Putting the flower room into overdrive. 1110 Watts quantum boards + 2000 Watts HPS

[jonnynobody]

Flower room update: The plants are not actually yellow. That's just what 2600 watts of HPS look like operating on the super lumen setting. I can't remember how many extra watts the ballasts push on those settings. I'll look it up and report back. I think it's day 27 of flower. I don't want to walk downstairs and look at my calendar. It's a bridge too far man






And life under the 660W Q board is right as rain

 

[jonnynobody]

In one of the photos above I noticed something I have not seen in over 5 years. Evidence of spider mite damage on one of my fan leaves. The damage is isolated to one small area. I purchased Venerate bioinsecticide from the local grow shop. $65 for a quart. 2-5 TBSP/gallon. I had to make 4 gallons to cover the entire garden. I individually separated and sprayed each plant within the room thoroughly saturating top and bottoms of the leaves. I will repeat again in 5-7 days in a continuing rotation until harvest. I will be spraying all of my plants with Bayer Forbid 4f just before they enter flower moving forward. It protects the plant for 6 weeks and is systemic. You cannot spray it once you have begun flowering though, so it was not an option here. This has been the single worst day of my life in recent memory. I spent over 6 hours in the flower room spraying plants staking branches. Reorganized all of the plants and things are much cleaner and neater in there now. Still an awful, terrible, no good day. That just means tomorrow has to be better, right? God I fucking hope so. I'll take pics tonight. I didn't have the strength to be in there any longer today.

 

[NukaKola]

In one of the photos above I noticed something I have not seen in over 5 years. Evidence of spider mite damage on one of my fan leaves. The damage is isolated to one small area. I purchased Venerate bioinsecticide from the local grow shop. $65 for a quart. 2-5 TBSP/gallon. I had to make 4 gallons to cover the entire garden. I individually separated and sprayed each plant within the room thoroughly saturating top and bottoms of the leaves. I will repeat again in 5-7 days in a continuing rotation until harvest. I will be spraying all of my plants with Bayer Forbid 4f just before they enter flower moving forward. It protects the plant for 6 weeks and is systemic. You cannot spray it once you have begun flowering though, so it was not an option here. This has been the single worst day of my life in recent memory. I spent over 6 hours in the flower room spraying plants staking branches. Reorganized all of the plants and things are much cleaner and neater in there now. Still an awful, terrible, no good day. That just means tomorrow has to be better, right? God I fucking hope so. I'll take pics tonight. I didn't have the strength to be in there any longer today.

Pyganic, Azamax, Regalia, Sodium bicarbonate are what I use for any mite/PM knockdown. Soap and essential oil blend for preventive. I try not to spray in flower, especially anything past two weeks. If you’re cultivating commercially and have to pass testing, I definitely wouldn’t spray in flower.

Sorry to hear that man! Hope the issues are sorted.

 

[jonnynobody]

Pyganic, Azamax, Regalia, Sodium bicarbonate are what I use for any mite/PM knockdown. Soap and essential oil blend for preventive. I try not to spray in flower, especially anything past two weeks. If you’re cultivating commercially and have to pass testing, I definitely wouldn’t spray in flower.

Sorry to hear that man! Hope the issues are sorted.

Pyganic, Azamax, Regalia, Sodium bicarbonate are what I use for any mite/PM knockdown. Soap and essential oil blend for preventive. I try not to spray in flower, especially anything past two weeks. If you’re cultivating commercially and have to pass testing, I definitely wouldn’t spray in flower.

Sorry to hear that man! Hope the issues are sorted.

Thanks for the tips. I used a product called Venerate. https://buildasoil.com/products/venerate?variant=8173732397173 It's a strain of bacteria that makes the bugs central nervous system go haywire. All organic and won't cause a failure of any lab testing. I was not doing any integrated pest management. Moving forward all plants going into flower will get hit with Bayer Forbid 4F. I do not do bugs in my garden and I will go nuclear on preventative. Respirator, long sleeves, and goggles required. I'll followup with a run down and pics of what happened last night. The garden actually looks much better now in spite of knowing there are some mites in there. Having to individually pull each plant out of the canopy allowed me to restructure the plants completely. I moved my black widows and maui's directly under the HID's and moved the hash plants to the outer perimeter. Give me a little time to wake up and I'll get some pics up here for a proper update. Venerate while very expensive does not seem to have caused any damage to the foliage which was my biggest concern. It appears to be a very safe product and if it saves my garden for the next 30 days through to harvest it's well worth it.

