Best way to grow different strains?

So I got ahold of a greenhouse variety pack and have been growing a bunch of different strains to see what grows the best. I took clones from 5 of the 8 strains, and will use the yield/quality of my first cycle to determine which ones i will keep. However, for the first cycle, how should i deal with the different flowering times? I guess I just wont be able to flush them properly except for the last ones?

So you're growing with hydroponics all off one reservoir?

tip top toker said:

So you're growing with hydroponics all off one reservoir?

Click to expand...

If that is the case then you are going about this absolutely the worst way.

When you are running multiple strains, especially all for the first time, you need to be able to feed and water them separately. They won't all have the same needs, and two plants could be at drastically different ends. IE: one may be a light feeder and one may need extra nutes.

thalboy said:

If that is the case then you are going about this absolutely the worst way.

When you are running multiple strains, especially all for the first time, you need to be able to feed and water them separately. They won't all have the same needs, and two plants could be at drastically different ends. IE: one may be a light feeder and one may need extra nutes.

Click to expand...

exactly why i ask very concisely put.

in different pots of course..

Well I'm just a naive first time grower that figured I'll try all 10 different strains, and see what works the best in those conditions, and keep that one.

It is a hydro system with one shared tank. Any ideas?

Simply don't. An experienced grower would not want multiple strains feeding off the same reservoir, so a first time grower DEFINITELY should not, especially 10 strains.

tip top toker said:

Simply don't. An experienced grower would not want multiple strains feeding off the same reservoir, so a first time grower DEFINITELY should not, especially 10 strains.

Click to expand...

This is spot on advice. Your plan is basically to grow 10 different strains at less than optimal levels, figure out who dies the least, and then repeat? You are planning on growing a massive failure.

If you grow multiple strains under one light, you run into height problems of strains growing different sizes and then nutrient issues if a strain likes watering or nutrients more or less than the other plants. Overall, there's NOTHING WRONG with what your doing! Why? Because after you try it a few times, you'll isolate the genetics you desire to grow the most, know what to expect for grow height and nutrients, and know what to expect from your rooms environment. That's what we refer to as "dialing it in". All the clowns here who say "dont do it!" are wrong, you have to in order to learn and sort out what you want.

Just for shits and grins can I hear opinions on scrogging different strains together?

in pots then you have nothing to worry about. just take down as the are done. one by one..

yeah if you have 2 plant 2 different strains in the same thing what happens if one turns defecient then youll have to add something to the res and it will make the other plant defecient

clintsy said:

yeah if you have 2 plant 2 different strains in the same thing what happens if one turns defecient then youll have to add something to the res and it will make the other plant defecient

Click to expand...

se that were i would put a shut off valve inline to each pot so if aplant problem accurs then youcan seperate it from the main resivore and have a little res for plant problems...

researchkitty said:

If you grow multiple strains under one light, you run into height problems of strains growing different sizes and then nutrient issues if a strain likes watering or nutrients more or less than the other plants. Overall, there's NOTHING WRONG with what your doing! Why? Because after you try it a few times, you'll isolate the genetics you desire to grow the most, know what to expect for grow height and nutrients, and know what to expect from your rooms environment. That's what we refer to as "dialing it in". All the clowns here who say "dont do it!" are wrong, you have to in order to learn and sort out what you want.

Click to expand...

I guess I'm one of those clowns and I think you are giving him terrible advice.

Height problems are the least of his concern. Its easy enough to control height through pruning and training. Its the nute problems that are the big problems.

You pop six strains into a hydro system feeding off the same nutrients and you are going to have problems.

How is he going to properly evaluate strains when they aren't getting appropriate feed levels? How is he going to properly evaluate the quality of strain when it hasn't been properly flushed or other strains haven't gotten all the nutes they need? This is ABSOLUTELY the worst way to go about growing multiple strains.

A harvest spread as little as 7 days could cause minor problems. Try running 8 week strains together with 10 or 11 week strains and this will not go well at all.

There aren't problems with multiple strains, I run multiple strains at home, flowering one plant of each strain. I also run multiple strains at the dispensary where I work, and yet all of those are going to be run off of different reservoirs, with each strain grouped together.

You are advising a new grower to follow the absolute worst path toward finding a keeper pheno.

bigv1976 said:

Just for shits and grins can I hear opinions on scrogging different strains together?

Click to expand...

If you know the two strains well enough there is little to no problem with running a SCRoG together. I wouldn't run two plants that are polar opposites. IE a 14 week sativa and an 8 week indica, but two strains with similar growth patterns can work.

researchkitty said:

If you grow multiple strains under one light, you run into height problems of strains growing different sizes and then nutrient issues if a strain likes watering or nutrients more or less than the other plants. Overall, there's NOTHING WRONG with what your doing! Why? Because after you try it a few times, you'll isolate the genetics you desire to grow the most, know what to expect for grow height and nutrients, and know what to expect from your rooms environment. That's what we refer to as "dialing it in". All the clowns here who say "dont do it!" are wrong, you have to in order to learn and sort out what you want.

