Dusted White Widow Hydroponic Grow

[Dusted]

Day 40
Switched to 12/12
As you can see below have one of each phenotype. Short fat leaves and thiner longer leaves. The thin leafed one is much more stretchy so I may end up having to snap stems to keep the height similar to the fat leafed one. I probably should buy a scrog net.
These pictures were taken just after the light came on. You can see the slight yellow of the new growth. I found my optimum N concentration by measuring how long it took for the yellow to turn to dark green. When there is not enough N it took up to 4 hrs to fully green. At the concentration I now use they green up in 20 min.
They are going through 4 L of water a day so the solution is changed out weekly. No significant fungal growth on the stems but I have to keep an eye on them.

 

[Dusted]

Day 43/3
This is where we start to see explosive growth. They are growing about 2.5 cm per day. Right now the plants are 50 cm high.
On the stretchy plant I had to bundle up the lower stems in a big loop of string to bring the growing shoots closer to the light since they had started growing horizontally.
Found a couple of patches of stem rot which had to be sprayed with peroxide.
I won't be topping anymore and I don't defoliate unless a leaf has turned yellow and dried. I figure it's like buying a combo solar panel/battery for your house, then unplugging it from your system just when you need it the most. I tried defoliation and found that the growing shoots off stems that have the fan leaf removed didn't keep up to the shoots on non defoliated stems. Oh well, personal choice.
Changed out the nutrients today. I reduced the amount of 0-9-6, since I was noticing a slight K or P toxicity due to the large amounts of 0-0-4 (pH 10+ potassium silicate) neutralized with phosphoric acid I have been using. In general I have found you only need 65% of manufacturers recommended nutrient concentration.

 

[Purkle]

Day 43/3
This is where we start to see explosive growth. They are growing about 2.5 cm per day. Right now the plants are 50 cm high.
On the stretchy plant I had to bundle up the lower stems in a big loop of string to bring the growing shoots closer to the light since they had started growing horizontally.
Found a couple of patches of stem rot which had to be sprayed with peroxide.
I won't be topping anymore and I don't defoliate unless a leaf has turned yellow and dried. I figure it's like buying a combo solar panel/battery for your house, then unplugging it from your system just when you need it the most. I tried defoliation and found that the growing shoots off stems that have the fan leaf removed didn't keep up to the shoots on non defoliated stems. Oh well, personal choice.
Changed out the nutrients today. I reduced the amount of 0-9-6, since I was noticing a slight K or P toxicity due to the large amounts of 0-0-4 (pH 10+ potassium silicate) neutralized with phosphoric acid I have been using. In general I have found you only need 65% of manufacturers recommended nutrient concentration.

Looking bushy! .️

 

[Dusted]

Day 48/8
Stretchy has decided to take over. I guess she doesn't want to share.
No strong flower development yet. Last grow they started showing strong flowering by day 7. It must be all of topping they got this time.
Growth is about 5 cm per day on the big one.

 

[Dusted]

Day 52/12
Strong flower development has started. The stretchy plant is now about twice as tall as the other so the short one isn't getting as much light and is falling further behind. I will have to tie up the branches again in the next few days so they don't spread out too much and will support the cola's.

 

[Dusted]

Day 59/19
Still haven't tied up the side branches. She seems to have almost finished stretching. Adding 5 L water per day to reservoir.
Plant height is about 115 cm.

 

[Dusted]

Day 63/23
Got around to tying them up. Had to add a support stake for the central cola, and to stop the whole plant from falling over.
It's strange that she wants a single dominant apex shoot even though I topped quite a few times.
The apex cola is too close to the light (12"), but she is tough, and I want lots of light on the rest of the canopy.
Apex cola is 125 cm tall and the canopy is at 105 cm.
The small one is doing OK but doesn't get enough light to really do well.

Just got a 150mm f/2.8 macro lens (really big and heavy), which I'm still learning to use. Didn't include any pics from it yet, since the ones I took didn't have enough depth of field. I will have to mount it on the tripod and fiddle with the aperture settings. Next I will need to purchase some 10x diopters for it. My existing ones are too small.

Here are todays shots.

 

[Dusted]

Day 67/27
Flowers are filling out. The room is starting to develop a sweetish berry odour on top of the skunk.
Can anybody else smell a distinct odour within minutes of the lights going out for the night? My buddy can't smell it at all. It's almost like cut grass, but greener. I know green isn't an odour but it can be for me, just like smoking coke tastes purple.
The buds are starting to get some mass so I will have to add another loop of string to support them.
I don't think I'm going to switch to high pressure sodium this time. It's just my feeling the HPS causes fluffier buds than the MH. The HPS also doesn't have as much UV as the MH, which may help increase resin production.
Still using peak nutrient levels but will be starting to cut back the N, K, and Si next change.
I will have to get a black fabric of some sort to put on the wall behind the plants during photography to try and cut down on the background glare.

