Oh I'm certain there's no complaints, I've seen them! Well not really, but I've seen pictures lol. I'm a big fan of variety, a connoisseur of sorts I guess. I get excitement from starting new strains and it seems to keep me interested and curious. I do love plants and growing cannabis but I get so damn busy that its difficult to enjoy staying on top of them when all one has time for is work, chores and gardening. It seems you know what this is like. Do you think you'll ever switch strains? If so what would you like to try in your system?
There's a few strains I'd like to try (Blockhead looks fun), but it's a bit immaterial as it's a lot harder to get beans through the post than it once was. I'm extremely conservative as regards security. I've been growing dope for more than 25 years without any legal problems whatsoever and I want to keep it that way. Organising a maildrop is certainly doable but I'm unmotivated to do so as ST4 is still doing wonderfully for me.
Al, Thanks for all of the answers. Can you tell me something more about composting. Could you describe technique that u r using? I know that u use a shredder. Do u use worms?/ how big the composter should be for op like yours? Do you mix greens with browns in special ratio? Or just put in what you have from trimmed and discarded plants? Does it smell weed?How long it takes to transform it to unrecognizable mass?
There's all manner of guides on gardening websites for running a healthy compost bin.
This one is excellent and contains all the details you'll need.
The general rule is about 25-30 parts brown to 1 part green.
My compost bins are not used solely for disposal of grow-op waste. Lawn clippings, kitchen veg peelings (eggshells are OK) along with shredded newspaper & cardboard all go in my two bins, which are about 200L/each. I use 2 bins so one can have no new matter put into it for about 6 months to allow the matter to be fully broken down & digested by worms, while the other bin is getting new material added every week or so.
A healthy compost heap will make cannabis waste disappear entirely in about 2 weeks, somewhat faster in warm weather, slower in cooler weather.
Avoid onion cuttings & citrus peels unless in very small amounts. Never put animal fats or pet poo in your compost. You CAN put human urine in your compost- it's loaded with nitrogen & phosphorus. Wet your compost with about 10L of water per week, less if it has been raining a lot recently, more if it has been hot & dry.
Cannabis waste is really a small proportion of what goes in my bins. The more stuff you put in your compost, the better. Bury the fresh cannabis waste under older compost & you will never smell anything cannabis-y.
A 200L bin will hold enough material to allow microbial action in the middle of the pile to reach temperatures of 60-70C, which will sterilise the compost & kill weed seeds. Once the bacteria & fungi have done their job of breaking down the fresh material over the first 2 weeks or so, earthworms will take over and eat the remaining material. The result is worm-casting-rich compost that can be used directly in garden beds or to make a powerful 'casting tea' fertiliser.
If your compost bin is placed on bare earth, local earthworms will find it and populate the compost matter very quickly. You probably won't have to buy any worms. Once there's a good population of worms, you can take out the well-digested compost and put it in your gardens, while leaving a bit with some worms in it in the bottom of the bin to repopulate the new material you put in. Worms reproduce quickly, so don't worry about taking out quite a few of them with the compost you put in your gardens.
Not a single bit of waste paper or cardboard packaging goes into the recycling- it all goes through my paper shredder & into the compost. Toilet paper & paper towel roll cores, egg cartons, food package boxes, newspaper, etc are all excellent compost material once shredded. I covet dry tree leaves and pick them up with a leaf blower/vacuum that chops them up finely.
I also have a branch chipper/chopper in the grow-op work area which has high-speed rotating blades that I use to mince up all cannabis waste before putting it in the compost. It's largely unrecognisable as cannabis trimmings even before it goes in my bins. Running cannabis waste through the chipper makes it break down much faster, as well.
A healthy compost bin has no odor at all. The way you achieve that is by getting oxygen into the decomposing mass by turning the compost at least weekly. A
compost corkscrew is a fantastic tool for mixing & aerating compost. A stinky compost bin is caused by anaerobic bacteria taking over. Aerate often and the compost is inhospitable to anaerobic bacteria. Frequent aeration makes for a hotter compost pile and faster breakdown of cannabis cutting wastes.
