400w Querkle Grow

[psyte]

Thank you.

I think it was a good move on your part to spend more on the light and filter cause good nutrients are not expensive. The Jack's Classic that I use is only like $9 for 1.5 lbs (and you only need 1tsp/gal for a strong dose, so it lasts forever). There's a lot of good growers on this site using inexpensive ferts with great results. People who pay $100 for ferts are paying for a fancy name and a pretty bottle, nothing more.

5-5-5 is a good choice. A 1:1:1 ratio like that makes for a good overall fert as long as it also has micronutrients in it. There are people who have used Jack's 20-20-20 (same ratio) all the way from veg to harvest with great results. I'm not familiar with plagron (is it a time release?), but if you think you've been underfeeding you should definitely avoid any "bloom" nutrients for now since they won't have much nitrogen and you could have a deficiency on your hands very quickly.

How has the Blue Cheese been for you? That's the other strain I'm growing right now. I'm about to harvest my first one in the next week or so. I had a lot of trouble with mine at first but I've found it's just a really really hungry plant and does best with big doses of fertilizer at every feeding. I have two more that are about 3 weeks into flower and doing much better than the first one. Get ready for them to start smelling amazing. Around 3-4 weeks mine start smelling like fruity pebbles. Gives me the munchies just thinking about it.
I'd love to see pics if you have any.

 

[psyte]

Finally found a single preflower on #1.
It's a girl!

It was hard to get a pic of since it's still pretty small, but if you look close you can see the two pistils coming out.





That's 2 males and 2 females. I'm really happy with this. I'll still have up to 3 small plants in flower when these females are put to flower (1 of those 3 will be finished within a few weeks), so 3 females would have been very hard to fit. I'm glad I got a great looking male too, definitely gonna get some pollen. The other male is still a nice plant but doesn't compare.

Clones:
All but #4 (which is the sub-par male anyway) are showing some new growth. No roots visible yet but I think they're going to do fine.

 

[psyte]

I think I may have found some insight into why I'm getting a wilt right after watering. The last couple waterings I actually waited until a bit of droop was showing, so I know I'm not overwatering. However, I did start changing something about how I water right before starting this grow that I didn't even think about being related until reading some of riddleme's Make It Rain stuff today. I water with A LOT of runoff (around 30-50%). I do this to make sure the soil gets very thoroughly saturated and I don't develop any dry pockets. Also, I believe it helps prevent too much nutrient build up by "flushing" some of the nutes left from previous waterings. So here's the thing that stood out to me:

Remember earlier in the thread when we were talking about watering, someone quoted Uncle Ben and said water till you get PLENTY OF RUNOFF, sounds like a flush to me? not a drip, not a tray full, but PLENTY. You will get what looks like over watering and that can be scary the first time, as I detailed in my journal it was cool to see her curl up and droop. In my way of thinking this is when they actually sleep (mother natures way) cause we know they are doing things in the dark period. But I must admit that my research said they sleep in the dark period?
.
Now for me I think they are sleeping because during a rain there is most usually no sun (for awhile) and the PH of rain is 5.6 so no nute uptake, and the roots are soaked in water so there is no oxygen. Damn she is basically drowning. But I believe she shuts down and waits for the sun to come out, at which point she goes into overdrive to WICK the water out of the ground ( another word you hear UB use a lot) I believe that what I saw happen with that growth spurt (I have proved it with subsequent waterings) was being able to read when she wants water and when she wants food.

This is also interesting because I noticed a significant growth spurt after the last two waterings (up to 1" in a day). But then it's like the plant goes into standby until the next watering.

This has given me something to think about. I still don't understand the slight nightly wilt, though. I can't imagine I'm oversaturating them with light since they're only getting light from the T5's so it's not that intense at all. In any event, I'm glad the only thing going "wrong" so far doesn't really seem to be causing any problems. I'd rather obsess about trying to figure out a minor issue than be in a panic about a major issue.

 

[randomseed]

One thing I notice with querkle (at least the SQ pheno).
If you're topping give it at least two week between the last time you cut a top and when you switch.
Reason is that the querkle does not really grow thick colas, it sticks to crazy dense smaller buds (popcornish size) but they can get thick verticly.
If you let a few thicker, fuller tops develop before flower your yield will improve. If your the type of person that tops tops tops all the time you really need to give the Q a rest before flower or you get tons of tops producing not much weight.

For me the magic number seems to be around 4-6 tops for maximum output.

