My First Grow: Aeroponics, LED veg, Super HPS flower, CO2 sealed room

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oldmac

A favorite subject, those Procyon's. I think you are being a little generous saying 3' penertration, I've found 2'+, not quite to 3'.

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You know, you're right on that - I eyeballed it to 3' (and the manufacturer says 3' - which is likely to be the more generous assumption) but I'd like to agree with you here and say yes - esp with MJ, you're getting 2'+ penetration from the Procyon. Thanks for bringing that up - I'm not usually that sloppy.

Also, thank you for the info on plant height control and Procyon distance - I'm adjusting mine now as per your instructions. I'd like to +rep ya for it... but I can't find the little button on your post to do it. :wtf:

Group 3 is the youngest and final group.

Strains: Apollo 11, Blueberry, Sugar Blossoms, Sugar Berry, Blue Apollo

8/19/09: Seeds Germed. Transplanted into conditioned RW cubes - all done exactly as before with groups 1 & 2. Very good rate of germination - lowest rate was 80% (Sugar Blossoms & Blueberry). Germ rate 90% (Blue Apollo). Germ Rate 100% (Sugar Berry, Apollo 11).

9/02/09: Seedlings given light seedling nutrient mixture mentioned before for the 3rd week of seedling stage.

9/09/09: End of Seedling stage. Plants now 3 weeks old. Transplanted into a Veg unit & a cloner unit. Both units had a cloner lids (23 spaces for plants) instead of veg unit lids (17 spaces). Plants were given 1/2 strength growth solution and placed under a single Procyon 100.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...lue-apollo.jpg
Group 3 Unit 1 (Blue Apollo, Sugar Blossoms, Apollo 11)

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...-blueberry.jpg
Group 3 Unit 2 (Sugar Berry, Blueberry, Apollo 11)

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...ing-canopy.jpghttp://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...tical-shot.jpg

9/30/09: 6 weeks old. Plants were spread out into 3 units. Unit 1 containing Blue Apollo & Apollo 11, Unit 2: Sugar Berry & Apollo 11, & Unit 3: Blueberry & Sugar Blossoms. This should prevent some of the smaller plants getting crowded out (Blueberry, Sugar Blossoms) and provide better air circulation and access to light over all.

Plants BEFORE transfer into 3 units, 6 weeks:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...lue-apollo.jpg

Group 3 Unit 1 BEFORE transplant, canopy & vertical shot:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...llo-canopy.jpghttp://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...lue-apollo.jpg

Group 3 Unit 2 BEFORE transplant, canopy & vertical shot:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...py-6-weeks.jpghttp://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...ugar-berry.jpg

Group 3 AFTER Transfer into 3 Units:

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...more-light.jpg
Unit 1: back left (Blue Apollo & Apollo 11) Unit 2: back right (Sugar Berry & Apollo 11) Unit 3: front (Sugar Blossoms & Blueberry)

Group 3, Unit 1 AFTER transfer:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...-back-rows.jpg

Group 3, Unit 2 AFTER transfer:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...-back-rows.jpg

Group 3, Unit 3 AFTER transfer:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...more-light.jpg

10/03/09: Unit 3 was put under 3 T5 lights at a distance of 1" from the canopy. Units 1 & 2 were left under the Procyon but adjusted to a shorter distance.

Here is the layout of the strains in Group 3, first BEFORE the transfer from 2 units to 3:

Unit 1 (Blue Apollo, Sugar Blossom, Apollo 11):

[align=center]BA BA BA BA BA

BA BA BA BA

SBL SBL SBL SBL SBL

SBL SBL SBL SBL

A11 A11 A11 A11 A11

front[/align]

Apollo 11 = A11
Sugar Blossoms = SBL
Blue Apollo = BA

Unit 2 (Sugar Berry, Blueberry, Apollo 11):

