MadeInUSA's Soil Blue Dream Grow Journal 2017

[MadeInUSA]

Wow, the spring back of these plants are unreal. I can see the yellowing slowly fading away and getting replaced with normal green again. Whew! Also amazing is how the plants are filling out after the last LST, these 4 plants about take up the entire 4x4 tent now. Pleased. These images are through tent window so forgive the slight lack of clarity. I did notice on one of my 5 gallon pots, there are root hairs poking out through the very bottom sides of the air pot.

 

[MadeInUSA]

I will comment about this issue I'm about to talk about in a separate thread on the Grower Forum, but the short of it is, I'm running CO2 via tank, my tent is closed, my plants have taken off in growth, and humidity is an issue. I am in late stage veg and want to flip in the next week or two but I don't dare until I get humidity under control. At 84% with exhaust fans running 6 min every 2 hours.

OK, so to catch up with the grow journal, Friday 11/3 I watered 50% of my normal water (64 oz for each plant) because the pots felt about 50% full. I added a 50% dose of Cal-Mag plus, then PH'd. No runoff on my table trays so I could have added more water but tent humidity has been on my mind lately. I did have some standing water in each of my trays (from my previous nute cycle) that I emptied after pulling all the plants out of the tent. Decided from now on, I will not close up tent with standing water in the tent trays. I can't afford to screw up the grow with a RH issue. I then wiped the entire tent down as it was drenched. RH Meter read 99%. Hooked up a room dehumidifier to lower the RH in the room. No room in the tent to set one up so a dehumidifier in tent, a RH solution will need be found. Taking care of the obvious issues as I cross them. A went over every plant, every branch again and did a re-LST of every branch. Tent space is becoming a worry, I am at about 40% of my 7 ft tent. Every square inch of the tent is now covered with branches.

Made some changes to vent in/out for 6 min, every 2 hours, with CO2 running

 

[MadeInUSA]

I flipped to flower 11/7/17. Gave them their first FF nute feeding since the rinse, this time at 66% of full dose since its been awhile. I have a few yellowing sugar leaves on top but I'm not going to stress on it. I installed 2 new timers (20 events each) and am cycling my in/out fans to run for 5 minutes on a repeating 35 minute cycle, during the 12 hour flower cycle. That was fun to program. Then programmed another timer to, during that 5 min fan period, that shuts down my CO2 to conserve it. Then synch'd the clock on both timers. Works pretty nice. Installed another tent pole fan on top too. My humidity issue in under control - it now tops out at 88% for the last few minutes of every 35 min cycle, otherwise by the end of that 5 min fan period, it drops it 30% to 58% which is awesome. In/Out will run the full 12 hour sleep cycle.

 

[MadeInUSA]

I was going to comment that I do not know how people in a tent feed their plants without removing them from the tent. The larger they get the more impractical removing them is. Heavy, cumbersome and easy to screw one up big time.

 

[MadeInUSA]

Watered the 4 gals 5 gallons total. Created a drip watering system with pump. Nice. First time I've fed them without taking them out of the tent. It's a back saver and a time saver. Hard to pull dead leaves out of the back row though, as one side of tent cant fully open up. Seems I am getting 3 days max out of waterings now. I may put up trellis soon. Still on CO2. Humidity getting as low as 45% now. Temps getting as high as 90 degrees with flower lights engaged so raised the lights to 16 inches now that I am in flower. Starting to see faint signs of flower starts. Had my stems turn red that are in the high canopy light zone once I flipped the flower switch. From what I've read, this is normal.

 

[MadeInUSA]

Just an added note to self, I feel if you are doing proper nutes and PH'ing your water properly that unless the entire plant starts to show a "turn for the worse", you can do more harm by tweaking your nutes and flushing then anything else. I got more bad leaves by flushing and depriving my plant than the original "problem". My 2 cents.

 

[MadeInUSA]

Now with colder temps outside, the furnace inside the house is running and the humidity range is between 40-75% inside the tent, even after watering 5 gallons in a sealed tent, with all the venting thats going on. I feel confident now taking these plants all the way through flower stage with constant CO2 during lights on. This journal will serve me well to know when to plant seed, how long to veg, etc. for future grows.

 

[MadeInUSA]

Today is week 1.5 of flower.

Nute fed Wed 15th and added 2 more drip emitters per plant to drip system, so now 4 emitters per plant - to even out the distributrion to all sides of the plant.

Thurs 16th, removed all LST from plants and added trellis net over the entire 4x4 canopy to spread out and slow down the upward growth. I am not convinced it will slow down the upward movement of those branches past the net line.

I am looking forward to day 21 of flower when I will remove some of the lower 1/3 of the leaves/branches. I see why people trim there its hard for light to get down there. I have done zero leaf pruning (the plant does it for me, so I make sure it gets cleared)

 

[MadeInUSA]

Watered today with Cal Mag - 5 gallons of PH'd water to 6.3, using pump and drippers, it dripped into (4) 5 gallon containers took about 2 hours with 4 drippers per plant, with water prep taking another 30 min. Using this method I am able to get an additional 1.25 gallons to my girls as it does not run through

 

[MadeInUSA]

Nute Fed with 100% FF Trio + CalMag + Boomerang using Flower week 2 schedule (today is 14th day of flower cycle) 5 gallons. Sucked out about a quart of runoff. Still running CO2, and the plants are growing like crazy and the flowers are coming in strong. I can tell I'm going to have a height issue here as I only have less than 2 ft before I run out of room to extend the lights up. I am noting that the new growth nodes are really tight (short) so with any luck it will stop stretching in the next week. Flowers are coming in well.

