Beautiful work again hyena!
Hyena's Never-Ending Adventures In Growing
- Thread starter Hyena Merica
- Start date
Smeegol
Well-Known Member
" Portraitures of a Yankee Life " by Sebastian Smith circa 1854 in which he wrote ' this is a money digging world of ours ' in reference to there's more than one to dig for money and the phrase being coined " many ways to skin a cat "....
I learnt something new today, thank you......
I learnt something new today, thank you......
- Thread starter
- #1,503
Happy Monday and here's another
HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!
Another few days...another almost doubling of the biomass...
This shit is GROWING. Now I'm really wondering when to flip this...my feeling is to keep it going and going. I anticipate a stretch but with zero experience with two of the three strains (Big Bud Bling Tings and Super Bud...I have grown White Widow before) I feel like I should err on the side of HUGENESS. So-on they shall grow.
It's absolutely amazing to have this much light to play with! The evenness of the footprint and the truly low temperatures are blissful. There's soooo much light, even with the lights as high as they can possibly go, the plants appear to be growing as fast as they possibly can...the lushness and leaf size are amazing...I pulled about 150 fan leaves twice now and there's still an absolute sea of green. That means we will get maximum penetration and mid-canopy development I suppose. I'm all for that.
I worked with branches carefully SCROGGING for almost 90 minutes, they are nicely spreading out and everything I exposed last time is popping now and needed yet another trim.
That's how I left it after refilling and balancing the reservoir. These plants are only a couple feet tall yet they used up 2/3 of 50 gallons in three days! So unless I can figure out a reliable method for adding another reservoir I am relegated to visiting twice a week. I can live with that since this is kind of a job now...a job I really, really like.
However I am at some disadvantage if I am forced to a four-day maximum time away because I wanted to achieve one week automation. It may be a crucial thing if things happened and I absolutely couldn't come for a week...the system could be essentially dry for several days. So I guess I will research what others have done. It seems simple, just an adjacent 55-gallon tank with a single hose connecting them near the bottom. That would essentially double the reservoir and it would self-adjust as the first reservoir was emptied and refilled. It's likely I will do just that just over a week from now when I build the second system, but I'm probably not going to refit the first tank with an aux tank until after harvest since it would be a major pain to completely drain and dry the main tank then plumb the hose connection properly right now in mid-grow. It's going sooo good I'm not touching it.
MEANWHILE, the once-secret attic lab is staying about 100 degrees F for a good number of hours per day with 90-degree outside Summer temperatures but that doesn't seem to hurt cannabis plants in their first month of life so everybody is rockin' up there. Which is frankly amazing since it's so freaking hot...
I have my ducks in a row for the moment. Phase Two will be complete by two weeks from now when these babies will need to go North. Wednesday we go to the far-Northern vacation house for the annual Fourth of July week where we golf and ride the Sea Doos plus eat a lot of steaks and snacks. I think I look forward to the eating the most. We will stop by on the way up for the lawn mow and the res top-off, then up to the far-Northern command.
At least I have tons of buds archived up there...so for Red White and Blue...I will be Green.
Have a great Independence Day. Unless you don't live in America. In that case, start an armed revolution in your own country and adopt our constitution. Something to do this week. You're welcome.
Peace, Hyena
HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!
Another few days...another almost doubling of the biomass...
This shit is GROWING. Now I'm really wondering when to flip this...my feeling is to keep it going and going. I anticipate a stretch but with zero experience with two of the three strains (Big Bud Bling Tings and Super Bud...I have grown White Widow before) I feel like I should err on the side of HUGENESS. So-on they shall grow.
It's absolutely amazing to have this much light to play with! The evenness of the footprint and the truly low temperatures are blissful. There's soooo much light, even with the lights as high as they can possibly go, the plants appear to be growing as fast as they possibly can...the lushness and leaf size are amazing...I pulled about 150 fan leaves twice now and there's still an absolute sea of green. That means we will get maximum penetration and mid-canopy development I suppose. I'm all for that.
I worked with branches carefully SCROGGING for almost 90 minutes, they are nicely spreading out and everything I exposed last time is popping now and needed yet another trim.
That's how I left it after refilling and balancing the reservoir. These plants are only a couple feet tall yet they used up 2/3 of 50 gallons in three days! So unless I can figure out a reliable method for adding another reservoir I am relegated to visiting twice a week. I can live with that since this is kind of a job now...a job I really, really like.
