Dirtbag's Method to Growing to a Better Life as written by tobh

[tobh]

Welcome to another tobh experience! Before we get started, I have a simple request.

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS THREAD UNTIL I SAY I’M DONE! I'll say I'm done in a single post with this color IN BOLD, like this warning.

The reason I ask this is due to post picture count restrictions – this is a picture heavy thread given it’s an entire run roughly from seed to harvest. I’ve documented mostly everything during the whole time and will have large bodies of text interspersed with large sections of pictures. I do not want the journal broken up with responses in the middle of the timeline. The goal is to provide an end to end guide of how one runs a grow of this style, using these methods, from start to finish with all the intimate details condensed in a sequential series anyone can follow to achieve success. Breaking it up with banter, input, opinions, shit talk, or otherwise, will degrade the quality I aimed to achieve with this document. That's not to say there weren't fuck ups in this run -- there were, one particularly fatal. However, if anyone chooses to follow this nearly to the T, they'll achieve respectable results fairly easily. I appreciate y’all understanding.

This is months of personal work with the help of an incredibly generous group of unique individuals. Be respectful. Further, I didn't spend the hours it's taken to compile this document for anyone to screw it up. You fuck this up by not following a simple instruction and I'll ignore your ass and you'll not be able to see this resource at all. Thank you for understanding.

What the fuck are you on about now tobh (crowd mutters 'this fuckin asshole blah blah blah'):

This is a post-harvest, start to finish journal. I’ve kept this relatively under wraps for the past few months as I wanted to try some new techniques, experiment, and focus on the tasks at hand without the input and banter of anyone other than a select few. No disrespect intended towards the broader community, but what this journey entailed required specialized knowledge from people more experienced than myself. The results speak for themselves.

Further I wanted to provide a comprehensive reference guide -- not just a "here's my grow guys herrherr imma grower too" journal. This documents a journey from starting seeds, to growing mother plants to taking clones, and finally, running those clones to harvest. I'm compiling this now on the last day of the final plants lives.

Honorable mentions:

• @Dirtbag – you’re the reason I got into this mess. Without watching your first few runs with this method, and seeing the various techniques you applied, I likely wouldn’t have taken the leap. Further, without your consistent input and encouragement, I surely would’ve fucked it up sooner than I did. You’re the namesake of this thread for a reason. Sincerely, thank you.
  ​
• @Aqua Man – your wealth of knowledge and generosity to deposit it throughout the forums provided incredibly valuable insight; not just for me but for thousands of growers around the world. Without you, I would still be mixing my nutrients wrong, and likely crying about the wild pH swings that come from that.
  ​
• @MrGreenthumbOG – you’ve been the voice of reason through a lot of shit this past year. You’ve encouraged all of us, kept us level when shit’s going off the handle, and ensured none of us ended up in jail. You’re a good cat, and I appreciate you being part of this place.
  ​
• @PK1 – it’s been great dragging you along into the craziness. Watching as you’ve developed and picked up knowledge and thrown people assistance when the rest of us grumpy fucks have written off the newbs has been a great thing to see. Stoked to see how you perform this run, and every run after it.
  ​
• @ComfortablyNumb and @BionicKroniK – y’all are like the perfect couple friends the ol lady and I don’t have in person. Love the banter and truly appreciate you guys. Still trying to get the lady on here. She’s a tough one to convince lol.​

Anyone I forgot, my bad. The above played individual yet critical roles in this run and I’m especially grateful for each individual I mentioned above.

The Setup:

• 4” Grodan blocks​
• Grodan unislabs​
• 300GPH submersible pump​
• 160GPH submersible pump​
• 12 US Gallon “Ice Cube” rolling ice chest​
• 3/4” PVC pipe​
• 3/4” Slip joints​
• 3/4” ball valve​
• 3/4” inline filter​
• 3/4” one-way check valve with the spring removed (siphon break)​
• 1/2” poly irrigation line​
• Six port Rainbird irrigation manifold​
• 1/4” irrigation drip line​
• 4” floraflex caps and line clips​
• 720W (true watts) Enfun EF2000 QB Board Full Spectrum LED​
• No name 4x4x7 tent​
• AC Infinity T6 exhaust fan​
• AC Infinity S6 inline intake fan​
• Plastic roofing​
• Plastic guttering​
• Scrap wood platform with a (1/2”)/12” pitch​
• 3” synthetic fiber netting​
• 3x 6" no name clip on fans​
• 1x 12" no name oscillating fan​

