Northern Lights x Hawaii x Lowryder; 600W Closet Grow

[IllusionalFate]

I figured I'd start this Grow Journal before all the equipment gets here...

I will be growing 4-5 plants in soil in a 5'x2'x7.7' closet, it's a strain called "Autum Fall" which is a 50/50 Sativa/Indica cross of Northern Lights, Hawaii, and Lowryder. Grows short to medium height.

Pic 1: About half of the nutrients I will be using. Still waiting for the Bio-Bizz and Pure Blend Pure Bloom to get here.

Pic 2: 600W Lumatek Ballast and Hortilux Super HPS (88,000 lumens)

Pics 3 and 4: HPS glow

Pic 5: Autum Fall seeds

Pic 6: Soil and Thermometer/Hygrometer

 

[Tater]

Lets see the closet!

 

[IllusionalFate]

Here it is.

Don't worry about the Miracle-Gro or anything else in there, it's all being cleaned out. Then I'm going to clean the walls and floor, install the 6" intake and exhaust fan and ducts, and finally put the mylar up.

 

[PeaceKiller]

This should be a blast.
I look forward to watching this one Illusional.

Be well.

 

[Melissa]

:yeahthat: how long till the babies get started ??eace:

 

[IllusionalFate]

Should be within the next week and a half... I have to return the MH bulb and 3 gallon pots to HTGsupply (I ordered a different bulb and 5 gallon pots). I'm also waiting on a reflector and Light Warrior from gchydro, hopefully they get around to shipping that soon.

 

[DomsChron]

Can't wait to see this **** flowering in my bros room next door while mines up in my room haha! Too bad mine will only be on the metal halide for veg. state for a little while.

 

[IllusionalFate]

Ok, everything has finally got here so I should start germinating the seeds by tomorrow.

 

[IllusionalFate]

It took a little longer than expected, but I finally have my growroom setup. The two plants in the back are my brother's, they are in FoxFarm Ocean Forest. The others will be in a mix of Light Warrior and Ocean Forest, I put most of the Light Warrior near the top of the container so the seedlings would start out in that then grow into mostly Ocean Forest in the bottom 65% of the containers.

Also, scratch the 4-5 plants idea, I managed to squeeze in 10 containers, so 10 plants it will be until the males are removed. The other 8 seeds are germinating right now and I estimate will be planted sometime tomorrow.

Also, not sure if I mentioned it but this will be a 100% organic grow.

 

[DomsChron]

It took a little longer than expected, but I finally have my growroom setup. The two plants in the back are my brother's, they are in FoxFarm Ocean Forest. The others will be in a mix of Light Warrior and Ocean Forest, I put most of the Light Warrior near the top of the container so the seedlings would start out in that then grow into mostly Ocean Forest in the bottom 65% of the containers.

Also, scratch the 4-5 plants idea, I managed to squeeze in 10 containers, so 10 plants it will be until the males are removed. The other 8 seeds are germinating right now and I estimate will be planted sometime tomorrow.

Also, not sure if I mentioned it but this will be a 100% organic grow.

Hey man, I can't WAIT to get those other 8 started. I'm estimating at least 8 females, because there is absolutely NO stress on these plants whatsoever. I know this BECAUSE:

1. We never open the door during off time
2. We constantly measure PH levels
3. The nutrients we use make them happy and healty, and have lots of nitrogen in the veg nutes (helps with fems)
4. I read that some of the Fox Farms nutrients unlock salt bonds in the roots
4. We use MH instead of HPS for veg, and the blue spectum for the plants also means less stress

Other than that, how else can we stress these plants out?

 

[MeNtAlPaTiEnT]

I like your set-up. It looks really bright in there! You're defnately going to grow some monsters.

 

[4u2sm0ke]

LookN Good my friend...You will Have Monsters in there..I am concerned about space for light penitration...That many in a small space will have a huge canopy..JMO..Your setup is lke mne somewhat..you will continue to tweek it out to your likeN...HPS has red spectrum and to produce more females blue (HD) when VeggN..How are your heat any issues?.Check fox farm nutes..dont think they are 100% organic...HGB..is the friend to talk organics...but i use foxfarm nutes all the way...cant get FF soil but I make my own and they thrive in it..well sorry for the NOVEL KEEP M GREEN

 

[Tater]

Genetics will be the determining factor in your male to female ratio. Stress can just induce a plant to hermie. Sounds like you got things locked down though, good luck man.

