Arteekay's Second Grow - Autos & Feminized - Mixed Strains

JahMedicine said:
Im keepin a very close eye on that DD! :goodjob:
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Me too! I'm really not sure exactly why this strain has me so excited. I was a little worried I'd been too bold when I topped her and she'd end up stunted, but it tonight's update she looks good to me.

Off to upload and post.
 
millertm said:
Nice pull, that LST really pays off.

Cheers
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The one right over the light is the top of the other Northern Lights auto, Droopy's bigger sister. The rest are all from Rev, really interested in seeing her dry weight next weekend hopefully.


Yeatster said:
Is that the best way to dry? I have read some about drying in a cardboard box. That's what I kinda planned, yet sooo far away.
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"Best" is subjective. Our journey to where they are drying now is documented in our first grow journal and why we decided to dry here in the top of our veg tent is here, and quoted below.


We let each plant go fully dry, a day or two past when we would have normally watered had they been continuing to live. We then pulled off all the big fan leaves that likely wouldn't have had much if anything of value in/on them, but saved them in a big bag in the freezer.

With droopy, we tried to manicure her the next day but she was still wet for our methods and experience level. She ended up with some flat spots just from being in the bowl long enough to weigh it.

So when we got to Trudy we hung her in two parts for 6 days before we tried to manicure her up. It was so easy, you could really just run the backside of the trimmers along the bud and the trim would break right off without cutting. We then left fairly long stems intact and hung her up for another couple of days. We'll jar her up tomorrow likely.

For the location we finally settled on to dry in, we followed the lead our our good friend ShiggityFlip, as I should have done in the first place to avoid re-doing it twice.

The pros:
Same humidity required as for veg.
Easily available and accessible space.
Air exchange without any direct wind on em.
Behind the carbon filter (might be the biggest pro for us)


The cons:
Some small loss of THC due to indirect light reaching them.


That was really the only con we could identify for our situation, and when we considered that we wouldn't even be able to quantify the degradation and we were getting blasted off our asses anyway, it just made sense.
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We actually did try to get a cardboard box going, and likely still will need to work out something for the popcorn buds so it remains an option for that. Otherwise I think we're pretty happy with this solution to the problem. Rev is drying nice and slow so far.


BpoBrad said:
Your tent reminds me of the early scenes from Braveheart where young William finds all the dead bodies hanging from the ceiling haha :thumb:
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:rofl:

I had a very similar thought! Those poor girls at the bottom, looking up and seeing that. Thankfully they're like a suspect in an old detective movie, blissfully blinded by the light with no hope of seeing their dead sisters three feet away.
 
Jan 25 Update. JH, CR, and NEM are 26 days old. DD is 15 days old. Temp is 74 and RH is 63% at the canopy, 71 and 70% at the top (where Rev from our first grow is drying).


Was happy to see the Dark Devil had picked up after her topping and was filling out. I'm shocked by how tight this girl is staying, considered removing her lifts and getting her a little farther from the light, but decided against it for now. Will likely re-evaluate when she and her two autoflower sisters move into the other tent.

DD (8.6 lbs, down from 9.2 after watering yesterday):










Jaybiz did a little more adjustments to his Crown Royale's bindings. I think she's still in a bit of shock from the transplant, training, and soaking all happening in one night. I'm betting she's fine, just taking a few days to relax and stretch some root.

CR (21.2 lbs, down from 22.1 yesterday):










New Early Miss continues to just get massaged and tucked into roughly the shape I'm hoping for while keeping tops exposed. Trying to make her roughly rectangular (likely oblong) rather than square (or round) so that she and her three autoflowering sisters will sit nice under our two Mars II 900s in the flowering tent. Figure it'll be easier to have them side by side rather than staggered. Should get better use of our lights is the hope. We likely still won't scrog or net any of them except maybe Jaybiz's CR, or at least he's been talking about it...


NEM (8.6 lbs, down from 9.4 yesterday)

Before:




Love her structure:


After. not clear in this pic but she's longer over the pots handles (currently pinned down and out of the way):




For the twice topped Jack Herer, I'm being a bit more aggressive (for us) with her training. Along with the massage and tuck that NEM gets, I've taped down a couple of the bigger fan leaves to keep a top in a specific position. No real reason why I didn't just tie down other that I didn't have anything handy to poke through the fabric pot. Need a pack of paperclips I guess.

JH (7.6 lbs, down from 8.6 yesterday):

Before:


Tons of side branching, probably more than we've seen before:






One of her second toppings coming in:


After:


Dammit, missed that one on the right:


Better:




Back in the tent:
 
Another question for you to demonstrate my indoor ignorance... Do you use the same lighting all the way through and just change to 12/12 when you feel it's close enough to time for flowering, or do you use different lights for flowering?
 
millertm said:
Nice group shot RTK.
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Thanks millertm. I gotta start taking the family shot before I play with them for an hour or two. They look a little worse for wear than they do coming out of the tent initially.


thebeast27 said:
looking sweet mate good work;)
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Toppings all seem to have been a complete success. Curious to see what the Dark Devil does with it, but I'm confident the CKS strains will be fine and dandy!


TokeySmurf said:
Another question for you to demonstrate my indoor ignorance... Do you use the same lighting all the way through and just change to 12/12 when you feel it's close enough to time for flowering, or do you use different lights for flowering?
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We haven't done a photoperiod plant yet, excluding the Crown Royale we have in veg right now in this journal. The 6 autos from our first grow were under 20/4 for a couple weeks, then 18/6 through to now. These autos I think we'll move back up to 20/4 or higher. I know the science says they do not need a dark cycle except to flower photo period genetics, but I want the temps to drop for their "night" to encourage color changes cause I think it's pretty. :)

We were originally going to keep the Dark Devil under the Spider in the veg tent right through to harvest, but that would mean the other two autos would be in the flowering tent with the photoperiod and would miss out on at least 6-8 hours, if not 12 if we decided to just do 24/0 with the autos.

My understanding of photoperiod plants is that the light spectrum changes with MH and then HPS are about providing the right type of light to assist during a specific stage, but that it's entirely dependent on having at least 12 hours of complete darkness to actually flower. In other words, you can veg under HPS and flower under MH, you'll just have a much less optimal spectrum and therefore less growth, which of course means less eventual yield.

Neither my Spider or my Mars II 900s have grow/bloom switches, and even if they did I can't imagine I'd actually use them for much other than maybe taking pictures.
 
Jan 26 Update. JH, CR, and NEM are 27 days old. DD is 16 days old. Temp is 72 and RH is 63% at the canopy, 71 and 65% at the top (where Rev from our first grow is drying).

  • DD got around 1 liter of bubbled tap water at at untested ppm and ph, but the same batch as last time which was 160 and 5.8.
  • Both NEM and JH got their second full soak and first feeding of half strength DNF Gro A+B and about 80% strength calmag+ at 5.8 PH but we apparently forgot to test or record ppm.

Happy enough about how the Dark Devil is progressing. Definitely won't be topping her a second time. Hope to see some real progress in the next week.

DD (DD (7.6 lbs, down from 8.6 yesterday and 10.0 lbs after watering):












CR (19.4 lbs, down from 21.2 yesterday):













There were 12 days between NEM and JH's first and second soaking, feels very long. I think next time we'll keep them on an increasing schedule like I'm doing for the DD until they are three weeks old, then soak and feed first nutes. These were first soaked with straight tap water at 15 days old.


JH (7.0 lbs, down from 7.6 yesterday, 18.6 after watering):








NEM (7.8 lbs, down from 8.6 yesterday, 20.0 after watering):












Back in the tent:
 
Your journaling skills are immaculate. Specs on point, love the weigh in idea, and pics are perfect, and above all, your plants are lustrous.

I did order the fan we talked about, Ozeri, it came today. I don't have any experience in fans for this particular project but, I am extremely happy with it. I suspected I wasn't getting proper air exchange, temps & RH fluctuated to much for my liking, before fan went in. Now...perfect. Temp is, and has been all day, 77°, RH, 45° to 50°. Awesome advice my friend!

The only con, it is a bit bulky for my small box. That's kewl with me though cuz I expect to use this in future journeys.

Thanks man.
Peace
 
smokiebear said:
How often do you replace the towel? I assume if you forgot about it, it would mold.
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Sorry for the late reply, I've not had a chance to get on here much recently. The towel doesn't need changing often because it dries out. The biggest issue is keeping it damp by filling the tub the corner dips in. It's been in a few weeks and hasn't got funky yet, but you make a good point and I will change it out tomorrow just to be sure. Like I say though, it dries out completely if left alone.
 
That's a marvellous update, rtk. I like the look of your training a lot. The DD's nodes are really tight -- much tighter than the pheno I've been growing. Can't wait until she explodes!
 
Yeatster said:
Your journaling skills are immaculate. Specs on point, love the weigh in idea, and pics are perfect, and above all, your plants are lustrous.

I did order the fan we talked about, Ozeri, it came today. I don't have any experience in fans for this particular project but, I am extremely happy with it. I suspected I wasn't getting proper air exchange, temps & RH fluctuated to much for my liking, before fan went in. Now...perfect. Temp is, and has been all day, 77°, RH, 45° to 50°. Awesome advice my friend!

The only con, it is a bit bulky for my small box. That's kewl with me though cuz I expect to use this in future journeys.

Thanks man.
Peace
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I'm definitely much happier about how their first month is going than in our first grow. The first two weeks of that grow were before I joined this site and created a journal, then it took a couple weeks for the good people here to point out the various problems we had created for ourselves.

Glad to hear that fan worked out for you, I'm a little jealous and will have to order one for myself in the near future. Interested in their 44 inch tower fan as well, it's supposed to be able to do 360 degree oscillation. I'd originally thought it'd be great in the middle of the tent with four girls in each corner, but now that I think about that a little more I'm betting it'd create two very large shadows on the opposite side of each light. Maybe.

Figure I'll get one in and see. If nothing else it can sit in the middle back and do a 180 degree sweep.


nuggs78 said:
Looking good bud keep up the good work.
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Thanks for all the support Nuggs, means a lot when things go a little awry.


MaxHeadroom said:
Sorry for the late reply, I've not had a chance to get on here much recently. The towel doesn't need changing often because it dries out. The biggest issue is keeping it damp by filling the tub the corner dips in. It's been in a few weeks and hasn't got funky yet, but you make a good point and I will change it out tomorrow just to be sure. Like I say though, it dries out completely if left alone.
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That was my expectation, it'd dry out completely before it had any real chance of molding, assuming it's not all bunched up thick.

Thanks and welcome back!


JahMedicine said:
If you can afford 25 bucks this has helped me out a ton with humidity
Sonic Breathe Ultrasonic Personal Humidifier | Walmart Canada
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Only thing to think about with an ultrasonic humidifier is that if you're using tap water in it it can create a white powdery dust on the stuff within a few feet of the unit. Google "humidifier white dust" if ya wanna research it.

We went cool mist (fan through moist wick) because they are stupid cheap and we'd rather replace a wick (or the entire unit) a couple times a year than deal with bottled water in an expensive unit.


glimmergrass said:
That's a marvellous update, rtk. I like the look of your training a lot. The DD's nodes are really tight -- much tighter than the pheno I've been growing. Can't wait until she explodes!
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Gonna be getting a little more aggressive with them tonight, so I'll take the family pics beforehand! hehehe

I'm just stupid excited about the Dark Devil, she's got me in her spell for sure!
 
Jan 27 Update. JH, CR, and NEM are 28 days old. DD is 17 days old. Temp is 72 and RH is 63% at the canopy, 73 and 66% at the top (where Rev from our first grow continues to dry).

Nobody needed anything, so I just took 'em out for a look around and some more LST on the two older autos.



Family pic




JH (17.4 lbs, down from 18.6 yesterday):

Before:




After:








CR (18.0 lbs, down from 19.4 yesterday):






DD (DD (9.2 lbs, down from 10.0 yesterday):















NEM (forgot to weigh her, 20.0 after watering yesterday):

Before:




After:






Back in the tent:
 
Jan 28 Update. JH, CR, and NEM are 29 days old. DD is 18 days old. Temp is 73 and RH is 61% at the canopy, 74 and 68% at the top (where Rev from our first grow continues to dry).

Oddly, again nobody needed anything. I figured the Dark Devil would have used up her water, but she's got another day in her at least. She's definitely slower than her CKS cousins.



Family pic:




DD (8.4 lbs, down from 9.2 yesterday):














NEM (16.8, didn't weight yesterday, 20 two days ago):






CR (16.4 lbs, down from 18.0 yesterday):














JH (15.6 lbs, down from 17.4 yesterday):














Back in the tent:
 
Loving it RTK, all toppings took well and are flourishing. I think we can change the rules for autos I think if you do it early enough you only lose a few days growth and extra Colas are totally worth it. Looking fantastic, you got a competent helper in jaybizzle awesome job on all those girls. Cheers!
 
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