The Nutrients:

• Front Row AG base two part (A [14-0-8] & B [2-13-17])​
• MOAB [0-52-32]​
• Power Si Bloom​
• GH pH up and down​
• Liquid Alchemist 34% H2O2​
• AN Flawless Finish​

The Genetics:

• Chemdog D X Birthday Cake​

---

The Beginning:

Sometime around June or July, I ran through a series of issues with getting seeds to germinate, and seedlings actually surviving. Between some bad katsu gear, some bad husbandry of some anaphylaxis seedlings, and just general life conflicts, ended up with just two seedlings that made it into veg. Instead of just running these, I opted to grow them out and take clones given these are feminized seed stock, so I’ve no qualms taking the time to do so.

Late September 2021:

Mother plants in 1 gallon coco, vegging out. Prepping for taking clones. Nothing exciting yet, working out the plans for how to configure the tent, how many plants to run, etc. Settled on running six slabs, three of each pheno from the two mother plants.

Early October 2021:

Clones taken and put in rockwool plugs. Waiting for rooting to happen. The looong delay, waiting for roots to show up.

October 12, 2021:

input: 0.5 EC
lights: 40%

Clones set in their delta blocks. Hand watering commences. Feeding ~0.5 EC, pH 5.6. Not exciting yet, waiting for roots to hit bottom of deltas takes some time. Not much to report yet.

October 20th, 2021:

Finished up the hardline plumbing on the irrigation system and pressure/leak tested everything. Nothing to show, no major problem. Valuable lesson learned – make sure your slip joints are tight, or you’ll dump a shit ton of water on your garage floor.

 

[tobh]

October 23, 2021:

input: 0.5 EC
lights: 60%

Clone update. Some are taking off, some are straggling. EC bumped to 1.0, pH 5.5. They have some of the waxiest leaves I've seen to date, not used to seeing fan leaves so shiny like these. Light is at 18k lux per a phone app, for what that’s worth.

October 27, 2021:

input: 0.8 EC
lights: 60%

Clone update with some of the symptoms I mentioned about feed reduction. The twisting leaf blades I believe to be a pH related issue, but the necrotic variegations I believe to be mag def. Otherwise, they're looking pretty damn healthy. Gotta bump feeds up to more than once a day, the bigger ones are drinking faster than I'm able to respond to em and I won't be ready to setup the autofeed until after all of em are on unislabs. Just waiting for a more uniform concentration of roots on the bottoms of the deltas, which they're getting there, quickly.

Picture of the moms going gangbusters. They would take up half the tent if I flipped them right now. One gallon fabric pot with 100% coco. Crazy how much root that little bit of media will support.

October 28, 2021:

input: 1.0 EC
lights: 90%

Calling on the team to keep me accountable. Dialed the lights up to 90%, 36” from top of the plants. Ambient temp reading at 84F, LST 78F – 80F. RH 62%. Dialed the lights back due to concerns about transpiration and seeing more calcium def becoming evident. Battling keeping VPD in check and pushing the plants.

November 4, 2021:

input: 1.0 EC
lights: 80%

HERE WE GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Realizing that I have this terrible habit of overgrowing my spaces. The original orientation is poor, at least from the perspective of the picture. Decide I’ll rotate the plant 90 degrees. Still need to setup the plumbing and platform and catch pan. But, they’re on slabs!

I also make the foolish decision to veg for a while longer to get another 12” of veg before flip. Whatever. Shit happens, see my comment above. I have a reputation to maintain after all.

November 7, 2021:

input: 1.1 EC
lights: 80%

Platform built, last of the plumbing done. Mixing up the first official batch of nutrients for these ladies now, and will find out if the last bit of plumbing I glued together is good or not. Can't really see it in the pic, but there's a riser dead center of the platform. Figured it would equalize pressure across all six outlets better than running a loop or straight line.

And the fucking calcium def is continuing! Still haven’t figured this shit out. In hindsight, it’s clear what’s going on. At this moment I kept on keepin on. Lesson learned.

