Skywalker OG, Hempy Bucket Grow, Area-51 LED's

Day 7, got the screen done that I've been procrastinating for so long. I set the height to 36" so you get a feel for the plants height now. Not intended to be a SCROG but more of a way to keep plants from falling over. No more tying up branches and staking the buckets when colas get heavy. As a matter of fact, at day 7, I might be able to stave off some super stretch for the next 2 weeks with a tuck here and there. My hangars on one side are down to 9" of adjustment left before I resort to hanging the LED's directly to the tent's cross members up top. The supercropping I've been doing has to "stunt" cola production in some way along the finish line. Although effective at reducing stretch and "strengthening" the cola bases, I've noted a little less yield in the past when I resorted to that technique.
Oh yes, these girls needed water at 2.25 days...a new record for me. I can usually get 3 days out of a feeding so these are bar maides for sure. I'll do some defoliating in the next couple of days (removing the big fans, high and low) and I will get back to every 3 days watering. Leaves transpire....if they are in the shade or making shade over bud site, I remove them.
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Nice Screen Jela, everything u do it so neat, Wish mine were...I'm real impressed with your grow so far, good job

Hey Jela, gotta agree with Who, you run a very tight ship over there. Love the screens too, DIY at it's best my friend. Your giant spears are proof that selective removing of fan leaves definitely helps in bud production. Really interested to see how the Skywalker turns out.

Thanks for all the positive energy Who & Stone....had a few days off to play with things...was partaking a lot too. It's weird when you see something later and wonder "did I really do that?"

Day 8, tackled the job of thinning out the girls. Each had a couple limbs ≈14" long that would never have made anything, out they came as well as all the honker fans down low and any "blockers" above. This will no doubt get me back to feeds every 3 days. That Canna "Boost" is expensive. BTW, with all the light green in here I might jump up my base nutes a couple of ml/gal. I've been running a tad shy of Canna's grow chart levels and I feel comfortable now that they would take anything I threw at 'em.. The fans on this plant are pretty impressive, had to whoop out the tape measure. Reminds me of a "Grapefruit" strain I grew once.

I would love to see that in real life, That's so impressive....

Day 10, they're stretching still...naked as Jay-birds after all the thinning I've done but they will pay me back with buds.....36" above the coco and 46" off the floor....almost half the way through the 3-week stretch I'm getting that nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach that they will outgrow my tent's height constraints. It's happened before. I don't want to do anything to retard bud growth with these lights....I seriously want to compare them to my HPS and older ProSource LED's. Yield will be a huge factor in this comparison. That's what you get for growing a different strain every time....a surprise. But what the hay, some peeps get a surprise b-day party once a year....I get one every ≈2months. Nevertheless, if they stop stretching, look at the number of bud-sites that will produce a bud or cola. Hopefully some whoppa's.

Getting a lot of feedback on the expense of Grodan Mini-Rockwool Grow-cubes as a hempy medium. So I've decided to reuse the cubes from my last "Sharksbreath" grow (in my sig, don't be peeking now). Here I have some cardboard flats with fresh cubes that were rinsed & prepared and the ones I took from the bucket bottoms (actually about 1/3 the buckets' height because I went way over the hempy hole). Can you tell the difference? Up close you'll see, I spent all of 15 minutes snatching hand-fulls of cubes from the used bucket "plugs", and pulling out roots were concentrated.....easy. Look up close at the loosely manicured cubes and how clean they are after being in a coco/nutrient enriched environment. You should see my empty buckets too...very clean, only needing rinsing. I use Cannazyme regularly in my grows and it dissolves all deciduous matter into plant food. Never a fear of root rot here...a pinch of Piranha benificail microbes never hurts during transplant either.

Cannazyme, I've used this product every hempy bucket grow for ≈8 grows and firmly believe it helps my plant's growth rates/yields....this video is a cool way of demonstrating enzymes and how they break down deciduous matter. It comes back as more food for the plant. That's only part of its usefulness. It does a lot for stimulating living roots via absorption and increasing resistance to pathogenic organisms. It's hotter than hell where I live....I can grow slime in a hydro environment faster than anybody I know...but not in a hempy bucket with this product.
[video=youtube;cpTc_8FLGow]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpTc_8FLGow[/video]

What's my next grow"? Popping a fem right now of some 3 year old beans from Nirvana..."Bubbelicious". Lots of folk out there with good yields over the years...not a lot of bubble gum "on the exhale" pheno's in my reading unless they got that lucky pheno...mostly a sweet dog-shit smell that is addictive in a way (DAH... What Did HE JUSt SWAY). This Skywalker OG could be called a sweet, hashy "cat piss" smell right now (confirmed by Clink). Bubblelicious will be a my last trip to the "dark side" of smell before returning to my fav's...the "fruity" strains. My last 4 grows including "G13 Pineapple Express" have been low odor and a comfort to grow when friends arrive for Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.....nobody suspects or smells a thing (I'm legal too)...just don't need the bad rep some peeps tag you with....It's my personal thing anyway.

jela10 said:

Getting a lot of feedback on the expense of Grodan Mini-Rockwool Grow-cubes as a hempy medium. So I've decided to reuse the cubes from my last "Sharksbreath" grow (in my sig, don't be peeking now). Here I have some cardboard flats with fresh cubes that were rinsed & prepared and the ones I took from the bucket bottoms (actually about 1/3 the buckets' height because I went way over the hempy hole). Can you tell the difference? Up close you'll see, I spent all of 15 minutes snatching hand-fulls of cubes from the used bucket "plugs", and pulling out roots were concentrated.....easy. Look up close at the loosely manicured cubes and how clean they are after being in a coco/nutrient enriched environment. You should see my empty buckets too...very clean, only needing rinsing. I use Cannazyme regularly in my grows and it dissolves all deciduous matter into plant food. Never a fear of root rot here...a pinch of Piranha benificail microbes never hurts during transplant either.