However I am at some disadvantage if I am forced to a four-day maximum time away because I wanted to achieve one week automation. It may be a crucial thing if things happened and I absolutely couldn't come for a week...the system could be essentially dry for several days. So I guess I will research what others have done. It seems simple, just an adjacent 55-gallon tank with a single hose connecting them near the bottom. That would essentially double the reservoir and it would self-adjust as the first reservoir was emptied and refilled. It's likely I will do just that just over a week from now when I build the second system, but I'm probably not going to refit the first tank with an aux tank until after harvest since it would be a major pain to completely drain and dry the main tank then plumb the hose connection properly right now in mid-grow. It's going sooo good I'm not touching it.
MEANWHILE, the once-secret attic lab is staying about 100 degrees F for a good number of hours per day with 90-degree outside Summer temperatures but that doesn't seem to hurt cannabis plants in their first month of life so everybody is rockin' up there. Which is frankly amazing since it's so freaking hot...
I have my ducks in a row for the moment. Phase Two will be complete by two weeks from now when these babies will need to go North. Wednesday we go to the far-Northern vacation house for the annual Fourth of July week where we golf and ride the Sea Doos plus eat a lot of steaks and snacks. I think I look forward to the eating the most. We will stop by on the way up for the lawn mow and the res top-off, then up to the far-Northern command.
At least I have tons of buds archived up there...so for Red White and Blue...I will be Green.
Have a great Independence Day. Unless you don't live in America. In that case, start an armed revolution in your own country and adopt our constitution. Something to do this week. You're welcome.
Peace, Hyena
Highya HM,
Wow, I'm so amazed again at the growth! Must be the lights, and of course, your TLC! It's always fun to figure out the best way to do something (second reservoir tank). That's the part of a project I liked the best. And it's great insurance to have extra reservoir when needed.
I was just thinking about your babies in the 100 degree heat. I've had almost finished ladies snowed on, and frost 2 nights in a row. Extreme opposites. They are tough! I hope you can get the babies out soon. Cheers
Wow, I'm so amazed again at the growth! Must be the lights, and of course, your TLC! It's always fun to figure out the best way to do something (second reservoir tank). That's the part of a project I liked the best. And it's great insurance to have extra reservoir when needed.
I was just thinking about your babies in the 100 degree heat. I've had almost finished ladies snowed on, and frost 2 nights in a row. Extreme opposites. They are tough! I hope you can get the babies out soon. Cheers
425jesse
Well-Known Member
Just amazing HM. Wow!
OverGrower
Well-Known Member
New member, but signed up largely due to following your log here from start to finish. Absolutely love your attention to details, will get some photos of mine own up soon. Will be following, anxiously watching for updates! Great work these past few years man!
- Thread starter
- #1,507
Thanks very much...means a lot!
I started writing about growing (and keep writing) in large part because I hope to reach folks and inspire them to gain the same satisfaction I have experienced from learning this art. Defying the mindless prohibition like a freedom fighter while mastering the tender art of eliciting the cannabis plant to become everything she can be. It's a lot of work to learn, but if you get it right (even reasonably right will work just fine, you will see many examples of plant abuse around here but they still produce buds....!) then it's a lot like being a baker...you get to consume the results!
Stick around, it's about to get very interesting! Thanks again from the heart!
Peace, Hyena
It's statements like this that bring me back to your place HM! Good on you!
- Thread starter
- #1,509
My theory is Shakespeare got high before writing. So do I.
I appreciate you, and everybody, who takes a moment now and then to follow my continuing misadventure. It's as strange to be living it as it probably is to be reading about it.
Thanks again my friend.
Peace, Hyena
- Thread starter
- #1,510
It's Sunday baby!! I just drove eight hours so why not pound out another
HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!
Yes, the drive is mind-(and butt-) numbing back from the far Northern reaches of Michigan. Our short Fourth of July vacation was only three days there but in that time I took the wife and daughter out for hours of Jet Ski riding, a full day of shopping, a couple huge restaurant breakfasts, a sunset boat ride on the big lake, cooked three gourmet dinners, a Saturday night fireworks party plus I played two rounds of golf. Which makes sense since it's almost 8 hours one way of driving and if you're going to suffer for 16 hours going on a trip it better kick ass. It did.
On the way up and the way back we stopped at the GH. I last posted shots from last Sunday, here's one of them:
Now the same shot today:
Yes it's really growing like that! This hedge eats 10 GALLONS A DAY from the reservoir. Every leaf on every plant looks great and when I went in today it totally hit me that this is really happening.
The grow room stays a max of 82 degrees but now the humidity is 70% so it looks like I've reached the tipping point for humidity mitigation. Guess I'll source a dehumidifier and figure out this next thing.
My first thought is to set it up in there so it simply drains into the reservoir. Don't know if this will work but it seems like it would dump pure, 7.0 PH water into the barrel. But it seems so simple I suspect a reason may appear that it won't...something else to research.