[align=center]SB SB SB SB SB

BB BB BB BB

SB SB SB SB SB

BB BB BB BB

A11 A11 A11 A11 A11

front[/align]

Apollo 11 = A11
Blueberry = BB
Sugar Berry = SB

Key to Units AFTER transfer into 3 units:

*Strain Key is same as above

Unit 1 (Blue Apollo & Apollo 11):

[align=center]BA BA BA BA BA

X X X X

BA BA X BA BA

X X X X

A11 A11 A11 A11 A11

front[/align]

Unit 2 (Sugar Berry & Apollo 11):

[align=center]SB SB SB SB SB

X X X X

SB SB SB SB SB

X X X X

A11 A11 A11 A11 A11

front[/align]

Unit 3 (Sugar Blossoms & Blueberry):

[align=center]BB BB BB BB

SBL SBL SBL

BB BB BB BB

SBL SBL SBL

SBL X SBL X

front[/align]

Most, a good 80%, of the Blueberry seedlings I've sprouted show deformities such as variegated leaves & stunted growth ranging from moderate to severe. I know that comes with the territory when dealing with blue strains and especially DJ Short's famous Blueberry. I feel like I should pull them as they're hopeless, but I keep them b/c if I pulled the ones that were deformed it would leave me with only 2 plants at the most. I've heard that it can take a few tries with several packets of seeds to get a good blueberry mother. As of now, that is the strain that is most in danger of not producing a viable mother plant.

Examples of the deformed leaves:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...ore-normal.jpghttp://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...rry-plants.jpghttp://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...mon-strain.jpg

All the blueberries together:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...ts-6-weeks.jpg

The clones have sexed and I now know which mothers I want from groups 1 & 2:

C99 - 'Grapefruit'
C99 - 'Pineapple'
A11 X C99 'Alpha'
C99 X BB 'Bravo'

Everything has been in the flower room with the exception of one cloner used to sex the plants - that's in the veg room. My plan is to hang the veg lights (Procyons, any T5s I may want) in the veg room, move Group 3 there and take cuttings from the mothers in groups 1 & 2 to clone and ultimately use as mothers. These clones (2 for each mother) are to be placed in rockwool cubes for ease of transplant into the dutch buckets & put into the cloner unit where if all goes well they will sprout roots & be transfered into the permanent home of the mothers: the dutch bucket system.

There's a ton of construction that must be done - manifolds for the chiller/icebox units, hanging the ducting, the HPS lights, etc. but it should not take too long before "Phase Two" will be up and running. Right now It's about making some space in the flower room, getting clones that will eventually serve as mother plants and setting up the veg room. Stay tuned.

Plants as of 10/05/09:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...eeks-1-day.jpg
Group 1 - notice the plant removed for small size. Plants are now 14 weeks & 3 days old.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...eks-5-days.jpg
Group 2 - smaller plants were also removed here. Plants are 11 weeks old.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...5-days-old.jpg
Group 3 Units 1 & 2. Plants are 6 weeks, 5 days old.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...eks-5-days.jpg
Group 3 Unit 3. Plants are 6 weeks, 5 days old.

Here are some pictures and some info about where the plants are as of today.

Group 1 is now 15 weeks + 1 day old (3 1/2 months). Mother plants 'Grapefruit' & 'Pineapple' are looking bushy and healthy. I removed one plant from the system that was between the two as it was very, very small and not worth flowering in my opinion.

Group 2 is 11 weeks + 5 days old (2 1/2 months). As you can see, several plants have been culled: A 'delta', B 'delta', B 'golf', C 'alpha', C 'bravo', C 'charlie'. Again b/c they were just too small to even consider flowering out (or they sexed male). Plants that are female are: A 'alpha', A 'bravo', B 'bravo', B 'foxtrot'. The others are likely females - but have taken a while to sex and the plants I wanted most as mothers have proven to be female. Group 2's mothers are A 'alpha' & B 'bravo'. They stand out heads and shoulders above the rest. The others will be kept to flower out, the new Key for Group 2 no looks like this:
[align=center]
Bc X

X Ba

Be Bb*

Bf Aa*

X Ab

X Ac

X X

reservoir
[/align]
* connotes the plants slated to be used as mother plants.