It's harder to maintain a compost bin outdoors if you live in a freezing climate. Consult your local gardening centre for pointers on how to deal with compost in winter.
Hi Al,and everyone else. I have a question of course.... I am growing in E&F table 3x3 25 plants,1000hps.
Your 1000 could cover twice that area.
I started with small clones 4-5 inches and well rooted. I put them str8 to 12/12. Its been 15 days and they look healthy and happy room is perfect conditions. The clones only have grown to 7-8 inches and have started flowering already.
That's about right.
So if they are flowering is the stretch done.
No. They'll continue to gain height for the next 2 weeks.
Will they continue to grow and flower.
Yep. As long as there's no root problems, they'll continue on to about 20-24" and then go into full flowering habit.
I wanted short plants due to my height restrictions but not this short..lol I thought I might end up with 16-18 inch plants when finished.
Ought to get a bit taller than 18" if all is well.
Should I scrap this grow and try a lil more veg next time?
Be patient. If there's no root problems, they'll get a bit taller.
I am afraid to put pics up
Um, why?
but if you need to see pics I'll put them up,so you can get a better idea.
Please do.
Not sure if it makes a difference or not but this is the duckfoot strain(3 fingered webbed leaves). Thanks for any advice you can give me.
Oh. Not one of my favourites. Not sure how that will perform for you. Would prefer you use a more typical indica dominant hybrid. I've yet to see a decent yield from duckfoot.
Hey Al
I have read through both your threads a few times and there is a bunch of great info for my first grow.
Good, thanks.
1. After you mix your nutes in your reservoir, do you go back every couple days and use a stick or something to mix the stuff up again so the nutes dont start to settle at the bottom? Or is it after you mix them up the first time, they are pretty much permanently diffused throughout the water?
The action of filling & draining the flood tray as well as the action of air bubbles from your bubble curtain or airstone will be sufficient for stirring your tanks.
2. How do you empty your reservoirs? They seem like they would be pretty heavy so do you just pump the water out to a sink or something? I wouldn't want to pump them outside cause all that water would just flood my whole backyard.
A pair of lawn irrigation valves and a tee fitting make draining reservoir tanks easy.
View attachment 2289901
For normal operation, close valve #2, open valve #1.
To drain tank, close valve #1, open valve #2 and turn on pump.
Be sure to return the valves to the operating position unless you want your new tank of sauce to go down the drain!
Your tanks can't possibly be large enough to flood your yard, unless you have a yard the size of a bathtub! The waste nute sauce will be absorbed into the ground quickly and your lawn will love it!
3. Lastly, if I use perlite, is it the same watering schedule as using fytocell? 1x a day?
Should be fine 1x/day.
Newave - Circulation Pump
- Why didnt they make these earlier??
- Circulates your nutrient solution at very high volumes
- No more sediment left floating on top of solution
- No more sediment rings left around the tank
​Available in 3 sizes:
- Adjustable 800-1600L/hr
- 2700L/hr
- 3900L/hr
Cute, but I don't think it's necessary. The water motion from flooding the trays should be sufficient for tank mixing. If your nutes leave any sort of sediment, use different nutes. A good inorganic nutrient like Canna doesn't have anything in it that can fall out of solution.
One thing to remember when taking clones and going to 12/12 is the strain. .... I have a G13 that remains in a veg state for two/three weeks in 12/12 and grows lots while the violator kush doesnt stretch so much and shows flowers real quick. ...
and as you say, the initial size of the clone is an important factor. whether you want large or small clones will depend on how tall you want the finished plant and of course the size of your moms...... One thing I don't do, is trim the top leaves. Since they go straight to flower, I need as many leaves in place as poss.
In SoG, you don't ever top the plants. Top pruning causes plants to be bushy and wide- the opposite of what we're trying to do in SoG. Also, there's no veg time given to plants in a SoG system. This will induce tall plants, something else we're trying to avoid in SoG.
Moe thank you for your help, here are some pics, I used my trunchon for scale,and tried to get good pics of bud formation thus far day 16. Please dont laugh.
