Main Cabinet Evolution

[PhotoFinisH]

Beginning Week 8 since the flip.

Yesterday I reduced the light intensity from 75% to 50%, & also physically lowered it to reach a slightly lower PPFD & DLI.

Went from 1400ppfd at the top of the tallest bud to around 900, & from around 1000ppfd across the rest of the top of the canopy to around 800. The corners are a little dimmer. Also reduced the UVA puck from 8 hours on in the middle of the day, to 4 hours. Also reduced the far-red puck from 3 minutes on at the beginning of the dark cycle, to 1 minute. I thought I had already turned that down to 2 minutes from 3 minutes, but I guess not. Also have been keeping the PPMs down to around 700 before add-back, & 600 after. I’ll do a full res change tomorrow to get onto the Week8 nute ratios, & probably cut the PPMs to 600 before addback, & 500 after.
Plant has been drinking between 3/4 & 1 gallon per day.
Ambient conditions are getting warmer, but not bad enough to warrant hucking my AC into the window just yet. Lights-on is still at night, so running my whole-house fan is enough to keep my main temp exhaust fan satisfied. Ambient RH is higher at night, so my anti-humidity exhaust fan will likely be running most of the time, which helps slightly to keep the temps down. But RH in the box will probably be higher than it has been, as the season changes. For example, tonight, a storm blew through. I also increased my oscillating fan on-time by a minute to 4 minutes on/2 off to increase air circulation throughout the plant. Next run I’ll go back to lights-on during the day for the potentially lower RH.
Thermpro (at height of top of tallest bud), (Ignore the big RH spike at 8pm on the chart, I momentarily lost power) :

Couple pics from a couple days ago:
One of the side-buds:

One of the lower buds:

Starting to pluck fan leaves off from below, as they die off. Also will probably start removing some of the larger & more yellow fans up top, depending on how they look going forwards.

[PhotoFinisH]

Main Cab update, heading into Week9 since flipping to 12/12.
Staying on the Week8 nute schedule with a fresh res-change today, but cutting PPM down to 400 going in, & we’ll see where it ends up in the morning.
I’ve been defoliating as the leaves fade, & repositioning floppy stalks. I’ve been getting some foxtailing, & I raised the light a couple clicks a couple days ago, & again after taking pics today. I also shut off the FR puck at the beginning of this week.

Thermpro from near the top: Lights-on temps are down since turning down the light to 50%. Humidity is up a little due to the lower temps & also ambient conditions. Lights-on leaf temps have been running around 10f lower than air temps. Bud temps have been running about 4f higher than the leaf temps.

Watching the trichs, & for signs of any bud-rot or mildew. Probably needs to go another couple weeks. One of the lower stalks fell over last night, & the easiest thing to do was chop it off. Most of the lower third of the plant will probably go towards bubble-hash.

[PhotoFinisH]

Main Cab update, heading into week 10 since flipping to 12/12:
I’ve been doing a lot of defoliating to remove yellowing leaves & to let light get deeper into the canopy. Also I’ve been raising the light bit by bit, but still had issues with foxtails wanting to pop out. Also could be due to an excess potassium ratio, but the buds getting the most light seem to have the most problems with foxtails growing. The tallest one is the worst, & the rest aren’t as bad. Some are barely there. But I might have been giving it too much ArmorSi, & maybe too much PH Up, which both have a lot of potassium in them. Had a couple warmer days & pH crashes along the way, which probably didn’t help with the foxtails. PPM has been running around 400 to 450 for the week. Did a full res change & gave it 500ppm from a little extra epsom salt for the sulfur flavor, & I’ll dilute it back down to 400 tomorrow with the top-off, & probably keep it around there for the next week.

Underneath still hanging in there:

Upper calyx trichs are just starting to show an amber here & there, lower buds are further behind. I might be able to chop her down by the end of the week, unless it looks like she needs a little more & can do it without rotting or molding. Either way the lowers will probably be a little under-done, but I don’t want to keep this one going for much longer or do a staggered harvest:

Thermpro, past 24h:

Thermpro, past week. No A/C needed yet, but had a couple warmer days & also had to adjust my air temp exhaust fan height & setting after tinkering with the light height, to get it back down to around 80f. :

[PhotoFinisH]

I’m seeing waves of amber trichomes developing across the upper buds over the past couple days, so I’m going to chop her down within the next 24 to 48 hours.

This bud has the worst foxtails:

Most of the rest of them are more like this:

Some of them aren’t as bad:

Some buds a little further down. The stuff at the bottom will be going towards bubble-hash:

Thermpro near the top of the tallest buds: During lights-on the hottest buds have been running around 78f, the hottest leaves around 73f.

