Notcoolzeuss' first grow. Very Aggressive. 16 clones, all Reeferman strains

[Notcoolzeuss]

I think you two are talking about a different plant. Here's a little guide I whipped up. I'm terrible with paint, so bear with the sloppiness.


The big brown rectangle is the shelf.

The blue squares(sort of) are the G13xBlack Widow.

The green squares are Willie Nelson

The yellow squares are Viper <--Viper(hard to see yellow font)

The red squares are Love Potion


The shelf that I have is big so two of whatever strain that I choose have to be raised up as well as the G13xBlack Widows. The shelf is the middle insert for my kitchen table, so cutting it is not an option. It's cool though, because two of the Willie Nelsons are are a bit short, and two of the Love Potions are a bit short, so raising them is a good thing. I rotate all the grids, and plants within the grids on a weekly basis to keep the spectrums somewhat even. For all of those people who ask, "Which is should I get? HPS or MH? Can I flower with MH? How will the buds look? Can I veg with HPS? etc, etc etc", since I rotate them, I can't tell details of differences. But I will tell you that I noticed faster and larger growth on the plants that were dead in the middle, meaning to me that the best possible light for veg and flower would be using both simultaneously to cover all more overall spectrums of light. That's my observations from this first grow, anyways.

I pointed out some things in this picture as well. Again, my MS Paint skills are on about a 4th grade level.

You can see I circled the Viper cola that I think Supernuck is talking about. Believe it or not, she is that tall. My 4 Vipers are my 4 tallest plants. I also made a red circle in the very middle of the picture. This is where you can kind of see the shelf.

Thanks for checking in everyone!!!

 

[Notcoolzeuss]

Hey everyone! I have yet another question.

Hey everyone! I have yet another question.

I appreciate everyone who has been following along on my little thread, and helping me out along the way. Well, now that the prize I have been waiting for is getting closer, I have some questions for all you experienced growers out there. As all who have been following my grow know, I believe that nothingshould be done half-assed, and it's always good to study and research before you attempt anything that you intend to do successfully. On that note, I have a few questions about pre-harvest, and harvest.

I have concentrated so hard on being patient about this grow, that all of a sudeen, I'm in the final stretch, and I haven't scheduled my feedings properly. I already put my harvest schedule above, so I won't go into too much detail, but basically, according to the info from Reeferman's site about indoor finish times for these four strains, the G13xBlack Widow should be chopped between 3/17-3/24. That's right now!!!!!

The Vipers should be chopped on 3/31, and the Willie Nelson and Love Potions should be chopped between 4/7-4/14.

Ok, I know, this should be good news.....but here is my issue, and why I need your help.

Due to several reasons, my fert schedule is waaay behind what it should be. Mostly because I had tunnel vision patience, so that I didn't lose my cool and chop early, so I didn't plan long term, and because my plants don't dry out for 5-7 days after watering. So I have been getting less chances to fert them than I thought I would. I have tried to follow the Fox Farms feeding schedule as closely as possible:





The problem is, I have been alternating fert feeding with plain water feeding jsut as directed, but that means the period between ferts is 10-14 days. If you look at the FF schedule, they have it as one fert feeding per week. So everything got discombobulated. Right now I am in week 7 of flower. But I'm only on week 4 of flower on the FF schedule. They just got their second dose of Beastie Bloomz on 3/13, and need a water feeding tonight, and then the Cha-Ching. Now, you're supposed to give them the Cha-Ching 4 times before chop. This is obviously out of the question at this point. So, with all of these issues, my questions are:

1. Do most strains actually finish when the breeder lists, or is this a very general guideline dependant on multiple variables?

2. I know that flushing is very important is you care about the taste of your final product, but I have seen some that say flush for final three weeks before chop, and some that say two weeks is enough. Do you guys think that two weeks of flushing would be enough to flush out any chem tastes?
(I know that the GrowBig, BigBloom, and TigerBloom are pseudo-organic, so I'm not so worried about them, but the tri-pack has to have some crazy chems in it to get those NPK numbers.)

