The Chow Mix Hempy Experience

[easypleasie]

HG23, I treat chow mix like my coco grows and would probably get the Cocos over the Aquaflakes. I'm sure both will work but no idea which one works better. I've only used AN Sensi A&B and CNS17 coco formula for my chow mix runs. I need quite a few more runs to get the nutes dialed in.

 

[larc03]

can i go with smart pots filled up with juss hydroton, hand water it and come out with a nice yeild??
:party0023:

 

[mikeross]

can i go with smart pots filled up with juss hydroton, hand water it and come out with a nice yeild??
:party0023:

I would say no unless you plan on watering 4-6 times per day, probably more than that once they get really big. I can not see how this can be done if you plan to just be hand watering.

 

[motherlode]

yeah hand watering and hydroton are not a good idea

 

[waywardson]

Hope you don't mind a pic from a similar minded grow (if you do let me know and i will edit it away). 15 plants, 15 1000 watt lights, 20 gal smart pots with just coco, 3 weeks into flower...

Even with just coco I am watering these things once per day and going through 115 gal of nutes every 3 days.

I am curious about the "chow mix"...might try a couple that way the next grow to see if there is a diff.

Are you extracting the hydroton from the coco when the grow is over and reusing it? How big of job is that? Right now I just toss the coco on my veg garden...I would not want to chunk out that hydroton.

 

[easypleasie]

waywardson, I don't mind at all, bro. Post up more pics if you have them. Great looking room you have going! I hope you're not hand watering those daily...that killed my back when I was doing it that way.

I had to water daily when I was using 18 gallon containers of straight coco. Big healthy girls get really thirsty :)

I can't say if there's much of a difference with the chow mix vs. straight coco. Haven't grown both of them enough times with the same strains/lighting to do an accurate comparison. It does seem like the chow mix girls grow a little faster but that could be due to other variables. Would love to see how your grow does with a few test plants.

Cleaning the hydroton from the mix and reusing it requires a good amount of work. More than I wanna mess with so it gets tossed in the garbage. One thing I liked about straight coco was being able to reuse it in my veggie garden.

 

[HG23]

Yeah wayward, I would definitly like to hear/see more about your room too. Do you have a thread anywhere?

 

[easypleasie]

Alrighty, all the girls have come down and currently curing. My hazy jones came down a week later so she's still drying. Cleaning things up for my mpb run...still a little nervous.

I finally broke the 2lb. barrier this run with 13 dawgs #4. Actually, i'm about 10 grams shy of 2 but close enough :) It was a surprise as I didn't think she could even reach 2 lbs....I stand corrected! I believe this girl can easily do 2.5 in the same setup if I veg her in the room a little before flowering. She was only about 3.5 ft. tall and 5.5 feet wide. She was surrounded by 4k and naturally was the heaviest yielder. My white fire yielded slightly more than the first run at 1.45 lbs but this time she only had 2 lights on her the whole time. My favorite 13 dawgs pheno yielded 1.3 so i'm pretty stoked as she has a devastating high...the best smoke i've grown out to date. Total so far is 6.6 with one girl still drying.

I sure wish I had chow mix girls ready for the room. I'm thinking about skipping the mpb run and just transplant my white fire girls into chow mix instead. It will take me an extra 4-6 weeks to veg the girls big enough but it might be the better bet...decisions...decisions.

My current 3 girl chow mix run is a week into flower and going strong with just one 600w Sunpulse mh bulb. I'm tempted to run the whole grow with just one 600 just to see how it does but i'll most likely put the 1k in there next week.

Sorry, no chop pics :(

 

[Lost]

Yea, the Dawgs are good. Some phenos Waaaaaay better than others. Dunno if im going to do a MPB run or a UC run next, maybe one of each.... Glad to hear your grow came out well :)

 

[easypleasie]

Brother Lost! Good to see ya back, homie. It's been boring as hell around here without ya. How things going for ya?

