Grow Journal Attempting Crowded Sea of Green

[Bootsy]

Hi. i think if i was following this I would most like photos. attached are one perspective with the lights on,an overhead of the whole grow, and then one of each quadrant - which can be Identified by the tent corners. more later. tomorrow will be defoliation and spreading out and adding some frames or posts to do the little training required to keep them within themselves. Looking forwatd to my/our anniversary night out. My training has gone just as i hoped. I rely on the horseshoe i keep close.

[ChadWestport]

Getting thick in there!

[Bootsy]

An update on the status and some photos. it's now been 16 days since first pistils and only about a week since the last (Gelatto) started. It is really evident how deifferent strains act. having them mixed up under the three lights and moving them around. i tried to get most with same general phenotype, but gelatto, blackwater in particular are stretchy. i just today raised the shortest, but yesterday raised the lights because i was seeing some light damage such as at top of a bud, and the leaves kinda curling up. i only see occasional flies now, and watered from bottom the last three times. today will be back to top watering. I defoliated 3 days ago, and since then the buds have really developed. I cut off most all of the little buds down low not on the vertical shaft of the colas and guess they go in with edibles? . I see that there are more now that some of the slower plants have grown more, and think that i should defoliate again tomorrow or saturday. smells nice in the tent now. I am surprise3d how well the plants under the old unbranded LED are doing. I also added a single plant photo. i did one of all the strains but i am enamoured with the Afghan Hash Plant. Several of the strains are quite a bit lighter in colour but look good otherwise. White Rhino and Kushy Kush - both of which are clones of clones. the photo under the grow lights is from right after defoliation, while the rest are yesterday. It sure isnt less work than big ones, but i am almost 3 weeks ahead of the plants from which 3 strains were taken. 54 colas at present. considering i had 40 after manifolding 4 plants last grow, not that big a difference?

[Bootsy]

Time for an update. 27 days since 12 12 flowering and 17 since first real pistils showed up. I have done a little bit of lst to get the colas apart in the tight bushy plants and to keep spreading ones in. otherwise just watching. And - i now know that the lighter colour of the Kushy Kush and even worse White Rhino is likely a N2 deficiency. i expect it was PH induced a I was using water at just under 6. when i watered this time it was at 5.5, and the runoff this time was at 6.3 - so make me think it might have been high? i flushed the yellowed ones quite a bit and will keep the water somewhat acidic for next while. interesting how different plants are very different. The buds are starting to fill in as can be seen in the photos. I think i will wait till this weekend for major defoliation, and will feel much better about it since they have many leaves. If anyone has advice or comment on the yellow ones, please do - the one alone is a white rhino. the white rhino and kushy kush already have a lot of pistils turning brown, but i expect that is just part of the fattening? I must get some blocks to raise a bunch n level the canopy. otherwise in my mind they look great - except for the yellowing ones. Till next time.

[SoOrbudgal]

From my little experience growing OGkush it ripened before all the others.

[Bootsy]

Hi folks. next update. Switched timing on Oct and flowering and the first started pistils a week later - so been flowering for around a month. I let them get a little dry again and had trouble re-hydrating so I watered from bottom yesterday. A labour of love that can only be managed due to theirsmall statures. I have a pot I sit the plants in one by one and wet to 1 inch below the ground level, let em drain and put back. Takes awhile, but i am usually sitting down there puttering anyway. I defoliated 2 days ago, mainly to thin out the little indicas, which are super tight. I admit i was scared to be aggressive because there arent a lot of leaves to start with, but they had leaves touching everywhere and light couldnt get in much. I dropped the ph of the water to around 5.5 to offset the runoff high ph, and the yellowing seems to have stopped, so high ph must have been involved earlier/ Gelatto really is reaching, and a a resuly has been relegated to the unbranded light portion at the back. that was I may not have to raise all the plants to compensate. I am basically sacrificing those tall ones to the mercy of the unbranded old LED light, which i can keep higher. The rest have bufs filling in and smell pretty cool.
SOOO. The Kushy Kush and White Rhino, which are clones off clones from my summer grow, have a lot of pistil turning bright orange and generally looking mature - they are even the ones that had yellowing leaves starting from the bottom. I was worried that they are maturing too fast and would be tiny. However, I checked the trichomes and they are very clear still. those two should be a couple of weeks faster (6 weeks claimed) but not after only a month. The pistils are quite attractive and still look almost alive even as they changed colour. I hope they both keep getting bigger. attaqched are photos showing my level of lolipopping, a trichome show, and aq top view. I am still able to keep all the colas pretty separate with good light access, but it is in no way less work the way I am doing it. It' a hobby, not a production for me.
do been trying to flower All of the girls still seems to be pretty healthy except for the Kushy Kush and White Rhino with their bright orange pistils (later). Throughout, I have been adjusting the lights and locations - due to what seems to be very different light requirements for the different strains. Gelatto, the tallest, and Afghan Hash plant , the shortest seem to be very sensitive to intense light, while Blackwater seems to thrive on it, Thanks for reading, if you made it. Fun. I tried to get a decent photo of the bright coloured buds, but its not in by wheelhouse.

[Bootsy]

Oh yeah. I also cut back the nutrients by about 20%, or add 20% more water after mixing

[Ckbrew]

Nice grow you have going.

[ChadWestport]

Not a terrible amount of stretch on those. Far less crowding than I imagined at the beginning. Looks good and I'm eager for updates, cheers!

[Bootsy]

yeah, i had hoped for more stretch, but it might work out. the buds seem so short. but there are lots.

[ChadWestport]

everything is at a nice level height, which should allow you to get the light down pretty close. All of the open bud sites are going to love it

[Bootsy]

Hi there. a few more days and all still alive. look pretty good to me except most now have their leaved clawing a bit and the leaves of many are getting very shiny - a new one to me. my photo attempt to show them is poor but you might be able to tell the light were all moved up a bit to see if that does it. however, still getting ph of runoff at 6.3 when using 5.5 ph water so high ph might have caused the little issues so far such as growth less than i expected. tips of leaves also have brown. i actually dropped the nutrients to 50% this time, thinknig a little flush might be in order. the White Rhino and Kushy Kush both look ready to go by pistils aqfter 4 weeks, but still clear trichomes so i am leaving em. hope they fatten up more, or their yield will be a littl small. in the photos you can see i have the tall ones at the back, which is where the old led light is. I realize there is something not quite right. the canopy looks pretty cool from above with all the little buds looking up. If anyone reading this knows what makes shiny leaves and clawing up, please mention it. Cheers till next time

[Bootsy]

Hi there. a few more days and all still alive. look pretty good to me except most now have their leaved clawing a bit and the leaves of many are getting very shiny - a new one to me. my photo attempt to show them is poor but you might be able to tell the light were all moved up a bit to see if that does it. however, still getting ph of runoff at 6.3 when using 5.5 ph water so high ph might have caused the little issues so far such as growth less than i expected. tips of leaves also have brown. i actually dropped the nutrients to 50% this time, thinknig a little flush might be in order. the White Rhino and Kushy Kush both look ready to go by pistils aqfter 4 weeks, but still clear trichomes so i am leaving em. hope they fatten up more, or their yield will be a littl small. in the photos you can see i have the tall ones at the back, which is where the old led light is. I realize there is something not quite right. the canopy looks pretty cool from above with all the little buds looking up. If anyone reading this knows what makes shiny leaves and clawing up, please mention it. Cheers till next time

[Bootsy]

oops/ i dont know what i did to get the copies!

[Bootsy]

so things were going too well and i had to F...k up. i must have hit the timer and put it to on last night, so the lights have been on almost 24 hrs. i set the timer back. now i have so many variables that have or could go wrong, I will have to try again. hope this doesnt do too much damage, but that is life with me. the shiny cupping leaves were bothering me before, but now letr's see what happens.

[SoOrbudgal]

Really i'm thinking if that happened just once it would not be a huge issue Bootsy sure it's worrisome but i don't think it will harm them much for that short of period. Do they look like leaf got too warm like curled or dry?

[Bootsy]

thanks. A friend of mine said he has done the light thing several times with no major notice but only for a day at a time - so i think will be okay. the temperatures have never gone above 75F, nor below 68 so far. i have had to heat the whole time. the leaves dont seem hard, but now that i look, most plants have burnt tips of leaves. The led's have not been below recommended heights for more than a few days. I am at a loss. I will say that when i take them out of tent for photo, the shininess and leaf curling looks much less severe. I intended to put the temperature on day-night schedule but already got the girls stressed so i might leave that for awhile. I maybe am tinkering too much.

