Philthegeek Growing Again

philthegeek

Well-Known Member
Hi all, back again after some tinkering.

Last grow harvested 5 plants max 50cm high for 4.8 oz of buds.

Please excuse the poor quality photos.

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My current setup.

The plants are cuttings @ 15 days "as cuttings". Getting decent root development after snipping, dipping in clonex and straight into a jiffy pot. 15 days under burple light in my "spacebox". At least this time i know are all female but have to keep an eye out for hermies. These are cuttings from the plant that exhibited the least tendancy to throw male flowers.

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Lights in the main tent are 2 commercial COB setups with 2 burple COB's apiece. As well, a DIY COB setup with 2 burples, an 2 warm white COBs. These are the cheap Chinese COBs that run straight off the 240V supply.

Watering is from a tank on a shelf via an Auto-pot Smartvalve. Floor is very level so distributes from the little box with the Smartvalve to tubs the pots sit in. No Batteries Needed!! :)

Anyhow, as long as the cuttings take off over the next couple of weeks all should be good. Am starting to get into hot weather here so this is a bit experimental. Where i am growing will get to over 40- 45 degrees C in summer.
Dont have capacity or desire to air condition where i have my tent so if things get too hot will shift lights to run at night, or just shut down for a while. Will be interesting to see how humidity holds up with this setup.

Still, it is called "weed" for a reason and is pretty robust. Will See where things go.

Seeyahs!
 
All going well here. My DIY COB has failed. Need to check it and see whats wrong. Still i think the two commercial off the shelf units i have in the tent will keep things going ok.

Have 4 clones of the best plant from my last grow in there. @ 24 days from taking the cuttings they are now starting to put on top growth so i guess the roots are happy.

for comparison and to judge progress:

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Have 1 plant in the "spacebox" (the mother plant for my current grow) that has just started to show female flowers.

Seeyahs all! :)
 
Spacebox plant is i think a bit sick. :( Flowering, but may dice it in a week or so.

Main tent plants doing well. Now 5 weeks since they were new cuttings.

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Have been applying considerable LST, and defoliated somewhat today. Think that i must be doing something right. :)

Not obvious from the very burple photos :( but plants are very nicely green and healthy. Certainly got quite a few roots out of the bottom of the pots.

One thing is that i have been doing is top watering with half strength Thrive, plus a low dose of a seaweed additive, plus Neem, weekly. Last grow i had a fairly consistent level of fungus gnat. This grow only a very, very few. Smartvalve watering system is working fine. Soil in the top of the pots just about dry, but 2cm down slightly damp feeling.

Tomorrows job is to change the lights. Not really very happy with the LEDS in terms of PAR. Have just gotten a Nanolux 600W dimmable electronic ballast and will set that up with the Lucagrow HPS bulb i have. LEDs seem great for the spacebox, but for PAR and light coverage in something the size of my tent i think the HPS works better for me and keeps it simple. Will be interesting checking PAR levels at different dimming settings.

Hopefully this grow will finish about the time we start getting 40 degree hot days and i'll shut down until autumn and cooler weather so the heat from the HPS hopefully wont be an issue. Plants generally in 36 or so degrees during the day and seem to like it.

Seeyahs!
 
So, @ 6 weeks from taking cuttings, have these 4 on the go. :)

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LST seems to be working well. Will let them vege another week at least, maybe 2 weeks and then flip to 12 /12

They seem happy plants. I have certainly interfered with the plants much less than my 1st grow.

They are weeds, dontcha know? they just grow :)
 
Ok. Plants all healthy and happy. Starting to ramp up the water use now so will have to check them more often.

Did a final adjustment to the LST tying down today and a bit of defoliation. Give them a few days to recover from that and then flip to 12/12 and watch the stretch. :)

Will post "end of vege" photos when i flip them.
 
Ok, progress photos on the last veg day. Flipped light to 12/12.

Last grow needed at least 8 weeks in flower. Not so much impatient as much as if i vege them more will
need to set up scrog screen and honestly can't be bothered. :)

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So, will see how they start to stretch.

I'm happy with the LST i have done. Think that i will have quite a few more stems going straight up
that will hopefully fill out with buds well.