3. Given my scedule, and the fact that it takes so long between feedings for my plants, what do you think I should do. I'm really not all that concerned about not being able to use the Tri-Pack as direceted. My plants already look amazing to me, and no matter what difference the Cha-Ching would make in the final product, I am already more than happy with my results.

I am definitely interested in making my final product potent, and I want it to taste good. Should I just say "Fuck it", and start flushing all of them now? Or do you think that they might take longer than what Reeferman lists, so I may be able to get 1 or 2 more fert feedings in before flush?

Since the G13xBlack Widow are supposed to be done right now, I am definitely giving them water only until they are chopped. Being that they received the Beastie Bloomz on 3/13, and I will be flushing them tonight, do you think that they will be ok taste-wise to chop on 3/31?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm struggling with what to do here.
I can sum up all of those questions like this: If you were in my situation at this point, what would you do?

Thanks guys!!!

 

[NiteTiger]

Go for the flush, if they come out retaining ferts, go for a water cure. It'll kill your taste and aroma, but it'll be better than over-ferted bud.

 

[Sleepy]

they hardly ever finish "on time"...so...

1)No.

2)I would go by volume of water, not time to guage flushing yor plants.

3)You are the only one who can truly make you happy...do what you think is best...flush the "quicker finishing" ones now...prepare for chop...delay flushing the rest, go week to week.

instead of using a chart or calendar to "schedule" the harvest, buy a $10.00 microscope at RadioShack (60-100x). harvest when the trichomes are ready...it cuts out all the guesswork!

you have done very well so far, don't cheat yourself by harvesting early...

most will say:"when you think they are done, wait a week".

nice garden, and thanks for the nomination!!

 

[Mr GreenJeans]

ncz - they look good to me. This run I've been running my nutes very light, and I'm getting better results than I did tanking 'em up. It all depends, but sometimes less is more ( © Sleepy ). You can always check what's left in the soil testing a bit of runoff. Anyway, I agree ^^^, flush, check trichomes, and get ready to get your fingers sticky!!!

It's all good man! Congrats on a nice haul!

 

[Opt1983]

If this was me, i'd start using plain water on all of them, look thru my scope day to day, and chop whenever the trichs tell me to. And start the journy to find the best scissors ever!

 

[Notcoolzeuss]

Hey guys. Thanks for the input. I do have that cheap radio shack microscope that everyone talks about, so after all of you posted, I took trimmings of all 4 strains, and checked the trichs. Well, it looks like RM's forecasts were a tad early. I saw very few amber trichs on any of them.

Willie Nelson-80% clear, 20% cloudy. Little if no amber
Love Potion-About the same as the Willie, but a few amber here and there.
Viper-50% cloudy, 40% clear, 10% amber
G13xBlack Widow-60% cloudy, 30% clear, 10% amber.


It seems to me as though they're all pretty much on schedule. Maybe a little late. Anyways, I think I'll flush the G13xBW and Viper tonight, and feed them water for the remainder. I'll jusy keep an eye on the trichs, as I've heard the window of opportunity for Indicas (G13xBW) is a week or two. I'll give the Willie Nelsons, and LPs one more fert feeding, flush after a week from that, and feed them water for the remainder.

Thanks for the tips everyone!!!

 

[Notcoolzeuss]

Now I'm really confused. The above trichs were examined from leaves very close to bud. I trimmed a bit of actual bud from the G13xBW, and there was a ton of amber. They seem more than done to me. So, now what I'm planning on doing is flushing them thoroughly, giving them another 6-7 days, and then chopping. Do you think that will be enough to thoroughly flush the chem taste? The last fert feeding was 3/13.

