Celt’s 2020 Grows

[The Celt]

Hey all, it’s been years since I bothered much on here but have been advancing my grow skills during that time.

Recently I harvested 4 Blue Dream plants that I used GA3 to produce seed. All 4 plants were clones from the same mother so that would make the seeds BX1 feminized.

On Jan 11th, I put 20 of theses seed in wet paper towel and 10 had sprouted within 12 hrs and 19 have sprouted over all.

18 of these will go into my 4x8 tent with 2 - 630w DE CMH lights, each in a 14 gallon fabric pot with my home brewed organic potting mix. I will add pictures as the grow progresses.

Along with the big tent, I also have a 32” square tent with a DIY 430w 3200k LED. This tent will have a Pinapple Chunk put in it for seeds production. The plant was a gift from a co-worker and friend who was down to his last 5 seeds last spring. As it was his favourite strain, I told him I would do what I could to produce more seed.

That’s the plan for this grow.

RC

 

[MrGreene]

I'm looking forward to seeing how you've set it up to take care of itself while you're away.

 

[The Celt]

My seedlings are just a week old so it will be a bit before they reach the big tent, when they do, I’ll post pictures of my setup.

I am in the midst of renovating this old house to make it livable and assessable for my other half when she gets home from hospital/rehab. As such, the house looks like a disaster zone lol and it will be a couple weeks before the girls get repotted into the bigger pots and move into their new home.

 

[The Celt]

Question to my Canuck friends...now that it is legal here in Canada, has 420’s policy on Canadian members being able to share things other than knowledge, or are will still bound by US laws as this is a US based forum?

 

[The Celt]

Oh and @MrGreene, as I make a potent organic soilless mix, a reliable watering system was my biggest challenge while being on the road once I invested in a proper tent, CMH lights and good ventilation system for it all.

 

[The Celt]

@Weaselcracker I see you are still active mate, maybe I will catch up with you in the near future.

I too have started growing PC and would be good to chat with you about it

 

[The Celt]

Good day all,

Not really an update yet, more just some pics of what I am using and planning.

First off, Feminized Blue Dream from the last grow in the seed tent, same seed I am using for the grow in the 4x8 in the near future. Of these, I put a total of 26 in wet paper towel to sprout. Of the 1st 20,
10 sprouted in 18 hrs. Of them all, 25 sprouted but I killed 2 (whoops) and 2 more are iffy in my mind. I will use the best 18 for the tent.

There are 1520 seeds in that jar and I still have about a 1/3 of the bud to sort through. I am basically using a drysift to sort the seed, rolling it over 150 mesh SS screen and saving the sift and busted bud to make oil.

Next is the seed tent with a Pineapple Chunk that tomorrow will start her GA3 treatment before going into flower and producing seed for me.

The second picture was just to show the wattage of light I am using.

And last but not least, I mentioned having set up my grows to be self sufficient when I am away for extended periods due to work. This all starts with the soil, so I decided to include my soil making as part of this journal. This mix will give you between 90 and 100 gallons of high test canna soil and is all organic except for the potassium, still using up the potassium nitrate I bought 5 years ago. Once that is used up, I will replace the potassium with sunflower seeds for fully organic soil.

So without further delay, the first step is a 25kg (55lb) bag of alfalfa pellets, pour them into your mixing tray and add 10-15 gallons of water to swell them and allow you to break them up into more of a meal as pictured below.

Be for warned, these are going to smell similar to silage or cow shit as the soil cooks. For some of us, excluding my other half, it smell of potential and natural. Others, just smell cow shit lol.

That’s it for today, won’t be adding anymore to the mix until tomorrow.

RC

 

[The Celt]

Good day all,

As promised, today I start the process of self pollination of my 1 remaining Pineapple Chunk using gibberellic acid.

Note: for those that don’t know, gibberellic acid (GA3) is a natural plant hormone (gibberellin). It has many functions in plant growth but the one that concerns us in this process is gender expression. Depending on the concentration, it can cause male flowers on a female plant, turn male flowers into female flowers or prevent flowering all together. It’s is also safe for human consumption (within reason), it is what produce growers use to produce “seedless” fruits.

To produce pollen sacs on a female plant, we want a concentration of 100 - 200 ppm, at this concentration, it blocks the production of ethylene (another hormone) required to produce female flowers.

10g package of GA3

Mixing:

I aim for a concentration of between 150 and 180 ppm which means I need to dissolve 150 to 180 mg per litre of water (distilled), but first it needs to be dissolved into alcohol as it does not ready dissolve well in water.

As it requires very little spray to initiate the change, I only mix 500ml at a time.

0.08g or 80mg GA3

As you can see, 80 mg is not much sitting on a paper beside a 10ml bottle.

After weighing, add the powder to 5 - 10ml of isopropyl or ethanol and shake. It will dissolve slowly, mine took about an hour as my iso is kept in the freezer. Add this to 500ml of distilled water and shake to thoroughly mix. You now have 500ml of 160ppm GA3 solution.

You will only use about 30ml of this solution but not sure yet how well it keeps, can’t find a definitive answer, but I still have the last batch I mixed and will be using it on a few tops to see if it is still active.

IMPORTANT: store in the fridge in a dark container, light and heat does degrade GA3 solutions.

That was the hard part of the process, next, the easy part -

Using GA3 to promote male flowers and self pollination

- pick and mark the tops you want to convert - those tops will stretch madly so pick shorter tops if able
- for 5 consecutive days, spray the marked tops LIGHTLY - do not drench
- after the 5 days, switch to your flowering schedule

Pretty simple really, just keep in mind that GA3 causes major stretching in the tops it is applied to.

Within 2 wks, you should start to see pollen sacs form and they will continue to form on the sprayed tops throughout flowering. You will also have female flowers and seeds develop on those tops, but the sacs will only form on the tops sprayed.

Just as an aside about the other uses of GA3 that may be of interest to other growers:

GA3 solutions can also break dormancy in old seed or hard to sprout seed.

Use a concentration of 500ppm and soak the seed for about 12hrs in the solution, if they are still viable, this will break the dormancy, just remember GA3 causes massive stretch, even in seedlings. Be prepared to support the young stems and when repotting, sink them deeper and cover much of the stem.

RC

 

[The Celt]

Quick update on the Pineapple Chunk seed production.

After 5 consecutive days of GA3 treatment, today was her 1st day of 12/12 and this is what she looks like going into flower.

 

[Weaselcracker]

 

[Modest Grower]

Great info! I'll follow along

 

[Big juice]

Just what I'm looking for! Awesome bro looking forward to this

 

[Modest Grower]

Just ordered GA3. I'm going to use your journal as a guide. Thanks!

 

[The Celt]

Morning all,

Back to the soil that allows me to be an absent grower.

The rest of the recipe -

After the alfalfa is swelled and broken up, mix in a bale of peat. Once well mixed, add 1.5 gal of hydrated lime, 15 cups blood meal, 1.5 cups bone meal, 2 cups DE, 1 cup kelp meal, 1.5 gallons Epsom salt and 3/4 cup of potassium nitrate.

Mix this all in well and then add another bale of peat and 2 cuft of black earth (actually black peat) and mix again until it all appears the same colour.

After it is uniform looking, add 20 gallons of water and let sit over night. The next day, turn the mix over with a garden fork and leave cook for 2 wks or more. You may find you need to add more water when mixing the second day if the mix looks too dry.

This mix will yield about 120+ gallons of soil before adding perlite, I add about 20% perlite to this after it has cooked for a few weeks.

Like I said previously, once I use up the potassium nitrate I have, it will get replaced with ground and rotted sunflower seed which will change the bloodmeal and bonemeal requirements.

This mix has enough nutrients in it to grow about 6kg (13 lbs) of dry bud.

Mixed soil

OK, now for a picture update of the Pineapple Chunk after GA3 treatment and 1 week into flower.

As can be seen, there are 3 pale tops on the left and 3 pale tops on the right. These are the tops that were treated with GA3 and it appears that although the tops on the left are stretching, they are behind the ones on the right. This leads me to believe that the GA3 solution does indeed degrade over time but can be kept more than a week in the fridge.

Time will tell but I think it will pay to make a fresh batch every time.

RC

 

[The Celt]

Morning all,

Just a quite update on the Blue Dream girls. I just moved them into the big tent under one 630w CMH raised to maximum height. They will continue to bask under this light until I feel they are ready to up-pot. I am in no hurry as I am busy renovating the house and still have to finish building the 14 gallon pots they will go into.

 

[The Celt]

Morning all,

Just a quick update, we are now into day 8 of flower for the PC in the seed tent. She is starting to drink more water, wanting about 2L a day whereas in veg, 2L would do her for 3 days or more.

Here is what she looks like this morning, the treated tops are really coming on strong and outpacing the stretch of the untreated tops.

