Grow Journal - Possible Painkiller XL (RQS)

[Eigholte]

Wow. That is super helpful! (Nice chart, too!).

When I map it out on your chart, I am roughly acceptable for veg and very borderline for early flower - humidity is hanging around 35%-38% which is too high for the average temps. But I bet I could drop the RH by increasing the airflow in the tent - ambient around here tends to be ~20%-30%RH, and I have plenty of extra fan capacity. I'll see what I can do this week to drop the RH and see if that makes for a happier plant next week.

[LurkingInTheGrass]

VPD Chart that works for me

[LurkingInTheGrass]

you can run cooler temperatures - but you have to pull your humidity down as well. they don't breath properly when its humid and cool (the slow down you are seeing)

look into Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD)
you don't have to read deeply into it (gets to be a sciencey rabbit hole) - there are charts to assist you. you are comparing Temp to RH and finding the sweet spot for your plants to transpire (breath and sweat) in their specific state (early veg, late veg, early flower, late flower)
My RH is fairly static (low) so, I try to keep my grow room as cool as I can

"flower tent with the filter going, I get 16-19c"
with flower temperatures that low - you need to get your RH down around 20%

[Eigholte]

Update: End of week 9 from seed, 2 weeks from 12/12




Still looking healthy. Thinned out a few leaves on it to try and increase the light penetration. GA3 treated branch has stretched even taller (Though one section of it flopped over and died. Maybe it got too tall to support its own weight? How unusual!). Saddest Clone is still hanging on, but does look very sad in its little Solo cup.

This week I saw the first pistils appear on one of two branches - not many of them yet, but they're there.



Things seem to be moving more slowly this grow, and I'm getting suspicious that it's temperature related. It is the dead of winter here, and my tents are in the basement. Without a carbon filter running, eg, in Veg, I get temps from 18c to 23c (64-73F) which seem about right for growth. In the flower tent with the filter going, I get 16-19c (60-66F), due to the increased airflow from the room. That may be slowing this plant down a little, perhaps. Doesn't look to be harming it yet, however.

The last grow did okay at 17-21c in flower (a little warmer because it was early fall at the time) but it was a pure-blood indica, this one is supposed to be a sativa hybrid, so maybe it's not as big a fan of the ambient temperature? Any comments would be appreciated. I'm just loath to start messing with the temperatures to aggressively, heaters can be a pretty good way to start a fire, and I like my house as it is.

Finally, I am watching the GA3 branch closely. I see some growth at the nodes that looks strange to me. It may just be leaves/shoots, but it doesn't look quite like the other shoots on the plant, and I've never seen a male plant in the flesh, so I'm not certain. Again, any comments would be appreciated.



Otherwise, the grow is proceeding along nicely, at a slow and steady rate.

[Eigholte]

Thank you! I'm noticing this plant is looking better than last grow - I might be getting a little better at reading plants and adjusting my nutrients/pH to match. And for what it's worth, the quadline technique I blatantly stole from you seems to be making a really nice, flat canopy. I have high hopes for this one! (Accidental pun?)

For now I'll just be crossing this plant with itself, if this whole GA3 thing works, as a way of getting more seeds since I only got one seed for each of my CBD strains... and then hopefully also saving some pollen for crossing on other strains later. Since my ability to grow far outstrips my ability to smoke, and I have a real love of genetics and cross-breeding (proven out by my rabbit herd over the years), the pollen chucking experiments are just a lot of fun for me. I am always so excited to see the results of a cross!

[Doubledealing72]

Your plant is looking great! Very lush green! So you're crossing different strains? That's awesome, and I would love to try it someday.

Keep up the good work man!

[Eigholte]

End of Week eight from seed / Week 1 from 12/12:



The saddest clone is STILL hanging in there. Color me surprised!

As you can see in the photo, the branch sprayed with the GA3 solution is stretching like hell compared to the rest of the plant. Since the GA3 treatment IS changing the growth pattern of the plant, it is making me hopeful that maybe I will get to make some feminized seeds and keep these genetics going for the future! The stretching in the rest of the plant is much more moderate, thankfully - the GA3 does seem to only have a localized effect. Still no pistils showing yet, but the pre-flowers are becoming more prominent as time goes on. Even the GA3 branch still looks to only have female pre-flowers, though. The process was described to me that the treated areas would stretch heavily, and would have male flowers by week 2-3 of flower. So we're pretty much on schedule by that account. Just have to have some patience, I think.

Then as soon as they appear I can chop that branch and remove it for pollen harvesting outside the tent. Muahahahh!

