Colorado High - Soilless - LED/CFL - Dutch Dope - 2014

[David Bowman]

they look great my dude.

Thanks b.real!

 

[David Bowman]

Nice Ladies COlorado High and getting 11 out of 16 seeds to be female over your grows seems an above average success alone
KingJohnC posted a sweet system there if possible.I havent left that long ,more like 3-5 days and I just watered heavy leaving excess in the tray.
I was wondering if not running your cfls that generate the most heat would be better to slow down evaporation.Best wishes and enjoy your vacation

Thanks closetorganic! I've been drooling over that system all year long. I just haven't justified its expense since so far I've haven't really needed it yet. I will talk more about my results with the lighting change in my next photo update.

 

[David Bowman]

Subscribed.

Very interested in trying a soiless medium my next grow. Your plants are looking great!

Thanks KCMP!

 

[David Bowman]

Day 22 of flowering and my little experiment worked out better than anticipated. The pre-flowers are spreading all over the ladies and there appear to be no lasting signs of stress from their ordeal. The photos below were taken immediately after lights on tonight after being left alone for the last 8.5 days. They all look to be in great shape with the hardest hit lady being, not surprisingly, the tallest one - the B/L lady. She was very dry and you can see some downward canoeing of the leaves from her starting to dry out a little too much. Another factor I forgot to mention was that we set our heat to 50° while we were away and the grow room temperatures ranged from 55° to 75° which I believe also helped with the evaporation concerns expressed by closetorganic. Next time, I might try and turn off the CFLs instead of the LEDs to see if there is any difference in their response. Even with the reduced lighting and temperatures, they each gained ~4" in height since the last update so it appears that stretching hasn't been significantly impacted by these changes in the environment.

Group shot of the ladies on day 22 of flowering -

Profile shot of the ladies on day 22 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the B/L lady on day 22 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the B/R lady on day 22 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the F/C lady on day 22 of flowering -

Immediately after these photos were taken, I gave the ladies a total of one-half gallon of the standard nutrient solution. I plan to follow that up with a fortified molasses watering in the next few days to help get them back up to speed flowering. Now that they've survived this latest hurdle, I'm expecting big things from these ladies over the next month or two.

 

[CareStaker]

Merry Christmas CoHigh!
Best and much love to you and yours!

 

[David Bowman]

Merry Christmas, CS and Happy New Year!!

 

[David Bowman]

Day 29 of flowering and the ladies are doing quite well. There are small flowering buds all over each lady and while they are still staying rather compact given their genetics, they are definitely filling out nicely. The environment remains stable as before with no significant changes. The inverse lighting schedule is working very well in combating the low temperatures at night, especially during cold snaps where the indoor night time temperatures are getting down into the low to mid 50's, the ladies are enjoying a low of 65°. Yesterday, I replaced the 6,400 lumens/92 watts @ 5000K CFLs with 2,640 lumens/104 watts of 10% UVB CFLs. This should give the ladies a good 4-6 weeks of supplemental UVB lighting which should frost them up nicely.

Group shot of the ladies on day 29 of flowering -

Profile shot of the ladies on day 29 of flowering -

Single shot of the B/L lady on day 29 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the B/L lady on day 29 of flowering -

Single shot of the B/R lady on day 29 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the B/R lady on day 29 of flowering -

Single shot of the F/C lady on day 29 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the F/C lady on day 29 of flowering -

The ladies have been quite thirsty and hungry of late so I started feeding them with every watering and watering every 2-3 days for now. So far they appear to be satiated with that schedule and have not shown any issues with this aggressive of a feeding schedule. I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays last week and I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

 

[PeytonManning]

Looking good man. On your way to another fat harvest

 

[David Bowman]

Thanks Peyton! I sure hope so, so far this has been my most trouble-free grow and I hope my patience and diligence are well rewarded.

 

[budfumo]

Hey Colorado! Nice grow you have going. I've been wanting to ask the great folks on this site to clear up a question I have about watering...I've read over and over that these plants like to dry out between waterings, and that the soil should be fully saturated when water is given, to the point of runoff out the bottom. In a 3 gallon container, a saturated plant usually takes over a week to dry out. That makes it tough to maintain a weekly feeding schedule...So do you guys just give a limited amount of water/nutes each time you water?

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

 

[David Bowman]

Thanks budfumo and welcome to

I typically water the same quantity of water each watering/feeding and adjust the time between feedings to match the plants requirements. I usually get some runoff when I do it this way, but if I don't that tells me that the plants are wanting more and so I shorten the interval between feedings. Also, with this method I don't have any leftover nutrient solution and the plants get a fresh nutrient solution each time they get fed.

 

[David Bowman]

For anyone who might be interested, I've posted some macro shots of the ladies - Novice Macro Photography.

 

[Tead]

usually takes over a week to dry out.

To me, that seems like an indication that your soil mix is too "heavy" and retaining water longer than you want. You might look at adding more perlite next time to thin out your soil mix. Took me forever to learn that lesson.

 

[David Bowman]

Day 36 of flowering, the start of the 6th week of flowering, has typically been right around the mid-point of the flowering stage for my previous grows. Comparing this grow with my last grow, shows that these ladies are slightly behind and could take a little longer than anticipated. Given that, the ladies are making fairly good advances towards that goal and are really starting to flower and frost. I should expect to harvest sometime around the middle of February, give or take a week or two.

(I apologize for the lack of image quality with today's update, I just realized I took these photos using the wrong program mode and they didn't come out as well as expected. I'm still getting used to my new DLSR set-up, please bear with me while I get through the learning curve for this new-to-me technology.)

Group shot of the ladies on day 36 of flowering -

Profile shot of the ladies on day 36 of flowering -

Single shot of the B/L lady on day 36 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the B/L lady on day 36 of flowering -

Single shot of the B/R lady on day 36 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the B/R lady on day 36 of flowering -

Single shot of the F/C lady on day 36 of flowering -

Close-up shot of the top of the F/C lady on day 36 of flowering -

I'm still feeding them with every watering, one half gallon of nutrient solution every 2-3 days or so, and they seem to be fine with that schedule at the moment. While their overall growth and development still seems to be lacking compared to my other grows, I'm not quite sure why that is though, the ladies show no signs of any stress or other issues so I guess I'll keep doing what I've been doing and hope for the best. I hope all is well with everyone and their grows and that everyone is enjoying the new year!

 

[Tead]

Temps lower in the last month or two? That might explain some slow growth.

 

[David Bowman]

Temps in the house get low at night, but that's when the lights are on for the ladies. Temperatures in the grow box range from a low of 65° to a high of 85°, not that much different from my other winter grows actually, except the low temperatures at night, for the ladies, are a little higher since their night occurs during the day when the heat is on in the house.

 

[Tead]

Had to ask... it's that time of year after all.

 

[David Bowman]

Understood and I do appreciate the concern as I'm stumped as well as to the relatively slow growth exhibited throughout this grow.

 

[Tead]

What do you come up with when you ask yourself "what have I done differently?"

 

[David Bowman]

That's a good question Tead and I've asked myself that many times over the course of this grow. For one, I've not used high temperatures and CO2 during the vegging of this grow, which could be the main reason for the slow growth during vegging, but I always lower the temperature and stop using CO2 when I enter flowering. The 8.5 day "drought" that I imposed on the ladies during the first weeks of flowering could have set them back as well, but they appeared to have little, if any, stress upon my return and I quickly resumed feeding/watering on a frequent schedule and they seem to have responded well once their "drought" was over.