Thanks for the detailed response. Yeah, I know I'm just getting started on training. I'm hoping this will be the fun part. Should be a challenge. I actually have an extra scrog net (one of the stretchy kind that attaches to the tent poles) that I COULD drop over the autoflowers. Any sense in doing that? Try to kinda scrog them a little bit?
I hear that but I was thinking it would help with support if nothing else. I can't reach the ceiling in my tent so hanging those really cool things you use is out if/when the buds get heavy and need support. Based on the size of the plants, the size of the stems, and the number of bud sites I already have, they ARE going to need support. I was going to use long bamboo stakes. They worked well my first grow and I have tons of them. I can also tie branches up using my extra pvc inserts that I have on three sides - that also worked well on the first grow. I hear you that it'll make watering more difficult, so maybe I'll toss it in when they are all as big as the GZ and CJ are now. Another week to ten days or so.
Hey, I’m just curious, if your trichomes are mostly milky and 10% amber then how much further are you going with it before you chop it????We are closing out week 10 of flower and she is still pushing white pistils on the top third of the plant. We are going to let her ripen until we have some more even coverage.
I continue to struggle with feeling good about nutrient levels. I have tried gradually increasing until I see tip burn but it went way higher than the recommended. I found an older brochure with a feeding schedule for my nutrients where it showed a tapering off during late flower so I tried that for the last week but started to see some faded leaves so I bumped it back to the recommended dose until we harvest. I may flush lightly the last few days but nothing crazy.
Pics don't look much different these days but she is still filling in; most of my branches now have a good 10-12" stack of buds. There is not much room for any more bud sites anywhere so I am getting close to being maxed out for buds. We are going to give them time to fatten up as much as possible before the chop.
Thrich's are looking good with mostly milky (some clear) and about 10% amber so it looks like we will go into week 11...
Day 132: start week 11 of flower tomorrow.
Sure, I will try to throw something in for scale on my next update. I try to include a full shot of the whole tent for perspective. I would not say the buds are huge or anything but I feel the density should make up for size... The whole plant is 3x3x3 but from what I have read about NL, they are small squatty plants so hopefully I am on the right track.
They look super dense, man. I'll bet they're weighty. I'm sitting here wondering if I'll even take a half an ounce off each auto. Lol. You won't be measuring in grams. Lmao.
I see where your going now. I am also looking for the same affect for my plants. So we wait.This has been very interesting, every time i look with the scope I see more and more clear? I have some buds that have some amber but I am trying to look at the plant from an overall average of the whole plant. This is medicine for my love who has a condition called Trigeminal neuralgia which is a very painful nerve condition. The doctors give her all the crazy narcotics so we are hoping a mature harvest will help with intense attacks (couch lock would be great when she is in pain; hoping we can shut down the attacks).
Anyway, we are going to wait until we have some even amber throughout the plant (maybe 30% or so...)
Here are some shots of the trichomes today...
Wow, great trichome shots. It would be so difficult for me to wait on 30% amber. I go for the "coke-weed" thing and try to harvest when there's basically zero clear and all milky and maybe one or two amber here and there. High THC, high "up" buzz, less couch lock. That's just me personally. I hope you guys get what you need out of the medicine you're growing. Sounds like you have a real solid idea of exactly what you want. That's awesome.
I completely agree with you. Getting started in this pursuit, for me, involved a TON of research (and it still wasn't enough), a ton of experimentation, and a ton of common sense. I am fortunate to have several close friends who grow on either the tent/home level or the professional licensed level or somewhere in between, and I asked ALL of them a trillion questions. I learned that almost every company I use for products is staffed by growers who use those products and many of them are happy to talk to you once you figure out how to get to the right person. A good example is the soil mix I'm using, 40% Happy Frog, 40% Ocean Forest, 20% perlite, plus mycorrhizae, came out of discussion with someone at Humboldt who talked to me at length about choosing strains for my scrog and soil choices and such. But as you note, finding that pot growing forums even exist was awesome, and then finding THIS forum was key. I've been on tons and this one is by far the best. Tons of very experienced growers who very happily want to help you to a better grow. There's very little ego here also, which is not always the case. Ego sucks. This is not a competition. But you learn that there are tons of resources at your disposal and you learn how to use them as best you can. I never stop asking questions either.
My data logger is hand written notebooks that I have to transfer to computer. Notes on the strains mostly, how they react to nutes, how they grow, etc, and a long list of mistakes I've made and to not make again. But it's not like I log the temp, humidity, and ph each and every day. Not there yet.
How does that generate CO2?I am not sure if anyone will get anything out of my hillbilly CO2 generator but I wanted to give an update on that side of this project. The main reason I went down this road is flexibility. I simply hang the radiator on a chain so it can easily be moved to another room if needed. I have found it beneficial for both cold and hot conditions; in cold conditions the radiator serves to heat the room and if hot, I can move it to my adjacent room. The hot water reservoir is also helpful whereas I can take off the lid and help humidify the room or put the lid on and stop any evaporation if I want so as ugly as it is it really does have some benefits...
The system actually works and maintains my lung room with no problems. I go through a 20# bottle of propane every 10-13 days which costs about $17 to fill at my local hardware store. I have had two failures along the way; a radiator leak and my input line on the water heater has a screen in it and it got clogged which stopped the pump. The screen was an easy fix and we now clean it with every propane tank refill. The radiator is another issue. I tried to utilize a CPU coolers and not sure if it is just cheap Chinese quality or possibly designed for glycol or some other fluid other than the tap water I have been using? I am using tap water because I am utilizing the hot water to help with humidify the room when my furnace is on. I just had another leak on a different radiator so they are clearly not going to be a reliable solution.
I went ahead and picked up a heat exchanger designed for a wood burning furnace (for the size of my area - 18"x18") and now am waiting on the correct adapters to install it but this is the unit I picked up ($130). If you are interested you can Google the SKU#:
This is much better build quality and I expect it to not only cool more efficiently but also be more reliable over time.
Once I get it installed it should look much better also (it will replace the two under the water heater and I will remove the other two against the counter... I had no idea how much cooling I would get from a radiator so the number creeped up to 4 of them. This was my first attempt at experimentation but I didn't realize how how these tankless water heaters are; exit temp is around 175F... I probably should have gotten a real radiator in the beginning but this is all experimentation. I will post up some pics once installed.
