Wheelo's 3rd run - Attack of the Holy Shoots

[WheeloFortune]

Greetings all!

this will be my third journal. My first two journals were fun for me, and I learned a ton about this style of growing and the methods used to grow marijuana in a tight, rotational mini-garden. as long as this journal goes as planned, it will probably be my last one for a while. only because if it works out as planned, i will have plenty of smoke to hold me over for a long long time, and i have other things on my plate that i need to attend to.

I think I have established a good foundation of tools and methods for the wheel, and have learned the ins and outs to go big. really big. AS BIG AS I CAN GO IN MY SPACE! which is a (4' by 8' by 8' tent). I want to go so big that i won't have to grow again for a year, and i smoke a lot, and smoke with my boys a lot. I want to grow the most a volks has ever grown. push the limits. test myself. do something amazing.

for people who don't know my other grows, and because i keep getting new things, i will list all of the equipment that i use.


WHAT I STARTED WITH IN MY FIRST GROW
4x8x8 grow tent
8" inline duct boost fan from homedepot and (2) 8" to 6" reducers
Volksgarden
15 gallon res
400 gph res pump
Quantum dimmable ballast 600 w
600 w HPS hortilux bulb
air pump and stones for the res
tower style reciprocating fan
a home made cloning box that i made out of a freezer and a house thermostat. (controls temp to the exact degree, its my baby for my babies)
CO2 regulator and tank (only 5# tank)
tons of timers
kill-a-watt power meter.
used fox farms nutes.

WHAT I ADDED DURING MY SECOND GROW:
4 stage reverse osmosis filter
nutradip tri-meter (ph-tds-temp) -best meter i've ever used.
vented the cool tube to make the tent have almost no air exchange and keep co2 in.
6" inline duct boost fan
Digitally controlled Air Conditioner
400 w sunleaves switchable ballast light/hood/ballast all in one.
20# co2 tank
used CNS17 nutes.

WHAT I AM GOING TO RUN THIS TIME
entire line of advanced nutrients. nothing touches my babies but AN.
left side of the tent will be the volks, and the right side will be scrog under 400w.

Things i am thinking about getting this grow, but not sure how the money will work out yet:
Intellidose
CO2 controller
55 gal drum and top off system
buy or build a chiller
maybe another light
I am getting really close to having everything i want my list keeps getting smaller and smaller.


as always, love for people to chime in or just say hi. any questions get answers and opinions are always welcome.

welcome to my third journal.
LETS GROW BIG!!!!

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

i have been taking pictures of my HS mom for a while now, and posting them in my second journal, but for completeness sake, I will show the progress here:

July 24th. it was transplanted into this pot from an aerocloner on this day:

August 12th:

August 22nd:

August 26th:

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

that brings us up to yesterday.

time to clone for the dirty side of the tent. these girls will provide the 80-90 clones i will need for the wheel. I will show you the tools i use and the outcome, but not step by step. I still only have a telephoto lens for my camera.

it is RO water, rockwool cubes, elevated tray, bottom tray, razors and a 1 ml dropper. also hygrozyme, ph down, cloning solution, clonex gel, and clonex cutting solution.

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

i thought i had a humidity dome. but then i couldn't find it. i thought they would be ok in the incubator, but it was only like 80% humidity, and they quiclkly drooped over and looked like they were going to die. oh no! i ran out and bought a humidity dome. they recovered nicely enough, and i expect my usual 100% success rate.

i tapped all of the humidty off so you could see through.

they are under the dome, suspended in a tray over water/cloning solution and that's on a propagation heating mat. it keeps it ~100% RH in the dome. I have a 15w flouro right on top of the dome.

its always 75*F in the incubator

sorry about the quality of these next two, ill get better ones next time:

here is the top:

as you cann see all is good again.

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

here is what the mom looks like now, she will be a beast when she gets bigger with tons of side branching. one more big cloning for her and then into veg for the scrog with all of the sisters i just took.

 

[leonardo]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

WOF, very nice set up! I'm planning on getting that dimmable 600w ballast too. You know I'll be watching this closely. I have a couple questions about cloning for you...

