The Traveling Grower - The Struggle From the Road

There’s going to be value in keeping them separate. Running into an issue with one plant or the other mainly. Getting down to res under a scrog is bad enough, trying to do it without disturbing another plant in the same net is nearly impossible. Something to keep in mind anyway.

Other than that, it can be managed. The sativa will stretch more, so you’d probably want to leave room to continue to tuck after flip. Trying to judge how much to fill of one plant vs the other prior to flip may be a pain too. But you’ll simply just be short or over on filling net there.

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Last night when I got home and checked my plants I noticed algae growing on the top of the GL’s rapid rooter. The water (which hadn’t been changed in 7 Days due to me being away) was pretty cloudy too. I transplanted them into their bubble buckets this morning with GL3 at 1/4tsp per gallon, CaliMagic at 1 Tsp per gallon, and 1/4tsp of Armor Si. I also added 1/4tap if H2O2.

What should I do about the algae?

Also, how should I hang my lights? For veg with two plants I am thinking I just need one of the two LEDs. They have a PAR of 530 at 24”. How should I utilize them for early veg? I have two.

Well, here are the two plants today, two days after being put in their permanent homes (SSH on top);

Right now I have each light 27” above the top of the buckets. They have fresh water at 5.79PH and 525PPM (1.25ml of GH3 ingredients, 1.25ml of H2O2, 5ml of CaliMag and 1.25ml of Armor Si - all per gallon).

You can see the leaf damage to the first set of “real” leaves on both plants from my neglect over the past week. Both of the rapid rooters had algae on them when I got back from my trip.

Here is an overall pic (GL on the left):

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Day 14 since sprout (Day 16 since I dropped the seeds in water).

The two plants are looking okay this morning - except for that first set of true leaves of course. Check of PH in the buckets this morning showed them sitting at 6.0. I left them alone for now - I’ll check them again tonight and if they are any higher I will adjust them. For now, I’m just going to keep an eye on them and see how the light distance is affecting them.

I have a serious problem. My SSH is dying a slow death:

That was last night. This morning it looks even worse.

Last night I adjusted the PH back to ~5.8 (within .05) and added some ice packs to the water to get the temps down (It was at 21.8C last night). This morning I readjusted PH back down to ~5.8 (it was at ~6.0) and the water temps are at 19.8C.

Because it was looking really bad this morning, I decided I needed to remove some hydrocorn and see what the heck is going on in there. What I discovered is that the SSH has put out several 3" long roots, but that the roots were all bone dry. I put the plant back in the bucket and top fed it, then decided to raise the water in the reservoir until it’s close to where the actual roots are - for the time being I’m going to ignore the whole “make the roots stretch” thing and give them direct access to water.

I will wait a few hours for the hydrocorn to dry out from my top feeding and then check it again to make sure those roots are getting wet.

If that doesn’t work, then I will change the buckets out and just put in plain PHed water. I am leaving tomorrow for NINE DAYS so this is definitely not good.

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I figured I should update this thread with pics of the two plants since I am in crisis mode. Here is the GL this morning, which appears to be doing okay:

And here is my sickly SSH:

Sorry about the blurry pics - was in a hurry.

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What’s the ph on the ssh @Bogleg
@Donaldj can you maybe take a look here buddy
This is up your ally lol

PH is good. Water temp is good. Ambient temp and RH is good. PPM is at 500-525. The issue is (IMHO) that the roots weren’t getting any moisture (not reaching into the bucket yet). At least that what’s I think.

As of this morning:

PH 5.78
PPM 512
Water temp 19.7C

My corrective action thus far is covered here:

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@Bogleg I don’t know enough of about hydro to help you
It sounds possible tho
Hopefully Donald sees the tag and jumps in

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I think you’re on the right track.

I know very very little about hydro, but you’re using an air stone correct? Any chance you could temporarily relocate the stone so it gently splashes roots a little? In my aero garden I let the pump cycle intermittently until roots touch water. Then switch to stone only. I could see roots drying out as the issue.

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I have as much air as I can get in there. I thought it was bubbling up high enough but it clear wasn’t.

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Ok back from attempt at work first off keep water nutrient level below net pot I use a cup and moisten top a daily until they reach the res

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Thanks. Hopefully I’ll get her breathing again. :slight_smile:

Great news! The SSH is recovering. When you see the pics you’ll see what I ended up doing to resolve the situation. Not sure it is the correct solution, but I’m going to be gone 9 days in a row (leaving today), and there is no way I can convince my partner in crime to top water that plant numerous times per day. Having her swap out the buckets and check PH is about all I can reasonably ask her to take on for me while I am gone.

