Snack420's 3rd - Critical Kush - Indoor Grow - Coco - 600W MH/HPS - 2016

About your training question from the FAQ section, if you're at 5 nodes now, it's the perfect time to TOP them. Since you've got quite a bit of space you could try and spread them out some to create a larger canopy. As opposed to letting grow naturally. The FIM WILL give you more tops, but it's more unpredictable and it's slower for plants to recover. I'd suggest topping and spreading then out.

#1 as long as the roots aren't sitting in the runoff water they will be fine. This will however lead to mould and possibly invite bacteria and parasites to inhabit the saucers directly under your plants that have a more or less porous pots.

#2 I would imagine so. They will airprune themselves but this does not mean they can't get tangled up and/or over crowded.

#3 I'll wait for pics, probably getting a little hungry. That'd be my guess. I wait for the update...

KiG :green_heart:cheers
 
Cool, thanks a lot for the hint Snid! I did top a few of the plants, but not all of them. A couple I bent over a tied down a bit. One unfortunately got knocked around while I was trimming them yesterday and the main stem broke. The good news is this was one of the smaller plants and the second of the strain, so hopefully not too tragic.

Here are some pics from over the last couple of weeks...

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I'm probably going to switch to 12/12 in the next week or too.

One challenge I have coming up is some traveling, so I'll need to figure out an auto-watering solution. Any ideas on that???

Thanks & hope you're all having a very green weekend!

:circle-of-love::volcano-smiley::thanks::Namaste:
 
Since you're using fabric pots this solution us perfect for you. Check sweet sues swick thread.
Basically you let a wicking action take water up from a wet perlite bedding. Very interesting, I will be reading up on that myself.
SWICK Watering Systems - Letting the Plant Water Itself

Other than that option, you'll need to get a bunch of drip lines and a reservoir pumping water to plants with a timer... Lots of work lots of tinkering to find what they need

Plants are looking fantastic, I guess you took care of their hunger. First weeks of 12/12 coming up, hope it doesn't coincide with your time away... Very important phase of the grow.
Bottom line man, :thumb: and a:high-five:. You're "killing" it! Keep up the good work andas always...

KiG :green_heart:cheers
 
Hey snid, I appreciate your comments and thanks for the SWICK recommendation. I need to read that thread much more thoroughly to understand all the ins and outs. For the time being I picked up a gravity fed blumat kit and set it up running tubing to 8 or the 11 plants. Unfortunately, I'm only getting water flow to the first two in the line so I'm trying to remedy that situation. I was told it might be air in the tube and to let off the last carrot to let air out. I did that and some water eventually started flowing there, but it still won't flow from plant 3-7. Very strange. Traveling and running a coco grow, which dries out SO fast, is probably not the best combo. At least I have a couple of trusted souls to pitch in and help, but it's a less than ideal situation.

Anyway, enough about my watering challenges. Aside from that, the girls seem to be doing extremely well. Here are some pics from the last few days. In ta couple of leaf closeups you will notice some discolorations with the leaves. Any idea what this signifies? I'm not sure if it is due to nutrients or possibly environmental factors such as the temperatures.

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Happy growing everyone!

:volcano-smiley: :circle-of-love: :Namaste:
 
Hi all,

We are now in week 5 of flowering and things seems to be going quite well. The tent is now very full of some bushy plants and buds are starting to form which is always great to watch unfold.

A couple of things to note about what's been happening...

* I added some H&G's BudXL to the nutrient mix and also fed them molasses once so far (1tsp/gal); planning to continue feeding molasses at a rate or probably once a week. Will also be stopping Root Excelerator soon.

* I added some kelp (1tsp/plant) to the topsoil last week and plan to do that again every 1-2 weeks

* Because I have the light cycle adjusted for dark time during daylight hours when our A/C is typically not running, the temps during their dark time can sometimes actually be warmer than during their light time (which is during our night and also when our A/C runs, so it's cooler) - I know that all sounds very confusing. Basically, the temps are often higher during their dark time than their light time, which is typically not what we want. That said, I haven't noticed any negative impact from this, but I do wonder if this may cause any problems. Anyone know about that?

