First Grow: Lemon Skunk in Bubbleponics

[ru4r34l]

High all,

Well it's almost been a week into flowering and it looks as if the stretch is on, the ladies have grown almost an inch a day and now look skinny.

I seem to be quite lucky as the summer temperature is quite low for this time of year, my grow room stays at a constant 74° and reservoir about 67° - 69°

Here are some pictures of the ladies themselves, below are just before lights off.

And below are the ones with the HPS Lamp off.

So I have been busy planning a new grow architecture and I have had some great ideas from friends and RIU members, Once I get my floor plan and schematics finished I will have it vetted through the grow room thread.

@lordjin > I was able to find some cool pre-build autotop devices at http://autotopoff.com/, with auto top off I should be able to move to a scrog setup for my next grow.

regards,

 

[lordjin]

I hate to say I told you so, but look how big they got already. I can't see your tub anymore... Lol.

Nice job.

And yes, you have the right idea with the auto-top and scrog. I want to do a scrog for my next round too... And I wouldn't be even entertaining that idea if I had to hand top.

 

[ru4r34l]

High all,

Well I am quite impressed with GreenHouse Seed Co., all five beans germinated and sprouted in less than 36 hours and they have been growing well since. I took a good look at the ladies and can indeed confirm that they are ALL ladies, they are at day 10 of flower and they have started to slow down the stretch; maybe a precursor to bud formation .

Temps are awesome right now, with no work other than leaving the room door open temps site at 70 - 72 lights off, 75 - 78 lights on. pH is holding steady at 6.0, reservoir temperature is amazingly stable at 67 - 69

And the best for last my PPM are at about 2200

After giving up on cloning and selecting some choice strains for my next grow I decided to trim some lower suckers and have another go at cloning, I am now the proud owner of five lovely Lemon Skunk clones.

I will get some pictures posted and my feeding schedule posted before the weekend is out.

regards,

 

[Dayzt]

Looking great man! Sub'd for sure - will be great watching the rest of this one! +rep

 

[ru4r34l]

High all,

Well it is now day 16 into flower and the stretch curse has seemed to wear off and two ladies are right at the lights (should have switched to 12/12 sooner ) and I have about 40+ days remaining.

The good news is the hottest days of the season may have come and gone and my reservoir temperature did not pass 71°, and the room temperature is about 73°

I am currently in my last feeding of Advanced Nutrients 3 part schedule with regards to the Micro, I have 50L remote reservoir with 100mL Micro, 200mL Grow, 200mL Bloom, 50mL Cal/Mag, and 1oz of Bloom Booster. This week I will start to use the CO2 pucks this week, when is the best time to introduce CO2?
pH is at a blazing 2600PPM

Here are some pictures taken this evening:

Tri-meter, nutrient 2670 PPM

Here you can see the ladies love the light, maybe too much as they are in the reflector.

The ladies at a wide angle

Here is the space remaining above my plants, and I cannot hang the light from the roof! any ideas how to get more space?

For my next grow I have ordered some cast wheels and will create a movable shell, I have some 1' x 1' wire and will be getting started on my SCRoG mesh for the next grow.

I know have not posted as regularly as a journal requires..BUT.. any questions?, comments?

regards,

 

[C.Indica]

How tall were they on Day 0 Flower, and how tall are they now?
Looks great.

 

[Dubbz0r]

Looks good man. My LS ladies had a stretch phase too. They are my tallest and thinnest plants. Granted I did put them thru some stress... the strain I have supposedly isn't a big yielder. Yours looks like it will do well.

 

[ru4r34l]

How tall were they on Day 0 Flower, and how tall are they now?
Looks great.

There were 2 plants that stretched early and they were both around 2' and the other 2 were about 1.5' when starting to flower, my tub stands 1' tall and my lights are as high as they can go in this set-up at about 6' from ground, roughly I would estimate the larger 2 plant are about 4.5' since they are into the lights, and the remaining 2 are just under 4'.

Since they were growing so much into the lamp, I put out a request on some ideas to get some space in a new thread called Plants have left the building.

I went with the supper cropping type method and I am pleased to say I have another foot of room and I will probably bend all branches that hover near the light trying to create an even canopy right up until I harvest

Here are the pictures of the LST.

regards,

 

[C.Indica]

Jeezus.
I hope I don't have your pheno..
Either way Lemon Skunks like to stretch, alot.
I think it was GHSC who estimated 305% stretch..
Looks great though, can you get us some faraway shots?
The closeups are kind of a confusing mass of leaves.

Supercropping is a form of High Stress Training..

 

[ru4r34l]

So I had some unfortunate news and this will be my only grow for some time (about 1 and a 1/2 years) to be exact. The good news I am being allowed to finish this grow, so I am hoping to harvest late August or so.

I will be able to keep one of my Lemon Skunk clones as a mother in my power grower (I will try some bonzai type trimming of plant and roots) to keep it around as long as possible, I had about 6 - 8 clones and now they are trashed.

