Jack herer + Pineapple Chunk from Seed

[DirtyNerd]

I hear ya! It's kind of like cooking. You might have a recipe that is really dialed in and tasty but if you never try variations you'll never know if it ever could have been even better.

Haha First time i did home made nacho's blew my mind i was so happy i was like shit i am going to cook this all the time then i cooked it again couple of weeks later and it was shit haha and has never been as good as the first time

I think i was high as the sky the first time so it was most likely shit but in my mind at the time is was the best

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I have not decided yet. I have my strategy loosly formulated.

My biggest concern is temps in the basement. It gets pretty cold down there in the winter but honestly I never paid enough attention to exactly how cold. If I started the next round right after this, then the entire grow would be Dec, Jan and Feb and it might just be too cold. We've gotten some 20 degree nights recently and the room I built is staying pretty consistent at 61F-64F. What do you think the lowest night time temps could be without causing any issues?

 

[ASMALLVOICE]

I was reading a few posts back as you folks were discussing salt buildup and flushing. I experienced the same thing in my first grow, it got rough for a couple of plants for sure. I have since then, found a simple remedy that has worked like a charm.
Take one feeding a week and give them 3-4 times the normal amount ( at current nute levels), to flush the pot and that has stopped all the issues with collected salts, both in plasti-bag and smart pots.

I believe that stopping all nutes and just giving ph'd water at the end is a bit too drastic. This does not happen in nature, I drop my nute level from 1k+ down to just under 400ppm ( tap water is 140) and cease all additives and feed normally for around 5 days or so. I have no leaf loss or drastic discoloration ( there will be some lightening of the leaves) but I think that occurs naturally anyway as the plant nears the end of its life cycle.

As growers we do our best not to cause any undue stress, and to me, jerking the rug out from under them at the end is not needed to obtain the final product desired, nor do I think they need full strength nutes and additives at the end as well. Dropping the nutes helps pull extras out and assists in the next step, as I agree with you about the drying and curing process being the means to a good end

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

What you just said makes perfect sense to me. Regarding flushing during the grow to remove excess salts and what not...I'm sure this is important and needed. For my grow, this has not really been an issue for me but probably only because of my pot size and the way I water. I get 60% run-off on every watering. Is it wasteful on nutrients, most definitely. My little pots simply don't hold much water and I'm okay with that. For normal sized pots, I'm sure periodic flushing is absolutely important.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Oh quick question Voice...when you drop your nutrient strength, do you drop it evenly or are you selectively dropping certain parts?

 

[ASMALLVOICE]

Oh quick question Voice...when you drop your nutrient strength, do you drop it evenly or are you selectively dropping certain parts?

When I feel I have about a week left, I just use base nutes to right around 400ppm total ( about 250 ppm of nutes, water is 140ppm) and ph it to 5.8 and use that until I harvest. I want the plants well hydrated so as to get a nice slow hanging dry to help remove a bit more of the junk.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

 

[DirtyNerd]

I was reading a few posts back as you folks were discussing salt buildup and flushing. I experienced the same thing in my first grow, it got rough for a couple of plants for sure. I have since then, found a simple remedy that has worked like a charm.
Take one feeding a week and give them 3-4 times the normal amount ( at current nute levels), to flush the pot and that has stopped all the issues with collected salts, both in plasti-bag and smart pots.

I believe that stopping all nutes and just giving ph'd water at the end is a bit too drastic. This does not happen in nature, I drop my nute level from 1k+ down to just under 400ppm ( tap water is 140) and cease all additives and feed normally for around 5 days or so. I have no leaf loss or drastic discoloration ( there will be some lighting of the leaves) but I think that occurs naturally anyway as the plant nears the end of its life cycle.

As growers we do our best not to cause any undue stress, and to me, jerking the rug out from under them at the end is not needed to obtain the final product desired, nor do I think they need full strength nutes and additives at the end as well. Dropping the nutes helps pull extras out and assists in the next step, as I agree with you about the drying and curing process being the means to a good end

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

Yeah i get what your saying as when i was doing a recirculating system i never had trouble with my salt build as i could just add more water to drop the levels down so even flushing was not needed

but now that i am doing ran to waste i am having more trouble ill give your remedy ago as canna seems to have a lot of salts

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I'm gunna give your technique a go Voice. It's going to be a little tricky cause with all these strains they will be finishing at various times. I'm gunna go calculate out what 400ppm might be...I suspect seedling or early veg strength.

So up until 1 week from harvest, I'll continue with my 50% strength but a reduced feed for the 2 parts that are mostly nitrogen to 35-40% and then 1 week out I will use the 400PPM idea.
This is very helpful and thanks guys.

