By continuing to use the website or clicking Accept you consent to our cookies and personal data policy and confirm that you are at least 18 year old. For details please see Privacy Policy and Terms
All 6 plants have been transferred to their 5 gallon buckets this week and the first time they are receiving nutrients. For this cycle we will be using the Medium Feed Schedule from General Hydroponics. We will definitely be watching our growth boundaries this cycle. We have two 600W led Vipraspectra lights going right now. And we may add a third down the line. We also placed the exhaust fan on a wire shelving unit to alleviate any tension put on the tent because I was afraid the weight of the lights and the exhaust fan on the grow tent may be too much.
The pH has leveled out with the plants this week. Haven't had to mess with the pH too much. PPM for the water leftover was around 530. Had some issues with the heat this round. It's been particularly hot around here and the central AC isn't enough for the grow room. By next spring we'll need a portable AC unit for the grow room for this time of year. Otherwise we would just open the windows and we would be fine. We are also going to need to invest in a humidifier too. The tent is only at 50 percent humidity level. The plants are still doing fantastic though. They're about 2 inches in height with no issues so far. Second week of feeding is alright. I put the covers on the buckets earlier this time around and it has kept light penetration out and the water temp down.
So we have been having issues with the heat this week. Maybe its because its super hot out? But our 6in iPower inline fan is doing a terrible job at keeping the heat down. Plans for next year is to invest in a portable AC unit for the room. We're making due with what we have. I have my old 4in fan blowing air in. May also invest in another brand of fan for the tent. Half the plants have been topped this with the next half will probably be topped by the end of next week. Plants are half way to our height boundary of 12in before we have to flip to flowering. The plants are taking the nutes nicely.
So at week 4 we are switching over to flowering mode. It's a little early for our taste, but the plants have reached half of their maximum height allowance before we run into issues. We had one more week of Veg Nutrients before we switched over to flowering in the GHE feeding schedule. So we have omitted Week 4 Veg and went straight to Early Bloom Week 1. We've also added a Third light for the tent as the plants are starting to grow outward more. We have been having heating issues throughout the week. May cave in and buy a portable AC unit for the grow room. We'd only need it for these super hot days. Otherwise we are good.
First full week into flowering and these plants are really shooting up. The Portable AC was worth every penny. Did some light defoliation on the bottom to keep clean and clear. We are on Early Bloom Week 2. Still quarter turning every day. The smaller plants are keeping up. I'm particularly proud of the dome shaped plant I have going on.
The plants have grown a full 12 inches within the week. They now stand at 3ft. tall. I'm hoping they're are starting to reach the end of their stretch period. We're getting pretty close to running out of grow space. I ordered some of those Cannabender tools to help manage the tops of the tallest plants. They are LST tools to bend the tops down. This strain sure does grow tall. We switched them to flowering at 12inches and they have TRIPLED their size since then. Little white hairs are starting to form and you can see where the main flowers are going to start popping up. The water pH is now starting to lower instead of rising. So, I have started to balance the water a little higher towards 6.0-6.2 to give them some wiggle room to fluctuate without going out of bounds. I wish my tent was taller. There's like 2 feet of space above that can be utilized to accommodate the stretch period should the plants triple in size again. We're so close to the end before they start growing into the lights.
I have learned a lot about stretching this past grow. It turns out that I am the one who is stressing the plant out to make them stretch. I tried to cram too many plants under 2-3 lights before adding a much needed 4th light. They're fighting for the limited light. And to top it off, because of the cramming, the plants were pushed up against the wall of the tent. The plants shot up and almost touched the light. To prevent that from happening, I ordered some Cannabenders to tie down the top branches so they don't touch the lights. They were a LIFESAVER! I was able to buy myself some space. I am already in the works of just building my own grow tent out of some PVC pipe and Panda Film. I am too worried about how much weight I have on these skinny bars, that I honestly do not have any faith that they can carry any significant amount of weight. I am going to keep the 5x5 space but I need more height. There is about 2 feet left from the tent I have now to the ceiling. I just need a foot of that at the most. That's for the next grow! Any who, The plants have reached the end of the Stretch seemingly overnight (especially after making some adjustments to space them out more. The buds are starting to come through. While pistils starting to show up. The plants are a nice green color. Leaves are huge. They have seem to taken to the LST nicely without stressing them out. They are really starting to drink up a lot o water. I think I am going to have to check up on them daily now. Feed Schedule is Week 4 Flowering - Mid Bloom 2/3
Whoa boy! These girls just will not stop growing! The stretch is a lot for this plant. Half might be due to over crowding, but the other half is genetics. I have heard from several growers that this cultivar's stretch a lot compared to other strains. I am quickly not becoming a huge fan of this particular strain. At least not for indoor growth. I had to insert cannabenders a little late into flowering, but it was worth because it saved the plants from growing into the light. Half are super tall and the other half are at a "normal" height at this point. It seems to have tapered off by this point. Hopefully now it will just focus on bud growth. I have plans to just build taller using PVC piping Plus another fixture that only holds the lights so I am not relying on the tent itself to hold everything. These bars don't seem like they can hold as much as they say. The THC crystals are starting to fall onto the surround leaves and the popcorn buds are starting to show through. The scent isn't overpowering at this point compared to the other strain grown. Leaves are nice and big. The largest plant are drinking about a gallon of water a day. I have to refill them almost every day compared to the smaller plants with every other day watering. Just another month or so for these ladies to ripen for harvest. Despite the height issues, we should still get a decent harvest.
