Apollo 11 - Ready for take-off!

[DaveS]

Thought I'd share a few rather hasty snaps of my girls at 5 weeks...

I apologise for the quality of the pictures - the camera on my phone is nowhere near as good as my old (lower resolution) Fuji Finepix2400, but I was topping up one of the tanks and had the phone in my pocket, so...

Welcome to the show.

First up, I'd better give you a quick run-through of the setup.

4 x 424 NFT hydro tables running on GH Flora 3-part nutes under a single light-rail mounted 600W HPS. Extraction is a 150mm RVK with carbon filter.

All but one of the tables are carrying 5 Brothers Grimm Apollo 11 clones - the table in the far right corner has 4 plants on board, so a total of 19 plants - all vegged initially under 250W MH, then 400W HPS on 18/6 light-cycle. Flowered between 15" and 18"... Flowering time for these Sativa dominant beauties is just 49 days, so we've got 2 weeks left before the chop.

This grow was literally thrown together in a hurry - normally I run two tables at a time, but this time I was in need of a slightly higher return, and after finding a light-mover for the right money, I thought I'd give four tables a go running side-by-side with the 600W skimming past the tops less than 18" away. Maximum lumens for the plants with minimum stress caused by heat. Plus, the plants tend to be more uniform as they don't stretch for the light - okay - a couple of the A11's have decided to reach for the sky, but they're out of the main flight-path of that big 600 watter so they seem to be enjoying the altitude without the risks of burning!

Right then - first up we have a group shot...



The colour balance was a bit better on this one than the next - damn that HPS glow!



This is the right hand side corner - you can see that solitary A11 standing tall above the others there...



The left hand side of the group...



On this close up, you can just about see a tiny little bud forming in the middle of the fan leaf - I've only seen this before on a pheno of Killer Apollo I had, which would pretty much bud-up anywhere it could find space! Crazy shit.



I'll try and dig out my proper camera and take some better close-up shots of the resin production on those leaves for y'all, but there we go for now.

Two more weeks and a couple of days of sticky fingers cropping and trimming and we should see the final result!

[Kermit]

Nice1 and nice looking girls

How do you feel using the lightrail? Was it worth the purchase and what sort of yield increase do you think it helps gain?
Just interested as i am looking into buying one but dont want yield to suffer.
Nice1

[DaveS]

Cheers Kermit!

I'd been looking at buying one for some time now - when I was just running the two 424's together, it wasn't a problem as the 600W HPS would cover them just fine, but a couple of times, I have added an extra table and needed to stick another 400W HPS in there to cover everything properly.

This obviously nearly doubles the electric bill and increases the heat to uncomfortable levels in the summer, even with decent extraction etc.

The other advantages I've seen so far is more even growth across the tables... I have the built-in timer set so it pauses at either end for about 30 or 40 seconds, and not only do I get the lamp lower without any signs of scorching or hot spots, all the plants seem to get a better look at the light as well!

This time out is more of an experiment before I rig the 12/12 room fully for this set-up. I've already spotted a few little tweaks that will help next time around, but if I save money, keep the heat down and maximise the yield at the same time, then it will have paid for itself on this first run.

The light-mover was a second-hand one I found on Fleabay for about £80, so that took a lot of the sting out of the set-up costs, but as for the yields? Well, time will tell. Things look good so far, and I'll update as we get closer, but on the whole I think it's been a great investment, and I can already see a lot of the lower budsites filling out more than they would have with a static light set-up, so it's two thumbs up already!

Watch this space!

[Kermit]

Thanks for the info, sounds like a good investment then and i look forward to the update.
Thanks for taking the time

[Fred Lemonjello]

Very nice indeed!
I've never attempted a hydro set-up... yet... have had great luck with organics so why bother with hydro I guess.

I had a leaf do something similar back in late 2006, though I can't recall the strain... I'm thinking it was POG (Pot Of Gold)... been too long ago to remember. Pretty sure it was a clone, tis how I do most of my grows.

This little bud grew out of the main stem on a fan leaf.

Click Thumbs to enlarge.




These were taken with a Fuji S5200, great cams by-the-way. A buddy has the Fuji 2400 like yours and he loves it!!


Fred

[DaveS]

Fred & Kermit - thanks for the kind words and comments!

I took some more shots with my Fuji last night, and as soon as I can find the dinky little USB cable that is somewhere in the house, I'll upload the pics...

Even though my Fuji only has a 2.1MP resolution, the lens is so much better than on my Nokia phone, and that's where the picture quality really comes in. Damn it. Can't find this bloody cable. Right then - time to order a card reader off Fleabay!!

Normal service will resume shortly... or when the card reader arrives - that's the other problem now... nobody supports the old Smart Media format anymore - I was going to pop down to the local PC store and buy a card reader, but the kids who work there haven't even heard of Smart Media! No kidding. Just called PCWorld and got bounced across 3 different people and was eventually told that no, we don't support "those old dinosaurs" these days. How old do I feel now?? Oh hang on - I think they were talking about the cards...

I always saw Hydroponics as something done by guys in white coats in laboratories Fred, and when I did my very first dirt grows, I had great results, but the cleanup time in comparison is incredible. No heavy rootballs to shift and dispose of - you just roll up the rootmat off the table and stick it in a bin bag - no mess. Also, the almost explosive growth rates I've seen with these simple little NFT tables is quite astonishing!

Because I smoke my own product, I ensure that I use the right feeds, and most importantly - I flush the plants fully before harvest, so they burn, smoke and taste right. No harsh chemical aftertaste followed by headache hassles. That's the only thing I don't normally like about commercial hydro - the growers are aiming for maximum yield at the cost of taste and quality, and so will feed the plants all the way up to chop-day. Not nice.

[DaveS]

Right then folks - here we are with some freshly uploaded snaps from the other night.

What a difference a decent lens makes, eh?









And now for some just as the lights went off..









Mmmmm.... Frosty!

[Boner]

Looking real good, nice job.

[Twichaldinho]

Them's some Damn Frosty Buds, good job

[Kermit]