Sativied's Indoor Garden

Tired of reading dutch growing folklore-advice it's about time I start keeping my journals at RIU instead.

I switched to hydro early this year because I wanted to tinker some more with my plants and grow setup. While the result is for personal use only (me and the wife that is), I don't grow just for personal use anymore. I grow for the sake of growing as well. I love my plants. Unfortunately, I have limited space available. I got a small room of about 5x8 in which I have a small preveg/germ box of about 25x40x30" with 3x18w T5. This is a pic from 6 years ago (nooo I haven't been growing constantly for 6 years, on the contrary, just started again previous fall) :


And here are some more recent ones (1 from previous and 1 from current round)


For flowering I got a 3x4' closet, plan is to build a 4x4 later this year. I use a 400watt hps (philips agro bulb) up until preflowers, this round a little longer because of the hot weather. The rest of the cycle I use a 600watt hps.

General grow gear:
- Gavita Tripplestar reflector/hood (with wide, medium and deep setting)
- Philips 400w and 600w (agro, son T pia plus whatever)
- Ruck 125L Exhaust (X cfm with thermostat) and a Phresh filter of 500m2
- NO cooltubes, I need the warmth from the bulbs (horrible climate for growing here)
- 2 hurricane clipfans
- Handful of Zalman PC fans
- Reflective foil on the walls (yes, that's essential gear )

Hydro gear:
- Two flooded tubes with 6 sites 8 micro sprayers
- One 16-gallon tote/rez.
- Aquarium pump of 1350L ph
- Aquarium pump of 600L ph and a 1/6HP chiller
- Airpump 240Liter with 2 outputs, and an airpump with 120Lph and 1 output.

- Hanna gro check PH and temp
- Milwaukee EC pen (7 years old, still working fine)


Nutes:
- H&G line. I planned to go with GHE but they had such a sick deal at the local growshop for an H&G starterkit (about $100, half their usual price) that I decided to go with that one instead. And so far I'm very happy I did. The exact names aren't the same worldwide, but I got Hydro AB, MultiEnzym, Dripclean, Bud XL, Root Excel, Magic Green, Top Booster (PK13/14 and some iron), and the shooting powders. Except for the latter I all use them. Bought some new AB since, low on MultiEnzym, but the rest will last for several more rounds. I use about $40-50 in nutes for one complete cycle (which is largely because of that huge discount I got).
- Biogreen Cal plus or something... Hopped on the CalMag bandwagon there for a second, but fortunately discovered in time that there's quite a bit of Cal and some Mg in HG AB already, and that's in addition to my (relatively quality-) tap water. RO filter is one the wishlist, but decided to go for chiller first (which was really necessary). I use very little of the product.

Genetics:
1x Kolossus from Sannie Seeds (reliable, strong, with no surprises)
2x Skywalker Kush from Reserva Privada
3x Chocolate Fondue from DNA Genetics

I had this crazy idea of trying a different breeder every cycle for a while. One lives and learns...

As I mentioned earlier, I grow for the sake of growing as well. A hobby. Since life's so frigging short it gives me panic attacks thinking about it, I like to do more in a single cycle than just growing buds. This round I wanted to try a few things I hadn't done before:

- LST. I sogged, scrogged and cropped, but I really like LST. It suits me and it seems to suit my plants too. Low stress was a goal by itself this cycle - so far so good. I can grow big (and freakishly ugly) buds but prefer them hand grenade-size (humid climate can be a bitch here).

- Tiresias Mist. Wanting to make some beans the easy way. I'll post some more about it in a reply.

- Cloning. I've grown clones before, but never made them myself, so I wanted to give that a try too. One of the plants in my closet is a clone, the mother is a female from a feminized seed (Kolossus), the other 5 are from seed.

Various pics of my setup:

(last one is from during a test, the pipes have a sort of dam at the end so they are flooded - I was going for lp aero and changed my mind entirely, they are now flooded till just below the netcups, same as in DWC preveg box).

Some pics of the past weeks:


From yesterday:





Comments, tips and advice, bitching, or just saying hi, all is welcome. Stroking my ego about my zen-flat canopy is a plus.

GORGEOUS! Grow!! As for your canopy! Well I hate you! That's all! My canopy is ALL OVER creation! It's so far out of control it's ridiculous! You have a very nice setup. It looks meticulous and clean. Keep up the good work.

