Growing : fourth experiment

Excalibur_Althing Fourth grow I started, just experimenting with what can be done with custom made LED-lights ..... (Now growing the same strains, only a few more weeks to go :-) ) Wife uses the Herb to her full satisfaction Seedling growlight is also custom made, now total of 60W led strips for first days/week. Light is 50% blue, 40% White and 10% growled. After a week of so I ad 2 CFL 5500K lights, 30W to keep them going until they go in the tent under my ,again, custom made LED growlight. This last one is very powerfull: 300W Blue, 200W Red, 300W Grow and 2 CFL 85W 5500K. All led used in this one are 50W COB versions. Day 5 : last of the Big Bud seeds didn't take, so I'm left with 8 BCN Critical, of which 1 is slow in growing. Could be this one gets eliminated Day 7 : all is well. Growing nicely, Slow one is still lacking in enthousiasm :-) All pots are in an extra tray, placed on top of a heating mat.

Excalibur_Althing Day 10 : All seedlings doing well, except the only Big Bud seed I had left. This one doesn't want to grow very fast it seems.... I'll give it another few days and then I'll see,.... But if this one stays this small, she's going... Day 13 : all seedling are doing well; even the small one seems to be growing at a slow but steady pace.... think I'll keep her :-)

Excalibur_Althing Als of the seedlings are doing great! Even the little midget is creating his third node... I am keeping her, just to see what kind of a plant she'll become. Changed one of the nutrients from Plagron Alga Grow to No Mercy Grow Sensation. This one only needs 0.5ml/l and gives great results, as I found out with the previous grow. 😍 Had to put them on to two trays under the lamp instead of one, they're getting wide... and it's easier to take pictures. I put in 2 CFl 35W as extra light, because I felt they were stretching a bit. Should stop now. 19 days old : all seedling are doing well..... even midget Big Bud is growing very good. Ladies are getting about 75 ml each per day. Next week I'll move them to bigger pots and the big tent...

Excalibur_Althing Fourth week : Day 23 : still veg, , only biggest one is showing a few minor blooming features... All are doing fine, just one showing some nutrient deficiency , but this is to be expected. Pots are too small for the plants now, I know.... but I'm still waiting for my tent to be empty (drying previous harvest. I hope the previous harvest will be dried within a few days) I have to put these new ladies in bigger pots. and under a big light.... looks like I've started this growth a few days too soon... Something to keep in mind for the next time... Day 25 : Biggest one is stretching somewhat and already 24 cm high.... and is lacking nutrients due to the small pot. (lowest leaves are yellowing) Previous harvest is almost dry enough to put in jars. Can't wait for that, so these ladies can grow to their full extent in the big tent in big pots :-)

Excalibur_Althing All plants are in their final 11liter pots. They're getting both growing and blooming nutrients this week. As I found out in previous grows they can handle higher doses of nutrients than I expected. They are getting 300ml of water with nutrients every other day, since the soil doesn't dry out completely. One of these days I'll be adding bio co2 in the air, this combined with the CO2 tabs should give an increase in growt/bloom. Light is now 300W LED growlight, when adding the bio CO2 , 170W of extra CFL will be added to increase the amount of light and increase the temperature in the growtent to about 28-29 °C. The plants can handle this without problems, and the soil dries out faster, so the roots have to work harder..... I used this method the previous growt and got nice results (202 grams dried buds out of 8 plants, with the mini buds discarded to make oils . Small buds were about 100 grams in total) So I'm hoping to have about the same result this time too... :-) Day 31 : started LST today, curious about how fast these ladies will react.... :-) No Mercy Supply Nutrients Sweet jane 1 & 2 are combined as prescribed in the switchover week grom Sweet Jane 1 to 2. Day 34 : added Bio CO2 , this will be replenished when the bubbles stop. Bio CO2 = empty bottle of coke, fill 3/4, ad 20 ml of plant food, add 150-200 gr of sugar, shake untill sugar has desolved, add 2-3 gr of dry yeast and shake again. Fill the bottle completely with water. Withing a fex hours the bubbles of CO2 will start, depenting on the room temp. This should last about 2 weeks. Ladies are stretching some, but nothing extremely. Beginnen of blooming so some more weeks to go. Light power is now at 450W. Temp in the tent is now around 29° C. So every day they get 200-250 ml of water per plant with nutrients to keep up with the higher demand of the plants and the higher temp.

Excalibur_Althing Week 6 : pampering week.... all plants have rooted very nicely, so this week they get a treat.... higher soil moisture throughout the day/night, starting with 250ml water+nutrients per day. I' ve experienced with the previous grow that giving more water and nutrients in this week , it gives a boost to the plants. So I want to know is it was pure luck, or this really works.... only way to know for sure is to try it :-) (Seeds are from the same strain as the last grow, soil is the same, nutrients are the same... so ...; we'll see.) 36 days : some heath stress, but still doing fine. Increased the humidity slightly and giving more water/nutrients per day, Bio CO2 is giving slightly less, so the temperature should drop slightly and the heath stress should dissapear within a few days. (I put 500PPM CO2 added , but no meter so, just a guess :-) ) If not I'll have to increase the ventilation to bring the temp down. Now the carbon filter & fan is doing 325m³ per hour, which I can increase with another 125 m³; should be enough

