Jon's Dedicated Fruity Pebble Cookies Grow Plus The Mystery Plant

[Jon]

Don't quote me on it but I think that's an invasive Monitor Lizard which are supreme predators and get very large. Of course he's much less danger to your garden than mites. I hate bugs in the grow room, it's one of the main reasons I prefer growing in the winter here. But this year I'll be at least growing well into August. I just fought off a massive ant invasion and it's hardly even spring here. They had actually started establishing a colony on the underside of a grow bag in the 3 day interval between waterings, there were hundreds of them. Stresses me out cause I really hate killing anything, even bugs.

I can't even keep track of how many tents you have, much less plants lol! But in your canopy shots I love your light, and I'm thinking it's 2 lights side-by-side? The BestVA lights I have say that they can't be closer that 9" to each other, and I've been using that as a guide. But looking at pics of ViparSpectras they also seem to be right next to each other. Is that an issue? I'm wondering if it's related to heat or electromagnetic interference? I have no idea, but if I can put my lights pretty much side by side that will open up some space for me. I'll post them a question on Amazon but I'm curious what you and your other contributors do. Have a great day!

Hi @BubbaKush909 - cool, I hope you're right! He was gorgeous.

My light is one light. It has six bars that cover 48" side to side.

When I was using double blurples I hung them next to one another with maybe six inches of separation. You can certainly put your Bestvas that close together, no problem. Would that give you the space you want? Whatever you do, make sure you have a sense of the total overall real wattage draw from the wall so you know how much power you have. My light as you see it is still in full spectrum mode at 550 watts. When all the plants are showing buds I will engage the flowering spectrum and bring in the far reds, IR, and UV lights and it pumps the flowering wattage all the way up to 680.

They likely say that 9" separation thing due to the heat they put off. If you have adequate ventilation don't worry about that. It will add heat to add a light, obviously, you just gotta manage it. Almost everyone I know who uses blurples has them close together, it's very common.

 

[Jon]

Hi @BubbaKush909 - cool, I hope you're right! He was gorgeous.

My light is one light. It has six bars that cover 48" side to side.

When I was using double blurples I hung them next to one another with maybe six inches of separation. You can certainly put your Bestvas that close together, no problem. Would that give you the space you want? Whatever you do, make sure you have a sense of the total overall real wattage draw from the wall so you know how much power you have. My light as you see it is still in full spectrum mode at 550 watts. When all the plants are showing buds I will engage the flowering spectrum and bring in the far reds, IR, and UV lights and it pumps the flowering wattage all the way up to 680.

They likely say that 9" separation thing due to the heat they put off. If you have adequate ventilation don't worry about that. It will add heat to add a light, obviously, you just gotta manage it. Almost everyone I know who uses blurples has them close together, it's very common.

Another reference is, if you remember when I first made the furniture rig and had it in the garage with that one bud Sour Apple I grew, I had BOTH blurples practically touching one another!! No problems.

 

[BubbaKush909]

Another reference is, if you remember when I first made the furniture rig and had it in the garage with that one bud Sour Apple I grew, I had BOTH blurples practically touching one another!! No problems.

Thanks @Jon that helps a lot. I'm getting a bit worried about my wattage, I don't know anything about electricity but right now the lights are pulling 750 watts, plus the 5000 BTU a/c unit and small oscillating fan and 6" blower fan for the carbon air filter. The BestVA's pull almost 300 if running full out, but I think I'll be ok adding one more. Any thoughts on that?

 

[BubbaKush909]

In the old days I ran 2 400w HPS lamps plus a similar setup except the ac unit in the same room without any issues.

 

[Jon]

Thanks @Jon that helps a lot. I'm getting a bit worried about my wattage, I don't know anything about electricity but right now the lights are pulling 750 watts, plus the 5000 BTU a/c unit and small oscillating fan and 6" blower fan for the carbon air filter. The BestVA's pull almost 300 if running full out, but I think I'll be ok adding one more. Any thoughts on that?

Your house will either have 15 or 20 amp circuits and some will be GFIs. In a perfect world I use the 20 amp GFI outlets whenever possible. This gives you 20 whole protected amps to play with. Then just add up your wattage and do the conversion to amperage and if you're under by a decent bit (you should be) you'll be fine. I try not to max out the amp usage on a circuit if I can help it, so I spread my power out so it's not all on the same circuit.

I hope that makes sense, it's a lot easier than it sounds if this is Greek to you. Maybe someone else can explain it in better words than me, I don't think I'm doing a very good job.

 

[Jon]

Thanks @Jon that helps a lot. I'm getting a bit worried about my wattage, I don't know anything about electricity but right now the lights are pulling 750 watts, plus the 5000 BTU a/c unit and small oscillating fan and 6" blower fan for the carbon air filter. The BestVA's pull almost 300 if running full out, but I think I'll be ok adding one more. Any thoughts on that?

Also it's a good idea to separate your lights from the AC. One due to the power consumption, but more importantly, if the AC unit pops a circuit breaker (this is the most likely piece of equipment you're running that could potentially do that) it will shut off, but what if that happens in the daytime during flower and your lights are out too and you don't catch it for hours? See? So I separate the AC from all else and run the lights and fans on the same circuit.

 

[Jon]

Big Time Adjustments to Titan's Lair

It was time to raise the old 420h. I was starting to feel a bit more heat up top than I want. I doubt she'll get any taller really, but my hope in raising the light besides to mitigate cola level leaf temps, was that the light field when raised (and obviously changed) might help get more ppfd to the lower buds. I also wanted to pump up the overall average ppfd as this girl is showing me she can handle significant par numbers. So here's the deal in pictures:

1. The first step was to move the plant out of the tent. Since I had her out I took a picture. This gives you a fair idea of just how massive Titan is, and shows you her true green.

out of the tent.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 29, 2022

2. Then I raised the light. I eliminated the adjusting cables altogether and maxed the height by clipping the light directly to the ceiling poles via a pair of double metal shower hooks.

how i raised the light.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 29, 2022

3. After that and a quick tent floor cleaning and Titan defoliation session, she got returned to the tent. Here she is back at home.

Back in the tent with light raised.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 29, 2022

4. Here's the same picture as the last one but pulled out to show you Titan's new proximity to the light, and the newly adjusted brightness in the tent. The top level of buds is now at an average of almost 1350 ppfd. So far she's taken everything I've thrown at her, so it's time to push now that we have room to play with the light.

New proximity to light and increased par.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 29, 2022

5. This is the funny picture. To raise the ppfd to the new level (about 100 - 150 point increase across the board), I was able to crank the light from the 25% I had it at all the way to here. LMAO.

I turned it up this much.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 29, 2022

So let's see how she likes and responds to this.

 

[StoneOtter]

Nice work Jon! Titan's going to love the attention! I also love the bottom fans you have moving air down below in the earlier post!

 

[Jon]

Titan's Response to Increase in Light

Several hours later after upping the ppfd on Titan, and this picture is telling me she is just fine with it. Starting to wonder if I might be able to push into the 1400s with this one. We'll see how she looks over the next few days here and then reassess. I honestly expected to see her prayer angle come way down at 1350 ppfd, but she doesn't seem to have missed a beat so far.

 

[Jon]

TITAN
Day 54

This plant is putting me through the paces, that's for sure. She leafs up incredibly quickly and requires almost twice a week defol here and there. She's also generating a lot of heat and humidity. This is easily controlled in terms of environment, but even with my lower fan game and the light moved up I was hotter up top than I want. I decided we needed moving air on the top, not just from underneath, no matter how much is underneath. So I did some fan adjustment, including my now famous (lol) "put the fan right in the pot facing up" methodology. I also relocated the temp/rh gauge as I felt I wasn't getting accurate reading with it sitting against the side of the tent. Now I have a much more accurate idea of what the environment is at the top. Seems she needs something done every damn day. Ah, a labor of love.

I also decided to go with my instincts on the light rather than the app. This is a rather large divergence for me, considering how often I extol the virtues of MEASURING your light instead of depending on your eyes. Just looking at her and how the tent was lit up, I could just feel it should be brighter. Call it an itch or whatever, but I could just TELL. If that makes sense.

Not sure how much stock I can put in the above, despite the strength of the feeling. But for today I'm going with it and we'll see if I was right or dead wrong.

I cranked the 420h up to 100%. FULL POWER. It's bright as hell in there now. HUGE jump. I haven't taken ppfd readings yet. Kind of scared to. Lol. Now why in god's name did I do that?

When I grew the five autos in the outside rig with this light, all five plants were in 5s and the pots were all touching the entire grow, as I had them as close to the center of the space as possible. They didn't take up much more room than a 3x3 space the way I had the pots positioned. And the 420h was closer to them than it is to Titan now. I used it on the autos at 100% the whole time.

That is my only anecdotal evidence to justify cranking this light. So I'll watch. Even if it's way too much, I'll know very quickly and simply dial it back. It's a good test for my instincts and knowing how to "read the plants."

So here is how she looks with the @NextLight 420h at 100% power. I'm about six feet from the door of the tent to take this picture.

420h at 100 percent.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

Here's what I did for moving air upstairs.

more fun with fans 1.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

This is my fan in the pot trick which I do often and works very well.

fun with fans 2.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

Here's a closeup of a mid-level bud from the second ring.

Titan mid level bud closeup.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

And here's some lower ring action.

Titan lower ring action 4 30.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

There's something I love about Saturday morning wake and bake sessions with my hot Cafe Bustelo and Molly on my lap.

 

[Azimuth]

Ah, another experiment. Love it!

 

[Jon]

Ah, another experiment. Love it!

We needed a replacement experiment after the spent soil plant bit the dust yesterday due to catching a bad case of the mites. I could have fixed it but decided to trash it cuz I don't want to take a chance given the proximity of that plant to the garage door and my 5x5. Heh.

 

[Azimuth]

Ay, yes. Priorities.

 

[Jon]

Saturday Garden Pictures

No wasting time, let's just get right to it.

1. This is the garden today at 9 am post watering.

Garden 4 30.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

2. And here's a look underneath.

a look underneath gtown.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

3. Here is a Fulvia cola getting ready to explode.

Fulvia ready to explode.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

4. Which makes an interesting contrast to the way the Spud Bud is supposedly "stacking." Lmao.

MP supposedly stacking.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

5. However, at the end of the day, this accidental hybrid/accidental reveg spent soil weirdo ends up looking pretty much like a regular plant. Here's a pairing of her tops.

MP buds pairing.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

6. Meanwhile, our Jack Herer auto seems to dig living in the tent with the real plants.

Jack taking off.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

7. And our Zkittlez auto continues to do her thing in flower and stacking in as much as she's going to. Forgive her droop, she just got watered like 15 minutes before this picture was taken.

Z just watered.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

This concludes our Saturday garden tour. Carry on. And thanks so much for checking out my grow and all the help I have gotten getting here, I can't thank you guys enough.

 

[Emilya Green]

Beautiful!

 

[Jon]

Beautiful!

Thanks @Emilya ! It's coming along for sure. Higher maintenance grow than I'm used to by far, but that's okay. They have a few more days before everyone has actual budlets, and at that point we switch our light spectrum and power to the flowering spectrum, bringing in the far reds, IR, and UV lights and pumping the wattage up from 550 to 680. I can't wait. In the past I have always engaged that spectrum at the flip, per the manufacturer's suggestion. This time I decided to go full spectrum (normal) through the stretch and then switch it at actual flower with buds. I wanted to see if it would make for a longer (more, not time) stretch. From the looks of it it seems to have had the desired effect, although since nobody's grown this I have no comparison. Maybe this strain always stretches this much.

 

[Jon]

@Azimuth, I have one more experiment in play for you. Today was watering day for the Spud and the Jack. I would normally just give them plain water. Today I had just enough water left from the 5 gallon Prescription Blend flowering mix that I realized I could water both plants with it if I wanted. So I did. Tried it as my "boost" at flower that I give to organic plants often. I know that chemical nutes in an organic grow will take over the plants attention. They will feed off the chemicals instead of the microbes. That's exactly the point and why I do it. I have found that an occasional and appropriate feed of chem nutes to augment an organic grow works really well. So instead of making a special mix for them today I gave the PB feed (week two of flower on the chart). What it contains is all the stuff the Jack and MP are getting from the microbes now, so it should be fine. The directness is what gives it the boost I think. We'll see how they respond.

Always gotta tinker man, that's the most fun way to learn I think.

 

[BubbaKush909]

Morning @Jon! The garden looks beautiful this morning! We need an updated pic of Molly!!!

Where did you get your zkittles & jack seeds? Honestly my zkittles from 420 was ok but I don't think it got enough light, it had to share one with a gorilla glue and neither one was great. I've since hashed what was left of both. I don't really care though because the 420 Wedding Cake is very good and the Gelato is outstanding. I'll try the Zkittles again but I'm probably done with Gorilla Glue. Mostly my fault but I've grown 4 of the 5 seeds without a single really good one. Curiously this last GG was the sweetest & fruitiest smelling plant that I've grown yet, unfortunately the high was not there.

I've gotten a good friend involved with helping me pick the right time to chop. I have a bad habit of losing patience at the end and probably chopping too early. The 2 lsd-25's are right there, honestly I would have taken one a few days ago but I'm glad we're still waiting. The test buds are improving and it's a hell of a lot easier to look at the trichs with 2 of us.

I really like having the help, really just someone else to share the excitement with. The GF is totally cool with the garden but she's not really interested. She hates the smell too. I don't get it. The lsd-25's have one of the most awesome smells, hints of fruit and hints of diesel. She doesn't seem to agree. Probably didn't help that the whole house has smelled like hash the last few days either

Looks like a beautiful spring day here. Hope you have a great day!

 

[Jon]

Morning @Jon! The garden looks beautiful this morning! We need an updated pic of Molly!!!

Where did you get your zkittles & jack seeds? Honestly my zkittles from 420 was ok but I don't think it got enough light, it had to share one with a gorilla glue and neither one was great. I've since hashed what was left of both. I don't really care though because the 420 Wedding Cake is very good and the Gelato is outstanding. I'll try the Zkittles again but I'm probably done with Gorilla Glue. Mostly my fault but I've grown 4 of the 5 seeds without a single really good one. Curiously this last GG was the sweetest & fruitiest smelling plant that I've grown yet, unfortunately the high was not there.

I've gotten a good friend involved with helping me pick the right time to chop. I have a bad habit of losing patience at the end and probably chopping too early. The 2 lsd-25's are right there, honestly I would have taken one a few days ago but I'm glad we're still waiting. The test buds are improving and it's a hell of a lot easier to look at the trichs with 2 of us.

I really like having the help, really just someone else to share the excitement with. The GF is totally cool with the garden but she's not really interested. She hates the smell too. I don't get it. The lsd-25's have one of the most awesome smells, hints of fruit and hints of diesel. She doesn't seem to agree. Probably didn't help that the whole house has smelled like hash the last few days either

Looks like a beautiful spring day here. Hope you have a great day!

Hi @BubbaKush909! Thanks.

My Zkittlez was from 420FastBuds and the Jack Herer was a freebie seed in a North Atlantic Seed Company order and I don't know the breeder on that one. Normally I don't even bother growing the freebies for that reason. But the Jack has been great. The Zkittlez is just okay, but in this case I know it's not the genetics, it's completely my fault. I did a terrible job building her root ball and it shows.

Lots of folks swear by Mephisto for autos, I haven't gone there yet. But most everyone has a Zkittlez version. If you really like the strain try a different breeder of it next time, right? Barney's Farm might be a good call too. Or Dutch Passion. There's a bunch.

Glad you have a buddy to help you assess. Hope they trim too. Lmao!!!

Happy Saturday!

 

[Jon]

More Damn Infrastructure Work

Titan is one spoiled girl, I'll tell you that. She must think she's Molly, the only girl I intentionally spoil. This afternoon I made a few more changes in Titan's house.

- turned AC unit up to high setting
- eliminated cardboard box holding up little fan (that was rookie I know better than that)
- doubled the number of fans in the pot blowing directly up from underneath
- added a nice, solid, metal trashcan (clean, duh) to hold up the longer fan in the back way closer to plant
- relocated and raised the fan held up by the brick pile so it was closer to the plant

She should get even more moving air now to where she needs it. I think at this point we're all good although I still have my eye out should I need an upper fan blowing down/across the buds later in flower when they get dense.

I take this bud rot thing rather seriously. I HATE it. Moving air and effective defol are the keys to mitigating it.

So here's the new fan setup from far and close. Note the trash can back left holding up the longer fan, and the fact that every fan in play is now significantly closer to the plant, thus generating more upwards air pressure.

Note the addition of the trash can and elimination of cardboard box.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

Further improved fan game.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

Here's a backlit cola shot taken while the plant was out of the tent that kind of shows us for the first time what is going to happen here, ie, the actual buds themselves are beginning to take form.

backlit cola shot outside of tent.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

This is a shot of the Zkittlez taken one hour after the last picture (right after watering) to show how incredibly quickly this girl bounces back from the watering droop.

Z one hour bounce back.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

And this last one is an accidental selfie. I don't usually post selfies but this one's okay. It shows my rather Schwarzenegger-esque forearm pretty well.

Accidental selfie.jpg

• Jon
• Apr 30, 2022

Saturdays are fun. I'll leave you guys with something to think about as this is vexing me today. So we have square or rectangular tents and square or rectangular lights to go in them. That gives us the best light fields the industry can offer at the moment. But.....

What if my 3x3 was round instead of square? And what if the 420h was also round instead of square? Anyone think that might produce an even more consistent light field across the canopy than current technology?

Heh.