Day 50 of 12/12! Fed the plants yesterday and took some quick photos with a measuring tape to give everyone a rough idea of what the colas are looking like. I have 3 unfimmed plants and three growing naturally. Admittedly, I messed up on fimming two if the three plants after they were in flower or just before they went into flower, my notes are a bit off on that fact. The two best natural plants have main colas that are about 12†long and well filled in. My best fimmed plant has 4 colas that are 6†long and filling in nicely. I look forward to getting pictures at harvest and weights after the flowers are dried. I tried the “sample bud,†a few days ago after it dried and it was pretty bad. I didn't expect much taste wise because these buds were cut off by a falling lamp with no flush. I also didn't trim the bud all that well. While there were plenty of trichomes present, they were nowhere near ripe (all clear), so there wasn't any high that I noticed. The smell was lemon, spice and a bit of skunk, but the taste was kinda like wet grass. The pictures aren't the best. Enjoy!
Hey Chicken, Thanks. BTW nice pics of your garden! props on your time and effort. I did expect to see an old farmall tractor and some type of hound, but what you have looks much better, lol. All the Best!
Good news/bad news day. I have more amber showing up, but I also have some suspicious dark areas on the some calyxes. I hope it's not bud rot. The only thing I can do is keep an eye on it and see if it progresses. I really, really hope it's not bud rot, but I can't think of anything else.
Hmm.....strange. How is your humidity? Whoops, just found my answer. I'd buy some anti-fungal spray from a hydro shop, and just wait it out to see if things get worse. Either way, it's good news that you are catching it so early (if it IS actually bud rot).
Hi RJ, Going back ten days is was 38-42% till the last three days at 48%,50%,51% due to a system passing through and feeding the plants. I had the tent doors open during the day, but the little weather station inside the tent was still reading high RH. I upped both fans to medium from low inside the tent and changed my cycle timer to pump fresh air in every 5 minutes rather than every 10. My extraction fan is constantly on, so I think I’ve got that covered. I’ve been making sure the plants are well spaced apart, but still getting good light coverage. I’m going to open up the space between them a bit more. I never stopped running a floor osculating fan blowing at pot level. Same for the large 16” osculating fan hitting the canopy tops. I have Eagle 20EW on hand, but it says not to use within 40 days of harvest, so that window of opportunity is closed. I also have SM-90 here, but it’s a wetting agent and general preventive type spray, so I’m not sure it would do any good now. I stopped using any foliar sprays after 4/27 to help avoid high RH….ugh. If I see it getting worse I’ll remove the bud, but I have it going on two plants, both main colas, very top flower. The dark areas don’t look so dark to the naked eye. I’ve been looking at the trichomes/inspecting the plants under a couple of different lights, the 6500k old vegging clf, a led flashlight, the 2700k flowering cfls, and a bit of natural sunlight when I can. The led lights on the USB microscope tend to washout the color in the trichomes when left on the default settings. I have to play around a bit with the saturation and contrast settings to take good pictures. Oh, my condolences on your grow, but a smart move to shut it down. Send me a pm when you get your new one going so I can follow! Well, gotta read up on this some more in my book.
lol... your buds look fantastic,,,,,you gonna make some hash? looks like you got the trichomes for it,,, no hounds, i got bulldogs,,,,,and chickens,, heres my guardians of the baccy patch > By chickenhawk434 at 2012-05-26 A.K.C. trained attack chickens
I wouldn’t mess with them, looks like they have a good zone defense going! Thanks, I think 99% of the trichomes looking good comes from the camera, lol. I’m trying not to bump/brush the flowers as I move the plants around and hopefully that care will preserve more of the trichomes. Yes, I have big hash plans. I’ve been looking at the dry ice method and or the water and ice extraction method. I plan on trying to do a good solid cure on the buds I do keep to smoke. My sample bud was just left out on the counter for 5 days and it smelled like fresh cut alfalfa. I smoked it and the smell and flavor was awful. Granted the bud came off a smashed branch and hadn’t been flushed. After that experience I started reading on the forum about how important the curing process is! My book is very weak on the subject so I have some work to do ahead of me. Thanks for looking!
