AK-47 in E&F - rockwool/clay medium (First Grow Log)

[bertoxxulous]

Alrighty guys. Got the info on getting some clones so here it goes: Got some G13xHaze clones comming but its going to be a couple months from now probably. It turns out, of the 4 plants in my tent, it looks like 3 are females, and I pulled the last male last night. I have 6 rockwool cubes soaking in 5.5 PH water. tonight I will be taking 2 clones from each plant. I have a seedling tray, with a humidity dome, and 125W (12,000 lumins) CFL/Ballast that will be used for the clones. In the next two weeks I'll be re-constructing my clone mother tent so by the time they are ready for trasplant into my smaller E&F system everything will be ready. I'll still be short a light cause I'm going to end up using the same light for my seedling tray to veg the clones with but that will give me a much longer time to aquire another light before I'd be taking clones off one of those mothers anyways. I will post pics of all this after everything is said and done.

@icbh707 - I see what u did thar with that heppa filter. Man that "great stuff" expanding foam is such a mess to mess with lol. Thanks for all the pics too. So what your saying is I left my AK-47's grow to big and I should look at bending them over? I can tell you part of the problem...when they were seedlings they were having alot of problems and I kept the lights way up high because I thought I was having heat problems but it was the tents that were the problem....but in the process they got all stretchy.

[bertoxxulous]

Hey guys, the website is back up finally after that maintenance. Had some concern there for a moment. Anyways, I will post my pics that I took on Sunday (05/10/09) of my three remaining females and my clones I took later this evening. I haven't taken any pics since then but the clones I took don't look like they have died yet...I would even go as far enough to say they look surprisingly healthy and didn't even seem to really wilt at all so far. I will post updated pics this weekend as well. My females are now showing two large pistils(spelling?) at most of their nodes so maybe couple weeks start seeing some buds hopefully?? Pretty exciting anyways. I honestly didn't think I would be getting this far with these plants with how they were looking a couple of weeks ago in the old tent.

Also, I started the three females on 3/4 strength (3tsp./gal.) Ionic Bloom on Sunday as well. My question is....when should I start using the Ionic Boost? After I get some little button buds is what I was thinking but it doesn't seem to specify on the bottle.
:S1:

[Italiano715]

Start to use the "bloom booster" with first signs of a female. Well at least that is what I do. Some will even go as far as to start using it as soon as they switch to 12/12

[subzero]

icbh,

you guys take way bigger cuttings than i do so you mother will be larger, but yes 3 nodes is enough, you can always top later to bush it out again as it will produce clones more often than you will need them. if you google bonsai moms there is all the info you will need to keep your moms small and healthy.
Nice filter.

bert

Your clones will be okay, you will have plant stock now so you dont need to rely on others anymore should promised clones not materialize.

If you bend (crush the stem till you feel breaking fibers and bend at the same time) at the point that the tallest branches will be the same height as the shortest ones so you have a flat canopy and the bottom branches will become tops as well in a few days. try to bend them so they fill up gaps rather than cover existing lower buds.. After you have bent them all down flat you will think, shit what have i done! but don't worry, they will recover very quickly a few hours to a couple of days, with the light you have you will need to keep all the flowering happening at the top of the canopy as flouros dont penetrate as well as hid's. after a few days the branches will try to grow back up straight, this is when you should tie them back down so the canopy is flat again (as icbh wisely said).

Up the nutes to full strength, plants love ionic, add the boost for week 3 of flowering, it wouldnt hurt to add it sooner but your plants wont use it until you get some proper flowers, it is just adding extra nutes that are already in bloom but in higher quantities when the plants need more.

Look forward to the pics.

Subzero :thumbsup:

[subzero]

Oh and bert,

g13 haze is an 11 weeker, alot more finicky than ak, and a guess says it wont yield as well. I would get a few runs out of your ak until you know how plants react, otherwise you are sort of starting from scratch again and have to learn a new bunch of perameters for the new strain. An experienced grower never gets the best result the first time he grows a strain as each cross is completely different and it takes at least one grow to learn the characteristics of not only the strain but the phenotype.

