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So, I had a hard time popping seeds so I tried the time-tested damp paper towel technique, in-between two plates and it worked like a charm, all 3 seeds popped. Only one will be in this diary. Anyhow, once the tap roots were about 1cm long I used tweezers to move them into rockwool cubes, covered in a heated seedling tray. I was only giving them bottled water, keeping it damp, not soaked. As soon as they broke surface I had them under some gentle cfl bulbs about 2 inches from the top. I have tap roots out the bottom so I put this one into my hydro basin and she's all set up. I added the nutrients today (when I put her in the basin), evened out ph to 5.8 or so, ppm is just under 200. I top fed her and now will just have to keep an eye on things. (I will make a soil grow diary for the other two seedlings soon).
Ok, so I had her under a 200w cfl flower light (all I had), but she didnt like that so I pulled a small cfl off the soil grow to help her and she loves it (really need a stronger light here). Amyhow, been doing small top feed and bottled water top feed. Ph is all over the place. Trying to get her happy. She was showing signs of stress, dark splotches in the leaf coloring and when I introduced cfl to her she doubled in size in 36 hours, so I think I'm on the right path.
This week was really tough. I put the light too close to her and had too much wind blowing in there and she got ragged. She's recovering and I'm not positive I'm going to keep her but I thought I would give her another week.I did start to germinate more seeds (but let's keep that between you and me, don't want to upset her). Anyhow, my ppm is really high even though I gave recommended nutrients. My water is like 170 so that's part of it. I will only be topping off water for the rest of the week. Also will start adding cold water bottles as 77f is way too high for the basin, despite the hydroguard. Keeping my fingers crossed, thanks for viewing my diary.
Well I was going to yank her out it I'm going to give her one more week to see if she does any better. I started adding cold water bottles to the basin. Gave her a little cal-mag with new basin refresh. Now she just got moved into the big girl light so bring on the heat and wind burn! I will find something less reflective to cover the netpots with as I read that they could cause some burn. Not much else to report.
Update: last two photos are from 24 hours later.
All I can say is Wow! She really pulled through this one. If you compare last week to this week it's like night and day.
I swapped out the basin yesterday and so far so good. I think I really got nutes right on this week at about 2/3 strength for most of them. I used vinegar for ph down and it worked like a charm. I have been swapping out frozen bottles here and there to cool the water temp a bit. She got sprayed down with neem oil a few days ago and recovered from that pretty well. I think the key to her recovery was that I checked the ph twice a day and adjusted accordingly. You can really see when she slurps down the nutrients! I'm going to try to insulate the basin a little bit to see if I can drop her temp down.
Thanks for viewing my diary and happy growing!
Well this was a kinda shit week. The main cola grew up on top of the light so where I had supercropped her before, I bent it the other way and she just fell over. Other bud sites will produce, but I just broke my girl in half! Anyhow, she's drinking more and more, have to top her up about every 36 hours or so. Pulled off some dead leaves. Not expecting a tremendous yield, but still hopeful. She just got a new fresh basin today. I know it's hot in the growbox but I can't really cool it down much more. Maybe I just don't love her as much as my first plant, but I'm watching the ph and she's definitely drinking up the nutes. Switched light to 24 hours. Wish she would show me more love. Thanks for checking out my grow!
Well this week was ok. Surprisingly the main downed cola is actually still growing. These nutrients, or amounts I'm giving her are burning the crap out of the plant. I decided to go just with topping her up today, with a basin change on Monday, and I will adjust 5he numbers of nutes when I do it, probably half strength all around. Also, I don't think this strain handles heat very well, but most don't I guess. So funny to watch the transpiration once I dial in the ph just right, she will suck down 1/2 gallon in a day! Anyhow, thanks for checkin out my grow!
Well this was a serious learning week. I accidentally mixed up my nutes wrong before this basin refresh and cooked her up. She has a good basin now but she did suffer. Little colas are still getting fat, and this strain seems to have very dense buds. The main cola survived the supercrop and is still growing and getting fat. Roots look really happy. Thanks for checking out my grow.
Well I am flushing her out. This will be the last week for my cannabutter queen. Her colas are small but very dense. She has done her best after I gave wrong (too much) nutes one week and she just got cooked. She survived getting broke in half and somehow the main cola is still thriving. She's on an 18/6 cycle and once she is harvested this cabinet will become my drying box for this and my other grows. This strain is a little moody, but produces very fat and solid colas. Thank you for visiting my diary and I hope you can learn from my mistakes, I know I have. ;)
Update: posted pics of the kind of cannabutter I will make with her.
