# Vertical Grow Version 4: Golden Goat



## snowgrow19 (Mar 25, 2012)

Hey guys, so my last yield was a little disappointing. I believe I may have gone a little scissor happy when pruning so this round I am going to allow the plants to grow out a little fuller, closer to the bulbs. I am also discontinuing the use of Humboldt County's Own Bushmaster and Gravity. I personally feel they dont work as well as they are supposed to and that any shortcomings can be managed through proper environmental conditions and canopy management. 

I rebuilt my room to fix a few small leaks and to better insulate the room, both for sound and temperature. I posted these pics in my last grow journal, but I guess the site got hacked and some stuff was lost.

Here is the rebuild:


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## snowgrow19 (Mar 25, 2012)

And here is the next round, 44 Golden Goat plants vegged for about 4 weeks each, currently 10 days into bloom.

[video=youtube;f2B9VuIoPhM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2B9VuIoPhM&amp;feature=channel[/video]


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## 22urbo (Mar 25, 2012)

oooooweeee thats exciting. thanks for the updates. appreciate the useful information and prompt responses. are you using dams in your system like heath did in his? or are you straight nft? what's your watering schedule? I'm planning to run it exactly how heath did. 24/7 with enough pressure to provide dissolved oxygen to the roots. 

sub'd! best of luck

edit: if you don't mind, how much did you yield with v3?


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## snowgrow19 (Mar 25, 2012)

22urbo said:


> oooooweeee thats exciting. thanks for the updates. appreciate the useful information and prompt responses. are you using dams in your system like heath did in his? or are you straight nft? what's your watering schedule? I'm planning to run it exactly how heath did. 24/7 with enough pressure to provide dissolved oxygen to the roots.
> 
> sub'd! best of luck
> 
> edit: if you don't mind, how much did you yield with v3?


Welcome to the new thread 22urbo! No dams in this system, although I'd still consider it more RDWC than NFT as by the time they are in the flowering system, the roots are enough to dam it up so that the tubes are 1/2 to 3/4 full. By the end of the grow I have had to lower the flow via stop valves on the intakes to prevent flooding. I'd prefer to have 6" tubes but the pipe and fittings are way more expensive. I use dams in the veg system as the roots aren't enough to keep the water levels up in the beginning.

I'd like to upgrade to 6" tubes in flower. In that case I'd probably need to add dams in to keep the water level up to the cups, however I priced it at about $2k for the 6" system (32 fittings and 60' of pipe) so I'll be sticking with the 4" system for a bit. The larger tubes would allow for faster flow which equals more dissolved oxygen in the system, which theoretically lead directly to yield increases but might as well get everything else right first before I drop another $2 grand. 

This last grow I got just at 34 oz ( 969g/ 0.8gpw). This is obviously not what I'm going for as I could do this pretty easily in a SOG setup in soil. Its a little irritating but I think I may be looking at a much better yield this grow as I've narrowed it down to one strain, Golden Goat, which yields well in this system. Last grow I had 5 GG's which had been vegged for appx 5 weeks and yielded an average of 72g per plant (362g). Ive vegged the current GG's for 3 1/2 weeks Ive also come to the conclusion I have been pruning too much, so this grow you will see a lot more leaf in the canopy. My last few grows I have been using bushmaster. This does what it promises to do, keeps your plants from stretching, but I believe this is only beneficial if you are using many single bud plants. In my system the branches become too clustered and therefore if I didn't prune there was a major mold risk. By not using bushmaster and allowing them to stretch a little, I can fill more of the canopy with less pruning, which means less stress and hopefully a better yield. I wont be happy until I see 1.5gpw on these 2 600's... it's like an itch that I've just gotta scratch, haha.


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## 22urbo (Mar 25, 2012)

i too contemplated going the 6 inch route but am currently building a complete system from scratch and that added expense was going to be to much for my budget. 4 inch it is!, we'll see how it all comes together. 

I've got an itch too but have a lot riding on this first harvest so I'm using 4x1000watts to at least cover my costs associated with piecing all this together. I plan to eventually drop down to 600's and aim for pure productivity and efficiency. 

are you running your pump 24/7?

edit: Since this is my first round with this setup, for ease of use I thought of just placing my clones straight in the flower room to veg and bloom. Since you veg your plants in a separate system, you haven't found it necessary to use the dams since the root length is long enough once you place them in the vert setup. My question to you is, do you think I should keep the dams in this first round to ensure my cuttings roots reach water level or would they survive and eventually reach waterlevel? yes, i'm really high right now...lol


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## snowgrow19 (Mar 25, 2012)

22urbo said:


> i too contemplated going the 6 inch route but am currently building a complete system from scratch and that added expense was going to be to much for my budget. 4 inch it is!, we'll see how it all comes together.
> 
> I've got an itch too but have a lot riding on this first harvest so I'm using 4x1000watts to at least cover my costs associated with piecing all this together. I plan to eventually drop down to 600's and aim for pure productivity and efficiency.
> 
> ...


