It's Been Too Long Journal, Critical Kush

[Mike Connor]

Captains Log — Star Date — 21 /19


This weeks grow report.

I wont be as long winded as I was last week as this grow is troubled with either a genetics problem (likely) or 5 different type of seeds placed in one Barney's Farm Critical Kush package.


Plant One — Phenotype 1a

This seedling is falling behind. it is behind plant 3 by one whole node. It remains the smallest of the 3 original seedlings. Looking at the photo, you can see that it suffers from a genetic defect — one side grows smaller stems and leaves than the other. This is its second disadvantage. The first being its small stature, and the second being it cannot photosynthesize as much light as its siblings. Unless these issues sort themselves out, this will not be a quality plant to move forward with. However we will continue to veg this plant a while longer and see what happens.

Plant Two — Phenotype 1b

This seedling still remains the middle child of the three. It is small in stature but at least its growing evenly on both sides of the plant. Note the thinner leaves. I hold out hope this one will take off at some point.

Plant Three - Phenotype 2

This plant is exploding with growth putting its siblings to shame. At the outset, this plant displayed the one sided growth issue, but that appears to be resolving. This plant would meet my definition of vigorous growth. I've placed my hand in the background for size reference.

Plant 4 and 5 CK — Phenotype Not Yet Known.

The two seedlings germinated on May 1st are coming along. A week to 10 days will tell the tale as to what their fate will be. However they are growing fine at this point. Stay tuned.

Growing Environment

All plants are in the same soil receiving the same amount of water and light each day. The current light regime is 19/5.

I'll leave you with a side shot of the star of the show, plant #3. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Cheers

 

[Chipay]

Looks great man. Very scientific.
Are you planning to do any training? Would love to know what tricks you know from the good old days.

 

[Mike Connor]

Looks great man. Very scientific.
Are you planning to do any training? Would love to know what tricks you know from the good old days.

Hey Chip,

I don't train. If you wish to know why, ask. I will explain if you wish. No problem

Cheers

 

[Chipay]

Hey Chip,

I don't train. If you wish to know why, ask. I will explain if you wish. No problem

Cheers

Of course! To be honest I wouldn't do training if I had the space. Maybe I'll do a normal one next time. One more medicinal.

 

[GroZone]

Hey Chip,

I don't train. If you wish to know why, ask. I will explain if you wish. No problem

Cheers

I would love to know why!

 

[Mike Connor]

Of course! To be honest I wouldn't do training if I had the space. Maybe I'll do a normal one next time. One more medicinal.

Ok,

Lets say you run a 400 watt HID light. That light will adequately illuminate an area 3 feet by 3 feet. So now you have a choice.

You can grow a few plants and train them to fill the space, or you can add more plants. Adding more plants is what I do.

Here's the issue. You can train and top your plants to make more grow tips or more buds than it would have if you left it alone. However this causes an unseen problem.

Your plant is genetically limited in height. It wont just keep getting taller and taller. It stops when its genetic code tells it to stop. The same applies to the root ball. It reaches a certain size and stops. This is where the problem starts.

If you add more grow tips by training and clipping, you exceed what the root ball can support. The plant still looks healthily and all, but the potency of your bud drops because the nutrients provided by the root ball its now spread out across more buds / grow tips than in its natural programming.

The question is, Do you want a pound of good stuff? Or half a pound of amazing stuff.

I grow for potency.

So in a 400 watt, 3 by 3 setting, I will grow 9 plants. That's 9 plants in 9 five gallon pails. I wont train, no need to as that many plants will easily fill the space. And since we are not asking the plants to make a crazy amount of buds, the potency will be better in the buds grown.

However I do top or trim once. Usually at the 5th node. One topping doesn't seem to affect the potency.

In my day, we didn't have grow guides or online support or even books. We had to figure it out. And that was what we did. We tried lots of stuff, some worked, some didn't. But we learned. We did try training and noticed the potency drop. Plants weren't as strong back then so a drop in potency was noticeable.

