COCO COIR Grow Journal - Possible Painkiller XL (RQS)

[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!

 

[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.

 

[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%

 

[LurkingInTheGrass]

VPD Chart that works for me

 

[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]

LOL

after all the other charts and articles I looked at - this made the most sense in one easy to read page
shout out to just4growers.com for the chart

I want to laminate it for my grow room

 

[Doubledealing72]

Now I just need to learn Celsius 😂😂😂

 

[Eigholte]

Well, boosting the airflow dropped the RH down to ~25%. Transpiration is definitely up - what I thought was 2-3 days of water left based on the weight of the pot yesterday was bone dry today, with the lower leaves going floppy - so more water for the plant, today. (5.5L, ~750ppm, 6.3pH)

It's either a coincidence, or signs of a happier plant, that today I saw the first "proto-buds" which is encouraging. Also, we went from having 5, hard to find pistils to having pistils just laying about in the open at the end of each branch. This seems promising!

 

[LurkingInTheGrass]

most excellent

{8o_~

 

[LurkingInTheGrass]

can't resist
must post the arcane maths (they made me learn this sh!t in school - I did google to verify)

convert °F to °C:
remove 32, multiply by 5, divide by 9


an alternative to arcane maths to convert back and forth
I push the little button on my Temp/RH monitor

 

[Eigholte]

So it's either a complete co-incidence that within ~30 hours of dropping the RH as suggested by LurkingInTheGrass, I have seen an explosion of pistils and proto-buds, or Lurking is just a plant-whisperer. :tongue-out:

Being in week three, and with all these bud-sites forming, I decided it was time to do the week three defoliation. I hope I walked the right line between taking enough leaves to improve air/light around the proto buds, and not taking so many that the poor thing goes into shock.

So , before:

And after removing some of the large/medium fan leaves (Left the small ones completely alone).

Here's a closer side view of "after":

And a top view, just for the proto-buds:

Here's hoping I made the right call on the number of leaves to take. Doesn't look like I stripped her bare, but that was a somewhat hefty pile of greenery none the less!


There will be another update on Sunday, but I've got a class on the weekend and Pixel here sleeps in until 10am (jealous), so it may be a late-Sunday thing. The status updates are: I think I've given up on the saddest clone - it doesn't actually have any roots, and I'm not exactly sure how it's even alive... maybe just sheer force of will? But it's looking extra yellow and sad. Poor thing may be terminal, and perhaps I should just put it out of its misery.

The GA3 shoot, as you can see, is MASSIVELY stretched, compared to the rest of the plant. And the unusual looking buds have gotten more unusual - no pistils yet there, but there may be some proto-balls forming?. So it may yet work out that I get pollen from this plant for self-crossing. I'll just have to keep a close eye on it. I want to chop the branch BEFORE I get any fully formed/split male flowers, ideally. So I will need to check in frequently over the next week, I think, in order to get a feel for the timing.


On a side note, my in laws were over yesterday to visit with the spouse. I was outside grooming the rabbit herd and was not involved in the conversations, but apparently my rather traditional, kinda-pearl-clutching mother in law expressed an interest in trying cannabis extracts, specifically for her fibromyalgia. *shock*. So it appears we are hatching a plan to just mysteriously end up with this really nice CBD extract hanging around for completely no reason around mother's day. :hard-laugh: A couple of my friends who are medical users suggest a rough 1:1 THC/CBD ratio cannabis like Pixel here is generally pretty effective in the case of fibromyalgia... and ideally harvest for this plant should be late April to Early May, barring any catastrophes. What timing!

If we can soften the MIL up a little, we can probably drop some of the secrecy around my grow area. The operation is legal here, my friends already know, my FIL makes no secret of his past smoking habits, and my own mother upon finding out simply congratulated me on hitting a family milestone a decade early (Apparently my line usually takes up growing in their mid forties!) and then asked me for seeds, if/when I had extras. (If this self-pollination/feminization experiment works, I am totally mailing her some)



Thanks again, GWE. See you back here for an update in a few days.

 

[Eigholte]

2019-03-10 End of week 10 from seed, week 3 from 12/12

First of all, I FINALLY know with 100% certainty what strain I'm growing. I found the photo below, which clarifies the legend on the packaging from RQS. So, drumroll please! It is a...

Royal Medic! (Apparently, maybe the nose knows?)
So now I have to change my post title somehow...

Past that, things are growing nicely. No significant changes since I defoliated. No obvious signs of stress that I can pick out, since then, either.

Here's a close up of the lovely proto-colas.

And here's what's going on, way, way up there, on the GA3 branch. I'm still not 100% sure what I'm looking at, but because it doesn't look like my proto-buds, I'm assuming it is starting to produce male flowers as would be expected.