 

[Mr GreenJeans]

Not to worry ncz... when you flush, hit each one first with just a gallon of water, and check the drainage from each plant for pH / ppm - that will give you an idea of the nute condition. Flush with 2-3x the volume of your container and then harvest as you planned. Believe me, at this point in your grow you are winning the game, don't worry, they'll be fine. The others maybe could use a week or 2, but the g13xbw sounds like it's ready to prep for harvest.

Yes, as new calyxes pile up, the older ones get hidden a bit, and the newer trichomes will always look less mature - best to look at a few buds per plant, and try to find an area where it's easier to look a little deeper into the bud. There's always an amazing surprise around the corner growing this lovely plant!!!!

 

[NiteTiger]

Also remember those buds getting all the good light at the top of the plant are going to ripen before lower buds. It's not uncommon for growers to harvest top colas and leave the lower sites to finish up.

 

[Notcoolzeuss]

Thanks for checking in as always fellas. I feel like I have my own horticutural research team working on this grow with me.

Sleepy-Thanks for the info. I figured that most strains don't actually finish when breeders list, but I wanted to make sure.

When you say go by volume of water, and not time to guage flushing your plants, I'm not sure what you mean exactly. For the flush, I had planned on running a lot of water through them to wash out any ferts. I'll check the runoff for ph(Don't have a ppm meter), so I have an idea when most salt deposits/ferts have been rinsed from the soil. That part I understand. What I meant by asking if a week or two was enough time to flush ferts, was;
I thought that flushing the soil only gets ferts out of the medium, but the plant will have drawn some of the chemicals up into itself, and over a period of plain water feedings, the plant would use up the ferts in it's system, and replace it with water. Basically, I thought that flushing the medium and flushing the actual plants were two different things. Either way, after seeing all of the amber trichs when I examined the G13xBWs, I think they're ready, so I'm waiting a week. I flushed them thoroughly last night, but didn't check runoff. I'll check the ph of the runoff later tonight. I'll chop them on 3/27.

Mr GreenJeans-Thanks for all the tips. I will definitely check runoff tonight to see how well I flushed them. They're three gallon growbags, and I flushed each with about 5 gallons of water. We'll see. It's funny to me the range of emotions that a grow puts you through. This whole weekend, I was sweating my feeding schedule, and flushing, and trichomes. Now, I can't stop smiling because I know I'm chopping four om my girls in a week. Thanks for keeping my confidence up.

Opt1983-Thanks for checking in again. I am definitely gonna keep a close eye on trichs from now on. This harvest is really sneaking up on me. I kept thinking in my head it was still a ling time away, but it's right around the corner. I'm switching to plain water for the Vipers, as they should be done soon, but I think I'll squeeze in one more fert feeding for the Willies and Love Potions. I just want to see how much of a difference the Cha-Ching makes. I'm pretty sure that the Cha-Ching is custom tailored to pack on the trichs, so I'm really curious to see if it works as advertised. They'll get the Cha-Ching on 3/27, the same day I'm chopping the G13xBWs, and then they'll get flushed and plain water for the remainder.

NiteTiger- Thanks for the tip. That is definitely the reason I am seeing drastic differences in trich percentage. The top buds of the G13xBWs are definitely ready, and the lowers are slightly behind. I'll chop all at the same time though, since this is my first grow, I would like to see what the buds are like with lots of cloudy, and what they're like with lots of amber. Since every bud I've ever smoked was grown commercially, I'm not even sure which type of high I'll prefer. I'd bet on me liking coucklock more, but I'm gonna take advantage of the control I have over my own stuff, and sample everything. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

Well, if you haven't noticed yet, I'm always searching for knowledge, because now that I've started this, I'm already hooked, and I want to learn everything about mj horticulture as possible. So, on that note, I have yet one more question;

I'm already thrilled with all of the results I'm getting, so don't think that I'm worried about this.......but,

I'm still a tad confused on the difference between Indica and Sativa. I know that Indicas stretch a lot less, and finish quicker. I think that I also read somewhere that Indica buds are much denser than Sativa buds. But just looking at my G13xBWs, in comparison to all of my other plants, it seems like they will yield much less that they're Sativa sisters. I knew they would stay short, but I thought they would provide about the same amount of bud. I'm thinking that they will not yield as much as any of my Sativas or hybrids. Is this normal. Do Indicas usually yield somewhat less bud than Sativas?

