Justiceman's Grape Ape Conquest

[justiceman]

Greetings farmers,
I just got some cuts of Grape Ape and transplanted them into a soil mix I came up with. I watered them in with some boogie brew compost tea to start things off.

Here are the specifications:
Nutrients: EJ grow, EJ bloom, EJ microblast, EJ catalyst, EJ meta K, EJ big bloomin guano, EJ assist, EJ humic 18, (possibly EJ hi brix mollasses), Boogie brew compost tea, GO cal mag, Liquid Kelp
Pot size: 3 gal
Light: 600w MH(veg), 1000w HPS(flower)
Soil Mix:3 cubic ft Master Nursery potting soil
25lb Napa floor dry(diatomite)
.5 cubic ft Ancient Forest Humus
1 1/6 cup mykos(mychorhizae)
3.5 cups insect frass
18oz Neem Seed meal
6oz rock phosphate
9 oz azomite
9oz fish bone meal
16oz Dolomite lime

Enviorment: 4 x 4 grow tent
Strain: Grape Ape

So I'm hoping to improve pest and disease resistance with this mix I'm testing out. The insect frass has NPK as well as chitin in order to help boost the plants immune system. The diatomite has many uses not only as my alternative to perlite, It also provides pest resistance again't fungus gnats and other root feeding insects. Not to mention it has a natural silica content witch in turn increases quality and yield. The neem seed meal also has NPK and it of course acts as a root feeding pest deterrent.

So lets see how this goes everyone!

 

[StrikeitRich]

I luv this strain.

Cannoit wait to see how she does for u.

Peace,
S i R

 

[winta]

hell yea! good to see u doin big things once again bro! grape ape....should be yummy!

 

[wonderinalice]

I love growing grape ape... I hope you enjoy her as much as i did. She put on mad weight for me!!

 

[Powdery]

Nice and Green

 

[BC farmer]

Mind If I stay :-)
Incredible soil mix, well thought about!
Are those smartpots?

Good luck with the run,
BCFarmer

 

[Surfr]

Do it proper like you do homie!

:character0180:

 

[sfzoo]

yeah!! hows your outdoor?

 

[justiceman]

I luv this strain.

Cannoit wait to see how she does for u.

Peace,
S i R

Ya I haven't grown it before but I sure am excited!

hell yea! good to see u doin big things once again bro! grape ape....should be yummy!

Right on winta hope your doing well buddy!

I love growing grape ape... I hope you enjoy her as much as i did. She put on mad weight for me!!

Thats what I like to hear I hope my trials also turn out some good yield.

Nice and Green

Thanks powdery.

Mind If I stay :-)
Incredible soil mix, well thought about!
Are those smartpots?

Good luck with the run,
BCFarmer

Stick around as long as you like BC. Ya I've had recurring problems with fungus gnats and I was tired of them holding my plants back. I'm hoping the neem seed meal and DE will play a vital role in this quest. They are fabric pots but they are called Geo Pots. They seem to be a bit thicker and more durable then the Smart Pots.

Do it proper like you do homie!

:character0180:

Right on thanks yo!

yeah!! hows your outdoor?

Yo Sf whats up? The outdoor is going well I'll put down a couple of pictures. Unfortunately it's been raining the past couple days but my tomato cages are supporting the branches that would have broken off so I'm thankful.

Those shots are from about a week and a half ago.

--------------------------

Week 1 VEG

So far things have gone smooth. I havn't run into any yellowing, drooping, or stunted growth so far:animal0012:. I'm happy. I just gave them their first EJ brew. I aerated it until the PH was at about 6.1. To the best of my knowledge it isn't necessary for me to aerate the brews but It does encourage microbial digestion so I'm thinking it's worth it considering the nutrients will become available at a faster rate. Here is the nutrient schedule so far.


Soil Mix:
3 cubic ft Master Nursery potting soil
25lb Napa floor dry(diatomite)
.5 cubic ft Ancient Forest Humus
1 1/6 cup mykos(mychorhizae)
3.5 cups insect frass(2-2-2)
18oz Neem Seed meal(5-1-2)
6oz rock phosphate(0-3-0)
9 oz azomite(0-0-.2)(Trace Minerals)
9oz fish bone meal(3-16-0)
16oz Dolomite lime(Calcium/Magnesium)

(when transplanted Azos was added at heaping tsp per hole and on rootball)
(9/26/11)
boogie brew

(Date: N/A)(Soil Drench and Foliar Spray)
Compost Tea
EWC
Alaskan Humus
EJ catalyst

(10/05/11)(Foliar Spray)
5ml per quart Extreme Serene

(10/06/11)
4gal(Filtered Tap)
55ml EJ grow
10ml EJ Big bloomin guano
20ml EJ Catalyst
20ml EJ Micro Blast
15ml EJ Meta K

So the new growth is looking good and the girls are staying turgid thankfully as I have a tendency to over-water. So this time I'm being a bit more conservative on the amount of water for each irrigation.