Unfortunately my first grow here wont go as noted above. I have a few plants to bring to flower, really not enough of them. So I must clone. That means some of the plant will be trimmed more than I like in order to get the clones I need for a 9 plant grow. But I will get there. This is why I haven't topped any of these plants yet, I need a few more nodes than 5 to get the clones I need.

I don't profess that everyone is wrong and I'm right. This is what worked for me. This is what I learned and proved to myself the hard way. I had no one to tell me what to do. No real information. Now it seems every one just does what they are told without questioning it. Is training and trimming better? Only you will know when you experiment and find out for yourself. Same with sun leaves. Many rip them off. I leave them till they are about to fall off. Leaving them only helps the plant create more nutrients and helps it grow. Hence I don't remove them till they become a mold threat. Let them catch any light that makes it thru the upper canopy.

My first big grow after I get my clones will indeed be a 400 watt 9 plant run. The second will be a 12 plant 1000 watt run.

Sorry for my late response, I got called away to a tech meeting.

Cheers

 

[Mike Connor]

I've also notice that SCROG isn't SCROG anymore.

SCROG is now nothing more than using a net to support your plants. This is not the scrog I know.

In my day SCROG was used to grow those 8 - 10 - 12 foot tall monster sativas indoors.

A one inch square screen, no larger, was placed about 20 inches above a 30 gallon pot with one plant in it. When the main grow stock got to the screen the stock was trained to follow along under the screen. This allowed only grow tips at nodes thru the screen. The main stock was kept under the screen and you worked it back and forth in S patterns. So your 12 foot of growth was all horizontal rather than vertical.

Hence you could grow those monsters indoors.

Cheers

 

[Chipay]

Your hypothesis and explanation is intuitive. I will try no training or not much training in another plant as I want to know how one left alone grows. I expect smaller buds, but I'm not sure with smaller buds potency will drop. I hope there is not much difference in potency between one cola and 4 smaller ones.
And if I have to choose, I rather have quality over quantity.
I'll experiment. Thanks for sharing.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I've also notice that SCROG isn't SCROG anymore.

<NODS>

A one inch square screen, no larger,

I used to use poultry netting (aka "chicken wire"). Comes in 1" and 2" hole size, cheap, and easy to work with (you can cut it with scissors - if you're not worried about the scissors, lol). Trying to estimate the length of the stretch period (if the total flowering period was unknown, so that I couldn't just calculate it), the amount of stretch, and my own ability to move that growing tip buried in the middle over to the next nearest open hole - which might mean rearranging "a couple" others. Every day of the stretch, every tip gets longer. Well, I could move this one today, but it won't quite reach that open hole and I don't want to move the one that's nearer, so I'll just wait until tomorrow when it'll reach the hole I wish to place it in. Whoops, now it looks like this one would be better in that hole. Hmm, well, there was another hole over there just a minute ago, honest (lol). Repeat 100x(+++). Okay, that's today taken care of. Surely the stretch will end tomorrow, yes? (Two weeks later)...or surely it'll end tomorrow THIS time? @%*#ing 20-week flowering time, why do I keep putting myself through this?!? Ohwaitaminute, lol. And it's not just "pull this tip out of this hole and put it into that hole," it's "pull this tip out of this hole, realize it has gone back and forth a couple times through the other 64,738 stems that Houdini, if asked to unravel the knot, would just pick up an axe..." that one has to deal with from time to time. Oh, look, that stem had grown an inch and will reach the next hole - but when I pulled it back through and spent ten minutes untangling it, will now reach 9" more than I thought. There's no hole there, ARGH!!!

A bit more labor intensive than the alternative. Flat-plane growing... I did it with very tightly spaced 4' fluorescent tubes, double-decker style. Got HID, thought there was no need to continue. Then set up space with chicken wire again, just to satisfy my curiosity. Ended up with a carpet of buds that looked like it'd support my weight :rolleyes3 . How to harvest: Plug in Sawzall, cut trunk below screen, disconnect screen from walls, have someone handy to help you carry it to the dining room table. Err... Hmm. Consider plugging Sawzall back in to significantly enlarge the doorway . Finally wrestle the screen to the ground I mean to the table. Sit down to do the snipping and find yourself just staring. Yeah, now I remember... That is why I put up with all the hassle.

