Watering without disturbing soil

OldMedUser said:

I've revegged plants in pots and DWC and once they get going they go nuts. I was doing a 3rd reveg on some DWC plants when I had to go out of town for a 5 week rig job and spider mites wiped me out as the wife didn't know what to do. No cell phone service so I only talked to her once on a sat phone and that was before she knew there was a problem.

Came home to a horror show and just burned the whole thing in the garbage burner. Got mites now in some gifted plants and they're going down tomorrow.

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good luck man. get those little bastards!!!

TCH said:

good luck man. get those little bastards!!!

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Still have thrips in my downstairs girls too and need to spend about 6 hours down there pruning them back and then I'll spray all the plants every 3 days for 3 sprays then move the upstairs plants that have thrips, mites and aphids down there and flower the lot.

I have not been a good dad to my plants for months.

OldMedUser said:

Still have thrips in my downstairs girls too and need to spend about 6 hours down there pruning them back and then I'll spray all the plants every 3 days for 3 sprays then move the upstairs plants that have thrips, mites and aphids down there and flower the lot.

I have not been a good dad to my plants for months. View attachment 4030173

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at least you know it and have a plan. lol. better than a lot of folks.

OldMedUser said:

Still have thrips in my downstairs girls too and need to spend about 6 hours down there pruning them back and then I'll spray all the plants every 3 days for 3 sprays then move the upstairs plants that have thrips, mites and aphids down there and flower the lot.

I have not been a good dad to my plants for months. View attachment 4030173

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what do you use for the thrips?

I've been using Safer's End All II with some neem oil added and it does the job nicely without any nasty chemicals. The secret is to hit them 3 days apart so any eggs that hatch you're killing off the young ones before they mature enough to lay eggs themselves. Doesn't hurt to go 4 days and even 4 treatments but you have to make sure to cover every little bit of every leaf top and bottom. To that end I have a 500W halide shop lamp off to the side so I can spot any missed areas that look very different than well wetted areas. Real PITA but if done well gets rid of all the bugs forever.

It's the mites on these gifted plants that concern me the most. Got a nice Critical Kush bush that will need extra attention to make sure it's clean before flowering.

TCH said:

at least you know it and have a plan. lol. better than a lot of folks.

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I'm great with plans but it's gittin' 'er done that is the hard part.

Short list of current grow plans.

Defoliate and spray for bugs taking 3 cuttings each from 10 plants as soon as bug free.

Build new 6x8' grow room for 4 tub DWC ScroG flowering room. 1000W HID on 6'6" light rail. Current grow room to be used to veg new DWC ScroGs to replace harvested ones as needed.

Sprout many seeds to get crosses from my one female Otto#1 hi-CBD plant. Original Skunk X Otto, Blueberry X Otto, AK47 X Otto tho the AK are fem so that'll make it trickier.

Re-jig the upstairs bedroom for mothers, clones, seedlings etc. I have an 8x4' tent but may just use the frame to hang lights and other gear off of without putting holes in the ceiling like I can do with abandon downstairs.

Each ScroG tub sits on it's own little dollie so it can be easily moved around to tie down grow tips or any other chores that need doing. Most of that is done during veg until the screen is almost full. Bought 4 new tall tubs but will need a couple more. I veg in the shorter tubs that hold 35L. Tall ones hold 50. The lids are the same size so I can prepare a larger tub with nutes and airstones going for a day or so, make sure it's all stable then just lift the lid with the veg plants off the smaller tub and drop it on the bigger tub. Easy-peasy!

This is a tall tub.



Top view.



All budded up. One plant after 2 month veg. White Rhino x Train Wreck that was nice and leggy. Well suited to ScroG but went hermie about week 6. Cropped around week 9 and just had tiny seeds starting in many pods but too small to mess up toking.



