Black Domina & Hash Plant Grow Journal

[Immortalized]

Nutrient mix went a bit wrong fed them at 1600ppm again… Was supposed to be 1200ppm so a few of them not going to get fed tomorrow they are looking like they are maxed out and no wonder they had two feedings per day loading them up for the past week. I will be feeding the ones that look like they need feeding but the rest are going to get PH water on day 18 but slightly worried with the high dosage…

That why you always test your solution mixes before water your plant not after the fact… Anyways corrected that issue as of now still frustrating none the less and I could just flush and leave it at that but they should be able to take another high dosage but that about all 4-5 be able to take for the next 48 hours the other four they need more feeding surprising me at how hungry they are for nutes.

Pictures incoming shortly.

[Immortalized]

I have more pictures but it doesn’t want to transfer at the moment so that it for today in terms of pic for day 17.
You can see how green the Black Domina have gotten and how it been growing it doesn’t like the light as much as the Hash Plant or can process as much nutes as the Hash Plant but it is still growing at a good pace regardless.

I do have to stop feeding some of the plant and give water from tomorrow but the other plants need it nutes. For now though you are updated. If you see the different shades of green in them you can see how they are all different shades even though been within the same strain too but when you move over to the next strain they feed more or less and it come out. Pretty funky colors when you really look deeply that the camera doesn’t really capture that well it is darker then it appears it is actually a shade lighter if it was how it looks in the camera I be backing off nutes a lot.

In saying that the yellow is actually a yellow not the light green you see for one of the Hash Plant it just feeding hard so I’ve move it to the side now since it was directly under the light for the past three days and growing wild if you remember the picture from day 12 that how much it came along in five days but they are gaining pace in growth and will continue to explode in growth now that they are getting full strength light and full strength nutrients.

It good the Hash Plant can handle intense lights means I can fish out my 1100w HPS aircooled light and blast it for flower. Which is a bit overkill for most plants as it causes bleaching and light burn but these Hash Plant look eager for some blasting! Black Domina falls within the average sensitivity for light it folds it leaf down when it get too much light it likes a bit of distance but trying to find a happy middle for them both until the 15th when I’ll be separating them and pairing up.

By light tolerance and nutrient uptake and some of the black domina are just as hungry as the hash plant so can throw them on the same feeding while the rest that can’t handle as much light and nutrient goes into group two. You just know each plant likes and dislikes in the first 2-3 weeks who going to be a strong performer and a champ but you really don’t know until you actually get them into flower. The game always changing.

[Immortalized]

Day 18

Been vegging for a few days now and taking in nutrients well still not full dose and most likely won’t ever be full dose since I don’t know anyone that going to be dosing at above 2500ppm in veg regularly. It like some three year old doing the calculations on the bottles for strength and going yep let just multiply everything up by a factor of three because you get three times the results!!

That the standard dosage and the aggressive dosage be over 6000ppm… I mean sure let put it up at 6000ppm and see what happen hey hahah. That the problem you get with nutrient companies that are made by people that just sit in labs all day without actually growing anything. Working off computer models and spreadsheets. Not real world at all.

Anyways getting sidetracked with my ranting hahah. I grow in giant cups for the first two weeks or so before moving to one gallon pots. Why not just do one gallon pots right away why spend the extra half hour changing pots at all? You get more choices firstly when you are in a smaller container size with feeding and watering since the plant uptake nutrients faster and the roots actually develop a bit faster too.

You use a lot less water and nutrients too which is money for more burgers not that you are using a lot of it in the first place been small plants but gives you the option of dealing with small things before they get complicated too… Oh yeah less medium too if you decide a plant isn’t performing or coming up really weird you can throw that out it less of a hassle throwing away gallons and gallons of medium compared to a relatively small amount.

You can fit more little plants in little pots under a single lighting fixture at a closer distance with a smaller space requirement for the first three weeks while they are growing out and developing their root structure. That are the reason I go small first before moving up and going up large cup, one gallon to three gallon pot size. From three gallon you can go up to whatever pot size you want from that point on wards the plant too big and too heavy with the soil to transplant happily unless you are keen on either hurting yourself or the plant in the process…

That it for potting for me and the Plants took the nutrients well yesterday even though been 1200ppm and 1600ppm feedings so going to stick with 1000ppm feeding for the rest for a day or two as they seem to have enough nutrient reserves and if one is demanding for more well too bad hahha they all getting the same amount until they in gallon size pots…

