# The Hobby Grow aka the Torture Chamber...Vertical/3x3/400w/Coco, Goal = 450g/Cycle



## onlybuilt4 (Jan 29, 2012)

Hello folks...been a member here for a while but never posted (anything that I recall, anyways)...figured I'd throw this here and let it ride. I'm just copying and pasting most of these posts from another forum I frequent, so some of them might not make a whole lot of sense as they were posted over the course of the last several weeks. Here goes...

I've been out of commission for quite some time now for security reasons, but even though I've called it quits on the larger-scale gardens, I still need a head stash...right? Growing's in my blood and I find it difficult to imagine imagine a life without this plant, so better for me to mitigate the risks and stick to something real small instead of trying to go "cold turkey," as it were. In any case, here's the important stuff:

-Strain is a local cross of the Afghani #1 (male, smells just like the "coffee pheno" we have around...I have pics of that particular strain in its final form on this forum somewhere, as an fyi) and the local rendition of NL#5...from what I have seen, it is perhaps the largest yielding strain I have ever personally put eyes on in my entire life. The person who gifted me the cut told me that knowing what I know and given my growing style, I should be "flabbergasted" (yes, they used that word) with anything less than a quap per plant with this strain. He's not the type to use hyperbole, so I'm excited to see what I can pull off with this tiny little space. 
 

-400w Hortilux for flower, bare bulb, hanging straight down the middle of the plants vertically. It's cold enough for the bulb to operate without a fan pointing up at it as I typically would for a vertical setup, but come spring/summertime I will need to throw that back in there. Plants are vegged for 3 weeks from rooted clone before flip...for most varieties, I almost always wait until I see pre-flowers indicating sexual maturity regardless of whether that takes 3 weeks or 5 weeks. Obviously this takes considerably longer than normal from seed rather than clone.

-Medium is Sunshine Pro Just Coir, fed with nothing but tap water and Canna A + B at 15ml/gal. I also hit nearly everything with a moderate to heavy dose of Rhizotonic (20ml/gal - 50ml/gal) up to two or three times between feedings until the 3rd week, but that's all. 

-The grow is located in a ~3' x 3' master shower in one of my homes with the exhaust plumbed into the dryer exhaust located nearby.

-The goal here is maximum yield with respect to quality and the ability to tear everything down and dispose of it within 10 to 15 minutes. Doing so required a bit of jury-rigging (seen in the pictures later), but as they say...better safe than sorry. 

-As the title states, I am looking to get at least a pound per cycle with 4 plants in 3 gallon pots. Veg will be 3 weeks from rooted clone (as mentioned above), up to 4 weeks depending on whatever strain I choose to throw in there in the future. In the interest of full disclosure, the plants currently in the space vegged for about 5 weeks before going to the 12/12 cycle on 12/12/2011 (clever, I know 




 ), so I would expect to reach my mark even easier this first go-round. 

-As this is a "torture chamber" grow (and if you know me at all, you know I'm fond of those 




) I have subjected most of these plants to some rough shit in order to test the stability of the genetics and satisfy my morbid curiosity. Every plant was FIMed, and each one was trained and/or supercropped in a slightly different way so that I could observe the minute differences in the end result. Additionally, I defoliate very heavily, especially after they were nearing the end of the stretch...but more on that here in a little while.

I will add more to this as I go, and I will upload some photos in just a couple of hours when the lights come on. As of today (12/24), plants have been flipped for 12 days. I expect to flower for another 7 to 8 weeks, perhaps more, although my friend claims they can be taken far earlier...we'll see. To be clear, my goal for yield here is no less than 100 grams per plant, although I am hoping for up to 150g+ if all goes to spec. Although I only have 3 plants flowering in the space currently, it really requires 4 plants to maximize efficiency, so I recently threw a highland mexi cross in there that I had running from seed to sex it. If it's female, it'll stay, and if it's male and I think it's worth a shit, I'll segregate it to another room until I can take the pollen.


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## onlybuilt4 (Jan 29, 2012)

*First up, a few pics of the girls in their natural habitat. See what I mean about jury rigging? Ignore the cheap hygrometer/thermometer, thing hasn't worked for the better part of a month and I'm too lazy to replace it. The temp, however, actually is accurate...getting a bit cold in there for the ladies, may have to throw a small space heater in there with 'em to play it safe. *































*Here's the first lady...as you can see, this one has only been moderately defoliated and then supercropped quite aggressively throughout its life up until the first week of flower or so, but I have done very little training as I wanted to wait until stretch was totally over to tie everything down. This can be an issue at times (doing it so late in the game, that is), but thankfully the structure of this plant should make that easy this go-round. *




































*#2...this one was defoliated the heaviest, way up the main branches. I will also aggressively defoliate the flowers on this one, as I'm curious to see what that will do especially with this strain. Notice that this one and the preceding plant have considerably more developed budsites compared to the third one (below), which has not been defoliated since the flip at all and has a ton of bud sites being blocked by the light on account of all of the big fans that are still attached...as these are all the same pheno (obviously, as they're from clone), that may be food for thought...*








































*And here is girl #3...this one has not been defoliated since a couple of weeks before they were flipped, and is suffering a bit as a result of it. As you can see from a couple of the pics, this one loses a few large fans to bulb burns every time she is rotated simply because of how unruly the plant is with all of the fans attached and no training as of yet. This current grow doubles as a layman's experiment to test the benefits of defoliation with this new strain, this plant being the "control" so to speak. I have not decided whether I should defoliate it after the stretch or continue the "experiment" and allow it to flower without being messed with. I think it is very clear that yield will suffer because of the structure of the plant and how large the main fans are, and it would be an awful big waste to let this one go without at least a bit of cleaning up and tying down. Decisions, decisions...*


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## onlybuilt4 (Jan 29, 2012)

snapped some quick lights off pics at the very end of day 42...couldn't resist, hit a few branches with some pollen that may or may not have been viable from a real greasy, stout highland Mexi male. Also had a timer break on me so may end up with a few beans either way, although I haven't seen any nanners. haven't really looked hard though... I've truthfully neglected these quite a bit, been very busy the last few days, so I'm happy that they're doing as well as they are. Still wondering if my buddy didn't switch up clones on me, as a couple of these look like I could chop 'em by the 1st while the tall one still looks to have some time left judging by how it's filling out. Trichs are mostly milky on just about all of the main colas so this strain may finish as quickly as my friend claims, I guess we'll find out in the next couple of weeks...anyways, enough yapping, on with the pics. 





























Accidentally snapped a pretty hefty lower branch the other day and quick dried it and made QWISO with the trimmings...very impressive considering how early it is and how little I've taken care of these girls, that's what made me decide to hit it with the pollen and try to work something out for posterity... that and the fact that these buds are some of the densest and frostiest I've come across. Unbelievably tight nugs, very impressed overall so far.


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## onlybuilt4 (Jan 29, 2012)

To save myself some trouble and all of you folks a bit of reading, I have assembled a "time lapse" sequence of photos showing each of the 3 plants at days 12, 19, 28, 35, 40, and 49 (yesterday). These are in order as I have listed them, and it should be pretty easy to tell the different plants apart based on the color of the zipties. I've been calling the red #1, the black #2, and the clear #3, so I'll stick with that for easy identification purposes in the future. On with the pics:


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## onlybuilt4 (Jan 29, 2012)

And one more for good measure...this is an assemblage of shots from day 49...promise this is the last post for a couple days


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## shnkrmn (Jan 29, 2012)

Do you wear a black leather mask and apron while you do this?


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## onlybuilt4 (Jan 29, 2012)

shnkrmn said:


> Do you wear a black leather mask and apron while you do this?


No, but I most certainly will take this into consideration.


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## arik maso (Jan 29, 2012)

your resin production and bud density look outstanding! i like the bondage on those girls too. looking forward to more pics


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## SFguy (Jan 29, 2012)

they look frosty and dense, i LOVE the timelapse shots, they are really huge for 49 days....im VERY IMPRESSED with your vert 400

+rep to you


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## iamaaror (Jan 30, 2012)

This is one very nice grow and the end result will be very much to your liking for sure :d Signed a recently converted coco grower


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## HotPhyre (Jan 30, 2012)

Looks awesome man it seems to me in the picture the one plant with the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 removed had the fattest buds...did it end out weighting more in the end or did the other ones produce more.


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## onlybuilt4 (Jan 30, 2012)

*arik maso: *Thanks man! I'm looking forward to see what these ladies can really do for me, especially after this initial run. I have a feeling that if I were in a dialed-in environment and not such a half-assed ghetto setup these would already be twice the size. 

*SFguy: * &#8203;Thank you sir! +Rep to you as well...and everybody else who replied for that matter 

*iamaaror: * I sure hope so dude!

*Hot Phyre:* I would agree that the most heavily defoliated has the fattest colas. The largest one on that plant in particular is currently about as wide as a 2 liter soda bottle.  These are still going, currently on day 51 of flowering, so I do not know weights yet. I have a feeling that the one you mentioned will be, if not the largest yielder of the group, then #2 for sure behind the taller, less "bondaged" lady.

More to come soon guys! Should be taking at least one of these down within 10 days, another within 2 weeks, and the last (the largest one, with red zip ties) will go at least another 2-2.5 weeks as that was the one I pollinated most heavily with the highland mexi male...

thanks for posting and checking this out everybody...much appreciated.


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## arik maso (Jan 31, 2012)

onlybuilt4 said:


> *arik maso: *Thanks man! I'm looking forward to see what these ladies can really do for me, especially after this initial run. I have a feeling that if I were in a dialed-in environment and not such a half-assed ghetto setup these would already be twice the size.
> 
> *SFguy: * &#8203;Thank you sir! +Rep to you as well...and everybody else who replied for that matter
> 
> ...


they're fat though!!!! your setup seems to be performing well


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## onlybuilt4 (Jan 31, 2012)

Thanks bro!

for shits n giggles, here's an early nug from the biggest one (red ties), one of the larfy, behind-the-other-buds nuggets in fact. not bad for 50 days...freshly cut in this pic, will take another one when it's dry in a few days to compare.


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## Xoshua (Jan 31, 2012)

I like how the OP said it was in _one_ _of his homes._ I'm very envious. I would like you to hire me an apprentice please.  Let me know.

Such a nice grow.


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## OldGrowAddict (Jan 31, 2012)

400W HID touching the plants, I don't understand how the bulb can be cool enough - you even say you have no fan. Are you growing in a freezer ?


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## onlybuilt4 (Feb 1, 2012)

Xoshua: hard work pays off my friend 

OldGrowAddict: and to top it all off, it's an EYE Hortilux, which I've noticed burns hotter than most other bulbs of the equivalent wattage. To be fair, there aren't any parts of the plants actually _touching_ the bulb, but there are some branches/buds that are less than 6" away...these do have some slight heat stress, but nothing too bad or noticeable at all. To answer your question: this home does not have central heat (nearly 75 years old) so my lights off temp without any ventilation is 50-55 degrees on a cold day, 65-70 degrees max with lights on that same cold night. I use a dehumidifier in there which pumps out a good bit of heat, but my extraction fan pulls all of the air through the scrubber and directly out of the dryer vent on the side of the house, so the air exchange is better than necessary. I simply use a space heater in the hallway adjacent to the master bedroom where this bathroom is located when necessary (i.e. during cold days while lights are off) to ensure that my temps stay at 62-65* (lights off) and 72-77 degrees (lights on). If this were a more permanent arrangement I would be a lot more OCD about keeping the ranges much smaller, but since the whole idea is that I can break this down and get rid of it in under 20 minutes or so, I'm not too worried. Obviously the plants aren't suffering too much, so I like to stick to my standard "don't fix it if it ain't broke" worldview there.

Thanks for the comments/questions!


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## arik maso (Feb 5, 2012)

That sample looks danky dandy! The calyxes are swollen I want to pinch them


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## onlybuilt4 (Feb 6, 2012)

Thanks my man...would give ya some more rep but it won't let me, apparently I have to spread it around a bit first...

So a brief update...as I may or may not have mentioned earlier in the thread, my plan was to chop one of these girls pretty early, right around 8 weeks, so that I had plenty of smoke for my own head that I can burn throughout the day...I like to smoke a lot and I also like to be productive, so it's hard to find that balance. I harvested the plant with the clear zip ties at day 56 (possibly 55, I kinda lost count) and have had it drying for the past 4 days. I sped up the drying process a bit compared to what I usually do, mostly to see whether this strain can hold its stink even with a quick dry and no cure...and thankfully, it does. I have some photos I'll post up here when I get a chance to sift through them. But here's what ya'll are really interested in: 

At the current time the harvest from clear zip tie lady is stem-snapping-dry, and with all extraneous leaf matter and stems removed (even from the main colas), along with the ~150g of wet trim and lower buds that I made bubble with, I ended up with a cunt's hair over *95 grams* of excellent quality chronic. Since this thing was taken down early, and considering how much trim and larf I took off (I'm very anal about my trimming), I believe my number would have been at least 110-120g, just about right at 1/4lb...this is exciting for me, because, based upon this weigh-in, I can surmise that I will not only reach my 3/4lb goal from these plants, but perhaps even far exceed it. 

Pics very soon...gotta lot of work to do today so I may not get around to posting them until tomorrow. Thanks for following along folks!


edit- oh, and I ended up with roughly a half ounce of bubble hash (73u), and probably at least another quarter combined of the 25u and 160u, neither of which I'm particularly too keen on. Love that 73....


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## onlybuilt4 (Feb 10, 2012)

Random assemblage of shots...will put these in order and label them when I have a chance....before I post them, I'll do a quick breakdown of what has happened since my last update:


1.) Had a pretty big scare that was entirely my own fault -- do not really want to go into detail. In the interest of total safety and security (and the ability to freely grow another day), I chopped the other two girls a hair earlier than I would have liked at 63 days. 


2.) As I mentioned before, the early-cut plant (clear zipties) weighed roughly 90g completely dry (stem snapping, that is)...now that it has been totally broken down... i.e. all colas cut down into smaller flowers, large stems removed, and after the final trim....I ended up with 82 grams of fantastic herb, even despite the fact that it was taken so early. This, once again, does not count the almost 150g (wet weight taken at time of harvest) of larfy popcorn and trim that was made into bubble. 


3.) If appearance and density of the last two specimens are any indication, I am going to hit my yield estimate _out of the fucking ballpark._ Not only that, but the quality of these flowers are OUTSTANDING. Some of the greasiest, stinkiest plants I have ever seen with my own two eyes. Very happy with this run...still very confused as to what I was growing though, as I mentioned before. Either way, sick nugs...the foxtailed one (black zip ties) reminds me of a good Sour cross...smells like body odor, garlic, onions, and menthol with a bit of lemon floor cleaner thrown in for good measure...not the frostiest one out of the three, but definitely the most stank for sure...


Anyways, more to come soon, these photos are pretty half-assed...my apologies, but you guys are lucky I took the time to snap any at all, as I've been in cover-my-ass-and-hide-the-felonies mode for the last 3 days and haven't had time for much else at all.


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## arik maso (Feb 10, 2012)

those plants are literally FULL of buds. oh what a happy day


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## milleniumbud (Feb 11, 2012)

super like bro...
high risk high reward
wear ur shades, and keep your soda cans away!


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## onlybuilt4 (Feb 12, 2012)

Thanks guys......i'm pretty happy with the results given all of the hurdles...sad that I chopped roughly 4-5 days earlier than I would have liked and never ran into the security issue I thought I had, but definitely fine with playing it safe in that regard. I'm going to try to find some batteries for my camera and get some semi-dry and dry shots today. Currently on the 4th day of overall drying, 2nd day for the black zip tie plant, 4th day for the red one. Quick background on how I'm drying...this is a bit faster than I typically like to do it, but in the interest of safety I'm trying to get these in jars as quickly as possible without ruining them. Normally takes me 6-7 days if I do it "right," looking to have the entire crop from the red plant done by tomorrow afternoon and the remainder finished by Valentine's Day. Basically, this is how it goes: 

Everything gets hung in one of my spare bedroom closets, the dehuey goes in the bedroom outside of the closet with the door shut. Temps are right at 64-65 degrees, a bit chilly but definitely better than too warm. Started at 55% for the first day, knocked it to 50% RH for the second day, and from the 3rd day on I keep the closet at 45% on the dot. I break down all of my main colas and top buds to golf ball-sized buds to promote even drying...everything this big or larger gets hung, everything smaller gets thrown on an extra clean window screen I have and typically is dry enough to jar about a day before the rest. From that point on, right at the point where the stems are just about to snap but not quite there and the outsides of the buds (i.e. the calyxes, not the close trim leaves) are dry to the touch, they go through the method best described by Simon in his "perfect cure" thread, although I generally just eyeball it/do it by feel and not with hygros in the jars...after a couple days of burping, rotating the jars, and (if slightly too wet after a day or so of sweating) taking the buds out of the jars for ~4 hours at a time, they have generally reached the point at which the cure is beginning and the smell/flavor is there. I should note that this works FAR better with a very well-trimmed batch than with a batch that received a light trim, the leaves seem to throw it off quite a bit when there are a lot of close trim left on.

^I know this is nothing ground-breaking, but figured I'd throw it in for anybody curious as to my method for that...\


Anyways, more to come soon.
__________________


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## DJpissypants (Feb 13, 2012)

great job man. Hit us with the total yield... ya got me on the edge of my seat!


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## onlybuilt4 (Feb 13, 2012)

The third plant (foxtailed one, black zip ties) is still a couple days from fully dry, but the final numbers from the other two were *85g* (clear zip ties) and *118g* from the big one (red zip ties). Keep in mind that a LOT of larf/popcorn (which shouldn't have been there at all, but more on that later) was turned into bubble and I took at least 4-5 early branches to get them out of the way throughout flowering, so I think that had I not been so heavy-handed with that, I would have hit the 100g mark on the clear one as well. 

Either way, assuming that I get at least 100g from the last one (which, honestly, may not happen...I'm guessing no more than 90-95 all said and done, but I could get surprised) I will have hit my mark of 100g avg. per plant. Pretty happy with what I got overall, but another week would have done these damned things right, not just "pretty good." I'm a bit of a perfectionist and this is gonna hurt for a while, but oh well...~300g from a 400w light ain't nothing to sneeze at in my experience, so it's all gravy. However, some thoughts on how I could have increased that yield are as follows:

1.) As mentioned, I over-vegged the s-h-i-t out of these things for the space and wattage. Should have given them 3 weeks of veg instead of 5 and trained a lot earlier and perhaps even more aggressively...duly noted for next time.

2.) I'm a mono-cropper by nature, so since I clearly got at least two different phenos in the clones I received, I would definitely choose to run the big one (red) from clone with aforementioned 3 week veg and stuff at least 4, up to 6 of em in the same space. I think if I did so I could pull 1/4lb from each without breaking a sweat....

3.) Finally, as mentioned earlier.....these were cut early. I fucking HATE early-cut plants unless I have a purpose in mind, like with the first one I chopped...thankfully, these were only a few days out from being DONE done, and at the time of chop the trich profile was 80-85% cloudy, 5% (MAYBE 10%) clear, and the rest amber...the big one had a bit less amber than the foxtailed one, but the density and quality of the buds makes up for the slightly longer flowering time I think. I guess we'll see when they're all cured a bit and I can give em a real test run.

More to come soon...soon as I find my camera cord and get some new batteries I'll take some new shots and finish uploading the rest of my other ones...


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## arik maso (Feb 13, 2012)

cool deets. i hate chopping early too, but as long as the oils are matured enough to make hits taste dank and not hayish, its all good! a QP per plant average under a 400 is effing bananas. kudos!!


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## srambo (Feb 14, 2012)

Very good thread! Hoping to see more from this grower. I will definitely scrog next time i grow, once I'm not revealed


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## Dameon (Mar 20, 2012)

Nice job! Those nugs looked chunky! Very Crunchy, Broseph!


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## throwdo (Mar 26, 2012)

more more more


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## realcarshavev8s (Mar 26, 2012)

That's impressive I don't think I've seen anyone yield like that with a 400!


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## StraightDope (Mar 28, 2012)

Very nice plants bro. LST in flower seems to be the trick huh?


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## onlybuilt4 (Apr 1, 2012)

Thanks man. LST is definitely handy, although with the intensity of training I'm not sure "low stress" is the terminology I'd have used for this run...haha.


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