GG7's Indoor/Outdoor Grows!

[papatater]

Ya im sorta familiar to the area my foster parents retired to sonora beautiful country up there ya i planted trees for the forest service when i was 18 up in the sierras on lake tahoe side i got paid 6 cents a tree sorry off topic just brought back memories im glad you got everything planted just watch the little prettys grow

 

[Goldengoose7]

Ya im sorta familiar to the area my foster parents retired to sonora beautiful country up there ya i planted trees for the forest service when i was 18 up in the sierras on lake tahoe side i got paid 6 cents a tree sorry off topic just brought back memories im glad you got everything planted just watch the little prettys grow

Ah yes! Very familiar with both areas you mentioned. Nice areas to be sure!

We are closer to Yosemite National Park at just about the same elevation. It is no wonder that this crop is doing so well out back since our climate here is very similar to Humbolt and all the other famous Cannabis growing areas of Northern California.

Warm days and cool nights are what most of our favorite strains LOVE to grow in.

 

[Goldengoose7]

TURBO KLONE UPDATE! • Cloner back in action!

Our new warranty replacement pump and free backup pump arrived today courtesy of Darin and the folks at Turbo Klone! Along with the pumps was a free set of clone collars as promised!

You guys ROCK! Thanks again!

I wasted no time in getting the new pump installed and the T48 filled with plain tap water. The cloner has been running non stop since about 1PM today and so far everything is working great! The plan is to keep this test run of the new pump going for the next 7 days to make sure that the new pump is free of any of the manufacturing defects that brought down our original pump!

I am also going to be trying out the use of a hydroponic oriented cycle timer that will turn the pump motor on and off at designated intervals. The cooling fan on the front of the Turbo Klone machine will not be effected by this timer and will remain powered on at all times on its own separate circuit.

The reason we have decided to add this timer is because in spite of the superior cooling capabilities of the Turbo Klone system over other clone machines like the EZ Clone, our particular closet installation can get rather "warm" at times, and with no effective way to keep the air temperature down in the upper 60s where a water temp of 70-72 can be maintained while the pump motor is running 24/7 we need to try some other ideas to get that water temp down.

All submerged circulating pumps add heat to the liquid they are immersed in. As a result, it is common for clone machine owners to employ the use of a cycle timer of some kind on their pump motor to keep the cloning solution temperature from getting into the high 70s and low 80s where oxygen levels drop and roots start dying.

72 degrees F provides the highest oxygen content and best root development, so the goal will be to keep the internal reservoir of the cloner consistently at this optimum rooting temperature by controlling the amount of heat the pump motor adds to the water along with the effects of the ambient room temperature..

We have a CAP ART-DNe cycle timer on its way to us as we speak, that will ultimately handle the this task. When this timer arrives, we will be playing around with different ON/OFF intervals until we find the sweet spot that works best with our closet installation and the T48's circulatory system. The ART-DNe can have a different ON DURATION time than the OFF DURATION time, so we are anxious to get it connected and start dialing in the best ON/OFF cycle to maintain that stable 72 degree water temp at all times!

No worries for the clones... We already checked with several of our sources, and Cannabis cuttings/clones can remain fresh and unstressed for up to 30 minutes with the water pump off while held in their Turbo Clone collars. Our off time won't be anywhere close to that long. We are thinking of something like 15 minutes on and 5 minutes off. Whatever combination works best and can maintain a stable water temp of that magic 72 F!

If all goes well with out pump test and timer tweaks, the target date for the next official cloning session with a new batch of Blueberry cuttings is 7 to 10 days from today!

Stay tuned!

 

[Goldengoose7]

Some Thoughts on PH and How Best To Monitor and Adjust It

If you want to start monitoring the PH of your various waterings and feedings, then don't waste your time with test strips, fluids that change color and match up to color coded PH charts! Way too much margin for error and far too clumsy in actual practice! You need a quality PH meter!

When buying a test meter of any kind, it really pays to invest in a brand and model known for quality and reliability. Something like the HM Digital PH-200. Don't waste your money on some cheap piece of crap that will never be accurate and will probably break in the first month of use!

The PH-200 is my meter of choice and I have yet to find an easier to use and more accurate meter anywhere near this price range. The unit sells online for around $80.00 with free shipping at places like Amazon.com. Most reputable hydroponic stores also sell the "HM Digital Inc." line of test equipment and would likely carry the PH-200 as well. Despite its very affordable price, this device can hold its own in terms of accuracy along side laboratory grade sensors that sell for $1500.00 or more! While you're at it, pick up a bottle of HM Digital PH storage solution too! A year's supply will set you back about 6 bucks.

As for a quality PH adjustment kit? ...

General Hydroponics sells a nice little kit for PH monitoring and adjustment called the GH-500 that goes for around $15.00 to $20.00 online. You can use this kit in leu of a digital PH meter for PH monitoring using a special fluid and a color chart it comes with, but I just use the UP and DOWN solution and the nice little pipette along with my PH-200 meter. A good combo and far more precise!

As for liquid fertilizers like FoxFarm's stuff... You don't need to sweat the PH too much with their liquids like Big Bloom and Grow Big. Our tap water's PH is right around 6.75, so I just mix in the appropriate amount of my FF nute of choice into this tap water and go.

Unless your PH is way out of whack, then FoxFarm nutes will work just fine without having to alter the PH of the mixture before putting it on your plants. Remember that these nutes are sold in supermarkets and big box stores, where most buyers don't even know what PH means!

Once you do a test of your Tap Water with say Big Bloom or Grow Big added, you will know what the final PH is and THEN if you want to optimize your fertilizer effectiveness, you can use some of the GH UP or DOWN solution as needed along with your trusty PH-200 in order to get the mixture into a good range of between 5.2 and 6.0.

Oh! You will also need a good reference solution for calibrating your meter. Something like the GH 7.0 reference solution. A bottle of this stuff goes for about 8 bucks. A 4.0 reference solution is also available for the same price. I keep a bottle of both on hand so I can check the 200's accuracy on both ends of the typical PH testing scale.

And there ya go!

I thought that it would be fun to share some of my tools of the trade that result in the healthy plants you see in this journal. Hope you liked my little lecture. Hahh Hahh!

Cheers.

 

[THsea]

Holy shnikey's! I had no idea the PH-200 costs that much! I just looked it up.
Gonna have to get the OMM a good x-mas gift

Really happy to hear that the company you got your cloner from took care of business

I was wondering... are the growth rates different between clones and from seed? I know it takes a while for the roots to come in on a clone, but once they are established are they pretty much the same as the mother interm of growth speed?

There was a thread somewhere about pots and their size/shape.. Someone said clones do better with wide pots and from seed do better with taller pots... They said this was due to the seed one having a tap root. Does this sound accurate to you? I ask cause I know you have done both...

Also! When you clean out your pots, after use ,are the plants root bound? Your pots are big enough that I wouldn't be surprised if they had no such problems.
I personally plan to use Air-pots (omm inspired), however for my first "grow" I will probably use regular pots and spend the extra money on quality lights. Which brings me to the last question for tonight!

How do you like your T5's? Is hydrofarm a good brand? I intend to use the same lighting system (but prolly the 8 bulb one)... I'm unsure if I want to get the VHO, is that what yours are? or the regular HO?

Sorry I'm all questions! But thanks again GG7, your so helpful!

 

[Goldengoose7]

Holy shnikey's! I had no idea the PH-200 costs that much! I just looked it up.
Gonna have to get the OMM a good x-mas gift

Absolutely! As I mentioned to you once before, getting a PH-200 as a gift was pretty special, not just because of the cost involved, but because of the accuracy and quality of the meter! The person who bought that for you KNEW a thing or two about PH meters! Hope you are taking good care of it and are storing it properly? The sensor needs to remain wet at all times surrounded by storage solution inside the reservoir cap.

And I should add that $80.00 for a PH meter with this kind of accuracy is DIRT CHEAP! Nothing can touch the PH-200 in its own price range. You have to go up into the multi-hundreds and even thousands of dollars before you will find one that is more accurate, and few can compare when it comes to the ease of calibration!

I was wondering... are the growth rates different between clones and from seed? I know it takes a while for the roots to come in on a clone, but once they are established are they pretty much the same as the mother interm of growth speed?