I find DWC to be such an easy and productive way to grow lots of the meds I need. With DWC Scrog I can produce more than 4X from one plant that I've ever got from the same plant grown in a pot of soil or soilless mix. I'm shit at dirt farming and the first to admit it. As a chemist hydro is just so f'n easy for me and I've done around 50 DWC grows since 2001. Only a few as ScroG but that's all I'm going to be doing now. Mothers I'll keep in pots of soilless as I won't need any great growth from them. All I'll need is a few cuttings a month so I'll be keeping them small and alive for a decade I hope. If I keep me alive for another decade I'll be very happy!

Hydro Halos

Those pots are great. Dry out real fast but get great root structure all on their own.

pdgenoa said:

I'm currently growing four potted autoflowers and I need an idea for how to water them without always messing up the soil on top. I've tried the "shower" type watering pails but since I'm using ScrOG I can't easily get the watering head in there. I've thought of cutting some felt to place on top of the soil and letting it drain through but then I'm concerned about it molding.

If anyone has any ideas on how best to do this I would certainly appreciate the suggestions.

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I've used those hydroton (whatever they're called) balls and covered the soil on top with those. They worked nicely but I don't think they make them any longer.

Moldy said:

I've used those hydroton (whatever they're called) balls and covered the soil on top with those. They worked nicely but I don't think they make them any longer.

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Yes they do - you can find hydroton in any hydro store.

Moldy said:

I've used those hydroton (whatever they're called) balls and covered the soil on top with those. They worked nicely but I don't think they make them any longer.

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I looked them up. If you're talking about the clay ones it looks like you can still get them. Never heard of these before now, thanks!

They're called LECA Pebbles - Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate.

a layer of sand on top then cover with gravel. downside is when you dump it into a soil recycle bin it will have gravel.

i use cloth pots and water and water them with a 50oz smart water bottle. i don't really know what you mean messing up the soil, but it works good for me.

pdgenoa said:

I'm currently growing four potted autoflowers and I need an idea for how to water them without always messing up the soil on top. I've tried the "shower" type watering pails but since I'm using ScrOG I can't easily get the watering head in there. I've thought of cutting some felt to place on top of the soil and letting it drain through but then I'm concerned about it molding.

If anyone has any ideas on how best to do this I would certainly appreciate the suggestions.

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Not sure if this could work for your problem but I pump and spray away lol, super simple for me.

Special Kdog said:

i use cloth pots and water and water them with a 50oz smart water bottle. i don't really know what you mean messing up the soil, but it works good for me.

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I don't really understand messing up the soil eaither hah, but I was using a smart water bottle to and was struggling to get my nutrient water into that bottle from my gallon I mix it in, I started using the 24 oz squeeze Gatorade bottle and I really liked it, it was super simple to dump my nutrient water into cause the hole it 2x bigger. Now I use this

i'm using foxfarm nutes and I use a pipette. I put the nutes in first and then fill it with the faucet in my sink that mixes it up... what people don't realize about the tap water is that municipalities add a little flouride to it for your teeth. So when you smoke my herb your teeth are extra white and it makes you smile

OldMedUser said:

I've revegged plants in pots and DWC and once they get going they go nuts. I was doing a 3rd reveg on some DWC plants when I had to go out of town for a 5 week rig job and spider mites wiped me out as the wife didn't know what to do. No cell phone service so I only talked to her once on a sat phone and that was before she knew there was a problem.

Came home to a horror show and just burned the whole thing in the garbage burner. Got mites now in some gifted plants and they're going down tomorrow.

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That's a damn shame. Any idea how they got in to begin with?

pdgenoa said:

That's a damn shame. Any idea how they got in to begin with?

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Yeah that's crazy, I've always heard about people having super bad bug/mite problems and I grow in a metal shed that's kinda open everywhere and I don't have any bugs really. I get a little grasshopper looking thing like every once in awhile but that's about it

pdgenoa said:

That's a damn shame. Any idea how they got in to begin with?

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I suspect it was from a bag of super soil I'd bought at a hydro store to experiment with. Same bag that gave me fungus gnats but mites are common here so could have come in on my shoes for all I know or the wife's as she was tending the plants while I was gone and had a little veggy garden going at the same time.