Let's Find a Mother! Hiking Through a Field of Mary Jane

congrats
 
Congrats on a heavy haul hiker. I feel once you have your strains dialed in there you will be killing it. +reps

The tga strains are so nice and stable. I find such good uniformity with his gear but like you said there is subtle differences to each one and all of them are usually pretty nice. But a mother needs to be on another level so good luck in your search.

Good to see ya back around here as well man.
 
i cant wait to see the pics of this lovely hard work you've done:circle-of-love::thumb::goodjob:
 
Quick post to share something I made the other night. :)

IMG_2374_-_no_EXIF.jpg


6 ounces of dried trim from the first harvest yielded ~6g of what you see above. That largest pile is from the 25 micron bag.
I can't comment on taste yet as my allergies have been bad the last couple weeks. (Apparently hay fever is a real thing and I suffer when the local farmers harvest). I have sampled some when my nose cleared up, and it does taste good, but it's hard to tell. I've been trying to sample the new harvest too, but same results.

As of last night, the last plant is finally hanging to dry. There will be a pause between crops. I haevn't even taken my clones yet. This is due to a couple factors. First, I'm unsure which strains I want to run in the next batch. I've ruled out one for sure, but I'm trying to reduce it down to 2 or 3. I also planned to let the White Widow run a couple weeks longer than the other plants as that strain seems to need to go longer. They started to hermie though, so they got chopped too. I also have some construction to complete, so this delay isn't entirely unwelcome.

I think I ended up washing ~7 plants. I was trying to wash one from each mother, but it really did add a lot of work to my harvest. The jury is still out on whether or not bud washing will become a regular part of my harvest process.

I've been trying to catch up a little on other journals. Work is still busy, but I finally got fed up with it and have stopped working 24/7. I'm salary, but I'm getting paid WAY WAY below market value, so I have no incentive to kill myself for this company anymore. I got a raise recently, but it was so small (it barely made up for the tax changes at the first of the year) it's an insult. In other words, I've grown rather disgruntled, so today I'm playing hooky and posting here while I should be working. :blalol: Hopefully I can get this basement ramped up enough to quit in the next year.

OK I'm done venting about work. haha

Keep em green everyone!
 
sorry for all the short updates lately, but well... :biglaugh:

There are 3 plants still hanging. Once they are all in jars, I'll do a weigh-in. I was jarring more up last night and did weigh one plant to get an idea of the density. Based on that plant, I estimated my total yield, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. I'm pretty sure I will break the 3 lb mark though. It could be quite a bit more (one estimate was nearly 4 lbs), but I doubt it will be under 3 lbs. 3 lbs, or 48 ounces, or 1344 grams would put me close to 1 gpw. I ran 1500W total (2 750's) this round, so if my estimates are close, I should break 1 gpw! :yahoo: I'm pretty excited to have reached this milestone on only the second run. If it's 3lbs exactly, that's 22 gpsf. I prefer that metric, so I'm also happy that I might hit 1 ounce per sqft, but it will take almost all of the 4 lbs to hit that mark. I bet I hit 1 gpsf next round with the third light.

I'll get the last of it jarred up this weekend, so I'll share the actual #s then. I'm also planning to make some more hash this weekend. The more I talk to folks in my area, the more I realize the market is shifting heavily towards concentrates. I'm eager to improve my extraction skills to try and provide patients what they need. :) For now, I'm not going to experiment with any solvent based extractions. I'm still wary about introducing toxic chemicals into my natural medicine. Ice water extraction seems benign to me, so that's where I am starting.

Anyway, I mostly wanted to share my excitement about the harvest estimates. :morenutes:
I'll post some more pictures with the final weights this weekend or next week.
 
Hiker said:
sorry for all the short updates lately, but well... :biglaugh:

There are 3 plants still hanging. Once they are all in jars, I'll do a weigh-in. I was jarring more up last night and did weigh one plant to get an idea of the density. Based on that plant, I estimated my total yield, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. I'm pretty sure I will break the 3 lb mark though. It could be quite a bit more (one estimate was nearly 4 lbs), but I doubt it will be under 3 lbs. 3 lbs, or 48 ounces, or 1344 grams would put me close to 1 gpw. I ran 1500W total (2 750's) this round, so if my estimates are close, I should break 1 gpw! :yahoo: I'm pretty excited to have reached this milestone on only the second run. If it's 3lbs exactly, that's 22 gpsf. I prefer that metric, so I'm also happy that I might hit 1 ounce per sqft, but it will take almost all of the 4 lbs to hit that mark. I bet I hit 1 gpsf next round with the third light.

I'll get the last of it jarred up this weekend, so I'll share the actual #s then. I'm also planning to make some more hash this weekend. The more I talk to folks in my area, the more I realize the market is shifting heavily towards concentrates. I'm eager to improve my extraction skills to try and provide patients what they need. :) For now, I'm not going to experiment with any solvent based extractions. I'm still wary about introducing toxic chemicals into my natural medicine. Ice water extraction seems benign to me, so that's where I am starting.

Anyway, I mostly wanted to share my excitement about the harvest estimates. :morenutes:
I'll post some more pictures with the final weights this weekend or next week.
Click to expand...

Great job Hiker:thumb:

excellent Journal with awesome results, + reps bro


:Namaste:
 
Finally took clones this weekend, so the next crop is decided.

I took clones from 3 strains and 4 mothers. 19 Blueberry, 9 Bubba Kush, 8 and 9 of each of my 2 AK-48 cultivars. I haven't entirely decided which of the AK's I like best, and by taking clones of both, I was able to take all BIG clones. I have lot of Blueberry clones, but they aren't the biggest. Oh well. I made 45 clones and only have 36 buckets to put them in, so some will get culled anyway.

I'm actually not all that impressed with the AK48's smoke. It's strong, but I don't like the flavor too much. I'm attributing it to not as nice a cure on the first round, so hopefully this new batch will taste better. They produce a good size yield though, so that was one of the primary factors. I was leaning towards running my TGA strain, but I'm not happy with the buds from this last crop. I'm not culling the moms, but I'm not gonna run any of that gear for the next crop.

I don't have final weights yet. The last 3 plants are still on the string, but they should be coming down tonight or tomorrow. It got a lot colder and more humid here in the last week, so the buds are drying slower then when I first started harvesting. I'm excited to weigh everything and see where I'm at! :)

FYI, I LOVE 1 gallon jar for curing! I thought the half gallons were nice, but the large jars are great. My plants are only 2-4 ounces, so I can usually fit a whole plant into a single jar.

Someone asked after the previous harvest, so I'm currently burping ~45 jars. I don't have enough 1g jars yet to hold an entire harvest, so I'm still using some smaller jars.

I ordered some Boveda packs, but they haven't arrived yet. I think I'm curing the buds well enough without them though. The stuff from the first harvest smokes real nice now. :) I haven't smoked much of the new harvest because I'm spoiled now. I don't want to smoke buds that aren't fully cured anymore. :blalol: I have sampled some just to see how it came out. I think they smoke better then I remember the first batch smoking right after jarring. Even the AK-48 tastes pretty good (more reason for me to think I may have messed these plants in the first batch).

Speaking of taste, and smells... the Blueberry is, by far, my favorite from this harvest. Everytime I burp one of her jars I make an audible moan they smell so good! She is absolutely living up to her name. There are clear notes of blueberry in the wonderful aroma. :yummy: The smoke is tasty, but not as smooth as the stuff from the first harvest. Yet! I do think it smells better this run. Not just stronger. The aroma has become 'clearer' if you will. I go back and smell the first batch, and you can detect those phenols that give the strain it's name, but they are more pronounced in this new batch.