 

[thenasty1]

In one of the photos above I noticed something I have not seen in over 5 years. Evidence of spider mite damage on one of my fan leaves.

you sure its mites? i had the same thing happen a few months back, turned out it was just thrips. their young are little whiteish worm things that live on the bottom of the leaves, and the damage they leave from eating them looks very similar to mites. they are small, but visible to the naked eye. i hadnt seen thrips (or i did and just didnt know what i was seeing) like that before that instance

 

[jonnynobody]

you sure its mites? i had the same thing happen a few months back, turned out it was just thrips. their young are little whiteish worm things that live on the bottom of the leaves, and the damage they leave from eating them looks very similar to mites. they are small, but visible to the naked eye. i hadnt seen thrips (or i did and just didnt know what i was seeing) like that before that instance

Unfortunately I'm sure it's mites. In the past I have never actually seen a mite on a leaf. 5 years ago I found out when I had webs on my buds on what I thought was a routine morning plant inspection. It was the single most horrifying thing I have ever seen in my garden. This time I pulled off 2 leaves that showed the most damage. Lots of eggs on one leaf and then an ugly fucking mite chilling all cozy like sucking the life out of my once lush foliage. The infestation seemed to be localized to one small section, but I sprayed the whole garden to be safe. I assume if I see 1 egg or 1 mite there are a thousands that I didn't see. Here are some pics. Cleaned up the drip tray area and tidied things up a bit. All 3 HID ballasts are operating at the super lumen setting which is a 15% increase in output. The 1000's are operating at 1150 watts and the 600 is operating at 690 watts for a total of 2990 HPS watts. The quantum board is operating at full power at 660 watts. Total wattage over the garden presently is 3650 watts. Maintaining temperatures have been much easier lately since the heat wave has ended. Smooth sailing until next summer.

Hash plant showing some nice flower development.


Venerate. Used this last night full strength @ 5tbsp/gallon. The little bottle of Forbid 4F was purchased on ebay for about $30. I will be using this moving forward for all plants entering the flower room prior to the 12/12 flip. No more mite problems moving forward. I will use the Venerate at 2.5tbsp/gallon every 7 days until harvest in about 30 days.



I buy the sample size 1 oz of Forbid 4F because an 8oz bottle of the stuff is over $200. The maximum application rate is .3ML/gallon. It's incredibly strong and only requires one application. I don't think I have ever even used half of the 1 gallon the .3ML made up. Great value for the $ with incredible knock down power. I can't emphasize this enough: Do not use this if you are already in flower. This is only to be used for plants in veg or plants that are just about to enter the flowering phase. It has a 6 week half life before it metabolizes out of the plant tissue. This is as nasty as you can get for pesticides. Respirator and goggles required.



Blue dream babies moving right along.



Maui waui chunking up. She produces small flowers, but they are rock hard and extremely heavy. They weigh twice as much as a flower of the same size in hash plant. Great for commercial interests. Hash plant sucks donkey dick. Big buds that grow fast, but they do not have the rock hard density or heavy weight of maui.



The canopy.




Tidied up below the canopy around the drip trays and such.

 

[jonnynobody]

Today was a big day for upgrades and pest management. I applied Forbid 4F @ 75% max dosage to all vegetative plants including my 3 blue dream seedlings. 2ML/1 QT RO water and 1.25ML nectar for the gods yucca extract wetting agent. I only bought that product as a wetting agent because it was cheap and available. I reduced power on the T5 nurseries to 50% after spraying. I did the same for the 450W Q board nursery to avoid hurting the delicate foliage. While I waited for that to evaporate I decided to run a new 2 gang 2 duplex 15 amp receptacle in a closet location in the flower room where I have my 30 gallon reservoir and dehumidifier housed. I've been running extension cords to the closest receptacle and it looks unprofessional and I don't like it. I rounded up the materials from my on hand supplies and walked in with my green headlight. I thought this would be a quick job. And it was until I realized I was tapping into a 20 amp circuit rather than a 15 amp. In my haste to do the job I failed to even identify the breaker that controlled this line before I was about to make the final connection in the work box. I threw the breaker and hadn't even realized it was 20 amp until I opened the work box and saw the 12/2 wires. Fuck my life and poor planning. I had to rip out the wire I meticulously ran in the dark with my headlight and receptacles. I was so pissed off I had to send the wife to the hardware store for the 20 amp receptacles. I fortunately had a 10' section of 12/2 leftover from another project. A 1 hour project turned into a cluster fuck of a 4 hour project due to poor planning. The work box had an active porcelain lamp holder that I over tightened and cracked as I was finishing up the job. Double fuck myself, but it's done. Planning is half the battle in executing any project. Everything was installed correctly and safely, but I want to replace the existing work box with a larger box. Too many dam wires in too small a space presently. I need to pickup a couple large wire nuts too. I had to twist them all together with dykes and thoroughly wrap with electrical tape which is fine, but I prefer wire nuts. I'll swap the box tomorrow and install the wire nuts. Probably just going to put a cover on the work box. I'll install a new light another day. I don't really use it.

