Diary The Further Adventures of Mr VerdantGreen

[VerdantGreen]

Thanks @skunkfunk , yes to my eyes it's a very small grow room ! the extra space makes quite some difference and these are 4 quite big plants! i'm finding the stems are so thick that the are harder to manipulate and train to the same extent as i normally do... but i'm starting to think i'll get away with the extra veg this round as long as they don't decide to stretch in the next 3 or 4 days.

yesterday i watered with scarid fly nematodes as a precaution - because i use capillary mat / wick to water whilst i am away and that keeps the soil a little too consistently wet and sometimes encourages them. Also added a few Amblyseius Andersoni predator sachets which should hoover any odd mite or thrip up ...

VG

 

[sallyforthDeleted member 75382]

Bloody sciarid fly. The joy of organic soil. I have finally stopped the buggers. I found a product called Tanlin after a visit to Kew Gardens with my granddaughter. Stuff is amazing and treats the soil killing the larvae. It’s Organic and now I’m gnat free. Look it up, a small bottle goes a very long way, 1 drop per 2l of water.

 

[VerdantGreen]

Thanks @skunkfunk i have got some tanlin and thought it worked at times, but other times didn't seem enough for an infestation - which i get sometimes after being away.. the main problem is that my cabs are in a leaky garage so the environment provides plenty of new gnats! i have put mesh over the intakes now which should help and the garage might even get a new roof soon which would be really awesome!
VG

 

[VerdantGreen]

In other news, i realised ive been mis-naming one of these plants... Its a Chem Zhuzh not a C4DD. It is labelled correctly and looking back i even had it right at the start of the thread and then got confused lol. I'll be glad to see a CZ grown a bit bigger though. I'm still enjoying the smoke from the test grow but i had to keep the plants a bit small to really express themselves.
Chem Zhuzh is Feminised:
Chem D x (Chem D x pre98 Bubba Kush)

 

[VerdantGreen]

This morning i lashed the second Contra D down to get a bit more headroom, the vigor in this variety is high and i think it's a real breakthrough for the future... i now have about 8-10 inches of space between the tallest tops and the light and the plants look to be topping out or close to that. The BlueDigiBerry plant stinks of burnt rubber in a very similar way to how some Chem plants tend to smell in veg.. the candied Berry smell will kick in and overpower it when some resin starts to form. Heatwave has been brutal but now it has cooled down in the last couple of days.
Turned light up to 80%
here the cab this morning after some plant training:

VG

 

[VerdantGreen]

HI all, we are 19 days flower and the plants have 'topped out'. I have about 6-8 inches between the tallest tops and the light. Not quite as much as i would like but not too bad. Plants are looking pretty good, but the Contra D (which are a bit bigger) are starting to show some signs of (i think) calcium deficiency... possibly a bit of P def too.
Today i topdressed each plant with a couple of handfuls of worm castings and a handful of P guano, being a bit more generous with the Contra D's . I was waiting until i was sure the stretch was over before i started feeding them.
Problem i have is that i don't have enough room outside of the cab to get the plants out and take decent pics... so i will have to shuffle some things around before i try again. Here are some not great pics of the plants taken today. You can see the characteristic Chem D 'leaf streak' on a couple of leaves too.
here are the two Contras in the before i took them out of the cab for the poor pics:

and out of the cab, First Contra D:

and the second Contra D:

 

[VerdantGreen]

and the other two plants, not quite as vigorous as the Contras so leaves looking better.
BlueDigiBerry F2: apologies for out of focus lol

and the Chem Zhuzh:

VG

 

[VerdantGreen]

HI all, on a 'hunch' this morning i watered the plants heavily and allowed a fair bit of runoff... not something i normally bother with but the plants were being watered by a wick whilst i was away and i have been leaving them in a bit of water to soak up when i have been watering with nematodes as a precaution against gnats... so i wondered if there might be a bit of salt build-up in the bottom of the pots. as ive started topdress feeding them i thought i should do this to make sure the slight 'deficiency' i'm seeing in the Contra D isn't actually salt buildup.
I'm using an amended ready mix organic potting compost mix which i will post up at some point
VG

 

[VerdantGreen]

Cabshots at 22 days. The Contra D are hanging in there at the back.. looking a bit better maybe. Front 2 looking great,BDB on the front left.
Lights Off:

lights on.. ive backed it off to 75% for now. Possibly not enough gap between lights and plant to push it too hard this round. Nice to have the control.

