Barneys Farm OG Kush + Anonymous Stardawg cross

[Keeno]

OG Kush is a stunning strain. I'll tag along @seymore_budz.

[seymore_budz]

Hello all,

Quick and boring update on the OG Kush. I've pushed her a little too hard with my experiments with fertiliser :) I'm interested to see how far I can push her without pissing her off. You can see the very start of an overdose of microelement and some damage to the end of the larger leaves. The TDS was 2.3EC, so quite high for such a little plant. She did look a lot worse a few days ago, but has perked up since reducing the fertiliser.



Once I'm ready to take cuttings, I'll regress back to a standard regime. I'm having a lot of fun playing with ratios and recipes atm. I'm trying to build out a nutrient plan based on the most recent research published by universities and other academic bodies from across the world. It's been fecking hard to understand some of the chemistry, but super fun.

I've rewrote my nutrient calculator to be a bit more flexible. With a dataframe for products to be added with their density, percentage of elements and some additional info like notes etc and a bunch of custom functions to do all the crunching and display from the data provided. It's a bit easier than having to update individual cells everytime I want to add something. Google sheets is awesome!

I've also added dataframes for recipies and species of plant, cultivar etc, so I can just plug in the recipe as ml/L and recall that at any time. The goal is to build up a set of recipes cultivars like and create a database of recipes that I can recall and use at any time. I may turn this into a webapp in the future and make it publicly available so others can use and contribute, but not really thought about the logistics yet. I'm also tinkering with predicted EC. Turns out the canlculated PPM is way off for many things. If I calculate the expected PPM for 1ml of Calmag per 1L of water, on paper it comes to 0.2, but in reality the number is 0.5! This has led to some confusion on my part and I had to go back to school to learn about how EC is calculated and related to the charge of ions. I've been sniffing about the Hydrobuddy source code and noticed that he uses a linear regression prediction to calculate estimate EC. This is something I might try at a later date. It would involve measuring the EC for each component for several application rates, storing that into a matrix and using that data to train the model. This all sounds simple, but I'm simple, so it takes time for me to learn how all this actually works. It looks like I can do linear regression within Google sheets. One more addition is the ratio section. Been learning about anion to cation ratios and antagonisms within the rootzone. Turns out the ratio is important too. This is why people should be careful when adding products from different brands. If you throw the balance out too much, you could have enough of all the required nutrients within optimal levels and still burn the shit out of your plants :) Sorry OG.

Here's a snapshot of mk2 with the current feed schedule selected at 60%



Light has been increased to 300PPFD and the PH is a solid 5.8PH. Room is a little cold as this cold snap has caught me out a bit. Been dipping into the low 20s so I've put in a little ceramic heater in to warm her up a bit.

No more pushing the boundaries for the OG I'll update again once I'm ready to take cuttings. I'd say around two weeks.

Thanks for checking in. I'll be back.

[seymore_budz]

Hello GR420,

A quick update. She went on for a few days being stressed and showing further signs of antagonisms due to the microelement overdose. Mostly Ca deficiency as chlorosis on the older leaves. I've just been picking them off as she grows.

I'm quite supprised at this one. I'm going to be honest, I wasn't expecting much from these seeds as they're not expensive and your average OG strain, but she is already stinking! And I'm smelling hints of coffee. If she's a coffee phenotypes, I will do a little sex wee in my pants because I've been searching for a coffee cultivar for like ... forever! Hopefully it's not just a troll for feeding her up too much.

PPFD has been cranked up to 350umol/m2/s now that she seems a little more stable. I've been running a much larger experiment with my new feeding regime elsewhere and I think I have a sweet spot where I can keep the EC low, but still have sufficient macros without overdoing the micros. But, I've had to turn to CalMag for an extra dimension. I couldn't keep the N high enough and the sulphur low enough using just Terra Aquatica. If I push the Micro too much, I get a whole bunch of issues like leaf chlorosis and stunted growth. Seems as if most plants really don't like high levels of Mn. The nice thing about using Calcium Nitrate is that I can further reduce NH4 levels. I'm hoping I can take care of the rest using nitrifying bacteria. More to follow within this diary. I'm just working out what the best product would be to use. I want to target nitrifying as much as possible without anything else ideally. Most aquaponics products have a blend of nitrifying and P solubilising bacteria. I don't want to make P more available.

Within the updated version of the schedule, you can see I've greatly reduced the micro in favor of CalMag. It's in fact even closer to the optimal ranges I've calculated, and all plants have responded positively since moving over to the new formula.

I'm going to get another nutrient solution analysis once my new scales arrive. I need to be as accurate as possible, so I've ordered some scales with a 0.001 precision. Then I can be sure that Terra Aquatica matches their guaranteed analysis. I'm expecting some figure to be a little high, so I've compensated for those too.

Here's the current feed schedule.



Here's the OG currently.




I'll give her a day or two, then chop her up into 6/8 cuttings so I can fill the Aeroponics system with the best four. TBH, I think she's still a bit upset with me, but pulling through.

