Grow Journal #2: CKS NYC Diesel Auto & Sour Diesel In Coco

[415friendly]

Time to start my second grow. I actually plan on running two grows at the same time - an auto (CKS NYC Diesel) and I'm going to try fluxing a photoperiod plant (CKS Sour Diesel). The plan, and I know it sounds kind of ambitious, is to try and grow out the auto while I'm fluxing and then switch the Sour Diesel to flowering once the Auto is done. While I'm fluxing the SD, I'm going to try and use some of the cuttings and spray with colloidal silver to try and create some feminized SD seeds.

Strain: CKS NYC Diesel Auto & CKS Sour Diesel Feminized
#Plants: 2 of each
Grow box: DIY 48" x 37" x 21"
Bucket size: 5 gallon smart pots
Media: 60% Coco, 40% Perlite
Lights: Mars Reflector 96 supplemented with DIY LED
Nutrients: Green Planet Hydroponics GP3 Nutrients

Plan:
Transfer the autos to 5 gallon smart pots at the two week mark and top once and LST to control height.
Transfer the photos to 2 gallon smart pots and eventually to 5 gallon smart pots. Top, LST and Flux to control height/develop tops

My last grow was with Purple Kush (indica) and I was able to keep the height to manageable levels in the box, despite being set on a flood table 8" high. I know I'm going to have to be a lot more dilligent in controlling height to keep it within the cabinet, but haven't ruled out moving to a tent later on. I have extra fans, extra venting, and another carbon filter isn't really that much of an expense.

I've been messing around with some arduino boards lately, and built a DIY lux meter for shits and giggles.

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I know it really looks budget, but I decided to just throw the pieces together and take it apart when I was done, because I really don't need to measure my lights all the time, and I can re-use the parts for other projects.

Just for information:
Sunny summer day in Ohio: ~53000 lux
Mars Reflector 96 measured at 24" : ~9000 lux
My DIY 2x LED running at around 70W at 24" : ~3800 lux
Mars Reflector + DIY LED's at 24" : ~11500 lux
DIY CFL (8x42W actual watts, not equivalent) at 24" : ~5000 lux
My office/computer room: ~ 75 lux

This actually has me quite excited to try building a DIY light running around 400W ( 8 x 100W LED's running at 50%). I can put the power supply outside the cabinet and wire the lights into the ceiling of the cabinet.

In the meantime, I germinated 4 seeds on Monday night. All 4 popped and went into solo cups this evening and into the cabinet about 36" below the lights. Can't wait for them to poke their head through soil.

 

[415friendly]

Well, one of my Sour Diesel's didn't make it; the seed germinated, but just never got past the germling stage. I may have planted it a bit soon, but the others are all doing well.

No pictures, because they look just like every other seedling at this point.

The NDs were transferred to 5 gallon smart pots at the 2 week mark, and the SD into a 2g smart pot. They all look healthy and happy to this point. I had some issues with the transfer; I discovered that such a high ratio of perlite to coco doesn't hold up so well, even when wet, and the entire mix kind of fell apart in my hands during the repotting. I will probably try a different method next time...

I germinated a Super Silver Haze last week to replace the dead SD. After 2 days, it went into a solo cup. I would have preferred to let it germinate a bit longer, but was going away for a long weekend and didn't want it to sit out alone for that long. It was a bit slow to poke up through the coco, but is now 1 week old and on track.

Temperature and humidity have been pretty good; I found out I could have an Arduino board log data and send Temperature and Humidity data to my Google Docs account so I've had graphs charting my temperature/humidity over time. It's kind of cool to see when lights (and heat) come on, but I can also see the spikes in temperature when I open my cabinet and expose the cabinet to outside air. It was also interesting to see the increase in humidity when I repotted to the 5 gallon pots. All of that water, I suspect, will be bringing my overall temperatures down, but increasing relative humidity dramatically.

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I was running 3 sensors to do some testing/calibrating. Temperature seems really accurate between the 3, but the humidity sensors have a bit more error.

Next plan is to wire up a couple of Ceramic Heater Lamps used in pet coops and (no visible light) so that I can try and keep the lights off temperature up when cooler weather comes. I'm planning on using the temperature data from the Arduino to control a relay that will turn the two lamps on/off as needed.

 

[415friendly]

22 days since germination for the NYCD autos. I've been really light on the nutrients, and I think I have a slight nutrient deficiency as a result. Lower level leaves are lighter in colour, turning yellowish. I fed with half strength recommended nutrients pH'd to 5.5 and gave each plant about a half liter.

Temperatures are starting to cool down during lights off, now. Temperatures are [68,76] so I think I'm going to try and wire up my relay controlled ceramic heat lamp this weekend. The lamps are 150W each, so I can wire up both of them and that should be equivalent (or better) to my LED array. My relay is set to turn on if temps drop below 74 and turn off when temps get higher than 76.

I think I'm going to wait a few days and then reassess my plan to top the autos. One looks great, the other might need a bit of help.

All 4 plants in the cabinet. NYCD autos are in the 5G pots, SD and SSH photos are in the 2G pots


22 days old. SD photo plant. Picture was taken with flash on. I really have a hard time with the LED lights getting a good photo. I still think the colour looks a bit light, so increasing nutrients to prevent possible deficiencies from getting worse.


22 days old. NYCD auto with some slight yellowing on the lower leaves. I'm thinking nitrogen deficiency.


