Stanks Go Perpetual In 2018!

[Van Stank]

Today is another recovery day here in Stankville. We're going to let the back rest another day before we get rolling on the next few raised beds out in the garden.

Not a lot to do in the indoor garden today. Gotta start brewing another batch of ACT, but aside from possibly needing to water the girls in flower.....there isn't much to do. No scheduled updates so I decided to snap a couple pics while I was up in the tent. Nothing great but a few single shots of each strain except Stankberry (since it got its update yesterday).

I do have to whip up another batch of Stank Soil this week. Perhaps I will swing by the grow store tonight and grab a brick of coco, a bag of EWC, a bag of Humus, and 2 bales of Roots Organics. Gotta look at my remaining perlite and see if I need anymore. I just gotta get everything mixed up and cooking.

Any who....here are a couple shots of where the tent is today.

043018 Tent.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

043018 Tent 1.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

The Blue Dream

043018 Blue Dream.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

Jack Herer Auto

043018 Jack Herer Auto.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

Nukehead #1

043018 Nukehead 1.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

Nukehead #2

043018 Nukehead 2.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

043018 Nukehead 2 2.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

and Harlequin

043018 Harlequin1.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

043018 Harlequin 2.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 30, 2018

 

[Killerbudz]

Stankberry Flip Day 44, Day 37 With Hairs

We are getting to the fun time here gang. Those colas are sway and starting to lean. I squeezed a cola for the first time and WOW....dense dense dense dense!!! So much denser than growing under the previous lights. She is smelling so deliciously berry now. I had Ms Stank give her a squeeze and then she sniffed her fingers....she was pretty impressed with the fruity berry scent.

I may have to give the main 4 colas some support in its final couple weeks. Not really sure what to expect for a harvest time. Mom strain was a 55-65 day strain, Dad was a 70-75 day strain so I am guessing 60-70. She is going to fatten up A LOT before then. I have been treating her with ground malted barley, and according to @bobrown14 that will reduce the flower time a bit. Her bigger fan leaves are giving everything back to her now.

She got another drink of 1/2 ACT and 1/2 water with touch of Cal Mag today (about a gallon). I am giving her everything she wants at this point but its tougher to listen to her as she is winding down and leaves are starting to turn.

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 1.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 2.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 3.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 4.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 5.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 6.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 7.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 8.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 9.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 10.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 11.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 12.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 13.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 14.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

042918 Stankberry Flip Day 44 Day 37 With Hairs 15.jpg

• Van Stank
• Apr 29, 2018

How many gerbil wangs is this? Like 2,000.....

 

[Blew Hiller]

Stop by TS and get you a Farm Cart!

 

[InTheShed]

That would be nice accomplishment to add to the resume.....but gotta impress the staff to get that one.

I dunno Van, bug in the ear or not (and no offense to Pt), I was surprised by last month's choice.

 

[Van Stank]

Like I said, gotta impress the staff.

Honestly brother, I do this more for my own sanity than anything. Before I hurt my back, I traveled for work and generally put in about 70-90 hours a week (many times I have clocked over 100 hours in a week). I love to work and stay active.

I don't have that ability anymore....doing 3 hours of work in the outdoor garden has me out of action for 2 days. So to not go insane and keep myself challenged, the effort that went into my normal work week now goes into this site, this journal, and learning as much as I can about this amazing plant.

I don't set out to try and win these contests. That doesn't mean I don't try to do the absolute best at whatever it is that I am doing.....but I do it because that's how I approach life. If I am cooking ribs, I want to make the best freaking ribs I can make.....not to win an award, but because thats how I am wired. Everything I do is a competition with my self....no one else. Growing, journaling, cooking, making soil, playing video games, shooting, playing sports.....I don't care, I want to be able to look in the mirror and say "yep, I gave it everything I had"

So as nice as it would be to win a Journal of the Month, I am much more satisfied knowing I do the best I can in our journal and that it can offer help to the other people out there. That is joy and satisfaction I get from doing what I do and spending the countless hours I do on here. This place is my outlet.....especially when Ms Stank is at work. I need challenges and stimulation or I would seriously go nuts....especially in the winter time.