I haven't done a formal analysis of the high type for this crop yet. I've been pretty baked since harvest (oh so much hash... ), but as soon as the harvest is finalized, I'll do a formal test, ie take notes instead of smoking whatever sounds good that day, of course, with some hash on top. :rofl:

My initial impression is that each strain's high profile is about the same as last time, though. The AK is a real strong body high, couch lock, type of high. While I certainly enjoy that, I also like the more mental highs that allow me to still get things done (other than eating). It's the big yielder though. Although maybe not by much this time. Blueberry might beat it, but I won't know for another day or so after I can crunch my numbers. Hopefully my analysis doesn't make me regret the menu for the next run, but it's set in motion now. :)

The contrast to the AK48's high is one of the things I really like about the TGA, but they didn't yield as well as the AK48 in either run. It's a real nice high though. I've found that it does a good job of making back pain less bothersome without putting me on the couch, so I can still get out and mow the lawn or whatever. In the first round, her buds looked fine. They were, in general, smaller than the others, and this time they were much smaller and fox tailed badly. I'm sure it's just the environment I provided them, but that's the environment I have, so for now, I'm going with the strains that perform best for ME. :)

The Bubba Kush is probably the lowest yielder, but her buds are gorgeous. Nice dense frosty nugs that harvest real easy. She's not a bad yielder, she just doesn't grow as aggressively in veg. I took HUGE clones of her to try and help her yield. The others I will do more topping and training, as I think this strain does not really respond to it as well.

The Blueberry high is a lot like the TGA, but perhaps a little more balanced. She yield as well as all the other strains, except maybe the AK48. You can certainly still get stuff done on her, but pain will certainly go away. This high also feels more 'happy' to me, ie a stronger euphoric effect. She's beautiful too. I'm going to try and get some good bud shots when I weigh everything this week, but the old P&S camera I found has went MIA again. :blalol: I'll do my best with the cell phone.

I'm not growing the Critical this next round either. This plant is about in the middle of yield. She does make nice looking buds! She is always the first to swell, but doesn't really finish earlier (based on trich color) than the other strains. At 4-5 weeks of flower, this strain WILL be every visitors', and growers', favorite plants. The smoke however is only OK. While they have different terpene profiles, the Critical and AK-48 give me the same impression of a rather flat smoke. Again, this plant may not have been cured well. All strains dry at different rates, so perhaps I didn't cure this strain as well. Either way, I chose not to run this strain again. While she looks great during the grow, the AK-48 yields more and looks as good, or better. The Critical does have one interesting characteristic. 2 of the plants in this grow turned very dark purple. What I'm unable to explain is why it was only these 2 plants. They were side by side, but there were other clones of this same mother. I did sample a small bit of it. It smokes the same as the prior harvest of this strain. While the purple color is certainly interesting, I'm not sure I can reproduce it reliably, and there is little else to recommend it. Like the TGA mothers, I'm not culling this one yet. I may try her again in the future, but honestly it's unlikely. She has one last strike against her, she has hermied both times.

Lastly, I'm not growing the White Widow anymore. I haven't culled the mother yet, but I'm considering it! She makes huge buds, but they are also prone to rot if a leaf dies inside a big bud. She also hermies real bad. I've not found any seeds during the trim, so I may have caught them in time. This plant did it last time too without causing seeds. I don't think the male flowers had opened yet. She also never lived up to her name in regards to crystal production. ALL of the other strains look much frostier. I considered doing some breeding with her, but her tendency to hermie will likely see her end up in the compost pile. :blalol:

I don't consider this really a smoke report. After I finish the formalized study I mentioned above, I can post some of those on that forum as well. This is more of a grow report if you will. :biglaugh:



If anyone is still reading after all that rambling...

should I start a new journal or continue this one? Does anyone care? :rofl:

I'm inclined to just keep this one going. I still haven't settled on A mother, but I never will. I'm not sure what I will do yet. This journal isn't done yet. I will still post some final weights
 
Thanks everyone.

I'm not planning to stop journaling entirely. I appreciate all the nice comments. :Namaste:

I'm inclined to continue this journal for one more round at least, so I'll just keep this one going. :)


I did a hash making marathon last night until almost 5AM. I realize my inexperience makes me slower, but ice water extraction is fair amount of work! If the hash is a hit with the patients, and I continue to make it, I'll definitely invest in a machine. I've been using the wooden spoon in the drill technique. It seems to work, but it would be nice to have a machine running while I clean out the bags. Get a little assembly line thing going. I did setup so that my bags were in a bucket with holes in the bottom. This let the wash water just drain away.

