600 watt BlackSkull Pepperjack Haze Soil/hydro Hybrid or (SH2) ScrOG

[Richard4vt]

Hello all,

So I began the growing season by ordering some seeds from dope-seeds in May. I wanted to do an autoflower grow and try my hand at the hempy method. I bought myself a brand new 600 watt HPS/MH for the babies and some 5 gallon buckets and was set to go. My original puchase was with a friend of mine, and together we ordered russian rocket fuel, onyx, and snowryder, all through breeder "Stitch". We ordered so much that we also got 5 free feminized BlackSkull Pepperjack Haze seeds with our order. I started my grow and along with my auto seeds I germinated a Pepperjack Haze just for the hell of it. I fully intended to grow the plant as for 6 weeks and then chop it for oil. I didn't want to deal with the height issues of regular plants, which is why I went for autos, and never planned to finsih this plant. However, I changed my mind. The autos were small so I moved them under the 150 with another 70 watt HPS and placed my Pepperjack under the 600 watt HPS to soak up the rays which it has all to itself.

Here's some info...
-Germinated in peat pod
-Sprouted on May 28, 2011 and was placed into a solo cup of Fox Farms Ocean Forest Soil
-Grown under 3 ft 64 watt CFL shoplight for first 2 weeks of life
-Transplanted to a 3 gallon bucket of Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil at 2 weeks old
-Grown under a 150 watt HPS light until 7 weeks old
-Topped at 2 weeks and 4 weeks old
-Moved under a 600 watt HPS at week 7 and will remain under this for all of flower (8-9wks)
-Began ScrOGing at week 4
-Sexed at day 27
-Began 12/12 on day 32
-Began flowering at day 40

The Soil/Hydro Hybrid (SH2) system

So as I said, this grow began as an autoflower grow under 600 watts but things changed. Basically I was so impressed with the growth of the pepperjack that I decided to pay attention to it. I became more and more interested as the plant continued to thrive. I scrogged it and kept it short and its one monster of a plant. its about 5 square ft of canopy, over 30 budsites, and dozens of smaller budsites as well. So I had this great idea a couple days ago. I only used 5 of my 6 hempy buckets in my auto grow and had some extra perlite as well, so I decided to experiment and make a hybrid system. The pepperjack was obviously beginning to run out of root room so it needed more soil anyways. I cut the bottom 2 inches or so of plastic off of the 3 gallon container (careful not to hurt my roots) allowing the roots to freely contunue growing downward. I then filled my hempy bucket with about 3 gallons of perlite and placed the 3 gallon soil container on top of the perlite inside the hempy bucket, creating a 6 gallon soil/hydro hybrid or (SH2) container system.

Heres some pics to demostrate....



I then moved my autoflowers out of the 600 watt grow closet and moved my pepperjack ScrOG in. This is where she will stay until her branches are fat with resinous crystally nuggets. AFter about 4 days in the hybrid system my roots hit the water and she took off. Its been in the hybrid system about 10 days now and the growth has been explosive and the buds are already crystalling up, even the fan leaves have some crystals forming. I questioned the ability of this system at first as I have never seen anyone do it. I'm sure its been done but I haven't seen it. But so far its been phenomonal. The watering is actually really ingenious. The system nearly perfectly self adjusts for the necessary pH difference in water for soil and hydro systems. Soil needs water around 6.5 and hydro around 5.5. Well this system does it for you. I simply water the 3 gallon soil container on top with a gallon of 6.5 pH water. The soil naturally lowers the pH of the water as it flows through. By the time it reaches the hydroponic perlite layer of the system, I would estimate the water to be around 5.5 as that was what my soil runoff was reading before I switched to the hybrid system. The runoff comes out of the hempy system right around 5.5. Perfect!

So with what I've read and seen on Haze grows, ScrOGs, and hempy grows, and with a 600 watt HPS, I'm hoping to pull a half lb. off this lovely lady. And she seems more than ready to uphold her duty. Here are the most recent pics as of today, 7/18/11. She is 51 days old and 11 days into flowering....

enjoy...





if anyone has any questions or comments or just wants to talk weed please feel free to post. I'll try to answer promptly.

 

[Richard4vt]

Just a few more details I thought I should add...