Now my temps are all fucky, dropped from 82F 65% RH, to 77F and 62% RH. Dialed back the exhaust and intake, adjusted the probe, waiting to see how shit levels out. This is my least favorite shit part about setting up an environment. You change one variable (literally put in a platform, nothing else) and temps drop 5F.

Also, have a leak somewhere. Water on the bottom of the tent. Not a lot, maybe two or three cups worth, but there's a leak. tracking down where that's coming from is gonna be a bitch as there's no apparent source from initial looks.

Hydro is fun, mkay.

VPD is on point though, so that’s what matters right now. Ha, and i caught the leak. It is for sure backflow on the plastic sheeting. The water is wicking back up a little bit on one particular corrugation. After I wrap up work today, will add a drip edge and maybe through some silicon to seal things up a bit.

I measured the runoff from the full first day (been ~24 hours since automation has been running) and pH is at 6.5, 650 ppm was the highest number since my cheapo ppm pen doesn't read stable. Measure the res, sitting fine at 5.5 pH, 775 ppm highest number. averaging 550ish with its jumping.

Going to be adjusting the timing as well and fine tuning the rates this evening. I figure each event should be delivering 170ml of solution as that's about 2% of the total volume of the deltas + the unislabs.

Adjusting the schedule for the first event to happen 1.5 hours after lights on, and then every hour to first run off; will tune this through the next few days so first runoff hits at around 13:00, lights turn on at 06:00. Then, every two hours throughout the day, until 3 hours before lights off to try and get that dryback nice overnight.

It's interesting to see the two phenotypes express themselves so distinctly. These came from the same seed stock, supposed to be the same strain.

November 10, 2021:

input: 1.2 EC
lights: 75%

Shit man, I'm running outta head room. As much as I don't want to, I might end up having to throw a scrog net in the tent just to spread the ladies out a bit and keep em under control.

 

[tobh]

November 12, 2021:

input: 1.2 EC
lights: 75%

Did a bit of finagling in the tent, gave the girls a haircut to try and get the RH to mellow out a little bit. Lights are now as high as they can be in the tent, running at 75%, 27k-29k lux at the canopy.

Figured out where the nets will have to be -- gonna double stack em so that I don't end up like last time with donkey dicks laying on top of each other, fucking the whole thing up. Also realized I gotta kick up the time during fertigations.

The back row took almost five minutes to start running off, while the front row had runoff within two minutes. The girls are thirsty, so going to increase fertigations to run 2 minutes instead of 1, which should deposit 300ml of solution per fertigation and keep em from drying back too much between events.

November 15, 2021:

input: 1.2 EC
lights: 75%

Well, things are going so well in the tent, I'm going to give the girls some pk boost this week, starting today once I finish up work. If i keep holding off, I'm going to be out of vertical room after stretch. Looks like we'll be flipping to flower likely November 29th or December 1st.

November 16, 2021:

input: 1.2 EC
lights: 70%

These girls are hungry for the flip. Even with the stretch, which is going to be stupid like it was last time, they're already throwing preflowers like madness. They're like teenagers just hitting puberty, if you catch the feels.

I'll keep the PK ratio up until flip then drop back to the higher N ratio for a few weeks to get through stretch (to try and taper stretch some), and figure out how to do the negative differential @Dirtbag mentioned. Not sure i can run a space heater on the two circuits all the gear is running on. Will figure out if it's doable either way.

November 17, 2021:

input: 1.4 EC
lights: 70%

With the bump in feed, overnight the girls put on at least another inch and a half, maybe two on some branches. Tonight is the Big Cut.

Alright, prepare yourselves. This makes my butthole pucker something fierce. Have never gone this hard on a defoliation.

We started here:

This was the first victim before:

Cool variagation i found whilst cutting it up. Was hoping to see one of these leafs, see it on chem genetics:

This was post haircut:

And now the tent looks like this:

Hope I did it right. This is definitely nerve racking.

November 20, 2021:

input: 1.0 EC
lights: 75%

Lights to 12/12, lights bumped to 75%.

November 21, 2021:

input: 1.4 EC
lights: 75%

No arguments here..

Sorry for the bit of a shitty shot, bouncing between the kitchen and the office. Plus, it's almost the girl's bed time. Figured I would snag a quick partially open pic though. Brought the lights up to 75% today, will let it ride for a couple days then bump to 80%. Temps and RH are staying pretty damn stable so far.

