Budward9's Firest Grow - CFL Closet - Growing C4 & Chemo

[Budward9]

Thanks for the advice. Since i've never tried supercropping before, maybe what I might do on the
next grow is half the plants with, half without supercropping.

I still suspect that I have too few CFLs per plant to get me to the yield I want, so may need to switch to
LEDs on my next grow. That should also help with my heat problem.

Thanks again to those of you following. This will all come to some sort of conclusion in the first half of July...

 

[Budward9]

I voted for ya, KingJohnC! You're at 27.59% now...

Here's my report on Day63, Day 33 of 12:12 Flower. Gave them a watering of FoxFarms Trio, Minus the Grow Big.
I may be about 2 weeks from harvest for the most mature plants. Maybe I should not give the most mature ones nutes from now on? That's my plan anyway.
For starters, I've shown the interior of my closet a few times, but never showed the exterior. The closet doors
are covered by a 6X8in tarp with zippers stuck in (much to my surprise you can buy zippers made to stick to tarps to make a "doorway").
You can see my 4inch duct connecting to a 6" 240CFM fan just out of frame in the foreground.

"The Closet"

Now for an interior shot as of today - lots of room for improvement on next grow.

Close-up on Tina the champion C-4.

Tina's top cola

Tina's trichomes

The other C-4, and my 4 Chemos, are all lagging about 1 week behind in maturity.
It looks like I will be cruising to a harvest in 2-3 weeks or so (best guess). I expect to have some questions for you guys
on harvesting, and making cannabutter.

Thanks again everyone for tuning in.

 

[KingJohnC]

I voted for ya, KingJohnC! You're at 27.59% now...

thank you kindly. you want to give your plants enough time to use up stored nutrients, in soil that usually means a two week period where either a) only pH adjusted water is given b) pH adjusted water and molasses at 1-2 tablespoons per gallon is given c) a flushing product.
you can see the trichomes in your last photograph, you want to harvest at 5%-30% amber trichomes. 5%-15% amber trichomes gives a "head high" energetic effect and harvesting at 30%-50% amber trichomes gives a "body stone" sedative effect strain dependent.
you need a 30x jewellers loop to see the trichomes but your camera may have enough resolution to see the trichomes.

https://www.google.com search 30x jewelers loop

 

[Budward9]

Hi guys,
I was wondering what you do for CannaButter. I've seen plenty of techniques and recipes, so that's all clear to me. What's not entirely clear is this: can you use the fan leaves and stems which have no obvious trichomes? Obviously I'll use the leaf trim coming out of the buds, but what about that other stuff? Use it, throw it out?
Thanks,
Budward9

 

[KingJohnC]

stems are of no use. use the fan leaves taken from flowering to make hashish out of. i use a small portable washing machine with a screen bag inside that i place the leaves into to tumble the leaves with ice and separate the trichomes from the leaves. i then take the discharge hose on the side of the small washing machine and drain it through a series of finer mesh bags placed into a 5 gallon bucket separating the trichomes from the water. i then dry the resulting hashish and press it to remove water from it.

the mini washing machine i own is similar to this one

https://www.google.com shopping Bubble Magic 5 Gallon Mini Washing Machine

the bags i use are these 5 Gallon All Mesh five Bubble Bag Kit

Store

here is a youtube video of my pollen press

[video=youtube;4qBr_ippxxU]

[/video]

 

[Budward9]

Well, according to the calendar and info from the seed bank's website, I'm about 1 week from the start of the harvest window for the C4s, and 2 weeks for the Chemos.
Since my last post, several things have happened.

1.) I went out and bought an Arizer Extreme Q vape from the local head shop. I've never used a vaporizer before but knew that neither myself nor
my wife wanted to deal with smoke. After doing some research we decided this was the model for us. No regrets so far.
2.) I nipped a couple of small popcorn buds off one of the Chemo plants, did a quick dry in the oven at 170F (75C). The vape effects were very pleasant - I
got just as high as I did back in high school when I was smoking seedy Mexican weed. I'm not disappointed at all since I know things will only get
better with more bud growth, trichome maturity, and proper dry/cure.
3.) Put the plants on a no-nutes diet, only water and some molasses from here on out.
4.) Ordered a hanging shelf drier for my buds.