I'm doing 4 flood cycles daily, with about 15 minutes of actual root immersion per cycle...so I don't think I'm creating this humidity problem by overwatering, plus I'm able to keep the reservoir at a steady 67 degrees. No, it must be what I thought it is...a huge hedge of plants that are drinking up and transpiring everything they possibly can 24/7 like mad machines! And with the fan on a very aggressive draw which bows in the outer surfaces of the tent noticeably, I'm giving them a LOT of fresh air turning over the air in the entire tent a little more than once a minute, so will a dehumidifier in the tent actually make a difference? Do I need one in the house rather than the tent? The water is being introduced inside the tent so it seems like it would have to be in there. I'll try a dehumidifier and see if it does.
I purchased two 50-gallon rain barrels (plastic with a pre-assembled spigot at the bottom in front ready for a hose) from Home Depot...these should solve the problem of needing twice the reservoir size. I need to get to a hundred gallons for each tent to extend my time range between visits. I'm not sure this grow in full bloom will be able to run a full week even on 100 gallons but it will double the present interval and that will really help. I'll be going up Wednesday to address these issues. This build just keeps getting more and more complex but now I know why all these elements (humidity, reservoir size, light intensity vs. power draw, etc) mean soooo much to larger-scale indoor growers when they never were truly tuned in in my attic lab experiments. It's incredible to see what is happening in this environment.
By the way, I think I will also flip this grow Wednesday.
It's growing so freakishly fast I am suddenly afraid a reasonable stretch will get everything too high and I'll hurt production! This canopy will be too big to just bend branches madly like I could do in the 35-square-foot growing space...now three times that and I have to figure out a streamlined, ultra-repeatable method for everything and so I'm flipping Wednesday. I hope it's not too early but you gotta flip sometime and when you've never grown strains before you have to see what they actually do anyway before you really know what to do from now on. I will be watching VERY closely...
Let's all see together!
Hope you all had a great weekend and we'll have our next update Thursday!
Peace, Hyena
HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!
Yes, the drive is mind-(and butt-) numbing back from the far Northern reaches of Michigan. Our short Fourth of July vacation was only three days there but in that time I took the wife and daughter out for hours of Jet Ski riding, a full day of shopping, a couple huge restaurant breakfasts, a sunset boat ride on the big lake, cooked three gourmet dinners, a Saturday night fireworks party plus I played two rounds of golf. Which makes sense since it's almost 8 hours one way of driving and if you're going to suffer for 16 hours going on a trip it better kick ass. It did.
On the way up and the way back we stopped at the GH. I last posted shots from last Sunday, here's one of them:
Now the same shot today:
Yes it's really growing like that! This hedge eats 10 GALLONS A DAY from the reservoir. Every leaf on every plant looks great and when I went in today it totally hit me that this is really happening.
The grow room stays a max of 82 degrees but now the humidity is 70% so it looks like I've reached the tipping point for humidity mitigation. Guess I'll source a dehumidifier and figure out this next thing.
My first thought is to set it up in there so it simply drains into the reservoir. Don't know if this will work but it seems like it would dump pure, 7.0 PH water into the barrel. But it seems so simple I suspect a reason may appear that it won't...something else to research.
I'm doing 4 flood cycles daily, with about 15 minutes of actual root immersion per cycle...so I don't think I'm creating this humidity problem by overwatering, plus I'm able to keep the reservoir at a steady 67 degrees. No, it must be what I thought it is...a huge hedge of plants that are drinking up and transpiring everything they possibly can 24/7 like mad machines! And with the fan on a very aggressive draw which bows in the outer surfaces of the tent noticeably, I'm giving them a LOT of fresh air turning over the air in the entire tent a little more than once a minute, so will a dehumidifier in the tent actually make a difference? Do I need one in the house rather than the tent? The water is being introduced inside the tent so it seems like it would have to be in there. I'll try a dehumidifier and see if it does.
I purchased two 50-gallon rain barrels (plastic with a pre-assembled spigot at the bottom in front ready for a hose) from Home Depot...these should solve the problem of needing twice the reservoir size. I need to get to a hundred gallons for each tent to extend my time range between visits. I'm not sure this grow in full bloom will be able to run a full week even on 100 gallons but it will double the present interval and that will really help. I'll be going up Wednesday to address these issues. This build just keeps getting more and more complex but now I know why all these elements (humidity, reservoir size, light intensity vs. power draw, etc) mean soooo much to larger-scale indoor growers when they never were truly tuned in in my attic lab experiments. It's incredible to see what is happening in this environment.
By the way, I think I will also flip this grow Wednesday.
