Most disorganised, last minute grow ever!

Cannacat said:

Aw thanks mate, it'd break my heart to chop them down now, I've come this far and want to see them finish. Dude's going on about how it's a business relationship and he can't just rearrange dates cos it's unprofessional but I never told him to arrange it for this week, I was quite clear about it so that ain't on me, if he looks a mug it's his own fault for assuming he could bulldoze me! So there lol. Cheers mate, you've been great

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It's been a total pleasure watching you with this grow! You have great instincts, and an inquisitive mind, the perfect combo for producing buds like you have growing right now. Look forward to watching your future grows as well

Cannacat said:

Aw thanks mate, it'd break my heart to chop them down now, I've come this far and want to see them finish. Dude's going on about how it's a business relationship and he can't just rearrange dates cos it's unprofessional but I never told him to arrange it for this week, I was quite clear about it so that ain't on me, if he looks a mug it's his own fault for assuming he could bulldoze me! So there lol. Cheers mate, you've been great

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Selling a substandard product is unprofessional and unethical, to boot. Plants don't care about professionalism, and with that in mind he shouldn't make promises he can't keep. It isn't professional. Sounds like you have played it right.

Middle man can take a hike, those are not close to done. I'd say another 3 weeks at least. Always take my widow cut to 70-75, sometimes 80 days.

White Widows flower day 48, Thelma & Louise Cheese flower day 18

All seems to be going well so far. The Heisenberg Specials are shooting up too, can't wait to see. Sickly ww clone is finally getting some new growth I think, healthy ww clone accidentally got topped, I might have been overly forceful during training, but I wanted to try topping one anyway and it's got some good side growth on it so I think it'll be just fine. I'll have to get some pics of the veg closet, I've got a little usb fan in there to strengthen the stems but I just hope it doesn't cool it down too much. I've started keeping a hot water bottle in there anyway cos the ww clones have no perlite in their coco and take ages to dry out. My Thelma Cheese clones aren't doing a right lot, although it did take ages for ww clones to root but I thought that because I got the rockwool plugs and the hormone stuff, and cos it's my second attempt, that it'd be completely different this time and roots would come flying out of the bottom desperately searching for nutrients. Never mind.
I got some Bti stuff to deal with the gnats but now I've looked into it in a bit more detail, I'm pretty sure I got the wrong type of bti! It's really hard in the UK to find anything I've had recommended to me, Gnatrol and all that stuff, and I haven't got space in the tops of the pots to add anything on top of the coco so I looked at what the active ingredient was and searched for that, which is what led me to the bacillus thuringiensis but I didn't realise there are different types that are very specific in what they kill. I think Tanlin (Nilnat) will be my next effort, should've got that in the first place instead of being tight!

**Edit** Oh, could anybody that may stop by have a look at my yellowing and tell me if it's right to have that much yellowing at this point in flower? Am I stressing myself out fighting it for no reason?? Seems too soon to let them be hungry...

If the yellowing you are talking about is the slight yellowing I see in your pics, then you have no worries. The big sun leaves on most strains start to yellow and die Midway through flowering. You are near the end, and it don't look bad at all.

Abucks said:

If the yellowing you are talking about is the slight yellowing I see in your pics, then you have no worries. The big sun leaves on most strains start to yellow and die Midway through flowering. You are near the end, and it don't look bad at all.

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Thanks man, I thought so but wanted to check. Do you flush at the end? I hate the word flush, but I am going to stop feeding at some point before harvest, I've read all the conflicting opinions and I'm pretty sure the whole thing is a myth and that most people don't even really understand why they're doing it, but that being said, I'd quite like for the girls to have a bit of a detox of all the synthetic nutrients before they come down. And I know they're not still in there cos the plant converted them into what it needed, and that I can't wash out something that is a part of the plant now anyway, but it's a psychological thing lol! So I won't be drowning them or anything but I'll withhold the nutes, just not sure when to start that.
Oh. And if you reeeeeeeeaally had to guess, like with a gun to your head, how long do you reckon we've got left on the white widows?? I think we'll go to another couple of weeks?

This is an email from canna clearing up the same question I had about flushing. This is especially important if you are reusing your coco (which is highly recommended).
Thanks for the question. The reason you need to maintain the minimum level of nutrient application is to finish displacing the ions given off by the coco so that it washes out and does not affect the nutrient ratio and subsequent uptake. At the end, you really need to flush for 3 days to 2 weeks based on things like feed levels and crop grown. This also resets the Phosphate buffer so that it performs as a new medium again at crop start. It will not specifically affect microlife levels except as follows as you continue to set up the old coco medium for reuse.

After crop, it is a great idea to pull the medium out of direct production for a couple weeks, up to a month is really good. Then, before reuse, you give it a re-hydrating watering with a nutrient slurry at beginning levels, and allow it to drain well. Then plant the new plants and irrigate again fully with a full beginning feed as is normal. Yes, live things die out, but the spores remain to come back again. Also, this will hold down the excess salts and insure they drain properly.

