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Lo-Pro Gro - The Beginning
- Thread starter 4.20
- Start date
Thanks V_Man and DLOC. I'll be trying to keep this thread updated.
Ok, just finally found that post again on LST'ing for big buds and no popcorn. Correction to my last post: It was Simon who posted the thread. Thank you, Simon! Brilliant!
So, now I know that I need to get them back onto flowering, since they've been veg'd, and they've been trimmed. Oops.
So, the two Blueberry's have been trimmed and are now in jars. I don't have the weight yet, sinced I don't have a scale. I'll borrow one and post the final weight as soon as I can.
It's tricky to get the jars to levitate just right for the picture.
And here's a shot of the bud that grew up against the grill around the light.
This is the one that had a bunch of regrowth start during harvest. I figured out why. I had to move the fan into the other side to beef up the new plants, and the proximity to the light created too much heat, which wasn't being removed.
I also found that there was a lot of very wet growth where the plants were touching the poly. Duh. Should have figured that out, but live and learn. Just meant having to trim a bit more off than I would have liked, but in the end I got four quart jars full and I estimate the final weight to be about 3.5 oz.
So the four that are in the flowering hole now are being left to grow as they like, with ties to hold the branches in a good spacing for light, and to prevent them from getting too close to the light. I will point out I now have a bitchin fan in there now and the temp sits between 24 and 27, and the humidity bewteen 50 and 55.
Ok, just finally found that post again on LST'ing for big buds and no popcorn. Correction to my last post: It was Simon who posted the thread. Thank you, Simon! Brilliant!
So, now I know that I need to get them back onto flowering, since they've been veg'd, and they've been trimmed. Oops.
So, the two Blueberry's have been trimmed and are now in jars. I don't have the weight yet, sinced I don't have a scale. I'll borrow one and post the final weight as soon as I can.
It's tricky to get the jars to levitate just right for the picture.
And here's a shot of the bud that grew up against the grill around the light.
This is the one that had a bunch of regrowth start during harvest. I figured out why. I had to move the fan into the other side to beef up the new plants, and the proximity to the light created too much heat, which wasn't being removed.
I also found that there was a lot of very wet growth where the plants were touching the poly. Duh. Should have figured that out, but live and learn. Just meant having to trim a bit more off than I would have liked, but in the end I got four quart jars full and I estimate the final weight to be about 3.5 oz.
So the four that are in the flowering hole now are being left to grow as they like, with ties to hold the branches in a good spacing for light, and to prevent them from getting too close to the light. I will point out I now have a bitchin fan in there now and the temp sits between 24 and 27, and the humidity bewteen 50 and 55.
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
So this was a pretty successful grow. Still waiting on a scale for the final weight, but I'm not that stressed over it. It tastes good. It smells AMAZING. And it most certainly does the job.
So what did I learn? Quite a bit, actually. Well, some important things anyway.
First, if your plant is too close to the light, you might see some regrowth or "foxtailing" start. This is also caused by too much heat. In my case, I had both. The big bud lived right up against the mesh around the light, and about three weeks before harvest I had to take the fan out of there and put it in the other side. That poor bud got awfully warm, and had no way of getting vented. Thankfully, it still turned out to be the biggest bud. But why?
Cuz, second, the more light you give the plant, the bigger the buds will be. Simon's thread on LST'ing for no popcorn has pictures of some enormous buds, and certainly the positioning of the plant and the thinning play a large role. But he states in there that he uses upwards of 2000 watts of lights (though it's not clear how much of that is on at any given time). So I put 2 and 2 together: His gigantic buds are grown under a lot of light + the one big-arse bud that I got grew right next to the light = more light gives bigger buds. Me smrt.
Granted, you also have to give them the right amount of light versus dark, fresh air, venting, and proper nutrients.
In my case, I had also trained the plants by attaching certain limbs to the hooks on the walls and back. This worked great for getting them spaced for light, but with the extra heat and lack of fan, the surface of the buds that was touching the poly was super wet and "hay-ey" - lots of leaf and smelled like alfalfa. That all had to be trimmed off when they got their final haircuts.
Third, I learned about light leak. Which can also cause regrowth during flowering. I had a bit of light leak, but I think my biggest problem was the heat and lack of air movement.
So, this next batch have been trimmed based on Simon's writeup, and are LST'd with hemp twine (of course) connecting various limbs with hooks in the walls. The plants are touching the walls, but are not held hard against the poly. Basically, except for holding the limbs in the right place to maximum light exposure, I'm just leaving them to grow.
I installed the Patent-Pending Recycled-Material-Semi-Conical-Single-Opening-Angled-Entry-Light-Leak-Inhibitors (aka: yogurt containers cut in half) on the back of the cabinet to prevent any light leaks there. And I also installed extra strips of poly down each side of the front door to block leaks there.
