Hot Diggity's Lab

Kp sunshine said:

Did they throw bananas in the terminal buds by any chance? I’m running a gorilla Ghani that threw a flower in each terminal not long after lowers were removed in flower. I removed and nothing else occurred.
I have a appy pheno of Sunshine daydream that is top cola dom maybe from the Tres Dawg influence idk
Good luck

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All of the bananas seemed to be in the lower portions of the plant where I removed the branches. I'd say bottom 25% of the plant.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 50
Day 29 of 12/12

Even though I posted last night, I wanted to post again because some changes are about to happen.

First, some heights of some of the plants: I will likely need to refer back to these numbers. The 4 Chem's under 20 inches are the 4 that were super slow to get going and the ones that were generally unhappy the *whole* time.
Chem #7 - 15"
Chem #10 - 19"
Chem #9 - 17 1/2"
Chem #8 - 25"
Chem #11 - 19"
Chem #2 - 35 3/4"
Goji #3 - 43 1/2"
Ass #3 - 32 1/2"
Ass #1 - 40 1/2"

I felt like I needed more air movement so I added a 3rd fan:


Air movement in the room is now on point. I did a poor job when I designed the room. I assumed that fans would be placed in the center of the room on the floor. I should have planned for wall mounted or ceiling mounted.



It's still early and my opinions are subject to change but I now think that we're going to see the largest top cola's I've ever been able to grow. I don't know...I spent 2 hours studying them closely tonight and I just think these are going to be my best work, from a top cola vantage point.




I used the last of the nutrient rez today. Tomorrow is going to be the first day I stop using Blue Planet Nutrients and I start with my DIY regiment. I'm really excited but also really scared. Will be documenting these next steps in great detail. Wish me luck

If you find a top kola dominant goji I’ll be amazed. Let her branch out a bit if you can manage. A tomato cage would be great for her. I’m sure her growth style is less suited for your growing style but she is worth it!

Houstini said:

If you find a top kola dominant goji I’ll be amazed. Let her branch out a bit if you can manage. A tomato cage would be great for her. I’m sure her growth style is less suited for your growing style but she is worth it!

Click to expand...

Give me another 2 weeks and I'll know. 1st impressions are that you're right though, the Goji's just don't want to do this.

@Houstini - Of the 7, there is 1 that might be willing .
I'll report back....

I missed something. Why did you switch from the pots with the drip lines?

raggyb said:

I missed something. Why did you switch from the pots with the drip lines?

Click to expand...

I just havent started the auto-watering quite yet. Almost ready to.

Hot Diggity Dog! Now this is a thread my good dood. I love that you're hunting for top cola dominant plants. I just planted some seeds from a cross I performed this Summer and I'll be searching through 40 reg plants to find some apically dominant individuals. I'm optimistic that I'll be able to find a few after reading this and have realized that I'll hardly have to veg the population which will save some time. Keep crushin it

Hot Diggity Sog said:

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 50
Day 29 of 12/12

Even though I posted last night, I wanted to post again because some changes are about to happen.

First, some heights of some of the plants: I will likely need to refer back to these numbers. The 4 Chem's under 20 inches are the 4 that were super slow to get going and the ones that were generally unhappy the *whole* time.
Chem #7 - 15"
Chem #10 - 19"
Chem #9 - 17 1/2"
Chem #8 - 25"
Chem #11 - 19"
Chem #2 - 35 3/4"
Goji #3 - 43 1/2"
Ass #3 - 32 1/2"
Ass #1 - 40 1/2"

I felt like I needed more air movement so I added a 3rd fan:
View attachment 4819597

Air movement in the room is now on point. I did a poor job when I designed the room. I assumed that fans would be placed in the center of the room on the floor. I should have planned for wall mounted or ceiling mounted.

View attachment 4819598

It's still early and my opinions are subject to change but I now think that we're going to see the largest top cola's I've ever been able to grow. I don't know...I spent 2 hours studying them closely tonight and I just think these are going to be my best work, from a top cola vantage point.

View attachment 4819599
View attachment 4819600

I used the last of the nutrient rez today. Tomorrow is going to be the first day I stop using Blue Planet Nutrients and I start with my DIY regiment. I'm really excited but also really scared. Will be documenting these next steps in great detail. Wish me luck

Click to expand...

Good Luck!

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 53
Day 32 of 12/12

Today marks the 3rd day I've been watering with my DIY nutes. So far so good! The 60 gallons I made will be gone in another 2 or 3 days. The next batch will be a little bit weaker with a little less Nitrogen. I'll periodically post what I'm feeding, if anyone is interested. General plant shapes are starting to become well defined. Some are pretty shitty. Some are average and some are exceptional. One of the pics has a beer can in it for reference.