Good luck with the grow, hopefully it works out for ya. I would suggest putting the dams in if you are putting clones directly in, as they probably wont have enough root mass to dam it up yet. You could leave them in there, might as well. Get the water level just to the bottom of the cup and you should be good. And yes, my pumps are on 24/7 except when i drain and refill the reservoir.

I am also really high, haha.


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## throwdo (Mar 26, 2012)

nice bro wish i could afford to dish out the bread to build one of these , i guess all stic to ebb and flow are dwc ,i was thinking about doing a vert grow with dwc but looking for a journal for ideas


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## 22urbo (Mar 27, 2012)

snowgrow19 said:


> Good luck with the grow, hopefully it works out for ya.


Thank you, please join me here: https://www.rollitup.org/vertical-growing/516119-vert-x2-4k-watts-skywalker.html



snowgrow19 said:


> I am also really high, haha.


cheers mate! please update soon


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## snowgrow19 (Mar 28, 2012)

So as the title suggests, I have found some powdery mildew again. I went today and bought a gallon of Ed Rosenthal's Zero Tolerance Herbal Fungicide and went to town on my girls about 2 hours before lights on. This stuff has seemed to control it in the past, the only issue with a spray is that it is harder to apply to every square inch of leaf surface. I was about to run a sulfur burner when i read a warning that if you have used an oil based spray in the last 30 days not to vaporize sulfur or it could start a fire. Good thing I read that as in such a small space I'm sure my room is even more susceptible to such hazards. So... the rest of the grow I will be applying about once a week up to a week from harvest as directed on the bottle. This stuff is sweet, even smells good, like cinnamon and clove oil  and is pretty harmless to your buds and doesn't affect the final product, even with such a late application. This will be the true test for Mr Rosenthal's product, you can bet I'll be writing a review when I'm done because I spent and hour making sure every bit of plant material was wet with this stuff. More pics/vid soon!


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## Jelly Pepper (Mar 28, 2012)

hey snow grow, thanks for your posts you have good ideas. i hope you don't mind but i am copying some of the things you have done. i like your veg system and i like the way you have your res set up in your bloom room. i am building my room and would like to use 6" pipe for the very reasons you say but it is three times as much as 4". sorry to hear about the mold. good luck


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## 22urbo (Mar 29, 2012)

awww, thats never good. At least you're catching it now before its too late. Just drench them with it and double check that your humidity levels are on par. Are you currently having issues with that? What are your temps/humidity levels?

Good info: next time i'll think twice about running my sulfer burner....i'm always showering these girls with nutes. 

Good luck, update us soon


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## jigfresh (Mar 30, 2012)

I'm about a week late on this thread. But I see we are still travelling much the same road. I too quit using BM this round, quit using gravity last round. I was quite happy with my results minus the gravity. The buds I got were actually the most dense I have ever grown (go figure). However this round without the BM I'm noticing the smallest buds I have ever done. Not sure if that's the reason, but I'm running strains I've run before and can't think of any other differences. Hopefully it works out better for you.

And I too just found PM on my girls. I fuckin HATE it. I was 1 week away from harvesting half of them, and 3 weeks away from the others... but they are all coming down now. I can't afford to spray this late, and I don't want it to spread any more. Just a few dots here and there on fan leaves. Grrr. I really should have took more leaves off keeping everything so close together.

I'm looking forward to seeing how things turn out for you. I'm pretty sure you will be able to up the 0.8 g/w of the last grow. That's a bit disappointing. 

Take care bro


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## 22urbo (Mar 30, 2012)

hey snow,

whats your guestimate as to how much your system with water flowing and near harvest weighs? How's combating the PM? Also, what size is your reservoir. sorry if you stated in a previous thread.


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## snowgrow19 (Mar 30, 2012)

jigfresh said:


> I'm about a week late on this thread. But I see we are still travelling much the same road. I too quit using BM this round, quit using gravity last round. I was quite happy with my results minus the gravity. The buds I got were actually the most dense I have ever grown (go figure). However this round without the BM I'm noticing the smallest buds I have ever done. Not sure if that's the reason, but I'm running strains I've run before and can't think of any other differences. Hopefully it works out better for you.
> 
> And I too just found PM on my girls. I fuckin HATE it. I was 1 week away from harvesting half of them, and 3 weeks away from the others... but they are all coming down now. I can't afford to spray this late, and I don't want it to spread any more. Just a few dots here and there on fan leaves. Grrr. I really should have took more leaves off keeping everything so close together.
> 
> ...


