AKGramma's Perpetual Grow

[AKgramma]

I saw some small buds that were done, so carefully snipped them from the branches, leaving as many leaves without trics as possible. These pics are freshly washed buds. Lots more on the two BBL's. You can hardly tell where I took them from. Unfortunately, you cant see the white trics on the leaves, possibly because they are still wet.

And a closeup of a couple buds, totally amber, mostly cloudy trics, still wet from washing.

All these were sticky as warm cotton candy! I scraped what I could off my fingers and scissors and put the sticky stuff in the hash container.

 

[CatnipTC]

Told you I would stop by just took me longer then I thought. Lookin good

 

[AngryBird]

 

[Tead]

What do you all think? Tead?

Generally, I try to avoid thinking... nothing good ever comes from it.

I'll suffer thru my light envy and speak of re-vegging in hempy pots. Man... I need to spend some change on new LEDs.

Re-vegging in any medium is never pretty. Plants come back stringy, strange, and twisted (hmmm, much like myself) after they make the transition. I generally only employ the technique as a "last stab" trying to keep some genetics alive.
Having said all that.... been there, done that... in a hempy pot.
I've read many places about the change taking about 2 weeks. I feel that estimate might be a bit light. I usually see 3 or 4 weeks between the change of lighting and the appearance of new growth. These weeks can be dicey in hempy pots. Root problems seem to be a main cause in my world. After removing much of the active growth, your plant is gonna be somewhere around 1/4 of it's mass. This drastic shift leads the plant to quit using a good bit of it's root mass. Non-used roots quickly become dead plant material sitting in your pot stewing into the worst gumbo you've ever made. Plant death is is the next float in that Mardi Gras parade.

So, how can one address dead plant material floating in a pot full of perlite? Well, Tead addresses the issue with daily flushes. The plant really doesn't need nutes while it does the shift, so I flush it regularly with clear water to wash out all of the rotting material. One can also get fancy and trim away a corresponding amount of roots after clipping off the buds, but I'm too much of a coward to try that technique.

I'd bet a dime that you'll be staying with the taller containers. The short tubs seem to introduce many issues.

 

[AKgramma]

Tead: It does make sense that less restricted roots, esp when starting from seed (which produces a taproot) will make for a happier plant. Now that I know how tall BBL gets under my growing conditions (less than 3 feet), I know I have the headroom to use taller bins.

The low, flat 3 gal storage bins I used before gave the roots horizontal room, and they filled those up very quickly, once transplanted from their juvenile pots. It also gave me an extra 7 inches of headroom. The down side is that they take up a lot more floor space than the 3 gallon tall, narrow trash receptacles. In fact, two trash receptacles converted to hempys fit into one of the 3 gallon storage bins, (not drilled with holes, of course). So they make perfect catch bins for the waste water.

After flowering a number of ladies, I know which of my shelving units has the head room for the home stretch, with a bit of LST.

The advantage of a small grow like mine is the flexibility to quickly rearrange pots and switch out which units I'm using for veg and for flower.

This morning I put the buds I cut last night into a paper bag to slow their dying time. I haven't tried this method yet, and thought it would mitigate the tendency for my harvests to dry out too fast. They sure do smell good! Even tho these buds were taken at just 8 weeks, I think they will make my family members happy. The rest of them will be taken next week. I have some really fat buds at the top of two of the ladies, and anyone coming into the house can smell their sticky sweet ripeness.

I SO like Bubblelicious! I did notice, tho, that Nirvana has changed the strain by feminizing it and, if memory serves, they did a BBL x berry hybrid. I can understand why, since I only got 2 females out of 10, and only one of them was vigorous enough to clone. I am going to continue to use strains with bubblegum in their ancestry, just for the unbelievable stickiness of the buds. If there are other strains that are also sticky, without smelling dank, I would like to know about them.

Maybe more later, when I visit the grow room. Might even get pictures.

 

[AKgramma]

PEEE UUUU! The odor of the buds in the paper bag is coming right through the bag, and it is STRONG! I'm going to move it close to the venting fan in the window. I'll have to rememeber to stir it up, but that is kinda hard unless it's right by my computer, where I spend most of my time.

 

[AngryBird]

My biggest fear when growing.... smell= nosy neighbours

 

[AKgramma]

My biggest fear when growing.... smell= nosy neighbours

This is true. There are some gossips I don't want to know for sure that I am growing, because word WILL get back to the young men who will do an armed home invasion to steal a few plants, and any electronics they can get on their way out. Too much of that going on in this town. And homeowners are getting shot for it. :-(

But since I only grow for family, mostly in exchange for yard and household chores, I'm not stepping on anyone's territory. They know gramma is generous. And they know exactly what they're getting. No toxic sh**.

 

[AKgramma]

Here are some quicky closeups of the 2 BBL ladies that are closest to harvest. Note the plump buds! Undr the LED you can't see the trics, or appreciate the sticky goodness all over them.

 

[AngryBird]

She is beautiful

 

[AKgramma]

She is beautiful

Thank you! Not many fan leaves left, but this is normal for my grows. Maybe it's because I let them go longer than normal, or I can't stand the look of the stippled, mite-damaged leaves after I have treated them on and off their entire lives. Those leaves tend not to survive the flowering process.

 

[TorturedSoul]

One can also get fancy and trim away a corresponding amount of roots after clipping off the buds, but I'm too much of a coward to try that technique.

It's not all that fancy - or difficult, either. People have done it for years (centuries, lol?) when they have potted plants that they keep for long periods of time and wish to do so in the same pot (or one of comparable size). It sort of requires being able to remove the plant from the pot, though . It can be part of the process of keeping a mother plant alive for years. Once the "above ground" plant matter has been suitably reduced, just cut/saw away a 1" slab from each side and the bottom of the root mass (easier if the pot was cube/box shaped instead of a cylinder), place 1" of medium in the bottom of the pot, place plant back in, fill in the 1" gap around the pot. The 1" figure would, of course, vary depending on the size of the container and the amount that was removed from the plant; if one is off slightly between the percentage of material removed from the green zone and the root zone, it should not matter overmuch. This has traditionally been done with plants grown in soil, but I don't see why it wouldn't work regardless of the medium. It may not be as necessary with the other types of medium, though - or at least not for the same reason, lol. If one is growing in a DWC tub, has more than adequate levels of DO, keeps contaminants (including light) out of the reservoir, and changes the solution regularly... then one tends to have healthy white roots, regardless of whether or not much of the plant material has been removed. But that healthy root growth can displace the liquid volume in even a large reservoir, so the grower - having removed much of the plant matter, might then go on to remove an equal percentage of the root mass so that his/her 23-gallon reservoir can then hold 15-20 gallons of nutrient solution instead of 3-5. At the beginning of the grow, that reservoir might have only required maintenance once a week or so but at the end of the grow - especially with large plants, good wind, and reasonably high temperatures (or even unreasonably high temperatures, lol) the plant can go through several to many gallons per day and if the liquid capacity is no longer there it can mean dealing with it as often as twice per day (that's an extreme, but...). I suppose that, if one is trying to reveg a (partially) harvested plant for another grow, there is no point in starting off with a handicapped reservoir, so to speak.

Not many fan leaves left, but this is normal for my grows.

Err... It's normal for a cannabis plant, too . Their purpose for existence... has been served.

 

[AKgramma]

TS: TY for reminding me of the root-pruning process! You are very correct. When keeping a plant beyond it's natural lifetime, root pruning becomes necessary to encourage new, vigorous roots and remove dead ones. So is severe top pruning. You want to encourage new, fresh growth, not keep the old, woody stems that can't grow anything.

Cutting away the outer inch with a sharp knife is the preferred method, as you don't damage the roots that are left.

Roots in water, use a sharp pair of scissors. Utensils must be VERY clean and rinsed with HOT water to sort of sterilize them.

 

[AKgramma]

That small plateful of buds weighs 5.88 g dry! I've got at least 5 times that much waiting for me to harvest on the two plants! It's going to be hard to wait till wed to harvest more. I'll check them today and see if any more buds are ripe enough.

The paper bag DID slow the drying down for me a couple days.

I am going to lose the clone I took of Frilly lady, after 11 days. She got all moldy, even tho I took off her cap every day. yep, just pulled her and the stem was all yellowed. I DID want to clone her at first, but she is looking worse the longer she remains in flower. Leaves drying up, no bud development, just some small pistils, hidden among the closely-packed sugar leaves. I placed her under 12/12 on 5-22-2016. 12 1/2 weeks ago. Even the branch I tried to pollinate did not take. Will upload pics later.

