Jay's First Time: 3x Lemon Skunk In Coco, With 315W LEC In A 1200x1200 Tent

[Lowrider72]

Hey mate, just swinging by, plants are looking good. No two plants are exactly ripe the same day. I choose plants that finish flowering within 5 days of each other and it can still vary.
I purposely let you figure it out yourself.
Part of becoming a good grower.

Get that timer problem under control.
Dont want to wreck your CMH bulb.
Buds are looking good mate.
Trichomes are the only true indicator of readiness.

 

[d42zero]

Hey mate, just swinging by, plants are looking good. No two plants are exactly ripe the same day. I choose plants that finish flowering within 5 days of each other and it can still vary.
I purposely let you figure it out yourself.
Part of becoming a good grower.

Get that timer problem under control.
Dont want to wreck your CMH bulb.
Buds are looking good mate.
Trichomes are the only true indicator of readiness.

Thanks Lowrider, they *are* looking good but they're just finishing off sooooo slowly! Is there anything I can do to speed the process up? The only thing I really haven't messed with is nutes; currently they're getting 42ml Micro + 21ml Bloom per 20L as per the 'late bloom' part of the GH DTW feed chart I've been going off.. I didn't want to mess with nutes without getting some advice first.

Could it just be that one 315W CMH isn't quite enough to feed three plants of this size at this late stage? Apart from nutes that's something I haven't really thought about until now... maybe I'm asking a little much of this light with three plants of this size?

The timer is working fine, whatever the problem was it seems to have been an issue with the light itself but I haven't seen it happen again. A similar thing happened once or twice before, and switching it off at the wall for an hour or so to let everything reset seems to have fixed it. I've watched it switch on a few times since then (my alarm goes off to water right on lights-on) and haven't noticed an issue so I think it's just an intermittent thing..

 

[Lowrider72]

Cool, when lamp is cool, check its locked in, had a similar prob on mine, globe was not quite seated. Just a thought.

Feed charts are good mate, to give you an idea where the changes need to occur as the plants xhange their needs.
My advice, if it aint farked, dont fix it. Lol.
Its easy to overthink growing a weed sometimes.

I got 9 plants in 4' x 8', CMH is pumping them, thats two 315w ers. Can always lower your light a bit or different globe next time, philips 3100K is the king apparently.

Haha, waiting for buds to ripen....never gets easier. Hahaha.

 

[d42zero]

Cool, when lamp is cool, check its locked in, had a similar prob on mine, globe was not quite seated. Just a thought.

Feed charts are good mate, to give you an idea where the changes need to occur as the plants xhange their needs.
My advice, if it aint farked, dont fix it. Lol.
Its easy to overthink growing a weed sometimes.

I got 9 plants in 4' x 8', CMH is pumping them, thats two 315w ers. Can always lower your light a bit or different globe next time, philips 3100K is the king apparently.

Haha, waiting for buds to ripen....never gets easier. Hahaha.

I'll do that - it's lights on in about half an hour so I'll do it right now.

That was my thought too... this GH feed chart seems to have done a decent job so far and it works out close to what I've read in plenty of other places. I agree with you on not overthinking it, I'm happy to just let them go as long as they don't show any signs of dying. But 87 days cmonnnnnn

 

[d42zero]

27/10
Watered 1l @ 8am
Watered 1l @ 7pm
Watered 1l @ 11pm
Min-max 25.1-30.8, 34-55% RH

28/10
Watered 1l @ 8am
Watered 1l @ 7pm
Watered 1l @ 11pm
Min-max 23.8-30.0, 46-59% RH

29/10
Watered 1l @ 8am
Watered 1l @ 7pm
Watered 1l @ 11pm
Min-max 24.1-28.9, 49-56% RH

30/10
Watered 1l @ 8am
Watered 1l @ 7pm
Watered 1l @ 11pm
Min-max 28.2-25.6, 48-58% RH

31/10
Watered 1l @ 8am
Watered 1l @ 9pm
Watered 1l @ 11pm
Min-max 23.3-28.9, 46-67% RH

1/11
Watered 1l @ 8am
FLUSHED 60l @ 1pm
Watered 1l @ 9pm
Min-max not taken

 

[d42zero]

2/11
Plants haven't been looking great lately... here's the worst-looking, two days ago:

The brown patch turned out to be bud rot She's not drinking (loads more runoff than the others) and leaves aren't looking healthy at all. I cut the whole top of that cola off about 2" below the rotted section.

On the advice of one of the local hydro shops I moved my tent's exhaust so it vents out of the room (it was venting into the room during winter to hold heat), lowered the plants about a foot, and changed my daylight hours from 8pm-8am to 8am-6pm, the idea being to try and get higher temperature differentials between min and max... previously 'day' hours were set at night to stop it getting too cold in winter, but it's warmed up recently.

Also on advice from here I flushed yesterday, I used 60L of plain pH water (can't bring myself to mix up $25 worth of nutes just to dump them) then watered with a mild nute solution afterwards. The good plant is drinking (very little runoff) while the sickly plant isn't, and the other one in between.

The good news is I think we might be ready to give the healthier plant the snip!! Here's a shot of a sample I pulled off today:

I'd say that's getting into the 20-30% amber area.. maybe a couple more days?

Watered 1l @ 11am
Watered 1l @ 3pm
Watered 1l @ 10pm
Min-max 24.1-28.3, 44-59% RH

 

[DonkeyDick]

They look gorgeous. Bummer on the bud rot. As the sugar leaves brown off you have to be careful they don’t carry that discolouration back onto the flower. Just read that the other day.

 

[d42zero]

They look gorgeous. Bummer on the bud rot. As the sugar leaves brown off you have to be careful they don’t carry that discolouration back onto the flower. Just read that the other day.

Really? The one that looks healthiest does look nice, but the one I posted the photo of above (the plant, not the trichs) doesn't look great to me She's still not drinking much after being flushed a couple of days ago.. runoff just goes straight through. I think I might skip a couple of waterings to let her coco dry out a bit, not too much but if she's not drinking then it must be pretty soggy down there.

I'm not sure if the good one (the trichs photo) is ready to go yet or if I should just give it a liiiiiitle bit longer, maybe one more week? I do prefer a more 'baked' high than a head-rush high so more ambers might be better..

I'll keep that in mind about the suger leaves.. I posted a photo in another thread about the tips browing a bit, some of the buds did brown slightly too.. do you think that's cosmetic browning, or possibly more mold?

 

[DonkeyDick]

Hiya. I had a look at the other photo you posted. It does look questionable, but I’m no expert. Keep the RH down and lots of air mvmt. Did you cut the brown bits off?
When you harvest you may want to do the bud wash with peroxide for peace of mind.
As for the one who isn’t drinking now. If your VPD is right then your leaves are working. If transpiration works at the leaves, the roots should draw. If the leaves aren’t being massively suddenly cannibalised for stored nutes I’d say it’s slowed down but not in distress and it sounds like you are on to it with that.

If that brown progresses on those buds, or the one you rinsed starts to drool then pull. Otherwise, hurry up and wait
You’ve done great getting them here!

 

[d42zero]

Hiya. I had a look at the other photo you posted. It does look questionable, but I’m no expert. Keep the RH down and lots of air mvmt. Did you cut the brown bits off?
When you harvest you may want to do the bud wash with peroxide for peace of mind.
As for the one who isn’t drinking now. If your VPD is right then your leaves are working. If transpiration works at the leaves, the roots should draw. If the leaves aren’t being massively suddenly cannibalised for stored nutes I’d say it’s slowed down but not in distress and it sounds like you are on to it with that.

If that brown progresses on those buds, or the one you rinsed starts to drool then pull. Otherwise, hurry up and wait
You’ve done great getting them here!

Thanks for the tips! I'd planned to wash my buds anyway so that's no problem. I've got a big weekend at work so I think I'm going to let the plant that's almost ready go a little bit longer... move her into the drying tent on Saturday night for her big sleep, then give her the snip on Tuesday night after 3 days of darkness and RO water only.

I cut the browned section out of the plant that doesn't look good.. I skipped two waterings yesterday, watered this morning but run off still goes straight through.

Keeping RH down is hard right now... I'm venting the tent outside the room which means the air is being exchanged regularly (however fast the fan is pumping, it's supposed to be 300cfm) so the dehumidifier probably isn't doing a lot.. Ambient humidity is about 80% today, 60% in the tent

 

[DonkeyDick]

Sounds like you got this.
Good luck

 

[d42zero]

Sounds like you got this.
Good luck

Fingers crossed! The 'budclipperitis' @Lowrider72 diagnosed me with a while back has become a chronic condition, I totally get it now... the most mature plant looks so fresh and ready, but I think it needs just a liiiitle bit longer..

I'm seeing some clear trichs, a lot of cloudy ones, and maybe 10-ish% ambers...

The bud rot on the other plant has just got me worried... I don't want to pull this girl early, but I also don't want her succumbing to rot like the other one!

I'm soooooo tempted to move her into the dark today but I think I'll stick with my plan.. dark from Friday, harvest Monday..