The bucket has been running at around 450 PPM on the week9 ratio, before topping off daily with 1/2 - 3/4 gallon RO water + 5ml h2o2 & 2ml SM90, & PPM moves down to 400-420. pH usually needs to be brought up, & then maintained after 12 hours. I’ll stick it at 6.4 with around 30 or 40 drops of pH up, & within 12 hours or less it will reach 5.5, & I’ll adjust it back up again before the light goes off. It’ll be back down to around 5.5 when the light turns on again & I go to top off the bucket. I don’t mind the swing since it’s within the suggested range of the nutes, but it might be getting too much potassium ratio from the pH-up. Small DWC buckets can be like this.

[PhotoFinisH]

Chop-chop:

Filled 3 1/2 sticks:

Roots:

Reclaiming my lava rocks:

Going to enjoy a few days of not having a plant in the Main Cab, as I prep for the next round.

[Low]

Very nice run once again! Congrats on the chop.

[PhotoFinisH]

Thank you. I’m glad it didn’t hermie like the strain from the last two runs, & I was able to determine that the new heater setup is much better. Next run should be loaded within the next few days.

[Low]

Been following you for quite a while and I appreciate the time and effort you put into this and the info you share. It’s very valuable @MadamCalamity check this out

[PhotoFinisH]

Thanks, just trying to keep it real. Next round might go in the bucket tomorrow. Window A/Cs are in & running. Currently working on balancing temps & RH before I stick them in there:

[MadamCalamity]

Awesome journal! Love how detailed it is. You’ve had some beautiful runs! Executed beautifully

Thanks @Low for the tag

[PhotoFinisH]

Thank you, hoping to continue to fine-tune & also try some more experiments along the way. The last run has probably been my best so far, including anything I’ve done in the past with my 250w HPS Agro bulb. I’d still only give myself a C- on it, but I’m still pretty happy with it.

Time to clip off some fan-leaves. Everything is still soft enough so that the trichomes are not falling off with every little bump:

Trim goes to bubble-hash:

Buds will get a final trim when it’s time to jar them for curing:

[PhotoFinisH]

Time to drop two clones into the bucket:

Trimmed the roots first:

Second one:

In they go:

They’re getting more light & nutes than before, plus it’s a little warmer in here. Let’s see if they go into shock or not.

Thermpros: I raised the air temp fan sensor after planting to be even with the tops of the plants, so the cab will probably end up running cooler than the past 24 hours because the sensor is in warmer air now & might just run the fan constantly instead of cycling like it had been. I’ll let it stabilize & I’ll see where it ends up, & adjust the setting if necessary.

Cab Ceiling:

Near light:

Screen-level:

Bucket lid:

Lung-room ambient: I might need to make the A/C a degree or two cooler over the next couple days, as it is supposed to get hot out.

[PhotoFinisH]

Quick update: Plant on the left has been a little behind the plant on the right.

They both had leaf temps about a degree or two below air temps for about a day or two after transplanting, due to shock & having their roots pruned. Stomatas were closed up. The one on the right showed slightly faster/ better initial root-growth, & started to transpire more & shed leaf temps earlier, & has been running about 2f cooler than the plant on the left. They both have been dropping their leaf temp offsets by about 1.5f a day, & the plant on the left is now around 8f lower than surrounding air temps, & the right plant is around 10f lower than the air temp. I’m expecting the leaf temp offset on the right plant to stabilize around where it is now ( -10f offset), & for the left plant to catch up in terms of leaf temps within the next couple days. Oscillating fans are timed to cycle for 4 minutes on, 2 minutes off.

Res-change today: PPM was around 500 at transplant, & fell to 400 by today. I was letting it fall. pH ran down from around 6.2 at transplant, to around 5.9 last night, & was down to 5.5 today. PPM after res change was 500, & I’ll see if it can handle staying there. pH 6.1 after res change.

Thermpro at screen-level: After about a day of the tight leaf offsets, I raised the air temp exhaust fan sensor some more & was able to drop cab temps a little more, without having a run-away fan or having to lower the A/C.
Now that they are starting to transpire normally, I’m also starting to trim RH by lowering the target RH on the controller for the anti-humidity exhaust fan. Ambient RH has been mostly very high lately.

Plants are only getting around 300 PPFD. They’ll be in 350 at the top of the screen. I’m running the veg channel at 50% (around 80w), & the bloom channel at 25% (around 15w), so there are some IR & FR photons that my meter isn’t seeing from the bloom channel. I’ll probably turn up the bloom channel to 50% soon.

[PhotoFinisH]

Started to trim up the buds for jarring, & found some trace cobwebs of mold/ mildew starting to develop on a couple of them where their stalks joined the main stalks, so I made the call to strip everything from the mains & send it all to the bubble bags. I did weigh the stripped bud, & had around 14.5 ounces with no stems, although there were some sugar leaves & small shade leaves that would not have been there if I had final-trimmed & cured the buds. Also some of that was larfy bud. I probably would have had around 10 ounces of jarred bud, & the rest would have gone to hash. Now it all went to hash, & I also had the couple bags of shade leaves to throw in also. I did three runs by splitting up the shredded buds into two fresh runs, & then I combined the remains & the shade leaves for a third run. I added about half a cup of H2O2 to the ice water at the beginning of the first two runs to try kill any mold or whatever had started to grow on the buds.