Now that its starting to warm up, I have access to the outdoor garden and that tends to elevate my spirits. The outdoors is slowly becoming an outlet again for me!

 

[InTheShed]

Oh no Van, I didn't mean you wanted to win or were looking for a win. I was just wondering how last month's journal got chosen (with the limited info, techniques, plants, and subscribers) compared to something like this one. I haven't subbed to all the JOTMs, but I understood why Joe and Bign won. Just thinking out loud.

 

[Van Stank]

Can't say I haven't thought the same thing many times over with some of the journals I have seen win when compared to some of the journals out there that share so much good info (@Asesino85 for the coco growers is just one that pops into mind) that in my opinion were more deserving. (no offense to anyone that has won)

And don't get me wrong, while I don't really care about winning.....it would be awesome to win.

 

[beez0404]

Assuming the plant cooperates with me, I intend to do 16 tops.

So you topped the end of the branch going right and the branch going left correct? When they become 4 tops after they split will they be the first 4 of the final tops? Will they go out at roughly a 90 degree angle from the right and left main branches?

 

[beez0404]

That would be nice accomplishment to add to the resume.....but gotta impress the staff to get that one.

I bet if you were to mainline a Stankberry and have 16 colas like those three you'd impress more then just the staff. I just saw the latest photos of those things.

 

[Van Stank]

Quarterly Lessons Learned

I have been planning on doing a lessons learned with this journal but I don't want to wait until the end of the year to do it. So we decided that we would do a quarterly Lesson Learned instead of just a final one.

1. Soil pH can change as it sets depending on what amendments you use. Ours rose up a bit while it sat for a few months. I am going to take a look at a few amendments that can cause up swings and look at the ratios and the possibility of finding an alternative amendment or changing the amounts (working on testing methods to determine all this....will update as we progress).

The end game for me is having a soil with a great pH, which I can go from start to finish with water only (preferably without any adjusting any water pH). Now if I had decent water....not this 9.2 bullshit tap water....it might be possible even with my soils slightly elevated pH right now. We will get there.

I am also hoping that with the recent additions of vermi-composting, the soil will get better as well keep using it.

2. Listen to the plants. I approached this perpetual with an idea in mind and I did my best to make the plants fit those plans. Things don't always work the way we want, despite what we do to try to make it work. If the plants are showing you that they aren't happy in their container, listen to them. Have a plan but be flexible cause if your plan isn't working, you better be able to adjust on the go.

If you are in hard pots, take advantage of that and look at your roots. If the plant is root bound....listen to her and give her more room. I like using hard pots in veg for that reason. I can just pull the plant out and take a quick glance. It goes a long way to listen to them.....don't be stubborn like me.

3. Bigger pots make things easier if you are using soil. More soil means more forgiveness to the plant. Its more likely you will have the stuff you need for your plant in a 10 gallon pot than in a 3 gallon pot.

You have to understand that many of the nutrients in the plants are 'mobile' nutrients. That means the plant can move those nutrients as needed and move them from plant part to plant part. Take the time to start learning about some of your macro and micro nutrients. Regardless if you do that, if you grow in soil....the bigger the pot, the easier go your plant will have (assuming you are using decent stuff). More roots means bigger shoots.

I see a healthier plant in my two strains growing in 10 gallon pots. The most issues I have experienced are in my smallest pot (5 gallon pot).

4. Pace yourself if you are doing a perpetual. We went from nothing growing for a month to starting the perpetual and I probably made a couple choices I shouldn't have made. I dropped 2 Nukeheads, then followed that up with 2 Harlequins and 2 Stankberries (the harley and stanks were regular seeds so I dropped two).

The original plan of Stanks Perpetual was to drop a new bean roughly every 2 weeks. Space any regular seed strains out so they aren't bunched up and you have multiple males around at the same time. I would have been better off staggering regulars (I drop two beans when I do regulars to account for potential males) between 3 feminized plants to ensure I don't have too many plants going at once.