14 days old SSH photo

 

[415friendly]

This week's updates:

1. Last weekend I connected a relay to my microcontroller and installed a ceramic fixture with a 150W ceramic heat lamp. The relay turns on power to the lamp if temperature drops below 74F, but turns it on if temperature goes over 74.5F. I'm hoping that this can control the difference in lights on/off temperature to control internode spacing better. It actually works really well; my data shows that even during the cold parts of lights out, when temperatures would normally drop to below 70, its only on for about 30% of the time. Maybe when winter comes and it gets colder, it'll need to be on for longer, but I have a second bulb I can hook up as well.
I've read from one webpage that it produces infra-red (non visible) radiation, but that this kind of light may induce flowering. The sources are not really very reliable, though, so I guess this is going to be a bit of an experiment. I could always wrap it in foil, but part of me keeps thinking "fire hazard" and balks. I might just get a small ceramic heater, but the bulb mounts in the ceiling of the cabinet and is out of the way.

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Temperature is the top graph with the left vertical scale, humidity is the bottom graphs and measured on the right vertical scale. I have 3 probes running right now because I was testing their consistency. Temperatures are very consistent; humidity less so.
It's kind of neat to see the temps increase when lights come on (7pm at night) and then gradually decrease overnight until lights out. You can actually see the times when I have my cabinet doors open, and the temperature drops as the cool air from the garage comes in. You can also see the day that I had my temperature range set to 74-76. I didn't expect the ceramic bulb to be so effective.

2. Topped my autos, and I'm going to let them grow out from here with some LST. Topping may have been a mistake, as I can already see some stipules forming. I hope they have time to put on some growth before they start to flower. I topped my fem Sour Diesel as well and am madly reading up on fluxing/manifolding. I'll do the Super Silver Haze tomorrow.

NYC Diesel Auto Fems in 5 gallon smart pots. 28 days from seed.



Super Silver Haze 20 days from seed


Sour Diesel 28 days from seed, topped to the 3rd node
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3. I've been feeding every few days, with mild levels of nutrients, about 400ppm. Today, I hooked up my reservoir and set up a new feeding system. My last grow was an ebb/flow table, but I decided to try drip feeding. I have soaker hoses hooked up to a 550GPH water pump. The higher GPH is more for increased pressure than waterflow. The soaker hoses actually are quite slow, so I'm going to try having the pump on for 15 minutes, 4 times a day, and I'll see what my runoff is like. I can see water on the hose, but it's so slow a drip that at first, I didn't know if the pump was actually on. I suppose I could always just use drippers, but part of me thinks I can get more even watering with a soaker hose.
pH 5.7
640ppm nutrients.

For next week:

1. LST and defoliate the photo plants to mainline/flux.
2. I picked up some air pressure sensors. I'm going to do some testing to see how sensitive they are. I am wondering if I can measure the negative air pressure by comparing pressure outside the cabinet and inside. Part of me is hoping it'll work, but I've been reading that the sensors are not sensitive enough.
3. I want to make a more permanent housing for my circuit board and clean up my cabling inside the cabinet.

 

[415friendly]

Updates: Defoliating, fluxing/mainlining, Temperature, Tinkering

Feeding Time!
Last two weeks have been relatively uneventful. At the end of the week, I topped off the reservoir with 10L of tap water.
ppm 640 -> 400
pH 5.8 -> 6.0

Today, I changed the reservoir, putting in 20L of water. I also added:
8mL Hydrox (30% H2O2)
8ml Clean Slate
And the 3 part feeding formula for Veg Cycle
25ml Grow
25ml Micro
20ml Bloom

Temperature!

Winter is coming. Temperatures are dropping. My garage is still staying in the 60's at night, but my ceramic heat bulb is on more often during lights off and even on sometimes during lights on. Temperatures are still staying in the 74-76 range, but I have almost no variance between my Lights on/Lights off phases. I'm tempted to pick up a 600W MH/HPS just to increase temperature during the light phase. I'll see how things get in the next couple of weeks. If I'm going to have a 150W heat bulb running in addition to my 200W LED, I might as well just run a 400W HID and get the extra light. Humidity is becoming an issue, so I've raised my plants and allowed a bit more runoff to stay in the trays. I'm exploring adding a humidifier to the cabinet; that might help with temperatures, too, but it's starting to get crowded in there.

Fluxing/Mainlining
Is turning out to be easier than I expected. I topped and defoliated, which slowed down growth some, but I'm really planning on a long veg so I'm not too concerned. I used some cooking skewers, clothes pegs and pipe cleaners to train my SD and SSH. I think I might get some half inch tubing to make a support so the fabric pots don't cave in too much. Real noticeable difference in genetics; the SSH develops much larger fan leaves.

CKS Sour Diesel ​

CKS Super Silver Haze ​

CKS NYC Diesel Auto ​ A bit of a dog's breakfast here. I'm just tying down everything that sticks up in all kinds of different directions. I defoliated a bit to expose the new growth tips in the middle a bit, which I think is a no-no with autos, but I think allowing more light to reach the lower growth just seemed like a good idea at the time, especially when the overall height of the plant is so short.

Electronicals
Haven't gotten around to permanently wiring my microcontroller to the cabinet; I'm still waiting for some parts from China. I have been playing with some air pressure sensors. I'm trying to calibrate them, and I'm getting, on average, a 3Pa extreme spread between the 4 of them. Still, I might be able to measure the negative pressure exerted by my exhaust fan. I can definitely feel the air movement around the intake.

Plan for the next two weeks

• More LST on the NYC Diesel, more Fluxing/defoliating the SD and SSH.
• Monitor the drip feeding system to see if I need to add additional time to watering
• Reinforce fabric pots with a tube/ring made from half inch hose around the edge.
• Start building a pollen chamber/space bucket to hopefully cross an SD and SSH clone sometime in January
• See if I can measure the negative air pressure in the cabinet
  

 

[David Bowman]

Hope all is well in your world.

Is this grow still alive?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info.

How about posting a 420 Strain Review?

If you need any help with posting photos, please read our Photo Gallery Tutorial.

I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.

 

[415friendly]

I've been negligent; so busy with work, travel, playing with electronicals and taking care of my plants that I haven't had time to document my grow, let alone write about it on these forums.

I'm 1846 hours into my grow (almost 11 weeks).

My last 2 week plan:

• More LST on the NYC Diesel, more Fluxing/defoliating the SD and SSH.
• Monitor the drip feeding system to see if I need to add additional time to watering
• Reinforce fabric pots with a tube/ring made from half inch hose around the edge.
• Start building a pollen chamber/space bucket to hopefully cross an SD and SSH clone sometime in January
• See if I can measure the negative air pressure in the cabinet

Updates and new items:

• Drip feeding issues
• Grow cabinet size
• Temperature dilemna
• Autoflowering update

LST/Fluxing the Photoperiod plants
This has been going well. I think I'm about ready to flip my SSH and SD into flowering really soon; the plants have grown out to the edges of the pots and are still nice and low. I've been able to keep them to the level of the pot all the way out to the edges, but now they have to grow up to get over the edge of the pot. The reincorced hosing to create a "rim" at the pot has been wonderful, and the use of 12" cooking skewers and pipe cleaners to help hold the stems down has worked out wonderfully. They don't go all the way across the middle of the pot, so I've had to work around the outsides creating diagonals to keep my stems down.

Photos:

Crop King Sour Diesel​ ​

I really hate the way the LED lights don't let you see the colour. Her leaves are nice and healthy, have been a little mangled in places because I have to remove all of the skewers and retie down new ones to try and keep growth where I want it. I had some problems with the coco coir pulling up/out when i was tying her in place, but she has always recovered nicely. Her main stems don't look as thick as I would have expected, but I think my watering has been suspect. I've had some drip feeding issues, but have them mostly worked out now...I hope

Crop King Super Silver Haze​ ​

I turned the flash on my camera on for this one. Of all the plants I've grown (all 6 lol), this one seems the most weed like. It has really heavy, thick leaves that grow strong. Weeds grow to outcompete their neighbors, and this one, I feel really does that. Her stems have always been really healthy feeling. I think she's also getting ready to flip.

Drip Feeding
This has worked out well for the most part, although there have been days when I've checked the drop flow and it looks like the nozzles were blocked. I'm wondering if it's salt buildup because the dripping was too slow. This has me a bit concerned because I have a 2 week vacation coming up, and the plan had been to leave them on the drip system. Trying to find that balance between enough drip and not too much ( by checking runoff) has been challenging, but not a major problem, yet.

Reinforced pot edges
This has worked out incredibly. It has given my pots structure, and strength, and given me somthing to tie my stems/sticks for LST. Will definitely be doing this for the remainder of my fabric pot grows. Smartest thing I've ever done with my plants.

Pollen chamber/space bucket
No time this go round. I tried making some clones a few weeks back, and failed miserably. I still have the parts, just need the time.

Measuring negative pressure
Wow! Is all I can say. I didn't think it was going to be possible, but after calibrating my air pressure sensors, I measured the differential air pressure inside the grow cabinet vs outside. Note: typical atmospheric pressure is 100,kPa (100,000).
With my 4" fan at max power operating at lowest speed setting (basically a plug with a dial on it) air pressure in the cabinet was about 100Pa lower than outside. When I plugged up a few of the openings, air pressure was about 150Pa lower. When I put the fan on the highest setting, air pressure was about 200Pa lower. My concerns about air getting out through the cracks instead of going through the filter were alleviated. Any odor escaping is not getting through the cracks, air is definitely coming in.

New Items

Outgrowing the Grow Cabinet
It was just a couple weeks after my last post that I realized my quarters were getting too cramped. A 3' x 1.5' cabinet was not going to work for all 4 plants, especially because my photo plants in their 2 gallon pots needed transplanting. I broke out the credit card, and picked up a 3' x 3' x 6' Milliard grow tent from Amazon. I considered a number of different tents, and picked this one up mostly for the reviews, but I think any tent would have done nicely. I should have considered something with different vent locations, because it turns out that mine are not ideally suited with how I ended up arranging things in my garage, but it was kind of a last minute, "oh shit, what do I do now?" kind of purchase. I had all of my plants in there for a couple of weeks, until my new grow light arrived. Now my photos are back in the smaller grow cabinet, and the autos are flowering away happily in the tent.

Temperature Dilemna
Winter is coming, it's getting colder, and I really had some concerns about putting a heater inside my grow tent because of the way I had things set up. I also thought, "If I'm going to put in a heater, I might as well just put in more lights". Concerned about how cold things are going to get in January/February, I picked up a 600W HPS light from Amazon. It's going to cost me more to run than my LED (about $15 per month) but it also puts out much more light than my Mars Reflector 96 and the light makes for better photos. Also, squeezing every single gram/$ is not high on my list of priorities, quality bud is. I've been able to run it at 600W and temperatures are still under 70F, so I'm happy. Lights off temperatures are around 58F in my garage now; I'm hoping it doesn't get much colder than that otherwise I might still need to put that heater into the tent.

Autoflowering Update
I topped both of my Crop King NYC Diesels. During the first week of LST, I snapped off one of the tops, undoing all of the work that I'd done. To try and compensate, I bent the plant stem down to create some side tops. Amazingly, the broken top turned out to grow much bigger and didn't enter into flowering until recently. The topped plant is still good, but turned to flowering a lot sooner.

