Storms - Afgani Hash - 2009 Ongoing

[StormChaos]

Greets,

Now that I have gotten my feet and wet and am getting ready to start my 2nd group of plants, I decided to start documenting my efforts and explaining my reasoning and logic of my decisions when required. My goal is to be a knowledgeable and skilled marijuana horticulturist. My mission is to provide a premium growing environment/conditions for happy plants in order to maximize the quality and yield of my girls. .

Any and all comments, suggestions/advice, hints or tips and feedback is not only welcomed it is encouraged. Thank you in advance.

In my haste and excitement to get started, I jumped before I looked and I may have done things that will make you scratch or shake your head and say... "what was he thinking?" It is that lack of experience that has caused much regrettable and unfortunate plant abuse... However... my parental instincts and my thirst knowledge that has lead me here...

At some point or another all of my plants were not doing well for a variety of reasons. I have corrected most of my issues, and learned a lot in the process... I am sure I have compromised my yield to some extent... but that is OK, whatever has been lost has been rewarded with invaluable knowledge. Many of the problems I encountered include but are not limited to: under feeding, nute burn, bugs... as well as PH imbalances and climate control issues... although I have battled and corrected most things on my own I still have an unknown deficiency of some sort... that includes malformed leaves and yellowish perhaps mottled colored leaves. Pictures coming soon....

I acquired my original clone plant from a buddy of mine who has been growing this same plant/strain for I think over 30 years now.

Quick Overview of facts....

I am cloning using an aero-garden and Dip-n-gro - so far I have 100% success rate.

Afghani Hash Plant - Strawberry Fields

The Room is 10' x 14' insulated with reflective thermal barrier. (block-Ir)

72 to 80 degrees F
40 to 60 RH

RO water

PH Hydro 5.3 to 5.9
PH Soil unknown

Direct Air from Outside and I Exhaust using a Carbon Filter directly into my heating system.
I have 2 1k HPS/MH but am only currently really using 1 light... I put the 2nd light on just a couple hours a day... I am concerned about the electrical usage.

Group 1 is in their late 3rd or early 4th week of flower... I am not sure.. I didn't start a calander... I vegged them for about 3 or 4 weeks I think.

Hydro/Soil Mix (soon to be hydro only)Mixed Ebb and Gro and Self Contained Buckets.

2 plants are in self contained bucket/drip systems that I really love. I recently switched to BC technoflora recipe for success from 3 part GH. I liked the 3 part GH initially but my plants seemed to suffer a lil and I felt the GH was lacking. The future mother that is in the 2nd self contained bucket system is really thriving and not showing any signs of any deficiencies that all the other older plants are/were exhibiting.

1 plant is in the Ebb and Gro. I transplanted just prior to flowering (the day before) and it took a lil while to rebound. Transplanting and then immediately flowering seems to have stunted it slightly and it is not doing as well as the others in terms of projected yield... however it does seem to have the most resin on it at this point. I am using Organic Botanicare 1 Part with some additives. I plan on putting 2 new rooted clones directly from the aero-garden into this system and directly into flower to see how that goes and what kind of yield that produces. You will see that my ebb and gro is a 24 plant site that has mostly garden plants in it... we wont be focusing on those but I just thought I should mention it.

3 Plants that are in Soil have been getting GH3 part every 3rd watering using the lucas formula. I plan on using up my GH on these.

One of the soil plants has the unfortunate distinction of being my guinea pig plant. The guinea pig gets to try out all my remedies and basically gets to test anything I plan on putting on the plants. Better to loose one plant than all of them... This plant has suffered so much plant abuse it is criminal.. I am sure you will agree.... lol the poor girl is only now just starting to rebound. And I fear her yield will be pitiful... I have tested a garlic/Tabasco remedy. A baking soda mixture for misdiagnosed powdery mildew that turned out ot be what I think is "honeydew" from white flies.... as well as neem oil. the neem oil seemed to have minimal impact on the plant as was later used on all the plants with no negative impact.

All my plants seem to have suffered some sort of deficiency at one point or another... the new clones started to exhibit the same symptoms of the unknown deficiency that the older plants exhibited... however I think it has been corrected since switching to the BC formula. My hydro store is no longer going to be carrying the BC line so I will most likely switch to the AN line that they will be replacing the BC line with... I will switch only after using up what BC nutes I have....

I accidentally burnt one clone when I transplanted it into the self contained bucket/drip system too soon even though it contained only 1/4 str GH 3 part. It had developed a strong root system and I thought it was ready... but it must have been slightly premature. This prompted me to move it back to the aero garden and a week later take a new plant to be the future mother. The 2 clones will be put into the Ebb and Gro in a day or so and flowered.

