First ever grow..600w hps scrog + LEDs..GHS Moby Dick & Pure Kush

[Bam-Bhole]

A mixture of CANNA Terra BIO soil, Bio-Bizz ALL-MIX and coco blocks - for seedlings CANNA Seed Mix- I add GUANO KALONG 50 to 100 grams per 10 litre - and next also Plagron Worm-Culture...

nutes from GHE DUO + Ripen + Micro . ..works nice !

[Smokeythabear]

Bam that sounds like a pretty advanced well thought out set-up with the media and nutes, something tells me that is the result of years of experience growing

Everything is going pretty good I think. I switched the 2 pk's in the small chamber over to 12/12 yesterday. They aren't overly big plants and they suffered the most from my mistakes I think, but I will take what I can get, and it will give me some idea of what happens during the stretch and give me some practice with the scrog before I switch the big tent to flower, seeing as I have never grown before and I'm not 100% sure what to expect. I increased the nutes a bit again last watering and they are pretty much at the level I would like them now, watered last night and the plants look good. The one moby dick, and one and only pure kush, are taking off compared to the other md's, so I think I'm gonna allow a bit more space for them in the screen, otherwise I will have to switch to flower a lot sooner than I want.

Here are a few pictures, the most recent taken a few days ago

[Smokeythabear]

o yeah man that leaf thing i wanna find out what that is as well ive had it happen to me before with another strain. it wasent like a problem really like the leaf just grew out normally but it just was missing some tips. but i wondered what it was from

Hey bro, was going through the posts and noticed I forgot to get back to ya on this too,..you can see in the most recent pics that the mangled leaf in question has grown out fine..minus the tips of course still..nothing serious I suppose. I just panic at the sight of anything not "normal" lol. Maybe it's just genetics?

[Dust]

nice blue net man ^^, the girls are looking very pretty but i find the net a little low, is it's final position?

thanks for the update man

Have a good grow

[Smokeythabear]

nice blue net man ^^, the girls are looking very pretty but i find the net a little low, is it's final position?

thanks for the update man

Have a good grow

Thanks Dust, it's actually a green net but looks blue under the LED light..with two widths of it it was the perfect size..except for the holes being too small and getting hand cramps from a few hours of cutting

The net is about 8 - 11 inches (20 - 28 cms) at the highest point from the base of the plants. Do you think this is too low?

[Dust]

nah 30cm is good, it looks smaller on the pics then lolol ^^

[Smokeythabear]

You had a really good start. So green and lush- Healthy plants give healthy roots=good harvest.

Keep working that grow magic and thank you for sharing.

Thanks Tokage..I'm still looking forward to my next grow and starting properly without the pH and over feeding issues that took 3-4 weeks to resolve The magic you refer too I have to humbly admit comes from all of the great advice I've gotten reading books, online from legitimate sources (especially here, thanks everyone! ) the local hydro store owner and a couple of friends. Something I have come to realize and really believe is that if you want to be successful grower as a beginner, remember that you know nothing , do as much reading and research as you can..remembering and considering the source of the info, and prepare and plan..remembering to keep an open mind and be ready to change your plans. Thanks again everyone.

[Smokeythabear]

Btw Dust..off topic but..I love your John Lennon quote as your signature..wife and I are both huge Beatles fans..wish the order of death of them was a little different lol..but hey..it is what it is lol. Is that a bad thing to day

[Gfarmer]

nice work smokey, its sgetting off to an awsome start plants are looking like they are loving the led

[toaor]

Cool I found your pics, nice set up, are they 2 x 300 watt panels?

Toaor

[Smokeythabear]

Thanks Greeno..can't wait to switch em over to flower and let the real fun begin!

Thanks Toaor The LEDS each use 28 watts and are supposed to put out the equivalent of a 250w high pressure sodium bulb each. So, one way I guess I could look at it is that I've got 500 watts with the LEDs plus the two T5 sunblasters for vegging. Then once they go into flower the T5's will come out and a 600W HPS is going in to join the 2 led panels.

QUESTION: I want to wash down the plants leaves, they are getting a bit dusty and I've read it's recommended to give them a misting to keep the stomata clean. This may be a silly question, but can anyone tell me if it's ok to use straight R/O water to do so or should I add a bit of Cal-Mag so there are at least some micro nutrients in the water? I have some B-52 for foliar feeding, if I use it to foliar feed will this also wash the leaves or does this not count since there is an additive in the water? Lastly..what is the best pH for spraying leaves..I've read from 7-8..8 seems a bit high to me..

Here's a few more pics from last night. Left and right side of scrog, and my favorite moby dick that is starting to really spread out everywhere

[Dust]

Straight R/O water should be fine, or straight demineralized water works too, as long as it's "clean" water (with no mineral i it or it makes white spots on your leaves). Tho if you wish you can also add a little of your Cal-Mag, it won't hurt them

But make sure you do it before night time, not when the lights are ON

Have a good grow man

[Smokeythabear]

Straight R/O water should be fine, or straight demineralized water works too, as long as it's "clean" water (with no mineral i it or it makes white spots on your leaves). Tho if you wish you can also add a little of your Cal-Mag, it won't hurt them

But make sure you do it before night time, not when the lights are ON

Have a good grow man

Awesome, thanks Dust!