Click to expand...

your way out of line on that little kike kike girl.. sorry.. grow what you want and as to plants being diffrent hights then all you do is keep the tops even if that seems to bother grower. trust me ifyou have enough light then the diffrent hight of the plants wont matter...

funny funny (If you grow multiple strains under one light, you run into height problems of strains growing different sizes)

researchkitty said:

If you grow multiple strains under one light, you run into height problems of strains growing different sizes and then nutrient issues if a strain likes watering or nutrients more or less than the other plants. Overall, there's NOTHING WRONG with what your doing! Why? Because after you try it a few times, you'll isolate the genetics you desire to grow the most, know what to expect for grow height and nutrients, and know what to expect from your rooms environment. That's what we refer to as "dialing it in". All the clowns here who say "dont do it!" are wrong, you have to in order to learn and sort out what you want.

Click to expand...

Incorrect. This is a single reservoir hydro system. He cannot evaluate strains and isolate genetics if they haven't been grown to their potential. They are all getting one dose, nothing to their specific requirements, how can you "Dial In" if you cannot even give them a correct feed because of the very nature of the grow? As Clintsy correctly states, if one has an issue and you try and correct it, you can just end up with a new issue on another plant.

I certainly admit that I was not considering the topping as a height control fix, but I still digress on the nutrients and reservoirs. I think maybe I didnt qualify the statement first by saying that if the goal is to run multiple strains, then growing them all is what you have to do to learn. In otherwords, if he wants to grow something like Bubbleicious, WW, OG and C99 together in the same room on the same reservoir, on a single light, most of them will be perfectly happy together and eat nutrients just the same. You may have one strange strain that really hates the nutrients or the environment, too tall or too short, whatever your gripe is about the strain, and thats the one you dont re-grow next time. Use strains with the same flowering days should be obvious as well. Not everyone has multiple reservoirs multiple rooms or dispensaries at their disposal, and are growing multiple strains under the same single light because they want more than just one type of smoke for the next eight weeks. Imagine smoking the same strain for two months. Ouch!

There's a thousands of strains out there these days, there's no reason you cant get 3 or 4 of them to grow under your sun together at the same time.

Grow em all together once, find out what you like, and keep what works best for you. I still stand by my statement, as much as it seems to be disagreed with.

And i will re-iterate, how can he find what he likes if he doesn't even grow them out to their potential. Furthermore, being his first grow, he will have a fun time keeping up with the one strain, let alone learning 10 different strains and trying to trouble shoot. He wouldn't even have another plant to look at for comparison as they would all be different. This is not a good way of going about your first grow.

tip top toker said:

And i will re-iterate, how can he find what he likes if he doesn't even grow them out to their potential. Furthermore, being his first grow, he will have a fun time keeping up with the one strain, let alone learning 10 different strains and trying to trouble shoot. He wouldn't even have another plant to look at for comparison as they would all be different. This is not a good way of going about your first grow.

Click to expand...

Wow, this threat blew up and didn't even answer my question .

In my defense, here is my rationale:When you say growing to the plants potential, well I really being a first time grower was not likely going to be able to get the EXACT conditions that specific strains wanted. For example, strain A likes 76 degrees, strain B likes 84 degrees.. In reality my grow room fluctuates in that range, and because it's a basic closet i cannot control the temperature EXACTLY, so therefore I would grow whatever strain came through the best under the temperature that was available in my room. That's just one example, but basically I don't really have the expertise to fine tune these little differences between strains. My philosophy, grow the stuff in the most common conditions possible, try to get my room to replicate that, and see what grows.

Now, in my case, i had 8 differnet strains, and the 4 biggest ones so far just so happen to be higher Temp strains, and I believe that this is good using mulitple strains because I could not really get the temperature any lower without removing a light, so therefore I could have had a much larger disaster.

Regarding the height, the 4 largest ones were topped, now they're all relatively close to each other in height.

Regarding the nutrient solutions? um.... I'm still fine tuning the nute levels myself, and I just go by what the nute bottles say. I really doubt that some strains will require say 2-3x the amount of say nitrogen, lol, so I figure the nute differences wouldnt be that servere.


Well at the end of the day, I have 2 plants that are REALLY growing strong under my conditions, so I will likely reclone all of those, and not change any conditions because in many cases, i cant anyway.

Now regarding the flush, that's the one big F-up so far in my plans. Any ideas to get around that?

Thanks, and lets get back on topic as these guys are already 2 months old so it's too late lol.