I just keep comparing this plant to my last grow, where at 8 weeks veg there were many pistils, and they took off like a rocket producing more pistils immediately when switched to 12/12. Then again, that previous set of plants refused to have anything to do with male flowers or pollen. I had pH issues that almost killed the 1st seedling around 4 times, issues with severe leaf drop on one plant through the whole flower period, and one of the clones was being treated with colloidal silver. Despite all that stress and purposeful goading not one of them ever made a single herm or male flower... In all honesty, I bet those "refuse to male" genetics could be valuable in another context. I should probably save that last White Kush seed to cross with something special... *chin stroke*

Current plant is taking up ~80% of the tent... after the stretch is done, that may end up being close to 100%... It's proving to be one big plant. I can't wait to see what kind of cola development happens. It's also really thirsty, and is now drinking something like 6-8L a week, at around ~750 ppm.

It's also growing up into my little blurple as it stretches, and has reached ~12" from the light without showing signs of stress or light burn. Per the manufacturer's listed PAR values (which may be lies, who knows?), 12" is the closest it should get, at around 900 umol/m2. So I've backed the lights off a little to give more growing room for the next week.

[LurkingInTheGrass]

Mix up your pH when setting a fresh batch of nutes. Try not to always go in at the same pH

You want to use more of that pH range (5.5-6.5)

[Eigholte]

Week Seven Completed:

So, per the above, today the plant was moved to the flower tent along with the Saddest Clone (who is holding on by the tips of it's one little rootlet...), and all the various "roommates" have gone back to the veg tent together.


I think Pixel here is probably close to the biggest plant I can support in my tent. Plant wingspan is around 25" and the front to back dimensions are around 19-20", so in that direction, it's butting up against the tent a fair bit. I'm hoping once I can remove the branch with the "Salad-bar-sneeze-guard" in 2-3 weeks, that will free up a bit of space in the front-to-back dimension. I have no idea how much stretch this strain really has, I'm hoping it will be manageable as the plant has been mostly "indica"-looking, but due to the sativa genetics in the background, I am ready to adapt if something unusual happens and I end up with a monstrous stretch. At least I started with a flat, low canopy!

And here's the motley crew occupying the veg tent.

In maybe 4-6 weeks, this group will likely have to share with a new cannabis seedling, just not sure what to sprout yet. (Options are: Purple Kush, My last White Kush seed, Pure Power Plant, Blue Mystic, AK-48, or any of my remaining RQS CBD pack seeds (See post 1)) IF the pollen collection works out, I think I might like to try sprouting my Blue Mystic, because based on some of the scent and other characteristics this grow, I think I'd actually like to cross those two. They seem like they'd be reasonably compatible plant-parents. *shrugs* Ah well, I'll have to wait at least a week or so to know if that's where I should go.

The spouse has suggested I go back to growing a higher THC/THC dominant plant for the next batch, maybe try my Purple Kush seeds, as someone keeps getting into my stash from the last grow around bedtime.

[Eigholte]

Ugh. Went to start the sex-change process on my clone, and instead ended up knocking the poor thing over and right out of its pot. This revealed the clone has pitifully few roots. This plan is starting to really go belly up.


So instead, Plan B: Take one growth tip of the main plant, give it a "salad bar shield", spray that with the GA3, and send the whole plant into flower next week.

This is one week before I planned to start flowering, but maybe that's for the best. The short axis of the plant is now butting up against my tent. My choices there are to cut off the nice tips, super crop, or just flower. The main plant is large, leafy and getting larger by the day. It is also showing alternating leaves instead of paired and preflowers are popping up, so maybe it's time to flip to 12/12 anyhow...

[Eigholte]

Some of his ideas include locations like in front of city hall... not sure I have the cajones for that. But establishing a self-reproducing "feral" population may be more my speed...

[Canuck147]

That's the whole idea - spread the cannabis - Dana Larsen has planted them everywhere.

[Eigholte]

PS. You guys may or may not be a bad influence. Was reading another thread, and saw a link to Operation Overgrow. I missed the deadline last year, but this year I made it IN! (The concept of even HAVING 100 seeds kinda excites me. So. Many. SEEDS!) So maybe I'll have a future grow journal with "Freedom Dream", their 8-12%, <1% THC strain. Or maybe these plants will mysteriously "escape" into a nearby park system. Who knows...

[Eigholte]

Thanks! That is very handy advice.

[Mr.furley]

You could take a couple of Leafs, but it really isn't that overwhelmingly bushy. If it was mine I'd cut maybe 4 big ones from the top- middle and flip, week 3 is a good time to look at striping 25% of the fan leafs.