Your Holy Shit mom was only 5 weeks old before you took clippings? I heard you had to wait two months before taking clones from a plant, is that not true?

How long from the day of clipping is a clone ready to go into the Volksgardnen and start flowering? And how many days, if any, do you veg in the Volksgarden?

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

all good questions leo.

the holy shit mom was a clone when i got her. her real age is unknown, it is a local strain developed by a friend of a friend and I have never seen a seed. so i have no idea how mature she is, definitely over 2 years old, and is probably at least the 20th generation of clone. If it was started from seed, i would have had to wait longer to clone (maybe 2 months, but i dont know length, i can just tell by eye), but since she was "born" very mature, all i had to wait for was for her to get big enough to support then number of clones i wanted to take.

how long it takes all depends on how good you are, and how nice the environment is. I have complete control over the environment and can vary my air temps exactly to the degree, and can very RH very easily as well. I am hoping to see nice roots within a week, and these girls will go into the dirt. I will prob have to veg them for a month to get them as big as i grew this first one (maybe a little smaller) so that i can take 8-10 clones from each of these. i took 11 clones from this mom and have left a bunch of shoots to regrow from.

If these were going into the volks, I would transfer the clones to 3" RW cubes as soon as they showed roots. vegging in the volks is very strain dependant (according to how much they like to stretch) and can mean the difference between a cute harvest and a huge harvest. veg too little and you might get a bunch of runts, veg too long and you'll have to learn from maxx and build some type of screen to keep them off of the light. I had to LST my lemon skunks because a few of them got too big.

i think almost all strains will need a between a couple days veg - up to a week. but not more than that. I have had experience with the HS in the wheel, and i think 3-4 days veg will be good for this strain. I vegged one for 8 days in my first run, then topped it then a few days later went to 12/12. that wprked well, and i was thinking of maybe doing that again. FIM technique might be interesting also.

I think a 3 day veg is a good start when you don't know the stretch habits of your strain. long enough to get them used to the spin and light, not long enough to run the chance of overstretching. but keep in mind sativas and big stretchers might never bee good for the volks, no matter how long you veg.

 

[leonardo]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

Thanks WheelO, the reason I ask is I'm trying to see if I have enough time to get my GDP's big enough to clip enough to fill the Volksgarden in time to make a run before Xmas. It sounds like my clones came from old enough moms to cut a week or two shy of 2 months old, since I bought them from a dispensary, so I should be good. That is if I can find enough money to get everything I need to do it right.

If I can pull the money together, I should allow a week for roots to come in on the clippings, 4-6 days veg in the wheel with the light dimmed to 400w, then start week 1 of flower and 600w? That should be about 9-10 weeks total, 11 max I think. On Tuesday, the GDP's will have been transplanted for 3 weeks, if I take clippings the first week of October I should make it and have time to dry and cure too. What do you think?

That would mean my first grow to flower would be in the volksgarden, I must be fucking nuts!

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

lol. nuts like a bag of planters. it might work out to your advantage. . . or maybe not. you seem to have your shit together enough to handle it. i might veg less than that because i don't know the stretch properties of GDP. if it is short in stature 5-7 days is ok, but to be safe i would start out with 3-5 days veg. other than that it sounds like a good timetable.

of course, your plants will let you know when to harvest, not a schedule. you have plenty of time to get it in before christmass.

my tentative time schedule looks something like this.

first week of september - clones rooting still
through the first week or two of october - growing clones out to size
second week of october - 80-90 clones.
third week - clones rooting, recovering moms
4th week - veg-ing clones and moms
1st week of november- 12/12 starts
new years - hopefully 2-3 lbs premo holy shit!

could shorten or elongate this due to reality. you should be able to do it faster because you have a bunch of fully grown moms getting ready to clone.

one word, 80-90 clones is no simple task. it will take hours. esp for a newb. and a lot of them may not root. a lot pf people have problems cloning. (one thing i never had a prob with) you may need to clone 100 to get 60-70 successful clones to fill the volks.

 

[leonardo]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

I know I have to be prepared for a long learning curve, but if I could get a small harvest and learn the ropes the first round, I'll be a happy camper and well on my way.