-Temps around 84 lights on 72 lights off
-Humidity is usually steady between 40-50%
-I'm only using one main nutrient throughout the grow, Schultz liquid fertilizer with Micronutrients (10-15-10) @ 2tsp/gal
-At about week 3 of flowering I will begin adding one Supplement, GH Liquid KoolBloom (0-10-10) @ 1.5tsp/gal
-I will also begin adding 1 tbsp/gal of molasseses every week at week 3 of flowering

Peace-

 

[Richard4vt]

hello All,

So its been 14 days since the plant started putting out its pistils and so far this plant is looking incredibly promising. I have never had a plant develop crystals so quickly. The trichromes are even spreading to the fan leaves and their stems. The plant has really filled in over the last week and the pistils are starting to pop out everywhere. The plant is soaking up water, i'm gonna have to start watering every other day I think from here on. I am currently watering every third day. Next feeding will be at 19 days flowering which is close enough to 3 weeks for me, so I will begin feeding GH Liquid KoolBloom every feeding at 1 tsp/gal, pushing it slowly up to 2.5 tsp/gal as flowering progresses further. I will also begin feeding 1 tbsp of blackstrap molasses per gallon with each feeding from now until the flush.

Heres the latest bud shots

Enjoy

@54 days from seed, 14 days flowering

View attachment 1701128View attachment 1701124View attachment 1701123View attachment 1701129

Feel free to post any comments...

PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

Hello All,

So I thought I would update as I think these photos may be of value to anyone who is new to scrogging (like myself). They show how to deal with a common problem faced by even experienced scrog growers, usually when they are growing a strain for the first time. It can be very difficult to know when you should stop weaving the plant through the screen and let the buds grow up. Particularly with a new strain, and even worse with a sativa dominant haze strain like the pepperjack haze I'm growing. Without knowing how the plant behaves during its stretch, its hard to know when to stop scrogging. I hope that this post can be a good example of the difference between a proper scrog canopy and an overcrowded scrog canopy.

Why is this an issue? Because with the scrog method one of the keys to maximizing the plants potential is to asssure that you have a tight, short, even canopy where the colas and the lower budsites get equal light penetration and intensity. Ideally this means you need to keep the distance between the canopy top and the screen between 4 to 6 inches. This assures that even the lower budsites can produce to their fullest. Unfortunately, many times with a new strain one will stop scrogging too early, and some manicuring and training must be done to assure high light penetration and proper budsite density. Before training the plant today, the budsites were about 7-8 inches above the screen.

If you look at this photo from Thursday July 21 (3 days ago).....

...You can see that all my budsites were over 6 inches above the screen. and that was three days ago (not good). Unfortunately I didn't take a picture today to show the total change of the training, but photos under HPS light are shit and the training couldn't wait.

The only issue is that if no training has been done in a while, the stems of the branches will have thickened and stiffened into a vertical growth pattern, making it damn near impossible to continue tucking the branches under the screen. This is the issue I faced today. So instead of snapping my branches off trying to scrog, I used the LST method to tie down the braches to the screen, strategically placing my budsites so that I could maximize canopy area and even light penetration, while lowering my canopy to about 4 inches above the screen. I simply used electrical wire (makes great twist ties) to tie the branches down, exposing lower budsites on the branches, lowering the canopy height, and increasing the canopy area. I also clipped off about 1.5 oz (wet) worth of lower and yellowed fan leaves, which really opened up the lower budsites. I used about 20 grams worth of leaves that had some sugar on them to make some iso hash. Got about a half gram which is more than I expected. Wasn't great but it did get me very very high tonight.

I'm very excited about the results of this training, as I was able to succesfully lower my canopy to 4 inches while increasing my canopy area from 4.7 square feet (26x26) to 6.25 square feet (30x30), an increase of over 1.5 quare feet. From what I've read, and i've seen very mixed results, most people would tell you to expect 1-2.5 oz per square foot from a properly scrogged plant in good conditions and ample light. So if those assertions are true, I should expect an increase in yield of 1.5 to 3.5 oz....hopefully

So here are some comparison photos to show the difference in height, area, and budsite spacing...

Here's the height difference, and you can see that a lot of undergrowth was trimmed off


This one shows the increase in area and how much more open and evenly spread the canopy is


Here's what the new canopy looks like from above


Here's some nice crystally nug shots just for fun (57 days old, 17 days flowering)




My next update will be on Thursday July 28th so you will be able to see how all the budsites pop back upright after 4 days

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments

PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

Hello All,

So its been 21 days now since the blackskull pepperjack haze started putting out her pistils and WOW...shes a snowy lady thats for sure. She hasn't really started packing on any weight yet but thats pretty typical for a pure sativa at only 3 weeks, as they are notoriously long flowerers. However, the website claims 8-9 weeks for the pepperjack so we'll see, but so far she looks on pace for more like 10 weeks of flower.