In 2 weeks I will take 4 more clones and root them for 10 days under CFLs. Then I will transfer 2 to either a self contained bucket, soil or the ebb and gro. and Veg the other 2 for 3 weeks.

Pictures are coming soon... I will edit them into this post if possible... if not I will make a new post.. I just wanted to get my journal started while I had a lot of my thoughts fresh in my head....

 

[BUD08]

Hey, sounds like your going to have a good thread here. Im in! Cant wait to see the pictures and best of luck!

 

[StormChaos]

All of the plants shown below are an Afgani Hash Plant - Strawberry Fields

^ This was my original mother plant. The day before flowering I took a cutting to create my Future Mother Plant. The 4 other plants that I have growing all came from this plant. Note the string I use to bend branches down to control height and allow for more light penetration.

The plant was fed GH 3 Part and Super Thrive. Used 1/2 and 3/4 str of recommended schedule thru veg and beginning of flowering. Used Full strength and burnt plant.... flushed 2 days and resumed 3/4 strength.

Recently changed to BC nutes and full schedule. No Flush.

Seems to be doing well.

^ This plant is in 3rd - 4th week of flowering. This plant was transplanted from soil into the EBB and Gro system the day flowering started. That seems to have affected its growth compared to the others plants. It is being fed Botanicare 1 Part with bloom enhancers. This plant seems to have more resin the some of the others. I wonder if stressing the plant is causing less budding but more resin.

^This is a random soil plant... Being fed GH 3part and other additives currently using the Lucas method....if you look closely you can see a malformed leaf. Its cause is unknown at this time. I believe it to be a deficiency of some sort. Note the smaller sized mottled yellow portion of the leaf and the normal colored normal sized portion of the leaf. When only half the leaf exhibits the symptom it tends to curl because of the size difference.. like the inner ring and outer ring of a race track. SO I don't think the curling should be considered because we can Identify its cause... unlike an entire leaf curling which might be indicative of something else..

^This is a close up of a bud at 3rd to 4th week of flowering from my first grow ever....

^This WAS my future mother plant. Between the time this photo was taken and during the authoring of this post (about 3 hours). This plant had been moved to have it weekly nute change. The res was drained and I was refelling the res direct from the 4 stage RO while posting this.... I left the room and the F**king cat happened. In her joy and glee of finding her prize unattended... she knocked it off the counter. OMFG. Luckily the cat wasn't present (she'd be fertilizer about now) when I came running into to investigate the crash... I was hoping it was cereal, but knew in my heart it was the plant.... The plant was knocked completely out the pot... No major root damage was suffered (I don't think anyway) there was foliage damage.

What I did was replanted in the hydro bucket, and sprayed it with the foliar spray recommended by BC for use at time of transplant when transplanting rooted cuttings for the first time... I did this in case there was any root damage, it should help promote root growth. I am not too concerned about the foliage.

I am fairly certain the plant will rebound... this should be interesting... what a shitty ending to a rather good day

Prior to this mishap... she was being fed 1/2 str and going to 3/4 str BC recommended dosages. Recipe for success... currently in plain water. I will give it nutes in the morning...

 

[StormChaos]

The plant that was replanted seems to be doing extraordinarily well. Showing no outward or obvious sign of stress. Actually, I just gave a fairly fast visual inspection and her leaves are up and not droopy... actually she looks as if nothing happened. Minus a couple of fan leaves.

 

[StormChaos]

Malformed Leaf.... Crystally Bud and - Close Ups

This Phots is taken during the 4th week of flowering. These malformed leaves appeared randomly thru out all phases of growth. Cause unknown.
Note: it can affect half a leaf finger which typically causes the leaf to curl or curve due to the slower growth rate of the affected portion... or it can affect entire leaf. Can be from 1/2 of 1 leaf finger to entire fan.

Shot from below. A nice formation of flowers... 4th Wk flower...Soil Afgani Hash Plant.

Nice Crystally Flower. Resin is sarting to get heavier. Looks pretty good. Taken at 4th week of flowering. I wonder how much resin is typical for this plant. Afgani Hash Plant - Strawberry Fields - First Grow Ever.

 

[StormChaos]

Close up of the resinous flower

 

[StormChaos]

After giving a careful look at the Future Mother Plant (FMP), I decided she looked a lil weary and she needed to get nutes... but I didn't want to stress by giving her too many since she is newly transplanted and prolly stressed with the fall....

luckily, she had just been transplanted from the aero garden to her new home and her roots hadn't had time to establish themselves or this could have been much worse...

