sonygarden
- 38
- 8
Hello all. First off id like to say beforehand, thank you in advance for any help, and interest this may receive. Ive been reading the hell out of this forum, as well as others, and now its time to lay my cards out, and work from front to back, instead of backwards. Im located in southern oregon, to provide context of my environment.
Situation- Recently offered the opportunity to take charge of setting up 2 greenhouses, with the goal of continous grows in light deps. 200 clones to start with. (2) 20x50 ft greenhouses. Ive spent a lot of time growing with a master grower with great success, but lack of organization and leadership did not provide a conducive learning environment. So im very well rounded, and understand the task at hand, but am also lacking a great amount of knowledge. Im either going to succeed in a huge way, or crash and burn. My strong qualities are ability to research, trouble shoot, and educate myself on the fly. I always flourish in high stress situation. Ive been more on the extraction side for a while, but am confident i can succeed in this. I was thrown this chance kind of late in the game, so i am going to use this as a follow along for my grow, where hopefully people can follow along, critique my methods, and others can learn down the line. Im basically trying to fill in the blanks on certain things, mainly nutrients (organic or bottled fertilizers) and understanding ppms, balance, and feeding protocols. so here goes so far. If some of this sounds stupid and or wayy off, understand im here to learn. Thanks for reading thus far.. The more i read, the more i learn the intricacies of growing.. Ph, ppms, ec, etc. In my past experience of growing, things were fairly simple. whether due to budget, or time, i simply dont remember really being too over the top with analyzing these things. We had very clean near 0 ppm water from an underground aquifer.. Used greengro for soil amendment, and simple organic inputs such as chicken manure that was processed with a special process, fish emulsions, and a few other organic feeds which i recall. So part of me gets overwhelmed doing research, the other part of me says "calm down, its not that complex"
My goal is to keep a continuous grow going, but i know that takes a lot of work, time and dialing in. So for now im focused on the first grow. Im following a light dep schedule calendar as a reference. The following is a general timeline im attempting to follow-
February 1- take clone cuts. (I will be getting clones from a good friend with a good source, so im skipping ahead to the next date)
I dont know yet the size or maturity of the clones, nor what medium i will be receiving them in. But i will be receiving them roughly in the next week (feb 10-18th)
I currently have a shipping container set up, insulated. I will have approx (5) 4 foot t5 HO lighting setups as seen here t5 lights. Lined up straight down one side of the container, with tables under them for the plants. Im hoping this will be adequate for early vegging, although i can increase this if it is way under requirement. I will be keeping them on an 18/6 light schedule. Still figuring out the temp and humidity control setups, and trying to visualize the growth to accommodate the space and lighting needed as the grow.
February 22- Transplant clones to 1 gallon pots. They will remain in 1 gallon pots until the next calendar event, or until i see the roots fill out in which case i will up pot to 5 gallons. Again this will probably change my requirements for lighting and space in the veg room.
March 28- Transplant clones to final location. I will be using 25 gallon smart pots in the greenhouse. At this point from time of cuts being taken, to march 28th they will have been vegging for approx 8 weeks.
April 4- Begin 12/12 lighting schedule with tarp pulling. I have yet to decide if i will pull late in the evening, and uncover at night, or cover at night and pull early in the morning. But it seems the plants will have a week to acclimate to the outside and new pots before being thrown into flower.
8 weeks of flowering, with a suspected harvest date in late/end of may.
This calendar basically has the same layout, but color coded with 2 other processes to do in conjuction with this which theoretically will keep this cycle going for 3 harvests per year. Again im not focused completely on the 3, as i know thats hard to pull off even with a seasoned grower.
That is the general schedule i am on right now.
Nutrient plan--
So this is my first big hurdle. With my experience with growing with my friend, we grew organically for the most part, and he understood nutrients to a higher degree, so he was able to find suitable fertilizers/nutrients from good old fashion organic inputs. It was great economically, and produced great results. I feel organic has a stronger learning curve, but may be wrong. I also believe on the other hand that any branded nutrient lines will not be economically viable for a large grow of 200 plants. I genuinely am having trouble calculating my nutritional needs. The plants will be in 25 gallon pots, which will total about 25 yards of soil. My soil tester talked me through a lot of it, and explained that by giving the soil the proper nutrient balance, the plants will be able to eat properly, and i will just have to supplement with top dressing or watering in nutrients..But i can genuinely say, the feeding aspect has me the most intimidated. Reading feed charts which are always in mass per 1 gallon water, its hard to calculate ballpark what id need, and understanding ppms of each nutrient, and how it collectively affects the mix is also intimidating. Hoping the soil test(next paragraph) will help me figure this out a little better instead of trying to blindly formulate a nutrient plan. Open to any and all suggestions/explanations. Jacks 321 seems to be praised alot for its results and simplicity.. I cannot find a local source, so shipping is an option, but again, i have no idea of how to even begin to calculate how much id need.