Again, the pale tops are the treated ones and were all lower on the plant before treatment.

As can be seen in the next picture she has already started to form pollen sacs on the treated tops, sorry for the quality but I shake so closeups are hard to get clear.

If you look centre and slightly left, you will see a pollen sacs starting to form.

RC

 

[The Celt]

Well just a quick update on the soil.

It’s is well into cooking now, I was just down to check on it and took some temperature readings.

The trays I mix in are on a concrete floor. I turned over some soil in the other tub that has reamended soil and been cooked for months as that would let me know what the ambient temperature was. The soil was at 9.6 C ( 50 F).

I did the same to the new batch, turning it over so I could get an internal temperature. The new batch is at 37.6 C (100 F).

There is a reason why it’s referred to as cooking, it gets hot enough to ‘cook’ the roots of your plants. Aside from the heat hurting plants, during this process, bacteria and other little critters living in our soil break down the organic matter making the nutrients available to our plants and at this stage they use a lot of nitrogen depriving your plants of an essential nutrient.

Most will cook their soil for a minimum of a month, which is good practice, the longer it sits, the more nutrients our soil microbes make available for plant uptake. If you are late making your soil, or in a hurry like I am this grow, as soon as the soil is cool to the touch, internal temperatures, then it is safe to use.

Before I up pot, this batch of soil will be amended with 20-25% perIlte and then mixed with the reamended soil for 2 reasons:

1st - this batch may not be cooled enough when I am ready

2nd - and just as important, the old reamended soil has a wealth of mycorrhizae spore and other beneficial microbes from previous grows.

If you are an organic grower, never throw away your old soils, re-amend it and add it to new soils.

As the soil ages through multiple grows, and the organic matter decays, the CEC goes up. In layman’s terms, a smaller pot of soil will hold more nutrients.

On top of gaining more nutrient capacity, all the microbes that have been spawned, bred and died, continue to do so and act as an inoculant to the new soil. This includes mycorrhizae, when the roots from the last plant die, so to does the mycorrhizae, but they form spores that become the next generation and infect the next generation of plant roots they encounter giving the plants extended feeding reach.

RC

 

[The Celt]

Ok, I know I did an update yesterday and really hadn’t planned to update again till next week but the PC got tied down this morning and after seeing a number of posts elsewhere about lights, I thought I would take readings on mine and share.

First the PC including Lux readings at canopy level and at 6” below the light. For those that do not know what Lux is, it is a measure of lumens per square meter.

Had to tie her down, the treated branches were out pacing the untreated and the tent is not tall enough for too tall a plant. Not to mention they still have another week of stretch, after which they are likely to be tied down again and some defoliation taking place.

6 inches from the light, 35000 Lux (number is x10)

At canopy level, 13000 Lux and the reason LEDs need to be kept close to the tops in flower. In 18 inches, light levels dropped over 30000 lumens per meter squared.

Next up, the BD girls under a 630w 3000k CMH, they are loving the light and taking off. 18 of these girls will become the next crop in this tent.

And light level at canopy level, about 6” above the floor.

20000 Lux and that’s about 5’6” below the light, CMH have great power for the draw. I had hoped to get a reading 12” below the light, the height I keep it above the canopy during flower, but my light meter maxed out at 40000 about 30 inches below the light.

Ok, that’s it for today, unless something I feel worthy happens, there won’t be another update until the PC girl finishes her stretch.

RC

 

[The Celt]

Morning all,

While showering this morning and mind going in 10 different directions at once as per usual, one of the thought tracks was about my current grow and plans for it. That lead to me thinking I should include a history of why Blue Dream was my first successful attempt at self crossing cannabis.

For those of you that knew me when I was here before, during my first grow, when I left, I had taken a position that kept me on the road much of the year for the first 2 years with the company. I averaged 3 days a month home which meant no time to tend plants and my spouse and father (who was still with us then but has since passed on) were both “black thumbs” and could kill a cactus. They drowned $300 worth of seed and seedlings my first trip away.

Those 1st 2 years, the only bud I had was whatever I could let go wild outside, the only indoor grows were the winter of the 2nd year when we had finished in Alberta and another foreman and myself told the higher ups that if they took on out-of-province contracts, we were done.

Then the 3rd year, as the company was growing, the need arose for an manager to oversee field operations and as a go-between from office to field. I was offered and took the position thinking I would have more free time. You know what they say about “best laid plans”, I found I had even less time than before, but I was home most nights and could grow in and outside.

