KSum - 6 Strains - 2015

[KSum]

It's Saturday. How about some pictures.

The carbon filtered exhaust. 6" Duct, fan on a speed controller and temperature sensor. (shuts off if it gets to cold in there for now until I need to keep the smell under control)

The 6 plants currently in the bud room

and the 4 biggest individual plants.

 

[Light Addict]

Looking good!

 

[KSum]

Thanks. I know I shouldn't have carpet anywhere in the rooms but I'm kinda stuck with it for now.

 

[KSum]

So a little bit of an issue last night. I discovered that all 8 outlets in the workshop are on a single circuit. While it's hooked up to a larger size breaker, it's only a 20A breaker. I haven't looked at the gauge of the wire yet, but since I know the previous owners grew in here and eventually turned it into a wood working/machine shop you would think it's pretty stout stuff.

There is a 220V plug in the middle of the floor, so I may have to resort to splitting that out to 2 110V outlets if I need more lights and heaters. The breaker popped last night because the veg room got to cold and a space heater kicked on. The power was only out in the room for about 30 minutes, but my main light timer in the bud room was acting weird and it left the light on all night. Temp was properly controlled so nothing burnt. I'm guessing since this was to be the first 12/12 night that it didn't hurt anything.

I've moved some things around to other plugs that are on different circuits, so this shouldn't happen again. I'll be picking up a different more efficient space heater soon to cut down on power usage.

The bigger problem I have right now is I'm using the exhaust to keep the bud room cool during the lights on period, but even with an old humidifier in there running constantly I can't keep the daytime RH above 40%. I can't turn the exhaust fan down or it will get to hot so I guess I'm going to need a bigger humidifier soon. I have one selected from Amazon that allows you to set the desired RH and it will shut off once it reaches that. With the current humidifier I'm going through 2 gallons of water a day. I can't fathom what I'm going to do to keep the humidity up if I have to add another light in there, which I'm hoping to do.

The other weird thing is the plants don't seem to be drinking much. It's been days since I watered and the pots are still heavy. They're still growing and producing new leaves though. Some of the plants have curling on the outer edges, so I suspect that's got something to do with the very low humidity.

 

[KSum]

I stretched the budget a little bit and ordered one of these today.

It can handle up to 700 sq ft, so it should do fine for my 150 sq ft bud room.

Until it gets here on Thursday I'll be spraying the plants 2-3 times a day with plain water to keep them hydrated and keep the humidity up as much as I can during the day. On the next watering I'm starting the Jack's Classic 10-30-20 nutes for the 6 plants in the bud room. Then the search begins to weed out the males.

 

[c526]

I like jacks classic,do not start with full servings

can ya get any tonic water or club soda?? they like the c02 in the water.I use plain water and my soda stream for this.

 

[KSum]

I was thinking about something like club soda that has nothing but carbonated water.

The latest mistake I made is not putting enough soil in the pots. I didn't account for the potting soil settling and my 3 gallon pots are now only 3/4 full. They've only been transplanted for a week from 1/2 gallon pots and the roots are already growing out of the side holes.

Should I pull them out and add more soil to the bottom, or leave them alone and let them finish. Right now I can't afford for them to have any more delays. I have to have at least a couple of plants harvested, cured and ready to go by the end of March. That's when the dispensaries will begin running low on the stuff harvested in October from the outdoor growers.

 

[KSum]

This week's update.

I think I jumped the gun on adding nutes to the 6 in the bud room. Two of the plants started showing signs of a deficiency or maybe nute burn. I decided to play it safe and just use plain water for now until something changes.

The other problem was heat. I stressed them out with the 600W HPS to close. (18 inches) The temperature at the top of the plants was around 82-85 and leaves were starting to curl under at the edges. I've hung another 600W HPS a few feet to the side of the first and turned the power down to 75%, so a total of 900W more evenly distributed. They're now about 30 inches above the top of the tallest plant with the temp at the tops staying around 74-78 during the day.

Through all of this they've managed to grow and grow and grow.. Compared to last week where they were just peeking over the tops of the pots, the largest is 8-10 inches above it now. I'm starting to see what could be white hairs on one plant, but they could also just be new leaves sprouting up. Have to wait and see.