Its taking about 2 hours to drip 5 gallons into 4 plants at once, not counting nute/water prep - I will look into preparing my water the day before the feed to streamline the process.

 

[MadeInUSA]

I have 3 fans (16inch on bottom pointing up, plus two 9 inch fans on sides about 1/2 way up the length of the poles)) to keep the air moving in the closed tent. This is a requirement to keep humidity lower. When I hit day 21, I will be giving my girls a haircut on the lower 1/2 of the plant to open her up to get light down to lower levels and allow better air circulation. The plant has been shedding her own leaves at a greater pace since I flipped to flower, I have been picking up a sandwich bag 1/2 filled each time I go to water or feed.

 

[MadeInUSA]

Noticed some light burn going on some stems closest to light. Raised the light so it is 13 inches from the highest cola (had to take lights up 3 inches), this MH CREE 256 is pretty intense light. With this light I would recommend the light be kept in the 16-18 inch range above the general canopy level and no closer than 13 inches from any cola. That is my experience with full time CO2 anyway. I may need to get another trellis or move the one that 1 have in place now up. I can tell growth height will be an issue long term.

 

[Tony Urban]

Very nice looking plants! I am growing 1 Blue Dream myself and it's a very strong plant with good structure. Can't wait to see her full on flower.

Nice work so far!

 

[MadeInUSA]

Have been on flower now for 17 days, have made very good progress in flower so decided to start on some lower plant cleanup. Spent 1.5 hours clearing all the lower 1/3 of the 4 plants. Will take a pic next time I'm in. Was surprised how much that lower 1/3 growth stacks up down there, and the bag of material removed. I see why its done. I had to stop cutting after 1.5 hours as it was nighttime for the plants and probably best not to go nuts all at once but to spread it out. Next time I am down there I will be looking at removing strategic fan leaves higher up in the canopy that are covering bud sites.

I moved my lights up 2 more inches, so the highest cola is 13 inches from lights, and base canopy is 18. This MARS CREE 256 is very intense, and my previous backing away did the plants some good. I'm thinking too much concentrated light can be rough on those closest to it.

It is obvious to me that I will need to move my light eventually around the curve of my exhuast fan/carbon filter at the ceiling to gain another foot or so of growth. I will put in place the new zip ties on the tent ceiling to be used in the future for this light move in the next few days. This action will prevent me from having to react to a situation later. I will keep the lights central in the tent for as a long as possible and only move it if I have to. I am thinking I have 8 weeks left to flower (for a 10 week flower period of Blue Dream)

 

[MadeInUSA]

I finished up on giving the girls their (flower 21 day) defoliate trim, and gave them their RO water/CalMag, this time with Granny's Molasses mixed in at a rate of 1 tablespoon per gallon. I will be adding Granny's from now on on water only days until harvest. It's looking like the canopy is starting to even out after 18 days in flower...the lower flowers are starting to grow faster than the main colas are, so hope I am done with the stretch. I'm guessing I have about 8-9 weeks left but the plants will tell me when they are ready. I'm hoping the trim will not shock them too much. I tried tucking alot of fan leaves (instead of cutting them) and did my best not to cut any but after awhile due to air circulation reasons or for having them covering bud sites I cut what I left was needed yet there are still a ton of leaves still left - IMO almost too many still.

 

[MadeInUSA]

Sorry about the blurpurple, next time around I'll put the light out

 

[Frozenntime]

Subbed

 

[MadeInUSA]

Did my usual nute feed today, with molasses. Did some research, will be adding ChaChing and Beastie Bloomz to their diet on next nute cycle, in addition to the FF Trio and Boomerang + Molasses they get now. It appears the top bud has grown several inches since last week and wish they'd stop growing up and would instead thicken up on bud sites lol. Researching strains I have growing they each have their own flower times, one is 8-9 weeks, the other 2 are 10-11 weeks, and the last one is 11-12 weeks, per the seed folks. Little stressed on that as I dont know how I am going to harvest, I dont have a 2nd tent to hang dry them in and am thinking of going box dry with fan, if the harvest period gets stretched out. Another part of me says to harvest when they all hit cloudy and go with it, even if some of the early ones hit amber.
Much better photos this time! Ran a little late on my feed and got some good ones that wont hurt peoples eyes with the blurple lol
These are pics in day 22 of flower

 

[MadeInUSA]

Subbed

Welcome aboard Frozenntime!

 

[Tony Urban]

Yeah looking good, starting to fill out

I am going to be in the same boat as far as finish times. I plan on doing some hang dry then into paper bags before letting them cure with the slow and low method in my beer fridge. Should be ok.