ive read the best curing method,, is heat with a controlled humidity,,,, sort of like what my baccy kiln does, a slow cure is the best cure, a crock=pot, delivers heat and humidity with the lid off,,, if you may want to discuss bulding a simple '' crock-pot kiln'' we can discuss it, in my profile page
Seems like you've done everything to perfection. I bet things will be fine. Definitely don't skimp on the drying/curing time. I didn't have enough patience to give a proper dry my first go, and even after 2-3 months in a jar, the bud still smelled like dead grass (although not nearly as bad as early on). Thanks for the sympathy. I'm kicking myself right now, but it was a smart move at the time, haha. I've already got my space lined up for next grow. Going to use my small tent for veg and a 7x2.5x8 closet for flower with 400w-600w hps. Just need to get everything cleaned and in order.
^^^ the chickens guard the outside,,,and on the inside i have trained felines to protect the household... >>> By chickenhawk434 at 2012-05-27 // By chickenhawk434 at 2012-05-27 lucky for me,,,, i got a back-up guard mechanism lol >>> By chickenhawk434 at 2012-05-27
Nice Chicken, looks like a deadly combo! Well, more amber is showing up and my dark areas don't seem to be developing into anything major.
Day 65 of flower. I shot a few so, so pictures of my best girl's calyxes with a 6mm bead for scale. All 6 plants are roughly the same age, but none have the calyx swelling like the one in the pictures. I am starting to see some additional swelling in a few of the plants, so I'm waiting to see if they will catch-up. All the plants have some degree of amber, but mostly the small flower leaves with a few here and there on some calyxes. From what I understand, the trichomes on the small leaves mature faster than the others, so I'm basing my harvest on the calyxes trichomes color. I'm finding it easier to see amber trichomes in a slightly out of focus view with my Dino-Lite USB microscope. I can't dim the led lights on this model and they tend to washout any color in the trichomes. I've fiddled with the color setting and that helps, as well as shining different Kelvin lights on the plant while snapping pictures. I bought the cheap $16 Radio Shack illuminated microscope and it's a pain in the ass to use, but its insurance to use along with my jewelers scope to check the trichomes. I can feel harvest is getting close maybe a week to two from now. I bought Clearex to use as a final flush before harvest. The bottle says to apply 7-10 days before harvest, so it's a timing issue and that bothers me a bit with my inexperience. The flowers are also starting to weigh down some of my branchs. I've had to prop a few up with bamboo skewers so they wont snap. I was removing the plants from the tent for watering, but as they are now top, I'll bring the water to them. Well, that's it for now, enjoy!
What do your temps get to during lights out? Wonder if those dark spots could be purple showing, I don't know what thc snow looks like though. Blue mystic i've been reading a lot about on the forums the past week or so and most journals i've read, it's all green with occasionally some buds turning purple if temps at night were around 60 degrees. Again never grown, all just speculation.
Looking pretty damn good man! I think some of your flowers are just purple. I would harvest asap if I was you, those trichs are looking fairly amber on the 31st.
Hi guys, Thanks for the input! I think you're both correct about the purpling. I did have a few cool nights a few weeks back and that might have done it. I am chopping the two most mature plants today, they were flushed with Clearex a few days ago and I can already see some trichomes losing their tops, so this needs to be done to reduce further derogation. I'll cut the other 4 plants over the next few days too. I'm also pretty sick and tired of a giant grow tent taking up 274 sq ft and smelling like mildew.
Well, harvesting two plants turned into an entire crop harvest. They didn't get 24hrs of darkness beforehand, but they were all flushed a few days ago. My two best plants were pretty heavy on amber, while the other 4 were about 50% amber. I have all the buds hanging in the tent in total darkness. My extraction fan is going constant; intake is still running every 15 minuets to do the air exchange. I left one small fan on inside the tent to push air around. I did leave quite a bit of stem on the buds, as I'm worried about them drying out too quick. My trim sack is also sitting in the tent in a paper bag open to breath. I've already shredded grocery bags and plan on following the cure method I mentioned a post or two ago. I'm very relieved that I got this far. Looking on doing a minimum 30 day cure on the buds and making hash with the trim and popcorn buds. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read the journal and post comments.