SOIL-
So my grow property had a lot of large pots already set up, but we dumped them and dozed all of it into a corner to grade the tiers for the greenhouses. I have no idea what kind of soil or fertilizers were used. My partners are a little finicky with expenditures, and im not in a position to strongly argue anything on my behalf. So, the plan is to get a neutral/ light potting soil for the initial transplant from clone medium to 1 gallon pots. I know that small young clones dont need too much during the very early weeks, so a good watering and light soil should get them through. In the meantime, i have dropped off several samples of the bulk soil we have, and am awaiting results. The gentleman doing the tests is an older retired man who seems to just love what he does, and i expect him to be able to provide me with a good game plan for amending the soil and getting it up to par. All transplants will be done with the aid of bigfoot mycorrhizae around the root area, as i was always taught.
Questions about my soil plan-
1) Is there harm in starting the young plants in their own light potting soil, and then into the new amended bulk soil when they are ready for the 25 gallon pots? Any shock or distress from the completely new soil, assuming its amended properly and wont be too hot?
2) I see a lot of nutrient feeding schedules usually have some nutrient line for clones/small plants. So to add to my first paragraph, here too i am stumped on what to feed these girls as soon as the clones come to me.
3)Methods of analyzing soil content. As I go, im somewhat lost on exactly how to measure my soil contents, whats in there, what im lacking, etc. Deficiencys, over use, etc
Questions about the vegging room-
1) opinions on those lights that i linked? I actually have ten of them, but enough power to run 5 as of right now. Will these suffice for early clones/vegging, and will the suffice until its time for the girls to go outside.
2)Ideal temps seem to be 75-80 degrees for this time, with a RH of 65-75%. I am still working on the infrastructure to support this. Thoughts on those parameters?
To not overwhelm anyone interested so far, ill stop here for now. Im trying to attack my issues in the order that they are about to hit me. Step 1- setting up the environment and feeding for these clones coming to me within the next week. Getting those dialed in will buy me 6-8 weeks to work on the rest of my research. Those lights i linked are fairly cheap but im hoping will be sufficient. I will be following and posting here regularly. Thank you for reading thus far and i hope you can join me on this journey, and hopefully others can learn as well.
Situation- Recently offered the opportunity to take charge of setting up 2 greenhouses, with the goal of continous grows in light deps. 200 clones to start with. (2) 20x50 ft greenhouses. Ive spent a lot of time growing with a master grower with great success, but lack of organization and leadership did not provide a conducive learning environment. So im very well rounded, and understand the task at hand, but am also lacking a great amount of knowledge. Im either going to succeed in a huge way, or crash and burn. My strong qualities are ability to research, trouble shoot, and educate myself on the fly. I always flourish in high stress situation. Ive been more on the extraction side for a while, but am confident i can succeed in this. I was thrown this chance kind of late in the game, so i am going to use this as a follow along for my grow, where hopefully people can follow along, critique my methods, and others can learn down the line. Im basically trying to fill in the blanks on certain things, mainly nutrients (organic or bottled fertilizers) and understanding ppms, balance, and feeding protocols. so here goes so far. If some of this sounds stupid and or wayy off, understand im here to learn. Thanks for reading thus far.. The more i read, the more i learn the intricacies of growing.. Ph, ppms, ec, etc. In my past experience of growing, things were fairly simple. whether due to budget, or time, i simply dont remember really being too over the top with analyzing these things. We had very clean near 0 ppm water from an underground aquifer.. Used greengro for soil amendment, and simple organic inputs such as chicken manure that was processed with a special process, fish emulsions, and a few other organic feeds which i recall. So part of me gets overwhelmed doing research, the other part of me says "calm down, its not that complex"
My goal is to keep a continuous grow going, but i know that takes a lot of work, time and dialing in. So for now im focused on the first grow. Im following a light dep schedule calendar as a reference. The following is a general timeline im attempting to follow-
February 1- take clone cuts. (I will be getting clones from a good friend with a good source, so im skipping ahead to the next date)
I dont know yet the size or maturity of the clones, nor what medium i will be receiving them in. But i will be receiving them roughly in the next week (feb 10-18th)
I currently have a shipping container set up, insulated. I will have approx (5) 4 foot t5 HO lighting setups as seen here t5 lights. Lined up straight down one side of the container, with tables under them for the plants. Im hoping this will be adequate for early vegging, although i can increase this if it is way under requirement. I will be keeping them on an 18/6 light schedule. Still figuring out the temp and humidity control setups, and trying to visualize the growth to accommodate the space and lighting needed as the grow.
