Get a Harvest Every 2 Weeks

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trenton

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Hey Al B. Fuct I tried to PM you but I guess I can't. I have just started my flood and drain hydro setup. I have a 4x8 white flood table and a 100 gallon resevoir undernieth. My plants are in 4 inch rockwool cubes that sit on top of a 4x8 sheet of coco mat. The plants were originaly rooted in 2 inch strofoamy cubes then placed into the 4 inch rock wool cubes. Within a week the plants grew approx 10 inches and roots are coming out the bottom of the rockwool and into the mat. I have watered once a day using flora nova 1 part grow. The plants look great and are greener than ever but my question is the leaves especially on the top are droopy. When watering time comes i notice that the cubes are little moist on top but if I pick it up and gently squeeze I can littleraly ring water out the bottom. Is every 24 hourrs probably to often. Should I maybe water once every 1.5-2 day?? I would really hate to see my plants die due to overwatering. I just started my thread today called Trentons gone hydro crazy grow journal. Everyones comment on there says to ask you so here I am. Thanks for everything.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
trenton, I think you have it sussed out. Cut the watering back to about half what you're giving now. Other signs of overwatering are yellowing leaves, usually from the bottom up and generally slow growth.
 

sportsguy1598

Well-Known Member
Al, I completely understand what you're saying...but I'm not talking about week long gaps just a couple days...also a guy who is living in my house next year is gonna go in on the op with me so as long as I prepare him well I think we should be ok! That being said, I think that your total devotion to marijuana growing is inspiring and I really appreciate all your advice!
 

trenton

Well-Known Member
AL B. Fuct sorry one more question. What do you mean by cutting the water back to half of what Im using now. Do you mean to water every other day, or to still water every 24 hours but to fill the table only half as much. Thanks
 

infamouse21

Well-Known Member
Not without some very fancy custom made flood trays.
next paragraph.

Sorry, I'm having trouble picturing what you want to do from your description. What top bucket?
what i mean is a bucket inside a bucket. the lower bucket has the 1 big drain line going to the res.
the top bucket has the plant witha few holes in the bottom draining into the lower, so cut a few holes pack the r/w at he bottom & maybe it wont drain faster than it fills up making a flood effect but it actually be a line just pouring from the top into the bucket, get it now. lol

aslo we use a 50gal res & keep about 3-5gal per plant, so we know what u mean on res size went throught that already.
way easier to have more water than be cheap. also we use the water for 2 weeks & just do a nut/water top off after week 1
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Al, I completely understand what you're saying...but I'm not talking about week long gaps just a couple days...also a guy who is living in my house next year is gonna go in on the op with me so as long as I prepare him well I think we should be ok! That being said, I think that your total devotion to marijuana growing is inspiring and I really appreciate all your advice!
Thanks for the praise. :)

Sorry, I have misunderstood you; thought for a moment you might be at uni and have a grow going in a dorm room or something mad like that. Will tell you someday about this uni student I knew who thot it would be OK to just put his plants in a bar fridge while he was off on xmas & spring breaks... :D

To give competent instructions to a plantsitter, first, know your system inside-out and backwards and second, foolproof it. Don't make it easy for your assistant to make errors. Keep instructions as short & sweet as possible and insist that they are followed to the letter with no independent modifications or additions to your plans.

My very earliest grows were (intended to be) cooperative efforts- but the partners (and anyone who knows about your op may try to situate themselves as a 'partner') were problem #1. If they didn't want to do mad shit like I send up in 'How Not To Grow Dope,' they wanted unreasonable shares of the grow op's output.

One clown lent me a 400HPS for about 6 weeks to raise mums- and he thought that was worth 50% the op's production- in perpetuity- despite me providing everything else, including the actual op's location, power, water, a pair of 1000HPS, all the watering system bits and daily maintenance. When I balked, this asswipe threatened to dob me in. FYI, I don't cow to threats very easily. Without any comment at all, I shut down the op, ran all the plant matter over with a lawnmower and left the mulch- and his light- on his back step. Never spoke to the guy again. Hope he was happy- he got 100% of the op's output.. and about 10% of my lawn. Can't say I'm not generous. :lol:

AL B. Fuct sorry one more question. What do you mean by cutting the water back to half of what Im using now. Do you mean to water every other day, or to still water every 24 hours but to fill the table only half as much. Thanks
Try every other day first. Should do it. If the plants consume more than 50% of their water (measure by weight) between every-other-day waterings, resume watering daily but cut the timer's ontime down to only enough time to flood only the bottom 1/2" of the media before the pump is shut off. As plants get larger, they will want more water. If you can, segregate larger and smaller plants from one another and adjust the watering interval accordingly. This was one of the considerations I applied when deciding to use 4 individual flood systems instead of a pair of 4x8' trays and two really big tanks. It's easier to tailor nutes and watering to individual 2-week phases of flowering and get it closer to right on average for all plants.

what i mean is a bucket inside a bucket. the lower bucket has the 1 big drain line going to the res.
the top bucket has the plant witha few holes in the bottom draining into the lower, so cut a few holes pack the r/w at he bottom & maybe it wont drain faster than it fills up making a flood effect but it actually be a line just pouring from the top into the bucket, get it now. lol

aslo we use a 50gal res & keep about 3-5gal per plant, so we know what u mean on res size went throught that already.
way easier to have more water than be cheap.
oh, OK, I sorta see what you're doing.

