Hyena's Never-Ending Adventures In Growing

Happy Sunday!

Just a small HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!

It's time for Run #6 at the GH and we have begun the race. Dropped beans in water 6 days ago and as of this morning here's how they look...

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20200223_095318.jpg


I want to give GORILLA SEEDS the credit they deserve...

Fourteen out of fourteen sprouting is impressive. I trusted their reputation and only started 14 seeds, needing 12 for sure. No worries.

They delivered as promised and their prices, while not cheap, were reasonable. I don't really benefit from individual free seeds as much as others would but they threw some of those in too, the smaller-batch home grower should be very pleased. Considering the overall value I'll deal with Gorilla again. Don't know if they are one guy or a bunch of folks but thanks for the service and the seeds, Gorilla. I will endeavor to show what these babies can really do!

Meanwhile,

W5fP.gif

W5fP.gif


Keep smokin' the fire!

Peace, Hyena
 
Hiya HM. So for your next grow you’re not using your own seeds? I seem to remember you were ok for seeds on one of your last runs.
You probably said - remind us what strain(s) will you run next?
 
LordDWC said:
man you need another grow house, we can't wait a full week for every update :eek: btw great work as usual!
Click to expand...
DonkeyDick said:
Hiya HM. So for your next grow you’re not using your own seeds? I seem to remember you were ok for seeds on one of your last runs.
You probably said - remind us what strain(s) will you run next?
Click to expand...

Thank you guys. I suppose I should have mentioned that...

This run I'm going with INCREDIBLE BULK and DELHI FRIEND, 6 of each. Just got both from GORILLA.

INCREDIBLE BULK:

the-incredible-bulk.jpg
icon-sold-out.png

The Incredible Bulk
1000 gr/m2 Inside, 1500 gr/seed Out
What else do you need to know? How about the fact that The Incredible Bulk also has 20-24% THC. This is a commercial strain without compromise!
icon-sold-out.png

DELHI FRIEND:
delhi-friend.jpg

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Delhi Friend is real standout with nearly pure Indica genetics, insane 20% THC levels & massive yields that'll appeal
Delhi Friend
Packed with Power & Nearly Dripping with THC-Filled Crystals!
Delhi Friend is real standout with nearly pure Indica genetics, insane 20% THC levels & massive yields that'll appeal to your inner hoarder. If you're looking for a new one-hit wonder, this one may very well be it. She's a true knockout with incredibly fast 6 to 8 week finishes after the flip. These 100% feminized seeds are a definite must-have!
  • 100% Feminized Seeds
  • 95% Indica - 20% THC
  • Up to 800 gr/m2 Inside
  • 6 to 8 Weeks Finishes
  • Bountiful Resin
Soooo, those seem like worthy strains, even if they only do 2/3 of what is claimed I'll be very happy I think.

They all popped so so far so good. Stay tuned. :morenutes:

Peace, Hyena
 
You'll need sun shades on with all that sparkle!! Great choices! Cheers
 
Another small (but sincere)

HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!

Well, it's actually still about the formerly-secret lab turned nursery. Up in the attic lab, my next run looks pretty healthy!

20200223_095318.jpg

20200223_095318.jpg


Once again, GORILLA SEEDS you rock! In the nebulous and unpredictable world of beginning life from a tiny seed, 14 out of 14 is awesome. Though one plant had cotyledons but no leaves (a strange mutation) I still have to admire that the other 13 are perfect and I needed 12. Woo hoo! It's always a bit on the tense side when one tries to sprout beans that are over ten bucks apiece, especially when it will completely screw me up if I don't get 12 healthy ones. OK I suppose I could make up for a missing plant or two in the scrog phase but I don't want to. We got 12. :ganjamon:

So the last time around doing clones I fell in love with those big Rockwool cubes! They seem to simplify a rather messy thing, the intermediate form my girls will take as they get big enough to transplant up to the grow tent. So I thought I would try them for a 10-day assignment of holding the little ones.

They are quite simple compared to Perlite and buckets...

