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

[Drazel]

The plants are looking great Ms. Frizz. I'm curious as to whether or not queen sativa's high will be more "racy". Also I wish I could take a whiff of your tent lol

 

[TheFrizz]

Thanks for the pics and stats about your WW grow Lazarus! What kind of lighting do you have setup? Looks like a HPS with supplemental LED's, similar to what I am using. Also, that fuel transfer pump makes DWC soooo much easier with regards to nute maintenance. It appears that we have similar taste!

 

[TheFrizz]

The plants are looking great Ms. Frizz. I'm curious as to whether or not queen sativa's high will be more "racy". Also I wish I could take a whiff of your tent lol

Hey Drazel thanks for the comment I am very curious as well, I would expect that it would be more "racy" since the plant is so sativa dominant but I will know for sure in about 2 months! As for the taking a whiff of the tent, let me tell you, I probably run upstairs every hour or so and stick my head inside the tent and it instantly puts me in a good mood. The Blue Dream is producing the perfect blend of heavy sweetness with a very slight citrus hint to balance out the profile.

 

[LeDankMaster]

That is a very beautiful first grow you have there! You're doing an amazing job, keep it up! I'm excited to see how they'll look like towards the end of the harvest, I hope you'll be posting until the end because I abandoned my first grow journal haha. I'm on my second grow and second journal now and I'm planning to finish it! I'll be updating it tomorrow, it'll be the 5th week of flowering. Check it out in my signature, it'd be nice to have comments! We have a similar setup, we could both learn from each other

 

[Lazarus13]

Thanks for the pics and stats about your WW grow Lazarus! What kind of lighting do you have setup? Looks like a HPS with supplemental LED's, similar to what I am using. Also, that fuel transfer pump makes DWC soooo much easier with regards to nute maintenance. It appears that we have similar taste!

Yeah its a 400 watt mh/hps with 2 old style mars 300s. Little over 700 watts in a 4 x 2 x 6. Its bright, thats for sure. And hell yes, that transfer pump is one of the best purchases i have ever made. More folks should use em.

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[TheFrizz]

That is a very beautiful first grow you have there! You're doing an amazing job, keep it up! I'm excited to see how they'll look like towards the end of the harvest, I hope you'll be posting until the end because I abandoned my first grow journal haha. I'm on my second grow and second journal now and I'm planning to finish it! I'll be updating it tomorrow, it'll be the 5th week of flowering. Check it out in my signature, it'd be nice to have comments! We have a similar setup, we could both learn from each other

Why thank you LeDank! I definitely intend on keeping up with this journal to the end, unless something life-changing were to happen. I will happily read your latest grow journal, it is so fun getting to see other people's ideas and approaches to growing this extraordinary plant

 

[TheFrizz]

Hi folks! It is now Day 26 of flower (almost 4 weeks). At this point, the girls vertical growth has mostly come to a halt and they are starting to get plump. I have been keeping nutes at 1300-1500 ppm and pH ranging from 5.5-6.0. Temps range from 65 to 82 degrees F. Humidity has been around 45% - 55%. The sugar leaves and buds are sooo sticky, when I nip off a few fan leaves each morning my fingers get covered in sweet smelling resin.

Here are the happy plants!

Thanks again for tuning in, I will be super excited to see how much the buds fatten up over the next few weeks or so!

 

[Lazarus13]

Beautiful.

 

[TheFrizz]

Alright so normally I like to wait a few days between updates but I am really excited about this idea and I want to share it! This is similar to vertical lighting, except in this case it is more of a "light sandwich". I took the 4 30 watt LED lamps that were hanging around the outside of the canopy and decided to set them up UNDER the canopy. I put one in each bottom corner pointing up into the plant, because the corners are farthest from the HPS light in the center of the tent. Hopefully this will contribute to increased bud density at the bottom of the colas, SAY NO TO POPCORN!

Here is what the LEDs look like with the 1000w HPS turned off, so you can get an idea of coverage

Here are some different perspective shots, the goal was to aim the LEDs so they hit the under-buds that were not receiving as much light

So yeah, the pictures don't do it justice (with the HPS on) but I am pretty happy with this new setup. It makes more sense to me to create a "light sandwich" so that the colas are getting light from both top and bottom rather than just having ALL the light come from the top. I plan on tilting the lights every few days so that all of the bottom growth gets exposure. Let me know what you guys think, or if you have tried something similar and want to share your results!

 

[SugarX]

Pretty good idea, keep us posted on the results of the new lighting concept .