Just so I'm not confused, you say do it right before night time, with foliar feeding I've read the best time to spray is right before the lights come on..the opposite...so that the stomata absorb the nutes. Is it different because I am only trying to wash the leaves and not feed them?

[Gfarmer]

dust man thank you for that my buddy keeps getting white spots on his leafs and he uses mineral water usually when he does foliar feeding . ive never done foliar feeding so i did know how to help him.

smokey: your plants are looking great on taking another look at those pots they look plenty big for what you are doing, i dont no why when i first saw them i assumed they were close to the size of a pot i used to use but i compared the pic's and yours are quite bit bigger so they should be perfect.

[Dust]

Greeno, Glad that you had an enlightment with what i wrote ^^ I hope it will help your friend

Smokey, to be honnest, with your leds, i think it won't burn the leaves cause the heat contained in the light is a lot diferent as HID, so i'm pretty sure it won't burn them.

Now maybe the thing you have read is right too ^^ What i've learned from what i've tried and from what i've read too, is that you wanna avoid big spots of water to avoid the burns, so i guess with something spraying thin enough to not make big drops of water on your leaves, it should be fine

Toaor, Mr X and some others on the forum are growing on led, maybe you can try to ask them if they ever sprayed with lights on

[Smokeythabear]

dust man thank you for that my buddy keeps getting white spots on his leafs and he uses mineral water usually when he does foliar feeding . ive never done foliar feeding so i did know how to help him.

smokey: your plants are looking great on taking another look at those pots they look plenty big for what you are doing, i dont no why when i first saw them i assumed they were close to the size of a pot i used to use but i compared the pic's and yours are quite bit bigger so they should be perfect.

Thanks greeno! that helps me feel a lot better about the pots lol..I've kept what you've said in mind so your approval reassures me a little more That said, I may still look at a bit bigger pots in the future..I will see how this grow goes.

[Smokeythabear]

Greeno, Glad that you had an enlightment with what i wrote ^^ I hope it will help your friend

Smokey, to be honnest, with your leds, i think it won't burn the leaves cause the heat contained in the light is a lot diferent as HID, so i'm pretty sure it won't burn them.

Now maybe the thing you have read is right too ^^ What i've learned from what i've tried and from what i've read too, is that you wanna avoid big spots of water to avoid the burns, so i guess with something spraying thin enough to not make big drops of water on your leaves, it should be fine

Toaor, Mr X and some others on the forum are growing on led, maybe you can try to ask them if they ever sprayed with lights on

Dust, I was thinking the same thing, and what I did was raise the LEDs and T5's when I sprayed and then waited a bit to lower them..and it would have worked fine except that the spray wasn't as fine as it should have been and some droplets formed and yep..got a few burn spots on a few leaves..mainly affected a few large fan leaves on the 1 pure kush in the tent...nothing major. I ended up spraying with straight pH adjusted r/o water 2 days later and washed the leaves pretty good..they look good and healthy minus the spots.

A bit of a big announcement..the pure kush in the tent is definitely a female Using a jewelers loupe I can clearly see the two pistils coming out at one of the nodes. The rest of the plants so far look female, but no definite pistils yet so I can't say for sure..and so far none look male either..I will try and get pictures if I can..it's a bit difficult with the screen in place to easily manipulate and move around the branches..I broke off a medium sized fan leaf the other day while training them..I know it happens but I almost cried lol..well maybe not cried but you know

Pretty soon I will be posting pics and asking for input/advice on when everyone thinks I should throw the 4 in the tent into flower based on wanting a fairly full screen but not wanting to overgrow the scrog either. I understand that different strains stretch differently, but if I can have a general idea, and err on the side of caution I'm hoping to avoid too many problems with the size.

I definitely have 2 very different phenotypes of moby dick happening, probably 3 but my amature eyes are not that able to identify these things yet. My favourite moby dick is taller with a bit thinner leaves, VERY bushy though still and has tons of side growth upon growth, I'm guessing this plant will lean towards the sativa genetics. The other 2 md's are shorter and stockier, bushy, and with broader leaves..one of them has really big fat broad leaves..I will try and get pictures.

After doing more reading, I realized that throwing the 2 pk's in the smaller chamber into flower earlier probably did nothing but slow down the growth with only 12 and not 18 hrs of light since they weren't long enough into vegetative stage and sexually mature enough to flower yet anyways. I also think I probably was over watering those 2, not enough to wilt them etc...but enough to make them lazy, and not get as much oxygen to the roots as they should have. They are still growing, but not nearly as quickly as I think they should be. Oh well, can't change em back to 18 hrs now..I will learn from my mistakes for the future!

Peace and happy growing!

[Smokeythabear]

Hi everyone..I have a couple of quick questions, and if anyone has any input it would be much appreciated

I'm thinking of FIM'ing a couple of plants, but I only have probably a week maximum before I put them into flower..is this ok?