In my experience, seedlings grow faster than clones do. At least for a few weeks after the clones have roots. I can't speak for all clones though, just the ones I made that didn't die outright! lol! When I get some from the Turbo Klone and plant them it will be interesting to see what kind of growth rate I get from those. As I mentioned in another post, that growing tip I cut from one of the two original Blueberry plants has not grown a bit since I took it, and even though it is looking really healthy and green, it appears to just be in a state of suspended animation. More on that whole situation another time.

Also! When you clean out your pots, after use ,are the plants root bound?

After flowering and harvest, the roots usually extend all the way down to the bottom of the 5 gallon pots, but I wouldn't really consider them "root bound". Nothing like you see when transplanting a healthy young plant from say a 1 gallon pot into a 5 gallon. When a plant goes into flower, the root growth slows to practically zero. That is why it is so much harder to clone a flowering Cannabis plant, since root production is cut way, way back by the plant's own hormones.

There was a thread somewhere about pots and their size/shape.. Someone said clones do better with wide pots and from seed do better with taller pots... They said this was due to the seed one having a tap root. Does this sound accurate to you? I ask cause I know you have done both...

Sorry...Couldn't help myself!

That is getting a bit carried away with stuff that really doesn't matter or is even true if you ask me! Pots are pots as far as I am conerned and I try to get them as cheaply as I can. As I mentioned, I purchase my pots in bulk from some of the large online greenhouse outlet stores. You can pick up two dozen 5 gallon pots like the kind I use for under $20.00, and many of these online stores offer free shipping on orders over $50.00. I bought four dozen of these 5 gallon pots for $40.00, along with FIFTY 6" peat pots for $20.00 and some other assorted gardening tools.

In my opinion, anyone out there paying more than a buck for a 5 gallon pot is paying too much! Sure these cheap ones are thin vaccuformed vinyl and rather flimsy when empty, but you don't use them empty now do you? lol! When filled with soil, they are every bit as solid feeling and useable as a $15.00 ornamental pot or bucket. Those cheap 5 gallon pots I bought are now on their fourth season, and I haven't lost a one! As you said yourself... Put your hard earned cash into things that matter, and don't get sucked in to those minutia discussions about things that don't.

How do you like your T5's? Is hydrofarm a good brand? I intend to use the same lighting system (but prolly the 8 bulb one)... I'm unsure if I want to get the VHO, is that what yours are? or the regular HO?

Sorry I'm all questions! But thanks again GG7, your so helpful!

No problemo! Glad to help! That is what this forum is all about right? Sharing knowledge and information so all of us can grow better stuff!

As far as fixtures go... I'm very satisfied with the Hydrofarm fixtures! Mine are the "Very High Output" variety that Hydrofarm calls the "Designer Series". If you buy the larger tube configurations they provide multiple switches on the fixture that allow you to operate sections of the fixture independently. On my 6 tube fixture for example, you can just run the two outside tubes on each end, or the two center tubes in the middle, or all of them. Not sure what the 8 tube options are, but obviously it will be something similar.

It is easy to get totally caried away with the gear and lose sight of the whole point of buying it in the first place! As with any hobby, there are those who spend more time debating and arguing about the virtues of one brand of device from another or other minutia than they spend actually participating in the hobby itself! They lose sight of the actual goal! In our case, that is growing a quality crop, and in that regard my Hydrofarm stuff has never let me down.

I really can't justify spending any more for a T5 fixture than you need to to get quality. I have seen some T5 fixtures that are way more expensive than the Hydrofarm Designer and I just can't figure out why. There is also a cheaper Hydrofarm line of T5 fixtures, but it wasn't that much cheaper, and I liked the low profile design of the Designer Series enclosure and the dual switches on the 6 and 8 tube models.

Good call on shooting for the 8 tube model! You can always turn some of the tubes off or remove them, but you can't add more tubes to a fixture that only holds say 4 to begin with! I made that mistake when I bought my first fixture. Four tubes seemed like plenty at the time, but I quickly learned that when growing with T5s or CFLs there is no such thing as too much light!

