A Walk Down Memory Lane - 8000W Bubba Perpetual

Thank you for the very kind and humbling words. I certainly am enjoying the process. 
 
I promise what's taking up my time is worth the wait. The kid in this story barely had a clue what he stumbled upon. Just wait til this story to collides with the present... 

 

April 2010 Week 2
 
Mama Trainwreck
 
I don't mean to speak ill of the plant, but man was she a poor producer! After all that I think she barely yielded a couple ounces. Really fluffy stuff. It still had a nice stoney head buzz without any debilitating sink - productive, conversational. 
 

 
 
PK
 
I was now officially concerned at the height of these plants and knew that they would soon fall over. Not only were they a stretchy in general but I had them in the 6" pots that I was intended for single colas. Luckily the rockwool weighed enough for them not to blow over.
 
I decided that a trellis net would be the best solution and since they had barely just started flowering, I figured I could get away with a little LST - SCROG style. 
 

 
Days later...
 

 

Look familiar 
 
I was also still trying my luck with SOG  as I was running a few test subjects off to the side, which was silly since they were having trouble receiving light, ultimately defeating the purpose of SOG. I believe my aim at this point was to see if a tall healthy clone from a healthy mother made a difference in the the potential. I was still hoping I would be rewarded with a fat corn cob cola. 
 

 
 
Mothers and Children
 

 
The recovery time of the transplanted clones was getting a lot faster allowing me to top quicker. It dawned on me that it all came down to the mothers. The day that we switched to RO and started producing healthy green mothers was the same day that I started producing healthy clones. This would seem obvious through transitive property but it's something that is often overlooked in many people's setups. I've seen many growers hanging on to these old mothers out of sentiment and superstition slowly producing weaker genetic copies. The genes are there but the vessel itself is not nearly as robust as it once was. When you clone a healthy, thick branch it begins its life with an already established phloem, not wasting any time when it roots. The initial strength of the branch itself and the continuation of it's health is the true start of the plants life in a rotational setup. 
 
This photo is a personal favorite of mine.. I call it Decapitation.
 

 
If you're paying attention to the count... you'll notice that I have more than two trays of plants veging while the PK's have barely started flowering...
 
Enter: Room 3
 

 
This room was originally used for casting metals which explains the ventilation. The fan on that wall blew straight out to the street and could clear the entire air volume of the room in about 10 seconds. It was so loud it made me nervous haha.   
 
Still this wasn't exactly practical as we couldn't leave it on all day. This time I knew what I wanted. Ask and ye shal receive.
 

• 8 Dedicated 220V outlets each on their own breaker
• 1 Independent industrial air conditioner
• 2 growlab 290's (10'x10'x7')
• 8 1000w Hortilux eye HPS bulbs
• 8 Aircooled XL Reflectors
• 4 4'x8' trays and all the plumbing
• 1 industrial work sink (by far the most impactful thing we installed - a major step up from the bathroom sink in the other room)

 

 
So I lied... this makes it a 12,000W setup... of just hps   
 
next: Holy fuck. 

 

April 2010 Week 3
 
 
PK 
 
Doubt is a killer my friends...
 
The nylon trellis net was failing to keep the branches down and I was worried that the lower buds would not receive any light. I consulted the forums and found archives of threads debating the issue. Many claimed the fan leaves were "energy powerhouses" and others claimed that it's all about the lumens reaching the buds. This was the first time I even had to consider the issue of too many leaves to begin with. I was so terrified to mess with a healthy plant that it took a mountain of courage to top a plant for the first time. 
 
I started very gingerly and I don't know what happened but something came over me and the wrath of edward scissor hands commenced. 
 

 

 

 
I suppose my method was to remove every fan leave that was blocking light, which turned out to be almost everything except for the lower ones. 
 
 
April 2010 Week 4
 
PK
 
Strange enough, they seemed to endure very little shock and continued to fatten up over the next week. I'm still undecided if removing the fan leaves was the right move. I'm sure there is an 80/20 rule somewhere in the argument.
 
The point is (if there's ever only one)... is to just fucking do it or don't. Whichever you chose, own it. How much of my life have I spent contemplating and analyzing decisions that in the long run made marginal differences to the whole picture? With all that time I could have tested and learned and pivoted with more wisdom. I'm speaking about this in the present state of mind because it's still a daily struggle. Analysis paralysis is not something that magically goes away; Instead, it gets more powerful and even more debilitating the older we get and the more choices we're required to make. Preparation and inaction are two very different things. Often the thing we're stuck on is simply a matter of preference. This plant seemed to care less haha!
 