It's growing so freakishly fast I am suddenly afraid a reasonable stretch will get everything too high and I'll hurt production! This canopy will be too big to just bend branches madly like I could do in the 35-square-foot growing space...now three times that and I have to figure out a streamlined, ultra-repeatable method for everything and so I'm flipping Wednesday. I hope it's not too early but you gotta flip sometime and when you've never grown strains before you have to see what they actually do anyway before you really know what to do from now on. I will be watching VERY closely...Let's all see together!
Hope you all had a great weekend and we'll have our next update Thursday!
Peace, Hyena
Highya HM,
So nice to enjoy this time of year!! And with family along, even better!
Loved your update. First time through is an incredible learning experience. And you have figured out how to handle it all. I knew you would. Like building a house, not succeeding is not an option!
One week made a huge difference. Are you doing a scrog? Or are the nets to keep the ladies upright? Forgot already, lol But holy cow, your ladies are bending over backwards for you!! Cheers
So nice to enjoy this time of year!! And with family along, even better!
Loved your update. First time through is an incredible learning experience. And you have figured out how to handle it all. I knew you would. Like building a house, not succeeding is not an option!
One week made a huge difference. Are you doing a scrog? Or are the nets to keep the ladies upright? Forgot already, lol But holy cow, your ladies are bending over backwards for you!! Cheers
Smeegol
Well-Known Member
Damn mr.Hyena if your reservoir gets any bigger you could call it a jacuzzi.... 
Another stunning week and update brother....
Another stunning week and update brother....
OverGrower
Well-Known Member
Thanks very much...means a lot!
I started writing about growing (and keep writing) in large part because I hope to reach folks and inspire them to gain the same satisfaction I have experienced from learning this art. Defying the mindless prohibition like a freedom fighter while mastering the tender art of eliciting the cannabis plant to become everything she can be. It's a lot of work to learn, but if you get it right (even reasonably right will work just fine, you will see many examples of plant abuse around here but they still produce buds....!) then it's a lot like being a baker...you get to consume the results!
Stick around, it's about to get very interesting! Thanks again from the heart!
Peace, Hyena
A freedom fighter, fightin' for peace, but that's an oxymoron like a lock without keys.
I've got a few outdoor grows and a handful of indoor grows under my belt and still feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Never done a hydro setup, but following yours and just how intuitive it is has really made me consider doing one maybe in the next year. I'm a big fan of 5-gallon paint buckets, soil-less mixtures, and also keeping it very simple on nutes; I only use Fox Farms Grow Big, Big Bloom(micros), and Tiger Bloom in parts typically 1/5th or 1/4 of the dosage.
I just flipped 3 Ackbar OG (X-Wing OG(Skywalker pheno) X PhishHead Kush) plants 2 days ago!
Cannot wait to see your room a few weeks after you flip!
--OverGrower
Latitude17
Well-Known Member
It'll work fine, it's basically distilled water at that point. I've done it for years. You'll lose most of the trace elements that you might be unknowingly (?) depending on for your plant nutrition (I don't use your nutes, so I'm not sure).
Not at your circulation rate, unless your dehumidifier is a BEAST. Slowing down your air exchange really shouldn't hurt anything, you would be surprised at the amount of CO2 they consume. Got an O2 sensor handy? If so you could measure the intake and then the exhaust.
425jesse
Well-Known Member
It's Sunday baby!! I just drove eight hours so why not pound out another
HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!
Yes, the drive is mind-(and butt-) numbing back from the far Northern reaches of Michigan. Our short Fourth of July vacation was only three days there but in that time I took the wife and daughter out for hours of Jet Ski riding, a full day of shopping, a couple huge restaurant breakfasts, a sunset boat ride on the big lake, cooked three gourmet dinners, a Saturday night fireworks party plus I played two rounds of golf. Which makes sense since it's almost 8 hours one way of driving and if you're going to suffer for 16 hours going on a trip it better kick ass. It did.
On the way up and the way back we stopped at the GH. I last posted shots from last Sunday, here's one of them:
Now the same shot today:
Yes it's really growing like that! This hedge eats 10 GALLONS A DAY from the reservoir. Every leaf on every plant looks great and when I went in today it totally hit me that this is really happening.
The grow room stays a max of 82 degrees but now the humidity is 70% so it looks like I've reached the tipping point for humidity mitigation. Guess I'll source a dehumidifier and figure out this next thing.
My first thought is to set it up in there so it simply drains into the reservoir. Don't know if this will work but it seems like it would dump pure, 7.0 PH water into the barrel. But it seems so simple I suspect a reason may appear that it won't...something else to research.