 

[VerdantGreen]

Hi all, some pics taken at 27 days, just a shade under 4 wks.
It's a cab of two halves... the BDB and Chem Zhuzh are looking great.. these have kind of 'normal' vigor. The Contra D have high vigor and are still looking hungry despite feeding them. I suspect they are quite rootbound and that will slow the uptake...
BlueDigiBerry :

 

[VerdantGreen]

Here is the Chem Zhuzh, again at nearly 4 wks:

And the Contra D. As you can see they are still fairly green but the bigger fans are fading. I really wanted to showcase the potential of the Contra in this grow and i'm a bit gutted they are fading.. They are slightly closer to the lamp but only slightly so i don't think that can be the only cause... All the plants are in the same soil so i think this is just down to the fact that they are bigger plants but in the same sized pots.

VG.

 

[VerdantGreen]

Hi all, we are at just over 5 wks. It's been eventful - the garage i keep my cabs in now has a new roof, which is great news because the old one leaked and that caused various problems like encouraging fungus gnats. That said, it was nerve-wracking having the builders replacing the roof whilst a live grow was going on inside (they didn't know) - but it's done now.. onwards and upwards!
I managed to get the Contra D out of the cab for some shots... still not great pics but you can see that these plants are absolute monsters and that sheds some light on why they have looked deficient whilst the BDB and Chem Zhuzh look fine. I think ive managed to stop the fade or maybe improve it a bit.. they still look quite impressive and i will get some better shots next week when i'm not trying to dodge the roofers !
Contra D, first plant: (commercial growers take note - this yields ! )

 

[VerdantGreen]

And the other Contra D:

 

[VerdantGreen]

Here is the BDB, as you can see its a decent plant but not going to Yield like the Contra D and same pot size and space!
Smelling of candied Blueberry with a background of burnt rubber.

 

[VerdantGreen]

And the Chem Zhuzh is looking decent. As you may remember this isn't a selected plant.. just a spare that i didn't have room to flower on the test grow. I'll get a whiff of its funk next time. i was stinking of BDB already when handling this !

VG

 

[944s2]

How many times did ya top her VG,,,
looking delicious ,,,s2

 

[VerdantGreen]

hey @944s2 i think i topped them all once early in veg... i kind of knew they might end up overvegged.. the Contra D in particular - and i tried to hold those two back a bit by delaying up-potting for the Contra D a bit, but i put them in their 25 litre pots, had to go away for a week , and when i came back they had gone off like a rocket with so much root space...
(full disclosure: this run was meant to me with 9 plants from clone in 11 litre pots, but the heatwave hit and cooked my cuttings, leaving me with just 4, which messed up the timing .. in some ways i'm glad because its been nice to see how BIG plants do in this cab and i will run them like this again because they can really get going and express themselves. I just need to be able to keep up with them lol)

VG

 

[bsgospel]

Looking good homie. That Contra is something else but I've always wanted to give the BDB a run too.

 

[GMT]

Why are you using salty nutes mate? That shouldn't be a concern these days surely. Salt build up? She looks lovely, (contra) but I can't comment on colour, I don't know the plant, so I don't know how dark she is at peek. Just seemed an odd worry to give yourself.

 

[VerdantGreen]

Hey @bsgospel thanks for checking it out! Early days for the Contra D but i think it will catch on.

Hi @GMT that's a good question.. i'm using soil based on ready made garden centre composts with a few amendments, and i imagine that some of the N will be from ammonia sources - and i do see salt deposits in the pots after the grows when i tip them out.
I'd gone away for a week and was wicking water up from underneath for that - so it struck me that there had been no runoff from watering above and i thought it wouldn't hurt to run a bit extra through just to wash away any buildup. Probably no need but easy to eliminate.

The Contra D is generally at the lighter green end of the scale when healthy, but there is a definite yellowing of the bigger leaves a couple of weeks earlier than i would like, not severe.. but if you are going to call yourself 'VerdantGreen' then your plants better be a healthy green lol ! I suspect it is a mild cal/mag issue. because of the large soil volume in the pots i amended with 25% less Gypsum and Dolomite Lime and that was probably a mistake but i didn't want to overdo it. Fine for the Chem Zhuzh and BDB... but the Contra D's are trying to develop more buds per plant and this has left them short.
That said, i think they will still yield well, but i would have liked to do better. There is always next time
VG