Wednesday, February 16, 2011

60 days

Roughly 8 weeks.  There was a significant increase in flower development followed by a few inches of growth on the main stem.  I added 300 ml of Canna Bio Boost plus 10 more gallons of water to the reservoir and will do so next week for the last time before I quit the nutrients.  Canna A + B nutrients are added every other 5 gallons (75 ml each).  Ten days without nutrients for a final flushing with only black strap molasses in the 25 gallon reservoir ( about 5 tlbs.)  I read this could pose problems with bacterial growth and mucking up the pump but it'll only be a two week experiment and I'll change out the reservoir once again before the harvest which I hope will occur just after the first week in march.  Lights are as high as they can go why necessitated a fair amount of super cropping.  I've had success with super cropping but occasionally the stem snaps rather than bend and two times they were beyond recovery.  Those two stems are now in sealed glass jars in grow plugs with nutrients to keep them fed until they root.  The end result will be two 3 inch dwarfs with two potent buds.  


Sunday, February 6, 2011

Week 6.5

The ladies started showing pistils at day 12 which is about right after they were started on a 12 hour light cycle.  At this point I started foliage spraying with Canna Bio Boost to give the flowers an extra jolt of potassium and phosphorous.  I spray every other week until 2 weeks before harvest. 
My aeroponic transplants have recovered and rooting beyond their pots inside the reservoir - as expected.  While the plants in the coco medium require 5-10 gallons of water/nutrients every 4 days the aeroponic plants will excel without out added water for 2 weeks.  Two weeks is my schedule for change out but it could go longer.  Currently the aeroponic reservoir contains 7 gallons of water.  At $31 for nutrients every 3 weeks I can realize a significant cost savings with aeroponics with my next crop.  In addition, aeroponics are purported to have a crop that is superior to hydroponics with a medium.