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This is my very first cannabis grow so I'll leave some basic info here:
I've been planing this grow for quite some time now, reading on the internet, books, talking with friends, watching videos, etc. I should probably just go for a non-smelly auto indica in a soil, but that just sounded too boring to me. I opted for a photoperiod strain in DWC grow. With SCROG. Under DIY lamp. Yes, for my first build.
Since I managed to pick not-so-basic techniques, at least I set my goals a bit lower than most. What are my goals for this growth I hear you ask? There is only one goal actually: to not kill this plant :) And if I manage to learn while not killing it, hurray for me.
So first I started to build my light. It's a LED strip light using mid-power full spectrum LEDs (EB Gen2 strips), color temperature 4000k. This temperature was picked according to datasheet since it was the warmest color temperature that still has enough output in blue part of the spectrum. 560mm strips were used, 10 of them. Each of them runs at ~19.6V-ish, and their rated current is 7.5A. This works out to ~150W of power. At this parameters strips are quite cool, and could probably be run without any heatsinking. I used aluminum U profiles for fixture, so technically I am using heatsinks (kind of), but fixture is quite cool to touch. Even the diods themselves are not that hot to touch.
Then I started to buy everything else: grow tent, exhaust fan, charcoal filter, duckting, buckets, netpots, hydroton, nutes, air pump and hoses, airstone (I'm using a small wooden one, since bigger stone ones gave me shitty bubbles), pH meter, EC meter, pH adjusting solutions, air temperature and humidity meter, etc. It ended up being quite exhaustive list with much more stuff than I planned for, but I got it all, built my tent and installed all the stuff. Everything runs cool, quiet and stealthy.
Then I set 1 seed to germinate. "Just one?" I hear you ask. Yes, juts one. If it's of any quality, it will sprout. I have sprouted seeds before, just not cannabis seeds. Some pop fast, some that long time (2 weeks or even more), but they all either sprout or they start to grow mold. My seed sprouted, and I might say it sprouted quite fast and looked good doing it :)
I left it on paper towel for 3 days. I should probably leave it there a day more, maybe even two days, so the root would get bigger and longer and thus more suited to transfer to hydroton. But this was my first grow, so I guess this was the first lesson learned without killing the plant. She took the transfer well, the root kept growing and soon some greenery appeared. All this was wihtout any nutes, under a "seedling light", which was just a 13W cool white LED E27 bulb fitted in a desktop lamp connected to mechanical timer set for gas lantern routine (12-5.5-1-5.5). Oh yeah, did I mention I was doing weird light timing for my first grow as well?
Started second week with 0.3g/L of GHE MaxiGro, and bumped up to 0.6g/L by end of the week. I also did some pH up/down acrobatics being to eager to help my plant, so she had pH from 3.9 all the way up to 6.5 this week and she is still alive and doing well. Over pH-downing was countered by some baking soda since I did not have pH up solution at hand. I noticed that pH tends to drift up over time, so I guess pH up will never be needed unless I decide to drop way too much acid into DWC bucket again.
Nutes were bumped up to 1.2g/L of MaxiGro this week, so we are now aligned with feeding chart from GHE. No nutes burn or anything, so I'll just keep it here and see how it goes.
While I was checking the plant and taking nutes solution sample for measurements, I notices something weird: someone took great care so the insides of the tent are as reflective as possible. Which is a very good thing. Then I go and place a big black bucket in the middle of the tent, absorbing the light quite well and reflecting nothing back to the plant. So I did what any normal person would do and I wrapped the bucket in reflective material. Opening the tent with lights on now blinded me even more, so I thought I did a good job. As you can see from he photos, the plant did not share my enthusiasm and became light-shy. I don't know if this is even a real term, but when light started to reflect into the bottoms of the leaves, the leaves started to curl as if trying to keep light away from the bottom of the leaves. Plant is still growing well, still has a nice dark green color, it's just the fan leaves don't look their part. I guess this is my second lesson: don't fuck with lighting if plant is growing well. And if sun shines form above, plant most likely will not need light shining from below. I was hoping this is juts a thing that happens at the start, but it just kept curling... :(
I got to my senses and took the reflective top away from the bucket. Curled leaves remained curled, but new growth is back to normal. Since these were just one of the starting leaves, I figure it should not impact the plant growth that much.
New shoots are growing quite well and soon we should have 4 "main" stems instead of 1. The plant is very very compact. Space between nodes is almost non-existent, making a very small scissors necessity for topping. I also wander if SCROG is even needed, since this plant is so compact. Let's wait and see :)
Not much work was done regarding nutes solution, mainly just pHing (down).
After we got nice growth following first topping, it was time to introduce SCROG screen to the plant. I made the screen myself using scrap wood laying around the house and some masonry string. This was the cheapest string I could find and since the frame is held together only by the string, there is also a change I might be able to re-use the string for next grows. I'm not sure why I would want to do that, but I like to design and make things to be reusable if at all possible.
She started to consume larger amount of water this week, so I had to refill the bucket several times. I used unbuffered water and adjusted pH following night. No big pH changes this time, it was nice and slow down to 5.7-5.8 range.