Second, is it ever ok to trim upper fan leaves? I have a couple on the shorter pheno's that are too short to bend out of the way or tie down so that the smaller branches can get more light. I really want to get as much light as possible to the lower branches...or will this be doing more harm than good?

After reading Franco's article on vegetative growth I'm going to trim the lower leaves that are touching the grow medium tonight when the lights come on.

As always thanks everyone for all of your help and encouragement!

Peace and happy growin and tokin

[Smokeythabear]

No need to answer the question about trimming upper fan leaves..I did lots of research and came up with the conclusion to drill holes in the side of the pot and tie down the fan leaves gently..bending them more a little each day since it is not recommended to trim healthy fans being that they act like the plants "solar panels" absorbing light for photosynthesis.

Still unsure whether to FIM or not this close to flower?

[Dust]

Yeah like you said at beginning of flowering i wouldn't cut them neither, i only cut upper leaves when the buds are at least 5 6 week into flowering, to let more space to the buds, and less leaves to take away at the manicure

About the Fim they will always take it, if they have a week to recover before flowering it should be fine, be gentle with them

Have a good grow man

[Smokeythabear]

Thanks Dust! I can always count on you for a quick and logical answer

[Smokeythabear]

Alright..we're at day 57 from the day the seeds were planted. The 2 pure kushes in the small chamber are 12 days into flower (counted from the day I switched to 12/12..is this how it is counted..or do you start counting flowering days from when you see flowers?) and both are showing pretty little starting flowers with the largest on the tops of the mainstems. I will try and get pictures of them, I'm having a hard time getting good clear pictures with the LED on and the reflective white walls..I will try and get a couple before the lights come on tonight.

The 3 moby dicks and 1 pk on the tent are filling out and getting pretty bushy...and I'm itching to switch them to 12/12! I've slowly been increasing the nutes and think I've found a sweet spot. I'm going to post a few pics taken today and I would welcome any advice/opinions on whether it's time to switch to flower..keeping in mind I'm ok with not getting my screen 100% full this time around, but I'd still like a decent amount of bud Can anyone give me an idea how far these ladies are gonna stretch? The pure kush is the plant in the top left hand corner of the pictures and the other 3 are the moby dicks.

I drilled some holes into the pots (something I should have thought of and done before planting and tied down the main stems and some fan leaves to get more light to the right areas and change the auxin levels to try and get more lower growth going..seems to have worked. I also FIM'd a shoot from each plant a few days ago, just to get some practice and see what happens..figured one on each plant can't hurt too much..looks like I did it correctly with 2 of them and the other 2 are growing back ok but I don't think I may have pinched off a bit too much and it seems to be growing back with 3 instead of 4 new shoots..oh well

Through my reading and experience so far it seems that the biggest difficulty in scrogging is watering, especially flushing the plants. I found a solution that may help a few people decide to try it out Deciding to use one screen instead of 4 separate screens means that I can't roll them out to the drain in the basement floor to flush like I originally was going to do. The solution I found is to use nice big run off trays to catch the water, then I use a small wet/dry shop vacuum ($35 Walmart) to suck up all of the water out of the trays..it's a hell of a lot quicker than a turkey baster

The other problem I found was how do you get a watering can under the screen to water? Especially trying to get to the back of the pots. I found a nice 2 gallon (8 liter) pressure sprayer with a wand ($20 Walmart) that can be pressurized by a hose or the hand pump. It takes a bit of time to pump out 18 liters of water come watering but it allows me to reach everywhere precisely and to minimize splashing onto the lower leaves..and by the time it is flush time I will be trimming the lower growth below the screen and it won't be an issue.

Hope this helps anyone considering a SCROG..so far I'm enjoying it, it's a bit more work but I love hanging out with em and training them

All are looking very female with only the two smallest m.d.'s not yet showing pistils..but they definitely look female I'm happy I at least didn't stress them enough to turn them male! Now..please..no hermies

Peace, and happy growing

[Smokeythabear]

Forgot to mention, I've been experimenting with my light set-up. I now alternate so that each plant has a light above it, and every other day I move them so that they alternate between having an LED and a T5 flouro over them. I found that the way I was doing it before a lot of high intensity light from the center of each light was wasted as it was shining on bare spots That is why the lighting is so different on each of the plants in the pictures.

[Dust]

nice update man those girls are lookinbg happy and healthy

For your Pure kush i haven't grown it so don't really know her, but usually i think kush girls don't get very high, the few i've grown were pretty compact, but i guess it depends the genetics

Jimmy has grown it not long ago you can have a look at his journal and ask him maybe

For your watering trouble, lol i understand you man i've tried scrog once too, and as it was my first i had not think about this neither, watering the girls in the back when you can't move them, what a pain in the neck ^^

I decided next timei would do a scrog, i would buy a 1m² bucket to put under my plants with a little corner higher to make all the water flow toward a hole. but that would be for next time and it seem you find your own way too

Good luck for the rest of your grow

[Dust]

yeah i had forgot that point ^^ I start counting from first preflower appearance too