I've been keeping grow journals/diaries for a little while now. I figured it's time to make one big thread, rather than an individual thread per grow...so, here we are!
I'm proud of my Derpy DurP. It's a problem child, sure, but I'm committed to finishing out this grow just to see how much I can salvage. Enter: DurP, day 32 of 12/12: This is my second Durban Poison grown from breeder's seed and my second hermaphrodite. This time around the hermie was most...
I'm usually a sativa guy, so growing an ~80% indica freebie was never a priority, but now that I've grown out my other genetics and I'm sitting on a nice surplus...I'm curious. I will strive for weekly updates at a minimum. There will be notes, numbers, pictures and commentary. I hope to learn...
www.thcfarmer.com
My current setup consists of a 2'x4' veg tent with ~200 actual watts LED, and a 4'x4' flowering tent with ~280 watts of better LED.
I've been growing in Fox Farm and ProMix soils for many years, but I've been toying with the idea of going soiless or hydro. We'll see!
An email from Seedsman landed in my inbox this morning, letting me know that the Diet Durban is very likely to hermie (joy!). Just in time, I suppose. Apparently, it's bad enough that they're offering a refund or replacement (once stable seeds are available). Seeing that I'm a glass-half-full sorta guy, I'm going to keep it going and just watch it very closely. I have a couple clones that are doing well, too, so if she's stable then I can keep her going. However, if I find a single nanner before week 8...they all get the axe. (YOU HEAR ME IN THERE, DURBAN‽ A SINGLE ONE!) So far so good though - nothing but pistils. I feel like a contestant on Press Your Luck. Big Buds! No Nanners!
That considered, everything is going okay. The Diet is getting to the point of needing LST, an emergency prune and a 'full tilt' grow light. The light is pretty much maxed out on height and there's still some stretch left in these girls. The Peach has a reputation of being wiry and frail so the fact she's somewhat wiry and frail is, ya know, expected. She's green, growing and starting to bud so no complaints other than the extra work she'll likely require to support/suspend her buds.
Runoff pH is very low again (4ish). It's been an ongoing issue in most of my grows since moving here. I've tried a few things and still seem to be fighting it. My guess is the tap water here just doesn't have enough alkalinity (80-100ppm) and I'll need to buffer the soil with some d. lime next time. Tap pH is 7 straight outta the faucet and 8+ after sitting out for a couple of days at room temp, so I don't usually need pH up on a lite feeding (my nutes are all acidic or neutral) and it's usually 5 drops of pH down per 3L jug to reach a pH of 6.5 without nutes. I'm barely feeding them anyway and my input pH is at least 7 lately. Dunno. If anyone has tips or suggestions, feel free to share.
Day 17
Thanks for the heads up, Seedsman!
Almost as if on cue, the Diet Durban started to go full-on hermie. It was shown no mercy and buried in the compost pile. A shame, really. It looked happy and healthy.
The Peach Purée was starting to show calcium deficiencies so she got a flush. And I mean a flush! I spent at least two hours and must have put 50 gallons of water through that bucket before the runoff tested a reasonable pH (6). Topped her off with 1 gal of a weak mix of cal mag, tiger bloom and big bloom. Might as well make use of the full room, huh? Tied her up and out a bit and did some defoliation. She’s very wispy and vine-like, droopy and thin. Going to be an interesting grow!
Happy growing,
It's been a busy summer and I've definitely been slacking when it comes to documentation. In this case, no news is good news! She's budding up beautifully and smells so very sweet. She's still showing some cal/mag/low pH issues and been losing a couple fan leaves each day, but it's not at a rate that worries me. The frosty new growth says the rest.
Trying to keep it simple lately. Stopped using pH down entirely. Yup. On 'plain water' days, h2o is being administered straight from the jugs at a pH of 8+. It hasn't seemed to change much; the runoff pH is still on the low side. I also reduced the amount of nutes she gets. I'll start to dial the P&K back up soon. Gotta fatten her up!