Well I had a rough time with this girl, but it was all my fault. I had ph way off due to ph pen off calibration. I thought it might be nutes but it was the pen. She got cooked. She will end up in butter, at least most of her. I will give a smoke report in a few days. Right now she is hanging to dry. After 3 days I will clean her up and into paper bags for another week or so. Then she will get jarred or right into butter.
Update: smoke was very strong. Most buds are very dense and she is very yummy.
I will come back in a few days and update with weight and smoke report. All I can say is keep your ph pen calibrated. I'm not disappointed in her, she did a good job with what she had.
Update: nice flavor and aroma for the smoke. She's packing on the thc, I don't remember a lot after smoking, but pizza was consumed!
I split her into two groups, 1 for smoke and 1 for baking goods/butter. She was a trooper.
This stuff smells like hay. I am having the same issue as last dry, buds smell like hay, no smell coming out. What can I do? They are in closed box, 79f (can't get it lower, 44 humidity). They have been in there for 30 hours. How can I bring out the aroma?
Hello @BeefWellingtons ! You don't have to lower your humidity and your temperature is not that bad either ( optimum it would be arround 20°C-22°C and 50%-60% humidity. The aroma will come back after a few days, don't worry and be patient. Happy growing ! 👊
I have been burping these jars every day for about 15 min. The dank smells are coming back, thank you @mad_scientist! Almost no more hay smell, just yummy nugs. Did another 'smoke test' last night and she is just a dream to smoke. I'm loving the high and the flavor of her. One of the great things about having this much weed is not ever having to burn up an old half smoked bowl (think little ball of weed charcoal). I just dump it and put a new one in there...makes every bong hit super tasty! Now I have to learn how to make extractions!
So I found out my ph pen is way off. Tested ph water with drops today and it was at 4, lol. I flushed out 1.5 gallons and put straight tap water which is around 6.7 so it should be in the right range now.
Looking good man, I’d be cutting that silica out it’s probably messing your ph up big time. Silica not good for hydro from what I’ve heard, I’ve had best results in soil. Hands down. If I was using hydro I’d foliar feed till end of stretch then wash the plant with plain water before flower really kicks in just my 2p
@PharmaZ, this has more K too: growdiaries.com/nutrients/botanicare/silica-blast .50 %, sorry I had an hard time selecting botanicare for silica blast in my diary, but this is what it is. Do you think the same or would this be any different?
@BeefWellingtons, all silica product say they strengthen cell walls. The 1 I use is made from potassium silicate which obviously by the name applies a higher % of K to my feed.
Once the flowers start to develop they naturally need more K but not in the form of silicate. Especially not in hydro as silicate can react with other forms of potassium and other minerals. Essentially whenever adding silicate you should make sure you add it before all other nutrients and mix well. I have had problems using it myself.
Now I only use till the start of flower it’s fine and I can notice a difference of initial development of buds the bud stems form thicker increasing bud production early on. then I switch to a more stable form of K for flower production👍🏼
@PharmaZ, ok, sounds good. I didn't hear that about silica but I will read up on it. I don't think she's benefiting from it anyhow, so I'll take your advice and stop feeding to her.
Now those are some nice roots. I've used Hydrogaurd and an enzyme and the seem to have helped because the plant is still healthy but I believe my early problem with the roots may have stunted my plant.
@CommanderCannabis, yep, that will do it. I have a 450w and for the first few weeks of flowering it was at like 36in. 10in with 600w will cook a plant imo. Also, did you have a fan blowing gently over the top of her, that will help with the heat, but not light burn.
@BeefWellingtons,When i was germinating and growing the seedling i had the 600W LED just 10" from her. I wanted to keep her small because I am trying to test the Grow Chamber prototype first and foremost but I think I had the light to close for too long and that might have kept her small. That's the best theory I can think of. Thanks again for the advice.
@CommanderCannabis, thanks for the complement, but I have to give it all to the hydroguard. Its quite possible that stunted plants happen due to many stress related issues, including root issues. I stunned one of my first 3 plants as I let her almost die as a seedling, then let the basin run dry. I think most stunting happens early on though. Something wrong happens and they get stunted. My advice, look over your grow and see if you can spot anything that might have caused an issue. Now you know about root maintenance and stuff you can add to help with them. Each grow seems to be easier and easier.
