Second Grow - Aero - AlphaKronik F2

This grow is all about AlphaKronik F2 (Dogbud “Chem D” x Dawgfather (Chem D x Sin City Kush (Las Vegas Purple Kush x Snowdog BX))) I'm excited to grow this Chemdog dominated lineage, and I really want to see it- and smell it- live up to AKG's website description. I really want some pungent stinky cannabis in my life again, and this Oregon breeder makes this sound like a winner. The description makes it clear these ladies will bloom with flowers exuding a thiol-laden resin. Garlic, fuel, and funk loudly filling a room at the crack of a jar is what I imagine. Fingers crossed for a success over the holidays. Aside from the wonderful genetics, I'm also excited about not needing to buy ANYTHING outside of consumables for this grow (although I might still choose to buy additional equipment). This might lead me to building a small format solution for housing mothers so I can speed up the grow cycle. 11/10/2019 - I'm calling tomorrow day one for convenience. Sunday just works better, so here I sit on Saturday morning writing this. My AlphaKronik F2 clones (I only got one mother from 4 seeds, so they all have one mother) are taking root in the rockwool. I've dropped them into place in the aeroponic chambers, I've only gone one clone with exposed roots so far, the rest are definitely rooted and should catch up within 2 days. Starting these girls on a mild nutrient solution to get them acquainted with their environment. I plan to increase their nutrient concentration to 1300 PPM and maintain that level through the grow-- as suggested by another aeroponics grower on a separate forum. Obviously I'll decrease nutrient concentration if I see signs of burn, but I want to see if there is any truth in this guidance. Should be a fun grow over the winter. The indoor conditions are much more controllable this time of year, so I hope to avoid any flower defects. Looking at the schedule, if I go six weeks veg, I'll be flipping to flower right around Christmas week. 11/14/2019 - Remember that thing I said about clones being "definitely rooted" and only waiting on a couple to catch up.... that was a lie. I checked everyone today, only three clones are actually rooted, the rest are trying hard. Likely extend this first week into two weeks while I wait on some of these girls to become real living clones. Stay tuned! 12/7/2019 - Remember how I started this diary a month ago?! Well I finally have rooted clones. My living space is a little too cold for clones to root, so I got a cheap lamp + halogen bulb to heat up my clone chamber. I have five plants into the aero chamber, and I'm waiting for the final ONE of several cuttings to put out roots. C'mon! This is supposed to be easier now! 12/9/2019 - At this point I'm not even mad, I'm just really curious how, a full month later without roots, these clones are still green . I added a more flexible green cutting to the mix on 12/7 and I figure out of five contenders, one has to throw out roots soon. Until then... So the plan is to grow four AlphaKronik F2 clones + two Black Jack clones, and this journal will document the AlphaKronik F2 ladies. All four are from the same mother, only one of the four seeds popped showed female. Fortunately, one is all I need. I'll occasionally mention the Black Jack, if only to note the differences or oddities. Like right now the BJ on site 4 looks to be doing a re-veg. This is odd because all of the mothers lived together in the same environment. I had noticed the BJ pushing to flower despite the light cycle, but not a full flower-- just more calyx growth than I saw with other plants still in veg. About the AlphaKronik F2 clones - Sites 1-3 look great, taking well to the aeroponic environment. Still awaiting new growth. Existing growth has perked up significantly and deepened in color. Site 6 will be my final AlphaKronik F2 plant, awaiting these clones taking their sweet time rooting. The first to poke roots through the rockwool wins a cushy life with food misted directly onto their roots, climate controlled living space in a high rent city, excellent lighting, and free healthcare. But first, you have to root! 12/10/2019 - We have a WINNER! Finally, a tiny root poked through to bottom of an AlphaKronik clone! Transferred her to site 6 and now we have a full house. All other sites are showing new growth, I'll be happy to have six well-sized plants this time around. Really curious to see a fuller yield. I'll likely order a couple more QB panels after the end of the year, in mid/late veg. I want to really maximize this grow space and launch a small seedling/early veg tent by the end of this grow. Losing my closet for three months sucked.