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[TheFrizz]

Hello friends, this is Day 32 of flowering. Our district gave us today off to get caught up on grading but the power might go out soon (huge storm headed for the PNW region) so I figured I would take some time this morning and check on the girls.

I hadn't had time this week to adjust pH, and it was down to ~5.2 in most of the buckets . So I made a batch of nutes and pH'd it to 6.5 and topped off all the buckets, and now they are back to that nice 5.8-6.0 range.

Also, I decided to try out backbuilding (snipping off the tip of top buds) on Queen Sativa's 5 tallest colas. If you haven't read Light Addict's thread on backbuilding I highly recommend it. The TLR version is: by snipping the tip of the cola you encourage the plant to send more growth to lower buds and this results in denser, more aesthetically pleasing buds and a larger yield. I will see how these colas respond to it and then try it out on the other plants if all goes well. You are supposed to do it when the plant is more than halfway through flowering but I feel like those colas need to STAHP getting any taller (they are 2 feet long now).

#budforest

Before the snip

Annnnd after

Here is how much was taken off, with my ppm meter for scale.

And some other shots

As always, questions, comments, feedback are appreciated, especially if anyone has tried backbuilding before and would like to share their experience!

 

[Tomula]

Hello friends, this is Day 32 of flowering. Our district gave us today off to get caught up on grading but the power might go out soon (huge storm headed for the PNW region) so I figured I would take some time this morning and check on the girls.

I hadn't had time this week to adjust pH, and it was down to ~5.2 in most of the buckets . So I made a batch of nutes and pH'd it to 6.5 and topped off all the buckets, and now they are back to that nice 5.8-6.0 range.

Also, I decided to try out backbuilding (snipping off the tip of top buds) on Queen Sativa's 5 tallest colas. If you haven't read Light Addict's thread on backbuilding I highly recommend it. The TLR version is: by snipping the tip of the cola you encourage the plant to send more growth to lower buds and this results in denser, more aesthetically pleasing buds and a larger yield. I will see how these colas respond to it and then try it out on the other plants if all goes well. You are supposed to do it when the plant is more than halfway through flowering but I feel like those colas need to STAHP getting any taller (they are 2 feet long now).

As always, questions, comments, feedback are appreciated, especially if anyone has tried backbuilding before and would like to share their experience!

Hello man, what can I say to not repeat myself? You got it all covered they look happy you are happy, super! I did the backbuilding and you could have taken smaller part, but it's done, you did it right. I think it works great and everybody who did it was happy and confirms it. So feel free to backbuild all your girls I think it's worth it. Also when you see some tiny ass sucker this late to the flower feel free to snip it off too it won't do your big colas any good. That's my comment. I hope I will be able to pull off something like you in the future! Keep it up!

 

[TheFrizz]

Hello man, what can I say to not repeat myself? You got it all covered they look happy you are happy, super! I did the backbuilding and you could have taken smaller part, but it's done, you did it right. I think it works great and everybody who did it was happy and confirms it. So feel free to backbuild all your girls I think it's worth it. Also when you see some tiny ass sucker this late to the flower feel free to snip it off too it won't do your big colas any good. That's my comment. I hope I will be able to pull off something like you in the future! Keep it up!

Hi Tomula, thanks for the "tip"(pun intended) about removing slightly less per snip, I ended up doing the rest of the buds today. It was a total of about 90 snips (60 ish main colas and 30 lateral buds that made it to the top). I just kept looking at pictures from you and other growers who backbuilt and finally was like "I just want to do the whole tent!". Pics to come in a few days after they have responded.

Also, thank you for the comment "I hope I will be able to pull off something like you in the future! Keep it up!". Those are the words that really make a person feel special . The funny part is, I was thinking the same thing about you when I was reading your journal, especially the last pic in your post today (absolutely gorgeous close-up of the bud). I guess the bud is always greener on the other side, eh?

 

[Drazel]

My goodness ms.frizz , the plants look great and that harvest looks like it's gonna be a heavy one! Keep up the good work.


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[Tomula]

Hi Tomula, thanks for the "tip"(pun intended) about removing slightly less per snip, I ended up doing the rest of the buds today. It was a total of about 90 snips (60 ish main colas and 30 lateral buds that made it to the top). I just kept looking at pictures from you and other growers who backbuilt and finally was like "I just want to do the whole tent!". Pics to come in a few days after they have responded.

