Loco Little's Grow

[Loco Grown]

Hello! Welcome to Loco Little's grow..

This is how I do it:
Indoor grown in coco/perlite, drain to waste
Jacks 321 + Kelp & Fulvic, low EC usually around 1.2 - 1.3 rooted clone to harvest

My current grow in around 4-weeks into flowering, but I am backed up on posts. I have weekly picks from 12/12 to now, so I will chronicle the past 4-weeks and get caught up to date soon..

This grow is 4-plants under 480-watts LED. Using a Mars Hydro FC 4800, which they gave to me for free to test out and post about. It's proven to be a great light for a 4x4 tent, and you can't beat free. In the colder months I switch to a combination of 315w cmh + around 300w of HLG LED to supplement. It's starting to get cold, but I think I can get through harvest of this crop with only LED.

The strains are two plants each of Wedding Cake and Slurricane are cuts which I got from Purple City Genetics and I have grown both cuts before, so have a pretty good idea what to expect from each. Slurricane is a 9-week cut and Wedding Cake 10-weeks. Wedding Cake likes more light and nutes than Slurricane, and growing them together isn't really the best match, but I like the variety when it comes to smoking time.

Here are both strains side by side at day-1 of 12/12 lighting. Slurricane in the front, Wedding Cake in the back:



They might look a bit scrawny now, but both of these strains are stretchers. Slurricane will stretch the fastest at first, and then Wedding Cake will catch up.

I use drippers on a timer (4-emitters per pot), fed 3x to 4x per light cycle. I have the pots suspended over small catch basins, and then shop vac the runoff every couple/few days.

I will let these grow out for a week and then throw a net over to spread them out a bit. Then a second net a week later, and a third net at week 3. It's basically a modified scrog. I get pretty good results in a small space this way. Sometimes the nets get in the way, but they seem worth it in terms of canopy control.

 

[Loco Grown]

To get an idea of what we're shooting for here's a couple of pics of these two strains from a previous run..

Wedding Cake:



Slurricane:

 

[Zaphod420]

To get an idea of what we're shooting for here's a couple of pics of these two strains from a previous run..

Wedding Cake:

View attachment 101266

Slurricane:

View attachment 101267

Your previous run Wedding Cake & Slurricane look absolutely FANTASTIC! Looking forward to watching this grow

 

[Loco Grown]

Your previous run Wedding Cake & Slurricane look absolutely FANTASTIC! Looking forward to watching this grow

Thank you, I appreciate your kind words!

Here's @ one-week into flowering, and I've already put up two nets. These seem to have some momentum..

Slurricane on the left and Wedding Cake on the right:

 

[Loco Grown]

..also I use one of these in my tent, HLG Far Red Flower Initiator:

Flowering Initiator Far Red Bulb

HLG SABER High efficiency waterproof Full Spectrum LED BAR. Each Bar can be powered up to 120 watts. Passive cooled 36V design and 4ft length provides a great spread with minimal shadows. Does not include power supply.

horticulturelightinggroup.com

It's just a 15-watt screw-in bulb-style LED lamp @ 730nm. Seems to do something. I run it for 10-15 minutes after main lights off.

 

[Zaphod420]

Hello! Welcome to Loco Little's grow..

This is how I do it:
Indoor grown in coco/perlite, drain to waste
Jacks 321 + Kelp & Fulvic, low EC usually around 1.2 - 1.3 rooted clone to harvest

Salute Loco Grown, when you say Jacks 321 you mean 3 parts Jacks, 2 parts Cal mag, 1 part Epsom right? Oh, and what brand and how much kelp & fulvic are you adding to make say 5 gallons of nutes?

Cheers, Z.

 

[Loco Grown]

Salute Loco Grown, when you say Jacks 321 you mean 3 parts Jacks, 2 parts Cal mag, 1 part Epsom right? Oh, and what brand and how much kelp & fulvic are you adding to make say 5 gallons of nutes?

Cheers, Z.

Yes sir, that's right. But to be more accurate, I will usually go to 2.7 - 1.8 - 0.9 which puts me in what seems to be a more ideal EC range. I go for low EC.

