Shed is 100% done and I'll be doing the transplants within the next hour or two, so expect an update on that once I'm finished transplanting
I did happen to run into a few snags though. One of my 600 watt ballasts crapped out on me and is just not working for some reason. I took it apart and the capacitors and connections look totally solid. I even swapped out the fuse with the backup fuse and even that didn't fix it.. so I have to buy a new 600 watt ballast :/ LAME! I'm still going to transplant a plant underneath the unlit fixture though because there is enough light in the rest of the room when the lights are on, I would get the most amazing growth but it will be about the same as having it under a florescent until the ballast gets here. Of course since it's Memorial Day weekend, I'm gonna have to wait until at least Tuesday or Wednesday for it to get here :/
And on top of that, one of my 1000 watt hoods isn't the standard plug in, it's a hydrosun and I guess they have a unique connection as opposed to the others. So I have to order an adapter in order to get that hooked up lol. So as of now, I'm down a single 1000 watt and a single 600 watt but both should be up and running by Wednesday. As you can tell from the photos below, I simply can't wait any longer and they should have been in the shed a week or two ago! It is what it is, gotta improvise. Always hope for the best and plan for the worst, in life and in this business.
While I wait on getting my transplants taken care of, I figured I'd take a photo of the ladies for you guys so you can see how they look before going into the shed.
Cluster Bomb (Bomb Seeds)
Berry Bomb (Bomb Seeds)
Jack Herer (bag seed)
Purple Trainwreck (Humboldt Seeds Organization)
Amnesia Lemon (Barney's Farms)
Those of you that have been following the journal from the beginning may notice the absence of the Critical + 2.0 in favor of one of the Jack Herer plants, as well as the absence of the Original Amnesia.
Concerning the Critical + 2.0 I'm just not quite all that happy with how it's turned out compared to the Jack Herer pictured above. The Jack Herer has a nice little "halo" of nodes growing upward and is getting so big that it's dwarfing the Critical, on top of that I'm quite disappointed with the node spacing on the Critical and how skinny the main stems on it are compared to the Jack. The Jack is clearly preparing itself for a heavy yield where as the Critical just looks mediocre and when the Critical touts itself as a heavy yielding strain that produces golf balls, yet doesn't look the part I'm simply not inclined to put it into a 25 gallon pot. The description says up to 700g per square foot but I'm just simply not seeing it based on the size and structure of it.
The Jack Herer definitely deserves a full pot, where as I'll likely just flower the Critical + 2.0 in the 2 gallon pot it is still currently in. I only got one seed, so perhaps the phenotype I got was just mediocre. The only snag is that the Jack Herer seeds were not feminized, and although the one pictured above certainly looks like a girl I can't say that it is with 100% certainty just yet.
So the plan for now is to transplant the Jack into a 25 gallon and wait for it to sex, should it end up being a male I can simply just rip it out and replace it with the Critical + 2.0 without any problems. If the Jack is in fact a female, it'll stay in the 25 gallon pot until harvest. If it's a male, I'll cull it and swap it with the Critical because I know for sure it's a girl. I have two Jack Herer plants, the one pictured above and another one I don't have pictured. The one not shown is looking like a male in structure, plus the stems on it are significantly smaller than the one pictured above. This leads me to believe that the one with smaller stems is a male and the one with the thicker stems is a female, as the thicker stems are preparation for buds whereas a male doesn't need to prepare itself for buds. I'm pretty sure it's a girl, but until you see pistils you simply can't be 100% sure.
As for the Original Amnesia, the size of that plant as well as the node spacing is just obscene on it. It is WAY bigger than the other plants and will be taking one of the 1000 watt lights to itself (The Cluster Bomb gets the other 1000 watter) because of how large this thing is. However, until the adapter gets here I can't transplant the Amnesia. Since it's already so much larger than the other plants, I'm just going to keep it under a florescent light until the adapter gets here, then it will be transplanted into the 30 gallon pot. It's funny, the Amnesia says it's "manageable in height" in the description, yet it's become my largest plant! The Critical says it's good to "control it's height" but it's not even growing enough to warrant a transplant!
