10/25/09 Group 2:
10:25:09Group2White.jpg 10:25:09Group2Yellow.jpg 10:25:09Group2YellowSide.jpg

10/27/09 Group 2:
10:27:09Group2.jpg

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My First Grow: Aeroponics, LED veg, Super HPS flower, CO2 sealed room
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10/25/09 Group 3:
10:25:09Group3CloseUp.jpg 10:25:09Group3FlowerUnit.jpg 10:25:09Group3Unit2.jpg

10/27/09 Group 3:
10:27:09Group3Room.jpg 10:27:09Group3FlowerUnit.jpg 10:27:09Group3Unit1.jpg 10:27:09Group3Center.jpg 10:27:09Group3Unit2.jpg

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My First Grow: Aeroponics, LED veg, Super HPS flower, CO2 sealed room
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10/27/09 Mother Clones

10:27:09MothersCloseUp.jpg

All mother clones have been transplanted into rockwool. In some cases there were only root bumps - in these cases I was able to swirl that portion of the stem in Olivia's coning gel & place into cubes. In cases where the roots were more developed I gently "painted" the roots with the rooting hormone and placed them carefully inside a split RW cube which I then bound together with twist ties - this has been successful for me in the past when I've had to place large sprouted seeds into RW cubes. I added Clonex in the recommended dosage to the water I'm feeding the mother clones & they look much healthier & are retaining more of their green coloring & in some cases getting it back. I want the plants strong for obvious reasons.

10:27:09MothersColorCode.jpg

Some of the clones were taken 10/19/09 and have roots popping out the bottoms of the cubes, but not as much as I'd like before I transfer them into the dutch buckets. I've added 2 more cuttings of each original cloned plant plus two cuttings of the favorite Sugar Blossoms and Blueberry plant. Pray for pistils. Luck be a Lady tonight, luck be a Lady tonight, stick with me baby, I'm the fella you came in with, luck be a Lady tonight. I'm willing them into femaleness, with this song running through my head.

10:27:09MothersVertical.jpg 10:27:09MothersHorizontal.jpg

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10/30/09 Update! - Sugar Blossom 'charlie' - the object of my affection has sprung a white hair or two - it's a girl! Blueberry 'bravo' is still playing hard to get.

Sexed a bunch of plants by pre-flowers today, I only pull plants that I wouldn't want even if it was a female or that have shown ball clusters in the sexing cloner. Pre-flowers are just too tricky, I'm only certain of them when they sprout hairs or show more than one pre-flower in a cluster like I mentioned before.

Since I'm pulling plants that have had large root masses intertwine with those of their neighbors I added 10 ml per gallon of Hygrozyme to each reservoir. I topped off all the reservoirs to 10 gallons, added the Hygrozyme (100ml/reservoir)) & adjusted the PHs to 5.8.

The addition of Hygrozyme alone may not be enough to ward off pathogens associated with the dead organic matter left behind since it is a lot. So, I'm contemplating moving the plants in the veg room into flower units. This way the debris from their root system will be left behind and all they will have is fresh new roots.

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My First Grow: Aeroponics, LED veg, Super HPS flower, CO2 sealed room
Grow Journal Discussion Thread

congrats on 'charlie's being a girl!


really nice update(s). the grow's looking fantastic, as is your album.



somewhat random thoughts: tying down's great of course in that not only does it resolve height issues but you have the important collateral benefit of exposing/encouraging more nodal growth. the only potential drawback though (which it doesn't even look like will be one that effects you) is that you're trading horizontal room for vertical... if one has limited canopy space this can obviously be a restrictive element. an alternative solution then, if one's so inclined, is to use something like humboldt's bushmaster which will pretty much immediately stop vertical growth and give a not insignificant boost to flowering (though at a reported slight loss of potency).

anyhoo, keep up the great work and cheers!
-g

And Georgi comes through again with a helpful tip & pointing me to a product that can help solve my problems. I tried to + rep you again, but they wouldn't let me! I'm going to bide my time & try again b/c you've asked me tremendously useful questions that pointed me in directions I needed to follow, provided me with helpful product suggestions & solutions & displayed your deep knowledge in a concise manner... and all in 3 posts! Let me just say it really is a joy (and a help!) having you in my first grow thread - I surely hope you stick around.

