HYDRO Project Blueberry

[UndergroundFarmer]

I've essentially finished the RDWC setup for my old 3'x3' tent. I only need to make holes in the tops of the lids and cut air lines now. I also need to find or make some kind of shelf for the air pump to sit upon. The four boxes at the corners will be for plants, reservoir is front and center and the box at center rear is only there to hold the air pump above water level. I'm holding off making the holes for net pots because I haven't decided to go with 3" pots (which I already have plus a 3" hole saw) or 6" pots to match the net pot lids from my other RDWC setup.

The first part of the name Project Blueberry comes from the fact that I leaned in to grab a bag of grommets off a shelf and managed to cut my forehead open on a quick-grip clamp I had conveniently gripped to a 4x4 post. It isn't a project until you bleed on it! The Blueberry part on the name is for the the Blueberry clones I hope to take in July after my Blueberry mom in coco (which I forgot to get a recent picture of ) recovers from misfeeding. I think I have it nailed down to phosphorus deficiency and possibly nute burn from more nitrogen than it likes. I mixed up a batch of nute water from a gallon of distilled with CalMag added then a light dose of Aurora Soul Bloom and Soul Infinity up to a TDS of about 500 and pH of 6.0. I flushed it with pHed water twice since last weekend before this feed. If Blueberry hasn't recovered enough by mid-July, I might just have to pop some seeds from other strains and grow those out while I try to figure this finicky thing out. I'm a bit encouraged by one grower on another forum mentioning that the fussy eaters make the best bud.

Has anybody else out there struggled with Blueberry indoors? I'm open to suggestions. The mom-to-be is in coco and the clones will be grown out in hydro. Currently the oldest leaves on the mom are fine including the first pair of leaves from its seedling days. All new growth turns brown at the tips, creeping up the whole leaf and causing it to turn down and slowly die. The newest growth has brown tips but isn't too bad (yet). I think I might have stopped the decline and will know for sure by next week if she can make healthy new leaves by then. I am trying to feed her as though she is in flower to see if that gives her enough phosphorus to satisfy her.

[vostok]

Nice ..so how many cats have you got...?

[UndergroundFarmer]

Only a half-dozen.

[UndergroundFarmer]

I decided that I could control my sick Blueberry plant's fate better in hydro. I stayed busy all weekend getting this new setup running. The only leaks to fix were all cured by using hose clamps over the tee fittings for the irrigation lines. My Blueberry plant seemed stagnated in coco so I banked on my experience moving clones from coco to hydro to see if I could break her out of her funk. I put her in a solution at .7 EC or just under 400 TDS to get her adjusted to hydro life. So far, no shock and new growth seems to be continuing slowly. If it wasn't for her still putting out new leaves, I probably would have junked her and moved on. I did go ahead and start my last two Blueberry seeds germinating and will add them once they are big enough. After four weeks, the nicest one gets cloned and then flowering will start. I added elbows at the ends of the irrigation tubing to prevent dribble back. That's where the nute water clings to the tube and runs back through the grommet to the floor. It happens when the tubing is pointed upward or even level. I've had to turn the tubes in the 4'x4' setup to keep them from doing that. How was y'all's weekend?

[RagWeedDWC]

Really like your setup

[UndergroundFarmer]

Thanks. I think it will do much better after last night's efforts.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Today, I added in two newly hatched Blueberry seedlings to the tent! Their older sister seems to be perking up in her new situation too! The newer not-so-damaged leaves look firm with new stuff about to burst out. I also started another freebie seed for spot #4 - a Sweet Zombie from Expert Seeds.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Less than a week after being transferred from her coco hell, Big Sister Blueberry is sporting new growth! She also seems to be more readily dropping the worst of her damaged leaves. Her baby sisters were helmet heads for about five minutes. Today, the mason jars came off after I found that both of them had tap roots into the nute solution. I like having the airstones that I never used before. The popping bubbles do such a good job of keeping the bottom of the net pots moist!


