Bagseed etc. first grow

Welcome to my first indoor grow. Winters and politics suck in Massachusetts, but it's nice to be doing this legally. I built my own 300 W COB grow light with remote mounted driver. It's set up to allow me to add another identical 300 W of COBs when I transition to flower for a total of 600 W. I purchased a 4x4 Vivosun grow tent off Amazon and am using a six 5-gallon DWC hydroponic system. Current ventilation is just passive with a couple vent holes open. I will add active ventilation later and vent into the chimney. This is in my basement and it gets pretty cold in there. Running the lights for a few hours brought the temps up by about 10 degrees F, which hopefully is enough, I had to travel for a few days right after I put my first two seedlings from the germination tray into the DWC system. The remaining seedlings were too small so I left them in the tent in the tray over a heat mat, with some insulation above the heat mat. When I returned 3 days later they had dried out and some of the seedlings were pretty stressed. I added water and got the healthiest seedlings int the DWC system. I'm using General Hydroponics FloraMicro, FloraGrow and FLoraBloom nutes in accordance with the recommended schedule for RDWC systems.

Not much to report this week. I did my first nute change on Day 7. Already thinking about an ebb and flow system in the future. The pH crept up to about 6.3 a few days after the nute change. Temps have been getting low at night, down to 59-60, around 65 during day. White Widows showing very broad leaves. Bagseed already has nice skunky smell on stalk, and all display unusual curved first set of leaves.

There is already a slight dank odor at the top of the basement stairs. The #1 bagseed plant has caught up to the White Widows and has a nice skunky odor already, compared to the grassy, plant odor of the others. Note the funky curved set of first leaves on the bagseed plants. Someone commented that's a characteristic of the Chem strain. I have no idea what strain this bagseed is, but if I went to the trouble to save it I'm sure it was very good weed.

This week a Blue Lemon Thai x Black Widow female clone joined the gang. She's pretty obvious in the pictures. When I showed her former owner my grow, and commented that my plants were broad but short, he said the cool temps may be keeping them short. So I decided to add a small space heater to the tent. Temps have improved with lows around 64 and highs around 73, and humidity came way up when I decreased passive ventilation. DWC water temp is 64. I topped the plants early in the week at either the third or fourth node and they took a couple days to recover but are now looking healthy and vigorous. Bagseed still the best smelling and most vigorous. Nutes were changed again per the General Hydroponics RDWC schedule chart. I started with Week 1 nute concentrations for the BLT x BW clone that I just moved in and Week 3 nute concentrations for the other plants. .

This week I've included a shopping list for a second 300W COB light that I'm going to add to my tent when I make the flip, hopefully on April 1. Here's a lesson for those who want to build their own LED lights: give yourself enough time to order and receive all the parts you need. To spread out the cost of my setup, I started veg with a 300W COB setup and planned to build a second one in time for flowering. Late last week I repeated my online order with Component Distributors, Inc. (USA Citizen COB distributor) but the Citizen 048-1212 3500K COBs, heat sinks and power supply were out of stock, with estimated delivery times from 2 to 6 weeks. I tried to find COBs at other temperature values and they were all out of stock. So I turned to Alibaba and made an order with KingBrite in China. I had to get 3000K COBs because 3500K and 4000K were out of stock. So I'll have a little more red in my flowering setup which may not be a bad thing. Speaking of red, I have done some reading on the subject and decided to add a small array of 730nm far red LEDs to manipulate phytochrome state and put the girls to sleep ~1.5 hours before they normally would. This should allow me to either shorten up my flower time under 12/12 or allow me to keep the flowering time about the same under 13/11 while increasing yield by about 8%. So I have ordered the parts I need to build this far red LED lamp. I bumped up the thermostat on my electric heater a bit and have achieved a fairly steady 72-75F temperature in the tent, and I think the plants are responding favorably. As an energy efficiency freak I don't like the idea of using supplemental electric heat, but the unit is on its lowest power setting and doesn't run frequently, so the benefit clearly outweighs the cost. The Vortex is looking and smelling really interesting. Bagseed looks and smells very promising. The White Widow isn't doing much for me in veg stage, but they are healthy and bushy. While I'm waiting for my light components to arrive, I changed nutes again and addressed some of the overcrowding on the two buckets (front left) that each have 3 plants. I did some defoliating and HST. The plants rebounded well, and actually pulled up the training softwire that I had taped down to the bucket lids with Gorilla tape. The plants won the training battle! They're pretty much recovered and ready to start flowering as soon as I add my light. Great advice and feedback from all. Thanks.

