HeatMiser's Keeping it Simple With Old Seeds 2020 Grow

Well here it is - after a two year hiatus, I decided to get myself a new grow light (HLG 100), grow peppers again and join this community.

I decided to it simple this year and grow fewer varieties from seeds I already have. These were packaged in 2014 or earlier so it will serve as a viability test as well.

After talking with my wife, we decided on the following 4 varieties

1 Super Hot:
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. Seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute packaged in 2013.

1 Ornamental:
Numex Twilight. Seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute packaged in 2012.

2 Varieties for Cooking:
Jalafuego. Seeds from tomatogrowers.com. Packaged before 2014
Chiltepin. Seeds I collected after a trip to Texas in 2014.

I have the following goals for this season

1. Get a decent batch of "hot" Jalapenos. You have to be lucky to find a hot Jalapeno at the store. We plan to pickle them to be used in NACHOS
   
2. Incorporate Chiltepin peppers in our cooking (salsas, tacos, etc)
   
3. Make some powder with the Trinidad Scorpion Peppers. I've made Ghost Pepper Powder before and it's amazing in stuff like Pho.
   
4. Experiment with DWC and Kratky for peppers. My experience is with Dutch Buckets.
   
5. Experiment with outdoor hydroponics. Success here means I'll be able to plant more peppers in future years
   
6. Try crossing peppers. Always been curious, never really tried it. This year, it's happening.
   
7. Growing a Trinidad Scorpion in my office at work. Dare my boss to try one…

The plan is as follows:

• 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Jalafuego in 5 gal DWC indoors.
• Grow 1 Chiltepin and 1 Numex Twilight indoors in smaller Kratky containers.
• Grow 1 Trinidad Scorpion in a 5 gal DWC at work

As the weather improves, I'll set up 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Jalafuego in 5 gal Kratky bucket outdoors. I'll also clone as many plants as I can get away with and put them in soil containers outside.

That's it for plans…

Here's the actual progress so far

12/20/2019 -
• Started soaking Chiltepin seeds in a weak solution of chamomille tea
• Planted Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, Jalafuego and Numex Twilight seeds in rockwool cubes. 2 seeds of each per cube. Placed on a heat mat inside an airtight container with some water on the bottom for moisture

12/21/2019
• Planted Chiltepin seeds
• 3 rockwool cubes with seeds soaked in weak chamomille tea solution for about 25 hours
• 3 rockwool cubes with seeds soaked in 9 parts water, 1 part bleach solution for 5 minutes

12/23/2019
• Noticed a hook in one of the Jalafuego cubes

12/26/2019
• Hooks on all 3 Jalafuego cubes
• One Twilight cube has a hook

12/27/2019
• Hooks on all 3 Twilight cubes. One of them is a bit leggy
• Noticed one Chiltepin seed starting to sprout, from the cube that was soaked in bleach
• Transferred Jalafuego and Twilights to the light and gave them some food, General Hydroponics mild vegetative solution

12/28/2019
• One Jalafuego cube has 2 seedlings, new hook came out.

12/29/2019
• One Chiltepin hook coming out of the cube. Moved the cube to the light
• All 6 Jalafuego seeds have sprouted. 3 seedlings are now upright and 3 hooks are coming out. Germination rate is 6/6

12/30/2019
• Hook from Trinidad Moruga Scorpion came out. Moved to light

1/1/2020
• Hook from Chiltepin seed in bleach solution. Moved to light
• Hook from Chiltepin seed in chamomile tea came out. Moved to light

1/2/2020
• Last Twilight sprouted. Germination rate is 6/6
• Two more Trinidad Moruga Hooks

1/3/2020
• Moved two Trinidad Moruga cubes to light

1/5/2020
• Another Trinidad Moruga sprouted. Germination rate is 4/6

1/7/2020
• Roots from Jalafuego, Twilight and Chiltepin started poking through the bottom of the rockwool cubes. Moved the best plants to their own individual kratky container. Using Mild Vegetative solution from Flora 3 Part solution
• One T5 bulb died. Changed the light to the HLG 100.