Yeah, potency varies big time with the dawgs. Unfortunately, my big yielder isn't the best smoke so she's getting the cut. My favorite #3 pheno hits you real quick and is seriously intense! Not for newbie smokers! I like that kind of smoke but it's too much if I wanna be social lol. I should correct myself and say it's the strongest smoke i've grown to date and not the best.

 

[Lost]

Nah, your right. There is a pheno in the dogs where it really kicks you in the head for about 2 min and after that its a zombie state. I really like that one. Im going to be doing alot of experimenting with strains when I land. I would really like the breed a few strains that people love.. Thats the goal at least!

 

[easypleasie]

boot to the head lol! Sounds like we have the same pheno :)

I finally have a room to play around with so I might be venturing into breeder land, too! Won't be anytime soon but one day...

When do you land?

 

[aleYarok]

congrats on the harvest!! would love to see some final pictures and budshots of those dawgs.

please dont give up on mpbs!!!rock that shit

 

[easypleasie]

I'll snap some dry bud shots when I get a chance. I regret not taking any pics at harvest time :( Had a bunch of nice looking colas.

Looks like i'm gonna do one more mpb run...hopefully, it's a little more successful. How's your mpb grow going?

 

[aleYarok]

dont want to hijack your thread, ill update my thread soon with photos and details. but basically girls just finished their first week of bloom. they are greening up nicely... had an infestation of root aphids and spider mites. finally got things under control. also i think there was a lock out in the coco so i flushed that out real good before flip. i should have never gotten these teens in coco, oh well. im basically growing in coco and not in the dwc... it took 2 weeks for roots to bust out of coco but they where all scrawny and brown and never whited up, those died off and now nice big white roots are coming out into the buckets. im already eager for the next run as we have learned ALOT and it should go alot smoother now that we have a veg room set up and will be using our own clones and not someone elses.

 

[waywardson]

Yeah wayward, I would definitly like to hear/see more about your room too. Do you have a thread anywhere?

I don't wanna take up any more space in this thread. I would PM you but I don't have the posts. It is pretty basic, 30x20 room, 15 vert bulbs, 5 tons a/c, CO2 enhanced and 20 gal pots of coco...celilings high enough that heat rises from the bulbs, runs into the air from the a/c duct and keeps leaves within plus or minus 2 degrees.

anyways, this seems like a pretty good compromise between performance and reliability.

 

[easypleasie]

Post anything you guys care to share! I'm here to learn just as well :)

 

[gisisi]

Waywardson:

Sorry, can't figure this out from the pics

1. How are you hanging those sockets? I have the same, but mine don't hang straight.

2. What is the reflective material?

3. How do you collect drainage?

Thanks,
gisisi

 

[waywardson]

I am using a rope and pulley for the lights. I put a loop in the electrical cable itself to get them to hang somewhat straight up and down.

I forget the name of the reflective material...I think it is the sunshine supply product, has an irregular surface, comes in 100 x 4 ft rolls. I will check the name next time I am in my hydro store...kind of a hang it and forget about deal for me.

This is the first run for the room so I don't have feed/get rid of the water automated at all. I generally feed with very little runoff and just let that water evap...it is always gone by the next day and I figure it isn't higher than the perched water table anyways so no harm. Occasionally I do water with significant runoff just to keep EC from building up in the media...those days it is a shop vac. Obviously all that is a big ol pain in the ass...I am thinking about how to make it easier. Thinking about elevating a little the pots on some kind of stand that would allow the water to gravity drain into a separate reservoir below the pot and then just hooking up pvc to that and pumping all of the containers out at the same time...shouldn't be hard.

This time...first run in the room...I wanted to hand water to see how constant water use would be plant to plant. In my next iteration probably have a little bit more runoff to ensure all plants get what they need...water use is not the same plant to plant.

 

[Shady]

Sup EP! Just read the entire thread and wanted to say congrats on the harvest... :harvest: