MamaKush First Post-Prop 64 Journal ; Soil Under BlackDogLED

[mamakush]

I've been reading on these forums for some time, and now I feel like I have something worthy of sharing. Plus, this shit is now legal in CO so why not?

A little background: I've had a prescription for MMJ to treat pain associated with an autoimmune disease for years, and after some disappointing experiences with some larfy dispensary bud, I decided to start growing for myself. I like being able to control what goes into my medicine, and it turns out I've got a pretty green thumb if I do say so myself. I started with a 400 watt HID a friend hooked me up with, but it was way too hot for my original grow space. Research brought me to LED, and I'm all about local business so I went with Black Dog LED... this was about 2 years ago and I'm very happy with my results. It seems like each generation is phenotyping out better than the last in terms of yield and quality.
After two years this is where I’m at:
I’m running 2 Black Dog 360’s (770 watts total) in my veg tent (3’ x 6’), 1 platinum XL and 1 of the new universal platinums (1460 total watts) in flower (4’ x 8’). I use Roots Organic Indoor in 3 gallon Smart Pots. I follow the House and Garden nutrient regimen pretty closely, but with a lower EC when I sub out MOAB for shooting powder. I run my plants on a perpetual cycle (veg is 18 on 6 off, flower 12 and 12), with anywhere from 10-20 plants in flower and 10-12 in veg; I take cuttings out of the veg tent right before I flip them. Nothing special about my setup, have a humidifier in veg, dehumidifier in flower, a 6 inch canfan hooked up to a 6 inch rhino carbon filter, and an a/c in flower. I'm growing Sour Kush, Super Lemon Haze, OG Kush, and Sour Diesel.

Here are some random pic from past harvests. My current grow is about four weeks out from harvest, so I should have some good progress pics to post in the next few weeks. I also have a bad ass timelapse video I've been working on for the better part of six months, which I should have done and ready to post by the end of this harvest!


SLH double headed monster, all trimmed up.


First Black Dog LED grow, mostly Sour Diesel (flashback).


Foreground: 10 weeks past flipping; Background: 6 weeks past flipping.


Sour D tip from most recent harvest. Averaged 50 grams per plant!


Bubba Kush from last grow... not a huge yielder but pretty frosty.


This pic was taken right before my most recent harvest.

Just because I am on a role tonight, here's a quick video of some of my past grows...first time using iMovie so take it easy on me.
[video=youtube_share;WAdFc9x1sZI]http://youtu.be/WAdFc9x1sZI[/video]

I'll try to keep this updated with pictures and whatnot; feedback, advice, and questions are welcome.

Peace

 

[mamakush]

Coming up on flush time with my current crop of girls, and the process became a debate with a friend of mine... so I thought I'd ask you guys what you think...

How much water do you use when flushing 3 gal soil pots?
What type of water do you use (distilled, tap, RO, etc)?
Do you add anything to your water before you flush (final phase, drip clean, etc)?

 

[Pazzo]

I've been out of the game for a while but if I remember right I usually tried to use at least 3x the number of gallons the pot is. So for a 3 gallon pot roughly 9 gallons of water. Since your about to flush it doesn't really matter what kind of water you use in my opinion. I used to just bring them to the bathtub and run the water through there to make it easier. My biggest problem was I always flushed too early lol.

Just moved to Coloroado from Alaska and the laws are even laxer here now then they are up there so i'll be takin advantage of that soon enough. I've been gettin some shitty stuff down here lately so I need to take it into my own hands...

 

[mamakush]

Welcome to CO, Pazzo!

Thanks for the response. I use about 6 to 9 gallons, depending on how green the plants are, so that sounds about right. This round goes to me

Life has been pretty hectic around here, but one of these days I'll focus and post some current pics... next round, after I flip these plants, I'll be on top of journalling the whole process.

 

[Pazzo]

Thanks, I like it here.. reminds me of Alaska without the relentless winter. I just got my cobra down here and about to go for a drive, in Alaska she sits for half the year.

I liked makin grow journals cause it kept me more intuned with my plants I guess. I have an old SOG grow in my sig if you wanna check it out. Hopin to have a setup pretty similar here in the next couple months. My house burned down up in Alaska and I lost everything so I have to replace it all, otherwise I woulda already been growin again lol. There really is no comparison between weed you buy (whether it be from a dispensary or not) and weed you grow.. I just wish I had some good seeds to start with but hopefully these bag seeds I found will be ok for now, only grown 1 bagseed in my life and it turned out like shit so i'm not very optimistic lol.

I just got some of the shittiest weed i've ever gotten down here so i'm gonna make some Cannabutter with it. I'm flying next week to Vegas to see my boy whos turning 2 and eating some cannabutter cookies before a flight is awesome. Even if you fall asleep you wake up still high and you dont even smell like weed goin through security.

On a side note, is there any affordable places to buy LED lights around here? I've only ever used HPS, MH and fluros but now that LED technology has been more proven over the last couple years I would love to try them out.

 

[mamakush]

Hey Pazzo, sorry to hear about your house, but glad you're onto other good things.

I visit RMHO quite a bit for my growing needs, they're right in Boulder. The company whose lights I use is also right in Boulder, and I know they really like local business, so that's always worth a visit.

 

[mamakush]

Finally! I have something to show you all.

Last weekend I pulled down 8 plants for harvest and took some pictures along the way.
Here is my flower area before removing the plants. I think you can tell which are about to go...


A close up of the girls on their way out. I run a ~10 week cycle, and flush very thoroughly. The girls on the left are under a universal platinum XL.