 

 

 

 
 
Remember that single cola bubba experiment? 
 

 
 
Mothers and Children
 

 
 
Wow okay hurry up with that back room! Pressure is on.
 
 
Room 3
 
Once the electrical and the new A/C was installed we ran the ducting to the tents and started building the tray tables. 
 

 
 
Next: At Last

 

 

May 2010 Week 1
 
PK 
 

 

 

 
The buds were not enormous but they were dense. The kept stacking calyx on top of calyx. This was the kind of bud, when it was done, you could throw through a window - the kind that even when you grind up the tiniest piece it manages to fill a joint. 
 
I was on cloud 9. 
 
For the first time in my entire life I was surrounded by a room full of bud. Even though it wasn't perfect, I didn't care.  Back when I was lamenting over the death of a couple plants in my bedroom there is no way you could convince me that a year later I would be surrounded by a whole room full of purple kush. 
 

 
 
I was grinning from ear to ear. I remember that moment of bliss clearly. It was honestly the most accomplished I'd ever felt. I managed to stay in that moment as long as I could, filled to the brim with gratitude and appreciation. This would be short lived (as it usually is); there was much work to be done...
 
 
State of the State
 
I was now producing more clones than I could fit under the desk, or even in the veg room for that matter, so we built a table for the mothers and moved the tent into the main room. Once I dialed in the temperature I moved the clones into the tent and finished up the ducting and carbon filters in the tents for Room 3. 

 
 
 
Mothers and Children
 

 
 
Room 3
 

 

 
 
 
next: 

 

 
Shepdawg, 
 
Thanks for the response! And you are right on the money; the pots were entirely too small for this. The original intention was sea of green with 72 single cola plants in 6" pots, harvesting every three weeks, however we didn't have the mothers to supply both trays. Boss wanted to see results and bigger plants so I bought time with what we had to get my mothers up to speed. 
 

 
Rootbound to say the least. I was a big proponent of H202 though so they never rotted. These roots are brown from being dyed by the nutrients. The amazing part is the rockwool center mass retained enough water for the plant to only require 3 feedings a day.  
 

 
As far as smaller plants go the only measurable benefit they offer is faster yields and fatter buds. However, to maximize efficiency it requires a higher plant count which also applies substantially more legal risk depending on where you live. To maximize this setup under full SoG with the back rooms fully functioning would require 432 plants. That's not even including mother's and clones. 
 
You get loured into thinking that you won't have to deal with plant maintenance anymore because you're not veging anything; supposedly you're just flowering. What most don't take into account is how many mothers you must maintain. If planting 72 plants at once isn't arduous enough, imagine what it takes to clone that many plants. Hacking off that many branches is only the first part. You must then tediously remove all the leaves, thinly slice a node, split the stem, dip it and plug it... 72 times.


 
The idea of harvesting 2.5 lbs every 3 weeks is enticing but the work load isn't any less, just compacted into shorter time periods. The only other real benefit is the fact you're only dealing with large colas which are much easier to trim.  
 
Still if you were to ask me, I'd prefer this method because you stay busy and the plants have less time to be affected by pests or disease. Also, a faster rotational setup allows you to harvest multiple genetics a lot quicker which is much better for a dispensary where variety of medicine is ideal for the patients. You don't have to sacrifice a large chunk of time and space to test a new strain.
 

I definitely owe a lot of success in many aspects of my life to public forums and journals of the sort. It's amazing how giving people really are by nature. And you're definitely right about obsession. The plant is enticing by nature; it ensured its survival through our love for it, similar to canines. Canines offer friendship and affection where this plant offers food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and awareness.
 
That last part is key. If it is a gateway drug it's the gateway to a conscious harmonious world.  

 

May 2010 Week 2
 
PK
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
The Purple Kush is starting to fatten up nicely into these sticky masses scattered around the room. Also, the trellis net seemed to be doing a pretty good job keeping everything in place. The one good thing about that aggressive haircut was it left me little to do with these plants except drool over them from time to time. 
 
 
 
 
Bubba Single Colas
 

 

 

 
 

 
 
Wow. These flowers I could stare at all day. I didn't want to discount the purple kush but I was so excited to plug all those Bubba children into the the newly setup back room ... so I did. 
 

 
 
There is nothing better than a fresh room. It's like a fresh start - a new lease on life. The lights were on, the fans were humming, the A/C was blasting and the plants were loving it. I was loving it. I could not believe my eyes. As soon as these reached size I would split them between both trays, leaving only 2 more trays to fill. 
 
Next: Finally - A room full of Bubba