STS's Jack Herer & Mystery Seed Grow Log!

Sup everyone,

I've been a long time follower of the grow forums and really enjoy the insight and problem solving fellow cultivators come up with when dealing with a grow, regardless what the scale.

After completing my "N"th outdoor grow, i decided to try my hand at a small hydro setup. After much research online and discussion with my local hydroponics store owner, i've settled on a small ebb & flow table in a custom made 2x4 frame, to allow for easy movement of the entire unit to and from my closet (i'm thinking i will add lockable castors to the bottom corners of the frame).

My grow specs look like this:

Strains - Jack Herer and a mystery seed from a Juicy Fruit father and a G-17 mother (long story)

Space - 2 x 3 x 5 ft portable frame with shelves.

Lights - currently 3 x 23w CFL but plan to upgrade to a t5 2ft x four bank lighting setup.

Nutrients - as this is my first grow i'm going with a very simple mix: DNF 2 part grow formula and bloom formula ( maybe some big bud if i can swing it)

Objective - to supply myself and my immediate friends with a quality herb that's social and tasty. After reading about the 9 time Cannabis Cup winning Jack Herer and it's sativa dominance, i'm eager to see how this comes out:jointsmile:

I've begun to germinate my 2 selection of seeds (the mystery seed story to come) and have soaking in papertowel in a dark place for the next day or so.

Photos and more updates to come...

Steel Town Stoner:thumbsup:

If you look at my sig the first few pictures are of some fresh jack H, homegrown.

Will be looking forward to this thread in a few weeks.

hey dude, sounds like you've got everything under control. i'll look forward
to following your progress.

come take a look at my imaginary garden, i'm using CFL's myself and they
work like a charm.

SO, i have setup photos that i want to post, however my blog is saying i cannot post attachments... anyone know why that is?

You can also check out my trackback to my 'what to do with a pollinated female' thread.. this plant is the mother/producer of one of the seeds i am trying and eager to see how it turns out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by steeltownstoner

SO, i have setup photos that i want to post, however my blog is saying i cannot post attachments... anyone know why that is?

You can also check out my trackback to my 'what to do with a pollinated female' thread.. this plant is the mother/producer of one of the seeds i am trying and eager to see how it turns out.

---

i'm pretty sure you have to have a 50 post count before the site admin
allows you to post pics.

I've had a successful first week, getting 8/10 strikes (4 for each strain) from my seeds. They have already developed their first set of leaves, and small secondary leaves.

Today, i changed the res water, re-balanced it, then added full strength DNF Grow A + B to get these babies well feed and on their way.

I've resorted to pulling in a pilar fan in the base of my frame, aimed upwards, to allow for fresh air circulation being pulled in from underneath. The air temp. is floating regular in the 77-80 degree range, with 45-50% humidity. My room is pretty dry in general, so i'm thinking of starting up my humidifier again.

The stems seemed a little stretched to me. I think this is because, while i had the newborns in my grow dome, the lights had to be higher to clear the top of the dome. Now, i've dropped them a full 12" to get as much juice from those 3x 32w CFLs. I've seen a few 42w bulbs the other day, and once the next paycheck is in, will add them to my vanity light. The next step after that will be the T5 light bank, hopefully by the time i'm at the end of veg/ beginning of bloom.


I also wanted to pose an open question to everyone out there reading this. My hydro guy hooked me up with a siphon valve on my ebb & flow table, and i've been having a difficult time with it not draining at the level i set it at. I would like to put my watering system on a timer, but am concerned about flooding and will only do it manually until i am sure it won't overflow. Any personal experience of tips you could give me? The help is always appreciated.

Alright, well until these babies show me some more action i will leave you with these link to my pics, and will keep you all in the loop as to my progress!

Cheers.:jointsmile:

STS

Pics of the Babies:

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...A1NTIuanBn.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...A1NTEuanBn.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...A1NDkuanBn.jpg

Woohoo...payday! Though i can't afford to jump right to the t5 bank i mentioned previous, i did upgrade to 4 new 42w CFL (150w output) and some chain to hold my vanity light setup.