February 22- Transplant clones to 1 gallon pots. They will remain in 1 gallon pots until the next calendar event, or until i see the roots fill out in which case i will up pot to 5 gallons. Again this will probably change my requirements for lighting and space in the veg room.
March 28- Transplant clones to final location. I will be using 25 gallon smart pots in the greenhouse. At this point from time of cuts being taken, to march 28th they will have been vegging for approx 8 weeks.
April 4- Begin 12/12 lighting schedule with tarp pulling. I have yet to decide if i will pull late in the evening, and uncover at night, or cover at night and pull early in the morning. But it seems the plants will have a week to acclimate to the outside and new pots before being thrown into flower.
8 weeks of flowering, with a suspected harvest date in late/end of may.
This calendar basically has the same layout, but color coded with 2 other processes to do in conjuction with this which theoretically will keep this cycle going for 3 harvests per year. Again im not focused completely on the 3, as i know thats hard to pull off even with a seasoned grower.
That is the general schedule i am on right now.
Nutrient plan--
So this is my first big hurdle. With my experience with growing with my friend, we grew organically for the most part, and he understood nutrients to a higher degree, so he was able to find suitable fertilizers/nutrients from good old fashion organic inputs. It was great economically, and produced great results. I feel organic has a stronger learning curve, but may be wrong. I also believe on the other hand that any branded nutrient lines will not be economically viable for a large grow of 200 plants. I genuinely am having trouble calculating my nutritional needs. The plants will be in 25 gallon pots, which will total about 25 yards of soil. My soil tester talked me through a lot of it, and explained that by giving the soil the proper nutrient balance, the plants will be able to eat properly, and i will just have to supplement with top dressing or watering in nutrients..But i can genuinely say, the feeding aspect has me the most intimidated. Reading feed charts which are always in mass per 1 gallon water, its hard to calculate ballpark what id need, and understanding ppms of each nutrient, and how it collectively affects the mix is also intimidating. Hoping the soil test(next paragraph) will help me figure this out a little better instead of trying to blindly formulate a nutrient plan. Open to any and all suggestions/explanations. Jacks 321 seems to be praised alot for its results and simplicity.. I cannot find a local source, so shipping is an option, but again, i have no idea of how to even begin to calculate how much id need.
SOIL-
So my grow property had a lot of large pots already set up, but we dumped them and dozed all of it into a corner to grade the tiers for the greenhouses. I have no idea what kind of soil or fertilizers were used. My partners are a little finicky with expenditures, and im not in a position to strongly argue anything on my behalf. So, the plan is to get a neutral/ light potting soil for the initial transplant from clone medium to 1 gallon pots. I know that small young clones dont need too much during the very early weeks, so a good watering and light soil should get them through. In the meantime, i have dropped off several samples of the bulk soil we have, and am awaiting results. The gentleman doing the tests is an older retired man who seems to just love what he does, and i expect him to be able to provide me with a good game plan for amending the soil and getting it up to par. All transplants will be done with the aid of bigfoot mycorrhizae around the root area, as i was always taught.
Questions about my soil plan-
1) Is there harm in starting the young plants in their own light potting soil, and then into the new amended bulk soil when they are ready for the 25 gallon pots? Any shock or distress from the completely new soil, assuming its amended properly and wont be too hot?
2) I see a lot of nutrient feeding schedules usually have some nutrient line for clones/small plants. So to add to my first paragraph, here too i am stumped on what to feed these girls as soon as the clones come to me.
3)Methods of analyzing soil content. As I go, im somewhat lost on exactly how to measure my soil contents, whats in there, what im lacking, etc. Deficiencys, over use, etc
Questions about the vegging room-
1) opinions on those lights that i linked? I actually have ten of them, but enough power to run 5 as of right now. Will these suffice for early clones/vegging, and will the suffice until its time for the girls to go outside.
2)Ideal temps seem to be 75-80 degrees for this time, with a RH of 65-75%. I am still working on the infrastructure to support this. Thoughts on those parameters?
To not overwhelm anyone interested so far, ill stop here for now. Im trying to attack my issues in the order that they are about to hit me. Step 1- setting up the environment and feeding for these clones coming to me within the next week. Getting those dialed in will buy me 6-8 weeks to work on the rest of my research. Those lights i linked are fairly cheap but im hoping will be sufficient. I will be following and posting here regularly. Thank you for reading thus far and i hope you can join me on this journey, and hopefully others can learn as well.