I'm sure the individual genetics of each plant makes a big difference, but I just mean in general, do Indicas yield less than Sativas?

No matter what, I'm really psyched right now.
Thanks again everyone. You guys have no idea how much you've helped me.

Peace

 

[NiteTiger]

Well, in general, an indica is considered a better yielder than a sativa, but of course, that all depends on the conditions and genes. In your case, i'd be willing to bet the reason you're seeing lower yields from your indica is because it was grown with sativas. The sativas got taller, meaning you had to adjust the light for them, leaving the indica farther from the light. Also, with the sats outgrowing the indicas, they probably overgrew the indicas some, preventing more light from getting through.

In general, look for Sativas to be taller, laniker, and with skinnier leaves than indicas. They'll also have a longer flowering time than the indicas, with a more cerebral, in the head high.

Indicas, by contrast, will be short, squat, with fat leaves. Shorter flowering time with a more body stone.

 

[NiteTiger]

Edit made

 

[Tarbosh]

did you raise your lights over time? or just flower em like they are? ..... when you vegged.... did you lst at all? and were the lights on top of the plants....... or was it the fact that you used cfls to veg and then put em under hps and mh allowing the internodes to tighten and adapt under faint light and then respond accordingly to the switch..... Ive heard that MH are good for tight internodes....... how many gallons are those bags?

 

[Notcoolzeuss]

Thanks for getting back to me everyone.

NiteTiger-I must say that I'm very surprised that Indica is considered better yield than sativa. Maybe I just got cuttings of a dwarf G13xBW pheno. I guess that you could be right about the lights, but I was very careful to keep all the plants at a uniform distance from the lights throughout the grow(12-18 inches). I know that keeps coming up, so I'll take some better pics later tonight to show you my shelf system. The lights could have been a factor in other ways however. The G13xBWs were rotated less frequently than the other strains. They were on the MH side of the cab for the first 30 days of flower, and then moved to the HPS side for the following 30 days. I'm thinking that this might be the reason for the relatively lower yield. I think they'll still yield a decent amount, but definitely less that any of my other strains. It's like they have a ton of popcorn buds, and then one somewhat fat cola in the middle, whereas, my Sativas all have a huge cola, and one or two side branches that are almost as big as the main colas.

ilcstoning-Welocome to my growdiary. Thanks for checking in. Better to arrive late than never arrive at all. Yeah, my temps have not been an issue whatsoever. I had heard from many that keeping temps ideal is a constant battle, but due to the fact that my grow is in my basement, and the cold weather we have here, it just kind of worked out perfectly. I honestly can't atke credit for it. It just sort of worked out that way. Actually, now that the weather has turned a bit, the temps are not quite as money as they used to be. Now I'm running more like 80-85 in the day, and 60-65 at night. It kinda sucks, because I was hoping to drop nighttime temps really low in the last few weeks of flower. I had read somewhere that this makes the plant think that winter is coming quickly, and in response it begins to secrete more resin, to act as an "armor coating" from the cold weather. Now without an AC, and that's not gonna happen, my temps won't get lower than 58 at night. Oh well. I'm not even sure if the cold temps thing is true, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I piqued your interest with the flush question. Hopefully, someone will come along, and give us answer.

Tarbosh-Thanks for stopping in. Wow!! That's a lot of questions!! Always glad to answer though.
did you raise your lights over time? or just flower em like they are?
Although they are on chains, the lights are not really adjustable. I could get the HPS up higher, but the MH is as high as it will get, so that gives me about 5 feet of vertical clearance. In early veg, the plants were in tiny cups, and were stacked on a rubbermaid container to get them closer to the light, like this:




After they were transplanted to 3 gallon grow bags(This is the answer to your last question), they were placed at the bottom of the cab for a week or two. My reasoning? I know that a transplant can sometimes shock a plant, so I figured that immediately after the transplant, they could probably do without direct light, and higher temps. Here is a pic after I transplanted 9 out of the 16.