The 6 tube was only a little more $$ and I eventually bought one of those too. Since I took those grow room photos posted at the beginning of this journal, I have swapped my two T5 fixtures around and put the 6 tube into the Bloom Room and the 4 tube in the veg room. The more lights you can have on a flowering plant the better, so it made complete sense to make the swap! Besides, this time of year, I don't even run my veg room since I have all my plants out on the back deck taking advantage of the FREE sunlight!

Did I get all of them?

Let me know if you have any more questions on this stuff!

Cheers.

 

[Goldengoose7]

Beautiful Blues!

An unusual, late season storm system moved into the Sierra last night and this morning, bringing us over 1 inch of rain in the last 5 hours and counting!

Fortunately, we had enough warning to pull all our plants under cover so that the significant downpours didn't damage or destroy our still fragile crop! The overcast brought a nice light to the plants and I thought I would take advantage of this defuse lighting to take a few photos of our two original Blueberry Mother plants.

Here we go!

Plant #1 • Currently 37" tall from ground to tip

Plant #2 • Currently 36 inches tall • The one I cut the Growing Tip from

Obviously, those dozen cuttings we took last weekend didn't put a dent in the foilage, but we are still a ways off before I will be able to "safely" take another dozen cuttings from them.

As I am sure you will agree from these recent photos, these plants clearly demonstrate what snow fed well water, warm summer sunshine, Black Gold Cocoblend soil and FoxFarm Grow Big can do!

 

[papatater]

Man you are gonna have to give your fingers a rest i would have cramps WOW!!!!!!!!them plants sure look good i wish they would hurry up and grow so we could see some big buds

 

[Goldengoose7]

Man you are gonna have to give your fingers a rest i would have cramps WOW!!!!!!!!them plants sure look good i wish they would hurry up and grow so we could see some big buds

No worries! I'm a VERY fast typer.

Glad you enjoyed the latest photos of the Blueberries!

I hear ya about the anticipation and the wait for buds! That is the one part of this whole process that I find VERY hard to endure!

If all goes according to plan... By this time next week, these two plants will be sitting in the Bloom Room on their way to hopefully a very impressive flowering! I'm hoping that both of them have surpassed the 40 inch mark from ground to tip by then, but the deciding factor is getting that dozen cuttings from them for the next Turbo Klone cloning session and not their height.

Stay tuned!

 

[OG13]

That all looks good after a rain, rock on, I'm subbed

 

[THsea]

Sorry...Couldn't help myself!

That is getting a bit carried away with stuff that really doesn't matter or is even true if you ask me! Pots are pots as far as I am conerned ..... As you said yourself... Put your hard earned cash into things that matter, and don't get sucked in to those minutia discussions about things that don't.

Not to start a discussion/ argument (in other words, I wont bring it up anymore)!
I disagree with that, I think the pot is the root's environment, creating an aerated environment may be beneficial...The OMM had two identical strains growing... One in a regular pot, one in an air-pot.. The air-pot plant had twice the growth.

However, I realize this could be phenotype difference... He doesn't do the clone thing. Maybe I can just poke holes in a regular pot to achieve this, if root binding isn't an issue (which is the other issue AP's take care of supposedly).

When I start growing I will do a side by side with clones to measure the difference between regular pots, air pots, and systematically "defaced" pots... I'll include this in my second grow... Promise!

Thank you for answering my stream of questions! And you answered something I didn't even ask by saying

When a plant goes into flower, the root growth slows to practically zero.

That is GREAT to know! But this makes me think... Maybe large pots would be better from the get go... I mean, if vegetative state is when they develop most of their root system, maybe we should be using a large pot and use it for its entire life time? I would really love to hear your thoughts on this... If we are transplanting, why don't we just start with 5 gallon? Is it so we have "fresh" soil for flowering?

Sorry GG7! But I am young, and full of questions! for your patience and wisdom!

By the way.. I love all the pictures you take! All your plants are just as pretty as can be!

EDIT PS!: Do you mix your spectrum on your T5 fixture? I have heard there is benefit by mixing, even in flower. I have been trying to research what proportion of each would be good...

