Hot Diggity's Lab

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Welcome!

All of my work thus far has been scattered across multiple journals and it's a bitch to keep track of it all. I now present Hot Diggity's Lab. An assortment of ramblings, experiments and the occasional stroke of luck.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

This next chapter is dedicated to the man, the myth, the legend.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Mixed my 1st ever organic soil. Approx 40% sphagnum peat moss, 40% course perlite and 20% worm castings. To that, I added Craft Blend amendments from Build a Soil and Mycorrhizae via Rootwise Mycrobe from Build a Soil as well as Great White which I had been using from my previous grow.

It's sitting under a 1000 Watt Metal Halide Blue where it will cook down for a few weeks.

 

[jungle666]

Is this grow going to be indoor or outdoor

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 5

Seeds went into wet paper towels Thursday, May 9th. They were planted into their pots on Saturday.

Here's what we have:
(10) Bodhi Sunshine Daydream
(10) Bodhi Lemon Hashplant
(10) Bodhi Guava Wookie

5 of the guava wookie have not popped up yet. Everything else has.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Is this grow going to be indoor or outdoor

It's going to be indoor. Sorry for the delay in reply.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 8

Things are going well. Some of the seeds didn't make it so here is what we have:
(9) Bodhi Sunshine Daydream
(9) Bodhi Lemon Hashplant
(7) Bodhi Guava Wookie

Since this is my 1st ever no til organic soil experiment, I've been a bit worried about how this will play out. Is my soil too hot for seedlings? Is the PH going to be ok? I'm so used to micro-managing my plants that it feels weird to relinquish this control to the soil.

So far so good but there are a few things worth noting. Some of the cotyledons are ridiculously large...certainly larger than anything I've ever seen. Also, some of them are curling up which I've also never seen.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 13

Things are going great. I added a dozen or so red wigglers to each container several days ago - they took to their new home really well. I then added some cover crop seed. Some has sprouted but not nearly as much as I want. May need to add more.

Running a 1000 Watt Eye Hortilux Blue Metal Halide light and will use it exclusively for the next month or so. Plan on flipping to 12/12 in 10 to 12 days. Once they have sexed, I will move the males to a tent in another room and bring the Quantum Board LED towers online and take the Blue down.

I'm thrilled with the progress so far. I was worried that my soil might not have had enough time before I planted but I see no signs of that.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 16

Plants are doing amazing. In fact, I've never seen growth this fast! All of these seeds are F1's (I think). Is it hybrid vigor? Is it the living soil? Or both?
I don't know but I couldn't be more happy. I decided to switch to 12/12 starting today. Lights go off at 10 PM my time so tomorrow, day 17, will be flower day 1. This is way earlier than I expected - by about 10 days!

The cover crop is starting to come in nicely. I haven't seen any worms trying to escape so I hope they are happy (and not dead).
Yesterday I watered them with their 1st tea - a simple one with worm castings, molasses and a variety of microbes. I also added a bit of cal mag since I'm using RO water, mostly.
Will be giving them a minor watering tomorrow with some silica.

Once they start to sex, I'll be moving the males into another location. Onto some pics!

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 20
Flowering - Day 4

Things are going great! Starting to stink
Gave them an aggressive silica watering 2 days ago.
Some of them are pretty stretchy and others are not. I'm keeping detailed notes as we go. It will be interesting to see if the tall stretchy ones are males or not.
Speaking of males - the 8'x4' tent is almost ready for the males once they show.

The LED towers from Chapter 5 are starting to come online slowly. More on this soon

Not much else to report...onto some pics!

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 23
Flowering - Day 7

Things are still going great. I got a bit worried when several plants started to wilt. They looked kind of like plants that were over-watered. I thought maybe they needed some CalMag since I had been using mostly RO water. They did rebound nicely so maybe it was that...I'm not sure.

One of the Wookie's was a runt and I decided to dump the soil out and do an inspection. I wanted to see the root progress, check the overall moisture levels in the middle, see if the worms were still alive, check for soil compactness, etc. The soil looked great. It was very loose and not too wet. The worms were alive. All in all it looked great.

I watered again tonight using 50% RO water, 50% well water and 2.5 ml/g of calmag. I also added a small amount of Blue Planet seaweed flakes. Water going in was 0.65 EC @ 6.6 PH and run-off was 1.5EC @ 6.6 PH. Yikes! Really high run-off.

At any rate, things look great. I'm hoping to see some plants start indicating...they are getting crowded. The males will be moved into a tent in another area as they indicate.
I've started bringing in my LED towers from the previous chapter to give some additional side lighting. I still have the 1K Metal Halide Blue up above.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 25
Flowering - Day 9

It's been 9 days since I switched to 12/12 and we have our 1st pistil sighting! I also see the 1st probable male - not 100% sure but pretty sure.

Sunshine Daydream #3 is the 1st female:


Sunshine Daydream #7 is the 1st likely male:


Pretty decent structure on both of these so far. I expect to start seeing sex indications happening every day now.

