March 2016 - Daveabides The Quantum Kush Quest For 30% - Soil - T5/HPS

[thedaveabides]

WELCOME BACK!!​

We're very excited to be making final preparations for beginning the next grow. I say "we" because I have a partner you all have yet to meet; we may drag him out here into the light this time around ​

We're growing Quantum Kush from seed this run. We're using unmodified seeds so we'll be watching for gentlemen among the ladies, but we'll also be enjoying the easy breezy training of even nodes so I feel like it's a good trade =).

Quantum Kush is the love child of Sweet Irish Kush (one of the best flavors I've ever tasted) and Timewreck. I was treated to some locally grown Quantum Kush for Christmas this year that labbed over 30% and was exquisite. We are very excited about this. Below are a couple pictures of a bud from the line we are growing. ​

We're dealing with a couple of placement issues still, but should be ready to get everything under lights by the first of March (possibly sooner) so keep an eye out for updates to this journal and get ready to roll it up, light up and smoke it up while we journey down the road to 30%.​

 

[thedaveabides]

Spring has sprung!
The beans have been cracked; we were able to germinate 8 of 10 but lost 1 of the 8 ​

At this point,I'm undecided/unsure of when I want to pull them out of my little germination box and get them under the larger lights
I'd be grateful for any advice from seed growers. I've little experience with beans. Thanks

 

[Stinky Snid]

OK... Now! Here we grow... Have fun with this, and good luck buddy.

KiG I'll be watching as they grow. Thanks for journaling.

 

[thedaveabides]

I'm back! Sorry for the lack of updates. These ladies weren't at my place until a couple of days ago and when they came over, they got a little upset so I've been busy trying to nurse them along. They've gotten haircuts and are working on their stretching exercises, seemingly adjusting well now that they're settling in. Please do take a look at the pics where evidence of the transplant/moving shock can be seen. I welcome any words of advice for getting the ladies comfy in their new spot and supporting their full recovery.

I'll post today's pics as well as a few that I failed to put up along the way.

03/18/2016 - 17 Days

 

[thedaveabides]

03/25/16 - 24 Days

Battling low humidity

And some Ca- it looks like.

 

[Light Addict]

Subbed for this one!

 

[thedaveabides]

03/31/2016 - 30 Days

I could not get that first photo to reorient to save my life, but I used it anyway because it still manages to illustrate the state of the plants.

It looks at this point like it's getting a little tight in there and the soil isn't likely offering much to the plant anymore.

So this happened. And my friend Mycos came along.

 

[thedaveabides]

04/01/16 - 31 Days

These pics are less than 24 hours after transplanting and while they are clearly struggling, I was impressed nonetheless with the immediately observable improvement.

Ouch! Poor babies

 

[thedaveabides]

04/02/16 - 32 Days

Another day, another exciting bit of recovery. Other than the leaf discoloration that I expect not to go away (in my experience it usually never does once the damage is done), they are approaching 'normal' looking. It's astonishing what each day can yield in terms of new growth and healing I felt they were coming along nicely and gave them their first regular feeding at this point (they have had a few things along the way but no full strength or regularly fed nutes).

Standing up straighter, looking a bit happier.(above)

But then there was still this. (below)

I only found this on those two leaves, which happened to be opposing fan leaves at the same node. Does this scream P- to anyone else? At the house they came from, they were getting tap water through a pretty brawny filter (for the chlorine) whereas at my place, I start with unfiltered tap, add nutes, etc then PH and go. Perhaps the difference has created a Ph issue at the root zone? Or maybe I just waited too long to start feeding? Either way, I pulled em to be on the safe side and we'll just keep moving along

 

[thedaveabides]

04/03/16 - 33 Days
Finally caught up!

Today I felt like the girls are looking healthy enough to start the training I wish I had started 2 weeks ago but couldn't due to some slow root and stem development. Enough about yesterday's failures, though, and onto today's progress. I did some topping and LST work this morning and got a few pics. The lights went out about 2 hours after I finished and will come on again in another few hours. At that point, I'll check on things and grab another group pic.

This cluttered mess needs cleaned up.

All cleaned up and stretched out, drinking up that light and reaching for the sky.

Note that I trimmed more off a few and less off the other few. I also varied a little bit in how I tied them and how far I stretched them. I'd like to study closely how (if at all) the small differences in method affect the outcome. Soothsayers are welcome to join the after-discussion in advance - if you were super stoned when you read that, sorry for the brain explosion.

 

[thedaveabides]

04/09/16 39 Days

Topping and training is turning out nicely. They're getting some beefy arms going which I'm hoping will support large colas au naturel instead of putting a bunch of nonsense in there to support them. Another small success - after some wrestling, my soil ph is finally right where it should be and, go figure, the lush color came back to the leaves.