Also, thank you for the comment "I hope I will be able to pull off something like you in the future! Keep it up!". Those are the words that really make a person feel special . The funny part is, I was thinking the same thing about you when I was reading your journal, especially the last pic in your post today (absolutely gorgeous close-up of the bud). I guess the bud is always greener on the other side, eh?

Ahahahaha, you got me with the last one. Thank you for the good laugh! We are all very special. Some of us just do not realize it.

 

[TheFrizz]

My goodness ms.frizz , the plants look great and that harvest looks like it's gonna be a heavy one! Keep up the good work.

Why thank you Drazel! I definitely have my fingers crossed for a nice harvest! I just really want to see what the results are so I can start planning my next grow. My long term goal is to be able to produce 3 lbs every 4 months indoors in a 4x4 space. I am hoping for 2 lbs dry from this grow, that would mean a yield of roughly 1/2 oz per main cola. To get to 3 lbs, I would need 64 main colas each weighing 3/4 oz. However, this is all just speculation until the numbers come in

 

[TheFrizz]

Ahahahaha, you got me with the last one. Thank you for the good laugh! We are all very special. Some of us just do not realize it.

Words of wisdom right there

 

[DankestBuds42]

Good morning Frizz, your bud forest is blowing my mind! The size of those colas and your harvest goals are very respectable. 3lbs every 4 months, are you a heavy smoker then? I would be soo down for 3lbs every 4 months but funds and space are tight for now. You have a similar sized tent to mine but your lights are way more powerful. But if I could manage 3lbs every four months I'd be set for life. You've helped me re-evaluate my grow goals after seeing your set up haha.

I just have one comment on backbuilding. I have yet to do this technique but I sure as heck intend to try it out. I think I agree with Tomula on amount needed to take. From Light Addicts thread: "He advised me to take 3 white hairs and a couple of the tiny green points off end of buds". I'm sure with all your light power it wont make a huge difference but may be good to know for the future. All in all you seem to have this hobby mastered before your first grow is even over so major props to you. Have a great weekend man!

 

[TheFrizz]

Good morning Frizz, your bud forest is blowing my mind! The size of those colas and your harvest goals are very respectable. 3lbs every 4 months, are you a heavy smoker then? I would be soo down for 3lbs every 4 months but funds and space are tight for now. You have a similar sized tent to mine but your lights are way more powerful. But if I could manage 3lbs every four months I'd be set for life. You've helped me re-evaluate my grow goals after seeing your set up haha.

I just have one comment on backbuilding. I have yet to do this technique but I sure as heck intend to try it out. I think I agree with Tomula on amount needed to take. From Light Addicts thread: "He advised me to take 3 white hairs and a couple of the tiny green points off end of buds". I'm sure with all your light power it wont make a huge difference but may be good to know for the future. All in all you seem to have this hobby mastered before your first grow is even over so major props to you. Have a great weekend man!

Hey thanks for the positive feedback Dankest! I would estimate I use about 1oz/ month, the reason I want to perfect this method is so that medical patients who DO need large amounts especially for oils are able to produce enough at home from just a few plants to meet their needs without breaking the bank.

 

[TheFrizz]

Saturday update! This is Day 40 (Week 5) of flowering. I am happy with the results of backbuilding, the colas seem to have thickened up a fair amount since last week. About 10-20% of the pistils are starting to darken and curl inwards, it looks like they will be ready around Thanksgiving time.

The back left plant was showing some yellow leaves even though nutes are still ~1500 ppm. So I checked pH and it was down to 5 again. After adjusting pH back up I noticed that the trichomes on that plant looked more abundant and "fuzzier" than on the other 3 plants. Moderate sources of stress can cause cannabis to produce more resin as a defense mechanism, so I wonder if this is the explanation, or just coincidence. It would be interesting to test out!

Anyways enough of my blabbing, here are pics!

Top colas on Queen Sativa, look how fat they are at the top after backbuilding. They kind of look like 2 foot long tapered joints

Some shots of the front left plant

Here is the shortest cola on the plant with the pH problem, so frosty!

And some other shots.

Here is what the under-buds on Queen Sativa look like after supplementation with the 30W LED light. Now consider this...about 2 weeks ago they each consisted of just a few pistils sticking out of a stem. I was planning on stripping them off because they were not an efficient use of plant nutrients. But now I am glad I kept them, they actually look like real buds now, and would be just the right size to stuff in a bowl.

As always, questions, comments, and feedback are welcome! Especially if you have any estimates regarding how many weeks the plants have left