RDWC - Royal Gorilla RQS

So, with these interesting times and what is becoming a fast evolving global catastrophe. I, myself, along with the rest of you ( I hope ) can take some solace in looking after our gardens, to have some peace away from the news, to give our ladies the best care we are able to provide 🌱 If you ever needed any vindication or validation as to why growing your own is best. More than half the world currently in lockdown, and with MJ in short supply, our actions speak for themselves! Anyway, back to this diary. I done a lot of work on the room, invested a lot and tried to make everything as automated as possible. Everything runs on smart plugs, the hydroponic system is DIY and is RDWC which is cooled with a Hailea 150a. 6 plants is what I am going for this time, with a shorter veg length compared to the last grow. I prefer to wait until they show their sex, but if they don’t by week 5, I plan on flipping anyway all being well. I am using 730nm LED’s that come on 15 mins before lights on, turn off during lights on, and then they come back on when lights go out, and stay on for 15 mins. This should enable me to run 13/11 during flower with little risk. I am also going to add a UVB fixture to my custom rig which will only be used during the final 2 weeks of flower. I have 3 Alibaba lights attached to a custom rig, they really are awesome lights. I tested the room out with an Apogee SQ-520 par meter (PAR map in pics). I have dimmed them down, so PAR is around 500 across the whole canopy, this will be increased to 1000 once they’re flipped. I vent from my house, to the room and then outside, this increases the CO2 in the room, which I think helped the yields on the last grow, generally CO2 hovers between 470 and 700 PPM. My ladies look a little sick, but tbh, I struggle starting out in Rockwool, and things usually correct themselves within a couple weeks. With the quarantine I have struggled to pick up a humidifier that is capable of maintaining that room, so it has been all over the place since the start. I have opted to go with Royal Gorilla this cycle, let’s see if it’s as potent as RQS says that it is! Good luck all and take care...

Hey Guys, Growth has taken off a lot this past week, have had to add a heater to the grow which isn’t ideal but with warmer months coming this should only be temporary. I have the thermostat set to start the heater when temps go below 23°c. Watching Dr Bruce Bugbee on YouTube, he stated that growth does start to suffer below this temperature. One of the plants has some odd colours and growth which I’m pretty sure is Mg deficiency, which is probably due to that particular girl being more sensitive to PH swings than the rest of the ladies. I have had to insulate some of the circulating pipes as the water cooler was struggling to keep the water baths cool. Seems to have helped keep temps down a couple more degrees, I mate have to reconfigure where my water cooler is in the piping run after this grow Finally a special thanks to the GD team for selecting my previous diary for DOTM, very flattering considering some of the great content that was submitted for March 2020! Happy growing all!

Well, this week has been eventful. What started with a fly deciding to lay eggs in my buckets with larvae swimming around and chilling on my roots turned into a bit of a disaster. I used very weak H2O2 (diluted 3% solution). To try and clean infestation, the roots didn’t like it, even though the actual concentration of H2O2 was probs less than 0.25%. Lesson learned 🙃 It has given some of them a touch of root rot (this is an assumption because I can’t figure out what else it could have been). So growth has stunted a lot. Just before the bug problem, I increased EC to 1.1, this was probably another mistake, the smaller girls at the back with a smaller root mass got massive lock out, potassium, mag and calcium by the looks of it, coupled with a few not so well timed PH swings out of the 5.5-6.5 range gave me a lot to combat this week. But, life goes on, they’re still alive (just about)... As this is probably the hardest curve ball I’ve had thrown at me since I started growing canna, I have cut back the EC to 0.56 to allow them to heal. Probably wrongly decided to top them all as they were growing past 7th node, either it’s gonna pay off, or I’ll be posting harvest details of 0g by this time next week 👽 I am on a stay at home holiday from work for the next 3 weeks, so looks like my babies are staying in the ICU and I’ll do my best to bring them back to life 😊

This week things have stabilised a bit, my bigger humidifier came on D26, so hopefully that will help slow transpiration a little! Not really much to report, plants are growing okay, one of them is still struggling a bit, they’ve all been topped for the second time. As I have one plant per 4ft sq, I think I might only mainline to 4 mains, haven’t decided yet! Have bought a Torus Hydro PH balancer, will see if that helps with the PH swings going forward 🧐 Happy growing guys!

