First Grow Ever: HSO Blue Dream in DWC

Well, all good things must come to an end... My first grow is no exception. I plucked my girls about a week ago. I wanted to post my harvest pics that same night, but holy shit! Nobody tells you how much work there is involved with harvesting and trimming/manicuring the buds... All told I spent probably 6 hours or so. And if you want to really witness the difference in phenotypes, wait until harvest... One of my plants had a sativa dominant trait, the other an indica dominant trait. The indica was MUCH easier to harvest properly. The sativa was a slightly heavier yielder, but the nuggets were smaller, popcorn style nuggets... It took forever to get them right. The indica lady took a long time too, but it was a lot easier. Here are some pics:



I didn't take pics of everything... Once you get your hands/gloves sticky enough, there's no desire to cleanup just to take pics... I dried them out in the tent....



The cola close up might show you.... The tops were starting to turn purple! Yum!

And all trimmed up and weighed in:



Yummy almost red hairs all over everything...

Grand total dry weight: 8.125 oz.

What I learned
What I learned about this process could easily fill a book... Read back through my journal if you want to learn more about my journey here...

If the target is a gram per watt, I came in really low... If the target was to grow a decent stash of potent weed.. I came in right on target. If I follow the mantra of "learn to grow,then learn to increase yield"... Then I'm doing ok...

Things I'm going to change:

1. Training. Training. More training. Then some more training... I was scared to hurt the plants,so I was ginger with them. This reduced the number of tops/colas I could have.
2. Start the scrog a lot earlier... Because I let the plants get so big before applying the screen, things quickly got out of control... I had a lot of growth above the screen which was not bud sites... 2/3 of my plants were above the screen before the stretch was finished... This is bad for all sorts of reasons... But it seriously reduced my yield.
3. If I'm growing more than 1 plant at a time, I'm building a recirculating dwc (RDWC). Spending 30-40 minutes a night just adding back and ph balancing is too much... A control bucket and more nute solution makes this all easier. I will invest in the RDWC before growing again.
4. Once into flowering, I'm going to be more diligent with pruning and trimming. I saw a lot of retarded or underdeveloped bud sites during harvest. Had they received light, I might have doubled my yield...
5. It seems like I have decent instincts... I'm going to keep following them.
6. I need to redesign my grow space to be more efficient... I had to keep the exhaust fans running all the time to keep the temps in check, but that made keeping the humidity levels comfortable almost impossible... Also a hit on the yield.
7. I skimped on the screen... I mounted it directly to the tent, so getting underneath/behind it was impossible... Next time around, I'll make sure I keep future plant maintenance in mind.
8. Better buckets... I switched my buckets from store-bought 5 gallon buckets to homemade 14 gallon tanks. The homemade buckets held more soup, gave the roots more room to grow, and sat lower to the ground which helped with height concerns... But There was a lot left to be desired... Next time around, I'm going to build them properly....

Well folks, that's a wrap... All there is left to do is cure the goods (happening now) and enjoy the mother-lovin' SHIT out of it... Which is happening now too!
Thanks for all your support and help these past few months... I enjoyed my first grow ever... But just as much I enjoyed sharing it here...

Happy growing, folks!

Congrats of your harvest a half pound should have you set for awhile.

That's a great harvest first time or not. You weren't lyin' about having a sativa dom pheno.
All excellent points in the 'things you would change' section. Just about everything you listed you most likely read before or during your grow. But no matter how much you read nothing beats actually growing it for yourself and seeing the positives or negatives. Anyway that should hold you over until you have redesigned your setup. The next go around will be even better. Don't be afraid of training or pruning. In the end it is a good thing.

Mine are still drying. My one BD looks like it will weight more than the other 3 strains I had going combined. This plant really puts out. Would love to pm you some pics of my post harvest but I don'tsee how to do that from the pm screen. Can you only post pics to the forums?

blackstoneinstitute said:

That's a great harvest first time or not. You weren't lyin' about having a sativa dom pheno.
All excellent points in the 'things you would change' section. Just about everything you listed you most likely read before or during your grow. But no matter how much you read nothing beats actually growing it for yourself and seeing the positives or negatives. Anyway that should hold you over until you have redesigned your setup. The next go around will be even better. Don't be afraid of training or pruning. In the end it is a good thing.

Mine are still drying. My one BD looks like it will weight more than the other 3 strains I had going combined. This plant really puts out. Would love to pm you some pics of my post harvest but I don'tsee how to do that from the pm screen. Can you only post pics to the forums?

Click to expand...

I have no idea about the pm... Feel free to post them here. I'd like to show the love for HSO too. Whatever the genetics for their blue dream truly are, I AINT complainin'!!

AWG- You should do a smoke report when you get the chance.

Well here are a few pics of my hso blue dream right before and after harvest. Yeah I know I need to learn to take better pics. This strain was a super producer for me. Not sure about the weight yet as it is still drying and I need to do some more trimming but this beast sent out branches from one end of my 4x4 screen to the other. The phrase 'growing like a weed' fits perfectly. I'll post back with the final weigh in in a few days.

very well done, great job man ur stalk is hugh them dwc ant no joke, i run a ebb and flow table but dwc the roots r in the nutz solution the whole time thats awesome

Heres mine about day 35[video=youtube_share;vA8ulDrdlQY]http://youtu.be/vA8ulDrdlQY[/video]

epic first grow & dwc brother. I can definitely relate to how out of control that shit gets, in a good way of course! I myself have not stopped plotting a future rdwc setup..