First Grow - Blue Dream - 4x4 Tent - 1000W Light - DWC

[DankestBuds42]

Hey TheFrizz, your blue dream look flawless! I was a little worried when I saw your heavy defol, but they bounced back and then some! Very interesting read about increasing yield with defoliation. Thanks for the link Also, you have an awesome idea using the stems after harvest to make a slingshot! I am definitely going to do this. Cheers bud. Hope all is well in your garden.

 

[TheFrizz]

Saturday Update:

This is day 12 of flowering. It has now been exactly one week since I heavily defoliated and bent each stem into a spot in the grid. I have been doing light defol each day to try to maximize light availability to future bud sites. Nutes concentration is around 900 ppm, I am using Flora Micro, Rock Solid, Hydroguard, and Protekt. I have not changed the water in any of the buckets for over a month. Why? Well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Also, saves $$ on nutes

Here is what the canopy looks like now, hard to believe how much growth has occurred since defol 1 week ago!

Temp and humidity and beefy future-slingshot trunk (thanks for the tip about the Acu-Rite sensor 4Dutchess! I will look into getting a better one )

Top view of the most indica-dominant plant

Same plant, side view of canopy. Very happy w/ the spacing of future colas and overall robustness of the stems.

So yeah, I am hoping for at least an inch a day of growth over the next week. This would give each plant about 1-2 feet of growth above the screen, the majority of which should be high quality bud. I am allowing some of the stems to keep 1-2 lateral shoots as long as they are not detracting from the growth of the main stem. Basically, by the end of flowering my goal is a 4' by 4' by 2' mass of colas. This is because the 1k HPS light has a 36" optimal depth, so allowing for 1ft distance from plants means about 2 feet beyond that where high quality bud will form.

If I get a chance to take pics during the work week I will update pics in a few days, if not, definitely next Saturday. Thanks so much for the words of support guys, this is the most fun and satisfaction I have experienced in a very long time!

 

[Tomula]

They all look amazing. Keep it up man! Mine is going for it too.

 

[4Dutchess]

I read the defoil thread and Im defoiling my tent some. Im budwashing this years yard grow for first time and Im leary. Will do though. Ive seen to many master growers here that do it. I just saw a utube vid of it, wow!!!
Heres a pic of my tent. I want to switch to flower Oct. 1. Theyre about 14" tall now. I popped seeds July 1 and I tired of them. Im anxious to run 8 clones instead.
Should I defoil? Are they too small to flip??
Namaste

 

[eregan]

I'm liking the trellis can you take that in and out of the tent? Great canopy!

4Dutchess

I would just lollipop the lowest couple branches or so and flip, take leaf or so off each every day. Look for the leaves covering future bud sites, don't overdo it.



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[eregan]

I read the defoil thread and Im defoiling my tent some. Im budwashing this years yard grow for first time and Im leary. Will do though. Ive seen to many master growers here that do it. I just saw a utube vid of it, wow!!!
Heres a pic of my tent. I want to switch to flower Oct. 1. Theyre about 14" tall now. I popped seeds July 1 and I tired of them. Im anxious to run 8 clones instead.
Should I defoil? Are they too small to flip??
Namaste

Actually I'd pot up and wait a week. You're going to have to water every day if you don't, I would think.


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[TheFrizz]

I read the defoil thread and Im defoiling my tent some. Im budwashing this years yard grow for first time and Im leary. Will do though. Ive seen to many master growers here that do it. I just saw a utube vid of it, wow!!!
Heres a pic of my tent. I want to switch to flower Oct. 1. Theyre about 14" tall now. I popped seeds July 1 and I tired of them. Im anxious to run 8 clones instead.
Should I defoil? Are they too small to flip??
Namaste

Well I am no expert on soil based grows but here is what I would do:

1st step, spread out the branches on each plant (use wire etc to bend the limbs) to try and create a more even canopy for light to reach the future bud sites and open up the middle of the plant.

2nd step, remove leaves from areas that are still too crowded (multiple leaves touching/sweating) so that there is air flow around each stem and leaf

3rd step, as Eregan said, lollipop undergrowth that is in the shade at the bottom of the plant. Hopefully you won't have to remove much after you perform steps 1 and 2. Also, repotting sounds like a great idea too, maybe you could repot and set up the bendy wires both in step 1

The only reason I felt comfortable going with such crazy defol on my girls this grow is because I am using DWC and a very strong light, so the recovery time is fast (2 or so days to completely re-leaf the whole plant after a stripping). In soil I would not remove more than 1/3rd of the growth at a time (standard gardening practice).

As far as flowering goes, they are definitely old enough to flower (sounds like almost 3 months old if popped July 1st) just try to get the plant structure set up to receive the maximum amount of light before you flip them. It is not about age imo but more how the plant is built that determines if you should flower yet

 

[4Dutchess]

Great info people!!
I want to up pot after flip because Im lazy. Im sure they will make 3 more weeks?
So if they start needing water more its a sign they need to be up potted???? They have started to need water more often. Maybe up pot before switch. I will go get more soil today and up pot when they dry out.
namaste

 

[eregan]

Never pot up during flower, all the energy should be used blooming but instead its used growing roots! I would do it in two weeks so the roots are settled in before the flip.

Transplant-see growth continue -flip. 3 days minimum after repot.


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[4Dutchess]

Im up potting before flip.Thanks so much for the advice!!!!!
Namaste~

 

[TheFrizz]

Saturday morning update! This is Day 19 of flowering, and the girls are looking amazing! When I open the tent, it smells intensely sweet, kind of like extra-ripe blueberries. There are some uh, "equity issues" when it comes to growth, Queen Sativa is still reigning supreme over her shorter subjects but at least this is a great example of a living punnet square! Too bad I can't show my students, haha.

Nutes are kept around 900-1000 ppm, and pH ranges from 5.8-6.0. Roots are still looking healthy and smell fresh, despite not doing a full water change for close to 2 months. I just check levels and top off every other day with what is needed to maintain consistent nutrient and pH levels.

Here is a view of the canopy, and for reference, Queen Sativa's longest colas are 21 inches.

View from the other tent opening. Derpy is in the back left and is actually doing quite well! Yeah she is missing a few limbs but overall her growth during flowering has been comparable to the other 2.

Close ups of some of the buds (sorry, the pics are from my S3, I will be getting an actual camera soon to capture the frosty awesomeness later in flower)

Stats on temp and humidity, it is definitely getting cooler as fall continues. I may close the window eventually if the low temp drops below 60.

This last pic is an "under the skirt" shot so to speak, and you can see the plant structure clearly. There is still some room for them to fill in between the plants, so I might start LST'ing them a bit more to make full use of the light. You can see though that the plants could have 6 inches less of height from veg and still achieve the same result. Next grow I will do this and shave off some veg time.

Overall I am happy with how things are progressing, my main concern is Queen Sativa's height (her tallest cola is 9 inches away from the light bulb). If I raise the bulb, all of the plants receive less light. If I bend her top colas, they will block light from others. So, I am going to let her do her thing, there are no signs of burn from the lights yet and hopefully she will slow down because she is so close to the bulb.

As always, questions, comments, feedback are appreciated. Thanks for tuning in!

 

[Lazarus13]

Not sure how i missed this... I am usually all over dwc grows. For this being your first, everything looks fantastic.
If you dont mind, id like to rude along on the magic school bus and watch the end of this grow. Blue Dream is on my shopping list. Never enough space for all i want to do.

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[Tomula]

Man, they all look great, I gotta get the bigger lights! Can you move the light bit away from her and rotate it 90 deg? Put it on slight angle so it shines on the others well? Well you got a nice garden here! Keep it up!

 

[TheFrizz]

Not sure how i missed this... I am usually all over dwc grows. For this being your first, everything looks fantastic.
If you dont mind, id like to rude along on the magic school bus and watch the end of this grow. Blue Dream is on my shopping list. Never enough space for all i want to do.

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Thanks for coming aboard Lazarus! I actually feel like DWC has been a lot easier than other gardening projects I have done in soil, but maybe that is just because Blue Dream is a great strain for a beginner to start with.

 

[TheFrizz]

Man, they all look great, I gotta get the bigger lights! Can you move the light bit away from her and rotate it 90 deg? Put it on slight angle so it shines on the others well? Well you got a nice garden here! Keep it up!

Thanks for the feedback! That would definitely be the best solution in terms of balancing out the light. But then I would have to redo all the venting, and I can't reach the inside of the tent very well anymore since the girls are all grown up now haha

So what I did was to raise the light just a couple inches and then weigh down the side, so the light hitting the tops of those colas is less direct. I also added another small fan and pointed it directly at the longest colas to give em a nice breeze. Hopefully this will be enough to keep those buds happy

 

[Lazarus13]

Thanks for coming aboard Lazarus! I actually feel like DWC has been a lot easier than other gardening projects I have done in soil, but maybe that is just because Blue Dream is a great strain for a beginner to start with.

I'm with you. I had a lot of problems in soil but dwc has proven to be second nature for me from the beginning too. Must have been mad scientists in a former life. lol Im sure the strain helped as well. My first dwc project was white widow and i dont think they come much easier than that.

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[4Dutchess]

Frizz, is that 19 days after flip to 12/12??
Great operation. I can see what I can become!!
Namaste

 

[TheFrizz]

Frizz, is that 19 days after flip to 12/12??
Great operation. I can see what I can become!!
Namaste

Yes that was 19 days, I flipped them to 12/12 on September 12th. Thanks for the positive feedback

 

[TheFrizz]

I definitely agree w/ the mad scientist comment Lazarus! How did the White Widow DWC grow turn out? I would like to try that strain/setup sometime soon.

 

[Lazarus13]

It was pretty smooth. I will say that WW is very forgiving. The yields were not that big... 1st grow 2 plants from seed approx. 8 ozs. 2nd grow one clone from the best of the original 2= approx. 6.5 ozs. Those pics are from the 2nd grow.

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