SAM's DRZ Aquaponics Mixed Strain Grow Journal - 2014

[SAMtheAPman]

Yep. Any new greenhouse growers out there - fans are a must. The thing is, my grow wasn't originally in a greenhouse. It had a roof, but open sides. Over the past few months I've had to enclose everything so stop anyone seeing the ladies and thought that I still had enough air flow... but obviously not.

All the other plants look ok. It's just those big, fat, Money Maker colas!

I'm thinking a few smaller fans might be better than one big one.

 

[Beateo]

SAM,
What's new brother?

 

[SAMtheAPman]

Been sooooo busy Beateo, hardly had time to do the harvests. No photos unfortunately....

Since last post, I have chopped the Vanilla Kush, Delicious Critical Silver Surfer Haze (this was in the dirt), a Critical Cure and just this morning the remnants of the two Money Makers that required an emergency harvest a couple of weeks ago (after getting rid of all of the moldy buds - the running total for these two plants is currently up to 157g).

Got 60.6g dried off Silver Surfer Haze - although this one has lots of little white bugs in it, even after washing. Don't really care too much, but I might end up processing it into edibles or oil, rather than smoking. It stinks (in a good way)!

The Vanilla Kush was a bit of a surprise - 280g! That's pretty much 10oz. It looked like there was a fair bit on the plant, but I really didn't think there would be that much. All in jars and looking forward to smelling this one cured.

The CC and MM are yet to be weighed.

I could do with a helper for all of this trimming. I'm actually thinking of leaving the leaves on the CC, as it will be made into oil. There's probably going to be 6-9oz dried, and I don't know if I have the time to manicure it. Seems a bit pointless if it isn't going to be smoked.....

So all that's left in the aquaponics is one last Money Maker and an Amnesia - which I'm expecting to be the largest yield of all of my plants. The colas are massive. I'll get some pics soon.

And then there's 2 x Sleestack Skunk in pots and one scrawny bag seed.

Probably another 1-2 weeks on the Amnesia, 2-3 weeks on the MM, and 1-3 weeks on the Skunks. Not sure about the bag seed - it's budding very slowly. Might end up pulling it and juicing it for the Mrs.

I'm also waiting on some seeds - a few different autoflowering strains. Hopefully they'll make it though to me. Thought I'd have another go at the autos over winter (should be warm enough here). Not sure if I'll journal these ones... see how busy things are....

Thanks for reading. Will get some pics up soon.

 

[36Gr0w]

Hope you are enjoying your harvests Sam!

 

[Beateo]

Awesome harvest bro!!

 

[SAMtheAPman]

Thanks guys. The harvest have been relatively enjoyable, but like I said, it would be good to have a helper or two! I find a medium sized plant takes about two hours to chop, initial trim (fan leaves), wash and hang. Then trimming this a few days later take a couple more hours.

Unfortunately, because of the stealth issues involved in growing here, I'm not actually enjoying smoking much at the moment - paranoia kicks in. Wasn't really an issue before, but as time goes on I seem to have been worrying more about the risk of being uncovered. 2-3 people have "busted" me, but they're close enough that there's no issue there. The smell of drying in the house is quite strong, trying to keep it controlled as much as possible.

Anyways.... here's a few shots of the Amnesia before I chopped it this morning (I noticed some of the main colas displaying mold symptoms so decided to chop them - left the lower ones for now). 137 days old - approx 74 days of flowering:

And here are the Sleestack Skunks:

 

[Beateo]

Sam,
Wow... that's a lot of plants bro. Is 74+ days typical for Amnesia? I'm growing one for the 1st time... a couple of weeks left before I flip. Would I need to wash them if I've never sprayed anything on them? All of my nutes are through the soil.. no "folier" or however it's spelled??

Thanks guys. The harvest have been relatively enjoyable, but like I said, it would be good to have a helper or two! I find a medium sized plant takes about two hours to chop, initial trim (fan leaves), wash and hang. Then trimming this a few days later take a couple more hours. Curious what your humidity % is?
You're gonna like that Skunk man.
Take care brother.

