First Bubble Bucket

[Douglas1]

either male or your kicking butt.. Does it have a smell? pistils? Redish coloring on the main stem when sprouted? supposedly those are early indications of a female.. you could always start flowering in a week and take a clone

[RackitMan]

Slight skunky smell up very close. Stem is reddish currently. Didn't check when sprouted. No physical sexual indicators that I can see. Might have to toss it in the flower room much earlier than I had planned as it is almost too big for my bucket lamp.

They say the plant really explodes when the roots hit the water. Well, they have quite a ways to go, but not sure how much more explosive the growth could get!

I think my lamp is partly responsible for the accelerated growth as the light is quite concentrated.


*Correction from an ealier post. CFL is 1450 lumens not 1750.

[Douglas1]

its still only one cfl man, typically people have a good 5k lumens cooking away for a single plant.

well those are all good signs for her being a female, worst case is.. you've got some killer pollen for massive growth rate genes right?

[RackitMan]

its still only one cfl man, typically people have a good 5k lumens cooking away for a single plant.

Fortunately, I am neither typical nor a people. It is not the tool, but how you use it.

[michaelpeg]

I know you are doing your own thing here but if i were you I would add maybe one more 23w or swap out the light for a 42w cfl and add a computer fan on top for exhaust,more lights would give you more yield but it will be interesting to see what you get. so far everything looks great

[RackitMan]

Adding more wattage will make it an EZ-Bake oven. Too late to design a fan in. You don't want it blowing heat down on the plant, and trying to get suction means I would have to plug all the holes - and maybe offset the lamp to make room. (Some thoughts for someone building their own bucket lamp perhaps.)

No, it is doing what it is designed to do. Only gonna be there for a week more at most. The plant is happy and I am happy. Visible roots now number about two dozen and are about 1/2" outside the basket. Will change the water tomorrow.

[RackitMan]

Well, the little bastard overgrew the bucket lamp way before schedule. It is now 14" wide and is still only 6" tall. The very first rootlet just hit the reservoir. This is the most perfect plant I have grown to date. Not a spot nor a blemish nor discoloration nor drooping. I think I may be a BB convert!

Guess I will have to toss it in my flower room to check the sex. Normally I grow 4 small to medium plants in my 2' X 2' X 5' space. If it is a male, I may have to go for seeds because of its amazing robustness and short height. If it is a female, I will probably reveg, to give the other plants time to finish flowering and then grow one monster DWC plant to see what kind of yields are possible. I keep thinking about topping, but I guess there is no need at this point.

I will post another pic if there is any interest. Not like you guys haven't seen thousands.

[RackitMan]

One thing I have learned since starting, is that I apparently did not have the water level high enough to stimulate the roots growing into the water. I looked at other grows and saw plants half the size of mine with roots extending 3-4" past the basket. My plant is much larger now yet the visible roots are still unimpressive though it is very healthy. As the medium was always totally wet, I was afraid of overwatering or root rot. Seems the air exposure prevents that, so I added another gallon of RO water to bring the level up to see what happens.

[Douglas1]

interested in pic

[RackitMan]

New pic coming soon.

Added the water until the lower part of the basket was submerged - and guess what? The leaves all started drooping badly, so I drained until water level was 2" below the basket. Could be the peat I have mixed with the hydroton is acting like a superwick drowining the plants. Plant is back to normal now.