Sea of Green: Get a harvest every 2 weeks

[jimbojones5678]

Dude, I hate to call you on it but last time I did math lets see you've got 5 pots in the first row. 8x5=40 plus you got a little room on the end it looks like. I've got a lot of respect for you cause you've got a lot of experience that's for damn sure, but I'm a bag wearing type of guy that deals with measo's on a daily basis and have pretty much convinced myself that I gotta go with the 48" tables to fit that many pots, but now i'm wondering if I'll be short on light cause that doesn't calc out on the 48" tables. Actually I'm hooked on filthy fletches aero and think I'm gonna skip the flood and go aero. Love the fail safeness of your flood but I guess I'll take my chances with mister clogs and pump failures cause the yield sounds killer.

Fuck me...

Even I can look at the pic above and see 24 pots, and it's not exactly a major drama is it - you just stuff as many as you can in the tray you have.

Just makes me wanna slap ya...

 

Still a good tute Al...

 

Jimbo

[smochu]

Thanks Again Al B. I was able to talk my friend into springing for a de-humidifier and humidity is down to 55-65% depending on how long ago it was watered, and whether the lights are on or off.

 

 

Unfortunately there was some unexpected heat issues in combination with a lack of proper airflow resulting in a significant scorching... almost all of the leaf from a portion of the flowering area was scorched, however most of the flowers themselves are still green.

 

What kind of results can i expect from those plants, and is there anything I should know about to promote thier best performance?

 

 

Also I am convinced that a some sort of ph/ppm/ect measuring tools are needed and I was curious if you had some suggestions for those peices of equipment

[Al B. Fuct]

Dehumidifiers can be very useful in some situations, notably in the cooler months during lights off. In my op, the lights-off temps were dropping below 16C and RH was hitting 80% in the cool times. The dehumidifier cuts that down to 55% max, usually 45-50%. It also generates a bit of heat by just sitting there running, raising my lights-off temps up to about 19-20C. Did I mention you get chlorine and mineral-free distilled water from a dehumidifier? I get about 10L per day out of mine, which I recycle back into the op.

 

If you cook the growing tip on a plant due to the light being too close, the effect may be a bit like pruning off the main growing tip, if severely cooked. With luck, you may have only singed a couple of the higher fan leaves and not the growing tip itself. If the tip is cooked, growth may divide into smaller, less productive branches.

 

For nutrient measurement, you can't beat the Bluelab Truncheon meter. However, the same cannot be said of Bluelab's new Truncheon pH meter. I have had 3 of them and they all failed in 3 weeks. I reverted back to my Eutech PhScan1 waterproof meter, which has lasted about 4 years and has a replaceable sensor tip, each good for about 2 years.

[Al B. Fuct]

I probably ought to make a further note about the trial of Fytocell. I had been putting a knee-hi stocking over the bottom of the pots to prevent the fine crumbs of Fytocell from escaping the pots. This is not desirable due to the cost of the stockings, but probably prevents gnats from getting at the roots as they emerge from the drain holes in the pots.

 

As noted a couple of posts up the thread, pots of Fytocell also have a tendency to float, even if well wetted.

 

In my latest batch, I tightly packed about 50mm of rockwool floc in the bottom of each pot and filled the remainder of the pots with Fytocell. The floc holds enough water to weight down the pots so they do not float. It also prevents the Fytocell crumbs from escaping into the res tanks. I did put stockings on this batch but have found that since the floc is preventing the Fytocell crumbs from escaping, they are probably not necessary.

[Victor_Vicious]

One of the things I have always admired about you is your ability to change. You seem to be constantly improving . Hope I am too. VV

[Al B. Fuct]

VV, thanks for the compliment. However, I rather think I'm just solving problems that I've inadvertently caused for myself.

 

I need to replace the Canna calcium additive I bought (which was old, discontinued stock) with something which has some dosage labelling. Seriously- there's no dosage labelling on this Canna stuff at all. Maybe that's why it was discontinued.

 

I'm hesitant to pay the price for a jug of CalMag, but that's probably the preferred sauce. I don't even think my current gear supplier carries CalMag.

 

The Mg end is easy to deal with via Epsom salts. Wondering if there's an equally common, cheap and easy to use material that I could use to add Ca to the tanks.

[Al B. Fuct]

After making a few tweaks and corrections, things are looking up.

 

Much better plant development- this is tray#1, for plants in wk1-2. These are at about 2 weeks. Nice early bud development.

 

Mucho improvement in this shot of tray#2, for plants in wks2-4. These are at about 4 wks.

 

The weight is starting to pile on in this batch in tray#3, wks4-6. Plants shown are in wk6.

 

A couple of plants from tray 4, wks6-8. These are in wk8, ready to harvest. Nice, dense, hard, clumpy nugs, now yielding about 1oz per plant.

 

I think that reintroducing aeration probably made the biggest difference, improving vigor across all trays. Correcting the PK13-14 dose to 0.5ml/l in tank2 during wk3 for the plants in that tray has stopped the cooking of leaves in wk4-6. I'm a bit mixed on the Fytocell; it's a bit messy to use. I'm going to run a couple of batches side by side with plain floc and with Fytocell now that I have some other issues sorted.

[Budman2012]

G'day Al B. ,

Nice setup mate .. and an interesting/informative thread

Cheerz and all the best for '08

 

Budman

[Al B. Fuct]

Thanks Budman. If things keep going this well, 2008 will be a lot happier than 2007.

[Frazz]

Yep i do like your work Al b , some excellent colas in a good setup , and you grow with passion i like that ..

hey is that one of them rotating tower fans in the photo .. yea i got one but i caused a bit of wind burn on mine