12/12 From Seed Experiment - 21 Strains

patriots1818 said:

Interesting, dude you explained that perfectly thank you so much lol. Please keep me updated on how starting the nutes a week early went I'm about to start my grow and I'll follow whatever worked best for you lol.

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Just check my journal it's in my signature. I'll post updates about the seedlings there even tho they're different from the plant I'm growing now.

It's good to have a baseline but everyone's setup and conditions are different so there will always be differences and variations. That's why we experiment and find out what work best for us. When you start your grow post a journal so I can come through and help the best I can

patriots1818 said:

LMFAO hahahaha anyways uh another thing i've never quite understood how do you know when the roots have hit the bottom? like is the bucket suppose to be see through or idk?

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Look through the runoff drain hole on the side of the hempy bucket. You should be able to see roots once they reach reach the bottom.

akhiymjames said:

Just check my journal it's in my signature. I'll post updates about the seedlings there even tho they're different from the plant I'm growing now.

It's good to have a baseline but everyone's setup and conditions are different so there will always be differences and variations. That's why we experiment and find out what work best for us. When you start your grow post a journal so I can come through and help the best I can

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Will do amen love you man and yeah im stoned so sorry about all my questions hahaha

patriots1818 said:

Will do amen love you man and yeah im stoned so sorry about all my questions hahaha

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It's all good bro I ramble a lot. I love being here learning new things and helping and giving out good info. I only give out info when I know it's right I will never tell anybody something I know that's not true.

P.S sorry Hot Diggity for cluttering up you journal with questions and answers.

akhiymjames said:

It's all good bro I ramble a lot. I love being here learning new things and helping and giving out good info. I only give out info when I know it's right I will never tell anybody something I know that's not true.

P.S sorry Hot Diggity for cluttering up you journal with questions and answers.

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haha, no worries man. We're all here to learn from one another so it's all good.

Day 22 Update

Continued my strategy of watering every other morning with 50% or more run-off. Run off PH came in between 6.5 and 6.8 so we are getting there. I did not want to try
and drop the PH too drastically all at once by watering with like 5 ish PH so the water going in is as close to 5.8-6.0 as I can get it and it seems to be working.

Mixed 20% stronger nutes today.

No signs of burn so I feel good about continuing to slowly increase the strength although I might stick with this mix for the next watering and then increase a little more on the watering after that.

Some big decisions were made today regarding the strains. When I started this experiment, the seeds I had picked out were purchased in either 3, 4 or 5 seed lots.
Then I had a bunch of 1 seed strains that were freebies.

I have decided to thin the herd such that every strain I ordered is being represented by (1) 3" Pot and (1) 4" Pot.
Due to luck of the draw, a few strains are not represented at all and a few were over represented.
Several plants were transplanted from 4" down to 3" pots and several plants were removed that were in 4" pots as I had multiples.

I also decided to transplant all of the single seed strains from their 4" Pots down into the 3" pots. The reason is that I'm now more interested in knowing if the 3" pots will suffice.
Based on other people's work, I know the 4" pots will be enough as they have a volume of 2.3 Liters which is quite a bit more than other people's proven 12/12 From seed grows.
Because I only have 1 seed from these strains, I simply do not care too much about them. Without having a 2nd plant as a comparison, the results do not have a lot of meaning.

Here are the final strains and pot sizes for the experiment:

The following strains are represented in both the 3" Pot and 4" Pot
#2 - Barneys Farm Seeds Top Dawg
#3 - Barneys Farm Seeds G13 Haze
#4 - Barneys Farm Seeds Chronic Thunder
#5 - Barneys Farm Seeds Red Dragon
#6 - Delicious Seeds Critical Jack Herer
#7 - KC Brains Northern Lights Special
#8 - Reserva Privada Sour Kush AKA Headband
#9 - Sensi Seeds Skunk #1
#10 - Sensi Seeds Silver Haze #9
#11 - Barneys Farm Seeds Critical Kush
#12 - Bomb Seeds Bubble Bomb (This was chosen as a Tribute to Del )
#13 - Connoisseur Genetics Seeds East Coast Sour Diesel Haze
#14 - Strain Hunters Seedbank Seeds Flowerbomb Kush


These strains were the freebies and are only represented in a single 3" Pot...these are the ones that I transplanted from 4" to 3" today.
(Transplanting to a smaller pot was a 1st for me). No signs of shock yet so I hope my gentleness pays off. If not, no biggie.
#18 - Barneys Farm Seeds Blue Cheese
#19 - Delicious Seeds Critical Sensi Star
#20 - Dinafem Seeds Critical Cheese
#23 - Samsara Seeds Green Love Potion
#24 - Seedism Seeds Cheese

The only strain I am bumming over not getting is #15 - Seedism Seeds AppleJack (Jack Herer x White Widow). She just never sprouted.

