F63 today.
Harvested the Ethiopian Flames on F61. Way earlier than I planned to harvest, but the back plant had about 5% amber, so she got the chop.
The front plant was showing very little amber (>1%) and I would have liked to let it go longer, but the back plant is the 1 I am most interested in.
The back plant passed the grow test so far. Next is the smoke test and if the Ethiopian smokes as good as I hope, I will keep this plant around. Eventually I plan to run a few clones of the Ethiopian and harvest at different dates to find the best effects/terps.
North Indian Kush Cake-
Lots of trichomes, some purpling. Very nice.
This will be the next plant I harvest. My guess is 5 days. Feeding it around .8-.9 EC. I've been topping of the reservoir with only water and will continue to do so until harvest. My EC will probably end up around .6-.7.
Alien Rift -
Frosty as hell like Alien Rift always is, but she isn't bulking up as much as I'd like and the stem rub isn't as strong as usual.
It could be the different nutrients, environmental, this pheno, or it needs more time to finish up. I plan to harvest it around F70-75.
Since it is my wife's favorite strain, she is will be the determining factor if I keep this one around or continue my search for my Alien Rift keeper.
Have a good week! ๐๐
@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 ๐ 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 doesnโt 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 ๐
@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.