Should I terminate her and recycle her into leaf powder?

It seems that all my prettiest, fullest plants ether turned out to be males, or performed poorly. Any ideas?

 

[AKgramma]

Singing the Frilly Lady Blues. 12 1/2 weeks into flower, and all I have to show for it are LOTS of tiny flowers and dried up leaves. Strain of Frilly lady is unknown, but she has a diesel scent to her leaves, and grew several non-branching colas.

A closeup of a particularly bad section. Comments?

This is what Frilly Lady USED to look like!

And an earlier shot

OK< made a huge mistake in time in flower for Frilly Lady. She is 12 1/2 weeks in flower, that is 88 days. Now I'm REALLY worried. When is she going to give me some buds?

 

[Lilred]

Didn't know that... thanks.

SNS had a line of powdered nutes... 2 part. I, personally use Osmocote+ and the Dyna-Gro 2 part line (partly because they're cheap).

I was looking at Osmocote at the nursery last week and wondered if it would work....I use MG and jobes

I am new to all this...remember that when I give my limited advice

 

[AKgramma]

Lilerd: I use MG for veg, as it contains several trace minerals in addition to the NPK. I tried Jobes sticks when I first started out, but because they are solid, they didn't seem to dissolve quick enough to feed the cannibus. They are OK for long-lived houseplants, but not for actively growing plants with a short lifespan.

Check the ingredients of Osmocote, or any other veg nutes you are considering. The more minerals, the better. N should be higher than P and K at this stage.

You can use a "tomato" (that is, for edibles) bloom of any brand, as long as it has a lower N percentage compared to P and K, and has trace elements. Otherwise, you might have to supplement with other additives, either natural or store-bought. I used a tomato Bloom formula until I ran out, then changed to Earth Juice's Bloom, which is considerable more expensive, but you don't need much for a small grow of 12 mature plants in flower.

Oh, and you can use veg nutes for several weeks into the flowering cycle, as the plants are still building stems, leaves, and flowers. Once the stretch stops (or a few weeks into the cycle) switch to the bloom nutes.

 

[AKgramma]

Looking over one of the two BBLs ready to harvest, one had almost no white pistils, and had fat buds and indescribably sticky stems, leaves, and buds. So I took almost all the buds and put what was left of the lady in the veg closet. There are a few itsy-bitsy flowers left on it, but I will sacrifice those, if I can get this mamma to reveg. She is in a 2 gallon container, one of the very first BBLs I transplanted to hempy and perlite/vermiculite. I might as well carry the experiment to its end.

I have her under subdued light, in a corner away from the youngsters who are actively growing.

The other BBL lady I transplanted to hempy and switched at the same time is somewhat behind her sister in development. Still lots of white pistils, and not as many plump buds.

The mystery babies I have under 12/12 are dropping leaves, so I trimmed the bad ones off to prevent disease. A couple of them are bolting, as evidenced by a stretch between nodes. I hope they show sex soon, so I can decide their fate. They should be topped, but I don't want to slow down the sexing process. I will LST the females later.

I'm going to trim out some of the browning leaves from one stem of Frilly Lady, and see if that makes a difference in bud development. The buds need light.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Comments?

I am still seeing "clawing" on some of the leaves. And in the picture that you annotated with the statement that the two were the same color and that the apparent difference was due to the behavior of the camera, if the one on the right is closer to what the plant actually looks like to the eye... I am guessing that the plant has WAY too much nitrogen, especially for that stage of development (late in flower). One of the reasons that I have never liked Miracle Gro for cannabis has to do with its nitrogen content (and the specific sources of nitrogen and ratios of same). At 12½ weeks into flower, I would expect a lot of the larger leaves to have slowly yellowed over time and to have started dropping off the plant, with the only really green ones being the "sugar" leaves - and not even those being a deep green in color. I would have markedly cut the nitrogen content of my nutrient right after the stretch (IOW, after the first 40% of the flowering period) and by now it would for the most part only be receiving nitrogen IF/when it showed signs of being deficient.

Too much nitrogen might help explain the relatively high leaf to flower ratio as well. And possibly even play a part in delaying the finish (if it is delayed - IDK how long you would expect it to flower), although that part is somewhat debatable.

I was looking at Osmocote at the nursery last week and wondered if it would work.

