Soft Secrets
weckels world of
Grow your o 33 wn
wonders By: Weckels, the grow specialist from Atami
Top 44: short bloom and high yield love it! The feed water contains an excess of oxygen which the ladies greedily put to good use. The roots grow like crazy, as do the plants. On top of that, the bubble stones ensure that the feed water is kept continuously in motion, so that the water and the liquid nutrients and stimulators remain well mixed, and so keep themselves in the right concentrations (the nutrients are not allowed to settle out) in the growing trays.
(part 1)
Feeding time Since the Top 44 plants mature and bloom in a relatively short period, we have been keeping the substrate in which we are growing them very simple. As was mentioned earlier, we are growing the ladies in soil, to which we have added perlite, worm castings and quite a bit of lime. The perlite (in the earth mix) makes sure that the substrate remains sufficiently
Growing in grow trays does have a number of advantages when compared, for example, with growing in simply a layer of soil The clones have developed their root system considerably and are beginning to become nice and compact!
The autumn has snuck up on us once again and so the outdoor growing cycle has almost reached an end. Happily, the growing opportunities indoors are also especially good at this time of year, and for that reason this issue’s focus is on indoor growing. In this article I will be focussing on Top 44. We raise these ladies in an way that is unique to them, and by doing so can achieve some very fine results. Top 44 is perhaps one of the most grown indoor varieties. This commercial plant is particularly loved for her short bloom and high yield. Although the majority of growers know the plant as a true indoor variety, there are also very good results to be had when growing her outdoors too.
Oxygen pump In this article I will mainly be dealing with growing Top 44 indoors. We raise Top 44 plants in small pots, placed in trays on top of a layer of perlite. The flower pots look like a kind of sieve, since the whole pot is punctured with little holes. We chose these pots deliberately, because we will be raising our Top 44 ladies on a pretty wet base. The flower pots in which the plants will be raised are continuously standing in a shallow layer of feed water, that is allowed to gather in the growing trays. The chance of an oxygen deficiency for the roots is therefore somewhat
Finally, the chances of the feed water becoming soured are also reduced. Nevertheless, we do change the feed water every day, only refilling the trays once the old water had been drained. The thin layer of perlite that is in the grow trays is very important. By spreading the perlite grains we make sure that the pressure from the weight of the plant does not all bear down on the roots. If the flower pots were allowed to stand directly on the base of the growing trays, then the chance is quite high that the roots would be squashed and/or be badly damaged (by the great weight of the flower pot and the plant). Sprinkling a layer of perlite on the base of the grow trays prevents such problems. In addition, the layer of perlite also means that the roots have more anchoring power, and that they will not become
well aerated. The flower pots in which the Top 44 plants are being grown are stood in a layer of feed water, and it is important to keep bearing this in mind. The earth mix will be much wetter than normal, and to make sure that there is enough throughput of oxygen in the mix the use of perlite is therefore highly recommended. The worm castings fertiliser can be pretty quickly taken up by the plant and it is therefore a valuable addition during both the growth phase as well as the bloom phase. Since the plants can take up the worm castings nutrients pretty much immediately without much difficulty, and thanks to its ideal composition the worm fertiliser contains a good deal of the necessary nutrients. The lime, preferably one based on a seaweed extract, creates a neutral pHvalue, so that the soil does not become too acidic. What’s more, the lime also contributes to the plant being able to take up nutrients and stimulators more easily. In addition to the worm castings and lime, we will be giving the plants throughout the duration of the whole cycle good supplies of liquid fertiliser and stimulators. We do this in order to create even more attractive conditions for our green damsels. A plant like the Top 44 is not afraid of a bit of food, and this is something we as growers can take grateful advantage of!
Clones
Top 44 produces an endless amount of leaves and by doing so makes the uptake of light much simpler for herself than for the less well-covered varieties. This is partly the reason why Top 44 is also well-suited to growing outdoors, since even though the plant spends a very short period in bloom it can still take up a good amount of light - even once the sun in this country starts to lose intensity towards the end of the year. What is more, Top 44 is relatively untroubled by mould, and this is rarely a problem even when growing outside. In short, it’s a variety that can perhaps be very interesting to outdoor growers too!
In each tray we place a bubble stone. With the help of an oxygen pump now there will be a continuous supply of oxygen bubbled into the water.
This oxygen pump ensures an optimal aeration of the layer of feed water in four grow trays. The roots of the marihuana plants just love it!
increased, and that’s why we decided to use as well-aerated pots as we could find, so that the permeability of oxygen to the roots is as great as possible. There is an additional trick we can use to optimise the health of the root system (by ensuring sufficient oxygen). With the aid of an oxygen pump we keep the water continuously in motion. In this way, oxygen is constantly being blown into the water, which makes the feed water softly bubble. The roots absolutely
exposed. The roots would die off if they were not well covered, and so the layer of perlite prevents this from happening. As the plants become larger, so the bottom of the grow trays will become darker, since the Top 44 plants with their thick leaf coverage shade the base quite a lot. This is all to the good, since the root systems of our ladies are also increasing considerably in size, and this shade protects them from the strong light from the lamps.
But before things have got to this point we first need to make sure that we can get our hands on a good supply of lovely Top 44 clones. In contrast to outdoor growing, when growing marihuana indoors it is far more common to use clones (than seeds). This is especially true when the grower wants to raise a more commercial variety like the Top 44, and getting hold of such clones is usually not a big problem (in Holland at least). The advantage of this is that as a grower you know in advance that you are going to have a good supply of females (something that is not the case when you’re growing from normal seeds). What’s more, it
