New Grower - Der Kommissar

[derkommissar]

Rodrigo

Took a long time to find the right ones of these at the right price.... but these just arrived today. I have a few weeks before I need to them in service so I'll take my time and do it right.
Thanks for the push in the direction.

That said there's no denying the way I was doing it was any less effective, just more wasteful.

 

[CronicHempHog]

Happy Weednsday DK new drip rings?

 

[derkommissar]

Happy Weednsday DK new drip rings?

Yeah, An idea another reader had to save me money. made sense after he said it...

 

[CronicHempHog]

Happy Thurweed day DK

 

[derkommissar]

Funny thing about running your lights at night (9pm to 9am) is it makes for very busy, almost panicked, few hours in the mornings as I am not a night person.

That said the scope of an upgrade I've been working on required me to work last night and this morning.
This is my improved Veg room...VEG 2.0. Gone is the flood system, in is a halo system which ended up costing more than I expected but I'm fairly sure the costs in nutrient savings will pay for it in 1 or 2 grows.

This project involved cutting a 1/4" off of each side of 22 tees. Not fun. My basement shop looked like it snowed. The cuts were necessary as the table is 62" wide and the tees were 3"...66" plus elbows would have made it far to wide, so cutting them down was the only solution.

Then nylon barb fittings. Mounted it on angle iron (it kind of bowed during gluing, a result of a very small error in the casting of each tee added up after 22 of them to a rather significant bowing of 4-7 degrees)

Nutrient solution comes in both sides of the manifold and has to fill the pipe and go up before loading the lines. This, and cutting all the lines to exactly the same length should make fore a very even distribution. There was a much cheaper way of making this but it would have distributed it as evenly as I anticipate this system doing. Hey, it looked fucking great in my head!

I still have to modify the pump, I got it mostly done but I wanted to put valves in it so I can drain the system with the same pump. May or may not end up doing that... project got kind of costly. I haven't hooked hoses up to the ends yet, need to find a good quality short rubber hose I can tear apart.

It will be in service in a few weeks so I have some testing to do and a few more fittings to add but fundamentally it's done.

Thanks for looking


Oh, is anyone interested in a grow journal about 50 inside/outside Fast & Vast Autos? Going to start construction next week. Let me know if you're interested. Trying for ~200oz in 75 days...

 

[derkommissar]

BudZilla

 

[CronicHempHog]

very Nice and the cola too Happy Tokerday DK

 

[derkommissar]

Harvest tomorrow. I think it might be a bit early but i've been flushing for 7 days. I can't quite get a grasp on evaluating trichomes. I need a better microscope. I've tried several hand held types but they all seem to have such a small field of view as to make them pretty much worthless. Think I will try a digital microscope.
Wifes camera has a super macro feature I will investigate further to. She took a pic of a bug last year and you could count the eye facets. I tried it but got a little to close i think....

Have to improvise a drying rack.. some screen and 2x4s for this harvest. Had a brilliant idea on how to dry that I will share if I do it next grow.

 

[KingJohnC]

I use disposable vinyl gloves and when I harvest a plant I start by cutting the branches off 1 by 1. I take the branch and first strip off all the fan leaves. I then use a pair of Fiskars Micro Tip Pruning scissors and trim all the sugar leaves flush with the bud. I then take the trimmed branches and place them in my drying rack to dry for 5-7 days or until the buds just break off the stems. I then trim off the buds from the stems and place the buds into storage containers. I take the buds out of the storage containers and place into a large bowl for 10 minutes per day for 10 days.

My drying rack

Fiskars Softouch Micro-Tip Pruning Snip recommended by the arthritis society

https://www2.fiskars.com Softouch Micro Tip Pruning Snip


drying racks

2' Dry Rack w/ Zipper Openings - perfectgardens

https://www.accesshydroponic.com 2' hanging dry net-without clips

https://www.accesshydroponic.com 2' dry rack w zipper openings

 

[derkommissar]

not to different from what I have planned.

 

[CronicHempHog]

I just chopped one yesterday myself
if you have one of those newer smartphones with a decent cam on it all you have to do is take a pic as close as you can in focus
and when you view the pic on the phone zoom in
at least for yourself you should be able to see whats going on
Happy FreeWeed Day DK

 

[derkommissar]

OK..harvesting what shoild be 3ish ponds dried by hand sucks. Machine ordered.. Pics will follow

 

[CronicHempHog]

wow 3 lbs Gratz man yea I can see it being a pain in the ass to do it by hand
let us know how long it took your too im assuming your doing it alone
3 lbs of trimming by hand alone ouch

 

[derkommissar]

No, 3 of us trimmed it. took 12 hours. Final weight is in the 2lb12oz area.
I will post pics when i get a second to get rid of EXIF data as the pics i took were with me cell phone and I don't want Johnny-law raining on my parade.

It's current;y finishing in paper bags but the weight is pretty close. This gives me LOADS of data to crunch. We alreadt pulled the grow room and did a few upgrades. Biggest one was black hoses. Sanitized all the lines, renippled (is that a word?) the buckets and got it ready for the next cycle. Do to a MAJOR miscalculation The bloom room will stay empty for another 2 or 3 weeks. Ouch! Ideally the plants currently in veg area would be ready to move but I made a miscalculation that i will not make next time. I have learned a lot... time really is money and money doesn't grow on trees - it grows on short stinky bushes.

Got pics fixed.

Larger bud...not near the largest though

Bag-o-bud. We actually filled a 3 gallon bucket 3 times

The monster bud

The REAL sea of green on my temp drying rack...

And finally not dealing with this grow in particular but my MAJOR upgrade in the veg area. Cha-ching!

Thanks for looking. I'll probably do 1 more post to this journal when I get the final weight. On a related note one of my extra set of clipping hands is a smoker from the stone age who has seen and done it it all (including a long stretch for 16 pounds in the 70's) and he said, he has never seen or smoked anything like this. He a real connoisseur of this stuff and was anxious to help to see what I could do. That made me feel good.

 

[KingJohnC]

Congratulations on your harvest!

 

[PukingPanda]

beautiful harvest!

 

[Dyold]

Congratulations Der Kommissar. Nice Harvest for sure. With your setup you should consider doing a perpetual harvest or a cycled harvest I prefer to call it. I plan on harvesting every 3 to 4 weeks with 10-15 plants every round since I can have a max of 45. 15 every 4 weeks should keep things moving along nicely.

 

[CronicHempHog]

looking good DK cant wait to see what you get out of your next one
I wish I could grow that much lol

 

[derkommissar]

Dyold:
It is a perpetual harvest, the new plants were supposed to already be moved from the veg area but a miscalculation and serious problem made it running 3 weeks late. All those issues have since been fixed.

Thanks for all the comments and help. I'm sure everyone wants to hear the Number.... 40ish OZ. thats from 9 (larger) plants in a room that is designed to grow 20-22 (slightly smaller) plants. I'm hoping for an even 80 oz next grow but won't grumble for anything over 64oz which is my lowest number.

I've got something special coming up... a 50 plant in/out fast and vast auto grow. I'm hoping for a harvest between 150-200 oz in 70 days in a purpose built breakdown greenhouse. Should be interesting. I will link back to it when I start the journal.

Thanks!

 

[derkommissar]

if anyone was interested, here's the big fast and vast project...

Derkommissar - Fast & Vast Auto Indoor/Outdoor Experiment