SlikWiLL13's Kinda-Ghetto-But-Damn-It-Works Grow

okay, this is my first journal so any tips on how i can make this more reader-friendly, i am open to suggestions. comments are definetly welcome as it takes a village.

ive been growing for a few years on and off and started up again about 6 months or so ago. since i have started growing again i have decided not to cross the 5 plant mark as it is only a misdemeanor here. i usally have 1-2 flowering, 1-2 in veg, and 1-2 clones never totaling more than 5. i have a 7'x5'x7' room partitioned into a 3'x5'(flower) and a 4'x5'(veg and work area).

my actual veg chamber is 2'x4'x4' with a bank of 6- t-12 cool tubes(i know, they need replaced w/T-5's). in the veg chamber i have a homemade single site drip bucket with a ice cream pail reservoir(ghetto fab baby!), my clone tray with a heating pad beneath and i use my McDonalds greenhouses in the tray, and catnip for my kitties(were TOTALLY self sufficient dopers around here!).

my flower room consists of a air-cooled 400w hps with a brand new solarmax full spectrum bulb over a 3'x3' ebb-n-flow tray sittin atop a 25gal reservoir. i have a diy co2 bottle in my flower room, and of course fans thruout.

right now im using Davids Grow nutes with most of thier additives. im currently without a ppm meter so i mix light to avoid burn. i also use humbolts bushmaster religiously and am currently testing out thier gravity.

my grow is mostly nirvanas northern lights but i just popped a NYC Diesel bagseed that im pretty excited about.

enjoi!

So, right now i have 2 clones about 3 days old, a 6 day seedling, one in veg @ 3wks, and one starting wk 4 of flower. ive been having the damndest time getting my clones to take, ive tried everything but a machine. hopefully these two make it.

dude how do you do your clones, because it may be a step that you may be doing wrong somewhere in between the clone, and putting it under the light.holla back and i might be able to help because i do pretty good with my clones.



PEACE!!!!
-ZEN-

ZEN MASTER said:

dude how do you do your clones, because it may be a step that you may be doing wrong somewhere in between the clone, and putting it under the light.holla back and i might be able to help because i do pretty good with my clones.



PEACE!!!!
-ZEN-

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great! im really getting desparate with the whole cloning thing. ive even grown several times in the past and just cant seem to get it to work this time. ill try to describe my process. i soak my RW cubes(and all of it for that matter) in 5.0ph'ed water with a splash of phamacutical H2O2 overnight. i shake out as much 5.0 as i can and set the cube aside. i get a glass of 24hr tap with a very small amount of rooting powder stirred into it. i take a fresh razor(wipe off the oil) and take my cut. i take them about 4" long with 1-2 nodes getting cut off and place them in the glass for about 20-30 min. while that is soaking i get another glass fo 24hr tap and put a couple drops of Hydrobact(benificial bacteriea) in it and ph it. i use this water for watering my clones. when the cut is good and soaked i dip it in rooting powder(ive had better luck with powder than gel) and insert it into the cube. the cube then gets a shot of water but not soaked either and put under my McD's domes where i dont really touch them for at least a week. i use a heating pad and thermometer and my RW stays about mid 70's, 95-100% humidity in the domes and about 60% in the room.

also, ive heard of "hard to clone" strains...my northern lights isnt among them is it?? it would only make sense seeing as ive done this plenty befor in the past with at least 80% success.

thanks in advance

ill try to get up some pics soon too, both my veg and my floweing girls are taking off good! plus my NYC D bagseed is looking to be a winner, even if its a male ill be happy...im a pimp him to my hoes if he is!

oh yeah, my veg room is on 18/6 too. i keep me clones about 3' away from the lights, i also have a shelf 1' away from the lights i could put them on but i was led to believe that you dont want real intense light for your clones until they root. am i wrong?

i just barely overdid it with the gravity from humbolt countys own but i think i caught it in time. everything i read about all thier shit says to cut it by 1/3 - 1/4 strength. i used 12ml gravity in 25gal. with 1/2 strength nutes. in 2 days i had very slight yellowing of the older fan leaves and at day 3 i started seeing nute burn. at this point i dumped the rez and started with straight phed water with a healthy capful of superthrive in it. after 3 days with just the "thrive-water" all yellowing and nute burn stopped and by day 5 of the flush the lesser damaged leaves started recovering. i reupped the rez with fresh water and 3/4 strength nutes on day six of the flush and it looks as if the gravity is working very well. my buds are usually what i consider to be a little light, not really dense. halfway thru wk 5 and they look hella dense compared to previous crops. next time ill use 9ml. and 1/4 strength nutes.

