LED Grapegod spring '14 - Grow Journals

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phychotron
Medicated

Registered: 02/17/11
Posts: 1,995
Loc: Earth (mostly)

LED Grapegod spring '14

#722233 - 03/20/14 06:17 AM (10 years, 7 months ago)

Grapegod (clones)

4x8 tent using 4x6 for good air exchange.

Coco coir, six 5 gallon pots with about 3 gallon of new Canna Coco Coir (first of 3-4 uses)

Lighting: early veg with T5 then new GrowBlu Apollo 240x3 came about halfway through. Flower is all LED: Four Advanced LED DS100's on one end, a DS400 in the center, and the GrowBlu Apollo 240x3 on the end. Pulling a total of ~1270 watts from the wall. My Kill-a-watt meter broke so I'm taking the 500w of the GrowBlu as what the manufacturer says, whereas I was able to measure the others.

Temp/Humidity: 70-84F/40-55%, max set to 84.5F,55%rH then the fan comes on. Input booster fan between the two tents is always on, blowing into the flower tent.

Canna nutrients: COCO A/B, Cannazym, Boost, Rhizotonic and P-K.
Other nutrients: Humboldt Nutrients Verde, either drench or foliar, it has a few things that are commonly deficient. Only in veg, its required, as the Canna doesn't have the nitrogen to keep up with veg, its more of a flowering nutrient. Dyna-Gro Pro-tekt Silica in veg and to mid flower. Advanced Nutrients PH-. And a veg foliar treatment of Monterays Garden Spray with Spinosad in early veg to combat thrips. The stuff works wonders, no actual thripe evidence but on the tail end of an infestation and dosed for good measure.

Featured: NEW WATERING SYSTEM

After years of dealing with moving water around I've finally decided to give it a rest and pump the water directly to the plants. I've been using Blumats to water the plants and they've done fairly well so far, they work great but are not Drip To Waste compatible, they just feed the plant when the medium dries out. To keep up with flushing I've rigged a ring of 1/2" thick wall hose with 9 holes in each. I chopped the T's so they're shorter and worked with the hose better. Raised up with fancy clothes hangers and all tied together in a loop.

I watered it for the first time today and was able to feed them 8 gallons of water in a few minutes with no effort. I'd been hand watering this prior to getting the rings in place and it was quite the chore even with the pump to the sprinkler-head-wand.

I put the flood tables in the tent for collecting the run off, but mostly for flushing, gotta plan your flush before your buds are massive.

I also ran a Blumat to each of them so that they don't die should I forget to feed them or if some plants NEED more, as they are close to being the same, but there are some that were considerably smaller. I plan on flushing more so it won't be an issue if one feeds more than the others; I don't want to risk salt buildup on the smaller plants that aren't feeding as much.

This is my trial run to see how much the plants suck down and maybe get a huge res and put it on a timer. Right now I'm just using a 5-gallon bucket and a pump hosed into the manifold. I mix the nutrients in the sink and carry them into the other room, the next generation will be a large res that I mix in, and just fill up with a pump.

Veg: Cut from a mother plant and in the aerocloner for 9 days before I transplanted them into 1L Air Pots (Highly recommended). The roots were longer than I would normally like at 9 days, but the 1L Airpots work so well that the plant just takes. They are also the best transplant containers since they have an open bottom and the air pruning that makes the root tips ready to dig right in to fresh dirt. Transplanted from the 1L into 3gal in 8 days. Then after 3 weeks of veg they went into flower.

A few notable problems right off the bat is that my fans don't oscillate anymore so its not my ideal airflow environment but it does pretty good with one tower fan on each end, plus one that does oscillate thats up higher. They don't look like they're going to stretch any more than the grapegod normally does.

I've been trying to construct that perfect garden-system and its close but theres always one or two issues that arises. Its getting close to a near perfect system. Next I need to find a better res tan, just using 5-gallon buckets. The goal is to create a garden where all I do is add water/nutrients.

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The end of week one.

Off to a very good start. I trimmed them a few days ago and left them with a lot more lower branches than usual because the way the structure of the plant is the lower buds and lower branches produce a good amount more than if I chopped them to focus on the larger colas.

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Mid Week 2

Droopy as hell when lights are off, but perked up when the lights are on. Humidity 54%, 71F at night

Watering with the new system is sweet, just hook the pump up to the manifold and it will water 4 gallons in under 2 minutes. Still trying to figure out the most ideal schedule for flushing and feeding, but the plants look good so far. I haven't watered to the point of getting run off yet, but will probably do a good flush in a week or two.

I have my alarm clock set 12 hours apart at lights on/off to check the plants and make sure they are watered. My new goal is to eventually get a timer and large res tank so that it will pump automatically. Right now I'm doing 4 gallons every few days and expect that to increase as they grow, up to 4 gallons a day when in full flower.