There is a HUGE thread on using Osmocote Plus to grow cannabis with around here somewhere. Something like 1,250 posts in it.

I am new to all this.

In that case, I'll hunt up that thread for you...
Osmocote Plus Plant Food - Discuss Its Use With Cannabis Here!

And offer some advice:

I use MG and jobes

Carry both of those out to your vegetable garden, show it to them, and then say, "You can go HERE. If I catch you going into any other plants, you are going straight into the trash can!" (Actually, I stopped using it in the vegetable garden some years ago; after all, I have to eat the harvest from that - but I have read that MiracleGro has since reduced the amount of heavy metals that they... fortify it with, so maybe it's safe to use on consumable plants now?)

If you want a time-release fertilizer, grab some Osmocote PLUS and read that thread. If you want a better (IMHO) nutrient than Miracle Grow that you can mix with water and use to regularly feed your plants - but something that is still cheap - take a look at Jack's Classic Duo (not hugely popular, but it has a (small but) loyal fan base - and is a huge step up from MG), General Hydroponics' MaxiSeries (MaxiGro for vegetative and MaxiBloom for flowering - although some only use the latter) dry one-part nutrients, General Hydroponics' FloraDuo (one for vegetative, one for flowering), something from Dyna-Gro, House & Garden, Ionic, et cetera.

Personally, I would recommend a product that has at least two parts - even if one is labeled "grow" and the other "bloom" - so that you can adjust the NPK ratios a little when doing so is warranted... A three-part one would (IMHO) be even better, but a two-part is a compromise between maximum ability to adjust the nutrients and the "stir some into water, feed, and pray" of the single component nutrient.

The above is my opinion. Others' opinions may differ, lol.

Many nutrient brands sell "starter" packs, which would give a person enough for a small grow (or possibly even two tiny ones). Some are cheaper than others. A few that come to mind are General Organics' (General Hydroponics' "organic" line) GO Box, Technaflora's Recipe for Success (might also be sold under the "BC Hydroponics" brand name), Hesi's various starter kits (they have one for soil, one for coco coir, and one for hydroponics), and FoxFarm's Dirty Dozen Starter Kit. That last one is a little expensive for a "starter kit," probably around $75 - but it is also a rather complete set; you can grab half-quart (or even quart, they're pretty cheap) bottles of their Grow Big (available in both soil and hydroponics versions), Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom for the simple version.

If you buy a "starter kit" (or make your own), and it does not have such a product, you will likely need either a Calcium/Magnesium supplement or - if you have copious amounts of calcium in your water - Epsom Salts.

There are lots of threads in our FAQ, how-to, etc. sections on various nutrients. There are so many different brands of nutrients that a quick web search would undoubtedly allow you to find ones that hardly anyone here has any experience with (but they're probably acceptable, too). If you have a local hydroponics store, they might offer a "house brand" of nutrients (maybe for coco and/or soil, too, IDK) or have received samples from one of their suppliers to pass out to interested customers. If you don't have a hydroponics/indoor gardening store nearby, many of the FoxFarms products (soil, nutrients, supplements) are available at (many) regular gardening centers and plant nurseries. If they do not stock FoxFarms products, they might carry Neptune's Harvest - those are capable of producing healthy plants and decent buds (with a good terpine profile) but my experience was that yield wasn't the greatest with NH products. With the Scotts Miracle Gro monster having purchased General Hydroponics, I would not be terribly surprised to see GH brand products start appearing on ChinaMa-- err... WalMart's shelves pretty soon. For that matter...

(I just visited WalMart's website - please excuse me while I take a quick shower...)

I see on WalMart's website that a person can order lots of different brands of nutrients (both hydroponics and soil types). Out of the few that I checked, only Grow More Seaweed Extract supplement is available to be picked up at my local store (no shipping charge), but that probably varies by store and brand chosen.

I am new to all this...remember that when I give my limited advice[/QUOTE]

I tried Jobes sticks when I first started out, but because they are solid, they didn't seem to dissolve quick enough

Mom used to use them on her houseplants back in the 1970s, but she discovered the same thing. I think she might have started breaking them up into tiny little pieces and mixing them into the soil before she eventually stopped using them altogether. I think I saw a couple in an old(!) dusty package last Summer when I was looking for something in her basement for her.

