Running a MAC 1 SOG under my new HLG 650R. MAC 1 is a great strain and the HLG 650R is a fantastic light so hopefully this combo will produce a great grow.

GROWING MAC 1

MAC 1 is a strain created by Capulator. It pairs a Starfighter bred with a Columbian landrace strain as the male and an Alien Cookies girl. This strain contains a lot of Alien genetics in its lineage and that makes it a very unique plant.

The leaves are very unique they are long and narrow like a sativa but the leaf edges often turn up.  This is normal and it is genetic. It is not tacoing or a sign something is wrong. I have grown Alien Rift and it does the exact same thing.

The leaves are long and arched. This plant does not pray like most other plants do. This gives the plant a very unique appearance and once you have seen how it grows you wont mistake it for anything else.

The MAC produces buds of fantastic quality but she is not the easiest plant to grow and you need to know her quirks if you want to get a decent yield out of her. She really likes dry feet. She actually grows best when dry, almost to the wilting point.

She is a stout plant and grows like an upright column. She is not overly tall or stretchy and node distance is close, almost too close. Her side branches are very upright and strong. No floppy branches on this girl.

She is a very slow vegger too. Every other plant I grow can be put in my SOG as soon as the clone has roots. Not the MAC. She will only get 2 feet tall this way and produce about 7 grams per plant.

So she needs to be vegged until she is 12 inches tall. I found she does best in sea of green with all leaves and side branches removed along the entire stem. One node and flip works best for the MAC 1.

THE HLG 650R ROCKS

So this is the newest light from Horticulture Lighting Group. This spectrum includes more blue than previous lights like the 550R and the 660 red for the best spectrum of any LED on the market. And it is a powerhouse.

My light is 48 inches above my plants and par readings are in the 3-400 range. That might not seem like much but at 48 inches it is a lot. I am going to leave it there for now and let the plants grow into it.

The coverage is very even and penetration will be excellent too. If you are looking for a top quality LED this is what you want. It is cheaper than the Gavita or Spider and has a better spectrum. You can buy it from Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2WuOHDf  Read my full review at: https://420dotcom.com/hlg-650r-review.html”>https://420dotcom.com/hlg-650r-review.html

MAC 1 SOG UNDER THE HLG 650R

There are 32 plants underneath the 650R. They sit inside a 2 x 4 flood table which is lined with a capillary mat made from polyester batting.

The clones were rooted in jiffy pellets and then once rooted into small 2-3 pots filled with coco to veg for several weeks. Ideally they need to veg several weeks until they are about 12 inches tall. At this point they are ready to flower.

In SOG I remove most if not all branches and leaves below the top node before they are potted. They are placed in 6 inch net pots and filled in around the coco with growstones.

Because coco can hold a lot of water I make sure the plant sits on an inch or two of growstones. That way the coco does not sit right on the top of the flood tray but is raised up a bit above it for better drainage. Remember that the MAC 1 does not like wet feet.

MAC 1 DAY 1 OF FLOWER

The girls have perked up nicely after a few days and now it’s time to flower them. I am loving this plant! She yields much better than I thought.

Buds are really dense on her. I had 3 plants last grow and one was smaller than the others but I ended up with an ounce per plant average. I had to weigh it twice because it looked like less than 3 ounces, maybe 2 but the scale was right the first time.

BUD SHOTS OF THE MAC

MAC SOG DAY 7

So after 7 days the plants are very close to flowering. About half have made it through the screen. The rest will hopefully make it through too. Not a fast vegger or big stretcher but the plants have another week or 2 to stretch.

Some plants are taller than others. This is because there were 2 batches of clones and one was started about 7 days ahead of the others. So they had some extra veg time. Even the larger plants only managed to stretch about 3 inches during the first week of flower.

Day 14 Stacking And New Combo Meter

Plants have made it through the trellis and there are a lot of buds showing up. The HLG 650R is working great. It was moved closer to the plants this week and is about 24 inches above the tallest plants. I am seeing really nice bud development throughout the plants.

New Combo Meter Milwaukee MW 802

My CWP 24/7 monitors are going on 3 years old now and the pH probes are dying. This is normal because they are made from a porous glass and they get depleted over time.

