The Happy Cola Company's Official Ground Up Medical Cannabis Grow Op

[Sätkis]

Gongrats on the harvest! Hope you get the pest problem sorted out, those f#$@rs find theyre way allmost anywhere! I just had a "gnatwawe" here but those are pretty easy to get ridoff in smallerscale grows.. all the best for you chasing the american dream, you guys if anyone deserve it!!

 

[The Happy One]

I want my brothers and sisters here to appreciate how hard some things in life can be.
It's all over but the crying, but even that's behind us now. What you are witnessing is the tip of the iceburg. There is more to come. Moving past, its
time to wipe the blood from our noses, get back on that road to cannabis nirvana.
Aaarrrgg!!!

 

[The Celt]

Did I miss something? What was wrong with it that you are scraping it?

 

[multiVortex]

That's what I’m wondering too. Bugs? Mold? Mildew?

Couldn’t make hash or extracts from it?


I has a case of the cunfuse-ed right now.




Either way, queue taps.

 

[The Happy One]

Russet Mites from hell.... We have just enacted the nuclear option.

 

[multiVortex]

shame you couldn't find a way to salvage all that. all I could hear was change going down the drain with every nug.

however, I do understand having to go all nuke em and whatnot. speaking of "nuke 'em", it's made by flying skulls. it's also organic, safe to use through the chop, and it works.

 

[cr8grow]

Oh no...my stomach dropped...you cant process that for oil or something?

 

[TorturedSoul]

Russet Mites from hell.... We have just enacted the nuclear option.

Ouch. You probably deal exclusively with clones, but if not... those SOBs can "overwinter" on stored cannabis seeds. So if you have any of those, you'll likely need to include them in the treatment, too.

 

[The Happy One]

Well, with all the questions, I presume I need to go into more detail. The destruction of all that cannabis is from our first grow. When were were in flower, and fighting this microscopic enemy, we were trying everything to combat this nearly invisible insect. One of the methods was spraying a mixture of h20 and isopropyl alcohol. This did a great job of removing any visual surface trichomes. It also stripped the buds of any terpines, so let this be a lesson to you. There is a lot of talk of being able to treat an infestation with water and alcohol while in flower. DON'T believe it. With ALL the witch doctor treatments for when your ladies are in flower and your have issues like we had, save your money and your sanity. If you don't treat it like the cancer it is, you'll NEVER get rid of it.
The flower room is NOT the place to pick fights with mother nature I assure you UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Period. So what you witnessed is a grim reminder of just how fast things can go to hell in a handbasket even with the best of intentions. We are finally getting things under control, but it's been a long road getting through this hemp russet mite issue that followed us into two flower cycles.
Implementing a proactive IPM program is something we should have done from the very beginning.
We had to make room for crop #2...so out with the old....and in with the new. Guess I need to snap a few photos for ya!

 

[420]

Sorry for your loss brother, my condolences.

Our Sponsors Sierra Natural Science make a whole slew of really good organic pest control for all stages.

Please let me know if you would like an introduction for volume discounts.

Better luck on the next run

 

[The Happy One]

The crop is in from harvest, hanging and waiting for final dry then cure. This time we were able to apply what we learned from the last grow, and Happy Santa has strains pretty much dialed in. With that, we have winners and losers. One winner is a strain I've personally grown for a few years, and she's really came alive under the LED lighting. Here's a few pics of our Velvet Bud.

Here's a shot of some of the hanging dry racks. Most of what is in the room is either Velvet Bud or Gotham City. We have about half a rack of 9 Pound Hammer, which frankly hasn't impressed me enough to warrant a repeat.

Here's a photo showing the Gotham City on the back row and Velvet Bud on the first row. Note the color difference between these two strains.