After plant was squashed by SCROG net, she took it quite well. Things are still growing, color is nice dark green, so except for those curled leaves all is well. It was time for second topping, so 4 tops came off this time. Everything was tucked under the net carefully...ish, with minimal damage to the plant depending on how much I smoked that day :) Again, despite all my efforts, the plant is still doing good, looks healthy and strong. I just might be able to not kill this plant. In fact I'm growing quite confident she will survive this grow :)
I switched to flowering in week 6, on day 41 to be exact. I will use 11 hours of light and 13 hours of darkness. Plant growth is fine, she is drinking a lot, growing a lot, getting more beautiful every day :)
I have not replaced nutes solution so far. I let the plant drink most of the MaxiGro solution (my guess is that around half of the solution was still in the bucket) then I added pHd water with MaxiBloom as per GHE growchart. Final mixture of nutes in DWC bucket was probably not as per the chart, but hopefully this won't matter too much.
Screen is filling out nicely, it must have been around 2/3 to 3/4 full at the time of switch. We'll see if this was too soon or too late in 2-3 weeks when the stretch finishes according to info from internets.
The wait for the first white hairs begins.
pH is starting to act a bit weird, raising each day. Adjustment with pH down doesn't seem to do the job for more than a day, I'm having suspicions that something is going wrong. Maybe something has started to grow in the bucket (I'm still juts adding nutes, no reservoir change and/or clean so far) or plant is doing something different since it's started to flower. I've no idea what it could be, so I'll keep an eye on pH, adjust it best as I can and hope for the best.
Plant still looks fine. It's all green, growing nicely so I tuck new growth daily. I might bee too diligent there, since SCROG net is quite deformed at some points, but it's such a nice work to take care of my girl and help her grow as best as she can.
The stretch... is quite resonable in my opinion, maybe a bit faster gorwth compared to veg cycle. I'd say she got about 30% bigger in one week, so very reasonable stretch.
On a side note: I've never seen and indica grow before except on the internet and in books. Seeing this plant I have no doubt that is what indica should look like. Very short, very bushy (maybe too bushy for SCROW, since it's turning into a tangled mess), with giant fan leaves. Seriously, fan leaves are bigger than my... well, I wish mine was as big as these leaves :)
A lot of pH down was added to the bucket this week, along with more nutes solution. It's getting kind of hard to see how much nutes are in the bucket, because the plant is blocking the light form shining down the second hole I made in the bucket lid for taking samples for pH and EC measurements. So from now on I'm going more by the weight of the bucket, but it's _very_ approximate method so hopefully it will work.
I'm very worried about pH. By end of this week I decided to pump out nutes solution and replace it with fresh one. Just water, MaxiBloom (as per chart) and pH down to keep pH around 5.8 or 5.9. I still had to add pH down almost daily to keep pH down. Very strange, and very not good. Not good at all :(
Some of the fan leaves started to turn yellowish. From what I gather this could either be too much nutes, too little nutes, pH too low, pH too high, or maybe just to big of a fluctuations in nutes concentration and/or pH levels. Or just weird EC levels messing with plants osmosis. I'm starting to think that "no res change for entire grow" was not such a good idea. I feel a thorough clean of the bucked is coming up, although nutes still don't smell bad and I haven't seen any slime when drawing samples for pH and EC.
On positive note: my baby showed her first white hairs!! She is growing up, becoming a woman :) Smell is still quite weak (which is fine by me, I have to be stealthy).
This week started kinda badly... and went downhill from there :( Lots of yellow leaves (only old ones fortunately), which continued to dry and crumble. I started to pick them off, since they are not doing my plant any good. I'd love to have more green, healthy leaves as they are the part of the plant that absorbs light and makes plant grow, but yellow and dying ones... nah!
So I continued with troubleshooting for my yellowing plant. Internet, as you might have noticed, will offer you plenty of solution for any kind of issue you might have. The problem is, that the internet has no clue what your issues is. So I went looking for my issue. I know my plant has enough water (it's almost drowning in it), it's not overwattered (overwattered plants starts to die from the center, not from tip of leaves), nutes have been spot on as per feeding chart, pH and EC are also in desired ranges. The most often suggested cause for yellow leaves was cal/mag defficiency, but since I live in cal/mag rich area and use tap water with lots of cal/mag in it, I was reluctant to just add stuff to the nutes and hope for the best. So I did another cleanup of the rez, nute change, etc. I scrubbed DWC bucket, airstone and tubing with soap and rinsed well, I also rinsed roots with tap water. There was a hint of funky smell in there, so cleanup will surely do some good.
After picking off most yellow/dry leaves the plant looks much better. Canopy is much thinner, but the tops (flowers and leaves) are nice and green, with white hair growing every day. Also I can see "the snow" forming on leaves below flowers. Such a pretty sight I almost cried the first time I saw it. I love this plant.
I think I did a very bad thing for not changing nutes for so long, but it seems I was still unable to kill this plant. We are still go for this misison :)
After nutes change and cleanup plant is doing better, as far as I can tell yellowing has halted. Leaves that had yellow on them have dried only on yellow parts, green stuff seems OK. Regardless, damaged leaves are coming off of the plant. Flowers look beautiful though. Long white hair, sprinkle of magic on leaves surrounding flowers, new buds forming all around. It makes me happy every time I check up on the plant. I have no idea how much product I can expect from my setup (one plant SCROGed under 150W of DIY LED strip light), but whatever I get I hope it kicks like a mule :)
pH seems a bit more stable, although it's still climbing daily. I decided to back off with pH down unless pH approaches 6.5. As long as we're under 6.5, I decided not to keep adding stuff to my nutes. Plant seems to be liking it, so let's hope that my not changing nutes and promoting weird smell was the only issue and that cleaning of the bucket and nute changes will help. Also the winter is starting to show its colors, causing temperature of the nutes to come down towards 18oC, so I hope this will also inhibit growth of little bad organisms living in my DWC bucket and making my nutes smell funky.