November 23, 2021:

input: 1.6 EC
lights: 75%

Girls are praying, so I'm gonna bump the light again with the new res, which is now at 1.6-1.7 EC as the girls are looking a little light green and would like to darken em up a bit. Stopped the PK boost now so back to just the base feed. Fucked with the fertigation times a bit more.

I know @Dirtbag recommended three times a day, but I'm stubborn and super curious about crop steering so I'm blindly fucking with the drybacks and trying to keep run off to a reasonable amount at the right times per all the literature I've read.

Just wish my timer had more than eight settings, ten would be great as the time for the first shot and time after the last shot are a bit off still, but I'll ride with this schedule for a few days at the higher EC and see how things go.

What I'm thinking is roll back the start of the events by an hour so the first shot happens two hours after lights on and stretch the maintenance shots to 1.5 hr iterations until three hours before lights off. Might increase the durations to two minutes as well if i see a jump in runoff EC.

Keep in mind, for every one minute, my pump is depositing ~150ml of solution, which is damn near spot on for the volume of media each plant is in. that's where these times are coming from.

By spot on i mean 150ml is ~3% of media volume. it's shy by around 20ml iirc, but close enough for govt work.

I'm making sure to be mindful and at least every other res top up i run a solid flush through just to try and keep ahead of the EC creeping too much. at day 21 I'll revert back to a vegetative growth pattern then come back to the this pattern for the last couple to few weeks of flower. I do need to get a syringe though since there's no damn way I'm buying into the aroya or grosens ecosystems for my puny little setup. We do shit by the ass off our pants here.

Tomorrow is a week since defoliating. This is fuckin crazy.

 

[tobh]

November 24, 2021:

input: 1.6 EC
lights: 80%

Pulled 10ml from each block and the results are in. 1.8 EC, 6.1 pH. So, slight increase in EC over input, and a bit higher pH than is ideal. Might drop the pH in the next res to like 5.3-5.4 and see what happens. Input should be at 5.5, but i haven't been checking once I finish mixing a res. Will check the res now though because I'm curious if there's some drift going on.

Last run was a respectable harvest at almost 2 lb. Problem was only 3/4 lb of it was actual marketable bud. The rest was larf only suitable for extracts and edibles. I'm gunning for a 2lb harvest of usable bud. I have no intentions of stripping em the same way, but still would like to go relatively heavy so that anything that can produce, does well.

I'm also running six QB boards, 240w true watts each, so I'm overlit like a motherfucker for a 4x4. Just peaking over 80% on the dials now, will likely hit 90% for a couple weeks around day 21 and start dialing back. They have the VPD and EC to take it, if i could run CO2 they would handle it all the way through but I'm not looking for a bunch of foxtailed ladies this run so will probably start dropping back down to ~80% by week 5, and 5% drop every week from there until harvest.

That wasn't entirely true. A pair of qb's is 240w. I tuned the Meanwell drivers so each is pushing like 241w from the wall. So 720w of light for a 4x4.

November 28, 2021:

input: 1.7 EC
lights: 80%

Starting to knot up, up top. Maybe by next week we'll start to see bud set. Just over a week under 12/12

I'm gonna have to take a hit on yield come day 21 though. I won't be able to maintain humidity as well if I don't get a bit heavy handed on the next cleanup. As leaves are transpiring they're getting each other wet, and I just don't have enough airflow in there right now to head off problems. Need to get a few more fans and set them up when i pull the girls out again for the next cleanup and setting of the screen.

I'm doing the same thing as @Dirtbag, pushing them harder than I'm particularly comfortable with. Dropped the EC a little on this res, but if I had to guesstimate it's still at 1.7 EC. With how close they are to the lights though, I'm right at the limit of what I can do without CO2. Wish I could run CO2, these girls would pay no mind to 2.0 EC and be way more ridiculous.

Lights are still at 80%. Haven't checked with a lux meter. Based on the leaf positioning, they could likely take another 5-10%, which I'll likely pull up to over the next week as bud set really comes on. Then, let it ride for a couple weeks, and start to dial back so that I don't end up with a bunch of foxy ladies again. Need this run to be solid.

Will also be mounting the lights directly to the top of the tent come the next cleanup. I'm out of yoyo room, and the girls are still stretching. really don't want bud tops at 12" from the lights, it'll fuck everything up.