first off man to be honest with you i hate rockwool, but thats just me, you know.i kinda saw your growing system and i see that you are using clay around your cube of rockwool. well with that being said this is how i would start my clones.first off after i make my first cut i take my blade and "LIGHTLY" scrape the top layer of the skin off of about half the length that will be going uderground, what this does is give a little bit more surface area for root growth rather than just at the cut site. remember to just scrape it lightly enough to remove just a little bit of skin. now remember that everything that is cut has to heal. i say that because i noticed that you said you cut off two or so nodes, well those cut sites have to heal before any kind of roots get started. what i do is try to cut it with a long enough stem so i don't have any extra cuts(besides the initial cut from the stem), and after it starts showing growth, maybe two weeks, then i might cut off a few of the bottom nudes, i try to let if have a chance to be able to heal itself "after" some roots have formed rather than while the roots are trying to get strarted.now if i just can't help having to cut those nodes so i'll have enough stem to put in, i just make sure that any other cuts are underground, for example it has been times that my first nodes was sitting right above the ground or top of the rockwool cube, and when it grew for a couple of weeks then i cut the last few nodes.but as i said i hate rockwool, so what i would try is a perilite/vermiculate mix in like some plastic dixie cups, and a moisture meter. in my opinion what this does is; first off give your clones a more oxygen rich environment to grow in, plus more room. but you do have to keep somewhat of an eye on it, so use your meter to keep check of the moisture level towards the bottom of the cup. because with the mix being kinda light in texture it may dry out quick, and the meter is better than trying to eyeball it.now me , i like to wait about two or three weeks and after i see one or two good looking nodes have grown out(let's me know roots have formed a little), then i GENTLY remove it from the cup, and GENTLY remove as much of the medium from my roots, and then GENTLY place it in my clay pellets(that have been cleaned), and stack them up enough to support the stem.

ok, fuck that was long. now the other thing i noticed you said is about the distance from the light, if you are using flourescent lights i say get them as close as you possibly can. the light is their food in so many ways, meaning that they need it to grow( or veg)plus the closer the light is, the less stretching it will do, therefore more energy can be used to produce roots, instead of having to stretch to reach the light.and one thing before i go before i started buying seeds or any thing like that i had a whole lot of practice runs with simple bagseeds from the weed that i had bought, you know a dime sack here and a dime sack there. i'd just rather have practiced with some shit that i didn't have to order for 40,50, or 60 bucks for 5 to 10 seeds, you know what i mean?

Hope that helped, sorry that shit was so long,

PEACE!!!!
-ZEN-

ill try your mix next time i give it a go, and put my domes up on my shelf. other than that it seems like were doing alot the same. i hope this works out. yeah, i know what you mean about trying with bagseed first. this isnt my first rodeo here, but its been close to 6 yrs since i grew last. i never had problems like this before, but i was always taking way bigger batches so a little loss was no biggie. now im intent on keeping my number @ 5 or less so its 1 or 2 at a time. ill try for some more pics soon.

oh no i wasn't saying that as if you were a rookie, i just noticed that you were growing some kinda high dollar shit. an that would piss me off to if i was doing the same thing i had done in the past and it wasn't working now. so yea, iwas just speaking of myself,and what i did.


PEACE!!!!
-ZEN-

yeah, my first several grows were bagseed, turned out pretty damn good though, but bagseed. these are actually my first good name-brand seeds, so i am gettin a bit concerned. i have one good veg plant right now and its not gettin flowered until at least one clone takes. thanks again, and ill keep you posted.

My clones have rooted!!! fucking finally! i was starting to think i suck at life. i dont know if it was because i moved them up to the shelf because theyve only been there for a day or if was just thier time. i think the appropriatly named ZEN MASTER was my good luck charm. thanks holmes, big time.

im so damn excited!!

so the leaves that started with a little yellow are gettin worse and the ones that were bad from the start are starting to fall off. i usually get this to a lesser degree anyway around this time because of nitrogen def. in late flowering(normal, right?). im not too concerned right now, i have 3 wks left max and my buds look great! good and dense, WAY denser than ever before. like i used to do with my 1000w hps before i downsized to the 400w hps.

im gonna try the gravity again i think, but with way less next time.

will try like hell to take pics today...

alright, pictures!!!

1- my $10 air cooling setup
2- my veg girl @ 4 wks
3- overview of my veg area
4- NYC Diesel bagseed @ almost 2 wks
5- my McClone Domes with just rooted girls in them
6- full view of my girl 6 wks in
7- closeup of my 6 wk girl

hope you likey!!

Hell ya man nice looking shits you got there! The 6 weeks ladies are looking heavy as hell! Keep it up

~Buddy J~

thanks! a compliment from jesus is something to write home about. and thats only one girl in the pics, i topped her a couple times. im hoping for 3 oz, ive gotten a 1/4 short of 4 before in this rig on one lady.

SlikWiLL13 said:

thanks! a compliment from jesus is something to write home about. and thats only one girl in the pics, i topped her a couple times. im hoping for 3 oz, ive gotten a 1/4 short of 4 before in this rig on one lady.

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wow thats amazing! i hope i get atleast 2 zips of a plant. this is my first time so i doubt it. but that sure would be nice! Check out my journal lemme know what u think. any ideas or recommendations!

~Buddy J~

what up slik. hey man COGRADULATIONS on your babies taking root. the last two pics what strain are those? cause they look real good man, for realsies, no fakesies.lol.
man i would love to give ya a show of what i got going on, but all i have is a camera phone, and the only computer i have access to is at work. but i will try to figure something out cause i have three mothers that i been vegging but never took any clones off of, so they had been vegging since like the beginning of sept., and since i had harvested enough for me i wasn't really worried about em. but now that things are getting low i put one out to flower two weeks ago, and the other two two days ago, after i took about thirty clones. so i got a little army of soldiers going on. but hey i'm bout out, so i'm glad your clones are doing better man. i'll holla back at you later. I'ma try to work on getting some pics up 2morrow.



PEACE!!!!
-ZEN-

everything but the seedling is nirvanas northern lights, seedling is from some NYC Diesel bagseed. all my pics are cameraphone pics too, thats why there not so good.