The tent is filling up fast! I built and installed my new COB and Far Red LED lights this week, then flipped to 12/12 40 days after I popped seeds. I'm running the far red LED for 20 minutes a day, 5 minutes before lights off to 15 minutes after lights off. Plants are loving the extra 300W...they almost doubled in size! Topping and HST were successful; next grow I will do this again only I will top earlier and 2-3 times (sativas). Tent temp got down to 61 one night I forgot to turn the heater back on. Humidity levels are getting hard to keep below 70%. I'm still venting the tent only by aiming a small fan at a duct opening. I'll try to get my blower and carbon can set up next week. I chased pH values around , pH was found to be low (5.5) early and again late in Week 6. Stable again at 5.8-5.9. DWC water temps OK between 66 and 72 degrees, Changed nutes late in the week. Running GH nutes per week 5 of their DWC schedule: Plants are looking good and appear to be healthy and happy. Got some root porn photos at the end of veg cycle! It looks as if my largest, most interesting plant, Vortex #1, is a female. I hope to be finish sexing the plants and thin out the garden by next week.

After 7 days of 12/12 my plants are still stretching but they appear to be slowing down. I removed males including 2 of 2 White Widow, 1 of 3 Vortex, and 1 of 4 bagseed. I trashed the WW because other than hearty growth these plants didn't show me much promise. At this point there are 4 girls in the tent: 1 BLTxBW clone, 2 Vortex, and 1 bagseed. Two of the remaining bagseed still haven't shown their sex yet but they are looking like males. So I may only flower four plants this grow, which is fine because it's a nice variety and they'll have plenty of room. I'm so happy #1 Vortex is a girl, because her roots mostly fill her 5-gal bucket, her stem is already sticky and she has flower sites showing up everywhere. I added another airstone to each of the Vortex buckets because their roots are so massive. I'm going to try to keep the Vortex male and one or two bagseed males for some pollen chucking and it'll be interesting to see if they can survive the transfer from hydroponics to soil. I dumped out the clay pellets, cut away the plastic basket to expose the roots, which I trimmed back with a scissor. I then transplanted it into fresh, dry potting mix, flooded it with water, flushed with a diluted nute solution, and set it inside next to a south-facing window. My non-grower friend has agreed to look after a few male plants on my behalf. Hopefully these male plants will survive the transfer and go back to veg, eventually outside this summer, and yield pollen. Unfortunately, that'll be too late to make F1s of the bagseed. I rearranged the tent and removed a lot of lower growth and fan leaves that were blocking light from bud sites. I'll do some training with the girls next week. Nutes are good and pH has been relatively stable. Hopefully warm weather arrives soon and the plants won't get blasted with cold basement air every time I work in the tent.

The girls are happy in their tent. My #1 Vortex is drinking like crazy...8 l in 3 days. The other plants are drinking something like 1 l/day. Lots of buds forming. The two tallest plants are almost completely out of vertical space. I accidentally knocked off the tallest cola, probably OK because it had grown above the lights. I changed the light schedule on day 12 of flower from 12/12 to 13/11. Still running the far red LED from 5 minutes before light out until 15 minutes after lights out. I also did some defoliating getting rid of some of the big fan leaves blocking light to buds and the lowermost leaves and shoots on the plants. Hopefully the buds start to pack on some weight in the coming weeks. I changed nutes again at the end of week 8 and brought the lights up as far as they will go. I also finally hooked up a charcoal filter and blower, so am finally properly venting my tent. Trying to keep the humidity down and the temperature within reason.

My pH meter broke after 2 months of use, so no pH data for a couple days. Vortex #1 is drinking about 2 l/day and the others are around 1 l/day in DWC. Vortex #2 and Bagseed #1 had grown past the lights on the highest setting on the old chain mount. I was able to get the light back above these tall girls by zip-tying one of my COB light fixtures directly to the ceiling pole in the tent. I discovered that I had screwed up the the far red LED timer setting so it did not come on at lights off for several nights. No apparent harm even though I'm flowering with 13 hours of light. The flowers started getting frosty early in the week, and they're looking nicer every day. Temps and humidity have been mostly under control with the advent of warmer spring weather outside. The Vortex smells wonderful, sweet floral smell with hints of honeysuckle, lilacs and orange blossom.

This week all is well in my indoor garden. Humidity is under control since I began venting to outside air. Temps and pH are good, and I changed nutes again after 14 days. The girls are really drinking a lot, especially my favorite plant, Vortex #1, which is consuming nearly 3 l/day. I did a little defoliation and removal of tiny buds near the bottom of the stems and took off a few fan leaves that were blocking light to buds. I'm still flowering under a 13/11 schedule, and I modified the far red schedule slightly so that it now comes on right when the main lights go off, and it stays on for 15 minutes after lights out. The crappy (but not cheap) Ulilitech power strip I got from Lowes crapped out one afternoon and popped it's cheap-ass little circuit breaker when it had about 6 amps going through it, despite that it is rated for 15A. The result was a few hours of darkness but the plants don't seem to have been too bothered by it. I'm using a heavy duty extension cord as a temporary measure, but I'm going to modify the panel to use some real outlet boxes because an uninterrupted supply of power is mission critical. All lights are now at max height, giving me about 73" from floor to COBs. This week I rearranged the tent and added a tower fan to move some more air around. The tent is full! This week I included stand-alone pics of my plants, taken during the middle of Week 10 at F28 and at the end of Week 10 at F32. Vortex #1 continues to lead the pack in terms of fragrance (still very sweet floral with a hint of citrus) and flower development. The BLTxBW plant is doing well and has lots of developing buds, but the aroma is just starting to show up. Bagseed #1is the frostiest of the bunch, and all 3 bagseed plants are now giving a nice funk. I had sticky arms when I came out of the tent after adjusting some fans!

The buds continue to develop and get stickier and more aromatic each week. Temps and humidity are OK, but I wish we'd start to get some spring-like weather here in New England so I wouldn't have to use supplemental heat in the tent. The BLTxBW plant is looking a little stressed, possibly Ca-Mg deficiency due to low pH. The plants are drinking a lot and I left them alone for a few days so the water levels got low as did the pH. I've backed off the nutes on that plant, although all other plants have been happy at up to 1400 ppm. I'm trying to keep the nutes around 1100 ppm. Did my first pollen chuck and collected some pollen from a Pure Power Plant male that is too tough to die, or to stop flowering. Put the pollen to a few lower buds on Vortex #1 and on Bagseed #1. I expect the seeds will be ripe before harvest time, but I was cutting it a little close.

Most of the pics are from early in the week on the 43rd day of flowering. All plants except the BLTxBW are healthy and happy. I think the BLTxBW doesn't like nutes as much as the other girls and I had a period of low pH and low water level that locked out Ca and Mg intake. I reduced the nute concentration in that pot and she seems to have recovered. Temps are good and humidity is firmly control between 40% and 60%. The plants (all together) are drinking between 1 and 2 gallons per day at this point in the grow. I'm still running GH nutes now in the late bloom part of their DWC feed schedule. Another nute change this week. I'm running the BLTxBW at 2/3 full strength. I've come to the conclusion that DWC has great yield potential but it is a time-consuming pain in the ass to check pH/conductivity, top off and periodically dump and refill 6 reservoirs, each one requiring moving the plant and root ball around. I'm going to use hempy coco buckets for my next grow. So much simpler, and allows you to easily move plants inside and out. I'm done moving my plants in and out of the tent, BTW, too much potential for damaging colas and breaking stems. I've already had to use a couple balsa wood splints and used garden wire to train the flopping colas back toward the center of each plant. All the buds are nice and sticky now, The Vortex remains the most floral smelling with a more greasy resin while the bagseed buds are the frostiest and superglue sticky with a dank chem/fuel smell. The Vortex buds are large but airy and I hope they swell up. The bagseed buds are dense nuggets on their way to golf-ball sized that look, feel and smell great. Hopefully everything gets bigger, better and more dank in the coming weeks to finish!