I made a makeshift sort of drain for the basement a couple weeks ago. It's just a bucket with a pump that goes into my drain. I've had a hose connected to the drain since the start, but I had no way to pour anything out. All I used the hose for was draining the reservoir. Now I just pour into the drain bucket and turn the pump on. It's not as nice as a floor drain, but it sure is useful for me. I'm kind of shocked it took so many months for me to set it up. :blalol:

So I did 3 batches of trim last night. The first batch was the rest of the bag from the first attempt. This was the real crystally trim from the first harvest. Then I did the ice water agitation on 2 buckets of trim from this harvest. I did the 220 bag once for each of those batches, but drained both of those into the other bags. I only had to do the wash once for those 2 batches. I wanted to keep the trim from the first harvest separate from the trim from the new harvest, but the second 2 batches were the same trim from a mix of plants. I still have several more small batches to do. I have the trim from the cleaned plants as well as a few bags of trim from individual plants/strains. I might end up combing them into just clean/dirty. Some of this trim was also put into a freezer bag and frozen fresh, so I will also be experimenting with that aspect of this process. I also have some less frosty trim I may, or may not, try running through the bags. I'm more inclined to make that into butter.

Still no weights. I'm holding off posting pics until I can share the "pile o buds" pics. I did take a couple days off trimming during the harvest, so these last 3 plants I'm waiting on were a few days fresher than the others. They were also in dark for almost all of the 72 hours or so before getting harvested. I had turned off the flood and drain cycles a few days before clipping them too. I'm not sure if any of that is impacting how fast they dry. Mostly I think it's because a storm came through that brought cold temps and rain. The humidity in the basement is still only around 60, 62 is the highest I've observed even with spilled water on the floor. The plants are drying great. Just slowly. I'd like to get them off the line and into jars, so I can resume construction activities down there, but I don't want to jar them too wet either.

The clones look fine. I won't even bother looking for roots until 7 days. So far they look almost unchanged. I had expected some of the larger ones to wither, but they look great. I think I'm seeing some yellowing on a couple leaves, so that's a good sign. Before I started cloning this way, where you can see the root development, my sign that a clone was finally taking was the yellowing of the leaves. I believe this happens because the plant sort of deconstructs the leaf to get the materials to build roots. They are sitting on my little work area down there, so I'll take a picture when I move them to weigh everything.


Thanks for sticking around. There WILL be bud porn coming soon!
 
thank you, but you already have the skills my friend :Namaste:


This is literally a quickie update as work has be hopping this morning, but I wanted to share...

We were out of town all weekend, but Friday night was able to weigh all my gallon jars. The total was just shy of 1500 grams! I still have some other jars, a few half gallons and a bunch of quarts, to weight, so I'm certain I'll break 1500 grams.

Now why does that matter? Well because I ran 2 750W HPS bulbs this round.

Yep... I yielded over 1 gpw! :yahoo: :party: :morenutes: :yummy:

Please understand this is not any kind of boasting or bragging. I'm just really excited/proud to have reached this milestone on only the second run! :high-five:
 
Congrats on hitting the gram per watt mark Hiker!
You should be very proud, especially nailing it on the second run.
That's gotta feel good bro!
reps for you.
:bravo:
 
the quickest update ever...

Final weight was 2057g = 73.5oz = 4.59 lb :)
That's 1500w in ~5.5' x 10' space. :yahoo:

that includes some smaller stuff, as I will eventually sort out the 'top shelf' nuggs.

One note... I think Boveda packs are adding weight, but I'm running a test to confirm. I don't have enough packs for all my jars, so I swapped one and have before weights for both jars. I'll check in a few days.

oh ya... in case you didn't do the math, I think that's 1.37+ grams per watt. :)
 
Again, congrats.
 

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