Photo updates are below. The C4s are clearly ahead in bud size and especially trichome density vs. the Chemos.
All are looking good to me except the 2 Chemos which are stuck sharing a single pot.

Here's Tina, my champion C4 plant.

Here's Sarah, the champion Chemo.

Here's a close-up of Tina's trichomes. They look mostly clear to me, some cloudy, no amber.

I'm already thinking beyond the harvest to what's next. I'm thinking I will reveg both Sarah and Tina, and hopefully pull
some clones off them for my next grow. If that fails, I still have 5 seeds of each strain.

 

[Budward9]

Back with a quick update. Today is day 80 of the grow and 50 of flower.
According to the seebank's website I should be well into the harvest window for C4 and just now starting
the window for chemo. Hmm, I don't think so. Below are 2 pics of the most mature C4 and chemo top
colas. Still plenty of white pistils. Under the 45X microscope (best I have) I dont see a single amber trich.

In fact my trich production is rather ho-hum so far. Seeing as how I'm still clearly at least 1 week or maybe
2 away from harvest I decided to invest in some FoxFarms Cha-Ching soluble fertilizer, which supposedly
is a resin / trichome booster. I'll start feeding that and see if the trichs pick up.
Part of my problem may just be the damned heat that's blanketing the region lately.
It may also be the fact that I had stopped feeding, thinking harvest was imminent.

Well, here's some pics, taken a couple of days ago (Day 77 to be precise). C4 on left, Chemo on right.
Still got some maturing to do I think.

Damn, waiting around for weeks with these big juicy buds in my house is really bloody hard!

 

[Budward9]

OK, its all over. Over the past 2 weeks I've been chopping, drying, and curing. I've been chopping 1 plant every 2-3 days — so that I can get a sense for the differences between early and late-harvested effects. I will enjoy conducting this scientific study using my Arizer Extreme Q vape in the coming weeks.

Here are some bud pics just prior to harvest (which happend between 6/29 and 7/13 — or Day 46-60 of 12/12 flowering).

Here is a shot of the final harvest, which is now curing in jars each with a Boveda 62% humidity control pack.

Total harvest dry weight = 101g of bud, and 80g of trim/fan leaves.
Given that I used 460watts of CFL, this comes out to 25g/watt (or 45g/watt if you include the leaves). My undestanding is this is considered to be somehwhere between "piss-poor" and "bad" yield. But I ain't complaining. This is more weed than I've ever had in my life.

Post-mortem analysis:
BAD THINGS:
I fucked-up the title of my grow journal, something that will haunt me until the day I die. Heat. I ran between 85F-95F on almost every day during flower. I will remedy this in the future by never again flowering in the summer months. I may also try LEDs.
Light. Maybe the CFLs didn't do so well for me, I may go LED next time.
pH. I was in the "5" range quite often. Next time will add dolomite lime to my soil mix. I did have (especially on the Chemo) signs of nutrient def or burn.
Yield. See above. Partly this is due to the heat/light/ph issues, and partly I think I harvested 1-2 weeks to soon, even though I wated as long or longer than the seedbank recommended.
Trichome growth. Was lackluster.

GOOD THINGS:
I'm actually pretty happy with the effects so far.
Seed bank. They were correct about this being a relatively easy-to-grow strain, with low odor and strong effects.
Odor control, with the 4" carbon filter and ozone generator, was mostly a non-issue.
Plant sizes were perfect for my grow space.
Effects — so far I'm getting very nice highs from my vape and from cannabutter-brownies.

I am now re-vegging the best C4 and Chemo plants, with a plan to take clones in the late summer, and start another grow this fall. So far the re-veg is working — I can already see some new growth showing up.

Anyway, this journal is complete. I will try to head over to the smoke report section soon.
Thanks to those of you who followed along and provided advice.

 

[KingJohnC]

congratulations on your harvest! post the name of your grow journal exactly as you wish it to appear and i will personal message a moderator to change it

 

[David Bowman]

Thanks for sharing your grow with us.

Please head over to the 420 Strain Reviews forum and post your smoke report there too.

I’m moving this to Completed Journals now.

Have you started a new grow you would like to share with us?

If so, please feel free to start a new journal here:
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In the future, whenever you complete a journal, please use the Report Post feature found at the bottom left of every post, so we can be alerted to move it for you.

Hope all is well in your world.

Love and respect from all of us here at 420 Magazine.