2 plants + 400W + RIU advice = 6 oz harvest for a total newbie!!!!!

kryptoniteglo

Well-Known Member
That's right! Thanks to the amazing RIU community, I actually managed to pull 6 oz on my first harvest. :hump: And that's acknowledging that my grow was compromised at times by the reality of my set up.

Here are the details, plus photos, 'cuz we all know without photos it didn't happen!

Strain: TGA Subcool's Jillybean (60/40 sat/ind)
Set Up: Hydroponic bubble buckets, 3.5 gallons each
Lights: 400W MH in veg, HPS in flowering
Nutes: Advance Nutrients Micro, Grow and Bloom, plus Cal/Mag
PH: 5.6-5.8 maintained throughout
PPMS: Nothing for first 2-3 weeks, then 200-300ppm, adding 100ppm for every week of age, maxing out at 800ppm for flowering. So at 5 weeks old, ppms were 500; at 6 weeks, 600, etc. That included the natural ppms in my water, which is 130.

1) Sprouted seeds in rockwool cubes. Transfered to bubble bucket as soon as a root popped out the bottom.
2) Just water first 2-3 weeks, then ppms as noted above.
photo.jpg
3) 24/0 light schedule
4) Topped just about 2nd node when plants were 5-6 nodes high (about 3.5 weeks old)
5) LST'd to a bamboo grid taped to the lid of each bucket
6) Because of a space concern (5.5 foot tent), plants were flipped at 5 weeks old. This proved to be the right decision, though it didn't keep me from having to buy at 7 foot tent in a couple of weeks! This is what they looked like just at the flip:
photo1.jpg

7) Once on 12/12, plants stretched 2.5-3x. I bought a larger tent. Happily, I ended up with two females. Here's the beginning of flowering, three weeks from flip:
3 weeks in 3.jpg

8) Plants stayed healthy throughout, no complaints. At about 5 weeks, upper fan leaves on main colas started to fade. A week later, the plants stopped taking nutes -- they were just drinking water. I guess these were self-flushing plants! :)
9) At 8 weeks flowering, pistils and calyxes were looking good, and trichomes were almost all cloudy. I was expecting to get the 10% amber harvest marker in a day or two, but a note under my door from my landlord to call him put me in a better-safe-than-sorry mode, and I went ahead and chopped 'em down. Here's what they looked like a minute before they got the axe. You can see the one on the right was a little more mature than the one on the left:
Plant 1 ready.jpgIn tent.jpg

10) I had initially planned a 10-day slow dry, but didn't know if my landlord was coming in the next morning, so I hung the plants on their main branches while I dismantled the tent and cleaned, packed and stored all equipment:
hanging.jpg

11) Then did a major trim/manicure and slow-dried like that for a week in the bathroom with 55% humidity. Then weighed (after zeroing out the scale of course!):
2.9zo.jpg3.1oz.jpg

12) Buds are now in the second week of a jar cure, using the A Perfect Cure approach. I sampled some last night. WOW. Ridiculously smooth and flavorful, and exactly the sweet, gentle, happy high I was looking for. I couldn't be more pleased.

So thank you all for answering my questions and calming my panics. Growing is a beautiful thing, and I enjoyed every minute of it! I'll be growing again in the fall -- something on the indica side with a harder punch. But in the meantime will continue to enjoy the fruits of my labors!

THANK YOU RIU!!!!!
KG
 

kryptoniteglo

Well-Known Member
Thank you! I can't believe it actually happened! LOL

First of all, I love these plants for all that they can do and their amazing natural beauty. But of course the point of growing is to get to harvest. So for all you Newbies out there, LISTEN to the advice of the veterans here and you, too, will get to harvest.

And again, to all the veterans who spend time here explaining the same things over and over again, thank you, thank you, thank you!
 

kryptoniteglo

Well-Known Member
+rep for one with an open mind and a green thumb.
Thank you, thank you, HotRod. Your advice in particular was among the best I received, so I'm +repping back now even though I have before. :)

And a grow addendum: I also have four bags of sugar trim with a ton of crystals in my freezer and will be making ice hash out of that -- I'll post that in a different thread when I get around to doing it in a week or two.
 

Slipon

Well-Known Member
yea deserves a Rep. just for the fact that he listen to the advice, and came back to thanks us :D

well and nice looking Bud`s ;) what is the plan for the future ? a scrog maybe ? I bet you could do +8 Oz
 

wcrazy78

Member
Holy crap nuggets....I hope my first gro goes this well....I have a pineapple express and a bermese kush aboutr to take the 12/12 flip in a tent the exact as your first...hope it's tall enough...your plants looked fantastic. I have had root rot, spider mites, ph issues nute issues...I have really enjoyed the experience and you are right the RIU community is fantastic!
 

bigbull52

Active Member
I was expecting to get the 10% amber harvest marker in a day or two, but a note under my door from my landlord to call him put me in a better-safe-than-sorry mode, and I went ahead and chopped 'em down.
KG
Damn, If you could have waited another week, no tellin how much more you coulda gott lol.

Still 6oz is NICEE, especially for your first groww.