I have 2 hand held meters but they dont agree with the readings on the monitor so I wanted to cross check everything.

PH is particularly important especially in hydroponics because it controls nutrient uptake and can cause lockouts if too far out of whack.

Blue Lab and Hanna both make good instruments but I decided to go with the Milwaukee MW 802 combo meter. It has a 3 foot cord so you can drop it in your reservoir and it’s large and easy to read. I like the calibration wheels on it too.

One reason I went with the Milwaukee was replacement probes were much cheaper than the others. Unless you are going to throw the meter away you will need a new probe every couple of years. They also have been making testing equipment for many years plus they are a US company.

MAC 1 SOG 14 DAYS LOOKING GOOD!

DAY 18 THE FROST COMES TO MAC 1

When I looked at my plants this morning the tops looked white! They are already very frosty even though day 18 is pretty early for most strains. Things will only get better from here!

 DAY 21 THIRSTY MAC GIRLS

Day 21 has come and although the plants in this SOG are not large they are thirsty. They have been using a gallon a day and I just increased watering frequency. I was watering once a day and went to twice during week 2. But now in week 3 I have gone to 3 waterings a day.

MAC PICS WEEK 3

DAY 28 WHAT’S THAT SMELL?

Almost half way home. The frost is thick and they smell fantastic! The smell resembles apple pie to me. But everyone smells something different. However they all agree the smell is unique and quite nice!

I am probably going to remove some leaves this week. They have stacked pretty well. This plant grows like a column and branches are short, stout and held close to the main stem. So I want to increase light to the lower buds.

MAC 1 DAY 28 PICTURES

Want to know how to get rid of root aphids? It’s not easy for sure but read on, watch the video and kill these nasty little bastards dead in their tracks!

Root aphids are nasty little critters that can reduce yields or even ruin your harvest. They multiply quickly and are hard to kill and can be very hard to get rid of. Because they are in your roots and grow media you may not ever see them unless you look for them.

If you are seeing stunted plants or what looks like nutrient deficiencies in your leaves it is time to take a closer look inside your pots. Root aphids come in many colors like white, green, black and more. They also can vary in size. Years ago I had very small translucent root aphids that were sometimes called micros.

I beat them and never saw them again for years. Now they have reincarnated as large white aphids. I beat them back then and I will beat them again. I am going to tell you how so stick around.

How To Get Rid Of Root Aphids What To Do

Before you take controls to eliminate your infestation: First make sure you actually have root aphids! You may actually see them when you examine plant roots but some can be very small and you may need a or to see them.
If you have fliers on yellow sticky traps make sure you can tell the difference between fungus gnats and root aphid flyers.

There is a good and very long forum thread here: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=159960
They do look similar so the best way to know for sure really is to find them on your roots.

ORGANIC ROOT APHID CONTROL

I use chemicals to get rid of root aphids but I realize many growers are organic and dont want to use them. Your job may be harder because it will be harder to eliminate the eggs. The first thing to eliminate them would be a root drench with pyrethrum. It will provide a quick knock down and kill your root aphids but if that is all you do they will definitely be back.
The Pyganic is OMRI certified and naturally derived and the cheaper Bonide product is synthetic and not certified.

Your mainline of defense after knocking them back will be Botanigard. This product is pretty expensive but contains a combination of pyrethrins and Beauveria bassiana which attacks the aphids. Since it has pyrethrins in it you may not need to purchase them separately. It comes as a liquid and a wettable powder. You will have to reapply it more than once to kill the root aphids off probably every 3 to 5 days at first.

may be a good option even for growers who are not organic per se.

There are a lot of various home remedies that organic growers use and claim to work but I would be cautious about trying them. For example a neem oil drench is recommended by some but can actually suffocate your roots. Generally speaking oils and soaps are bad for your roots.

Nematodes are often recommended as another weapon against root aphids for organic growers. Some say it works some say it doesn’t. A big problem is getting live ones. At least one breeder of nematodes when asked said they will not control them.

Some growers report success with which is a derivative of neem oil. I think it will be partially effective if used as a drench but it may damage roots. It may act to repel them if you spray your plants with it.