Starting this week a day early... what am I talking about? That first week was so long my diary got de-listed. So this week starts "early" to get it out of purgatory. 12/14/2019 - What a week that last one was! I'd like to say that I enjoy my Newvape FlowerPot very much, it's making my previous harvest VERY enjoyable. Happy to stop inhaling smoke, and trading it for a strong flavorful vapor from the same flower is a plus. It made the end of that long wait for clones to root bearable. This week I've seen all my ladies perk up and start putting out new growth. The girl on site 4 (BJ) is the strongest grower again, all of the AlphaKronik ladies are starting to put out beautiful roots. I'm very excited to see how this all develops. 12/15/2019 - Last grow, I got a recommendation from another person who looked to have experience with HPA growing. This person said I should run nutrients at 1300 PPM the whole time. I will work them up to this concentration and see how it goes. Growth was slower than expected last time around (Aeroponics is supposed to be a fast method, decreasing time and inputs, etc.) and I'm willing to see if this is good advice. For now, these clones are on a half concentration of nutrients at ~700PPM to get accustomed to the aero system. The girls are happy so far, I'll increase steadily once they all have herringbone roots.

12/22/2019 - Beginning of week 3 veg, yay! Nobody cares! Seriously though, not many folks are cruising journals scoping out dank vegetation. Growth looks less alien now, the girst are getting settled into their environment. This week I'll have my fingers crossed that site 3 takes off-- it is lagging and can still catch up to the first topping. I'm really aiming for a more uniform canopy this grow. I have all females from the start, all from the same mother, all rooting within a week of each other. The onset looks promising. If all goes well, I should be topping the first time and starting LST with the first screen in about two weeks. Hopefully two weeks from then I am considering another topping or flipping. All this, and I still need to think about additional light in the tent! I'm still very excited about this second grow!

1/1/2020 - Happy New Year to me. Just got back in town and my girls are looking GREAT! I love being out of town for a week when I can trust my system. It's great to walk into a week of growth. Well, it's not all great. Site 3 has some significant damping off at the base. She hasn't grown at all, and I've since broken away the rockwool in the area and she has tons of airflow. Even if she survives, she's definitely stunted. I'll have to top the other girls early next week and start training. If site 3 heals, I'll be lucky to see two new nodes by then. I can still push out another good yield, I may have to spend an extra week in veg to fill out my ScrOG.

1/5/2020 - Topped these girls today and lowered the first trellis down to open them up. Going to let them recover before taking more cuttings to reduce larfy waste. Also looking into a rosin press for this harvest. These girls already smell in veg; I hope the wreak in flower. 1/11/2020 - I've got to cut back site 4, at least on the shared sides. She's HUGE and overtaking the Alphakronik that I really want to grow. The Alphakronik ladies look super healthy and lush right now, just growing more slowly. I've got three of them that will be worthwhile and a fourth tiny clone that may or may not make it to the light. Tomorrow I'll be trimming back excess branches and focusing on clearing out lower flowering sites. It looks like 2 weeks more of veg will have this screen filled out.

1/12/2020 - What's new this week??!? These girls are really smelly, stinking up the tent in VEG! If anything, this grow has shown me how much genetics matter. The difference between the two strains I've grown is huge and I'm getting really excited for the flip. On the technical side, I'm trying a significantly shorter spray time and dialing in the mist timing this week. I got tired of maintaining the pressure accumulators I hacked together. They work beautifully, I have another design idea I've been too lazy to build and test. (The problem: Air permeates the bladder, over time the bladder fills the whole accumulator. Proposed solution: install Presta/Schrader valve on the air side of the accumulator bottle to make regulation easier and experiment with adding a pre-charge to the accumulator [that would mean more consistent sprays/droplet size. Concern: I have no idea what to expect from the structural integrity/longevity of my materials if altered this way.) For now, I've hacked it by reducing the duration of the spray so that less pressure is lost during the misting. At 1.3 seconds open, roughly 20 psi is lost v. 40 psi lost @ 1.5 seconds open (this is with the accumulators out of service). I have not attempted to accurately measure the actual spray time v. set trigger timing. The girls on sites 1-3 looked a little wilty, and there was no accumulation of nutrients in the basin, so I had to increase the amount of overall water being delivered regardless. It still surprised me how much I had to increase the spray frequency to cheer them up. Reducing period timing from 120 seconds to 75 seconds with the new trigger timing of 1.3 seconds spray. Anecdotally, this has had an effect, sites 1-3 have perked up and grown noticeably.