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Check this stuff out:

http://www.suretogrow.com/stg-storm-hail-hydroponic-supplies-from-sure-to-grow

Lookin killer bro, can't wait for them budz...

Rockwool is a major component of mapito and they say it gets better as you reuse it.

Looking great jela, also thanks for linking that video i had been wondering if that stuff would be effective at helping me dispose of plant waste...

stoneslacker said:

Rockwool is a major component of mapito and they say it gets better as you reuse it.

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If you're going to re-use rockwool I'd say be sure to give it a proper heat-treatment as well. The issue is with the air-gaps compacting a bit over time.

The stuff is getting pricey here too. I've gotten into using the ROUGH Leca recently as I can recycle it as much as I want. But even cloning cubes are 4 times the price they were when I first bought any.

hey nice log bro, great work... keep it coming! ill have you updated with the 3L's soon, this run is going much better than the last.. all under 1x 430w hortilux super hps and 2x 150w standard hps's. there are 23 of them and they're stretching now its day 8 after flip.
the problem with my setup is i take each hempy out individually and water them, and haven't trained anything.
I have very small (~ 1' tall) bushy plants (~1/2foot wide)
and have to train them so that i can still work with them
thinking about using coat hangers to make tomato cages, any techniques you guys know of?
scrog is outta the picture here unless each 3L has a mini scrog built onto the bucket, the access to the room is only 2.5 feet wide and its ~4.5ft long

Nizza said:

hey nice log bro, great work... keep it coming! ill have you updated with the 3L's soon, this run is going much better than the last.. all under 1x 430w hortilux super hps and 2x 150w standard hps's. there are 23 of them and they're stretching now its day 8 after flip.
the problem with my setup is i take each hempy out individually and water them, and haven't trained anything.
I have very small (~ 1' tall) bushy plants (~1/2foot wide)
and have to train them so that i can still work with them
thinking about using coat hangers to make tomato cages, any techniques you guys know of?
scrog is outta the picture here unless each 3L has a mini scrog built onto the bucket, the access to the room is only 2.5 feet wide and its ~4.5ft long

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This sticky really helped me out a lot, home it does the same for you:

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/369528-low-stress-training-lst-guide.html

dude theres so much space in that tent you could have cloned it and stuff that tent with 4-6.

Mad Hamish said:

Check this stuff out:

http://www.suretogrow.com/stg-storm-hail-hydroponic-supplies-from-sure-to-grow

Lookin killer bro, can't wait for them budz...

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Mad, I almost snagged a bag of that "STG Hale" ...looked new and interesting to play with. They blew it for me in the advertisements were they claimed its non-wicking properties allowed the grower to water more often. I'm thinking, "well whats my reservoir gonna do?". Looks great for other hydro apps where water runs down though. I'll wait for someone to do a hempy bucket grow in it (maybe you?)

stoneslacker said:

Rockwool is a major component of mapito and they say it gets better as you reuse it.

Click to expand...

Stone, I should have reused the mapito from my G13 PE grow...but my next follow-on grow needed fast work to get bucketed up and I didn't have time to pH treat/pre-charge the makeup qty. Those PE root balls were a freaking mess too and would have been pickin roots for a long time.
https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/579299-mapito-has-anybody-used-2.html

silasraven said:

dude theres so much space in that tent you could have cloned it and stuff that tent with 4-6.

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I'm totally happy with two plants and half a pound cured out of two little 2g buckets.... and I beat that on a regular basis. I did clone these and they were the pick of more than a dozen. When I was new to growing, I used to grow 4-5 plants in this tent in bigger buckets....took a while to figure out I could get the same yield with 2 plants as I could with 4 plants....half the work watering/mixing nutes, preparing buckets, cleaning buckets. Way less expensive nutrient-wise too. I never had the monster colas I get now either so trimming is less work too. As well, I grow a different strain every time so you never know what space they will take up.

Jela, I might take you up on doing a hempy test with the Hail. I want to try a hempy style grow, I've never done passive hydro before and from what I see it's pretty kickass. Good point about it not wicking though, one would need to actually add a wick to help out at first. I'll ask some guys about it and see.

I agree with you looks like when they're done that tent is going to be quite packed. Looks well-planned too another plant or two would've ruined the beautiful simplicity of this system.

Occam's Razor: "In a universe where all things are essentially equal, the most simple solution is usually the best" or something along those lines.

Simplicity is GOOD. This is really looking TIGHT it's going to be a very nice thread.

Thanks for the reassurance Mad! "Simple" helps when you are trying to maintain a career too..sometime I think I'm the busiest guy in the world.

Day13, One plant used to be 4"-6" higher than the other and now they are equal in height...this maybe a hint that stretch is slowing...have to see, they definitely have some altitude and one could call them "gangly". They hit 48" off the floor today. Don't see much activity in the cola formation so far, lots of bud site activity however. Now I know this won't be a typical 8 week strain...it's gonna go long.