Fyrewhysper's House Of Torture

[Fyrewhysper]

Hello all,

Thanks to a mishap of moving pictures to an album then accidentally hitting delete on most of them this journal will have some gaps. I will chronicle my trials and tribulations of re-learning to grow indoors.

4/25
received new tent from AC Infinity and set it up before going out to a dispensary that had clones I wanted in stock.

Purchased the clones but I am still waiting to receive the AC carbon filter to finish that install. I used Dark Heart Nursery to get Ken's Granddaddy Purple, Girl Scout cookies, and Platinum OG. All very healthy, the dispensary lets you select the ones to your liking and they had a lot to choose from, not like some places where you see 4or 5 clones in various states on unhappiness.

equipment I'm using so far
AC Infinity 4x4
AC infinity 4 inch with AC Carbon filter
Volt 440W VL-1 LED
Foxfarm Ocean Forest with Foxfarm tri pack of nutes
5 gallon Cloth buckets
Bluelab PH meter
Tap water comes out at 6.6 After adding nutes it goes below 6 so I've been raising the ph back to 6.5. I have a PPM meter on the way, should be here in the next few days

We jump ahead a few weeks here as I managed to screw up my saved pictures. One in lower right is the new The Candy seedling my sister brought home. It took off really fast but has stayed a consistent lime green the whole grow. At 4 weeks of veg I changed to 12/12 to start flowering. I've read so many grow journals where the plants reality took off and get too tall. Since I had no experience with these strains I opted to flower now in case of massive stretch. I can't wrap my head around growing really tall plants in a 4x4 with a 440w led. Top buds are getting 1000+ ppfd while the lower ones get 500 too 600.

I can tell I held back too long on adding bloom to the watering as I saw a lot of red stem growth. Once properly fed new stem growth was back to green.

 

[Fyrewhysper]

6/20
Plants are filling in nicely, I've been using LST and topping to spread the canopy out. I started giving half nutes of Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom. Platinum OG did a lot of stretching in the beginning and I had to use some aggressive bending and training to keep her from growing too tall. Lots of space in between the nodes which suprised me for a mostly Indica strain. The other 3 are quite content at the height they are at. I also had to put the two in the back on top of boxes to make them even to Plat OG and Girl scout cookies.

At this point I'm missing the pix of how bushy they had become and the canopy was blocking all light from getting lower on the plant. I decided (wisely? Unwisely?) to do some defoliation which I then proceeded to get a little too carried away, oops. The reason I decided to do the extreme large fan leaf removal is every grow I've had outdoor always had larfy popcorn buds other than the colas. I wanted to make sure air is moving and hitting every bud site and is receiving direct light to stimulate growth on these lower buds. So far I only see a few spots where I will have to remove some low buds that will probably not take off.

Once I was done torturing them I immediately added a full dose of Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom to offset the removal of fan leaves that had stored nutrients in them. I was terrified I would kill them but they all survived. I did add more FF Ocean Farm to the top of the soil as it had started to compact down lower in the pots and that is why I didn't add any Grow Big, I didn't want to give them too much Nitrogen at this point.
The netting was just getting in my way and pissing me off. I removed once the girl's stems were strong enough to support themselves after training.

 

[Fyrewhysper]

6/23-24
Jumping ahead again, not much change in growth or production. About 5 days after defoliation I noticed the pistles started to brown at the tips, oh no.

 

[Fyrewhysper]

6/25

At this point production started to resume and pistles were once again starting to fluff out of all bud sites. All in all I'm guessing my defoliation set me back a week in flowering. Question to you all, when plants stop from shock, am I losing a week of flower, or am I just adding another week until harvest?

 

[Fyrewhysper]

I had to keep the tent door open lately as we go through a massive heatwave in California. I added a mesh screen to keep dog hair and bugs out of the space while allowing AC cooled air to be blown into the tent. I don't run the light at full intensity to keep the heat down and not get any light burn while the girls recover. Humidity stays at 43, night time temp gets down to 74, daytime temp hovers at 78. Outdoor temps hitting 105 so my AC pretty much runs all day long.
Platinum OG

The Candy

Ken's Grandaddy Purple

Platinum OG

The Candy

Girl Scout Cookies

The Candy

 

[Fyrewhysper]

A few thoughts at this point. If I could go back to when I bought the equipment, I would of gone with the 6 inch AC fan and carbon filter. The 4 is not enough to keep the tent cool on its own but it still kills the odor

 

[Fyrewhysper]

PPM meter came today. Now to read up on using one properly.

 

[Fyrewhysper]

I fed the girls with Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom today, they hadn't been drinking much water earlier in the week and the last water was only PH'd water. Ken's GDP is fattening up quickly.

 

[Skunksta]

Looking good my friend. I can only comment on my own experience and does look abit much on the defoliage.
Its kept them small and the sugar leaves have grown bigger to help.

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Yup. Lesson learned as they were stunned for about a week. Does that lengthen flowering by a week or did I kill a week of growth while they were shocked?

 

[Skunksta]

Could well end up stretching out the time in flower mate.

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Ok thanks, I can live with an extra week and better than losing one

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Fed all the girls with a gallon of ph'd 6.5 water then a gallon of ff trio. PPM read 1000. I'm trying to not outguess myself since once the leaves discolor they don't go back to green. I did notice all the lower growth is still green and vibrant and growing, while the upper parts show the mag? Pot? deficiencies.

Raised the lamp up and turned it down one light setting in case it's light burn. I haven't measured them before but they look taller to me. So hot right now the tent goes between 79f, 81f with an open door and mesh screen covering it, compared to 85+ closed.
Ppfd meter showed 1000+ at highest point of canopy, 600 to lower parts or branches at the edge of the light spread. Temp holding at 78F while outdoors it's 92F at the moment.
I'll post pictures later as I have to resize them still and I'm posting from my phone.

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Platinum OG

Platinum OG

Ken's GDP

Ken's GDP

Ken's GDP

The Candy

The Candy

GSC

GSC

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Posting the oldest post defoliation picture to a similar shot from today. So relieved to see a difference. When you check your babies everyday it seems like they aren't growing.
06/20/21

06/20/21

06/20/21

07/06/21

07/06/21

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Macro shots taken today

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Flash shots taken 07/09/21

 

[Fyrewhysper]

I added FF Micro Brew five days ago, and end of last week FF cal/Mag. Yesterday I fed them Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom with a tsp of Cal/mag. I may do one more feeding next week but it will be the last one unless something comes up. Shocking the girls set them back a minimum of a week so playing that by ear. Girls are stable as far as deficiencies continue to spread but I wish I could afford to remove the damaged leaves to help track further issues.

Harvest window opens up around the 28th of July, delays or ripening max should be around 18th of August.

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Platinum is looking like it's in the harvest window, any thoughts?

 

[Fyrewhysper]

Week 9 and Candy, GSC, and GDP look ready to cut. Last day of light then will cut before lights on tomorrow morning.
GDP

GSC

GSC

Candy

GDP

GDP