APE's Swinging from the Trees (Vertical of Course!)

ape said:

So why vertical?...well obviously yield and plant numbers are the biggest advantages. But for me it went like this...

As a clone vendor I started meeting people that asked me for plants that would be good for such a grow. My first reaction was, "What??? you get plants to do what? Growing them how???". It blew me away when I started meeting people getting better than average yields growing top shelf OG or Bubba stuff using this method.

So I started doing the consulting end of the deal. I would suggest strains that I thought were fast vegging, branchy, and fairly good yielders. From then on I kept in contact with these folks. Most of you have to realize I have donated cuttings to somewhere around 4000 different med patients over the over the last 6 years. So I hear a lot and see a lot.

So here I am taking my solo swing for the fence. Everything you see is hours of blood, sweat, and tears of my own labor. I'm alone and recently left what I consider home because of some Bullshit. I've had to make do with what I could barely afford or scrape together to get this going. Haha...

Also, I'd like to than Jalisco and Invictus for their consultation work and their patience with my questions and asking for advice. Their are many others that have influenced the way I do things. So stay tuned and lets see how big these B I A T C H E S get!!!

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Ha Ha! You're a good friend ApeMan! I can't speak for Jalisco, but I just wanna see you blow these girls up to be fat, stinky, and sticky!

BTW, Here is one of the girls I got from you last year. She's pretty killer. Thought you might like to see what she's lookin like now that she's growin up.

Peace,
Invictus

Whaddup ape! Can't wait to see those trees filled with fat colas... :cool

ape said:

thanks for stopping by Dizzle! I hope to do some booty clappin' when this is all said and done.

One reason as a newbie to VERT i added the 600s was I looked at the enormous size of these girls before 12/12 even started. And I just thought it a natural to chunk up the middle area of the plant while the vertical bulbs to their jobs. Also, I figured running them this way I could mix spectrum AND use more effiecient light use than if I would've got 5 master blasters which alone would cost $2000k retail. Meanwhile I had the 600s sitting on a shelf being unused. All brand new bulbs are used for the grow so that I can get a good quantative number on yield.

5 master blasters would be 7500 watts, while this setup gives me 7400 watts and I get the bonus of using a mixed spectrum.

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for sure, I think a 600 over head is going to put out far more than and extra 500watts blasting the sides would, plus the hood shoot down much more light than a vert bulb throws out sideways, yea I think this set up is money

Update tonight

Hey Shady...thanks for popping in. Hope your collection is still going strong.

Invictus...thanks for the encouragement. Your pics to sent me were awesome bro!

Sticky...good to see you to buddy. Definitely keep an eye on this grow.

Dizzle...I agree dizzle. these girls are over 50" wide and leave a perfect footprint from above for more lighting. I also think the vertical bulbs open the plant just enough to were the top canopy is open enough to take full advantage of the horizontal going in.

Today's update:
My natural gas installer will be here tomorrow at 10am to reroute me a natural gas line for my Gen2 burner. It's nice to have 420 friendly plumbers, contractors, and electricians around.

Tonight the girls got 2.5 gallons in their first feeding consisting of:
Cutting Edge grow, micro, and bloom (15, 10, and 5 ml/gal)
Black Sea Kelp from Vermaplexstore.com (5 ml/gal)
roots excel (1.5 ml/gal)
CalMax (3 ml/gal)

Ph adjusted to 5.8 and handwatered. The CalMax is a custom blend that will be featured from a line of nutrients from Kush Moutain Fertilizer Co after much more testing. The CalMax is Calcium Lignosulfanate and Magnesium Lignosulfanate. Its more concentrated but the advantage is its directly mined from Lignite as the supplier has discussed with me in detail what they believe in as the Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio. They believe modern farming techniques rely too much on just adding nitrates when in reality its nitrates AND carbon that should be considered. Plants evolved with a natural humus (carbon) in the soil and that is why our great planes and places like humboldt traditionally do well because of the high carbon content from centuries of humate matter accumulating whether its from grass planes or forest leaf matter. In theory these lignite based supplements help cleanse the media, stabilize ph, and provide a natural carbon source while providing easily available Calcium and Magnesium. Kush Mountain also provided the Humic Shale I used in the coco/perlite mix. So far I see extreme greening and vigor in all my plants both flowering a mother plants. Plus there is a noticeable sheen to the leaves and a more pronounced smell in the veg cycle. I'll keep you all posted on my results.

I will post more pics after the burner and cages are put up.

Dual Axis Lighting???

Has anyone seen Jackmayoffer or anyone else use both vert and horizontal bulbs? I'd be curious as to their results.

Looking good Ape. Thought for sure you would run that j-1 cut in a setup like that. It yielded fat and had great vigor. The potency was definately there and the scent was that of no other. Lemon Gatorade with a strong hint of that original sensi seeds jack herer. Anyways, glad to see you back at it and can't wait to see the results. I just saw W. The other day and he is doing well and wanted me to tell you hello and to give you email.

Hey Skatwill, hope all is good with you. I lost the J1 in all the crap that happened. I'll find her again. I think she would or the xj13 would be ideal for this type of setup.

I was trying to get you a cut but I never got a reply from the PM's I sent. I still have a mother of it in the collection. It's been the best I have ran to date. I was interested in what you were saying about nitrates and carbon. I am now running flood and drain tables with 1 gallon pots of perlite with rockwool flock stuffed at the bottoms to prevent perlite from ending up in the res. Would it be possible and adventagious to start using these lignite based nutes in this kind of setup?