[Immortalized]

Please don’t take my nutrients meters and apply it to yours… I’m using left over nutrients that are pretty old and most likely lost a bit of it strength overtime or it could be these two strains been able to cope with higher amounts of uptake whatever the reasoning behind it been able to take above 1000ppm in the first 1-2 weeks of veg is not completely clear to me but I usually just work of observation of these plants and have had deficiency with them earlier in their life stage which yeah did surprise me since I really did fully expect to use straight PH water into the first two weeks like I always do but was getting all kind of drama so started dosing them at day ten.

at 1/4 then at 1/3 and I’m still at around 1/3 strength. I can guess half my plants will get burnt at 1/2 so I don’t go there the other half be fine except going with the weakest of the group at this point until I do group them out with the heavy feeders together but all the Hash Plants with my eye can see can take stable 1400-1600ppm everyday for the rest of it veg life. Probably even increase beyond that when it gets bigger.

Black domina varying a lot 1200-1500ppm but they both eat a lot. Anyone else feeding plants that high in week 1-2 of veg consistently? It pretty good info for someone else growing the same strains though hahah You want to feed them after the first week they come out of the ground at 1/4 solution don’t wait until they start going downhill it really stunts growth I’ve probably lost three if not four days.

[Immortalized]

Something funny happen today that I didn’t expect at all. Anyways mother was visiting and completely forgot about my small plants that I was growing. She likes to look around the house and do what mothers like to do and i was out the back relaxing she comes by next to me and say “oh you growing some tomatoes” Keeping a straight face but laughing on the inside thinking yeah I’ll really be growing tomatoes at the cost of a few dollars a day…

The nutrients i’m using at the levels I"m using i don’t think i would even want to be eating anything hahah. Just nodded my head and said yeah they tomatoes. She proceeded to say oh let me put them outside up front so they can get some natural sunlight and let me top them so they can get more branches… Yes she is an avid gardener and knows her gardening very well maybe I got my green thumb off her hahah.

Just something I thought I’ll share since my prized crop just got called tomatoes… It almost like I actually have to grow tomatoes now outside too haha or just go to the store and buy some organic tomatoes to give her the next time i see her

[AnneBonny]

That’s pretty funny. Your a good son.

[Immortalized]

Well thank you very much AB!

Day 19

Slight setback in terms of watering went 14 hours between watering and they didn’t like it at all as expected because I’ve been watering with different amounts every 12 hours that what you get with a high perlite to coco mix is that you have to water three time as much since perlite doesn’t really hold anything.

Leaf started sucking up on itself slightly so it probably started doing that 2-3 hours ago but now they are watered it usually takes them twice as long to get back to them happy self if not all day in that period you don’t actually get any growth since it just focusing on re-hydrating and pumping fluids back into itself the whole time.

That is the downside of going coco/perlite as you can never let the coco dry out and I don’t really care what anybody say about letting coco dry out for a few hours it never good for the plant and the plant likes it to have moisture in it especially when you are running a high perlite mix as it has plenty of drainage where the roots won’t get damaged or rot by excessive moisture or ever run out of oxygen since you are watering twice as often.

Despite watering twice daily they still got another 3-5 days plus to go before I go about transferring them into gallon pots where i won’t need to water them everyday and be twice daily now that I know how much each plant like to be fed be making two batches of nute mixes of different strength. With good quality nutrients you can premix them and they be fine and all I do is 50/50 with the premix nutrients into water.

Want a weaker or stronger mix pour less or more it too easy… There no drift in PH and there no drift in PPM as they are designed to be rock stable in a mix for over a week so as long as it is all used up under a week you got nothing to worry about…

I would not mix a hundred gallon container and mix from that after a week bad bacteria and whatever would start growing inside of it and you going to have all kind of PH issues just a few bottles so you are not always mixing every batch on every feed… This way it 2 seconds bam bam thank you ma’am.

[Immortalized]

Day 20

Tomorrow is transplanting day even though I wanted to wait until I got some root excellurator first which should be here around monday or tuesday but found a really good hydrostore that actually send stuff out right to the door and it actually cheaper then going in store to some of the other hydrostore in my area. By up to 15-40% price difference including delivery so with that much of a range makes zero sense for me to even drive anywhere since it be in my laps in under a week.

Pays to shop around and price it out and got a good lumen reader too not the cheap twenty dollar ones that are not accurate or phone app ones this one is like 70 dollars but accurate within a thousand not ten thousand which is pretty much worthless since it could be ten thousand higher or lower but that a lot of lumens and you could miss out on the sweet spot putting your lights too far back or too close burning the plants with intensity.