I'm doing 4 flood cycles daily, with about 15 minutes of actual root immersion per cycle...so I don't think I'm creating this humidity problem by overwatering, plus I'm able to keep the reservoir at a steady 67 degrees. No, it must be what I thought it is...a huge hedge of plants that are drinking up and transpiring everything they possibly can 24/7 like mad machines! And with the fan on a very aggressive draw which bows in the outer surfaces of the tent noticeably, I'm giving them a LOT of fresh air turning over the air in the entire tent a little more than once a minute, so will a dehumidifier in the tent actually make a difference? Do I need one in the house rather than the tent? The water is being introduced inside the tent so it seems like it would have to be in there. I'll try a dehumidifier and see if it does.
I purchased two 50-gallon rain barrels (plastic with a pre-assembled spigot at the bottom in front ready for a hose) from Home Depot...these should solve the problem of needing twice the reservoir size. I need to get to a hundred gallons for each tent to extend my time range between visits. I'm not sure this grow in full bloom will be able to run a full week even on 100 gallons but it will double the present interval and that will really help. I'll be going up Wednesday to address these issues. This build just keeps getting more and more complex but now I know why all these elements (humidity, reservoir size, light intensity vs. power draw, etc) mean soooo much to larger-scale indoor growers when they never were truly tuned in in my attic lab experiments. It's incredible to see what is happening in this environment.
By the way, I think I will also flip this grow Wednesday.
Let's all see together!
Hope you all had a great weekend and we'll have our next update Thursday!
Peace, Hyena
Garden Stretching the boundaries of control, and I love it. Flip and stretch and live life to the fullest lol. Cheers brother!!
JB
- Thread starter
- #1,516
Tuesday. Just realized it's been a week...wow where did that week go?! So here's a
HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!
Since visiting the GH last Wednesday, it's been busy, busy, busy...busy with work, busy playing in the four-day City golf championship (I got second
) and busy with both ends of this new all-consuming grow effort. I was able to run back up there for a few hours yesterday and Phase One looks like this:
Oh yeah.
I was a little paranoid there would be a dry tank but they used about 70% which was fine and everybody grew another 6 inches which I was happy to see. I need them to stretch another foot I would say, and with no idea how they grow who knows if it will be a foot plus or quickly level off...I flipped to 12/12 last Wednesday so two weeks left in the stretch I reckon.
The canopy density is ridiculous
All this has been achieved with the lights plastered as high as they can go...the amount of lumens these Quantum boards barf out is simply amazing. With that kind of intensity but relatively little heat, I wonder how much plants can take. My looming concern might be everything getting too close and burning up, which was another factor in deciding to flip last Wednesday. I'm actually a bit scared of this incredible hedge that just keeps swelling and growing like the Blob...I don't know if this density is good or bad.
The amount of bud sites are now uncountable so SCROG mission totally accomplished. But the density is nearly impenetrable so I did round three of defoliation, removing about another hundred-plus fan leaves. It hardly made a difference. So since I can't really adjust the branches anymore I will just try to keep plucking enough leaves to give light a chance to get in there to the midsection. I notice drops of moisture here and there on leaves because of the thickness of the foliage which is natural but isn't good if it's everywhere. I might add a fan underneath to give another direction of airflow and dry this canopy out a little more so we don't get moldy.
I noticed the first examples of discoloration on 20 or so leaves
I think on first glance it's maybe a phosphorus thing and/or I probably need to give the reservoir a good shot of Cal Mag since I haven't supplemented the initial shot or so I splashed in there the first fill over a month ago. Most of these were also in a lot of shadow so maybe just density response.
I never worry until there's something to worry about and so no worries. I will see how they look tomorrow when I go back to (hopefully) complete the Phase Two build. I have one more light to hang, then the build of the ebb-and-flow system. Then the washing of the Hydroton (200 liters. Yuck!) Then and only then, the transplanting of the new girls. I might spread the buckets out a little more now that I see how big these plants are going to get! What I just described is going to take forever but I just went upstairs to the nursery and realized I don't have forever...
The next 11 out of 12 are absolutely popping at the 30-day mark in their lives and they need to go NOW. What's remarkable is these babies have been in temperatures that have hit almost 110 degrees, for long periods, in their first month of life
Yet they look fabulous. All except for one. Oddly, number 12 is a very unusual mutation. It is one of the Super Bud plants and it's extremely unique...
First, some of it has leaves that aren't really serrated on the edges. It's got very strange overall phyllotaxy too
Finally, it's a dwarf...much smaller than the others.
I don't know of a specific mutation that this fits. Don't know if it's worth planting at the GH since the others will quickly obscure all light to it. This one I might just plant outside in the back yard and see what happens.
So tomorrow...a big day. And a big decision. Do I run them up there on the hope that I can do everything I need to get them planted? It's at least a day or two of work...I don't want them to sit in the hallway forever but I also don't want to make another trip up in just a day or two. And they have to go soon. Roots are busting out of their pots.
