QUICK UPDATE - NO PICS
Just a quick update. I got lazy this weekend and did the res changes in the waterfarms early this morning. Not much has changed since the pics I posted yesterday, so figured I'd hold off on more pics today.
The PE harvested on Saturday seems to be drying perfectly. I'm coming to the conclusion that the fan in the DIY drying box is really only needed in a pretty high humidity environment.
I do have a ceiling fan constantly blowing in the room the box is in and, although the buds don't get any direct breeze from that fan since they're sealed in the box, I think it creates enough air movement that there's good fresh air always circulating.
I've only been running the fan 4-6 times per day for 2-5 minutes or so, really just to replace all the air in the box.
After the first 48 hours drying, the outside of the buds are starting to feel dry, but I can still feel a good amount of moisture in them when lightly squeezed, and they still smell fantastic!
I'm sure another reason for the slower dry (besides fan run time) is that these buds are much denser than the last two harvests.
Also, I thought I'd make some comments on hempy vs. hydro, and this is just my personal experience....
When I first decided to try hempy, I assumed there would be a higher cost of nutes due to more res changes. I was wrong!
Even though you're doing more res changes, the res's (at least for me) are smaller and use much less nute solution each res change.
With hempy, the plants are much easier to move around either for watering, or just to reposition in the grow room.
The growth, IMHO, is definately more vigorous with hydro.
I'm still "on the fence" as to which one is easier to maintain. With the smaller res's on the waterrfarms, I have to check/adjust PH every couple of days and top off with more water. This was essentially the same routine I went through with hempy - mix a batch of PH'd nute solution every couple of days and water. So, for me, the maintenance was about the same, but I can see how a larger res would tilt things to the hydro side for maintenance. But, once you're using a single (larger) res, you've introduced other issues such as the ability to tailor the nute regime for each individual plant, and a problem in the res (i.e. pythium, etc.) will spread to all the plants.
Just thought I put that out there for anyone interested!
Happy Harvests!
K