F13 today.
I did a large defoliation today and switched the Ethiopian Flame and The North Indian to botanicare nutrients. I added some before and after shots.
They seem pretty pissed after the defoliation, so hope they bounce back tomorrow.
I am having some pH pen issues, so I ordered a replacement and it should come tomorrow. I am a little nervous doing res changes with no pH pen, but I've done it enough to get it close. It is probably a touch high, but my guess is 6-6.4.
Ethiopian Flame -
I love the structure of the back plant and it bleeds! Hard to get a good pic, I will try to during this grow, but I saw some red stuff on one of the stems and it was sugars. When I did my defoliation if I squeezed the ends where I made the cut it slowly turns purplish/red. Very happy I have a couple clones rooted in solo cups of this girl! The dragon energy has the dragons blood strain bred by bodhi for that trait, so there was a small chance for me to get a plant with that trait.
28" Tall
North Indian Kush Cake -
I have a couple clones of this one too. I don't think they rooted yet. Eventually I will get some good pics of this weird one. Looks like it is fasciated on a couple cola's, but the stems aren't extremely flat like some other's I have grown and they have a bunch of growth tips. I defoliated all the growth tips to the top nodes on each arm.
18" Tall
Alien Rift -
Pretty sure I have 1 girl:1 boy, but still no white pistils.
14" Tall
Have a good week! 🚀🚀
@Oozle, Haha! I used an antique iron! Stability is the one thing I miss about using the 6" pail inserts with the built-in net pots in my buckets. Since switching to 4" net pots and fitting them through a hole cut out of the bucket lid, I've had a couple of leaners. I do like the 4" pots in that they're much less expensive and require far less hydroton.
The garden is looking great. Too true about the mutant plants being the most interesting ones 😅 I look forward to the results of your cloning efforts - have you cloned anything before? That's something I still have to try.
@StunFlower, I have some extra room so I figured if I can keep 1 or 2 nice plants in my stable. Some strains I get so much yield it takes me a year to go thru it. I am hoping the clones will allow me to run more, smaller plants.
@Oozle, Thanks for the info! Sounds to me like your first try was pretty darn successful. It's something I've always been interested in trying. I'll get to it one day!
@StunFlower, ty! I cloned some for the first time last week (8 Ethiopian Flames). I made a little DWC cooler for them. They rooted, but I burned them pretty bad (too much feed). So I am simplifying my strategy this time.
The Ethiopian Clones showed roots and are in soil now, so they should make it. I think out of 8 original clones, 6 or 7 made it. Not bad for my first try.
I am going to mother 1 of the Ethiopian flames if the smoke is excellent.
This time I cut the Alien and Indian, used the rooting hormone and put them right into starter plugs in a humidity dome. Seems much easier than having to manage a reservoir. I will keep you updated with my results.
Congrats on the harvest and thanks for the impressive grow report. Your comments about the terps in the DWC run vs. soil is very interesting. Disappointing that the DWC grow didn't net the expected result this time around - like you say, could be environmental and/or the change in nutes.
I recently read that terps in flowers grown in DWC are not as strong as those grown in soil because of the humidity levels associated with DWC - "the plant doesn’t go through the natural short periods of drought that other plants do, which is what increases terpene production." Not sure how true this is - smells a bit like bro-science 😃
@StunFlower, Well drought stress does increase sugar content in fruit (apples in particular) trees, so I think that's where the theory comes from. But it would take someone to be very precise on how much drought stress and when.. so it isn't just stop watering "x" days before harvest and you get a better terps. So mostly bro science for cannabis growers until there is a study on how much and when to start the drought stress. If it is a fact, it should be reproduceable over and over again.
I've had better or the same results with this strain in DWC, so I definitely wouldn't say soil > DWC, just in this instance haha. I'd have to do a lot more plants and a lot more strains before I came to that conclusion.
I do get more expressions in soil, but that could be how I feed in DWC, so I've been bringing down my cal-mag and N more lately to see if I can match the color expressions I get in soil.
@grzegorzdelaurans, no. I am running different nutrient lines for different plants. 1 plant (Alien Rift) is on Ventana nutrients. The other 3 (Ethiopian and North Indian) I am using botanicare. I was trying ventana nutrients out and I didn't have enough nutrients to finish them all. Week 2 of flower I switched all plants except the Alien Rift to botanicare.
@StunFlower, I have clones of it rooted into 1 gallons now. Im hoping to run the clone of it in december. Hoping to get some better pictures of the red/purple as it gets a bit older.
I've had some higher than I'd like water temps as well with the hotter weather we've had this summer. Thankfully it's come down to a more comfortable level (70-71) over the past week or so. Your seedlings look great. Good luck with the new nute line - any reason for the change?
@StunFlower, A couple reasons. Botanicare is great, cheap, consistent, and easy to use but I have some pH problems. Im hoping this line is more stable.
The Silica in this line is more stable than potassium silicate, so I am hoping that alone will help the swings.
But the main reason is to try out the FlaVUH product. It has some proprietary stuff in it that is supposed to increase terps etc. IDK how true the stuff is, but it wasn't too expensive and figure I'd give it a shot.