In terms of the Kelp, I use Bloom City "CleanKelp". I've a lot of different kelp over the years, and this one is the holy grail, IMO. I've found that many kelp products tend to settle out of solution, and you find kelp at the bottom of your res, even with recirc-pumps. Not with Clean Kelp. It's fresh and green, not brown like most kelp products. I love the stuff. I use it at 5 ml/gal, so 25 ml for a 5-gal res, but I tend to mix 10-gal at a time.

For Fulvic, I use "Mr Fulvic" @ 1ml/gal:

Organic Fulvic Acid Complex for Growers

Mr. Fulvic is an organic amendment for plant growth that increases nutrient absorption and creates healthier and stronger plants.

www.mrfulvic.com

I'm not necessarily convinced that it's the best option, but it's been solid, so why fix what isn't broken? It's dark brown, because it also has carbon in it, but it's rich in fulvic acid:

 

[Loco Grown]

I also use this in my res to avoid nasties, at a rate of 0.1 ml/gal:

https://southernag.com/residential-products/garden-friendly-fungcde-12x1-pt/

 

[Zaphod420]

I also use this in my res to avoid nasties, at a rate of 0.1 ml/gal:

https://southernag.com/residential-products/garden-friendly-fungcde-12x1-pt/

Holy shit dude.... We aren't step brothers are we?

Well it seems the only thing I don't have on hand is some Mr. Fulvic which I am about to remedy directly. I'm going to try your recipe(w/ a tiny bit of silica) on some Draycarys and some of Budderton's Lemon Slush and Baboon Wine.

Thanks very much for sharing your recipe with me/us Loco Grown!

 

[Loco Grown]

Holy shit dude.... We aren't step brothers are we?
View attachment 101272
Well it seems the only thing I don't have on hand is some Mr. Fulvic which I am about to remedy directly. I'm going to try your recipe(w/ a tiny bit of silica) on some Draycarys and some of Budderton's Lemon Slush and Baboon Wine.
View attachment 101273
Thanks very much for sharing your recipe with me/us Loco Grown!

Nice! For silica, I've been using this for a while:

Mono-Silicic FAQs - Grow-Genius

FAQ Silicon for plants: Have a question you'd like answered? Get in touch via our contact form or on Instagram. Feed AND foliar spray? If you can, do both. Foliar application biases silicon uptake slightly towards leaves, and when applied via irrigation there is a slight bias towards the...

www.grow-genius.com

I've actually scaled back on it quite a bit, and only use it during the first few weeks of flowering, both in the res and as a foliar. I never liked how potassium silicate made my res ph fluctuate.

 

[Loco Grown]

I had a bit of an issue with Spider Mites at the end of the last run, so trying to be proactive and make sure they are a non-issue this time. I cleaned out the tent real well at the end of last run, and then sprayed a few different sprays over a few days, including Spinosad, pyre thins, and oils. Finally I got a mix of some predatory mites. This mix includes both specialists and generalists, so if there are any thrips hanging out they should be eaten too:

Special Blend Predatory Mites | Triple Blend Predatory Mites

LIVE DELIVERY GUARANTEED TARGET PESTS: Feeds on Two-Spotted Spider Mites, Broad Mites, Rust Mites, Russet Hemp Mites, Cyclamen Mites, Southern Red Mites, and many other species of mites. ABOUT SPECIAL BLEND SPIDER MITE CONTROL: Our Special Blend consists of A. andersoni,, A. cucumeris, A...

www.naturesgoodguys.com

I got a lot more than I needed, and put them in my beg tent and outdoor garden too.

 

[Loco Grown]

Here's a few pics after another week of growth. At this point, it's been 2-weeks of 12/12 lighting.

Slurricane on the left, Wedding Cake on the right:



Here's some developing flower shots. Slurricane starts off quick, but Wedding Cake will catch up.

Slurricane:


Wedding Cake:

 

[Loco Grown]

Here's a closer look at how I do my drip emitters. Like I said earlier, 4-drippers per pot. I use the pressure compensating emitters, and make a little H shape out of 1/4" tubing for each pot:

 

[Zaphod420]

..also I use one of these in my tent, HLG Far Red Flower Initiator:

Flowering Initiator Far Red Bulb

HLG SABER High efficiency waterproof Full Spectrum LED BAR. Each Bar can be powered up to 120 watts. Passive cooled 36V design and 4ft length provides a great spread with minimal shadows. Does not include power supply.

horticulturelightinggroup.com

It's just a 15-watt screw-in bulb-style LED lamp @ 730nm. Seems to do something. I run it for 10-15 minutes after main lights off.

