Jon's New Pared Down Setup Soil Grow: 3 Photo & 1 Auto With New Dedicated Auto Rig

[Jon]

Look like the general census here has been for you to wait. If I were to add my two cents in as well, I would have to agree with everyone, and to push her a little bit longer!!

Congratulations on gjotm Jon!! Well deserved my friend!!

@Backlipslide - thanks. I did. I still am too. Hell I'll wait til she LOOKS ready to my eye. I am saying forget the trichs and the microscope on this one as long as she continues to look like she does in the bud shots of the next post. It's insane how much this plant has fattened up and filled in in the last three weeks. Just spectacular performance from Sohum, and my few custom additive mixes must have been right on this time. Sometimes you get lucky cuz I was completely flying blind on those. Heh. Check out the next post. Hell, she may have a week left yet. And the Chunkadelic is no doubt going to crush any previous auto yield. Ha! Those buds are just STARTING to fatten up. Add three weeks to them and project the yield!! You are the man, BLS. Great respect.

 

[Jon]

Autoflower Budding Update
October 3, Day 80
With Bonus Picture!

Everyone who advised me to wait on taking the Sour Apple, THANKS SO MUCH. You were right! Today she reached 80 days for the first time with this strain for me. And she is STILL not ready, just look at the buds. This is still happening everywhere and until it slows down we keep patient and let her go.

The Chunkadelic is going to dust all my previous yields from autos. She's HUGE. TONS of buds. And finally they appear to be making the switch from just growing and forming their shapes to the few weeks of final fattening. If they were hard and done right now at this size I would have a strong yield. Wow. What a plant. Too bad I abused her leaves. Lol.

It is currently 87.5 degrees and 55% humidity outside at the top of these plants.

There are two bonus pictures. One is the grow room guard, some chick named Molly, and the other is my newest arrival and a new soil mix ingredient to try on the tent grow that follows this one.

The porn:

1. Sour Apple entire plant
2. SA Bud 1
3. SA Bud 2
4. Chunkadelic entire plant
5. Chunky Bud 1
6. Chunky Bud 2
7. Chunky Bud 3 and perspective shot
8. Environment in the @Mars Hydro rig at bud top level today in the hottest part of the day
9. Bonus picture of the grow room guard underperforming, lol
10. Bonus picture of my newest arrival today

Heh.

 

[Jon]

Phototown Training Through the Stretch Update
Slurricane Example
Grow Day 80
Flower/Stretch Day 10

Sometimes when you think you're done you're not. Lol. I woke up today to several rogue colas going crazy on all three plants. It's like they finally realized it was stretch time or something, cuz the main colas on each plant went nuts overnight and were about 2-3" above the canopies all around. There were also several smaller bud sites that had gone rogue and had to be attended to. Obviously the goal is to maintain the flat canopy, which until this morning was pretty simple. Today I had to get a little bit creative. There were maybe five major colas on the Slurricane with very thick and almost set branches that had to come down three inches. That's not easy, you have to be SUPER careful. I'm sure we've all snapped branches and even main cola branches before....it sucks. If I can't make them go where I want because they are too set or I'm afraid they'll snap, I leave them. The MSA applications throughout all of veg really helped with training. The stems are strong as hell yet somehow still flexible while feeling hard as rock. This I think will paint the picture: you know how you squeeze and manipulate a stem to supercrop it? Well, the stems are so hard on these plants that it's difficult to break the interior cell walls. No shi-, I kid you not. It takes a bit of work, much more so than before I began using MSA. And, they all stick out so far beyond the edges of the pot that there's nowhere to tie them down to. UNLESS......you extend the pot. Make it wider. How? See picture number 4. That's how. Full disclosure: I just came up with this today for the first time and I felt like I just discovered the structure of DNA. First try with an AirPot and until today I thought they were identical in performance to the fabric pots. But you can't do what you see in picture 4 with a fabric pot, and man does it make life easier. I'm sold just from that.

I did to all three plants what you see in the Slurricane photos here. Not necessary to post all three plants I don't think.
I keep hoping we're looking at a two week stretch rather than a three weeker. I'm ready to see cotton balls damnit!!

Slurricane Training Porn:

1. overhead shot post training adjustments
2. canopy shot post training adjustments
3. closeup of the nodal growth along these cola stems that's incredible
4. getting creative to, in effect, make the pot wider so you can tie down branches way outside the pot edges

 

[Jon]

Our First Setback
(Not Really, lol)

Well, the old girl finally went on me. I knew she was getting close. She had been in senescence for weeks. (@Emilya, lol) And when her compressor went a few days ago and she was only functioning as a fan, I knew she wasn't long for this world. Poor thing.

Yep. I lost one of the two AC units. I got about 500 hours of almost continuous use out of her. For $215, I'll take that. They aren't really designed to run 24 hours a day forever, lol. Damn (insert my state) weather.

Today I will bury her in the backyard and put a little cross on the pile, and maybe plant a small flower in her honor.



Ok I lied. What I will actually do today is go to Home Depot and spend another $215 that I don't have to replace the unit. With just the one unit on there it might get to maybe 82 degrees during the hottest part of the day, versus the 72-74 they have been at. That's a 10 degree difference, and while it's not a spike, I worked WAY too hard on these girls to let that go. I'll need another unit before long anyway. Would it be okay for them to be at 82 degrees for three hours a day and less the other 21? Sure it would be. The plants probably wouldn't even know the difference. But I would. And more importantly, I won't be able to lower the temperatures to the point I want overnight to bring out colors without the second unit.

The last point alone is worth $215 to me.

 

[Jon]

Autoflower Budding Check-In
Day 82

Sour Apple getting closer....

Chunkadelic getting fatter....

That is all.

 

[Nine Toed Hippie]

Looking good Amigo. Looking at your Chunkadelic makes me miss my Chunkita. Damn she was pretty. She lives through your plant so finish her off nice.

NTH

 

[Jon]

Looking good Amigo. Looking at your Chunkadelic makes me miss my Chunkita. Damn she was pretty. She lives through your plant so finish her off nice.

NTH

I'm trying man. I removed all the brown dead leaves and that opened her up a little more and gave me a better look at the buds. They're healthy as hell despite the leaves. Yesterday was the beginning of week 10 of the Canna Nutes for this plant, and that's as far as the Canna for Autos Chart goes. After that it says flush. Well obviously we're not nearly at the end yet so I guess I'm just going to repeat week 10 as long as necessary. But damn are these puppies getting fat. Aptly named strain from Humboldt.

 

[Jon]

The Stars of the Show are Beginning to Take the Stage!
Hulkberry First One to the Party
Grow Day 81
Flower/Stretch Day 11
AC Unit REPLACED, Problem Solved!

Call me crazy, but it looks to me like after 11 days of flower, the Hulkberry is about ready to get it on. Unless I miss my mark, these are BUDS! The beginning of the cotton balls I've been waiting for. I love them so. First plant of the three to show. This is gonna get good now. I also tried to count the bud sites, and I keep losing count. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60. I have no idea if the plant and space can support as many bud sites as there are on these plants. I projected a little and it's gonna be real dense in there. Gotta stay on top of keeping the undercarriage clean and air flowing up through the plants. Fortunately over the course of now four grows I have about 1000 fans. Lol. Some of them are even decent.

I replaced the AC unit that went bad and it is installed and working like a dream. Man, are these things efficient when they are brand new. I had to turn the other one down to low cool because of the increase in performance of the new unit compared to the one that went. Not a terrible problem to have. We are rocking 74 degrees and 48% humidity in the tent today.

Here is the Hulkberry's first ever live appearance as a budding plant. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. And thanks as always for stopping by.

 

[Rexer]

Cooler air, lower power bill, new AC for the win!
That HulkBerry is going to be freakin huge man. Well done, look at all those nicely opened bud sites

 

[Jon]

Cooler air, lower power bill, new AC for the win!
That HulkBerry is going to be freakin huge man. Well done, look at all those nicely opened bud sites

Thanks Rexer! It was on end of the season sale for $159 too!!!! $90 bucks or so better than I thought! And yeah man, it's pretty remarkable the way all of a sudden you can see what you're dealing with. And then get scared.

 

[Backlipslide]

Wow! I love the spears on that chunkadelic!!! #drool!

 

[Jon]

Phototown Stretch Check
Grow Day 82
Stretch/Flower Day 12
October 6

After 12 days of the stretch we now have three plants with bud sites starting to open up and make their little cotton balls. This is a good sign. We may get away with around a 16-18 day total stretch instead of 21. The less time the better I like it. We have maintained a pretty even canopy overall. This isn't bad for 12 days into the stretch in terms of keeping the canopy flat. The Ghost is starting to get a little jiggy on the one side, we'll attend to that in a day or two. As you can see the plants now almost fill this tent, or fairly close for three plants. What a dummy. Three plants. Talk about making the spacing stupid. Lol.

Kind of interesting that in the pictures, it is in only the shots from the back side of the tent that you can see the influence of the light's flower booster, which raises the wattage from 550 to 680 and brings in all the juicy reds. In the front shots the light appears much more white.

Soon it will be my absolute favorite day of this part of budding, as it applies to the training. The day the chains come off!! Once I assess that the stretch is completely done, every single stick holding this plant down will be removed and the girls will be free to finish unfettered. Wait til you guys see the pile of skewers and bamboo in these plants, you'll crack up. But you'll also totally understand the work involved. Lol. Not that you don't already.

So....porn.

1. Front Canopy Shot
2. Back Canopy Shot
3. Slurricane
4. Ghost Train Haze
5. Hulkberry

Happy Hump Day everyone!

 

[Jon]

Sour Apple Budding Update and Bonus Picture
Day 83

Closer. Still not quite ready. Do I hear 85? You guys tell me. Trichomes are irrelevant at this point, I am harvesting this one by eye. She can be more tight and more mature with fewer rogue white hairs popping still. Couple more, maybe three days?

1-3: Sour Apple overhead shot and two bud shots
4: Bonus Picture: this is one of the baby buds on the Hulkberry. The leaf cracked me up. I guess this weed will taste like Sprite. Lol

 

[Jon]

A Note For Any Wheelchair Growers Who May Be Seeing This

Part of the purpose of this journal and training the plants the way I have has always been that hopefully another wheelchair grower may see this and see a methodology that would work for them. I have not gone into any of the things that wheelchair growers deal with, and how to avoid them or fix them, as I will at some point in the future. I will likely do a focus journal at some point where I highlight the multitude of things you have to deal with as a person in a chair if you want to grow, targeted specifically for those folks. I really want to believe that long term I will be able to come up with something to help people who are handicapped and want to grow, whether it's a consulting type thing, or a remote video thing, or whatever.

But today, circumstances dictate that I lay lesson number one on anyone in a wheelchair who wants to grow. And lesson number one is this:

I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR BITCHING.

Today my electric wheelchair crapped the bed again. They are coming to fix it later this morning. That puts me in the manual wheelchair for at least today and maybe three or four if they have to take my electric to fix it. Most of you would have no way to know this, so please take my word for it. Operating your life in a manual wheelchair SUCKS. You need both your hands to move. That leaves you nothing to hold with. Say, a gallon of water, or a moisture meter, or anything else you need hands for. Obviously in an electric chair this is not an issue in the least. I can't even walk my puppy in a manual wheelchair. It's a significant problem.

Well guess what? The plants don't give a goddamn about your damn wheelchair. They still need water. And guess what else? You still have three different locations you have to go to to get that done. And you have to figure out how you're going to carry a gallon of water with no hands. This is just one example. There are trillions, all day long.

SO FIGURE IT THE F--K OUT.

The point is, if you're in a wheelchair and you want to grow, there are going to be setbacks. More setbacks than people who can walk have. And you need to be committed to overcoming them. This takes a lot of work and it's not easy. And setbacks are going to be frequent, trust me. So deal with them or don't play the game. You see where I'm coming from? You gotta be committed, and you gotta not feel sorry for yourself. If you do, you aren't ready to grow.

Yeah, I'm that kind of teacher.

 

[Jon]

Unchaining the Hulkster!!
Grow Day 83
Flower/Stretch Day 13
October 7
First Bud Picture!!!

Today I woke up and immediately heard the Hulkberry screaming at me to unchain her. She's ready to fly. Her stems are much firmer than they were 13 days ago, the bud sites appear reasonably set, and it was time to see how good of a job I did on keeping her chained. The hope when you unchain the plant is that she stays the way you had her chained. The two weeks of the stretch I waited to do this was for the stems to firm up and the bud sites to get set. But I do it today, when there's still potentially a few days of stretch left in her, so that if there is she can get a little bit of vertical growth in, and have an easier time of it than she would if I kept the chains in place. Using a pro bar type light, especially one with very wide fields on each individual bar as my light has, takes a bit of the canopy evenness necessity out of play. Every bud is going to get plenty of light because the light field is almost identical across the entire width of the bars, which is almost the entire tent. Shadowing of buds is more important to attend to at this point on a plant by plant basis than the canopy as a whole. What we have done is get the three plants close enough to a perfectly even canopy that when they're all unchained we won't have any rogue buds trying to completely steal dominance. The canopy will stay relatively even at this point. Or at least in theory. Lol. As I went around the plant removing the chains I also defoliated the canopy a little bit and the underside of the plant.

I wait on the other two plants until their buds look about the same as the ones on the Hulkberry. The Ghost Train Haze will be next, probably tomorrow, and then the Slurricane.

Then we watch the show!

So here's the porn, and let's see the difference between chained and unchained.

1. Overhead shot before unchaining.
2. Canopy shot before unchaining.
3. Overhead shot after unchaining.
4. Canopy/Side shot after unchaining.
5. The chains themselves...removing them all took a while and was a relatively delicate operation, it is wise to take care when doing this, and btw, I reuse these, and they will now be repurposed to the auto rig in the outdoor grow journal.
6. First bud shot of the photoperiod plants in this grow!!!! Finally!!!! She's purty too.

As you can see, the difference isn't THAT dramatic. This means our branches were pretty set into place, which is a function of time and exactly what we were going for. We waited long enough that when we took the chains off everything didn't rise up several inches. That's the idea. Still a pretty organized canopy, and with the little bit of defoliation I did as well, you can now really see what the Hulkberry's working with. It ain't bad. I'm okay with letting her go like this. Many of you would not have done this step and would have chosen to keep the canopy exactly even as in the first picture. I chose not to do that because I believe that if allowed a bit of vertical growth at the end of the stretch, there will be more nodal growth exposed above the canopy. Ie, bigger buds. Just my theory, I can't prove it.

Enjoy.

 

[Rexer]

Those plants are nice and huge Jon, well done! Gonna be beautiful come harvest time.

You weren't kidding on the pile of bamboo sticks

 

[Nine Toed Hippie]

Very nice Amigo!

NTH

 

[Jon]

Those plants are nice and huge Jon, well done! Gonna be beautiful come harvest time.

You weren't kidding on the pile of bamboo sticks

Lol, I know! At least I don't have to make any for a while. Heh. That's a third of the total.

 

[Jon]

Friday Night Porn
Ghost Train Haze Unchaining
Grow Day 84
Flower/Stretch Day 14
October 8

- Ghost Train Haze Overhead post Unchaining
- GTH Top Bush Bottom Order Over/Under Shot

 

[Jon]

Slurricane Unchained
Everyone in Phototown is Free
Grow Day 85
Flower/Stretch Day 15

1. Slurricane unchained overhead
2. Slurricane and overall canopy 15 days into flower across the three plants everyone unchained
3. Hulkberry
4. Ghost Train Haze
5. The Gang, October 9