All in all things are looking great. When I entered the room this morning it stunk. Could not believe it. Went from no odor to straight up dank.
I'm not fully prepared on the odor control yet but I have new fans and filters coming and will be moving back into the tent and hopefully this time I can control temps. But I'll save all of that for another post.

Edit: There are Eighteen 3" pots, not Sixteen as I named the Pics.

Per Mr.Head's advice, I also got rid of the #1's - Barneys Farm Seeds Tangerine Dream
I had one in a 3" and one in a 4" and the 3" example was sub-par. Just looked off in general. Had the 3" example looked good I would have included both of them but that coupled with Mr. Head's comment on this strain being poop led me to just get them out of here.

My three main goals for tomorrow are:

1) Start hooking up the fans and filters for controlling odor inside of this room.

2) Come up with a clever solution for elevating plants that are short in order to achieve a uniform canopy.

3) Organize and clean the room...it's a pig sty.

Hot Diggity Sog said:

My three main goals for tomorrow are:

1) Start hooking up the fans and filters for controlling odor inside of this room.

2) Come up with a clever solution for elevating plants that are short in order to achieve a uniform canopy.

3) Organize and clean the room...it's a pig sty.

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Nice thread thinking of going to sog on my next grow, Good Luck. Interested to see how things turn out.

green217 said:

Nice thread thinking of going to sog on my next grow, Good Luck. Interested to see how things turn out.

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Thanks green...that makes two of us!

Hi, Hot! This is really a very detailed and informative Grow diary! I'm looking forward to see how everything goes! Without knowing jack, I put my money on headband! (It's really a ind of lottery since there are a lot of variation within most strains) But this will give you a very good indication of which strains that will fit your system and style. With the amount of seeds you're starting with, you should end up with a few very strong genotypes!

Plants are looking really good! Maybe the advice to not change a winning concept isn't so bad after all. Though, nothing horrible will happen if you up a tad to much, you just have to feed them less the next time, if you see signs of overfeeding. If you keep an eye on the ppm in the runoff, and it's lower or the same as you feed them, everything is cool! But I think you lower the runoff a bit for those reading to be more accurate... I see how your reasoning about the flushing, and it might also have been I who called wolf on coco... But can't help to think that it's a waste to raise nutes and at the same time flushing 50% away... maybe stepping back a bit on the flushing next feeding, and up on the following feeding if they take it well? Unless you really know that the coco was very salty? Do you have any compressed coco left? If you have, take a handful and soak it for a while, then squeeze the water out and measure the ppm.

If the plants were mine they would normally have been getting an EC of 0,9-1,1 at this stage. Will try higher than that, but with less nitrogen next time.. To make things even more confusing, I must tell you that I just read that some companies transform 1 EC to 500PPM and others to 700PPM. what brand is your PPM-meter?

I know that I'm not very precise in my advice's, but it's not that dramatical, with a runoff of 20% it's not so easy to severally overfeed your plants, since the salt don't accumulate. Jus up it slowly and step back if you have to. They won't ever get a real nute-burn if you up it gradually.. Feeling more confident by my answer? (I apologize if the english is bad, I'm getting really sleepy in my time-zone)

Fiveleafsleft said:

Hi, Hot! This is really a very detailed and informative Grow diary! I'm looking forward to see how everything goes! Without knowing jack, I put my money on headband! (It's really a ind of lottery since there are a lot of variation within most strains) But this will give you a very good indication of which strains that will fit your system and style. With the amount of seeds you're starting with, you should end up with a few very strong genotypes!