Excalibur_Althing Week 7 : Day 43 : switched over from 250ml water/nutrient solution to half dose nutrients and half water. After a week of pampering, it's time for some stress. Only thing that is the same is the soil bacteria I ad, to make sure the nitrients are absorbed. CO2 is reduced , as the reaction in the bottle is almost over. This week nog more CO2 added through the air, only through the CO2 tabs in the nutrient/water mix Tried to give one plant an overdose of food (2-3 times the recommended dose) , as can be seen on one of the images. She survived with only a number of leaves that have discolored. I'll remove them later this week, and also start to defoliate the lower branches partly. I still am trying several things to see how the plants react, as this is an ongoing experiment :-) Since autoflowers have a shorter lifespan than feminised seeds, I have to try something every grow I do. In the future I'll be trying some HST on feminised non autoflower seeds. This is as soon as I get a bigger growtent for my autoflowers So far everything I've done hasn't reduced the yield very much , so these ladies can handle a lot :-) I like it !!

Excalibur_Althing Week 8 : Day 50 : changed my homemade led (which gave me 3 nice harvests) for a 315w CMH (3100K bulb) kit with Azerwing reflector. I'm curious how the plants will react to this change. They are smaller than the previous grows, probably due to staying in the small pots too long - (Had to dry my previous harvest :-) ) All plant doing nicely, trichromes are being produced at a reasonable rate, but this should improve now with the CMH. At the end of the week I'll defoliate the ladies. I know, this should have been done already, but as the title of this diary says... it's an experiment. :-) At this time I can remove the burnt leaves and keep green plants for the last weeks.... Day 55 : Just gave the ladies their weekly lemonwater. :-) 250ml water each, with only Plagron Lemon Kick in it. PH 6 for one time every week on Sunday. They seem to be "fresher" the next day, so think this helps them. Since the ladies have only a few weeks to go, I also defoliated all of them, removing the large fan leaves on each plant. The one plant with nutrient burn, I left the burnt leaves, just to see what it will do... They seem to have stopped discoloring/drying out. Pictures coming, with the start of the next week ;-)

Excalibur_Althing Week 9 : Day 57 : Defoliated all the plants partially on day 55, no difference until today in how the plants are doing. Only removed the large fan leaves. Light should penetrate the lower parts of the plant better now. I know how they develop when the leaves are not removed, so curious if this makes a difference in the size of the lowest small buds ( good for oil ) They still get the same amount of nutrients/water. Most of the plants are semi-ready. Trichromes are almost all milky, so still some time to go. This harvest I want to see how these strains taste when 50% of the trichromes are amber colored. Should have a lot more CBN in them at that moment, so curious about that and about the effects.

Excalibur_Althing Week 10 : Day 66 : posting 2 days late, but all is still going well (BTW : white spots on some leaves are not bugs, just exchanged my carbon filter because the airflow was down to nothing after the first 3 growing experiments. So had some old pollen flying around in my tent.) All plants are doing fine. One of the rear ones is beginning to show its autumn colors, even with low thrichromes count.... Could be a nutrient deficiency, but all others are looking good, so probably a slower blooming phenotype. Several of the lower smaller buds are also packed with thrichromes. This is the first time I have this much thrichromes on them so defoliating seems to work :-) Harvest is coming closer!! I think that at the end of the month the ladies will be ready. Maybe a few days/week later, but I'm not in a hurry. I'll keep an eye on the thrichromes (I want a part to be amber before I harvest) and then decide when to cut them down. Adding No Mercy Supply Guano Extract to boost the production of thrichromes and have a sweeter taste. I know, should have started earlier, but I'm down to about 100ml of Guano. So only enough for a 2-3 days (Giving 4 liters of water/nutrients a day) and giving it every other day I'll be glad when these ladies are harvested, since the 2 smallest have a lot of thrichromes !!! Hope I'll have some effect of these when I put them in my vaporizer or chillum.

Excalibur_Althing Had to harvest somewhat earlier than I wanted, but one of the ladies was too top heavy and broke. Smallest of the two ladies have a lot of thrichromes, about 20-30 % amber colored :-). By the end of the week I can put the dry weight on here. I didn't weigh the plants wet, because this time I'm going to dry trim them. Previous two time I set trimmed them, so want to see the difference in work . Update 05-06-19 : Drying complete !! Just finished weighing all of the BCN Critical , came out at an reasonable 148.39 grams. There are 2 different "potencies" in this harvest. The regular which is as we are used to, and the +++ version. These 2 smaller +++ plants are full of thrichromes, even the sugarleaves are entirely coated. The smallest of the "fluffy" buds aren't trimmed completely, since they will be used to make oil or edibles. The +++ version is having a bigger impact on my wife than she expected. I haven't tried this one yet in my vaporizer, but I'm curious about the effect. :-) Athough the plants were smaller than the previous grow, the total harvest weight is higher. I do think the CMH bulb is responsible for this. Since I don't have the time to start a new grow now (4 weeks holiday at the end of july/beginning of august). But when I get back from holiday I have 20 strains to choose from, of which 10 have to be selected for the first grow. I'll also be trying out new nutrients, I have made a (large) selection out of the Bio-Nova line. As far as I know not a lot of people use this brand, so I have to test it :-) All in combination with 2 pieces of 315W CMH lamps in a newer and bigger growtent (240*120) Can't wait for the holiday , and can't wait to start growing again :-)