Move the plants down a bit from these light since I’m guessing the whole back of the hand thing doesn’t work since my hands don’t feel warmth and cold too well so that pointless and it doesn’t even feel like anything when i had them up about 10 inches thought they could handle the intensity since i had temperature probe and it read 75 but too much lumens they were getting stressed out so move it back two inches at 12 inches now.

Recommendations for 400w hps is 12-16 inch distance it packs so much lumans which is kinda surprising it almost like the same effect as having a 600w but that i keep over two feet away not even using it be bbq vegging plants and giving it light burn even at that range it more for flowering anyways stupid lights and it been too powerful not really that happy since i was going to be vegging what i thought be 18-24 under 400hps first three weeks or 30-35 under the 600hps.

Now it too much light for the tiny 3 week old plants well there not tiny but i always say tiny anything under one gallon. 13 plants 400w hps is overkill but that the smallest lights i have not worth it for me to get 250w since the price for a 400 and 250 is almost the same hahah. I got two 400w ballest and stuff anyways the other set just need a bulb. To me LED still too new and makes zero sense for me as I got full range of ballast and lights.

I haven’t really seen anything that impresses me that can even really beat my 1000w hps with a boost digital ballast up to 1100w getting the luman and penetrating power of that and i can get it touching the plants too since it aircooled. So even the whole getting it closer thing is irrelevant the only upside is power saving of 30-40% but i did the math on that as well…

I get all my stuff from people that quit growing for 1/3 and 1/2 price all in pretty much pristine condition for the price of a new LED i won’t ever break even hahaha. Plus I love my HPS lights that white and yellow glow oh so warm too. I pretty much just veg with my 400w and 600w systems and even flower through them but if it was a big grow I’ll bust out my 1000w beasts and they are really only operating 3-4 weeks max on a 12-12 cycle… A 1000w will light bleach a vegging plant if you don’t keep it over 3 foot away hahah but yeah makes no sense when you can just veg with 400-600w and those will light bleach too.

[Immortalized]

I think it ended up been 30/70 coco to perlite mix hahaha. That what happen when you measuring by eye into a large container but they are drinking over half a gallon a day now with three feeding and the things are supposed to hold altogether i would think at least a gallon…

No fun watering three times daily at all so that the reason I’m transplanting tomorrow they are getting more thirsty by the day and I don’t have enough coco in it since it turned into like full hydroponic but I’m the pump/reservoir hahah. I’ll aim for 70/30 coco/perlite mix now so hopefully that gets closer to 50/50 i’ve yet to resort to measuring it out by container just yet…

But that maybe the safer option because 13 plants 3x watering by hand every 8-10 hours or dead plants isn’t my ideal of relaxing coffee drinking logging exercise journal I’m looking for hahaha. I might as well setup my hydroponic equipment and go full hydro instead of semi… Yeah I got too much junk but that my hobby hahah

But I would need to go out and get some hoses and heads that i no longer got plus learning right now with their dosing/light requirements it only a good idea to go full hydroponics when you have a baseline of that strain so you can really dial it in without stressing the plants out but that something to look forward to for next grow journal!

Really to do with me getting back into the groove of things… One big mistake with full hydroponic you could wake up with everything dead or even if it isn’t your fault like power going out you don’t have a day… You got hours at best before they just kneel over haha.

[Immortalized]

Day 22

Didn’t end up transplanting yet and decided to fall back to what I was going to do which transplant after the weekend or the weekend yet to be determined. So does that mean I am hand-watering 3x a day?

Yes. I guess i want to watch the other plant grow up a bit since i know the plants i transplant going to have their second growth spurt been able to freely spread it roots out into the bigger pot… Choices choices and more choices… Life never is easy when a man have so many choices in front of him!

Especially when I found out the sweet spot for my overkill 400hps light that acting a bit like a 600hps since it putting off so much light and not really any heat that the plants are getting overdose with light and running around from the lights at 12-14 inches…

Got them back at 18-20 inches they are fussy plants but nutrients locked down they are nice and green with the only nute burn is me missing the underneath of the pot and hitting the green leafs. You have to wipe the leaf of any spillage over the leaf as the nutrients too strong it causes burns within a day or two in direct contact of the leaf.

