4 strain, 60 plant Flood&Drain grow 8x4

Hi,

Feel free to post in my journal. This is my second attempt. The last attempt is in my sig and went great, my patient and I netted close to 4 pounds total off of this 8x4 with 27 plants, topped and vegged for 5 weeks. Best yield I have ever gotten.

That was last round, the plants were huge and falling over, I couldn't raise the lights anymore. So this round I am doing plants half the size. I will have to produce less pure water this way, and less humidity to deal with. Less nutrients as well. This will be a bit of a test as I expect more large cola's as the plant count has doubled, but I gave less veg, didn't top, and expect a much smaller plant with less secondary and lower bud growth. Everything should get enough light is my plan, and I am not going to bother with a SCROG unless I need one.

This round I am using potassium silicate in the reservoir, I notice a big difference in stem strength already. Also this time is my first round with beneficial bacteria, last round I would just sterilize the well water with chlorine. This round also since I am growing smaller plants I am not using 4'' inch cubes on the slabs like before with the bigger plants, just the slabs themselves. I just stick my finger in an X I make and make a 1'' hole to put the 1'' clone cube.

Strains - Master Kush, KO Kush, Spoetnik #1, Dig Weed
Water - RO and then DI
Nutrients - Calmag, DNF, Potassium Silicate
Beneficial bacteria - Hydroguard
Light - HPS 3x600w and 1x400w = 2.2kw
Reservoir - 80 gallons
Table - 8x4
Cubes - 8'' x 36'' Grodan Slabs
Flood cycle - currently 1x per day to max of 3 times per day


The clones were a bit rough but they all rooted and I gave them less veg time before the flip, below is a pic of day 1 of 12/12.






Cheers!

Damn, started a thread with no bud pics. Here is a pic of the monsters from last round.

Well, it is now day 12 of 12/12, so almost 2 weeks in. K.O. Kush and Master Kush seem to be stretching the tallest, Dig Weed and Spoetnik#1 are pretty branchy in comparison. The stretch is much less then last time, I am putting the insane stretch last time down to excess temps. This round it is winter and easier to keep temps in the Goldilocks area. Looking at the plant stretch it is difficult for me to imagine that I am going to get close to 4lbs like last time, I think the plants are only about 30% as big. Time will tell I guess. That would be a bummer. Well the potassium silicate is supposed to make the buds denser and the trichomes bigger. Let's see.

Plants at day 12 of 12/12.



I will posts pics of each strain below so you can see the characteristics.

Attached are all of the different strains at day 12 of 12/12.

Master Kush:

Spoetnik#1

DigWeed

K.O. KUSH

Looks solid how often are you flooding?

1 time per day right now. Might go 2 x closer to the end max. Thanks for the cheers man. I have never used a slab direct like this. I was considering (6) 4x4 inch cubes per row on the table but then I did the math and if I use one 8 inch x 3 foot slab I get 3X the root space per plant (6) in a slab. So I am doing that It's working!!! hehehe lol.

Yeah putting them straight in the slab seems pretty efficient. You use less rockwool and save on height. I'm curious if you could do the same with coco slabs. Do you pre soak the slabs for any amount of time? I've heard the pH can be funky if you don't pre soak I could be wrong though!

No and it always helps to read the manufacturers website. As they mention below 4.5 and the slabs and cubes dissolve! So a quick presoak at your PH (5.8-6.0 in Hydro) is all you need! Wash away the flush as it contains excess lime. Although I do know super efficient growers like myself who use pure water and also use the lime wash the Grodan comes in.


So hope that helps.

Grodan is as neutral as substrate as can be. Literally soak it once and it is super close to target PH. Rinse once and you have target PH. So don't believe the lies about soaking etc. It is total non-sense. Grodan is spun rock fiber. It is super inert. Which is why it works as substrate. It dissolves below 4 ish PH.

Plants are looking good going into week 3 of flower. EC is @ 1.6-1.7. I don't want to go higher than this. I started clones on the table between .8 - 1 EC, and worked my way up to here, first week of flower.

Plants seem pretty happy with the feed, PPMs are staying constant/lower and the PH is slowly rising.

Day 21...plants are loving 1.6 EC. My how they grow. I attribute the stretch to the colder night temps, keeps the bugs away anyways.
I'm going to try and raise the night temps.

End of week 5

Fattening up nicely good job!

Im in

How did ya go with this mate?