Now for some pictures...

 

[KSum]

So the plant that I had some discolored leaves on is now looking better. I think it was low ph. I calibrated my meter again and realized the water ph was ok, but the ph after adding nutes was around 5.5, so I was locking something out.

I started using just plain water and the progression of discoloration stopped. It's now ticking right along and growing 2+ inches a day. They seem to like the new light. I also picked up a bigger humidifier so keeping the room at 50% RH is much easier now. It still goes through 2 gallons of water a day though. I turned up the exhaust fan to compensate for the extra heat from the new light. Temps are stable between 67-78, and RH stays between 50-65. I think I've finally got it dialed in.

I'm hoping some of the 6 show their sex soon. I was a little over enthusiastic when I started and now I have to many plants approaching "mature plant" status. I know I'll have to get rid of some of them unless I can start growing for another patient soon. It just saddens me to have to do it. I can only have 6 per patient.

 

[KSum]

Saturday picture time. 2 weeks into flower.

That one in the back is growing like crazy. Can't wait to start seeing some actual bud forming.

 

[KSum]

YIKES! I've been neglecting my journal for a month!

There's been a lot of activity including having to move the 4 biggest plants off of the table and down onto the top of some 5 gallon buckets. After removing and destroying 4 males, I've finally got the bud room with all females in it.

Today is day 41 from when the first 3 plants that went in, so I went ahead and used LA's Backbudding tutorial and snipped the tiny tops off the buds. I'm looking forward to some dense sticky bud. ;D

This first picture shows my first attempt at FIMming. I snipped it just twice. Once at the 3rd node, and once at the 3rd node of the new branches that grew from those. As you can see there are tops EVERYWHERE.

This is the second largest. I didn't FIM this one, but did the old standard snip at the 3rd node, and again at the 3rd node of the branches that grew from there.

..and here are just a few pictures of the top buds. Think they'll be big ones??

I'm going through a lot of water these days. Not to water the plants really, but to keep the humidifiers filled. I'm throwing 3-4 gallons of water a day in them and can't get the humidity above 40%. It's been really dry this winter, which is very unusual for where I am. (surrounded by rain forest)

A second programmable humidifier arrived today and that's started bringing the RH back up. I'm fine tuning the exhaust fan so that enough heat is removed from the room, but not all the humidity. With an old fashioned humidifier and 2 programmable ones the humidity is finally rising and is almost at 40% after plugging the new one in about an hour ago.

It aint easy getting a large bud room environment stable. Heaters, air conditioners, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, exhaust fans... The end result should hopefully all be worth it.

 

[KSum]

Pictures like this make my heart quicken just a little.

All those little trichs everywhere...

Happy Friday everyone!

 

[KSum]

So I quickly discovered that my ph meter was a hunk of junk. I couldn't figure out why the leaves were turning yellow on the most mature plants. I finally tested with a test tube and solution test for my fish tank and used my soil tester to confirm. The digital ph tester was way off and my ph was around 7.5.

So now all of the leaves on one plant are yellow or very pale green and the bud stopped growing. I suspect this one will make it to harvest but the amount and quality will be reduced from what it could have been.

The other two mature plants have 2-3 yellowing leaves near the bottom, but the rest are doing ok. As soon as I realized the problem I did a flush with proper ph water and left them alone. They're now on week 8 of flowering so I guess we'll find out soon if things will turn out ok.

Some of the other plants in the room started to show similar patterns on the leaves, so I think I caught them before to much damage was done. They should stay healthy and green until harvest.

Moral of the story:
1. Check your ph with more than one method. Preferably 3 so hopefully 2 of them give the same reading. Check it at least once a month. The local water supply can vary so it pays to check it.
2. Only water with 1/4 to 1/2 strength nutes ONCE EVERY TWO WEEKS, and mix the nutes in BEFORE you balance the ph. It's tempting to give them more nutes so they grow bigger and produce more but once you've overdone it, it's very difficult to recover and quality will already be reduced because of the stress and wasted energy trying to recover.