So you might have noticed that I switched to using Earth Juice instead of using Roots Organics. Don't get me wrong Roots Organics has proven itself to me and is indeed a quality Organic nutrient line, but I do disagree with the pricing on some of their products. Hence I am now trying out Earth Juice as the ingredient list is impressive. The affordability is impressive, and most of all the company is out of Chico, CA witch is a lot closer to me then Eugene, Oregon. So cheaper Organic nutes with quality ingredients and supporting a local nutrient company at the same time? Sounds good to me.

And If I must say one thing about the EJ nutes so far it is SHAKE VIGOROUSLY every time you use them. The organic particles fall out of suspension fast. ALWAYS agitate the solution before applying to get consistent amounts of organic matter to each plant.

So here are the girls at 1 week.

 

[Billygoat]

I love Grape Ape, as do the people around me. This strain really packs on the resign very early on. I'll be hanging on to this one for some time. The smell is just so yummy. Buddies, all love growing this girl. She has great bag appeal also.

Good luck with the grow. Can't wait to see more. Your in for a treat for sure.
Take care,
BG

 

[justiceman]

I love Grape Ape, as do the people around me. This strain really packs on the resign very early on. I'll be hanging on to this one for some time. The smell is just so yummy. Buddies, all love growing this girl. She has great bag appeal also.

Good luck with the grow. Can't wait to see more. Your in for a treat for sure.
Take care,
BG

Nice billygoat I definitely can't wait to see how she looks during flower. Good to know she has a good amount of popularity.

---------------------------

Week 2 Veg

Hey everyone! Hope all your gardens are doing well. So we are rolling around to week two and I'm liking what's happening so far. I've made a few adjustments to my set up in order to make things a bit easier and more efficient.

For starters I took out my flood tray and as an alternative put my pots on the reflective ground in the tent with saucers. I figure this will not only give me a bit more room to play with in terms of lamp height but it will also provide me with a bit more light reflected from the bottom until the canopy fills. The other reason I did it was because I set up individual plant support trellis's. The diameter of each support ring did not allow me to fit three inline in the 3x3 tray, so the 4 x 4 tent space allows them the room. I was also thinking that the removal of the tray in my tent will allow for more even airflow in the middle of the canopy instead of a possible dead spot.

I like the support rings because they give me the flexibility to move individual plants if necessary in order to have easier access to the tent(well in theory) and they are easier for me to set up. Let me know what you guys think?

Anyway I havn't watered since the 6th but I'm brewing up a compost tea that I will administer tomorrow. It's basic and here's the recipe.

(10/12/11)
5gal R/O Compost tea
1 cup Big Worm
1 cup Alaskan Humus
25ml EJ hi brix
25ml Extreme serene
25ml Flora Blend

Now it's time for some pictures right? First off I'll show you one of my girls outside that I am liking at the moment. Her name is Chernobyl.

Here's something about Compost Tea you might be interested in. I here about a lot of people brewing teas with small aquarium pumps. To the best of my knowledge these do not provide enough air to make a viable quality aerobic tea bigger then 1 gallon. From what I've read so far and according to the commercial tea brewers a general rule of thumb is to have a pump that can put out a liter per minute for every liter you have in the tea. For example a 45lpm pump can brew no more then a 45liter(11.8gallon) tea. Any lower and the levels of oxygen will not be able to support all the aerobic organisms. This is not to say the tea won't be good. It's just that It won't reach its potential and it's even possible that anaerobic organisms are being cultivated.

Small 45lpm commercial air pump

5 gallon tea(yes it's a bit overkill but it's the smallest LPM pump I could find before they were to small)

Grape Ape Ladies(2 weeks veg)

 

[JAHGYDI]

nice looking good. jah bless

 

[justiceman]

nice looking good. jah bless

Thanks friend:hi

--------------------------------------

Week 3 veg

Yo everyone! So this is gonna be the last week of veg for the Grape Apes. They blew up in the last week so it is time to flip em. I must admit so far I am impressed with the Diatomite, and Neem seed meal in the mix. There are absolutely no fungus gnats what so ever(knock on wood)! Obviously this is also attributed to the fact that the medium drains well but other then that I think those two key players have a huge role in pest resistance. No need to do expensive soil drenches with neem based products. Just mix in neem seed meal before you plant and your good to go. Cheap and effective not to mention nutritious for the micro-herd. I'll probably be doing this from now on.