Hi Guys, This week has been pretty good, the plant at the bottom right just seems to struggle her way through everything, she has loads of roots, they keep growing but for what ever reason she look plain ugly and grows very slowly above the water which is evident when looking at the photo lapse I have uploaded. I bought a Torus PH Perfect capsule which is a chemical free way of stabilising the PH, since that has gone in the brain bucket, I haven’t had to make any PH amendments yet. You can see it at the end of the video. They have all been topped for the 3rd and final time around D32-33. I will train some tips down so they don’t become dominant, but other than that, they’re gonna have a free week or so of growth with no more slicing or cutting before I flip them😊 Hopefully the ugly one will have bounced back by then and I can push forward into the transition with 6 healthy bushes.

Probably the smoothest week since the start, I think that this pheno is a light feeder compared to Strawberry Lemonade in DWC, still running EC at 0.9 max and they’re doing fine, will be increasing the EC in a few days time to around 1.2, last thing I want is lockout during the stretch! Roots are pretty darn big, the bottom right plant is growing well again now although she has probably lost a week or two on the rest of the pack, I’ll try to train plants close to her away so she can get a decent share of light. Flipping them to 12/12 today so the long march to harvest starts now. Dates on the time lapse are unfortunately the dates I uploaded to the app, not necessarily when the pic was taken, but it gives a good enough steer on progress and how long it has taken. Take care all!

A lot of growth this week, the back right is rather spindly and tall compared to the rest so will need to train her down quite a bit I think. I have some soft ties coming in the post tomorrow so will be doing some extensive LST over the next few days, aiming to spread out taller plants and giving the shorter ones a chance to catch up. I did do some HST this week, but I botched a few up and had to add a splint to one of them. The tall one also has a couple yo-yo supports as she was leaning over a little bit. PH swings are less frequent but do happen from time to time, went as low as 4.7 PH during lights out but doesn’t seem to have affected them. I am determined to have an even canopy by the end of the transition period this time 💪

This week has gone fine except for one thing which I’ll come to later on. Still stretching, canopy par level is 900 on average and I don’t have any way of getting the lights up further. Hoping the intense light will slow the stretch down a bit but we will have to wait and see. Worst case I’ll have to dim the lights down a bit. That leads me onto the mystery of this week. The nearly dead plant. I have no idea why it has gone so limp. You can kind of see on the photo lapse how quickly it collapses. Incase it’s some kind of disease I’ll give it another day in there. If it doesn’t recover I’ll have to pull her out and try to train the other plants over her empty spot so I don’t waste any light. EC is around 1.2-1.5 atm, the highest dose I’ll be giving them will be week 4 and 5 of flower when the buds seem to do the most weight gains (visually). Canopy is actually quite even if you overlook the hole in the canopy, maybe a couple inches between highest and lowest. Anyway, thanks for checking in guys, if anyone has any thoughts/comments about the dead plant let me know as I’m struggling to find answers online. 😊

Not much to report this week, strung up the yoyo’s on D60, stretch seems like it’s almost over, some of the colas at the back are a couple inches too close but I can’t really get at the back anymore (usual issue with my set up). All bud sites are forming well, time to sit back and watch them bulk up over the next couple weeks 😎

Bit late posting this but the pictures are from D70, with work I didn’t have time until now. They’re still filling out the room ever so slightly. The girl at the front is suffering from light stress even though she’s the shortest, I have dimmed the light above her down to 70%. Out of all the the plants she has been the most difficult to manage from the start and has the smallest root mass. The other plants seem to be handling 100% with no issues. I have to say, at this stage of the grow, they do smell nicer than Strawberry Lemonade, very sweet and perfume like, harder to grow it seems but I am looking forward to trying her in August! Thanks guys!

Another quiet week, plants are slowly loosing lower shaded leaves as expected, luckily they aren’t growing any taller anymore. Will be surprised if no foxtails appear as the par is 1300-1400 around some of the taller colas. My lights in total are using 810w, as I have had to dim the light at the front down by 30% a couple weeks ago. DWC really is a breeze during flowering, barely any work to do, kinda miss having a reason to go in there for anything other than observing 😊 Happy growing all ✌️

Nutrients remain the same and will so now until the ripening stage. I don’t really know exactly when she will be ready, I assume she has another 5 weeks in her or so. Only the trichomes will tell 😊 Buds are starting to bulk nicely now and from the photo lapse it’s evident that some of the colas are starting to lean. Girl at the front is still rather ugly and the bud formation on her is not uniform like the rest. Just goes to show how different each seed can be even when growing the same pheno in the same conditions. I think they’re due a complete water change out tomorrow for the first time since the flowers started to form around F14. The PH is starting to swing over the course of 1-2 days which is usually the signal I pay attention to and force myself to stop being lazy 😊