By the way., I haven't forgotten your request for a picture of the root system - it's just that since the lights have changed to HPSes, I'm having trouble getting the pictures I want without them being whited out or darkened. As you can see, I've made some progress in this area to a certain extent.

I will post pictures of Group 2's roots (the plants I'm currently flowering in the aero 'flower unit') because they are monster!!! It's like a beard. I have chopped it back again & again to the opening where the water drains out, but there is seemingly no stopping them!

Ever see Little Shop of Horrors? Got it on my mind as I've put tremendous 'blood', time & devotion into these plants & sometimes it's kind of exhausting - they always need more! & they grow so fast as to be overwhelming at times.... I'm relying on you to notify the authorities in the event my plants actually eat me - should this transpire you will be welcome to any & all fruits of the grow you can wrest from the man-eating mary janes should you choose to brave the killer cannabis!

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My First Grow: Aeroponics, LED veg, Super HPS flower, CO2 sealed room
Grow Journal Discussion Thread

hey, that's very kind of you! 'just trying to keep (as the germans say) "good community" [gute gemeinschaft]...

'definitely here for the duration and am looking forward to "raising a toke" at harvest time!

as for photos: can you snap one and then color-correct/adjust it in photoshop (or some other such app)?

in any case, that's great that the root system's going gang-busters... huzzah for happy plants!


LOL to "little shop" and "killer cannabis" indeed!


a note about bushmaster: if you do use it, make sure to go real easy with dosage as it's very hot and can all too readily cause burn. kelp extract(s) work(s) well in compliment to bushmaster also and is recommended by humboldt. (check this out ==> http://www.bghydro.com/mmbgh/Others/...structions.pdf )

cheers
-g

11/1/09 Update - End of second week of flowering, first day of third week

Hi again. A few things to show this week: a lot of moving around was done, plus I put an emergency flush through my dutch bucket system - the pics will explain why. But overall, things seem to be on track as we move forward into the next phases of the grow. Also I got an eyeclops! There will be trichome pics in the future!

I've got my usual weekly update pics of the different groups, but I want to devote most of this week's update to problems I've been having with one plant: my Cinderella 99 'grapefruit'. So here is a quick Update of Group 1.

Group 1 General Update Photos:
11:1:09Group1.jpg 11:1:09Grp1.jpg 11:1:09Grp1PineappleCanopy.jpg 11:1:09Group1PineappleGreenery.jpg 11:1:09Group1SmallerPlants.jpg

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My First Grow: Aeroponics, LED veg, Super HPS flower, CO2 sealed room
Grow Journal Discussion Thread

11/1/09 Group 1 Update - C99 'grapefruit' woes

I realize this could be over reaction of an over-anxious "parent," the place where the perceived damage is is also the part of the plant that faced away from the vegging light - but it could be something more...

11:1:09GfruitFullPLant.jpg
This is C99 'grapefruit' in full, I separated her from the others with a cardboard divider to show a clearer picture of the plant

As to the health of C99 'grapefruit' from Group 1, I couldn't say what is happening for certain and it is curious because whatever is effecting her is only effecting her and not the other plants in the system.

The best way to start to describe it is I noticed she was getting sparser than her sisters and that her leaves, seemingly from the middle were turning yellow - oddly not really dying, but going very, very yellow. New growth is green, but seems small which could indicate something specific or just be a reflection of. There is also a whole side to the plant that is lush and dark green and appears unaffected.

11:1:09Leaf1.jpg
Close up of a leaf typical of the ones making me wory about the health of 'grapefruit'

This will surely effect yield but I wonder what it could possibly be - she's certainly getting enough nutrients, the highest PPM is 1500 and I'm using and if it were a fungus or bacterial problem, I'd imagine I would see something from the others - so I went with what I thought was my best option - I flushed the entire dutch bucket system (Group 1) for 24 hours using FloraKleen at the higher end of the recommended concentration of 2 tsp FloraKleen per gallon of plain water. I was nervous about taking away nutrients for too long while flowering, but figured 36 hours was an acceptable period especially as 24 of those hours were during the night cycle. I even let her bucket "flood" a little so as to clear as much of the hydroton as possible.