Not quite the same with the extremely indica-dominant strains that people seem to like to grow these days, I suppose. Much shorter stretch period due to the significantly shorter flowering times. A lot easier to manage because of this, IMHO, because proportionally more of the screen filling occurs in the vegetative phase. OtOH, this equates to longer vegetative times, which doesn't seem to be all that popular with the average grower (the plants sure seem to benefit, though). So more plants get placed in the same sized space as before. Okay, that can work. Not my idea of the optimum, but no worries. However, I have seen multiple strains used. So then the screen has multiple plants, multiple strains - with non-identical growth rates and flowering periods. At that point, even if the grower manages to instill some sort of balance, es will be harvesting one part of the screen at a time. Me, I'd much rather just cut the screen - and buds - loose and take it somewhere more comfortable than to be in the grow cutting individual stems. Especially if the strains look pretty similar and the flowering periods aren't all that different in length, and the stems are trained every which way so that there is no clear dividing line between one plant and the next.

When the main grow stock got to the screen the stock was trained to follow along under the screen. This allowed only grow tips at nodes thru the screen. The main stock was kept under the screen and you worked it back and forth in S patterns. So your 12 foot of growth was all horizontal rather than vertical.

Hence you could grow those monsters indoors.

More than allowing for plants that had taller growth patterns, I liked that that constantly forcing all the growing tips down prohibited the auxins from accumulating all in one main primary tip; they were instead distributed throughout, which - of course - encourages extreme branching. Then, too, was the fact that SCROG allowed for everything being level. Didn't have to worry about lower growth and/or shorter plants receiving less light because a taller one forced the light to be too high. Place the light and leave it right up until you've decided to stop training, then raise during the final portion of the stretch period when you're no longer trying to fill holes. When you walk in and see that there has been no more vertical growth, you know the stretch has stopped and you don't have to raise the light any more.

Furthermore, if one has a strain which seems to have some late-maturing buds, the uniform lighting would go a long way towards minimizing that. All parts of the plant (for practical purposes) are receiving the same amount of light.

And if someone saw the grow (I know, the rule is tell no one, but one occasionally finds oneself in need of a helper due to circumstances beyond es control) who previously thought that a room "pretty full" of buds was great... seeing the expression on their face when they realized that your room was so full of bud that there wasn't enough light getting through the screen to even read a newspaper under it, that was priceless. And it was also a sign that you were using as much of the light - that you were paying for - as could be used, and with no wasted energy on "cooking material" underneath that would never fulfill its full potential anyway.

I wonder if I have any poultry netting left out there in the shed? (lol)

 

[Mike Connor]

Your hypothesis and explanation is intuitive. I will try no training or not much training in another plant as I want to know how one left alone grows. I expect smaller buds, but I'm not sure with smaller buds potency will drop. I hope there is not much difference in potency between one cola and 4 smaller ones.
And if I have to choose, I rather have quality over quantity.
I'll experiment. Thanks for sharing.

Hey Chip,

That's just it. Its not a hypothesis or theory. It's fact. And well documented with many other plant types as well. Ever seen those 1000lbs pumpkins? They remove all other flowers and fruit so the root ball and plant can focus on one. In my direct experience with Mj, less is better.

With Mj, if left untrained and untrimmed, it forms one very large cola on the main stem. And its very potent. The further you go up the cola, the more potent it gets.

I nip at the 5th node to get two main colas. Not as potent theoretically, but still pretty kick ass.

There is a book on PDF out on the net you can get for free. It's called THE MARIJUANA GROWER'S GUIDE
by Mel Frank and Ed Rosenthal.

These guys where pioneers. Dig it up. Its a good read.

Cheers.

