Clrwatrtom's 1st Grow

Just closed the tent for their night coming at 6pm. The pp's split another gallon of water before closing the tent up so they have gotton a gallon each so far today. I may have to up their intake too as when the start flowering they should get very thirsty. I hope the af's finish in the next 30 to 40 days so i can spread the pp's out to give them more room to scrog.
 

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Lovin' it, Tom!
 
I just completed some studying on how these plants finish and I read that when you start to see at least 60% of the pistols turn from white to red or brown they're pretty much done. I'm not seeing that yet on the White Widow but I am on the Purple Kush. To finish this girl does she get just water and Cal mag or just ph 6.3 water from here on out or should she get one more good Bloom nute feed before I start to flush? @Emilya has been such a great teacher.
 
Several points I want to make here. First on the pistils... No matter what you read or where, in some strains the pistils turn as early as week 4 or 5... if you pull those at that point, you have just shot yourself in the foot. In fact, if you don't use the actual state of the trichomes to determine ripeness, you have done yourself a disservice. The pistils can only give you a general idea of where you are at, but the trichomes determine it. What I would agree to is that when 60% of the pistils have turned, it is time to start watching for the end, but until that last white pistil up at the very top turns... I am skeptical.

Second, this convoluted concept of flushing needs to be driven out of the growing world. Giving water only is not flushing... it is giving water only, and most likely starving your plants if you do it more than every other time. Flushing is the act of flushing the salts and built up nutes out of the soil, and the only way to do that is to run 3x the container size of water through that soil. A 3 gallon container takes 9 gallons, a 5 gallon, 15. It is a lot of water, but it serves an important purpose when you are in the final stages of the grow. This final flush should be done 2 week prior to the chop, as the buds start their final budswell. The buds can grow twice as big during this last 2 weeks, and it makes sense to allow the plants to draw up as much water and nutrients as it can during this time period. Since built up salt in the soil restricts water uptake, it is logical to eliminate that bottleneck and wash those salts out of there just before you get to this point.

So the flush takes the place of one of your plain water waterings. There is no magic here other than you have just cleansed your soil and opened the door for maximum uptake for the next 2 weeks. There is no reason at all not to keep giving nutes from then on, just as you have been doing all grow, except now you also want to give finishing nutes, heavy in P and K. I know what some of the advice out there tells you to do... water only for the last week or even two. This is old school, and it has been debunked as not necessary and actually detrimental to your final yield. I too used to believe that this 2 weeks of water only was necessary at the end, but when I went organic and realized that organic grows keep giving nutes right up to the second you chop them down, and that these grows are generally superior in every way to a non organic grow... the light bulbs starting going on.

Flush 2 or 3 times during the grow to clear out the soil. Your grows will go better and I believe your yield will be larger and stronger because you have cleared the soil, especially when it is done at the very end as I am proposing above. Ask yourself, if it is common and necessary to give just water at the end, why are there finishing products such as Terpinator out there? Did someone forget to send them the memo? No... we have all been the victims of bro-science... it turns out that the need for just water at the end is a myth.
 
clrwatrtom said:
that's what i was thinking Emmy. Can you point me in the direction of harvesting and curing techniques? Do you have a tutorial you would recommend?
Click to expand...
There are so many methods and techniques out there that it is hard to determine who is best or most wise when it comes to all this. Curing for example... you can cure in a refrigerator (Low and Slow), you can cure in Mason jars, you can cure in a pit underground and you can cure airtight in a corn cob.... and there are many more methods than that. The old Panama Red actually got its color and distinctive flavor from its underground cure. I have tried several methods, but my favorite and most reliable is still the old Mason jar method. To do this method you will need to purchase at least one good quality RH meter that will fit down into a jar, I recommend the Caliber II, that is available online. I do NOT recommend the $3 bundles of RH meters... 9 out of 10 are junk... I have a whole mason jar full of them, all reading different RH. The Caliber is cheap and accurate and has been a standard for a number of years.
Harvest also has its myths and bro-science... some like to give ice water at the end, put a nail in the trunk, and my favorite that actually does seem to work, is to put the plants into darkness for 36 hours right before the chop. To hasten the end, some like to cut back the light time period a bit simulating a fall pattern, and many professional growers will raise their lights a bit at the end to cut back the intensity... all to give the plant the signs that the end is nigh, and to get on with building those buds.
Essentially, harvest is when you say it is, and that point is very subjective. I recommend first time growers to take a staggered harvest the first time, sampling some buds at all cloudy and 0% amber, 2% amber, 5%, 10%, and even 20% amber, just to see how that mix hits you and your unique set of conditions you are trying to treat with this medicine. If you are in it for just an intense short lived head high, all cloudy is for you. The longer you let it go, the more intense the high and the more profound the medicinal bodily reactions to the meds, with the very ripe 10-20% commonly producing such a profound high they call it "couch lock." Only you can determine where your favorite point to pull will be. Finding that point is a tough job, but someone has to do it.
There is a good tutorial out there that is text only... it has been around since the 70's, but it is the step by step guide for curing in a mason jar. This document explained logically how it is best to dry your weed down to 70% RH as slowly as you can without allowing mold to start growing. When the branches "snap but do not break" that guide explained that it was time to remove the buds from the main stems they have been drying on, and place them in a paper sack for a couple of days, with the sack folded over twice to lock in moisture. After the sack, I place the buds in a mason jar and seal it up with my meter to see if it is below 70%. If it is still too wet, I put it back in the sack for another 12 hours and check it again. Once below 70%, then we open the jars for an hour or so, and then seal it back up, watching for the point when we can get it RH down to 65% and get it to stabilize at that level even after sealing the jar back up. From 65%-59% is called the curing range, and the longer you can keep it in this range, the better the cure will be. Once you dry out below the 59%, no additional moisture, lettuce leaves, etc. will restart the curing process. Once you are in the range, do NOT open the jar except for a quick burp once a day to release the gasses. When you get the pot down below 58%, this is the proper RH for long term storage, but I would still try to burp the jars once a month or so as long as you have it.
This is where the Bovida 2 way humidity packs come in handy too... A 62% pack can help keep you in the curing range for a lot longer than would normally be possible, and a 58% pack can keep you good for long term storage for over a year. Some people actually try to "do" the cure by simply taking wet pot and putting it in a jar with a Bovida 62, but this is not advised and can doom your entire product to failure. There is no substitute for working with the product each day to slowly get down into the cure range.
 
Emilya said:
Several points I want to make here. First on the pistils... No matter what you read or where, in some strains the pistils turn as early as week 4 or 5... if you pull those at that point, you have just shot yourself in the foot. In fact, if you don't use the actual state of the trichomes to determine ripeness, you have done yourself a disservice. The pistils can only give you a general idea of where you are at, but the trichomes determine it. What I would agree to is that when 60% of the pistils have turned, it is time to start watching for the end, but until that last white pistil up at the very top turns... I am skeptical.

Second, this convoluted concept of flushing needs to be driven out of the growing world. Giving water only is not flushing... it is giving water only, and most likely starving your plants if you do it more than every other time. Flushing is the act of flushing the salts and built up nutes out of the soil, and the only way to do that is to run 3x the container size of water through that soil. A 3 gallon container takes 9 gallons, a 5 gallon, 15. It is a lot of water, but it serves an important purpose when you are in the final stages of the grow. This final flush should be done 2 week prior to the chop, as the buds start their final budswell. The buds can grow twice as big during this last 2 weeks, and it makes sense to allow the plants to draw up as much water and nutrients as it can during this time period. Since built up salt in the soil restricts water uptake, it is logical to eliminate that bottleneck and wash those salts out of there just before you get to this point.

So the flush takes the place of one of your plain water waterings. There is no magic here other than you have just cleansed your soil and opened the door for maximum uptake for the next 2 weeks. There is no reason at all not to keep giving nutes from then on, just as you have been doing all grow, except now you also want to give finishing nutes, heavy in P and K. I know what some of the advice out there tells you to do... water only for the last week or even two. This is old school, and it has been debunked as not necessary and actually detrimental to your final yield. I too used to believe that this 2 weeks of water only was necessary at the end, but when I went organic and realized that organic grows keep giving nutes right up to the second you chop them down, and that these grows are generally superior in every way to a non organic grow... the light bulbs starting going on.

Flush 2 or 3 times during the grow to clear out the soil. Your grows will go better and I believe your yield will be larger and stronger because you have cleared the soil, especially when it is done at the very end as I am proposing above. Ask yourself, if it is common and necessary to give just water at the end, why are there finishing products such as Terpinator out there? Did someone forget to send them the memo? No... we have all been the victims of bro-science... it turns out that the need for just water at the end is a myth.
Click to expand...
Wow! This sometimes make me feel like a dummy. I have learned alot but at least once a day i learn something that i had not a clue on. I will continue to feed these ladies as i have been doing right to the chop. i will have to study on extra additives that enhance bloom. Next Grow! i':lot-o-toke:m feeling overwhelmed.
 
Hello @Emilya
Thanks for the help you give out, i went seashell picking to follow one of your previous posts recipes for homebrew nutes. Really great piece :thanks: but im hoping you can help with something you said up there.... :rolleyes:
Emilya said:
sampling some buds at all cloudy and 0% amber, 2% amber, 5%, 10%, and even 20% amber,
Click to expand...

Im in last fortinght of my plants expected time and was wondering how to do the best method for drying a sample?

My assumption is it isnt a single nug hung for days etc..

So how would i go about drying and roughly when should i start looking for trics to change colour for samples??

Thanks in advance
W
 

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