Too Much Sunlight/Dessert Greenhouse..

[palmtrees]

how many plants you planning on? is it going to be by your house or out in the middle of the desert?, bit hard to beleive hydro would be more water effecient than soil, my mates recirc needs 60litres a week minimum and thats only 2 medium plants, ifi was you i would gho soil as it just so much easier just water em and add some nutes thats it, no ph, ec levels to worry about. and you asked what seasol is well its the shiz, one of my favourite nutes, well its more of an additive containing lots of auxins, hormones, trace elements and just good shit realy its 100percent organic and made out of kelp contains very little nitrogen an phosphorous and a bit of potassium, on the bottle it says it helps the palnt against diseases, drought, and heat (something along those lines just going off the top of my head) but yeah i highly recomend it to anybody growing in soil also its pretty cheap starts at 10bucks a litre but the more bulk u buy the cheaper it gets, also the same company make another nutrient more for veg called powerfeed which you mix the seasol together with and its pretty good, bit smelly though.

 

i recomend u get the biggest pots possible perhaps some plastic 40gallon drums and sink em in the ground a bit, the idea of clayballs sounds a good one ill have to try it myself.

i would reckon that some shade cloth would be the way to go for the whole structure, i dont recond sand would get through it easily and you culled always double it up around the sides.

 

and as for a strain i reckon that you should grow a variety from each end of the the gene pool, a couple of full on sativas, couple of indicas and everythin in between, that way if u build up a bit of a tolerence you can just switch and also you may want to smoke some sativa when u wake up and during the day and then a full blown indica to put you on your ass before bed.

 

i dont know if ventilation would be vital but it wouldnt hurt what would probly be the best is if you just had an

occosilating(no idea on spelling) fan that just created a bit of air movement.

 

hope that helped

[123abc]

Ok zeez.. the TV grabbed my attention in the background today.. It was a Bunnings advert. and had seasol advertised.. missed the price because it was spur of the moment glance..

 

So its organic..? sounds good stuff mate

 

-Bundy.. any reccomdations on ratio on the original reccomendation?

 

--ORGANIC--

 

any other opinions..? got a seasol mixed with water crystals combo

 

any other things to make a well rounded medium for these 'legs'

 

.. well i will have a space no less than 5x5m- the amount of plants i hope will be a mix .. any distances i should watch when maybe having sat/ind/hybrids??

 

maybe i will dig out the entire area.. and on the top have suspended side ply wood .. as not to compact the soil underneath.. can roots get over crowded?

[Luke Skywalker]

bit hard to beleive hydro would be more water effecient than soil, my mates recirc needs 60litres a week minimum and thats only 2 medium plants

 

Yes, but if he had equivalent pots of soil or it was in the ground it would use vastly more water due to evaporation. Soil is massively inefficient for moisture and fertiliser conservation, and hydroponics is exact. Even a handwatered system will use much less as a hydroponic method than a soil based one. The soil may hold more water, true, but it takes much more to reach saturation, needs much more to get to a decent drainage point and holds very little air space. This air space is why plants love hydro in the first place.

 

A good system for ultimate water conservation is rockwool slabs fed by drippers. You can also use other media based systems such as perlite or coco-coir with great effect. Dripper and constant or very frequent but small irrigation which is subsequently recovered is the key to minimising water use.

 

A run to waste method, (soil is included here) uses at a minimum 10% more water with every watering to maintain a reasonable level of dissolved salts. Usually this has to be increased to more like 50% extra to avoid any need to regularly flush the system out. Usually 20-30% over the maximum water holding capacity of the media in the pot is sufficient with an occasional flush maybe every few weeks to ensure that salt levels with soluble fertilisers don't build up to excessive highs.

 

With a recirculating system the volume of water passing through the pot can be much higher compared to the maximum capicity of the pot. You can use much more open media such as perlite, expanded clay and other gravel/particulate style media which allows you maximum oxygenation of the rootzone. A regular watering can be set up with a timer and a simple pump to irrigate say once every hour or two, and any runoff is instantly recovered and recirculated with the next watering. The benefits in evaporation losses are substantial. Although one does have to dump the solution perhaps as often as every week, with a small volume main reservoir but topped up by a secondary tank through a float valve, you can keep a minimum working solution recirculating whilst a substantial backup provides much needed water supplies as it is drawn on by the plants. A larger reservoir of "working" solution will reduce the fluctuation in pH and e.c. over the cycle, but much more than about 30L per plant and you're getting a bit big. A couple of very large plants can be happily serviced by a simple 50L tub with a 200L top up tank which feeds through a float valve.

 

You will need to flush the pots once a week or fortnight, (a fortnight is about as long as you'd want it to be, and it will depend on some factors such as plant size and particularly water quality....) and this would only utilise perhaps twice the volume of the media per fortnight.

 

ifi was you i would gho soil as it just so much easier just water em and add some nutes thats it, no ph, ec levels to worry about.

 

That is simply untrue. Just because you don't know what the pH of the soil you use is doesn't make it unimportant. The same goes for e.c., although in organic media this isn't as effective a method of measuring fertility as it is in soil. With any soluble fertiliser you have to take pH of the water and the soil itself into account. Failing to do this can lead to very unhappy plants....

