GreenThumb J's White Widow Clone Run RTF/DWC

Thanks NW..

For day 18 or 19 i think now, the buds are stacking like crazy and the trichomes are caking up like crazy.


My other widow plants from the same order of seeds were not this vigorous in flower, nor were they this frosty this early in flower. They also grew very differently. I thought they were mutants when they first started forming leaves. Looked all bunched up and mangled in the first few sets of leaves. Turns out the plants were growing 4 separate tops without any outside intervention by me. Self topping plants? yes please!! I wasn't happy with the potency or the yield from those particular 2 plants, but this one is by far going to exceed my expectations i think!!

After 3 days of 12/12 she was already forming buds. After 8 days, frost was all over the buds. I can only imagine what shes going to look like after 7 more weeks of flowering!

I'm thinking that i have an exceptional phenotype of this particular strain. high yielding and extraordinary amounts of resin.

Cant wait until harvest time!! Lady GT can wait she said... i dont think shes looking forward to trimming up a LB or more from one plant!

If this plant comes out as sticky as i think, i will continue with this particular phenotype of Widow and use clones of it for future breeding projects with my Papaya and Blackberry.

This particular widow plant i will flower for a minimum of 9 weeks and hopefully achieve a 40% amber trichome ratio
 
Greenthumb J said:
Thanks NW..

For day 18 or 19 i think now, the buds are stacking like crazy and the trichomes are caking up like crazy.


My other widow plants from the same order of seeds were not this vigorous in flower, nor were they this frosty this early in flower. They also grew very differently. I thought they were mutants when they first started forming leaves. Looked all bunched up and mangled in the first few sets of leaves. Turns out the plants were growing 4 separate tops without any outside intervention by me. Self topping plants? yes please!! I wasn't happy with the potency or the yield from those particular 2 plants, but this one is by far going to exceed my expectations i think!!

After 3 days of 12/12 she was already forming buds. After 8 days, frost was all over the buds. I can only imagine what shes going to look like after 7 more weeks of flowering!

I'm thinking that i have an exceptional phenotype of this particular strain. high yielding and extraordinary amounts of resin.

Cant wait until harvest time!! Lady GT can wait she said... i dont think shes looking forward to trimming up a LB or more from one plant!

If this plant comes out as sticky as i think, i will continue with this particular phenotype of Widow and use clones of it for future breeding projects with my Papaya and Blackberry.

This particular widow plant i will flower for a minimum of 9 weeks and hopefully achieve a 40% amber trichome ratio
Click to expand...

As you know, White Widow it's a rather diluted name, covering multiple breeding parents.
For what it is worth, my first White Widow was 100% cloudy at 10 weeks. My second White Widow took 11 weeks to show amber, but it came on fast.
 
Greenthumb J said:
Okay heres a couple pics of my floodtable stand as well as the Widow on day 13 of 12/12:

Flood table stand:
GEDC01773.JPG


Thats all for tonight folks!
Click to expand...

I love it! You might need a support underneath it. The airpots hold about 3 gallons of water each after irrigation. That's 24lbs X 4, about 100 lbs.
 
TheCapn said:
I love it! You might need a support underneath it. The airpots hold about 3 gallons of water each after irrigation. That's 24lbs X 4, about 100 lbs.
Click to expand...

When i dry fit the PVC.. it seemed pretty strong. i haven't tested it all put together (will be assembling it later this afternoon) But i'm sure with the PVC cement on all the pieces it will adequate to hold. Not to mention i also have another set of legs to put on the stand that WEREN'T in the picture to add extra support to the sides with no legs.

TheCapn said:
This is going to be a kick ass system... if you buy a chiller. no chiller = root rot.

For the DWC, Are you going to do veg, all the way thru the end of flower in the DWC system? So about 3-4 months in the same room?
Click to expand...

I'm still working out the details of how i am going to get a plant into this system and not have to put a seedling into the sytem. I might make a DWC with two 5gal buckets with my 10" net pots in them so i can pull them out and place the whole net pot into the RDWC when they have a big enough root mass. So probably a month in veg before moving to the RDWC system.

This particular one will either go into my 4x4 tent my LED is in when that Sponsored journal is done and be put under a larger LED or 2, or under a 600w CoolTube. Just have to weigh in my electrical requirements i have in the apartment and if i can add another 600w and not put it in the Big Tent like i want to.

If i keep the RDWC in the Big Tent (which i'm going to be using for flowering) then i will have to have a DWC for vegging plants large enough to go into this system. Just not sure if i want to dedicate another tent to Veg cause that will have to sit in plain sight in my living room.

By the way Capn... Chiller isn't needed. I've been growin all summer in my sweatbox of an apartment without a chiller and haven't encountered a root issue yet. My high water temp solution has been Aquashield, and its worked wonders. The only thing that really suffers is the DO levels in the water as the temp rises. But, I now have a 12,600 BTU AC in the rooms that have my Big tent, grow box and small tent. It keeps the 2 rooms cool enough to not have to require a chiller. I'll take a video later and give everyone a little walkthrough GreenThumb's Pad.

Water in the DWC bucket in the big tent under the TWO 600w CoolTubes never goes above 24C and usually is around 20-22. The grow box is an enclosed sweat box as well, i usually run the door open a crack during lights on to get some extra AC inside the box. Water temps stay around 18-20C inside the box. My Sweet Tooth Seedling under my LED is just getting hand watered every 2nd day, is in a 4" square pot and will be put on a Capn style flowering apparatus in my LED tent when ready for flower. Was gona do a DWC, but i am really starting to dislike the hassle of changing a bucket. I have a backup bucket that i just mix a fresh batch of Nutrients in then transfer the whole lid and netpot to the new bucket. rinse out the old one and get it ready for the next bucket change but i'm getting tired of that shit!!
 
Radogast said:
As you know, White Widow it's a rather diluted name, covering multiple breeding parents.
For what it is worth, my first White Widow was 100% cloudy at 10 weeks. My second White Widow took 11 weeks to show amber, but it came on fast.
Click to expand...

Like i mentioned in my first journal, i have the original genetics of White Widow, bred by Shantibaba. It is not the "Black Widow" being offered by Shantibaba at Nr Nice Seeds, but from GreenHouse Seed Co, in which Shantibaba introduced the White Widow strain with. I considered purchasing some Black Widow seeds from Mr Nice Seeds, but i already have a Widow bred by Shantibaba to grow, as well as a bunch of seeds that i need to germinate already!!!
 
That flood table looks great! Is that PVC strong enough to stay straight and not to bend downwards in the middle with a full table?

Maybe add some legs at all the center points and you should be ok. I ask because I used the same size pvc to make some extra support poles in my tent. Not so much for support, but more to keep the tent sides from sucking to far in when the doors are closed. It worked good, but the pole bent inward with the pressure.
 
>>>Sounds good, but I meant directly under it, in the middle. Otherwise it might get saggy in the middle, or put stress on the plastic and cause it to crack.

>>>I'm still working out the details of how i am going to get a plant into this system and not have to put a seedling into the sytem. I might make a DWC with two 5gal buckets with my 10" net pots in them so i can pull them out and place the whole net pot into the RDWC when they have a big enough root mass.

Cool. You starting the seedlings in 4" rockwool cubes? That's what I usually do when I'm doing DWC. Then after I put it in the system, I hand water daily until I see roots coming out the bottom of the netpot.

>>>and be put under a larger LED or 2, or under a 600w CoolTube.

hmmm... tough decision.... 6 zips of dime size kibble or 16zips of fist size grenades. I vote for the 600W :rofl:

>>>If i keep the RDWC in the Big Tent (which i'm going to be using for flowering) then i will have to have a DWC for vegging plants large enough to go into this system. Just not sure if i want to dedicate another tent to Veg cause that will have to sit in plain sight in my living room.

I hear ya. That's what I like about rockwool, you can move it around so easily.

>>>By the way Capn... Chiller isn't needed. I've been growin all summer in my sweatbox of an apartment without a chiller and haven't encountered a root issue yet. My high water temp solution has been Aquashield, and its worked wonders. The only thing that really suffers is the DO levels in the water as the temp rises.

When DO levels get low, that's what can trigger pythium to outbreak. It sounds like you have been diligent with the beneficial bacteria and have been lucky keeping the bad guys away. Lucky is the key word here.

>>>But, I now have a 12,600 BTU AC in the rooms that have my Big tent, grow box and small tent. It keeps the 2 rooms cool enough to not have to require a chiller. I'll take a video later and give everyone a little walkthrough GreenThumb's Pad.

I want to see that! Please PM me when you get up the new video.

>>>Water in the DWC bucket in the big tent under the TWO 600w CoolTubes never goes above 24C and usually is around 20-22. The grow box is an enclosed sweat box as well, i usually run the door open a crack during lights on to get some extra AC inside the box. Water temps stay around 18-20C inside the box. My Sweet Tooth Seedling under my LED is just getting hand watered every 2nd day, is in a 4" square pot and will be put on a Capn style flowering apparatus in my LED tent when ready for flower. Was gona do a DWC, but i am really starting to dislike the hassle of changing a bucket. I have a backup bucket that i just mix a fresh batch of Nutrients in then transfer the whole lid and netpot to the new bucket. rinse out the old one and get it ready for the next bucket change but i'm getting tired of that shit!!

Whatever you decide, I'm looking forward to it. You always have so much going on I can't keep up sometimes, but it's all good stuff. I see the giant box of grow cubes in that picture above. Cool! That's the same box I get. I just got done vegging my blue dream in DWC, in one of those 27 gal totes. (I do admit, in veg, DWC has an edge on rockwool, but in flower, I don't notice any difference). As I was wrestling the tote out of the veg room and trying to get it in the flower room, I said, "F this" and I transplanted it into cubes! It didn't skip a beat.

I'm not against DWC, but here's why I caution. You're at a point where your floor space is becoming valuable. A lost grow is expensive! I grew in DWC for about a year and never had a problem either. Then one day, about 4 weeks into flower, an air hose malfunctioned in one of the buckets on my RDWC system. Within a week, everything (all 6 plants, and they were giant) was yellowing from the bottom up. I found the hose malfunction and started H2O2 and zone, but it didn't help. After two weeks, everything was dead. I lost what would have been, 2-3lbs.

After that, my girl and I emptied the flower room. We sprayed the walls with bleach water, we soaked all the equipment in bleach water, and then I moved over the next crop from veg. Within 2 weeks it all got pythium too. This time, it was just because it was somewhere in my flower room (even after bleaching all equipment). I tried ZONE, physan 20, bleach, SM90, hygrozyme.... you name it, I bought it.

On the third try, I bought a chiller. And this third time, I bought all new hoses, pumps, buckets, fittings, etc. It happened again. Was pythium in the air? I donno. But once it starts it is practically unstoppable. I went about 4 months without producing a single bud. After that happened, I switched to rockwool and heisenberg tea. I kept perfecting the rockwool method until I got where I am now. On the last run, I took a few small plants that were in DWC, with root rot (and I'm talking about a 10" tall plant with just a stick for a root) and I did a test to see if I could recover one in H2O2, one in ZONE, and one by using beneficial heisenberg tea. The tea worked. The other two were crispy in another two weeks. The one with tea, started growing new roots within a week, just like a clone does.

If you're read all my other articles, you've heard this story before, but for the readers here, follow GT's lead. If you're going to do DWC, use beneficials (and I still recommend a chiller).

I swear I would trade you my chiller for a cut of that White widow. That pheno is unreal and it's only 2 weeks into flower. I was just telling sling the other day how I want a really nice WW pheno. I can't wait to see what it does, but at this rate, it's going to be huge. A lot of growers go thru dozens of strains / phenos before they find one like that. Congrats.
 
Wow nice looking plants white widow looks good!! I was just reading up on your post and mine and realized ya I did pay @ $13 each for 4 LSD and still got 1 left but they sent me 1 free white widow and 1 northern lights auto. So that's my next run I love your white widow if I get a 1/3 of that I will be shocked. At least I know the seeds are fems. You feel like your gona get a pound out of this grow? It sure looks like it!
 
Greenthumb J said:
Like i mentioned in my first journal, i have the original genetics of White Widow, bred by Shantibaba. It is not the "Black Widow" being offered by Shantibaba at Nr Nice Seeds, but from GreenHouse Seed Co, in which Shantibaba introduced the White Widow strain with. I considered purchasing some Black Widow seeds from Mr Nice Seeds, but i already have a Widow bred by Shantibaba to grow, as well as a bunch of seeds that i need to germinate already!!!
Click to expand...

I know you do. I was disparaging MY breeder, not your breeder :)
 
>>> As I was wrestling the tote out of the veg room and trying to get it in the flower room, I said, "F this

This is my thought on DWC buckets right now. Hence why i'm going with the RDWC, so i just have to pump out some water out of the system, and top it back off with fresh nutrients. Its a PITA to constantly be changing a 16L bucket of water, carting it from my kitchen/living room area to my spare bedroom. Work smarter, not harder, right? The Grow Box is also a huge PITA as well as the whole thing sits like 4 inches off the ground, so unless you have it on some blocks or a wooden stand thats a good 18 inches off the ground, you're gona be rolling around on the floor, hunched over on your hands and knees just to get a look inside the box. i personally dont like to be the object thats being used to sweep the floor (thats why i have a broom and a GF! :rofl:)

>>> It sounds like you have been diligent with the beneficial bacteria and have been lucky keeping the bad guys away. Lucky is the key word here.

I wouldn't call it luck at all. Diligence, like you said is key. Its just being responsible for your mistakes. i dont want to make more mistakes like i made on my first run (letting DWC buckets run dry!!), so now i'm all over these plants like flies on shit! If i notice my plants not looking as great as they do, they first thing i check is the roots!! They always look great, and the only problem i am seeing really is leaves drooping cause i'm letting the rockwool dry out a bit so the roots search for moisture. AS soon as i see ONE droopy leaf, the plant gets fed instantly. I never let them get too dry otherwise i'm gona stunt the plant and do more harm than good. I will be starting my daily waterings tho as per what we talked about on your new Journal w/ s1ing. I was just at work everyday and couldnt have time to mix up nutrients and water plants and do all other necessary things i had to do around the house before going to work. I am now a stay at home boyfriend for Lady GreenThumb (its awesome! The kitchen work was really stressing me out, so a good break from work will be refreshing.) I can always go back to work whenever i want, but the GF is LOVING having me home all the time now, so i guess if it makes her happy, then i should continue no?

So, now i can spend all my time on my grow, perfecting this and that.. building this or that.. researching whatever i want! No plant will go unwatered or unattended for. My time i put into this next grow will reflect in the product that i harvest when the Widow is ready. Top Notch i'm sure!

>>> I see the giant box of grow cubes in that picture above. Cool! That's the same box I get.

:high-five:
I just got my second box within a month. Mainly cause i have started an army of seedlings for my next harvest (like 17 or so!) and they are all in 4" square pots right now.. I also just transplanted 3 of my clones into 5gal Airpots, which use a considerable amount of rockwool!

i have to say tho, the ease of rockwool growing... i love it. You've grow in soil i can imagine (as you are an avid gardener) and personally, i dont like the idea of having to mix up soil in a bin and let it "cook" and then fill up pots and scoop this and that into and ontop of the plant.. it just seems like a big F*ckin mess to me! And i'm in an apartment remember, i dont have a backyard or a garage to mix this is.. Its either in my living room or on my not too small, not too big patio.

I haven't grown in soil, and i dont plan on it until Lady Greenthumb and myself move into a house or a townhouse with a backyard.

>>> Was pythium in the air? I donno. But once it starts it is practically unstoppable.

Practically, but not impossible. I eradicated it in my first run in the grow box.. Like obliterated it!!! Just a complete blow out victory!! Next comment will tell you how i did it.

>>> The tea worked.

Damn rights it does, but one ingredient alone in the tea would have been sufficient to rid you of your Pythium. That ingredient?

Aquashield! You said you tried everything, but you didn't mention this in the list of products you tried. Did you ever try this alone to see if it would fix your problem?
This stuff is liquid gold i swear! I had a bad outbreak of pythium in the original hydrotub i got with my grow box. I tried keeping a sterile environment and the bad bacteria got in and wreaked havoc on my seedlings young roots. I lost maybe half of my widow seedlings, they were too far gone to save, before i got the Aquashield into the reservoir. A couple days later, all the plants looked better, new roots were growing out of the old dead ones, and the growth and lush green colour returned. nothing else added to the reservoir other than Aquashield.

When I started adding mycorrhizae and other things like Rapid start and shit like that, i really started to notice a rapid increase in growth and vigor as well as root growth. The Aquashield is amazing tho. It is my replacement for a water chiller (Dont worry, i WILL get one, but probably for next summer since the winters get cold here and i'm sure the water temps will stay at the perfect temps all winter long!) And has helped me battle stupidly high water temps as well as random leaves and shit falling into the res.

Hell, the residual effect it has on the roots, like i mean the ability to colonize and protect your root zone even after you havent applied it in a week or longer is unbelievable. I actually ran out of aquashield for like 3 weeks and the plant didn't miss a beat in the high water temps

>>> I did a test to see if I could recover one

If you ever do this again, try just using Aquashield, i bet you will be blown away with its effectiveness against Pythium not only as a preventative measure, but also as a remedy to rid you of Pythium.

>>> I swear I would trade you my chiller for a cut of that White widow. That pheno is unreal and it's only 2 weeks into flower. I was just telling sling the other day how I want a really nice WW pheno. I can't wait to see what it does, but at this rate, it's going to be huge. A lot of growers go thru dozens of strains / phenos before they find one like that. Congrats.

If i could get you a cut or 10 of my widow, i would gladly take your chiller hahah!!

Thank you Capn. Your words mean a lot to me, and your grows and advice inspire me to grow as good as you and S1ing!! Glad to have you around.

BTW.. any idea what LED panel you are going to use for your side by side with HPS? I was talking to my rep from Twilight (the company i am reviewing an LED for) and they mentioned a panel in the 600w range since the output they said is equal to that of a 600w HPS, just less draw from the wall. and less heat than an open HID reflector, and probably about the same heat as an air cooled hood/tube. My LED panel i have in my 4x4 tent does not affect the air temperature (hardly!!) as my extraction fan removes all the warm air, AC-cooled air is then drawn through the tent vents into the tent. It is a small panel tho, 165w, so i'm sure a larger 600w+ panel will produce a tiny bit of heat.

Regardless i'm excited to watch you knock it out of the park and either agree that LED's can grow equally good product as HIDs (i know this is where you are standing right now on this topic. i bet a Capn style LED grow would be pretty good too) or put the argument to rest that LED's aren't up to par, YET, with HIDs..

Twilight Groups LTD has many LEDs in the wattage range you are looking for, for very cheap prices, since they are a manufacturer and not a reseller. That being said, i'm sure you can contact them directly to arrange something that works for the space you are going to use it in (as well as maybe get a few bucks knocked off the price!! always great!).

Thanks for sticking around Capn!
 
You know rado,

you too can get your hands on some amazing genetics of Widow. GHSco or Mr Nice Seeds will get you some great Widow genetics bred and created by Shantibaba!

Out of the 20 seeds i purchased and of the ones that actually survived, i am glad i planned to make this plant my mother plant (i planned to just run clones from after the first run but then scraped the idea when i learned how to clone properly, thanks to The Capn, and his growing schedule. 2 month veg, clone before flowering, clone replaces plant in flower afterwards etc.). The other 2 widow plants that made it to flower grew all weird looking in the beginning of the seedling stage, then it showed that it was growing 4 separate tops (on both WW plants) where as the one i kept was growing one main stalk/cola until i topped her about 4 months into veg.

This particular phenotype is a very vigorous plant. Clones taken from this plant took a long time to root and start to show increased vegetative growth. It could be simply the age of the plant that i took clones from. I will test this theory on less mature plants and see if they root quicker than a plant that has vegged for much longer.
 
A bit of bad news everyone!

While i had a maintenance guy here taking a look at my garburator and kitchen sink faucet in my apartment here, my ballast that powers the left light in my grow box has malfunctioned and stopped working. The right HPS as well as my CFL are both working fine and keeping the lumens pumping!

I contacted BC Northern lights about 10mins ago and got through to their head sales rep (the one who can hook me up!!) and explained my problem. he ran me through a series of troubleshooting ideas to determine it was in fact the ballast that has malfunctioned.

He then directed me to a support video on their website that explains how to remove the ballast properly (theres a bunch of shit in the way thats why theres instructions!) and told me to remove the ballast and to stop by the warehouse tomorrow to receive a new one as per my warranty!! New one will be installed and running tomorrow afternoon.

YAY for extended warranties!

Only half a day of flowering with only one the HPS running.. i'm okay with that.. at least i am able to get a replacement ballast (or any part really) basically the next day, or the same day if my problem is early enough to make it to the warehouse before they close for the day.

So, its off to Surrey tomorrow where BC Northern Lights manufacturing warehouse is to pick me up a new ballast.

Also found out they have a collar package that allows direct venting of the light housing directly outside so the temperature of the room the box is in doesn't get too warm. This is also available for the air intake, to attach a collar and ducting to draw air from a colder source! This might be my solution to the temps reaching 26c inside the box. With the doop open a crack and the AC blowing inside, the temps stay around 20c. Not sure if i want to bother with the collar package as the winter will bring cooler temperatures to my apartment, especially if i leave the windows open in my den, where the grow box and 4x4 tent are, allowing cold air to enter that room and be pushed into the spare bedroom where the 8x8 tent is.

I will post a video later of GreenThumb J's grow loft!
 
Greenthumb J said:
You know rado,

you too can get your hands on some amazing genetics of Widow. GHSco or Mr Nice Seeds will get you some great Widow genetics bred and created by Shantibaba!

.
Click to expand...

I plan to go with CBD crew next purchase. In case you didn't know, CBD Crew is a joint venture of Mr Nice/Shantibaba and Resin Seeds. This will probably be next summer as I have 4 sets of seeds queued up.
 
LadyGreenthum said:
Beanhorder!! We are getting the Dr. Who seeds next!
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You heard it guys... shes the boss!

TGA Subcool's DR. Who will be on order soon.. as well as Dr. Who's stupid little magic wand thing thats apparently called "Sonic Screwdriver" TGA just released a strain by that name, and the genetics are Orange Cream Soda x Timewreck and it sounds tasty!!
 
Radogast said:
Don't spin your tires Lady GT! I am sure the Mr. was just humoring an old man with a wife in need of CBDs :)

Beanhoarder! What a great expletive. Jack and the Beanstalk meets Smaug the Dragon!
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Oh Rado, i was doing more than just humouring you my friend, i am actually going to take a look into CBD crew. I had heard of them many a time, as well as looked at their gear on the single seed website that i use marijuana - seeds - canada dot com (no spaces between hyphens) They dont ship to US unfortunately cause they are fast! takes a week from the second i order my seeds to arrive in my mailbox. They come from the UK and not the Nederlands which customs might find suspicious! Also they use these foam and plastic sorta things to put the seeds inside. maybe they somehow block the xray scanner to see that its cannabis seeds inside?? (although the sale and purchase of cannbis seeds are not illegal in Canada here, just the production and sale of marijuana is :rofl:)

But i didn't know that Shantibaba was a collaborator. Thats very interesting to know. I am actually going to be keeping my eye on DNA genetics, because i read an article in High Times that said the Cookies Crew (the breeders that introduced the Girl Scout Cookies as well as many other famous "dessert-named" strains) and DNA genetics are going to be doing some breeding projects together to introduce some hybrids of the original GSC crossed with some of DNA's top strains. Could be very interesting to see something like Kosher Cookies or Chocolope Cookies or one of their other high end strains they have thats a hybrid of the ORIGINAL Girl Scout Cookies. I know that the GSC i'm growing isn't an original, but probably a very close representation of the original.
 
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