 

[SAMtheAPman]

So that's just one Amnesia plant. I had to tie it down several times as it kept on touching the greenhouse roof. Probably would have been a good plant to SCROG. It's looking like I may get close to a pound off this one plant.

The flowering info I have on the Amnesia is 63-84 days. This plant is for a daytime oil, so I didn't want too many amber trichs. It's probably only got 5% when looked at under the microscope. Also didn't want to harvest too early because it can't give a "racey" high - GF hates that feeling (so do I).

The Skunk that is almost ready doesn't have a lot of visible frost on it, but hopefully it will come along in the next couple of weeks.

As for washing, I would recommend it for everyone. Even if you don't foliar feed, there's still dust and dead skin cells and stuff getting on your plants. All the cool kids are doing it

Here's the link: Bud Washing

 

[SAMtheAPman]

And humidity.... not really sure because I haven't used the meter out there (because there's nothing I can do about lowering the humidity). I'd say the lowest would be 50% on dry days up to 100% on a wet day. This is pretty much the wet season now. I think the fans have been helping, and I'm planing on changing one plastic wall for shade cloth.

The meter stays in the drying room at the moment, along with a dehumidifier - sitting at around 55-60%.

 

[SAMtheAPman]

Here's what the drying room looks like at the moment... Amnesia, Critical Cure & Money Maker....

 

[Beateo]

Sam,
Wow! Looks great bro. How much is that? Looks like pounds

 

[SAMtheAPman]

At least one pound I'd say. Probably a few oz over. Will update with weights once it's all dry.

 

[Dutty Panty]

Hey Sam didn't read everything since last post I have like 400 notifications to go over lol. but here's a few recommendations for you on bud mold I too have encountered that.

Get a hygrometer like was probably mentioned
Keep levels at 55%rh in bloom and I do 80%in veg



Air flow exhaust,intake and air movement wall oscillating fans whatever you can.

Watering water right before or right as lights come on. And remove any excess from drain catches.

Another tip don't spray flowering plants past week 4 if possible.


And you cbd critical do you have testing in your area I'm very interested in that!

 

[SAMtheAPman]

Hey Sam didn't read everything since last post I have like 400 notifications to go over lol. but here's a few recommendations for you on bud mold I too have encountered that.

Get a hygrometer like was probably mentioned
Keep levels at 55%rh in bloom and I do 80%in veg



Air flow exhaust,intake and air movement wall oscillating fans whatever you can.

Watering water right before or right as lights come on. And remove any excess from drain catches.

Another tip don't spray flowering plants past week 4 if possible.


And you cbd critical do you have testing in your area I'm very interested in that!

Thanks for the advice Dutty.

I have 3 x oscillating fans in the greenhouse, and will be removing one of the plastic walls and replacing with shade cloth. This should fix up the airflow problems I've had. An exhaust fan would be good too, but I'm going to start with the wall first.

Unfortunately, that's about all I can do - there's heaps of water lying around in the greenhouse because it's an aquaponics system. There's a 1250L fish tank, and a couple of collection sumps that always have water in them. So on a hot day, this is evaporating somewhat increasing humidity.

Before I had to go stealth, there was great airflow - 3 open walls with just a plastic roof over the top. But to keep eyes out, I've had to enclose the whole thing. Oh well, gotta work with what we've got.

I think I'll pop the hygrometer out there and see where the humidity is sitting... just for interest.

Unfortunately can't get any testing done here. I would be interested in the CBD:THC ratio too!

 

[SAMtheAPman]

So it's all coming to an end... I chopped the last DRZ plant (a Money Maker) at the start of the week - it's trimmed and pretty much dry, will weigh it up today or tomorrow.

It was the worst smelling plant of all of them! Kinda smelt like rubber/chemicals. Definitely a different pheno to the other Money Makers I've harvested. Sure it will be ok one cured.

