We're about half way through drying, and it's not time for another diary update of the harvest report yet, so I'll write a progress report here in the comments, most of which will be reiterated in a week or less when the dry and trim are completed.
This grow was the first grow of the year for me. I decided to do everything differently. A huge shout out to @love_2_grow for helping me build my mind map plan for growing this beauty.
While I did harvest her early, this is by far the most exciting grow I have done in my nearly 3 years since migrating to indoor, after 18 years of outdoor growing (nearly 21 now). I'm still growing outdoor because I haven't perfected my indoor game yet. I would have liked to be done with outdoor a couple years ago, but I'm not there yet. Indoor growing is harder in my climate. I live in a very hot and extremely humid climate, in a valley area between a few mountain ranges in northeastern US, where moisture likes to settle.
In the summer, humidity gets close to 100%, though most of the time around 80-90%. It took me a while not only to get the equipment to combat those extremities, but also to configure the grow room, tents, and ventilation system to work adequately for them. While this is still a work in progress and nowhere near perfect yet, it did allow me to get through a harvest. This would make the 3rd consecutive harvest that I had zero mold issues (so far, anyway...drying and curing properly is extremely important). All other harvests in the last 3 years of indoor growing, and there were close to 100 plants, have been infected with either powdery mildew or botrytis, and such were trashed.
This plant exhibited the most surprising terpene profile during the grow. It is a sweet citrus smell, that emanates through my entire living space when the tent is open -- a very potent-smelling plant. The smell was so potent, that it stunk like citrus several weeks before flowering even began. I would recommend this plant to anyone looking for some incredibly powerful aromas at the very least.
As far as the drying process goes, we had some difficulties so far. Humidity was nearly 100% outdoors, and roughly 70-75% in my lung room with several commercial-grade appliances at work. The only way I could get optimal drying humidity levels was, first, by running some ducting to a heavy-duty air conditioner to my tent's bottom intake port, relying on the cool dry air to lower the humidity. Because relative humidity is relative to temperature, this only brought the humidity down slightly, since there was cooler air being blown into the tent. During the grow, I had near perfect temperature/humidity, and therefor VPD levels, only because of the addition of light and a heater in the tent. Because I want to dry in the dark in order to preserve the cannibinoids, and because I wanted a good temperature to preserve the terpenes, I had to get creative with the A/C ducting, in addition to using that heater that resides in the tent. As such, I have been drying at about 72-76F, and 55-64% RH, depending on the day/outside climate. It's not the most ideal condition to dry in, and certainly not consistent, but so far things are looking okay.
The downside is, the tent heater needed to lower the RH, despite a dehumidifier in the lung room, has significantly reduced the aroma of the drying plant, about half way through drying currently. There's not much I could have done differently -- this climate is really awful. My hope is that when drying is complete, and they enter the curing jars with a good humidity for my usual 4-6 weeks, the smells will be a bit more exaggerated.
At the end of the day though, I'll be happy with my first ever CBD-dominant flower to smoke, as I really found out this helps me more than anything for some medical conditions I have.
I did everything different this grow, in an effort to learn more about other techniques, and to better my understanding of growing cannabis in different ways, starting with a very large raised bed with a new soil recipe, and ending with a type III chemovar cannabis seed.
All in all, I'm happy with the result, despite all the difficulties I encountered along the way, and continue to encounter during the drying process. I'm happy, because I learned more than I ever did in 3 years of growing, by trying various new techniques, soil amendments, climate control configurations, and taking note of where to go in the coming grows.
I've come a long way from growing moldy weed for a couple years, and I never gave up. I'm getting better and stronger, and have all the information I need to make things even better for next grow.
I just want to thank everyone here that has shown me support under my new account here, and wished me luck on my beautiful purple variety here. You all are what drives me to do better. So much appreciation for all of you.
I also want to personally thank @love_2_grow for his kindness in supplying this seed in a seed swap, as well as his recommendation for me to move to no-till organic gardening using a raised bed more than a year ago now, and only just now being enacted. I've seen all I need to see to continue this method, so thank you for everything!
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