Let's Find a Mother! Hiking Through a Field of Mary Jane

Sorry it took me so long to take a peek but least I get to see your harvest. Congratulations. It's always nice to get in a harvest. Hope she smokes as good as she looked. I hear ya on culling. Takes afew grows to really know a plant. Some aren't worth growing, mite magnets or whatever it is you don't like about them, but it does take acouple grows to figure that out. Once more cool harvest and Keepem Green
 
the quickest update ever...

Final weight was 2057g = 73.5oz = 4.59 lb :)
That's 1500w in ~5.5' x 10' space. :yahoo:

that includes some smaller stuff, as I will eventually sort out the 'top shelf' nuggs.

One note... I think Boveda packs are adding weight, but I'm running a test to confirm. I don't have enough packs for all my jars, so I swapped one and have before weights for both jars. I'll check in a few days.

oh ya... in case you didn't do the math, I think that's 1.37+ grams per watt. :)

:bravo::high-five::cheer::goodjob::thumb:

way to go Hiker :) +reps brother on an amazing run.
 
OK I'm a bad journalist :blalol:
It's been a month since I updated!

I've typed a couple quick updates and always get pulled away and never post them. This will, unfortunately, be another quick update.

My LED panels arrived yesterday. I purchased 2 of the 144 x 3W reflector panels from TOP LED, a 420mag sponsor. I got one hung over the moms, but that's about it.

I'm making progress on my construction down there, but it's going MUCH slower than I thought. This is still the "busy season" for work, but that should let up a little as we move into the holiday season. Then there was all the work outside trying to get the house/yard ready for winter, ie rake leaves, prep garden bed, put away hoses, winterize power equipment, etc. And then there is the real reason I've not got as much done as I'd like. It's been hunting season! I've spent most weekends out in the woods looking for tasty things to shoot. :blalol: I did get my deer this year, but was trying to get a bear too. The venison is super yummy (made some stew last night), but bear meat is soooooooooo good. :)

Bear season ends today, so this weekend I'm staying home to try and catch up on all this work I've been neglecting while I go play hunter. :winkyface: Well, I am going to Spokane Saturday, but that's related to the basement as I'm visiting my hydro store to get some more stuff.

Well, that's about all I have to report. I'm excited to be moving into the realm of LEDs. I've still got about 40 hours of construction to do down there before the new and improved flower room is complete.

Oh ya, there was one other new upgrade down there this week.... I setup my old laptop down there, so now I can post LIVE from the basement! Of course, I'm posting this from my office upstairs. :blalol: The main motivation to get out the old laptop was to play music. I was using my phone as the source, but that had it's issues. Having the laptop also means I can start using Excel to log some of my data. It also means my posts might start showing up at night instead of during work hours. We'll see about that. :biglaugh:

I haven't posted a pic lately, so here is one that was on my phone that I thought you all might enjoy.

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I'm actually not 100% sure which strain this is, but I think it was all of the Blueberry. It's that or the AK48 as those 2 were my biggest yielders and this is one of the BIG piles. :) (added: I just looked at the picture again while reviewing the post and I now think it may be the TGA Apollo13 x Vortex based on the calyx structure. I see foxtailing and that strain was doing that a lot this round. I'm not growing this strain next round partially due to this. I really love the smoke/taste/high from this strain. It really has a lot going for it, but it does seem to want to fox tail more than some of my others, so I'm leaving it out for at least one round.)

To give you an idea of scale... that piece of glass, NOT including the frame, is a little over 25" square. That pile is ~12" tall. I forgot I took that picture, but I recall a big smile when I was looking at that pile. Must have been why I took the picture.

I REALLY need a new camera. The last 2 I bought were lost/stolen and drowned. I did find the 3rd oldest, but I keep misplacing it again (I currently am unsure of its whereabouts again).
 
That's it! Game Over...
 
Hey Hiker brother , just wanted to let you know my new journal is up and running. link is in my signature.

Congrats again on the great harvest :goodjob:
 
Hi guys. I'm alive!

I've been super busy with more changes to the basement! I shot a couple videos with the intent of sharing, but the one from last night does not appear to have saved. I'll try again tonight.