I did not like pH rising at all. Did another check, saw some mold on roots. Nutes were a bit muddy and offcolor. A bit slimy as well perhaps. I decided to do another res change, 11 days from last res change.
This time I inspected all DWC equipment a bit more. When I tried to take my wooden air-stone off of the hose to clean it, it just broke off. To my surprise, the inside of the wood was filled with slime and mold. It looked like the green kind of mold you get on food if left for too long... bad stuff. Stone went straight to trash, and I replaced it with a plastic air bubbler that came with the pump. It produces bigger bubbles than wooden one, but to be honest I now prefer bigger bubbles. For little seedling roots small bubbles seemed like a way to go, but now that root mass is huge, I think bigger and more aggressive bubbles would help the plant to grow better, provide a bit of mixing to the nutes and generally give more air to the roots.
After inspection I scrubbed all equipment with soap and rinsed well, I also washed roots with fresh tap water.
Got a pleasant surprise along the way, flowers are starting to get some snow!! Little itsy bitsy white crystals are forming on the buds and suggar leaves! Time to break out xmass songs I guess :)
A week after res cleaning and nute change, no more yellowing of the leaves. It seems that damage has been contained and that much of the plant is doing just fine.
After just a week the plant drank more than 10L of nutes. Nutes level in the bucket was actually so low, that I could not draw sample for EC and pH measurements with my long needle on a syringe. So it was time to mix another batch of nutes, scrub the bucket and all equipment with soap and rinse well.
This time there was no slime in the bucket, and no visible mold on the roots. Color of the roots is about the same, no dark spots to be seen, mostly white to slight pinkish hue.
I truly think that I managed to get rid of the moldy roots problem, and since the plant looks like it will empty it's bucket on weekly basis, it will also get a good rinse of the roots and a good scrub of the bucket on weekly basis. This should keep nasty mold at bay.
Plant is doing really well. Buds are growing, snow is falling, smell is now what I would call normal. It stinks up to room as soon as I unzip the tent :) It smells citrusy and a bit fruity perhaps. Quite nice smell actually.
Also I had to lift the light an inch or so, because some of the flowers got too close to the LED strips for my liking. No sense in burning my buds.
I also got me a magnifying glass. It says it's 30x magnification, but I'd bet it's x10 at most. It was cheap and I can see trichomes with it. They are still a bit small, but I think I'll be able to tell when they start to turn milky. They all seem pretty clear to me. Closeup of the photo also shows clear trichomes.
Also almost all the hairs are still white and uncurled. New white hairs still forming on most flowers, so I think I still have at least a week or 2 to go, possibly even longer. My plan to smoke this baby for new year is definitely out of the question now, since I want to get good cure before smoking. But I'm quite sure the wait will be worth it :) I'm shooting for a nice energetic high like HSO describes, so I guess I need to wait for 50-75% milky trichomes before harvesting.
Also I have to apologize about the photos so far, I did a pretty stupid thing: I had aperture set to widest setting, making focus depth on the photos a bit shitty. I closed down the aperture as far as my camera allows it so now the photos have some focused depth and you can actually see the flowers on my plant and more details on closeups. No more of those nasty "halo'd" closeups where details just blur into the photo. Sorry about this one.
Plant now seems to constantly drink around 10L of nutes in 7 days. Which I think it's a lot! Most people don't drink that much :)
She still looks fine, although some leaves started to develop brown spots. It's happening quite slowly, but after a week of looking at the leaves I think it looks like calcium deficiency. It's happening on the upper leaves below flowers, and only on bottom leaves exposed to the direct light. Brown spots seem random, and slowly keep getting bigger and consuming my leaves. At first I though this is just how the plant will finish, but now I'd say it's calcium deficiency.
To combat this internets suggest I first adjust my pH. Calcium is best absorbed at pH of 6.2 and above, but I think I got that covered. My pH is always around 6.2 lately. Secondly I'm feeding my plant with tap water. Lab results from my local water company claim that calcium levels in my tap water are around 72 mg/L of calcium, and has been so for the last 5 years. Minimums are around 60 mg/L and maximum are around 85 mg/L. Which is quite a lot for your average water as it classifies as hard. This made me think that my plant will get plenty of calcium. But it appears I was wrong (again).
Internet suggest to use cal/mag supplements, with botanicare calmag most often advised. It has Ca (3.2% or 32 mg/mL), Mg (1.2% or 12 mg/mL) and Fe (0.1% or 1 mg/mL). Dosing instruction are 1.5 mL/L of Pro-Cal during flowering, which would results in ~50 mg/L of Ca. My tap water has more than this. But then again I read that cannabis is _really_ Ca hungry when it grows and it would be _almost_ impossible to give it too much calcium. Which makes me wander if adding Ca/Mg will help my plant or not. I definitely don't want to damage it any further, but by the looks of things she is loosing leaves to brown spots. And i don't like it.
Next res change is coming up in two days, so she will get another batch of fresh nutes, pH'd to around 6.2 and probably something to help with Ca problem. Hopefully she will live long enough so I can harvest with milky trichomes.
My USB microscope has not arrived yet, so I'm still using jewelers loupe to check the triches. At first I could see they are all clear, but today I'd swear they are not as glittery as they used to be. It's very difficult to see, and I don't see any amber ones, but I think my girl is very close to be fully grown. Microscope should arrive in two days, so then I will be 100% sure of the triches condition and will hopefully start the flush before harvest.
