20 light, 25 plant, Screen of Green

[whatupdoc]

too amazing

 

[flowamasta]

I like the sound of 1 600 per plant...adding 1000's would be a very difficult task to calculate in itself. and where to put them to gain sufficient value. 600 per plant is ideal in your system in my opinion, if you want to play with adding more yield you could either veg for a tiny bit longer, keeping the plants a little lower and spreading them further in the screen. I also top a few days before flowering to increase my canopy size to let lower stuff come up and join the heads. I think you will surprise yourself (and everyone!) with what you can do here.....with the tiniest variations in veg-time and scrogging.
I only veg for 4 weeks. I have mates who veg for 3 weeks and still get over half lb per plant... :) including perpetual grows.

 

[BC farmer]

You'd mentioned 'way back at the beginning of this thread that you were leaning towards a 600 for each plant site. In your shoes, I would try that first and see if you get the results you want. I'm betting you will. Another advantage; staying with one size of light helps keep the spare parts requirement down, too.

Also, I'm getting lots of good feedback from people running 50/50 chow mix with hydroton and either a very light fluffy soilless mix or coco. I'm one of those people; my stuff is growing as fast as anything else ever did for me, and it's soooo trouble free...

I have a Panasonic 70 pint dehuey and it's adequate for me, but you'd need at least two of them. Keeping your day and night temps close together is also helpful in keeping control of RH. Perhaps your biggest issue here is your use of AC units, which dry out the air, forcing you to add more, which loads up the dehuey... vicious circle. As an interim measure, try shutting off all humidification a few hours before lights out, to help get ahead of the curve. That might help your current dehuey soldier on long eongh for you find the unit you want.

Forgive me for my ignorance but what is chow mix?
Eager to switch mediums or at least move away a bit more from Pro Mix, the medium is not sterile as they claim it is. Round two now dealing with RA and other little critters that appeared a few days after we transplanted in newly clothed troughs. Before TP we nuked the place bleached everything, ceiling, walls, the works and still got these little fuckers.
RH keeping up nicely now with our new gizmo, will snap a few pics and post them soon.

 

[BC farmer]

Hello BC, excellent job. Are you planning on posting your newest grow?

Thanks Tony,
We wont do as detailed job as we did last round but are planning on posting a few pics as we go along.

 

[bigcheese510]

Forgive me for my ignorance but what is chow mix?
Eager to switch mediums or at least move away a bit more from Pro Mix, the medium is not sterile as they claim it is. Round two now dealing with RA and other little critters that appeared a few days after we transplanted in newly clothed troughs. Before TP we nuked the place bleached everything, ceiling, walls, the works and still got these little fuckers.
RH keeping up nicely now with our new gizmo, will snap a few pics and post them soon.

chow mix is a coco and hydroton blend for grow medium.

 

[BC farmer]

chow mix is a coco and hydroton blend for grow medium.

Thanks big cheese. We had a hard time with Coco. Non stop PH swings, does the hydroton even it out more? Why is it so trouble free? I can see more frequent waterings as a big advantage . Certainly Coco by itself isnt which we went back to soil. What are the advantages and disadvantages? Will definitely try it out on the next round.

 

[sanvanalona]

Thanks big cheese. We had a hard time with Coco. Non stop PH swings, does the hydroton even it out more? Why is it so trouble free? I can see more frequent waterings as a big advantage . Certainly Coco by itself isnt which we went back to soil. What are the advantages and disadvantages? Will definitely try it out on the next round.

I have seen amazing things from the chow mix, although have been using straight coco for quite a while. When you ran coco did you use good rinsed bag coco or brick? I have noticed ph problems with brick before, but haven't had that problem with good bagged coco......but I am sure brands have a lot to do with it. I like the idea of the chow mix holding water a little more, but on the other hand I also believe that coco produces such nice things because of constant watering involved. But after what you just pulled I would have a difficult time switching anything up.......if aint broke.......right.