 

[Mike Connor]

<NODS>



I used to use poultry netting (aka "chicken wire"). Comes in 1" and 2" hole size, cheap, and easy to work with (you can cut it with scissors - if you're not worried about the scissors, lol). Trying to estimate the length of the stretch period (if the total flowering period was unknown, so that I couldn't just calculate it), the amount of stretch, and my own ability to move that growing tip buried in the middle over to the next nearest open hole - which might mean rearranging "a couple" others. Every day of the stretch, every tip gets longer. Well, I could move this one today, but it won't quite reach that open hole and I don't want to move the one that's nearer, so I'll just wait until tomorrow when it'll reach the hole I wish to place it in. Whoops, now it looks like this one would be better in that hole. Hmm, well, there was another hole over there just a minute ago, honest (lol). Repeat 100x(+++). Okay, that's today taken care of. Surely the stretch will end tomorrow, yes? (Two weeks later)...or surely it'll end tomorrow THIS time? @%*#ing 20-week flowering time, why do I keep putting myself through this?!? Ohwaitaminute, lol. And it's not just "pull this tip out of this hole and put it into that hole," it's "pull this tip out of this hole, realize it has gone back and forth a couple times through the other 64,738 stems that Houdini, if asked to unravel the knot, would just pick up an axe..." that one has to deal with from time to time. Oh, look, that stem had grown an inch and will reach the next hole - but when I pulled it back through and spent ten minutes untangling it, will now reach 9" more than I thought. There's no hole there, ARGH!!!

A bit more labor intensive than the alternative. Flat-plane growing... I did it with very tightly spaced 4' fluorescent tubes, double-decker style. Got HID, thought there was no need to continue. Then set up space with chicken wire again, just to satisfy my curiosity. Ended up with a carpet of buds that looked like it'd support my weight :rolleyes3 . How to harvest: Plug in Sawzall, cut trunk below screen, disconnect screen from walls, have someone handy to help you carry it to the dining room table. Err... Hmm. Consider plugging Sawzall back in to significantly enlarge the doorway . Finally wrestle the screen to the ground I mean to the table. Sit down to do the snipping and find yourself just staring. Yeah, now I remember... That is why I put up with all the hassle.

Not quite the same with the extremely indica-dominant strains that people seem to like to grow these days, I suppose. Much shorter stretch period due to the significantly shorter flowering times. A lot easier to manage because of this, IMHO, because proportionally more of the screen filling occurs in the vegetative phase. OtOH, this equates to longer vegetative times, which doesn't seem to be all that popular with the average grower (the plants sure seem to benefit, though). So more plants get placed in the same sized space as before. Okay, that can work. Not my idea of the optimum, but no worries. However, I have seen multiple strains used. So then the screen has multiple plants, multiple strains - with non-identical growth rates and flowering periods. At that point, even if the grower manages to instill some sort of balance, es will be harvesting one part of the screen at a time. Me, I'd much rather just cut the screen - and buds - loose and take it somewhere more comfortable than to be in the grow cutting individual stems. Especially if the strains look pretty similar and the flowering periods aren't all that different in length, and the stems are trained every which way so that there is no clear dividing line between one plant and the next.



More than allowing for plants that had taller growth patterns, I liked that that constantly forcing all the growing tips down prohibited the auxins from accumulating all in one main primary tip; they were instead distributed throughout, which - of course - encourages extreme branching. Then, too, was the fact that SCROG allowed for everything being level. Didn't have to worry about lower growth and/or shorter plants receiving less light because a taller one forced the light to be too high. Place the light and leave it right up until you've decided to stop training, then raise during the final portion of the stretch period when you're no longer trying to fill holes. When you walk in and see that there has been no more vertical growth, you know the stretch has stopped and you don't have to raise the light any more.

Furthermore, if one has a strain which seems to have some late-maturing buds, the uniform lighting would go a long way towards minimizing that. All parts of the plant (for practical purposes) are receiving the same amount of light.