If you start to see yellowing in the leaves between the veins flush with plain ph balanced water in the 6.5 to 6.9 range (in soil). 6.8 is ideal. Don't give any nutes for 3 weeks. This will allow the plain water to flush out the extra nute buildup and get your baby growing healthy again.

Happy Farming!

 

[KSum]

Harvest has arrived. (at least for the first 2 plants) The first one produced about an ounce of small but dense popcorn buds with a couple of good size ones on the tops. The second one looks to be about the same. I'm going to give the remaining plants a little more time since I've been reading that the buds can grow up to 25% more towards the last half of the harvest window.

There are a few plants that because of strain or (heaven forbid) something I did right that are just LOADED. The branches are nothing but solid bud from an inch above their link to the main trunk all the way to the top. I'm very optimistic that these will produce more like 2 ounces or hopefully a bit more.

We had a Hemp and Cannabis Convention here this weekend and I learned a lot going to it yesterday. I'm starting to look at hydro to increase yields.

 

[KSum]

I've been mentioning these plants that have colas from the base of the stalk up to the top. Here are a couple of pics.

I got a couple of samples of nutes from General Hydroponics at the convention and the guy said you can use Floralicious Plus all the way up to harvest. Since I abused my first 4-5 plants with my impatience at the beginning I thought I'd give it a go and see if that helps boost my yield for the next few plants. We'll see how that goes.

I'm still looking at switching to Hyrdo, but I just can't swing the expense right now. I have some 5 gallon buckets, but I would need lids, basket pots, pumps, and other equipment and fertilizers to make it all happen. Maybe someday, but for now soil is the cheapest way to go.

Since I'm growing for both myself and my mom (medical) the plan is to add 4 new plants to the rotation every month. Using feminized auto seeds I should be able to harvest 4 plants a month. If they are all the same strain and can produce a minimum of 4 ounces each then I should be able to sell a pound a month to our local dispensary and still have plenty for me and ma. (we only need about a quarter a month each) So harvest 4, plant 4, rinse, repeat. That's the plan.

 

[Koqstorm]

Nice man!

 

[KSum]

I hate being impatient, but this plant is driving me crazy. There's still a few white hairs here and there, but I can't find ANY amber trichomes. It's been in flower now for 12.5 weeks.

Looking close at this picture, I can see that all of the trichs are cloudy. I can't find a single amber one though.

 

[KSum]

Possibly a mistake, not sure, but I switched the bulbs in the flowering room to MH. HPS was just to orange/yellow making it harder to see and get good pictures. MH seems brighter too.

The Hydrofarms Ebb & Grow 12 pot system arrived yesterday. Naturally I couldn't wait to tear into it and get it all set up. (8 pots at first until the soil crop is harvested)

On the soil side, I've been waiting for this one plant to finish for a while now, and there was one branch top that I thought just had dying leaves and didn't really think much about the discoloration. I decided to touch it this time (I normally don't touch any of it so as not to disturb the trichs) it was totally dry and snapped off in my hand. I clipped the branch down where it wasn't brittle again and I'll keep an eye on that. If it's that close to dying, it may be time to go ahead and harvest rather than waiting for the trichs to turn more.

Here's a pic of the bud. I looked at it under the microscope and didn't see any evidence of mold or pests. I'm thinking maybe while I was plucking dead leaves I exposed to much of the inner branch cutting off it's food supply and it died off above that point.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to moving on from soil to hydro. I'm using feminized autoflower seeds so growth and harvest are going to be Fast and Furious, and hopefully heavy laiden with dense sticky bud.

 

[Koqstorm]

I hate being impatient, but this plant is driving me crazy. There's still a few white hairs here and there, but I can't find ANY amber trichomes. It's been in flower now for 12.5 weeks.

Looking close at this picture, I can see that all of the trichs are cloudy. I can't find a single amber one though.

Nice girl, man!

 

[KSum]

Thanks. It's an Oregon Purple Danish. I've got a Blue Dog that looks very similar to it but the top cola is as big around and taller than a coke can.

Good news. I've met another patient that wants me to grow for him, so I'll be expanding the hydro system to 18 plants. HOLY CRAP!