Fair warnings: as you can see, this is long. Also, I've posted in the plant problems forum too, so its a repost, apologies. but fellow hempy adventurers, your advice would be infinitely superior to the unacquainted, unfamiliar, and uninitiated into the world of hempy. So, for those with a minute to spare, please, please please, read on.....
I'm in week 7 of flower for these girls, just trying to squeak out a crop and convince my flatmates to let me have another go at it. Serious issues here, and apologies for not documenting better but life has been crazy.
First, this is a boneheaded grow, so don't fucking flame me and shit, i know its crazy, it was an experiment and I learned my lessons.
Medium: 75:25 Chunky Perlite:FFOF
Container: Hempy bucket (5gal bucket, hole two inches up)
Nutes: Earth Juice (Grow, Bloom, Catalyst, just purchased Microblast but haven't used it yet)
Environment: 4x2 Grow tent in insulated attached storage shed;
Lights: 3 4x4' T5, all Fulham Racehorses, 1 badboy, 2 fluorogrow evergreens
Bulbs: in order: BLOOM/GROW/BLOOM/BLOOM/Flora Sun/Flora Sun/ Flora Sun/ Flora Sun/ BLOOM/GROW/BLOOM/ BLOOM; thats 12 bulbs, for 648
Temperature: Lights off lows get down in the 50s sometimes, lights on stays around the 70s but can creep up into the 80s, and I've seen a max temp in the 90s but the tent was closed up
RH: constant 40-60%
Water: Bubbled tap when not feeding, RO when feeding.
Genetics: 2 NorthernBerry from PeakSeeds and a Banana Kush from a buddy of mine.
Ok, So I've probably fucked up two or three major things fromt he get-go with this grow but live and learn, right?
The medium is basically a half-assed job: I had some ffof left over from a 12/12 FS run I did with LEDs and some CFLs for a competitive little endeavor. That didn't go so well and so I started these gals with a commitment to experimenting with a modified hempy. I was planning on doing DocBud's OC+ style and started my seeds in his awesome seed starting method (Soaked seed, party cup mini-hempy filled with perlite, then 50:50 Perlite:FFOF, then the top two inches of straight FFOF where the soaked seed is planted, works every time) but realized I had a shit ton of the 50:50 FFOF mixed up already. So, being a bit baked and pressed for time, I decided I could just eyeball it out and make some 75:25 perlite:FFOF mix, the FFOF would work like vermiculite in the traditional hempy mix, and the soil would not only help buffer pH, but also provide a little extra nutrient for the gals through veg.
When it came time to transplant from the mini hempies, I had beautiful gals ready to go and so I made a hole in three 5 gallon buckets, about two inches from the bottom, filled them past the hole with perlite to have a good reservoir base, and then in with the 75:25 mix. I watered well at transplant, using some FF Microbe Brew--side note, i used this stuff for every feeding until I had to go out of town during the 4th week of flowering right at the end of the stretch; when I got back from being gone for a week, horrible problems had occurred and before I mixed up new nutes, I found mold growing in the FF Microbe brew bottle; more on this later.
These girls did great in their new homes for a total veg time of 5 weeks. I bubbled my EJ blends and added in catalyst per the 2011 tutorial here on RIU. Per the same guide, I was not pH'ing anything. Part of the attraction of trying this was being able to sustain some better organic culture in a hempy style grow. In other words, try to get some of the flavor and smell advantages of organic in a hempy grow. I also did not have the money to replace a broken pH meter, and, being as I was in experimental territory with my medium, that probably bit me hugely in the ass now.
So, I rigged up a 13 gallon reservoir and two submersible pumps (one roughly twice the power of the other) with some tubing and spiltters for a ghetto-rigged automatic watering assembly because I needed to get out of town for about 10 days. I set it up nicely so that the hempies would be watered for 8 minutes, once at lights on, once every 3rd day. As mentioned above, I returned to find the girls looking like they were starving for nitrogen: very stereotypical yellowing of lower foliage etc. And at this point I noticed some light burn, also some reddish purplish on the stems which I attributed to lower than ideal temps at lights off. I checked my res and it had some gross looking stuff in it by that point, even with bubbling and covering the top to preven light and debris from getting in. I cloroxed the reservoir, completely cleaned it and refilled it with some tap water that I superchlorinated to try to get out some of the chloramines (something i had been fixated upon unnecessarily the whole time trying to use water from my local supply). Cleaned out my pumps and rerigged them to water again every third day at lights on because I was called out of town for a week suddenly after being home only one day.
So, when I got back from that week away, things had just progressed. I immediately ordered a ph meter because I was sure it was pH lockout. I was seeing random deficiencies sprouting all over all three girls, with different ones presenting as the worst. My best Northernberry looks mostly N Def.; the other NB seems to have some standard Cal and Mag Def. with P-def.; the banana kush is definitely k- and p- along with cal- and mag deficient. So with all these and having them sprout randomly throughout each plant instead of progressing bottom to top (for the mobile ones), i figured it was probably going to be a pH issue.
But, I didn't have a meter and they were due for a feeding after getting only water, so I gave a super heavy feeding becasue, what the fuck, it could just be a shit ton of deficiency, thats what some people say about EJ, right?
That didnt' help.
I know not to expect things to change immediately but that was last week, I've got my pH meter, and i've run my little experiments:
All of the pH'd tap water that I watered with today (ph to 6.5) came out between 5.8 and 6.1 as run-off.
So my question is, if that's in range, do I just have some massive deficiencies that can be adjusted by bubbling up a thicker soup of EJ nutes?
Should I switch to something else?
Should I drill holes in the bottoms of these buckets, turn them into straight planters, and see if its an overwatering issue?
Could it be the low temps?
Do I just need to add Cal-Mag/Epsom asap?
-Or-
Could the fact that the pH of the run-off was lower mean that my medium-pH is way low and has been all along because of the notedly drastic pH-lowering effects of EJ? Since I wasn't checking my pH at all when I was feeding before I had the meter, I can't really know, but if anyone has any thoughts I sure would appreciate some help!!
For water experts, my TA is 38, cal at avg. 7ppm, pH about 7.5
Pics below:


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Thanks for any help!
Be easy!
Dr. J