There are wire clamps on all wires entering and exiting the work box. It's those kind you tighten from inside the work box. Just in case somebody was thinking it



It's tight in there, but it all fits and the res rolls out without issue. I routed the air lines through a 3/4" hole I drilled in the shelf. It was a bit messy before. Much tidier now.



Flower room bud shots. Of course the bud right in front of the fucking camera is out of focus, but everything in the background is clear. What a day man...




I'll snap some pics of the nurseries tomorrow. There does not appear to be any foliage damage from the Forbid application. In the past when used at full strength I have seen it burn foliage. 75% strength seems to work great. Not even the 3 baby blue dreams suffered any ill effects. I also picked up another bioinsecticide for the flower room called Grandevo CG. I'll apply that on Monday and then rotate it with the Venerate CG every 5-7 days depending on rate of infestation as recommended by the manufacturer. Both products are organic OMRI listed, and are safe up to the day of harvest.

 

[vitalsine]

Awesome setup man. I will def be staying tuned. Just wanted to say hey and get myself subscribed to the journal!

 

[jonnynobody]

Awesome setup man. I will def be staying tuned. Just wanted to say hey and get myself subscribed to the journal!

Thanks man. It's a lot of work, but I really don't know what else I would do with my time if I stopped gardening

Good news to report today. All 3 nurseries took the Forbid 4F treatment @ .2ML/quart which is about 75% strength. Full strength is .3ML/quart and I have burned plants at that ratio in the past. Even the baby blue dreams show no signs of burn. Last night I thought I would prep my reservoir in advance to save some time in the morning measuring powders and liquids. I figured it was only going to sit in the res for 12 hours at the most before being used. No problem, right? Walked into the flower room with my headlight on ready to add my floralicious, PH, and water the ladies. Added the floralicious and as I was mixing I noticed a lot of particulate floating around in the water. I mean a lot. I think I caused something to precipitate and it just circulated in the res overnight. I had to wheel out 30 gallons of fertilizer and pump it down the drain. 1/4 pound of maxi bloom and 30ML of floralicious down the drain. Dam. This has occurred before in the past which is why I always mix my fertilizer right before I water. I stopped mixing in advance about a year ago, because this became a randomly occurring issue causing me to waste time, fertilizer, and labor.

I will mix on demand moving forward to resolve the issue. The flower room is looking good. Buds are swelling and watering was much easier this morning with the dehumidifier tucked into the closet area instead of the rear corner of the room near the electric panel. I need that space to maneuver with the water wand. I have not noticed anymore mite damage. I know they are there, but no visual damage indicates the population is being controlled effectively. I will be applying Grandevo CG as part of my new integrated pest management program. I will rotate Grandevo CG and Venerate CG applications every 6 days. Venerate then 6 days later Grandevo. Repeat until harvest. Fucking mites suck, but it's my own fault for failing to implement IPM. I ordered another 16LB container of maxi grow. I've heard through the grape vine that maxi bloom can be used as a stand alone from veg to flower, but I go through a lot of each product. If I did maxi bloom alone I would just consume my container faster and have to resupply sooner. When I am ready to order a 50# container that would be a good opportunity to get bulk discount pricing and then switch to 1 product. For now maxi grow and maxi bloom it is. Found it on ebay for $94.99 by the way. It's been very difficult to find locally.

I'll snap some fresh pics tonight of all areas.