Group 3 is 7 weeks + 3 days old (1 3/4 months) and shooting us like, well, weeds. The deformed blueberries have not improved, however there are about 3 acceptable specimens in the group. This group is to be moved into the veg room while the other 2 groups (1 & 2) will be kept in the flower room & flowered out very shortly. They are too young to take cuttings from to sex them just yet & I may need to move them into flower units to give them more space to grow. I should mention that in addition to spacing them out to 3 units, group 3, unit 3 was put under 3 T5s on 10/3/09 and appears not to have suffered for it & is thriving.

Here is a last look at the plants as they are in the flower room:

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...4-days-old.jpg
Group 1: 15 weeks, 4 days.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...eks-6-days.jpg
Group 2: 11 weeks, 6 days.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...eks-4-days.jpg
Group 3 Units 1 & 2: 7 weeks, 4 days.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...eks-4-days.jpg
Group 3 Unit 3: 7 weeks, 4 days.

Looking vey nice Apollonia! :thumbsup: And again I compliment you on your organizational skills. Very well done.

As to your leaf deformities with your Blueberries', I ususally refer to plants like that as " 'tards" (not pc correct I know) and they can be surprising sometimes. If they are real runts, I'll trash them. But if they come out of my clonner with good healthy roots and are growing, I just put them into flower. Keep in mind that in both of my grows I never veg very long, usually 7-10 days, tho there are some exceptions like making future moms. Sometimes these 'tards form picture perfect buds other times they are slightly deformed or undersize but I gave them a fair shot at life.:D

Continued good growing and success to you.
:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oldmac

Looking vey nice Apollonia! :thumbsup: And again I compliment you on your organizational skills. Very well done.

As to your leaf deformities with your Blueberries', I ususally refer to plants like that as " 'tards" (not pc correct I know) and they can be surprising sometimes. If they are real runts, I'll trash them. But if they come out of my clonner with good healthy roots and are growing, I just put them into flower. Keep in mind that in both of my grows I never veg very long, usually 7-10 days, tho there are some exceptions like making future moms. Sometimes these 'tards form picture perfect buds other times they are slightly deformed or undersize but I gave them a fair shot at life.:D

Continued good growing and success to you.
:)

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You nailed it, without being seriously organized, let's just say this would not be possible for me to do at all!

The messed up plants - they're VERY runty as in still only showing 1-2 sets of leaves and 2 1/2 inches tall compared to their siblings which are 6 inches tightly stacked with several nodes. I'm keeping them around just out of curiosity and like you said - it's more bud than you would have if you didn't flower them! Have you personally noticed if these 'tard plants (and their growth is retarded, so it's technically correct, right?) are more common under certain conditions or with certain strains? I'm just going to remove the really ridiculously small ones, like the 2 inchers - I'm not even sure they're going to survive long. I tried to take a picture for you, but it wasn't showing up so good against all the other greenery. Good to hear from you again as always, OM!

10/18/09 Update:

Begin flowering of Groups 1 & 2:

The flower room has been set-up in it's final form with three exceptions - I'm using a portable air-conditioner as a dehumidifier, as my little dehumidifier has not arrived yet. Two: the icebox cooler is now attached to the can filter instead of to the vented hood system where it will ultimately go - as the lights are being cooled by drawing cool air from outside the house, I thought this was a better use of the icebox. Three: The second lighting set up hasn't been hung yet as it is not needed at the moment.