Anyway, here is the SSH this morning:

Leaves have uncurled and it looks healthy now. As you can see, what I ended up doing is removing the plant from the large net pot on top of the bubble bucket, removing all the hydroton, and then placing the plant lower in the net pot to ensure that the roots that are sticking out from the rapid rooter are getting water.

This is a temporary solution until I get back - at which point I will raise the plant up so it’s above the top of the net pot - unless I have so many roots bound up in there in 9 days that I can’t, in which case this is just how this one is going to grow this time around.

For the sake of a complete update, here is the GL:

You’ll remember that I had struggles with the GL while I was germinating. It arrived into the world alive and kicking a day after the SSH, and immediately had issues in my cloner (which is why the bottom two leaves are all funky looking). But since I put it in the bubble bucket it’s thrived.

Here they are together, so you can get a great indication of how a poorly managed seedling can get stunted:

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Lol the top water will help for sure

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Day 28 since both seeds sprouted.

Time for a thorough update.

As you know I was out of town for 9 days. I got back late Friday night (2am), and swapped out the buckets, etc. on my plants on Saturday. They were given fresh buckets last Tuesday as well.

The good news is the SSH appears to be recovered and there is notable growth visible today compared to when I got back on Saturday. In the pic, you can see the yellowing on the bottom leaf pair - I’m pretty confident at this point this is a leftover issue from when I accidentally let the plant dry out after I transplanted it from my cloner:

It’s amazing to me how a few days of mismanaging a plant early on in it’s life can have such a dramatic impact on it later - hopefully this thing will try to catch up to the GL. Here are the roots on the SSH as of this morning:

Now, here is the beast (the GL):

You’ll notice that the tips of the leaves are curling down (no discoloration). PH, nutes, etc. were all good when I checked them this morning (5.92PH and 526PPM). There are a handful of blemishes on the giant fan leaves but nothing acute or concerning IMHO (but I’m a newb). Leaves curling down signals potential nitrogen toxicity, but I am only giving them 5ml of GH3 (micro, bloom, grow) per gallon of water right now. Could I still have nitrogen toxicity?

Check out the roots on the GL!

And as always, a side by side comparison:

An interesting note from my check-up this morning: the PH in the SSH res was at 5.98. I left it alone. The PH in the GL res was at 5.54. I raised it up to 5.87.

When I make my water, I make it all in a 5ga bucket and then fill two spare 3.5ga buckets from it. So the water going into both plant’s reservoirs comes from the same source. In other words, the PH/PPM was exactly the same in both reservoirs when I swapped them out on Saturday. So why is it that the PH in the SSH res goes up (which I expect), but the PH in the GL res went down? In my first grow I routinely saw the PH climb a little each day (so I was lowering it mid-week when I topped off the buckets). I don’t recall seeing it go down ever. Another thing I’ll have to research.

As near as I can tell the GL has 3 nodes right now. The leaves are so packed together it’s honestly hard for me to get in there and get a clear look. I don’t know how I’m ever going to manifold that plant when I’m already afraid to bend leaves out of the way just to get a good look at what’s going on…

Anyway, really looking forward to seeing how the SSH reacts from a week of tender loving care. I think it will grow a lot this week.

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Well I decided to swap out the water with plain PHd water and watch it for a couple of days. I checked PPM before I did it. PPM was at 584 - on Saturday before I put the plants in the water the PPM was 521 or so (don’t have my notes in front of me).

I’m going to run nute-free until I see the clawing stop, then go back to half the nutes I was using (I was using half of what the GH3 recirculating schedule calls for already… guess I’ll go to a 1/4).

This morning things seemed to look okay - mostly unchanged but both plants seem perky (the GL still has claws but I guess they won’t go away on the current growth). I’m going to change the title of my grow journal. I think this journal is more about how to grow when you travel all the time than anything else… on Friday I leave for another 6 trip.

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Day 30 since sprout.

The GL has some new growth with no claws on it - so that’s a good sign, right?

The SSH is growing nicely now, and other than the lowest fan leaves, has no blemishes that I have noticed. The roots have about tripled in volume this week.

Tonight I will add some nutes back into the mix and monitor until I leave on Friday. I’m only going to be gone until Wednesday, so I expect the plants will be okay in my absence. Hopefully the clawing on the GL truly indicated nitrogen toxicity and I caught it, corrected it, and can move on… time will tell.

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