Some close ups before harvest...
7 week Sour Diesel cola, filling out nicely
7 week Bubba Kush; these girls get really purple towards the end. One of the more beautiful plants I've seen.
This is pure MMJ porn... doubled headed Super Lemon Haze beauty, some of the stickiest stuff I've handled. Just wish it had a little higher yield.
Fully flushed OG Kush, 10 weeks
Fully flushed 10 week Sour Diesel
...more Diesel...
Here's the flower area after harvest. Everything has been moved over from under an old platinum XL to the universal platinum XL. I have some clones in veg right now, a little slow to show some roots but hopefully they'll take soon and I can get some more flipped over to flower.

I'll post soon with some weights from this harvest. It seemed pretty heavy compared to what I usually get, I must be doing something right

Hope you enjoy my grow! Questions, comments, and critique always welcome.

 

[mamakush]

Random observation: my buds are taking longer than normal to dry this round. Could be because I had a substantially larger harvest than usual? It definitely feels humid in my grow. As long as they don't mould we're good, just thought I'd share

 

[Dr. Greenhorn]

Random observation: my buds are taking longer than normal to dry this round. Could be because I had a substantially larger harvest than usual? It definitely feels humid in my grow. As long as they don't mould we're good, just thought I'd share

probably a little of both. bigger harvest and the humidity... the humidity where I live is so insane, I can leave cut plants out for months in a room and they will always be somewhat wet. I just dry em as I need em.


nice grow

 

[mamakush]

Thanks, Greenhorn. Do you have any problems with mould? Do you use any mechanical means to dry them? I'm in CO so I usually have problems with low humidity if anything. It's just amazing that trimmed buds can put out so much moisture.

 

[Dr. Greenhorn]

Thanks, Greenhorn. Do you have any problems with mould? Do you use any mechanical means to dry them? I'm in CO so I usually have problems with low humidity if anything. It's just amazing that trimmed buds can put out so much moisture.

don't really have mold issues, with the indoor grow anyway..

sometimes I'll use a de-humidifier to speed up the drying process. it helps a lot.

if I want just a small nug, I'll pop it in the microwave for 5-10 seconds, lol. but that's kinda ghetto

 

[Tha CHillz]

Nice grow. Any advise as far as flowering with LED s? Thank you

 

[mamakush]

The results are in!

Disclaimer: I gave my girls some space this time by only growing 10 plants in the space I usually grow 20. They definitely responded very well, but my plant count was cut in half therefore my total yield for this harvest was “half” of what it normally is. HOWEVER, I got significantly more weight and matter per plant, so there’s definitely something to be said about not crowding these plants. There has to be some happy medium that balances out yield per plant with number of plants that optimizes overall yield. Either way, I’m stoked with this mini experiment!

What I took down: 3 Sour Diesel plants, 2 OG Kush, 2 SLH, and 2 Sour Kush. Here are the stats:

1. Sour D 63.9 grams
2. Sour D 66.1 grams
3. Sour D 55.6 grams
3. OG Kush 77.8 grams
4. OG Kush 79.6 grams
5. SLH 39.2 grams
6. SLH 33.9 grams
7. Sour Kush 59.1 grams (!)
8. Sour Kush 61.1 grams (!)
9. Bubba Kush 58.1 grams

I did include one Bubba Kush plant that I kept around for kicks but wasn’t going to mention, but what the heck, I might as well share. Some notable statistics: in my last harvest, the average per Sour Kush plant was 33.9 grams... this time it was 60.1; Last harvest avg for Sour D was 50.8 grams... this time was 61.9. I’m hypothesizing that the Sour K showed a more substantial increase in yield per plant than the Sour D because the Sour K is so squatty and dense that when crowded, very little light penetrates to the lower branches so there is little bud development lower on the plant. Sour D, on the other hand, is much lankier and likely allows more light to lower branches even when crowded, allowing for more bud development. This leads me to believe that each variety of MMJ has an “ideal” spacing pattern that allows for adequate light penetration while still having enough plants for a decent overall yield. Time will tell...

Here are some pics taken during harvest:

<--Just before harvest
<--During...
<--Fully trimmed.

Thanks for looking

 

[mamakush]

don't really have mold issues, with the indoor grow anyway..

sometimes I'll use a de-humidifier to speed up the drying process. it helps a lot.

if I want just a small nug, I'll pop it in the microwave for 5-10 seconds, lol. but that's kinda ghetto

I've heard microwaving (the right amount) can help speed up decarboxylation of the THC.

 

[mamakush]

Nice grow. Any advise as far as flowering with LED s? Thank you

My best advice is make sure you have a quality spectrum, a solid footprint, and good penetration. What you can do to help with penetration is to not crowd the plants (check out my harvest post above, I got some great results with giving the girls a little more room to grow). I would stay away from random, unproven chinese lights, because there's a lot of false advertising going on if you ask me.

 

[mamakush]

Here's another picture of the pre-harvest forest

 

[mamakush]

I just posted another video on my youtube page, it's an update of sorts from the end of flowering.

As I said earlier in this journal, I'm very much an iMovie novice so keep that in mind when you watch it

Feedback welcome!

 

[mamakush]

Here is the link.

 

[hsfkush]

don't really have mold issues, with the indoor grow anyway..

sometimes I'll use a de-humidifier to speed up the drying process. it helps a lot.

if I want just a small nug, I'll pop it in the microwave for 5-10 seconds, lol. but that's kinda ghetto

I did this once, gave me heart burn so not done it again since. Lol. Plus it tasted like absolute fucking shit!

 

[mamakush]

I did this once, gave me heart burn so not done it again since. Lol. Plus it tasted like absolute fucking shit!

I can't imagine it would taste good. I've never tried. Low and slow all the way.