The 1/3 HP chiller is running, cooling the 50 gallon reservoir which contain 2 pumps: one 1800 GPH MagDrive Pump directing water to the Co2 generator & the icebox (soon to be iceboxes) and a 1200 GPH MagDrive Pump directing water to the chiller. The Co2 maintains a constant concentration of 1500 parts per million per cubic square foot of Co2 during the day time & shuts off at night. There is also a kill switch attached to the UVB light circuit located outside the grow room so I need not expose myself to excessive UVB. There are circulating fans about to circulate the Co2 - the Can fan also pulls air up from the floor (Co2 is heavy & tends to sink) & jets it up into the air.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...ut-chiller.jpg

The light for this area of space is one 1000 Watt Super HPS Solarmax confined in a Magnum xxxl 6" vented hood, flanked on one side by a Procyon and on both sides by a 3 foot UVB bulb which are about 25" - 30" away from the canopy - the UVB only goes on for 5 hours each day. I will be monitoring the effects of the UVB on the foliage to avert possible damages.

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...nce-plants.jpg

Both reservoirs for Groups 1 & 2 were changed & a full strength Transitional Expert Recirculating formula of 10 gallons each was added to the reservoir - PH adjusted to be around 5.5 - 5.8 (my PH pen which was supposed to be a replacement for my first defective PH pen has proved to be, well unreliable to say the least & I'm back to the color dropper method). I added a root drench of 1/4 strength SubCulture M to all the plants by pouring the mixture directly onto their roots & into their pots as was suggested by the makers of the product. I'm giving the mycorrhizal fungi a week's head start to establish themselves as the bacteria in SubCulture B can out compete them if added to the system at the same time as the fungi. The SubCulture B will be added next week. Bio balls, 45 in each reservoir have been added to provide access to oxygen & surface area for the beneficial micro-organisms to live on - this will also prevent the beneficial bacteria & fungi from forming a thick, clear slime on the surface of the water which has the potential to clog the sprayers and the pumps. Signs of clogging or over-population will be monitored closely.

The plants in Groups 1 & 2, with the mothers being selected, cloned & the clones showing signs of viability, plus the plants getting rather large were put into 12/12 on 10/18/09. Group 1 was 4 months, 3 weeks old (16 weeks & 1 day) at the time of flowering. Group 2 was 2 months, 3 weeks, 5 days old (12 weeks 5 days).

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...eks-6-days.jpg

Group 1:
To deal with height issues, I've applied several techniques: the Group 1 mothers are large and quite thick stemmed - too thick to bend. For now, I'm training the Procyon on them in the hopes the added blue wavelength will retard stretching. As they begin to grow & stretch, I plan on first bending down the side branches and if possible, slowly & incrementally bend/ or very lightly break the main stem to get the plant to grow in a more horizontal fashion. As a last resort - I may have to top them. I'm considering doing it now, but would rather take my chances & hopefully not have to do it. As it stands now, they are about 1 foot away from the glass of the vented hood. The other 2 plants in Group 1 were flexible enough that I was able to bend them nearly to container level. I had not anticipated using LST or other training/ bending methods - so this should be interesting - I'm excited to see what comes of it.

Group 2:
The plants in Group 2, being younger than the plants in Group 1 were more flexible and bent far easier - with some bending right down to the "ground." The larger, less flexible plants have been tilted horizontally and had their branches tied down. One plant I decided to try a more severe training method on - I bent the meristem until it broke - it did not separate from the plant, it just became pliable, I trained this in the direction I wanted to it go & waited to see if it would survive - low and behold it did! The plant remained in the position I put it in and the top, the area above the break continued to grow and turn up towards the light in 2 days. As the flowering of the plants grown from seed is a secondary grow to the establishment of the perpetual grow system, I'm taking this opportunity to try some things that are challenging.

Example of the LST/bending I've been doing on Groups 1 & 2:

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/a...ht-control.jpg

There are still some plants in Group 2 whose sex is undetermined - they will be watched closely & males will obviously be removed quickly.

