OldMedUsers current grow and plans

Jimmy the vest uk

Well-Known Member
Just found a pheno that loves being bent over she don’t give a fuck her sisters snap easily she’s a legend for bending I can’t get over it but obviously it’s a good thing
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
I can see your love for what you do well done bro
More out of necessity than love at this stage. :)

If I won a decent lotto prize I'd be paying someone to grow the strains I want and ship it to me wherever in the world I happen to be getting in some good fishing. Brown trout in New Zealand, Bonefish in Belize, Salmon on some famous Scottish river in the shadow of a castle. Being of Scottish descent I'd be Spey fishing a two-handed fly rod under the guidance of a good Gillie first. ;)

It's all a lot of fun and I don't fret about anything growing related. Hate the trimming tho. With my arthritic hands it's a real ordeal. Bought a TrimPro Unplugged but it sucks for the fresh bud I like to harvest and fully trim for slow drying. Just glues the bud leaves to the buds and I'll be damned if I'm hang drying my buds. Don't cure nowhere's near as well that way.

:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
It's 9-10 days since I flipped and not much is happening yet, Still getting bad leaves and think using my 3 year old Sensi Grow has screwed something up. Could just be the plants as I've never grown any of these CBD girls before but don't really think that's it.

With every other strain I've grown I'm getting pea to marble sized buds at the end of week one and almost nothing from these yet especially the Otto#1 Just one or two pre-flowers at each bud site that it had prior to flipping. Almost the same with one of the others and tiny buds on the one on the right but no real increase from what it had at the start. I've double checked for light leaks and it's black as the inside of a politicians heart in there at light's out.

I'm thinking maybe it's the light I'm using. Just got those new ones so will be swapping in my big Hortilux 1000w on my old MH ballast as it's proven to work great or two 400s with one Hortilux bulb and a SolarMax that have both grown nice colas in the past. These are supposed to be short flowering time plants so should be further along than they are. Not posting a pic as there's nothing new to show.

Something new tho.

I bought a simple GroZone USCO2 controller to hook up to a 70lb tank I bought a couple years ago at a yard sale only to find out that they won't fill it unless you have an account and rent a tank from them. They use a serial # on the tank to connect it to an account and with my luck it was probably stolen and I'll get the shit for it. $120/yr for tank lease and $124 for each refill so have to cough up $250 up front with tax to get one. So I'm sitting here with a $270 CO2 controller I can't use . . . or can I?

A few years ago I made an alcohol burner to add CO2 but had no idea if it was enough so stopped using it. Then thought why not use the controller to see if the levels go up with it. Do they ever! I only takes about 15 min and the 1500ppm LED starts blinking indicating it's over 1600. There really isn't anything in the manual about using it just to monitor levels so I emailed them last night to find out. Had my answers when I fired up the computer this morning. Had another question so replied to that one and had a response in 15 min. From the CEO of GroZone nonetheless. Talk about great customer service! A big shout out to GroZone!
made as well!

Seems I could have just used it right out of the box for that but being the curious cat type had to run thru the whole process and do the troubleshooting part too and it worked perfect.

This is the burner I made and today made another one the same but with only one wick for the veg room. Just a mason jar with 3/8" copper tubes soldered to the lid and tiki lamp wicks in them. Bit of a PITA as it's all manual and I'm up and down the stairs a dozen times a day but after getting my leaky appendix out recently after 5 years of profound fatigue and all sorts of gut pain and cramps I'm feeling way better and need the exercise to get myself in shape after years of sitting on my bony ass. Burning about 200mls of methyl hydrate downstairs per day and half that in the veg room but it's the first day. I ran tape up the side of the jar and marked it in 50ml increments so I can monitor consumption. I keep them in a metal can or stone crock in the middle of the room so if the jar were to break the alcohol is contained and there's nothing above to catch fire. Getting a couple of heat detectors or smoke alarms just to be safe. Only $8 for a 4L jug so won't cost much to use.

Think I'm going to make a couple of smaller models to use less fuel so it stays around the 1000ppm range for veg and I don't have to run my temps up to 85 or so. Extra CO2 is proven to benefit plant growth at anything above the ambient 400ppm. Full 1500 and higher temps for the growth spurt during stretch and then back to 1000 for the rest of flowering.







10 min after lighting both wicks.





:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Almost forgot. Took 27 cuts on the 17th.

6 each off the 3 CBD girls downstairs. 5 off the 30Something sativa girl and 4 off the OG#18. Want at least 3 of each. 2 for a DWC tub and one for a future mom.



I've been having fairly serious problems with my CBD plants that have been in the same pots of soil/soilless for around 6 months and sadly neglected due to my health issues that have been corrected for the most part, (Leaky appendix for the last 5 years).

Finally got around to sussing out what the problem is and have concluded it's a zinc deficiency which is quite rare but with the length of time in the same media, low feed levels that I consider low on Zn in the first place and using Cervante's chart and grow bible hard copy with all it's clues can't find anything that matches the symptoms as close. Very similar to low manganese, Mn, but doesn't have the telltale green margins on the leaves. Newer leaves are developing interveinal chlorosis, small dark spots then dropping off. Flowers are not developing at all after 9 days of 12/12. Tips and margins are discolouring and burning and the youngest tips distorting. Older growth still healthy for the most part. (Note the tiny grow tip with buggered leaves center left).

All three plants have the same symptoms but the hemp one, my Otto#1 girl, is the worst with older growth getting into it now. This pic is her tonight and shows leaves with all the symptoms.








To treat the 3 plants I pulverized 2 - 50Mg tablets of Chelated Zinc Gluconate I take for my health, a B-100complex cap, selenium tab and half a tsp of Epsom salts with 4 drops of conc. sulfuric acid to drop the pH for 3L of RO water planning to give them a liter each. Being not sure of the toxicity level of Zn I diluted it to 4L and only gave them 500mls each. Should be enough to show some improvement in a couple days if I pegged it right. They needed water so soaked them down with more RO.

When I flipped the plants I gave them a good dose of some 3 year old Sensi Grow A&B, half dose each of Big Bud, Bud Factor X and Bud Ignitor along with a 1/4 dose each of Rhino Skin and Growtech CalMag. Pinch of Epsom Salts in 9L of water so they got 3L each and a bit of RO to wash the top free of nutes and soak the 4gal pots good.

I thought maybe that it was the Sensi gone bad that caused it but thinking back I saw these problems 3 months ago They were already touching the ceiling in the grow room then so strung a light chain across the front of them so they could lean on that while I was out of town for a month while the wife gave them enough water to keep them alive. Got to be 7ft tall plus a foot for the pot so I built a 4x4 lightly framed screen and have them bent over that pointing down about 45°.

I just went and checked my notes for my 7 week old veg plants from seed and waddaya know. Their last 2 feedings were Sensi and they look just fine. Drop that "maybe" to the bottom of the list.

I started using a different Super HPS made by Light EnerG to try it out and got thinking that maybe it was responsible for the lack of bud development so swapped out the new 1000W MH/HPS mag ballast and that bulb for my old 1000W MH mag and the 940W Hortilux conversion bulb that has proven it's worth on two previous grows. I doubt very much now that light is a factor but it's a great light so I'll let it run for the rest of this grow.

Sorry about the long story but this is the kind of process I go thru any time I run into plant problems whether it be my plants or some new grower's plants and they need help fixing what ails them. I was a big Hardy Boys fan as a kid and still have a big box with almost the whole collection from the early and mid sixties. My boys aren't readers so didn't want them. Get to relive some of that when I hunt for clues to fix plants I guess.

Have a Merry Xmas!

:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
All three of the CBD girls will get the chance to show what they can do once I get some rooted cuttings and they go into DWC.

I'm going to do some more research on how best to feed them. Considering that hemp is supposed to manage well in poor soil I'm a bit surprised that the Otto is the worst of the bunch. It's basically a hemp strain that was selectively bred to be high in CBD. Maybe that makes it different and more susceptible to lousy conditions.

Still not going to use any more of the Sensi. It can go into the compost that will be used in the garden next spring.

Today I want to get my ballast out of the grow room and see if that's enough to keep the temps below 90 in there so the exhaust fan doesn't come on at all and the fan will only be triggered if the RH gets too high like 75%. That way there will be a steady level of CO2 in there. There's no big buds on the plants to worry about so the higher RH shouldn't be a problem. I'll drill a hole in the wall so I can run the light cord out into the basement proper and move that little shelf the ballast sits on out there to keep the ballast off the floor. The MH ballast has a hinged top and I opened it up yesterday to have that small USB fan blow directly into the box rather than try to move air thru the louvers. Lot of heat blowing out of there and it's much cooler outside the grow room.

There are no holes or louvers in the bottom or top of the ballast case so once I'm not using it I'm going to take the guts out and drill a bunch of holes in it for better cooling.



:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Operation re-locate ballast successful with little loss of blood and a modicum of cursing!


Bored a 7/8" hole up in the corner near the ceiling on the top shelf and moved the little shelf the ballast sits on to the outside of that wall. Had to take the power cord off the ballast to get it through the hole with the light cord and hook it back up on the other side but that's easy enough. Leaving the lid up for extra cooling with the 48F temps that are only going to get colder as the weather does. About 12 feet further down that wall is a spot where I have a 6" duct booster fan with a heater underneath to blow warm air into a cavity to keep our main water pipe up to the house from freezing up when it gets below -20C or so. I wonder if I used 10 gauge wire to extend the light cord that far if it would be OK? Then the ballast could take place of the heater 12 hours of the day.


Just had a thought. Now I really have to make sure no one goes into the basement with that thing hanging out there to give me away.






Going to tone down the CO2 thing. The plants are in recovery and starting to look like they are greening up but I'll wait a day and get pics tomorrow to compare to the day I treated them. Getting some light burn on a few of the closest leaves that likely wouldn't happen at lower temps as it was up to 88F with over 1600ppm CO2. You need healthy plants to run that kind of supercharger on them. Reset the heat control to 80 and going to keep the CO2 around 1000-1250.

It's only been a day and it might be wishful thinking but the plants are looking greener like the colour is returning fast. I'll wait until tomorrow night and take a few pics to compare with the first ones.

:peace:
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
I'm not convinced that steady CO2 levels are the best.

Plants grow to suit their environment and those grown in high CO2 levels grow fewer stomata, the microscopic holes in the underside of the leaves they breathe through.

I think that varying the levels may be more effective because the plants will grow more stomata when CO2 levels are low and then will absorb more when levels rise.

Maybe your alcohol system is a good idea; you can give them a good blast once or twice a day and then let them soak it up and ride the levels down the rest of the time.
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Maybe your alcohol system is a good idea; you can give them a good blast once or twice a day and then let them soak it up and ride the levels down the rest of the time.
That's pretty much what I'm doing now. I go in the veg room and run it for a half hour then leave it for a couple hours then light it up again for a while. I stopped giving the CBD girls any and reduced the light from the 1000W to a 400 until I can get them on an even keel. The Otto is still real sickly but the crosses are budding up nicely now so they are all getting a good feed today and I'm just going to let them finish flowering out as best they can and get some of their clones in DWC.

The 400 isn't keeping the room warm enough to kick in the fan down there so may need to run a little CO2. Might pick up some extra sugar and get a 6gal jug of mash bubbling in the corner to supply the CO2 then make everclear out of it once it's done.

Should get some decent bud off the crosses at least.

:peace:
 

Ediiiiiii

Member
Canada?... I'm a Boston Bruins fan..not my favorite place!..but yeah my opp is in the basement too and it's great. temp and humidity are never an issue. saves a bunch on start-up and electric.... can't wait to see your babies\ ladies\ plants.... another question for you, can I keep cutting my veg down and try and make it bushier or at some point will it be counter probuctice, cause node areas or branch out points? I have grown before but never wanted to waste a plant to experiment on and really see what I could do in veg as far as plant manipulation. any personal experiences?
nice one whT strain is that
 

Attachments

Ediiiiiii

Member
Chapter two.

I'll repeat the last bit about the types of plants and see if I can go on in a fresh post.

I planted 9 beans in early June. Three Otto#1 very high CBD with only 1% THC max. Only two came up but all 6 of the others did. The other 6 are a strain of my own I call Northern Mist. It's Kali Mist x Northern Lights #5 both purchased originally from Marc Emery's seed bank about 2002. The Kali alone gave me anxiety attacks if I had just a bit too much so I bred it with the NL and the right pheno from that is the bomb! Lifts my mood right out of the hole and puts a smile on my face. Good for joint pain too.

These ones have been crossed with an auto and I'm trying to develop the pheno I like as an auto so I can grow outdoors way up north here. The auto is called Purple Jem. Mazar x LowRyder.

Grew them in the bedroom closet under some CFLs. Near the end of July had to take off to BC to help my 89 yo mom move into a 5th wheel from a beautiful house overlooking Okanagan lake in Peachland. Knew I'd be gone for at least a month so I pruned the plants back drastically so they wouldn't grow too fast and the wife would just have to water them and keep them alive as I put them in worm castings, real soil and promix that had bone meal added. They survived but didn't look so great and I had two males in full flower.

Here's the little darlings 12 days after sprouting on June 14. The two Ottos on the right and the smaller cross at the bottom middle came up root first and I didn't find out until I poked around and a brown bit wouldn't move. Turned out it was the dead tip of the tap root. Turned it around and hoped for the best. Up she came a couple days later and all is well :)

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Here they are on July 7

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And ten days later chopped back. :(

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This is them when I got back 6 weeks later on Sept 9. Wife didn't do too bad.

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The two boys before being whisked off to give me their pollen.

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Donating their dust in a tinfoil lined box in the shop window.

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Why did she trim it like that on pic 2
 

Ediiiiiii

Member
whats that thing hanging above the light

Got the four confirmed girls downstairs under the 400W veg bulb and they grew 2" in 2 days so they want to go. They are surprisingly uniform in their looks, growth rate etc. They are 28 and 30" tall now.

View attachment 3816070

View attachment 3816072

Did some stem rubbing to get a sniff and the two slightly shorter plants have a sweet candy smell that seems to me like Juicy Fruit gum. The other two not so much but subtly alike.

Getting a little root bound but not bad. I'll pick up a tarp tomorrow in town to mix my ProMix blend up in and stick them in 4gal pots on Saturday, load em up with bloom nutes and flip them a few days later.

View attachment 3816074

Now the Ottos got room to breathe and hoping the cuttings show sex soon so I can move any girl(s) downstairs. Need to sprout my last 3 beans of these to make sure I have a male to breed some more beans with.

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Any guesses:

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My buddies showed up today on their way to the big city and grabbed $800 to pay for the grow goodies I ordered and bring it on home to me! :)

Feels like the best Xmas in years even if I did have to pay for my own presents. :lol:

:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Why did she trim it like that on pic 2
I trimmed them back so they wouldn't get too big during my 6 week absence. Lower light levels so they would grow slower and the wife just had to water once in a while.

whats that thing hanging above the light
Can't see a picture so not sure but probably the light rail or else the light would just be hanging off hooks in the ceiling.

:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
So much for my Zinc deficiency theory. No real change to the CBD girls so decided it's probably the peat based soilless mix has used up all the dolomite it came with so pulverized 12g of dolomitic lime and mixed that into 3L of water and gave all 3 a L each and another liter of RO to wash it in. Only a couple days so far and no real difference. The Otto#1 looks like it's going hermie so may have to chop it out. It's not budding up hardly at all so will try it's clones in a DWC tub and hope it's stress related with the mom and the clones won't hermie but not going to bet on it.

The other two CBD girls are starting to bud up nice but not as well as other strains do. I tried rubbing a couple of small buds to check how they smell and they sure are different. One is very sweet and fruity smelling while the other is fruity but more of a musky odor to it. Looking forward to trying out the mature buds in 6 weeks or so.



None of the 9 cuts from the big sativa or the OG18 took. Most of the ones from the CBD girls seem to have rooted but still not showing roots out the bottom of the pots.

I re-potted the big girls in 15L/3.3gal pots and will get healthier cuts from the top of the plants as they are 40" tall now. Give the cuts time to root then flower the moms.



Group shot. The biggest two BBs are 15" tall now and the one runt Skunk plant is only 7". BBs on the left then Skunks with the AKs on the right. The front big girl is the sativa with the OG in the back.



The BBs are the nicest and most robust of the bunch.



The Skunks sure show their sativa side with those spider-like leaves.



The AKs sure look different for expensive female seeds. Nobody sells nice stable seeds anymore but want lots of money for beans.



No problem keeping the CO2 levels up in there. Just sitting in the room for an hour re-potting and fussing with the plants got it up to 1500ppm just from my breathing the same air. half hour with the alcohol lamp twice a day keeps it way over ambient so doesn't have to burn long. Window is closed and heat vent blocked off so it's like a sealed grow room in there now. Installing the tent in there and proper exhaust fan this week I hope.

:peace:
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
So much for my Zinc deficiency theory. No real change to the CBD girls so decided it's probably the peat based soilless mix has used up all the dolomite it came with so pulverized 12g of dolomitic lime and mixed that into 3L of water and gave all 3 a L each and another liter of RO to wash it in. Only a couple days so far and no real difference. The Otto#1 looks like it's going hermie so may have to chop it out. It's not budding up hardly at all so will try it's clones in a DWC tub and hope it's stress related with the mom and the clones won't hermie but not going to bet on it.

The other two CBD girls are starting to bud up nice but not as well as other strains do. I tried rubbing a couple of small buds to check how they smell and they sure are different. One is very sweet and fruity smelling while the other is fruity but more of a musky odor to it. Looking forward to trying out the mature buds in 6 weeks or so.



None of the 9 cuts from the big sativa or the OG18 took. Most of the ones from the CBD girls seem to have rooted but still not showing roots out the bottom of the pots.

I re-potted the big girls in 15L/3.3gal pots and will get healthier cuts from the top of the plants as they are 40" tall now. Give the cuts time to root then flower the moms.



Group shot. The biggest two BBs are 15" tall now and the one runt Skunk plant is only 7". BBs on the left then Skunks with the AKs on the right. The front big girl is the sativa with the OG in the back.



The BBs are the nicest and most robust of the bunch.



The Skunks sure show their sativa side with those spider-like leaves.



The AKs sure look different for expensive female seeds. Nobody sells nice stable seeds anymore but want lots of money for beans.



No problem keeping the CO2 levels up in there. Just sitting in the room for an hour re-potting and fussing with the plants got it up to 1500ppm just from my breathing the same air. half hour with the alcohol lamp twice a day keeps it way over ambient so doesn't have to burn long. Window is closed and heat vent blocked off so it's like a sealed grow room in there now. Installing the tent in there and proper exhaust fan this week I hope.

:peace:
Calcium is an immobile nutrient. Foliar might help, but adding it after the plant has gone deficient won't bring the bad leaves back, though it will fix the new ones.
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Calcium is an immobile nutrient. Foliar might help, but adding it after the plant has gone deficient won't bring the bad leaves back, though it will fix the new ones.
The dose of dolomite seems to have done something positive. Less leaves going bad and now they look a little hungry so I'll feed the lightly next watering which may be today. The two Goldfish girls are budding up nicely but the Otto is barely putting out buds at all. Doesn't seem to be going hermie like I thought. Calyxes just forming slowly then hairs coming out.

Got rooted clones so will pot some in my 12-hole tub in about a week and see how they like DWC.

:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Found it i got some reading to do looks like u have a lot going on.
Got a lot of balls in the air alright. :)

More as soon as I can get to the city and pick up a pack of seeds that just came in from the east coast. ISSxBB, Island Sweet Shunk x D.J.Short's BlueBerry. It was either 5 females and 3 males or visa-versa. Have to check with the pollen chucker. :)

:peace:
 

ANC

Well-Known Member
I could see those cuttings were never going to take. Firstly cuttings must come off a healthy plant. It helps if the plant was fed and watered the day before. Secondly, if you cut them and place them into water like cut flowers until you can process them, they won't wilt like that.
Thirdly, you have to cut the leaves down to about half to a 3rd of their original size or they will transpire more than the stem can wick up.
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
I could see those cuttings were never going to take. Firstly cuttings must come off a healthy plant. It helps if the plant was fed and watered the day before. Secondly, if you cut them and place them into water like cut flowers until you can process them, they won't wilt like that.
Thirdly, you have to cut the leaves down to about half to a 3rd of their original size or they will transpire more than the stem can wick up.
No Duh.

I've only done a few thousand clones and knew I'd be lucky if even a few of these survived but still got over half. Got the main ones I wanted from the CBD girls and now the big plants are a lot healthier and I'll get some of those then flower the the moms.

Even those tiny little clones will grow up to be copies of the moms and be just fine.
 
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