Lignosulfanates

Yes Skat, I think they would be great. I've only used them in hydro systems using coco but Im sure the same performance would be had in any inert medium. The CalMax is more concentrated so I make sure I do a good flush on my water only days. I'll see if I can get a hold of some samples in the upcoming weeks for folks. These same products are ones I was testing at the PNC during the since late last year.

Ah yes. I remember watching the vid posted on the website. There was a HUGE difference in color and vigor. I found the CalMax online for 9$ a quart. Now my only issue is that I'm running H&G Aquaflakes A+B.it's known that you dont need to add any Cal/Mag products when using these nutes as it already has enough of both already. People that have added cal/mag to Aquaflakes often report lock out problems. I'm keeping my nutes extremely basic for now only using the Aquaflakes and a bloom booster in week 5. After I'm done with these nutes I will definately be trying something that is more cal/mag deficient so I can give that calmax a try. Adding the carbon totally makes sense. Look at cuyamaca 1 year after a fire. The weeds on the side of the road are 8ft+ tall.

yes...

your reasoning makes perfect sense. So in the hydro world what we do instead of adding carbon to our media is we keep adding nitrates to it instead. When I started modifying things and adding more raw humics i started to notice my mothers became a lot healthier and plants that I always saw as finicky became much more robust. Rooting time decreased substantially too.

Coco growers almost have to add calcium because coir has a natural tendency to draw the calcium out of the nutrient solution. When I ran aqua flakes I had an instant calcium deficiency.

Well I don't want to take the focus off your beautiful trees any more lol. Whatever you are doing is working wonders. But one more question lol, or two. So in theory if I was running aquaflakes through coco could I then run calmax? Or would the excess mag lockout the cal?

Looking good bro...

Things are looking amazing. You have definatley inspired me to go vertical. They are truely huge plants! Can't wait to get mine going... Your ladies are definatley looking healthy ;-)

Welcome back bro!
Glad to see you are doing ok. Those bbk's are huge! They are going to be SICK after 10 weeks.
Take it easy and stay safe bro!
Cheers!
:animbong:

im interested to see your results. I'm about to do the same thing but with an under current. things are looking awesome

new pics and update

I thought I'd a a few pics to try to show the size of these beasts. The day didn't start off well as I had to find out I left the Merlin RO filter on for about 9 hours! Luckily my growroom floor is slightly slanted! Haha...

Anyway, here are some pics as today should be the first day of 12/12. This girl was topped when about a foot tall. She is undoubtedly the most bushy and wide of all. She's my special one I will be giving most of my attention too! She is 56" wide and 51" inches tall.

today's agenda...

FYI...I had been invited by the local Horticultural Club at the Community College last night. I gave a lecture on hydroponics and garden care. It was awesome. Stay tuned as I think I might be teaching courses on basic gardening in the Oakland Area soon. The group seemed particularly interested in the merits of Coco Coir.

Ok...today's agenda is to get the natural gas plummed in and the Gen2 fired up! Then I'll finally get those cages up! I know that's going to be an ordeal!

more pics...

first pic is of my tallest plant. She is 56" tall. Notice the totally different structure she has compared to the previous pic. The plant was supercropped tons when smaller but never topped.

Second pic is of overall room (sorta...).

ape said:

Jalisco...i ended not getting the 1500 master blaster bulb and ballast as it is out of my budget. But 3 nights ago I was looking at the largest girl and just wondered if they would be to wide after the 12/12 stretch. As I left the growroom I looked down on the floor and noticed the 4 600 watt ballasts I had on the shelves.

So....I thought, "hmmmm, it wouldn't be that expensive to simply add 4 600 watt halides over the garden." And you can see in the bottom pics.

The current configuration is:
5 1000 watt hps VERTICALLY
4 600 watt halide (conversion lamps) horizontally

Not sure if many others than Jackmayoffer has done this. I call it Duel Axis Lighting (DAL) for the fact the the bulbs are oriented on the X and Y axis (well all learned that in middle school math right???)

So, why mixed spectrums? Well I always think Blue light is best while HPS has larger yields. I figured something like this setup would be ideal to text the blend and see what kind of yield numbers could come out of this.

What do you all think? :-)

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I like switchable ballast so I can start and finish with more MH. I know have a branch that grew thru the neighbor plant and is popping out the other side. I do not understand people trying side lighting with 40" centers. I am on 5'6" centers. I prefer to stack my lighting then do overhead. I would like to have those spinning lights above if they would last. I really would like to try those above my gm5000 veg tanks.
Well it looks like you are off to a good start coming over to the dark side. Once you start growing trees you can never go back. JK

Look for some good deals on yo-yos because after missing with cages you are going to be wanting something a lot easier and better.

Overnight Metamorphasis???

A funny thing happened after I added the cages...
Last I checked I had a vertical tree grow, all of a sudden it looks more like a vertical scrog.

No worries tho...I'm thinking just with a little more time and these girls will find their way to fully populate those screens. FYI...putting 15 linear feet of fencing around a TREE is tedious. Next time they will be put up weeks earlier. And yes, I did say 15 linear feet. Because I couldn't find the 4x4 grid pattern, I made due with this and i'm using my snips to make it have 4x4 spaces where I need it most. The filling of the vertical canopy will be a work in progress.

Also, today is the first day of 12/12. The Cutting EDGE 3 part has been modified to the bloom formula. I also will be adding 2.5 ml more per gallon of the Bio-weed to help with flower set. Lastly, the last product added to the mix is Catalyst. Catalyst is a source of simple and complex carbs unlike most sweeteners out there. It has Molasses, Malt Extract, etc...It does well in increasing BRIX levels and size of the trichs...

Here are the pics after the cages.