So I'm doing a three day flush starting tomorrow. Also cut my nutes back to 50% for the last week. I'm taking a sample bud every day to see if I can tell the difference between flushed and not flushed.
As far as your WW finish time, it hard to tell in the picks, but I'd say a good two weeks out, maybe a little more. Most of the ww strains ive seen are 63 to 70 day finishers. If you can get your hands on a jewelers loop, it will help you see the heads of the crystals. Most people cut them down when the trichs are 95% cloudy with the remaining clear or amber. To much amber is not good, it means the THC is degrading.

Abucks said:

This is an email from canna clearing up the same question I had about flushing. This is especially important if you are reusing your coco (which is highly recommended).
Thanks for the question. The reason you need to maintain the minimum level of nutrient application is to finish displacing the ions given off by the coco so that it washes out and does not affect the nutrient ratio and subsequent uptake. At the end, you really need to flush for 3 days to 2 weeks based on things like feed levels and crop grown. This also resets the Phosphate buffer so that it performs as a new medium again at crop start. It will not specifically affect microlife levels except as follows as you continue to set up the old coco medium for reuse.

After crop, it is a great idea to pull the medium out of direct production for a couple weeks, up to a month is really good. Then, before reuse, you give it a re-hydrating watering with a nutrient slurry at beginning levels, and allow it to drain well. Then plant the new plants and irrigate again fully with a full beginning feed as is normal. Yes, live things die out, but the spores remain to come back again. Also, this will hold down the excess salts and insure they drain properly.

So I'm doing a three day flush starting tomorrow. Also cut my nutes back to 50% for the last week. I'm taking a sample bud every day to see if I can tell the difference between flushed and not flushed.
As far as your WW finish time, it hard to tell in the picks, but I'd say a good two weeks out, maybe a little more. Most of the ww strains ive seen are 63 to 70 day finishers. If you can get your hands on a jewelers loop, it will help you see the heads of the crystals. Most people cut them down when the trichs are 95% cloudy with the remaining clear or amber. To much amber is not good, it means the THC is degrading.

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Cheers for that, I never thought of just checking with Canna!
I got my microscope, it's awesome how well you can see the trichomes developing, it's like they're sort of dripping from the top rather than having oozed into a dollop on the end like when they're fully developed, if you see what I mean lol. I just wondered if you could somehow, magically, estimate me a finishing date lol but I'll just have to wait and see like every bugger else I suppose. I have taken to checking all the weed I buy under the microscope now (along with hairs, scabs, dead flies, and anything else that looks like it might be interesting. It's my newest hobby) and the two different types, blue cheese and some sort of haze, both had mostly clear trichomes. Do they change colour again after harvest or something, or is my dealer as greedy and impatient as I think he is?? I'm sure there was some mite poo in there too

They will continue to change color for a short period after the chop, but I think it is due more to drying conditions. I check mine after they are dry, just before I jar them, and there is never any really noticeable change, as long as they are dried right. You'll notice that the clear heads look more like a balloon on a stalk, the milky heads look more swollen, and mushroom like, and amber heads look like wrinkled prunes on a stalk. The swollen milky heads are when the THC is at its most potent point. Snip a small bud with clear heads and set it aside till harvest. Then you can do a side by side smoke test, clear vs milky. You will imidiately know the difference in flavor, high, and weight. 90-95% milky is industry standard for harvest. Have the fella Google it and he can read it for himself from my own personal experience, I always regretted choping early.

Glad to see your girls are still chugging along and didn't get the axe!

we have only gone and smashed it! A.

StreetsofRage said:

Glad to see your girls are still chugging along and didn't get the axe!

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No shortcuts here, we're in it til the end! Those girls are staying put until they holler that they're ready

Cannacat said:

we have only gone and smashed it! A.

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And there's my nosey fella, usurping my journal!

looking fire canna

Some quick snaps of the veg closet. Sickly ww has new growth so is improving but looks deformed, poor thing. The cheese clones are now without the dome, I removed it gradually over a week.

I put a small usb fan in the veg closet trained over the heisenberg specials in the 5 gallon smart pots, thinking it would help strengthen up those adorable seedling stems. Temperatures in veg closet are down to 20-22c with the fan on. I think this is too low, and I worry it will be slowing growth. I add a hot water bottle, replaced a few times a day, under the tray containing the little WWs and clones so it is probably warmer for them, and the fan is to the side of them so they aren't affected by it so much, but I'm worried I might stunt the HS autos or something so I've turned it off now. I'm considering getting a humidifier to put in there, I don't have a meter but it I can't imagine the RH in there is very high at all, would this help me with temps?
The white widows in the flower room look awesome, I'll try remember to get some pictures tomorrow