I also read about keeping the plant in the dark for last two days (48 hours) of flush to improve taste and/or potency. It sounds a bit fishy to me, but is there any truth to this? Any evidence? Or at least an explanation as to why this should work?
EDIT:
So my USB microscope arrived today and I put it to good use right away. I added 3 more pictures to last week. Technically they are not from week 13, but anyway... the triches, man! Even on "Ganja porn #1", which is just a sugar leaf, there is loads of them, and none of them are glistering. Then on "Ganja porn #2" is a closeup of a bud. Since depth of focus on these things is very small I tried to do my best to get as much detail as posisble, and OMG! it's all white!! These two photos were made with 50x (-ish) magnification. The last one, "Ganja porn extreme" is a cutoff of a bud, placed on white paper. I then jammed USB microscope up against it and set magnification to 250x (-ish). Yes, my girl has big balls, and they seem white to me :D
So I'm thinking I should start with the flush for few days and keep her in dark for last day or two. I'll be checking up on her daily to see if something weird is going on, but I do think I've managed to not kill my plant and it seems she loved how I treated her. Perhaps Bubba's Gift likes a bit of rough play :)
So now that my girl has shown you her most intimate secrets, please cast your votes: To harvest or not to harvest?
So... the brown spots in the last 2 photos. Are they Ca deficiency?
Will I do extra damage if I add Ca/mG supplement?
What is the upper concentration of Ca/Mg concentration for cannabis in DWC grow?
How can I tell if I add too much Ca/Mg?
Help please!
hi there homeboy, first off, daym ! best description i've seen in time out here bro, seriously top marks. You're killing it in every respect. Second : tap water - how are you gonna trust the authorities to tell you what s in your water, same people putting chlorine in there right? That's actually the main problem with tap water : it's got a bunch of chemicals in there that will eventually lead to issues in your plants if you're not careful. So if you're using tap water you can do two things to avoid "cross contamination" or "inter-chemical" lock outs - these are not technical terms by the way, just how i think lol. Take tap water and leave it out for 2 hours or over night - should let the chlorine evaporate. Or use two tablespoons of the cheapest active carbon you can find and just add it to the water, give it a stir, wait an hour. this will remove the chems that might prevent uptake. When you add Cal Mag suplements, again you're correct - can't really be too much, the saturation dose will be indicated on the bottle, and every one of those cal mags are a bit different. One thing they wont tell you is that there is actually plenty of N in those things, so balance that out accordingly. finally a little known fact is that Ca uptake from the roots is efficient at like 20% not much more. Ca uptake by the leaves is 95% so almost perfect. The quickest way to fix the deficiency is to use a foliar spray - just be careful not getting the juice on the buds when you do it - maybe use plastic film to protect the buds. i think the max does for cal mag in the water is like 64 Mg/l but dont quote me on that, that might be the max dose you need for the spray, and I cant find my source again.... hope this helps bro ! 🚀
Another week has passed and she is still alive and kicking. Ca deficiency has taken a toll on the leaves, but flowers are still blooming, still getting fatter and triches are getting milkier by the day. Most pistils are now brown and curled, few white ones on very top of the flowers are also curled, but not yet brown. Triches on top of the plant are still somewhat clear and glittery, while triches on middle and bottom part of the flowers are quite milky. It does vary from flower to flower (and there are about 30 of them above SCROG net), but I'd say on average they are 75% milky.
Since most of the triches seem nice and white, I decided to back off with nutes. Also measuring EC became kind of weird... up until now EC would keep dropping as days went by, I assume the plant was taking up more nutes that water so the nutes solution kept "loosing" salts. Last week, EC did not fall, it went up. My thinking is that the plant no longer requires so much nutes and prefers water. I might be way off on this one, only time will tell I guess.
Instead of preparing fresh batch of full strength nutes I prepared 1/3 strength. Due to Ca deficiency I added Pro-Cal from GreenPlanet. It was a Ca/Mg/Fe supplement with lowest nitrogen content I could find. Hopefully this will stop brown spots on the leaves from getting bigger.
I hope this is going to be my last week of flowering. To me the plant looks ready for harvest, but it's those pesky trichomes that are just not all milky, and there is no amber to be seen no matter where I look. I will keep an eye on them daily, so that when I see the first amber bulb the plant gets the chop!
As you can see the plant almost looks like she is pretty much ready to be cut. Almost. Unfortunately I now have USB microscope with which I can choose to see triches at 250x-ish magnification, allowing me to clearly see the color/milkiness of the triches. Consiquently, the triches are not amber. They are white. It is a lovely white, but it's still white. As for milkiness I am quite sure I have at least 75% milky triches every time I look at them. Except that when I take a photo of the triches and go back to check up on it on my PC, away from the plant, all the clear triches jump form the screen, and I must come to terms with the fact that the plant is still growing, still making THC and other yummy goodness.
But the flowers look awesome! So much white stuff on them, flowers are still getting fatter, even growing up a little tiny bit. Hopefully I will spot an amber triche soon or look at closeup photo of the flower and not see any clear triches, so that harvest can begin.
On a side note I think that extra cal/mag helped. No new brown spots on leaves, damage looks contained. I also reduced the amount of nutes to 2/3 of the recommended concentration. It's a kind of flush but not really, just keeping nutes a bit lower because of added cal/mag.
EDIT: Added photos of the triches from day 105. They do seem a lot less clear than last week, but still nothing amber. The waiting game continues...
This was the final week for my plant. She started to show some pale green leaves, and generally did not look as good as would have liked her to. Maybe she was just at the end of her time, maybe it was me with all the shenanigans I pulled that got to her. Either way, the results is clear: I managed to not kill my girl!! 😎 She sprouted, grew, was cut, grew some more, developed beautiful flowers, covered them in white crystals and matured to a fine specimen.