The breeder says harvest at 55-60 days, so here we are at the harvest-minus-2-weeks mark. The plant has been steadily adding buds and trichomes while steadily yellowing and losing fan leaves. Keeping the soil pH up has been a struggle. The purple stems and yellowing point to Mg deficiencies, but I don't want to give it more CALiMAGic this late in the game. I'd normally flush it again and hit it with one last dose of Cha Ching, but at this point it's too large to fit in the shower and I'd be worried about breaking branches along the way, so it stays put.
I'm going to attempt my first in-room "flush" using a large watering can, FF Sledgehammer and many trips to the sink, along with an empty soda bottle to suck runoff out of the tray and squeeze it into a nearby bucket. Rinse and repeat a few times with the hopes of bringing the runoff pH up again. Let's hope the floor stays dry in the process!
Harvest was day 55. She's been hanging for a couple of days now and I must say I'm very pleased with the results!
Everything has shrunk a bit (to be expected). That said, it appears the aggressive trimming did its job keeping the popcorn buds to a minimum. All the buds are dense and oh so frosty; they almost look white from a distance :)
Given the bendy and frail nature of this plant, I wasn't able to get it into my usual photo setup, but I still took the time to snap a few harvest-day pics. Plus, you know what they say: A picture is better than a wordy post...so here we go!
I nearly filled the drying rack.
"Let's see your frostiest flowers" thread, here I come.
An email from Seedsman landed in my inbox this morning, letting me know that the Diet Durban is very likely to hermie (joy!). Just in time, I suppose. Apparently, it's bad enough that they're offering a refund or replacement (once stable seeds are available). Seeing that I'm a glass-half-full sorta guy, I'm going to keep it going and just watch it very closely. I have a couple clones that are doing well, too, so if she's stable then I can keep her going. However, if I find a single nanner before week 8...they all get the axe. (YOU HEAR ME IN THERE, DURBAN‽ A SINGLE ONE!) So far so good though - nothing but pistils. I feel like a contestant on Press Your Luck. Big Buds! No Nanners!
View attachment 1141695
That considered, everything is going okay. The Diet is getting to the point of needing LST, an emergency prune and a 'full tilt' grow light. The light is pretty much maxed out on height and there's still some stretch left in these girls. The Peach has a reputation of being wiry and frail so the fact she's somewhat wiry and frail is, ya know, expected. She's green, growing and starting to bud so no complaints other than the extra work she'll likely require to support/suspend her buds.
Runoff pH is very low again (4ish). It's been an ongoing issue in most of my grows since moving here. I've tried a few things and still seem to be fighting it. My guess is the tap water here just doesn't have enough alkalinity (80-100ppm) and I'll need to buffer the soil with some d. lime next time. Tap pH is 7 straight outta the faucet and 8+ after sitting out for a couple of days at room temp, so I don't usually need pH up on a lite feeding (my nutes are all acidic or neutral) and it's usually 5 drops of pH down per 3L jug to reach a pH of 6.5 without nutes. I'm barely feeding them anyway and my input pH is at least 7 lately. Dunno. If anyone has tips or suggestions, feel free to share.
Stop using the ph down. It accumulates in the soil hence your 4.00 ph results. ( Nute's lower the ph by themselves) I can only tell you how I'd handle your ph issues. Your plants need nutes ( your small thin stalks tell me ). At that size they need the full does of vegging nutes. I'd suggest that you test the ph on the soil you are using ( just a test ) then add the full range of nutes( Micro,Grow,Bloom) or what ever nutes you are using then test the run off ph again. ( just soil no plant) With me my soil comes back at 6.5ph then after adding the nutes my runoff is around 6.00...too low for me so I'll add 2 ml of PH Up to my concoction of nute's before I feed it to them. With your ph so low I'd put a table spoon of dolomite lime on top of the soil before your next water or feed. It'll take a couple of weeks but it will bring the ph up