160 micron: First run, second run, third run.

73 micron:

25 micron:

Did a bunch of defoliating about a week ago, & started the flip a couple days ago. From 24/0, I Showed them 10 hours of dark the first night into a 14 hour day, then moved to 11 hours of dark the second night into a 13 hour day, which is where I will try to keep it. Tonight I added in the Far Red puck at lights-out, for 1 minute. I’ll keep adding a minute to that for each of the next couple dark periods. The leaves are showing signs of what I think is a Ca deficency, which makes sense because I replaced my old RO filter cartridge which was letting about 70ppm through, but I did not up my cal/mag. I have now upped it, & most of those damaged leaves are going to be defoliated soon anyway. Still on “week4” nute ratio, but PPM is up to around 600-650 with the bump up in calmag, & I started to add some silica as well. pH has been running around 6.1.

I needed to raise the light to get a good spread out of the FR puck, so I had to turn up both main light channels to 75% in order to maintain good DLI. If the FR experiments work out, I would probably look for a setup with a better spread so I could run it with the main light lower & dialed down to 50%. But for now it is fine since I am still interested in experimenting with the FR puck.

[PhotoFinisH]

After around 10 or 12 days of my experiment, the plants had stretched slightly & looked like they wanted to flower a little bit…

…but they hadn’t responded as quickly as they probably would have just going right into 12/12 without the FR puck, so I turned it off & went to 12/12 around four days ago. Here they are today after a major defoliation & pruning of lower leaves, branches & bud-sites:

PPM around 750, pH 5.8 to 6.1. Nute ratio is the ‘Week1’ flowering ratio from the GH light feed chart.

Thermpro even with top of canopy: Leaves are running around 8f lower than air temps.

Light fixture will need to be raised up periodically to keep DLI where I want it as the plant stretches. Right now the plants are seeing around 800ppfd on the tallest stalk in the center, around 600 to 700 around that, & a little less along the edges, & less in the corners. The plants seem to be stretching around 1/2" a day.

[PhotoFinisH]

Into Week 3 since 12/12 flip. I did a res change yesterday,
switching the ratio to the week3 bloom ratio. Fresh res PPMs were around 800, & dropped to 700 by today at add-back, & I kept it there after add-back because I planned to defoliate later. Before the res change, the plant had been running around 850 before addback to 800 after addback. pH has been running between 5.8 to 6.2, with occasional need for adjustment. The times I have to watch for big swings seem to be for a day or two after a res change, or after a week or so, & it is due for a res change. Plants have been drinking around 3/4 to 1 gallon of water a day, depending on humidity.

Thermpro at the canopy top, over the last week: There has been some cooler & humid weather lately, & I’ve been running less a/c, so things started to look a little different over the week from day to day.

Some defoliation ‘before & after’ pics: The ‘before’ pics are a couple days old, & the light & a couple sensors have been moved up since. I pulled off a lot of big fans, & anything lower than 5" above the screen. Some are about 1/2" lower.
I also started to move some things around with green wire.

I knocked my Thermpro on the bucket lid into the res. Oops. It is now in the bin. I also noticed shortly before lights-out tonight that my wall-mounted oscillating fan on the right seems to be stopping sporadically until I mess with the plug or switch. I’ll swap it with the fan on the left tomorrow to see if the problem follows it or not, & go from there.

[PhotoFinisH]

Couple days into Week4 since 12/12 flip, did a big defoliation & a res-change today.
Before:

After:

Had some trouble getting to some of the leaves & beat up some of the buds a little bit, but the lower stuff needs the light & the airflow. I want to try & finish this run out with the Kind light instead of switching to the Photontek now, & I still might have to remove some more lower buds anyway in addition to any future defoliation, but I’ll see how everything does over the next week.

Here’s my bubblehash from the last plant. Ended up with two ounces across the top six jars:

The bottom-left jar is the finger hash from that run. The bottom-middle jar is the hash from the two herm runs, & the one on the right is from the first run posted above. I’m smoking through the herm-run stuff now. While it doesn’t taste like seeds, I think I can taste the pigment from the seed shells. First hit you can’t taste it, but subsequent hits & you get a little burning plastic taste or something going. It’s getting better since I’m mostly down to the cleaner pulls from those herm runs.

[PhotoFinisH]

Heading into week6 this weekend since flipping to 12/12, res-change & nute-ratio change will be tomorrow.

