I’m going to start logging my processes a bit more intricately so that my pals who’ve joined might gain something from them. I’m also welcome to critique and advice, so don’t feel shy.
Cloning
I had to redo my cloning procedure this year due to the cyanobacteria that built up on my DWC. The following is a work in progress that combines @number1’s Athena based cloning tek with @Wojak’s.
This is how I set my station up.
Regardless of setting, and of crop being cultivated; we need to disinfect our equipment with a 10% bleach solution each time we work with a different plants to avoid cross contamination.
After cleaning the tray with the bleach solution (and thoroughly rinsing it out), I place my plugs skipping a space in between to avoid the canopy form being overcrowded.
Now, these holes are a bit too small and tiny like.
While I would generally condone such things, they’re not too great for what we’re trying to do. After we perform our final incision, we need to be as gentle with that end as possible. So we’re going to widen that hole.
Again, I disinfected the poker before and after use.
Now we need to drench the plugs with our nutrient solution. I use Drip salts at 100% strength as recommended per their feeding chart. That equates to a solution with an e/c of 2.28.
Now comes pHing our solution…
Fun fact, we don’t know what the p in pH stands for. The fella who conjured it up done died before he could share the information. Ain’t that something?
Anyway, here’s a chart depicting nutrient availability at specific pH levels in soilless media:
Source: Department of Horticultural Science, NCSU
Since I grow in peat based soilless media (Sunshine Mix #4), I aim to keep my vegetating plants at a pH of 6.2, and then I slowly ramp it up in flower to 6.3 for that added potassium boost, and reduced nitrogen availability. I don’t worry about phosphorous as I’ve learned that too much phosphorous present in flower is typically the case.
However, these are clones, so I begin them at 6.0, slowly ramping up to 6.2 once they’ve rooted.
Then it’s soaking time.
Once every plug is drenched, I dump the runoff out and take my first cutting, sanitizing my scissors beforehand.
I clean it up to only leave a bit of lateral growth.
Then I pinch and snip.
The more leaf material we leave, the larger the nutrient reservoir will be for that cutting to use.
Okay, so now comes our final incision. We want to do a lateral cut at a node, as such. Of course, disinfecting our tool before and after doing so.
IMMEDIATELY after cutting, I dip the end into CloneX
And then it goes in the plug.
Rinse and repeat for the other plants. DISINFECTING YOUR TOOLS EVERY TIME. This is very important, that’s why I keep harping on it. We’re basically just monkeys who clean up behind these plants, that’s our biggest job here.
Lastly, I keep the PPFD at ~200.
I keep the tray’s air ports closed for the first 2 days. Then I open to dump any runoff at the bottom, and close again. I’ll open the airports on Day 5 and foliar feed them if I notice they’re real hungry… but we’re not there yet.
I’m starting a project to test my ability to reuse soil. I started with all the soil from the Golden Shower hybrids I grew in the 4 inch cups.
I weighed what a roughly full gallon sized pot of soil was:
Then I filled my 7 gallon up partially with 11 1-gallon fulls of soil. (~12 lbs).
I then weighed 12 grams (1 g/lb) of the cover crop mix I purchased.
Austrian Field Pea - 22.95%, Wheat - 21.54%, Triticale - 19.37%, Collards Forage - 7.95%, Hairy Vetch - 7.92%, Driller Diakon Radish - 7.83%, Crimson Clover - 3.27%, Berseem Clover - 2.61%, Yellow Mustard - 2%. Inoculated with nitrogen fixing bacteria.
I chose it because it was already inoculated, while purchasing through Johnny Seeds would have led me to purchase both their mix and the inoculant separately.
Sprinkled them across, topped with some more loose soil, and lightly sprayed with regular tap water.
Talking about the Golden Showers hybrids, here’s how I know when they’re done drying:
First, I try to use my humidity sensor and also photograph at the same time, dropping the cola in the process.
and then I actually measure it correctly.
I use a humidity meter on “wood” mode. I aim for it to read 12-13%, but learned last time that I preferred 12% for jarring.
Not ready yet.
Plants
4x5
2x4
CAKE FACE
Meet the girls.
Shady nasty is the most developed.
While Patient 0 and Sosa are the least.
Check these males out though.
Per the Archive website and discord users, the shorter phenos are the wedding cake leaners, while the taller ones are the Face Off OG Bx1 ones. Hopefully this means that there’ll be good representation of both in the offspring.
Also, the taller fella got a lil sinched on the 2x2 light.
Anyway, they’re all one big happy family now.