DOUBLE EDIT PS!: if you want me to PM my questions from now on, so I'm not cluttering up your grow, let me know! You didn't bring this up, but I feel like I'm hijacking your thread with things that may be more appropriate for a FAQ thread

 

[Goldengoose7]

Not to start a discussion/ argument (in other words, I wont bring it up anymore)!
I disagree with that, I think the pot is the root's environment, creating an aerated environment may be beneficial...The OMM had two identical strains growing... One in a regular pot, one in an air-pot.. The air-pot plant had twice the growth.

EDIT PS!: Do you mix your spectrum on your T5 fixture? I have heard there is benefit by mixing, even in flower. I have been trying to research what proportion of each would be good...

DOUBLE EDIT PS!: if you want me to PM my questions from now on, so I'm not cluttering up your grow, let me know! You didn't bring this up, but I feel like I'm hijacking your thread with things that may be more appropriate for a FAQ thread

I was primarily referring to the notion of one shape of pot being better for seed grown plants and another being better for clones, and other "silly" talk like that.

As for the Air-Pot thing... I think you can achieve the same ideal environment for roots simply by using at least a 5 gallon pot for 80% of your veg time and all of your flowering, good soil and provide the pot with decent drainage. That is gardening in pots 101 kind of stuff if you ask me.

I always line the bottom of a new 5 gallon with some medium sized river stones like the ones you may have seen in some of my back deck photos recently, and then fill half the pot with Hyponex potting soil * and the top half with Black Gold • Waterhold • Cocoblend. For my most prized strains like the Blueberry and GDP, I use a river stone foundation and then ALL Black Gold Cocoblend. These pots are VERY light until you add water, and then their weight quadruples as the Cocoblend soaks up the water. When the pots needs water, a simple lift is all it takes to confirm this because the pot will feel light just like the first time the pot was prepared.

After awhile, you kind of figure out how many days between waterings this generally happens and then you can dispense with the lifting part. But when in doubt... "Lift".

I NEVER use potting soil that has any kind of timed release nutes and junk like that. I prefer to have complete control over what I feed my crops and WHEN.

I can kind of see the concept behind the Air-Pots, but personally, I could never justify the expense and I think my plants speak for themselves as to the viability of my pot preparation.

As far as mixing T5 temps... YES! I do tend to mix them where applicable. In my Bloom Room when I was using the 4 tube fixture and a 125 watt CFL, I went with all 2700k and 3000k bulbs.

Now that I have swapped fixtures and have a 6 tube in there, I am going to go with a staggered array of the following:

6500k/3000k/6500k/3000k/6500k/3000k

I will monitor the Blueberries closely to see how things go. If I am not happy with their bud development towards the 6th week, I will go to all 3000k in the T5. Because I have read that the Blueberry strain is a somewhat low yield strain, I am planning to go a total of 10 weeks before harvest.

I always run a Feliz 2700k 125 watt CFL as a front fill, and in this next flowering session, I have added two 40 watt 2800k CFLs that put out 2900 lumens a piece as backfills. I only flower TWO plants in the bathtub/main station, so that is about as much light as I can squeeze into that area using flourescents. The 2 foot/4 tube T5 in the second light station is also staggered.

Speaking of flowering...

I came across this interesting thread on here today about how to get higher yields through light cycle manipulation, and I am intrigued enough by this concept to be seriously considering buying the timer mentioned and try playing with unconventional light cycles that go "out of the box" and out of the 24 hour way of thinking about light cycles during flowering.

Check it out HERE! A very interesting concept!

As for the questions... If you have a lot of them that may drift too far off topic to be of interest to other people who may be following this grow thread, maybe a PM might be better, but since I don't really have anything going on in the grow department right now besides the outdoor vegging, and all your questions so far have been really good ones, I see no harm done in posting them here for everyone to benefit from the discussion.

As I mentioned earlier... My goal with starting this journal has always been to provide a vehicle for me to share/compare my results with other growers and non-growers here who share my passion for Cannabis, and growing things in general since Cannabis is only one of the plant species I raise here at my place.

Hope that helps?

Cheers and keep em coming THsea!

* I use Hyponex because its VERY cheap! A 2 Cubic Foot bag is often on sale for less than 5 bucks! Nothing fancy and the consistency varies all over the place, but it makes a good bottom layer foundation and I use less of the expensive stuff overall. We primarily use it in flower beds and things like that since the native soil up here is crappy Decomposed Granite that is hard as...well... "A Rock!" lol! A real special plant or strain always gets ALL Black Gold soil!