I altered the recommended dosages slightly and use the following formula.

The Red Number is the Actual Dosage the Blue Number is the recommended Dosage according to the Technoflora (BC Series) Mixing Chart entitled Recipe For Success 18/6 Light Cycle.

For anyone who doesn't know 1tsp = 5 ml I will use ML by default. SO if I forget to tag something it will be in ML. These numbers are per gallon



BC BOOST 10ML 15ML
BC GROW 10ML 15ML
THRIVE ALIVE B-1 RED 2.5ML 2.5ML
MagiCal 2.5ML 2.5ML
Sugar Daddy 10ML 10ML


I drained half the reservoir that had no nutes. And added the nute mix. (in one gal of water.

The PH in res after adding Nutes is 5.3 untreated. I am leaving it at that. PH1 eco tester I always check the calibration after use. perfect. I store the tester in the recommended electrode storage/calibration solution.

She is going to be placed under the 1k HPS for 4 hours than back to CFLs
Normally she would be under the HPS for about 11.5 hours then the balance of the 18 to 24 hours under a cfl. But I wanted to give her a break from the intense light and kept her just under CFL today.

The other plants are doing well. I am wondering exactly how much longer and how much bigger these are going to get.

I read an interesting article today that has now shaped my plan. I have decided not to do a pre-harvest flush. The information I read just makes sense to me and I have opted to not flush.....

A critical look at preharvest flushing

At this point I am going to Alter my original plant of taking 4 clones in the next 2 weeks and instead I am going to Clone 2 plants every 3 weeks - root for up to 10days then stick directly into flowering.

Currently I have Group 1 (5) in flower... uncertain of the start of flower but believe it to be the end 4th week (in actuality it could be the end of the 3rd week or as late as the 5th week.

Group 2 has (2) plants.. one in soil and one in the ebb and gro. Put into flower in the last day or 2.

Group 3 (2)will be cloned between 9/27 and and 10/2 depending on how the Mother plant looks.

Then Group 4 will be cloned 10/18 to 10/22 these date are tentative and may changed based on when I harvest and what the mother plant is able to produce.

Keeping in mind that At no time will I exceed the self imposed plant restriction of 9 including the mother.

In the mean time I will continue with the regularly scheduled nute changes, feeds and waterings.

 

[StormChaos]

OK. Its been a while and alot has happened... I have been very busy busy harvesting.

I harvested the 3 plants that were in soil earlier in the week.. the results were not as good as I had hoped. Each plant only gave me between 2 to 2.5 ounces of wet bud.. I ended up with a total of 6.5 ounces of wet bud.

I also harvested the ebb and gro plant... and got a total of 4 ounces of wet bud.

Today I harvested the self contianed bucket drip system... which I just learned is more commonly referred to as a DWC. This plant's (pix's coming later) harvest weighed in at a whopping 19.5 ounces of wet bud. I am astonished.... I knew that this plant had a lot of bud on it... but I had no idea.

Suffice it to say I will be changing my plans for the future and will be doing more DWC. I will prolly be DIY the DWC's. I am going to continue using the Ebb n Gro but it will only be used for traditional garden plants.

I will be posting pics later or 2morrow of the 19.5 ounces of wet budd on the plant and the root system that goes with it...as it is pretty impressive.

 

[StormChaos]

Thanks for your interest. Sorry for the lack of updates...

The first Harvest went quite well... I was astonished at the amount of bud I ended up with.

A smoke report....
The bud.... is covered in thick crystally resin this is some crystally Bud if there was ever any.

The aroma is sweet...very sweet at first... fruity. Strawberryish. As the bud cures the aroma becomes more pronounced... and changes... it becomes much more complex... sweet, fruity, and spicey.... its hard to describe.

The smoke is... clean and smooth...not harsh.... Its really good tasting and complex. 2 people, neither of whom knows the other, both independently said it was "yummy". That was their choice of word, not mine.
The High... for me, After smoking... I feel it in my head First. Than the back of my throat... and creeps down your entire body.... I dont know... when me and the wife smoke it... it is definitely sensual, erotic and romantic.... its long lasting, definitely intensifies what your feeling both physically and mentally.

The Cerebral part of the high can be creative and talkative more so if harvested earlier... even spirtual.... but definitely not spacey or stupid. You always think clearly... It intensifies what you are feeling at the time...
later on it becomes relaxing... but not couchlock....

anyway... I will provide more updates, more frequently.

I am on my 3rd and 4th flowering... I will get into that when I post my pics... they are on another computer - I will upload them when I get some time.

I will give a more detailed report of what i have been doing and my results at a later time, when I have more of it.. probably before this weekend is out...