 

[d42zero]

3/11
Min-max 24.3-28.7, 45-63% RH

4-5/11
No records taken

5/11
Watered 1l @ 830am
Watered 1l @ 5pm
Watered 1l @ 1am
Min-max 21.3-28.7, 41-65% RH

6/11
Watered 1l @ 830am
Watered 1l @ 5pm
Watered 1l @ 1am
Min-max 20.1-24.6, 37-54% RH

7/11
Watered 1l @ 830am
Watered 1l @ 545pm
Min-max 20.6-26.6, 34-47% RH

8/11
Watered 1l @ 830am
Watered 1l @ 730pm
Watered 1l @ 11pm
Min-max 22.1-26.8, 35-52% RH

 

[d42zero]

9/11
Soooo today's the day.. one of the girls has gone in for a few days' sleep! I'll feed her pure RO water twice a day then Tuesday night will be harvest night

Watered 1l @ 830am
Watered 1l @ 1pm
Watered 1l @ 6pm
Min-max 21.1-24.9, 31-44% RH

 

[d42zero]

10/11
No records taken

11/11
Watered 1l @ 10am
Watered 1l @ 730pm
Min-max 19.8-26.5, 35-54% RH

 

[d42zero]

12/11 - Plant #1 harvest day!
Harvested the first plant today! Stupidly didn't get a photo of the plant before, but she hasn't *really* changed much since the last pic.

The haul before trimming:

I removed all the fan leaves, and almost all of the sugar leaves that were only partly caked, leaving most of the sugar leaves that were frosted all the way to the tips.

The loot after trimming:

Washed using Doc Bud's washing method... 1st bucket hot-ish H2O2 (600ml 6% in ~15litres), 2nd bucket warm lemon juice and baking soda solution, 3rd and 4th buckets plain cold tap water to rinse.

Hung to dry:

They're almost dry enough for the tent... they'll hang there for another hour or so then back into the dark they go to dry. It's SUPER dry here at the moment, humiditiy is around 25-35%! I have a humidifier AND a dehumidifier running... the humidifier runs all the time, and the dehumidifier is set to 45%... only way I could think of to not over-dry them. I know it should be closer to 55% but I have the drying tent and the grow tent in the same room (I have no way to split them and control temp/humidity in both), and I don't want to end up with more mold on the other two plants... so that's my middle-ground solution at the moment.

Watered 1l @ 10am
Watered 1l @ 5pm
Min-max 22.9-27.0, 34-55% RH

 

[d42zero]

13/11
I've been carefully watching the humidity in the drying tent, it's hard to keep it steady... yesterday it fluctuated a bit more than I'd like, last night I ran the humidifier for about an hour and that seemed to get the room humidity up to about 50% and it stayed around there. Checked again this morning and it was only down to 45%, so ran the humidifier for another half hour and hopefully that'll last the day. I think it'll drop back down into the 30-40% area later in the day, but it shouldn't be for too long.

Since I've got a pretty good handle on the grow tent after six months, I've moved the min-max meter into the drying tent to keep an eye on what's going on in there.

Watered 1l @ 9am
Watered 1l @ 5pm
Drying tent min-max 22.1-23.2, 36-68% RH

 

[d42zero]

14/11
Drying tent humidity seems to be under control, I've got the dehumidifier set to bring it down 50%, and if I go in there and it's under 50% I just turn the humidifier on for half an hour or so. Seems to be working reasonably well, I'd prefer a more automatic solution but it's really only for a few days so this'll do for now.

Buds seem good, no sign of mold and smell inside the tent seems good. The samples I took last week are smoking really well so I think we're golden. Got curing jars cleaned and ready to go, will just wait until the stems 'snap' a little when bent and boom in it goes!

Watered 1l @ 8am
Watered 1l @ 6pm
Drying tent min-max 19.7-23.5, 40-57% RH

 

[d42zero]

15-17/11
No records taken

I missed out on taking records the last few days, but I got busy with my harvest I had a little scare when I came home the other day and the drying tent humidity was about 25% (forgot to fill the humidifier)... I thought I'd stuffed up badly and over-dried the shit out of the stuff so I panicked and manicured/jarred it... only to watch the humidity climb to 90% in the jars within an hour or so! I realised I'd trimmed and jarred way too early (buds only hung for 48hrs) so I pulled it all back out, laid it all on a tray, and put it back in the drying tent for a few more days while also running the humidifier to get things back up to about 50%. Last night I jarred it all back up, humidity in the jars climbed to 65% then stayed stable so all good. I burped the jars today for about 30min and I'll burp daily for at least a week, maybe more, while watching the humidity.

I have 58% Boveda packs which, unusually, are holding humidity in four separate jars at a rock solid 62%... anyways the weed in those jars seems to have lost its smell, I have another jar with some similar weed and no pack and it smells way different. Is Bovedas sucking up the stank a known issue?