GreatLife4All RDWC WW 1000W Grow

For those who are following along...

I have developed some Xcel spreadsheets to help me keep track of things. I would like to share them with anyone interested in using them. After talking with the moderators and doing some exploration - I have decided that I will share the spreadsheet in two different ways. The first is as a link to a PDF file. The second is as a link to an excel worksheet.

I have some macros and charts and things that I actually use, but after talking and researching I have disabled / taken them all out. You can still use the excel chart as either your own starting point - or simply print it out and put it into a log book to help track things.

If you see anything that you think needs to be added, feel free to chime in.
 
Root Development on Clones

Here is a picture of the root development on the White Widow Clones.

There are currently in Week 2 of Veg.

Everything looks very good and healthy. When they start peeking out - I use that as my clue to transplant them for the final time into 6" net pots.

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Update on Seedlings

Here is a photo update on the seedlings.

The furthest left are Light of Jah. The 3 in the center are Super Silver Haze. And the three on the right are White Widow.

They are now on their fourth set of true leaves - so they can graduate from seedling to vegging now.

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KingJohnC said:
you could also try Herb.IQ. it is a freeware program that allows you to track your grow, stages, and rooms.

CodePlex Archive
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Thanks for the tip. But, I have already used Herb.IQ for a grow. In a former life, I was a software engineer...

And I heartily support the efforts of people generating freeware... as a general rule. So please don't misinterpret my comments.

I looked at it and was mostly unimpressed - it is a toy program. I ran my first grow on it and quickly abandoned it. Mostly, I log all my activities on sheets of paper on a daily basis and only update my excel spreadsheets when I have time. At this point, I can quickly scan my log sheets and nearly always correct an issue by finding something I did or changed a couple of days ago.

This works for me... and transferring data from log books into an excel spreadsheet is quick and easy. I am always searching, poking, and mousing when I was using Herb.IQ. And once I got the data in there - they severely restricted the ways that I could look at it. It was just not a productive use of my time.

I have spreadsheets for everything... schedules, nutrients, environmental conditions, equipment.... and etc.

I even have a spreadsheet which, when given the state of your reservoir, will tell you how much nutrient solution to take out, how much water to add, and optionally new nutrients to throw in in order to hit your planned ppms - and stay on schedule.

But all of these contain lots of macros, graphs, and visual basic. After researching, i don't think I would trust someone else using these in excel and then distributing them... but they work very well for me and my style.
 
Here are some photo updates on my grow.

First, the temperature. I have a thermometer / hygrometer wireless system from Meade Instruments - an excellent purchase... Anyway. I am very pleased with how the temperature has stabilized in the Grow Room. Because the girls are in week 6 they seem to be going through a lot of water - the humidifier is having a hard time keeping up.

This is the temperature in the Grow Room:

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This is the temperature in Grow Tent 1 - it is currently vegging under a 600 watt MH.

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And here is the temperature in Grow Tent 2 - it is currently in week 6 of flowering.

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And here is a quick update on the flowering tent.

As you can see - the LOJ plant in the center is again getting close to the light. I raised it a little bit more - but I am out of room. Because I raised the light - I have about 8 inches at this point.

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A closer view of LOJ1 Bud Development. This is at the very start of Week 6.

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This is an update on WW4-1. She is looking great.

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This is an update on WW4-3. She is also looking great. Starting to fill out quite nicely...

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And finally, a closer look at the bud development on the Unknown Indica. The buds are starting to turn slightly yellow (not just due to the light) - and there is as of yet no real smell. Or maybe the WW is so strong right now that I can't smell it.

If anyone has a clue what variety this might be... please let me know.

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Week 7 Flowering Update

Ok... Just started Week 7 of the flowering cycle. Very exciting.

You can see lots of trichomes on the WW. And the buds are really starting to swell and close the inter-nodal gaps all over the plants.

The Unknown Indica is starting to take on an aroma now. Smells lemony... or maybe some other fruit. Hard to tell right now. I would say she is three weeks behind the WW... which would imply an 10 or 11 week variety.

And now, some photos.

First, a view of Grow Tent 2. You can see that the LOJ is now pushing over onto the two White Widow plants to the right. She is actually being pushed that way by WW4-3.

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After breaking the stem on the LOJ with my first attempt at super-cropping (probably due to pH difficulties that I was having) I worked up enough courage to try again. This time I was successful - the plant was much more supple (maybe because I have been supplementing with Silica for two weeks?). I got it to bend over and within an hour - she had her head back up even with the others. You will have to look closely, but you can see the bend and how she has turned her head back up.

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Update on the bud development. This is WW4-3.

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And here is WW4-1. She has a huge main cola that is now connected all the way into the center of the plant. Very nice.

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This is one of the LOJ clones (the cutting from the one in the center). She is now transplanted and ready to go into flowering. I got four more clones from her.

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And here is a view of the new RDWC system installed in the flowering tent. All ready to go, just had a small leak on the pump from a loose fitting. Don't worry about that hole where the pipe exits - I have lots of duct tape :thumb:

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It is installed in a new Secret Jardin 4x4 tent. I love this tent because of the ventilation options and ease of setup. But the fabric is not as good as the canvas that is on my $100 tent. Mixed reviews so far. But probably worth the money.
 
This is a really cool tool. Thanks for sharing!

I use Excel frequently as part of my job. It is sad that people are so scared of macros - They are very powerful when used correctly. In my line of work we cannot distribute any spreadsheets containing macros, so I had to learn how to accomplish many of the same scenarios using pivot tables and inline functions.

In over 99% of the cases I can accomplish the desired output without using macros. I would be curious to see if your macro-enabled version could be re-written sans-macros. Here is a spreadsheet for tracking the costs and estimates on a residential construction project. It is pretty powerful and macro-free.

Anyway, I love the idea of building a tracking mechanism for plant progress which is fully programmatic and distribute-able. If that is something you would like to work on, please PM me.

Cheers!
BakedAlaskan
 
BakedAlaskan said:
This is a really cool tool. Thanks for sharing!

I use Excel frequently as part of my job. It is sad that people are so scared of macros - They are very powerful when used correctly. In my line of work we cannot distribute any spreadsheets containing macros, so I had to learn how to accomplish many of the same scenarios using pivot tables and inline functions.
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Funny thing is I used to work in software in the field of computer security. Not real familiar with excel and it's limitations, but after reading some material on the web, you can truly do great things. But with great power comes great responsibility - and we both know that there are people in this world who will take advantage of that. One of the moderators mentioned that a previous site was responsible for distributing an excel spreadsheet that collected personal information and passed it back to the government. A very useful tool that had hidden intent.

BakedAlaskan said:
In over 99% of the cases I can accomplish the desired output without using macros. I would be curious to see if your macro-enabled version could be re-written sans-macros. Here is a spreadsheet for tracking the costs and estimates on a residential construction project. It is pretty powerful and macro-free.
Click to expand...

I am in the process of rewriting everything without macros... but honestly time is the limiting resource. To give you an example, I have a little spreadsheet that given the level of the reservoir and your ppms - will tell you how much water to add, nutrient solution to remove, or nutrients to add to hit your goals. It initially consisted of five functions, each calculating an intermediate result. In order to get the same thing to work - I have 10 different matrices, each of which is 3x3 and has a different calculation in the "cell." The final matrix has 8 incorrect results... but the one case which you are interested in is correct.

Seems like a dumb way to accomplish something that was so easy - it was originally just nine "if" statements and a couple of functions. I have no doubt that I arrived here due to my own ignorance about excel. But when you hide all that mess - it looks great and works.

BakedAlaskan said:
Anyway, I love the idea of building a tracking mechanism for plant progress which is fully programmatic and distribute-able. If that is something you would like to work on, please PM me.

Cheers!
BakedAlaskan
Click to expand...

I am a geeky kind of guy... When I started growing again I looked around and was surprised that there was nothing available. So I broke out my old tracking logs, reformatted them, and started using them. As I needed additional data and information, I just kept adding to it. At one point, I had 10 different workbooks. So I collapsed everything into one with individual "sheets." When I started tieing together all the information from those sheets, I realized that I had something very nice. You can actually see problems developing if you go back and study the info after the fact... which implies that you should be able to see problems and head them off before they get serious.

I don't mind sharing what I have. I just hate the fact that it could be turned into something which hurts another grower by a nefarious agent. And please, there is no implication on you or your personality contained in that statement. If you have been around for a while, you know how things change on the web and how difficult it is to prove that something is as the original author(s) intended.

I appreciate your offer and will likely take you up on it. But let me think about it for a couple of days. I am excited that someone who understands excel might be able to fix the things that I can't figure out.
 
GreatLife4All said:
One of the moderators mentioned that a previous site was responsible for distributing an excel spreadsheet that collected personal information and passed it back to the government. A very useful tool that had hidden intent.
Click to expand...

Technology is full of traps like that. Just consider all of the people who take pictures of their grows with cell phones and inadvertently save EXIF data with GPS coordinates. One nice thing about the most recent versions of MS Excel.. they differentiate between MACRO-embedded spreadsheets with others at the file extension level. "XLSX" -vs-"XLSM". As far as I know, it would not be possible to do that kind of thing in a !Macro spreadsheet. Nevertheless, we live in a world where anonymity is critical, even in the public realm like the internet. Ironic, isnt it? :-). There is a new class of "street smarts" required for the internet world.

Spreadsheet project or not, I find your insight on cultivating amazing. Thanks for sharing your wisdom on these forums.
 
Next Generation of Plants

While not part of this grow log, I would like to show the next generation.

I worked this weekend on finishing up my new RDWC system (a persistent leak on the top of the pump - not too happy with this brand of pump) and getting the plants installed in it. They look very good - and i had tremendous root growth this time... much better than any other attempt this year. Not sure why though.

Here is a picture of the new tent, system, and the plants that I got ready.

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My local hydro shop has been pushing Grow Stones - and I have been reluctant. So he gave me enough for two net pots and ask that I try it. These two plants are in the grow stones - the front one has a covering of hydroton because I didn't quite get enough.

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And here is a closeup of one of the plants in the grow stones.

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And here is the new generation of LOJ and SSH. The SSH has always been the shortest plant. Hopefully it will catch up.

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Both the LOJ and the SSH have the same number of nodes. The main difference in height is determined by the internodal gap. I am not sure it shows - but the gap on the SSH is very, very tight. The gaps on the LOJ are very large. So while they both show the same "maturity" in structure, the difference in height is amazing. The WW are between these two extremes.

These were all vegged under a 400W MH light. When I move them to the flower tent I put them under 600W HPS for the first two weeks (transition). Then I crank the power to 750W for a couple of days and then finally up to 1000W. This helps to keep the plants in sync with the increasing nutrient levels. I love these new digital ballasts, it is so easy to play with the light cycle and save a little money on electrical.
 
BakedAlaskan said:
Spreadsheet project or not, I find your insight on cultivating amazing. Thanks for sharing your wisdom on these forums.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the comment. I am pretty sure that there will be a spreadsheet project. Just have to get over my paranoia...
 
Because I do all my maintenance from outside the tent, I hadn't opened the tent since Friday. Wow, did I get a surprise when I opened it this morning.

I am tempted to post an early picture of the flowering tent... but I will wait till this Friday.

I love the last week of bud swell - amazing. Started pumping the plants full of P,K,Mg, and S at the start of Week 6 and they have swelled right up and are developing an intense aroma.

From what I can see, the plants are definitely going to finish up early next week. On my last grow, they took 9.5 weeks to finish (same genetics) and ended up smelling like hay. I got a lot of "Wow - that's really good but it smells like... hay or something." They have about a week left right now (midway through week 7) and the hairs have just started to turn and the trichs have gone from clear to milky. Wish I could take a picture through my 40x loupe - it is a great view.

And that, my friends, is the difference between having all your equipment set up and tested beforehand... and just winging it like I did on my first grow - I was humbled by the results.

And I will give some credit to the RDWC system. It has proven much easier to maintain than my old ebb and flow methods.
 
EzExtractions said:
everything looks very clean in here and the plants look super healthy, keep up the good work!
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Yes, I am a bit of a fanatic about keeping things clean. Helps to prevent molds, mildews, and other pest problems. I believe strongly that a healthy plant in a clean environment can take care of itself.
 
Clone Box

I forgot to put some pictures up of the clone box.

First, a warning. I wash everything with bleach and then re-use. After several washings, the neoprene collars tend to turn white. Doesn't seem to hurt anything.

When I place new plants into flower - I trim the bottom 1/3 of the plant clean. This leaves lots of material to use for cloning. And with a 3 week clone cycle, and a 3 week veg cycle - everything stays in time.

This is actually day 2. They wilted badly on day 1. I don't use a humidity dome as I believe that it causes potential mold problems.

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And here is a top view.

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Harvest Time

I can't believe how quickly the trichs turned on this round.

They hit 20% amber today... and that is my cue to harvest. So... officially the first harvest occured at 7.5 weeks.

Of course, after the difficult work of cutting down my babies, I had to take a small bud, put it in the oven for a while, and then sit down and relax. About ten minutes after I :lot-o-toke: I was smiling like a damn fool. Of course, very minty due to the chlorophyl, but I don't mind that... or maybe it indicates harvest and I have a positive association with that taste.

I love WW. Probably my all time favorite. I am still feeling good 3 hrs later. Great mind buzz with very little body. Energetic.

Here is the drying tent:

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I pretty much just cut the main stem down low and then hang them upside down for a couple of days. I will then go in and cut the main stem into sections with four shoots on each. Strip all the fan leaves off and then re-hang for another couple of days. Slow drying like this really adds character to the bud. But you have to have a lot of air flow in order to keep the humidity low to prevent issues.

I use a 200cfm booster fan and attach it to the passive intake on my veg tent - which has it's own 450cfm exhaust fan. The small plants don't seem to mind the humidity much. And that tent is exhausted through a charcoal filter... thus no smell from the drying operation and I don't have to buy another charcoal filter.

Once the stems snap easily, into the jars they go.
 
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