1/18/2020 - Trimmed back a bunch of undergrowth this morning. As noted in my last grow, I'm culling low quality bud sites more aggressively. It's not as good as bud anywhere else on the plant and is more work to process. Hard no. Pruned out anything that would never reach the canopy, this included some hard decisions about some girthy lower branches that just weren't going to make it to where they could be great. Shame that the second strain is out-pacing the AlphaKronik that I really want to yield. I'll keep trimming it back and keeping it reasonably sized. Topped in crucial places to will need some additional coverage. Looking like another 10-14 days of veg to fill out this ScrOG.

This will be the last week of veg. I really want to flip these girls already, but I feel they deserve the full two weeks from the final toppings. This tent is going to be very full of stinky bud. I'll be thinning much more aggressively this time. I really don't want to process a bunch of larf, so I'll be pruning out any under-developed growth in the first two weeks of flower. Until next week, I'm basically just waiting and maintaining the course. Everyone is happy, just gotta keep it that way.

2/2/2020 - The official first day of 12/12 is here! The flip is always exciting. At first it looks like nothing's changed, plants go CRAZY for a couple weeks as they stretch out to get those wind-pollinated flowers pushed up as high as possible, but don't actually put out anything that looks unfamiliar. Here's to the first week of that phase. I'll have my work cut out for me keeping this canopy managed nicely. Over the next two weeks, I'll be culling any weak growth that would result in larfy buds. I'm not really wanting to deal with as much larf this time around, I would prefer that energy go into the nicer buds elsewhere on the plant. 2/8/2020 - Pruned out SO much twiggy growth. Just going in with my hands now and pinching out anything that will never see the light of LED day.. Also switched the reservoir nutrient balance today.

All week I've gone into the canopy and pruned out anything I saw that wasn't going to produce desirable flower. What does that mean/look like? Anything new branching with thin stems and large internodal spacing, anything that is bright/light green, and anything that doesn't come near the canopy. I commit to doing it nightly for the first two weeks of flower because it is a mundane big task. I've weeded this canopy more thoroughly than my first grow, and I look forward to seeing how it pays off. Hoping to see this pay of with beautiful flowers all over the canopy, and much less energy squandered on producing larfy bud. The smell is the tent on this grow is already as strong as the full-ripe flowers from my first. Really learning about the importance of genetics on this grow. Maybe these girls will really put that carbon filter to the test!

2/16/2020 - This week the ambient humidity in my city was high, so I had to start using the dehumidifier again. So I had to raise the temp of my apartment (otherwise the unit freezes over and accomplishes nothing), and I forgot how much it contributes to reservoir evaporation so I had a mild nutrient spike. These ladies are frosting up much sooner and growth is noticeable overnight at times! 2/20/2020 - Flowers are stacking, and colas are starting to form. This is making it easy to target remaining larf bud. Leaving most of my foliage intact on this grow after some convincing reading by Coco for cannabis and a user's personal experiment comparing yields of defoliated vs. bushy plants. Seems like more than just bro science that cannabis pulls stored nutrients from leaves, so leaving them in place should increase the amount of available nutrients during flower. 2/22/2020 - Flowers look larger this morning that just last night. This is really incredible and a testament to good genetics. Sugar leaves are already coming in on week 3 of flower. Really happy with these girls so far. The smell factor is also present. Pruned out some additional undergrowth (mold prevention at this point) and the cuttings smelled quite gassy. Loving this lineage. Along those lines, I'm not sure that spraying 30 PPM colloidal silver has been accomplishing anything. I'll keep at it, I understand it takes some time, but really hoping to get some pollen so I can make more of these ladies.

2/23/2020 - The start of week 4 flower looks promising. The ladies are really starting to stack up buds now and the sugar leaves are getting better every day. I've gotta start doing some more research on making hash, etc, with the lower less desirable buds. That'll be my homework in the upcoming weeks while I'm waiting for these girls to finish. Not much more to report this week, just waiting to see what the next week holds.