Smell also changed a bit at the end, becoming more strong on the fruity/citrusy note. So final scent was quite strong fruity/citrusy with undertones of earthy. Really nice smell.
As photos show, I did not take very good care of the plant under the screen. My guess is that all those subtle suggestions for me to perform some "light defoliation to let more air and light in" should be more like "cut the stuff below the net or else it will become a jungle". And jungle it has become. Luckily there were no pests or diseases in there, so all is well.
Some more data about this grow:
- it took 24 hours for seed to pop open on a moist paper towel
- it took 5 days from seed to first leaves
- it took 54 days from seed to first flowers (visible pistils)
- it took 111 days from seed to harvest with 57 days of flowering
- seedling was under week 13W LED bulb for first 10 days from first green matter
- after Day 10 plant was under DIY LED strip light (10x Bridgelux EB Gen2 560mm 3500K strips mounted on DIY aluminum frame, no cooling required), driven at ~20V @ ~7.5A, totaling in ~150W of power draw from the outlet.
- distance from light to plant was always very short, not more than 20cm at all points, but mostly just 5-10cm away from the plant. This was possible since LED strips run very very cool when driven around 50% of maximum power.
- for this grow I used total of 27 g of MaxiGro, 173 g of MaxiBloom, 266 mL of pH down and 35 mL of Pro-Cal
(with the prices I paid this works out at 0.66EUR of MaxiGro, 4.31 EUR of MaxiBloom, 3.43 EUR of pH down and 0.42 EUR of Pro Cal, for a total of 8.83 EUR of nutes)
- pH of nutes was between 3.5 and 6.77 with average of 5.99
- EC of nutes was between 610 uS and 2799 uS with average of 1831
- temperature of nutes was between 16.3 °C and 23.5 °C, with average of 19.5 °C
- temperature of air was between 13.9 °C and 26.5 °C, with average of 20.4 °C
- relative humidity was between 23% and 70%, with average of 45.5%
Charts of all parameters are included in photos. You can easily see how bad I treated this plant, so I for one am very pleased she battled it out to the end 👍 Very good strain for first time growers like myself 👍 Again kudos to HSO for developing such a fighter!!
After less than a week in the jars I decided I need to at least sample what I've grown. So I ground up 2 buds, filled my pax 3 and started to vape. This stuff is amazing for several reasons:
- At first all I noticed was the smell. Nice smell, unlike anything I've smoked/vaped before. Mostly fuity/citrusy, big difference from the hay/skunk smell I get from the stuff I buy
- The taste. There was actually a taste. I always thought that cannabis taste when smoking is more like the taste of wine (which is about the same from my viewpoint for most wines), but my goodness! This thing has taste! I actually felt like I had a bit of lemongrass to chew on in my mouth. An actual taste.
- Last but not least are the effects. It came on really slow, almost creeping up on me. I was just sitting on the couch and I could feel it slowly crawling through my body. At first the high was fully energetic, bordering on euphoric. Awesome feeling, which I never attributed to (mostly) Indica plants. After an hour or so relaxation started to kick in. It did not glue me to the couch, it just made me really really relaxed. And a bit hungry.
There was no harshness in the smoke, no excessive coughing. I'd say it was the most pleasant vaping experience physically. Psychologically it was also a blast. Not sure if it was the best smoke, but definitely one of the best.
First of all, give credit where credit is due:
Cheers to ledgardener.com. Without this site I would not have made my grow light. I got all my knowledge of LED strips and drivers from there, folks in forum section are awesome and willing to help.
Second site that provided most of the info about growing is growweedeasy.com. LBH's Famous ScrOG Tutorial was the basis for my growt, and other articles on growing were really helpful. Juts one note here: If you read a tutorial make sure to read it. All of it. I though I read all of it, but it turnes out I missed the last two sentences. End result being I only had about 2-3 inches of flowers above the net, white the tutorial instructs to have 6-8 inches above the net. 6-8 inches would have been much better.
Since this was my first grow, it was also my first harvest. And it went similarly to the grow: Mistakes were made. Unfortunately, they were all made by me. I've had some good, some bad and even some ugly moments.
Sprouting and vegetative growth worked perfectly for me. Except for few pH/EC acrobatics my plant had to endure, I did not do too much to harm my plant. Except for not changing nutes for 6 weeks. Which resulted in slime in my nutes bucket. First lesson learned: DWC bucket must be kept clean and fresh, otherwise there will be slime.
SCROG wen't quite well, I tucked like a champ. Except for the branches I broke and had to take off, but that was like just 1/4 of the plant. One of the "ugly" moments, I felt like shit when I had to take that branch off. It was another lesson learned: Plant can be broken, so "may the force be with you" when tucking.
After that I started flowering cycle. Seeing first pistils was awesome, seeing first frost was even better. The smell was getting stronger every day, and scents changed during growth from pure fruity to mostly earthy back to fruity/citrusy. Appart from the weird slime smell in between, when my nutes started to stink a bit.
During the grow quite a lot of people politely suggested I defoliate my plant "a little". I did not do that. I just let it grow however she wanted, except for tucking under the net. This resulted in a jungle in the middle of the plant. Combined with my failure to read the "6-8 inch above net" thingy, a lot of the buds were below the net, in shade. That would be the jars marked with circle (mediocre stuff) and minus (shite). I'm yet to try how good the mediocre stuff and shite are, but at least I got around 70g of buds from above the net.
