Super Skunk

Tent 4‘ x 2‘ x 6‘ Homemade 1x3 wood frame with 2 layers of panda plastic. Hinged door with latch. Two 5“ fans at bottom rear feeding fresh air in. One 5“ exhaust fan from top fed though ducting to another window mounted 5“ fan exhausting outside (8th floor). Absolutely no smell in room while budding Super Skunk unless you opened the tent door. Maintains 26° C. with all lights on. Lights used for both veg and budding are 2 x 150 watt Full Spectrum LED cobs (8“ x 1“) no lens, on individual heatsinks with fans. All LEDs, heatsinks and fans are in an adjustable height 36 inch long box with ducting to exhaust fan. Each LED and bank of LEDs on own switches. Hung on heavy cord with pulley and cam lock system for height adjustment at each end, all 3D printed. Different colours are used during various phases of growth. 120 watts of 620 nm Red LED tape along walls about bud height (10 meters total length), 30 watts of 460nm Blue tape (5 meters) 9 watts - 400nm UV 39 watts - 445nm Royal Blue 18 watts - 460nm Blue 27 watts - 520nm Green 9 watts - 660nm Deep Red 18 watts - 720nm Far Red, all 3 watt LEDs seperately switched. LEDs mounted on heatsinks inside 2 long square boxes, one for each side with a 2“ fan in each. That is pretty much 570 watts total. The idea with the colours all on switches is so the Red and IR can be used for budding, the blue works good for slowing stretch in early flower. Green I am just experimenting with. 75 watts per sq ft in bud mode , 56 watts in veg. Grow medium is 50 - 50 potting soil and perlite in 5 gallon buckets Nutrients - General Hydroponics MaxiGrow, MaxiBloom and CaliMagic on their Medium Feed Schedule Average tap water ph is from 5.4 to 8.8, 87 ppm, EC 165 µs/cm I use vinegar or lemon juice as phdown. 150 watt heatsinks are made from scrap sheet steel, all fans are 4 or 5 inch fans salvaged from electronics. Infrared red and UV LEDs also salvaged. 1x3 wood recycled from old futon frame. Electrical panel near ceiling inside tent with all 120 and 12 volt supples with surge protectors, switches and timer. Total cost of the whole setup before the seeds and nutrients was 140 Can., thats tent, lights, buckets and grow medium and all the little extras. I happen to have electricity included in my rent so there is no cost there. For the next few years I will only need to buy seeds. I recycle the grow medium by just heavy repeated flushing after each harvest and have used this batch for 5 or 6 years with no problems. I consider it to be pretty much inert by now other than all the small roots in the mix that compost naturally. The reason I am posting this grow is to show that a reasonable setup need not cost a small fortune. I drooled over some nice tent kits but they are far more than my budget can afford.

Topped all three yesterday. No sign of stress from it. They grew about 4 inches in a week. Very hearty strain and I love these General Hydroponics MaxiGrow and CaliMagic. Amazing growth. Slow branch development but bushy and thick stemmed. The true colours of their aroma is just starting to come out, Skunky. It kind of makes me drool.

Well poop. I got nute lockout on one, over fert on another with the third close behind and I am having fun with drainage. I gave them the Royal Flush twice to start fresh. I am finished with using buckets, I am going with fabric bags next crop, in fact I am tempted to transplant these into bags although it would slow down growth for a while. I will be using 3 gallon instead of 5 simply because of the weight difference. Moving 5 gallon buckets is too hard on my back. If I water with enough to flow out the bottom of the buckets then they stay wet far too long and the leaves start canoeing. If I don’t give enough water to start draining then the nutes build up too fast. I figured that a 50/50 mix of perlite and soil would breath and drain well. I am pondering on making the mix 75% perlite.

I really flubbed up with these poor girls. What is the most common rookie mistake? Ya, overwatering which led to nute lockout. At least the lockout wasn't too progressed so did a royal flush on them until TDS matched the local water. Local water averages 160ppm, the run off was over 4900. Ouch. Now I am waiting for them to dry out again. I hate using buckets, will be transplanting to bags soon. They are recovering quite rapidly so should handle a transplant ok in a week or two. Cancel that statement about transplanting. I just checked the root system and they are far too big and deep to transplant. Buckets are about 70% roots already. I guess I will have to live with it and keep my watering under control. Dec 19 One bad thing about a heavy flush with a soil mix is it compacts it down pretty dense. I removed some loose soil from around the plants and reached down and fluffed up the soil under the root ball just so it would dry out. Surprised to see no stress at all, in fact lots of new healthy growth. Fresh ph'ed water and a light shot of MaxiGrow tomorrow.

All 3 Skunks will be transplanted into bags next week. So I trimmed off the lower 3 nodes to give them time to recoup before the transplant. Hopefully one week after transplant they will go into bud. The root balls are about 1 gallon in size and not as deep as first thought. They have shown no stress from the flush and should transplant quite well. This is one strain that takes a licking and keeps going. Lots of new healthy growth. An easy plant to grow as long as you keep the rookie mistakes to a minimum. No Skunky aromas yet, in fact the Fruity OG is smelling more than them right now. A lovely smell for sure.

The 3 of them are now in bud life. Thanks to Amazon I received the 3 gallon grow bags yesterday and already transplanted. Only one was showing a bit of droop earlier today but picked up already. I would have liked to keep these in veg another couple of weeks but the Fruity OG is not going to cooperate by getting too big for the tent. As for the Super Skunk I think I will grow this one again considering I trimmed off a bunch of lower branches, overwatered them, nute lockout then a super flush then transplanted all within 2 weeks. Now I just put them into bud. And they keep on growing. I hope they stretch some before getting heavy. I am planning my next crop already, a CBD White Widow and Super Skunk again the crop after that. Plus there is always a nice freebie of 3 seeds each order of their choice from QCS. The Fruity OG was the freebie with the Skunks.