Wow, very nice.

I was thinking of investing in DWC my next grow, after I saw the accelerated growth you can get! Great grow you have! Subbed.

Thanks people

Good to see you stop by too Annie - what can I say, I like to keep my girls on a short leash

@DharmaBud: the veg rate on hydro truly is insane, combined with canopy control I get to play with them several times a day, and they recover really fast (whether it's from pinching, snapping, bending or whatever). I was skeptical about the claims of such fast veg rates and how much they'd increase 'extra' in size during the initial few weeks of 12/12. Not just skeptical, I totally underestimated it, that's partly why I got such huge plants the previous cycle, largest branch was nearly 60 inches then.



The closet itself is in a narrow room, I can't even back off far enough to show the entire closet. There's about 9inches of spaces on the left around the corner that are in none of the pics. I have limited height available in the closet, also because the hydro setup is 24inches in height already.

They had 23 days 12/12 now. Preflowers after 6 days 12/12, 7 for the chocolate fondue (used to take me 2 weeks).

One flower stretched in the back, I'm going to leave it there, far enough from the light anyway. Going to have to move the fan a bit but should be able to get some good pics out of it.

It is amazing, I am using T-5 for veg, but putting up a 400 watt HPS for flower. I plan on HST for my Silver LA to get a more rounder fuller look. I only have about 5 ft to work with headspace.

You Sir, are a grower!

Thanks guys.

As promised, a separate reply covering my Tiresias Mist test.

http://www.drtsremedies.net/Tiresias...le-PN10001.htm

I got it from eBay, 17 bucks or so. Tiresias Mist is a natural product (not just a bottle of CS) so it doesn't poison the plant.

Simple instructions video:
[video=youtube;W7uIDDTNMUs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7uIDDTNMUs[/video]

I misted a single branch in front of the canopy, after wrapping some paper behind it to prevent misting the other plants. I started spraying 6 days before switching to 12/12 and stopped 19 days later. Sprayed once a day, 3-5 times, on the branch itself. As supposed to, it showed female flowers first, but shortly after it started showing male balls as well. Haven't found a single ball on the rest of the plant or other plants.

I left the branch in there for several days, till the largest balls started to slightly crack open. At that point I cut the branch, and placed it in a bottle in a mini box with some lights still on 12/12, foil, and glasses below the pollen sacks. It's currently sleeping, I'll take a pic tonight. This one is from when it was still in the flower closet.



In hindsight, I think it would have been better to cut off the first couple of large pollen sacks ('not' in the pic above) and leave the rest for a while longer. I only need a little bit though.

The plant I used it on is Skywalker Kush. If I end up successfully getting pollen, I'll chuck it on another SK, on a Chocolate Fondue, and if the pollen is ready soon enough on the Kolossus too.

Very nice clean set up, makes me feel lazy as all hell.

Sativied said:

Thanks people

Good to see you stop by too Annie - what can I say, I like to keep my girls on a short leash

@DharmaBud: the veg rate on hydro truly is insane, combined with canopy control I get to play with them several times a day, and they recover really fast (whether it's from pinching, snapping, bending or whatever). I was skeptical about the claims of such fast veg rates and how much they'd increase 'extra' in size during the initial few weeks of 12/12. Not just skeptical, I totally underestimated it, that's partly why I got such huge plants the previous cycle, largest branch was nearly 60 inches then.
View attachment 2772675


The closet itself is in a narrow room, I can't even back off far enough to show the entire closet. There's about 9inches of spaces on the left around the corner that are in none of the pics. I have limited height available in the closet, also because the hydro setup is 24inches in height already.

They had 23 days 12/12 now. Preflowers after 6 days 12/12, 7 for the chocolate fondue (used to take me 2 weeks).

One flower stretched in the back, I'm going to leave it there, far enough from the light anyway. Going to have to move the fan a bit but should be able to get some good pics out of it.

View attachment 2772660

Click to expand...

That is a sexy canopy, should be in a canopy control porn magazine. Subbed up bro!
Peace
FM

Sub'd up n stuff!

Only just noticed this thread. Kinda busy now, and this thread needs time to read. I will be back.