 

[THsea]

I was primarily referring to one shape of pot being better for seed grown plants and another better for clones, but..

Yea, that made me really wonder... The reasoning behind the poster, if I remember clearly, was that the clones have no tap root (or so they say, I wouldn't know)... So I guess they were figuring it would branch out more laterally than vertically?... Either way, seems pretty nit-picky to me! I would think if they cannot go one direction, they would go the other!

As for the type of pots, your right! Your grows have lovely results!
I still plan to do a "side-by-side" comparison... That way I can get a small number of air-pots (instead of buying a lot!) and see if its worth it to invest more into that technology... I still don't feel like there is any definitive evidence one way or the other. Its a mystery!

And holy cow! That alternate light cycles thread is nuts! When I have my own house I may experiment with that.. However, I will have one small tent to do everything in... So will use the tried and true 12/12 schedule.

There is just one question that needs addressing good sir!

.. Maybe large pots would be better from the get go... I mean, if vegetative state is when they develop most of their root system, maybe we should be using a large pot and use it for its entire life time? I would really love to hear your thoughts on this... If we are transplanting, why don't we just start with 5 gallon? Is it so we have "fresh" soil for flowering?

BTW

Hope that helps?

Your always a great help! I love hearing what experts have to say on the subject of cannabis!

EDIT PS! I lied, more questions!~What do you like about black gold? Do you think it is a better substrate than FFOF? Have you ever tried mixes like Subcool's Super Soil? And lastly, do you utilize any CO2 production products?

 

[Goldengoose7]

With indoor grows, it is all about space under the limited influence of artificial lights!

For clones I think it makes total sense to just transplant them from the retail/dispensary pot into your final 5 gallon or larger pot provided that you don't need to share the light space with other plants that are at different heights. That can be kind of a hassle. If you just have one group of plants all at the same age and roughly the same height to worry about, then there is no reason to have intermediate pot sizes.

With seedlings, I usually wait until I have determined the sex of the plants and removed the males before I move the females into the larger pots. When growing indoors during the winter months for example, there is also the issue of your growing space's total surface area. I can get a lot more plants under a 4 foot 4 tube T5 fixture if they are in 1 gallon pots than if they are in 5 gallon pots.

You can only fit 2 plants in 5s comfortably under a 4 foot T5 fixture, maybe 3 plants if you are vegging them. For flowering, I never do more than 2 plants under a 4 foot fixture at a time, and another plant under my 2 foot 4 tube fixture.

More than that and you start having issues with not enough light per plant and one plant blocking light of another etc. Better to optimize your space with less plants to hopefully get the highest quality buds in the largest quantity from those smaller number of plants.

The easiest way to explain it is the old "Quality Over Quantity" approach.

 

[Goldengoose7]

EDIT PS! I lied, more questions!~What do you like about black gold? Do you think it is a better substrate than FFOF? Have you ever tried mixes like Subcool's Super Soil? And lastly, do you utilize any CO2 production products?

I like it because it is consistently even in terms of the texture and the moisture levels out of the bag, and proportions of the various ingredients that make up the soil don't vary wildly from bag to bag. I also like the price. Even though it is considered a "premium" soil product, it isn't ridiculously expensive.

I have a local hydroponic supply house in town that caters to the local Cannabis community down there and they sell a 2 Cubic Foot bag for $12.00. Oddly, that town's only nursery doesn't carry that product even though they are a Black Gold dealer. I don't expect that their price would be any better than the place I buy it from now, so I have never bothered to ask them to carry it. if I did, I would feel obligated to buy it from them since we shop there often for our other gardening supplies, for our conventional crops.

I haven't tried those other soil products you mentioned. I tend to stick with what works, and also, being that we are kind of in the boonies here in the back country of the Sierra I have to contend with the problem of supply. Shipping costs for soil is prohibitively expensive, so I can only buy what shops in our closest town carry. Fortunately, the shop I buy the Cocoblend from was already carrying it when they first opened and their price was a little better than retail.

The plants seem to LOVE the stuff, it drains well, yet it holds nutrients to the roots very well as far as I can tell. The bottom line for me is always...

