Think Different and Automatic Northern Hog

[ledbud]

very nice bro, bling bling.

[Autoberry]

TeeTee man, i spotted this common trend. And checked on day 5-15--18 day plants in cocco plus, on some other sites. I have had it the first time i used cocco plus. Thats what made me try the Ugro....

I am trying the Ugrow Pure Premium

U_Gro_Coco_Pure_50L.jpg (22.2 KiB) Viewed 46231 times

I just had the same thing happen, between day 5-15-18. That is a huge rise in Ph to 7.1

I see you are feeding overall 0.7 Ec Tee. So no shortage of nutrients available with N at its highest in veg window etc.....

here is your NH1 at 15 days teetee. If you look closely at the broad indica fans, there are rashes of light green. This is because at Ph's above 7 or above, due to "New" cocco high Ph, the Nitrogen is partially rendered "Unavailable" so Light N def occurs.
NH1 Day 15. Do a ph6 plain water flush tee and see if 300ml ofrun of is above 6 ok.....

day 15 NH1.JPG (80.37 KiB) Viewed 46231 times

To check this i did 2 run off tests for Ph. (regrettably i did not take Ec), cocco Plus and ugrow both new cocco's washed out at Ph 7.1-7.2 =/- 0.2.

Except the ugrow, is worse, as it has a pre loaded guano and a pre loaded Ec of 1.5. This loaded Ec was unavailable from day 5 to 15-18, as the cocco dosant wash out or wash down the high starter Ph due to watering untill post 21 days 3wks.

I suspect the ugrow cocco Ph was higher, as it locked out N in the early stages (Slowing critical mass in veg) worse than plus, as it had added Ec. This led to an early N def again in my current grow (Pics Later).....

This leaves only 2 options to solve this high calcium level pushing up cocco Ph, in the early days of veg. That is pre wash down to 6.5 before use. Or feed/water at Ph 5.6 in early days to drag down cocco high Ph when new.

I am at a similar stage of growth to tee tee right now. And have been feeding at 5.6-5.8 and my run off Ec is now down to 6.4-6.5 post 11 days from new from 7.1!! this over the last 8-9 days since i addressed the issue of mild N def, due to high Ph N lock out.

It has worked quite well, as Ph of run off goes down, you start to increase the Feed/water ph to level off where you want it around 6.2-6.3. ie, an inverse Ph relationship at the start of growing in cocco...... to maintain and prevent high Ph N lockout.. and delayed veg structural build....

My mix in the end for the Ugro pure was this; 30ltr medium mixed up.

3ltrs john inns no2
3ltrs pre used cocco
3ltrs perlite
24ltrs of Ugrow
1tsp in 5ltrs ugro EcoThrive "Charge"
4tbls natural mystick powdered enzyme bacteria and fungi mix
medium aerated and left to come up to room temp...

Into 7ltr deep rose pots same height as 15ltr pots, 7ltr pots filled with 6ltrs of medium compressed mildly, or tapped down stiffly..........

This is the reason i believe, that a lot of the grows i have seen in cocco..... in the early stages, all look, very light almost florescent green, is mild N def, could be cal/mag, but very difficult to discriminate in early stages......... seen it before i started using cocco......... figured it must be one or the other but never give it a second thought using soil it dont happen.

But did shit all about it when started using cocco !!......... in other words fucin forgot about it...... til it slapped me back this grow !!.... obviously post wash out in use, post day 25, every thing goes like stable clockwork with cocco....... and mildly better yields also......and dosent seem to mind a 15% reuse or recycling mixed in either.

Here they are the N def crew, now in recovery. With high N shots and feeds at Ph 5.6/5.8, run off now 6.5-6.6 and dropping. N lock begins above Ph 6.8/7.0 in cocco denying early structuring in veg. So you defo dont need to use cal/mag buffer in early use of cocco, it would exacerbate the situation symptoms.