All the time away and very little time for tending plants, lead to refining my organic super soil to be a water only start to finish grow. Next I had to devise an automatic watering system for the times that I was away for 4 and 5 days. Will we get into the watering system later, but for now, the original setup worked well but I didn’t like it and am now waiting on parts, coming on the slow boat from China, to make a better system.

OK, back to the Blue Dream. About 18 months ago, I grew out 4 Humboldt Blue Dream in a 3x3 box stand I had made using the LED in my current seed tent. Of those 4, there were 3 phenotypes. One was very Indica dominant, 2 were 50/50 and 1 was very Sativa dominate. I took cuttings of the 50/50 and Sativa dominate phenos in hopes I could get mothers. Only the 50/50 cutting took.

After drying and curing the bud, kept the phenotypes separated, the Sativa dominate bud was amazing, smell taste etc. Even growing the Sativa ad a sweeter smell. I have kept that one 50/50 cutting going since, as it was a great smoke as well, in hopes I could self cross her.

That self crossing took place, with 4 cuttings, in what became the seed tent (i’ve Invested in 2 tents and 2 CMH lights in the past year) under the DIY LED, last nov/dec with harvest in January. Those are the seeds pictured above.

It has been my hope, ever since that first BD grow, to find another Sativa dominate phenotype and hopefully this grow with 18 plants, I will get one again. Fingers crossed

As for the watering system, @Modest grower, I know you have been waiting to see how I set it up but you are going to have to wait a bit yet. I still have to finish building the pots for that tent and still waiting on parts for the permanent setup. When they come in, I will take pictures as I build and explain it. Once setup and pots in place, you won’t be able to see most of the system.

OK, enough rambling from me, time to go check out any new posts in the threads I am following.

RC

 

[GardeningGnome]

Good day all,

As promised, today I start the process of self pollination of my 1 remaining Pineapple Chunk using gibberellic acid.

Note: for those that don’t know, gibberellic acid (GA3) is a natural plant hormone (gibberellin). It has many functions in plant growth but the one that concerns us in this process is gender expression. Depending on the concentration, it can cause male flowers on a female plant, turn male flowers into female flowers or prevent flowering all together. It’s is also safe for human consumption (within reason), it is what produce growers use to produce “seedless” fruits.

To produce pollen sacs on a female plant, we want a concentration of 100 - 200 ppm, at this concentration, it blocks the production of ethylene (another hormone) required to produce female flowers.

10g package of GA3

Mixing:

I aim for a concentration of between 150 and 180 ppm which means I need to dissolve 150 to 180 mg per litre of water (distilled), but first it needs to be dissolved into alcohol as it does not ready dissolve well in water.

As it requires very little spray to initiate the change, I only mix 500ml at a time.

0.08g or 80mg GA3

As you can see, 80 mg is not much sitting on a paper beside a 10ml bottle.

After weighing, add the powder to 5 - 10ml of isopropyl or ethanol and shake. It will dissolve slowly, mine took about an hour as my iso is kept in the freezer. Add this to 500ml of distilled water and shake to thoroughly mix. You now have 500ml of 160ppm GA3 solution.

You will only use about 30ml of this solution but not sure yet how well it keeps, can’t find a definitive answer, but I still have the last batch I mixed and will be using it on a few tops to see if it is still active.

IMPORTANT: store in the fridge in a dark container, light and heat does degrade GA3 solutions.

That was the hard part of the process, next, the easy part -

Using GA3 to promote male flowers and self pollination

- pick and mark the tops you want to convert - those tops will stretch madly so pick shorter tops if able
- for 5 consecutive days, spray the marked tops LIGHTLY - do not drench
- after the 5 days, switch to your flowering schedule

Pretty simple really, just keep in mind that GA3 causes major stretching in the tops it is applied to.

Within 2 wks, you should start to see pollen sacs form and they will continue to form on the sprayed tops throughout flowering. You will also have female flowers and seeds develop on those tops, but the sacs will only form on the tops sprayed.

Just as an aside about the other uses of GA3 that may be of interest to other growers:

GA3 solutions can also break dormancy in old seed or hard to sprout seed.

Use a concentration of 500ppm and soak the seed for about 12hrs in the solution, if they are still viable, this will break the dormancy, just remember GA3 causes massive stretch, even in seedlings. Be prepared to support the young stems and when repotting, sink them deeper and cover much of the stem.

RC

Thanks a million for this guide. Will be trying it out myself in the future.
Again, kudos to you @The Celt !