1/9/2020
• New Trinidad Moruga Sprouted. Germination Rate: 5/6
• Added an air stone to the Jalafuego Kratky container turning it into a DWC.

1/10/2020

• Moved another Jalafuego to its own Kratky container

Thanks for reading all of this... I'll be posting some pictures soon!

 

[HeatMiser]

Now that I'm looking at that Chiltepin in the center of the last pic, it looks a bit droopy compared to the previous pic I took of it. Yup, that's the plant that drank up all the nutrients and looked stressed a couple of days ago.
 
Hopefully it will perk back up in the next few days. Good thing there are still some backup plants.

 

[CaneDog]

Nice to see your plants upgraded to the larger suites!  They look like they've grown quite a bit. 
 
It may be too late for these, but Home Depot carries white 2g buckets with lids in stock.
 
Awesome duck!

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Excellent duck, HM!
 
I've had my eye on these for a while now.  It's a great price, but I just can't find a good reason for ten new buckets.

 

[HeatMiser]

Nice to see your plants upgraded to the larger suites!  They look like they've grown quite a bit. 
 
It may be too late for these, but Home Depot carries white 2g buckets with lids in stock.
 
Awesome duck!

 
Thanks CD, yes, they're definitely taking off. I'm glad I could transfer at least these 3. I did go to Home Depot and saw the buckets you are talking about. I even considered getting them but didn't want to deal with algae and didn't want to paint them either (picky, I know!). These 1 g buckets have turned out better than I expected at the moment since I'm able to keep 1 more plant than I was expecting. How often I'll have to top off the nutrients still remains to be determined.
 

Excellent duck, HM!
 
I've had my eye on these for a while now.  It's a great price, but I just can't find a good reason for ten new buckets.

 
Heh, those are the 5 gal buckets I'll be growing a couple of my plants in Unc. Man, if I had a bigger place, some of the glogs here have given me more than 10 good reasons for ten new buckets!
When are you starting your new glog?

 

[Uncle Eckley]

I took the first photo for it this morning.

So I see you've reached 50 posts..

 

[PaulG]

Awesome Kratkys.
Fifty+ posts.
Duck with attitude.
 
Can't do much better than that  
 
Good luck going forward, HM!

 

[HeatMiser]

I took the first photo for it this morning.

So I see you've reached 50 posts..

 
Awesome, looking forward to it.
 
Yeah! 50+ posts already - it really goes by fast. I guess I now qualify for some of those free seed threads that pop up every once in a while  
 

Awesome Kratkys.
Fifty+ posts.
Duck with attitude.
 
Can't do much better than that  
 
Good luck going forward, HM!

 
Thanks Paul! Hoping to stay here a while and learn a thing or two from other folks... it's been great following your guys' experience as well.

 

[HeatMiser]

Some quick updates for the week:
 
Group Shot. Fewer plants here since I moved 3 plants to their final containers under a different light.


View attachment 86877


 
Jalafuego. This is the one that has grown the most since the topping. Lots of new leaves already.
View attachment 86878

TS. This one is growing compact.

View attachment 86879

 
But if we look under the canopy, we can see plenty of side shoots already:
View attachment 86880
 

The three amigos. The Numex Twilight on the left has responded fairly well to the new setup. The droopy Chiltepin at the center tends to perk up during the day and goes limp again during the evening. Perhaps it's a reaction to the extra heat this light is generating when compared to the LED it was under earlier, or maybe it's just still feeling the effects of being starved last week. The Chiltepin at the right is doing fine so far.

View attachment 86881

 

[HeatMiser]

Well, it seems like the images from my last post were deleted... I no longer have them in "My Media". Anyway, it's time for an update...
 
It's showtime - all the plants I'll be keeping indoors have finally been moved to the containers they'll spend the rest of the season in. I've now run out of the GH Flora Series nutrients and I've switched to MasterBlend. As mentioned in previous posts, one TS is now living in my office at work in a 5 gal kratky setup.
 