Shots taken 2hrs after lights out, n def makes em flop due to low structural integrity in the exolem....... N isant the only monomeric feed to be locked out at these Ph'es, but is the first to show it usually.... they should be a healthy pert mid to racing green not florescent due to low N, and other probably at those medium Ph,s at thr outset !!

The Ugrow looks and feels 100% the part. But chemiccally, it aint Ph 6.5 as stated on packet at all folks........ more like 1st wash 7.4 !!.... Autoberry

these are now a discontinued strain of high sativa 100% from Dp "Or Was" Pm me if you want to know strain, but i am banned from saying it in public !!..... but is the famous mother of alot of Dp strains, and is venerated as a high Dame at DP Autoberry

[ledbud]

looking very nice bro. TD will get really big, let her stretch in veg and she will fill out in flowering.

[teetee]

......If you look closely at the broad indica fans, there are rashes of light green......

..... in the early stages, all look, very light almost florescent green, is mild N def, could be cal/mag, but very difficult to discriminate in early stages.........

....these are now a discontinued strain of high sativa 100% from Dp "Or Was" Pm me if you want to know strain, but i am banned from saying it in public !!..... but is the famous mother of alot of Dp strains, and is venerated as a high Dame at DP Autoberry

Nice bit of detective work there AB mate..... that light green rash was always bothering me...... happens every grow, but I always resisted the temptation to add more N or Cal Mag..... laziness more than anything

To make a change, I have been fairly busy with the girls this week.... they have been getting huge since my last update ..... Midweek, on day 36 I took a few pics and here they all are.....

NH1 at the back, TD front left NH2 front right

They seem to have responded well to repotting..... one rule of Auto's broken .

NH1 is looking very healthy...

..... she's stretching nicely....

NH2 is also doing quite well, she's just a bit bigger than the rest...

....with lots of bud sites forming.......

TD finally, is also very happy.....

....with a nice main cola developing....

They are, in general, getting quite big, up to 70-85cm and quite bushy too
EC still at 1.0.

Yesterday it was day 38.... 2 days and they are past the 1 metre mark and settling into flowering nicely...... time for some supercropping / monstercropping (I dunno the precise definitions ) and time, therefore, to break another rule of Autos. I'm such a bad boy .

I give them a good feeding a few hours earlier, then give selected stems a squeeze before rolling them over into a 90 degree bend. I did the main stems of each plant and another 4 larger side stems on the slightly bigger NH2....

Here they are as a group. They are in their final positions NH1 front left, NH2 front right, TD at the back......

I changed the 600W MH for a 600W HPS covering the Hogs, but ambient temps are set to hit 30 plus next week..... Summer's on it's way, so I will be ready to remove it if things get too hot in the tent and go full LED for the rest of the grow. I plan to use the HPS for no more than 2 weeks anyway, just to help establish the bud sites.

Here's NH1...

..... and this is how her main stem looks now....

... she is already trying to straighten up, so I will weigh her down to keep her low.

NH2 had a bit more supercropping done.....

.... and here's her main stem....

... you can see a few of the other supercropped side branches as well as the main stem

Finally TD.... I wanna encourage her to spread out to the sides, as she has the back half of the tent to herself. I have the Helios 2's on either side at an angle to encourage more side growth, plus I supercropped her main stem to the left....

and here's her main stem (viewed from behind)....

So after a bit of stressing out, I expect them to take 3-6 days to recover and continue flowering, hopefully giving the sides more time to build out.

Have a stony weekend.... all the best to you and your grows.

[ledbud]

very nice bro. bling bling.

[teetee]

day 40 update

Now that they are recovering from the initial supercropping, I can see the Hogs geting huge, so even though TD has the back half of the tent to herself, she's in danger of being crowded out.

I decided to open her sides out, and move branches from the middle of the tent over to the sides, to make her wider and thinner.
I got inspiration from Hazy's technique from his amazing Blue Automazar grow, and I call it 'Hazytraining'....

First I got 4x 1m long metal stakes, and used cable ties to secure them horizontally over the top of the airpot.
I was going to use these to act as anchorage for my training.