In the meantime, here is a teaser pic.
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Please excuse the leaves on the floor. I took the picture before sweeping.
This was taken on 12/2. I had left for the Thanksgiving holiday for 6 days the same day I put these plants into the buckets. I had someone caring for them, but my instructions were inadequate. While I was in contact with them, they were not experienced enough to realize the plants were not doing well. They look like hell in this picture, but they are fully recovered now. :D

In this picture they have been in the buckets a week. They were put into the buckets at ~21 days after being cut. They vegged for 5 weeks since this picture and started flowering yesterday. :partyboy:

The room was not complete in this picture, but you can see how much more space I have for flowering now. It's essentially tripled my usable flowering area. That's a good thing since these plants are now monsters! I'll get a new picture up tomorrow.

Anyway, just checking in so you all know I'm alive. I've just been super busy with all the construction in the room. I had to remove the old room's wall, floor, AC shelf, and fan/filter. While not related to the plants, I had to rerun the exhaust for my home's furnace before I could seal in the room. I sealed up the rest of the flowering area, ie plywood and/or drywall. I built a new door/wall for the room (see pic below). Finally, I built a filter chamber for the AC's exhaust to handle the smell problem from last grow. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting. This is on top of the end of year being the busiest time of year for my work, LOTS of travelling (6 days to CA, 4 days to Seattle, and several day trips to Spokane and Northport), AND houseguests!

Everything is starting to wind down now, so I'm hoping to be taking another picture with my feet up soon!

:Namaste:


I forgot the other picture!
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These are the new doors into the expanded flowering area. They came out awesome! You can't really tell, but it's 2 pieces. Even the footer board the doors rest against slides out, so I can have that opening as large as possible.

I'm going to try and figure out how to get a video up so you all can see the whole setup.
 
I'm still not happy with any of the videos I've made, so no video yet. I'm also still a little uneasy about uploading to Youtube. I've not finished my study of how to do that safely.

I DID take more pictures though, and I'm gonna share them!
First, I'm posting a picture I uploaded way back in September!
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This was during the last batch. Remember what the flowering area used to look like? I did like my aerofloor (tm pending lol), but it's only practical on a small scale I think.

This is the new space. :love:
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This is the "left" side of my garden. This is where the old area was. In the failed video attempt, I tried to show where you can see where the old wall was.

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This is the "right" side. As you can see, I've expanded my area substantially. I've just about tripled it. I can't light it all yet though. That will happen in the next round.

Here are some of the features of the new build.

First is the door. I put a LOT of thought into this design. My goals were:
Light proof
Mostly air tight (I run CO2)
Easy to open and close
Provide maximum access
Be durable.

I really liked my foam doors for the old room, but that design was not going to work in the new opening. Durability was their biggest issue. The foam panels also are NOT lightproof on their own, but I glued panda plastic to the inside to solve that. I also had 3 vertical columns along the old wall that helped block light where the panels met. I did not want a column in the middle of my opening this time.

Here is what the finished doors look like.
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Here is how it works...

The doors are 3 layers. Basically a sandwich with wafer board as the bread and foam as the meat. In the pic below you can see both doors and their layers. Notice how the one on the left has a corner notched out. That is the 'left' door, and you can see the corner that notch is for in the next picture down. Also notice that one of the wafer board layers is bigger than the other. This is the 'outside' layer.
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Here you can see how the door jam works, and why the door has that corner notched. The outside layer of the door sits on the outside, so the light has to make 4 bends to get in or out. I had to do some caulking between the jam and the walls and ceiling, but NO light gets passed the via the door. :thumb:
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This is the footer. As you can see, it's not attached, so I can completely remove it for improved access. I thought I would need a blanket or something to get a good seal, but no light passes, and I can't feel any air moving, so I called it good.
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Here you can see my CO2 gen and the gas line along the ceiling. On the far wall you can see my drain lines. The white one is for the RO system, and the black line is the drain I use. It worked out to have the sewer right there in the basement. The furnace was already tapped into it, so I thought if it was good enough for them!
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There was a heater vent down there that I disconnected, but I use to pass my drain lines through the wall. This is my little cap.
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Here is the other side.
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Finally here is a shot across the canopy. It was a pretty shot, so I wanted to end with it. :circle-of-love:
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Whew! That's the biggest update I've done in awhile!