YELLOW STICKY TRAPS

Using is a good idea whether you grow organically or not. If you are using them to trap fungus gnats it is a good idea to check them for root aphid flyers too.

Root aphids damage the roots and cause them to die. Because fungus gnats are attracted to decomposing organic matter it is not uncommon to have both.

If you are seeing stunting, slow growth, smaller than normal leaves or unusual deficiency like symptoms in your leaves the problem may be caused by root aphids and not fungus gnats.

HOW TO GET RID OF ROOT APHIDS – NUKE ‘EM THE CHEMICAL APPROACH

I respect organic growers and in fact I was an organic grower myself many years ago before it was even popular and considered lunatic fringe.

But root aphids are a serious problem and can quickly get out of hand. They breed really fast and many organics are slow acting or dont kill eggs. I want to stop these buggers fast and not have to continue treating them for weeks on end.

Root drenching is stressful to plants so the less I have to do the better. So my approach is to nuke the little bastards. Once and done with insecticides can be less stressful than multiple treatments with neem oil for example.

So my #2 closet received an IMD treatment and I left it recirculating in the res for 5 days. I use Then the plants received a root drench with . I left this in for about 6 hours and then flushed the reservoir.

I could not find IMD as wettable powder so not sure if it is available. It seems to come in pouches now or granules but it will still work although mixing may be different. As with all chemicals make sure to read the label and measure and calibrate so you dont over apply. More is not better and may harm plants.

So now I am seeing positive results. Last grow plants never really rooted into the mat under them. But this time I am seeing healthy white root growth and it is growing into the root mat and spreading out.

This SOG grow journal will feature Death Bubba in a sea of green. After many years of growing large plants I have made the switch to growing in a SOG.  There are many advantages to this especially for smaller grow spaces which I will detail in a bit.

Here is a Death Bubba on day 17 from another SOG grow journal. It is from a mixed grow and you can see it here.

This is the original GML Death Bubba and comes from BC. Most everything else is a renamed fake. It is shorter than most of my strains and has a tall columnar shape rather than bushy so I feel it would be a good choice for a SOG. More info on the GML Death Bubba strain is available here: https://420dotcom.com/death-bubba-cannabis-strain.html

About My SOG Grow  Journal

First a few basics about my grow. I am using a 2 x 4 flood tray and running flood and drain in it. There are 15 plants in 6 inch net pots filled with growstones. The tray is flooded for 3 minutes every 4 hours and I am running my nutes at 900 ppm to start.

The plants are rooted clones and after a few days of veg and getting them acclimated to stronger light they were flipped to 12/12.

Lighting is a double ended Gavita. The 6/750 Flex can run from 400 to 825 watts. It is the only Gavita designed for grows with lower ceilings and the only one that can run on 120 volts. Click the image to see it on Amazon.

SOG Growing – Advantages Of Sea Of Green

Sea of green is a great system and especially suited to small grows or limited ceiling height. Dont get me wrong here, it is great for larger commercial grows too. No matter what size your grow is you can limit veg time and increase turnover time.

For many years I grew large plants because I believed they would yield more. While this is true in a sense it requires longer veg times and that is expensive. The idea of a SOG is to get a smaller yield from each plant but by increasing planting density you can get the same or better yields.

When you are flowering you are making money but long vegging times cost you money and delay flowering. With a SOG there is little to no veg time. Two weeks would be about the max. Remember the goal is small plants with an even canopy, Plants will veg and stretch for about 2 weeks even under 12/12 lighting before they start to flower.

Because plants are smaller there is much less shading and very little popcorn buds to deal with. In a properly set up sea of green we are focusing on single colas and everything gets even light. Ideally the canopy is short so light can easily penetrate to lower parts of the plant.

I used to worry about plants getting to close to the light even with 8 foot ceilings but not any more! Big plants produce lots of secondary shoots too. These need to be removed or spread out under a trellis to prevent over crowding and shading. Both these issues are a thing of the past thankfully.

SOG Disadvantages

No system is perfect and they all have their pros and cons. While the plants are small and easy to manage you need a lot of cuttings for sea of green. This will most likely mean keeping large, healthy mother plants to provide you with cuttings.