Other than some burned leaves on the BLTxBW from high nute/low pH a couple weeks ago, the plants are all looking good. I dialed the light schedule from 13/11 back to 12/12 as harvest approaches over the next few weeks. After seven weeks of flowering, the closest to harvest is the Bagseed #1, which is showing 20% clear trichs, 75% cloudy and 5% amber. I could harvest next week but for the fact that the seeds I pollinated in a couple buds would only be 3 weeks out and immature. I'd expect the other bagseed plants to follow #1 within a week or so, along with Vortex #2. I think Vortex #1 will be a 9-10 week plant and the BLTxBW will be an 11-12-week plant. So I'm still a month away from finishing up. I plucked one small bud from B#1 and from V#2 so I can get an initial taste after a quick dry/cure. All plants are still on full-strength nutes per the GH feed schedule for DWC, except BLTxBW, which seems nute sensitive and is getting diluted by 1/3. I can see immature white seeds forming inside calyxes on the V#1 and B#1 buds that I brushed with pollen from a Pure Power Plant. I may take the B#1 a little later than I'd like in order to get sufficiently ripened seed. The interesting thing about growing several strains like this for a first-timer like myself is to experience the diversity in plant and flower structure, resin production, and maturation rate. The Vortex plants are two distinctly different phenotypes (stretchy sativa with airy buds at the nodes and bushy hybrid with numerous airy buds and large colas), but they share the same wonderful fragrant floral aroma into the eighth week of flowering. From what I've read about the Princess plant, mother of Cinderella 99, I think my V#1 pheno is "Cindy-like." The bagseed plants are fairly homogeneous compared to the Vortex, they have similar plant structure, resin production and chem funk with chunky dense golf-ball-sized buds and stretchy sativa internodes. Can anyone tell me if this description sounds like chem weed? These seeds came from Western MA weed and all evidence suggests they are some kind of a chem variant. B#1 is a better producer but the stems are way too long and slender to support the secondary buds. A SCROG would have been a good way to grow these plants. The BLTxBW is an entirely different animal, more sensitive to nutes, slower flower maturation, sharp, astringent odor with slight dry lemon in background and airy, diffuse flowers.

After 8 weeks of flowering, the Vortex #1 plant is starting to swell up the big colas and they are falling all over each other, so I've gotten myself all sticky getting in there with soft wire tying colas to each other. Another disadvantage of DWC vs soil or coco growing media...you can't put bamboo stakes into a DWC 5-gal cover basket to stabilize the plant. The huge Vortex #1, who could occupy the entire tent all by herself, is too big for the DWC basket - her lower stem is unstable in the hydroton which means the entire plant moves easily moves a little which means the colas can flop all over the place. V#2 has similar resin production and floral odor bud the plant and bud structure is completely different. V#2 has many fewer, denser nugs and the calyxes are so large that they look like mutant buds. Good thing I don't care about bag appeal. I have begun to flush the first plant - Bagseed #1. Because I'm using DWC hydroponics, I think I only need to flush for 3-4 days, but I'll probably want to see the fan leaves turn yellow before I harvest it, however long that takes. EC of the water in the bucket after 24 hours of flush is 120 ppm. I plan to start flushing B#2 next week, while B#3 and the two Vortex plants have at least 2-3 weeks left. I estimate the BLTxBW is still 3-4 week from harvest, as it is still putting out all white pistils and shows clear trichs. I finally took my electric heater out of my tent and temps have been getting into the mid 60s at night. I refuse to run a heater in late May - the plants don't seem to mind. Regarding nutrients, I did a modified nute change on day F55, two weeks since the last one. I've been checking pH and adding water every 2-3 days, adding fresh nutes as necessary to the heavy drinkers to keep the EC around 900 ppm. Using the GH late-flower ripening feed schedule, V#1 got a full-strength nute change and BLTxBW got fresh nutes diluted down to 600 ppm because she seems sensitive to nutes. Not sure what's wrong with her, and would love some help diagnosing the problem (see pic this week), but she's still swelling and ripening her flowers. Bagseed plants B#2 and B#3 are light drinkers and not too far from flush, so they didn't get a nute change, just water and pH adjustment. Bagseed #1 got a pH'd tap water flush. I'll try to update with some better photos. Getting closer!