Grow Tent Autos​ ​ Most of the tent is dominated by the plant with the broken top. It has entered flowering much later and is just starting whereas the topped plant is looking like she's getting ready to finish. My topped plant takes up about 1/3 of the space and is on the left side, and the broken top has become unruly and spread out. I should have done a better job of controlling her, but didn't know what to do with autos. I'll probably scrog or do more LST next time. Her stalks are a bit flimsier; I think I'm going to need to tie some supports to help her stay upright once her buds start to fill in.

Topped Auto, Flowering Mostly on Schedule​ ​ The topped plant has some nice controlled height and some buds that are starting to fill in. She has some bare spots where she was crowded and forced to grow out to the side a bit. I was expecting to harvest her about now, but probably will have to harvest in two weeks and then let her dry slowly while I'm on a 2 week vacation. It's all I can really do at this point. Her stem structure is pretty symmetrical ​

Broken Top, Late Flowering​ This one I tied down/bent over to try and recover from the broken top which is why she's leaning so far to one side. She has grown quite large, and the base of the stem has become quite thick around. Her stems are a bit flimsier, and I had some lighter green leaves. I think she was a bit starved for water at some point so may have also received a bit less nutrients than her sister. ​ She's a bit skinny, so I may have to tie some supports for her. I'm going to have to let her keep flowering all through December and then harvest her when i get back from a two week vacation in January. She should be ready by then. I'll end up moving my photos into the tent and run them flowering together on a 12/12 schedule while I'm out of town.

Final Thoughts
I'm curious about the variation in onset of flowering by autos. I know that in genetics, there is a term "expressivity" which is why, if you have genes for blue eyes, your blue eyes may not be the same shade of blue (or green) as everyone else's blue eyes. This has me wondering if autoflowering is the same. I've seen some journals where autoflowering happens quite late, and others where it happens too soon. It makes me wonder if it's just look of the draw combined as opposed to something we can actively control.

Next update will probably be a harvest update for my one flowering plant and then I'll be moving my photos into the tent and turning my grow cabinet into a drying cabinet.

 

[415friendly]

It's been almost 13 weeks since I germinated my seeds. I hadn't expected my autos to go this long, but I've been under a couple of misconceptions. When the seed vendor advertises "flowering time" of 7 weeks for an auto, they really mean "time in flowering phase" and not "time from seed". I don't know why I didn't realize this before; it makes so much sense now. Now I just have to figure out if "flowering time" means the time from when the plants are flipped to 12/12 or from the time that flowers are first seen developing. I'm kind of leaning towards the latter, because otherwise I don't know how you judge flowering time for autos, that flip whenever they flippin' well feel like it.

I have a 2 week vacation coming up soon, so a few preparations needed to be made in advance. So....on to the updates:

Updates:

• Oops, feeding...
• Photo update (SSH and SD)
• Auto update (NYC Diesels)
• Drip Feeding
• Temperature Sensor
• Two week preparations

Oops, feeding...
My pH has been a bit low, like 5.2. Oops. I forgot that during my last grow, I had to add some pH up to my flowering nutrient solutions to get the pH back up to range. No wonder I've been having some slow growth during flowering.

Photo Update
I decided to flip my Super Silver Haze and Sour Diesel photo fem plants on December 1st. They've been fluxed and in veg for about 11 weeks. I was hoping to get keep control of their vertical growth to even out the tops before I go away at the end of the week. So far, they haven't stretched much, but I'm starting to see the signs of flowers. Hopefully they'll still be stretching by the time I get back so I can train them some more if I need to. However, I'm hoping that all of the hard work has already been done. The plants are really short still, like 3-4 inches tall, but wide and bushy. These photos were pre-defoliation. I've tried to defoliate some, both to allow more light to reach bud sites as well as to maybe slow down some growth while I'm out of town.

Cropking Seeds Super Silver Haze (11 + 1.5 weeks) ​ Still just growing some really healthy leaves.

CropKing Seeds Sour Diesel (11 + 1.5 weeks) ​ She has quite a number of bud sites. This flux was just easier to do than the SSH, maybe because the leaves weren't quite as large.

Auto Update
One of my NYC Diesel's is just getting so close to harvest, but is not quite there. I wasn't sure whether to harvest on Thursday and let her dry for 2 and a half weeks while I'm out of town, or wait until I get back. She has a lot of cloudy trichomes, but I still see a lot of underdeveloped ones, and a lot of clear ones, so waiting it is. She's about half the height of the other NYC diesel and is not drinking nearly as much water as the other one, but her buds are really getting nice and fat. It's going to be a quick flush when I get back and then chop!

Cropking NYC Diesel Autoflowering, 12.5 weeks from seed ​ She just looks so good right now, and her buds are just getting bigger and bigger. I can really tell, by looking at her, that my last grow I just chopped way too early. There is so much bud development at the end. ​ There are still a lot of white pistils although a few are changing colour and starting to turn in. Leaves are really starting to turn purple. I don't think it's from temperature, my temperatures have only been ranging between 62 to 72F, but I did have that pH problem, so maybe that could be it. I guess it could also be a phenotype that's coming through at the end of flowering. I've seen some really swollen calyxes and she just smells so, so good.