Hey, thanks for stopping by fellow canopy controllers

Flower shots. HPS was fully on, colors are totally skewed, but for showing the clear differences it'll do:

Chocolate Fondue:


Kolossus:


Skywalker Kush:


Notice the difference in leaves between the last two especially.

The CF made it's finally grow spurt after all. I had some hopes that it wouldn't, but expected it a little being that's it's largely sativa. They gained at least a few inches over the past couple of days. Nothing dramatic, can pull'm down an inch or two again where they will hopefully stay.



I hope to see some 'snow' soon on the SK.

Tiresias Mist continued...


[Edit: notice in the second pic how the branch selfed, the golden brown pistils below the ball sacks]

I'm a little worried. Been reading about pollen sacks that are empty and don't produce pollen... I tapped the plant hoping to see some powder fall down. Didn't work so I used to ol' poke-with-a-stick method to push against a pollen sack and bam... barely touched it and it dropped down. Looked into the glass and noticed another one:



Need to read up some more, something about drying and grinding bananas if all else fails.

The branch is in pot with water with an air stone in it, a mini bubbleponics setup, and she's obviously healthy. I wonder what happens if I root and reveg it and then flower it again - would it produce balls or not...

Oh... wait a second:



I got pollen! Let's see how bad my pollen allergy is when it comes to mj... holding my breath while I'm typing this as I did see a few particles go up in the air.

Of course, I won't be visiting the flower room tonight anymore. Oh forgot one piece of grow gear in my list... I got a weather station like a fat ipad, with a remote sensor.

I have a sprayer which I used to spray in front of the large closet in which the small closet with the ballz-branch is. And sprayed myself a bit. No disaster if some if it makes it to the flower room but still want to try and keep it to a minimum.

I'll try to get some more tomorrow, and some gore-tex, some flower (UncleBen's pollination technique?), and then I'll chuck some of it on the ladies. I'll continue to gather pollen from the branch for a while.

Edit: the small container is where the SK seeds came in.

I would highly recommend you take a shower and take the clothes in the shower with you.

F.M.I.L.Y said:

I would highly recommend you take a shower and take the clothes in the shower with you.

Click to expand...

Thanks FM, excellent suggestion.

That is what I do when I play Dr. Cross! lol

Checked some more bananas today (from a couple of dropped open balls)... and got very little from it. I suspect I removed the branch too early Probably should have cut off the first couple of balls and let the rest (the majority) mature a bit longer.

In total it's not much more than shown in the previous pic. That bit I 'painted' on the flowers on a branch of the Kolossus and one on the CF. Since I had so little I didn't want to mess with it any further, so chucked it pure. That was 40 hours ago. I can see a few of the tips of pistils on the CF turn brownish/gold, but for all I know that's from touching them. Expected it to be more clear by now if pollination was successful. Kolossus flower still seems pure white. I just painted the tiny bit of what looked like pollen (yeah that little) on it as a second attempt. I'll add some pics when the lights switch on.

Turned off fans and enclosed the flowers (paper cylinder-ish) while painting them. Used a bright light while doing so and noticed just a couple of particles wonder off. I understand when you have a shit load of dusty pollen, like from a ripe male, one needs to be extremely careful, but frankly, it's funny, so many people freaking out over a few balls in their grows, and here I am worrying if I'll get any seed from it... I wanted to enclose the pollinated buds with a diy option, but I won't know how much it's needed or how much it helps if I don't try it once without. Rather than worrying about a few seeds in my buds, I'll be happy to find even just a dozen in total...

As for the misted branch, it's still alive and healthy, but it looks like it's done producing male balls/pollen. Put a zip over it, shook it, got one mini ball. Going to keep it a while longer and see what it does just for the heck of it.

It's been a fun and interesting test nevertheless, I still got half the tiny bottle of Tiresias Mist, will definitely use it again next round.

Tomorrow they had 4 weeks 12/12

And the winner is......the sativa of course:


Final grow spurt took a little longer than expected, had some hopes she (the Chocolate Fondue) wouldn't do that. She clearly doesn't like to be pushed up against the wall either.

The new reflector comes in handy now, it supports an asymmetric light pattern, http://www.gavita-holland.com/index.php/item/gavita-tripestar-600.html basically allowing me to set it to deep on the lower end of the canopy and medium on the other end (so I don't have to raise the lamp for the higher end of the canopy).

Left some CF, most is SK:


SK: