Main-Lining the Hempy Sea

What's up Rollitup? I've got some plants growing in my closet 1 week into 12/12 and I decided I would do a journal to take you guys through the flowering phase. First off here are the specs

Light: 250w MH for veg and 250w HPS for flower + 10x23w cfl bulbs (5 6500K 5 2700k)
Medium: 50/50 mix of perlite and vermiculite + 3 in coco coir for comparison
Nutrients: Dyna-Gro Line (Foliage Pro, Grow, Bloom, Pro-teKt, MagPro) + Superthrive
Containers: 3/4 gallon plastic bottles Hempy style
Ventilation: 6" 400cfm exhaust with 6" carbon filter. 8" intake with 6" 160cfm duct fan. 9" garage fan blowing across canopy.
Strains: Nirvana fem PPP (3) Nirvana Papaya (4) Fruity tasting mids bagseed (5) Random imported shake bagseed (2) (14 plants total)

Now that that's out of the way here is what I have done so far. I germinated the seeds listed above in the middle of August in some jiffy pellets. When the roots began to show in the pellets I placed them in the 3/4 gallon containers and labeled them by strain and numbered them from largest to smallest within each strain (PPP 1,2,3; Papaya 1,2,3,4 ect..) I vegged each plant to 5 nodes and topped them back down to 3. Then as the top shoots grew to 3 nodes I topped them back to 1 node and removed all growth below these shoots. I gave the plants a little time to recover and switched to 12/12. Today is day 8 of 12/12 and I switched the Mh bulb for the HPS and I also identified a few plants as females and a few as males.

Here are some shots to help explain the training I have done to these plants. I am simply doing the first few steps of Nugbucket's "main-lining" and stopping at four shoots since my goal is several small plants in this grow. The first 2 pictures show the plant already topped once and recovered, and the 3rd picture is of the same plant after each shoot is topped again and the rest are removed. Pictures 4,5,6 are the same as 1,2,3 for a different plant.


Here is a timeline of my grow so far. I arrange the plants the same way for this picture everytime. The bottom row is PPP. Above that is the Papaya. Then the fruity mids. And finally the 2 randoms. They are always placed numbered left to right. the left column is of the plants in coco. This makes it easy to watch how each plant has grown over time.


That's all I have for now. I'll try to update every sunday and check in through out the week. Feel free to ask questions, leave a comment, or express healthy criticism. These plants have really taken off in the last 10 days or so and they've got me really excited to see what is coming in the next 7-10 weeks.

Subbed up for this one man! I will let you be my mainlining guinea pig, as this technique really interests me. Was hoping to see a 16-headed Pure Power Monster! Looking forward to this. How are you liking the coco? What is your watering interval on both the coco and the 50/50 mix?

Thanks for stopping by slacker. I love the coco 100 times over the perlite and vermiculite. It looks more natural, it holds a lot more water, and the growth from the plants in the coco is considerably faster. My watering frequency has been increasing as the plants grow. I just lift the pots and when a majority of them start feeling light I water all of the plants. I'm watering every 2-3 days at this point. Despite the fact that the coco holds a lot more water than the 50/50 mix the containers seem to dry out equally as fast. I guess that is why the growth is better in the coco. All of the plants seem to have responded very well to the mainlining training. Most of the plants have four equal shoots now. The idea for a bunch of small main-lined plants came from me trying to decide whether I wanted to grow a lot of strains in a 12/12 grow or just a couple large plants and give main-lining a try. I decided to have my cake and eat it too. Now let's see if I get out of it with out a stomach ache.

Subbed ... Very nice Georgyboy.

I'm finding the Mapito (Rockwool Flock/Coco) easier than the Verm/Perl for the reasons you stated above.

Can't wait to see your results.

Great news when I watered my garden today! Of my fourteen plants seven have already shown female. I also found four healthy males and three of the papaya aren't really showing yet, but they are looking like tiny female flowers coming in to me. I didn't bother to get out the magnifying glass, I'll be able to see them better in a day or two. I instantly cut down two of the males, but I am keeping a Papaya male (#2) and a male of the fruity mids I've been calling Angela (#1) as I am debating getting some pollen from these guys. All the girls look great at this point. The canopies aren't as even as I thought they would be, but I could fix that if I want to by tying the shoots to the side of the containers. I added MagPro to my feed for the first time today. I fed 1/4 tsp Pro-teKt, 1/2 tsp Grow, 1/8 tsp MagPro, 1/4 tsp Superthrive. My PH was 5.8 Things are getting really thick in here.

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These are the males that I tossed out today.
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Looks like RIU f'ed up your attatchments. Gratz on the 7 females already.

Today is the start of the third week since I flipped the lights. All my plants are sexed and I have 9 pretty ladies. 3 males have been cut down and the other 2 are sitting in the dark right now until I have the time to get a few grains of pollen from them. They had already begun to open and drop flowers so I had to get them out of the closet. I watered again today with virtually the same recipe, except I dropped from a 1/2 tsp of Grow to a 1/4 and I added a 1/4 tsp bloom. My plants have looked very happy to me lately.



I wish I had taken some more shots of the guys before stuffing them in a small cabinet. I wish I could grow them out completely. Under-appreciated plant.

stoneslacker said:

Looks like RIU f'ed up your attatchments. Gratz on the 7 females already.

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I'll get to that later. I am exhausted.

I've been away for a while because my laptop is messed up and the desktop I have won't read my hdsd card. I've been so busy between work, school, and life that I have't taken the time to get on here and at least let you guys know how things are going. Bud development is in full swing and everything is looking great. I trimmed off all the lower growth from each plant and now each plant is focusing all of it's energy on the large buds at the top of each of their four colas. I've noticed some seeds in a few buds but I can't be sure of the parent. The pollen may have come from one of the males that I grew out and collected pollen from, but I thought I had separated them before they began to shed pollen. If you've ever dealt with males then you know there is no way to be sure though. The other possible dad is one of my feminized Pure Power Plants which had developed a single pollen sac that opened up before I ever noticed it. It is the only pollen sac I have seen on this plant. It has some of the best looking buds in the closet, so I will be keeping it around, I just have to keep a close eye on it. I hope I can get pictures up soon. Plants look sweet. I have stayed at half strength feeding and kept the ph the same.

Did you self pollinate anything? Or is the pollen you collected for another experiment later on. Once I finish school in a bit and can get out of this apartment, I really want to expand my grow and try some experimentation with cross pollinating.

Looking forward to some pics, Peace

I had planned on pollinating a small bud on each plant and then basing the decision of which seeds to keep and grow out on the quality of the finished buds. I have mostly dismissed this plan now that there are random seeds in my buds, because I don't want a bunch of seeds and I won't necessarily be able to distinguish these random seeds of unknown fatherhood and the intentionally created seeds. If I act quickly I could still pollinate some buds and have mature seeds by harvest, I just don't think I want to at this point. This grow is about yielding good smoke. I really plan on building a small cfl box. When I do that the breeding projects can begin. I would love to just grow out all kinds of bag seed and pick out strong phenos. Kind of build a strain from nothing.

Are you still working on your bachelor's or already in grad school?

I really like what you're doing, I'm running a mainlined hempy as well. 2 gallon tray with 1" of perlite and the rest is coco + perlite. Running a blue rhino, pruned for eight heads. I can't wait to see what you pull with your setup, I'm hoping to upgrade mine similarly to what you have running now. Goodluck!

Great news! I can upload pics. I quit taking them as dutifully as I was because I started thinking I was never going to make it back to this thread but what I will do is upload the pics from each day separately. We'll start way back at October 5th, day 20 12/12

October 8th,Day 23 of 12/12

October 11th, Day 26 of 12/12
On this day I went through and trimmed up all the lower bud growth that wasn't getting very much light.

October 18th, Day 33 of 12/12

October 22, Day 37 of 12/12
Lots of bud pics here

November 1st, Day 47 of 12/12

Dingus611 said:

I really like what you're doing, I'm running a mainlined hempy as well. 2 gallon tray with 1" of perlite and the rest is coco + perlite. Running a blue rhino, pruned for eight heads. I can't wait to see what you pull with your setup, I'm hoping to upgrade mine similarly to what you have running now. Goodluck!

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Thanks bro. My goal for this grow is for each single cola to net me 3.5g of dried bud, giving me a half o per plant and 4.5 zips on the grow. Looking at my plants now though I really think I am going to beat my goal by a good ounce. Hempy is super easy, and main lining is simple enough for the killer results it seems to bring in every time. Good luck on your grow man.

Ill get some recent pics up soon. I haven;t had my laptop so I haven't been able to upload pics. Now I have my laptop back and I left my camera charger in the city while I was on vacation. If I can snap some shots without the camera dying I will post them up here tonight.