Things are coming full circle...






What a morning. My two projects, Operation: Black Diesel and my Desert Challenge just overlapped, mostly due to logistics. Basically, the beast in veg had to go to bloom; it was getting too beastly to keep vegging indoors and I'll be damned if I am risking this beautiful beast outside, between the weather, cops and kids. So my only real option was to move it to my bloom tent, but that also spawned problems: First, there was already a lesser plant in one slot and Secondly, the pump for the trellis planter is in the other one. No room at the inn.

So, what to do; for the beast to flower, the spare would have to go. Since there is no room at the inn, that means outside, into the Desert Challenge project. Except that brought another challenge. I had been vegging and blooming this for 6 weeks in a 6-inch netpot in hydro, meaning the roots are so into the netcup there is no way to separate them short of destroying one of both. So....they say necessity is the mother-fucker of invention. Was this time I think. I had to figure out how to move that to what ended up being an Autopot which is smaller and very square. Heres what I did, and how it turned out:

1. I mixed up some soilmix using what I had on-hand, so I had enough coir but no Perlite to stick in it...but hydroton works just as well, so the soilmix is 75% coir, 25% hydroton...

2. I liberally hosed it down to make sure there were no dry pockets...

3. Then I pre-fed the soilmix (which is insert nutritionally) with 32 ounces of bloom nutrients.

4. I carefully dug/massaged a hole in the middle, approximate size and shape of the rootball.

5. Popped the spare BD inside into a bucket and brought it out.


6. Finally I just set the plant, roots, netpot and all into the hole I had dug, poured more nutrients around the edge and all that soil I had packed along the inside fell nicely among the roots, covering them gently. Stuck another scoop or two of soilmix in and the job was....almost done.

7. One thing about hydro is that often in setups just like this, the only actual "medium" is loose hydroton and the root system doesn't really have much to hold onto. Now indoors thats no big deal, I don't have storms in my grow room all that often. However you move this outdoors and the first wind will lay that plant on its side, if not ripping it out entirely. Now I live in the desert, and one thing we have in the desert is wind, so......I hacked together a quickie stabilizing system out of a pair of monster zip ties and some poles from a greenhouse now long blown down and reused....

And now I moved the BD Beastie from veg to bloom and I am done!






So as of now, both projects have crossed paths and purposes. FWIW, all six of the clones I took from the above plant rooted literally overnight. Never had that happen before. Check on Monday, no roots started anywhere. Tuesday, every plant has roots...
My Mini-DWC rig for cloning, etc. Heh. My clones look like me when I was young.

Nice roots dudette...


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