What I didn't take pictures is just to the left of the reservoir you see in the door pic above. I also had to build a mini room/closet around the AC intake and exhaust so I can filter that air. Last batch I was blowing unfiltered air out the chimney. If the wind was just right, you could find yourself engulfed in a 'plume' of the loveliest scent on earth. While I enjoy it immensely, it's not conducive to the goal of stealth. :blalol: This should take care of that.

oh ya, and I'm gonna make you scroll up now muwahahah... in the first pics of the plants, you can see the little risers I made. This resolves something I don't care for about this system. Without these, there is a small amount of water that stays in the bottom of the buckets and hoses. These help reduce that. 2 layers of wafer board were the exact thickness to empty the buckets, so I just put a few screws through them to hold them together, but the screws sticking out also hold the bucket in place. Yes, there are 34 of them in there. Sounds like a simple task. It was, but all this stuff sure adds up in time!

This batch will get harvest at the end of March. I have flowered all the other batches for right around 10 weeks and these started flowering this week.

I'm sort of relieved. As far as the garden goes, this is now the period of the least amount of work for me. Maybe only 20 hours a week :biglaugh: I'll be tucking and bending a bit more for the next week, but they look pretty good to me as is. I should be fine for vertical, but it will be close. I'm excited to see what the LEDs can do, but they might end too close. Did someone say hashtips? :drool:

I'll keep trying to get a video up, but I'm not gonna make any promises. The day job has let up a little too, so life has gotten a lot less hectic. (We also had an 8 month house guest go home this month) I'm looking forward to spending more time with Mrs Hiker. I'm pretty sure she still lives upstairs. I spend all my time down here. :blalol:
 
very nice :) what kind of LED panels do you have? +reps brother

Thanks for stopping by my friend. :Namaste:

I bought 2 of the 3w x 144 "reflector" models from TopLED, ie Sara.

I liked the footprint for my long narrow veg area, but they are too strong for my vertical space. They burned the crap out of my moms, so now they are flowering lights :) Veg will stay fluorescent, which is fine with me.

I like them so far. I'm hoping I will have the whole new side under LED next round. Should be doable.

Making the little filter chamber is letting me postpone (maybe even negate the need for) the AC upgrade to a mini split. Especially if I take out the HPS and replace them with LED. The current setup is more stealth. I am worried about a compressor out back. The neighbor behind me is retired border patrol. He might wonder why it's running year round. :winkyface:

I actually had a question last week and I thought to myself, "I should ask ronnie", but now I can't recall what it was. LOL
 
Thanks for stopping by my friend. :Namaste:

I bought 2 of the 3w x 144 "reflector" models from TopLED, ie Sara.

I liked the footprint for my long narrow veg area, but they are too strong for my vertical space. They burned the crap out of my moms, so now they are flowering lights :) Veg will stay fluorescent, which is fine with me.

I like them so far. I'm hoping I will have the whole new side under LED next round. Should be doable.

Making the little filter chamber is letting me postpone (maybe even negate the need for) the AC upgrade to a mini split. Especially if I take out the HPS and replace them with LED. The current setup is more stealth. I am worried about a compressor out back. The neighbor behind me is retired border patrol. He might wonder why it's running year round. :winkyface:

I actually had a question last week and I thought to myself, "I should ask ronnie", but now I can't recall what it was. LOL

Led's are the future of grow lights I'm sure. I'm thinking about picking up a =Lush lighting dominator 2x (435w) and running a comparison against 430w of Advanced leds.

love the upgrades , pm me with any questions you have. :)
 
Led's are the future of grow lights I'm sure. I'm thinking about picking up a =Lush lighting dominator 2x (435w) and running a comparison against 430w of Advanced leds.

love the upgrades , pm me with any questions you have. :)
No, don't pm the questions, post them. I sure I'm not the only one learning right now from the two of yous conversation.
 
well I just posted on Ronnie's thread, but I'll post here too...

I'm considering replacing my HPS with LEDs this week. I had a bulb go out on me. My local (80 miles) shop sells them for over $100. If one went, there is another the same age. How long until I switch? Also, if I can light the whole basement for less watts than I'm using now, that's a big deal. My utility bill was crazy for December!

It's not 100%, but I didn't get a bulb when we were "in town" today. I can still get one online if I change my mind, but I'm debating on 4 of the topLED 900's or 1200's. I think the 900's will actually cover my area fine, but brighter is better, right? :morenutes:

I will go check out some of the other LED sponsors before I purchase, but I just did that when I recently bought the 2 panels I have, and their prices have went down even more!

I'm glad you're finding the discussion valuable B A R. :Namaste:
That's what this place is all about!
I love :420:
 
I don't think it will fit into your time frame hiker but I'll begin testing 2 Greensun (a sponsor here) LED's in a few days. Small ones, cob style. Should be interesting. I'll link a journal in my sig when I start.
 
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