Of the six plants some are larger and have slightly higher watering needs, still trying to get that perfectly even crop, but this one is the most even canopies to date.

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Day 15
I've decided that I will flush the plants with plain water a few days before they get P-K in week 5. That should be day 26 but I'll see how it goes.

I also scheduled the end of feeding it silica for day 21, or about when the plant will be fully stretched.

With and without the white balance adjusted. Showing its natural color under the LED's. The photos don't come out very well unless I adjust the white balance on the camera.

They are developing nice for this plant. It should stretch for another few more days before reaching its final height.

One of the reasons I keep the Grapegod around is because of how well it branches out. Its got that open structure that allows airflow around all the leaves.

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Day 18 03/30

THRIPS! Thought I took care of them but forgot to do the follow up spray before flower. Sprayed the leaves with Spinosad based spray, a biological control that really works. Its early enough in flower to spray so I figured its better to spray than to let them tear the plants up. And only because its a biological control is it getting sprayed this far into flower.

Watering with the new system has been fun, but they were bone dry the other day. If I didn't have the blumats to keep the larger plants alive they would have all died by now, as just a few hours after running out of water and they would be dead.

I checked the plants at night and they were perked up, not droopy like before.

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A server error cut off the rest of this thread when editing it. Here's all the photos but no info about what was going on at the time. I chopped at day 55, 05/07. The images are the upload date within a day or two of the day number.

04/02 ~ Day 20

04/05

04/06

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04/14

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05/08

This image is twice the size, make sure to zoom >

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I'll post the final weight and photos when everything is getting jarred up.

Here are some drying photos

New drying boxes. Two of these are full.

I trimmed for 7 hours the first night and did three plants. Hung them in the room with the two tents, ~40% humidity was too low and they dried within three days and seem too dry, but after a few days in the box with the lid open slightly they moistened back up.

Hung the other three up completely uncut and let them dry a few days. I didn't check the humidity in the bathroom but the plants took an extra day and a half hanging before I trimmed and bagged/boxed them.

I give the buds a good flip once a day or so to make sure its getting air. The stems help keep them fluffed up while drying. I'll take the stems off later when they're mostly dry.

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Camera broke so no photos until I can get a new one. Its not something I can afford right now. 850g of good dense bud and still waiting to make oil out of the trim and leafy buds. .67g/watt on the lights. I knew this one wasn't going to be that productive and prepared for the next crop. Those are in the first week of veg and already drinking 8 gallons every 2 days, whereas this batch was at its peak in flower taking 8 gallons every four days. I also did a better job at tying the stems down before they went in. This crop only got a few branches tied down, the tomato cages and silica did mosts the work. I was planning on doing another grow log but the camera broke.

I'll post the oil weight when it gets processed. I need to make bubble hash out of it first, it'll probably be a few weeks. Still going to send the buds into the lab to get tested but not sure how long that will take, stoner pace.

The last photo I was able to take, right before I trimmed the stems off.

Each bag had about ~425g each, and now they're both in one of those tubs to sit for a week with the Boveda packs before going into jars to cure. I think I might have over dried/too fast but they're still sweet nuggets. It got a really good flush and the flavor is a bit better, a rose/floral flavor shines through.

The trimming of these buds was done in two waves, with half drying before getting trimmed. The first batch got trimmed fresh and took seven hours. Second I let dry for a few days, which took an extra two (in the bathroom, vs the bedroom the grow tent is in) and only took about three and a half to trim. I tried trimming it a day early but it was in that phase the scissors didn't want to work the wilted leaf so I let them crisp up a little bit more. With the extended drying and faster trim times I think I'll let it dry before trimming from here on out.

I need to fix some errors in the spreadsheet before I post it, but the nutrient cost per ounce was $3.11, and total cost of $6.90 when including electricity from all the equipment. Its an estimate because some of the fans aren't on the whole time, and the wattage I guessed on a few--they usually don't run on full speed either.

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Nug shot testing the camera out.

Too lazy to finish and I'm not sure when I'll get the lab results from the bud, haven't even given the sample yet. So I'm just going to call it complete.

If you liked this thread check out my next grow where the plants started out much better.

____________________

Got my first completely independent review. Got illegally searched in Utah and as soon as the cop opened the jar he told me it was the best bud he's ever seen. It was two months cured, my last jar so it had some of the better buds in it. He was in the sun and was all "dang, you can see the crystals on there and everything." Apparently Utah bud sucks.

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Any help given is for educational purposes only. Its your responsibility not to break any applicable laws

Bamboo Bongs I make | Perfect Dry and Cure | Grapegod under LED

“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible player.” ~ Albert Einstein

Edited by phychotron (07/22/14 09:38 PM)

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