26"x26" 220w HPS Vertical micro grow

[JustDoIt]

I'm back! 2 weeks with minimal internet usage and I feel refreshed (now the hard part will be not falling back into the same unproductive habits as before!)

I hadn't factored in the 2 weeks (roughly) it took from switching to 12/12 to the first signs of real flowering so I'm still a couple weeks away from being ready to chop 'em.

Nothing really exciting to report, I've begun feeding them plain pH'd water (maybe a bit early?), I'll let the pics say the rest!

Glad to be back here!

White Widows:

 

[JustDoIt]

Aaaand the Blue Cheese:

 

[JustDoIt]

Yesterday was day 61 since switching to 12/12 and trichomes on all 3 plants are looking mostly cloudy (on the main buds, the smaller ones are still a little too early I think...), I took a few buds from each one and they're drying now (in the cab they started out in). I'll let the rest go for another week and take some more, maybe all of them. I'm looking for a more "up" high rather than stone, and since this is my first time with these genes I'd like to see what they're each like at different times for next time around.

 

[5th]

Spot on.

 

[420stoner]

thay looking good !

 

[420stoner]

they looking good !

 

[JustDoIt]

Thanks guys!
Gave the drying buds a haircut last night, I'm following Rumpleforeskin's Simple Harvest and Cure tek.

After reading up more on harvesting and deciding when to chop, I've decided that the tall White Widow and the Blue Cheese still need more time before I consider chopping. Pistles haven't started to retract and they don't look "full" really... I want to avoid the stoney effects of harvesting late, but want them to get ripe. This is a fun learning process either way, and I quick dried some of the small popcorn buds and even if they didn't get any better than this I'd still be happy

 

[JustDoIt]

The plants are getting kinda crunchy in the middle... Not sure if it's heat from the bulbs, lack of humidity, or because they've been only getting water over the last few weeks. I'll probably be harvesting another round of buds on Wednesday or Thursday, and I'll let the smaller buds that have been blocked out by the big buds stay for a little while longer.

The buds I cut last week are in jars curing, and since I've been out of smoke I've been smoking it even without letting it cure. It's QUITE good, and I'm sure it's only gonna get better after a couple weeks curing. It'll be interesting to see how the later buds wind up in comparison!

As of now my #1 pick is the shorter and fatter White Widow, followed by the Blue Cheese. The taller White Widow is good but not as strong as the other two. Maybe it'll catch up or blow past them with some more time though! We'll find out soon enough

In the pic of the dried buds, the left two are the short/fat White Widow, the middle two are the taller White Widow, and the three on the right are Blue Cheese

 

[SpecialEd]

Damn Bro Lookin really good A little crunchy never hurt anything. Looks like it's mostly just the fan leaves & makes it easier to get them out once the buds start to dry. Well done Man

 

[sgapetti]

congrats on the harvest , something for me to look up to, well done

 

[MrAwder]

looking really good. i definitely need to get some material to emulate your vscrog. LST has taken me as far as it could i think.

cant wait to hear the final numbers. our setups are comparable but i know you are going to kill it and will give me something to work harder towards.

 

[JustDoIt]

Thanks guys! I'm not going to know for sure what the total weight from this harvest will be because a good portion of the first round of buds I harvested have been consumed already. Yesterday was day 77 and I cut down most of the buds only leaving the small, immature buds to ripen some more. Now my drying cabinet is PACKED (and it smells great!)

The second round of the harvest are on day 2 of curing in jars....

 

[JustDoIt]

Trimmin' trimmin' trimmin'! So here's the bulk of the harvest, not including what I chopped earlier and the plants still have some smaller buds maturing for another week or two...
Tomorrow these buds will come out of the paper bag and into jars to begin curing. I think the Blue Cheese still had a ways to go, maybe the others too... Perhaps the cold temperatures throughout most of flowering had an effect on 'em, I guess I'll find out next time around! Either way, I'm high and I'm happy!