Cropking NYC Diesel Autoflowering, 12.5 weeks from seed ​ This one seems to be a few weeks behind her sister in terms of bud development, but she's about twice the height. I had to supercrop a few of her stems because she was getting too tall, and some of her buds were getting too close to the HPS and starting to bleach. She drinks a lot more water than her sister, and for a while, I had to do some extra watering to keep her from getting too wilty. ​ You can really see the height difference when they're side by side in the tent. The shorter one is even raised up about 4 inches to try and get her closer to the lights.

Drip Feeding
I removed the drippers. I think they were getting clogged with something, maybe salt deposits, because they weren't dripping evenly. Instead of dripping for 15 minutes 3 times a day, now I'm just letting the pumps run free for 3 minutes, 3 times a day. It's not causing excessive amounts of runoff, so I think this is about where I need to be now.

Temperature Sensor
I tried setting up a second microcontroller and set them both up with bluetooth modules to try and have them talk wirelessly. I couldn't do it; cheap parts from China are not quite the right ones, so I just ran a telephone cable between the tent and the cabinet so that I could log temperature and humidity data from both grow areas. It's been freezing outside, but my garage is not really that cold. Low temperatures have been above 60, even with temperatures of 26 outside. I guess my garage is nicely insulated. My temperature control in my cabinet is working pretty well, and maintaining a temperature range of 70 to 72. That should really control my internode spacing, but maybe I should let it have a bit more range to allow some stretch. Perhaps when I come back from holiday, I can do that.

24 Hour Temperature/Humidity Data ​ I check this many, many times a day from home. I have my module upload the data to a Google Form, which updates a Google Sheet. Temperature is really consistent, humidity jumps around a bit. You can also see the spikes when I open my garage door to leave for work/come back home and when I open up the cabinet/tent to work on my plants. The veg cabinet temperatures bounce around a bit, because the module controls a heating lamp which tries to maintain temperature around 71F. I've been modifying my code so I can use my iPhone to change settings over bluetooth, but I need to work on doing the same thing over the Internet. I'm going to explore the use of Blynk to see what I can do with that.

Two Week Vacation Prep
Ugh...Vacation, yay! Possibly missing harvest window, boo! I was also concerned with how much water the big NYC diesel is going through. I picked up a 45 gallon garbage can to act as my 2.5 week reservoir. I really wish I could do a res change in there, but it's not going to be possible. I also picked up a larger tray to collect runoff; last thing I need is for my tent to flood. Maybe I should just remove the "floor", just in case, and let any runoff just run through my garage to the outside. I think the tray should be fine, though. I'm checking my excess water daily, and I think I have my watering schedule just to the point of very little runoff now. Fingers crossed, hopefully things are still looking up when I get back home!

 

[415friendly]

I got back back from my 2.5 week vacation last night at 3am and took a peek in at my plants. The last few days, I'd been having anxiety dreams about my plants, ranging from coming home to find that someone had clipped all the buds from my plants, to the watering system's runoff flooding my garage. I'd also been a bit concerned that the temperatures had been dropping dramatically, but that was just mostly just really cold outside temperatures.

I did return to a garage that really did smell like Marijuana. Yikes! Maybe time to look at upgrading my 4" carbon filter to a 6" one; that or the occasional venting to the outside to prevent the massive buildup of tasty smelling air.

I was also a bit stingy on the watering while I was gone; preferring to underwater than to have my runoff overflow out of the catchbins that I had set up for them. None of the plants appears to have suffered at all and the reservoir levels are at a safe level. I'll let them run out to the end of the week and change out the reservoirs when I have more time on the weekend.

Updates:

• Photo update (SSH and SD)
• Auto update (NYC Diesels)
• Phone eyepiece attachment.
• Tinctures!
• Prepping next grow

Photo Update
I came back to a jungle. The SSH has developed some really large fan leaves and developed some vertical growth, but really only stretched a little bit, less than a foot. The Sour Diesel stretched maybe 6 inches. I think that controlling the lights on/off temperature difference really did help tremendously, but now that the stretch is over, I can start letting the lights out temperature drop down a bit lower, maybe to 60F at the middle of the canopy.

It's a Jungle in there! (11 + 4.5 weeks) ​ The lower canopy is very thick and is going to need some serious defoliation. It actually kept the temperatures of my sensors shaded and lower than the top of the canopy so I think my lights out temperature was maintained a bit lower than I was expecting.

AutoUpdate
Both of these are winding down and should be ready to harvest really soon. I'm getting excited; this grow is going to be much better than my first one.

Cropking NYC Diesel (15.5 weeks from seed)​ This is the plant that grew a bit taller because she flowered a bit later and needed to be supercropped to control her height. Her buds are really developing nicely, even nicer than her sister. Lots of nice, cloudy white trichomes. I think she's going to be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks if I treat her right. ​ This is the plant that I was debating harvesting before I went on holiday. I was a little concerned about leaving her grow the extra 2.5 weeks, but she doesn't look too bad and she hasn't really changed much since I left. Her trichomes have started turning amber but there's still a lot of nice cloudy ones. I'm going to start flushing and harvest on the weekend.

Phone Eyepiece Attachment

I really don't know how people get good photos of their trichomes. I've tried all kinds of jewelers loupes, mini microscopes, USB microscopes and they just don't pan out. I picked up a Gosky Cell Phone adapter mount from Amazon that I'm going to try and attach to a dissecting scope. Maybe I can finally get some decent pictures. Too bad that I'll probably have to pull the buds off the plant to inspect them, but I am looking forward to trying it out.

Tinctures!
As I get ready to harvest, I know that I'm going to have some trim and sugar leaves that I'll be discarding. I think I'm going to try my hand at making some tinctures, cannabutter and maybe some E-Cig juice. I picked up some Diesel (153 proof) for my extraction because there is no Everclear sold anywhere near me. I also grabbed a box of eyedropper bottles from Amazon. Time to do some reading/research and start some planning.

