Some pics of my Easy Ryder autofems

What's up, dudes and dudettes...

Below are some pics from my Easy Ryder grow. This is only my second grow.

The first grow was a combination of being a newbie and selecting a shitty strain. I chose Dutch Passion's Taiga for the first grow based on website propaganda. About the time the seeds arrived is when I started seeing threads describing other grower's problems with this strain. It vegged pretty well, but even after putting it in 48 hours of darkness and switching to 12/12, it never flowered and started getting huge. To top it off, I had a change in vacation plans and had to leave town early, so I chopped it. It was a fitting death for such a piece of shit strain.

For this second grow, I chose Easy Ryders by the Joint Doctor. All three seeds I bought popped, but 1 girl didn't make the transition to the DWC system. I'm using a 10 gal DWC system. I've got two pumps. The larger one has two six inch airstones and the smaller pump is connected to a 10" airstone. So I should be getting sufficient oxygen to the roots. I started the plants under (4) 26w CFLs in two clamp type reflectors before turning on the 400w MH lamp. I switched to a 400w HPS for flowering. Using the GH micro and bloom with the Lucas Formula. I'm also using Mad Farmer's MOAB and blackstrap molasses.

Because of my grow setup, recent low temps have had me worried. So I went out and bought a $30 oil filled radiator heater with a thermostat. Wise investment for me. It doesn't keep temps perfectly stable, but they range from 65 degrees to 85 degrees.

These photos are roughly one month in:






Roughly 35 days in:







Roughly 38 days in:

I've bleached the leavesd a little on top by having my HPS a little too close recently, but I've since raised it.

Let me know what you think, guys and girls. You are the experts. I'm just a newb. Thanks in advance.

 

I had a ph spike the other day which caused some leaves to burn.

Day 41:







You can see my setup below...250w HPS w/ (4) 26w CFL's in two clamp lights to the side. I figure it doesn't cost much extra in electricity to run the CFLs along with the MH & HPS. It never hurts to mix the spectrum up a little.

 

The pics below are at roughly 47 days in. Buds are getting fatter. A couple of days ago, I gave her one last dose of fresh water, mother of all bloom, blackstrap molasses, and a large dose of nutes for the stretch run. This kicked the ppm up to about 1500. PH is holding steady at 5.8.

I plan to start flushing her in the next few days with RO water if she continues to ripen and is ready for harvest. I'll get some better pics with the HPS off in the next couple of days. Let me know what you guys think about my two girls.

 

So I go to my grow area the other night to tuck the girls in and while I'm checking ppm and ph, the lights go out. I immediately go check my timer and its the problem. It's an older manual type timer. I recently changed my lighting from 20/4 to 21/3 just to get an extra hour of light for the flowering phase and I evidently screwed my settings up. It was only like this for a few days and evidently my lights had been going off for 4 hours on two seperate occasions for the days the setting was screwed up. Since these are autos, I took the POS timer off the power strip and I'm now running lights 24 hours a day.

Here some porn for your stiffies.

Day 48:








Day 50:









Just from looking at the girls and reading other Easy Ryder journals, I think I'm going to push this grow a little longer than I originally thought. I think I may wait until day 56-60 to start flushing them and just watch them for a while until I think they are ready to harvest. Hopefully somewhere in the 9 week area will be perfect for chopping.

Let me know what you pros think!

 

Alright guys and gals, I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I'm going to start flushing tonight w/ ph adjusted RO water and chop on Sunday, which will be day 62. Below are some updated photos. I'll be sure to come back and let you know how much I harvested wet and dry. Thanks for the help.

Day 57:

 

I didn't top, fim, or LST. I was a little afraid to get to creative and experiment with the first grow. They just branched like that naturally.

Actually, one of them got off to a bad start. When the seed popped, the shell was stuck to it. I now know to just left it fall off in time. However, at the time, I thought it would be a good idea to gently remove it. Bad idea...it tore the cotyledon leaves in half. I presumed she wouldn't make it. But like life, what didn't kill her made her stronger.

Yesterday I was working with her and the lights went off unexpectedly again. I thought, "WTF...I got rid of the faulty timer and went 24/7...what's the problem." After inspection, I realized that the timer was never the problem. It was a surge protector that was tripping. I promptly went out and bought I new one.

So if it looks like this with the power problems I had, I expect the next grow to look much better. My first DWC is a ten gallon 4 site ebay model. Even though I'm only growing two plants now, I've since realized that 10 gallons really isn't large enough for 4 plants and is barely large enough for two plants. My two plant's root systems are taking up the whole tub. So I'm now building a custom 18 gallon DWC. I'm going to install a drain valve, cover the top in reflective tape, and build a removable scrog into the top of it. I'll post pics when it is finished.

 

I chopped my girls last night, folks.

As Axl once said, "I used to love, but I had to kill her."

Here are the photos from just before her timely death. You'll notice my leaf tips got a little burnt there at the end. I think I used a touch too much MOAB in the final weeks. Chop and yield photos in next reply.

 

I'm sure my newbie manicuring skills leave a little to be desired, but I got it done last night after hours of patient work.

My wet yield (with long stems for hanging that will be trimmed off later) was 616 grams. I can't wait until its dry to check the dry yield. I will post that once its dry. Photos below.