Roots Fruits

[Bluey]

Glad to hear you got a decent blurple...

Upgrading may save you a little in electricity and a little less heat...you may even be able to drop the wattage a fraction and still produce terrific grows.

I keep looking at bar lights but my quantum are brand new and work great but drop off more in the corners....if I build another grow room and I will I'll get them, big ones too.

 

[Rootsruler]

12/11/2023

Temp - 80.4°
Humidity - 57%
VPD - 1.49 kPa
DLI - 36
Leaf Temp - 79°

Defoliated the canopy a few days ago. The leaves all filled back in so I may need to do another. Flower buttons have appeared. 12/15 will be end of week 4 since flip. Flowers started to appear at end of week 3 so I'm going to start the clock there. I need to tuck some branches that are going vertical but in 4 days I'll put down the second net to trellis the verticals and let the plants grow vertical for the remainder of the grow.

The plants look a little droopy from being thirsty. In the picture I had just watered them so they should perk up in the next few hours or so. They are starting to increase water intake as I was watering twice a week, Monday and Thursday, but it looks like I'm going to have to add an extra day to the week. They must've been really thirsty because they sucked the humidifer dry. I checked on them this morning after lights out and the reservoir was empty and RH was at 41%! Mind you the last time I monitored the tent the humidifier reservoir was full and RH was holding steady at 60%. In 8 hours they pulled a gallon + of water out of the air that the humidifier had to refresh. When I had monitored them I kept getting the feeling that I should water but I was pretty beat from building the lean to green house so I decided I'd water them today. I guess they didn't want to wait!!!​ It took 6 gallons of nutrient solution for them to runoff.



Lean to greenhouse I've been building from wood we demoed from a house we're rebuilding.

 

[Bluey]

Good stuff

 

[Rootsruler]

12/13/2023

Temp - 82°
Humidity - 54%
VPD - 1.72 kPa
DLI - 38
Leaf Temp - 79°

Gave the girls another haircut but this time I did a more thorough job so I'm OK with where they are at. Fed them 6 gallons of feed solution. Added some Hormex on this feed to soften the shock from the haircut I gave them. Changed the feed schedule to M/W/F as the girls are drinking faster. I mixed a full 5 gallon bucket and I still had to mix another gallon to get them watered completely.

Flowers are definitely forming and it looks like heating the tent after flip to reduce stretch is paying off. I was going to tuck them but the flowers are forming pretty fast so I'm just going to let them continue their vertical growth. Week 4 since flip ends in 2 days. I was going to wait until then to let them go vertical but I'm too tired and lazy to be tucking them. I'll probably lay down the trellis in a week or two if they start getting tall.​

Greenhouse with the panels installed and plants. We tested it out and it was 42° last night. Greenhouse averaged 58° with a little incandescent bulb heating it. I may use the tent heater I have as I'm not using it to see how balmy we can maintain it in there!!

 

[Rootsruler]

12/19/2023

Temp - 80°
Humidity - 56%
VPD - 1.34 kPa
DLI - 38
Leaf Temp - 79°

Flower set has definitely set in and the flowers are stinking up the tent something awful. It has this really sweet aroma but it's so pungent that my eyes water when I open the tent. Verticals are starting to establish themselves.

So far the verticals don't need any trellising but I can see that these are going to get at least 10" tall. I'm going to wait before I lay out the trellis net so that it doesn't block any light to the flowers. I might have overdone it on the FIMming because there are TONS of flower sites. Some of them are a bit close and bunched up so I've been in there trying to cut out some of the leaf material for airflow but there are so many baby leaves it's going to be a battle for the next few weeks to keep the air flow going as these girls can grow leaves like no other. I noticed also that this cultivar, it being a Indica dominant hybrid, shows indica genetics in its leaf shape through veg but now that it's out of stretch and into flower the leaves have thinned to what look more like sativa style leaves.​

 

[Bluey]

Looks great Roots.

It sure is full

 

[Rootsruler]

Thanks! I may need to add another or bigger oscillator in there. Not sure if the 8" Honeywell is going to be enough once the verticals get taller and block some of the air flow over the canopy. It's hard to tell from the pic but there are a lot of baby leaves right now so it's hard to really open up the canopy for better airflow. I'm thinking in the next week or so once those baby leaves mature I can cut them out and create better airflow through the canopy.

One of the signs that my watering/dryback practices are correct is no fungus gnats. If you noticed there are no yellow sticky traps anywhere.

I use to work at a few Licensed Grow Operations in California as a grow tech along with a lot of unlicensed grow ops. Every Op had cleanliness and safety protocols we had to follow. I guess they got ingrained in me because most of my grows have had no pest or disease issues. Either that or I've been extremely lucky!

 

[Bluey]

Yes. You will need more than an 8" fan.

At full flower I was using the fans in my sig...the main fan mounted high on the wall blowing directly into the bud tops worked well on the low setting. My buds would move around a bit which is the way to go. A pretty well packed 7x5 canopy.

 

[Rootsruler]

A couple of grows back I did an experiment and only used a 6 inch stationary fan mounted to the roof for airflow in the tent. Didn't seem to affect them much. The 8" is pretty powerful for such a small fan but I'm thinking of mounting a 12" or 16" Hurricane fan in there to get more air movement. I'm going to start hunting around the Target and Walmart stores in my area for fan deals they may have. Right now is not a good time as no one is buying fans as far as selection but then again it may be the perfect time as demand is very low this time of year when it comes to price.

 

[Bluey]

My room is a 7x11x7'6"H so it 3 times larger than a 5x5. My wall fan would have the potential to wind burn in a 5x5 and its too big to clip onto a tent pole.

 

[Rootsruler]

What kind, type, size fan do you have in the room? I'm debating on either going cheap and picking up a cheapo box fan, but that wouldn't give me the oscillation I would like in the tent, or an oscillating floor fan and remove the base and make a clip mount for it to mount to one of the corner poles.

If you look at one of the pictures I've posted you can see where I mounted the distro head for the feed lines on my irrigation system. Lower left corner. I made a clip on mount out of PVC and PEX clips and it has worked well. My problem is the irrigation system is too small for the amount of pots I have so I don't get the water volume I would like to work with the FloraFlex Matrix plates I use to water. I can use the mount I made to hang the fan as I offset it from the corner so I can get a good fan sweep without it hitting the walls.

I only have one 8 port distro head so I ran 1/4" line to the plate and split it off into two 1/4" lines to connect to the rings that distribute the water into the plates. Didn't work so well and it just dribbles out. I figured out that I need to run two separate lines to each pot to be able to get the volume of water I want. I need to add another distro head as I currently am feeding 5 pots so I would need to have at least 10 feed lines if I run separate lines into each side of the distro ring.The other part of the equation is the pump I am using. It's an 800gph submersible pond pump. It'll pump a good volume of water but can't raise PSI very well. FloraFlex wants to see at least 35 psi in the system with 50 psi being optimal. I'm thinking of replacing it with a small inline that can raise the PSI so that it pushes out enough volume to effectively saturate the entire media.

This is the pump I'm looking at......

https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Pressu...9329e6ac46&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_atf_m&th=1

 

[Bluey]

It weighs 5kg, 135W, 18" industrial wall fan. It has an oscillating function that varies its speed too up and down.

 

[Rootsruler]

12/27/2023

Temp - 82°
Humidity - 55%
VPD - 1.47 kPa
DLI - 42
Leaf Temp - 80°

Different perspective than what I usually shoot. Side flap view. Flower tops are starting swell up. When I was moving a few branches around my hands got really waxy. Not so much sticky although they were sticky but more waxy than anything else. The flowers themselves are getting really greasy. The aroma is VERY floral. Almost like a Lavendar smell.

This was the cultivar I found these brown shiny marbles of liquid in between some of the leaves at the base of the flowers on the last run where I did a tester of 3 different cultivars. Not sure what it was the last time but I think it was resin. Only thing is it wasn't gooey. It was watery. Terp marbles? If I spot any I'll try and snap a pic.​

The extra light I hung at the front of the tent doesn't quite get the corners so on lights on I move the light over to the side and let the plant get higher light exposure than it does with the light hung in the center. I switch sides each day. Seeing if it makes a difference in bud size and quality.

 

[Bluey]

That will be one full tent when those buds grow up.

 

[Rootsruler]

That's the plan!

 

[SoOrbudgal]

Excellent looking full tent

 

[ezmaarc]

Beautiful! Nice spread.

 

[Rootsruler]

Thanks! Appreciate you stopping by!!!

 

[Rootsruler]

​01/02/2024

Temp - 79°
Humidity - 53%
VPD - 1.37 kPa
DLI - 42
Leaf Temp - 78°

Girls are really drinking water fast. Fed them 8 gallons yesterday. I haven't yet figured out how to set up an "every other day" schedule on the digital timer. I can set it up for M/W/F but if I set it up for Sunday it'll start the week over and water the next day. If I don't water them every other day they get mad and suck the humidifier dry! Ain't that like a woman? But it's more the wallet than the humidifier that gets sucked dry!!! Just kiddin' LadeeZ!!!! Looks like I may have to resort to making fresh mixes for each feeding than mixing up one big batch for the next few weeks.

I've been using the auto irrigate but the 800gph pump, while an improvement over the 264gph pump, is still not up to the task. It waters but slower than I would like and it doesn't quite get the coverage I'd like. Eventually, with capillary action, all the media gets wet but I'd like to be able to saturate it on watering not on capillary action. Next run I'm going to add a diaphragm pump so that I can get the pressure that I need to be able to feed them the way I want and not have to worry that only the root ball is getting the brunt of the water. This is the pump I'm thinking of using.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075V9RBYR/ref=syn_sd_onsite_desktop_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&pd_rd_pl hdr=t&aref=807024415B7A74603CB504DA1CF58FBD8DDC74E 651265882A0EAF3A2CFD3DE40

Originally I wasn't going to use the pads that go under the Matrix plates but they help a lot in spreading out the moisture for more even watering so I'm going to keep using them.

Whenever I open the tent to work on something the GF said she can tell because the whole house smells like Lavendar and grapefruit. That's the new aroma developing. Grapefruit.

Looks like colas have staked their claim to their little slice of photon and are3 fattening up so now I just need to make it to harvest without them molding up or hosting some unwanted hitchhikers.

Of note.....no sticky traps. Why? No gnats. I've been pretty lucky in these last few grows to have almost zero gnats.

I'm guessing chop to be around the second week of February.

​

 

[Bluey]

Sweet....