I’m way iffy on trichs as the indicator, only because sometimes trichs go amber and buds clearly aren’t filled out yet. Like Penny I prefer a racier high (early) to a super stoney talk to you tomorrow (late) chop, but I’m a big believer in looking at the actual weed and bud formation to make a decision.
Aspen's Top Feed Undercurrent RDWC Blue Dream
- Thread starter AspenCultivator
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- #422
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Day 118 / 75 flower
Water change, with same nute regime as last time. As the water level drops throughout the week, her EC raises by 0.1 every 2-3 days, and PH falls by the same amount / rate. I love how dialed in this system is right now, and I just need to glance at the wall once a day to confirm everything's on track.
The biggest change I noticed today is that more pistils are starting to turn orange, and she's swelling up nicely. Trichs are starting to look more like "plastic" as opposed to "glass", which is exciting. I'll probably be doing trich checks more and more frequently this week. At the first amber I can spot she's going to get a water change with only PHed water, Z7, and Hydroguard (no other nutes or anything) to begin the flush for 5 days.
Water change, with same nute regime as last time. As the water level drops throughout the week, her EC raises by 0.1 every 2-3 days, and PH falls by the same amount / rate. I love how dialed in this system is right now, and I just need to glance at the wall once a day to confirm everything's on track.
The biggest change I noticed today is that more pistils are starting to turn orange, and she's swelling up nicely. Trichs are starting to look more like "plastic" as opposed to "glass", which is exciting. I'll probably be doing trich checks more and more frequently this week. At the first amber I can spot she's going to get a water change with only PHed water, Z7, and Hydroguard (no other nutes or anything) to begin the flush for 5 days.
Lots of white pistils yet, she's foxtailing big time.
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- #424
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Is that a bad thing? I need to go read up on what exactly that is.
This grow is so fascinating to me, just shows these plants really are so much more resilient than we give credit. I wish we could determine the potency when it’s all said and done, despite the challenges I actually think this is going to be quite strong and come out with decent terps.
It just means she's still building buds, I wouldn't be in a huge hurry to chop.
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- #427
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
You think so? I hope so. Speaking of, I've been meaning to ask you if you had a tutorial on your dry/cure methods? You had mentioned in your completed grow it's as important, if not more, than the grow itself. And I'll admit, I figured I'd dry it for 5 days then toss it all in jars. So any help there, I'd be glad to follow some detailed process that works really well.
10-4 there. I did check trichs and everything is looking 60/40 clear/cloudy.
Sounds about right then.
Everyone has an opinion on drying/ curing, 5 day into jars is a definite no-go IMO. You’ll get mold or just end up with weed that smells like hay.
As long as you aren’t seeing any mold/ bud rot towards the end of your grow, I recommend this (only because it’s what I do), but ultimately your call:
-cut off all major fan leaves
-chop plant at stem
-hang the entire plant upside down in the tent with all lights off until buds snap off the branch, can be 1-2 weeks. You want airflow in the room, but not directly on the weed. If your center plant is all squished together, try to separate it a bit so there’s airflow as you DO NOT want mold.
-cut buds off stems and move into grocery paper bag to sweat the buds, usually a few days.
-move to a big jar to burp for a while
-then I move to smaller jars, reason I don’t put it in small jars to begin with is I don’t want to burp 30 jars several times a day.
You also don’t need to trim all your weed right away. I have fully cured weed that isn’t trimmed, mainly because it’s a giant pain in the ass. You can trim right away for things like hash, etc., but I never trim right away except main fan leaves.
Here’s a video from the jungle boys - about 11:30 into this video Jungle Boys talk about their approach, they do 14 day whole plant hang at 60F/ 60% RH. I usually go 55%, but I’ve had to toss entire harvests from mold so I get a bit skiddish
As long as you aren’t seeing any mold/ bud rot towards the end of your grow, I recommend this (only because it’s what I do), but ultimately your call:
-cut off all major fan leaves
-chop plant at stem
-hang the entire plant upside down in the tent with all lights off until buds snap off the branch, can be 1-2 weeks. You want airflow in the room, but not directly on the weed. If your center plant is all squished together, try to separate it a bit so there’s airflow as you DO NOT want mold.
-cut buds off stems and move into grocery paper bag to sweat the buds, usually a few days.
-move to a big jar to burp for a while
-then I move to smaller jars, reason I don’t put it in small jars to begin with is I don’t want to burp 30 jars several times a day.
You also don’t need to trim all your weed right away. I have fully cured weed that isn’t trimmed, mainly because it’s a giant pain in the ass. You can trim right away for things like hash, etc., but I never trim right away except main fan leaves.
Here’s a video from the jungle boys - about 11:30 into this video Jungle Boys talk about their approach, they do 14 day whole plant hang at 60F/ 60% RH. I usually go 55%, but I’ve had to toss entire harvests from mold so I get a bit skiddish
Cooler temps let them run higher RH.
So dudes, here’s a perfect example of why I’m pretty much at the point of ignoring trichs and their coloring. Under a scope this has lots of cloudiness/ amber and technically could be chopped right now...however the bud is way underdeveloped. Leaves haven’t faded, calyxes aren’t swelled or tightened up, no flush, etc.. So if you go by color of trichs alone, this plant comes down...which in my mind is a shame. Friends don’t let friends chop plants early.
- Thread starter
- #432
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Day 124 / 81 flower
Everything's A-OK from the last update. Hairs are still turning orange, and buds are still swelling it seems. Trichomes are steadily turning more cloudy, which is nice to be able to see. I do believe I've spotted a single amber or two, but I'm still seeing about half clear and half cloudy, so I'm going to wait on the flush for a few days and see what happens.
Everything's A-OK from the last update. Hairs are still turning orange, and buds are still swelling it seems. Trichomes are steadily turning more cloudy, which is nice to be able to see. I do believe I've spotted a single amber or two, but I'm still seeing about half clear and half cloudy, so I'm going to wait on the flush for a few days and see what happens.
- Thread starter
- #434
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
I'm only being impatient, because I received my magic beans from Seedsman the other day. Super fast shipping, and easy checkout procedures. This was the second order I've received from them, and I couldn't be happier.
Gonna be some nice ones!
Nice dude, are you planning to run a photo or auto? Understanding you only have one tent, if you’re growing a photo you can definitely still pop it into a small RW cube and keep it in a simple DIY dome under a very basic light. You can keep them like that for several weeks and/or move to a bigger 5” RW cube while you wait for the blue dream. Which also brings me to another question...are you sticking with RDWC?
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- #437
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
The plan is an Auto White Widow. With how long this one is taking due to stresses and what not, I'm ready for a faster cycling plant. I also would like to stay in RDWC, yeap. I believe my struggles stem mainly from flipping her later, the fact she's Blue Dream, and she's an odd pheno that just didn't stop growing like the others.
- Thread starter
- #438
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Day 126 / 83 flower
Not much has changed, other than I felt like taking some pictures and checking on trichome development. I did add around 2.5 gallons, with calmag, z7, hydroguard, and ph down.
You can see the leaves facing the light are much lighter than their counterparts. She's getting bleached, that's for sure. But it was unavoidable.
This fucking monster in the back...I legitimately thought it was two colas wrapped around eachother. As I started lightly pulling it around, I saw that it's actually one cola. It's just got so many foxtails since she's been bent every-which-way that those are now building into colas. It's starting to fall over, too.
Not much has changed, other than I felt like taking some pictures and checking on trichome development. I did add around 2.5 gallons, with calmag, z7, hydroguard, and ph down.
You can see the leaves facing the light are much lighter than their counterparts. She's getting bleached, that's for sure. But it was unavoidable.
This fucking monster in the back...I legitimately thought it was two colas wrapped around eachother. As I started lightly pulling it around, I saw that it's actually one cola. It's just got so many foxtails since she's been bent every-which-way that those are now building into colas. It's starting to fall over, too.
- Thread starter
- #439
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Day 128 / 85 flower
PH: 5.9
EC: 2.1
WT: 71f
TT: 77f
RH: 48%
Things are still on track as far as I can tell. My oldest fans are yellowing, but that's to be expected. I received a wifi microscope today, so I've been taking some pics of trichomes that I can finally show. It's pretty tough standing there trying to focus and hold the bud still without mashing into it, so I had a lot of shitty pics. These are the best ones.
This one is slightly out of focus, but, does that look kinda amber to anyone else on around 5-6 trichomes in the middle there?
Another spot of brown-ish/amber coloring.
Is this what would be considered mostly cloudy? Sure seems like it to me.
PH: 5.9
EC: 2.1
WT: 71f
TT: 77f
RH: 48%
Things are still on track as far as I can tell. My oldest fans are yellowing, but that's to be expected. I received a wifi microscope today, so I've been taking some pics of trichomes that I can finally show. It's pretty tough standing there trying to focus and hold the bud still without mashing into it, so I had a lot of shitty pics. These are the best ones.
This one is slightly out of focus, but, does that look kinda amber to anyone else on around 5-6 trichomes in the middle there?
Another spot of brown-ish/amber coloring.
Is this what would be considered mostly cloudy? Sure seems like it to me.
Yep it's. Dry close to where I like them.