I have slowed down a little to clear the backlog that I have in the flower tent. I am dropping every 3 weeks and I am skipping one week due to the Blue Dream clone. No harm done and we will be good once we harvest the Stankberry and the Nukehead.

5. Change or clean your external filter on your carbon filter if you use them. They can get filthy (especially if you breed in the tent) and when that happens it restricts your air flow. My personal recommendation is buy a spare external filter and change them every 6 months. You can wash them and reuse them. Having the spare just makes it easier.

You can also flip the flange on your carbon filter and extend the life of your carbon filter by doing that. Also watch your carbon filter if you use a humidifier in a grow tent. That can cause it to not work efficiently or even at all if you let it get to humid in the grow area.

The plants definitely love the higher humidity in veg but that high humidity can play hell on your filter, so be careful and don't let it get too high. If you are up over 65% RH with a carbon filter, you are setting yourself up for a filter failure. I had to replace mine from learning the hard way.

6. Be careful when dealing with pollen......right @Chris Scorpio. We have been extremely cautious this grow since we are doing a little pollen chucking right now. It doesn't take much to cause some big issues.

a. Change your clothes and shower after dealing with a flowering male. Don't take any chances.
b. Keep your spaces as far apart if possible.
c. Keep a spray bottle near your flowering tent....spray as soon as you open the flaps (lightly...you just want to neutralize any pollen that might find its way into the tent.
d. Accidental pollination is going to occur if you do the pollination in your flower tent....so don't do it there, go somewhere with no air flow.
e. Best to use clones to breed. Why take the chance of more seeds than you want on a plant you don't want a lot of seeds on.....take a clone of the male and the female and let them do their business in a tent all by themselves. Once they are done.....spray the freaking hell out of the female with water (a few times over....water deactivates or neutralizes pollen) so that the fans in the flower tent don't blow any residual pollen onto some of the other flowering plants. After you have sprayed them (a few times), you can move the impregnated female back into the main flowering tent.

Summary

1. Check your soil pH if its been sitting for a while
2. Listen to the plants
3. Bigger pots if you can swing it....less problems and more yield
4. Pace yourself on perpetual or it will get out control quickly
5. Do some preventative maintenance on your equipment (specifically your filters and fans)
6. Pollen can be a pain so plan accordingly.

I am sure we forgot some....and I will add any we remember.

No smoke reports on any of the strains at this point.

 

[Van Stank]

So you topped the end of the branch going right and the branch going left correct? When they become 4 tops after they split will they be the first 4 of the final tops? Will they go out at roughly a 90 degree angle from the right and left main branches?

Yes....thats correct Beez.....I was having a hard time trying to verbalize the correct way to describe it.

 

[InTheShed]

Quarterly Lessons Learned

Excellent Van. Thank you.

 

[Ms Stank]

Boner....erm, I mean bonus lesson 7: It is mandatory for Ms Stank to wear a tight white t-shirt when getting sprayed down.

 

[InTheShed]

Boner....erm, I mean bonus lesson 7: It is mandatory for the ladies to wear a tight white t-shirt when getting sprayed down.

Not sure that's the best way to "deactivate" pollen!

 

[Van Stank]

Excellent Van. Thank you.

No problem brother. Hope my lessons can help others (and just maybe me too) just a bit.

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Boner....erm, I mean bonus lesson 7: It is mandatory for Ms Stank to wear a tight white t-shirt when getting sprayed down.

Ok, that's just wrong, in so many right ways

 

[Van Stank]

Boner....erm, I mean bonus lesson 7: It is mandatory for Ms Stank to wear a tight white t-shirt when getting sprayed down.

Yes! This!

 

[Van Stank]

Not sure that's the best way to "deactivate" pollen!

Maybe not....but it's certainly the most fun!!

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Yes! This!

Wangs and wet t-shirts

Yup, pretty good day at Stank Genetics

I'd say

 

[MaddHacker]

Wet T shirt contest, guess you gotta be in on the first couple of pages to get invited to that huh... # dang