Bassman59's Revenge of the Clones! 600w Pro-Bloom LED - RDWC - Grow #2

Sorry to hear about your light troubles. I'm sure you'll get it solved tomorrow.

I went and bought some PVC today at home depot to give your suggestion a try :)

Yep, 5am my time I get a pm from Donnie he's sending me a ballast today to fix it myself. Spoke to him on phone as well. Good service indeed.

I think you'll be happy using the pvc. I didnt glue mine so I can easily change as I need. Just make sure to insert the ends tightly. I'll probably add a middle vertical support T to each side also. At 4' spacing there is a fair bit of give in the middle, so a vert bar will add lots of rigidity. But I'll get to that after this grow is complete.
 
This will be a 20 pics - two post update.

Day 70 in 12/12

Drain tubs today. Couldnt get it all out as I just squeezed a pump under the lid of one tub and pumped out. Can't take the tops off with the girls like I did last grow because these girls are just too massive and would be unstable and fall over for sure. As such, no real cleaning of tubs.

The roots are massive and I could only fill 10 gals rather than the normal 12-13 gals the system holds. Thats some root volume indeed.

I prepped nutrient a few hours ahead. PPM on nutes was right where I wanted it at 980-1000 for 10 gals.

After adding the nutrient water back to the tubs with their small amount stil in the system, the ppm hit 1250. Obviously a higher concentration at the bottom of crap that didn't get sucked out and I couldn't get in to clean out.

I'll add straight ro water during the next few days and it will bring it down. But 1250 isnt too hot either.

Looking at trichs it looks like still much less than 50% are cloudy. So I guess I got some time. I really hope they bulk up now. Last grow they bulked up in those last 10-12 days.


On to pics, there's a few really good ones in here.
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Hoping over 1 lb. But don't know if I can get there. I think in the end, not having the room to spread them proper, and maybe too light on the feeding in flower is the issue to not getting that yield. I think I ran them too long in the 700-800ppm range and didnt bloom boost them enough in the early-mid weeks. I really only ran 3-5ml per gal of Ginormous from week 1-6 or so. I found out 10-15 ml per gal would be fine (or so I was told by Humboldt). So for the last 2 weeks I have gone to about 10-12ml per gal.

Your thoughts on my nute assessment?
 
My liquid blue has a very similar analysis to Ginormous and it can be ran up to about 10 ml/gal as long as the ppms stay below where you experience any burning, you will be ok. You have to remember that it is the total ppms that you need to watch. If your base nutes are pushing the nutrient strength to 1200 ppm, then you won't be able to add as much bloom booster. For instance, adding 10 ml/gallon to a 1200 ppm solution will increase your ppm by about 300 which will likely cause some burning issues. Also remember that different meters measure ppm differently (based on a conversion factor) so you will just have to see what your plants can take based on your measurements.
 
I should have mentioned my conv factor is .5

I use your two part. I had the ginormous so wont get yours till I run out.

My base nutes were well under 1200
 
Hi Bass,

Those girls are big and beautiful. I can see why you don't want to move them, they look like a couple of unruly bitches...you're going to be trimming for a month :rofl:

I'll be watching...Good luck!!

:high-five:
 
Day 71 trichs shots

I clipped one small budlet off and put it under my scope. Then took pics with my scope-camera and regular camera under super macro.

Looks like we have lots of cloudy, not all, but most. No Amber at all here. Though there are some leaves with a bit of amber. But I can't focus on plant much so I can't really say those same buds that have some leaf with amber have amber on the actual bud.

Any thoughts on time left to 40-50% amber? That will be more of a heavy stone yes?

On to pics. Not the greatest but best I could do.
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Hey Bass,

I see one amber tric in the very first close up pic--bottom left corner. Also the last pic -- top right corner.

You need to look closer...71 days seems like there should be lots of amber. What's the reviews says about this strain? as to harvest time?

And I have heard of some strains that don't get a lot of amber, so also watch for them to start shrivelling or bending over and drooping, the mushroom head will shrink also...I think those are all signs of them being ready to cut.

Good luck

:cheertwo:
 
Hey Bassman -

You might want to check closer to where your grade a buds are (maybe you did). I usually snip a sugar leaf from a nicer cola, and one mid plant, one low. Sometimes the smaller lower stuff doesn't amber up as quickly in my experience. I wouldn't be suprised if the trichs up top on the prime buds have more amber - but maybe you've checked that.

Also, there are definitely strains/phenos that don't amber as much or even at all. But, they are done at some point.

Sometimes, I go more by how done it looks in all other respects, in conjunction with the amber trichs (for what it's worth, to me, they look like another week or two would do them good but it's hard to tell in the pics sometimes).

A test smoke/vape can help decide, too. Taste will be meh, but effect is usually present. Just a few thoughts...

You can also give them a nudge by going to a longer dark period, sending them a stronger signal that the end is near, time to ripen up (if you want)! ;)

Oh, and 50% amber is a pretty heavy stone -- to me at least. Personally, I prefer around 10-25% amber, mostly cloudy.
 
Thanks Sqwheels and Xlr8 for your suggestions.

So this morning I clipped sugar leaves, one at a time and scoped them. I was able to get some 1/2 decent pics with the scope cam too. I'm going to upload all the decent pics. Maybe 16-17 in all.

Based on this, I took about 30% of the nutrient water out and replaced it with straight ro water. This reduced the ppm to 1020 (.5 conv). I think I'll do this again after while and try to get it down to under 700. Then again tomorrow and hopefully get it to under 300. If I have enough ro water and can get it to even less then I'll do it.

I want to go lights out for at least 48 hrs if not 72 (any thoughts?) before chop. I need to plan chop for Sun after work and Mon.

Would love some feedback on my thinking here.
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Hi Bass,

WOW!!! lots of amber, I thought a closer look would show more @ 70 days, those plants look ready, and will probably kick your butt.

Yeah that nute redux might work...I don't really know, I don't do hydro.

Maybe X will have a suggestion

in my hempy I gave only water for 2 weeks before cut

Great Job!!

:thumb:

edit: I don't usually give mine more than 24 hrs dark, then chop. I think my second batch got 36, but this last one only 24 and I didn't notice any difference.
 
Thanks Sqwheels,

I was only able to get it down to 775 ppm weds. Getting ready for work now, so hopefully in 12 hrs when I get home I can hit it harder, get the ppm down lots more.

The shots above look to me like not "lots" of amber, because there are some of those sugar leaves with no amber, and some with just barely turning, and very little if any a harder amber. I think I'm right in "the zone" now. I just dont have the time to chop now until my weekend which doesnt start till Sunday noon.

I'm hoping by reducing ppm drastically they will get some sort of flush and by turning the lights off for 2-3 days the trichs wont all go amber but maybe I'll still get some more bulk and maybe even more trichs during that time till I can start taking them down come Sunday.

I really don't know. I know I have lots of frost, they are tons of sticky, but there are not a lot of thick ass buds.

I'm also wondering now if a light mover to get that full coverage that I was just shy of would make a difference for my next grow. Conceivably, I could go same size or possibly 5x5 tent with the 5 gal bucket x 4 rdwc and get better full coverage that was just lacking in this grow.

To update my status on next grow:

I have the two AK48 moms. One is insanely tall at 36" and is the more sativa pheno from grow #1 while the other has had far less light and has been held back at 17" or so. Planing on putting them both into flower. I'll transplant 1 into each of the tubs I currently have in the tent. Bend the shit out of the taller one to shut her height down. I wont worry about how they do, I need the time to veg out the Master Kush feminized seeds I planted and properly train and defoliate through veg. So I might as well flower something in the meantime.

It is the MK's I want to see get the full proper treatment of defoliation and training with enough light in flower and get the big yield from. Which is also why I started thinking light mover instead of spending big bucks on another LED.
 
Mini update:

Day 74 in 12/12

Got home from work and looked in on the girls expecting to plan on Mon chop. Pulled the 100x scope out, turned off the LED and looked was able to get some really good looks at some buds. Everything was cloudy and some clear. No ambers whatsoever. These were top buds.

AK48 is supposed to have a 7-9 week flowering time per the seed vendor. So after the discussions on the topic of what the definition of "flowering period" is per seed vendors in last grow, I sent an email asking.

When asked if they were defining Flowering period from flip to 12/12 or from first signs of flowers in 12/12.
This was the response: "Well, the flowering time stated on the website are mostly a guideline. If growing conditions are optimal, the plants should flower in 7 to 9 weeks. I would say this is more from the first sex showing."

In normal circumstances its from first sex showing after the grow has been switched over to flowering stage.

With that in mind, if I go by the theory of Flowering Period = First sign in 12/12 of Flower pistils, then we are at about day 61-64.

Using that as a basic guide, we're obviously close. But being that I also saw huge bulk-up last grow in the last days and that there are really no signs of amber on buds (just on some old sugar leaves), this has me leaning towards another week
.

Would love to hear from others on this.
 
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