And that's not all! There is now a fourth member of the tent - a Sweet Zombie from Expert. I started her Tuesday and transferred her from the wet paper towel in a Chinese takeout box to a rooter plug this afternoon. I'm hoping that having a slightly heavier feeder in the mix will help in case I overfeed a bit. I'm running the EC at .8 (seedling strength - 400 ppm TDS) until I see a slowdown in growth. pH is rising during the day and has to be knocked down every afternoon when I get home. I have two clippy lights over the babies to discourage them from stretching.

[Alik92]

Wow what an improvement on the leaves health!!!
Ive never tried Hydro. but now, i really want to!

[SoOrbudgal]

Excellent recovery and move

[UndergroundFarmer]

After a very busy weekend, Big Sis and the seedlings are all doing fine. I'm still holding the TDS at 400 or less until the little ones get some size. Big Sis is producing more leaves than ever while dropping one or two bad ones every day. More Blueberry is on the way. I ordered Dutch Passion's BB in regulars so I can grow out some bud for seed saving. I've also got some Ghost Train Haze regulars on the way for a similar project. There will be feminized Romulan too plus some BC Tuna God regulars as a freebie. I'm hoping the smoke from seeded bud isn't too disappointing. Even if it is, I damn sure know what to do with disappointing bud!

[UndergroundFarmer]

Project Blueberry's tent inherited its LED panel back from the 4'x4' tent after that one's new panel came this weekend. So now both flowering tents will have something better than T5s to grow under. During the week, both seedlings damped off and died, were replaced by a couple of too-hastily taken clones from big sister. I think it was Gingerbeard who said lately that cloning in rooter plugs sucks. (Nope. It was @JDU) He's right. They work for starting seeds in hydro but not this. I should have waited to get the aeroponic cloner running before cutting anything off her. Those two cuttings wilted. They are now in the cloner anyway along with two fresh ones from big sister. The cloner is running like a champ - those cut yesterday are doing fine alongside Acapulco Gold, Purple Haze & Laughing Buddha. I had to stop myself from taking more than I needed again after realizing that their moms needed to be cut back big time if I was to keep them healthy. I could have made a half-dozen clones from each mom!

I trimmed off the most sickly leaves from big sis now that she is growing so well now. I usually just let the plant do it but there were just so many with nothing much to contribute except necrosis. It's so funny how every time I've changed over from fluorescent to LED how the plants' reaction is so immediate. The Sweet Zombie seedling is under a clippy light but turned away from that to face the LED panel instead. Big Sis also put her growth into another gear once the change happened.

Fingers are crossed hoping to have two healthy Blueberry clones in the empty pots by next weekend!

[Gingerbeard]

Wasn't me UndergroundFarmer . I've only tried once so only have a biased opinion because it didn't work. Nothing scientific. No charts or bar graphs.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Oh well. The memory got a little fogged from celebrating the long weekend! I think I do still remember the title of the post though.

[UndergroundFarmer]

The Black Zombie seedling laid over yesterday! I moved her to coco in a solo cup to try and save her but it looks like root rot might take her. Those litter buckets are too translucent to use under strong lights so I believe I'm going to be painting them this weekend. I dosed the water with hydroguard just to be on the safe side with big sister Blueberry - who is still looking better every day.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Yesterday evening was spent disassembling the RDWC setup and giving the buckets a PDQ panda paint job because after losing three seedlings I start to catch on! I couldn't bear to lose my one rooted Blueberry plant so I made the call to not wait for Saturday morning. I feel pretty stupid for not realizing they were too translucent to use without doing something to block out the light from the roots. Ironically, everything only went to crap after I moved my first LED panel back into this tent in place of the T5 panel. I even put some clippy lights over the seedlings to keep them from stretching. Looks like they sure did that! Now I just need those cuttings in my cloner to please hurry up and root - it's been almost a week, kids.

