So this mars 300 I'm running must be too much heat for the 2x2 I have up or the inline fan I was using was junk. Still setting up a 3x cree this week instead. Glad to see this mars doin decent work. I may keep it around after all.
Update from yesterday. Still fighting the botrytis but has slowed significantly. Discussed with my neighbor, who created this strain, and he let me know that this is a known issue with this and growing indoors has made it worse. I've turned off my ventilation fan and the de-humidifier is cranking along nicely. Yesterday I trimmed any dead/dying foliage and anything affected by the mold was cut out and sterilized with 200 proof grain alcohol and peroxide. Other than the nutrients for the hydro, I am not going to be using any harsh chemicals beyond alcohol on the plants. This is my personal supply and I am keeping it as clean as possible. Losing some nice large branches is always sad, but saving the plant is better. In the wide picture here you can see one of the branches with yellow leaves. It was nutrient deprived due to the mold. Another plant is showing some mag deficiency, because I have been too sick to work on the plants in the last few days and the 6gal buckets were quite low. I've now purchased the pump and air stones needed to fully run the veg and flowering chambers separately. This last time I cloned/vegged with the same pump I am using for flowering. I've got a set of 6 clones now that are ready to take out of the cloning tray and get into the hydroton and 3 gal buckets. For flowering this time I've gone heavier on the flowering nutrients. Still running the Fox Farm I'm used to, 4 parts tiger bloom, 2 parts big bloom, 1 part grow big. Vegging was solely with the grow big. I don't follow their schedule, experimentally finding what works best for me. This new nutrient schedule has resulted in a nice stretch, and solid bud formation. Round 3 will be even better. Wide shot, 5 plants in total about 4.5' tall now: 20170316_222105 by toshin posted Mar 18, 2017 at 12:29 AM Closeup on a bud site, early trichome development is visible: 20170316_222123 by toshin posted Mar 18, 2017 at 12:29 AM
My clone room has 1x 300w Galaxy Hydro and the veg/flower room is running 2x 600w. For a 2x2 room, the 300w is plenty. I'm using the 300w galaxy for a table that just holds 6 buckets and it is more than enough. At $160 each for the 600, and $80 for the 300, they have worked great so far. Round 1 I worked through most issues and ended up with a small plant but was as strong was what you can get at the good local places. This round I have 5 solid plants that are now nearly twice as large as the single I had last round. Before I switched to flowering I got some good clones that are nice and healthy and round 3 should be even better.
Once the flowering is over, the plan is to nuke with high concentration ozone before moving the next plants in. That and spray bleaching all surfaces. Vegging/cloning chamber has been completely gone through and all signs eradicated. My location is prone to mold, most of my vehicles get hit over the winter and some places have huge troubles in the house. Fairly low temperatures with high humidity most of the year.
Use a foliar spray of 3% H2O2 to help control the botrytis. It's safe for the buds too as long as you have plenty of air movement.
Doing this currently, has been keeping things at bay. I have a big box fan blowing on the plants and I spray it so the fan distributes it all.
Photos from today. Some plants are showing a nutrient deficiency, like from the lack of 'big grow' in the feedings. Healthy parts are growing well and some nice buds are filling in. 20170330_191202 by toshin posted Mar 30, 2017 at 7:28 PM 20170330_191212 by toshin posted Mar 30, 2017 at 7:28 PM 20170330_191218 by toshin posted Mar 30, 2017 at 7:28 PM
Things continue to thicken up. Any branch that I had treated with alcohol for botrytis is showing obvious nutrient issues. Other branches on the same plant that were untouched are growing healthy. Today's check showed zero trace of mold anywhere. Some of the other branches are falling over from the weight of the. Overall looks like I am going to get a much higher yield than last run along with many more lessons learned. Today is the start of the flushing, diluting the remaining solution in the buckets with ph adjusted water. 20170419_023047 by toshin posted Apr 19, 2017 at 2:40 AM 20170419_023031 by toshin posted Apr 19, 2017 at 2:40 AM
Dude Im confused... you're talking about branches bending over from the weight of the buds ect but your pictures hardly show any bud growth at all.
