Dan Kone's 2011 NorCal Organic Forest

Getting a late start on putting this up, but oh well, here we go.

Starting out with the homemade barrio "greenhouse" (using the term loosely) Constructed from PCP pipe, rope, and 92% transparent greenhouse plastic for a rain shield.

I'm doing 18 100 gallon smart pots. Some are my own crosses and some seeds from attitude.

I've got 2 Pineapple express, 1 grapefruit, 1 white widow, 3 SS Jack Herer, 2 mosca C99 bx1, 1 pre-98 bubba kush x old time moonshine, 4 e32 trainwreck x big bud, 4 lemon thai kush x big bud.

The soil -

Started of with a base of 3 bails of 50/50 coco/soil mix. (Each bail = 50cu feet) Mixed that with one bail of compost. Instead of just peralite I used a half and half mix of peralite and rice hulls. I then lined the bottom of the smart pots with a thin layer of a mix of alaskan humus, llama manure, and compost.The rest of the amendments are pretty similar to supersoil.

All watering is done through a drip system except once a week or so each gets a 5G bucket of compost tea.

Here's some pics to get me caught up.



Put the plants out there early april. They are shooting up quick! Most of the plants are between 5'-6' at the moment with the bubba kush x moonshine the tallest at 6'6".

I'm happy to take any questions relating to this grow and criticism as well as suggestions are welcome. Never done a journal type thing before so if I'm doing it wrong let me know.

Good looking grow!

Your damn right when you say "forest". Your gonna have some monsters.They look great.Nice grow.

I'm getting in this one early!

Looking good man!
I got a little plant of my own outside (Unfortunately I spent a good amount on my indoor setup, so I don't have the space or money to do a large outdoor grow this year), and I used a similar recipe to super soil as well. I was thinking of using chicken shit instead of bat guano for my next outdoor grow (which will hopefully be of decent size). I've heard that chicken shit is better for outdoor growing and bat guano is better for indoor from Tom Hill:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=159846&highlight=tomhill
What are your thoughts on bat guano vs. chicken poop?

Your plants are huge already!

Very impressive how did you keep them out of flower you say you put them out in April? Very nice grow I would have issue with plants that big in the city. I will stay with my 5ft by 5ft bushes. keepem green dirrtyd

Right on Dan, I'll stick around. I love watching these plants grow.
You're in no cal right, Ok so like you only got 2 MONTHS left to veg LOL.

You think you got monsters now?

Yea I would be thinking about topping, Maybe give the plants that lost some lower branches to the wind a little time.
I see you got some rope up. I used that last year and it helped, gave me some tie down points during veg then supported the lower stuff in flower.

Can you spread these girls out any? I'm thinking bend them over.

You got a big ladder?!?.............Your gonna need it!

That's impressive. Your on track for something special, those are huge.

Stand back & check that your health premiums are paid up, 'just in case'!

peace
doublejj
P.S. Have you got lights up?

large and in charge. impressive and beautiful

*subscribed*

need help trimming?

mccumcumber said:

I was thinking of using chicken shit instead of bat guano for my next outdoor grow (which will hopefully be of decent size). I've heard that chicken shit is better for outdoor growing and bat guano is better for indoor from Tom Hill:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=159846&highlight=tomhill
What are your thoughts on bat guano vs. chicken poop?

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Why pick one? I'm using both as well as llama manure. I use a couple different types of guano. I like them for being able to more precisely balance my npk. Manures and composts help you maintain a healthy soil food web and are necessary for that purpose.

I don't just put soil in the pots and pop some plants in that day. I like to have my soil ready in their containers for at least a month before I even think about putting plants in there. Once the soil is in there I try to kick start the micro organisms first with mayan microzyme (which you can argue is unnecessary, but it doesn't hurt) and compost teas. Those are the basic building blocks. Then I've added some beneficial nematodes and earthworms to the soil. I water it semi-regularly for a month or more, continuously adding compost teas to promote the fungal side of the food web. Composts and manures are an essential part of this food web because bacteria and fungi need something to snack on while they are waiting to be eaten by other microorganisms.

Anyways, that why I feel manure is necessary. But I don't see it as an either/or proposition. My soil is also in several layers increasing in nutrients, and changing in NPK as you get deeper. Since I'm a hydo guy, having stable and accurate NPK levels all the way down my pots comforts me. I'm much more comfortable with things that are quantifiable. So guano is awesome because I can know exactly what nutrients I'm adding and where I'm adding them.

