Chernobyl and Wild West in a StinkBud System under 600W HPS

The first two seeds decided to show their tap roots today and have been placed into their first home. I'm starting with a standard soilless mix. 60% Peat moss, 20% Pearlite and 20% Vermiculite in small plastic drinking cups. Once I see a tiny bit of root establishing itself at the bottom I will move them to a more permanent pot.

I'm gonna include some extremely boring pictures of the labeled cups. 3 or 4 more o the 8 seeds have popped open and should be ready to go later tonight or early tomorrow. I'll remember to take some pictures of the taproots when that time comes.

Next post I'll show you the setup I will be working in.

Cheers

All of the seeds are now above ground and ready to start some serious growth. Yesterday the first one made an appearance and the rest have since followed suit. All but one seedling has dropped the seed casing and I am already seeing the first sets of true leaves. It's an exciting time. Now the nursing can officially begin. I will be running a very very low nutrient concentration for the first couple weeks of growth. Currently sitting at 300ppm and will gradually increase to 500ppm over the next month or so. Once they start to really get bigger I will see how much food they can handle.


More detailed posts to come. Feeling lazy.
Here are pictures from the last couple days. Lots of early life. Everything is looking good and healthy. Should be some good genetics.

Here is a quick little video giving you a full view of my current setup. In the end you will see a wild mess of veggie plants. Those will slowly be coming out to make room for the, potential, girls. You get a glimpse of all the growth. A look at the slow one. Also a view of their daily boxing regime. I try to lightly beat them around several times a day so as to simulate having light air circulation. I will get on a fan shortly. I have also been repeatedly turning the cups so that they bend towards the light then get turned and have to rebend in a new direction to find the light again. I am hoping this will promote a stronger stem.

Veg Day 4

Here is another small update. Roughly 5 of the seedings are getting ready to start their second set of true leaves. Truly an exciting day. Maybe someday soon I won't just be talking to myself. Regardless the trees will continue to grow and updates will continue to flow. You can see in the included snapshots that everything is very green and very healthy looking. I haven't had to water yet since the initial soaking of the cups. I think this is partly because I have been filling the tray they are sitting on with a thin layer of water daily to promote some humidity. I guess they are probably absorbing a good bit of that water through the drainage holes. Win win I guess.

Impressive growth over the last couple days from almost all of the sprouts. I am thinking of canning one of them because of weak growth, but I doubt I will. Set of leaves number 2 is fully out and I think in some cases the third internode is even getting ready to show itself. Somewhere inbetween the third and fourth internodes I will be topping the plants. After topping I will begin bending the two new shoots in opposite directions to encourage some bushing action and keep them short. These girls are going to be in the vegetative state for a LONG time so they gotta stay short. I don't have much space to do cloning inside the little cupboard so it will take place outside the box under the HPS when they are big enough for it. Since this is my flowering space I wont be switching to flower for a couple months still. Once cloning season has passed and I no longer need to make cuts for outdoor friends I will then begin a small small rotational harvest. I am thinking I will be using the Deep Water Cooler method that so many people have had success with on this forum. I love the idea of the cooler keeping the water temps nice and low. I also think I will prefer DWC over the Aeroponics I used to use because I am forgetful when it comes to filling the res. There were numerous times when my Aero res got too low and the pump couldn't push water through the mister. Oh the plants I have lost or almost lost because of foolishness like this. Hopefully I can avoid this with DWC. The roots can chase the water down as the level gets lower if I forget to top it up as I should be.

One more month or so to go until cloning can begin . I will be repotting everything tomorrow. They are already getting pot bound in the little plastic cups. I will be using some of the promix that I originally started with as well as some organic nutrient rich soil. I haven't bought it yet so I can't say what brand. I will be giving them a tiny bit of water with a SUPER light nutrient feed today to get them ready for the transition into the organic soil. I will be using about 1/2 and 1/2 current soil vs organic nute soil and will be putting a 2 inch or so buffer of just the current soil in the hole before transplanting.

Hopefully that wasn't too much rambling. Here are some snapshot as well as a short video of the new growth and some of my setup.

Veg Day 10
Some nice HD photos of the recent growth.

The new pots are made from water jugs that I used to buy. I got into the habit of hacking the top off and storing them to be used as pots. They are clear and many people will argue that they are bad for root growth and such. I don't feel that this is an issue because they are only in there until I can see root growth and then I know they are ready for the final home.

I purchased some Faford Biosoil Sea Compost. It's an organic soil amended with seaweed. It was reasonably priced at my local garden center and was my only organic option other than miracle grow. I just don't feel good about miracle grow. I included a picture of all the important information from the packaging. The pots were mixed with about 70% of the current bland soilless mix and 30% of the rich organic soil. This will be the adjustment phase. The next pot will have a ratio that heavily favors the organic soil. I will have to add a substantial amount of pearlite to the next pots. The Sea Compost doesn't appear to have the greatest drainage.

Everything is looking H4V !
How's that Sea Compost doing for your garden ?
Clean set up too.
Man, that bucket of PH Down is gonna last you a while too.
I miss playing with soilless amendments, but don't want it indoors with my small set up anymore.
Perhaps if I had room like you, I'd do both DWC and soilless with clones of the same strain in both.
Thanks for inviting me to come through !
+REP

Hey Flo glad to see you made it. It's still a little too early to say how the sea compost is doing. They are definitely liking the new pots though. Getting a chance to stretch their legs a bit. Yeah that pH down will last forever. I need the tiniest little scoop to bring my water down to where I need it and that's only on the no nutrient waterings. When I add nutes to the water it brings the pH down to 6.8 which I am plenty fine with. 6.5 is my ideal but I'm not worried about a 0.3 difference. Below 7 is all I really care about. I'm gonna do a soil DWC side by side once everyone is big and strong just for comparisons sake. I usually prefer the taste of soil crops but with the Botanicare pretty much everything tastes yummy.

I decided to put them outside the little cabinet with the rest of the veggies under the HPS at 20/4. They are sitting a little far right now, about 35" or so. I'll move them closer in a couple days after they get adjusted to the new light. Took a couple snapshots. The Chernobyl are looking great. The Wild West are doing okay but nowhere near as vigorous. In the pics the Chernobyl are the far ones, big and healthy and the Wild West are the front a little wimpy looking except for the one which is nice and healthy. The leaves are extremely broad. I was under the impression that Chernobyl was a Sativa dominant strain but maybe not.