Then I got a few lengths of string and attached them to some hooks made out of some soft garden wire. I used these to hold branches in place after pulling them into their new positions. I moved the Hogs out of the way and climbed in to do the other side....

....you can see how the lower side branches have been pulled out horizontally....

.....and everything in the middle has been pulled out to the sides....

Here's a view of the canopy.....

I also monstercropped another big stem and repositionned the side lighting, then moved the Hogs back into position so now she's sort of triangular shaped, sloping down at the sides.

As the lower stems and their shoots start growing upwards again, I will train out any other higher branches out as well and hopefully get a bit of a hedge going .

[ledbud]

they are going crazy teetee bro. you will need get bigger tent soon.

[teetee]

A mate of mine on another site just said the same thing

[Autoberry]

A mate of mine on another site just said the same thing

All i can say bro is.......... i hope he aint using "Ugro" cocco. "Kuz it is right shit".

I havent had a genuine biological emergency untill now........... as mentioned. I did some run off test to diagnose the green "fainting" in the young 10-15 day old sativas. bear in mind, if anything will show a def 1st. it is a high strain sativa. And this strain, litterally is the mother teresa of sativas. And the mother of now legendary DP strains.

I did my 1st cocco grow in pro plus........ no worries, exept the green fainting at the start. But when they pulled up. They went like the clappers. Didant think anythin of it. But did know essentially the canna pro plus was just cocco......... nothing added.

So come next run, started looking for a cocco with added micrbial & microrizal and other beneficial added. The Ugro also had guano added and 10% perlite. Add that lot to 1no 12 quid bag of pro plus. And you is pushing upto 20 quid on 50l which comes out at 40 anyway post mild compression.

So made a few call when i found the only one out there with this new nute and root combi included. It had only just been launched and was not easy to find. In fact only two people had it ??............ when i rang them the story was. From both off them ??.....

We only have 2 bags left. As When the pallet came in this-morning all the bags where split. And we had to send it back ?? dont know when or if the next lot will be in. So i managed just to get 2 bags, and was all i needed 100l.

When i got it, same as the canna pro plus i did a run off test and the 10g ugro in 100ml of RO ph test. The ugro sample turned up a ph off 7.2. The canna was 7.1 when i did it on that when i 1st used it. So at the start of the canna gro i fed at 5.7-5.8 in the initial stages untill the canna cocco Ph dropped as the grow went on. This happened quite fairly quickly in pro plus. As the ph of run off came down i up'ed the Ph of feed to hit the mediums required 6.4-6.5ph. it worked no worries nice yield, no defs no issues exept the green fainting at start.

The ugro it didant react like the straight canna pro plus !!.......... did the run off tests. i new before use it came up 7.2. One of them came up 7.4. But just though this is a small sample (10g) in 100ml RO at ph 6. Didant think anything of it. Just though it would wash down like the canna. And it was only a little above the pro plus ph test, not enough to ring alarm bells !!

Not so. at day 11 i noticed the ph of the run off was climbing steadily with every check, every feed run off, as allways at the start of a cocco grow.

When it hit 7.2 and went to 7.3 then 7.4 !!........ the alarm bell wrang, and went right off the scale !! as above Ph7 in cocco next to very little nute are available at that alkalinity !! (Not So In Soil) and it was beginning to show in green fainting progressing on oldest lower fans N & mag defs. As the plant rescues N and others from the fans below as it cant get it from below in the medium !!

was feeding at 5.8ph. What this did in ugro was "Liberate Alkalinity" in the cocco with the acid wash feed. liberating calcium from the ugro which is over stacked with cocco calcium, due to the cocco fur/husk is from a different banna tree !!........ not a low calcium type fur/husk which i usually used for cocco growing !! on ugro bag it says 6.5 !! no chance henry....

So the liberated calcium from acid feed wash pushed up the ph to 7.6 !! A flush was needed. At the start of the flush RO @21c @Ph5.8 pure water no nute flush. The ph on the first 1-2 ltr flush run off went up from 7.4 to 7.7-7.8 !! no till the 3-4-5 ltrs did the ph wash down the calcium stored, with acid flush to 6.9 in the run off thank god !!.........