The autopot smartvalve based watering system is working ok. Am going to modify though.

Get some proper 250mm saucers for the pots. Then, instead of the 19mm pipe to each pot, use 4mm hose from the box with the smarvalve.

Setup will be low volume so the flood and drain cycle of the smartvalve will cycle faster.

But the plants should still get all the water they need.

Think that will give me better, nicely damp but well aerated root growth conditions.

And will be easier to shift pots around as i am tending them. Have found the current setup usable but occasionally a pain in that respect.

Good thing this time around is that because all 4 plants are clones, i know they are all female. :)

I have quite a lot of seed from my first grow that came from self pollinated plants that went ever so slightly hermi.

From my reading i think this means that they will be "feminised" seeds. Anyone any experience of this they want to share??

To test i should really get the spacebox:

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going again and put up 20 or so seedlings in small pots or tubes. Switch them to 12/12
about 4 weeks after germination when they are about this size.

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Pretty much a small SOG.....puddle of green rather. Not after bud yield but to check for % female, weed out males if any,
and if any go hermi and self pollinate, fine, just replenishes stock of feminized seed.

Been thinking about the hermi thing and actually think that its good to have plants around with that tendency. Its a useful survival trait
that probably can't and shouldn't be bred out. I work in plant science and have some philosophical "issues" with the whole agriculture / mono-culture, vs genetic diversity thing. The breeding efforts on crops and cannabis are great and good work, but retention of naturally evolved types is VERY important, particularly in terms of potential disease survival in the future. You never know just where you may find that all important gene for a particular trait you don't know is important yet.

Reckon that will come back and bite us on the bum in terms of food crops one day, and would hate to see the same thing happen with cannabis.

And while i acknowledge there are people in these forums who rightly pride themselves on their learning and sharing about breeding and growing for maximizing yield and potency, personally i don't need to go there. Potency for me from my first grow was fine for my needs.

I got 135g total ( 4.8 oz ) of the first grow and that will last me months. From these current plants, based on previous (albeit limited) experience i think i will get another 5 or 6 oz. If i get any more the missus will get annoyed at the freezer space i'm using to store it. :)

Its fun tinkering with a system though. Think i am getting this refined to a simple, but cheap and flexible system.

Anyhow, onwards and upwards with production of much in the way naughty bits my plants !!!!!

Seeyahs!
 
ok, had a rebuild of the watering system. Simpler and neater now.

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This is the 250mm saucer the 250mm pot sits in. :) Put a 4mm threaded barb through the side as low down as i could get. Gently drilled a 3.5mm hole and screwed the fitting in. Fitting is the one you find at the base of the 4mm poly sprinkler / spray jet standoffs?? Because it screws in you get a firm, pretty permanent fitup.

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4mm hose from the saucer goes into the bottom half of the 19mm poly stump pictured here. All 4 pots plug into this stump line.
Autopot Smartvalve with a bit of lead wrapped around so it doesn't float sits and floods into this box with the 19mm stump attached.

First test i found that the filling of the saucers went quite slowly. Box filled enough to stop the smartvalve but then didnt drain enough to restart it. Hmmm...

Solution seems to be to sit the smartvalve on a flat bit of 10mm thick plastic...i think??

Water level in the saucers will be higher but wont overflow so no prob. I think it will mean that the saucers will never go completely dry before the level in the box drops enough so the smartvalve opens again, but i dont think that will be a problem. I am using a 50% perlite mix so soil is quite open and aerated, and anyway, will keep an eye on the roots coming out of the bottom of the pots and for signs of over-watering. Think this will work. If not...more tinkering to do. :)

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The whole setup.

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Plants back in place. :)

Seeyahs!
 
So....turns out was totally on the wrong track with sitting the smartvalve on a raised plate in its box. I seems to flood to a bit deeper than i thought and slightly overflows the saucers. :(

Anyhow removed that plate, and am going to try using two or three saucers stacked to raise the level of the pots a bit relative to the smartvalve. Also, means that the saucer the pot is in should dry out completely before the smartvalve box dries up and it floods again. Will try out and see how works. Tinkering. :)
 
Got the watering sorted in the tent i think. :) Raising the relative level of the pots by stacking 2 other saucers seems to do the trick.