At the end of the grow leaves started to turn weird color, some became crumbly. Adding Pro Cal seemed to help a bit, but this was very close to harvest so I'm not sure if this would have worked if it happened earlier in my grow.
Then there's the harvest. One of the most stressful times, since I had no idea when exactly to harvest. When I thought my triches were milky, they actually weren't. Which meant more waiting, more checking, more hoping that Ca deficiency doesn't creep up to the flowers. I'd say the wait was worth it, since smoking is soooo good.
Here's the best advice I got from internet on harvest: wear gloves. I only had one plant to harvest and trim, and I wen't through 3 pairs of gloves because they became so sticky I couldn't work with them anymore. Chikamasa scissors were also lifesaver. Super easy on hands and fingers, sharp as heel and very precise. I love them!
Trimming was weird for me... I've studies just about every part of growing from all sources I could find, but I never got around to read up on harvesting and trimming. So my buds might not look that nice and there might be a sugar leaf or two that could be trimmed further back, but that's for the next grows.
Then it's drying and curing. Drying was quite easy. After trimming I hung the branches from the SCROG net in growtent, turned of exhaust vent and waited for 4 days. I did measure temperature and humidity during drying: temperature was between 13.5 and 18.6°C, humidity was between 39 and 61%. I kept checking for the elusive "small branch that snaps without leaving any strings", but I was never sure if I'm there or not. After 4 days outside of the buds were dry as dust and I got scared I over-dried it. When jarred, RH was around 55%. This triggered panic purchase of Boveda 62% packs (which are yet to arrive). Lucky for me, humidity in jars kept rising from day to day, settling down at - yes, you guessed it - sixty-fucking-two percent of relative humidity. I could not have been any luckier.
After a bit less than a week in the jars the buds don't feel that dry anymore, they actually fell perfect.
All-in-all this was a great experience. Next grow has already started, it will be the same strain with the same light and nutes. What will be different is:
1. First topping will be a bit later, because this plant is very slow grower at the beginning,
2. I will back of with pH regulation a bit. pH will be between 5.5 and 6.5, but it will not be corrected as aggressively as this grow.
3. This strain does not stretch. Like at all. So I will grow it to just about it's final size before triggering flowering.
4. Way more frequent nutes changes. Possibly some benes inoculation of roots and bucket. Anything really to keep that slime away.
I think that is it. Thanks to everyone following this diary. Thank to everyone who commented, thanks for every advice (even if I disregarded it; I'm probably gonna use it in my second grow), for every encouraging word. See you in my second diary, which should be up any week now :)
So after few weeks I think I can provide a bit better review of the smoke. After a good month of curing in the jars I can describe the smoke only as awesome!!! This thing gets me higher than I've ever been before, and it does it all without any headaches, any paranoia, even the dry mouth is not really that bad. It's definitely indica and it does have some of the sativa in it, but none of the racy thoughts, just a bit of that "up" that allows you to still do stuff while being high.
The only potential downside would be the smell, as it is quite persistent. It doesn't smell bad, but it could give you away very easily if you were going for extreme stealth.
I love this plant and I'm so happy to have another one growing right now.
Also I'm now a firm believer in jar curing of weed. I honestly don't care if the effects are subjective, all I can say is that _subjectively_, this shit gets stronger each week and I have started to reduce the amount I vape in a session, since it can get me so high that I become useless (which is excellent if you lifestyle allows you this kind of stuff).
@h0m3b0y, What a great way to end this diary 👌
I'm so glad you like our Bubbas gift, for your first grow and harvest you did a fantastic job with our genetics 👊
Great to hear this will be your 2nd strain grown also. That lets us know we are doing our job correctly 👌
Enjoy your curing Bubbas gift, you are correct each week the flavours change along with the potency and high 👍
Thank you for ending your diary this way👊
"Diary approved"😎
With love from Humboldt County✌️
Kind regards
Team-HSO..
There you go. Last three photos show what she was capable of under my wing. I did a lot more checking of the triches under microscope both at 50x and 250x magnification, and I must say those look not-clear to me. I would describe them as milky.
These shots were all from middle of the flowers, so not the earliest buds and definitely not the latest. The ones on top are still a bit more glittery, although none of them shine as much as they did a week ago. The bottom ones are quite similar to middle ones, no amber color spotted so far.
As for pistils I'd say about 50% of them have turned brown and curled, with another 25% looking like they are about to follow. The top ones are brand new, just few days old and are still bright white and pointing upwards.
I really want to start the finish (bit of flush and bit of darkness) and then chop, but internets are full of warning that first-timers do have tendency to chop too early.
Please advise.
@h0m3b0y, you're correct about the trychomes bro, it's one of those you know it when you see it. just wait until you start seeing the first few ambers - every strain matures differently though, just be wary of that, because they can turn overnight 👍
@h0m3b0y,Haha yes it can be an issue for many noobs but many of them can't get a magnifier ( or dont wanna ) so they are fare behind you. To me if you want some amber trichomes on your buds then you should chop only when you see some , during drying some trichomes will get amber ( 5% to 10% ) so you can chop at 90% milky and 10% clear you will probably ended up with 90% milky and 10% amber trichomes. But personally I like 10 to 30% amber and with my amnesia haze sometimes more. And about your feeding I would give them the full dose during the last week before the flush ( but I'm not sure it is the best to do)
@OutForReal, I'd say I'm way past 50/50, even past 75/25. In fact I have trouble finding clear ones, but this seems to be harder as the time goes on as I don't have any reference of what clear triches looked like :(
Currently the plant is in 1/3 strength of nutes with added cal/mag/iron supplement due to the brown spots. My plan was to wait for the first sign of the amber color in the triches, then switch to plain water with lights off. Should I chop before I see amber?