20200226_102525.jpg

20200226_102525.jpg


So I dropped them into the big green cubes

20200226_103728.jpg

20200226_103728.jpg


It's all good and everybody seems happy. Water set for 5 minutes twice a day. Hopefully they will be okay until next week when I chop Tent #2. I suppose roots might grow out of them but that shouldn't be a problem I think.

20200226_105025.jpg

20200226_105025.jpg


And sadly, there's always one left behind...

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20200226_105755.jpg


I go up there tomorrow on the way up North for some snowmobiling. Got to enjoy the snow while we have it. Soon Spring will be here...

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catnip.gif


With all its flowers! Have a great weekend!

Peace, Hyena
 
Well it's been a long week. So here's the latest

HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!

Harvest time is always a bitch...three days of sitting and trimming, trimming, trimming, trimming........

So Monday when the inevitable chore began I was to say the least somewhat daunted by the sheer volume of biomass I faced.

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20200302_134208.jpg


First I looked the produce over. There are a lot of very pretty apples on these trees...

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20200303_080459.jpg


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Lots of purple influence this time around.

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20200303_080425.jpg


But it is hard to believe the diversity I see in this group of (now 11) plants. Even though they all came from literally the exact same BUD on the same plant, they couldn't be more different. Tall, short, fat, skinny, plus every smell and terpine combination you could possibly imagine in this bouquet of bouquets. As I look at the buds I feel they are overall just smaller than my previous runs, even though there's millions of them. My questions about return on canopy density have been answered.

The canopy experiment was, after all, an experiment...I wanted to reach the practical limit of production and I reached it, then surpassed it. What almost two weeks of extra vegging accomplished was to produce a huge additional biomass that didn't really contribute to more production, rather, it reduced the size of the average bud and created a huge forest of useless space.

As I chopped I saw a lot of nice buds. Obviously a hedge this big is going to have a lot of nice candy in it...

20200304_070854.jpg

20200304_070854.jpg


But as the days passed I just wasn't seeing the bud density overall. Compared to my last couple projects, these buds are just a touch more larfy, they don't have the solid cores I'm used to getting. Since I am using the same variety as grow #1 I know the variable is the canopy density. Nevertheless, the produce gradually stacked up...

20200303_211149.jpg

20200303_211149.jpg


Rather than describe the endless hours (about 30) that it took to hand-process this forest, let me just say in the end I was looking at this...

20200305_070913.jpg

20200305_070913.jpg


There should really only be 12 stumps...so every bit of this jungle was wasted infrastructure, so to speak.

When one considers each plant as a single organism, with only so much growth "energy" to give (related to the size of its container, mainly), it becomes clear that energy can be put to a range of uses. Ideally, as much of it as possible goes towards making buds. In this case, a hell of a lot of it obviously went into growing stems and useless, larfy mid-canopy growth and a zillion unnecessary leaves. Okay, this is an amazing amount of plant mass to get from 12 pots but sadly WAY too much of it went into the unusable category.

So the harvest work was literally multiplied by the sheer number (and smaller size) of branches. Instead of trimming lunkers I was spending hours trying to manicure and make the most of a zillion small buds. It was especially time consuming and my eyes aren't as good as they used to be and it gave me a headache to have to dwell in this mini-world. It all added up and in the end I'm sure I'll have a fairly decent harvest, but it was a LOT of extra work. Especially the final remnant hedge because it was over three hours of sweaty bullshit to cut it all up and pluck thousands of small budlets that were all through it. I am counting on these to become an additional valuable thing because I plan to run it for concentrates but we'll see...the work it took to amass it was back- and mind-breaking.

I was at a particularly low point of complete depression when this shot was taken...

20200305_082158.jpg

20200305_082158.jpg


But in the end things get finished. When the smoke cleared it was all clean and ready to begin reconditioning the system (fully drained, refilled, everything cleaned) then bringing the next generation in to their new digs. This involves dropping the rockwool cubes into the buckets and filling them with Hydroton. If you use these clay balls you know they first have to be rinsed, since they're covered with clay dust that gunks up a hydro system. There's no easy (or clean) way to do this. It's nasty, unless you figure out a better way, eh? Well, here is my method...I open the bag and stand it in the bathtub, then fill it nearly to the top with water, bathing all the pellets inside the bag.