From last week, I'm seeing so many good looking sugar leaves, this harvest is definitely going to be better than the previous. The smell is developing nicely in the tent. Starting to smell more overripe melon, papaya bile on in there; sometimes I'll stick my head in just to get a hit of the aroma. Carbon filter is doing a great job keeping scent contained in the tent, we'll see how it is when resin production increases. Changing nutrient ratio this week to late-mid flower. Bumped up Flora Bloom and tapering off on Grow. Keeping nutrient levels between 1300-1450 PPM, topping off daily. The dehumidifier is doing a great job maintaining conditions to mitigate mold risk. These flowers loo so much better, I keep thinking I should be harvesting soon, but I know they've still got a long way to go, not a single faded stamen yet. This harvest is going to be DOPE! As a footnote: This journal started to glitch in week 11, no longer keeping the entered values for Day Air Temp, Night Air Temp, and Solution Temperature. Those values are [75F, 70F, 70F]

3/8/2020 - Whoops! I accidentally ran a reservoir for too long and learned an important lesson. My PPMs kept coming in high, and I kept topping off for a whole week. Not sure exactly the deficiency I was seeing, looked like CalMag, but it became apparent that the nutrients had gotten out of ratio. Lower leaves became necrotic, upper leaves showed damage at the tips and splotching on the main leaves. Built a new reservoir and will now do so every four days. Also decreased the time in between sprays to 1.3 sec every 45 sec (from 60 sec). Smell is getting more potent, and buds are beginning to bulk more. Hoping the Alphakronik puts on some weight; this harvest may be a little lighter than the last, but buds do feel tighter and denser. I'm wondering if I should pop four more Alphakronik seeds... do I want to go right into another grow? Gotta decide this week. Considering switching to only four plants per grow. More even spacing, better training. Either way, I'll have to pop seeds and find females again.

3/15/2020 - COVID-19 panic is still on the rise. My job has essentially ceased for the time being. Now I'm stuck at home all day with a tent that is only on at night, so it's doubly unfair! I should be nearing the end of flowering with these girls. Pistils are starting to change to orange and I'm seeing a second push of fresh white pistils now. Maybe three weeks from now? I'm either entering the beginning of a fade or battling nutrient imbalances, only time will tell. I've been changing reservoirs out every four days and really leaning into the Bloom nutrient solution. Checking pH and PPM twice a day right now, and letting the PPMs creep up a bit, near 1600 before bringing them back down to 1400. Scent is really picking up. It's hard to tell, but I don't think my whole living space wreaks. I'll do a better job curing this time around to preserve all this wonderful bouquet. After watching some videos on bubble hash, it's looking like I've found an answer for all the bud I don't want to trim. I'll make hash, then either keep it as is or press it into rosin. Either way, it'll still be a ton less work than trimming a bunch of larf and more useful than mulching it. I was able to take some pics right after lights out this morning. Moved a floor lamp into the tent and took pics for about 15 minutes. Too many beautiful buds! 3/17/2020 - I've been riding my PPMs pretty high all week, at about the 1650 PPM average. The plants seem okay with it, but I'm not sure. I'm still seeing some spotting on leaves that looks like CalMag deficiency. Ran out of pH UP, and it'll be a couple days before my order arrives. Levels seem to be fine, and I put a blanket over my reservoir in an attempt to lessen prolonged evaporation. I'll might build smaller reservoirs that can be sacrificed when pH gets wonky. I should probably pop four more AlphaKronik seeds, cause I got some things I want to test. Namely: Canna AquaVega/Flores, both stages are a two bottle blend. The main draw: Aqua line is supposedly pH buffered, which would make my life so much easier right now.