 

[Light Addict]

Dang nice turnaround my friend

 

[thedaveabides]

04/16/16 - 47 Days

Another update from the fortress of solitude - the canopy is threatening to fill up the grow space in the very near future I'm setting up my second 4x4 this evening and moving the 'experimental plant' into that one along with some clones. This will leave the 6 lower, bushier plants in the main tent to continue the course. The other gal, the one that I am topping super aggressively and torturing with training is going into the other tent alone (other than the lil clone dome) so that I can balance the abuse with a sexy dose of light all to herself, bigger pot for mega roots and whatever else I can entice her with, like

​

I got to thinking: this is my daily work and there are no limits or boundaries on how I do my daily work. I need to not be afraid to leap out of the boat and test the waters, so this second tent is going to be that water. Keep an eye out for pics from "Tent 51" and if it looks like I'm drowning in there, throw me a line!

​

 

[thedaveabides]

4/21/16 aka Day 52

We're 52 days into what's normally a 57 day veg but then we're usually counting from the planting of a rooted clone. This time around, we're counting days from seed which really elongated the process.

Tent 51 is struggling with it's 1 plant that I have no pictures of (the lazy's bit me ) but suffice it to say that the issue is low humidity and hi temp. The tent out in the garage is easier to manage humidity in, even with the extreme temp swings out there =P

The garage tent is booming. A couple of the ladies are trying to go all Kareem Abdul Jabar on me so I'm gonna get even more aggressive with the topping; I'm loving the canopy uniformity and high population of bud sites that is resulting. I was a bit nervous when I decided to unshackle my trimmers and go nuts, truly expecting to kill a couple, but they are loving the abuse......they must have some issues, but we love them anyway

 

[thedaveabides]

4/22/16 - Day 52

Quick photo update

Things were looking a little weak at this point but it gets worse a few days ahead. I can't seem to find the pictures now but I started to see a lot of "the claw" along with some really dark 'plastic looking' green leaves which screams nitrogen rich to me.....except that I also ended up with a bunch of plain-as-day phosphorus deficiency (the dark edge-in spots, etc). It's really rare (in my experience) to see N+ in the veg phase unless you've really overfed and then you see P+ and maybe K+ as well as other issues. I've NEVER seen N+ along with anything- .......Have I lost my mind? Am I imagining things? Has the plant world been turned on it's head?
One thing I know about nitrogen issues is that too much and too little can show identical symptoms; it's no cookie cutter. I got to thinking, maybe this is N- and the issue is that these plants are outpacing my feedings, but at the same time I was wanting to be cautious about giving a toxic load of nutes to a young plant SOOOOOOOOOOO.........I did the thing everyone tells me not to do and ignored all the guides, all the books, all the forums and all the chattering voices and followed my gut. My gut said to give them a light florakleen flush, wait a day and pound em out with raw unadjusted (pH) tap water. Here's what happened....

**I mistakenly marked the post before this one as 4/22 - Day 52 but it should have been 4/21 - Day 51

 

[Canna Montana]

Have you tried boomerang? We had a plant that was not doing well at all. Gave her a watering with boomerang and she bounced right back. May be just what you need for them to get that natural glow back.

 

[thedaveabides]

04/27/16 - Day 57

On 4/26 I pushed 2 gallons of unadjusted tap water through each of the pots and the next morning I woke up to this:

They jumped right to life and look at all that new growth around the outside of the canopy! Now we wait for them to drink up that water while we reassess the feeding regimen. After this harvest, we're departing from the nutrient line I have used faithfully since I was a teenager and broadening our horizons with the finest foods stoned science farmers have to offer

 

[thedaveabides]

I haven't used Boomerang yet which is funny because I have been an avid Foxfarm user for 20 years =P
I've always meant to keep some Boomerang "Comeback" on the shelf for these instances...now I will =D

 

[Canna Montana]

It's a miracle worker for sick girls. We swear by it when it's needed

 

[thedaveabides]

04/28/16 - Day 58

Here, they've drank up the water and are getting a little pissed off again (this droop is about 8 hours into the day cycle) but this time we can be fairly certain it's because they've been so heavily flushed and are starving for some foods. At this point, I've remapped my feeding schedule a bit and I'm about to give them a big shot of the new formula <there should be an emoji here but some jerk forgot to code me a mad scientist laughing maniacally>

Should me calculations prove more meaningful than scribble on paper (which is what they are accused of being lol) we should see a nice response in a day or two. Let's all hold our breath!