I got a good fan and mounted it on a pair of wooden rails that sit across the plastic bin. Using the wood was handy as I was able to install hooks into it to hold twine.
Here's a shot of most of the twine ties. I have quite a few more in there that are hidden so I didn't bother taking pictures. But you can see it's starting to look a bit like the rigging of an old tallship.
And here's the Blueberry #4 in the back left corner. Two of the plants had branches naturally close to 90 degrees, so they worked really well for the back corners where I can't really get at them that much. They still needed a bit of training, but with a few twine lines, here's the result:
You can see how the branches are spaced evenly (as much as possible) for maximum light exposure.
Ok, just had to run and change the bulb, since that picture made me realize I still had the 6400K in there.
I have a new hanging socket on order. When it arrives, I'm going to install the vertical 6400K CFL in the veg compartment so I don't have to worry about running out of height. The 4xT5 array is going to be moved into the flowering hole. It will need to be modified slightly so the T5's fit around the existing vertical CFL fixture in there. That will give me the 6400K spectrum to add to the 2100K, which is very red. The total wattage will end up being 342w and I can add or subtract 2700K T5's as needed to change the spectrum density.
Hehe, that almost sounded like I know what I'm talking about. I assure you, most of this is still guesswork. More to come!
Lessons Learned
So this was a pretty successful grow. Still waiting on a scale for the final weight, but I'm not that stressed over it. It tastes good. It smells AMAZING. And it most certainly does the job.
So what did I learn? Quite a bit, actually. Well, some important things anyway.
First, if your plant is too close to the light, you might see some regrowth or "foxtailing" start. This is also caused by too much heat. In my case, I had both. The big bud lived right up against the mesh around the light, and about three weeks before harvest I had to take the fan out of there and put it in the other side. That poor bud got awfully warm, and had no way of getting vented. Thankfully, it still turned out to be the biggest bud. But why?
Cuz, second, the more light you give the plant, the bigger the buds will be. Simon's thread on LST'ing for no popcorn has pictures of some enormous buds, and certainly the positioning of the plant and the thinning play a large role. But he states in there that he uses upwards of 2000 watts of lights (though it's not clear how much of that is on at any given time). So I put 2 and 2 together: His gigantic buds are grown under a lot of light + the one big-arse bud that I got grew right next to the light = more light gives bigger buds. Me smrt.
Granted, you also have to give them the right amount of light versus dark, fresh air, venting, and proper nutrients.
In my case, I had also trained the plants by attaching certain limbs to the hooks on the walls and back. This worked great for getting them spaced for light, but with the extra heat and lack of fan, the surface of the buds that was touching the poly was super wet and "hay-ey" - lots of leaf and smelled like alfalfa. That all had to be trimmed off when they got their final haircuts.
Third, I learned about light leak. Which can also cause regrowth during flowering. I had a bit of light leak, but I think my biggest problem was the heat and lack of air movement.
So, this next batch have been trimmed based on Simon's writeup, and are LST'd with hemp twine (of course) connecting various limbs with hooks in the walls. The plants are touching the walls, but are not held hard against the poly. Basically, except for holding the limbs in the right place to maximum light exposure, I'm just leaving them to grow.
I installed the Patent-Pending Recycled-Material-Semi-Conical-Single-Opening-Angled-Entry-Light-Leak-Inhibitors (aka: yogurt containers cut in half) on the back of the cabinet to prevent any light leaks there. And I also installed extra strips of poly down each side of the front door to block leaks there.
I got a good fan and mounted it on a pair of wooden rails that sit across the plastic bin. Using the wood was handy as I was able to install hooks into it to hold twine.
Here's a shot of most of the twine ties. I have quite a few more in there that are hidden so I didn't bother taking pictures. But you can see it's starting to look a bit like the rigging of an old tallship.
And here's the Blueberry #4 in the back left corner. Two of the plants had branches naturally close to 90 degrees, so they worked really well for the back corners where I can't really get at them that much. They still needed a bit of training, but with a few twine lines, here's the result:
You can see how the branches are spaced evenly (as much as possible) for maximum light exposure.
Ok, just had to run and change the bulb, since that picture made me realize I still had the 6400K in there.
I have a new hanging socket on order. When it arrives, I'm going to install the vertical 6400K CFL in the veg compartment so I don't have to worry about running out of height. The 4xT5 array is going to be moved into the flowering hole. It will need to be modified slightly so the T5's fit around the existing vertical CFL fixture in there. That will give me the 6400K spectrum to add to the 2100K, which is very red. The total wattage will end up being 342w and I can add or subtract 2700K T5's as needed to change the spectrum density.
Hehe, that almost sounded like I know what I'm talking about. I assure you, most of this is still guesswork. More to come!