Here's how the greenhouse is looking:

The plants that are sitting on top of the beds in pots are from my failed indoor grow. I'm going to try and get some seeds off them as they are budding nicely. The cardboard box has a fairly old Amnesia clone underneath - it looked like it was getting a nanner (male flower) so to increase the likelihood of more nanners, it's spending 3 days in the dark. It's too far along for colloidal silver spray, but a I'm hoping bit of dark stressing will get a bunch more nanners for some feminized seeds.

One more Sleestack Skunk (just in a pot) and a very slow bag seed (in the ground) to go:

The other Sleestack was harvested yesterday and I was sure that there was no mold, but during the harvesting/washing I did find quite a few moldy buds. Gotta get the airflow sorted for next time - will definitely be replacing a fair bit of plastic for breathable shade cloth.

For now, I'm back to veggies (kale, rainbow chard, rocket and lettuce to start).

I am hoping to do a winter auto grow.... but that will depend on my delivery coming through from Herbies. The first shipment seems to have gone missing (no letter from customs though), but Herbies has been nice enough to offer a free re-send, even though the parcel wasn't tracked/insured. Didn't even really ask them - they just offered. Definitely be buying from them again (this was my second purchase) and would recommend them to everyone!

Will be posting final weights in the next few days....

 

[SAMtheAPman]

BTW... average hygrometer readings over a few days:

Min RH: 16-30% (30% was average)
Max RH: 92%

So with this fluctuation in RH, and the poor air flow, it's no surprise that there was mold. I also put it down to my (previously unknown and) awesome growing ability and the big fat buds I grew

 

[Beateo]

Wow.. that one plant looks like a small tree bro!

 

[SAMtheAPman]

It would look even more impressive if I didn't have to bend it over. Was getting way too tall and hitting the roof so it got trained. It's still one of my tallest though.

 

[SAMtheAPman]

Here's all of the final weights of my plants grown in the DRZ Aquaponics system (except for one in soil), trimmed unless otherwise stated. Listed in order harvested:

• Northern Lights Auto - 0.9g
  
• AK49 Auto - 10.4g
  
• MED GOM 1.0 Auto - 3.9g
  
• MED GOM 1.0 Auto - 6.2g
  
• Northern Lights Auto - 13.1g
  
• Afghan Kush Special - 27.3g
  
• CBD Blue Shark - 54g
  
• CBD Critical Cure - 107.6g
  
• 2 x Money Makers - 310.3g + 76g untrimmed
  
• Delicious Critical Silver Surfer Haze - 60.6g (grown in soil)
  
• Vanilla Kush - 280.3g
  
• CBD Critical Cure - 325g untrimmed
  
• Amnesia - 900g
  
• Money Maker - 302g

TOTAL: 2076.6g + 401g (untrimmed)

I still have one Sleestack Skunk hanging and another due for chopping in a few weeks. Will update those weights wen they're done.

All in all I'm quite happy with the yield. Much more than I expected.

EDIT: oh yeah, and there was approximately 300-500g (dry weight) of moldy buds that were tossed. At least 100g would have come from the Amnesia so I'm calling that one a 1kg plant.

 

[SAMtheAPman]

Finally have my bedroom back for a couple of weeks while nothing is drying. The last Sleestack Skunk I chopped came in at 142.4g trimmed, and about 25g untrimmed. Again with a fair chunk thrown away with mold issues. I think the next SS will be a bit heavier.

If I do a regular grow again (as opposed to the auto grow I'm planning), I might start later in the year, so my plants are budding in a "dryer" time. The other night we had some cold weather come through and the humidity dropped from 75% down to 40%. It's sitting below 60% right now. I reckon it might make a difference with my mold problems, considering that I don't have a lot of control over the humidity.

I was looking into pest control for next grow as well, and did read that aphids secrete a sweet, sticky fluid that encourages mold growth. I already knew ants love this secretion, but I'll be working harder next time to keep the aphids off my plants.