What's up guys?
Finally got a moment to elaborate further on my last post/situation.
I've only been getting like one day off for the last few weeks since starting my last job, so while the pay has been awesome, I find myself with little time after all is said and done. I'm just thankful that all I need to do is water them and wait at this point.
These are easily the biggest and best plants I've ever had indoors though, and it isn't even a contest. Day 25 is today and they are already starting to stink and get sticky. I usually don't get resin, terpenes, and bud production like this until around week 4, and seeing as I'm still in the middle of week 3 I am quite impressed. All 4 of the strains I'm running have distinct smells to them already and the buds are looking quite good so far. The Mendo Purps smells of sweet grapes, the Jack the Ripper has that sweet Haze smell to it that I love so much, AK Skunk of course smells skunky, and the OG Ghost Train Haze #1 has an offensive OG stink to it.
I'm stoked on the potential yields though. The Mendo Purp plants are twice the size of the plants I did in my last SCROG grow. They're 2x4 sqft at around 2 ft tall. I'm expecting near, if not over a pound from each of them. But time will tell.
The vertical grow side is impressing me as well. The AK Skunk plants are enormous and have me really putting some thought into vertical growing, they are damn near 4ft tall measuring from the base of the plant and wide as fuck. The last time I had plants that size was outdoors, and they pulled 12+ ounces easy. I doubt I'll get that, but I'm almost not sure at this point. Vertical growing is absolutely impressing the shit out of me right now. The only reason I'm not 100% sold on it is because it doesn't have the enhanced spectrum and efficiency that comes with a DE bulb. I'm trying to find a way to brainstorm a method of vertical growing with DE lights, but as of now I have no ideas.
As of now though, I'm going to go ahead and say that my little experiment is inconclusive and the results for both sides will be a bit skewed. I'm not growing 100% efficiently on either side, mainly taking advantage of the light both sides are providing me. The only way that the use of light is 100% optimal on either side is as follows;
1) The 600w side. Looking at the AK Skunk plants, it seems like I could fit 6 of them around that one light. Not only that, the AK Skunks could have grown to be another foot tall and I still would have been fine. So until I get myself six 5ft tall plants around the 600w bulb, it's hard for me to truly gauge what vertical growing is fully capable of.
2) The 1000w DE side also isn't at 100% efficiency. I could have grown the canopy to be 4ft tall instead of 2, but it was just asking way too much from 3 plants. If I had 4 plants then I could have let them grow upward weeks ago and had the canopy I was shooting for.
So, even though this grow is looking amazing to me thus far, it still isn't 100% just yet.
This is why I harp on about the importance of knowing your strain. I had a rough idea of how all of these strains would grow, but not 100%. In the future, I'll be making a few tweaks to my plant counts and sizes in an effort to finally maximize things. I refuse to expand any more until I'm able to maximize what it is that I already have. Electricity here is WAY more pricey than it was in California, so if you can't get 100% out of one or two lights you'll go broke trying to run more than that.
On my next grow, I'll be making an attempt to take full advantage of the 600w SE vertical grow and the 1000w DE light in an effort to completely maximize things. Once I determine which is better, I'll proceed to outfit my shed accordingly. You should have seen me the first time I did this without the vertical growing and/or DE lights. 4400w and my yields were average. Wouldn't have been that big of a deal if my electric bills weren't $900 in veg and $700+ in flower.