Note - I was told you cannot remove plants from the flower units as their remaining dead roots will cause the remaining plants to die - so far this had not happened. I've removed as much of the roots as possible, but the washing action of the water flow may be removing the remaining dead roots where they are eventually fished out & removed from the reservoir which would explain the lack of problems from the removal of plants.

I should also mention here that I've had issues with roots hanging out of the end of the flower chamber - I just hack these off with scissors - the plants don't seem to mind at all. I've done the same thing with roots in the veg units & cloners that have grown too long or wrapped themselves around the sprayer apparatus - as they are long thick taproots & plentiful, the plants do not seem to mind.

All in all, this week or phase has a few unknowns and things that could go either way - this should be the beginning of an interesting part of the grow. It doesn't show in my notes - but I am seriously running around excited & happy!

10/18/09

My gamble on mycorrhizae

This scenario applies to all beneficial organisms I will add and have already added. The Floralicious Plus contains beneficial bacteria and has caused no problems yet, but it is nowhere near as concentrated as SubCulture M or SubCulture B. The SubCulture M & B may prove to be either a nightmare, a blessing or a nothing.

Nightmare scenario: the mycorrhizae fungi & the beneficial bacteria explode in numbers clogging my sprayers & possibly clogging my pumps. The Bio balls prove inadequate in containing them and they form a thick slime on the surface of the water in the reservoir. Removing them by cleaning the system proves to be extremely difficult as they are stubborn, microscopic & get into and on every little part of your apparatus. Alternate nightmare scenario: the mycorrhizae & beneficial bacteria don't survive or are too small in number & enemy pathogens collect on the root system harming & possibly killing my plants.

Blessing scenario: The mycorrhizae & beneficial bacteria establish themselves on my plants roots, protecting them from enemy pathogens, aid in nutrient uptake which lead to overall better plant health, less use of nutrients & bigger buds w/o over reproducing themselves & sliming my system. They contain themselves to the root system & the bio balls I've provided in the reservoirs.

Nothing scenario: The mycorrhizae & beneficial bacteria don't survive and no enemy pathogens take hold. Or the mycorrhizae & bacteria do survive, but are too insignificant in number to substantially effect the health of the plants. Or the beneficials establish themselves just fine, but due to various reasons, perhaps the type of nutrients I'm using or the systems I'm running (aeroponic/NFT & Hydroton in dutch buckets), they provide no observable benefit.

Why I chose to do what I did:

I decided to inoculate my plant's root system with a root drench of SubCulture M at quarter strength b/c of several reasons. One being I had added a carbohydrate supplement, FloraNectar: Pineapple Rush!, and felt insecure leaving it to chance that the bad bacteria & pathogens could use this as an ideal breeding ground with a plentiful food source. My thinking being that the mycorrhizae would at least protect the plants from harm by establishing themselves before the bad guys had a chance to establish themselves.

I chose to do it at quarter strength b/c that was recommended to me by more than one user of mycorrhizal fungi, but in particular a poster by the name of Rocky Mtn Squid, who has used mycorrhizae in his aeroponic system & was kind enough to give me the lowdown on his experience and what to expect. You can always add more, it's more difficult to reduce what's already been added.

In addition to all this I thought about my system - many people use highly oxygenated DWC systems which can "super-charge" beneficial organisms causing them to sometimes become more of a hinderance than a help. My thinking is I do not have aerated reservoirs, the oxygen the organisms have available to them comes from 2 primary places - for the beneficial bacteria it's primarily on the bio balls that float on the surface of the reservoir, for the mycorrhizal fungi, it's on the plant roots themselves & in the aerated sprays of water. I'm hoping this relatively limited amount of oxygen access will curb population size to a manageable levels.

Finally, if I have this dialed in right there are some pretty strong benefits to having these little guys around I refer you to this study which rather impressed me on the benefits of adding SubCulture to your grow: SubCulture Report
So, if ll goes well - this could be a big benefit to my system. If not, I'll clear it out with some FloraShield.