Another breezy week however, we had some hot weather here, temps were up to 34°c in the room for a day or so which caused a bit of tip burn. When plants are forced to transpire more in a high VPD scenario, one should reduce the EC of the water by 10-20%, this helps the plant take water easier through osmosis without taking up more nutrients than it needs, unfortunately as I spent most of last week high and didn’t notice it until the second day. Will start to post more pictures every week now they’re looking a bit more interesting 😁 EC is currently at 1.4 due to hot weather, and I’ve noticed when it hovers around 1.6, the EC drifts up to 1.7-1.8 after 3-4 days so thought it was best to cut it back a little. UVB during lights on will soon be introduced, possibly at the start of week 15. Thanks for stopping by!

Not much to report this week again. Had to string more yoyo’s up as a few colas were starting to super crop themselves and it was opening up light patches on the floor which hurts my OCD. Was a challenge to get in there and must say taking two washes and a few sprays of alcohol after going in didn’t get rid of the resin off my skin quite as easily as I had hoped. I pulled away most of the dead leaves that I could reach, still need to fix the door handle though... 🙃

I guess the correct headline here is bud rot. Took a while to figure out why I ran into these issues, after a bit more snooping around and investigating I came to a mostly certain conclusion. My passive intake was clogged with dust, barely any air was coming into the grow room. This, coupled with the fact my temperature and RH sensor/recorder was giving me back dated information and applying it to the present day. I didn’t realise I was getting 80%+ RH spikes during lights out for the last 3 weeks. I’ll call it a lesson, and start to check things more regularly around the grow room, not just the plants themselves. After a heavy crop scout with sterilised gloves and alcohol rub to hand, I carefully pulled back and inspected every cola, washing my hands between each cola. Unfortunately most of the largest colas fell victim to botrytis, in the end I cut off 7 colas completely and carefully sorted through into 3 separate piles on D100. One pile was the bin put into double tied sandwich bags with a good spray with 70% alcohol , this contained directly infected areas with a 5cm radius. (235g including fan leaves and stems (wet)) The second pile was for buds that were within 10cm of the rot sites that appeared to be healthy, this went into a brown paper bag, ready for hash making when I complete the harvest in the next couple weeks. (305g including buds and sugar leaves (wet)) The third, and most limited pile was bud sites that were more than 10cm away from the rot sites. These are now successfully dried and are now in their curing jars. Based on the smell, they already smell better than my last harvest so I’m hoping it’s a sign of things to come. (58g buds (dry)) I had to buy a 4x4 tent to temporarily dry the good buds, and will use again when I do the main harvest. The top colas that are left look a little stressed this week, not sure if it’s to do with shock from early harvest, but I am going in and checking every other day with clean clothes to make sure the problems are not progressing further. Based on the trichomes (video) the samples look like they’re a week or two away from harvest now, so hopefully I won’t have the throw anymore away before then. Anyway, waffling over, mainly wanted the detail for my own reference if I ever have to come back to this (I hope not). Good luck all!

Tried my best to hold on but had to abort a week earlier than planned. Rot continued to grow and I wasn’t sure how bad it had spread in areas I couldn’t see. Luckily I think I only lost another 6 ounces dry, maybe more, not sure really as I binned immediately if I came across any abnormalities. Trimming took around 10 hours with 2.5 people. She will now be hung up for 5 days to dry, hash will be made from trim tomorrow. Harvest figures with some better photos will follow in a weeks time. I am going to move back down to 4 plants this time, 6 was a bit too much for a space I struggle to access. I’ll take more care to trim lower growth tips next time to increase airflow, as I was chopping I realised just how dense the undercarriages were. I am also changing my lights to a lower wattage as I think I blasted them a bit too much during this grow. Have already vaped a couple bowls and am really impressed with the flavour profile, she hits more like an indica vs the last grow and the stone is certainly heavier. Hopefully I will be popping some Orange Sherbet seeds before the week is out, stay safe peeps 😷

Cut a week early and a little bit of drama along the way, some issues with persistent bud rot from week 14 or so most likely caused by my blocked intake filter. I learned a lot during this grow and will take these experiences and hopefully turn them into a better next time! Will definitely have another go at growing Royal Gorilla in the not too distant future, however I think I have enough to smoke on for quite some time. Overall appearance of the buds and their structure are not as pretty as my last run, however the flavours, yield (1.48 gpw) and potency make up for that imo. Thanks for following along, good luck with your grows!