After a week or two of being so low, they were raised up on a shelf system I set up. That placed them about two feet below the lights. That looked like this:



This lasted another week or so, because they took off right after the transplant, and got a lot closer to the lights very quickly. Once they were too tall, the shelf was removed. One shelf remained throughout the grow for my G13xBWs, because they are 1/3 the height of all my other plants. Basically, I tried to keep the plants no further than 2 feet away from lights, and no closer than 12 inches........for the most part.

when you vegged.... did you lst at all?
Nope. Since this was my rookie grow, I tried to let them grow as naturally as possible. I wanted to observe how mj plants grow before I start to scrog, lst, fim, or any of those advanced growing techniques. From what I have learned on this grow, I think I'll attempt a scrog next grow. It just seems like the most effective way of distributing light among your plants.

and were the lights on top of the plants....... or was it the fact that you used cfls to veg and then put em under hps and mh allowing the internodes to tighten and adapt under faint light and then respond accordingly to the switch

Already answered the first part. Cfls were only used when I originally received the cuttings. Once the cuttings showed root development, they were moved to the cab with MH on only. MH and HPS were run simultaneously starting on the third week of veg. I tried to do everything in baby steps. No drastic changes. I thought this would be the best approach for a newb grower like myself. The less chances you give yourself to screw up, the better.

Ive heard that MH are good for tight internodes....... how many gallons are those bags?

I've heard that about MH as well. Since I ran both simultaneously, and rotated plants often, I can't see any detailed differences between MH and HPS. However, during the time that certain plants were in the middle of the cab, and therefore basking in both MH, and HPS, I could see a difference in overall growth; height and thickness. There is no question in my mind that if you want to get the best out of your plants, you should veg and flower under MH and HPS. Again though, this is my first time, and these are simply my observations so far. And I already answered the second part of your question.....3 gallon growbags. Thanks for stopping in. I'll be chopping the G13xBWs on 3/27, so harvest pics will be coming soon!!!

Peace

 

[Sleepy]

damn, you're a natural!

damn, you're a natural!

looking forward to your harvest...

i bet you can't wait!

nice job, in every way!

 

[NiteTiger]

Thanks for getting back to me everyone.

NiteTiger-It's like they have a ton of popcorn buds, and then one somewhat fat cola in the middle, whereas, my Sativas all have a huge cola, and one or two side branches that are almost as big as the main colas.

Sounds to me like that top cola got the light, because you were careful to keep it close, but the side branches got choked by it's Sativa cousins.

Of course, you may indeed just have a runt

 

[Tarbosh]

I can see in the pic you provided of all the transplantees..... that the ones under the mh seem to be shorter and developing tighter than the airy transplantees that look like they are reaching for that hps............ have you thought of a light rotation device? and maybe a switchable 1000 next time, while using the 400wt mh for veg purposes?....so here is my debacule these days....I cant figure out for the life of me, why I see all the closet growers using scrog and lst...... and none of the commercial growers use it....... why do most closet-ers try to keep the lights on top of their plants to get the tightest internodes and the most quality product..... where as those who grow say 1-2000 ++ dont lst and train and such......... many of those people will tell you that celing mounted 400hps are fine for an entire commercial room........now wont this produce sparce airy nugs that are not of fine quality and flavor..... there is gap in knowledge of lighting that I am filling as we speak....... constantly asking "Are my lights close enough?"......"whats close enough?"......."does it matter?" ........ Im just looking for info on how to treat "lighting" in certain situations? any and all insights are much appreciated! Thanks Much!