The "noobs chop to early" is always at the back of my mind so every time my brains tells me to chop I somehow manage to hold back and just keep observing those triches.
Also the pistils have really started to turn brown and curl in in the last two days, the flowers are really starting to look like they should be finished pretty soon. But it's always that "noobs chop to early" thingy...
OK, I entered this one into the newbie diary competition thingy. How are winners picked? Is there a voting system?
I felt reluctant to give my address details because growing these plants is very much illegal in my area.
@h0m3b0y,Hi, the winners get picked by Growdiary Team. If you are afraid to get packages or something you dont have to take the prices. But you can participate without fears
After gd has picked the winners( 10 days in the new month)you are asked ,when you are logging in ,if you want the prices or not.
Again, thanks to everyone for all the advise, it's juts priceless since I don't know any grower where I live who could help me. Only stoners buying anything they can get their hands on. Good folks :)
I was really hoping the plant would be harvested, dried and cured by new year. This would have been super cool and a great introduction into new year. Alas, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. But fear not, there is always silver lining.
To be honest I'm not in that big of a hurry anymore. I really wanted to have some quality smoke for new year, but just seeing how my plant grows each day, how buds fatten and grow bigger, how little white trichomes form all over the plant is just amazing. She also started to smell really nice, and I just love how the scent punches me in the face when I unzip my tent. On one occasion I accidentally brushed over some sugar leaves with my hand while adjusting SCROG net. The smell increased 100-fold and my hand got supper sticky. This really small thing made my entire day!
Since I have around two weeks of flowering to go I'm already gathering supplies for harvest, drying and curing. Got my Chikamasa scissors (really light scissors, very sharp and very nice to use for extended periods of time), got my Calibre IV hygrometer, still looking for mason jars with a lid that actually seal well when closed. It's funny how it's the thing I think will be easiest to buy end up being the most challenging to find.
Just as an estimate, how much bud should one expect from a Bubba's gift grown under 150W of LED strips? Plant was vegged for what I consider long period (SCROG net almost filled to the max) and will be flowered for the time prescribed by HSO (or until triches reach desired state). HSO website says 400-600g/m^2 for indoor, but that really doesn't mean a lot to me. I just need an average yield for 1 plant. Any ideas?
I'm not too keen on defoliation, since it's the big green leaves that absorb most light, transform it into food for the plant and then transport it around the plant to keep it growing. I'd much prefer to have a lush green canopy fighting for every ray of light.
But given a choice between having to pick of few leaves because they seem unhealthy and loosing a plant, those suckers came right off. So now I have a plant that's more airy, and still grows quite well. It's my first grown so I have no reference, but since the stretch stopped (if one can call that a stretch, it just grew a bit more and then started to form flowers) flowers have been developing quite nicely.
I'm just glad that my plant is still alive, still doing well, still making bigger flowers which are surely to make awesome buds. There must be 30+ flower sites on the canopy with god knows how many under the main canopy. Also the white "snow" on leaves around flowers is a site to behold. To me it's mesmerizing and I can only wander how strong this will be compared to what is available on (black) market in my country.
Your buds look wild bro! I grew this strain and mine looked very flat on top not so pointy and fox tailed. Just a random little food for thought: the people who grow for extraction purposes usually harvest early unless a high CBD/CBD - typically these are THC degradation byproducts - is the end product goal. If a more "couch-locked" high is wanted harvest on the later / more "ambered" side. 👍😁👍 Happy NYE
Here's a question for you folks: I'm in 11th week now or 6-ish week of flowering. The plant doesn't look "ripe enough" to me, even though I have no idea hot a ripe cannabis plant should look like. Will there be anything wrong with letting the plant grow a bit longer? I wan't to be able to see what over-ripe cannabis looks like so that next time I will know when the time is right.
According to what I read on internet I should only get more CBD in the plant with more couch-lock effect, but otherwise I should be fine. Is this true? Should I be more careful about harvest time and get me a USB microscope to spot that milky white color the internet seems to love so much?
@Humboldt_Seed_Organisation, Every bit of info helps! I did some more reading on internet and USB microscope in on the way already. Should here by end of next week.
I'll keep an eye on the triches and start the flush when I they are mostly milky, definitely before amber kicks in. As soon as I see the first one become darker, I'll probably harvest. Coucklock is not what I'm looking for :)
@h0m3b0y, Personally I like a nice 10-14 day plane water flush if using traditional nutrients and not an organic line. By the sound of things you don't want a "couchlock" high so I would harvest with a maximum of 20% Amber trichomes. If you have many more you will have a very strong high and not what you are looking for 👍
If you could get a USB microscope that would be fantastic and will serve you well for many year's to come 👌
I hope that helps a little my friend?
With love from Humboldt County ✌️
Kind regards
Team-HSO..
@Humboldt_Seed_Organisation,
I got a magnifying glass right now and I think I can see the triches, but am seriously thinking about getting one of the USB microscopes. Better picture would be a fool-proof method for the job.
My plan is to go for a bit more energetic high for my evenings. I definitely don't want sleep medicine and I don't want to be glued to the couch, but I also don't want to race around the house like a energizer bunny :) So a nice heady high for a lovely evenings with my significant one.
According to the description above, what should be my target trichome state for harvesting?