And if someone saw the grow (I know, the rule is tell no one, but one occasionally finds oneself in need of a helper due to circumstances beyond es control) who previously thought that a room "pretty full" of buds was great... seeing the expression on their face when they realized that your room was so full of bud that there wasn't enough light getting through the screen to even read a newspaper under it, that was priceless. And it was also a sign that you were using as much of the light - that you were paying for - as could be used, and with no wasted energy on "cooking material" underneath that would never fulfill its full potential anyway.

I wonder if I have any poultry netting left out there in the shed? (lol)

Your recollection makes me recollect. I think I had repressed it till now but its all coming back to me.

Yeah proper SCROG could be a first class pain in the a**. That's for sure. And not every plant took to it well. Some of them would push up on the screen just above the pot. However with the right plant and patience's, the grower was rewarded. And in that day we didn't have these stout little indica's to play with.

If I ever come across some good ol' fashion sativa seeds, I'd do it again. I'm a sucker for punishment. And I would agree, Proper SCROG is a better approach to training then what they do now. a lot more control.

By the way. my home is where scissor come to die

Cheers

 

[Mike Connor]

Time for this weeks mid week sneak peek.

This is CK 3. It's 24 days from germinating and 22 days from sprouting. This dude(ette) is just rocking.

This is why I like dirt farming. The right dirt makes explosive results. This plant is already working on its 8th node.

Cheers

 

[GroZone]

How are them ladies looking snide, anxious for a smoking photo shoot! ☺

 

[Mike Connor]

How are them ladies looking snide, anxious for a smoking photo shoot! ☺

It will be a month before I have real plant porn to offer you.

However a weekly report is due tomorrow so we will see whats new then. Right now my wife and I are going nuts trying to ready the grow space. I have some plants growing very quickly and because I haven't topped them yet they are getting tall. Likely too tall for the grow box.

I'm growing them up to 8-9-10 nodes as I need to take some clones for a good grow.


Cheers

 

[Mike Connor]

The countdown has begun. All systems go. Stay tuned.

Cheers

 

[Mike Connor]

Well,

We have arrived. Finally. It hasn't been without its issues.

Getting our grow room ready was a good two weeks later than expected. Finding material, supplies, time and other problems set us up for delays. As a result, all of these plants got stuck in containers that quickly became too small.

And as you might imagine, I ran into deficiencies and a bunch of root bound unhappy plants.

However we are back on the road and recovery is well underway.

The plants are in a totally organic soil-less mix. Those that were in 3 liters containers are now in 5 gallon pails and those that were in one liter containers are now in 3 liter pots. All with fresh organic soil.

In order to speed recovery, they got their first cover. That contained;

- Cow poop
- Sheep poop
- Worm castings
- Kelp and shrimp compost
- Blood meal
- Bone meal

Soil ph - 6.5 (+/-)

This first cover expedited recovery. 24 hours in and a deep green canopy is quickly returning.

Still much to do. This is one of two 4 feet by 6 feet grow rooms. Much more mechanical work to complete.

More later

Cheers

 

[GroZone]

looking good snid, very excited to see these ladies in flower how much longer are you planning to veg?

 

[Mike Connor]

looking good snid, very excited to see these ladies in flower how much longer are you planning to veg?

Well that's a good question. Since I don't know this particular "strain" I can only hazard a guess.

I need to grow them up 8 - 9 - 10 nodes high to take some clones. At that time they will be cut back to the 5th node. When that happens, they will need some time to veg out again. I like the light pattern area to be full and I also always wait for the root mass to mature.

So, factoring in all that I would say another 30 to 40 days. That's just a guess.

The plants are recovering quickly from the problem they experienced so I'm hoping to take some clones this coming weekend.

Cheers

 

[GroZone]

Oh wow, I'm planning to wait another 30 days for mine. Is that a little too much you think?

 

[Mike Connor]

Oh wow, I'm planning to wait another 30 days for mine. Is that a little too much you think?

No, I don't think its too much at all looking at your plants. The larger the root mass, the bigger and more potent bud.

You may even consider 40 or 50 days and fill your lights foot print.


Cheers