*** EC/PPM Values for MAINLINING ***

Hey Guys and Gals, I have a question for the community of roll it up!!

I am a fairly experienced grower and have now decided I want to experiment with aggressive mainlining techniques. My Aim is 4 plants with a total of 3 toppings leaving me with just 32 main colas and NO shitty side shoots.

Now my question to you guys is between the first topping and the final topping, due to the mass eradication of foliage and side shoots do you dial back your EC/PPM values and if so by roughly how much?

From experience I'm guessing the EC value at 6 nodes high is going to be approximately 1.2/1.4 or around 650/750 ppm (0.5 scale) also I know this is strain dependent before the cannabis nazi's start.

For those of you interested set up is

Root riot cubes
Heated propagator
1 ltr (1/4 us gal) fabric pots
3 ltr (3/4 us gal) air pots
20 ltr (4.5 us gal) air pots
2m(6.6ft) (L) x 1m(3.3ft) (W) x 1.8m(6ft) tent
2 x 250 m3/h (820 ft3/h) 4 inch
2 x rhino pro carbon filters 4 inch
Acoustic ducting 4 inch
2 fan silencers 4 inch
2 x SF2000
1 x SF1000
Canna Coco professional 70%
Perlite 30%
6 inch inlet from outside (filtered)
Small humidifier
Small dehumidifier
Home made CO2 generators may switch to premade bags not sure yet
2 x 1m (3.3ft) x 1m (3.3ft) catch trays
Blue lab EC
Blue lab PH
Soil moisture meter (guide purposes only)
Intake and room temp gauge
Hydrometer
Mist sprayer
2 x 30w 8inch pole mount fans
Watering can with rose
Hydroton for pot base 15mm (1/2 inch) thick
General bits i.e; nitrile gloves, snips etc.

Hanging heights

Seedlings 20 inches 1 x SF2000 dimmed 75%
Veg 18 inches 2 x SF2000 dimmed 75% and turned up gradually over a few days
Flower 12/15 inches 2 x SF 2000 and 1 x SF 1000 to cover the over lap (aiming for good DLI too)

Nutes

Generally mixed about 1/3 to 1/2 recommended strength.
Advanced nutrients
Connoisseur grow and bloom
Big bud
Bud candy
Unsulphured molasses
Bud ignitor
Bud factor x
Rhino skin
Flawless finish
Nirvana
Over drive
B52
Calmag
House and garden
Amino treatment
Roots excellartor
Multizyme
And some liquid bat guano.

My growing environment is around 50/60 percent RH with day temps between 19-22 and night temps 14/16 degrees C or 66-71 and 57-60 degrees F. Hard to do any better due to geographical location.

Yes, dialed back a bit on both EC and feed frequency during periods of low foliage.
I’m in F&D, and also from clone. You can see in the pics attached where I just caught it in time, I.e tip claw, and some minor droop. How much to dial back EC? Good question, I just went back -.2 by adding more RO water to the Rez, and came good as more foliage developed and upped the EC again until next top and supercrop.
Things bounce back fairly quickly.
Re co2 bags, not a fan. Harder to control levels and not wanting elevated co2 at lights off.

OzyM8 said:

Yes, dialed back a bit on both EC and feed frequency during periods of low foliage.
I’m in F&D, and also from clone. You can see in the pics attached where I just caught it in time, I.e tip claw, and some minor droop. How much to dial back EC? Good question, I just went back -.2 by adding more RO water to the Rez, and came good as more foliage developed and upped the EC again until next top and supercrop.
Things bounce back fairly quickly.
Re co2 bags, not a fan. Harder to control levels and not wanting elevated co2 at lights off.
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Beautiful set-up....Hats off!! Looks cleaner than my doctors office!! One of the nicest, well groomed grow rooms I've ever seen!

manfredo said:

Beautiful set-up....Hats off!! Looks cleaner than my doctors office!! One of the nicest, well groomed grow rooms I've ever seen!

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Cheers man, a labour of love

so, just to ask, does mainlining really increase yield against a similar plant w/o training? same veg time.

rkymtnman said:

so, just to ask, does mainlining really increase yield against a similar plant w/o training? same veg time.