This is exactly why people on these forums will tell you that the descriptions are useless for the most part. Only use the descriptions to get a general idea of how the plant will produce and the characteristics of the phenotypes of the plant, but never assume the descriptions are 100% accurate because in my experience they most certainly are not. It all comes down to the phenotype you get. In most cases, if you want a seed to match the description on the website then you're gonna need to do some phenotype hunting.
The swamp cooler is kicking ass too! Even with the lights on at full power my temps never got over 83 degrees, when the lights are dialed down to 50% the temps hover between 79-81 degrees. As you all know, normally those temps are on the high side but this is exactly why I plan on supplementing with CO2. The main reason for me going with CO2 is so I can get my temps to 85, even 90 degrees without any sort of negative consequences. For where I'm living now, this is an absolute must because it's starting to get to be over 100 degrees here pretty much every day. That's the best part about swamp coolers though, the hotter it gets outside the cooler the swamp cooler gets.
I have no experience with running CO2 so I plan on taking things slow and seeing how the girls react to it, I'll be gradually pumping the ppms up to 1200-1500, it's entirely dependent on what the plants tell me they want. Growing is a lot like cooking, it's much easier to add things in small amounts as opposed to attempting to remove anything if it's too much.
For those of you that are as new to CO2 as I am, there are a handful of things that you need to consider about it. There is a lot of consensus that anything over 1200ppm is actually a waste and that only certain strains like more than 1200ppms, however I've seen some journals where people let it get as high as 2000ppms.
Another thing about CO2 is you want to make sure that you shut it off around 2-3 hours before lights off. The reason for this is because when the lights go off, there is still CO2 in the stomata. However, without light the plant is unable to process the CO2 so it actually gets released back into the air. On top of this, your living organic soil will also produce some CO2. After watering the pots to keep the soil moist, it's not uncommon for me to see 450-550ppms on my CO2 meter and this is without having any plants in the soil or my CO2 generator running. You absolutely do NOT want your CO2 to be past 500-600 ppms during lights off and you should vent the room of the CO2 at least once every day or two before lights off.
From a thread on ICMag
"A concern with high Co2, especially over ~1,000 ppm, is ethylene buildup. Even low ppm concentration of ethylene gas can affect flower (inflorescence) size, plant growth rate, seed set (for breeders), senescence, etc. If grow rooms or greenhouses are not vented at least once, ex., at the end of the day, and Co2 is used at 1,000 to 1,500 ppm (esp the latter), ethylene can buildup to levels that will lower yield."
source (
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=221893)
Another thing about CO2, after week 6 you absolutely do not want it past 600 ppms for any reason. This is because CO2 is actually capable of hindering the ripening process as well as terpene production. You will actually run the risk of lowering your yield AND potency if you run CO2 past 6 weeks of flower. We absolutely do not want this to happen.
And as I'm sure most of you already know, CO2 is an absolute waste if your nutrients, lighting, temps, and watering aren't up to par with it. The more CO2, the hotter your temps need to be to promote transpiration in the leaves and the opening of the stomata. With extra CO2 comes the need for extra light (the extra photosynthesis you receive from the CO2 is directly proportional to the light the plants have available), extra water and nutrients (more photosynthesis/transpiration = more water and nutes).
Anyway, that's pretty much it for the time being. Within the next few hours I'll be finished transplanting and I'll post an update with photos of the girls in their final pots as well as the shed. As always, thanks for stopping by
The Purple Trainwreck remains to this day some of the best stuff I've ever grown. Had amazing bag appeal, amazing smell and taste, and yielded rather well. Can't wait to see what it's like indoors! Wasn't planning on even running the Amnesia until I lost all of those seeds, so I had to end up popping it with the Critical + 2.0 and they're doing amazing. Thought the Amnesia took 9-11 weeks but the instant I found out it was an 8-9 week I dropped it in a pot asap!