@MaryJaneUSA, yeah, I noticed that I didn't add it in last nutrient cycle and it was one of possible issues so I put some in. It could also be that I broke my plant in half?
@BeefWellingtons, interesting.. I’ve always had cal mag issues and the middle to end of flowering no matter what I do... may be it’s not even cal mag who knows
@MaryJaneUSA, she is having issues, but the roots are not one. Gave a little cal-mag today as a last feeding of that, but she is really needing something and I can't put my finger on it.
I have two fans inside the Grow Chamber along with an inline fan and an exhaust fan. I know that kept her cool but this was my first experience with LEDs and sometimes I have to learn the hard way.
Damn! That Hydroguard really does the trick! Absolutely beautiful root system! And nice looking buds you got there, a shitload of tricomes, everything covered already all the way to the tip of the leafs! Thats gonna grow to be really potent stuff!
@MrPlow,yeah the buds are super dense for this genetics. And she smells like an armpit. Not only that, my broken main stalk seems to have recovered and is producing buds as well. As for the hydroguard, note my water temp is like 78 or so, but still have white roots, and 0 h202 this time. I'm sold on it.
Give this a try. Get enough water (58-68F) pH it to 5.8 and run this for 12 hours while light is on. Then refil reservoir with a nutrient solution pH at 5.6 with a maximum EC of 1.5 (750ppm). After the nute solution has been in the system for 1 hr check the pH and adjust to 5.6. If possible check the pH every 6 hours, if not then do twice a day (morning and night) at the very minimum. If it’s outside of 5.5-6.2 when you check then you aren’t checking it enough. In veg and early flowering pH will rise as they use nitrogen so adjust to the lower end of 5.6. In mid-late flower as they use potassium the pH will fall so adjust to the higher end of 5.8 this gives us a little more time in the desired range.
Phew hope that helped. Just remember 750ppm 1.5EC max includes the starting tds too.
@Tazard, I will have to get some RO water for that. But I have to say, I actually think she bounced back after yesterday's feed and the new light. She looks much better! I would have to use RO water for all feeds to get ppm down to 750, as I am not even giving 1/2 nutes. What I will do is get a bunch of water and at least bring the ppm down by replacing 1 gallon (3+ gallon basin). If that doesn't work I will do your flush job as posted. Thank you @Tazard for your help. I'm going to remember this one for next time too.
@JemGreen, I just put this girl into the basin and she's at a standstill, not sure if its lights/distance, nutes, heat, ph of water, or something else. Hoping she continues with her growth soon.
Don't give up on her. Give her a chance and she will recover. I am constantly amazed at how resilient these plants are. Good luck with the frozen bottles, if you are able to keep swapping them out it should make a big difference! Good luck!
My apologies if you have put this down anywhere but I couldn't find it. What size is this grow space? Also, please could you try get photos showing it as a whole. I'm trying to figure out how much space a single auto generally take up and it'd help a lot :)
@JemGreen, Dimensions are 18” wide, 24” deep and 30” high. My first grow will show better pics, and remember all top colas had to be supercropped as they grew over the top of the big cfl light. I would not suggest this size, get something that is at least 4ft in height, if not 5 imo. I will post new pics tomorrow when I update my grow.
Going out to get RO water today. Basin was at 7.0, ph down to 5.6. Removed the tin foil hats. 24 hours into new basin and light and she is loving it, but temps are high in basin (79f). Going to get more water bottles to start a regiment of cooling.
@MaryJaneUSA, yeah, that's a good idea. I'm heading to a hardware store tomorrow and I'll see what I can drum up. I'm sure I can Frankenstein something for the bucket installation. Thanks.
@BeefWellingtons, even if you can insulate you’re bucket, I would. Water bottles at your temp will last may be about 2 hours at the most (I tried) but with insulation, it should last you much longer. Also try looking into more ph stable nutrients. 79F is pretty good for beneficial microbes to thrive. I think your main problem was ph. I have 3 hydro that have tent temp around 80-83F and bucket temp around 78-79 without any cooling but it’s thriving so well and I believe it’s from beneficial microbes. Roots became brown but didn’t have any root rot issues.
All Jarred up for curing, will probably burp these twice a day, with at least once dumping them out and waiting 15 min, then back in jars. I'll do that for a week or so and the just burp by opening for 15 min or so, and I'll do that for 2 weeks. At some point I will add 62% boveda packs, probably next week sometime.
BeefWellingtons