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In my experience...yes. Compact and sturdy support structure, light penetration, easy to manage with low ceiling height. Some good advantages, probably not for everyone.
Ps. Don’t Bogart that joint

Hey thanks for the advice.

On to the point of "yield". I'm personally unsure whether it actually makes a difference, in theory a pop corn nug can be considered as part of your yield. My theory behind this and why I want to try mainlining/manifolding is because in theory it should give you more "useable" bud with no shitty fluff nuggets.

Ozym8 correct me if I'm wrong (and again big up for the advice), is that the plant only has a finite amount of energy (based on genetics, light, humidity, temperature, root development, nutrient schedules/quality etc.)

Now with that finite number it distributes that energy amongst the flower sites giving greater energy to dominant colas (highest ones or closest to a particular light spot).

Now by mainlining correctly all the stems/branches are of equal length, giving an even canopy firstly - removing the dominant site(s) and feeding all sites equally. Secondly in addition, by removing all the side shoot growth that wouldn't always become "the greatest" further increases the nutrient percentage given to each flower site. Thus leading to more compact and larger main flowers - this is what I mean by more usable.

It is at this point I'm unsure of the overall yield difference. As ultimately if you veg a plant for 3/4 weeks and one for 6/7 weeks, logic dictates you should get a greater yield on the longer vegging plant. This is due to its natural size being bigger from the start of the flowering period. So I guess unless you did a side by side comparison of plants (would have to be from the same mother to ensure fair testing) one untouched, one lst, one topped normally, one mainifolded, one scrogged and one super cropped. All under the same enviromental conditions and feeding schedules you would never know, and I guess unfair to say either way unless you had suffienent evidence to say so. Added to this you maybe better at one technique than the other too which again would cause a bias in results.

Again thanks for the advice guys and gals. I will try and update in the next month or so when I'm running.

I also bigged up Ozym8 for the advice but would also like to mention a user muddywaters who's blog I read about 6/7 years ago and got me hooked on the idea of growing!

Laters.

No problem, you’re welcome.

I can only speak from personal experience. In my last room ft 8(w)x12(l)x12(h) I was vegging under 4x 630w CMH and flowering under 4x 1000w DE HPS. All in coco. Not mainlining, just topping and trellis sometimes triple layer. Had amazing yields, however it was a very expensive room to run, even with an abundance of solar panels, and very time consuming as a sole. Mentioning this is just some context to why I now mainline in my new smaller room with 2x LED panels. I don’t have anywhere near the head height I previously had, nor the space for enough mother’s and cloning to do SOG. So I’ve sort of done a hybrid SOG, just top, supercrop, mainline for 4 (I’m doing 1 plant per sq ft), veg for an additional week after and flip. Do some lower trimming and defol also. Overall I’m vegging for 4 odd weeks from clone. The mainline base is enough to support the plants without any additional support.
In my thought, the added stem thickness from the process transports good amounts of feed, get reasonable uniformity even though now I’m lighting the plants rather than the whole room, and good yield of solid bud.
From my perspective as a grower is to try and do the best with what you have to work with, and most importantly..don’t over think it and enjoy the process.

OzyM8 said:

Yes, dialed back a bit on both EC and feed frequency during periods of low foliage.
I’m in F&D, and also from clone. You can see in the pics attached where I just caught it in time, I.e tip claw, and some minor droop. How much to dial back EC? Good question, I just went back -.2 by adding more RO water to the Rez, and came good as more foliage developed and upped the EC again until next top and supercrop.
Things bounce back fairly quickly.
Re co2 bags, not a fan. Harder to control levels and not wanting elevated co2 at lights off.
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OzyM8 said:

Yes, dialed back a bit on both EC and feed frequency during periods of low foliage.
I’m in F&D, and also from clone. You can see in the pics attached where I just caught it in time, I.e tip claw, and some minor droop. How much to dial back EC? Good question, I just went back -.2 by adding more RO water to the Rez, and came good as more foliage developed and upped the EC again until next top and supercrop.
Things bounce back fairly quickly.
Re co2 bags, not a fan. Harder to control levels and not wanting elevated co2 at lights off.
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I love your grow,may I ask how you made your table top for your net pots?