I also have some clever (maybe) techniques I'm going to try when it comes to prolonging the drying period.

 

[DirtyNerd]

I have not decided yet. I have my strategy loosly formulated.

My biggest concern is temps in the basement. It gets pretty cold down there in the winter but honestly I never paid enough attention to exactly how cold. If I started the next round right after this, then the entire grow would be Dec, Jan and Feb and it might just be too cold. We've gotten some 20 degree nights recently and the room I built is staying pretty consistent at 61F-64F. What do you think the lowest night time temps could be without causing any issues?

I don't think you will have that much trouble with low temps so long as you keep levels over 50F only thing that will happen is your growth rate will slow but you can always add a small heater to the room lucky where i am it's always hot would be nice if the temps went lower in winter the temps were perfect now not so much

 

[DirtyNerd]

I'm gunna give your technique a go Voice. It's going to be a little tricky cause with all these strains they will be finishing at various times. I'm gunna go calculate out what 400ppm might be...I suspect seedling or early veg strength.

So up until 1 week from harvest, I'll continue with my 50% strength but a reduced feed for the 2 parts that are mostly nitrogen to 35-40% and then 1 week out I will use the 400PPM idea.
This is very helpful and thanks guys.

I also have some clever (maybe) techniques I'm going to try when it comes to prolonging the drying period.

What techniques are you thinking about doing for drying i only do the trim chop hang on lines then once dry to the touch i sweat them in a bag then on to drying nets till they go in to the cure

for the first week i will open the jars for about 30mins 2x a day then they are locked away

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I don't think you will have that much trouble with low temps so long as you keep levels over 50F only thing that will happen is your growth rate will slow but you can always add a small heater to the room lucky where i am it's always hot would be nice if the temps went lower in winter the temps were perfect now not so much

Hopefully I'll get some cold days coming up and I'll keep an eye on things. I really don't think it would get sub-50. My temps right now are just perfect. 72 when lights are on. 39% RH. Lights off id gradually drops to 61.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

What techniques are you thinking about doing for drying i only do the trim chop hang on lines then once dry to the touch i sweat them in a bag then on to drying nets till they go in to the cure

That is basically what I am going to do as well but here is where I'm going to try something.

Instead of placing the buds in bags, I have some oversized lunch bags (brown paper still) and I am going to slip the bag around the buds so the buds dont touch the bag and twist tie them to the stem up near the top. Each branch will be cut to size.

After approx 2 or 3 days of dry, I will start the bag wrap to try and normalize the humidity. Maybe I'll put on and remove the bag several times a day...not sure yet. What I will going for is to reduce the large variability of moisture between the outer surfaces and the inner surfaces.

I was talking more about why in this post:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/curing-a-myth-perpetuated-by-bad-growers.848494/page-14#post-11032265

Here is what I said:
Just to elaborate on my thought process, and please...if I'm off base feel free to chime in. I'm going on instinct and drawing conclusions based on information and not experience.

Let's make a couple of assumptions...based on a reputable curing guide, here is a snippet:

"Below 55% RH - the RH is too low for the curing process to take place. The product starts to feel brittle. Once you've hit this point, nothing will make it better.
Adding moisture won't restart the curing process; it will just make the product wet."

So I don't want to debate that statement, but let's assume that if a bud is dried to much and ends up being under 55% when it hits the jar that no curing will occur.
With that logic, I propose the following questions to you guys:

When a bud is hanging during the 1st few days of drying, at some point the moisture of the exterior should equal or at least be very close to whatever the moisture content in the room is, right? While the inner portions of the bud will contain more moisture. If we are to believe that sub 55% will render material incapable of cure, then doesn't it sound reasonable that the outer layers of material have been compromised and that by placing the bud into a paper bag, or jar, or whatever in order to redistribute the moisture, that the exterior portions of the bud have already been compromised and that by allowing them to gain moisture from the wetter interior of the bud, all we have really done is gotten the exterior wet again.

Is it possible that by letting the exterior of the bud deviate dramatically from the interior of the bud in regard to moisture, that ultimately a cure will really only be curing the interior of the bud as the exterior breached 55% and is therefor compromised?

This is how I have been thinking about *drying* and is why I was posing my earlier questions.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

What are your guys approach when it comes it trimming? Do it all before the dry starts or something different?

 

[DirtyNerd]

That is basically what I am going to do as well but here is where I'm going to try something.

Instead of placing the buds in bags, I have some oversized lunch bags (brown paper still) and I am going to slip the bag around the buds so the buds dont touch the bag and twist tie them to the stem up near the top. Each branch will be cut to size.