I like the watering ring you used the first time, but I can see how a pot of pellets would drain just as fast as it was being watered and not all the pellets would get wet because there's little wicking action in clay pellets- any pellets not right below the drip ring were not getting watered. Were you running that drip continuously? Did you have constant aeration in the nute soln? If so, that should have been sufficient to cause the roots to thread though the pellets in time. Once the roots fanned out, they should have been getting plenty of nute soln.

also we use the water for 2 weeks & just do a nut/water top off after week 1
When you top off the nuts, do you use cashews or pistachios? ;)

Seriously, don't monkey around with adding more nutrient concentrate to your tanks between dumps. Trying to jockey the nutrient strength so it remains the same between dumps will very likely throw out the proper RATIO of N, P, K and other elements in the nute mix, inviting nutrient burn and perhaps not being quite correct for the phase of growth you're supporting.

Nutrient concentrate mixes are engineered to provide not only adequate concentration of the individual elements for the life of a tank of sauce, but do so in the correct ratio to one another. As you know, the ratio of P to N & K will be higher in flowering nutes; there will be more N by proportion in veg nutes. Let's suppose for a moment that your flowering nutes are 10-20-10. That's 1 part N, 2 parts P and 1 part K, relative to one another. Let's also suppose your plants eat 1/4 the N, 1/2 of the P and 1/3 of the K in a week. Then you jump in and add more nutes- but your nute meter reads by overall conductivity of the total dissolved salts in the soln. It does not tell you how much INDIVIDUAL N, P & K are in the soln. You can't know what the existing ratios are after a week's use of the tank of sauce, nor exactly how much of each element is present, just using a common ppm meter. These only can give you an idea of the total conductivity of the solution. When you add more nute concentrate, you're adding N, P, K and everything else all at once, in their full proportion- which would be fine if you were adding to plain water, instead of a half-eaten tank of nutes.

Now- if you happen to have a mass spectrometer, a hugely expensive piece of laboratory equipment, which can divine the actual concentration of EACH element in the mixed tank of nutes- and you have individual jugs of N, P, K (and all the other stuff) lying around, you WILL be able to monitor your solutions and correct for what the plants have eaten.

Unfortunately, if all you can measure is total dissolved salts (TDS) and all you can add to replace eaten nutes is the complete nute concentrate with all elements included, despite being able to bring the TDS ppm back up exactly to the target ppm, you will throw the ratios out of whack.

Your tanks should be sufficiently large that the TDS ppm stays close to your target figure through a 2 week life of a tank of sauce or at least stays above about 60-70% by day 14 with a top up with plain water on day 7 of the tank life, without adding any more nute concentrate. If the ppm falls below 50% by day 14, think about bigger tanks.
 

infamouse21

Well-Known Member
well weve only added nuts nuts 2wice due to dramatic ppm drop. other than that we just use water if the ppm stays consistant. dont know what u said in all that a little much...
but does the double bucket deal with the r/w in the bottom of top bucket & hydroton on top sound like it might slow water down enough , maybe 2 allow water 2 build up so it acts like a flood effect.
i know u use r/w in the bottom of your stuff so does it slow down the drain effect. if not u might be putting it in loosly & i was thinking maybe packing it down a little.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
i know u use r/w in the bottom of your stuff so does it slow down the drain effect. if not u might be putting it in loosly & i was thinking maybe packing it down a little.
Water runs very readily through rockwool, even very tightly packed. I do pack it in very firmly to make sure my Fytocell doesn't get washed out.

Your pellets should remain damp enough throughout the pot with a constantly running (during lights on) dripper ring, but I'd probably hand water new plants in pellets once a day with a spare water pump and a hose, just to make sure short roots can still reach dampened pellets. I handwater wk1 clones even in Fytocell, as said, with a spare pump and hose, until they look like they are 'catching on' or until I see roots poking out of the pot drain holes.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Been watching the temps very closely in my op post the installation of the cooltubes. Aside from the one unexplained 29.5C glitch, it's been brilliant.



Temps never wander more than about 2C, during lights-on or lights-off cycles.



