LED Grapegod Late Spring '14 - Grow Journals

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phychotron
Medicated

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

LED Grapegod Late Spring '14

#733408 - 05/29/14 03:29 AM (10 years, 6 months ago)

Following a somewhat disappointing harvest in this thread, I've got the next batch looking much better. I spent a bit more time tying down and pinching stems to try and make everything as secure and uniform as possible. The plants are much larger than last time as well.

Basically refining my technique and improving harvests this time. Round two
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Parameters

Strain: Grapegod, perpetual clones--no mother plant just bottom branch trimming and cloning when I throw plants into flower. Seventh or eighth generation still going strong with no signs of genetic decline like some skeptics expect.

Lighting: All LED. Veg: (2) Blackstar-240UV (130w each), (2) Advanced LED DS100 (95w each). Just one light at first then two and four as they grew.
Flower: (4) Advanced LED DS100 and (1) DS400 (395w), GrowBlu Apollo-240 (500w) For a total of ~1270w in the flower room.

Area: 4x8 tent, utilizing a 4x6 area for airflow on the ends.

Medium: Coco Coir, Hydroponic - Drain to waste. (6) 5-gallon pots using about 4 gallons of coco. Reused and treated as per Canna's instructions.

Nutrients: Canna Coco + additives. Dyna-grow Pro-tekt potassium silicate, Humboldt nutrients' Verde (veg only). Advanced Nutrients pH down.

Bug spray: Monterey's Garden Spray (active ingredient Spinosad, organic) in veg to combat Thrips. Population controlled in veg - two applications a few days apart. Only a minor infestation but still present from previous crops.

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.

Veg (41 days)

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Day 00

This is how long I like to get the roots before I transplant. Any longer and its harder to fill in entirely. The plants love getting planted at this phase, as they are less likely to yellow from too long in the cloner. s Using the scrape technique in the aerocloner works wonders. This one's not that impressive, but some batches get hundreds of roots coming out of the stem like firework exploding. I also load up the aerocloner with three to four clones per collar, and its fine because the roots don't get tangled.

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Day 01

Started with nine clones in the 1L airpots in order to choose six that are closest match in size.

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Day 12

Behold the power of the 1L airpot, best bang for your buck when it comes to transplanting. Prepares the roots (air prune) for immediate growth once transplanted to a larger container. Coco coir is unrestrictive when it comes to the plant digging in and taking root.

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Day 14

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Day 17

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Day 18

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Day 22

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Day 27

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Day 31

Bent a lot of the branches over so they could spread out as well as get a nice fat main stem. They're suppose to be nutrient super highways at those points. I like the way it strengthens the branch and less likely to sag as much.

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Day 34

Sprung right back to life. These grew fast, mostly because of the 1L airpots prepping it for transplant and 4-5 gallons of coco coir. I used three gallons of coco last time and they didn't have quite enough space to truly flourish.

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Day 41 (final)

One thing I cannot stress enough is that the plant gets a pace going, and when its in that vigorous growth phase the plant takes to flowering much much better than a plant that was stalled for any reason. Its never a good idea to just flip the switch on a plant that has relatively dormant growth tips. Flowering is like a race, and if you get a running start up to the starting line you'll do much better than someone who starts from a dead stop. Plants sometimes never get up to full speed when they go into flower without vigor.

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Flower

Planning on 49-56 days.

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Day 01

Trimmed the lower branches and tied all the larger branches down well so they should be good for the entire 8 weeks. I left a lot of lower branches, as the plant can surprise me with the amount of bud those lower branches produce. I also just toss those leafy bits into the BHO pile so its not like it matters that its not dense bud. The theory of cutting of those lower buds so the plant can focus on the main colas is a fine balance, as you can get more weight overall leaving them on the grapegod. My all time record was a few grows back with 11 oz off of one plant that was in the back center and didn't get trimmed up very well. I've been aiming for that ever since.

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Day 08
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Day 15

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Day 19

Going strong. The plants are about done stretching and are showing signs of nutrient burn on the very tips of some of the leaves. Good timing since I already had a flush scheduled for the next watering. They've been sucking down lots of water and nutrients, taking down 9 gallons every two days, and in the first 19 days I've already spent 80% of cost of nutrients from the entire last crop that went 55 days. From the looks of things it should be worth the extra nutrients. The plants are about 3' tall and I've been pinching them back to prevent stretching. I've also slowly been moving the lights up. I didn't bother lowering the lights in early flower last time and they showed it.