This method is meant for clones. There will be too much variation in size and pheno type with seeds. Seeds will also take longer than clones.

If you are not good at cloning this probably is not a good method for you.

Starting My SOG Grow Journal

Here is the start of my Death Bubba sea of green. I have 15 freshly rooted clones in a 2 x 4 flood tray. They will be flipped to 12/12 soon. Just want to give them a few days to get used to stronger lighting and start digging into the grow media,

DEATH BUBBA DAY 1 -7 OF FLOWER

Things are moving along. There is variation in plant size. They were flipped within a couple of days of rooting. Plants that rooted first are twice the size of those that rooted a few days later.

Ideally all plants should be the same size which produces an even canopy and this is the whole idea behind what a sea of green is designed to do.

I need to take a lot more clones than I need and only flower the best. I also would like to be more consistent in my cloning. It is an art.

DEATH BUBBA AND C99 SOG DAY 2

I just added 3 Cinderella 99 to this sea of green. Since I have a few really small Death Bubba plants that are not going to yield very much adding a few more plants should help with yields.

C99 is a fast maturing plant so I am hoping everything will finish at about the same time. She is very potent and frosty too. Not a large plant and can finish in 8-9 weeks so fingers crossed. These are seeds I made from my C99 BX that I grew many years ago but I have never grown so I am really looking forward to what they will do.

Day 28 Death Bubba And Cinderella

Things are looking better than expected and the C99 should be flowering very soon. Most of the Death Bubba has made it through the screen and looks good. Not a perfect grow by any means but there is a full screen at least.

Day 35 Death Bubba And Cinderella 99

The C99 is flowering nicely. Not sure exactly when I put them in but it is less than 14 days probably 10-12. Guess I forgot to write it down.

The Death Bubba is doing well but with a lot of variation in size. It is very important to have equally healthy vigorous clones because there is no veg time. So they need to take off and grow immediately or you wind up with an uneven canopy and reduced yield.

Death Bubba And C99 Day 35 Pictures

CINDERELLA 99 AT 15 DAYS

Here we have some Cindy 99 at 15 days. She comes from some selections I made with Mosca Seeds Cinderella 99 BX-1. I needed to compensate for 3 Death Bubba clones that were not doing well so in she went.

She seems to be a good plant for a sea of green although the bottoms need to be cleaned up in my opinion. She does not get very tall either, maybe 3 feet here and she was vegged a bit before she went in.

You can see from the video that she is a very fast growing plant. The buds and the stacking are really fast for only 15 days.

The breeder says she only takes 52 days. I dont know if I will take her that early because she is a very racy sativa and it might be good to let her mellow a bit.

Death Bubba Day 38 C99 Day 21 Calcium Deficiency

After a recount I found it was day 38 and not day 42 as I thought. It is day 21 for the C99. Things are going pretty well but I found signs of a calcium deficiency on the Death Bubba.

There is no such thing as a calmag deficiency. You can have calcium deficiency alone or magnesium deficiency alone and often the 2 will occur together so people say its a calmag deficiency. But they are different nutrients.

In my case the purple stems common with magnesium deficiency were absent. My leaves had typical dead spots common to a calcium deficiency but they also were curling and dying. Because of this I mistook this for nutrient burn. Check out the video below to see how I diagnosed calcium deficiency and treated it.

More Death Bubba And C99

This grow was not going the way I expected and I knew the results would be far from what I expected. I did document most of it, painful as that was.

The Death Bubba buds were great quality although yield was way off. The C99 was in my opinion garbage and I may not even trim it up.

Frost production was way off especially on the Cinderella. I think the room was too warm and the Gavita, although a great light was just not well suited for my closet grow. I will be replacing it with 2 HLG 300 R Specs over time and as money allows.

Death Bubba SOG Grow Journal Harvest

So about a week ago I posted some bud shots of my last grow from my other closet and mistakenly called Tropicanna Cookies Death Bubba. It did not look right but the pots were labeled Death Bubba. So I felt you guys deserved to see some real Death Bubba bud shots.

I discovered root aphids in this grow and am taking steps to correct it. These plants were stunted and while the Death Bubba turned out OK the C99 did poorly.