Prepping Next Grow
As the autos are about to vacate the tent and get replaced by my photos, I find myself thinking about my next grow. If I start now, I'll be done come May before the hot weather comes, and then I can decide what to do with my summer. I think I'm going to start with 4 CKS Jack Herer autos and mainline/flux them. I don't think topping hurt my plants at all. I'll also start another CKS Purple Kush and a CKS White Widow. I'll germinate this weekend and put them under some CFL's to start. I am really looking forward to comparing a CKS Purple Kush grow with my first grow/learning experience. I already know I've learned a great deal in the last few months.

 

[415friendly]

I hooked up my Gosky adapter with my old iPhone to see if I could get some decent photos from a dissecting microscope capable of 20x and 40x.

This is the Auto NYC Diesel I plan on harvesting this weekend. I tried to pick some samples from the plant that were not new bud development, but even the new buds are showing lots of cloudy trichomes. Definitely ready to harvest this weekend. It's all flushing for the next 3 days on this girl.

​ Lots of cloudy trichomes, a few amber are showing up. This picture is from older bud development.

​ Newer bud development near the cola tip; some of the trichomes look a bit clear to me, but if it's just at the cola tips, the rest of the buds have to be further along in their development.

​ I tried to use the digital zoom to get a closer look at things. I think next time I'll have to just try using the 40x on the dissecting scope to try and get a better picture.

 

[415friendly]

Updates:

• Photo update (SSH and SD)
• Auto update (NYC Diesels)
• Blynk - controlling my grow over the Internet
• Next Grow Planning

Photo Update
I finally had a chance to pull the girls out of the cabinet and get a good luck at them. They look good but have been a bit water starved because they were on a weaker water pump while I was out of town. I'm going to supplement their regular feeding with some GP Massive, which I've come to decide is probably just backstrap molasses, judging from the residue it left in one of my reservoirs.

NYC Sour Diesel (11 + 5.2 weeks) ​ Pre defoliation. She has a really nice even canopy, and lots of bud sites visible from the top. There was a lot of really dense, bushy growth that I have defoliated to get more light to the bud sights. Some of her leaves are a bit soft and her pot's a bit light, so she's been underwatered a bit. ​ Her vertical height is really compact, only about 18" tall, if that. I hope that doesn't affect her bud development too much. Looking at these pictures, I can see that I could probably stand to do a bit more defoliating. I'll ask around in the FAQ to see what people think. I'm afraid of defoliating too much at this point.

NYC Super Silver Haze (11 + 5.2 weeks) ​ This plant grew tall despite all my efforts to control her height. She just has a will to grow and has been super healthy. Massive fan leaves, really thick stems. I can't wait to grow a couple more to see if it was just this one seed or if it's the strain in general. Considering it was a CannaCup winner, I'm guessing the strain. I'm going to try and take a cutting and try to re-veg, but my success rate with cuttings has been pretty abysmal. ​ She doesn't appear to have a lot of bud sites, but she has 4 really tall main colas and 4 slightly shorter colas that are tall enough to get good light. Not a really even canopy, but all of her stretch happened during the 2.5 weeks I was out of town. I'm glad she's looking healthy. I defoliated a bunch in the middle, and some the fan leaves that were about 8" across. She's not very dense, so there's not much problem with light getting through.

AutoUpdate
I've followed a couple of Cropking Seeds NYC Diesel grows, and this strain just seems to be consistently a really strong producer. One plant that I debated chopping 3 weeks ago is definitely getting the chop tomorrow. She's sitting in the dark for a while and has had a diet of plain water for the last 4 days.

Cropking NYC Diesel 16.2 weeks from seed ​ She has a lot of purple appearing in her upper leaves, which I thought was due to the colder temperatures, but she has some lower green leaves that were shaded. It can't be light, so maybe some kind of mobile deficiency? I did have some pH problems ( 5.2, a tad low) that I corrected late, so maybe that's the problem. Pistils are brown, trichomes are nice and cloudy with some amber. The only clear trichomes are appearing on some of the newest growth. I didn't snip the tops of the colas to backbuild, so I've been getting new buds forming at the growth tips and some new buds growing up from the bottoms. I guess I could harvest the top of the plant and let the bottom develop more, too. ​ This entire lower section could probably be let go for another week while the top could get chopped. I'll take a look at the trichomes under magnification to see what I might do.

Cropking NYC Diesel 16.2 weeks from seed ​ This is my NYC Diesel that flowered late. I can see that I should probably have defoliated a lot more, and a lot of the lower buds just didn't develop and should have been stripped off a couple of weeks ago. I'll know for next time; this time I wasn't sure how far down I should start removing all the growth. She's very top heavy. When I pulled her out of the tent, I kept feeling like she was going to tip over. ​ Supercropping didn't hurt her, but did expand her footprint. I almost feel like I could have spread her out to take over the entire tent and she'd have done well. I think she was a bit cramped with a room mate beside her. Still, she has a number of really nice, heavy buds that are frosting up really nicely. I think I'll harvest her in a couple of weeks, or maybe even next weekend.

Blynk!
Wow. I just started playing with this service/app a couple of days ago, and it has been so much fun. It's an app that allows you to build a custom interface on your phone, and then it communicates with your Internet connected Arduino/RaspberryPi/other microcontroller to monitor and update settings. It has some really neat, fancy widgets that you can add as well.