 

Also - if i moove into a Hy.p Solution.. can i keep it a mixture with soil/hy.p or does that defeat the purpose ? Also i want to try and keep it as organic as possible, will i loose that with Hy.p methods? from what i have read u can still keep the plant organic (similar to egyption water culture)

 

You can certainly use a hydroponic solution, (which is really just a highly soluble and plant available complete nutrient solution, as opposed to a moderately soluble and not immediately available solution like you would have with soil based nutrition) with soil based plants and they would go gangbusters. Most soils wouldn't want much fertilisation for a month or so if they're a quality brand. If you did use a hydroponic solution for fertilising soil plants then I'd drop the concentration down to a quarter of whatever full strength is and then only use it perhaps once or twice a week with the other waterings being pure water. You can only really see how plants react to particular levels of nutrition but organic media such as potting mixes and soil are difficult to predict. Sometimes they're bursting with life and nutrition whilst others which claim to have "slow release nutrients" are little more than sawdust, bark and a handful of osmocote.

 

Hydroponics does not have to be a complex or difficult thing, if anything I find it much simpler to manage than a soil garden. (I grow some veggies organically out the back) The media is free of weeds and harmful organisms when you start out, and if you practice good maintenance and prevention it will stay that way. Growth rates are frequently much higher in hydroponic gardening due to the finer attention to details of plant growth as well as higher levels of dissolved oxygen for the roots. A wick system is about as simple as it gets, and this could serve you well in your situation....

But back to the nutes. There are some organic complete hydroponic nutrient solutions out there, which are certified by various organisations as being as such. There are also many additives which are organic in nature, such as fulvic and humic acids, which are useful in hydroponics... A&B organics make a vermiculture formula of hydro solution, and it's even possible to use something like Monsta Bud and Ozi Tonic as a nutrient alone, and this is a mostly organic formula.

 

Keep in mind that a plant only takes up a phosphorus ion, not an "organic" phosphorus ion, or a "chemical" phosphorus ion. All major and micro nutrients which plants require are only ever ions to the plant. Plants don't discriminate between one atom and the next according to whether it was broken down by a micro organism (organics) or it was available as a free ion from the start in the solution.... (hydroponics) Organics does have benefits, don't get me wrong, and there is something quite satisfying about harnessing natures ecological bounty to feed a plant, but it's far from perfect, and it's not noticeably different in finished composition, if it's different at all. If anything, organic produce could contain more heavy metals and contaminants than hydroponic produce....

 

Try looking for a few books on hydroponics at the local library. A good one for those looking at building shadehouse/hothouse type outdoor systems (although this book was written with veggies in mind) is Hydro for Everyone by Dr Struan Sutherland. Another goody in the same light is Hydroponic Gardening by Steven Carruthers. Both these books will give a high level of knowledge simply explained, and will set your mind racing with some ideas for your own situation....

 

OSA is probably the best source for cannabis specific info though, but there aren't too many growers here with green/shadehouses. I have one for my other plants (orchid addict) but I don't grow weed in there... I have an indoor room for that. The hydro system is easy enough to get information about here on the boards, you can find many of them and pick one most suitable to your situation, but the cultural methods employed in a green/shadehouse are different from those indoors, although quite similar really... You just have a million watt HPS in the sky instead of a 600w.

 

Have you considered doing that btw? Growing indoors offers some more security too...

 

Try looking for strains which are recommended for greenhouse production. You'll be at an advantage as you'd be able to grow these cultivars much larger than indoor conditions and practicality allow. Indoor cultivars would be fine, and several outdoor types may be a good idea as well. You could also get a mixed pack of seeds to grow out, and once you find a few plants which are close to your ideal you can clone these and keep some mothers in a small space under a fluoro....

 

Anyway, sorry for ranting, but I hope that helps...

[Frazz]

On a side note you may want to consider the strain on this link which reputablely withstands hot climates, also you can talk to the breeder of this strain on his help desk @ IC Mag.

http://www.mandalaseeds.com/html/kalichakra1.html

[67Special]

The whirly bird things you're talking about only work when the wind is blowing

This isn't quite true. So long as you have inlet/s down low to let cooler air in, warm air in the room will rise out through the whirly bird causing it to spin(slowly).

 

just my 2c

 

 

Good luck with it 123

 

 

[Roadblock]

Hello

 

Also place a plastic ground sheet down as a floor , helps to keep the humidity down especially if you get rain , a nights rain followed by a stinking hot day and it will be styfling in your greenhouse , without a ground sheet to stop the heat sucking moisture out of the ground into your greenhouse ,

Also run low cfs because they will use alot of water and cfs can get high real quick , like Luke said , ventilation , you need to move heaps of air if you are wrapped in plastic in the hot sun , you just about need both ends open like a tunnel otherwise you will hit 45deg cel and above , you dont want glass clear you will burn the crap out of them , you want opaque or as Luke said light shadecloth over a clear , proper greenhouse UV treated plastic is very good, opaque , takes the bite out of the sun and you carnt see through it .