These poor girls have had a rough couple of weeks but are picking up and growing new stuff. A few yellow leaves from lack of nutes from when I super flushed them, They took up the new nutrients right away. A damn nice strain that I will grow again just so I can do it right and get the best possible. These ones will be lacking somewhat from all the mistreatment. I love the grow bags, it takes some adjustment to the watering schedule since they dry out much faster. The next crop will be all in 3 gallon bags with 5 of them in my little tent.

These three stretched a fair bit in the first week, Extra Blue LEDs seem to slow the stretch down so far. Lots of LST and and some trimming. 4 tops on one and 6 tops on the other two. Buds filling out slowly compared to Fruity. I will train the tops back into closer to the center in a week. A bit spindly and slow growing. Long internodes. But they are healthy. I put them into flower sooner than I wanted but the Fruity is a month older and she would have gotten too big for the tent. Next crop all plants will be the same age.

These poor things slowed down a lot after the punishment of nute lockout, flushing, transplanting then triggering all within a few weeks. One is still not quite as robust. Buds are forming up slowly right now. The last feeding they got a half shot of MaxiGrow and a half shot of MaxiBloom and they picked up since. When they need water again they will get some CaliMagic. I have installed a bunch of extra 3 watt LEDs, Running Blue, Deep Red, Far Red and Green. They all perked up their leaves a little. Also without all the extra LEDs lit up, the tops do not look that light or bleached, likely the green spectrum mostly effecting the camera. I need more LST but will wait until they perk up lots then bring the tops in closer over the pots. Next crop I will be much more careful when thinning as well, I know I plucked too much too early. Does anyone believe in talking to their plants? I do, I always say goodnight and good morning as well as while tending to them, Heavily on the encouragement.

Considering how well Fruity is doing, these three girls are still hurting. I have been getting used to bags and have not been watering near enough, enough to keep them alive and growing until the nutes built up. Again. Flushed yesterday. Again. First run off was scary at 1600 µs/cm and 1200 ppm. Got the readings down to clear water levels then ph'ed a little lower than normal 5.2 and hit them with MaxiBloom. Then Calmag in a couple of days. They had stopped taking up water completely but have already perked up since the flush. Despite all the problems, the buds are developing about equal in size to the Fruity, just not as many. Super Skunk is supposed to be a 45 to 55 days flower. That finish line is 3 to 4 weeks away. I hope I can extend that a bit to allow them to build up in size. Now I just have to get used to watering bags, I put down a splash tray of panda plastic and have a small electric water pump to suck up the drainage.

These poor girls are recovering slowly, Fresh nutes fed yesterday. Yellow from lack of nutes from the royal flush. I should have added nutes sooner. Buds continue to fatten up and generally healthy. I know I will be disappointed in the yield but all I can do is kick myself in the butt for all the dumb mistakes and do better next crop.

They are slowly fattening up. Somewhat of a slowdown. A little lacking in N so just got fed. Plenty of yellow leaf, trimming later today. Tricome count is increasing nicely. According to stated bud time they could be done in 1 to 2 weeks. I will be stretching that out as far as I can just so I can get some weight. These started out as healthy as the Fruity but my screw-ups really hurt them. I don't expect much of a yield but want to grow it again a few crops down the road. With the proper conditions I think it would be a good producer.

Well they are still growing and fattening buds. The bud fattening is actually speeding up. Too bad they are so close to finish. These are very close to finish. Lots of brown pistils and mostly cloudy tricomes with maybe 10% amber. This would be the ideal time to harvest but I will let them go as long as I can. If I end up with mostly amber is not a concern, I want some weed to knock me out at night instead of waking me up. I will be lucky to get an ounce of wet buds off all three anyway. They continue to yellow the lower leaves which looks like a lack of nitrogen but I don't think they will get any more nutes. They are at 49 days in bud which falls right into the stated bud time of 45 to 55 days. Next week should/could be harvest. Update Took a close look with the digital microscope and find that the tricomes are not cloudy afterall, mostly clear so it looks like another week or two. That is good cause the buds can fatten up lots more. I will be using the microscope for tricomes from now on.

The Skunks are fattening up considerably since I added more LEDs. The yield will be embarrassing but it should be tasty. I got my first wiff of the roadkill skunk smell yesterday so the buds are coming along. They should curl the nose hairs once cured. I have had the following LEDs on for the last week and the plants seem to love it. 2 x 150 watt Full Spectrum LED 60 watts of 620 nm Red LED tape 9 watts - 400nm UV 39 watts - 445nm Royal Blue 18 watts - 460nm Blue 27 watts - 520nm Green 9 watts - 660nm Deep Red 18 watts - 720nm Far Red,

I checked the trichomes today and found they are about 80% cloudy. Close enough for me. They will be finished after two days of Blue only. I'm trying the method described by VVord_Alchemist in his last harvest with an all Blue light for the last 2 days. There is 30 watts of 460nm Blue LED tape and 9 watts of 400nm UVa, 39 watts of 440nm Royal Blue and 18 watts of 460nm Blue. 96 watts total, no other lights. The yield will be very disappointing from these 3 plants. I put these 3 girls through hell and they came back better than I expected. I will try this strain again in a crop or two. I love that skunky smell and high. Can't wait for this to be cured. Chop in TWO days.

A special Thank You to all the fellow Growmee's that responded to my questions. A great help and resource. The best damn social media site I have even been in.