I harvested Bagseed #1 at 8.5 weeks and Bagseed #2 at 9 weeks. I have begun flushing all remaining plants, and plan to take the remaining Bagseed plant (#3) and the two Vortex plants next week at around F70. The BLTxBW is just now starting to slow down throwing new white pistils so hopefully she'll be ready at 11-12 weeks. I'm afraid I have a bud rot issue on one (possibly two) of the large colas on Vortex #1. At F63 I pulled off a necrotic looking leave on the bud and the following day that part of the colas was turning brown. You can see the affected area in one of the photos above. I removed the affected parts of the bud and decided to bring her outside on a beautiful spring day to hopefully dry out and stop the advance of any further rot. It was an adventure getting her out of the tent and outside in one piece. I immediately began to flush her and her sister in case I need to expedite the harvest to stay ahead of bud rot. I'm open to suggestions on how to deal with it. The rest of the plants are ripening nicely, even the BLTxBW that has been hurting for a few weeks. I've sampled a little bit of the harvest and it's damn fine weed, IMO, but then again I may be biased. :) Getting close to the finish here, and already looking forward to my next grow and putting the lessons I learned to good use.

I harvested the last Bagseed plant, B#3, at 9.5 weeks. Vortex #1 got chopped at exactly 10 weeks. She was a really big girl and I'm excited to weigh up her dried buds and give it a good cure and smoke. Vortex #2 is getting pretty foliage colors on the fan leaves and the buds are turning purple. I'm going to give it another few days because there are still a lot of clear trichs and not many amber, and the colors are getting better daily. The BLT x BW is getting close, she could go 12 weeks but I'll probably harvest at 11 to free up the tent for my next grow. All plants were on a tap water flush for at least a week prior to harvest. I unplugged one of my 300W COB lights because there are only two girls left in the tent. Nice to have some room in there again. Next up: Strawberry cough!

There is only one plant left at F71, the Blue lemon Thai x Black Widow. That plant has been flushing for a couple weeks now. I've found that the pH of the water in that DWC pail will drop from 6.5 to below 5 in 2 or 3 days if left unattended. The other plants also showed pH drop during flush, but none as extreme as this girl. She has always been the most finicky about nutes. Her trichs are getting cloudier, but a lot of clear still present, and some of the cola tops still show a few light colored pistils. I think this plant could go 14 weeks if I let it, which I won't. I'll give it the chop in the next week, as soon as I have my platform/reservoir completed for my next grow. Vortex #2 was harvested on F78. She has been showing fall foliage colors for a couple weeks but the trichs refused to get much more than partly cloudy. Clearly, the plant is done but I held off on the chop because there were so many clear trichomes. I've read that some modern strains simply don't get many amber trichs. We'll see in a couple weeks how the smoke compares to her big sister, Vortex #1. So, as this is likely the last entry in this diary other than harvest reports, here are my observations from my first cannabis grow: 1) DWC in separate 5-gal buckets makes for good yields but is a lot of work. Royal PITA managing and changing nutes in 6 separate reservoirs, especially when the plants get big and floppy. I'm going with coco hempy buckets on my next grow, and will start it as soon as I complete my grow platform/drain reservoir (see pic). I've also bought a 55-gal HDPE drum that will make life much easier during my next grow. 2) COBs are the way to go. Now that summer weather is here the local growers are complaining about high temps in their tents with MH and HPS lights, and they are buying and running spare air conditioner units to manage the heat. My tent, in my basement, has been running between 72 and 77, and I haven't had to buy an AC. I'm also using far less electricity and probably getting better yield in terms of g/W. 3) There's no substitute for experience. I've learned so much in the past few months, not only from reading voraciously but also from getting hands on experience. 4) Good things come from bagseed.

A unique characteristic of this plant, and something I''ve read is a trait of chem strains, is the propeller-twisted set of first leaves on the seedling. I took #1 at 8.5 weeks from 12/12, #2 was chopped at 9.5 weeks, and #3 was the late finisher at 10 weeks. The #1 plant yielded more than #3 which yielded more #2. I think they would have all grown to near the same size but the #2 and #3 plants shared their DWC reservoirs with two other plants (see week3-4 pics) which tangled up the root masses which ultimately limited the size of the root ball. Bagseed #1 had her DWC bucket all to herself so she developed a larger root ball and got attribute the size first plant was taken 00

Watch out for bud rot on the indica leaning pheno. I caught mine early and only lost a few grams.

—