AKGramma's Perpetual Grow

I'm SO proud of myself! While inspecting my juveniles in veg, I saw a suspicious lower leaf and found 4 mites! I promptly soaked all the juveniles in diluted Neem oil, and prevented a massive disaster!

I topped the bbl's a second time because they are growing very rapidly. The two plants BBL 1 and 2 are the same height now and are very vigorous. I have a lot of leeway in the veg shelving for headroom, but i want to keep them under 48 inches tall. BBLs are supposed to be short plants, but I don't know ... these are in a hurry to grow up!
 
Mighty mite hunter!
 
arteekay said:
Mighty mite hunter!
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I'm not going to let those bastards take over my grow ever again! Last year I fought them for 3 months! I let them get too far because I didn't know what they were.
 
Today I tied down the branches of BBL #1 and #2. Their secondary branches have grown out very quickly. I topped the longest to force more side shoots and to keep the canopy low. #2 had two branches stacked on top of each other, so I took the lower one as a clone. It is in its own dome under its own desk lamp, since high humidity and a 24 hour light schedule is recommended to root clones.

Compared to the sativas, these BBLs are growing at warp speed!

Mystery #1's most vigorous tip got pinched, and I tied it down to let the other two tops grow out.

All three juveniles got a preliminary haircut, the oldest and largest fan leaves, and leaves that were too close to the soil. A goodly number of these had dead colonies of mites, left over from my neem oil treatment a few days ago. Its a good thing I caught them when I did, or I would be so screwed by now! All remaining leaves are clean.

The two BBL seeds that sprouted 17 days ago are almost ready to be up-potted. I have two more sprouts from the last 3 seeds of the 10. That makes a 60% sprout rate. I can live with that if I get mostly females and a healthy male to make seeds.
 
Dr Bob said:
Howdy fellow AKer! Nice grow you have going on there. I am a fan of the Bubblicious, ran it a couple years ago and it was delicious.

Bob ;)
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There sure are a lot of ALaskans on this here site! :laughtwo:

I chose BBL for the medicinal attributes because I grind my MJ, leaves and fluffy buds, into a powder, cook it with coconut oil, and
put it unstrained into capsules. (I believe in using ALL the plant's properties) If BBL happens to taste better than OG Kush, I may try making cannibudder with the BBL when it's harvested. I have a lot of powder!

THX for the input!

I have put the last of my OGK under flower, but my Mystery #1 is looking and acting very Sativa. So I may still have some for the smokers in the family.
 
Just got through reading about humidity on the FAQ's and had an epiphany. The closet I use for flower always seems to keep an RH of 30 and above without any extra fussing. My Veg area has a humidifier running 24 hours and never gets above 30, and is often around 20.

It has just occurred to me, after 1 year of perpetual grow that I should switch areas, putting the ladies in flower in the drier area and the veg in the closet, where the humidity is naturally higher. I will certainly save the trouble of filling the humidifier every day. It takes more water than the plants do!
 
Too funny AK, the simplest solutions sometimes!
 
Just spent almost 2 hours switching the plants from one area to the other, switching out the bulbs and resetting the timers. I also gave the former veg area a good cleaning so as not to infect the ladies in flower. I also disconnected the humidifier, which wasn't doing much good anyway.

My juveniles look so tiny in the closet! I have crates and shelving stacked up to get them close to the lights, as the bar is just out of my reach. It's easier to raise the plants than it is to lower the lights.

Two BBLs in solo cups are ready for up-potting, and I had better do that in the next day or two. One seedling has a pair of 1/4" real leaves. The last seed to sprout had popped its cotyledons before growing a root (just a teeny-tiny bump) so I planted it in a solo cup with its cotyledons on the soil and placed a dome made of the top half of a soda bottle over it to keep the soil moist. With luck the little white root stub will make its way into the soil!

The BBL clone is still sturdy and gives off quite a sweet scent when I take its dome off for ventilation. Lots of transpiration going on under the dome! Maybe the secret in successful cloning (for me, anyway) is to take them a little more mature, but before the stem gets woody.
 
I finally up-potted BBL #4 and #5, DOB of 1-24-2016. They were completely rootbound in the 16 oz solocups, so held together nicely when I popped them out, sprinkled them with mycho, and repotted in about 3/4 gallon water bottles. As fast as the BBLs grow, I expect I'll have to up-pot all my BBLs to their 5 gallon bins in 6 weeks! The other juveniles are SOOOOOO root bound!

I like the scent this strain gives off. Not at all stinky like the OG Kush.

One of the OGKs in flower is drying out faster than it is filling out buds. I think this one is going into the bin for medicine. I don't hold out a lot of hope for her sister, either, if she also drops her leaves. It may be that the successive cloning sapped all the vigour out of the strain. It's good I'm starting out with new seed. Even the mystery seed will do better than the tired clones of the OGK.

One of these days, I'll take pics of the juveniles for you to comment on. Nothing much to write home about, except the excitement of how fast these BBLs are growing!
 
Today I took 5 clones from my last healthy OGK in flower and trimmed out her crowded growth. She's just starting to show serious hairs, so I didn't want to wait too long. She is a miniature, due to the number of times I have had to treat her for mites. Just 12" tall and 21" wide. So the clones are only about 3" tall with tiny leaves and tiny preflowers. Not even close to the vigorous clones I used to get.

So, I expect this batch of OGK clones will dry up/rot like the last 4 tries, but eventually the last of the OGKs will go into the edible bin. The strain is all cloned out with no vigour whatsoever. So I'm happy to have new seeds to start fresh.

I notice that the Bubblelicious juveniles are VERY THIRSTY! I have to water them well almost every day, using the weight of the pot as a guide. If I wait too long, the fan leaves start to look tired, so I give them a good soaking then. I have 5 good plants from the 10 seeds of BBL I ordered, and the mystery seed is chugging slowly along, as Sativa-heavy hybrids do.

The BBL clone I took is still alive, and it has a tiny tuft of new leaves on top. I cannot hope that roots have formed in just 7 days, so I'm leaving it under its dome until I see roots through the clear solo cup I put it in. There is no sign of mold, rotting, or wilting at all.
 
Last night I started a batch of crockpot cannabudder to use up some of my ground MJ.
I doubled the amount of MJ per pound of butter because it is a mix of trim, leaves, and larfy buds.

I harvested all the dried-on-the-stem airy buds left on one of the last 2 OGKs I had. All is left are about 4 small, but still living colas, which I will give a week to do something meaningful, before I take them for edibles, unless they dry up sooner. There are no leaves left, except at the base of these 4. It was a bad-luck harvest all the way through.

But I don't waste anything. I trust there are SOME beneficial chemicals left in the harvest. The cannabudder is now in the fridge, separating out. After an 8 hour cook, there should be *something* useful, either in cookies or in capsules.
 
I know this is supposed to be a journal for the Bubblelicious grow, but they are a part of a larger perpetual grow, as small as it is. There is a desperate, but losing battle to save even one clone from the OGKs, as an alternative to the BBLs. From what I have read from the seed banks and fellow growers, I just may enjoy the BBLs more for medicine than the sativas. They are certainly easier to grow!
 
I can see a number of roots hugging the sides of the clear solo cup I have the BBL clone in! I cut it 9 days ago, so it must have rooted very quickly! This gives me hope that I still know how to take successful clones!

BBL_Clone_9_days_old_2-19-2016.JPG
 
I was hanging around Dr. Bob's journal and picked up that I should be continuing the veg nutes for about 2/3 through the flower period to save the leaves. I have one healthy OGK in flower, just starting to show hairs all over, so I gave her a good feeding diluted according to SOPS for MJ, then suctioned up the runoff and re-added it to her soil several times.

I also am rehydrating two 3-gallon bins full of used soil with the runoff, which will add nutes to the soil. It looks like two of the juvenile BBL's are already begging to be up-potted from their 1/2 gallon jugs. I think I just transplanted them 4 weeks ago! So by tomorrow I'll have two big-girl bins ready for them.
 
Hi! Sorry I missed you over at my place earlier. I will reply there as well just to be sure.

I don't see any pics of your leaf loss, but it sounds like your fan leaves are being consumed by the plant's needs for nutrients that it isn't getting from the feedings. Specifically nitrogen in this case. For a short term solution, you may want to just use something that supplants the N you are missing with a non burning additive rather than your full liquid veg nutes. I have something called Yum Yum mix that was suggested by PeeJay but you could use anything. I have some N only guano that would work.

Just realize that your plant is flowering and needs those nutes, you also need N as the leaf loss is showing. Adding something that gives you N without doing much more might be a good solution if available.

Do you have a pic of the yellowing?
Bob ;)
 
Dr. Bob. There are no leaves to yellow. They simply dry up and fall off. At this point, the affected OGK is just a couple stalks with about 6" of cola left. I have been trimming off the dried-on-the-vine buds and grinding them up for cannabudder. What is left is still soft, and I'm giving them a week to do whatever they are going to do before taking those, too.

The last OGK lady is just starting to flower, and I have fed her 1/2 the dilution of nutes, the same formula I use on those in veg. I don't feed very often, which may be the problem. (starvation) I had intended on feeding on Sundays, with plain water the rest of the week, but sometimes I get busy with non-420 things and forget.

The last 5 clones I took off her on the 17th are iffy, and I don't expect them to survive the transition back to veg, before rooting. But I thought I would give it one more try. I think this batch is totally cloned out. Either that, or didn't feed them enough in veg. I also had a long battle with mites all winter, which was tough on the OGKs.

I haven't gone to the grow room yet today (just got up). But later I will be putting BBL#1 and #2 in their big girl bins and evaluating the rest of the juveniles. The BBL clone is officially a youngling, as it is well-rooted in its solo cup. So I know the BBLs are vigorous enough to give me good clones.

At this point, I haven't bothered to sex them, as I plan to allow a pair to breed. I'll put the chosen male and female in a separate enclosure to avoid losing the whole crop to seeds.

More later, after I've taken care of the Juveniles. Might even remember to post a photo.
 
Just a thought: if I have to replace my soil, I'm going to have to put out 4 times the amount of cash and buy all the fancy additives, like worm castings and bat guano, at the grow shop. They pretty much have the 420 market cornered, so can charge what they want. And I sure as Hell can't get sterilized soil at Walmart or Fred Meyer.

The soil is the only thing I can think of that is harboring the mites. I've never SEEN a mite until I started mixing up soil for the MJ, and I've lived here almost 50 years. Is there any harm in pre-treating the soil with miticide while mixing in the vermiculite and sand, etc?
 
The soil mix I am using has Pro Mix as the base and I have never ran into mites in it. The only think I buy from the garden shop you are talking about would be, uh, lets see. Almost nothing. Sorry but almost $40 for a bag of perlite? Think I got my worm castings there and my Fox Farms soil. I always buy my Pro Mix in the winter from Lowes so it has been outside for months. Makes it hard for bugs to be alive in there.

I ordered much of what I needed online and had that well known online service ship for free. Also check the big greenhouses as they often sell worm castings and such.

:thumb:
Bob ;)
 
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