Peace Love Positivity


-=T



ps. dude you are hauling ASS for your first time......... sounds like you already even out grew your mentor!!!!

 

[NiteTiger]

I think it has more to do with labor intensiveness in the commercial grows, Tarbosh, rather than quality. I'm getting a cramp just thinking about LST or Scrogging 100 plants, much less 1000

Plus, your closet guys tend to go for quality and effeciency rather than quantity, whereas with most commercial ops, quantity is king.

 

[Notcoolzeuss]

I can see in the pic you provided of all the transplantees..... that the ones under the mh seem to be shorter and developing tighter than the airy transplantees that look like they are reaching for that hps............ have you thought of a light rotation device? and maybe a switchable 1000 next time, while using the 400wt mh for veg purposes?....so here is my debacule these days....I cant figure out for the life of me, why I see all the closet growers using scrog and lst...... and none of the commercial growers use it....... why do most closet-ers try to keep the lights on top of their plants to get the tightest internodes and the most quality product..... where as those who grow say 1-2000 ++ dont lst and train and such......... many of those people will tell you that celing mounted 400hps are fine for an entire commercial room........now wont this produce sparce airy nugs that are not of fine quality and flavor..... there is gap in knowledge of lighting that I am filling as we speak....... constantly asking "Are my lights close enough?"......"whats close enough?"......."does it matter?" ........ Im just looking for info on how to treat "lighting" in certain situations? any and all insights are much appreciated! Thanks Much!



Peace Love Positivity


-=T



ps. dude you are hauling ASS for your first time......... sounds like you already even out grew your mentor!!!!

That picture may be misleading. It's ahsame. I had an extremely detailed diary at OG which would give you a better idea of my transplanting. The cuttings I was given started to root at different times. 9 out of the 16 showed roots very quickly, and therefore developed rootballs quicker. The other 7 showed very small roots, and did not look ready for transplant. So I transplanted 9 first. They went directly from 8 ounce plastic cups to 3 gallon grow bags. The 9 newly transplanted clones were placed under the MH, which is on the right side of my cab. The cuttings that were still in the 8 ounce cups were placed on top of a rubbermaid box underneath the HPS.....like this:


They stayed this way for a week or so until the clones in the cups had established enough of a rootball to transplant. During this week, the 9 plants took to their new homes in a big way, and began to take off. Once the 7 "late starters" were transplanted to 3 gallon grow bags, the original 9 were moved from the MH side, to the HPS side. The newly transplanted, smaller 7 plants were placed under the MH, like this.





So the reason the plants on the left(HPS) are larger is that they were transplanted earlier than the others. In fact, right before this picture was taken, the taller plants were under the MH side. The idea was that I place freshly transplanted clones under the MH, as that is the "preferred" veg HID. Once they showed growth in their new homes, they were ready for the HPS. It's just the way things happened. You really can't use any of the data I've compiled to base a theory regarding the whole MH/HPS debate. They were rotated too frequently to make a definitive guess one way or the other. Sorry to burst your theory.

I really do feel as though I rotated the plants with enough frequency as to give them all roughly the same amount of time under both the MH and HPS. The light mover is a good idea, and would save me time, and a lot of back pain. But I like the "hand on" approach of actually rotating the plants by hand.

I would never convert to a 1,000 watt switchable. Don't get me wrong, I would love an extra 200 watts of light, but I love using MH and HPS simultaneously throughout veg and flower. I really feel that this makes my grow somewhat "original". I don't see many growers doing this. I like the idea of giving my plants all spectrums, all times. Also, I really did notice obvious growth spurts from plants while they were placed in the middle of my cab, therefore, basking in concentrated, direct light from both MH and HPS. I'm not making any assumptions from one grow, but this was my idea from the start, and, as the old saying goes, "If it ain't broke.....don't fix it."


As far as your other comments, I don't know anything about scrog and lst.......yet. Ask me in a year or so, and I'll have an opinion.

Thanks for checking in again.