*Yawn* Its early Took me a few hours but I finally finished reading the whole thread. yikes an all nighter. And if your wondering I got sucked into joining because otherwise I couldn't see the pictures. Haha. Not bad I've been looking for a new home since the downfall of OG.
I have to say, what tremendous balls you have... yes yes the better to grow with I guess.
I feel so bad for you and your mite problem, I've been there and had a mighty big collection of concentrates, bombs, and sticky paper. From the whole ordeal the best things to come from it were neem oil w/dish soap, sticky pads, and nicotine water.
Somewhere along the way I killed the bastards.
I would suggest you do something about your humidity, if I read correctly you are at 30% RH... Here is a snip from a good FAQ site. (growfaq.net)
Daytime conditions should be 70-80 degrees without co2, 80-90 degrees with co2 until the last two weeks when daytime temps should be kept between 70-80 and co2 can be reduced to adjust for the lower metabolism. Night temperatures should be kept above 60 degrees to prevent stress. It is preferrable during flowering to have a night temperature drop of 10-20 degrees to stimulate flowering hormones and reduce stem elongation.
I find that low humidity causes stress on plants. I recommend 50-60% humidity until the final 2 weeks of flowering. At this point, the humidity should be lowered as much as possible to encourage the plant to seal and protect itself with additional resin. (I am able to get the humidity to go as low as 31%) I have been able to frost things up considerably this way. The higher humidity levels prior to final ripening reduce salt levels within the plant tissue and encourage healthy, more lush growth.
I think that if you watered your plants better the humidity issue might get better but I know Cali is dry. Remember with soil its a good rule of thumb that 1/4 of what you water should be run off and drain through. If you get tired of hand watering you should easily be able to set up a watering system with a pump. You don't need to go hydro to save yourself this trouble. your hydro store should have the tubing and water stake drippers. 40 Min to set up tubes and you'll have an almost automated watering set up.
Your light efficiency is defiantly a little off, Mylar first of all looses its reflectivity when it creases. That is of course beside the fact that your mylar is places so far away it couldn't help too much.
Your best bet here is to fix the mylar to something solid like cardboard and hang it, creating a room in a room type thing. You would be surprised as to the difference it makes to contain your light and reflect it properly.
I hate mylar... ok hate is a strong word... I despise mylar. It creases, creates hot spots, breaks and is a bitch to clean if you intend on foliar feeding (spraying anything). Go for the black/white polyurethane film (aka Panda poly, panda film) But as someone mentioned before nothing is as reliable as good old flat white paint. (I heard titanium white rules for reflectivity)
Ok I think that was it for my 2 cents.
I am also growing Sour Diesel along with White Rhino and AK-47. This harvest is my first try at going Vertical. I will be very excited to share it with all of you when I get to posting it all up.
Here's and idea build yourself a bunch of vertical rooms. One 8X8 room, 2000 Watts and 35 Plants puts out a minimum of 5lbs per harvest (No boosters or CO2) So basically in your growing space you could fit 6 Flowering rooms with 210 plants. One 8X24 ft veg room. Giving you a consistent harvest of 30lbs.
yikes!
This only assuming you would be there longer than 5 months, and that you could afford the light bill for 15,000 Watts of light. Haha totally kidding but maybe you'd want to do this when you move.