Short n' fat White Widow on the left (with the white tags), Blue Cheese in the middle (with blue tags), tall White Widow on the right (with the orange tags)

Now the question is: What to do with the trim? The stuff in the last picture is only from trimming these buds, I've also got a bunch from the previous harvests I took...
I don't have bubble bags and would rather not spend $$$ on a set right now, maybe QWISO?

 

[JustDoIt]

A friend let me borrow a scale so I've got some numbers now that the main harvest is dry and in jars curing. Now these numbers aren't 100% accurate, the first round of buds I harvested is mostly gone and I didn't even weight what's left, and there are still some buds on the plants finishing up.

Blue Cheese: 24g
Tall White Widow: 21.8g
Fat White Widow: 26.2g

For a grand total of 72g dry or a little over 2.5 oz

A few things I'm going to do next time around to hopefully increase yield:
1) warmer temps! Room temperature where the grow is has been low because of winter... Through flowering it's gone anywhere from high 30's (f) to mid 60's (f), which I know can't be good for the plants
2) wait a few weeks longer before flushing! I started flushing too soon, the last 4 weeks or so of flowering they got nothing but pH'd water.
3) better SCROG maintenance. Now that I have a better idea of what stretch will be like and how the plants grow, I'd like to have several main colas and trim all of the small side branches, which there were plenty of (with little tiny buds on 'em)

Also, I made a batch of QWISO oil yesterday with the trim, and while I got impatient for the last bit of water/alcohol to evaporate and put the pyrex on a warm surface (that got hotter than I expected), I think the quality was affected (went from being a light green/brown covering the bottom of the pyrex to dark brown/black liquid goo), I still got 1g of oil which seems to do a decent job of taking the high to the next level.

I'd say this grow has been a success, and future grows will be even better because of it!

Thanks to everyone who participated in this thread, I've had a lot of fun with it and hope some of you got some value from it and learned a thing or two (I know I sure did!)
I'll be back in a couple weeks after the main harvest has cured and I'll write up a quick smoke report for each!

 

[MrAwder]

Well done all around. Can you tell me how you did your QWISO? I have read some and tried it a few times, but it always comes out dryish and crumbly. Never oily like yours and a lot of others I have seen. Maybe I'm heating it too long? Did you whip it at all?

Hope you're enjoying the harvest

 

[JustDoIt]

Sure, what I did was filled a clean, glass Planters peanut jar with trim, then poured about 1/3 of a bottle of 91% iso alcohol in, shook it up for about 25 seconds, then poured it through a metal strainer then into a coffee filter sitting in a jar. After it all drained through, I poured it into a square pyrex dish and put a small desk fan blowing across the top. I repeated the process with the rest of the trim I had, and a few hours later there leftover material in the pyrex had pretty much dried except for a small puddle in the middle, so I (being impatient) got the brilliant idea of putting the dish on top of a gas fireplace where it gets pretty hot... I clearly wasn't thinking about HOW hot, but half an hour later I came back and it was almost smoking, and had turned from what I remember being greenish brown and dry looking to a black oily liquid. Once it cooled off a bit, I scraped it all up into a black glob. Before it had solidified I took a bud I had harvested a few weeks ago and rubbed it in the liquid oil, not knowing if I had fucked it up by rushing at the end, and packed a bowl with it feeling frustrated wondering if I burnt off most of the "good stuff" from it. Whether I did or not, it definitely was potent still!
The glob of oil that I scraped up I put in the indented bottom side of a shot glass, and it went from being kinda stacked up to being "melted" down and flat, kinda neat... haha

 

[smilley]

Very nice grow thread and grow Bro. Well narrated, excellent pics and good commo sense growing. Just curious if the seeds matured ok?

 

[JustDoIt]

Thanks smilley!
Wanna know something funny? I can't find a damn seed in there to save my life!
Honestly I'm kinda bummed! But at the same time, can't really complain!