Glad to have you Jig, yeah I think my problem last grow was that because I used BM it caused the distance between nodes to be very short so I had to prune a lot to keep the mold risk down. I think this may have been detrimental to the final yield. Without the BM the plants have completely filled out the canopy and now they are looking great. The only problem is the weather lately has been very conducive to PM and I got some. The Zero Tolerance seems to be working really well, but some of the plants closest to the lights (my setup is an oval not a circle) got a little burned, but not too bad. The Zero Tolerance is good to use up to days before harvest because it has no chemicals, just herbal oils (cinnamon and clove) plus some potassium bicarbonate which is just baking soda. I would prefer not to spray that close to harvest, but I'd also rather my buds not have PM and still have time to mature. 

The gravity seems to be a crock of shit to me, but thats just IMHO. It just stresses the shit out of your plants, even at super low dosage. 

Hopefully this grow will go much better, but it's always about that next grow, right? Haha.



22urbo said:


> awww, thats never good. At least you're catching it now before its too late. Just drench them with it and double check that your humidity levels are on par. Are you currently having issues with that? What are your temps/humidity levels?
> 
> Good info: next time i'll think twice about running my sulfer burner....i'm always showering these girls with nutes.
> 
> Good luck, update us soon


Yeah, caught it on just a few leaves so I'm not too worried, i just hope to keep it at bay for the next 7 weeks... drain.... yeah i read some warnings with sulfur burners to be careful if you have used an oil based foliar spray recently, but most supplemental foliars wouldn't have oils in them i don't think, so you should be fine. I'd just maybe spray your leaves with water the day before you burn then you should be fine. Mine is just a really small space and I would have to hang the burner less than a foot from the plants which is sketchy at best.



22urbo said:


> hey snow,
> 
> whats your guestimate as to how much your system with water flowing and near harvest weighs? How's combating the PM? Also, what size is your reservoir. sorry if you stated in a previous thread.


I honestly have no clue on that.... there's about 30gal in the system, plus maybe 25+lb wet plant material plus the pipes weigh maybe 20lb total... maybe 300lb in all, the water obviously being the heaviest part. The reservoir is 35gal but I fill it about 3/4 the way up so it doesn't overflow if the power goes out and the tubes drain back into it.

The war on PM is going well at the moment. The Zero Tolerance stuff works well, but you gotta get in there and spray every square inch of the plants for it to be really effective. It burned the plants in the center, closest to the lights, but just a little, nothing terrible. So far so good, just some small nuisances but no major issues. Hopefully things should only get better from here on out. We shall see!


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## snowgrow19 (Mar 30, 2012)

Has anyone ever experienced leaf burn from foliar sprays? About 10% of the canopy has minor burn. It's from the zero tolerance, guess I should have diluted it. I have used it before without diluting, but the difference I believe is that this time I absolutely soaked every plant. They still look good for the most part, better than my plants did at this point after using the Bushmaster. I'd rather have perky leaves with a little bit of burn than wilted leaves all curled up... seems to me the perky leaves even with some burn will have more surface area in direct light? Any thoughts on this?


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## 22urbo (Apr 4, 2012)

I usually almost always dilute any solution I use, whether its foliar feeding or through the roots. I feel like almost all brand manufacturers over compensate with their nute strength. any pictures with updates? i'm excited to see how they look now!


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## tokeintuckz (Apr 27, 2012)

i want to do a similar set up defo going to follow this see how it goes for u  good luck


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## tokeintuckz (Apr 27, 2012)

and 6inch 160mm pipe isnt that much more expensive http://www.drainageonline.co.uk/basket.asp


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## snowgrow19 (Apr 28, 2012)

tokeintuckz said:


> i want to do a similar set up defo going to follow this see how it goes for u  good luck





tokeintuckz said:


> and 6inch 160mm pipe isnt that much more expensive http://www.drainageonline.co.uk/basket.asp


Do it! Yeah thats sick, way cheaper than over here. 6" pipe from the hardware store is almost 3 times as expensive as 4". I'd order it from the uk but the shipping would most likely make that pointless.


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## tokeintuckz (Apr 29, 2012)

snowgrow19 said:


> Do it! Yeah thats sick, way cheaper than over here. 6" pipe from the hardware store is almost 3 times as expensive as 4". I'd order it from the uk but the shipping would most likely make that pointless.


im gna give it a bash just need the right quideance on nutes and spacing between the plants i think im gna use a powerfull pond pump to run it 24/7 as its 6 inch i think it would benifit from the high flow rate


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## snowgrow19 (Apr 30, 2012)

tokeintuckz said:


> im gna give it a bash just need the right quideance on nutes and spacing between the plants i think im gna use a powerfull pond pump to run it 24/7 as its 6 inch i think it would benifit from the high flow rate



keep the nutes around 1000pm/1.5ec and you'll be set. As far as the pump goes, watch out for anything with a horsepower (1/2hp, 1/4hp, whatever) as they tend to heat the water up a lot, ive tried this. Go with like a 1000gph mag drive pump as they dont heat up.


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## Californicater (Apr 30, 2012)

Snow, glad you made a new thread. I was sad not seeing the end of your last grow after the hack.


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