Alright, we have FINALLY reached the end of the stretch at 4.5ft! 2 of the plants reached beyond the lights and were under stress. We decided to scrap those 2 plants to give the other plants some breathing room and to basically not lose this crop. Found out through some groups that the GG#4 from ILGM is big stretcher. It's cool. We still have some good bud coming in. This cultivar is not very aromatic at this point. You can get whiffs of sweetness. One plants has some big flowers coming in. The pH seemed to be dropping instead of rising for a little bit there. That seems to have leveled out now. I don't really have to balance the water when I refill it. Leftover plants have some tilting going on due to the crowding. The cannabenders are really going to come in handy next grow.
The plants have stopped growing and the buds are just fattening up now. The trichomes are coming in nicely. The pistils are still completely white and according to the schedule we are suppose to have one more feeding time before we're suppose to flush it out. These plants look like they still have quite a long way to go before they are ready to flush. So we are planning to repeat this weeks feeding ratios next week as well. They are drinking up a lot of water and the pH rising so fast that I need to check the water almost every day now. The tallest plant is doing the best. The two smallest ones have the youngest flowers as they are trying to catch up to the taller ones. Either way they are doing really good. They are looking really nice. One plants has thick short leaves and another plant has long thin leaves.
The buds are fattening up nicely. Some are as big as my hand. This will definitely be the largest grow we have had so far despite some of the earlier setbacks. A couple of the plants are showing some signs of heat stress from the lights being so close but we don't have anymore vertical room for them. We're just trying to keep the air flow and temp down. We repeated Week 9 Nutrient levels for a 3 week in a row because the flowers still look like they have another couple weeks to go. The pistils are still all white and sticking straight up. The tips of the pistils on the largest plant have started to turn orange. We're getting close. Some of the leaves have started showing signs of stress. Looks like little burn holes or something. Read it might be Leaf Septoria. I don't see any other pests around and only one plant is showing those signs. We increased air flow and made sure to really wipe down the bottom of the tent. Everything is getting frosty with trichomes. We did some light defoliation to remove any dying leaves from the bottom.
Aright the girls have wonderfully thick colas going on now. They're at least 6in in height and 2.5in across. I cannot wait to harvest these plants. We are on the last week of the nutrients schedule and the pistils are still white sticking straight up. Trichomes are not all milky yet under the jewelers loupe I bought. May have to repeat this weeks feeding a second time if they are not ready to flush by the weekend. This is the 8th full week of the flowering light schedule and according to ILGM, the GG is suppose to be ready to harvest between week 8-9 of flowering. One plant is showing signs of stress. The leaves have these weird spots on them like they were burned. The leaves at the top are turning dark color down the middle and then curling in. I had to trim off those leaves. Seems like the heat stress is getting to the plants now after being so close to the light for so long. I thought it was leaf Septoria, but after looking up the pictures, I think it may actually be a Ca and P deficiency because the pH keeps falling down below 5.5 when I refill the water bucket every other day. I actually should be refilling the water every day since the buckets are pretty low when I do, but I don't want to keep moving all four lights to the center of the tent b/c I am extremely paranoid that they won't hold. Any who, the plants are finally smelling really strong now. Citrusy and minty so far.
Repeated last weeks feeding because the plants still have quite a few white pistils that are sticking straight out. One plant has the pistils receding. The largest plant has the hairs turning orange and may be ready to start flushing by the weekend. We had to harvest plants because it was having some major issues with deficiencies. Majority of the large fan leaves were either dead or dying off. the only parts left were the buds, so we decided to cut them down a week or so early. The trichomes were milky white but pistils were still white and sticking up, so we'll see how what is usable. Ended up with almost 2 pounds of wet flower with stems still attached and almost 2oz of wet trim. We'll see how much we are left with later. The flower look great. I'm checking the trichomes regularly to see when the flushing should commence. We some major issues with this grow and am happy they haven't hermied out yet (*knocks on wood*). PPM levels are around 650 and water pH is stabilizing. We are just itching to harvest these plants.
This grow was very difficult. I will never get fans from Target again. They barely had any air flow and my plants suffered for it. No air flow at the top plus the plants were over their max height allowance, so they were too clos to the lights. The top most colas on all four plants had a tiny bit of mold at the very center of the bunch. Despite having to toss out a bit of the harvest, we still ended up with an amazing result. We also ended up with about 2.5oz of trim. The amount of stretching this plant does made it quite difficult to grow indoors. At least for a beginner like myself. We got a hold of LST tools like Cannabenders too late. Those were a godsend in saving this batch of plants or else we wouldn't have been able to keep the plants below 6ft. They were pretty sticky. Very sweet smelling. These plants were very pretty in the way the flower developed. The spiral formations on the some of the plants were pretty cool. Now on to the drying/curing phase. This grow had a lot of learning curves. I definitely the wiser after this grow. This girl has definitely humbled me and showed me where I need to improve some. We are going to build our own light fixture to fit inside the tent so we don't have to put so much weight on the frames.