 

[jonnynobody]

I felt several plants were not receiving ideal light due to their short height. Lots of branches with plenty of flower sites were below the canopy. I stacked 5 gallon buckets under each plant that needed to be elevated thereby raising those branches into the canopy. Now the tops are about 12" from the glass of the 1000w hoods and slightly more distance under the 660W Q board. I think flood and drain tables are where this room will evolve to. I could water all of the plants with my wand like I do now and allow the waste water to drain into a holding tote. From the holding tote I can run a garden hose on a pump with a remote switch to my sewer drain. That's light years easier than what I've been doing. I think I will make the upgrade after this cycle. It will be about $500 for two 4'x8' flood tables which should cover the entire room. The co2 burner will have to wait. I've got to address this waste water issue in a more efficient way. Everything is looking good in the flower room as far as bud development goes. I do have a bit of premature yellowing on 1 of my hash plants, but it doesn't seem to be affecting flower growth. I've been reading another experienced grower's thread. He has great success with a higher PPM. I will experiment on my next water cycle with a 1200PPM feed. If they respond positively I will know I have been under feeding. If the fan leaves show burn then I'll revert to my usual feed.





Moving plants when you're balls deep in flower is a fucking nightmare, and I wish it upon no one else. I am having some real growing pains here no pun intended. I have never had this many plants or this much light in there, and it's creating some unique challenges. It's no longer easy to water and siphon out the saucers. There's just too many plants in too tight a space. When I prepare the room for the next flower cycle I will have much better organization. I'll iron out the wrinkles, and then the room should be running smooth as silk. Need flood tables as you can see by all of the plants stacked on top of 5 gallon buckets. That's a desperate cry for flood tables

 

[jonnynobody]

Day 32 of flower update. On the recommendation of another highly respected member of the community I increased the feed PPM to 1130 today. The ladies are at peak flower right now and the nutrient demands are as high as they will be. I have a couple of plants that have some foliage that is lightening more than I would like to see. Also a little bit of leaf mottling on 2 of the hash plants. It could just be a cry for more fertilizer. If they burn I'll reduce back to 950-1000 PPM. If they thrive and respond positively I will increase to 1200PPM until day 55 of flower at which point I will begin reducing the strength of the fertilizer as the plant's needs diminish towards the end of the flower cycle. Tomorrow I will be spraying the Grandevo CG at lights on. I don't think spraying during lights off is a good idea with the number of plants in the room. I'm not taking any chances of powdery mold. Reducing power on all lights for about 3 hours while the spray evaporated worked great with no issues. Here's some nice bud shots just before lights on. I'm going to withhold judgment until the plants are chopped and dried to determine if the 660W Q board can hold it's with the HID lights running hortilux lamps. The flower development under the Q board is solid. I'm looking forward to the results.

There's a good bit of light drop off at the rear of the canopy. I'm hanging one of the cheap LED's in that corner. It looks like one of those blurples. Not complete trash, but not something I would ever recommend someone buy. I hope this will keep the buds on a couple of plants at the end of the canopy nice and firm. I might even toy with the idea of mounting them on the wall as side lighting.

 

[jonnynobody]

Nursery update:

Nursery B) (450W Q board) JAGER

Nursery B) Girl scout cookies


Nursery B) Critical mass

Nursery B) Maui waui


Nursery B) The whole tamale

Nursery A) (Hydrofarm 8 lamp T5)

Nursery B) The whole tamale

 

[jonnynobody]

As you can see there is a difference in growth when you compare the pictures from nursery A and nursery B. Nursery B with the Q board is producing growth with incredibly tight node spacing resulting in a bush structure rather than the traditional Christmas tree. Granted I have topped them and tied them down, but I did the same thing for the plants in nursery A. The plants initially were quite sensitive to the intensity of the Q board. I had to reduce power to 50% for about a week. I have slowly increased power to approximately 80% as the plants all grew in size. All plants have responded positively to the increase. One maui clone has a bit of burn on one fan leaf due to the light intensity, but it's also a very small clone that probably should be in the T5 nursery. It is what it is. The plant will toughen up and acclimate over the next few days.

Clone nursery)

Clone nursery) The whole tamale

Blue dream baby looking good

Grandevo CG will be applied to the flower room at the maximum application rate to control the spider mite population. 7 days later I will spray Venerate CG. The process will be repeated until harvest day. About $60/each bottle of pesticide. It's organic and leaves no residue. Safe all the way up to harvest day.

 

[Stealthstyle]

just locking this thread in. Great job despite the mites, very interesting thread.

 

[jonnynobody]

Made bubble hash yesterday. 74g total yield.

73 micron pull



73 micron pull from a 5 gallon bucket full of stems



Low quality hash. A bit of plant matter got in due to operator error. It will be used for edibles only.