November 30, 2021:

input: 1.6 EC
lights: 80%

Ran a quick maintenance flush as the media read out at 2.4 EC a moment ago. Want to try and keep ahead of the curve on that obviously. Should be back to around 1.8 EC now. A different view for you gentlemen today, though. Starting to see some budsets showing up. Well, more than some. all the ladies are knotting up top side.

December 5, 2021:

input: 1.6 EC
lights: 80%

No further explanation needed, day 15 since flip. Starting to see the beginning signs of some frost, hoping those birthday cake genetics come through and one of these phenos is a show stopper.

I pulled em back a little bit to 80% as I was seeing some more calcium deficiency. I could've left up at 90% though and just bumped up the EC. I really wish I could run CO2 though, it's almost at the point where running it would make a difference. I know for sure I'm gonna have to dial em back though. The girls up front will likely be touching the lights, even straight mounted to the top of the tent, come harvest. hence debating just eating the losses and cutting the tops that are excessively tall and supercropping a bunch of the others. i fucked up again, that's for sure. Should've flipped two weeks earlier.

The front pic isn't lying. There's almost zero penetration under the canopy. I have the cacti seedlings under there now so they're out of the way and keep growing through the winter.

December 7, 2021:

input: 1.8 EC
lights: 80%

Fuck man... plants are continuing to stretch. some tops are sitting at around 4" from the lights at this point.

Debating starting the defoliation process so I can identify the best candidates for success. There are simply too many tops to be able to effectively supercrop all of them. Should've flowered sooner. These genetics are some leggy bitches.

This was shot damn near level with the lights. Another few days a few of these are going to be at the lights. Never anticipated this kind of growth, that's for sure.

Oh, this res is also at 1.8-1.9 EC this round. So they're getting pushed a bit on that front as well. part A has the calcium in it so i bumped that up to try and head off the deficiency a bit.

December 11, 2021:

input: 1.4 EC
lights: 70%

Was busy butchering the girls again. Four and a half hours later, the lights are raised, fans raised and rearranged, girls trimmed.

Before:

After:

Light on the right side is lower due to the exhaust and the plant on back right is the shortest of the bunch. Doesn't even reach the net. She's likely gonna have to be strung up, and I'm predicting will end up producing the best buds of the bunch.

I might've hit yield a little bit but I'm after good buds throughout. The tops are all reasonably dense already, and now that everything is leveled out for the most part, the next three or four weeks should get them barely touching the second screen, and not flopping over all stupid. Pulling em out was pretty intense though, they were definitely relying on each other and the tent to keep em upright.

I took anything that had a petiole I could reasonably get to. There are still some fan leaves, and all the sugar leaves, but anything that had more than an inch of petiole was removed, and a ton of sucker branches that I simply didn't think would amount to anything other than wispy larf. They're basically stripped bare for the lower 2/3 of the plant, with a handful of exceptions either from laziness or because i figured there would be enough light penetration now for something to happen.

I'm not 100% convinced running six plants a the smartest idea. As I was loading em back into the tent, I was thinking fuck, four would've kept the tent adequately covered. Six was just insurance, i guess. Lesson partially learned for the nth time. Guaranteed I'll fuck up again next run and way overgrow the tent again.

Here's the new fertigation schedule. First event two hours after lights on, last event two hours before, each event a little longer so this will keep the water content higher than the EC, and give more runoff. If my hypothesis is correct, this should yield some really decent bud development over the coming weeks.

Each site deposits ~150ml per 1 minute cycle, so i roughly tune based on that. I do have a ball valve in line on the feed line though if I wanted to really dial things more precisely. I just haven't done that at all since I'm relying on little more than what the plants look like, a handful of environmental parameters, and the occasional syringe check.

I would use this same schedule in veg too. This is a vegetative stage schedule where you want higher WC % and lower EC, which are controlled by controlling dryback. This encourages the plant to produce more growth hormones -- ie, make those flowers bigger. For flower onset and bulking, you use a generative cycle which yields lower WC % and higher EC. This causes the plant to produce reproductive hormones, ie make those big flowers dense. Again, this is controlled by controlling the amount of dryback.