[Bootsy]

and another wrinkle. thanks SoOrbudgal for mentioning temperature. i likely wouldnt have checked. i have my temperature controlled by a temperature/humidity controller, that is on its second grow. I was about to change to a new one c/w day=night settings. I likely wouldnt have checked otherwise but left them both in and there was almost a 5 degree difference in readings. i doublechecked with another calibrated tstat and the new one is accurate. So i have been controlling my temperatures consistantly 5 degrees F higher. no doubt this has also led to the stress, and could have been a reason my last grow had a few issues. after the switch over, i got the expected spike in humidity from the temperature drop that has levelled at 58 for now. today will assess and get controlset. i intend to drop the settings down to 74 day and 67 night, so with the 5 degree difference, it will overall be a quick drop in temp in a day but i will check regularly to see if issues. gotta be better than the rapidly increased cupping. wordy again - sorry but i have a few friends really interested. And - i must calibrate my first controller!

[Bootsy]

Watered today with 5.5 water and run off was 6.4. i overwatered hoping to flush the media somewhat. The Kushy Kuh and White Rhino have more than 90% of pistils turned red, but i just did a trichome check and only a few are getting milky. the buds dont seem to be growing either. Looks like i wont get much off those two, but if it's nice i am okay. i now believe I should have been checking the ph earlier. it was one of those thing - it hasnt been that long and i will do it tomorrow - which turned into a couple of weeks. I bet the WRand KK turn pretty fast now that pistils are gone so i will be watching daily

[Bootsy]

Bqd news, for me. the shiny leaves and curling and cupping were indicators of nitrogen overdose. The nutrient sytem has 7 parts in veg, but only 6 and then 5 in flowering. the ones dropped off are high nitrogen. All plant are showing stress, and over half have their leaves very stiff and plasicy or just dried- dead. Now I wonder if the toxicity will hurt the quality . quantity it definitely has. so this grow has now had so many mistakes that i really have to try it again. hoping to get something tasty here and go on. Missed checking PH so they went pretty much a month into flowering. then had the 24 hrs straight light (which didnt seem to hurt), and - i should have waited a few more days to get slightly bigger, and - i believe i should have kept the led lights a little higher to encourage mores stretch at the start - the buds and internode distance are incredibly and maybe too dense. I will pot photos in th next day - to my embarrassment. Glad I am not needy for my medicine or i would be inconsolate. My biggest question is answered in that i do think the cola spacing would have allowed 4 colas per plant in my tent. next time.... cheers.

[ChadWestport]

Oh no!! I was so excited for your grow and the update pics were great. Sorry to hear about this. Glad you aren't up a creek without medicine. Growing is learning, best of luck next time

[Bootsy]

Photos taken. First off, the Kuhy Kush and White Rhino are extremely close to harvest - within the next day or so with some amber showing. They are definitely stunted from what i hoped. again hoping on quality. Of the others, Zkittles glue is also close, and she is amonget the most damaged by everything and most leaves dead. high PH, high temp, nitrogen overdose, early flowering - and i might still be satisfied at the end. A few plants have almost no live leaves yet, while others are still in pretty good shape. i have stopped anything with nitrogen and will go a couple of days watching. Guessing, I expect to cut northern lights, zkittles glue and hash plant in a week. Gelato and blackwater i am hoping for 2 to 3 weeks. i like guessing, and i think i will get 8 g off each of the KK and WR, and 6 off ZG with the others hopefully still growing. I really like this using little pots since very easy to move around, take out for viewing, and they were easy to bottom water when i wanted. i will be trying this again. other thing is that i will likely only have used around half of the regular nutrients overall.

[Bootsy]

So. Quite a bit has happened since last posting. I have harvested all but the two Afghan Hash Plants, which might be today, depending on a morning check. First, I held off on the Kushy Kush and White Rhino as long as I could, hoping they could get bigger after fixing the nutrients and flushing for 4 waterings. However, the top buds were getting too mature - as can be seen in the trichome photo (lower on the buds wasn't nearly as far) so they were chopped Sunday. Then yesterday I inspected each plant, and most had their leaves dead or dying, despite looking green in the tent. I now know what i read meant about the dying progressing into the buds. i have a couple of photos to show - the trichomes actually deteriorate and/or disappear. This must be associated with a loss in total thc. Some of the girls had the leaves burnt looking and others the leaves turned very much like thick poly feel. only the hash plants seemed to have live leaves - but they are likely to be cut today because they were pretty cloudy - without amber. I have no idea how to guess the yield. the buds were super lush, so i am afraid there will be mass amounts of chlorophyl affecting the taste. I will say that these plants all had more trichomes than i had seen in my limited experience. with my day night control and time of year, the conditions were a consistant low 40s humidity and temp kept at 74 day and 66 night, so from what i read that is ideal, so lucky this time. more after i get some weights. have a piece of . bud of Gelatto quick drying for a taste.