DIY Stealth Cab, Hydro, LED & Multiple Strains in Small Space - Oh Boy!

[Mr. Krip]

ANOTHER PIC UPDATE

OK...I admit it...I'm not only addicted to growing, now, but I'm also addicted to watching these girls flower!

It's definately much more exciting than what's going on in veg, although, there's NO problems there, either (except for a midget Lucy plant!). But, thanks to my enthrallment with the flowering stage, I've been taking lots of pics and need to give updates regularly as an excuse to post them!

I had been reading a lot about trimming fan leaves lately since I'm way overgrown in the cab and want to maximize bud production and air circulation. There is a TON of info on this subject with some saying you should NEVER trim them and some swear by it.

A couple of the guys swearing by it are VERY good growers here on 420, whom I respect a great deal. Their argument is that because we're pumping the plants so full of nutes, they are less dependent on using stored nutes from the fan leaves, and the benefits of getting extra light to the bud sites outweighed any negatives associated with trimming the leaves.

So, over the last couple of days, I've removed a ton of leaves that were blocking bud sites, and some branches that were either dead, or simply not going to produce anything.

Here's what things are looking like in flower today after all the trimming.

 

[Mr. Krip]

Okay, I'm going to guess that the 56 days is flowering time. Note that this is actually a bit different than days in 12/12. So, they mean 56 days from the beginning of "flowering" which is when your ladies start producing flowers. Adding another 10-14 days to your days since 12/12 started number should give you a decent "estimate" of your finish time. I'd start your regimen at approximately day 49 from 12/12 if that makes sense.

Looking good!

XLR8, thank you!

OK, so, if I understand you correctly, you believe it should be something like 10 weeks of 12/12 total, including the flush. After 7 weeks, I switch nutes for weeks 8 & 9 and then flush in week 10. Is this right?

 

[HempRocket]

Mr. Krip, I just love your pictures of the hairs and the cool colors.

 

[Mr. Krip]

Mr. Krip, I just love your pictures of the hairs and the cool colors.

Thanks, Hemp!

Truth-be-told, I love 'em too! That's why I can't stop checking on them and taking more pic's!

The pics come out pretty good for a crappy 3.2mp cellphone camera. Plus, I just ordered a 60x lighted jewelers loupe and a 60x-100x lighted portable microscope, so I'm hoping I'll be able to use them to get some nice trichome shots when those buds start frosting up.

 

[Hydrologist]

QUESTION ON HARVEST TIMING:

Guys, I need some input regading harvest timing...

As a background, according to the breeder, the AK should finish in 56 days (8 full weeks). I understand this estimate is usually agressive, and using LED's it may take longer.

With the AN nutes I'm using, two weeks before the week of final flush, I'm supposed to stop using the Big Bud and start using the Overdrive. So, if it was really 8 full weeks to finish, in weeks 6 & 7 I would switch the Big Bud for Overdrive and week 8 I would flush.

So, the question is, how do I know when I'm THREE weeks before finish or TWO weeks before the week of final flush? Should I just add a week or two to the breeder's estimate or is there some "tell-tale" sign I should look for (like trichome production?) before switching nutes?

Any thoughts/input is greatly appreciated!



BTW....I don't mind lettiing it go a little longer to get the couch-lock effect, so was planning on harvesting when mostly cloudy/amber

Whats up Mr Krip. I feel your pain in this scenario. Every Grower goes through this when growing a strain for the first time. Last time I did this (with Sandra and kinda with shapey though I learned a ton from sandra) I went through it but I got some great advice from the guy who gave me the strain and I suggest that you follow that 58 day suggestion maybe not to a tee. If you star getting close to the 3 weeks before finish according to the 8 week schedual and they look like they are almost done like at that point that should be almost at there potential size and that last 3 weeks is basically them just fattening up calyx's, so if they look like there plump and almost done flush them and do all that shit u were ganna do at that time to prepare them for harvest. If they look they're still far away from mature ie-NO HAIR CHANGE WHATSOEVER and not a large sapy dispersment of trichomes and if she hasn't started to smell yet, i'd make it i'd just wait until I saw it getting to the point I described. Maybe add a week on to the 58 days.
Thats my two cents!
-Hydro

 

[McCrackin]

If you are going for short time then do not trim anything except totally dead leaves. If you don't care about an extra few weeks and want more yield from lower bud-sights, maybe you are going for a more dense and matured flavor... I say trim that shit hard. Then again I just wait and wait and wait 70+ days flowering sometimes, but the strain is bubble gum af-gu indica cross.

Trimming also stops powder mildew and bud rot because the dense foilage is removed and airflow restored.

If the plants mature uniformly then trimming is less important, but strains that perform under the light need to be exposed to the light.

Dense foliage underneath and in the center of the plant is great at the time of harvest if you regen, because you have a ton of small fan leaves and a bunch of veg to utilize under 24 until the plant is ready to go again.

 

[SuKaFr33]

u know what i've never seen pistils that long before, and about the nutes, right now i have the neptunes harvest fish and seaweed fertilizer and i also have tiger bloom and i got some molasses in the fridge but i dont really know about that i just seen it in there, but yea thats what im workin with right now, do u think i should get some ph up/down and maybe one other thing for a nute for vegging??? i dont want to get to much, i kinda wanna use as less as possible, because i read that u really dont need to use all these things, so i dont know, after this grow atleast i wanna have a plan ready for the next grow and not just throwing some shit together as i go u know what i mean, so thats my plan...let me know what u think...

 

[jcool09]

PICTORIAL UPDATE - THE BUDS ARE FILLING IN!

No words - just pics:

Krip,

Sorry I haven't checked in for a while, your grow looks awesome. I'm about to start up again and I'm on the fence about either building a DIY DWC or just going with a couple of Waterfarms. I see where you can buy the parts for the WFs and build your own. One thing I'm not clear on is how the air pump drives the drip irrigation. I also would like to know how many gallons of nutes it takes to fill one waterfarm. You can PM me if you don't want to bore everyone else with the answers. Nice work!

 

[Mr. Krip]

Krip,

Sorry I haven't checked in for a while, your grow looks awesome. I'm about to start up again and I'm on the fence about either building a DIY DWC or just going with a couple of Waterfarms. I see where you can buy the parts for the WFs and build your own. One thing I'm not clear on is how the air pump drives the drip irrigation. I also would like to know how many gallons of nutes it takes to fill one waterfarm. You can PM me if you don't want to bore everyone else with the answers. Nice work!

Hey, JCool! Great to see you back again! For whatever it's worth, I chose the waterfarms since you get basically a drip system until the roots hit the res, and then you get the drip combined with DWC (some people turn the drip off once the roots hit the res). Also, because each plant gets its own waterfarm, you can vary the nute programs and problems in one res doesn't effect every plant, although, you can also achieve this by giving each plant it's own 5 gallon bucket/DWC, too.

I'm not really a physics guy, but let me see if I can explain how the drip works.

First, here's a picture of the kit parts:

All the "magic" happens with that top component, which are basically one small tube (tube A) and one larger tube (tube B) connected at the bottom with a Y-connector.

The whole assembly sits in the larger tube that's shown right below it (tube C), but Tube C simply holds the whole assembly in place. So, they way it works is that you put Tube C through the top res into the bottom res, then take the whole top component with Tubes A & B and feed them through Tube C.

Then, connect the air hose to Tube A and the drip ring to Tube B. When air blows through Tube A, it forces displaced water up Tube B and through the drip ring.

I really hope this helps. I've spent a lot of time on Tube D, which is the tube on my vape, so not sure you'll fully get the first three tubes, which really are the important ones for this discussion!

If you still have questions, let me know. And, let me know when you get the new journal started!

Best!

K

 

[Mr. Krip]

Forgot to mention, the bottom res holds about 2-2.5 gallons of nutes.

 

[Xlr8]

XLR8, thank you!

OK, so, if I understand you correctly, you believe it should be something like 10 weeks of 12/12 total, including the flush. After 7 weeks, I switch nutes for weeks 8 & 9 and then flush in week 10. Is this right?

Yes, that's my take on it. I think you have to read the plants a little too, but that takes some experience usually, so I think you can get a good estimate this way.

I tried to respond right away yesterday, but the server wasn't responding it seems... so I lost a really long post that I'm sure was 10 times better than this, lol.

 

[Mr. Krip]

u know what i've never seen pistils that long before, and about the nutes, right now i have the neptunes harvest fish and seaweed fertilizer and i also have tiger bloom and i got some molasses in the fridge but i dont really know about that i just seen it in there, but yea thats what im workin with right now, do u think i should get some ph up/down and maybe one other thing for a nute for vegging??? i dont want to get to much, i kinda wanna use as less as possible, because i read that u really dont need to use all these things, so i dont know, after this grow atleast i wanna have a plan ready for the next grow and not just throwing some shit together as i go u know what i mean, so thats my plan...let me know what u think...

Suka, I've become a VERY strong believer that if you're gonna grow MJ, you're gonna have to be able to measure & control your PH. I'm not a soil grower, so not the best one to recommend soil nutes, but I'm not sure you'll need anything special for vegging in soil, other than some good soil, unless you want to veg longer than 30 days, or so.

 

[Mr. Krip]

If you are going for short time then do not trim anything except totally dead leaves. If you don't care about an extra few weeks and want more yield from lower bud-sights, maybe you are going for a more dense and matured flavor... I say trim that shit hard. Then again I just wait and wait and wait 70+ days flowering sometimes, but the strain is bubble gum af-gu indica cross.

Trimming also stops powder mildew and bud rot because the dense foilage is removed and airflow restored.

If the plants mature uniformly then trimming is less important, but strains that perform under the light need to be exposed to the light.

Dense foliage underneath and in the center of the plant is great at the time of harvest if you regen, because you have a ton of small fan leaves and a bunch of veg to utilize under 24 until the plant is ready to go again.

Thanks for the tips McC!

I really hope the trimming I did doesn't extend flower time by much, though. I have some friends coming to stay here in the third week in April and was hoping I'd be harvested and in jars by then, but now I'm getting real close!

 

[Mr. Krip]

Yes, that's my take on it. I think you have to read the plants a little too, but that takes some experience usually, so I think you can get a good estimate this way.

I tried to respond right away yesterday, but the server wasn't responding it seems... so I lost a really long post that I'm sure was 10 times better than this, lol.

Thanks, Bro & no problem on the delayed reply. I knew I had at least a couple of weeks before it became an issue!

That was a big help.

 

[jcool09]

HI've spent a lot of time on Tube D, which is the tube on my vape

LMAO. At 3PM on a Thursday? Nice Thanks for the info on the WFs.

 

[Mr. Krip]

LMAO. At 3PM on a Thursday? Nice

That's why they don't put clocks on vapes!

 

[Mr. Krip]

OK...it's been 26 days of 12/12 for the AK and there are flowers EVERYWHERE!!! I'm starting to feel like that guy in the "Last Samurai" who said you could spend a lifetime searching for the perfect blossom and it would not be a wasted life!

Admittedly I was a little wasted, so these may not be perfect, but they're still pretty good!

 

[WeednFeed]

Thanks WnF!

Strap yourself in for some more bud pics....

The pics are beautiful! Sorry I missed that one till now.

OK...it's been 26 days of 12/12 for the AK and there are flowers EVERYWHERE!!! I'm starting to feel like that guy in the "Last Samurai" who said you could spend a lifetime searching for the perfect blossom and it would not be a wasted life!

Admittedly I was a little wasted, so these may not be perfect, but they're still pretty good!

They're looking absolutely lovely!

 

[Mr. Krip]

QUICK PIC UPDATE

Since I've been so focused on the flower side, thought I'd do a quick overall update.

The veg side isn't lookin bad either. The Hempy Haze has really taken off and bushed out from the LST:

She has a nice full canopy, even more so than the other haze that's already in flower. If I had any more room on the flower side, I'd probably put her in there right now:

The PE is doing great since I topped her four tops:

And, even little Lucy seems to have grown about an inch or so, which isn't much, but it probably represents a 20% increase in size for her!

The AK clone, which was the first clone I'd ever taken in my life, is also looking real good:

The first PE top I cloned that is already rooted really hasn't started any vertical growth yet, so she still seems to be working on her roots, but she's alive & well:

And, of the other four PE tops I just cloned, none haven't wilted so far, so I'm hopeful they'll all root, even though I most likely will cull all but one just to make room:

I'll try to be brief on the flower side, since I've been posting lots of pics and frequent updates with all the great budding going on. Tonight will end the AK's 4th week (Day #28) of 12/12 and will be Day #26 for the Haze.

Here's a wide angle shot of both plants:

And here's some more cool bud shots:

I'm sure I'll post a bunch more pics and details after res changes tomorrow.

Happy Harvests!

 

[JimmyHaze]

Amazing grow you have buddy! stay strong and green! Peace jimmy