 

[Eigholte]

2019-03-17 End of week 11 from seed / End of week 4 from 12/12

Good Morning, GWE.


Here are the updates:

Flower buds are coming along nicely. I got you some reasonably nice glamour shots below.

The Overgrow Canada seeds came in the mail this week. So many seeds! I had a conversation with my mom, and I guess the reason she was asking me about seeds late last year was more for CBD/Medical reasons - So I'm going to send her a big chunk of my Freedom Dream seeds here shortly. If I can get this feminized seed breeding thing to work, I'll send her more varieties later. These should get her started for now, but she may have to learn to identify plant sexes, as they're regular seeds. Although, maybe she's already got that down... she did start growing casually / occasionally when she moved to BC, so she actually probably has developed more skills than I presently have over the last 15 years or so.

And then, on the note of feminized seed breeding: The GA3 treated branch threw me for a loop and started growing a lot of pistils this week. I can't personally find a single banana or ball on it yet... I am so confused.

So to start, the confusing GA3 flower branch:

Some lovely bud shots:

And the overview of the tent:

 

[Eigholte]

Checked in on the plant today. Gave it a good watering. Things seem really happy in there!

I'm really sad that I wasn't as good about taking pictures during my first grow... I really wish I could look back and see what that first grow was like at five weeks from 12/12. I suspect this grow may be on a good trajectory, because I'm looking around in my tent right now, and seeing colas around the size of regular Bic lighters and I think I remember my final, harvested-at-10-weeks colas from last grow not being much bigger than that after trimming... This upcoming update will be the end of week 5. So, in theory around 3 to 5 more weeks to go. (Probably more like 5 if I had to guess, because there is no sign of any browning pistils, etc. Buds are sizable, but aren't really looking mature at all.)

That's not to completely discount the last grow - for a newbie, it was a good experience: A well balanced blend of mistakes and crises to learn from, mixed with intermittent little victories and a reasonable final payoff to incentivize trying it again. It's also a really good time as a green dragon, particularly on a night like tonight.


Also decided that I won't give up on the DIY feminized seeds just yet. I made a fresh batch of GA3 and will be treating some of the already treated areas for a few days to see what happens. Will need to make careful use of the sneeze guard, however - GA3 does have some possible health hazards, and the methanol it's dissolved in isn't completely harmless either... It's kinda why I wanted to do this experiment on small clones. At that point I wouldn't be losing much if I just discarded the plant after getting pollen, and I could keep it separate from my "mother" plant to avoid any contamination. Oh well, living dangerously!

Also got a bit of a surprise: I'd had a mango seed and an avocado seed in the other tent as a fun experiment with the spouse. The mango took off, but after 2-3 weeks with no change I assumed nothing would come of the avocado, and moved it outside my tent to my "nutes prep area" waiting for me to clean up the solo-cup and coco for reuse. Went to go make a batch of nutrients to water with and saw something surprisingly alien in the discarded solo cup... I seem to have a (horrifying looking) avocado seedling. What a lovely spring surprise... :youre-killin-me: Maybe it'll look less scary when it gets a few leaves. (It's a little blanched from lack of light right now)

 

[Eigholte]

End of Week 12 from seed / End of week 5 from 12/12:


So, the most notable change this week has been the scent. Carbon filter is working well, but the moment you open the tent you get hit with a sniff-tastic wall of smells. I am not complaining: I'm smelling sweet, fruity notes mostly. Nothing objectionable about it, at least for me.

Two main colas may have gotten a little close to the light having grown to within 6-8", so I backed that off. There are a few lightly crisped tips on some of the top fan and sugar leaves, but no other damage that I can tell.

Buds are looking really good to me, and filling out nicely. Like I said above, I wish I could compare this to my previous grow at week 5 more objectively. Unfortunately for me, at that point last grow, I had abandoned GrowJournals, realizing that's not where I wanted to be, and hadn't set up my own grow logging system yet. Shame.

Ah well. On to the photo-spread!

And finally, the confusing GA3 branch. It's looking female, but barely. (Pretty sparse pistils compared to the above, no?)

 

[Eigholte]

End of Week 13 from seed / End of week 6 from 12/12:


So the attempt at re-treating the GA3 branch does not appear to have been a success at this point. A bit of a shame. So I may have to try this again on a subsequent grow - hopefully with a nicely established clone next time - to try and troubleshoot. Right now, my suspicions are that: GA3 solutions may have a very short shelf life, I should try making fresh solutions daily on one of my subsequent tries. Alternatively, I may have missed the key window - Instructions indicate to spray for 5 days before flowering. I sprayed for 5 days before 12/12 and 2 days after, but flowering proper didn't start for another 2-3 weeks or so. So my timing may have been off.