So for clones, I haven't made any purchases yet and I need to work within a budget. Can you help me decide on what to do? What supplies do you think I should get to prepare 90 clones at the same time and how much should I budget for this? Wish I could afford an EZclone machine, maybe if I pull this off I'll get one for Christmas...

 

[PitViper]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

glad to be at the beginning.....possible first...

thought abou your wish list ,,,,,,

Things i am thinking about getting this grow, but not sure how the money will work out yet:
Intellidose
CO2 controller
55 gal drum and top off system
buy or build a chiller
maybe another light

IMO
do the drum and top off system 1st....keeps your infrastructure sound
next add a second lamp
next co2 controller
last chiller
foget the intellidose

but thats just me
keep it real bro...watching

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

hey pit. glad to have you here to push me back on track when i stray. i will need it. lol.

i like the order you put them in. pretty much. i don't go through anywhere near as much water as you do, but it would make filling the RO easier and if it auto topped off, it will help me see what my nutes are doing (raising, lowering)so that might slip down a few (but its so cheap, it probably wont) but i would move co2 controller up. I want to know exactly what it is in the room. other than that right on.

the intellidose is just for fun, and because i love automation. plus the data logging aspect will really let me see what is going on in there very accurately. its a toy, i know, but i want it. i will get it when i have the extra cash on hand, but i know its not as important as other things.

plus im probably going to have to spend 600-700 bucks on nutes next month.

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

So for clones, I haven't made any purchases yet and I need to work within a budget. Can you help me decide on what to do? What supplies do you think I should get to prepare 90 clones at the same time and how much should I budget for this? Wish I could afford an EZclone machine, maybe if I pull this off I'll get one for Christmas...

sure, i would love to help.

i dont think an ezcloner would be good. you want to start them in RW because you are going to transfer them to RW. the it will have uniform properties.

lets say you want to take 80 clones and if they all root, great! but if not you'll just run a few less. depending on the strain, less plants might be more in the end.

this is what I would get for the ideal case:
4 humidity domes ($5 ea.)
4 BCuzz maxi-plug trays (RW cylinders - $15 ea.)
liquid rooting hormone ($15?)
clonex rooting gel ($15?)
pack of razorblades ($2?)
hygrozyme($20?)
clonex cloning solution ($20?)
good spray bottle ($2?)

altogether less than $150-ish if you have to get everything from scratch. and that's giving a bit of wiggle room. you could squeeze the list down to about half that if you had to.

each maxi plug tray has 50 spots, but if you use them all they are way too crowded. just save 30 cylinders for later and stagger the 20 in each tray to give them some room. you can see how i did it above. i have a heat mat ($20) i use to keep the humidity up, but it isn't altogether necessary. also you'l need a soft light like some flouros. I have 15" 15w flouros in the incubator, but i also have a 4' t8 x 4 bulb fixture that is awesome for clone or veg if i had to do more.

before i take my 80-90, i need to find the shelf for my incubator. that way i can have two levels to clone. i can fit 2 humidity domes perfectly inside now. two levels would allow 4 domes. if i can't find it i might just try to stuff 80 into the two trays i have. i think i could squeeze them all in if i had too.

 

[PotPie]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

Looking good WOF. I'm glad I caught this one early. I love watching your grows. Best of luck.

 

[leonardo]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

Thanks WheelO! I'll plan on spending about that much and about $350 or so for the ballast, light and socket. Next I need to figure out everything else I need with the Volksgarden and we'll be good to go.

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

potpie, thanks.

this will def be my most exciting journal if you like big.
i will try to entertain to the best of my abilities. lol.

 

[SouthernOnt]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

I'm in since your always stopping by my grow

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

thanks ont.

glad your here. i will try to make you want to come to see nice buds instead of just repaying the visit. lol.

 

[SouthernOnt]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

sounds like a good strain the name usually desribes a strain best Fucking Increadable is fucking increadable the name says it all man

 

[WheeloFortune]

Re: Holy Shit happens - one day at a time!

the strain is awesome. very hardy, very easy to grow, super frosty, and good sized colas. very strong high, my guess is over 15% thc but have no real measure other than 12 years of smoking daily, and trips to amsterdam.

i think the AN regimen is going to make a huge difference too.