GreenThumb J's White Widow Clone Run RTF/DWC

[Radogast]

Thank you kindly for the Reps Radogast!

I was contemplating with Lady GT the other day about the future direction of our grow here, whether or not to use T5's for veg or LED's.

What i'm finding using this 4ft 4-bulb 220w T5HO fixture from Prolight, is i can stuff a hell of a lot of plants underneath it.. lower the fixture right over top of the canopy and still get approximately 3'x4.5' coverage. I doubt i could get the same coverage with a 300w LED as close to my canopy as this thing is.

The thing is, in order of me to get an adequate amount of LED's in the veg area to get a decent amount of vegetative growth (cause i find it rather slow to be honest) I would need to spend quite a few hundred dollars on LED panels (decent ones that is!)

I'd say 900w or more is the ideal amount of wattage for veg when using LED's.
For flower, i would suggest somewhere in the range of 1400-2000w of LED watts to pull in a noteworthy harvest.

Using that much LED power, you would definitely be able to match a 600w HPS yield WITH ONE PLANT!!

But you would also be putting out as much heat as that same light with that much LED power going on.. Remember, they might produce less heat, but the heat just goes into the room, raising room temps, whereas air cooled hoods and CoolTubes vent 90% of the heat out of the room.

The thing i'm seeing with LED grows, is theres never only one plant under the LED's. theres always multiple, and multiple are needed in order to get more than a couple zips from your harvest.

I'm doing a side by side grow with Cannabis 1 starting in about a month, and he is going to veg his THC bombs under a MARS II 1200w, whereas i am going to veg my THC Bombs under the T5 and my 165w LED for side lighting, then the 600w and the LED for a couple weeks before putting it into flower (Thats only if the LED tent turns out to be male. If not, the LED will still be in use). We both will be flowering our plants under the same amount of light, 2x 600w HPS. I'm interested to see the difference in vegetative growth under the T5's compared to the MARS II

Are you sure you will be running the same amount of watts?

I'd be very surprised if the MarsII draws an actual 1200 watts.

 

[Greenthumb J]

God no.. Mars II 1200 draws about 520-600w from the wall!

My T5HO draws 224 from the wall plus my 96w draw from the 165w LED panel. my 600w MH draws almost 660w from the wall in my bathroom. This will be used for late veg to promote strong branching

The difference here will be the distance i can have my light from my young plants compared to the 1200w Mars II which will definitely need to be farther away to avoid stress on the young plants.

I have a feeling that my plants will stretch less by having the T5's a mere inches from the canopy, whereas Cannabis 1's THC Bombs might stretch more due to the light having to be farther away. Once the plants are in flower tho, pretty much everything except nutrients will be the same.

 

[Greenthumb J]

I have been talking with TheCapn for quite some time now behind the scenes about defoliation and if there is any truth behind it all.


This prompted me to write a blog post about Defoliation and the myth behind it.

The REAL Truth behind Defoliation - GreenThumb J's Blog

While defoliation can be utilized during flower to increase your yield slightly, defoliation in vegetative growth is a big NO NO!

I have updated my blog since posting it to talk a little bit more in depth why defoliation before flower is also a big NO NO

 

[Greenthumb J]

CLONING:

Many people have troubles with cloning. i am one of those people. So tonight i am trying an experiment.

I have taken 10 cuttings and divided them into 3 groups. 3 different strains, each in a different method of propagation.

Method #1: Capn-Style.

Rockwool blocks soaked in a solution consisting of 5mls GH FloraBloom, 15mls Aquashield and 3/4 tsp of Subculture-M Mycorrhizae

1x Girl Scout Cookies
1x OG Kush
1x White Widow

Method #2: Heisenberg Tea

Rockwool blocks soaked in Heisenberg tea

1x Girl Scout Cookies
1x OG Kush
1x White Widow

Method #3: Bubble Cloner

4 site bubble cloner. Water mixture consisting of 5ml FloraBloom, 15ml Aquashield and 3ml Rapid Start

1x Girl Scout Cookies
1x OG Kush
2x White Widow


My experiment is to see which method will root the fastest and have me on the path to vegetative growth sooner.



By the way.. I snapped a bunch of branches on plants trying to get them all back in their spots in the Flood table.. Needless to say, a couple plants have duct tape splits and one has 2 zip ties holding the plant together hahaha!!

Hurricane GreenThumb came through the veg tent tonight!!

 

[Dusty Kiefers]

How the widow doing?

 

[mrrobert420]

Im sure your ladies all still love you........might be love hate kinda thing now lol lmfao

 

[Greenthumb J]

How the widow doing?

Shes looking amazing Dusty!

Today (wednesday) marks day 56 of 12/12 and the plant is ready to chop and bag. I will wait about 3 more days before starting a 5-7 day flush.

 

[Greenthumb J]

Im sure your ladies all still love you........might be love hate kinda thing now lol lmfao

Hey Robert..

the plants are all looking amazing still!.. The plant that i split (one of my Girl Scout cookies) i patched together with 2 zip ties. had to undo the LST because the plant split down the middle! She's looking like nothings happened tho. Its been 2 days and theres already new growth coming in!!


An update on my clones! I am going to go take some pictures in a moment.. and i think my voice is okay enough to do a video tonight. Might sound a bit raspy still, but thats okay.. i think a video update is needed!

But the clones are looking great for being on day 3 since cutting. The clones in the bubble cloner look awesome!. They have no humidity dome on top, because the humidity in my veg room is about 65% right now.. thats perfect for my clones in the bubbler.

My clones in rockwool blocks are looking just as good too.

I have 2 sets of 3.. One set was soaked in ONLY Heisenberg tea. The other set was soaked in 5mls bloom, 15 mls aquashield and a 1/2 tsp water soluble mycorrhizae (Gen Hydro SubCulture-M)

This experiment is to see, which method roots the fastest and starts the vegetative growth phase quicker. My guess is its going to be the Bubble Cloner, but you never know!

 

[hydrofun]

So what do you think you will be getting in weight off of your LED grow. a guess?

 

[Greenthumb J]

So what do you think you will be getting in weight off of your LED grow. a guess?

To be honest.. i think i will be getting a bunch of mulched plant in a garbage bag. I'm thinking that the BC Sweet Tooth under my LED is a male. in that case.. it will meet my pruning shears and eventually the garbage compactor in my apartment building.


IF, and thats a big IF right now, it turns out to be female, the plant looks very sativa dominant with long thin leaves, and i think it might take a bit longer than the 7 weeks stated by the breeder! Estimation of yield... 2 ounces?

Thats a piss poor yield! But then again, the LED only spits out 165w LED watts!! Which is extremely underpowered, and i cant even imagine why a company would make such small grow lamps!

If it DOES turn out to be a female, i will have to take a clone of it right away, before it progresses any further into flower, and grow it out properly under HID lighting. The description of the BC Sweet Tooth makes me want to buy some more beans so i can get a damn female and grow this strain properly!

But i currently have so many plants of different strains that i just need to flower them to get them out of the way to make space for strains that i really want to grow.

 

[hydrofun]

2 OZ hmm not much. I hope I get more than that off of my plant.

 

[Greenthumb J]

Yea.. thats if it even turns out to be female!!

IF it does turn to be female, i estimated 2oz as a low ball estimation. This plant could grow some nice looking colas and the yield could be larger than i anticipate. The thing is, the plant has been in flower for 7 days now, and i have seen no pre-flower activity. Nothing conclusive enough to make a call on the sex of the plant.

It IS stretching much more now that the light schedule has reduced, which is typical.

Fingers crossed it turns out to be female! that would be an almost 3 month waste of growing space!

 

[hydrofun]

I have grown with led for alittle over year and half and I have never seen preflower ever until after the plant is well into bloom cycle the earliest I actually ended up with a female and saw a hair was 9 days. That's why I started using bud blood to try and push the beginning of bloom faster. Does it work? the verdicts still out. My last grow that was killed off had flower in that 9 days it was the first time I used bud blood with led and it seemed to show earlier but as it never lived due to GF drama its still an open question.

 

[Greenthumb J]

I find it very funny that well after 60 days from seed, i have not seen a pre-flower.

Every other strain i have grown (including ones from the same breeder) have shown female calyx and pistil within 50 days from seed.

i began germinating the BC Sweet Tooth on Aug. 13. 5-6 days later i had 2 sprouts in 1.5" rockwool starter cubes.

Its taken over 10 weeks and i haven't seen a sign of male or female sex yet. My experience getting male plants leads me to believe this plant is a male, as it has not formed female calyxes yet.

 

[hydrofun]

I am never wasting 8 weeks on unknown sexed plants ever again after this grow.

 

[Greenthumb J]

I am never wasting 8 weeks on unknown sexed plants ever again after this grow.

I agree, but what can you do?

Throw away a possible one pounder that hasn't shown sex yet? i could never do that.

As disappointing as it would be to have been growing a male plant for over 2 months, its necessary to make sure that you have a male before scrapping a plant. Or unless the strain is just finicky and hard to grow then it should be tossed as well.

It just seems like its taking so long for the first 7 days of flower to go by.

ANYWAYS...

On to the main topic of this journal, and thats the White Widow.

Today marks day 56 of 12/12 and we are at approximately 5-15% amber trichomes. I could have started flushing this plant 5 days ago, and chopped today, and it would be good to go!

The bag appeal is going to be outstanding! SO much frost on the buds, such a unique scent to it. I really hope that a good cure brings out that scent, and it doesn't just smell like dried grass afterwards!! haha

I also have a small picture update on my clones.

here is the Bubble cloner, pic taken this afternoon:

And the clones in Rockwool are sitting on top of my T5 Fixture. you cant really see them as i didn't really take these pics to show the clone dome off.. more so my crowded flood tables!!

I will go take some pics of the clone dome later or tomorrow. Got a nice bacon, tomato, cucumber and cheddar cheese on bagel sandwich to munch on!!

Stay medicated friends!

 

[hydrofun]

By feminized? That's what I am doing.

 

[Greenthumb J]

BC Sweet Tooth is not available feminized, otherwise i would have bought feminized seeds.

 

[mrrobert420]

good looking set up greenthumb you really are maximizing your space lol

 

[Greenthumb J]

Thanks buddy!

In the next 10 days, the White Widow plant will be coming down, another 600w CoolTube will be going into the tent, and a bunch of plants put into flower!