 

[tobh]

December 12, 2021 (page 353):

input: 1.8 EC
lights: 70%

I need to drop the EC in the reservoir for the next few weeks to about 1.6 from the 1.8 it's been at. This is to encourage the vegetative growth and prevent nutrient toxicity. Will have to keep a close eye for calcium deficiency though.

December 14, 2021:

input: 1.4 EC
lights: 75%

Bumped the lights back to 75%. Girls are chuggin along. seem to be more content with the upgrades in air circulation.

December 16, 2021:

input: 1.4 EC
lights: 80%

Bumped the lights up to 80%. every couple days turning the dials up ~5% - 10%. Interesting to see the two pheno's expressions. The short variety is packing on frost a bit more eagerly, the taller pheno is definitely going to have some chunkier buds based off 26 days in flower. They've rebounded fine from the defoliation and are back to being aggressive little bitches too. Looked like they stalled for a couple days, not like sad or stressed, but just not doing anything. this morning's check indicated that slump is over now.

Barely missed a bullet today.

Hadn't heard runoff today, which is odd. Assumed I missed it just because I've been on calls all day. Decide to check on the plants during the call I'm on now (don't have to talk on this one luckily), and one is all droopy. I'm like, wtf, looks underwatered. Touch the slabs and it feels more dry than normal. HMMMM...

So i bypass the timer and run the pump. only one site is barely getting small drips. Well, fuck. So i check the filter and it's completely fuckin clogged. Dammit. Run was going great and had to stress the girls like this. Time for a full res refresh this evening.

Think it's the power si. Paid real close attention while mixing this res, and after si mixes for about 30 minutes, it's still cloudy in the res. Doesn't seem to be dissolving at all. Explains the white, slimy shit i found in the filter. It's the same consistency as what comes outta the power si bottle. Fuckin bullshit. Should've just footed the bill and ordered the front row ag si supplement instead of going to the local hydro shop and taking what they had. Might just cut si entirely for the rest of this run since there's a fat chance it's not even doing anything at this point.

That's why i run naked lines. Fuck drippers and nozzles. Those damn things will clog up if you fart wrong while tending to the plants. There are much better ways to control the volume of solution deposited at each site within an irrigation system.

In this case it was the inline filter before the rest of the system. Fuckin @Dirtbag saved my ass on that one man. Without that filter, there's no telling what kind of fuckall situation I'd be in now. That filter saved the plants. As soon as it was cleared out the system was kicking hard again and I ran a heavy flush through em to get the blocks rehydrated and flush whatever salt buildup happened. Sucks making a fresh res then running half of it through right away but better than losing the crop because of a lack of proper maintenance.

December 18, 2021:

input: 1.6 EC

Week 4

Bumped the lights back up to 90%. Monitoring for widespread calcium def now. Will be watching pretty close over the next few days to see if it spreads beyond one on spot I'm seeing it, and if so will bump the EC back up to 1.8. still running at 1.6. Those fans in the back will be the real indicators of issues and despite a deep green, they're still looking happy as can be. Doing something right this time, that's for sure.

At least another six weeks. the hairs that are changing orange is my fat fingering for training so i'm not worried about those. But any stretching looks to all but stopped. They're barely starting to show any upward movement at this point after last weekend's hack job. Seriously thinking i went too hard. Should've left more fans i think.

December 19, 2021:

input: 1.6 EC
lights: 90%

So, yesterday's res mixing confirmed a suspicion. Instead of putting the power si right into the res, I mixed it in a hot cup of water first then poured that into the res. Still clouded up, so no more silica this run. Which sucks, but i can't find anything about others dealing with this same issue.

December 22, 2021:

input: 1.2 EC
lights: 90%

piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiccccccsss

That second strip completely stopped the stretch. I could've worked the first net lower onto the girls and put the second one in place, but that was just too much work at the end of a really intense session. Maybe in the far back corner it'll reach but i doubt it.

I'll likely just roll it up when it comes cleanup time and use it next round, earlier though.

 

[tobh]

December 30, 2021:

input: 1.3 EC
lights: 90%

Going to have to string some of these up. They're bulking now and starting to get floppy.

January 1, 2022:

input: 1.4 EC
lights: 90%

First pics of 2022. Not sure if these girls are fast finishers or what but they're looking like they're trying to get into the final stretch already.