Some pictures:
 
These plants are under the HLG100. In the 5 gal DWC is the best TS of the 3 I grew. I'll be keeping the rest of the plants as backup and to use for taking cuttings for rooting.
View attachment 87042
 
There's a lot of growth coming in under the canopy of the TS:
View attachment 87045
 
The best Jalafuego can also stretch its roots in a 5 gal DWC. This one is under a T5 fixture:
View attachment 87043
 
It is already working on some flowers
View attachment 87044
 
The three amigos are taking off now. They are thriving in their 1 gal kratky containers and the 2 Chiltepins decided to start growing up. I'm considering topping them. The Numex Twilight on the left has grown really bushy and it is working on some flowers, but I couldn't get a decent picture. These 3 are also underneath their own T5 fixture
View attachment 87046
 
Now, the one at work is under its own Sansi 36W LED lamp. I took these pictures on Wednesday when I set this up. The roots have grown since then and are currently extending out of the 6 inch net pot. So I take it it's liking its new home
View attachment 87041
 
Close-up:
View attachment 87040

 

[PaulG]

Alright, HM, you have a real Kratky Korner going there.

 

[HeatMiser]

Alright, HM, you have a real Kratky Korner going there.

 
Damn right!
 
And it makes me wonder why I didn't do it earlier - having that TS growing in there, even as small as it is now, gives the office a totally different vibe. Can't wait for it to start producing pods.
 
Thanks for stopping by, Paul! 

 

[HeatMiser]

I don't know what is going on with the pictures here. They keep disappearing from my posts after a couple of days.
 
I'll try again...
 
This week I decided to pot up a couple more plants into their own 5 gal buckets, since they fit well under the lights. These two plants are going to live outside once the weather warms up around here. Overall, things are going well and the peppers are now stretching their roots and putting some good growth.
 
Some pictures
 
This is the TS at work. Of course they ask us to work from home 2 days after I set this up due to the coronavirus. It should do just fine with the close to 4 gallons of water I put in originally. This plant has put in a lot of growth in just one week

 
These plants are under the HLG 100. The 5 gal on the left is a Jalafuego and the one on the right is a TS. The TS is growing super tight, but the brown spots in the older leaves are getting bigger. I wonder if it has something to do with transpiration/humidity. 

 
These two are under their T5. The one on the left is a Jalafuego, which is loving its new home. The TS on the right was just potted up yesterday.

 
Close-up on some of the flowers from the Jalafuego. It should start producing soon:

 
Last, but not least, the Three Amigos. I topped both Chiltepins this week. They started growing taller since I moved them under the T5. The Numex Twilight on the left is also flowering quite a bit. Some of the new leaves were canoeing, so I raised the lights a bit to see if that makes a difference:

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Looking good, HM!  How do you plan to support the bucket plants when they get bigger? 

 

[HeatMiser]

Looking good, HM!  How do you plan to support the bucket plants when they get bigger? 

 
Thanks Unc!
 
That's a great question - honestly, I haven't thought about it much yet since this is the first time I'm growing in these buckets (and it seems like there's still a lot of time until I have to address that problem, haha). However, I have made some netting using braided fishing line in the past when I was growing in dutch buckets:
 

 
Those are bell peppers and they eventually took over the entire window you see in the background. It was a great wall of green all held together by fishing line. Sucks that I couldn't find a picture taken right before I chopped them all up.
 
I might do something similar this time. How have you done it in the past?

 

[Uncle Eckley]

That looks like a lush, green pepper jungle growing out of one of those PVC pipe organs those YouTube kids play with leather slapjacks.
 
I circled my plants with wire fencing.  It supported the plants well, but mine were too large when they first got their cages so it was tough to get the wire cells situated evenly around the plants' long branches.  The cages also made it difficult to remove and replace the bucket lids, but this was mostly due to poor planning.  
 
I grew a late start clone last year with a different arrangement I found to be superior.  I'd had trouble with the three-inch net cups I'd set into the bucket lids, so this guy got one of those six-inch net cup/bucket lid combo jobs. I cable tied three lengths of 1/2" PVC to the net cup webbing and wove ribbon around those and through the plant's branches as needed for support.  I'm planning to do the same for my 5G Kratky plants this year. 

 

[HeatMiser]

That looks like a lush, green pepper jungle growing out of one of those PVC pipe organs those YouTube kids play with leather slapjacks.
 