Have a slight leak to sort. Am going to try a new box for the smartvalve and have the 4mm tubes running to each pot plugged firmly into that with no 19mm stump line.

Am setting up the spacebox with my "600W" COB LED. :)

Put 40 seeds that came from self pollinated hermi plants (so should be "feminized" seed?? ) into a paper towel roll-up 2 days ago. Seeds harvested mid Dec 17 so very fresh. Some are very light colored so I don't expect much of those. So far 11 have popped.

Those are now in jiffy pots and in the spacebox. Have tried for fit and can get a smartvalve and 22, tall 90mm square pots into it.

So, hopefully will get enough seedlings out of the 40 seeds to do my puddle of green thing, and i will know what germination rate i can expect from my current seed stock.

Once i get roots showing out of the jiffy pots i will transplant to my normal potting mix in the 90mm pots, let them get to 3-4 nodes, and then flip the light to 12/12.

Soon after that i will know what % of females my supposedly "feminized" seed has given me. All good info. :)

Hmmmmm.......any opinions on whether to top these plants once or not?? At the moment i am inclined just to leave them alone in that respect. There is no room in the spacebox to do any LST, and topping would mean 44 rather than 22 main stems. I worry that things will get too crowded in there and create fungus prone conditions??

Think that i will most likely have to defoliate a bit to keep reasonable air flow around the plants, and will be drenching with Neem during the grow. If anything fwarks up this grow it will be fungus. :(

Anyhow, any feedback or advice from people who have done the small plant / small area SOG thing appreciated.

Seeyahs!
 
Replaced box for smartvalve with a pretty yellow one. 4mm tubes plugged straight into box. Much neater. :)

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the hopefully finalised setup.

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Interestingly, having a yellow rather than black box for this means i can see the water level in the box. as long as it below the level of the first line on the box, no overflow from the saucers. If i need to add a bit of water from time to time can use that as a mark and not have soggy mess on the floor of the tent.

So far 19 out of the 40 seeds i put in the paper towel have popped and are in jiffy pots. Expecting a few more tomorrow, and will use the first 22 in the spacebox. Made up the pots / soil for that today and will post photos soon.

All good with this grow so far i think. These plants are quite a lot lighter green than the last grow, but i suspect i did actually have some kind of issue there. Those plants were REALLY deep green. Am stepping up the frequency of top watering with 200mls of half strength Thrive (flower /fruit flavor) to twice a week from now on. I reckon low strength nutes more often is a better idea than a big hit once a week.

Am now on day 5 of flowering (since i flipped to 12/12) and i reckon just starting to get a takeoff into a bit of stretch. Overall since taking these as cuttings, day 50 today.

Seeyahs!
 
Now have 25 out of 40 seeds popped and in jiffy pots spacebox.

Did light levels today.

Spacebox, at top of pots will be using....530 umols

Raised the 600W HPS in the tent a bit, and changed the orientation 90 degrees to get better light distribution.

Average across the tent about 600 umols. Plants only have to stretch another 15-20cm or so and they will be up in 700 and higher territory.

Have changed the hangers such that i can raise the light quite a bit higher than last grow if i need to. Trying to keep it about 10cm up from where the plant tops get into the zone where can feel heat on the back of a hand.

Humidity 45% and temp around 36 degrees today. Plants seem to be happy with that.

One thing i would like to do, once this tent grow is harvested is get PAR readings of light level on the different settings
( super, 100%, 75% and 50%) that are available for dimming on this Nanolux ballast.

Anyone used the dimmables? My understanding is that for veg, you run them dimmed down to save power, and then crank it up after the 12/12 flip??


Seeyahs!
 
More tinkering. :)

Now have 26 out of 40 seeds popped and in jiffy pots spacebox. Will have a look for more tomorrow, but that's 65% germination over 6 days so may call that test done.

From what i am reading if growing for seed may need to let the plants ripen a bit longer than if growing for THC yield and get better germination rate. Also, these seeds only came off the plant in December. Letting them be dormant longer maybe? Anyone know if maybe having them in the fridge a while (simulate a cold winter??) may improve germination rate??