View attachment 2284194View attachment 2284195View attachment 2284199View attachment 2284200View attachment 2284204
Looks OK for 2 weeks into flowering. Your clones are a bit thin stemmed, though. Let your mother plants develop a bit more before taking cuttings so you get thicker stemmed cuttings to work with.
Hi Al,
Just a quick message to say thanks for the info you've provided over the years. your information has been the most helpful for me and my learning of correct grow procedure. I have scoured a lot of cannabis boards, but your threads on here presented me with a wealth of information.....took a while to wade through it all like, but worth it.
Thanks
You also influenced me to adapt a SOG F+D method of growing, before that it was coco and also a failed DWC experiment, which would have worked had i knew about H202!
I have a scaled down version of your grow, but had to start from scartch so don't have a mother plant yet, and had to start from seed....24 plants, two trays of 12, almost 4 weeks in.
Cool.
Can you not use the cuttings from the pruning to use as clones, cutting out the need for a mother plant?
Cuttings from branch pruning are very thin stemmed and don't quickly become vigorous plants. Thick stemmed cuttings taken from terminal growths on mother plants perform far better in a SoG grow. My cuttings all have stems which are 8-10mm dia. If you want to run a successful & productive SoG op, you need to maintain mums under separate veg cycle (18-24h) lighting.
Here in England I can only get growth technology 'liquid oxygen' at 17.5% hydrogen peroxide, is this a problem for me? I have been using 250ml a week in my 100 litre res and it has been doing a good job, I really don't see how people can grow weed in hydro without it.
17.5% is really fairly low concentration for our purposes in hydroponics. As long as it does not contain any stannate stabilisers, it should be OK, though. I understand in that there'd be restrictions on H2O2 in the UK since it is a constituent chemical in the home-made explosive TATP which was used in the 7/7 London bombings, but have a sniff around foodservice supply companies- you might find 30 or 35%, which is used for sterilising food prep area surfaces and slicing equipment. Some alleged 'health food' shops sell 29-30% H2O2. Whatever you do, don't follow 'body oxygenation' cultists' instructions to drink the stuff!
Maximum props to you Al B Fuct, great to see that you are still around.
Thanks for that.
hey so al I just wanted to apoligize for that one comment I made to you a week or so ago.. I was just freekin out over my rot problem and the stress got the better of me.
been bothering me since so I just wanted to get it off my chest...
cheers hope all is well...
OK, thanks.
Takes a strong man to admit hes wrong. Ill give you that.
Yep.
Hey Al, I forgot to ask you two more qustion. How are stg cubes doing? and how the yield improved when using PK?
Plants in STG cubes did much better than plants in Fytocell for the 1st 3 wks or so, then things evened up between them. However, there was a confounding factor- some fungus gnats sneaked into my op and damaged the root systems of some of the plants in the batches with STG cubes, so it's hard for me to give a straight-up comparative estimation of the performance advantage of the STG cubes. The large gaps between the STG cubes, however, may have made it easier for gnats to get deeper into the rootzones. As soon as I get the gnats eradicated, I'm going to have another go with STG cubes to see how they go. I do like them, though. Much neater to handle (no crumbs of the stuff all over the place as with Fytocell), easier to dispose of used STG media as it dries out quickly and is much lighter than used Fytocell.
PK really helps with bud density. Presently using it at 1.5ml/L in tank 3 for weeks 5 & 6 along with Canna Flores at 3ml/L. Would be safe to say that PK is good for 20% uptick in yield weight.
Also, sog is the highest yielding method per square foot. My room is about 6wx8lx8h, and I’m growing with two 600w digilux hps in Sun Systems’ Magnum XXXLs. I have 4 3x2 trays with a 2.5 square hanging panda tent with a 250w hps (what a genius idea, man!) in which I keep 11 moms of 5 different strains: White Widow, NY-47, Trainwreck (my favorite) OG Kush and NLxBB. I’ve got 22 plants in each tray and a 36 site aerocloner running most of the time (couldn’t do your rockwool cloning, too much work for me 