I must smoke and think about it.
I will post a report by Friday I promise. Stay tuned!
Peace, Hyena
HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!
Since visiting the GH last Wednesday, it's been busy, busy, busy...busy with work, busy playing in the four-day City golf championship (I got second
) and busy with both ends of this new all-consuming grow effort. I was able to run back up there for a few hours yesterday and Phase One looks like this:Oh yeah.
I was a little paranoid there would be a dry tank but they used about 70% which was fine and everybody grew another 6 inches which I was happy to see. I need them to stretch another foot I would say, and with no idea how they grow who knows if it will be a foot plus or quickly level off...I flipped to 12/12 last Wednesday so two weeks left in the stretch I reckon.
The canopy density is ridiculous
All this has been achieved with the lights plastered as high as they can go...the amount of lumens these Quantum boards barf out is simply amazing. With that kind of intensity but relatively little heat, I wonder how much plants can take. My looming concern might be everything getting too close and burning up, which was another factor in deciding to flip last Wednesday. I'm actually a bit scared of this incredible hedge that just keeps swelling and growing like the Blob...I don't know if this density is good or bad.
The amount of bud sites are now uncountable so SCROG mission totally accomplished. But the density is nearly impenetrable so I did round three of defoliation, removing about another hundred-plus fan leaves. It hardly made a difference. So since I can't really adjust the branches anymore I will just try to keep plucking enough leaves to give light a chance to get in there to the midsection. I notice drops of moisture here and there on leaves because of the thickness of the foliage which is natural but isn't good if it's everywhere. I might add a fan underneath to give another direction of airflow and dry this canopy out a little more so we don't get moldy.
I noticed the first examples of discoloration on 20 or so leaves
I think on first glance it's maybe a phosphorus thing and/or I probably need to give the reservoir a good shot of Cal Mag since I haven't supplemented the initial shot or so I splashed in there the first fill over a month ago. Most of these were also in a lot of shadow so maybe just density response.
I never worry until there's something to worry about and so no worries. I will see how they look tomorrow when I go back to (hopefully) complete the Phase Two build. I have one more light to hang, then the build of the ebb-and-flow system. Then the washing of the Hydroton (200 liters. Yuck!) Then and only then, the transplanting of the new girls. I might spread the buckets out a little more now that I see how big these plants are going to get! What I just described is going to take forever but I just went upstairs to the nursery and realized I don't have forever...
The next 11 out of 12 are absolutely popping at the 30-day mark in their lives and they need to go NOW. What's remarkable is these babies have been in temperatures that have hit almost 110 degrees, for long periods, in their first month of life
Yet they look fabulous. All except for one. Oddly, number 12 is a very unusual mutation. It is one of the Super Bud plants and it's extremely unique...
First, some of it has leaves that aren't really serrated on the edges. It's got very strange overall phyllotaxy too
Finally, it's a dwarf...much smaller than the others.
I don't know of a specific mutation that this fits. Don't know if it's worth planting at the GH since the others will quickly obscure all light to it. This one I might just plant outside in the back yard and see what happens.
So tomorrow...a big day. And a big decision. Do I run them up there on the hope that I can do everything I need to get them planted? It's at least a day or two of work...I don't want them to sit in the hallway forever but I also don't want to make another trip up in just a day or two. And they have to go soon. Roots are busting out of their pots.
I must smoke and think about it.
I will post a report by Friday I promise. Stay tuned!
Peace, Hyena
Wow si informativePROJECT 23: HYDROPONIC HOMEMADE HYBRIDS - AMNESIA HAZE X BLUE DREAM Plus WIDOW X BLUE DREAM
By Hyena Merica
CHAPTER 1
WELCOME TO MY WORLD
Hello everybody, my name is Hyena Merica and yes, I am. Let's have some fun together and grow some great cannabis!
If you have read my first journal (Project 21: Dream Grow - A Complete Guide to Hydroponic Growing) then you already know I'm a decent hobby grower and mad scientist, creating beautiful monsters using a fully hydroponic setup in a secret attic laboratory. (Maniacal laughter) I wrote the first journal to give anyone the knowledge and advice they need to grow perfect cannabis, every time, from seed to smoke. If you think that's an ambitious claim you haven't seen my journal. It is a 120-page mini-novel with almost 200 photos...before you spend money on a How-To program, read Project 21. All you need to learn is there for free. You're welcome.