After approx 2 or 3 days of dry, I will start the bag wrap to try and normalize the humidity. Maybe I'll put on and remove the bag several times a day...not sure yet. What I will going for is to reduce the large variability of moisture between the outer surfaces and the inner surfaces.

I was talking more about why in this post:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/curing-a-myth-perpetuated-by-bad-growers.848494/page-14#post-11032265

Here is what I said:
Just to elaborate on my thought process, and please...if I'm off base feel free to chime in. I'm going on instinct and drawing conclusions based on information and not experience.

Let's make a couple of assumptions...based on a reputable curing guide, here is a snippet:

"Below 55% RH - the RH is too low for the curing process to take place. The product starts to feel brittle. Once you've hit this point, nothing will make it better.
Adding moisture won't restart the curing process; it will just make the product wet."

So I don't want to debate that statement, but let's assume that if a bud is dried to much and ends up being under 55% when it hits the jar that no curing will occur.
With that logic, I propose the following questions to you guys:

When a bud is hanging during the 1st few days of drying, at some point the moisture of the exterior should equal or at least be very close to whatever the moisture content in the room is, right? While the inner portions of the bud will contain more moisture. If we are to believe that sub 55% will render material incapable of cure, then doesn't it sound reasonable that the outer layers of material have been compromised and that by placing the bud into a paper bag, or jar, or whatever in order to redistribute the moisture, that the exterior portions of the bud have already been compromised and that by allowing them to gain moisture from the wetter interior of the bud, all we have really done is gotten the exterior wet again.

Is it possible that by letting the exterior of the bud deviate dramatically from the interior of the bud in regard to moisture, that ultimately a cure will really only be curing the interior of the bud as the exterior breached 55% and is therefor compromised?

This is how I have been thinking about *drying* and is why I was posing my earlier questions.

I like your plan in all logic it reads well and should work fine is theory and put in to practice i hope your going to log this plan on your page as interested in seeing how it works out i like people like your self that think out side of the boxs

its great

 

[ASMALLVOICE]

Yeah i get what your saying as when i was doing a recirculating system i never had trouble with my salt build as i could just add more water to drop the levels down so even flushing was not needed

but now that i am doing ran to waste i am having more trouble ill give your remedy ago as canna seems to have a lot of salts

I am using canna (dtw) as well, love the stuff. I never go full strength tho, as it can get hot for some strains. I use equal parts A & B in Veg. I have a 25 gallon res and in flower I use 265ml of A and 320ml of B 100ml of Golden Tree. When I first fill my res, I add enough "Cal Mag" to get me from 140 to 240-250ppm base line and I go from there. I add 20ml of "Drip Clean" as well.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I like your plan in all logic it reads well and should work fine is theory and put in to practice i hope your going to log this plan on your page as interested in seeing how it works out i like people like your self that think out side of the boxs

its great

I sure will. It's not really any different from bagging them to sweat except they will be go in and out more frequently and also by not touching the bag the trich loss should be next to nothing.

 

[DirtyNerd]

What are your guys approach when it comes it trimming? Do it all before the dry starts or something different?

Yes i myself do full trim on chop it takes hours but i like to get it out of the way now that i am getting better at it and faster its not so painful the first time i had my big flower tent set up
i was trimming from 1pm till 2am haha it was so shit

but now what i do is pull all the big fan leaves off and then chop all the stems in to a pile and work away one plant at a time only took me about 5 -6 hours last time

after a couple of hours you start getting tunnel vision so after 3 days of hanging on the lines if i missed anything i just go back and give them a little trim

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I'll start prepping the room today with some of the drying gadgets I got. Have never used them before but they sure look neat. Pictures to come sometime today.

 

[DirtyNerd]

I sure will. It's not really any different from bagging them to sweat except they will be go in and out more frequently and also by not touching the bag the trich loss should be next to nothing.

Yeah thats what i like about it less touching the better last grow on the gloves i had huge trich made a ball out of it and smoke it knocked me on my ass

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Yes i myself do full trim on chop it takes hours but i like to get it out of the way now that i am getting better at it and faster its not so painful the first time i had my big flower tent set up
i was trimming from 1pm till 2am haha it was so shit

but now what i do is pull all the big fan leaves off and then chop all the stems in to a pile and work away one plant at a time only took me about 5 -6 hours last time

after a couple of hours you start getting tunnel vision so after 3 days of hanging on the lines if i missed anything i just go back and give them a little trim

That's what I'll probably do too then. After looking at other people's beautifully trimmed buds, I don't think I trimmed close enough in the past. I have also tried leaving the fans on and trim those after dry but that was awful and I don't think I'll ever do that again...what a pain!