First Grow - 3x3' Tent - Soil - Mars 1200W LED

[ConstantGreen]

Only 3 weeks to go!

Can you see the purple?

This is a closeup of the center-left plant. The leaves are showing some issues but I'm not sure what it could be. I'm treating her the same as the others which look fine. This bud is directly in front of the fan, maybe that's causing the stress?

Been giving them each a half gallon of water every 3 days with Iguana Juice - Bloom, Calmag, and blackstrap molasses; pH'd to 6.0. Light is 15" away, temp is 80 degrees, humidity 65% at soil level, 45% above the canopy.

 

[ConstantGreen]

More pictures from tonight. A few branches are getting tipsy and the leaves are changing. Hoping it's normal cannibalization and not something more sinister.

 

[Richard Richardson]

Looking great

The brown tips on the leaves are often a sign that they have received more than enough nutrients.

I would reduce their feeding now and only use water for the last couple of weeks.

 

[ConstantGreen]

Thanks Richard

I backed off the nutrients a bit and watered them again today. Next week I'll start giving them plain pH'd water.

I took a tiny 1cm piece of leaf off one of the largest buds and looked at it under a tabletop microscope. There were dozens of trichomes, was so cool moving the slide around and seeing them for real. Was hard to tell the difference between clear, cloudy and just damaged trichomes. But a few looked perfect, I'd say it's currently 60/35/5 for clear/cloudy/amber. I did see amber hues in a couple balls, but it was faint and the stems were still clear. Couldn't get any good pictures through the scope though.

 

[KodiakKid]

Hi Versai. I'm a new member, too on my first grow. I love the community. Awesome grow!

 

[ConstantGreen]

Thanks for the praise, friends! The plants are all the motivation I need but it is really nice being able to grow them in a community.

Only two weeks to go now and I'm beginning the "flush" aka watering with plain water for the rest of the grow.

 

[ConstantGreen]

Picked up a 30x loupe today and took some pictures of 420-mag(nified)

Loupe + Light-balance lens:

I've taken a few samples from tiny, undeveloped buds that still have trichomes. I want to comment on how awesome the volcano is for these fresh samples. I snip off the shoot, trim the leaves, cut up the bud, throw it in the chamber @ 440f and fill a bag for 30 seconds. This bag is pretty light, but has some vapor and flavor. The high temperature is probably overkill, but after that bag the bud is dry enough to be ground up.

The 2nd bag of freshly ground bud produces a satisfying amount of vapor and gives me a great high for 2 hours. It feels wonderful to already be enjoying the fruits of my labor! Especially when you pick it off the plant and 5 minutes later it's in your lungs. I kinda feel like this is the way we were meant to interact with the plant - in an ideal world where marijuana grew everywhere and you could just pick a bud anytime, anywhere. Vaping your take in her presence then continuing on your adventure, leaving the plant sustained.

 

[ConstantGreen]

Forgot to mention that the loupe gave me a much clearer view of the trichome progress. The outer colas had many cloudy glands and only 20% clear, 5% amber.

I snipped off one of the purple sugar leaves from the center plant and looked at it under the table scope in normal light. It appeared to have 50% amber trichomes... Not sure what to think about this. Wouldn't this mean that the center plant is basically ready to be harvested now? I was hoping to harvest them all at the same time to be able to dry them in the same tent.

The center-left plant showing the yellowing in its leaves appears to be further matured as well, the sugar leaves seemed to have about 30% amber.

Harvest will have to wait at least a week no matter what, but I'm a little surprised that the trichome progress is so varied. Maybe I'm overestimating the % of amber. The glands on the buds and pistils still appear cloudy; but the sugar leaves, especially the purple ones, look ready if not past-due. Has anyone else experience that or have any advice?

note: all the above pictures were of outer colas.

Edit: I discovered sugar leaves go amber sooner and are not the correct guide; will be following the calyx trichome's ripeness.

Night loupe shots:

 

[ConstantGreen]

50 days flowering! One week to go...

This strain supposedly has a couple phenotypes and I think I've spotted them. The center-left plant showing the yellow leaves, and the back-right plant that hardly stretched at all both stand out from the rest. I think this is the "Ice" phenotype, as the buds are shorter and smaller, but seem to be stacking trichomes and look very icy white. The others I believe are "Grapefruit", with larger colas, more color, stronger plant.

Here's one of the bigger buds - about 4 inches tall and 2 inches wide. Many of the tops are about this size.
Much easier to see the milky trichomes now. I would say it's 80% milky, 20% clear. Only seeing amber on the sugar leaves.
Judging by the pistils and leaning branches though I think I'm on schedule to be finishing next week. I may wait a little longer than 1 week though to see amber trichomes.

Here's a sample shoot I clipped off a low branch of one of the "Ice" plants. I've been exploring the curing process early, letting the bud dry in a box. Took another pic after three days drying before jarring it in a tiny jar. Looks awesome and smelled like a sugary grapefruit.

I think I screwed something up with drying this nug though because after 12 hours of being in the tiny jar the smell is completely different. Smells like hay; no fruit. Anyone know if that means I dried it too fast/slow or something? I just trimmed it and set it in a cardboard box for 3 days. No light or air except opening it several times to turn it.

 

[Mars Hydro]

beautiful buds, they looks heavy.

 

[PurpleGunRack]

Same thing happened to me when I put some buds in a jar too early - Just dry it a bit more and when in jar, open it for maybe 30 minutes a day to change the stale air with fresh.

Looks awesome

 

[Richard Richardson]

Losing smell could just be a consequence of plucking the bud too early Plants are looking great

 

[ConstantGreen]

beautiful buds, they looks heavy.