Blynk IoT App The interface for my microcontroller ​ I have it monitoring the temperatures in my grow cabinet and my tent. I have a relay that turns on/off a ceramic heat bulb in the grow cabinet, and I can control the on/off temperatures using the slider. A widget tracks the historical data and I can look at temperature and humidity over the last hour, the last day, week, month and 3 months. I added a little indicator to tell me if the relay is on, too, although I can tell just by looking at the temperatures. I still like the graphs from my Google Sheet better and I like the fact that I can look at the sheet and see all the numbers without having to download a CSV from Blynk, but I can use them both at the same time. I'm really looking forward to connecting a second relay and second ceramic heat bulb in the tent so I can control temperatures in there, too. I'll have to look at parts and how to plan it out. It's super cold now, but it'll be Spring soon (I really hope) and I won't need to heat up the tent until next winter. Next Grow I've started soaking seeds to get ready for germinating. This time, I thought I'd try a set of 4 CKS Jack Herer autoflowering seeds. I thought I'd also do another CKS Purple Kush and a White Widow, because I had a nice block of time between now and June without any big out of town trips, but now things are kind of up in the air. I'll have to see what happens now. I'm excited to try and do some more aggressive LST on these autos since I know that they're not as fragile as I had been reading and I can get some good yields from them. Plan for the next two weeks: Harvest auto NYC Diesels Germinate Jack Herer Make some tinctures Research E-Cig juice

 

[415friendly]

Updates:

• Auto Update: Harvest Time
• Next Grow

Auto Update: Harvest
I harvested the first of my 2 NYC Diesel autofems yesterday afternoon, 16.5 weeks after it was germinated. It probably could have been chopped two weeks ago, but I was out of town and I just wasn't prepared to chop it early. If this is a bit late, that's okay, because my other NYC Diesel is getting chopped next weekend, and it was about 2-3 weeks behind this one so I'll have a better idea of when I should be harvesting my next batch.

CKS NYC Diesel AutoFlowering (16.5 weeks) ​ At harvest, this plant was just under 18" tall. She was topped once and then very poorly height trained because I didn't know how much I should be messing around with an autoflower. Next time, I think I can do a lot more. I was under the impression that autoflowering strains were fragile, and you could really hurt your yield if you messed with them too much. I know better now. She had some new bud development a bit further down which is starting to take off, so I decided to let that be and harvest that next week. CKS NYC Diesel AutoFlowering (16.5 weeks) ​ I did take some of the green growth off that looked pretty good. Already this looks like more bud than my first grow which was 2 plants combined, or at least denser buds with more weight. CKS NYC Diesel AutoFlowering (16.5 weeks) ​ Here they are hanging in my veg cabinet, from my scrog screen which is now serving as my drying rack. I have a duo of computer fans blowing air up to circulate, and an oscillating fan blowing air at the door. I have a temperature probe controlling a ceramic bulb. I'm keeping the temperatures at the right level to maintain humidity levels of 45-55% so that they don't dry too fast or too slow. I'm planning on jarring on Saturday so I can prep the cabinet for my next harvest. CKS NYC Diesel AutoFlowering (16.5 weeks) ​ The remnants of my plant. Some of the lower buds were still developing; lots of white pistils, new growth. This has gone back into the flowering tent for another week to see if things can improve a little. If not, I'm just going to use it for butter or use it as a trial for my tinctures anyways.

Next Grow
Argh!!! I started germinated 4 x CKS Jack Herer Autoflowering seeds a couple of days ago, and then just discovered that CKS has a Durban Poison Feminized strain that they've just released. My fiance was quite interested in this strain after hearing about it from a friend. I guess I'm going to be starting one of these as well, now. White Widow and Purple Kush are getting put on hold until the Fall, I guess!

 

[415friendly]

Updates:

• Harvest Update
• Next Grow

Auto Update: Harvest
I jarred the harvest from NYC Diesel #1 on Thursday; some of the buds were getting too dry. I suppose I could have jarred the drier ones and let the rest go for a bit longer, but I'm still kind of new at this, and couldn't judge which were done and which needed more time. All the jars got a boveda pack, but one of the jars needed a bit of a helper to bring the humidity back up. I pulled just over 3oz of nice looking bud into 3 mason jars, and just over 1oz of trim/fluffy buds in a fourth. Two of the jars are sitting at around 70% humidity and are getting opened/agitated a few times a day. The third jar started down at around 55% humidity, but has climbed up to 63% with the use of fan leaves/boveda packs in the jar.

CKS NYC Diesel AutoFlowering #2 (17.5 weeks) ​ NYC Diesel #2 got the chop today. Lots of cloudy trichomes and a few amber...Perfect timing. I wish I'd kept better track of when her flowers started appearing at least just for reference. The downside of autoflowering...I'm not sure how long it vegged for. She was 32 inches tall and had some branches so heavy that they just flopped over. It took me a long time to trim her down, and in the end there were a bunch of really immature looking buds that I just threw away. They had some frost, but not enough to make it worthwhile. ​ I decided to leave a bunch of fan leaves on the lower parts of the stem to try and slow the drying process, mostly for the stems that had just a couple buds at the end. Some of the branches were pretty heavy and have some really dense buds. Hopefully this will even out the drying a bit. ​ I was a little concerned about this...one of the colas had some really dry buds at the very tip, almost like this bud didn't get enough water and died. I should have payed closer attention to where it came from. I wonder if it got burnt by the lights. I think I'm going to go back down to my cabinet and chop this bud out and hydrate it separately in a jar. It's definitely not mold, but it's still kind of odd. I'm pretty excited to weigh this out next weekend. Just based on how much space it's taking up in my cabinet (compared to my last plant) this looks like it might be close to a half a pound. Considering that my first grow with two plants yielded just over 3oz, this has been a huge improvement. Some of it's probably better lighting, but I've also improved on some of my techniques and I've learned a lot since then.