And second question: How many days of flushing with pH'd water do you recommend for this strain? I plan to start the flush on the day my buds will look like they are ready for harvest and keep at it for 4-7 days. Does this sound reasonable?
Great grow diary! You have quite the data display going? Did you use an app?
Man, your girl looks so much different than mine! Too bad we can't twist two up for comparison!
@h0m3b0y, I think I will grow this strain the next time in a 7g pot. I'd like to mainline it and try to get about 10-12 tops using a longer veg. period. Bubba finishes fast, so it won't add any time to the grow. I'd really like to see some really nice giant purple buds out of Bubba.
@h0m3b0y, It is Botany after all. I've found that the best way to learn is to develop a system. The only way to do that is to keep accurate and detailed notes on your grow. That's why I love GD. Its an easy place to keep all of your data. I also use Google Calendar to keep track of feedings, events, etc.. Finally, I have a giant whiteboard left over from my classroom! I write notes and keep data there as well.
Each grow becomes easier because you put the time and effort into learning how these plants grow. Your next grow will be so much easier, and more successful.
@h0m3b0y, I agree on the smoke! I really love this strain. I also made a few mistakes in my grow. I learned a lot for the next time I grow this strain. I have 4 beans left. I wanted to wait for my fall grow because I really, really like the beautiful purple the buds turn in the cold weather.
Ultimately, I'd like to be self sufficient.
@Quexos, it's another bubba's gift :) I feel that I shouldn't change much right now, because even though it seems the grow went just fine (or even great), there were problems. I did my best to post the nice photos and just wrote about the problems.
I would really like to learn from my mistakes, correct them and then move on. So I'll be doing the same thing for the most part, and juts try to get even more product, better product. And I want a flower that will not like it's dying come harvest time.
Also bubba's gift has been really forgiving to me so I kinda like it because of that.
Plus I think I can honestly say that this is the first proper weed I smoked. Maybe a white widow I smoked in Amsterdam long time ago was close in quality, but I was young and didn't pay attention that much. If it got me high it was good.
Now I see that the stuff I can buy on the streets is shit compared to what I have grown. It gives me headaches, lots of dry mouth and munchies, sometimes paranoia, etc. I only smoked bubba once so far, and there were no negative side effects.
Congratulations!!! and very nice reflection of your handling.... And a question to the scissors, chikamasa scissors you wrote but wich one=? the bonsai scissors=?
@Mrs_Larimar, Chikamasa B-500SF, they are fruit (grape) picking scissors. I ordered form guy on ebay (lovely-love-chan0509), shipping from Japan, very fast shipping. Maybe the curved ones would be better, but straight ones work for me.
If you're from the states just get them from amazon.
Bud canopy looks great! Buds look a lot different than my grow. Mine were more rounded...and smaller 😪 I'm surprised that your buds aren't turning purple considering your temps. My Bubba's Gift grow turned all purple towards the end of the grow. My girl smelled a lot like Fruity Pebbles. It stinks up the room when I break a bud apart to smoke.
@h0m3b0y, You must have a different pheno of this strain. Yours might lean heavier towards Bubba Kush and mine toward Grandaddy Purple.
This is currently one of my favorite strains. I'm trying to let it cure out, but I'm having trouble keeping my hands out of the jars!
@Quexos, I do see just a little bit of purple on some of the very top buds. But the purple is only there, and it is not on all flowers. I guess the genetic lottery granted me a seed without purple colors. Which is a bit of a shame, because I was hoping for colored plant :)
Smell is quite strong now. The fruity/citrus smell from before is now just a background hint, the plant smells mostly earthy/spicy now. Smell is not as strong as I expected, which is good. Helps me to stay stealthy.
@Mrs_Larimar, I check my triches every night, and I can't spot any of the amber ones. But in general the plant looks like she is done. Not much new growth anywhere, no new white hair, remining white hair curling up and turning brown very fast, leaves slowly becoming pale, some flowers starting to hang a bit... as in not being completely upright anymore.
To me, she looks like she will soon end it one way or another. So I'm probably going to finish this week with 48 hours of dark period, then chop. So tonight is probably her last night with lights on.
Great trichome shots! They look pretty milky. Give it at least another week before you start sharpening your shears. I've heard some growers use a 70 day rule. 70 days after first flowers appear. I used the breeders recommended flowering time last grow, but I started my count AFTER flowers appeared. That kept me from cutting down the girls too early, but it only gave me a window of harvest. After that it was trichomes, and willpower.
@Quexos, yeah, will power... I have plenty of that until I go check up on her and see all the frosty buds... than I'm kind of in a hurry :) Maybe that's why my brain just sees the milky trichomes and skips the clear ones.
i agree with your assessment my friend, probably got another 10 days minimum let's see, they can turn over night so just got to keep on checking... again bulbi with the bad news - hey at least its the truth!
@h0m3b0y Man its hard to believe this is your first grow! Not to mention this is your first diary?! (Welcome to GrowDiaries btw) Its well done and filled up nicely. Be sure to enter it into the Diary of the month when you have finished. I hope I could help resolve some of your issues you mentioned above. Feel free to ask me anything you need 😎
So I won a noob diary with this one and got me a so many free seeds I don't know what to do with them. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO VOTED FOR ME!!! I can only grow 1 plant at a time, and can maybe do 3 grows per year. I prolly have enough seeds to get me to retirement :)
On the downside I should have won a prize from mars hydro as well. They send me email saying I won their stuff, but when I replied they didn't write back or send anything. They don't reply to any of my emails now. Not cool mars hydro... not cool at all.
h0m3b0y