Big sister is no worse for her ordeal. I set her up in a leftover black bucket from my failed attempt at a RDWC setup with some nute water she was in plus bubbles from an aquarium pump that was too weak for my purposes until last night when I only needed one airstone going. This morning she even seemed a bit perked up so there's that. There's also some consolation in the tent next door because there are stem-snapping buds about two weeks from harvest to drool over!

Sorry for no pics - last night was frantic.

[UndergroundFarmer]

No, but I could aim the incoming stream at the net pot for about the same effect.

[RagWeedDWC]

Until the a large amount of the roots hit, I would do that. Your net pots are setup identical to mine, all I strive for is to keep the rocks moist which keeps the rockwool moist until the roots are established. When I do not do that wilting is one symptom not enough moisture. My one attempt at RDWC ended up with roots clogging my return lines, not to mention the res took up to much space in my finite grow space.

[UndergroundFarmer]

I noticed when I pulled net pots out that the bottoms were staying wet because of all the bubbles popping just below them so as long as the water level is high enough, the hydroton and the rooter plug especially won't dry out.

[RagWeedDWC]

Thats one for the sucks column.. I thought my totes dark grey would block the light, turns out it doesn't. I now paint them with the product below. The tops I paint the white version of this.
https://www.amazon.com/Rust-Oleum-21...s%2C171&sr=8-1

[UndergroundFarmer]

That would have been better if I had painted them with that in the building stage. I just grabbed two cans each of cheapo flat black and gloss white.

[RagWeedDWC]

That's what I started with, but it flakes off, not a lot but enough to worry me.

[UndergroundFarmer]

No kidding! I had to be extra careful not to scrape them against anything until the paint was genuinely good and dry. I only painted the lids black because I knew there would be barely enough white to go around. The lids are now covered over in HVAC aluminum tape. I should do the same for the reservoir lid in the other tent and maybe even the PVC pipe return manifolds in both of them. While the whole thing was apart I held the PVC up to the light and noticed that under a strong enough source, some light will penetrate the thick white pipe.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Here's the setup after the emergency teardown and rebuild. It's definitely brighter everywhere inside!

[UndergroundFarmer]

Big Sister Blueberry continues her lonely life with all of her roommates gone. I had to make a decision this morning about what to do with this setup that's stuck in neutral. The two clones I cut from her as well as all the other clones in the aeroponic cloner still haven't rooted. I cut more clones from the moms of my "on deck" varieties so I can try the humidity dome method to see if it gets better results. Chop is no more than two weeks away in the big tent. I looked at cutting clones from Blueberry and decided she's had enough. I installed a ScrOG net to train her to take over the whole tent by herself! If her clones ever root, I can add them later. I also have my last Sweet Zombie seed germinating. I may just grow that one out in coco and keep it for a mom instead of putting it in this tent. Time will snitch.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Blueberry is starting to take up the screen and I have been forced to learn supercropping. Her stem was just too rigid and with the sideways tension her netpot was coming out.

She may yet get more company of her own kind because I took the two cuttings from her that failed to root in the aeroponic cloner and recut the stems so I can give the tray and humidity dome a chance to make those two root after all this time.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Blueberry continues to slowly fill out squares in the ScrOG net and Sweet Zombie is working on its third set of leaves with as little stretching as I've ever seen on a seedling. The remaining Blueberry cuttings have another week before I give up on them. I think they are just too exhausted to make it but they may surprise me.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Wow, I think I must have forgotten to hit 'Post Reply' before shutting down over the last few weeks! Big sis has taken over about a third of the scrog net now. Sweet Zombie could stand to grow a bit faster but looks healthy after pH got out of control while I was sick a few weeks back. One of the Blueberry cuttings made roots but algae in the tray attacked them before I transferred it to hydro, so it might not make it. I'm about to just decide to flip to flower next weekend because this thing is dragging on too long!