Anywho, here are the weekly picture updates

enjoy...

These first pictures show the comparison of the top from 4 days ago when I trained the plant til today. The most recent picture is 2nd....

You can see that the canopy has filled in and the budsites are more upright that they were 4 days ago

Heres the view from the top.....


And here's everyone's favorites...the nugshots....


Comments are welcome...

-PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

I think my pH in the soil portion of the system is running a little off, I watered today with water at around 7.2 and my runoff came out around 5.0, which is too low, I want it to be between 5.5-6.0 from the hydro after watering with 7.0 water. You can see the overall yellowing of the leaves that has occured. Its not a N deficiency, I know this as I have given the plant plenty of N in its diet. I believe that the pH of my soil itself has dropped due to salt buildup from the nutrients over time. I know its healthy to flush a plant occasionally throughout the grow but this plant is a bitch to move so I have not flushed her and the soil needs a good flushin. Since I water through the soil and into the hydro system, if the soil pH goes out of whack, then the water in the hydro portion will be too low as well. On my previos grow in FFOF I had issues with my soil pH dropping to 5.5 which locks out Mg and causes some N lockout as well. Last time I didn't know what was happening and never corrected the issue. I still got great yields of dense, sugary nugs, but I lost most of my foliage. Fortunately, this time I can correct early. I had not noticed the yellowing because other than when I take pictures I never see the plant without the HPS on which casts a yellow glow. But as I updated I noticed how yellow the leaves have become over the last week, and I think it may be due to the addition of KoolBloom to the diet last feeding which lowered the pH of my solution some. Luckily my tap water has a high pH of around 8.0 so I plan to flush with tap water until my runoff comes out to around 5.5, and then I will give her a good flush with distilled water (7.0) until the runoff comes out where I like it, then give the hydro portion a good H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) wash, which will give the reservoir a good cleaning for safety sake. I'll update in a few days and see how the plant responds. Should start greening back up as it begins to regain its ability to take up N and Mg, along with a few other nutes that are probably being absorbed less efficiently.

-PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

So I did the flush Friday afternoon to bring my soil pH back into check and the plant has responded very well. No drooping leaves or any of the negatives that can come along after a heavy flush and it appears that the yellowing has not progressed any further since I flushed. I hope that when I update on Thursday the pictures will show an overall greening of the plant as well. But anywho, my question is this...

....After a heavy flush (I ran about 17 gallons through) should I cut back on my nutes again for the next feeding as if I was just beginning my feeding regimen again, or can I simply resume watering at the same nutrient levels that I was using before the flush?????

Any help would be much appreciated

-PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

Hello All,

So the Pepperjack Haze has been in flower for 4 weeks now and its really starting to pack on the buds. The nuggets are starting to thicken up and form visible colas now. Tons of crystals too. Its really starting to put out a great odor. I want to call it a fruity smell, but its only the first whiff that smells fruity and then its kind of a spicy, skunky smell that overpowers the initial fruit aroma. Very excited to try the final product, as it looks and smells phenomenal.

On another note, I believe I corrected the pH issue, as the yellowing appears to have stopped and my runoff is reading 6.0 now. So hopefully the plant can resume its healthy living again and stop yellowing.

and here are the pics...

....enjoy



Let me know what you think!

-PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

Hello All,

So over the last few days I have been working on my latest creation...a DIY PVC grow tent that will fit into my closet. Basically, I only grow about once a year at the time being just because it sketches me out. I grow in my closet and by about the 5th week of flowering the entire house wreaks, not to mention the fact that my room is way too bright when the light is on. I want to have a way that I can grow year round without the fear of getting caught if a repair person or landlord were to walk in, which means i need to find a way to eliminate the odor and the light. I figured that aside from creating a secret room within my townhouse, the only real option was an air tight grow tent with a carbon filter. I started looking online and couldn't believe the prices that were being charged for grow tents. I mean really, a frame with some reflective material around it costs 200 dollars?!?! So it was obvious very quickly that I was going to be better off doing this on my own....and lets be honest, its more fun like this anyways.

