Drinkslinger opens his tent. ILGM GDP, Black Widow, Bruce Banner #3

Hi everyone, I thought I’d unzip the tent and let you follow along with one of my grows. This one’s already under way. It started on 7/18 and after a few kinks it’s up and running.
I began with the intention of growing just 2 ILGM Grandaddy Purple plants. I love this strain and it’s fairly easy to grow.


My state only allows 2 flowering plants and 4 immature. I try to keep it legal.
Unfortunately only 1 seed germinated.

So my next plan was to add an ILGM Black widow. Around this time I discovered our M.J. laws allow 2 mature plants/ domicile. Since I own a multi family unit, I decided I could grow 2 for each unit. :+1: I dropped 2BW’s. And after several days I had nothing. So I dropped 2 more. I ended up with this backwards girl.
I carefully turned the tap root around and she began growing as normal (after a few days of me being concerned).
So I dropped another BW seed. This one also came up in reverse, but once again I carefully removed it and put it back in tap root down.

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I’ve never seen a seed grow in reverse like that.

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Of course 3 plants is such an odd number, I decided 4 would be better. Since the other plants were already well underway I just kept an ILGM Bruce Banner #3 clone in the tent. I was just going to let it mature outside with the others, but what the hell, why not.
There’s a few extra clones in this pic. That I’ve since moved outside The first BW is back row left, then GDP back row middle, Bb#3 back row right, and the smaller BW in the white gallon container in front

These plants are all vegging under a diy bridgelux light I put together with the help of @dbrn32
The Roleadro cobs are not being used at this time. It’s just the eb strips. Here’s a link if you’re interested. Project: Increase the lighting footprint with bridgelux light strips

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I’d never experienced one, but had seen pics of others that had. That’s how I “knew” it could be carefully turned around. I had a hard time with the BW seeds. ILGM promptly replaced them :+1:

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Fast forward another month. I like growing in scrogs, so that’s what 3 of the 4 will be.

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The GDP is in a 7gal fabric pot, using ffof soil amended with perlite, bone meal and dolomite lime. The scrog is 22"x46", which I’m sure it’ll fill out. GDP scrogs easily. I’ve got 2 hlg 288v2 qb’s above it pulling around 240watts @3000k.

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The 2 BWs are in a 30"x46" scrog. It’s a new strain for me so I’m unsure how well they’ll spread out. I think they’ll be fine once the younger one catches up. I’m using the same amended soil and fabric pots. The light is currently my DIY bridgelux project, as soon as the parts are in I’ll be converting the roleadros to citizen 90cri 1212s @2700k. This will add 190 watts to my existing 188w for flowering.


The big girl, already training her
Her little sister trying to catch up

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This is an ILGM Bruce Banner#3. That’s what it was called when I bought the seeds. They’ve since changed the name, I don’t know if it’s the same strain.
It’s a clone from a mother grown with a feminized seed. I’ve read all the warnings about hermaphrodites resulting from such an endeavor, but I’m not afraid to try anyway. That’s why it’s not in a scrog, that and so I can move it out of the way for watering/feeding etc.
It’s already pretty tall and I expect to do some LST on it.


She’s leaning a bit because I just moved her under the light.
This light is another one of @dbrn32 ideas. It’s a really easy diy light that putts out 104w of super efficient bright light. DIY with bridgelux eb strips
Normally I wouldn’t try growing a plant of this size with only 100watts, but I have confidence that it’ll turn out just fine will all the other photons banging around in the tent.

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I use Earth juice nutes, bubbled for approx 40-48hours. I reduce the pH to 6.5 for the nutes and my tap water using fresh lemon juice.
I supplement with EJ godsillica, EJ oilycann (cal mag with no nitrogen), EJ cal-n-mag, Hygrozyme, and the occasional FF Big Bloom during flower to get my ppms up.
These are all in an ipower 4’x8’ tent. I do not recommend this brand tent. I have 2 and they’re both full of light leaks. Customer service was zero when I complained :-1:

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My daily inspection turned this up on my larger black widow.

It could just be light burn. I had the lights around 12" away, but a little growth spurt moved the plants to about 10". It’s only the upper most leaves. So I moved the lights up to 14". It’s also been over a month in this soil so I decided to brew up my first batch of nutes for the girls. Very mellow with just 5ml catalyst, 5/ml grow, 5ml micro, 7.5ml cal-n-mag /gallon. If it’s not light burn but a mag def, or potassium def this should help.

pH is acceptable ranging from 6.4-6.6
Ppms of runoff are a bit high. In was 650 out ranged from 985-1320. I’m guessing my soil amendments are responsible for that.