PPMs have been running around 700 & the plants seem happy with that. Usually 700 to 750 before add-back, & I’ve been bringing it down to 680 after addback. Probably going to stick with that for the next week, or maybe a little less. pH has been running around 6.2 with a couple adjustments needed along the way.

Thermpro readouts over the last week:
Higher of the two Thermpros on the right-side wall:

Thermpro below the taller one: The top of this one is about even with the tallest bud. Leaf temps across the canopy have been running around 8f lower than surrounding air temps.

PPFD just under 1000 on my meter around the tallest bud. New fans on the walls, but in white this time:

[PhotoFinisH]

Couple days into Week7 since flipping to 12/12, & the bucket was due for a full-res change today.

I remembered last week that my ‘week count’ rolls over in the middle of the week for this grow, & I think I might have switched to my current nute ratio a couple days early a couple weeks ago due to forgetting this, but no biggie. I’m still on that ratio as scheduled but have been rolling back the PPMs, running between 600 & 650 for the past week & a half at least. Also since around week5 I’ve been cutting back the calmag & started adding silicon, & have started cutting back on both of them this week. Pinch of epsom salt per gallon still. Probably will stay on the same main ratio from last week & continue to pull back on PPM & calmag & Si for the rest of this week & weeks 8 & 9, then go to the GH week9 ratio for week 10, as well as week11 if the trichomes need the time. The leaves getting the most light are starting to fade a little, & the ones on the outskirts could stand to use some of their stored N. I’ve done some minor defoliating & minor pushing around of some of the stalks to try & keep everything spaced out from the walls & other stalks.

I’ve started to get some spiring on the tops of some of the buds over the last week or so, especially the ones seeing more light, & some things looking like foxtails on some of the sides of the buds randomly throughout the ‘field’.

I’ve been pulling the light up bit by bit since a couple weeks ago, but I still might have over-lit some of the tops, & a little early. I’ll continue to raise the light next week as per the dli chart. Been trying to follow the photo dli chart all along, but some of the most brightly-lit tops probably saw a little more over the past few weeks. Light fixture is still only at 75% power. I’m also still figuring out the ‘best’ schedule for adding calmag & Si , so it could be something there as well with too much N too late in flower, or too much K too early from the Si, etc. I don’t really know. The pH has been pretty predictable & usually running around 6.2, but I had one crash about a week ago, for about half a day before I caught it. Maybe that hurt them a little. Also the ambient RH dropped like a stone for a few days last week. I took the opportunity to dial in the humidifier, but the air got a little dry for a day or so while I did that. I had already been making some other adjustments like raising the light & lowering the PPM & the target temperature at the canopy by around a degree the same day the RH dropped, since I had already noticed the spires starting up a couple days earlier & thought I should try to do something to slow them down. One other thing I noted was a while back I forgot to raise RH for a couple days after I did my last major defoliation, & some of the remaining leaves near the center tacoed a little right after, & also PPM could have been too high for having just been defoliated, at least for a couple days afterwards. I checked my photos to see when some of the center leaves picked up their share of tacoing, & it seemed like it was mostly right after that last major defoliation. Now it’s been back to humid weather again for the past pew days, but hot, too. Bit of a heat-wave this week. I took another degree off of the target canopy temp controller yesterday, & have been running the A/C in regular mode instead of econo-mode. Ambient temp around the lung room says around 78f on the thermostat on the wall, & the air dumped out of my A/C & collecting & pooling in front of my intake port usually sits at around 74f, maybe sometimes cooler when the A/C is running the compressor. The temperature exhaust fan still flows enough for the controller to cycle it on & off as needed, even after asking for two degrees lower over the past couple days in this heat. If it gets stuck not being able to reach my target & just sits there running at high speed, my next move would be to turn down the target on the A/C.

Might have to trim some leaves under here if they start having issues due to lower light & ppm levels:

Overall I feel like the plants are not doing terribly for the little things here & there, & hopefully they’ll fatten up a bit & won’t come unglued too badly over the next few weeks.

[PhotoFinisH]

Middle of Week8 since 12/12, full res-change today. Over the week I’ve had to lash up some of the stalks as they were leaning over. Also have been selectively defoliating to uncover & create space between buds.

Same nute ratio as before, except for less Si, calmag, & epsom salts, & also lowered overall PPM to around 520 going in the bucket today. They’ll drink anywhere from a 1/2 a gallon a day if ambient RH is high, to nearly a gallon if it is lower.

Tough to see some areas so I tried to get some overhead shots. Rear left corner:

Rear center:

Rear right corner:

Front half overhead: The plant on the left is probably going to do more than the plant on the right, despite it having taken a couple more days for it to come back on line after planting them in the bucket.

Thermpro for the week: Will be time for heaters soon… Past couple days & the leaf temps have been running around 71 to 73f across the top of the canopy, depending on where they are. Warmest buds have been running around 75f.

Raised the light fixture another click (about 1/2") a couple days ago.