So with an acid flush i had to liberate the massive alkaline base stored in this cocco that shouldn't even be used for growing in !! The ph rose and fell with the 5.8 flush water. it took 12ltrs through 10 plants to get the ph down to 6.8-6.9.......120ltrs of brown and dark brown filthy flush water. One of the pot bottoms smelt all beit faintly of root rot ..

The color of the flush water was like black and brown hues of creek washing's with anaerobic overtones !!....and they had had hardly any water through them at day 11 !!..... @ph 7.3-7.3 the average early flush Ph'es....... it is no wonder i was getting "Fainting in the green lower fans" Ph7.4 for an "Ericaceous" plant is a death nell !!

The 3ltrs of john inns soil i added to the 30ltrs of cocco for the extra terps you dont get in cocco........ added to the acidic liberation of tonnes off calcium carbonate stored in this wrong type cocco..... !! pushing up the ph as well acidic calcium liberation in the medium. Enought to stop any acid loving dame in her tracks you might think....

But not these Dutch Dame Thoroughbreds. They just snooped around the acidic areas and gained a little of what they needed !!..... from the unaffected feed i put in the bottom of tray (Not Topp Washed Feed) at the end of feeding. just to give 5-8mm of water in the tray to drink post watering, and keep the cocco moist for a few hours post feeding. That is what they lived on, tray dribblings !! untill i flushed em back down to nute take up range below ph 7.

Have just topped them now day 31 of 5 weeks veg. had to extend veg to recover somatic growth lost to high Ph issues, in early veg. When i realized it was the higher than usual calcium level in the ugro..... i flush with Ph 4.5 to speed up the dissolution of massive calcium volume stored in the wrong cocco gromit !!........ so i only used 120ltr instead off 220ltr !!! to get the flush run off down to 6.8-6.9. The dames reacted like they had just been let out of a alkaline prison !!

What a nightmare............. they are bouncing back in now though, but with a 5 week veg before 12/12 next week !!.......... that means it wont be ready for Xmas unless they finish 14 days early !! it's tight to say the least..........

Autoberry's 1st decent nightmare, OUTED ! thanks for letting me spill the chemical nightmare beans here teetee will open one up & post some pics in a bit ok.

In conclusion, the story of split pallets and bags being sent back rang a different note. That is bad reports of the ugrow meant it just got sent back as shit gear...... but we need to sell the only 2 bags left to some muppett = Autoberry

[teetee]

AB man, you're like a forensic botanical detective..... I'm sure most folk would not have a clue and think the problem was with something other than the Coco itself.... not you Bro!

Back to my girls.... it's day 56, here's the weekly update.

All is well at the end of week 9 with NH1 and TD producing nice buds, which are beginning to get frosty.....

Northern Hog 1, supercropped main cola

Think Different supercropped main cola

TD and NH1 have just started getting PK 13/14 in their feed, but I'm keeping it at EC 1.0
NH2 is still on last week's mix, at EC 1.1

NH2 is just gigantic, spreading over a wide area, 80cm wide by 80 cm deep and just over a metre high, supercropped to the max, so she's about 7-10 days behind the others, but has more harvest potential....

NH1 on the left, NH2 to the right
Here's NH2 from above......

.... and here is her supercropped main cola.....

NH1 is better viewed from the side window....

.... and here are the results of the supercropping of the main stem...... she should fill out nicely

TD has been trained to be wide and thinner, to fill the back part of the tent, she's producing a nice canopy with plenty of bud sites....

from above

TD's left side

TD main cola tip

She's quite bushy, plenty of leaves, and I've been planning to trim some away.... it would help the numerous smaller buds get much more light and give some ventilation space. I have been trying to keep the leaves, and tuck as many as possible, but now I feel it's time for some surgery!

I'll let you know how it goes.....

Cheers, and all the best of growing karma to your ladies!