Plants are looking really good! Maybe the advice to not change a winning concept isn't so bad after all. Though, nothing horrible will happen if you up a tad to much, you just have to feed them less the next time, if you see signs of overfeeding. If you keep an eye on the ppm in the runoff, and it's lower or the same as you feed them, everything is cool! But I think you lower the runoff a bit for those reading to be more accurate... I see how your reasoning about the flushing, and it might also have been I who called wolf on coco... But can't help to think that it's a waste to raise nutes and at the same time flushing 50% away... maybe stepping back a bit on the flushing next feeding, and up on the following feeding if they take it well? Unless you really know that the coco was very salty? Do you have any compressed coco left? If you have, take a handful and soak it for a while, then squeeze the water out and measure the ppm.

If the plants were mine they would normally have been getting an EC of 0,9-1,1 at this stage. Will try higher than that, but with less nitrogen next time.. To make things even more confusing, I must tell you that I just read that some companies transform 1 EC to 500PPM and others to 700PPM. what brand is your PPM-meter?

I know that I'm not very precise in my advice's, but it's not that dramatical, with a runoff of 20% it's not so easy to severally overfeed your plants, since the salt don't accumulate. Jus up it slowly and step back if you have to. They won't ever get a real nute-burn if you up it gradually.. Feeling more confident by my answer? (I apologize if the english is bad, I'm getting really sleepy in my time-zone)

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Thanks man, this helps. Great idea on testing the coco. I have a full brick unopened still so I will take a little and soak it and measure. This will tell me where the coco starts which will be helpful. I did pre-rinse the coco that is being used over a 3 day period tho.

I'm going to increase nutes tonight and water much less. Yesterdays watering consisted of 5 gallons of water and about 4 gallons of run off...LOL
So maybe I'll only mix 2 gallons today instead of 5

Here is the PPM Pen I have:
http://www.amazon.com/HM-Digital-TDS-EZ-Measurement-Resolution/dp/B002C0A7ZY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411078668&sr=8-1&keywords=TDS+PPM+pen
Only does PPM, not EC

All pens measure in EC. and convert to PPM. using one of the two conversion rates, either .5 or .7. Look up the TDS thread on here. SO much information just on the meters

Mr.Head said:

All pens measure in EC. and convert to PPM. using one of the two conversion rates, either .5 or .7. Look up the TDS thread on here. SO much information just on the meters

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This is info that I got:

I believe you are trying to convert from the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) concentration (units of ppm = parts per million) to the electrical conductivity of the fluid in units of millisiemens/centimeter (mS/cm). The conversion from concentration to electrical conductivity depends on the type of salt used in the solution with which the meter is calibrated. These meters measure electrical current passed between 2 electrodes and assume that the ions in the solution being tested are similar to the ions in the calibration solution when the conversion is made to ppm. According to the HM Digital meter web site, their meters are calibrated in a NaCl solution. A rough conversion is provided in the calibration instructions at URL: http://www.tdsmeter.com/TDS_Meter_Calibration_Instructions.pdf , where it is stated that "This measure of conductivity, ìS/cm is then converted to ppm by a factor of approximately 0.5, on a curve ranging from 0.47 to 0.55, depending on the level. The factor is related directly to the level of conductivity. This meter is built and calibrated according to an NaCl standard. Other meters may be calibrated to either a KCl standard (0.51 conversion) or the 442 standard.(0.7 conversion). " Note that this explanation refers to units of microsiemens/cm, (µs/cm) instead of millisiemens/cm (ms/cm). To convert from ppm to µs/cm multiply ppm by 0.5. To convert from ppm to ms/cm, multiply by 500. This appears to be close to the conversion factor used by the Hanna brand of meters.

So last feed was slightly over 1.0 EC it appears.

OK. an EC of 1,3 including the EC of water is what Canna recommends (normal feeding). This is what i've used, and never even been close to overfeeding. 1,5 is what you aiming at if go for "heavy feeding." I wouldn't raise EC more then 0,1 at the time, especially not when you are pulling back on runoff. Guess this is what you are doing! Let's hope your ladies takes it like pros!

Here is the calculator i use, but i guess you just as well can follow the recommendations from your brand.

http://www.canna-uk.com/growguide

How are you reasoning when it comes to lighting? Using MH really seem to do the trick with node spacing! Starting there and changing to HPS after stretch is probably very good! But when you are going perpetual this won't be as easy, if you don't have 2 tents/rooms..

