I'm back. Sorry for the LONG delay in posting. NDO hit it on the money. I was overworked and too stressed to keep up with the posting. I am NOT in the joint. The grow is still up and rocking better than ever. We made some major changes that I'll go into later with a new batch of pics. The last couple months Helper D has been running the grow while I tended to my other business. Now that the mites are gone and I'm caught up with my day job, I plan to get you guys caught up on what has been going on with the grow.
In a nutshell, I was not happy with the yield we were getting. Trying to keep our plant numbers down was really holding us back. So, we signed up quite a few new patients and went back to growing the way I always have...lots of small plants. We are now trying to strike a balance between maximum yield and minimum legal risk. Our lawyer advises us to grow no more than 10 plants for every patient (several of our patients have 99 plant recs). Our current "sweet spot" is around 2 sq ft/plant. 1 sq ft/plant gives a little better yield, but not enough to justify twice the plant numbers. While I'd rather not discuss actual yields, I will say we have more than doubled our output.
Smaller plants also gave us more options for growing styles. I have always liked rockwool, but the large plants we used to grow don't do well in it. Now we're back to rockwool and loving it. At first we used 4 inch blocks transplanted into 2 gallon pots filled with rockwool croutons. This worked quite well. In an effort to save some transplant time, I ran 20 plants in 4 inch blocks transplanted onto 6 inch Hugo blocks. These performed just as well as the 2 gallon pots with WAY less labor. From now on all plants will be done this way. We still hand water once per day.
We gave up on the Lavander x Afgahni x Purple Kush strain. It required way too much pruning, was a bitch to trim, and the mites LOVED it. I'll miss the plant because it was great smoke that everyone loved. The Bubba is still our mainstay, but we have 2 new ladies in the mix. One is a new Bubba from a breeder friend. He bred the Bubba with an OG Kush and then back crossed it with the Bubba 3 times. The flavor is better than the old Bubba, and the high is fantastic. The other strain is Tahoe OG x Chemdog. Right now we only have 3 small cuts we are growing into mothers. I watched them grow in a friends op and sampled the finished product. This is the plant I've been searching for my whole life. It may just be the perfect OG. It roots in 7-10 days, finishes in 60, and yields great for an OG. The smell and flavor are classic OG Kush without the slow growth and small yields that plague so many great OG's. At first my friend refused to give me some cuts. Can't say I blame him. But, I wanted them so bad that I made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
So, how did we get rid of the mites from hell? We started over. I threw away every plant in bloom and sterilized the room. They were just too established. When we stopped spraying to allow our predator mites to do their job, the mite population exploded. By the time we realized the predators were not going to work it was too late. It hurt to trash what would have been over 10lbs, but there was no other way. We are now 100% mite free. To keep it that way we are dipping the plants in Spectracide With Insect Control. This stuff is great. I have always used the old Spectracide for PM control. The new formula adds an insectacide. We dip once when the plants establish in the 4 inch block and again prior to going into bloom. We then spray one time at week 2 of bloom. That's it. The Spectracide does not stunt the plants at all, and takes care of bugs and PM in one spray. Spraying the media also prevents fungus gnats. I even tested it by spraying a branch on a plant in week 4 of bloom. None of the pistils burned and that branch finished just like the rest. Fortunately, spraying in week 2 has been doing the job. I really don't like to spray a plant showing pistils.
All in all, things are good in the op. I'll take some pics for you guys. Now I have to go and check out your grows.
