That’s why I added the hydroton initially, to see if covering the roots and preventing algae growth on them would make the plants grow better or see less herms.
I saw absolutely zero difference.
The headbangers I went a step further and transplanted them into 1 gallon fabric pots a week before going into the flower tray. To ensure no water/hydroton movement, nor light could affect the roots and cause herms, and these headbangers hermed as hard as the goji f3’s did in organic soil, and the gg4 ril’s that were in here with exposed roots algae and all.
So none of that seems to be the reason for it. Only things I have left are temp/RH and lighting schedule. Or it’s the genetics.
I’ve found just as many, if not more, stable plants in here as I’ve found herms. And the herms come from the genetics I’d think they would. I also have around 300 packs to look through, not including stuff I’ve made, so tossing plants isn’t really an issue
Yeah, weren’t both the Headbangers and the Goji f3’s the result of a sorta “home chuck” situation? And not produced by “professional breeders” (not that “professional breeders” means anything at all anymore)? Weren’t they made in a kind of “open pollination”-type situation? Or was there actually some selection involved?
I got the impression that both of those were just chucks.
Yeah the goji f3’s were chucks from f1’s. The Headbanger’s were chucks from F2’s. Technically Doc D selected the F1’s to make the F2’s he gave and then someone else made the F3’s that I ran. Of course no one reported any herms along the way on any of those. But who’s to say how close they looked over every plant. Couple balls here or there are easily missed if you’re not closely inspecting every single node on every single branch every other day for the first 3-4 weeks of flower like I am.
Very few ever impress me enough to even try running a second time anyways, and the second try 7/10 times does it just as bad as the first time, regardless of the media I’m growing in. A single ball shows and I will toss the plant. But it’s not table specific. I’ve had herms in 7gallon pots full water-only organic soil, and seen it in flood and drain. I did not see it running DWC though but I only ran a couple strains that way before switching…
Ah, I originally started out running air pumps in the reservoir like if it was DWC but the constant air can mess with the ph a bit. Regardless I switched to flooming with a small pond pump to see if that was the same or better and that worked a bit better for stability at least. One day I noticed the pond pump wasn’t working and hadn’t been working for days and the plants still looked great and the res water still smelled fresh. So I found with the constant flooding every 2hours I didn’t need to run anything in the res at all. The water never smells bad and the act of flooding the tray and then draining from a spout above the water line like a waterfall, oxygenates it enough all by itself.
In the veg tray though when I was running 6hrs between floods, I found I did need something in there, or shorten the flood timing or the water will start smelling bad after a bit. If the water smells bad, chances are the PH is increasing and that for sure means you have some bacteria in there. I was short on pumps so just shortened the flood timing to match the flower tent and not really looked back since.
I do run calcium hypochlorite to keep things mostly sterile, but I’m not always on top of that and still don’t have issues with the water and that flood timing. YMMV though.
Oh, and I did go back a few posts and edit the amount of nutrients I’m using in here. I was off just a bit when I posted it before
might help prevent these hermies your so accustomed to
why is every other plant a hermie? who’s gear are you running that every other plant you have is throwing balls. i think this algae growth is doing more to your plants than ph/ppm.
Ha, you can come over and clean it every other day if it bothers you. Or put me on ignore. It’s not bothering me at all and I’m not gonna be in there scrubbing all the time that’s for sure.
Oh, I already run calcium hypochlorite but will take a look at that stuff. Algae is just a natural factor of water, light, and nitrogen. Look at any aquarium and there will be algae. If you don’t see it, its because someone is religiously cleaning it off or changing the water constantly.
Honestly, If a little bit of algae on the roots was causing herms, which I really don’t think it did at all considering the three 7-gallon pots of organic water-only soil that also hermed and the 3 plants in 1 gallon fabrics that never got algae to begin with, I’m glad those weak genetics are gone.
People thinking herms are worth keeping because “but its fire” is the exact reason we have all these herms still.
Save for the group buy ril pack that used untested parents and basically came with a herm warning, it’s all been random people’s crosses, F2’s, F3’s, etc. Not had any herms from any packs I’ve actually bought from breeders.
Silly question, but do you ever flood when lights are off?
When I was using really small cubes, they would dry out overnight so much that the plants were wilting at lights on. I did one little cycle at night to prevent it… Not sure if you would have to do that with coco/perlite
PS I also wouldn’t worry about the algae at all… Pretty common in flood tables as far as I’ve seen. I asked @hush about it since he has documented so many fantastic FnD grows and he said:
As far as algae goes, it’s unsightly, and it sucks when I touch it and it gets under my fingernails, lol, but it’s perfectly innocuous. It won’t harm anything. I always get a little bit in my flood tray before the canopy fills in above
If you’ve ever watched any of Everest Fernandez’s videos, his flood tables and even his rockwool blocks can sometimes be covered with algae.
I do actually! This is the only other variable I’ve really thought about changing to see if it might help anything (but I doubt it). I have my pump on a cycle timer so it is literally flooding the tray for 1minute every 2hrs on the dot, all day every day. So 12 times a day that tray gets flooded.
Aw those look great! They yours? I miss my bristlenose and corydoras’. I used to have a bunch of planted tanks over the last 15 years but I just took the last one down, a 40breeder with a 29gal sump, a couple months ago. Just no longer had time to maintain them sadly. Still kept all the tanks though. Never know when you might wanna start up again lol.
I haven’t had an aquarium in years…my bristlenose was pink…that one is from the net. Have a 45 T and all the stuff sitting empty…too much on the plate for any more.
Yeah goji f3, I grew those in 7 gallon fabrics with water-only soil as I thought the same thing. But let’s be real. Mom is Nepali OG.
I and a few others saw quite a few herms in the mamilk f2s too which uses the same mom. I did find a couple stable plants there though.
If you dig past the hype, you’ll find plenty of people with herm reports on the Goji OG F1’s. Just look at the seedrun here. We had a few people with LOTS of herms that got culled from the seedrun.
Hey brother man. Wanted to stop by and saw your beautiful Bodhi crosses. I got some Sakura F2’s from Pedro and looking at some of the phenos, they were Wookie Purple real dank. I had a few females but they had that Satty looking calyx towers. Almost like or a foxtailing that hasn’t fully blown out.
I ended up gifting a few to a friend and he has the same luck. Green calyx towers. I have a bunch of his stuff from growmies and several packs from GLG. I tried to get packs that were limited to one and strains I’ve smoked like HollyWeed. I’m gonna start running a tent with smaller pots specifically for pheno hunting. I do rather crappy at popping one or 2 seeds and hoping.
Anyways, I wanted to say I really enjoy risk taking mashups as well as older NL lines that takes me back to an early teen. I’m gonna have a 5x10’ just for 1 winter run. We’ll see if it’s feasible to get it to run. I’ve been wanting to run the Nepali OG, MaMilks, and the AK-47. I didn’t get his I believe it was Cherry AKs they’re labeled stink pheno. We’ll see. The Goji’s as well. They’re just huge plants. Lol. I bet they’d be massive outdoor.
Anyways. Sorry for blabbing about. You got some skills dude. All things negative or positive make you a better grower overall. It’s how we handle problems that show you’re character. I enjoy seeing you swinging for the fences. No pun at all. Keep popping beans and be safe. Great work.
but I only ran a couple strains that way before switching…
or a foxtailing that hasn’t fully blown out.