Next Grow
Germinated 4 CKS Jack Herer Autoflowering seeds during the week. One looks like it might not make it, so I'm going to give it until tomorrow. If it doesn't sprout up, I'm going to go digging to see how it looks and maybe germinate another to replace it. That'll finish off the pack and I can be done with it. As good as the NYC Diesel autoflower turned out, I think I'd rather stick with photos. Just having better control over when the flowering phase begins means having better control over harvest times.

Seed/Seedling Chamber
I acquired some more materials (basically white plastic buckets) that I've been using with a DIY LED to grow my seedlings in. I'm going to try and build a separate grow area for making seeds. I like the idea of keeping it contained in some plastic buckets so I can just hose them down at the end. One thing I have noticed, though, is that when you shine light down into a white plastic bucket, it basically turns it into a giant light bulb. I am going to have to cover the buckets with some kind of opaque material to make them a little less conspicuous.

 

[sammysnake]

Cool to see somebody else into data logging with sensors. I am not there yet, just started off my first grow but I plan on sensoring up when I have some time.

 

[415friendly]

Monitoring with sensors is a lot of fun. I'll try and put together a list of parts and stuff and try to put it together for posting. If you're not working with relays and mains electricity, it's pretty simple.

 

[415friendly]

Updates:

• Photo Update

Photo Update
It's been 47 days since I flipped my CKS Sour Diesel and Super Silver Haze plants to 12/12 and 14 days since they went from LED's in a cabinet to 600W HPS in my tent. I'm trying to bring humidity down, I just live in a really wet province, though, but I'm keeping temperatures up and using a small dehumidifier. I'm also making sure to try and minimize evaporation in the tent by removing runoff and standing water in the drip pans.

CKS Sour Diesel (11+6.5 weeks) ​ I may have done too good a job of height training. She's short, but I have managed to keep her canopy really even. I bent some of her stems (slightly super cropped?) to try and spread her out a bit to let more light reach some of the bud sites in the center of the plant. CKS says 8-9 weeks flowering time, but I'm never sure if that means weeks since flip or weeks since flowers show up. 2-3 weeks sounds good, though. Gives her time to pack on some weight. ​

CKS Super Silver Haze (11+6.5 weeks) ​ CKS says 10 weeks flowering time. Definitely needs at least 3.5 weeks more. She has lots of pistils, but that's about it; no buds or frost forming yet. I super cropped her to expose the bud sites in the lower part of the plant, and to even the canopy out a bit. I do think I'm going to need to support her stems as she packs on weight, she is almost all bud sites along her length. I will definitely have to try and reveg her when I'm done and see if I can make some clones. She has been such a good plant.

Upcoming

• Tinctures. Doing a lot of reading. I can't get my hands on 190 proof Everclear, but am going to try with 153 proof Diesel. May be looking at picking up some Vegetable Glycerine and Propylene Glycol and try to make some vape juice.
• Jack Herer Autoflowering is germinated and in the seedling phase. Need to start another journal for that grow soon.
• Harvest report for NYC Diesel #2. I'm excited to weigh this one out.

 

[415friendly]

Updates:

• Harvest Update

Harvest Update
Real quick. I jarred NYC Diesel #2 tonight after she spent the last 6 days in the cabinet drying. I let this one go a couple days longer than NYC Diesel #1 because the ambient humidity stayed a little higher a little longer for this one, and NYC Diesel #1 was jarred a bit soon (got up to 72% RH in the jars).

Big difference right away, NYC Diesel #1 has more of a smoky, earth scent, whereas NYC Diesel #2 smells deliciously like citrus and diesel like she's supposed to. Her buds seem quite a bit denser as well. Total yield from NYC Diesel #2 is 7.6oz, not quite the half ounce I had thought I might reach, but I'm still pretty happy with that yield.

 

[415friendly]

Updates:

• Harvest Update
• Photo update

Harvest Update
Yeah, I probably should have jarred a bit sooner. Humidity in the jars was around 52% after 12 hours, so they all got a fan leave and a boveda pack. They're now in the area of 58-60% RH.

Photo Update

CKS Sour Diesel 11 + 7 weeks ​ Looking really bushy still. I don't think I'm going to defoliate this girl. Her canopy is so even and she's so short that there's not much below the top layer. ​ Her buds are starting to get frosty and pack on some weight. I definitely think 2 weeks and she'll be good to go, but I'll reassess next weekend and see if I go for 3 or start flushing.

CKS Super Silver Haze 11 + 7 weeks ​ After super cropping, she's a little bit flatter. Luckily, her growth is not as dense. She has large fan leaves, but not as many as the SD. No need to defoliate at all, there's lots of light getting down to the lower bud sites. (11+7 weeks) ​ She only has 4 main colas, but all along her stalks she's just all bud sites. I can't wait for her to start bulking up. I hope it starts soon. I want to see some big buds and not just lots of small ones.

 

[415friendly]

Updates:

• Harvest Update

Harvest Update
Sour Diesel was harvested yesterday. I think I might have gone a week too long, but was waiting for the buds to fatten up a bit more. I think I just didn't let the plants stretch enough to develop more bud sites. A few bigger colas, but I'm not expecting more than 3 ounces from this plant. A shame, because I did have it vegging for over 2 months.

 

[Orlando Scout]

Hope all is well in your world.

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