They're definitely pretty solid. The trichomes are still all clear but the pistils are definitely starting to die back and recede a bit. With the MOAB i should see another round of new pistils within about a week and that'll take em from ok density to knock a motherfucka out by throwing a bud at em dense.

The two phenotypes are definitely expressing themselves distinctly at this point. The taller pheno is a little behind the shorter pheno. With how things are looking, by next weekend I'll have a better gauge on when harvest will happen. If these end up being some of those fabled 55 day finishers I'm gonna be way surprised. Never had a plant that finishes that quick but these are looking pretty suspect at this point.

January 2, 2022:

input: 1.6 EC
lights: 100%

So yesterday after I wrapped up the res change, i forgot the pump was on for like 10 minutes. Apparently it killed a good portion of the res. Making up a new one right now. Figured it's a great opportunity to get the EC down further. I want to see if I can start drawing out some of that super dark green over the coming days. With the drybacks increasing I also don't want to be dumping in super high concentrations and causing EC spikes.

I also took the opportunity to set the part A and part B at equal ratios, bumped the MOAB up a bit more from 5 grams to 7 grams, so the ratios should be heavy on the PK now and lower on the N. Going have to watch closely for calcium def though. If it shows up, part A is going back up again, at least while the lights are at 100% for this two week window.

January 3, 2022:

input: 1.6 EC
lights: 85%

Foxtails! You can see the etoliated growth tip and the side shoots starting to form. If allowed to continue, those will all look like fingers by harvest. Unfortunately, once foxtails set in, there’s no going back. Best thing to do is avoid creating conditions that make the plant foxtail to begin with.

January 4, 2022:

input: 1.4 EC
lights: 80%

Did a syringe check on the blocks. EC is terrifyingly high in the media. Looks like I'm doing a flush tonight. A big flush. Like a whole res flush. Even more fun going on up in here.

I tried something on this new res per someone's input on the forum. Instead of starting with tap (around 7.2 pH, 80ish ppm) and adding the Power Si, which had been gelling up pretty bad, i took the tap, and dropped the pH to 6.0. added 20ml silica (2ml/gallon). Let er mix for 20ish minutes, and no clouding! No gelling seen so far. Thinking MSA doesn't like being added to a basic solution, even if mildly basic. We'll see what the inline filter says in a few days when i do this a few times. also inverted the ratios on part A and part B to really drop the N and get the PK up.

PK boost is doing it's job though. We'll see what happens. Based on trich's I'm estimating another 1.5 - 2 weeks max. Next res imma drop the EC severely, like 0.6 severely. Starting to dial back temps tonight, will drop lights to 75% tomorrow.

January 6, 2022:

input: 1.0 EC
lights: 75%

Still chuggin along. The pk boost is helping motivate them to keep going i think. Trichomes are progressively getting cloudier but surprisingly, despite some of the lowers still having mostly white hairs still, their trichomes are looking about on par with the uppers. Thinking maybe two, three weeks max. and that's a big maybe. Dialing back the nutrients each res to see if i can coax some nice fall colors outta these girls and encourage em to wrap their shit up.

Hoping they'll really fill out over the next couple weeks and I'm not dialing back nutrients too early. i want to be able to throw one at my asshole neighbor and give him a black eye.

 

[tobh]

January 7, 2022:

input: 0.7- 0.8 EC
lights: 75%

Looks like pk boost is getting cancelled a week early because I ran outta MOAB. not gonna go buy more just a another 20 grams of dosage. Dropped EC down to 0.7-0.8. Kept part A and part B inverted still so N is much less available. Hopefully will start to see some nice fall fade coming through.

January 9, 2022:

input: 0.6 EC
lights: 70%

Fuckin branches keep breaking from the weight of the buds. I don't think I'm gonna run these cuts again. This shit is dumb. I've never seen such scraggly stems that literally collapse under the weight of their flowers. Luckily the prime ones are all supported by the net but there are at least two branches that I can't reach currently hanging towards the floor instead up sitting proper upwards. Must be getting close to the finish line.

Apologies on the shitty pic. Best i could do given where these bastards are. Pretty shitty spot if you ask me.

January 12, 2022:

input: 0.4 EC
lights: 70%

Hopefully the isotonic solution will get those numbers down a lot more. Ran a ten minute flush with the 0.4 solution, so will let everything settle for a bit then do a syringe check. Don't really trust the runoff all that much given the salt buildup that happens on the platform. Never really know for sure if the runoff # is from the media or from residuals on the platform.