All in all once the cards fell and the crying was over, we lost probably half our crop, however we gained an education you can never achieve on nomenclature only with any degree. We are now well educated on this pest and have for the most part eradicated this enemy, however note the term I used...."most part", so I'm never again to be deceived in this arena again. By implementing a custom designed for our grow IPM (Integrated Pest Management) derived from the school of hard knocks we should NEVER have this issue again.
Here is the plan we are implementing:

1. Shoes and clothing designed to be worn ONLY in the facility, and designated areas of the facility. For now anyway, once you arrive and enter the dressing room, you wash your hands, then swap out your gear. (Shoes, scrubs, ect.) We have a shoe sterilization station and shoe rack for everyone's shoes.
2. Your then ready to enter the grow. For now anyway, if your assigned the veg room, your stuck there and not allowed to enter areas such as flower rooms, processing rooms, ect. without having to shower and once again change.
3. Veg room receives Sulphur treatment with a wetting agent via electric fogger, followed up a few days later with a biological soap. On day 4 we once again treat the veg room with Sulphur and a wetting agent.
4. On day 10 of the treatment, we move them into a fully cleaned and sterilized flower room.
5. We then release the hounds from from hell to protect our ladies for their entire lives in flower.

Tomorrow we process all the original Jack Herer. I'll have to post some pics of these pop can sized buds!

 

[TorturedSoul]

Velvet Bud.

Any relation to the DJ Short strain called Blue Velvet (aka "Blueberry Thai") that Dutch Passion was selling - along with Blue Moonshine, Blueberry, and Flo - back in the '90s?

 

[The Happy One]

Our Velvet is derived from Dutch Treat and Blueberry.

 

[The Happy One]

Here's a few pics of our Jack Herer we processed today. Love this strain!

I guess I should mention we still have row 4 in flower going. On it, of the two new last introduced strains, one was a winner and one was a loser. I already mentioned the 9 Pound Hammer was a disappointment in smell, texture and production per meter squared. She didn't make the cut. With her, I had also purchased a handful of clones named Gold Leaf, and this last grow included a dozen or so of these.
Being the optimist I am, and the fact we believe we inherited our pest problem from these clones, at least we ended up with a strain that truly did prove herself worthy of a repeat. I DO know she's a 60/40 Indica Dominant who's parents seems to be a closely guarded secret, though we do know both parents were from hybrid strains. Whatever they are, the buds are fat, very dense and internodes are quite close like the Jack Herer strain. I can't comment any further as she still has around 2.5 weeks left to flower. I'll post some pictures and would LOVE to know who the parents were...

 

[Southerncough]

Hey happy cola, how's the farm doing?

 

[Patro46]

Hey happy cola, how's the farm doing?

Well..... I'm guessing it's time for an update!

 

[The Happy One]

It's been a long spell since I've had an update, so it's about time to get folks caught up. The good news is the wheels have kept turning, but I won't kid anyone, it's been a very sobering moment for all involved. The one thing that hasn't nor ever will change is the fact that failure isn't now nor will ever be an option for us. Winning. Bloody noses and all, we are still winning.
The best news is we are now a solid 4 weeks into flower with the hands down best looking crop we've have produced in this venture. In my opinion, the reason why is simple. For the first time our ladies haven't been sending out precious resources attempting to fight off a nearly invisible enemy, and instead have been stripped down to their bikinis and have been enjoying sunbathing in 1200 ppm Co2 @ 82 degrees 12 hours a day with their feet soaking in a 68 deg H2o highly oxygenated bath...

Also, I'm VERY PLEASED to report the folks who supply our dedicated LED lighting in both our flower rooms and veg rooms, Atreum Lighting is now a sponsor of 420magazine.com! What this means is I now will have the ability to share some of what we came to know about the folks at Atreum Lighting, and go into much more detail on why their lights are one-upping the competition in my ever so humble opinion.

I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag quite yet, but the lighting design changes in store for Flower RM #2 are not only going to be a major improvement for our second flower room (of three planned), but will also offer the kind of test-bed for documenting lighting improvements and comparisons I could have once only dreamed of. I'm bigtime into facts, and love verifiable proof. Our next installment will hopefully offer up some very interesting facts, and we plan on having fun along the way!
I'll keep you folks posted on this one.