3/21/2020 - These girls continue to look better and better (except some of the fan leaves) as it looks like resin production is picking up. A small area of lighting overlap is causing some light stress, I've raised the lights a touch but I'm essentially as far up as I can go. I'm seeing a couple colas get foxtails at the tips, and while they look dank I'm not in love with it aesthetically. Alphakronik buds are tight but cohesive (big nugs) cola development is short before small gaps between flowers appear. This makes me think my harvest will be lighter this round. However, I know it will be hard to evaluate the yield comparison between this and my first harvest. Some things to consider: • The overall cola lengths are shorter, but buds are tighter/denser. • All buds on the plants are much frostier, indicating a higher quality crop. • Remaining lower buds are much frostier • I have bubble bags now, and can easily convert trim and larf to hash • I have a rosin press and will press out much of the hash • I will have a mix of final products from this harvest, last harvest was just flower I am thinking I will run a second round of AlphaKronik. This time 2x2 clones, and I my hesitance to pop seeds may have afforded me some time to redesign and build improved aero-chambers with a future 4x8' tent in mind.

3/30/2020 - Last week I really pushed the upper limits of PPM and feeding. I made the decision to lower it. The high values seemed detrimental now, buds were showing some odd foxtail tips and leaves were looking burnt. Backing way off for the next two weeks while the AlphaKronik finishes. Likely that pics are going to look very different soon, the Blackjack I don't talk about much looks ripe at the tips, waiting for the rest of the cola to catch up and then she's coming down. Since lowering the nutrients, the Alphakronik is started to give off more of its fuel-driven stench. This harvest could end up a little lighter, with smaller buds overall, but the quality will more than make up for that. I popped some seeds on Friday last week, three of four have popped, with one potential dud. This close to harvest means I'll have a little time to do some system maintenance and re-design while these mothers grow out a little. Stuck at home this week, I'm looking at getting a couple oz of trim from another grower and doing a dry ice run maybe taking that to the press. Just kill my boredom.

4/7/2020 - All the leaves are dying fast now. The canopy is fading, and I'm biting my nails hoping the flowers finish ripening in time. I'm starting to see some amber at the tips of colas, but further down the same bud I'm finding no amber and even a couple clear trichs that need to catch up. My best estimate is that this is the last week. I almost don't want to post pics because my canopy looks kinda gross with all the necrosis occurring from nute burn two weeks back. Much of the canopy is yellow and crispy up top with some green leaves still in the mid section. I've put the girls on their final nutrient cycle, running down closer to 1000PPM, focused largely on bloom nutrients. As for smell... I've been keeping it cool indoors, so the scent is a little muted. I'm hoping this shapes up in cure. I believe it will because whenever I touch a bud (I have a couple nugs I do this to) my hand comes away smelling potently like gas mixed with a touch of asparagus pee. Getting excited for harvest, can't come soon enough.

4/14/2020 - Starting to feel like a crazy person. These girls are just not finishing. The very tip top of several buds is completely amber, visible to the naked eye, while only a couple inches lower I'm still seeing almost zero amber. I read another piece on determining ripeness through additional indicators, and they also show that I have a little time. My pistils are pretty much all faded, and the top-most pistils have retracted into the calyx a bit. Waiting on the rest of the bud to catch up. I don't mind a little bit of this harvest getting couch-locky (separate it out for night time) as long as I'm getting the majority of the flowers up to primo goodness. It would be a shame to harvest early and put all this waiting to waste. I dimmed the lights a bit last week hoping that would simulate decreased daylight-- or at least save some cash-- and convince these girls to finish up. I also dropped PPM to 1100 max, often pushing it down to ~800 PPM on top off. Leaves have stopped dying for the most part, and the fade seems to be setting in more normally now. There's a decent amount of brown in the top layer of the canopy, and remaining leaves are fading at a rate more commensurate with the ripening of the flowers. In other words, I'm not worried about these girls making it to full ripeness, just getting tired of waiting. Odor is medium/low, but I'm hoping that points to me keeping temps down and not losing valuable terps more than anything! If they smell really strong, it means all that odor is being lost from the plant. I'm getting real thirsty for these buds, but holding off chopping for as long as I can stand. Can't wait to dry/trim/cure these girls, squish some for rosin, and hash out/press the larfy buds. Tons of time for it right now anyways. 4/16/2020 - Tonight I took a sample bud from each plant to check ripeness. I trimmed away a couple sugar leaves to get a clearer view of the trichomes, put the loupe to my eye, put the bud to the loupe (under ripe), then went and apologized to my neighbor for the extreme gassy odor. Holy hell, @Alphakronik-genes you breed some nice ladies. 4/17/2020 - Things have literally progressed overnight. Amber trichs have made their way further down into the canopy, and I feel like they're definitely going to finish up just fine. The Alphakronik is maybe a five days out from 48 hours of dark. The other two ladies in the tent are just a few days ahead of that. May chop those without light deprivation. Gotta start prepping for harvest now!