Anyhow, as i'm growing my own i can produce enough seeds, when i want to, such that @ 65% germination i'm cool. Realistically to do a grow from seed in my tent, so long as the seeds are feminised (which is the test i'm setting up now for % female) i would put 10 or so in a towel and pick the best 4 / 6 to go in the tent.

And...anyone know what the germination rate on bought seed from breeders actually is in the real world practice?? I'd expect its better than i am doing??

So to tinkering. One issue with the watering system i have set up is flow rate from the central box to the saucers. Using the 4mm tubes it seems to be a bit low.

Water level in the box turns off the valve before there is really enough water in the saucers i think. I had this set up with all the 4mm tubes the same length, but had a look tonight and asked myself why i had made the tubes so long?? doH!

Means i cant shift the pots around in the tent much...but if i actually need to 4mm tube is real cheap and i can just replace all 4 tubes.

Have also put the central box on a piece of perspex to raise the water level relative to the saucers by 3mm. Plants have been sucking all the standing water out of the saucers ok, but the smart-valve doesn't open to flood again until the last 2-3mm of water in the box that has to evaporate (rather than flow out because of how the 4mm barbed fittings go in) is gone.

Anyhow, shortening the 4mm tubes had immediate observable result and water flows more into the saucers more easily. Will see how it goes. Getting something DIY that's simple and works is taking a few iterations. :) Objective was to save $ by running multiple plants off 1 Autopot Smartvalve (they are about AU$30 locally).

I'm thinking that for people like me who will probably only run 4 plants in a tent at once, actually buying individual Autopots is a viable option. Can get a 300mm stand alone Autopot that hooks up to a tank by 4mm line for AU$60 locally.

Still, tinkering fun and have the time to play and ensure reliabilty.
 
Minor flood. 3mm perspex under the yellow box removed. Need to leave it alone (my main problem!!) for a while and let a few wet / dry cycles happen. All good though.

Plants happy which is the main thing. :)

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The Tent.

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The new seeds / jiffy pots in the spacebox. Starting to poke their heads up. :)
 
Plants all happy. :)

Over the last few days i had my first attempt at making a tincture. Had a look at quite a few recipies.

Some leaf (kept in the freezer) from this grows defoliation rounds ( about 50g wet) to which i added 13g of flowers (dry).

Cooked that @ 120 degrees C for an hour for decarboxylation, finely chopped it. Split between 2 small jars and added 150ml of ethanol to each jar.

Ethanol high purity, AR grade stuff. No significant benzene, methanol or other crap as found in the technical grade.

Shake shake shake and into the freezer. Jars wrapped in alfoil to exclude light.

Shake hard 2-3 times per day. 3 days in the freezer.

Poured through cheesecloth then a coffee filter. Took the extracted plant material and did a second run only leaving in the ethanol for 4 hours.

Filtered, very green ethanol at the end of this about 420ml volume.

??Just realized that's a weird coincidencle wot?? A good omen from the doGs above??

In a fume hood, (not wanting to blow myself up) had this in a double beaker setup (inner ethanol, outer water) on a lab electric hotplate, with a temp probe in it for about 3-4 hours. Got it up to 85 degrees C max, evaporating the ethanol nicely down to just under 100ml. Poured roughly equally into 6, brand new and clean, 25 ml brown dropper bottles, then used 50ml of clean ethanol to wash out the beaker used for evaporation and divvied that up over the 6 bottles.

Hmm.......no idea of this will work but fun to try. :)

Anyhow, now home, settled in with a coffee, and will NOT be driving anywhere tonight.

Put 3 drops under the tongue 30 minutes ago. :)

Definite effect. No probs with taste, not unpleasant or too bitey. Would not swig it out of the bottle though.

Feels a bit like the brownies i made at the moment but has come on faster and a bit more intense.

Not the fast rush you get from smoking which is good. Interesting.

If it turns out to not be strong enough i will recombine whats in the bottles and reduce further.....but think i may have done ok. :)

Seeyahs!
 
Interesting. Nice buzz from tincture, and 1.5hrs later, there, but wearing off. Useful timescale i think, that does not leave me blitzed on the couch all night or totally gaga incomprehensibly shitfaced.. :)
 
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