January 15, 2022:

input: 0.4 EC
lights: 65%

Last night, I made a new reservoir and apparently forgot to toggle the feed pump timer back to auto from the off position. As a result, the girls didn’t have any solution for nearly the entire lighting cycle. All of them are pissed off, and might not recover. Ran a full res flush through them with weak solution since I’m still waiting on the isotonic solution to arrive. We’ll see if they recover.

January 16, 2022:

input: 0.4 EC
lights: 60%

The girls in the front row haven’t recovered at all. The root zones were damaged to severely for them to be able to uptake water at this point and they’ve effectively died. Chop day for them.

The back row has regained some turgidity so they’ll be getting flushed this week and chopped sometime in the next week.

January 17, 2022 (page 38):

input: 0.3 EC, isotonic solution
lights: 50%

Going have to see if the tent will be fine without the dehuey running in the office. Getting it out into the garage will get the temps up a bit and drop the RH where it needs to be. At least it's not a total loss, these buds are respectable looking for what it's worth.

Not exactly how I planned this run to wrap up, but it wouldn't be a grow if there weren't something, somewhere. This time I caught the crisis right at the end. Just hope I can get them dried and cured well enough, pretty fearful I lost a ton of terpenes due to this mistake.

January 22, 2022:

input: <0.3 EC

Chop day for the remaining three girls. No further pictures have been taken since the timer incident, it’s an embarrassing mistake to make so late in a run. A painful yet critical lesson learned. The next pics that will be posted on this thread will be once everything is dried and trimmed.

 

[tobh]

I’M DONE.

Feel free to post now, thank you for your cooperation!

 

[Mr.GreenthumbOG]

Hahahaha. Now that’s how you preserve information for future grows.
Congrats on the run!

 

[tobh]

Hahahaha. Now that’s how you preserve information for future grows.
Congrats on the run!

Won't be doing it this way again haha. Putting all that together took roughly five or six hours. Doing the grow itself was easier than digging through archives and ordering shit in the right way. If someone gains insight from any of this though, it'll have been worth the effort.

 

[jguit]

Awesome journal! Bookmarked. Thanks for taking the time to put this together!

 

[tobh]

Awesome journal! Bookmarked. Thanks for taking the time to put this together!

Absolutely! Wanted to try something a little different this time.

 

[jguit]

Not exactly how I planned this run to wrap up, but it wouldn't be a grow if there weren't something, somewhere.

The story of my life. You can remove the word 'run' and replace the word 'grow' with most anything. haha

 

[PK1]

congrats on the harvest for what it is worth!

 

[tobh]

congrats on the harvest for what it is worth!

appreciate it. still pretty salty about how it concluded, but some smoke is better than no smoke. will do better next time.

 

[PK1]

appreciate it. still pretty salty about how it concluded, but some smoke is better than no smoke. will do better next time.

definitely dude, learn from mistakes and keep on growing. What happened to the two mothers?

 

[Dirtbag]

Fkn awesome @tobh! Stoked to finally see it all compiled as one.

I'll be completely honest, it makes me a bit uncomfortable when anyone attempts to emulate anything I do, it just makes me feel responsible for the results. But you absolutely did the style justice man. Proud to have my handle in the title.

As with pretty much every grow there are lessons to take away and apply toward future grows, and I think having your process documented this clearly will help you out down the road. But this run was pretty spectacular to watch unfold. Absolutely puts to bed the debate over defoliation in my mind, although there is of course considerations to be made based on strain and sensitivity to herms, but stable genetics can be slapped around a lot harder than most people think. Especially in a fast system like rockwool.

Great job dude.

 

[DanC520]

Great work putting this all together. Makes me slightly ashamed of what my data collection has become. My excuse is my job is all data based (lol), but still an excuse. Again, amazing write up.

 

[Moshmen]

Won't be doing it this way again haha. Putting all that together took roughly five or six hours. Doing the grow itself was easier than digging through archives and ordering shit in the right way. If someone gains insight from any of this though, it'll have been worth the effort.

Oh I’m sure it will be used for years ! Thanks for puttin it together !

 

[Moshmen]

Great work by the way ! Don’t forget the smoke report in a few weeks ? Lol