I just realized that I haven't updated my home thread in almost a year. That's just shameful on my part. It's been a busy year and other forum duties here have kept me from it. Hopefully I can remedy that and keep things more up to date.
So what have I been up to all this time? All my grows have centered around testing the use of sulfur, cottonseed meal and aluminum sulfate to lower the initial pH of Pro Mix. I've eliminated sulfur, takes too long to become active, as well as cottonseed meal, which does a good job of lowering the pH, but adds too much N to the mix. The AS is working very well, so my last few grows have centered on finding the right amount to use. I started out by calculating what I thought was the correct amount based on what bag instructions called for per square foot of grow space, the only recommendation I could find. That amount turned out to be way too much and pushed the pH down to the mid 4s. As you can well expect, the plants really suffered. Well stunted and very poor yields. With each successive grow I've been reducing the amount of AS and hope with my current grow I've finally got it nailed.
In the process of doing this testing I've grown a number of different strains but have mostly stayed with F1s of things like Mi5 and Onyx and have not subjected the seeds I have of new strains to testing, saving them till things are worked out. I did do some testing for Stitch of two new strains he is developing. While the yields were down, I did get some tasty smoke. One in particular, Copacabana, is an outstanding sativa dominant strain. I think it's the best Stitch has done, better than AA, Onyx or RRF. Well balanced with just enough indica to keep it from being too trippy. I don't know his time table on releasing it, but it should be winner when he finally does release it. I also pulled in 3 nice Stone Dragons. Again, yields were down due to the testing, but got some fine meds for the Mrs. from them.
I've also been putting a lot of effort into getting a new hydro area set up. This has been a major project requiring over 600' of trenching to bring additional power to my garage, then to the grow shed. All the work should be completed this coming week and as soon as the lights arrive, we'll be ready to get started. The hydro system is already here. It's a Current Culture UC8XL, 8 plant, 8 gallon bucket RDWC system. Lights will be six FERO 8 spot Bulldogs. Power and water are in, just need to hook up the RO. I'll only be growing photos in this setup. I have the beans for the first two grows. The first will be World of Seeds Space and the second, Barney's Pineapple Chunk. I'll be keeping a mother of both. After that we'll see. It looks like I have a local source lined up for clones. Not sure what strains yet. I've built a separate veg area and hope to use the UC system exclusively for flowering. For the cuts and mothers I'll be using two Blackstar 240s from my outdoor box. I've been a bit disappointed in them compared to my GLH 240 and would like to replace them with something better before I restart the outdoor box in the fall. I'm planning on continuing to grow autos in the outdoor box as well as my small indoor area.
and good karma to you sj https://www.autoflower.org/f5/my-first-grow-journal-smokerjoker-11252.html