This time the lights are only about a foot away from the top of the canopy. I'm going to leave it kinda close so that they can penetrate deep, as the grapegod has so many side branches that turn out to be major producers. I expect some light bleached white colas but the LED light is so gentle on the plant that despite turning it white it still smokes and feels the same.

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Day 21

The buds are starting to fill in. Some of the buds are much too close to the light and will be white topped. I'm leaving the lights close in order to get the penetration since the plants are so tall and bushy. You can kind of see in the last photo that the tip is starting to turn white.

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Day 23

Flushed the other day an fed again two days later. These plants really are sucking down the water. Which is a very good sign, plants basically pass water from the roots to the leaf to the atmosphere and the nutrients are carried with. I'm sure the plant uses water in other ways, but its the elevator the nutrients need. Now that I have the drain to waste setup proper I'm seeing better growth and faster feeding, as the concentration of nutrients (salt buildup) make it harder for the plant to grab the water, as it wants to stick to the salts that are in a traffic jam to get into the plant. By not having that excess +/- charged particles it allows the water to flow into the plant at an accelerated pace. One more reason to switch to coco--constant flushing makes for an optimal root zone.

These plants have about a gallon more coco than the last crop, which I think is also helping to support the plants size and vigor. Three gallons was a bit too little, four seems about perfect, and five makes the plants too big or it doesn't hardly root the lower half of the coco.

Watch your cats around your plants, they like it better than catnip.

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Day 24

Some natural color photos. Hard to get a good canopy photo.

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Day 27

Coming right along, started P-K week. Some colas are showing light bleaching.

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Day 28

Showing signs of brown tips so I think I'll feed it lower base nutrients while it gets P-K this week, then a flush before the last week of nutrients.

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Day 33

Looking good and starting to swell up. Entered PK week a few days ago and forgot to PK them today when I watered, so I think I'll go another day or two with PK.

They're taking down 9 gallons every 2 days. Cut the base nutrients for PK week, ~80% strength. I've also continued to feed silica, which I normally cut out at the end of week three.

The third and fourth picture are the same bud, showing the light bleaching. In the fourth you can see two behind it out of focus that also have white tips developing.

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Day 35

Looking sweet as always. Trying out the new macro lens and tube and all kinds of different options. The one combination of the stuff in one of the last photos gave the buds a halo effect. I'm learning to get those really good high res macro shots but its tough to get in there cause the camera needs to be 1/4" away from the nug and the jitter correction doesn't work as good because of all the lenses and its tricky, but some came out really well.

Trying to get those white buds with the camera are the hardest. It will get easier as they get more white, but I'd like to get some of those early bleaching shots. I need to block the light so that its not so bright cause the white just blends into the background white.

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Day 37

Some natural color lighting makes it easier to see the buds and how the leaf is responding as it comes to the end of week 5 and starting to lighten all over

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Day 41

Buds are getting fat and branches are keeling over. I had to tie a few up but hopefully the bulk of them will be supported by the tomato cages. They are putting in a lot of work, and having something rigid to tie to makes it easy. Plus the rings keep the height you tie it at, unlike bamboo that may slide down as time goes on.

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Day 48

Didn't get to feed it properly for the last week, went to a festival for three days and set up an res tank and pump to water while I was gone. Going to chop soon because I need to take care of some business next week that will not allow me to let them go much further. I'm also almost out of bud, so I need to chop soon for that reason. I wanted to go a bit longer but the combination of being busy and the yellowing of the leaves from lack of food make this one a short one. I think I'll extend the next crop, as its going longer in veg as well (only cause I didn't transplant early enough.

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Day 51

Buds are starting to fill out, even going into that next phase of growth. Not sure how much longer I'm going with them. Was thinking wednesday or thursday. Loving the new camera, got some great multi color shots under one of the LED's where the bud is nearly touching.

Also got a few macro shots of the white nuggets. Hard to get a descent shot on those white buds.

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Day whatever

Went out of town for a few days, came back to a heat wave and all the plants dry to a crisp. Had to do an emergency harvest. The cat knocked out the pump timer a few days early. Stuff was so dry that buds were falling off and laying in the tray, with some standing waste water. So I lost a few oz's to being bone dry, lots more shake than expected and a few oz's that were laying on the ground will need to be turned to oil. ~30oz total but only about 20 of good buds.

Currently trying to rehydrate the buds a little. Plastic tubs with paper bags full of flower, Boveda 62% in with the buds, and a few leaf's of lettuce in between the paper and plastic, using the paper as a buffer. Its actually working quite well after a day or so, the bag is moist from the lettuce and the buds have a much less brittleness to them. They were so dry that when you just stick your hand in the bag it'd just start breaking apart.
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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 (07/12/14 07:38 PM)

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