Just found mold on a bud. It was a tiny bit, definitely wasn't there yesterday, just like a grey-ish furry patch. I should've got a picture but I just grabbed the scissors and chopped the bud off! It was only a little one, I cut away all of it so there's nothing left on the plant that touched the moldy bit. It's my own fault, I got excited about my new aloe vera plant and made up some aloe juice in a squirty bottle. I sprayed it on the coco and thought I was careful about where it sprayed but obviously not enough. It was a little bud on the plant behind the LST plant that is stood on a bucket, I think when I've squirted the aloe juice it has splashed up off the coco onto the bud level with it on the plant behind. Could it have grown that quickly? I suppose that is what mold spores do. How likely is it to have spread? There was nothing else on that plant, and I took every single plant out one by one (not an easy task now they're so damn big (and some of those back ones really are big, much more so than I'd realised!)) and checked over every inch of each one, didn't see anything else to worry about. Oh God I hope they're all ok. I nearly cried when I saw it, I thought I'd been so careful but there isn't enough space in there, I'm never gonna have more than 8 in flower at a time again, there's just not enough room to move between them and I'm not sure how well the fan is penetrating. Oh well, fingers crossed

Make sure to thuroghly remove any dead plant matter. Mold won't attack living tissue just dead tissue. Mold is one of my most feared enemies more so then even then the dreaded spider mites. Almost every grower I know has had a crop, or more, ruined by mold. Keep your humidity way down for the rest of the grow, if you can, and check the buds twice a day for new mold. Bud mold is worse then PM. Bud mold can grow even when the rooms humidity is low. It usually starts deep inside the bud, where some physical damage has been done such as a small chunk of leaf stem not broken off to the stock or a dead preflower. One thing that may help is a fan with a hepa air filter, or carbon air filter. They will help filter out a majority of the mold spores. UV light, ozone generators (although to much ozone isn't good for plants), and deionizers, work great for preventive measures. Ive run a 4" carbon filter 24/7 for the last few years, and it has helped a lot, even here where summer humidity is 80% plus. For right now, vigilance is the key. If more buds start developing mold, it may be time to emergency harvest. Best to do it early then to lose the whole crop. Oh yeah, when you check the buds, carefully open them up as much as you can. Generally the mold starts deep in the bud next to the stem. It sucks that hey don't make a miricale mold-a-way spray. Good luck, hope they make it to the end

Abucks said:

Make sure to thuroghly remove any dead plant matter. Mold won't attack living tissue just dead tissue. Mold is one of my most feared enemies more so then even then the dreaded spider mites. Almost every grower I know has had a crop, or more, ruined by mold. Keep your humidity way down for the rest of the grow, if you can, and check the buds twice a day for new mold. Bud mold is worse then PM. Bud mold can grow even when the rooms humidity is low. It usually starts deep inside the bud, where some physical damage has been done such as a small chunk of leaf stem not broken off to the stock or a dead preflower. One thing that may help is a fan with a hepa air filter, or carbon air filter. They will help filter out a majority of the mold spores. UV light, ozone generators (although to much ozone isn't good for plants), and deionizers, work great for preventive measures. Ive run a 4" carbon filter 24/7 for the last few years, and it has helped a lot, even here where summer humidity is 80% plus. For right now, vigilance is the key. If more buds start developing mold, it may be time to emergency harvest. Best to do it early then to lose the whole crop. Oh yeah, when you check the buds, carefully open them up as much as you can. Generally the mold starts deep in the bud next to the stem. It sucks that hey don't make a miricale mold-a-way spray. Good luck, hope they make it to the end

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Oh no not worse than spider mites! I've been praying not to get spider mites for months, literally, and I go and get something worse?! The universe is a funny bastard! I had a deionizer thingy, my bf broke it, I knew this'd be his fault somehow!! Oh well, just have to deal with it now. I said if I find any more we're just gonna have to cut them down early, which will break my heart after fighting to get them this far, but c'est la vie, fingers crossed. I've put an extra fan in there and we're being hyper vigilant checking them over. Am I better with temps cooler or warmer, or does it make no difference?

Cannacat said:

Oh no not worse than spider mites! I've been praying not to get spider mites for months, literally, and I go and get something worse?! The universe is a funny bastard! I had a deionizer thingy, my bf broke it, I knew this'd be his fault somehow!! Oh well, just have to deal with it now. I said if I find any more we're just gonna have to cut them down early, which will break my heart after fighting to get them this far, but c'est la vie, fingers crossed. I've put an extra fan in there and we're being hyper vigilant checking them over. Am I better with temps cooler or warmer, or does it make no difference?

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Try to keep your temps around 70f and humidity lower then 50%. The extra fan is great, more air circulation equalls less chance of spores landing on anything.It sucks because it's impossible to lower the humidity inside the bud where bud rot starts. Got my fingers and toes crossed for you. At least worse comes to worse, you are not that far away from harvest, so your losses wouldn't be as bad as if they were Midway through flower.

The white widows are foxtailing! Couldn't quite work out what that meant until I saw it on one of the plants last night, the big beastie sprawling one in the corner, then this morning they all have them. We're struggling with temps for the first time though too, summer has just popped in in the good old uk and suddenly my flower room is up between 30-40c! No doubt it won't last long though... We've opened the door up to let more air in and all fans are on full. Do I need to worry? We're at day 52 of flower. I knew I'd had it too easy the last few months and now everything is happening all at once!