* Temps are ranging between the low 60s to the low to mid 80s and relative humidity is ranging from the mid 40s to the low 60s. I have two sensors in the tent, one near the tops of the plants and another about 1 foot lower than that and I try to keep an eye on the levels to make sure they are within the optimum range

Here are some pics of how they've been doing over the last three weeks or so. If you've stopped by, I hope you enjoy the pics and let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thank you!

June 18
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June 27
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July 1
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July 2
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July 10
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July 10
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Happy growing everyone!
:Namaste:
 
Hi snid,

Thanks for your input!

The temps are a bit better now. I added an extra thermometer/hygrometer sensor in the tent and I can see the temps are higher near the canopy. The lower temps are near the bottom where there is slightly higher humidity, but I think that is expected. They are in week 6 of flowering now and the buds are thickening nicely. Looking forward to the harvest in a few weeks!

I'll plan to post some more pics this coming weekend.

:peace:
 
Sorry for not posting pics, but this summer has been incredibly busy for me. Unfortunately, things have cut into my journal time.

Anyhow, I've been making some minor changes in an effort to reduce the RH% (from the 50s to the 40s and 30s). First, I added some DampRid in the tent, which helped bring things down a few percentage points. I also attached the outtake of the dehumidifier, which blows warm dry air, into the intake of the tent. A short time after making that change, the RH% reduced further, but the temps increased. The temps now range from about 69-87, whereas before, they were more like 62-76. I believe in the flower phase we want the temps a bit lower and not get so much into the 80s, so I'm going to switch back the tent intake to the AC.

In other news they are getting a steady diet of the H&G nutrients, as well as some blackstrap unsulphured molasses. Per an earlier suggestion, I'm also added some kelp as top dressing once every week or two. Some of the buds are getting pretty big now, especially Cheese & Critical+, both of which were free seeds that came with other orders. Things are smelling great in the tent too, and I'm greatly anticipating the harvest. Now I have to go find my magnifiers so I can start checking out the trichomes! :yummy:

I am planning to post some pics within the next 48 hours...

:surf:

:peace:

Keep it green! :byebye:
 
Hi snid, and anyone else out there who might see this... :welcome:

The harvest has happened and drying has begun. I have to admit that with so many different strains and only one tent and one drying area (the tent!) I had to try and find a time to harvest them all, even though some were clearly on the early side and some were clearly on the later side, accordingly to the pistils and trichomes.

There are a few very large colas about the size of my forearm and I'm wondering if it is fine to dry them as is on my drying rack or whether it would be better to break them up to prevent mold. The idea of mold infiltrating my buds is terrifying, but of course I'd like to keep the big buds in tact if possible. I'm keeping the RH in the 52-57% range and the temps are in the mid to high 60s. What do you think - OK to leave the big buds or should they be broken up into smaller chunks?

Once they are dried I'll have a little photo shoot and put up some pics. It should be fun and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the final yield.

I will say that I learned some valuable lessons this time around. First, I grew too many plants in my 4x4 tent, especially because it is near impossible to grow that many without major crowding. As a result it was a little harder than normal to keep the RH% down during the final stages of flowering. Also important is that I believe that one of the major ways to maximize yield is to grow plants shorter and wider using LST techniques and those taught by LightAddict and others. If I grew far fewer plants but LST and super-cropped them earlier and more actively I would've undoubtedly ended up with shorter and bushier plants. A couple of the girls grew so tall (e.g. Critical+ and Cheese) that Critical+ actually grew into the light and experienced some light stress. This should obviously be avoided and can be done so by proper training. Next time I will definitely be training them early and often.

Anyway, I'm still quite stoked about this grow and the way it shaped up. I experienced very few issues and am glad to say there were no pests to battle at all this time - a first for me and a very nice surprise.

Hope all is well in your world and lookout for a picture filled update in the next couple of weeks. If anyone has any input on whether or not it is necessary to break up the big buds in order to avoid mold, please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks & keep it green everyone!

:rollit:
 
Glad you got that harvest completed, sounds like a scheduling nightmare. Lots of trimming to be done in short time, reps for that alone. Your insights on tent size are well founded and make total sense to me. I was advised to take the large Colas apart to prevent mold and what not. I still try to keep the tops as intact as I can. Congrats on the harvest all the same brother, glad you shared the journey with us or should I say just me.. Lol. Great job Snack420, rep boost incoming.