My hope is this with counteract the stretching that i noticed early on. I think the babies were to far away from the weak 60w lights, and just weren't getting enough juice.

The small starter cubes have now been placed into 4" rockwool blocks because roots have already started to grow out of the starter cubes. With these upgrades i hope my babies make some great growth jumps in the next few weeks, which is when i plan to grab my new t5 bank.

More to Come.

How long can i expect those Jack Herer seeds to germinate? I have Jack Flash, and the last time i was 0/2 on them. Hoping for better this time around. But I'm guessing they take a little longer than indica strains?

I had both sets of seeds in thick papertowel soaked in regular tap water, and put in seal ziplock containers, put in my dark closet for 3-4 days. By Day 3 i noticed that more of the JH seeds had cracked and sprouted earlier than more Mystery Strain. I know Jack Flash is a cross of Jack Herer... but i can't say i've ever tried them.

Just to add to the log, here are some pics of the new lights and pillar fan setup, suspensed by bungee cords. My temps are rising close to the 90f range, so i've opened my vent and window more to allow more cool air intake. I'm thinking i will need to get some 6" fans and ducting soon to insure these babies get fresh O2. Until then, i open the door flap daily the allow for a full vent of the air in the tent.

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00567.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00568.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00569.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00570.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00571.jpg

I'm BAAAACK!

Apologies for the gaps in updates... working 7-10 days straight tends to get a little crazy and my blogs are always the first to suffer.

Great news on the grow frontier. Now entering my 4th Week, the seedlings have taken off into great vegetative growth. My mystery seeds (a Juicy Fruit cross i'm deeming Juicy G) is absolutely exploding with new leaf development and easier has a good 1" of height on my Jack Herer seeds.

I've noticed the a couple tips of the JH leaves were burnt and crispy, a result of having my lights a little to close i thing. One of my Juicy G plants lower leaves has started to go a little yellow around the edges. I have noticed it anywhere yet, so i will hold off on any nutrient adjustments until i think its affecting more of the plants.

I noticed that my JH's were not growing nearly as well as my Juicy G, as their leaves were more curled down and day by day growth did not look as vigourous as my Juicy G's. Knowing this strain is a more Sativa dominant compared to my other strain I decided to make some adjustments.

1) I reduced my water cycles from 3 times a days for 15-30 min, down to 2 times. I found that since these plants were orginally closer to my drainage holes their roots were constantly saturated and probably overwatered. Noticing little improvement, I switched the JH plants to the opposite end of the flood table (where the drainage channels were slightly higher so as to keep the water flowing back to the drain) which seemed to help a little. I cut back to water now to once a day (just after the light cycle begins) and now they seem to be improving greatly.

2) Noticing alot of green algae growth on the top of my rockwool cubes, i used some left over panda plastic and made top very simple top covers with white face up/black face down. They don't perfectly cover tops as the scrap plastic was slightly creased, but the added light reflected underneath the canopy seems to have had good results.

3) Having a roof mounted pillar fan, I noticed some of my plants growing more sideways then vertical. Simple wooden skewer sticks i had laying around have been used as support stakes to take the strain off the roots which are still young and haven't quiet anchored well into the rockwool cubes yet.

Once my next pay comes in the next couple of weeks i will purchasing my bloom formulas and t5 light banks and building a secondary shelf below my table. Hopefully i can setup a small veg area below, maybe on a drip system while my cutting are blossoming in the actual flood table. Haven't worked out all the details just yet, but if i can get a SOG type setup going, it would be perfect for sustaining my monthly needs.

Now for the pics:

Pic 1 - Wide shot of both strains after 3 weeks (JH on the left, Juicy G on the right) http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00597.jpg

Pic 2 - Close up of my Juicy G plants http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00598.jpg

Pic 3 - Close up of my Jack Herer http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00599.jpg

Pic 4 - Overhead comparison shot (JH on the left, Juicy G on the right) http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00600.jpg

Pic 5 - Side by Side comparison shot (JH on left, Juicy G on right) http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00601.jpg

Yes, i just posted a few hour ago, but i think i might have figured out my yellowing leaf problem.