Xie xie ! Wo ai ni

& thanks PGR + Richard, I think you're both right. Read that the hay smell is the chlorophyll breaking down. I guess that's one of the reasons to flush the plants at the end, so they naturally start losing chlorophyll. So I think this premature bud just has a lot to break down. Also think I jarred it too soon - was still spongy and bendy. Put it back in the drying box last night and I think that will correct it if I jar when it's more crispy. Hay smell has gone away but so has most of the fruitiness. I assume it will return in the cure.

I can barely sleep already I'm so excited for next week to come.

 

[ConstantGreen]

Well, time sure flew by. I gave the plants their last watering Monday night. Not much has changed except lots of deficiencies and yellowing showing as they finish off. I've been louping around and found just 1 or 2 amber trichomes on a couple calyx's. They seem to have flowered exactly on schedule, 8 weeks. I'm about to kill the light a few hours early to give them 24 hours of darkness before the chop tomorrow. I'm going to miss them, but it's time to go.

I plan to take some pictures of the center plant once they're all separated. Stay tuned here and in the Plant of the Month thread!

In the coming weeks I'll also log the drying, curing, weights, data, my thoughts on the grow. If anyone else has advice or criticisms about the grow, I'd like to hear them before starting the next. Looking for areas I could do better and whether this shallow, packed canopy really achieved its goals.

 

[ConstantGreen]

Even with help, trimming took so much longer than I thought it would! But I enjoyed every minute of it. Was an immensely rewarding experience handling the finished buds. I weighed a few of the wet nugs and I'm very satisfied. I think I will achieve my half gram per watt goal. Still excited to find out the total dry weight. Got about a gram of scissor hash and a ton of trim too! Almost time to get baked.

The main stalk was very strong and the root system was packed. I shook out as much dirt as I could for 5 minutes and realized it was mostly root. I could feel the root core from when they were rootbound in their quart pots, it was extremely dense compared to the rest of the ball.

I had the tower fan on the lowest setting in the tent blowing adjacent to the hanging rack for the first couple of days but I think it was too much airflow and drying them out too fast. The buds were feeling much lighter already and outsides a little crispy. So I turned off the tower fan and just have the extraction fan running. When the tower fan was on, humidity was 55%. Humidity in the tent is now 62% which I know is a little high but I'm watching buds closely and they look and feel dry. Think I will be okay to avoid mold and dry slow enough for good taste?

Without further ado, here are pictures of the center plant in all her majesty!

 

[SWOGA]

Great job. Look forward to round 2.

 

[Richard Richardson]

Congratulations on your harvest, Versai

 

[ConstantGreen]

Hey guys! All the nugs are dried and curing now. Most of the harvest was dried in 5 days, a little quick initially with the tower fan. The harvest from the center plant was dried for 6 days and I just jarred it up. Was a glorious harvest!

I'm curing most of the harvest in a plastic, airtight box that I figured will be easier to handle than jars. The bud is divided into 5 in. net pots. Each one holds about 50 grams. The rest of the harvest, including the premium colas, is curing in jars. I've already ground up the dried trim as I'm really excited to cook up some edibles.

Yields
419.67g	Bud
117.03g	Trim
536.70g	Total Yield

---

I was surprised by the yield! During trimming I knew I was in for a treat. My original goal and expectations were half gram per watt, though I really wanted to max out the 1 square meter space. The strain is rated for 500g/m. sq. Going by the bud weight of 420g, I've achieved about .75g per watt with the Mars 1200 and almost fulfilled the strain's potential. I think I have room for improvement but overall I'm extremely satisfied with my results and feel great about all the research and decisions I made. It's been quite a journey, the destination still doesn't feel quite real yet. I can't wait for that moment a few weeks from now when I'm medicating solely off my own grown stash.

Cost	Equipment
$55	Seeds, 10 Iced Grapefruit
$100	Apollo 3x3' Tent
$12	Planks
$5	Jiffy pellets
$28	Yo-yo straps
$422	Mars 1200w LED
$86	Phresh filter 4"x12"
$76	Ventech 4" Inline w/ controller
$74	Tower fan 48"
$20	Timer
$10	Power strip
$24	Extension cords
$79	LED light balance glasses
$14	Snips
$17	Stool
$6	Nine pots 4"
$36	Nine pots 9"
$10	Happy Frog 12qt.
$42	Happy Frog 4cu.ft.
$17	Duct tape + clamps
$21	Insulated Ducting 4"x25'
$23	Iguana Juice - Grow 1qt.
$23	Iguana Juice - Bloom 1qt.
$17	General Organics Calmag
$5	Molasses
$23	pH Up + Down
$8	pH strips
$3	Soft garden wire
$22	Jug w/ spigot, 5gal.
$58	4 Fans, Cougar Vortex
$13	Vinyl strap
$25	Drying rack
$50	Ziploc storage box set
$16	30x Loupe
$10	Net pots
$40	Veg electricity
$49	Flower electricity
$1,539	Total

I'm very happy with all my purchases, especially the Mars II 1200w. I like to be efficient and it didn't make sense to keep paying for bud. This harvest cost about $105 per ounce not including the trim and it's honestly some of the best looking bud I've seen. This project was a serious investment but I expect the setup to last several years with little resupply. So while this initial grow has already paid for itself, I'm really looking forward to the next grows and the savings over time.

Speaking of which, it's time to end this journal with a timelapse of the grow. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and left a comment. I hope you all enjoyed the journal as much as I enjoyed the grow. See you next time!

 

[JuanCarlos]

Really awesome grow Versai, especially enjoyed the wrap-up. The timelapse is an awesome touch.

 

[Happy Hemper]

Beautiful first JuanCarlos, I am just a bit, ok very, envious. Congrats on your success.