20200305_121546.jpg

20200305_121546.jpg


Then after a few minutes I poke a bunch of small holes in the bottom of the bag and let the water drain out.

20200305_121554.jpg

20200305_121554.jpg


Voila! A full bag of freshly-washed Hydroton pebbles in only a few minutes...and no mess! Then just scoop it out right into the buckets. No mess. Did I mention no mess? Anyone who has taken 30 minutes to clean a bathtub after washing this filthy, dusty stuff knows exactly why this is a big deal. My gift to you.

So it took a couple more hours but finally the next run was in and done!

20200305_142147.jpg

20200305_142147.jpg


These two varieties are professional strains and I'm learning once again the value of true-bred beans that you can count on. My idea of using seeds that were produced by a hermaphroditic plant saves money, but that's a small victory when you consider the grow probably produced 25% less because I had to slash it once that same trait began to appear in the offspring. Not worth it. I was lucky to detect it in time to prevent the overall grow from becoming fertilized. I saw many of the male flowers on multiple plants but nothing ever reached the point of pollen emission...so bullet dodged. This next grow will be much more productive!

My final result looks pretty impressive I guess, though it's a few hangers short of the last one.

20200305_145424.jpg

20200305_145424.jpg


But I'm not worried about a bit here and there, my goal is to learn exactly how to maximize my setup and this was an important step in that education. The lesson seems to be pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered. Going forward I will be turning the lights to 12/12 a lot sooner and trying to get bigger, if fewer, colas. I will also get more grows in because I basically wasted a couple weeks growing this extra-huge but useless biomass.

Then I remembered the other tent! I hadn't even opened it since Monday when I first arrived...no need to disturb a nicely-filling scrog of healthy clones. I had noticed it looking a little limp but chalked that up to it being a bit warmer than usual in the tent and hadn't really thought about much since. So I unzipped it, and to my dismay the whole grow was totally limp, as if it hadn't been watered in a week, with many branches actually hanging down! Shit!

20200302_141433.jpg

20200302_141433.jpg


20200302_141440.jpg

20200302_141440.jpg


It could only be a water issue. Sure enough, upon examining everything I found the main pump in the reservoir had failed. So they really WEREN'T watered for almost a week! One cycle and they were all perky again. I turned the light timer back to 12/12 before I left...right at my preferred 6 weeks plus 2 or 3 days total vegging time from initial transplant, which has been the exact number of most of my grows and results in the optimal size for maximum production for most varieties IMHO.

So that's where we left things, with lots of buds drying and the new kids all playing in the sun. I will return Sunday to hopefully finish processing my harvest. Things dry a lot faster in the dry heat of Winter so by Sunday-Monday I hope they are ready to be bucked and packaged. Then the payoff which this time around likely won't be as much, but was very much earned...

I love to go on and on about the endlessly fulfilling emotional aspects of all this...but I do it for the money. :ganjamon:

Have a gr8 week! Keep 'em green!

Peace, Hyena
 
Highya HM,

Great looking bud pics!! Many colors. I love the bronze/purple look some had.

Sounds like you're getting into the deep science of your grow. That's where the profit/loss is; is in the details, small percents. I'm guessing you already know that. Probably why you keep records (you do, don't you, lol). I'm sure your business management skills will improve in time. You're right. When everything goes right, well hunky dory. But we'll learn a whole lot more when troubleshooting things awry. That's what I used to do.

That is an impressive view to see all the coat hangers lined with buds!! Cheers
 
Bode said:
Highya HM,

Great looking bud pics!! Many colors. I love the bronze/purple look some had.

Sounds like you're getting into the deep science of your grow. That's where the profit/loss is; is in the details, small percents. I'm guessing you already know that. Probably why you keep records (you do, don't you, lol). I'm sure your business management skills will improve in time. You're right. When everything goes right, well hunky dory. But we'll learn a whole lot more when troubleshooting things awry. That's what I used to do.