Link to the whole process I used to run the extraction HERE

 

[jonnynobody]

Wow this was a long day. I'll update with flower room pics tomorrow. I don't have the strength to re enter the room for any length of time. I sprayed Grandevo CG @ 4TBSP/gal and holy mother of god does that shit stink to high hell. There doesn't appear to be any spread of spider mite damage, however after inspecting several leaves taken from different points in the garden eggs are present throughout. Some areas more present than others. Not a lot, but they are there. I absolutely hosed the plants down today tops and bottoms. 2 gallons to cover the entire flower room. I really can't emphasize enough how terrible the smell of this shit is. They claim it leaves no residue, however I beg to differ. There is a bit of white residue more present on some leaves than others, but it doesn't appear to be detrimental. Just annoying to see. This time I sprayed with lights @ full power. Not a bit of trouble. The ladies took it just fine without a single complaint from any leaves that I was able to observe.

Tied down the plants in Nursery A and B today. Maui's are still small so I just let them go.

Nuersy B) (Q board) Girl scout cookies


Critical mass. Very impressive strain so far.



The whole tamale. That's Jager up front taking up all the dam space



Nursery A) (T5)




Clone nursery. Buddy didn't pick up his 9 clones. They need a home or I'm tossing 'em. What can ya do?



That's about all I have the strength for at this point today. I'll post pics of the flower room tomorrow. I'm about to burn down some of the hash I made yesterday. Really potent stuff. I think I will try getting one of those dab pens with the ceramic coils to burn some hash on. I don't do solvent based concentrates, but if I can get this hash of mine to work in a portable pen that would be the fucking tits dude

 

[jonnynobody]

I sprayed the flower room lightly with RO water to remove some residue that was left behind by the Grandevo CG. It appears to be more evident in some locations than others. It doesn't appear to have caused any damage. Even after spraying RO water after the leaves dried the residue remained. I'm going to reach out to the company that makes the product via email with pictures to see what they have to say. I'll report back when I get a response. The smell that was in the room from the spray has completely dissipated. I will spray Venerate CG in another 5 days per manufacturer directions. In case anyone is thinking it - it's not powdery mold. When I was spraying the product I noticed the ripples of white as it was dripping off the foliage. It's like it stained the leaf. I wonder if the rapid drying under the full power lights caused it. I will reduce power for about 4 hours until the product has completely dried at the next application. Hopefully that will eliminate the residue issue. I did not have the same issue with Venerate CG.

 

[jonnynobody]

Pressed my first hash coin today out of the low grade material. Very nice. Got the press on amazon for $17 if I remember right. Nice little contraption. Easy to use. This was very loose low grade material too. I just wanted to test out the press. The high grade hash is rock hard. I have no doubt the press will handle it with ease. I'll post pics tomorrow when I press it out.

 

[jonnynobody]

I want to cover a couple things regarding my hash extraction.
1) Don't press your hash. It sticks to the metal press piece and while the loss was minimal (.1g out of 3.5) it was simply a poor method to use for high quality hash. I do not believe pressing is a good method for storing bubble hash, because it ruptures the glands causing evaporation of terpenes.
2) Press your patty onto paper towels through the mess screen that came with your bubble bag kit. Then break the patty into smaller pieces and allow to air dry for 3-4 days in a cool dark place. After it's dried store in a small air tight container like an old cleaned out medicine bottle. They're perfect for hash storage.

Moving on. I've had a 600w ballast sitting in my garage for a couple years along with a Sunspot 6" air cooled reflector which I busted the glass out of years ago. I've also got an extra 600w hortilux lamp in my supply drawer. I thought to myself - why the fuck am I not using this? I had no good answer. The solution to this conundrum? Turn up the volume on the flower power babe. The flower room is now operating at a shade over 4000 watts with the following:

2x600w hortilux HPS lamps powered digital ballasts
2x1000w hortilux HPS lamps powered by digital ballasts
1x660w quantum board.

I will max the room out after my next harvest by putting the 450w q board back in there next to the 660w q board. At that point I will be at about 4600w with three of the ballasts in super lumen mode which adds +15% power. I will need the mini split installed first thing in the spring time to handle the heat next summer with the added lights. I'm pretty stoked about the upcoming harvest in 20-25 days.

 

[jonnynobody]

I received a response from Marrone Bio Innovations regarding the residue that was left on my fan leaves from applying Grandevo CG at maximum strength:

I appreciate your inquiry. What you are seeing is a clay inert ingredient in the formulation that is not soluble in water. In greenhouse situations where there is no rain, the residue can build up. To help control the issue, try to reduce your rate. Please note: because there are no chemicals in the clay, there should not be a testing issue especially since our product is MRL exempt. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. Thank you.



With best regards,

Nancy