I was changing my res water and when i looked at the label of the rubbermaid i'm using i slapped my self in the forehead. The container is a 20 Gal/ 76 L container. My growth formula says to use 5mL of solution per L of water (i use a cap full per Litre, thinking its gotta be close).

Having only filled my container a 1/4 of the way i was using 5 cap fulls of solution (thinking 20 x 1/4 = 4 cap fulls, round up to 5 cause they're never truly full cap fulls). I was using the Gallon measurement instead of the Litres! Totally was underfeeding my babies, yet they've seemed to really hang in their... wow, thank god DNF is fool proof.

Needless to say i've now matched the proper feed to the volume of water (76 x 1/4 = 19 cap fulls). I think this will have a dramatic impact on my plant growth, cause i've only really been feeding them a less than 1/2 strength solution! Will keep you updated with photos...

A buddy took this pic with his iPhone. Much better quality.http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...0601iphone.jpg

So i noticed the first signs of DRAMATIC leaf colour change yesterday on two of my Mystery Seed/Juicy G plants. My inital reaction was that the 42w CFL bulbs were too close to the plants and burning the leaves, but this discolouration effect only happened on 2 of my 8 plants and of those two only one or two lower leaves were affected.

To compensate i raised the lights another 4" from the plants, but when i returned today the yellowing edges have carried to another set of lower leaves on the same plant! I would usually reference my grow guide, but its currently on loan to a friend.

If this were a nutrient deficiency over fert burn wouldn't all of my plants be showing signs of this? My Jack Herer plants have not shown any signs of discolouration...

What could be causing this? Any remedy suggestions?

In the meantime... i'll be reading endless threads till i find out...

Thanks.

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00610.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00609.jpg

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/IMG00608.jpg

So, what a week this has been.

After changing res water and topping up my feeding solution, i found alot of problem in my plants that i hadn't noticed earlier on. Alot of my lower leaves were scorched and curling (apparently the yellowing tips were just the beginning) and my crop as a whole was starting to look weak.

I panicked. I redid the whole res water/feed thing again and tirelessly searched the forums for plant problem trouble shooting. I now realize how important it is to keep an accurate, detailed grow log of my own to mark the progress and problems with my plants. After some help from Stinky (she's great ain't she) i tested the run off of my plants and found the rockwool was having a big impact on my pH. Even though i drain back to my res i had never thought to check for a change in pH... needless to say after much careful adjustment i think i've gotten it back to norm (pH 6).

Feeding had been a whole issue unto itself. Having only eyeballed my res levels before, i never had an accurate read on the amount of water i had and therefore was over doing things with my feeding solution. No wonder those roots looked a little brownish!

For the sake of recovery, i'm giving my plant ONLY pH balanced water over the next few days, then will start them at a 50% solution again. I feel like i'm back stepping here, but if it means keeping the girls alive i'll do whatever it takes. Cloning starts at the beginning of next week and I am excited to start sexing my plants a few weeks later so i can start weeding out them boyz.

On a bit of a side note, because of the problems i've experienced thus far, i've begun treating my grow like a science fair experiment. You know the things that your science teacher made you do in elementary school following proper procedures: problem, hypothesis, experiment, analysis and forming a conclusion. I know, may sound a little childish, but my take on it is that when my next grow comes around i'll have a detailed account of my trouble shooting and can see what problems i ran into the first time round (with all the ganja i enjoy, i'm bound not to remember EVERYTHING:jointsmile:)

I'm sure for most of you who keep grow logs it is virtually the same, but if I had done this kind of experiment back in the day i'm sure i would've gotten a Gold for my results :thumbsup: . Besides, keeping it in an Excel files allows me to add all kinds of images and tables, so i have a visual reference for everything!

Anyways, here's what you really want... more pics. The average height is now around 16 cm and they show no signs of slowing down. My internode distance is so small i've counted 7 or 8 already on my Juicy G/Mystery Seed! I can't WAIT to see all the bud sites...yummmm :rastasmoke:

http://i494.photobucket.com/albums/r...0625iphone.jpg