KiG :green_heart:cheers
 
Thanks so much for the kindness Snidrajsed! You helped me along this journey and I appreciate that. Reps coming your way too :bravo: As far as bud rot (mold) goes, I was worried it might've infiltrated the bigger buds, but when taking them apart I didn't see any, thankfully.

The trimming was a bit of a pain, but I powered through it one afternoon - a very long afternoon :green_heart:

All in all the harvest came to a little over a pound of buds, plus a ton of trim and popcorn buds that I am keeping separate for future butter making and maybe trying my hand at hash. I'm stoked to have so many strains to sample after they cure properly.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to upload to the gallery at the moment, but I'll try to post some harvest pics another time soon.

Thanks for the support Snid and some others who chimed in earlier, and hope your harvests are green, stinky, and delicious! :thumb:
 
So, without further ado, here are some pics of the plants just a couple of days before the harvest. I wish I had some pics right after I chopped them down, but unfortunately I was too wrapped up in the trimming and didn't take any. Some of the biggest buds were literally as big as my arm! The Critical+ and Cheese plants were especially fruitful.

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WWxBB (front), Blue Cheese (middle), LSD (back)
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Blue Dream (front), SLH (middle), Critical+ and Cheese (back) - Cheese was growing right into the light!
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WWxBB (front), Critical Kush (middle), OG Kush (back, but barely seen) - OG Kush was my least impressive plant for some reason
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Beautiful Blue Dream cola top
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Blue Cheese
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Super Lemon Haze
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And here are some more pics of the buds, as well as some post-trimming, drying, and curing...

Critical+
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Super Lemon Haze
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drying on the rack
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Critical+ ready for curing
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Critical Kush ready for curing
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all curing in jars now...
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Thanks for reading and I hope you found this interesting, or at least entertaining :cheer:

420magazine is a great resource and I'm glad to be part of the community. Wishing all of you very green and potent harvests! :high-five:

:thanks:
 
Thanks Snidrajsed! I'm very happy with the results. This amount of bud should last me quite a while :volcano-smiley:

They've been curing a couple of weeks now, but oddly even with 8g 62% Boveda packs (2 per quart sized mason jar) the humidity levels are reading 66-67%. Do you know if the 60g 62% packs would work better to get the RH levels down a bit, or should I just open the jars every now and then and let the RH levels decrease?

I took some measurements and it sounds like the 60 gram packs would be very tight in a quart sized mason jar.

Thanks for your opinion on that!!
 
Ya I've got a couple of the bigger b62s, they don't really even fit in Mason jars. The smaller ones at least... Your best bet is to "burp" the jars more often. What's your houses ambient Rh? You could also triage to more jars with less in each to make less Humidity released for the b62s to regulate. Once again, great job snack420 :high-five:

KiG :green_heart:cheers
 
Ya I've got a couple of the bigger b62s, they don't really even fit in Mason jars. The smaller ones at least... Your best bet is to "burp" the jars more often. What's your houses ambient Rh? You could also triage to more jars with less in each to make less Humidity released for the b62s to regulate. Once again, great job snack420 :high-five:

KiG :green_heart:cheers

I took your advice and have burped the jars daily for the last week or so and the humidity levels have decreased to around 63-64%, so moving in the right direction :thumb: I'll keep burping them for 30-60 minutes a day for the next week or two until they get down to 62% and then put some Bovedas back in. The ambient RH seems to be 50-58% according to one hygrometer and 44-64% according to the other one. They both say the current RH is 54-55%, so think they are both correct, just the second one has a longer history of min/max values. Anyway, thanks for that suggestion. I think in my case it makes sense not relying on the Bovedas right at the beginning, but after getting the RH down closer to 62% first.

In related news, after curing for about a month, the strains are smelling and tasting really great! Their odors have developed a lot in the last week. I especially like the Blue Cheese and LSD taste so far. I haven't tried the OG Kush yet, but it smells much different than the others. It will be fun trying all these strains over the coming weeks :volcano-smiley:

Thanks for all the support! I believe this journal is now finished. With greenest regards :thanks:
 
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