I circled my plants with wire fencing.  It supported the plants well, but mine were too large when they first got their cages so it was tough to get the wire cells situated evenly around the plants' long branches.  The cages also made it difficult to remove and replace the bucket lids, but this was mostly due to poor planning.  
 
I grew a late start clone last year with a different arrangement I found to be superior.  I'd had trouble with the three-inch net cups I'd set into the bucket lids, so this guy got one of those six-inch net cup/bucket lid combo jobs. I cable tied three lengths of 1/2" PVC to the net cup webbing and wove ribbon around those and through the plant's branches as needed for support.  I'm planning to do the same for my 5G Kratky plants this year. 

 
Ha! yes I've seen those PVC pipe organs. That setup I had was an eyesore, but it did work amazingly well. 
 
Yes, I think you nailed the biggest issue with this kratky setup - nutrient changes.
 
I guess if I had one of your fancy 3d printers I'd create a lid similar to the 6-inch net cups we have, but I'd put 1/2 inch wide x ~2-ish inch deep holes (or indentations) around the lid part (not in the net cup) that would allow me to put some 1/2 inch PVC pipes when I need to support the plant. This would be similar to what you're already doing, but it allows you to wait until you actually need to support the plant without disturbing roots or messing with cable ties in the net pot if you didn't do it early enough. These holes/indentations would be slightly angled so that the PVC pipes form a V shape around the plant.
 
I can picture it in my head, but I wonder if the description above makes sense, haha. 

 

[Uncle Eckley]

That'd be a large part to print, the whole lid.  It may be just within Dad's printer's capabilities. 
 
Are you averse to driving screws through your lid pots?  Then you only need a flat ring around the hole with built up cups for your PVC.

 

[HeatMiser]

That'd be a large part to print, the whole lid.  It may be just within Dad's printer's capabilities. 
 
Are you averse to driving screws through your lid pots?  Then you only need a flat ring around the hole with built up cups for your PVC.

 
Ah, yes, you could also build cups for the pvc to sit in and just drill the holes for the cups to sit in. I'm not necessarily averse to drilling into them, I just need it to not be an eyesore and to have a way for light to not get in when the pvc is not needed early in the grow. So some sort of removable cover for these holes. Seems like we're getting closer to a solution here...

 

[HeatMiser]

Update for this week...
 
Things are more or less on auto-pilot right now that I have the plants in their final containers. I feel like the topping has definitely helped in creating bushier plants, just hope this will translate into a better yield. To that end, I topped both Trinidad Scorpions at home since they were just starting to fork. I also need to figure out how to use the HLG100 light I have since the leaves on the Jalafuego growing under it are canoeing. This is not the case on the other Jalafuego growing under T5 lights.
 
Pictures:
 
The TS at work is doing great. I'm quite happy with the Sansi 36W LED light I got for it.

 
Jalafuego and TS under the HLG100.

 
Jalafuego and TS under the T5 lights

 
Close-up of this Jalafuego, seems like we're going to have a good harvest at some point

 
Twilight and Chiltepins being bushy. The Twilight is also loaded with flowers, so I might try crossing it with a Jalafuego:

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Ah, yes, you could also build cups for the pvc to sit in and just drill the holes for the cups to sit in. I'm not necessarily averse to drilling into them, I just need it to not be an eyesore and to have a way for light to not get in when the pvc is not needed early in the grow. So some sort of removable cover for these holes. Seems like we're getting closer to a solution here...

There you go. Now you just need a nice snug fit so they'll stay put in use. Only problem with that is you'll drill a round hole in the lid, but the cup for the pipe will have an oval cross section parallel to the floor if you want the pipes angled slightly away from the plant. So the cup's inner and outer surfaces need to be cylindrical about different axes. This will be a cool part! Flange around the top and you're done. Plastic plugs of every size, color, flavor can be found all over online, but I'd probably just use the cups themselves to plug the lids when I wasn't using the pipes.

Got any hole saws? What sizes? Need the outer diameter and I'll make them for you. The diameter of the net pot opening would be useful, too.