4/19/2020 - The decision has been made. These girls will see their final lights out at 09:00 today. They look great and are retaining a bunch of terps at around 70F for harvest. Lights out before harvest? Some claim that 12-72 hours of darkness before harvesting increases quality. Should we be doing it as a practice? I've done some reading on this topic, and there are a lot of great attempts to think through the logic of being a plant; and countless anecdotal experiences claiming one way or another. Above all of it, one comment set my mindset for my decision: a user pointed out the finite energy reserves of a plant without light. It immediately reminded me of a Coco for Cannabis podcast when he talks about the ebb and flow of these energy reserves. I recall he says that during a typical 24 hour cycle, a plant will have spent the vast majority of its energy reserves by the time lights come back on. He even says that plants "survive" the dark; important language. This point about energy usage from finite rules that a plant won't be able to do/produce much without light during an extended dark period, and that any improvement will likely be marginal. Cannabis will constantly produce cannabinoids during flowering, but these molecules degrade when exposed to light. Additionally, terpenes volitalize rapidly above about 68F, so daytime temps work to lower final aroma. Harvesting after a dark period seems to be the most basic best practice for the best quality. This is balanced by some point where energy hits a low threshold and cannabinoid synthesis halts as a result. With this in mind, I've landed on 24 hours of dark before beginning harvest. I figure that doubling the dark period should be sufficient time to pass the point for any additional outputs from the plant. To let it run out whatever energy stores, but past that point is likely non-beneficial in terms of any type of output from the plant.

I am a little disappointed with yield on this grow. I am sure the yield has more to do with me than the genetics. I decided to flip to flower earlier than I wanted for Alphakronik because a second strain in the tent was going to become overgrown, and that definitely impacted my final yield. Additionally, the rockwool starting substrate may be a problem going forward. Rockwool stays too wet, and the bottom of my main stalks showed some rot in the early stages of vegetation. This problem widened the development gap and must be solved. Neoprene collars? Peat plugs? Looking into it for the next grow. I dried for 8 days and trimmed then went directly into jars for curing with Boveda 62 packs. My buds were just a tiny bit over-dried, sitting at 58% RH in the jars without Boveda. I'll have to get a weight on it in the upcoming days, trying to keep it in the 62% RH environment as much as possible. Intense gas and chem, tennis balls, and some of that acrid garlic the breeder described on their website. I really like Alphakronik Genetics and the team over there has been great to do business with. I'll be running another line of their genetics in my upcoming grow, but trying to figure out which one is going to be so hard! I just picked up seven strains from them during their 420 sale, and I will have to decide in the next day what to pop! 5/2/2020 - I decided. Next grow will be Maturin (Alien Rock Candy (Kind Love cut) x Alphakronik) by Alphakronik Genetics. I've been on a dark kick lately, so the Maturin turtle from Stephen King's Dark Tower saga appealed to me (as well as dense buds of ARC and the coffee undertones in the description for this strain, love me some coffee cannabis). In this next grow, I will focus on getting chunky buds, starting off with a mainline structure and marrying that to a double layer of trellis for training and support with a more open structure for air/light penetration and longer, bulkier colas. I plan to run 4 clones in sites [1,3,4,6] because sites [2,5] routinely get crowded out. For now though, I've built a soil with Miracle Grow Organics, perlite, vermiculite, and peat. I know Miracle Grow is trash, I only need to veg these mothers for a short while and I'm not concerned with the quality of the soil for flower. It was easy to get and will be fine for my purpose. I will admit though. I have seen some beautiful indoor beds inside tents and I am being tempted by these soil setups. Maybe in the next place I live I can have another tent for soil grows. Still not sure if this hobby is going to make me broke or make me financially stable, haha. Check back for more pics and updates.