I would grow what I know if it were me.

Subzero.

[bertoxxulous]

Thanks guys for the info. I think I'm going to go ScrOg with these clones except for the one that I pick as a mother. I may even be able to get by with just 2 clones per cycle with going ScrOg but I think its well worth it for my system and since I'm rocking the fluoro's right now. Here are the pics from 05/10/09.

[attachment=o217720] [attachment=o217721] [attachment=o217722] [attachment=o217723] [attachment=o217724]

[subzero]

Hi bert,

the clones look exactly the same as i would do it, are they in trays? if not you should get some or cover the cubes in foil, it will keep the roots in the dark when they start to show. mist the inside of the dome more often than the clones themselves so the r/w doesn't get too wet.

Boy those plants have stretched haven't they?, luckily you don't have huge amounts of foliage otherwise you would struggle with those flouros. next time go with some bigger bags, you must imagine that what is happening up top with the plant is happening with the rootzone as well. I bet those bags are gonna bulge with roots by the time they have finished!

if you want to get the most out of your light you could move the 2 end plants as far to one side of the tray as you can and the middle one opposite, then rub and gently bend the plants over to 90 degrees, tying them to the opposite side of your table. all those side branches would grow verticly from the horizontal main stem in 24 hours. up to you though.

Great work!
Subzero.

[icbh707]

hey guys,
the reason i asked early on about the height of your tent and topping and such is because at the time you were still vegging untopped when they looked to be about 12in tall. i flip at about 14in topped and the stretch phase at that point is about 2ft with a total height of 3+ft and i knew the tubes would have a hard time getting light to the bottom. sub has talked you through the supercrop method very well. make sure you pinch the stem good or it will snap. the lst method is bending them without the kink in the stem (low stress). also easy to snap a branch doing this so be careful. scrog is lst bending with a screen of some sort but you normally do this earlier in the stretch phase but it may still work. the stretch phase is going to be 40% of the total flower time so keep track of their height and the date they stop stretching and you should have a good idea when to cut.
ps. sub, your right about keeping it simple, i toss around ideas with long time growers all day and forget that at times im talking to people that are just starting out. keeping it simple is always a good idea. when you supercrop or bend, have a splint of some kind and twist ties on your person or another person there to help. if a stem snaps you can fix it with a splint but if the split is open for more than a few seconds it will not grow back together. last time i had a snap my twist ties were 3 ft out of my reach and i had to let go of the branch for a few seconds. it never grew back. when ive put them back together right after the snap they always grow back together.

you should have buds forming in the next few days.

so with the new door vent and 3 1000hps going and no ac it has been 72-80 with temps outside ranging from 60-84. im looking at 97f on sunday and the humi is at 25-35% already. im going to put a swamp cooler in there to see what happens. could make too much humi but if so ill install my ac unit. going to check for light leaks today and then flip tomorrow.

not sure whats going on with GH?!!!! i mix fresh and set my ph at 5.7, dont water just let it sit over night, 24hrs later its at 7.0.!!! i think i got a bad batch or my testers fucked up. im calling the store today and going to get the GH reps phone #.

looking good bert! :thumbsup:

[icbh707]

hey,
looks like you took the cuttings from the upper branches. i would take them from the smaller bottom branches that dont produce that much bud anyway. also lower branches make better clones.
check out the side view of my cheese. there are 4 main branches after topping (i could use 3 and cut out the fourth as it never gets very tall, a fifth branch would be useless) and a fifth small branch, that little gal is my cutting.

[subzero]

Mmmmm, yes
I think the reason he cloned from the top was my fault, i mentioned that I clone from the top but i meant from my moms, to keep them small. In this case i would have cloned from the bottom too. they make better clones from the bottom because they are the oldest shoots, also they wont get any light if you kept them on,I absolutely agree. In the case of bonsai moms the lower growth does become woody hence cloning from the top. Sorry for the confusion.

btw i know people who only clone from the top so don't sweat it you haven't fucked up bert!

Take care,

Subzero :stoned: