FINAL ENTRY
Strain - Purple Haze photo clones x 4
Grow space - Vivosun 48x48x80 tent in basement
Light - Vivosun VS4000 400w LED
Extraction - AC Infinity 6" extraction fan with Controller69
2x 6" oscillating fans + Tower oscillating fan + 12" floor fan (on ceiling)
Nutrients - Stout MSA/Rhino Skin, Mega Crop, Hydroguard, z7, Voodoo Juice, Pirhana, Purpinator, Big Bud, Bud Candy
Medium - 8" Netpots with clay balls in RDWC system (5x13g buckets)
Water - Carbon-filtered well water (100ppm/8.1pH)
Pests - Spider Mites
Temperatures
Well, it's been quite the ride with these clones. I've been wanting to grow clones since I started growing and the new RDWC system sealed the decision. I knew when I started, though, that the timing would be tough. I took cuttings from the mother before flipping her to flower, knowing that she would flower for 9-10 weeks or more. I let the cuttings root for an extra week to delay (3 weeks), which is probably why some molded and rotted.
Lesson learned:
You can't take clones from a mother, flip the mother to flower, and then flower the clones in the same tent. Not enough time, at least in DWC. From now on, I'll take the clones earlier, grown a mother, then take clones from the mother when they're ready to go into the RDWC. Or, start a mother from seed and take clones when the RDWC is almost ready.
I put the best four clones in the 32x32 veg tent in DWC buckets. Over the next six weeks, they took over that 32x32x60 tent, growing into a cube-shaped mass of huge fan leaves. That's OK I kept telling myself, I'll stretch them out in the flower tent. Why I never did the math was beyond me. 32x32 leaves 18" for each plant. 48x48 is 24" per plant. That didn't leave nearly enough room to stretch these girls out without growing into the light. So I supercropped all of the branches and weaved them into the scrog net. If I were to do it over, I would strongly consider topping them multiple times in veg to keep them under a certain height. Even topping them again when I put them in the scrog may have been better. Most of the branches split when broken and there were a lot of open wounds. I taped them up as best as I could, though a few ended up rotting and had to be removed.
Lesson learned:
The veg tent is for mothers, not for starting plants to transfer to the flower tent. The timing never works and then they outgrow the tent or I'm rushing the plants out of the flower tent. Going forward I'll just start any plants in the RDWC system.
It was so hard to put them in the flower tent they were not spaced out evenly. I had to put a second net at flower day# 21 and space out the buds. I think I touched them a bit too much, causing the pistils to turn brown and all of the buds to foxtail. This seemed to affect the top buds, but the lower bud still grew quite well.
Lesson learned:
Any support structure (nets, etc) for the buds should be set up before budding, or very late when they need support. Avoid touching white pistils as much as possible.
Just when I thought I was in the clear, in week# 6 I found spider mites. Luckily, I'd just received some SNS 217-C and it worked really well. It got rid of most of the mites, and I used ladybugs for the last few weeks to make sure they stayed in check. At harvest, the ladybugs were everywhere but we didn't find any webs at all.
Lesson learned:
Never wear outside clothes in the tent. Have pest control on hand for emergencies. Practice IPM with several layers (SNS 209, Neem spray, Diotomacious earth, pest strips).
Harvest and drying went well. The buds dried for 12 days at about 65f/60% rh to a 10.5% moisture level on the WMM. We bucked the dried buds into the Grove bag last week and, according to the Govee in one of the bags, they've stayed right around 60% moisture. They're already smelling really nice. There's some nice top bud in there but the way the branches were woven into the net a lot of the bud was in the shade. It's all very sticky and tricy, though. My kids got me a 19" Vivosun bowl trimmer for Father's Day. All of the bud got run through it today. I meant to take pictures, but got going and forgot
It did a pretty good job at a rough-trim on the buds. Sure, it knocked some bud off and a lot of tricomes. There was a lot of shake in the bowl when all of it was run through. This was put in the trim bin to shift the trics, then it was put in a bag for butter/oil. We got a nice jar of keif from all of the trim, too.
One of the 'toys' I have is a tcheck. This device uses light refraction to measure total cannaboids in solution. You measure a set amount of bud (at least .1g), mix it with 10ml 99.9% isopropyl alcohol, and shake for 10 minutes. Then you place about 5-6 filtered drops of the resulting solution into the tcheck and it measures the total cannaboids found in the sample. The device is only accurate to within 15% so it is more of a guideline. I've measured a sample of a bag I purchased (20%), my dad's first grow that got seeded then struggled to finish (6.9%), and my brother's first grow that was harvested a bit early due to weather & spider mites (7.5%). I've measured all of my home-grown at 15-30%. I believe the device is giving a good baseline. A random sampling of this bud measured at 18.4%. The mother, Jenny, measured at 18.5%. Of course I know that THC% is not everything but it is an interesting data point.
So I ended up with 927 grams (32.7oz) of bud, or just over two pounds. I'll have Purple Haze for a while, which is a good thing. We've all been enjoying the mother, Jenny. She tastes like berries and diesel and has a nice uplifting energetic high that keeps you moving. I'm really enjoying it in the Perfect Pipe, very tasty.
Thank you everyone for joining me on this journey. Your help, support, and encouragement is greatly appreciated. I hope to see you on my
next grow journal where I'll be growing my first non-420 plants in the RDWC. I'm going to try to take the lessons I learned on this grow and focus on quality buds. On to the next grow...