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The plants were looking thirsty this morning so I gave them each 1 gallon of water pH’d to 6.5. I just used water and not nutes since the ppms are still pretty high (671-1030). Ill probably feed them after one more watering cycle.
Runoff was a little off.
BW1 pH 6.8
BW2 pH 6.6
GDP pH 6.5
BB. pH 6.7

I ran an additional gallon of water @pH 6.2 through both the BW1 and the BB. We’ll see where they’re at during the next watering.

I also checked the light height. I made sure they were all 14" off the canopy.

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It’s been a busy week. Between work, life, and harvesting I haven’t had much time to update or spend in the tent.
10/11 noticed increasing cal/magnesium def in the Bw#1. I gave her 1/2tsp of oily-cann with her pH’d water (3 liters). BW’s pH is on the rise and her ppms are the highest… oddly enough she seems the happiest in the tent
Runoff
BW1 pH 6.6 ppm 760
BW2. pH 6.7 ppm 1420
GDP. pH 6.5 ppm 993
BB. pH 6.6 ppm 685

I decided to brew up a batch of nutes and bubble for 48hrs
This is 2 gallons
20ml catalyst
10ml microblast
20ml grow
2.5 ml godsillica
15ml cal n mag
20ml hygrozyme.

10/14
Good thing I brewed up some nutes and added extra cal mag. 3 plants are all showing mild to advanced cal mag deficiency. Only the youngest, BW2,is unaffected. She’s had a growth spurt and is into the net.

BW1 is looking ragged. I can’t believe how fast she went downhill, even after I just added cal mag. I’d suspect a lock out if her pH wasn’t so spot on. Perhaps it’s all the new lighting?

GDP and the BB are begging for attention from the nute gods.

In pH 6.2 ppms 1200
Runoff
BW1. pH 6.5. Ppm. 1290
BW2. pH 7.0. Ppm. 1150
GDP pH 6.4. Ppm. 1240
BB pH 6.7. Ppm. 900

According to Earth juice I shouldn’t be concerned with pH, but I am.
They all seem to be bouncing around, which I’ve noticed in the 3rd month of veg before. I’m keeping an eye on them and hoping the nute schedule will calm things down a bit. First priority is getting that deficiency in check.

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I’ve been scratching my head about the magnesium deficiency. I’ve been adding cal n mag the last 2 water/feed cycles, but it doesn’t appear to be improving after a week.
pH is good, ppm is good, my ffof soil is amended with dolomite lime and bone meal. There should be no issues… then I realized something. My nighttime temps have recently dropped to 59-60drg f. A little bit of googling revealed that nighttime temps shouldn’t drop below 64f otherwise magnesium uptake is diminished.
So… a space heater in the tent from now on set at 65f. Let’s see if that helps.

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Make sure that there isn’t any light. I had a tiny orange LED hermie my plants once. I took it apart and clipped that wire after that dumb mistake.

Different plants showing different deficiencies right? I’m pretty sure too much calcium can lock out magnesium. So if you feel like you’re seeing magnesium deficiency but not calcium, try some Epsom salts. That will boost your mag levels without all the calcium. If you feel like you’re seeing both, maybe try a little more grow with the epsom. Especially if you’re using that nitrogen free calmag we talked about while back.

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@dbrn32 I’ve used both the oilycann and the cal n mag. I try to save the oilycann for flower.
Good point about the calcium locking out the magnesium. Can you foliage feed w/epsom salts? I just watered them so I’d rather not wait. Any old drug store Epsom salts! How much per gallon?

And as far as temps go, I’m trying the space heater, but I’ve got flowering plants outside that are completely healthy. They’re showing no signs of any discomfort with temps dropping into the 30’s at night and highs in the 50’s. I doubt they’ll amount to much since the direct sunlight these days is minimal. It’s more of an experiment to see what my very cool fall temps will do to a plant.

I hear you about small lights in the tent. I’ve been down that damn hermie road before.
Right now it’s all veg so no worries.

I’m not sure about foliar feeding, never done it. What jumped out at me is the dolomite lime is usually pretty high in calcium, and you’ve been adding calmag. Just a thought anyway I could be wrong, but I would give it a shot.

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