Easing off the dosage now they are all pretty much up to capacity nutrient storage it took a whole week and some plant a bit over a week until they were in their “happy zone” when you get to that zone you can drop off the concentration or you’ll stunt growth or worst burn the plants with nutrients they grow best when you give them enough.

I guess the next round of photos be when I transplant them since it hasn’t quite been a week yet since the last photos. I got my light reading meter on the way so we going to see how much lumans this bad boy light is putting out that is making the plant run away from it haha.

[Immortalized]

Day 24

I guess I can take some pictures today before the transplanting in the next day or two. They are picking up pace somewhat while others growing slow but for the most part for day 24 since they gotten out from seed it not a bad result and if I could do things a little differently in the past three weeks would be to keep the light distance further away!

My node spacing are super close since I kept them pretty close to the light with them stretching zero in height I got about the world shortage nodes spacing which I’ll be slowly fixing in the next two weeks to let them stretch out a bit but you’ll see them in the photos when I take them. I guess it not bad having dwarf plants hahah.

Don’t have to worry about height which I wasn’t concern about anyways got space for 5-6 foot. These won’t be getting more than four foot by the looks of things maybe five including the pot. I’ll show the leaf burns with nutrients added water going on them and what kind of damage it does for those that are interested too.

Light still a bit too powerful even at 16-18 inches away but keeping it there. Only two or three of the plants have a major problem with it the others are coping and hopefully adjust to the intensity as they develop more and grow a bit bigger. Point in case vegging plants need very little light compared to flowering plants unless you got CO2 enrichment.

My defense is that I was expecting at least twenty plants and up to 30 plants under this 400w HPS in which case that would of been the perfect amount of lighting and all the plants be super happy but 13 plants it completely overkill for the first month of it life.

[Immortalized]

Moving on the plan is to keep using the 400w until I start taking clones off both strains the best of those clones been mothers while the rest are going to be thrown away on the black domina side after sex is determined to be stable in which case will only be growing from clone hash plant this year with it short flowering period of 45 days compared to 55 days on the black domina.

Desiring this cycle to end by december. They are under 24/7 lighting so hopefully they transition into flowering super quick when given 12/12 cycle or else we going to go into December but it not the end of the world hahah. Plants starting to give off some scent so they are well and truly into veg.

If they really start smelling this week and next week going to have to bust out that carbon filter onto low speed. Plus side to this is that only going to be using 400w lighting and one 600w lighting maybe two later for the most part of it only switching to 1000w in the final weeks if needed and might not even need it in which case three 600w will cover the footprint and give it all the lighting it needs and can handle.

Would love to use more lights and more powerful lights but no point if the plants are small too small. It be like dying from intensity hahah. Do a lot more harm than good.

[Immortalized]

Straight PH water for the past two days only had one feeding today. Drinking 3/4 gallons per day it about time to be transplanting into their gallon pots at least for nine of them. Apart from spilling nutrients on the leaf and not wiping it off and light intensity they seem to be doing pretty well.

Even though they are like bonsai size with the node spacing. Doesn’t help to wonder how big they are supposed to be after three weeks either but we’ll see after another two weeks of Veg how much bigger they get and it another 3 weeks of veg for the hash plant. All I know is they are getting bigger then the cups that they are in.

You can see one that is a bit mutated and freaky but growing alright just a bit of a mutant with it leaf structure and it is a black domina but not uniformed like the others at all. That it for the update, have a good rest of the weekend.

[Immortalized]

Day 25

Today I got my new lux meter that very accurate and just as I figured… My 400w hps is completely overkill it within the ballparks of a weak 600w. At 16 inches away putting out 70 thousand lux which as many smart people would know is about as high as you want to go for flowering… At 18-20 inches it is still over 50 thousand lux.

I guess I got too much light hahah. No wonder the plants are running away from the light and some of them are folding down and to think at one point I had them up 12 inches away… Close to 80 thousand Lux. You know what this is my fault entirely since I read on the internet at 12 inches away a will only give you 53 thousand lux which is still too much light.

I really believed it now I got this lux meter that accurate within 5% I know now that a load of BS.

Mainly bought it so I can test my old equipment if they are still performing within acceptable standards and they seem to be performing over standard which is good but messing up my plants since my tent only has so much height. Could be worst I guess and the plants be light burnt.