 

[DomsChron]

LookN Good my friend...You will Have Monsters in there..I am concerned about space for light penitration...That many in a small space will have a huge canopy..JMO..Your setup is lke mne somewhat..you will continue to tweek it out to your likeN...HPS has red spectrum and to produce more females blue (HD) when VeggN..How are your heat any issues?.Check fox farm nutes..dont think they are 100% organic...HGB..is the friend to talk organics...but i use foxfarm nutes all the way...cant get FF soil but I make my own and they thrive in it..well sorry for the NOVEL KEEP M GREEN

Yes sir, thank you for the wonderful advice but I think that the light penetration is fine for this grow, 600 watt is plenty for my small closet space. Alot of people thought 400 would be PLENTY fine, but just to be safe we got 600.

Blue spectrum is better and less stressful for the veg. growth but once we know which are fems we will switch out for the HPS and the red spectrum, that is better for the bud growth. Red spectrum during veg has a smaller female ratio, and also makes the plants stretch more.

Genetics will be the determining factor in your male to female ratio. Stress can just induce a plant to hermie. Sounds like you got things locked down though, good luck man.

This is very true but as you can read in my above response to 4u2smoke the red spectrum during veg can stress plants more and cause them to stretch, but the blue spectrum will keep them happy and smiling, and they will stay low and bushy.

I heard from alot of expeirienced growers that experiment with the same genetics, that when they took the same seeds and vegged them under HPS they had a constant lower female ratio that the metal-halide which had a much higher ratio.

 

[Timmyjg6]

Yepp, its all in the genetics...

 

[IllusionalFate]

LookN Good my friend...You will Have Monsters in there..I am concerned about space for light penitration...That many in a small space will have a huge canopy..JMO..Your setup is lke mne somewhat..you will continue to tweek it out to your likeN...HPS has red spectrum and to produce more females blue (HD) when VeggN..How are your heat any issues?.Check fox farm nutes..dont think they are 100% organic...HGB..is the friend to talk organics...but i use foxfarm nutes all the way...cant get FF soil but I make my own and they thrive in it..well sorry for the NOVEL KEEP M GREEN

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It will definitely be a forest in there which may prevent light from getting to the lower leaves, but I figured more plants would more than make up for the lower yield per plant due to less light penetration. 400 watts would actually work fine for that space, but as DomsChron said we went with the 600W to help with the light penetration, and the tons of extra lumens can only help. I will have almost 8500 lumens per square feet during flower!:holysheep:

The heat is very much an issue with the closet door closed, it gets up to 115 degrees even with two 250cfm 6 inch inline fans (intake and exhaust)! With the door open though, which I keep open at all times with the lights on, temps stay between 75 and 80 degrees. RH hovers between 20-27%. I will be running the intake duct directly to the air conditioner though soon so that should (hopefully) help immensely with the extreme temps.

FoxFarm's Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom aren't 100% organic? That's unfortunate, I'm sure they work great but I think I'll just stick with the BioBizz and Earth Juice then for veg.

 

[IllusionalFate]

3 out of the 8 seeds planted died and were unable to completely break soil, the other 5 seedlings are five days old and seem to be doing just fine under the metal halide. There will still be 7 plants though total in the 10.5ft^2 closet so I don't think I will really have a decreased yield. Even if I end up with 4 females they will most likely still have a huge, bushy canopy covering the entire closet space once halfway through flowering.

Oh, and the temperature problems with the door closed don't exist anymore. For some reason, the room needs to be pre-cooled with the AC and the temps stay consistently at 86 degrees, never higher, and get to the mid to low 60s during nights with the AC on. When it got up to 115 degrees, the AC was still running exactly the same but even after it ran for awhile the temps never lowered... as long as I turn on the AC about an hour before the lights turn on the temps stay under control.

Pics are of each of the five seedlings.

 

[IllusionalFate]

Here they are 19 days into veg.

I went away for a few days and when I got back I found out the power went out and the light cycle was set back 4 hours for a couple days. I switched it back to the original cycle and after four days they don't seem to be stressed out so that's good. I'll probably start adding nutes in 3-5 days.

 

[Melissa]

looking nicely compact and healthy :48:

 

[trillions of atoms]

very nice brother! green mojo for ya!!!!!!!!!!!