 

[BC farmer]

I have seen amazing things from the chow mix, although have been using straight coco for quite a while. When you ran coco did you use good rinsed bag coco or brick? I have noticed ph problems with brick before, but haven't had that problem with good bagged coco......but I am sure brands have a lot to do with it. I like the idea of the chow mix holding water a little more, but on the other hand I also believe that coco produces such nice things because of constant watering involved. But after what you just pulled I would have a difficult time switching anything up.......if aint broke.......right.

We used Canna Coco bags, 50 l bags.
Coco offers great advantages and as you rightfully noted if it aint broke.., however dealing with bugs in the medium is no fun.
These ProMix bags we get here in BC appear full of bugs unless its the Canna bags, which we use in a 20% ratio.
I have placed a call to their grower services department and am curious to their 0.02.:)

 

[green punk]

Wow! I hadn't looked at this for a bit. Great Job!

 

[bigcheese510]

Thanks big cheese. We had a hard time with Coco. Non stop PH swings, does the hydroton even it out more? Why is it so trouble free? I can see more frequent waterings as a big advantage . Certainly Coco by itself isnt which we went back to soil. What are the advantages and disadvantages? Will definitely try it out on the next round.

i personally havent used it but from what ive gatherd with the chow mix youre able to water more often as it dries out faster. not sure if the hydroton helps with ph swing tho.

 

[whatupdoc]

Something to think about...possibly running Ebb & Flow? If you're looking for short time between watering, it doesn't get much shorter than Ebb & Flow in hydroton...

I'm in total agreement with the previous "aint broke" statements, but you also seem like you're entertaining lots of ideas. Just a thought...

Try your hand at hydro?!

 

[ttystikk]

The chow mix I run is 50% coco (bagged, 'Gold Label Special Mix') and 50% hydroton. It aids draining and resists waterlogging. As both are relatively neutral substrates, I would not expect any pH buffering to happen due to the mix, you do that with the water you input. Consider 'drain to waste' so that you control the pH of the water going into your coco/hydroton substrate- and then it really doesn't matter what it is coming out.

If you got 26 elbows from 20x600=12kW then you're well over 2gpw... which puts me pretty firmly in agreement with the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' crowd!

I have it on good authority that Spectracide drench is the way to kill root aphids.

 

[BC farmer]

ttystikk, we will try the Spectracide. Chow mix will be tried on the next run
Here are some pics of this run. Canopy is filled up better and today they were flipped.
Also a pic of our new humidifier which has been keeping up the RH between 60% and 70% throughout the veg cycle despite he ac running extensively.
Also my bro installed this oxygen supercharger for when we water. It blasts the water into the res as we are watering and mixing. We also got a bigger pump/bigger diameter hose and are now
able to use our wand which in turn creates even more oxygen before it goes in the troughs.
We have applied Nematodes and are awaiting Caps Foliar and root pack bennies for the RA.

.

 

[QleanerQuest]

Very impressive facility! That chow mix sounds interesting. I was thing about checking out coco, but sounds like the latter is the way to go. Thanx for the info. Your grow show ROCKS!!!

 

[ttystikk]

Agreed, the room is impressive! I think this may have been covered before, but it bears repeating for those who have come lately to the thread to be sure to run nothing but distilled/RO water for a humidifier like that or you'll end up with calcium and scale deposits all over your plants and everything else in the room.

The 50/50 coco/hydroton chowmix is nice, holds water yet sheds excess well. It has next to no nutritional value in itself, so it's a purely hydroponic substrate. That said, it supports soil-based microbes and the like very well, so by all means keep inoculating it with your bennies!

 

[whatupdoc]

WOOHOO! Round number two! Let's get it! Very nice thread to pop in and read up on every time...

 

[flowamasta]

now that fills a big fat hole in my obsession :) i'll be watchin for sure!! looking great soo far!

 

[BC farmer]

Here a few pictures I shot this morning. They really purked up.Bumped up the Co2 over the last four days 50 ppm at a time. We are now sitting at 1200ppm.

Our new fan to get more airflow around the stems, this baby blows..

 

[SweetTooth]

Top notch

 

[flowamasta]

GORGEOUS!!!!! you can actually see the humidity in there i swear!!! awesome! looks so tropical, sooo dreamy :) THIS LOOKS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. I thought it looked good last round. Ouch.

Pure sex.