So here's what I have been feeding them as of late.

10/17/11
5 gal R/O
1 cup Alaskan Humus
75ml grow
25ml EJ bloom
25ml Catalyst
25ml Hi brix

I just can't say how happy I am with this soil mix so far. The plants are responding well. They are staying turgid while my watering and nutrition addition frequencies have gone down. GO FTW micro-herd!

 

[audius]

your gonna have a sweet sog going there JM. those plants seem to be loving the mix your feeding them.. im subbed.

 

[justiceman]

your gonna have a sweet sog going there JM. those plants seem to be loving the mix your feeding them.. im subbed.

Right on audius thanks.

-------------------------------------------
Week 1 Flower

Okay everyone so I've never grown grape ape before but so far my experience seems to be going quite well. I haven't run into nutrient deficiencies *YAY!*:mad0233:

The ladies seem to be digging the soil mix and periodic liquid nutrient/compost tea applications. I'm really hopping to push the envelope on quality this time around. Not to say my previous grows didn't produce good quality. I'm just hoping to be a bit more zealous in terms of flowering nutrients. I feel the EJ bloom is gonna really pull through in this aspect. I like it's high P content but what I also like is it's high calcium content because of the bone meal. That means my ladies surely won't be short on calcium this time around as they have been in the past. With the combo of some dry food/EJ/Compost Teas I am confident this should be a nice flower indeed. Got some really nice sativas from outside so now my aim is to complete my medicine shelf with some good quality indica.

Here's what I have been feeding as of late.

10/23/11
5 gal filtered tap
(Soil Drench/Foliar spray)
Boogie Brew(compost tea blend from a company)

It's a good quality nutrient tea for sure. It smells very good while brewing. Here are the ingredients: Composted forest humus, Chicken litter ferment, fish emulsion, worm castings, mexican bat guano, peruvian seabird guano, atlantic kelp extract, sulfate of potash, gypsum, oyster shell, dolomite lime, azomite, leonardite shale

So I'm about to mix up another flowering tea but with EJ to give the ladies in a couple days. Here are some pictures to let you know how they are doing!

 

[ShivaSkunkPunk]

Wicked show as is normal outta your camp JMan, keep up the green work, Peace SSP

 

[justiceman]

Wicked show as is normal outta your camp JMan, keep up the green work, Peace SSP

Right on shiva thanks!

--------------------------------------

Week 2 Flower GRAPE APE!

Hey everyone! So we are 2 weeks into flower here and everything seems to be going according to schedule for the most part. I did however see a bit of PM come up a few days ago so i did a Green Cure spray. Funny cuz I was doing compost tea foliars in hopes of a preventative to PM. Here's what I don't understand though. My room has been 74-78 lights on and around 66-68 lights off. The humidity has been 35-40% lights on and around 50% lights off. They seem like pretty good temps and humidity to me. Also my plants have a lot of room to breathe they are not all smashed together like in previous grows. So I guess you could say I'm at a loss as to why or how PM showed up in the first place. Oh well I'll just be vigilant and do weekly GC sprays to ensure quality. If anyone has any info or suggesting PLEASE let me know.

So I adopted a new schedule for the EJ nutes I'm using. I remember checking out Bayarea's nute study a while back and I was impressed to say the least. After digging around I found that he tailored a nute schedule with earth juice to his preference. What I like about it is he added hygrozyme into the mix and claimed that it dramatically reduced his EJ usage compared to the "general use rates". I find this interesting considering Aurora innovations also added hygrozyme to their 5ml program. That makes me think that hygrozyme indeed helps with reducing the amount of needed fertilizer. So I started following his schedule in order to test the waters. So far I am liking it. Here's what I have been feeding them as of late.

10/26/11
3 gal R/O
15ml GO cal mag
45ml FF Big Bloom

10/29/11
5 gal R/O
50ml Grow
50ml Bloom
50ml Catalyst
25ml Micro blast
50ml Hi brix
12.5ml Hygrozyme

So far so good right? Can't wait to see how these ladies look a few weeks from now. Alright here are the pics!

Light ON shots

Light OFF shots

Bottom clean up

 

[Toker Ace]

Jman I just popped some GA beans about a week ago for my first dirt grow. I'm subbed and those ladies are looking great.

 

[JonathonStrange]

Your plants look amazing keep up the good work and continued sucsess

 

[gooey]

looking good, cant wait to see this one finish....what is grape ape made up off? clone only i know but is it got any gdp or urkel in it or is it a whole nother animal?