Bubbler DWC Tutorial - PART 11

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Bubbler DWC Tutorial - Part 11

This tutorial has been copied and pasted from 420magazine.com

Let me share something I saw this week.

A grower had a 4 by 4 sq ft grow space, = 16 sq ft.

He needed a bare minimum of 3000 lumens per sq ft, to a max of 10,000 per sq ft, and 6000 or 7000 lumens per sq ft would be PERFECT, ample and ideal enough.

At bare minimum of 3000 lumens per sq ft, (less than half what the sun gives) he needed at least 48,000 lumens total. AT LEAST, BARE MINIMUM.

With CFLs, at 70 lumens per watt, he needed AT LEAST A BARE MINIMUM of 685 watts. He was growing with ten 26 watt bulbs, or 260 watts, much less than half of the bare minimum needed.

Let me repeat, he had 10 bulbs, (sounds like a lot) but he really had less than half the bare minimum needed. His ten bulbs were pretty in a DIY Reflector fixture and they looked like a lot of light, although they were much less than needed.
His plants were growing too, and were ten inches tall, after 3 weeks of VEgging in Hydro. They were ten inches tall, yea, but they were very, very stretched, looking for additional light. AND, they were not lush looking, they were very yellowed, leaves all twisted and curled and they were seriously nute burned. He could not understand why he had nute burn. He was following the directions perfectly on his nutes, was at a 550 - 600 ppm, but those directions were for someone with adeguate light.

WITHOUT ADEQUATE LIGHT, YOU HAVE TO REDUCE THE PPM AND AMOUNT OF NUTRIENTS FED TO THE PLANTS OR YOU WILL GET NUTE BURN.
Most instructions for feedings rely on you having adequate light!

AGAIN, WITHOUT ADEQUATE LIGHT, YOU HAVE TO REDUCE THE PPM AND AMOUNT OF NUTRIENTS FED TO THE PLANTS OR YOU WILL GET NUTE BURN.

Time to start the SEX Lessons. LOL, just kidding. Maybe I should say GENDER Lessons.

In this pic, at the upper top node, you should be able to see two little white hairs, called pistals sticking out of a little caylx. The calyx looks something like an upside down bulb or a very tight tulip bloom. These indicate that this is a female plant. What we see, and I will show you more pics later, but these are called "pre-flowers".



I could easily see them with my magnifiying glass.
Let me tell you that I own 14 books on marijuana growing, and all of them and everything else I have ever read says that the males show sex, or gender, first. Maybe I don't have any males, but that would just be wishful thinking. You can always expect 50-50% or 60-40% male-female ratio everytime when you start with seeds. For a high price, "feminized seeds" are available on the Internet for sale.he Pre-Flower Female stigmas, or pistils (name varies from book to book) also known as "the hairs" for slang, they grow from a tiny 1/32 inch to 1/4 inch in lenght in one day, maybe even to 3/8 inch. They are clearly visiable in this pic. I think it is called a pistil in a "pre-flower" and a stigma after it is a flower, but the books do not agree on what they are called, that I have. We all call them "the hairs".

These Pre-Flowers showed after Vegging 5 weeks, 4 days, then Flowering for Thursday until Tuesday, 5 or 6 days. I have a book that says ALL Indicas show sex if it is a Mature Plant and Vegged over 5 weeks. That is even before being placed on 12/12, the book says. A Mature Plant is one showing new alternating leaves instead of symetrical opposing leaves.


At the 2nd node from the top, you can clearly see 2 curly pistils, almost white in color, almost half an inch long. They are the thickness of very fine hairs.





I have some runts, I mean some very runty runts in that closet. But I got some GIANTS, VERY Bushy, very healthy, many upward limbs or branches, lots of top sites that are definitely female. I have found 2 large females in the oldest tank to the right of the closet. The tank to the far right is about 6 days ahead of the the tank to the left.

The Bucket and the tank to the far right is NOT showing sex yet. I wish they would hurry up so I can toss the males and get more light to the lower females branches and leaves.

I figured out that I am half way there now.
Half way is a time to clean up, re-evaluate and fix things that need fixing.
Daily, when I get home, my pH is 7 and I reduce it back to 6, except for the bucket. I find it at 7.4 and 7.5 almost every evening, it is really too small for three big hungry plants. Anf when I removed the pump, I slightly damaged some roots, tearing them into small pieces that needed removing.
I drug the bucket out into the center of the room, and sat the lid on a new empty bucket so I could clean the old bucket. I actually carried the lid with the 3 plants to the bathroom and rinsed the roots off clean in the shower.

I thought it made an interesting picture. The tallest one in the bucket is 34 inches tall, and I have three other plants the same height. 34 inches in 5 weeks is some very rapid growth!

had to do some serious BENDING OVER of some of the taller plants today. I did it to open up some space and allow some light to penetrate down into the plats. They call it LST, or Low Stress Training. Normally, LST also means tying them down or tying them over, or tying weights to the tops to bend them over, but I did not tie them, I only tilted two of the grow cups sideways. I lifted up the gorw cups oe inch, then tilted them diagonally.