You can use a "tomato" (that is, for edibles) bloom of any brand

That is true to an extent. And I once finished a grow with some kind of flower nutrient (I think it might have been African violet food) when I had nothing else. But it had more nitrogen in it than I wanted, and it cost me (err... so to speak ). But think about this: Most general-purpose - or even (somewhat) more specific nutrients, like the ones that list "for blooming/fruiting tomatoes/peppers/etc." on the label... They are their manufacturers' best try for a "one size fits all" kind of nutrient. I've seen different varieties of tomato plants that seemed like they would have done better had I not used a standard-formulation tomato feed on all of them... "One size fits all" generally translates to "one size fits most - more or less" but, as anyone who has ever one a "one size fits all" t-shirt from their local radio station can tell you, they hardly ever fit anyone... perfectly. <SHRUGS> When I grew a bunch of different types of tomato plants and fed them all the exact same formulation, a few seemed to do pretty good and I got a fair amount of tasty fruit from those. Others... Not so much. And my (at the time) neighbor, being a gardening NUT, used to feed each variety separately and his harvests blew mine away - every plant.

I know I could walk into the local ChinaMart, go back to the gardening section, blindfold myself, spin around a few times, grab any nutrient, and probably harvest... something. And if I happen to be growing tomato and pepper plants, I can always go to the grocery store and pick up a few tomatoes and peppers (okay, someone with a more reasonable income could, at least, lol) if I run short in between harvests.

OtOH, tomatoes and peppers don't cost upwards of $400 per ounce, lol. I'll be the first to agree that yield isn't everything. But it is A thing, and even though it isn't the most important thing... it is important. Therefore, "one size fits most, more or less" is probably not the kind of nutrient that you want for growing cannabis. Come to think of it, even if you go nuts and buy a lot of overpriced nutrients (and some are overpriced) and a lot of supplements that you don't really need... Your nutrients aren't likely to be your greatest expense. Lights (and the electricity to run them), containers, medium, fans, odor control, et cetera will probably cost you more than your nutrients.

I'm just rambling. Possibly ranting, too . It's been a long day, a long week, a long month... During which my life and my grow have been on HOLD and it is getting to me. But I get to be home this week - and that means I will also have time to go visit the grow spot that I was "given" (to use for a few months) which is only a couple miles from home. Even if that is stressful... It will be relaxing, lol.

I am going to lose the clone I took of Frilly lady, after 11 days. She got all moldy, even tho I took off her cap every day.

Sympathies. But remember me mentioning that I don't favor covering/enclosing cuttings whilst trying to root them? The practice encourages mold and doesn't seem to speed rooting.

Should I terminate her and recycle her into leaf powder?

Maybe after thoroughly sterilizing it first. Mold spores are hardy critters. Or I suppose you could bury it in the hottest part of your compost pile and not disturb it for a long time...

It seems that all my prettiest, fullest plants ether turned out to be males, or performed poorly. Any ideas?

Did I ever post a link to (the repost of) the article by Dutch Passion on which conditions (nitrogen vs. potassium, temperature, humidity/moisture, color temperature - and number of hours - of lighting during the crucial third to fourth week of vegetative growth) favor a higher percentage of females (and which conditions favor a higher percentage of males) here in this thread? If not, I would be glad to find the link. My informal testing tends to agree with what the author wrote.

 

[AKgramma]

I started trimming out Frilly Lady and saw she was far past gone, so I harvested her. I did get some colas, where the flower clusters were packed close enough. We'll see what they look like when they are dry. I am not impressed with the look of the harvest, tho. Buds not filled out, pistils completely dried up, sugar leaves half dried up.

So I trimmed off what I could of the brown stuff and saved all the rest. At the very least, I can make bud powder for cannabudder or coconut butter infused capsules.

The only difference in the butter and the infusion is the amount of time one cooks the mixture, and whether or not you strain the cooked mixture. A true butter takes about 8 hours in a crockpot on the lowest setting, and an infusion can take as little a 45 minutes of cooking in an oven or a crockpot on the lowest setting. If memory serves, the recommended temperature for both recipes is around 250F.

You strain the cannibus out of the butter. You don't need to strain the cannibus out of the infusion. Either method you can use the oil carrier of your choice.

Anyway, now I have to decide how to use the Bicardi tincture I brewed up. It is ready to be strained, but I have had no luck making oil out of a tincture. So, what do I do with it? It is way too strong to drink!