It's amazing how yellow it looks in the room under the 3500K's. So far I've just been taking pictures with my phone with all of the lights on. Next update I will begin using my camera and start fiddling with the lighting.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 54
Day 33 of 12/12

I wasn't planning on updating tonight but I thought I would share some of the 1st non-phone pics and with the lights turned off. I'm definitely going to need a step ladder for future shoots. Things look so different under different lighting. I think I'm doing pretty well as I view these pics. Maybe tone back the Nitrogen a bit but otherwise they look pretty nice.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 56
Day 35 of 12/12

Let's start with the bad news. My Part B micro just looked off to me. It looked like a chemical reaction might have occurred. I decided to mix a very small amount of each ingredient and then systematically start combining them until I could find the culprit:


After about 2 hours, bingo. It's the Sodium Borate Decahydrate. My super clear liquid looked like this after adding the Sodium Borate Decahydrate:



Lesson learned. Not quite sure what I'm going to do about this yet but I'll let you know.

I got some cool new ingredients that arrived today. I'll be talking about these a bit later:



And finally some pics. Kind of a mix-n-match of phone and camera and with different lighting. Trying to figure out what works best...

Hot Diggity Sog said:

...
The flower room has been mostly done for the last few months. The only thing left was to figure out how to implement drain to waste. I knew my design would not accommodate standard sizes for things like flood tables and trays but I felt comfortable thinking I'll be able to figure out something nice and maybe clever. Several months went by and I hadn't come up with a solution. Last week I was vegging out watching TV and I saw a commercial for FlexSeal - that liquid rubber commercial. I got inspired and after doing some research, decided I would install rails around the perimeter and paint the tables with a product called Ames Blue Max. I did the 1st coat today and here is what it looks like:

View attachment 4733255
View attachment 4733256

It has a pretty cool look to it. I'm expecting at least two coats, and likely 3. I installed (6) 1" drain holes. Drilled through the plywood and installed PVC pipe and used silicone. I cleaned up the silicone the best I could figuring that the rubber probably won't bond very well to it. The PVC is slightly recessed - about a 1/16". Fingers crossed this works effectively.

Click to expand...

Those blue tables are what I came here for, haha. I saw them in another post you made and had to find out some more.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 60
Day 39 of 12/12

I was really excited that I captured some great pictures tonight. Boo. Total fail. The pics for today's update suck, I'm sorry. I'll keep trying for better.

A few important things to note.
Many of them are starting to foxtail. My first thought was too much light. I took several of them out of the room and did a close inspection. No burning. No bleaching. Nothing. Perfectly healthy.

I went back into the room and started taking leaf temp readings and oh shit, I think this is my problem. My leaf temps are between -1 and +3 degrees relative to ambient. I was shocked. For so long, leaf temps were a solid -5 from ambient.

I've been running a pretty high temp - higher than I ever have before. The last 2 hours before lights off is 86. Its around 84 for a few hours before that and 82 for a few hours before that.

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to put my heater on a timer and set the max temp to 80 and just monitor over the next week. I'll take leaf temps several times a day. This foxtailing thing is not going to affect my pheno hunt but it's just a little disappointing, that's all.

We're still 35 to 40 days away so a long way to go. Some (many) of these are going to be gigantic.







Over the next few weeks I'll start showcasing each strain.
And...I'm 2 weeks into feeding with my own homemade nutrients so there is lots to talk about on that as well!

Hot Diggity Sog said:

A few important things to note.
Many of them are starting to foxtail. My first thought was too much light. I took several of them out of the room and did a close inspection. No burning. No bleaching. Nothing. Perfectly healthy.

I went back into the room and started taking leaf temp readings and oh shit, I think this is my problem. My leaf temps are between -1 and +3 degrees relative to ambient. I was shocked. For so long, leaf temps were a solid -5 from ambient.

I've been running a pretty high temp - higher than I ever have before. The last 2 hours before lights off is 86. Its around 84 for a few hours before that and 82 for a few hours before that.

Click to expand...

I'm interested to hear more about this, as I have thoughts/questions regarding it as well.

Wow! They look amazing! You really nailed it!

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 62
Day 41 of 12/12

Just a quick minor update. Not much to say so how about some pics.

Chunky!

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 64
Day 43 of 12/12

I did a quick walk around the room and shot most of the outside row:
(Pic #5 is a keeper)



















I have a new lighting kit arriving in a few days. I'm excited to try shooting pics with this.

Lots more soon...
Still 30 to 35 more days

My light ring came today and it's pretty sweet.

I turned off all of the lights in the room and took a few test pics with my Nikon D500. The pics came out okay but they are not as crisp as I want. Can anyone give me some tips and pointers?
How important is the background? Maybe I need to setup a staging area?
When I'm using a ring light, should I also want to be using the camera flash or no?

Here are the 1st set of test pics.

Goji OG F2


Appalachian Super Skunk (Several different shots)