Did a 50% RO/50% Well water watering tonight with nothing added. EC going in was 0.23 @ 6.9 PH. Runoff was 1.08 EC @ 6.5 PH so things look pretty good.
Nothing else to report so I'll end it with a couple of group shots.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 27
Flowering - Day 11

Things are going well still. The plants are starting to drink a lot more water and I think I will need to start watering every 36 hours instead of every 2 days.
Tonight's watering was 5 gallons consisting of:
3/4 RO water
1/4 Well water
15 ml CalMag
2 scoops Great White
2.5 scoops dry seaweed flakes
A few drops of PH down
I ran air stones thru this for about an hour before using it and it came out to 0.69 EC @ 6.4 PH and gave each plant approx 30 fluid ounces.
Once everything finished draining, I measured run-off and it came in at 1.24 EC @ 6.4 PH.

This is my 1st ever living soil experiment so I'm just kind of winging it.

Quite a few plants have indicated over the last 2 days...here is the quick summary:

Sunshine Day Dream #1 - Female - Day 27
Sunshine Day Dream #3 - Female - Day 25
Sunshine Day Dream #5 - Female - Day 27
Sunshine Day Dream #7 - Male - Day 25

Lemon Hashplant #1 - Male - Day 27
Lemon Hashplant #3 - Male - Day 27
Lemon Hashplant #4 - Male - Day 27
Lemon Hashplant #7 - Male - Day 27

None of the Guava Wookies have indicated yet.

I began a prediction chart on day #15 where I could check off which plants I thought would be male and which would be female. I'm at 0% so far. Each plant I thought would be male is a female (of the ones that have shown)

The Sunshine Daydreams started out on fire. They were robust and grew fast but now they are just average. And some of them suck, quite frankly. It's early still, I know.
The total opposite happened with the guava wookie. All of them were slow and lagging behind but now some of them look amazing...interesting.

I have an 8'x4' tent that I'm not using so it's going to become the new home for the males. I put a 600 HPS in there for now but it will probably be replaced with two Quantum Boards - we'll see. The main area is getting very crowded so it's nice to be able to start moving males out.

Average Height right now is 8 inches. Tallest is 11 inches and shortest is 6 inches.

3 of the 4 LED towers from Chapter 5 are in use right now. Still have the 1000W Metal Halide up above. Once everything has sexed, I'll reveal the new flower room layout - it should be sweet. It will be 100% Quantum Boards.

 

[Sir Patrick]

Coming right along.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 29
Flowering - Day 13

Quite a few more males have indicated. Pretty much all of my favorite plants are confirmed males....ugh. There are 9 males so far.
The tallest plant, which is a confirmed Female, grew 2 inches since the last update so the stretch is officially on!

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 32
Flowering - Day 16

Everything has indicated sex and here is the final tally:

Females:
Sunshine Daydream: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9
Lemon G13: 2, 5 and 6
Guava Wookie: 2, 3, 4 and 5

Males:
Sunshine Daydream: 2 and 7
Lemon G13: 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9
Guava Wookie: 1 and 6

Total:
14 Females
10 Males

There's nothing especially special about any one male or any one female so far. I'm doing daily stem rubs but they still smell pretty generic - like a pot plant.

I'm pretty sure they are getting ready to do their stretch. Tallest plant is 16" and average is 12".

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 34
Flowering - Day 18

Things are going great! I have to say though, trying to pick a male is going to be hard! My original plan was to take the best male from each of the three strains and pollinate one plant from each strain with each male. This would give me 9 different crosses. This just isn't practical at all. I'm not a breeder and I'm not trying to pretend that I am. I think what I'm going to do instead is try and find one and only one male from the 10 I have to pick from and then use him to pollinate one plant from each of the 3 strains.

I started doing stem rub smell tests tonight on the males and ended up killing the 1st two males because they had virtually no smell at all and, frankly, they looked like shit anyway. These two were Lemon #7 and Sunshine #2.

Here are a few of the remaining males: (8 left I think)


The females are coming along nicely and into their stretch. Each plant from each strain is very similar so kudo's to Bodhi for that. Several of them have nice little flower caps forming. I think the general size, shape and formation of each plant will be clear in another 7 to 10 days.

The girls:

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 36
Flowering - Day 20

Things are going great still. Usually by now I would have had at least one crisis but nope...(knock on wood)
3 more males did not make the cut so we're down to 5. Unfortunately, neither of the two Sunshine DayDream males made it. 4 of the 5 are the Lemon/G13 and the 5th is a Guava Wookie.

For the females, they all look pretty good. The tallest are the Sunshine Daydream's coming in at 20" and the smallest is a Guava Wookie at 12". The average is around 14". They don't seem to have that explosive stretch that I expected.

Tonight I began re-purposing my LED towers from the last chapter. What I came up with is OK but I can do better so expect to see a few iterations.

Males:


Females:

 

[Big Perm]

Subbed bro. Always been a huge fan and lurker.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 6 - Day 38
Flowering - Day 22

I built the 2nd LED tower today and decided to use 1x3's instead of 2x4's - much better! Tomorrow or Monday I'll rebuild the other one. I have (6) QB 288 boards left over and may bring them online... it kind of depends on how much the end up stretching. The tallest plants are now 22 1/2" so they are growing in height roughly 1 inch per day. I figure the stretch will last another 7 to 10 days or so and it should be pretty clear what they will end up looking like by then.

The 1000 Watt metal halide that was up top is officially offline so we are now 100% LED. (12) Quantum Board 288's - 4000K running at 60 watts per board.

Looks like I'll be able to start collecting pollen from the male room as soon as tomorrow. I'll be sure to document this part pretty well.