Thanks for sharing this info nugget and after watching Shane(Migro) say this works really well(5:30) for "long day" plants but that there isn't much data showing it's beneficial for "short day" aka cannabis plants. After looking at the frost on your plants though(nice bit of data) I'd say it's definitely worth a shot to find out. Especially if you only have to run the thing for 15 mins after lights out. I ordered one of these Rapid LED Far Red Initiator Puck - https://rapidled.com/products/far-red-initiator-puck and will stick it in one of my tents and see if it brings the frost o licious Emerson effect like it did for your girls.

 

[Loco Grown]

Thanks for sharing this info nugget and after watching Shane(Migro) say this works really well(5:30) for "long day" plants but that there isn't much data showing it's beneficial for "short day" aka cannabis plants. After looking at the frost on your plants though(nice bit of data) I'd say it's definitely worth a shot to find out. Especially if you only have to run the thing for 15 mins after lights out. I ordered one of these Rapid LED Far Red Initiator Puck - https://rapidled.com/products/far-red-initiator-puck and will stick it in one of my tents and see if it brings the frost o licious Emerson effect like it did for your girls.

I haven't done any scientific side-by-side tests, but my plants start flowering real fast using the far red end of day technique. When I first got the lamp, I tried it with 13-on 11-off light cycle, which basically packs in more light into the day, but since the far red puts the plant to sleep quick, you don't really lose any "dark cycle".

 

[Loco Grown]

Here's a closer look at how I do my drip emitters. Like I said earlier, 4-drippers per pot. I use the pressure compensating emitters, and make a little H shape out of 1/4" tubing for each pot:

View attachment 101277

View attachment 101278

Just a quick note about my watering cycles..

-- 30-minutes after the lights come on, I run the drippers for just a couple of minutes to get the media moist from the prior dark cycle (usually just a minute or two)

-- another 30 minutes later (1 hour after lights on), I run the drippers long enough to get a bit of runoff (4 to 6 minutes generally)

-- 3.5 hours later I run drippers for 3 to 5 minutes

-- another 3.5 hours later I run drippers for another 3 to 5 minutes

-- 3 hours after that (1 hour before lights off) I run the drippers to runoff again (4 to 6 minutes)

-- no irrigation during lights off

 

[Loco Grown]

So, here's pics from the next week (3-weeks 12/12 at this point). During this last week, I sprayed once early in the week with mono-silicic acid, then late in the week with Southern Ag Garden Friendly Fungicide to protect against botrytis. I also did a light defloiation, and put a third net up.

Slurricane on the left, Wedding Cake on the right:


Here's some bud development pics..

Slurricane:


Wedding Cake:

 

[Loco Grown]

Here's an update @ week-4 of 12/12. These pics were taken just a few days ago, so we're pretty much caught up to date at this point.

Again Slurricane on the left, Wedding Cake on the right:





Slurricane:


Wedding Cake:

 

[Lanestrainley]

..also I use one of these in my tent, HLG Far Red Flower Initiator:

Flowering Initiator Far Red Bulb

HLG SABER High efficiency waterproof Full Spectrum LED BAR. Each Bar can be powered up to 120 watts. Passive cooled 36V design and 4ft length provides a great spread with minimal shadows. Does not include power supply.

horticulturelightinggroup.com

It's just a 15-watt screw-in bulb-style LED lamp @ 730nm. Seems to do something. I run it for 10-15 minutes after main lights off.

Lol, you’ve found my secret, I use this to start my outdoor flowers whenever the hell I feel like it, also I use these for sexing young plants, without a doubt this was on list of tricks I’ve kept secret as long as I could to keep an edge on the local competition. Stumbled across it at the library in in about 1999, before I had the internet I would go and check about 15 books out at a time 2x a month. Fun times

 

[Loco Grown]

Lol, you’ve found my secret, I use this to start my outdoor flowers whenever the hell I feel like it, also I use these for sexing young plants, without a doubt this was on list of tricks I’ve kept secret as long as I could to keep an edge on the local competition. Stumbled across it at the library in in about 1999, before I had the internet I would go and check about 15 books out at a time 2x a month. Fun times

Ah yes. The good old pre-internet days. I miss that era.