So i got nice and high and started drawing up the plans for a PVC grow tent and I have now successfully built the entire frame of the tent and it looks great. The only things left to do are to make a trip to my hydro store and buy a roll of panda film to cover the tent. Then I need to buy intake and outtake fans and make a DIY carbon filter (but thats a whole nother DIY project). And Voila! Grow tent on the cheap. All the PVC parts cost me about 50 dollars total and the time to make the tent took about 3 hours. Panda film will cost about 30 bucks so the total tent price will only be about 80 bucks. The carbon filter and fans will cost me about 50-75 dollars more but most grow tents don't come with a cabon filter so I don't include this in the price of my tent for comparison to the retail price of a grow tent. Way better than spending 200plus for a professional tent. The only tools needed for this were...

- About 70 ft of 3/4" PVC pipe (any size will work I just used 3/4")
- A shit ton of various PVC connector pieces (detailed instructions will be posted when the entire tent is finished)
- Some PVC cement (optional but its better safe than sorry)
- Tape measure
- Hack saw
- Good Bud to smoke while making the tent (MANDATORY)


So here are the pics of the tent. I currently have my 3 remaining autoflower plants in the grow tent while they finish up. I would like to put the pepperjack in there, but sadly she is too deep to fit in the tent. My closet is only 22 inches deep so the grow tent is 21 inches deep. The peperjack is more like 30 inches deep so she won't fit...

...enjoy

Heres the overall view of the tent. the dimensions are 21" deep, 46 " wide, and 60" tall. You can see that I have my 150 HPS in there hanging now, but that will be replace by my 600 watter once the tent is finalized. You can also see that I have provided frames for 8 inch intake and outtake fans (one at bottom left for intake, and one at top right for outtake)

Here's a closer view of the top of the frame. I made the top with 3 bars across for extra support and it seems to be holding up very well (I haven't glued any pieces yet as the tent is still a work in progress and that 150 is a complete ballast so its heavy as fuck)


This picture shows the side of the frame


Once I get the whole tent finished I will post a detailed step by step in the DIY forum so that everyone can recreate this tent if they like it. The great part about a DIY PVC tent is that the design can be changed to fit any size or shape of grow room, and PVC is so easy to change that if you want to add something later you can just splice it in.

-PEACE-

 

[vdog]

Nice set up, big fan of gorilla tape! Horrible on sheet rock finish thou. I know dope-seeds was giving out bskulls as freebies for awhile to gain interest. Here is a link to mine. I didnt get it cloned but I wish I would have taken cuttings of a five o plant that I have from them, it looks like yours. Anyways I didnt get 3 strains from bskull cloned, and my favorite grower is a Jack Herer, but blackskull took the 3 way cross and added hashplant for bigger, heavier, and stonier buds.
https://www.rollitup.org/outdoor-growing/449296-blackskulls-such.html <<<<< thats the link

The PJ you have looks good!

 

[Richard4vt]

Nice set up, big fan of gorilla tape! Horrible on sheet rock finish thou. I know dope-seeds was giving out bskulls as freebies for awhile to gain interest. Here is a link to mine. I didnt get it cloned but I wish I would have taken cuttings of a five o plant that I have from them, it looks like yours. Anyways I didnt get 3 strains from bskull cloned, and my favorite grower is a Jack Herer, but blackskull took the 3 way cross and added hashplant for bigger, heavier, and stonier buds.
https://www.rollitup.org/outdoor-growing/449296-blackskulls-such.html <<<<< thats the link

The PJ you have looks good!

Thanks Vdog. Shes really starting to putting on the flowers now and the smell is awesome, I think you'll really like your blackskulls if they're anything like the pepperjack I'm growing. I've stopped the yellowing and you can start to see some green returning along the veins in the leaves, so shes coming around. I think I've got the pH stabilized now.

Your plants look great! I wish I had the space to grow outdoors and get to grow monsters. The Blackskull Jack Herers look particularly delectable. i'll keep a close eye on your grow, i really like this blackskull so far and I'm really interested to see how all of your plants turn out.

Best of luck with your ladies

 

[Richard4vt]

Hello All,

So the ladies are now 36 days into flowering and they are really packing on the weight. I changed my room setup a little bit and moved some fans around and managed to get my temps down to 80 from about 85 before. So i'm happy about that and I hope that the lower temps will help the plant out a bit, as 85 is just a tad too warm.

The pH is definitely stable now as there is some green returning along the veins and the leaves that were starting to yellow haven't gotten any worse. I was picking off 5 or 6 fans leaves a day about a week ago, and since the flush this number has dropped. I usually give the plant a good looking over and pick off the dead leaves every 3 days now instead of every day.

