the next couple weeks and then will drop the MOAB and that should put the EC ~0.6 which will continue to be driven down as the this run wraps up in probably three or four weeks, depending how the plants behave.

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Yeah that NPK thing is still a bit of a mystery to me. I've seen people do it so many different ways now I don't fkn know what's right anymore. This cycle I dropped N way back as soon as stretch as over and started running 50/50 foliage pro and bloom. At this stage in week 5 I'm closer to 30% FP/70% bloom. I'm just feeding how my buddy feeds since he has such great results. But I've also done the MiMed method in the past of rockin veg nutes all the way through with decent results, but I did have too much N also doing that.
So far using mostly high P bloom (not to mention mag pro which is also super high P) hasn't caused any noticable problems anyway. Plants look great to me, but I am being fairly conservative with nutrient strength.

I love how diverse this guy is. Always liked a few of his tunes without even realizing it was the same guy. He can pump out so many different styles of music so well.. really gained respect for his songwriting lately. Not to mention he writes and performs all the music by himself on the albums. Really impressive.

Most would never realize this was the same artist. And he's Canadian t'boot!

Dirtbag said:

Yeah that NPK thing is still a bit of a mystery to me. I've seen people do it so many different ways now I don't fkn know what's right anymore. This cycle I dropped N way back as soon as stretch as over and started running 50/50 foliage pro and bloom. At this stage in week 5 I'm closer to 30% FP/70% bloom. I'm just feeding how my buddy feeds since he has such great results. But I've also done the MiMed method in the past of rockin veg nutes all the way through with decent results, but I did have too much N also doing that.
So far using mostly high P bloom (not to mention mag pro which is also super high P) hasn't caused any noticable problems anyway. Plants look great to me, but I am being fairly conservative with nutrient strength.

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It seems to be all over the place, that's for sure. I think I might finally bite the bullet and go ahead and order like 5 lbs of Front Row Ag's bloom as well and try out their schedule next run. I've ran just their two part for four or five runs now and started adding MOAB last run as I've had excellent success with MOAB in the past.

I really wonder if there's something to using the full three part for flowering cycle with this line of nutrients. I just don't want 25lbs of bloom which is something that'll only be used half as much as the part A and part B. doesn't make sense to spend the almost $200 on a 25 lb bag when I'm already in close to $400 for the part A and part B.

Thinking that's gonna be the next thing to really focus on now that I'm content with a method for once. Only taken like ten years to settle on how I want to do this thing lol

tobh said:

It seems to be all over the place, that's for sure. I think I might finally bite the bullet and go ahead and order like 5 lbs of Front Row Ag's bloom as well and try out their schedule next run. I've ran just their two part for four or five runs now and started adding MOAB last run as I've had excellent success with MOAB in the past.

I really wonder if there's something to using the full three part for flowering cycle with this line of nutrients. I just don't want 25lbs of bloom which is something that'll only be used half as much as the part A and part B. doesn't make sense to spend the almost $200 on a 25 lb bag when I'm already in close to $400 for the part A and part B.

Thinking that's gonna be the next thing to really focus on now that I'm content with a method for once. Only taken like ten years to settle on how I want to do this thing lol

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You're ahead of me man, took me over 20

Dirtbag said:

Yeah that NPK thing is still a bit of a mystery to me. I've seen people do it so many different ways now I don't fkn know what's right anymore. This cycle I dropped N way back as soon as stretch as over and started running 50/50 foliage pro and bloom. At this stage in week 5 I'm closer to 30% FP/70% bloom. I'm just feeding how my buddy feeds since he has such great results. But I've also done the MiMed method in the past of rockin veg nutes all the way through with decent results, but I did have too much N also doing that.
So far using mostly high P bloom (not to mention mag pro which is also super high P) hasn't caused any noticable problems anyway. Plants look great to me, but I am being fairly conservative with nutrient strength.

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I have read that part of the genetics is that after a certain point, the plant quits taking up K on its own. It is normally triggered by the environment. I think it was @Frankster with the study link.

Dirtbag said:

You're ahead of me man, took me over 20

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haha don't hold me to that. i still reeeeaaaalllllly want to build an undercurrent setup. I just don't think I can justify the expense or realize the potential in the space I have. When I can build a replica shed like yours, i'll likely go that route since I have plans to go fully sealed with CO2 and automate all the shit to the absolute hilt. Grow trees automatically.

ComfortablyNumb said:

I have read that part of the genetics is that after a certain point, the plant quits taking up K on its own. It is normally triggered by the environment. I think it was @Frankster with the study link.

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I'd like to see that study @Frankster.
K is really important, regardless what NPK I've used in the past for flower one common theme is I always try to jack up the K levels in the last half of flower.

I want to talk about something I've discussed in my other threads, but after a couple years of playing with this system I believe it has been a real game changer. This is really valuable info for anyone doing drain to waste hydroponics at scale. But I know many in the industry already use similar systems to this. This is just a simple way to scale it down to homegrower size.

One of the single best investments I have made is installing this UV sterilizer. The stainless steel cylinder strapped to the corner. It let's me recycle all the runoff as well as the dehumidifier water.

I have 2 reservoirs, stage 1 is a "dirty" 50 gallon holding tank and stage 2 is a "clean" 20 gallon reservoir that the plants are fed from.
I start by filling the 50 gallon stage 1 holding tank with nutrient solution at about 1.2ec, 5.7ph, then I fill the 20 gallon res by passing the nutrient solution from the dirty res through a 5 micron and 1 micron canister filter, then through the UV chamber into the clean res. I'll then dose it with H2O2 and add any additional nutes if I desire a higher ec or whatever.. and that 20 gallons is now "clean" and ready to feed the plants.
Over the next week or so my runoff gets dumped back into the dirty holding tank along with the water from the dehumidifier, they generally combine to balance out pretty well and mix with the remaining fresh nutrient solution. This makes the 50 gallon tank get used up a lot slower than if I were doing drain to waste, and I use all of the nutrients, very little gets wasted.

After about a week when the 50 gallon tank is getting low I rinse the plants to reset the ec in the wool and start over again with a fresh 50 gallons of nutrient solution.

It's an excellent hybrid way of using up runoff while still using a large portion of fresh nutrients. If I were growing on a large scale, this method would be 100% used to save on nutrient costs. But even at a small scale I've found it's made nutrient handling much simpler.
A float switch in the clean res to keep it always full, and a condensate pump to direct runoff to the dirty tank are the last things this system needs to be kinda hands off, as it is I dump runoff manually every couple days and top up the clean res manually once a day. It means I only need to make nutrients once every 7-10 days, otherwise it's just keeping the res topped up.