Of course take what I say about this subject with a grain of salt. I'm an amateur. Like I said, I'm really more of an indoor/hydro guy and just screw around with outdoor growing. I've read some books and have family that are professional commercial organic farmers who have taught me the basics. Personally, I'm not a scientist nor am I an organics pro. I just make a lot of educated guesses and hope they work out.

dirrtyd said:

Very impressive how did you keep them out of flower you say you put them out in April?

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dumb luck mostly.

Also I had a ton of replacements. Usually I like to start off with about 4x as many seedlings as I need. I start them outside right after germination. Some die because they can't handle the sun/climate as seedlings, but the ones that survive are super tolerant to just about everything and are comfortable with the natural light cycle. I only had early flowering on two of them.

If I put a plant in one of the big pots and it starts flowering early, I just pull it and replace it with a backup I've got going in 5G pot. Also if I just decide I don't like what a plant is doing I pull it and replace it. Once all the plants have been sexed and I'm satisfied with what I've got in the big pots, I take the rest and give them away to friends and use a few to make seeds with for next year.

I understand this system is pretty LULZ, but it works for me and it's not a problem considering I have a pretty nice supply of home made seeds and I'm really not concerned with losing some seedlings and young plants. It's not like I'm going to run out of them.

Cool stuff man, I guess I'll just try both out next time! I agree with you about leaving the soil out, I usually let mine sit for about 30-60 days... seems very beneficial to me.

Before my two most recent indoor grows, I would usually just use a base soil and add liquid nutrients as I went along in the cycle. I converted to subcool's super soil a little while ago, and I don't think I'll be using any alternative, except for maybe aquaponics, but that depends on how much my I can make off of this grow. You said that you were a hydro guy, do you have any opinion regarding aquaponics?

Thanks everyone for the encouragement!

Wheeler man said:

Your damn right when you say "forest".

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I don't use the word forest lightly Although it may become more of a jungle.

cruzer101 said:

Right on Dan, I'll stick around. I love watching these plants grow.
You're in no cal right, Ok so like you only got 2 MONTHS left to veg LOL.

You think you got monsters now?

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I'm way more worried about them getting too big than not big enough. Right now they are growing at an insane rate. Hopefully they mellow out a bit.

cruzer101 said:

Yea I would be thinking about topping, Maybe give the plants that lost some lower branches to the wind a little time.
I see you got some rope up. I used that last year and it helped, gave me some tie down points during veg then supported the lower stuff in flower.

Click to expand...

Every plant in there has been topped a minimum of twice. When I do that the plants pretty much just laugh at me and keep growing. I'm concerned with more than vertical growth. Horizontal growth is just as big of a problem for me. With Lemon thai kush it can be a huge problem. Last year I had one that got 9' wide in a container that was less than half the size they are in now.

The rope system you see now is going to be a branch support system. A new layer of ropes may pop up for the purpose of bending branches, but I don't want to encourage horizontal growth too much right now until I'm confident there is enough room for them to grow wide. TBH that space should hold 12 plants instead of 18.

doublejj said:

You got a big ladder?!?.............Your gonna need it

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indeed.

doublejj said:

P.S. Have you got lights up?

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No. I was planning on using my 90w UFOs. But when it came time to put them up there was a huge snow storm in Tahoe and I had to go up and get a piece of that action. I get distracted pretty easily by good skiing whether.

mccumcumber said:

except for maybe aquaponics, but that depends on how much my I can make off of this grow. You said that you were a hydro guy, do you have any opinion regarding aquaponics?

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I think it's unnecessarily elaborate with too many things that can go wrong. I'm quite happy with the results I get using canna nuts and rock wool. It's very simple without a lot of variables. More variables = a decrease in your chances of success. Simple and effective. That's what you should look for when considering hydro setups.

I was just wondering how they didn't flower on you outdoors that early.

peace
doublejj
P.S. Have you seen my carport?

doublejj said:

I was just wondering how they didn't flower on you outdoors that early.

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They'll flower early if you veg them indoors first. But if you start them from seedlings outside, they are used to the light and not likely to flower.

peace
doublejj
P.S. Have you seen my carport?

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Yep. And I'm pretty sure you'll be taking the top off of it at some point

Everything looks killer. Big girls for sure

That's the way to do it! I'm slowly changing over to all seed grows too, I believe much better medicine and way better yields are the norm. I just can't quite trust a seed without running it indoors first, and then running the first clones outside and they do really well too, but not as good as the seedling if it's a good pheno. I'm starting to breed too, and have some of my crosses going in as well. Hell, maybe we could work out a trade of some genetics some time.
Your grow is impessive. Your doing everything right for a hellava harvest....Good Luck!!!!!!