Either way, I will probably have to call the experiments off for this plant: As you can see, the GA3 treated, stretched branches are now too heavy to support their own weight and are flopping over. I think I need to cut them down at this point and get them out of the way.


On the untreated side of the plant, things are looking pretty good. There is a little bit of damage from the light burn last week which is impacting some fan and larger sugar leaves. No impact on the buds, so that's nice. Buds themselves are now starting to show some red pistils, and are looking robust. No really noticeable increases in bud length, but I wonder if maybe there's a little bit of thickening/plumpening going on?

I am hoping for a harvest in about 4 weeks, once we reach the 10 weeks in flower mark, and I think so far, we look to be on track. Trichromes are forming all over the place, but they're still a little small and glassy looking right now. I don't have any close up photos of that as my loupe and my phone camera don't play nice together, sadly.


Have a good day, GWE!

 

[Eigholte]

End of Week 14 from seed / End of week 7 from 12/12:


Another week down.

No dramatic changes. The GA3 branch does seem to be trying to male, but it's not quite enough. I have 3-4 flowers that are showing stems, but then instead of pollen, they throw out a pistil. Much confuse. Essentially, I don't expect anything out of this branch any more, but I'll leave the healthy parts up to see what happens - maybe it'll surprise me?

Plant itself looks okay. The light burn does appear to have crisp'd a few tips, but so far the damage appears mostly cosmetic, and only on the leaves I'll be trimming off anyhow, so I'm not extra concerned. I do, however have a discrepancy in 'ripeness' so to speak as the main colas under the light (which got burned) do have some amber trichromes, whereas the rest of the buds do not. (photos below). I find myself wondering if I need to do a 2-part harvest.


Main Cola, with slight crispiness:

Main Cola Trichromes:

Side-Cola (no burn) trichromes:

Take it easy, GWE!

 

[Eigholte]

The nice part about having two tents, in addition to them fitting better down in my 'gym', is I can do things like this: Interleave grows.

My Cannabis Plant-Gantt chart suggested it was time to start the seeds of the next batch. Because the spouse has been agitating for a more classic, high THC strain in the indica vein as a sleep aid, I went with Blue Mystic over my Pure Power Plant and AK-48 (probably not great for sleep?), my remaining CBD seeds (obviously not high THC), and over my few remaining Purple and White Kush seeds (Which would probably work great, but I have so few of these that I feel I need to be able to preserve these genetics, preferably as seeds, before I sprout them).

So on Tuesday, I cleaned my veg tent and started soaking 3 Blue Mystic Seeds (Regular photo seeds).

I am hoping for a happy couple in the three somewhere so I don't have to mess with any feminized seed breeding experiments if I don't want to, and so that I have a nice female in there to clone.


I'll create a new grow log soon for these ones, so as not to clog this thread with other plants' data.



Back on the topic at hand:

For the Royal Medic here: Most noticeable thing lately has been the scent. I don't know if I have a leak in my tent, or what, but that plant is smelling to high heaven of papaya, sweetness and hints of skunk. So much for my carbon filter! (Also, the resin tastes peppery! Things you learn when stick your head in a plant to get a close up photo and get a face full of bud instead...)

Trichromes on the top colas are probably around the 20% amber, with that dropping off as you go down the plant, maybe 5-10% on the side buds, and 0% in the 'under-story'.

I feel like I got surprised by this 'sudden maturity'. I think I need to start flushing the plant with molasses-water like last time, because I think while I could harvest now, but maybe 1 or 2 more weeks may be optimal harvest.

 

[LurkingInTheGrass]

GEEK!

Lol, first I heard of somebody using a Gantt chart (but makes sense when I think about it)

Needless to day, I have several spreadsheets 😁

Nothing wrong with being a geek, fed my family for almost 25 years

 

[Eigholte]

Guilty as charged... but I think I prefer my mom's phrasing. I've been informed that she explains me to friends in BC as the family "Nerd-hippy".
And I guess she'd know!

I have the Plant-Gantt, I have my Temp/RH/pH/observation log, and I have my "financials" sheet as well. The financial sheet is part of a semi-competitive game my spouse and I have with our hobbies: He's trying to get his home-brewing into the black vs retail liquor purchases, and I'm trying to do the same with my cannabis grows... I was nearly in the black with my first grow, but then he put a handicap on me and indicated that I have to take into account the purchase of our vapes as well! My Pax3 was not cheap...

Oddly, this level of obsessive attention detail has nothing to do with my actual job... go figure!