This pic is typical of a bud which has been exposed to excessive temp. Stretchy, stringy growth, low yield. This one is in wk6. Cooltubes were installed when this was in wk4. Heat damage occurred before wk 4. Growth will remain stringy but look at all the nice white calyx development. Usually when temps are too high, the calyx development slows and begins to brown off. This one may catch up a little, but I don't expect much.



The above plant is in wk 4 now, was in wk 2 when cooltubes were put in. This one is not showing as much heat damage as the stretchy one above- this one is filling in quite nicely, thanks... and the calyx development is just MAD.



Plants in foreground are in wk6, plants in the back are in wk4. Overall development is nearly equal, due to the installation of cooltubes.



These are just THUNDERING along for plants at the end of wk4.. Click and look at the larger img. Wow. :D

I have very high hopes for the following batches, if things are looking this good this early on after putting in the cooltubes.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Nope, just a little powdery mildew, which will be gone when I spray for it in a few days. I spray for PM every 2 weeks with lime sulfur @ 0.5ml/l in water with a couple drops of liquid dish soap in a cheap paint spray gun driven by a not so cheap air compressor. :)
 

infamouse21

Well-Known Member
well with the drip system we are running now we run for 30 min at a time 4 times a day. only cause the water isnt dripping out slowley, its flowing rapidly. & the plants show no signs of over or under watering. also looking at buying a e-z cloner only cause u can fit alot of clones in it & i can get the roots to grow about 3-5inches in their so when i take those out i can put them in a small r/w that is slit. then i can kinda roll the roots in a circle under the ring.
 

trenton

Well-Known Member
Hey AL. B Fuct
In my 60 plants grow Im at 46 days of flower and I have minor powder mildew isues. I drenched all my plants with 35% Hydrogen Peroxide which I dilluted to about 3% or a little less. I sprayed it directly on the buds, leaves, and stalks. I didnt seem to hurt the plants at all and got rid of the powdery mildew. I noticed that you use Lime sulfur with dish soap and water. Do you use it late into flower if you have to? Also, do you spray it directly on the buds? How do they react? Could you possibly get bud rot from mixing water in with the lime sulfur and dish soap.? Sorry, I just want lots of answers from the pro himself.. :mrgreen:
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Hey AL. B Fuct
I noticed that you use Lime sulfur with dish soap and water. Do you use it late into flower if you have to?
As late as 2 weeks before harvest.

Also, do you spray it directly on the buds? How do they react?
Sure. They don't seem to care, other than the PM disappearing.

Could you possibly get bud rot from mixing water in with the lime sulfur and dish soap.?
No. Bud rot aka grey mould or botyritis is caused by spores which settle on a hospitable host and flourish in suitable conditions. The suitable conditions usually entail poor air circ and high humidity, 70-75% or so and up. I've got an osc circ fan in every corner and a dehumidifier along with about 900CFM of ventilation flowthrough. RH stays below 70% but only barely due to my intake air often being 80-90+%. I'm lucky to get it to the low 60% area these days, but I do manage to. I never see bud rot unless there's been a failure of either the ventilation system or the dehumidifier.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Differnces in the country, my heater is cranking and you install cool tubes. I shovel snow, you run a dehumidifier. I think I need to move. VV
Love it or leave it, baby.

I sure as hell left it! :D

your the man...keep that shit pumping like gasoline......good job:blsmoke:
heh, thanks, but I haven't had to pump shit since I quit the gig with the porta-potti outfit. :lol:
 

daddychrisg

Well-Known Member
Hey Al, I have a question for ya! When you foliar spray your plants, do you PH the water? I have been killing bugs alot lately, and have had some bad side affects from it. I was told at my local hydro store that when using a wetting agent "penetrator in my case" along with neem, that you don't need to adjust the ph.. Now this is very strange to me since the the mix of the suggested ratio of penetrator and neem puts the ph @ around 9! But since I have had problems with stress after spraying with an adjusted ph of 6, and seeing some stress, I thought I should gather some info, and you ARE THE MAN! Got any info for me?
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Hey Al, I have a question for ya! When you foliar spray your plants, do you PH the water?
No. In fact, a high pH is desirable for foliar sprays intended for controlling mould and powdery mildew. These sprays are intended to be applied infrequently, about once every 2 weeks. More often isn't necessary. One should also take care to see that the overspray from such high pH sprays doesn't fall in the flood tray or otherwise get to the plants' roots.

I have had problems with stress after spraying with an adjusted ph of 6
There's something else wrong aside from the pH of your spray.

I don't know the nature of the damage your spray seems to be causing, but common faults are spraying too often, mix too strong or spraying at a less-than-optimal time which allows the foliage to remain wet too long or possibly spraying during lights-on, which may cause 'lensing' and thus 'sunburned' spots on leaves under powerful lighting. Sprays are best applied during lights-off, perhaps 30min before lights-on, with all circ fans and ventilation blowers running. Plants should dry rather quickly, within about 30-45 min.
 
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