Here is the smallest and last clone I took.

and here is the lucky lady that got to pull it out.



regards,

 

[ru4r34l]

Jeezus.
I hope I don't have your pheno..
Either way Lemon Skunks like to stretch, alot.
I think it was GHSC who estimated 305% stretch..
Looks great though, can you get us some faraway shots?
The closeups are kind of a confusing mass of leaves.

Supercropping is a form of High Stress Training..

oops, thanks for the correction. These are GHSC and I can believe the 300+% stretch. I still think these Lemon Skunk are very nice; they are giving off a lovely sweet lemon smell, and after the stem bending I could not resist sniffing the old fingertips, YUMMY.

Tonight I will get some full shots just before and after the HPS lamp turns on, I finally got some pretty bud developing and got a long way to go so I am pumped on what my final harvest will be.

regards,

 

[C.Indica]

I went and dug up info on all the Lemon Skunk versions I could find, except for the Autoflowering strain.
I put it up in my L.Skunk journal, turns out theres 3 strains, with multiple pheno's.

Glad to hear you're having a blast watching them, can't wait for the shots.

 

[Tripp10966]

Im growing the same plant right now man yours is comin along pretty good. Mines quite a bit bigger but I had some bad nute burn in the beginning. Bdubb I think yours either needs more light or they need to be closer but thats just my opinion.

 

[Tripp10966]

Oh yeah I almost forgot they stretch BAD man mine just stopped and it been a lil over two weeks but man does it smell nice. Sometimes I rub her and she smells skunky but other times she smells like lemon heads. I was gonna clone her to keep more but decided not to mainly because of how much she stretches.

 

[ru4r34l]

High all,

Well the ladies are about 1/3 of the way through flower, and I think they will go until about the second week of September (another 6- 7 weeks).

As posted before the stretch was horrible and 3' foot plants are now poised to become 6' monsters, I had to do some emergency supper cropping to get the main bud sites on two plants away from the light (you will see the heat damage further down i the bud porn pictures)

I am still feeding Advanced Nutrients 3 part Micro, Grow, and Bloom, currently at a 0:1:3 ratio with 1oz Big Bloom powder. My temperature (both air and reservoir) have been rock steady and on the lower end of the scale:

Reservoir: 64 - 67 lights off, 68 - 71 lights on, and never above 72
Air: 71 lights off, 73 - 76 lights on, thank god I am in a fairly big room.
Nutrients: pushing 3000 PPM,

Below is a picture before I got the trimming going, it was quite messy down there

and here is the cleaned up view

Even though this will be my first and last grow in a while I have decided to keep two mothers around (I like the genetics of this plant), if any of the clones root I will definitely swap out the tiny clone that is in my power grower as the Matriarch of my Lemon Skunk.

As you see I have started the bud porn, it is not like some others posted but it is early still. You can see in the top picture the heat stress damage done before I was able to move it from directly under the lamp.

And finally here are the ladies tucked away for a night full of light, trimmed and ready to spread the love to the buds at top. I also added in two T5's with reflectors to provide some light to what is left under the canopy.

I will try and get some better pictures with the lights on and off with my better camera now that I have some bud to shoot.

regards,

 

[C.Indica]

Looks amazing, I wonder if heat stress is causing Dr.Amb's bear clawing too.
Thanks for the idea,
I love how that one LSkunk just leeeeaaannns out of it's cup holder.

I still like dirt better, but that looks like a lot of fun.
Keep at it!

 

[Dubbz0r]

Now you guys have me thinking that my issue was never over watering, but may be a heat issue... hmmm. The 3rd from last pic is how all of my lemon skunks look.

 

[C.Indica]

Over-Fertilization in Sativa Dominant strains usually results in Bear Clawin'.
Also Heat Stress.

 

[ru4r34l]

High all,

Just a quick update, it seems as if the ladies growth are slowing down but the buds are starting to grow

Last reservoir change was done on Saturday, and they are drinking almost a third of the reservoir every day or so.

Below are some quick pictures I took this morning just as the lights were turning off.

Here is a bud shot

And as I was getting ready to throw some green gold into a bowl I realised I had ground up some herb on my wife's book, look at the results after some playful fun.

regards,

 

[Dubbz0r]

High all,

Just a quick update, it seems as if the ladies growth are slowing down but the buds are starting to grow

Last reservoir change was done on Saturday, and they are drinking almost a third of the reservoir every day or so.

Below are some quick pictures I took this morning just as the lights were turning off.

Here is a bud shot

And as I was getting ready to throw some green gold into a bowl I realised I had ground up some herb on my wife's book, look at the results after some playful fun.

regards,

You, Dr. Amber Trichome and myself all have the same pheno type! How freakin cool is that?! All 3 of us are having the SAME bear clawing issue too. Since you're leaning towards the cause being heat stress I have to agree. Mine started clawing after the hottest day they've ever seen with little to no air movement. They weren't getting much for nutes so I can't lean towards over-nuting causing the clawing. That plant has some funky branch growth that is nothing like the other two strains in my garden. The branches seem thin and coming from everywhere.

Looking real good man. Keep it up. I want to see those ladies bud