Gives me hope for my ladies.

lady... one turned gay on me... lol
 

kryptoniteglo

Well-Known Member
yea deserves a Rep. just for the fact that he listen to the advice, and came back to thanks us :D

well and nice looking Bud`s ;) what is the plan for the future ? a scrog maybe ? I bet you could do +8 Oz
I will definitely experiment a bit to see how much I can improve yield. And a scrog is something I'm considering. I've already purchased two screens I could use (one for each bucket). I could, of course, improve my lighting a smidge to 600, because I ended up with the top 1/3 of the plants getting great light in the end, the middle 1/3 getting some light and the bottom 1/3 getting none at all. The temperature would be 85 up top but 65 down below. Now that's a healthy canopy!

But after spending $1000 or so by the time I finished -- at the last minute I was buying a $150 dehumidifier and a $50 humidifier, had purchased a nice $280 Blu Lab combometer, etc, etc -- I'm willing to spend a little on the next one for something that's an improvement, but it would be nice to keep expenses down. It's a good thing I got the 6 oz on this one, to make it financially worth it. It I had pulled 1 oz a plant I would have been unhappy. Not that I'm selling, I'm not. But growing my own means I'm not buying from someone, and that's a big money saver.

I'm excited to work with a different strain, too. I have a few packets of seeds and am hoping those do as well for me as the Jillybean did.
 

kryptoniteglo

Well-Known Member
Damn, If you could have waited another week, no tellin how much more you coulda gott lol.

Still 6oz is NICEE, especially for your first groww.

Gives me hope for my ladies.

lady... one turned gay on me... lol
Oh, I know!!! I was going to wait the one more week on the more mature plant and actually two on the more immature plant -- but since I'm in an illegal state I felt I had to heed the sign that it was possible my landlord had smelled something (he hadn't -- he was trying to see me because he lost my rent check! LOL).

But given everything, I think that 6 oz is very, very solid. And considering I didn't do anything crazy, just followed the basic rules, I'm very surprised and pleased.
 

FourZeroTwo

Active Member
Yup! i thank them every chance i get! xD quick question though, did you use 400w for both plants or for each plant?
 

bigbull52

Active Member
Oh, I know!!! I was going to wait the one more week on the more mature plant and actually two on the more immature plant -- but since I'm in an illegal state I felt I had to heed the sign that it was possible my landlord had smelled something (he hadn't -- he was trying to see me because he lost my rent check! LOL).

But given everything, I think that 6 oz is very, very solid. And considering I didn't do anything crazy, just followed the basic rules, I'm very surprised and pleased.
You should get familiarized with your landlord.... get in closee, see if he smokes! lol, then IFFF he found it one day, and he smokes, u dont gotta worry to much bout being snitched on, hell just b like yoo, hook it up, or get em out. haha.
 

kryptoniteglo

Well-Known Member
Yup! i thank them every chance i get! xD quick question though, did you use 400w for both plants or for each plant?
400W for both plants. My first tent had a 2x3 foot space about 5.5 feet tall. And the 400 might have still been okay there. Because I topped for four main colas and LST'd, the two plants filled the entire space. But they grew too tall and I had to upgrade to a 7 foot tent, which was 3x3. I don't think 400W was strong enough for the second situation -- it really needed 600W. But I just wasn't prepared for that.

Then again, by then the stretch was over, and the 400W was fine for the first 2 feet of plant.
 

Trousers

Well-Known Member
Isn't it great to smoke your own weed?
Congratulations!

You will crush 6 ounces in the future, I promise.

By the way, amber trichomes means that the plant is degrading. Amber trichomes are full of CBN, which is not what you want at all.
Anyone telling you about "couchlock" doesn't know what they are talking about.

If I see any amber I get ready to pick soon.


Good on you.
 

kryptoniteglo

Well-Known Member
Isn't it great to smoke your own weed?
Congratulations!

You will crush 6 ounces in the future, I promise.

By the way, amber trichomes means that the plant is degrading. Amber trichomes are full of CBN, which is not what you want at all.
Anyone telling you about "couchlock" doesn't know what they are talking about.

If I see any amber I get ready to pick soon.


Good on you.
Thanks, Trousers! I'm of a similar mindset, which is why I wasn't too upset about cutting a smidge early because I could see the trichs were mostly cloudy and I was really, really close. I just wanted to take them right up to the "perfect" moment, and I know I was pretty close.

If I want a harder-hitting stone, then I'll grow an indica-dom. I grew sativa-dom because I wanted a "walk around the park, hang out on the beach, watch a football game at a bar" kind of high. I think it's the first Trichomes sticky in Harvesting and Curing that says "grow it until it's ripe" whether it's sativa or indica, and that's how I intended to do it. I guess the ideal balance would be 5% clear, 90% cloudy and 5% amber, since I can't actually see 100% cloudy. :)

And yes, it's great to smoke my own-grown. I'm very happy to know my weed is clean and safe.
 

Dividedsky

Well-Known Member
Congrats man, you did a great job! I'm on my 1st grow and hoping to pull some weight with the help of everyone here on riu!
 
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