 

[Dusted]

Day 71/31
HEARTBREAK
I go to say good morning to my favourite female, only to find all one cubic metre or her collapsed on the floor. The stake I had taped to the side of the bucket had broken loose. This stake was strategically holding up the entire plant. After 3 hrs of anguish and trying various methods of lifting her off the floor, I finally got crazy with tape, new stakes and string. I eventually got most of the cola stems upright. Only broke one stem at about 8" from the top. Tied it up and it should be OK.
Shorty didn't fair so well. She took a lot of the fall damage when stretch went down. Broke three stems which will be hard to fix. Oh well, she certainly was not spectacular.

The damage

 

[Dusted]

Day 77/37
She seems to have recovered fairly well from the spill, but still wants to tip over even with 4 stakes. I had to add an extra ski pole to the support mix. I just wan't ready for the size of the plant after topping so many times. I may have to go back to single cola plants and just grow more of them. They have screwed with the forum again and I can't find how to add to photos anymore. Maybe the following will work, or not. Can't even preview. Geeze. If it's not broke then don't fix it.

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• Dusted
• Feb 21, 2018

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• Dusted
• Feb 21, 2018

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• Dusted
• Feb 21, 2018

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• Dusted
• Feb 21, 2018

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• Dusted
• Feb 21, 2018

 

[Dusted]

Day 84/44
Not much new with just over two weeks till harvest. Or longer. Hopefully she doesn't topple again before harvest.
Got a new camera and lenses. Great fun. Expensive stuff is way better than cheap stuff.
I guess the new forum had to be done, but it's hard for an old guy to figure out how to make all the changes work.

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• Dusted
• Feb 28, 2018

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• Feb 28, 2018

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• Dusted
• Feb 28, 2018

 

[Dusted]

Day 92/52
I will be starting the flush this weekend with tap water. It will be neutralized with phosphoric acid so there will still be some bloom nutrient present. The main cola is finally starting to show some browning but is behind the other cola's for colour. It looks like the trichomes are still clear so there is a while to go. The small plant only has tiny flowers but they look very tasty. Haven't included any pics of her since the other is way more impressive.

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• Dusted
• Mar 8, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 8, 2018

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• Mar 8, 2018

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• Mar 8, 2018

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• Mar 8, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 8, 2018

 

[Dusted]

Day 98/58
Day 3 of flushing. Fan leaves are starting to claw and single leaves canoeing. Petioles are also staring to purple. Still getting a few new pistils but for the most part they are brown but not too shrivelled yet.
Trichomes still appear clear but may be starting to cloud. I will have to get the macro lens out and check a bit closer.

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• Dusted
• Mar 14, 2018

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• Mar 14, 2018

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• Mar 14, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 14, 2018

 

[Dusted]

Day 101/61
Six days of flushing so the lower fans turned yellow and were removed. Turned out to be a lot of leaves once I got into the middle of the plant. I think I will remove the rest tomorrow since the trichomes are getting close. I want to have the plant scavenge the single leaves within the buds so they brown instead of staying dark green. I very seldom smoke pot in my pipe anymore so the burn quality isn't that important, but if I take some to friends, and roll a joint, I want it to be tasty. The buds are getting so heavy that if they are leaning over too far they snap. I have had several do that so I'm tying up as many as I can. When the bud snaps I simply leave it where it hangs and it continues growing fine.

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• Dusted
• Mar 17, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 17, 2018

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• Mar 17, 2018

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• Mar 17, 2018

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• Mar 17, 2018

 

[Dusted]

Day 103/63
I got the macro lens out to see what the trichomes were doing. Still mostly clear. There are some amber trichomes on areas of minor damage. Still a few days away from harvest. More leaves have been removed. Any new growth (very little) is a very light green compared to the dark around them. When you get the light refraction right, the buds are getting quite sparkly.

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• Dusted
• Mar 19, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 19, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 19, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 19, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 19, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 19, 2018

 

[Dusted]

Day 105/65
Geeze it's agonizing waiting for the buds to finish off. The have looked mature for a week but are still pumping out resin. I got bored and removed all the popcorn from the lower branches. Ended up with about 1.5 oz from that. I will probably tackle the small plant tomorrow. It's all white popcorn in a bunch of small leaves (the hairs have all turned brown and withered). It will be a pain to harvest but the tiny buds will be very potent and tasty. This phenotype has a berry flavour. No pics of it. Tried out my flash on the plants before the light came on. Too much hand shake to get crisp pics but I will show a couple. I will have to get the tripod out and try again tomorrow with the flash. Not much experience using it yet.

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• Dusted
• Mar 21, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 21, 2018

 

[Dusted]

Post Harvest
The day after the last post I harvested and trimmed the small plant. Took about three hours.
The following day the big one came down. Five hours of trimming.
The first day's harvest is in a jar for curing. The other two batches are still drying. I decided not to hang the branches to dry this time since I found the outside of the buds get too crispy before the inside is dry enough to jar. Too many moldy cures for me from hanging the branches.
Looks close to 8 oz of quality buds, but we will see once the big stuff dries.
I guess this it it till next Sept. since I'm too busy in the summer to attend to a grow. It's also too hot upstairs in the summer to have the 600 w light running. Some shots before harvest.

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• Dusted
• Mar 26, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 26, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 26, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 26, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 26, 2018

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• Dusted
• Mar 26, 2018

 

[Dusted]

This grow is finished and can be moved to Completed