11:1:09GFruitCenterMutedCloseUp.jpg
A troubling center shot of C99 'grapefruit' where the problem seems to emanate from. I took it under a different light to get a "truer" less yellow picture.

I'm torn between several deficiencies, lockout & overferting! Another thing to note - I've also noticed similar but far less extensive chlorosis on some of the fan leaves of grapefruit's sister plant, pineapple. C99 'grapefruit' could be slowly dying - I'm not too concerned, except as it effects the other healthy plants in the system as I have rooted cuttings of her - the plants from seed were more of a bonus harvest & a practice run before commencing the perpetual grow, so no whining here. But I'm very curious as to what is up with this plant. I'm going with Mg lockout for now - but I diagnose nothing with confidence - I've seen things that could indicate possible iron deficiency, over-nuting, nutrient lockout, potassium deficiency, nitrogen deficiency... so who knows and I am sure part of this is over analyzing the situation. I hesitate to say it is PH issues, as I am very on top of the PH and the fluctuation only goes up a point on average. I also don't think that over-concentration of nutrients are causing nutrient burn as I've been topping off the reservoirs frequently which keeps the PPMs low.

11:1:09Grp1GfruitGreen.jpg
A picture of some of the healthy parts of the troublesome plant.

Hopefully the flush will have removed whatever was causing the trouble. As I've mentioned, I've started to supplement the plants with 5ml/gal of Cal-Mag+ and everyone seems to be loving it except our C99 'grapefruit' who is getting yellow. Perhaps I did not add it fast enough? Curiouser & curiouser... If anyone has any ideas - I'd love to hear them. Also, I should mention that the dutch buckets with the largest plants (grapefruit & pineapple) have occasionally flooded - I didn't know that this was a complication of dutch buckets when I went for the system - I resolved the issue each time, but maybe the flooding has something to do with it.

I took a bunch of pictures from different angles & under different lighting. One thing that occurred to me is it may have looked worse than it is b/c the yellow light of the Super HPS may have looked like more yellow leaves than there actually were.

11:1:09GFruitCenterYellow.jpg
The plant as it appeared under a brighter flash

11:1:09Grp1GFruitYellow.jpg
The plant as it appeared under the HPS lighting.

11:1:09Grp1PineappleChlorosis.jpg
This is a picture of C99 'pineapple', C99 'grapefruit's sister - she has some leaves exhibiting chlorosis but appears to not be suffering to the extend that 'grapefruit' is. Hopefully this is normal and not a sign of degeneration to come.

11:1:09Leaves.jpg
Additional leaves off of 'grapefruit' in various states of chlorosis.

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Group 2 & Mother Clones in Rockwool

Group 2:
11:1:09Group2.jpg 11:1:09Group2Greenery.jpg

Group 2 Roots:
11:1:09RootsUnit2.jpg 11:1:09RootsUnit2Long.jpg


My Apollo 11 X C99 has really taken off and surprised me, she burst her neoprene collar (!) and is growing... like a weed. Long arms & lots of blooms, she's a lovely girl. I thought because of some bad luck early on - I'd end up with a lesser mother, but it looks as if with this strain, I've struck the jackpot. As you can see from the pictures, the Cal-Mag+ has turned these guys a deep green. Speaking of mothers - they are doing very well and ready for transplant, check out the new growth.

Mother Clones:

11:1:09MotherClonesHoriontal.jpg

These guys are basically ready to plant into their hydroton buckets and will be very soon. The transition from the aerocloner to the rockwool wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be & they have a nice survival rate - they're already throwing out new growth.

11:1:09MotherClonesVertical.jpg

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My First Grow: Aeroponics, LED veg, Super HPS flower, CO2 sealed room
Grow Journal Discussion Thread