Environment:
Temperatures remain pretty much whatever we have our household thermostat set to, and that??s about 72 in the day and 68 at night. We have a heat pump so it??s pretty much like that year round, maybe a little higher in summer unless we??re feeling particularly wealthy or hot. Temperatures are checked with a laser thermometer, and vary a couple degrees here and there throughout the area. Not sure of humidity, never checked. Feels like, seems like, a little low, maybe 40%. The fan is slightly stronger than needed, which brings humidity down some.

Ventilation:
There??s one small oscillating fan in the upper left on the low setting, and both the room and closet doors are left open nearly all the time. At one point I went several months without a fan, and mushrooms started growing in the containers with the moms, so I guess I can??t recommend doing that.

Lighting:
I??ve been experimenting with 24 hour lighting for about 5 months now. I??ve not seen anything adverse from it so far. There??s some controversy about it, but I??ve always thought a weed plant needed a dark period to properly thrive. The contrary seems to be the case for my moms. They seem to be doing quite well and growing pretty fast. Both top and bottom sections have 4 foot fluorescent tubes. On top is a 6500K, 54 watt T5 in a reflector. For the bottom there is one 40 watt reflector holding two T12 tubes. One is 5500K and one is 6500K. The lights are on small chains with a half link on the end so I can easily adjust the light, and hook the chain on the corrugated shelf, or whatever is handy. The top and bottom sections seem to perform about the same as far as causing plant growth and putting off Lumens. We??re not talking about the rapid growth of HID, but I was actually surprised at how well they do. My light meter says the T5 puts off 760 foot candles, at 6 inches directly under it. The T12 combo puts off 630 foot candles at that distance, but I think it??s a little closer to the optimum vegging spectrum. One foot candle equals one lumen per square foot of surface.

Medium:
The moms are in what ever soil I decided to whip up at the time. I used to use vermiculite, but found it isn??t really needed, and kept the soil too moist for my liking. Often I??ll get seedling starting soil for the young ones, but normally I get the best potting soil I can find in my little home town, and add about 20% perlite, and occasionally 1% clay pellets, just eye-balling it as I mix. I highly recommend this as it will drastically cut down on conditions that are too damp and moldy. I??ve never inoculated my soil or put it in the oven. It sits outside in a bag until I??m ready for it. The few times I??ve tested the PH of my soils they??ve been right around 6.8, which is perfect for growing weed in dirt. I used the run-off method. You flood your plant with PH 7 water, catch the first run-off and test it. I want to try keeping some hydroponic moms in the near future, probably a simple shallow water culture.

Food and Drink:
I try to peek in the door at least once per day. If I know they??ve all recently been watered, sometimes I don??t check on them for several days. If a plant looks a little droopy I??ll water it. I flood the container until it runs out the bottom. My well water comes out of the tap at 260 PPM, and I adjust the PH from 7.6 to 6.8, give or take a tenth. About every 3rd watering I??ll feed them at about half recommended strength with whatever hydro nutrients I happen to be using at the time, along with a couple drops of SuperThrive per gallon. Also a little CalMag about every other feeding, maybe 1 tablespoon per gallon. For nearly a year they??ve been eating Gro Aqua by Supernatural. I try to make sure the watering before any cuttings are taken is just water, but it doesn??t seem to make a huge difference either way. Some people say to deprive your mom of nitrogen before taking cuttings, but I??ve never worried about it.

Other maintenance:
Plants grow bigger and so do their roots. Occasionally I??ll feel the need to put my moms into a bigger container. Sometimes if she??s yellowing and you can??t figure out what the problem is, a bigger home and a quick flush solves the issue. Be sure to check out the thread simply titled ??mums? (I think). That??s the way I want to do it some day. Cutting back both foliage and roots to nearly nothing from time to time, but so far I??ve been too afraid or too lazy to try. I just keep making new moms and I occasionally transplant them. Soon I??ll try it the right way, promise.

At least 2 or 3 times per year I??ll flush them. I just run a bunch of PH??d water through the pots, like maybe 4 or 5 times the volume of the container. This is probably more of a preventative (or delusional?) measure than anything. The plants certainly don??t mind, and I think it just helps get rid of anything toxic that might have been building up. I don??t have any pest problems except the occasional spider, which unlike the spider mite, I welcome.

About the only other maintenance I do is LST and topping. Notice the difference between the plant on the top shelf (first photo) and the same variety on the bottom left (second photo). The top one has never been LST??d, only topped for cuttings one time. The bottom one was tied down in several places to get it to bush out more. Soon I will do the same to the top plant since it is growing too tall, and I??d like it to spread out more. Also see how spread out the other mom on the bottom shelf is (third photo). There are many nodes, and light is able to find it??s way to most of them. This one has more foliage lower, near the container, because I started LST from the beginning instead of after a reveg. Notice how tying down one branch lets light get to all the nodes on it, and it??s almost like you get a bunch of new plants growing out of it (fourth photo).

Photo 1: BBxNL from a second generation seed. First generation was from Kind Seed. I got about 6 seeds from 8 plants.
Photo 2: BBxNL revegged from the first generation. If you look close you may be able to see the little brown buds left on the plant after flowering. Obviously this plant stretched badly in it??s young days.
Photo 3: AK-47, the strongest of one of two clones, taken from a clone purchased from a dealer. Ready for a container bigger than this one that I used in my wedding. No it wasn??t holding a weed plant at that time, they were various kinds of purple, pink and burgundy flowers.
Photo 4: An AK-47 branch, tripping on LST.
Photo 5: 2 cuttings from the AK-47 mom, stuck in the dirt 3 weeks ago and watered, nothing done since. Looks like they??ll make it despite the yellowing on the lower levels.

more photos, more hits, cough.