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Contributed by: SOG
For starters this should not be attempted with seedlings, a good mother plant that puts off consistent clones is what you need. All plants on the table should be from the same mother or VERY similar plants, mixing things up on the table could be a logistical nightmare with plants needing different nutrient levels and growing at different heights.
Clones are cut so that they are rooted when the previous cycle ends. The strain I use takes 14-21 days so I cut accordingly. When the clones are fully rooted in 1" rockwool cubes, by rooted I mean completely busting out of the cubes with roots and not just a couple tap roots sticking out the bottom, they are placed onto the ebb & flow tableclick here to see How do I prep my ebb & flow table? and put under the 12/12 regime. The lights are also moved to the top position and moved down 6-8" a day until desired height is reached. This helps them adjust to the light easier.
Once all the clones are on the table all side branches are cut, I do this again on day 6 and day 14 of 12/12. I try not to cut anything that looks like it will stay close to the plant, I also try to keep my trimming to the lower 6". By trimming the side branches all growth is sent to the cola, I have even done side by side comparisons and all the trimmed plants had much fatter single colas while the untrimmed plants were a nightmare to trim at harvest time and actually yielded less.
For the first 7 days under the HPS lights all plants are sprayed with Kelp foliar at one cap full per 1L. This is done to help keep the plants green otherwise they tend to yellow. Foliar sprays are done between lights on and 1 hour after, doing this any later may result in burning the leaves, doing it just before dark is not recommended as the plants don't get a chance to dry off and mold could become a problem.
GH used at 3-2-1 ratio for GROW, B1 is also added as per directions on bottle.
GH used at 1-2-3 ratio for BLOOM
-No GH 2-2-2 is used between GROW and BLOOM to try to eliminate as much of the stretch as possible.
All water is kept at a PH 5.7 (it does drift up to 6)
H202 (35%) is added at 10mL per L but only to fresh tap water, as it tends to react with nutrients.
For the first 7 days the plants are given a GH Grow diet, after that they switch to the Bloom juice. On day 14 of bloom I foliar spray the plants with Nitrozyme Growth Plus to help induce flowering. After that I pretty much sit back and watch them grow. I must recommend to anyone doing this to use a reservoir of at least 100L per 4'x4' area and get a good set of constant readout PH and EC meters. The smaller the reservoir the quicker the EC and PH will raise. I use a 300L res for a 4'x8' table and adjust it once every 2 days, takes me 5-10 min. For the last 14 days of the cycle I flush my plants with just water, any less than 5 days and the stuff will not burn properly. I find 9 to 14 days to really bring out the taste and make it much smoother. Above pictures are of clones after 6 days of 12/12
16 Days Old
20 Days Old
28 Days Old - Stretch finished.
32 Days
35 Days
45 Days
These are from a different cycle...
Day 49
Day 60
As you can see in these day 60 pictures, they finish quite small. That is a 1ft/30cm ruler used to give you a better perspective. Plants were flowered at roughly 6" tall and finished up on average 18", tallest is 23". Why so small? With a 6' ceiling, less 1.5 feet for reflector and spacing from plant, less another 1.5 feet because the table has to be higher than the reservoir to drain properly leaves me with 3 feet of grow space and supposedly a HID light only penetrates 3 feet down. This could also be incorporated nicely into a grow box with a small HID light. These ladies received 70 watts per square foot of air-cooled HPS lighting.
The following EC reading are just what I use for this particular strain, it seems to be quite strong for most of my others but it may help as a guide.
Days 1-7 - EC 1.50 GROW
Days 8-14 - EC 1.50 Bloom
Days 15-21 - EC 1.70 Bloom
Days 22-28 - EC 1.80 Bloom
Days 29-35 - EC 1.90 Bloom
Days 36-43 - EC 2.00 Bloom
Days 43-58 - EC 2.10 Bloom*
Days 59-66 - Flush
* I have let it drift as high as 2.35 but only for a couple feedings near the end.
When flushed the water is flood to drain. If it returns to the reservoir it will send the EC way up and thus needing many more water changes.
A sea of single cola's. Who needs to smoke the lower "B" quality buds? Everyone knows the cola is the best smoke.
To A Healthy, Happy, Perpetual Harvest,
SOG
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