First Application of Roots Excelurator and really good ratio at about 1mil per gallon only drama is how do you measure that out even haha so doing it by the bottle tipping it slowly counting drops… All in all good start of the week

Light Requirements of “High Energy” Plants

Amount of lux Plant Growth
1000 – 5000 lux Min. necessary for life
10000 – 15000 lux Min. necessary for consistent but sparse growth
20000 – 25000 lux Min. necessary for robust growth
25000 – 30000 lux Max. Efficiency for Sub Tropical varieties
25000 – 50000 lux Max. Efficiency for Equatorial varieties

Seems to correlate well with what I know for vegging flowers without me going into a thousand words essay. For flowering in my personnel opinion I would go by 50000 lux to 75000 lux without CO2 enrichment with you have to be providing over 70000 lux to get any kind of growth benefit at all or just wasting $$.

Activity Lux Footcandles
Direct Sunlight 32000–100000 lux 2300 - 9300 (approx) foot candles aka lumans
Daylight (not sun) 10000–25000 lux 930 - 2300 (approx) foot candles/lumans

2018 C02 right after I dial in my full hydroponic. So the plants can finally use some more light. Their is so much misinformation on the internet with trolls that pretend to grow but never grown anything in their lives and when you see anyone saying you need ten thousand PAR or footcandles he doesn’t know anything.

The plant can’t process that amount of light even with CO2 enrichment and you just going to get stressed out plant with light burns. In the end it is ultimately our own responsibility to protect our own plants by doing all the calculations ourselves and not relying on 3rd party advice since that could cost you yield/quality.

I know some of you are going to go right… I thought my plants can handle more light? I do have some findings from other people but I really do think it a bit high since I’m blasting them at 70 thousand lux right now and just by eye and you can see it in the photos I taken it about 10-20 thousand too much.

Anyways without further explanation higher estimates and ranges. Take everything with a bottle of salt

Quick Guide - Lux Levels for Optimal Cannabis Growth

Life Stage Maximum Good Minimum
Vegetative 70,000 lux 40,000 lux 15,000 lux
Flowering 85,000 lux 60,000 lux 35,000 lux
< 15,000 lux - sparse or “stretchy” growth - plant isn’t getting enough light
15,000 - 50,000 lux - good amount of light for healthy vegetative growth
45,000 - 65,000 lux - optimal amount of light for cannabis plants in the flowering (budding) stage
70,000 - 85,000 lux - a lot of light, some strains do okay at this light level, but some plants lose their top leaves early under this light intensity, especially plants that are not resistant to heat/light (like many indicas)

85,000 lux - at this light intensity, you’ve hit the plant’s “saturation point” which means your plant can’t use all the light

[bob31]

Interested to see what numbers you get. @Immortalized

[Immortalized]

What numbers you talking about? If you mean final yield it anyone guess hey hahah Depends how much they grow for the rest of veg and flower and two different strains with flowering periods. Can’t do much else right now with environment dialed in and lights at max with nutrients too. Got to wait for them to grow. I reckon I would get around 0.8-1gpw since I’m not expanding a lot of lights or power but all in the genetics in the end.

Not currently able to use any higher power lights yet until they take up more space and get bigger since they are still getting light saturated. Another factor is that these are regulars with male/female. Confident it going to be a good run nevertheless though since it almost is a month into it at this point in time

I guess the post I was explaining it in got a bit confusing with all the lux, lumen/footcandles talk hahah

[bob31]

I meant what readings you get with your lux meter under your lights. It looks like you already measured tho?

[Immortalized]

Yeah i was wondering what you were asking yeah it was 70 000 lux at 16 inches from the top of the canopy and 50 000 at the bottom. At 12 inches it was over 80 000 possibly higher anyways the plants didn’t like it that close.

Which I thought be around 50 000 since it a 400w hps and wondering why the plants weren’t liking the light so I move them down 16-18 inches away just by looking at it in which case wanted to confirm it with the lux meter and yeah results.

@bob31 How your going so far?

[bob31]

Outta Likes for 3 hours!

I’ve been saying for 6 months I was going to get a lux meter… I gotta stop procrastinating!

I’m good and so is garden! I have hurrican jose heading our way. Not going to make land but we can get 40-70 mph winds so I’m gonna have to squeeze my outdoor gorilla glue into the tent for a day or so.

[Immortalized]

Yeah helps you understand how much your plant can take for more gains or if you giving them too much hahah without spending days in my case a week wondering why they are running away from the light. With the lux meter make sure it within 5% accuracy they sell a lot of cheap ones that are 10% which I think is too much going up and down hahah

Yeah that a good idea… You don’t want flying plants hahah