Anywho...here are the week 5 pics,

enjoy....



-PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

Hello All,

So the lovely lady is now 43 days into flowering and over the last week some major changes have been taking place. The older hairs are starting to turn orange and the crystal production is really taking off. Also, some of the older calaxyes have started to really fatten up and the buds are getting super dense. Smell is really becoming an issue though, so I can't wait for this grow to be in the books.

If I grow again I'll have to make/buy a carbon filter for my grow tent. speaking of grow tent, I went to the local hydro store the other day and bought a waterfarm, some pH up/down, and a 25' roll of panda film. I will cover the tent sometime this weekend. If I do another grow I am going to use the tent, buy a cooltube reflector for my 600, and run a scrog with the waterfarm. 1 single plant scrogged to fill the tent (would be 21" x 45" or 6.5 square feet). I want to veg for 7 weeks and flower for 9 for a 16 week grow and I hope to increase my yields greatly compared to this go around.

....but thats all in the future

On another note, I'm going to have to chop this plant about a week earlier than I'd like due to some time constraints. So it will get 8 weeks of flower. The seeds claim 8-9 weeks flowering, so it should be okay. Looking at the bud I would think 3 more weeks but unfortunately 2 is all I have, and 8 total isn't that bad. Plus this plant is a lot bigger than I ever expected it to grow so I don't mind losing some yield due to a slightly earlier harvest, and the bud should give me a soaring head high with the early harvest which I like.

And now as I write this I realize that I cannot upload pictures with the attachment manager right now, just get the spinning ring of death when it tries to upload the photo to the site.

I'll try again tomorrow

-PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

....still can't upload pictures....pretty weak

 

[Richard4vt]

So todays Saturday...technically...but its really just late night friday and I'm a bit inebriated.. and that means the plant is now 51 days/52 days into flowering, and its almost chop time...

HOWEVER........

Im very upset with this site right now, as I have not been able to upload photos for almost 2 weeks and its really starting to get to me.

I have some really lovely photos that I would love to share from last Thursday at 6 weeks flowering and from today at 7 weeks and 2 days but the uploaders still f!%#ed up for me.

I use internet explorer (I know Firefox is soooo much better, but whatever, thats what I got) and I recently had to download an upgrade to the newest version of Iexp. and since then I haven't been able to upload pictures. So I don't know if its on my end and I need to make some changes to the new security settings on my iexp, or if its on rollitups end, but I'm trying to resolve this....ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED...if you've had similar problems or know any solution

But for anyone follwing this...if anyone actually is....then fear not, everything is going as planned and if the uploader finally gets its shit straight I will have harvest pics up in about 6 days

-PEACE-

 

[Richard4vt]

HAHA! I win...

I figured this shit out finally

So anyway here are the pictures from 6 weeks flowering...this was 9 days ago

enjoy


-PEACE-

 

[vdog]

The heat sucks, I hate it, especially inside under lights, that is why I do alot of my growing outdoors these days, because with the scale I want to be at and given my resources its just to difficult to keep five 1000 watts going, with duct fans, a/c, and exhaust when the the temp in the attic is allready deadly and the temp outside is 114. I would like to do that type of indoor grow, trust me, but Im finding that provided a seedling or a new clone has been rooted and grown for atleast 3 to 4 weeks under a cool flouro that they will infact take to the ground in brutal temps provided they are giving some shade and indirect sun. I will be very curious to see how the pepperjack tastes, that is what really has my interest in that strain, the taste, as it sounds delicious.

 

[lostNug]

Awsome grow man.. I debating if I wanna scrog my mini closet grow. Ur pics kinda are pusing me to go ahead an do it.. can't wait to see harvest pics.

Stop by my grow n have a look if u want.

 

[stumpjumper]

Very nice!!! +Rep

 

[Richard4vt]

Thanks for the compliments guys.... mucho gracias

the plant is now 53 days into flower and I will be cutting the light off tomorrow evening for the last time. It will be in the dark for 3 full days and will be harvested Thursday evening for a total flowering time of 8 weeks 1 day. A little earlier than is ideal, another week would have been nice, but I have no other choice, so its going down. I can hardly wait.

I'll post pics tomorrow of the the plant before the lights out, then again on Thursday before the chop, and then Friday I'll post the harvest pics. I should have a dry weight in about 10 days from now.

-PEACE-