Back to Sexing, or Gender

A Plant can be FORCED to show "pre-flowers" by reducing the light, or by changing the light cycle to 12/12. Tht is called "forced flowering". This happens naturally, outside, when the days become shorter, at the end of summer. It also happens naturally when the plant becomes a mature adult plant. You can tell the plant is becoming an adult when the new leaves are no longer starting in pairs, or when one NEW leaf is staggered a little higher up from an opossing NEW leaf. A Male preflower looks like a nut, or a bulb, or a crab claw with tightly clinched parts. It ceases to be a pre-flower, and becomes a real flower, when it opens up. Sort of like when a tulip bulb opens up.
A Female pre-flower will be a very small bulb looking thing called a caylx with the two little white hairs growing from it. When it opens up and more hairs (pistals) are seen, then it ceases to be a pre-flower and is a full flower.
Let me show you some pics I have collected over the years of some males and female flowers and pre-flowers and even a hermaphrodite. A hermaphrodite is a mix, a plant with both male and female flowers on the same plant. Hermaphrodites ususally appear AFTER the males are removed and a female then tries to grow male flowers so it can reproduce and make seeds.

Early Female on left, Early Male on Right


Early Male on Left, Early Female Flower on Right


Early Female Flower


Trichome Covered Single Female Caylx with the two familiar white pistals (hairs)



Definitely Male , Looks like NUTs or Crab Claws Until They Burst Open, Into Flowers


Full Male Again


A Hermaphrodite (Hermie) with Female Flowers on Top and Male Flowers Underneath


Another Male

A Male / Female Chart



The third row bottom pic of the male is upside down, and has already opened up to disperse the male pollen. You would normally first see this still in a tight cluster before it opens.

A Male Pre-Flower



A Male Flower


A Male Pre-Flower

Here you see pics of a definite MALE that I just removed from the Bucket. You can see the cluster of nuts, or male pre-flowers near the top node.

We need to remove the males as fast as we notice them. After those little nuts open, they throw pollen for three feet in all directions and polinate or fertilize the female flowers, to make seeds.

As I find a male, I cut the top 5/6s of the plant off, leaving the bottom stalk and roots. AFTER I "sex" all of them, (determine the sex) then and only then do I remove the entire plant and roots too. I want to know what the plant next to the male is, before I remove it. It is just easier to know what they ALL are first, before removing any of them. I have or had 14 plants, and I expect and anticipate removing 7 males. IF I wanted seeds in my buds, I would leave the males to fertilize the females.

I am often asked, SHOULD I REMOVE FAN LEAVES TO ALLOW MORE LIGHT TO PENETRATE IN? NO DO NOT CUT THEM. IF you think they are blocking some lights, then get some paperclips and hold them back, if you insist on doing anything, but DO NOT CUT THE FAN LEAVES OFF. IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, When a large FAN leaf starts yellowing, say it is half yellow, that means in the photosynthesis process, that leaf has ate nutrients, absorbed some LIGHT and made food for the plant and buds and NOW, half of that is gone, or used or consumed. Well, what about the other half? Can not it's energy still be used or consumed? AND when it is ALL consumed or used, that leaf will naturally just fall off. AND you say it is blocking LIGHT? GREAT and GOOD, that means it is getting the LIGHT it needs and deserves more than the other leaves do, to do it's job, to make food and grow. Years ago I tried removing lower fan leaves to allow more Light to penetrate in. When I did remove more than a couple, the plant went into shock for a day or two, and quit eating or only ate half as much, and just went on "stand by" mode. Then, after a day or two, suddenly I saw that big fan leaf replaced by a new leaf, and I saw my plant use the energy to replace that leaf and grow it back FAST to the size it was, more than it used that energy to grow the plant bigger and make more buds or bigger buds. I now believe that removing fan leaves is pointless, and that a leaf has a purpose and will serve that purpose until it is dead. Then it will naturally fall off. You will have small and large lower leaves just naturally wilt and fall off daily. Don't ever remove fan leaves before harvest for several reasons. 1. The fan leaves MAKE AND STORE energy for the plant. The fan leaves are doing a process called photosynthsis, and it is the most important part or task or job the plant does, to make it grow. They make the FOOD, the sugars and carbs needed to grow. If you remove a FAN leaf, the plant will stop growing taller until it can replace that removed fan leaf. Removing a healthy fan leaf is a big waste of time..they are rapided replaced, unless you are in the last 2 or 3 weeks of flowering. 2. Even if the fan leaves are yellowing in late bloom I do not remove them until they are almost ready to fall off. The yellowing in the fan leaves at late harvest is the plants metabolism at work. She is transferring all stored energy in the fan leaf to bud production. It is the easiest source of energy she has late in life. Let that leaf do its job. The Wrong reasoning is like "I could run faster if I was lighter and weighted less, so I am going to cut my legs off". From the Growers Bible by Jorge Cervantes: Leave leaves alone! Removal of healthy leave hacks up a healthy plant. Removing large or shade leaves DOES NOT make plants more productive. This practice DOES NOT supply more light to smaller leaves and growing tips. Plants need all their leaves to produce the maximum amount of chlorophyll and food. Removing leaves slows chlorophyll production, stresses the plant, and stunts its growth. Stress is a growth inhibitor. Remove only dead leaves or leaves that are more than 50 percent damaged.

Link to Part 12 - http://www.strainhunters.com/portal/forum/bubbler-dwc-tutorial-part-12