They've been on 12/12 since Feb 1. The low temperatures have been a constant issue with this grow and it is taking much longer than I have expected. Looking at harvest time within the next couple weeks, but really I am just watching and waiting for it to tell me it's done. I have some pictures up of my previous results and overall I expect a similar quality but higher quantity this time. Still learning many things and these are some inexpensive LED lights. Experimenting with nutrient schedules as well and trying to build an automated system around it all. I've learned quite a bit this time around and I hope to continue to do so. The branches all around the outside of the plants bent over from the small buds along them. They do not get nearly as much light as the center and tops and I probably should have pruned them off a while ago. Pics to follow later today..
Get the basics down before experimenting. I may have missed, but what nutes are you running. Also, how low temps you talking? It may be something totally different and you are blaming cold Winter is usually my friend, in places that only have heat from equipment to keep the place warm. It does drastically slow growth and makes for short plants, but usually rock hard nugs
K.I.S.S. It works for weed growing too. Jus' saying. So here's kind of where I think the guys and I are going with this. If you have uneven temps (too cold), marginal lighting, and inexperience, any results and problems are going to be virtually impossible to attribute to any given source. When you start varying nute schedules or strength and the headaches of automation you add more variables when the first haven't been solved yet. Old head advice here, Temps, adequate lighting, airflow are the primary concern. Worry yourself more with those and less with different nute shedules or automated systems. Ignore it if you want, but can't say you weren't warned.
No pictures today. I checked in on things and they are not well. There is some healthy plant but the mold while no longer visible on the outside continued to do damage. The sterilized clones in a separate room are doing great, no signs of mold at all. It is a bit more isolated from the environment and is kept at low humidity. To answer the questions above: FoxFarm nutrients. Grow big, big bloom, and tiger bloom. Previous grow I used much more grow big than recommended and was light on the tiger bloom. This grow I followed the scheduled from foxfarm more closely. I am throwing away and not smoking anything that has been affected by the mold. Any bud that successfully makes it through flowering with no issue (no dying of leaves or any sign of disease) will be cut, inspected, and is for my personal use. I'm not up for smoking mold Temperature wise, on the recent warmer days the internal temp of the room got up to 23C/74F. This is max temp during the day with the lights running. Humidity before I added a dehumidifier was around 70% most the time. The first dehumidifier brought that down to 50%. I have another one to add which I hope will bring it down more. Attached is an output of my temperature sensor network. The blue line is the internal temp of the grow room. I have a fan recirculating air within the room, but the external ventilation fan is turned off as leaving it on decreases the temp and increased the humidity. The room itself is insulated with fiberglass insulation in the walls, but the floor is not. Advice definitely appreciated. The main thing I am looking to fix is the temp/humidity issues. Automation is a 'nice to have' as it is physically quite difficult for me to check and change the buckets frequently. Anything that can reliably keep the ph and ppm levels constant is a plus in my book. Next on the list is sealing the room better to control the temperature and humidity. Overall the biggest problem was the mold. While eventually I figured out the issues, by then it was too late. Clones taken from healthy tissue show zero sign of mold. The room is going to be cleaned out and sterilized before clones get moved in. Blue: grow room ambient Red: battery powered test sensor Green: enclosure temperature of a 4 channel 250v/10A relay board in another location
temps are not the issue, most of us would kill to have our high temps at 74. nutrients should almost never be ran at recommend strength at first, you should always work you way up. I'd say run fox farms at half strength at first specially if you are decent soil. honestly it looks like a light leak, or way too much nitrogen but without knowing more it's hard to say. i say this because it looks like they are trying to reveg in flower, leaves being gnarly like that reminds me of when i take a clone from a flowering plant or try to reveg a plant after flower. rh needs to come down or you will fight mold constantly. anytime you are running 55+ rh you have a chance for mold and just fans aren't going to stop that, you need to running at 50 or less in my humble opinion. if you are seeing mold in small buds like that, you need to make this a priority as even in the best of conditions when you get big ole donkey dick buds you can get mold just due to their sheer density. and you'll never see mold on clones, only buds, if your leaves are rotting then you have issues that even i wouldn't know how to fix besides throwing out the plants are starting over in a sterile place. clean the area and use way less nutrients, more is not better, it's not going to make buds bigger. there are certain things to increase crop size but honestly you need to focus on the basics first