That was a lot of work. This time I will dial back the instructions and keep it more to real-time reporting, sort of a play-by-play reality show about growing killer buds. My attic botanical chamber is hidden and even my wife doesn't know anything about it, remarkable since I have produced nearly four pounds of primo bud over the last 8 months right over her head. I have so much weed in half-gallon Ball jars I could open a small dispensary but like other connoisseurs, I love having a sophisticated stash of years' worth of fine buds...a "bud cellar" if you will. A lifetime dream achieved. Seven different varieties and all completely killer. I get high a lot.
Now for my resume:
This is what I have been able to achieve with my techniques. There are admittedly many different ways to grow top-shelf cannabis and I always believe we can learn more from every project but when you find a way you can achieve these magical results I believe you are wise to simply repeat it.
Sooooo, what next? Well, I'm glad you asked! Perhaps the best outcome of Project 21 was the creation (accidentally but who cares?) of about 150 or so fresh seeds of at least 3 new hybrids! A tiny "banana" must have appeared deep within one giant cola on one of the Blue Dream plants. I never found the tiny pollen emitter but the resulting seeds didn't hurt the overall yield one bit and we ended up with some sweet hybrid beans to try. Let's try them!
First, a brief description of my lab. It is a secret chamber with floor space of about 9 x 12 feet, with a sloping ceiling that's plenty high where it needs to be. The space is partitioned into a nursery where we can hatch and raise seedlings up to 2 feet if necessary, and a main grow room, built around a nifty 9-pot fully automated hydroponic system. The system uses Dutch buckets just under 3 gallons each, which are awesome for growing cannabis because they have a little siphon drain so they can't overflow, and they hold about 3 inches of nutrient solution in the bottom between waterings so if there's a power failure the plant will have up to several days' worth of juice still available. These are important points because my grow lab is stealth and I can't go up there very often plus a water leak or spill would be a catastrophic giveaway resulting in my doom. That's bad.
My lighting is basically 1,000 watts of HID (a 400 and a 600 in air-cooled hoods with the big carbon filter and bigger can fan) and I augment the grow in the blooming phase with a few Mars Hydro 300's which are the original inexpensive ones. They are great lights for plumping up the edge areas and expanding the width of the canopy but they aren't penetrating enough to be a main light no matter how many you have. A 400 watt Metal Halide will go much deeper than a 400 watt LED and is worth the extra heat within reason. Best way is to use both together. Dat what I do.
For a detailed (WAY detailed) description of my entire setup down to the smallest nail, read PROJECT 21. This time around we'll spend our time mostly on the plants.
Having nearly 200 freshly home-grown hybrid seeds, all feminized, is a luxury I never thought I would experience so soon after beginning my endeavors. The happy accident of just the right bit of cross-pollination gave me three new crosses all guaranteed to be female. The monetary value of that alone is significant. I don't buy many seeds but when I do I pay about ten bucks apiece on average. Plus it's a major pain having to have something quasi-legal mailed to another address then get it on some pretense without that person knowing what's up. It is incredibly exciting to think my home-grown crosses could be even more killer than their mothers. It's time to find out!
My nursery hydro bubblers use 4 inch net pots and two 300w LEDs
The primary crop will be Amnesia Haze x Blue Dream. This Haze strain came from Ripper seeds and it produced several fat plants laden with super-sticky, fabulously stony buds, about a half pound. The colas were gigantic and the smooth taste of the fragrant smoke is amazing. It gets you very high. I started a half-dozen or so of the seeds and they all popped fast. They look very healthy and are growing well after about a week.
Probably half of my feminized hybrid seeds are Blue Dream x Blue Dream, meaning the plant basically grew a testicle and mated with itself. I will experiment with this mainly at some future point because I have a suspicion that the genetics of this batch might produce less-than-desirable plants, having been the result of self-fertilization. This act produces unpredictable havoc in the DNA sequence since plant life (and all life, really) needs input from 2 different, unrelated individuals to reliably reproduce. I test-fired a small number of these beans and examination of the seedlings after a week confirmed my hunch...two were dwarfs, two sprouted and showed a cotyledon but never developed leaves or a root system, and only one seems normal. It is possible only the seeds that came from the exact same Blue Dream plant that produced the pollen are bad, and there were several other Blue Dream plants which means some seeds would have two different parents, sort of, but not involving two different strains. We will see what the one decent-looking seedling grows up to be. She comes from a same-sex marriage and I fear she might turn out to be somewhat confused. I will name her Bruce Jenner .
Finally, I had a couple "bonus" plants in my last grow that were identified as White Widow Mix but the seedbank neglected to identify the daddy. A common societal problem but uber-annoying when you are trying to breed a plant. At any rate, the Widow Mix buds were an eleven so when that plant was fertilized by the Blue Dream we made a potentially great cross. I put only two seeds in water since I have already planned for all but two of my containers and have living seedlings to put in them. Because of the space limitations inherent with stealth growing, sprouting too many seedlings is a waste of valuable beans, yet you don't want to end up with too many open grow pots if the needed number of seedlings is not achieved. Starting another group of sprouts at that point would put the second group ten days behind, a gap that would necessitate either too much veg time for one group or not enough for the other. The fact is, you need a little luck at the very beginning to get the right number of babies without wasting valuable seeds.