Fiveleafsleft said:

How are you reasoning when it comes to lighting? Using MH really seem to do the trick with node spacing! Starting there and changing to HPS after stretch is probably very good! But when you are going perpetual this won't be as easy, if you don't have 2 tents/rooms..

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That's true but multiple tents and/or a custom built room is what I will be going for. I'm going to rely on everyone's suggestions and my gut as far as when to switch over to HPS.

Fiveleafsleft said:

How are you reasoning when it comes to lighting? Using MH really seem to do the trick with node spacing! Starting there and changing to HPS after stretch is probably very good! But when you are going perpetual this won't be as easy, if you don't have 2 tents/rooms..

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This is a very crude illustration but shows what I'm thinking about for a perpetual setup. Since the experiment is no where near finished I will have to make some assumptions.

Assumptions
Total Length of time from Sprout to Harvest: 12 Weeks
Optimum Footprint of a 600 Watt Light: 4' x 4'


Below is a possible mockup


Think in terms of Units. The red bordered space would be 4 Feet wide by 12 feet wide so each *Unit* would be considered 4' x 1'
The outer black border represents the Room. Perhaps the walking space is 1 to 2 feet.

In this mockup, (3) 600 watt lights could support the space.
The way I think about perpetual is:
Frequency and Unit size where frequency is the amount of time it takes before new units are brought into and out of the space. Thinking in these terms, I can scale up and scale down and come up with different variations to accommodate the number of lights I want and the amount of space I need.

Hot Diggity Sog said:

That's true but multiple tents and/or a custom built room is what I will be going for. I'm going to rely on everyone's suggestions and my gut as far as when to switch over to HPS.

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Very good! I was under the impression that you only were to use one 600-watter at the time, which would have compromised the representativeness of this pilot-grow. But now, since you are about to follow this MH-HPS-method, your right on point!

I think you could get away with two HID's by starting your seedlings in small cups under T5's and replanting after 2 weeks or so.. is productivity your main concern here? like finding the best yielder and then start optimizing, or is it to have a flexible system that will let you grow many different strains at the sam time? Don't say that there isn't a golden middle way, but might be concern when choosing strains to work with..

Fiveleafsleft said:

I think you could get away with two HID's by starting your seedlings in small cups under T5's and replanting after 2 weeks or so.. is productivity your main concern here? like finding the best yielder and then start optimizing, or is it to have a flexible system that will let you grow many different strains at the sam time? Don't say that there isn't a golden middle way, but might be concern when choosing strains to work with..

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Ya know, I just don't know yet. The example above is seriously over-simplified.

In a setup like that, the Lights must remain fixed. So the vertical growth pattern needs to be known ahead of time so I know how high to place the lights.
Seedlings and very young veg plants don't need the light intensity that the more mature ones need.

Then there is the concern of electricity usage. 3600 Watts is the most I'm comfortable with without creating any suspicion. That said, having a setup that consumes 30 Amps of power for exactly 12 hours a day and then nothing for the other 12 hours is worrisome. So I'm thinking about 2 perpetuals. Setup #1 is twice as large as setup #2 and they are on alternating light schedules so in this example I'd have 3600 watts for 12 hours and 1800 watts the other 12 hours...seems much less likely to be scrutinized.

Then there is the problem of where are the new ones going to coming from? Clones, Fem Seeds or Regular Seeds.
Clones has a certain appeal to it but that would then require a whole additional set of space, lights, ventilation, etc. Fem Seeds are ideal but where am I going to get them? It will be cost prohibitive to purchase them so I would be forced to make them. Don't know if I'd be able to do that. So we're left with Regular seeds. Easy to make and build a large stock. But now we have 50% of them that will sex somewhere in the 5th to 6th week. This alters the formulas for space and light requirements.

So all in all there is a lot to consider!

Either way you might wanna look at some kind of auto watering system, if you you're gonna have that many plants? The advantage of waiting a bit is off course that you will know your needs better. Like how many plants you are gonna go with. If you are after productivity, clones will give you more bud in the end in the end I do believe, but the difference maybe isn't that big.. And I've always found seeds beeing nicer to work with. Working with big numbers of clones on a tight schedule actually isn't that easy. It's not rocket science, but sure takes some practice to perfect.