First Grow - Blue Dream - 4x4 Tent - 1000W Light - DWC

[hyperluv]

Nice buds.

I will probably be pacing back and forth in front of my tent debating with myself on whether I should cut them down when my plants get to that stage. lol

 

[Tomula]

Wow man, the are still going for it! Ha ha, great buds, cannot w8 for harvest photos!

 

[4Dutchess]

Fantastic!! Hard to pick a favorite they all look so good!!

 

[TheFrizz]

The day has arrived! This morning I harvested the girls, I just lopped off each pair of colas with garden shears and hung them off of hangars. Some of them split because of the weight so I just duct taped them.

Here is Queen Sativa, freshly chopped. I had to use sturdier hangars for her than the other 3

And here is Purple, her colas were super dense!! Also, a lot of the purple came through the last day or so!

Good ol' Frosty, she had about 1 cubic inch of bud rot which I carefully removed from one of her biggest colas. Other than that she looked great!

And finally Derpy, who actually still produced a decent amount of bud! She had some nice purple coloring as well

Here are all the buds before trimming. That is a 2 liter bottle for scale. Mhhm

After a rough trim, I took off the fan leaves and about 50% of the mass of the sugar leaves. The rest stays on to cure.

Root structures, from left to right it goes: Purple, Queen Sativa, Frosty, and Derpy. Kind of cool to see the correlation between root mass and plant size!

Bud washing adventures! I followed a variation of Doc Bud's tutorial, the only difference was I only used 1 final rinse bucket instead of two. I gave Frosty some extra time in the hydrogen peroxide solution since she had a tiny bit of bud rot.

Here is a bud from Derpy before bud washing

Annnd after bud washing, it definitely looks brighter and sort of....juicier?

Now the buds are hanging in the tent to dry, I have multiple fans running and will maintain around 50% RH and 75 degrees F for the next week or so until they get to the "snap" point, then it will be time to separate the buds from the stems and find out what the dry yield is! I put the fan leaves and trim into the freezer and will probably turn it into ice water hash tomorrow.

Thank you again for those who have followed this grow and cheered me on, I feel like I have made some new friends in this community and can't wait for grow # 2!

~TheFrizz

 

[Tomula]

Marvelous. Great buds man! All of them! I think the reason the washed bud looks better is that it's wet and wet things look fresher. Please post smoke report and weight I'm curious about that.

 

[4Dutchess]

Great job Frizz! If this threads done I hope you dont go far cause Ive got a bunch of questions for you. Youve got growers skill and science knowledge Id like to tap.
I made my first butter and I decarbed it and then sprayed with 151. Turned out great!! Im confused about decarbing, decarbing makes it get you high when ingested? I guess slow cooking butter for 6 hrs dosent decarb? Whats the 151 do? What if I dont decarb before butter cook?
Ive been thinking of decarbing my bubble hash after process, good idea? What if I decarb bubble before process?
How bout decarbing before making RSO? How bout decarbing before rosin press???
I want to ingest my medicine.
Namaste

 

[4Dutchess]

I was told the hole in the stem is a calcium def. if so, how do I fix?

 

[4Dutchess]

Can you identify what happend here???

 

[Tomula]

Great job Frizz! If this threads done I hope you dont go far cause Ive got a bunch of questions for you. Youve got growers skill and science knowledge Id like to tap.
I made my first butter and I decarbed it and then sprayed with 151. Turned out great!! Im confused about decarbing, decarbing makes it get you high when ingested? I guess slow cooking butter for 6 hrs dosent decarb? Whats the 151 do? What if I dont decarb before butter cook?
Ive been thinking of decarbing my bubble hash after process, good idea? What if I decarb bubble before process?
How bout decarbing before making RSO? How bout decarbing before rosin press???
I want to ingest my medicine.
Namaste

Decarbing helps to get rid of chlorophyll taste and smell, it makes the butter more smooth. Also when you get rid of chlorophyll the active oils in cannabis are more potent.

 

[Tomula]

I was told the hole in the stem is a calcium def. if so, how do I fix?

The Best Way to Put Calcium in Garden Soil | Home Guides | SF Gate

 

[Monsignor]

GREAT JOB THE FRIZZ!!!

I envy you for getting to this point. I guess we all get there eventually. Mine are finally ready to start going vertical. Since I ended up with only one female I will be letting her get as big as my 1k Watt light will allow.

I can't wait to hear your dry weight and smoke report!!!! I don't smoke due to an extreme sensitivity to Cannabinoids and grow for the knowledge and to help people who really need it (Even if that means a chemically induced smile ). This being said, I love the "high" descriptions that people give me and I know my friends are going to love being my guinea pigs for my first Blue Dream grow.

I'm about to let them go vertical!

 

[Monsignor]

Great job Frizz! If this threads done I hope you dont go far cause Ive got a bunch of questions for you. Youve got growers skill and science knowledge Id like to tap.
I made my first butter and I decarbed it and then sprayed with 151. Turned out great!! Im confused about decarbing, decarbing makes it get you high when ingested? I guess slow cooking butter for 6 hrs dosent decarb? Whats the 151 do? What if I dont decarb before butter cook?
Ive been thinking of decarbing my bubble hash after process, good idea? What if I decarb bubble before process?
How bout decarbing before making RSO? How bout decarbing before rosin press???
I want to ingest my medicine.
Namaste

4Dutchess,

It looks like you are combining and confusing two very different chemical reactions.

Decarboxylation- "All cannabinoids contained within the trichomes of raw cannabis flowers have an extra carboxyl ring or group (COOH) attached to their chain. For example, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) is synthesized in prevalence within the trichome heads of freshly harvested cannabis flowers." THCA cannot make you high. THC CAN make you high and can be motabilised by your body thanks to Decarboxylation which requires sustained heat over 300 degrees Fahrenheit or instantly at much higher temperatures such as burning or vaporizing.

Read more HERE

Solubility- "A chemical property referring to the ability for a given substance, the solute, to dissolve in a solvent. It is measured in terms of the maximum amount of solute dissolved in a solvent at equilibrium. The resulting solution is called a saturated solution."

THC and THC-A is soluble in alcohols, fats, and oils due to its polarization. Like polarization typically dissolve like polarization. Water is much less polar and therefore does a crummy job of dissolving the THC. For most edible and personal use, 151 does a fine job, especially for making shatter and other hashes through thin film evaporation or other purging systems.

For more information on extraction methods click HERE

For more information on different solvents and their efficiency click HERE

For more information on extraction for edibles, cook with Nonna Marijuana HERE

 

[TheFrizz]

Thanks for the comments guys! The buds are drying pretty fast, the room has stayed between 68-75 degrees F and 50-55% RH. I will post final dry yield in several more days when the buds are finished drying.

4Dutchess, in response to your question about Decarboxylation, I would echo what Monsignor said. The only thing I would add is this chart, which gives you an idea of how long and at what temp to decarb.

Personally I prefer 30 minutes at 250F, easy to remember and provides consistent results. To clarify- decarbing should be done to the buds prior to alcohol extraction. The easiest way is to lay them out on a tray and bake in the oven. Then make your extract and ingest however you see fit!



As far as your plant related questions go, the hole in the middle of the plant stem is very common after chopping down a plant. What has happened is that the pith (soft spongy tissue in the middle of the stem) has lost its moisture and shrunk, leaving a hole in the center. I will post a pic of mine in a couple days and they will look similar. I do not think it is an indication of calcium deficiency, but rather just the pith drying up. If you look outside at pretty much any dried out stem you will see the same thing.

For the leaves in your next pic, they look like what happened the first time I grew strawberries in small containers in soil. I overwatered and overfertilized them, and the leaves turned very dark green and then curled downwards and burned. I kept watering and feeding them more because they looked unhealthy but it was just making it worse. Am I 100% sure that is what happened to your plant? Nope! But, it definitely reminded me of those poor strawberries


~TheFrizz

 

[TheFrizz]

GREAT JOB THE FRIZZ!!!

I envy you for getting to this point. I guess we all get there eventually. Mine are finally ready to start going vertical. Since I ended up with only one female I will be letting her get as big as my 1k Watt light will allow.

I can't wait to hear your dry weight and smoke report!!!! I don't smoke due to an extreme sensitivity to Cannabinoids and grow for the knowledge and to help people who really need it (Even if that means a chemically induced smile ). This being said, I love the "high" descriptions that people give me and I know my friends are going to love being my guinea pigs for my first Blue Dream grow.

I'm about to let them go vertical!

Thanks for the feedback and the update! It is neat to see your FluxTier plant structure take place, I admire what you are doing. Progress is rarely made by staying within the comfort zone of what has been done before, gotta keep pushing boundaries!

 

[Rifleman]

Damn, I hate it just found your journal. By mid October I'm usually all over the dwc grow journals but this has not been a normal year. For a first time in dwc you did great. I liked your sectioning of the tent, but alas I'm a lazy grower and let mother nature have her way with my girls. Makes for a bushy jungle. Hit me up when you start your next grow so I can tag along.

 

[TheFrizz]

Damn, I hate it just found your journal. By mid October I'm usually all over the dwc grow journals but this has not been a normal year. For a first time in dwc you did great. I liked your sectioning of the tent, but alas I'm a lazy grower and let mother nature have her way with my girls. Makes for a bushy jungle. Hit me up when you start your next grow so I can tag along.

Thanks Rifleman! That means a lot coming from you My next grow will be started within the next week or two, and I will be running 4 GSC autos in a RDWC system

 

[4Dutchess]

Thanks Frizz!!! Nute burn sounds good on the leaves because I sledgehammerd flushed them and mistakingly gave them Tiger Bloom in their mix. Id say your right!
The hole in the stem was after I harvested twice off the plant and then saw the hole on final chop a few weeks later. Id say your right there too!!
Dont go far Frizz! I want to be a great indoor grower and sure would like your help!
Happy Holidays!!

 

[TheFrizz]

Well folks the final moment is here!! The buds passed the "stem snap" test in terms of dryness so I removed the buds from each cola and weighed them separately. In order to reach my yield goal of 32oz each cola needed to weigh half an oz on average (14g). So what I did is recorded the weight for the buds from each cola on a spreadsheet to keep track of each plants yield as well as overall.

Here is a screenshot of the spreadsheet:

My grow prediction/goal was for each plant to produce 8oz, and since Queen Sativa made up for Derpy's slack, I was able to hit the goal and even a bit more. Now just imagine if those other colas had survived too, that would easily be another few oz!

Here are some pictures of the weighing process I used, I just put all of the buds from each cola onto the scale after cutting them off the stem and recorded the number in grams.

Now, I simply did not want to deal with having 30+ mason jars to "burp" during the cure, so I purchased some 1.5 gallon jars to use instead. Derpy, Frosty, and Purple each fit nicely into 1 jar each, but Queen Sativa produced more buds, and they were less dense, so she filled up almost 2 jars.

Here is a close up of Frosty's jar with a pen for scale

Anddddd the money shot, with a mason jar for scale.

So yeah, I am pleased with these results, but I was shocked by the level of variation between cola sizes. The biggest factor seemed to be the size of the "top bud", several colas had tops that weighed 10 grams alone. Stem thickness was the primary correlation I saw, the thicker the stem the bigger the buds.

Ok so now that I have a dry yield, let's talk about cost efficiency!

Total materials cost for this grow: ~$1,100.00 for everything including tent, nutes, seeds, other equipment and sensors...etc.

Electricity cost (note that I am using 1,000W as the constant value for light, at the start of the grow I had the light dimmed to half power but later on I had the extra small lights in the tent so I am using 1,000 as the "average" throughout the grow)

Total electricity cost during veg: (50 days)X (18 hrs) X (1,000W) @ (0.085c/kwh)= $76.50
Total electricity cost during flowering: (68 days)X (11.5 hrs)X (1,000W) @ (0.085c/kwh)= $66.47

I believe that grams/watt alone is not a useful metric because it does not take grow time into account. Some people veg their plants indoors for 3-4 months and achieve a high g/watt but they have to use a LOT more electricity to do so. However, this grow still achieved pretty darn close to 1g/watt so I am satisfied by either metric of evaluation

Total cost for materials + electricity: ~$1,250.00.
Total yield: ~34 oz of bud that would cost me between 7-9k total at a store (avg for Blue Dream in my area is $270-320/oz).

I will post a smoke report in a few days after the buds have had some time in their jars to cure, but what I have seen and smelled so far is extremely promising (rich, sweet blueberry and some citrus odors developing and super sticky dense buds).

Thanks again everyone for following along (and reading my rambling walls of text ) Next grow is going to be 4 Girl Scout Cookie autos in a RDWC system in the same tent, this time my goal is 2 lbs in 70 days! I am confident that I can improve significantly for next grow and hopefully inspire others to push limits and engage in science, all in the name of this amazing plant!



~TheFrizz

 

[Slowpuffer]

Thanks for sharing Frizz !! Great results, and you should be proud !!

 

[Tomula]

Great report! Did you noticed any difference between the terminal (main) tops and those lateral which you have manifolded? Damn, those jars must be huge! Great stuff.