Onwards we go :)

[seymore_budz]

Hello guys,

Just a quick update for my record more than anything. I've taken some cuttings today. Only took four as the plant is still quite small so I would have struggled to pull any more. I would have waited, but I have an empty flowering tent and a load of weed I'm quite bored with now. Hopefully all will root fine and I'll be in the system by the end of next week.

One unique thing with these are, previously I used to drop the solution strength when soaking rooting cuttings. I've been doing some research into cloning plants and it would seem that keeping solution strengh at the same as you have the mothers at should reduce yellowing while rooting. Suppose it makes sense since cuttings will continue to photosynthesis while rooting. I was always told to treat cuttings like seeds and feed them little to none. Let's see how this plays out :) If they all die, the mother plant will be a little bigger by then.

[seymore_budz]

A little update, I've got to pull the extraction unit out of my growroom as I have a massive split in the duct just before the carbon filter. It's a pain to get to, so I'm going to need a few days to a week before I can move the clones into the main tent. For that reason, I'm going to throw away the mother and make use of my old aeroponic propagator to hold these for a few days. I may even run it for a few weeks as its much cheaper to run under the little 100w LED and less solution to mix up.

So, say RIP to Lab Rat OG! She was a real trooper. Breaks my heart to kill healthy plants.


Here's the makeshift hydroponics system.


The clones have already swollen at the bottoms, so I expect them to be rooted through in the next day or so. As soon as they root through, I'll transplant them into the mini aeroponics system.

I've also started to introduce some nitrifying bacteria to the solution. I'm hoping that the bacteria will convert the ammonium to ammonia. This is a bit experimental. I know it works because people have been using the same bacteria in fish tanks for decades. What worries me is by taking all of the NH4 out of solution, I may end up with unstable PH. I will have to keep an eye on things. If it becomes too much of a problem, I'll have to fond an alternative to help buffer things.

Anyway, I will update again when they've been running in the system for a few days.

[seymore_budz]

Hello GR420,

A little update, so the cuttings were a bit of a failure They seemed like they were going great and swelling up as per usual. Then they slowed down and did nothing. I removed them from the propagator after 8 days, but they all wilted and I put them back in the propagator. One rooted and the others are on the way, but they're extremely slow. Not sure if it's because the plant was quite young, or I've created anaerobic conditions that has lead to some rot or something around the base. They're in the system and no longer wilting, but I'm not confident they will end up in the flowering tent.

Luckily my pal had the mother for his room, so I was able to take some more cuttings. I'm using rockwool this time as I've has no end of issues recently using peat pellets. I seem to struggle to keep them consistent.

Anyway, important to document the failures and successes hey.





New cuttings


Here's the mother before she went to her forever home.

[Keeno]

Good evening @seymore_budz. Nice diary mate with good info on what you are doing, thanks for sharing.

Strange how all the cuttings were doing well then slowed at same time. What is your routine in the aero prop?

[seymore_budz]

Good evening @seymore_budz. Nice diary mate with good info on what you are doing, thanks for sharing.

Strange how all the cuttings were doing well then slowed at same time. What is your routine in the aero prop?

I don't use the aero propagator for rooting. They were just in some peat pellets in the propagator. Only thing I did different was place them on a bed of Perlite and Vermiculite. I wanted to stop them from drying out, but looks like I made them too wet. I don't normally have issues rooting cuttings so it was a bit of a head scratcher. They're still alive just about. Just very slow rooting.

[Keeno]

Good evening @seymore_budz. Nice diary mate with good info on what you are doing, thanks for sharing.

Strange how all the cuttings were doing well then slowed at same time. What is your routine in the aero prop?

I don't use the aero propagator for rooting. They were just in some peat pellets in the propagator. Only thing I did different was place them on a bed of Perlite and Vermiculite. I wanted to stop them from drying out, but looks like I made them too wet. I don't normally have issues rooting cuttings so it was a bit of a head scratcher. They're still alive just about. Just very slow rooting.

I see. May well have been the vermiculite, stuff holds water like mad. When I first started growing I was in soil, never heard of perlite or vermiculite. I was told to mix 70% soil with 30% perlite. I picked up vermiculite instead, was a fucking nightmare of a grow.

[seymore_budz]

Good evening @seymore_budz. Nice diary mate with good info on what you are doing, thanks for sharing.

Strange how all the cuttings were doing well then slowed at same time. What is your routine in the aero prop?

I don't use the aero propagator for rooting. They were just in some peat pellets in the propagator. Only thing I did different was place them on a bed of Perlite and Vermiculite. I wanted to stop them from drying out, but looks like I made them too wet. I don't normally have issues rooting cuttings so it was a bit of a head scratcher. They're still alive just about. Just very slow rooting.

I see. May well have been the vermiculite, stuff holds water like mad. When I first started growing I was in soil, never heard of perlite or vermiculite. I was told to mix 70% soil with 30% perlite. I picked up vermiculite instead, was a fuckjng nightmare of a grow.

Vermiculite holds quite a bit of water for sure. It has a very high CEC too. Much higher than coco in fact. I find it excellent for germinating seeds, but that's about it really. The mother is in a Perlite/Vermiculite mix. It did OK, but I think she was a bit pot bound in the end as it would go through the water in the pot pretty quickly.