Moving on, when the ladies are sunbathing, I'm offered up a little extra time, so what better time to find a way to make life a little easier, right?
One thing I've come to dread is the required bucket cleaning that takes place at the end of a successful grow. Now I get your first thought might be "It's only a bucket. Big deal". Right? Yes, but when it involves 100's of 5 gallon buckets "no big deal" just turned into a messy deal. The salt buildup and other little "left behinds" take scrubbing, spraying and without a wet suite, your gonna get wet.
There simply HAS to be a better way....

Usher in the "HappyOne 5000 Bucket Washing System". Sounds silly, huh? What started out from an idea from my son after HE and his wife spent a day slopping water and washing buckets. After a PVC pipe mockup he made, I was sold on the idea. I love 1x1 14 gauge square tubing and expanded metal so I went to work. I need dependability, so I weld when I can. For the water distribution pipe I used 1/2" black pipe and attached a central power wash head and drilled a few tiny spray holes in a piece of offset 1/2" iron pipe cap to rinse the bucket down low.

A five gallon bucket tapers inward at the bottom, so I needed to carefully position the full length brush to fit that tapered position for even side brushing

I used stainless hardware to keep from rusting. If time and money weren't an issue, I'd have the entire frame powder painted. For now, cheap spray paint has to do.

I used one of our 27 gallon totes for the reservoir, and just built the frame to fit inside the tote. You can see how the water connected in front of the ball valve. The system used the buildings water pressure, around 50 psi. Though it did an OK job, it really needed more water pressure than what was available out of the tap, and that got me thinking. Mind you, I have a nice gas powered pressure washer, but I'm not only only wanting a "no muss-no fuss" solution, I also need to be able to clean buckets IN the building especially when it's in the cold winter like it is now getting., so a gasoline engine was out of question. I don't want to hear or breath one, that's for sure.
That left one option. Electric. After doing a little calculating, it became clear 1000 psi was way more than we needed, and after some research, the Greenworks seemed to be the best bang for the buck in the small electric pressure washer arena. So after a search, I found a like new Greenworks 1800 (more power, right?) for less than 50 cents on the dollar, and snagged it. I can bring the pressure down some by upsizing the outlet from the pump. The 1/2" gas pipe does just that.

I made a roll around cart for the upcoming "HappyCo 5000"...(hehe) and now needed to find a way to marry these two unlikely characters in form, fit and function. (Mostly functional)

Since the motor mounts for the pressure washer are basically built for 1" round tubing it only made sense to NOT try and put a square peg (which I have on hand) in a round hole, so I bit the bullet and bought a seven dollar 10 foot stick of 1" round 14 gauge tubing and built the motor mount saddles.

With the marriage intact and a thorough successful hands on test, I was happy with the design, layout and function. I welded a few hangers for the power cord and bucket drain hose and called it a day. This makes bucket cleaning a MUCH less tedious task.

When I put wheels on the cart, I'm glad I put wheels with locks because there's one more thing I need to implement. A foot valve. That will remove the need for the hand ball valve and will free up an entire hand. That my friends is the icing on the cake. I ordered one of these.

I'll update the final version of our "HappyCo 5000 Bucket Washer" when the valve comes in....
(For those in the wonder, the HappyCo 5000 is a tribute to Tooltime's Tim Taylor, my mentor...lol).

 

[The Phantom]

"More power!" *grunts*

 

[cr8grow]

OK THO McGyver...you had me at 4 weeks into flower on the best crop ever...lets see some pics. Happy to hear you and santa are still at it.

 

[The Happy One]

OK. I WASN'T going to post any gardens pics tonight but you twisted my arm. Here's a few from a couple of days ago. Here's a bird's eye view.

Row one is entirely 9 Pound Hammer. We weren't going to repeat this strain because is was really too big a plant for indoor, however we had to pull the entire crop early so we never got to see just how capable she really was. This row will be coming out of cure before Christmas!

We also have a full row of our Gotham City, our top THC performer, hands down, some Jack Herer, Gorilla Cookies and a solid half a row of our pungent Purple Urkle

I'll snap a few photos or our veg room tomorrow, and include a follow up to our very first in-house Happy Cola marijuana strain. Introducing 9 Pound Hammered Cookies... Sometimes bloopers count!