One word of advice: use feminized seeds! If my seeds were not guaranteed to be 100% female it would be impossible to plan the grow with any certainty. Nothing would be worse than raising a crop more than half way to harvest then finding out you have to kill half your plants...or maybe even more. No parent should ever face that choice. Feminized cannabis seeds are perhaps the greatest scientific achievement since Penicillin. Just use them.
The need to begin this grow by a certain date made it impossible to put off sprouting the seeds despite the fact that it is August and we are in a stretch of 90+-degree days. Because my lab is in an attic the heat is tremendous in summer...spiking to 100+ for much of the 24-hour cycle. I do not have an AC unit for the room because it would be a major tell, so I time my grows to end before the peak heat of summer then wait until now to start the next one and control the heat to the extent I can using major fans.
I have budded out a grow where the last six weeks of flowering took place in over 100 degrees for most of the day and night and the buds were less dense but still decent. The key to that is lots of direct air circulation and a big can fan that sucks air out of the room through a carbon filter then through the lights and out through the roof. In this manner the effective heat at the canopy level may measure 100 but to the plants it feels it more like 90 and they can make it. However, it still was not quite the quantity nor quality of a more temperature-friendly fall or spring bud-out so we avoid that now.
Sprouting is another matter. Even near-100 won't hurt them with the right fans. Despite the blistering temps I was able to get the girls successfully underway. So, in the end I got seven viable plants (well, eight if you count that one plug has two seedlings) plus I kept one of the plants from the last grow alive and will be attempting to re-veg it. Therefore I will have a dreaded open pot but in the grand scheme of things that's no problem. We will easily fill all our growing space with trained and topped branches and produce a hedge of honeylicious colas. I could probably get the same production from six pots or nine because there is only so much space and either way we can fill it. My technique is to top the plants to get six or eight branches total on each and then SCROG them to fill the entire area, weaving them carefully all through the string net until we have a budding branch in every square. Achieving maximum production from a limited space is both an art and a science. It requires knowledge, sound techniques and patience combined with a little motherly love. The end result will be several pounds of primo buddage and a very merry Christmas.
So at this point, twenty short days since we dropped the beans with a tiny splash, we have beautiful young girls ready to go into the grow room any time now. We will end this chapter here.
"Do not give up; the beginning is always the hardest." —Chinese Fortune Cookie
Until next time, my friends.
thanl you!!!!!!
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Smeegol
Well-Known Member
Holy fishiesis mr.Hyena they are certainly not wasting anytime in growing, I won't lie to you but I'm looking at those plants right now in phase one I reckon if you flip in the next week or so you are going to be pressed for upward space... apologies for laughing brother but I think those awsome lights are going get your knickers knotted...haha
I think those lights are going to reward you tenfold and very good choice on lights as I've got 2 qb130s I ised for 2 weeks but had to take them out as they were to powerful for the small space I had them in, my clones looked like they were trying to suffocate each other due to literally no space between the new nodes coming out and branching everywhere...
Sterling job and already looking forward to next weeks installment...
apologies for laughing brother but I think those awsome lights are going get your knickers knotted...hahaI think those lights are going to reward you tenfold and very good choice on lights as I've got 2 qb130s I ised for 2 weeks but had to take them out as they were to powerful for the small space I had them in, my clones looked like they were trying to suffocate each other due to literally no space between the new nodes coming out and branching everywhere...
Sterling job and already looking forward to next weeks installment...
Highya HM,
i think I'd take the girls up to the grow house, and do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to get round 2 into veg phase at the grow house. 11 are popping! they're definitely ready for the big transition!
Congrats on runner-up in the golf tournament. and for taking time to play. So necessary in this stress filled world! I'm sure your wife approves.
Oh, the rust on the leaf looks like Magnesium deficiency. I've seen it twice already this week. And yours makes the third. Just my opinion, though. You're the budmaster. Cheers
i think I'd take the girls up to the grow house, and do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to get round 2 into veg phase at the grow house. 11 are popping! they're definitely ready for the big transition!
Congrats on runner-up in the golf tournament. and for taking time to play. So necessary in this stress filled world! I'm sure your wife approves.
Oh, the rust on the leaf looks like Magnesium deficiency. I've seen it twice already this week. And yours makes the third. Just my opinion, though. You're the budmaster. Cheers
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