Grow #3 from close to start

thatguy2001 · Aug 24, 2021

I decided to get this grow documented from close to the start, rather than close to the end :P

My stage rooms are all in different buildings.

Flower	9'x17' stand alone building
2 Enlite	780 Watt LED
1 Grower's Choice	680 Watt LED
1 Grower's Choice	720 Watt LED
9 2'x4' grow stations
12,000 BTU AC
Dehumidifier
8" CAN filtered exhaust
All monitored and controlled remotely
Manual watering and feeding

Veg	4'x8' Tent
1 Enlite	780 Watt LED

Clone	3'x4'
SunBlaze 48	48

I'm using Roots Original soil in 25 gallon soft pots and mostly following the Roots dry amendments schedule. I may change up the nutrients for round 4, but most of the plants have done well on it.

From my first run, I was able to get clones easily from the triple chocolate, and since they were so delicious last time, I am probably going to go with a full mono crop this time. These rooted clones were potted in their temporary pots about one and two week ago. I nearly lost one on day 1, so I clipped all the dry leaves and waiting to see if it fully recovers.

Since I still had some root aphid issues, I mixed DT in with the fresh soil to try to keep them away this time. I also used these pots so I could cover the bottom drain holes with heavy plant fabric to prevent critters from climbing in and out.

These fresh clones are vegging 24/7 under a Sunblaze 48 with only the outer lamps on.

In my tent, I have several clones running, but these 4 are triple chocolate and Purple Punch.
Even using fresh Roots Original, I carried root aphids in when doing some of the clone plantings, and they were getting pretty bad, so two days ago, I did a peroxide flush, then set off a pyrethrin fogger in the (4x8) tent. There is some damage to the leaves from the combo, but I haven't seen any signs of root aphids for now and I'll be trimming off the damaged leaves as they grow more. I'm going to dust the top of the soil with DT today.

These are under an Enlite 780 watt LED at about 50%. I don't currently have any climate control in the tent, as my humidifiers, dehumidifiers, and A/Cs are being used in the flower room and the dry room. None of these have been fed anything from water yet, since I'm trying to keep the growth slow and steady. Next week, when the clones move in, I plan on starting their nute schedule.

I've kept these clones in the tent for now, waiting on the final results of grow #2 because I'd hate to get rid of any of them, only to realize that I have a winner that I need to keep. I'll know their fates in about a week.

thatguy2001 · Aug 30, 2021

Moved my clones to the tent to veg. They're doing far better than I expected with the change.

thatguy2001 · Sep 6, 2021

I cleared out most of the plants I am not keeping for this round. I'm trying to give those away to people in need of a jump start.

Round #2 is mostly harvested and I am probably going to pull the last plant tomorrow, she just wasn't quite ready when the rest were (big fat colas but still growing and very few amber tricomes). These will be moving from the 4x8 tent with very little climate control to the insulated, temperature and humidity controlled room. Most of the plants will be moving into their own 30 gallon container, but I will probably double up on a few to test yield per pot.

White powder is diatomaceous earth - I'm still battling root aphids in here but I think I am getting them under control. One more hydrogen peroxide dip, then into inoculated soil with predators should do the trick, I hope. If not, then root aphids will just have to be something I live with. They are outside and get into everything. I replaced about 400 gallons of soil, sanitized, bleached, and bombed after round #1 and there are still some in the flower room. Round #2 were not negatively affected though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

These Triple Chocolates are growing like crazy. I cut a lot of them back and have a new round of clones trying to root.

The youngest clones, all rooted within the last week. I kept them in small pots since I will be moving them again in the next week.

It amazes me when I look at this plant today versus a week ago when I took the last set of photos. I cut about 8" off the top for a clone, and it's still at least twice the size as it was before.

thatguy2001 · Oct 11, 2021

It's been a little over a month since I moved the keepers to the flower room to finish off their veg. Since I was going to be away for a couple of weeks, I just decided to throw them in their new pots and let them veg out as much as possible for a while before flipping (which will happen on Saturday the 16th. I ended up deciding to go with 2 of last rounds' Polynesian Cookie Haze and the rest Triple Chocolate. It's nice having pretty much a mono crop so I can see all of the plants reacting the same, for the most part.

Since I think this will be the last run with any PCH, I decided to just throw a whole set of fresh rooted cuts into smaller pots and stick them all in the extra space that I grew my Mob Boss last time. No light directly overhead, assorted 2, 3, and 5 gallon pots, and little or no training other than a couple that got topped early on.