1) "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

and

2) "Don't spend more on growing supplies than your crop will ultimately be worth"

Since I love exploring new products and gadgets, that second one is a toughy!

P.S. Never tried C02. See rule #2.

Hope that helps.

 

[papatater]

Always get good stuff here ask all the question you want cause some day some one like me will come along after this grow is finished and forgotten and there will be the answer Im lookin for so it dosent bother me to read thru the questions i love them have one myself i got feminized seeds this year instead of regular and I stressed the daylights out of them over fertilized cold weather now hears the question when will the stress or maybe Hermie show up since i stressed them so young well there even be a problem or will it show up in flower

 

[Goldengoose7]

Always get good stuff here ask all the question you want cause some day some one like me will come along after this grow is finished and forgotten and there will be the answer Im lookin for so it dosent bother me to read thru the questions i love them have one myself i got feminized seeds this year instead of regular and I stressed the daylights out of them over fertilized cold weather now hears the question when will the stress or maybe Hermie show up since i stressed them so young well there even be a problem or will it show up in flower

Glad you agree with me Papa!

Personally I have no experience with feminized seeds, but I would imagine that a plant grown from them may react to stress to same degree as a normal seed/seedling would.

In the wild, a Cannabis plant is VERY aware of its environment when it is young because if it has happened to sprout in a poor area with lousy light, bad water or little water etc. it will likely become a male plant because a male can still grow large enough in a crappy location to disperse its pollen for the next generation, but not likely to survive or flourish beyond that.

If the growing conditions are really nice, with everything being ideal for long term survival, then the young plant will likely turn female because there is a very good chance that the plant will be able to grow well and long enough to produce the flower buds needed for the next generation. We all know what goes into quality flower buds with this plant, so this evolutionary awareness of environment makes total sense! The plant would also want to drop its seeds in the same fertile area it was lucky enough to have sprouted in itself.

Genetics still plays a role, but the above scenarios should not be ignored because environmental conditions and related stresses or lack of them from the environment when the seedling is in its first few weeks of life are HUGE!

Don't know if a feminized seed/seedling would still be effected by stress in the same way as a conventional seed/seedling would. Obviously, if the seed is indeed a female seed from day 1, the only thing the stress might do would be to make it into a Hermie.

I would keep inspecting the plants for pre-flowers cause this will be your first opportunity to notice any male tendencies emerging.

Maybe someone else reading this could offer some more input on that?

 

[Goldengoose7]

Turbo Klone Pump Tests Complete!

I am pleased to report that my tests on our new Turbo Klone pump have been completed and everything ran perfectly! The new cycle timer arrived yesterday and was put into service to cycle the pump motor on and off in order to stabilize the water temp of the cloner between 70 and 72 degrees at all times. At the moment, the cycle timer intervals are 3 minutes on and 7 minutes off.

The tap water we were using for these pump motor and timer tests was drained earlier today and the system flushed. About an hour ago I filled the cloner up with bottled RO water and just now adjusted the PH to prepare the machine to accept our next batch of cuttings!

The cloning schedule has been moved up a full 5 days!

The whole test process went so smoothly, and the Blueberry mother plants have produced enough new growth that I am planning to take cuttings tomorrow morning and begin what I hope will be our first successful cloning session using the Turbo Klone machine!

Stay tuned!

 

[Goldengoose7]

PURPLE URKLE
Progress Report

As you recall, we were forced to pull these two original clones from the Bloom Room a few weeks back due to runaway growth in all the wrong directions. The plants were cut back significantly at that time in the hope that some targeted trimming would force them to develop a more bushy stature with more concentrated node development in the new growth.

Well... I am pleased to report that we were successful in accomplishing this goal, and all the new growth coming off both plants is exhibiting the exact type of density and growth behavior we were looking for.

Have a look!
Yes... There is some random flower development starting on a few of the growing tips.

The change in appearance is significant enough that I have decided to include half a dozen Purple Urkle cuttings in my upcoming Turbo Klone session this weekend! This will allow me to make some final shaping trims and not let those cuttings go to waste. The goal are clones with a more bushy tendency from these original clones, which for now, will remain mother plants in veg.

 

[papatater]

Beautiful man beautiful