That is an impressive view to see all the coat hangers lined with buds!! Cheers
Click to expand...

I sure do appreciate that my friend. You are so right.

It seems like there are three categories of stuff to deal with...what you know, what you don't know, and random bullshit that nobody could know until it happens.

Dealing with all three some days, you know? :hmmmm: :ganjamon:

We keep learning and growing...though in our case growing is learning. Profound if you're high. I am.

1467222475_tumblr_static_filename_640_v2.gif

1467222475_tumblr_static_filename_640_v2.gif


Peace, Hyena
 
Another one in! Although you are disappointed the increase in knowledge and finding that boundary is a valuable harvest!
You have developed a process that works, pushed here and there to improve it where possible and now settled in nicely!
Good recovery on the accidental desert in the other tent as well! Maybe a backup system is something to think about in the future?

Ps this is easily my favourite journal, thank you sir!
 
You’ve learned some valuable lessons so far. Hopefully you can get a solid system going to reduce the hiccups
 
Well howdy!

Here's yet another HYENA'S GROW HOUSE update!

So Sunday evening it was back up to buck and finish the latest harvest. I figured it was going to be lighter this time around and I was right, but not a disaster, just somewhat lighter overall. The bud structure that resulted from the uber-competitive environment in this huge canopy produced loads of buds and everything is nice and frosty; the buds are just smaller and less-dense. Ah, such is life.

So it was LOADS more work to trim it up, and the final weight wasn't quite there.

20200309_084750.jpg

20200309_084750.jpg


What I got was not a disappointment, frosty and sweet..

20200309_084827.jpg

20200309_084827.jpg


In the end it came to 3 pounds of happiness, plus another 2 of trim and lower-growth buds for concentrates.

20200309_143723.jpg

20200309_143723.jpg


I can live with that! :ganjamon:

And the replacements are looking very happy in their new home! Lights on 100% and blazing away. these are going to be awesome trust me!

20200309_000203.jpg

20200309_000203.jpg


Incredible Bulk and Delhi Friend are two serious varieties. They already display classic Indica broad leaves and stout build.

20200309_000210.jpg

20200309_000210.jpg


And in Tent #1 the clones are also looking happy and healthy. I flipped to 12/12 last week and they are stretching as predicted. I hope to get the eventual height and density just right...

20200309_101708.jpg

20200309_101708.jpg


And it all rolls on. It will be another 8 weeks or so until I take down the next grow. Until then I can pretty much just hit this place once a week for an hour or so.

So Spring will come and a lot of stuff to do over the next 2 months. Meanwhile these tents will just quietly grow their two mini forests. I hope you'll check back for weekly updates on their progress. This harvest might not have been spectacular but we learned a lot and I have a feeling the next two harvests might be something special!

I fired up a random polyploid bud I happened to find in the middle of the plant that had the hermie flowers...

20200310_102726.jpg

20200310_102726.jpg


It didn't have anything really special about it but it did have a nice buzz. Mission accomplished!

Peace, Hyena
 
Highya HM,

Very nice harvest. Is harvesting becoming routine, yet? You've done 3 or 4 so far?

Oh, I was brainstorming a little, and thought about using some device with a signal to let you know if power goes out up there, or if the pump malfunctions, something like that. Moving parts will become faulty, and an alarm is needed to let you know when it needs attention.

And so, another cycle ......... Cheers
 
Hey @Hyena Merica, how’s that trimbag working out? I’m about to get something, and that’s on my short list. So is a trimpro, and a toms tumbler.
 
This is my first post on 420mag. I read your journal from page one to the present. The secret grow lab was an inspiration. I was on the edge of my seat thinking your wife was going to bust yo ass sneaking up there. Skunks in the attic...LMAO.
Never heard of a Dutch/Bato bucket until I stumbled upon your journal. I copied your setup and think you would be proud. 6 bucket/18 gal res
I’m in a not so friendly state which I hope changes this November. Collecting signatures for recreational use. Hope it passes. Medical was legalized last year but I ain’t givin up my AR for a card. Might need it to defend my TP stash.
 

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