I have all of the lights lowered to hit between 4-600 ppfd at the canopy with the lights at 75%. I need to pull out my watt meter and test them all though, because the Grower's Choice 680 is putting out the most intense light and it's the lowest rated setup I have. It could just be that the 680 is packed into a slightly tighter space, but it has always put off WAY MORE heat than the others. I always assumed it was because the heat sink system was not as good.

Excuse the mess :P It doesn't normally look quite this bad.

These Polly Cookie Haze had roots starting when I left town and my helper didn't pot them, so they had foot long root masses that I had to break apart from the clone setup in order to get into pots. I only lost one in the process, and, as you can see in the middle left, almost another. That said - these were planted about 2.5 weeks ago and most are doing well for only getting ambient light.

These are the two other PCH that I already had growing in my veg tent before.

These two are the youngest - they were in the little pint pots and have grown up and filled in nicely.

thatguy2001 · Oct 11, 2021

I forgot to mention - the root aphids are really bad outside here, so as an 'all or nothing' move, when taking these all to the flower room, I removed them from the pots and completely submerged the root masses into a hydrogen peroxide mix , knocking away as much of the soil as possible, that is another reason I decided to do an extra long veg since I was shocking them with that and by transplanting to new soil at the same time. They appeared a little shocked for only about two days before recovering and I haven't seen any signs of bugs on them now.

thatguy2001 · Oct 11, 2021

I am experiencing an issue with humidity though. I can't seem to be able to push the humidity to where I want it. I am running lights during the day and have an A/C unit, but am also running two humidifiers to try to compensate. The outdoor humidity has been high, ranging from 70-99% when it's not raining, so my thought process was that if I could pull that air inside, I could cool and moisturize the air at the same time.

I set up my 8" exhaust and intake fans to an outlet that is programmed to turn on when the outside humidity is over 70% and the inside temperature is over 75° and turn off when either are lower. But what I saw when it turned on is that the temperature started dropping but nowhere near what the humidity did!

I unplugged the exhaust fan and only left the intake fan plugged in and saw very similar results. For example, this morning at 5:45, it was 80.5° with 75.5% rh inside when the intake kicked on because it was 99% humidity outside. By 6:00, the room was 78.6° with 60.6% rh. WTF? If I am pushing in humid air, it should be raising the RH to ideal levels. I know that some of it is because I'm running an AC unit in the room, but what else could be causing this? Any ideas?

Just for the record, I have at least 5 different monitors in the room and while they all show slightly different readings based on type and location, they all show the same trends and none of them show it getting humid enough other than at night without lights, AC, or outside air exchange.

thatguy2001 · Nov 9, 2021

Well, now that the rains have come and I'm flowering, I'm back to running the dehu 24/7, so none of the previous post is relevant :P
Flipped to flower October 15, One week later, the stretch was starting to show.

This is the Poly Cookie Haze. The rest are Triple Chocolate.

.

thatguy2001 · Nov 9, 2021

10/27 - Twelve days into Flower. Still Stretching. I had put a third SCRoG layer up for some of them. (it's not going to be enough).
This was a rough week. A tree took out our power pole, so I was running on a generator at night (day for plants) and nothing during the day. No fans, dehumidifier, nothing. All I could do is try to keep the lights on (at appropriate times) so they wouldn't die.
With this 12 hour calm, dark, damp environment, I discovered an infestation of thrips. I did a pyrethrin bomb, followed by adding Amblyseiuls swirkii, neoseiulus californicus, Amblyseiuls cucumeris, Rove beetles, and straitiolaelaps.

Poly Cookie Haze (followed by TC)

thatguy2001 · Nov 9, 2021

11/04 - Day 20

The stretch is real. Rather than add a 4th layer of net, I am going to increase the height of the top rack in the next couple of weeks.
There are still some thrips on the plants, so I'm going to have to go harder on the IPM treatments. I am working on getting them all thinned out more, but they are so thick it's really difficult to thin without over pruning. I don't know :/

These are some Poly Cookie Haze that has just rooted when I was starting the room, and since I am not planning on running them next time, I threw them into the open space between lights.

Poly Cookie Haze

The rest are Triple Chocolate

BirdLaw86 · Nov 9, 2021

Castille soap is supossed to do the trick for aphids. Theres a product called spinosad also. Habent tried it but its been recommended. Someone else mentioned poppers which release beneficial nematodes into the soil to prey on the aphids. I just added some neem into my soil. Its been the 2nd small treatment in 7 days. I never add too much. Waiting on the results. Someone else mentioned D.E. as a fix also.

thatguy2001 · Nov 13, 2021

BirdLaw86 said:
Castille soap is supossed to do the trick for aphids. Theres a product called spinosad also. Habent tried it but its been recommended. Someone else mentioned poppers which release beneficial nematodes into the soil to prey on the aphids. I just added some neem into my soil. Its been the 2nd small treatment in 7 days. I never add too much. Waiting on the results. Someone else mentioned D.E. as a fix also.

I've got rove beetles, pirate bugs, and a bunch of other things with long, scientific names. Haven't seen any root aphids for quite a while, but there are still a few thrips. I'm pretty sure that the thrip population is now small enough that they won't damage the crop. When I first found them, I could easily see four or five thrips on leaves of each plant. yesterday, when searching, I saw only one total.

I have worms in my soil, so I'm all for nematodes and predators, but am leery of trying anything harsh in the soil because I don't want to kill off the worms. When I did my move into the flower room, I filled 5 gallon water buckets with a hydrogen peroxide and water solution. Every plant had the root cluster, soil and all, dunked and held under until saturated. The plants did not suffer any ill affects from that and it killed off enough of the root aphids that predators were able to keep them from really coming back. Also, right after the move and transplant I did cover the soil with D.E.. Didn't have worms in it yet, so I wasn't worried about it. The difficulty of D.E. is that it works when dry, not wet.

Good luck with your treatments!

thatguy2001 · Nov 25, 2021

So much for the mono crop. I'll never put multiple clippings in one clone tray again. I suspected that one of my triple chocolate clones might be a Mack when they were vegging due to a slight difference in leaves. After cloning all of those and putting them into flower, I realize only 1/3 are triple chocolate.
I don't mind having a mix, but I really wanted to have good light comparison tests and defoliation technique comparisons that in not going to have.

Triple chocolate

Mack

thatguy2001 · Dec 3, 2021

Into the last month. I had a lot of leaf with and fade. I think I had some lockout going on and an extra boost of calmag store/slowed it. Now we're just waiting on the buds to plump and finish.
I had to start watering every day. Generally 1 to 1-1/2 gallons a day for each plant. I'm stopping feeding anything but molasses since I want to be sure not to have any residual taste when it comes to harvest time.
Last night I found a cola that had fallen over because it was stretched about a foot and a half over the top scrog later. Had to pull it up and tie it to keep it upright. I think it had been down for a while, bad on the growth pattern. Tonight I'll look for more that I may have missed.

thatguy2001 · Dec 10, 2021

Just finished week 8. Very frosty but not yet getting milky. Perfectly on schedule, as I expect both the Mac and triple chocolate to go nearly the whole 11 weeks.

MAC

Triple Chocolate

thatguy2001 · Dec 15, 2021

I'm totally stoked that my MAC photo was nominated for photo of the month. I can't wait to see what I might be able to show by harvest in a couple of weeks.

I'm going to have to pull these poly cookie haze in a couple of days. They just grew too tall and I can't tie them up well without damaging them more than it's worth.

Triple chocolate still have a couple weeks

thatguy2001 · Dec 16, 2021

My poly cookie haze are stacking up horizontally
I tried up a ton of them last night and I'll get more pictures tonight, but they aren't quite ripe enough to harvest so I had to try something.

Everything else looks to be in track. I wish I had feed them for an additional week or two, but I didn't want to risk the nute flavors in my finished product.

thatguy2001 · Dec 22, 2021

Day 68 - two days until the end of week 10. Both MAC and Triple Chocolate Chip are supposed to be 8-10 and 8-11 weeks, respectively. Neither are showing signs that they are getting close, so I'm concerned about the chances of the plants fading without getting the Trichs matured.
Cut the Poly Cookie Haze down yesterday.

These are the TCC trichomes

And these are the MAC trichomes

Going to keep going, of course, but I would like to see at least 30% milky so that I could watch the progress as they go from mostly clear to mostly milky.

Observationist · Dec 23, 2021

Lovely!

thatguy2001 · Dec 30, 2021

Originally scheduled to come down Friday, I am shifting to Saturday so I can have assistance. I did take the Polynesian Cookie Haze down last week. It is currently being trimmed. Smells great and I was able to pull 188g from the first plant.

This is day #2 of lights out for the rest of the girls.

MAC
MACTriple Chocolate ChipTriple Chocolate ChipTriple Chocolate Chip

Hoping that this trichome get more milky.
Wish me luck.

thatguy2001 · Jan 1, 2022

Harvest day! The wife stayed home to help and it still took forever. I can't believe the weight on some of those buds.
We spent a while on each plant cleaning them up as much as possible before cutting.

When we were done hanging, I couldn't resist the urge to lay underneath them and take a video.

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Grow #3 from close to start

Grow #3 from close to start

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