 

[psyte]

Another interesting bit:

Also I have, many times stood outside while it was raining and it is always COLD, plus I have experimented with it. Silly idea I had about how the cold would shock the plant and how the ground is warm from the sun, so I started with room temp water and gradually made it colder to see what would happen. Guess what it slowed transpiration down and she did not droop. So when you make it rain just use regular cold tap water, filter it, if you like and know that her drooping is a good thing!

Another thing I changed about my watering before this grow is that I started using tap water straight from the faucet instead of letting it sit for a day like I used to. I used to let it sit to evaporate chlorine, which I have since learned is unfounded considering pretty much every modern city uses chloramine, which does not evaporate out. Although it wasn't the reason for doing so, letting it sit also obviously brought it to room temperature. The water straight from the tap is much colder especially since it's getting colder outside.

I don't know why I didn't mention this stuff before. It just goes to show that when you change things for a specific reason, it can have unforeseen consequences outside of what you originally intended. In this case it looks like I got lucky and stumbled onto some positive unforeseen consequences.

 

[psyte]

One thing I notice with querkle (at least the SQ pheno).
If you're topping give it at least two week between the last time you cut a top and when you switch.
Reason is that the querkle does not really grow thick colas, it sticks to crazy dense smaller buds (popcornish size) but they can get thick verticly.
If you let a few thicker, fuller tops develop before flower your yield will improve. If your the type of person that tops tops tops all the time you really need to give the Q a rest before flower or you get tons of tops producing not much weight.

For me the magic number seems to be around 4-6 tops for maximum output.

That's great to know, thank you.
In that case it should work out well since I topped very early on for 4 colas (although I'm considering removing one of the two smaller branches to take clones before going to flower).

 

[alotaball]

Completely agree .. I only top once with querkle now .. and it took 10 seeds till I found a pheno that was worth the shit.. that said.. the first few were nothing special.. the last pheno I found is awesome and prob one of my favs... TGA has some good stuff.. just have to find the right pheno .. heres a pic of one of mine Good luck with your grow!

 

[randomseed]

Completely agree .. I only top once with querkle now .. and it took 10 seeds till I found a pheno that was worth the shit.. that said.. the first few were nothing special.. the last pheno I found is awesome and prob one of my favs... TGA has some good stuff.. just have to find the right pheno .. heres a pic of one of mine Good luck with your grow!

We may have the same pheno, flowers look about the same.

 

[psyte]

Completely agree .. I only top once with querkle now .. and it took 10 seeds till I found a pheno that was worth the shit.. that said.. the first few were nothing special.. the last pheno I found is awesome and prob one of my favs... TGA has some good stuff.. just have to find the right pheno .. heres a pic of one of mine Good luck with your grow!

Yeah that's kind of what I'm afraid of. Reading grow journals it seems like a lot of TGA strains do have a good amount of variation. I have 6 more seeds but I don't know if I'm that into this strain that I'm willing to go through all of them to find the best.

So far I don't see too much variation, but they are in veg still and I imagine it's more noticeable in flower. Three of my plants are very similar but the fourth has been less finicky and has had zero difficulties, but at the same time it's a much slower vegger with tighter internodes. It's also darker than the others (although less so since I upped the nutes on all of them) so perhaps it's an Urkle pheno since I've heard that's a very slow growing strain.

The plant in your pics looks great. I love seeing nice green leaves during flower, they look very well taken care of.
I can't see any fan leaves in the pictures, would you say that the one you like is more of an Urkle or SQ pheno?

 

[psyte]

alotaball, wow, just looked through the first page of the journal you have linked in your sig.
Those are some really great looking plants. I'm gonna have to bookmark this one to read when I have time.

 

[alotaball]

Psyte.. what you described as your 4th plant is exactly what I ended up with .. she is really durable .. and takes feedings well.. little slow in veg.. normally needs a week or 2 extra.. but her flowers are quality and I am not a big fan of many purple strains.. but this one is the best purple strain I have grown.. best attributes is the density .. flowers super fast.. nice trich coverage and looks are really good .. fire orange hairs .. smell is great and the purpling comes in even when my temps are higher in the summer. Mine finishes normally in less then 55 days.. sometimes 60 if im looking for a little more color .. Hope you find something special .. ill try to follow along

 

[psyte]

Oh man, that's great news, it sounds like I got lucky and might have that pheno then. My wife and I were hoping that one was female since it took a few days longer to sex than the others. Now I'm even happier it's a girl.

 

[treklane]

thanks for feedback psyte.feel a bit better now about my feeding and gonna stay on the 5.5.5 and see what happens. will def take ur advice on the bloom last thing i want
is a deficiency as things have been ok up to now.
plagron is a dutch product and yes is a slow release.was advised to use it as im a newbe and it has everything in it for 6 weeks approx it was a bit expensive 25 euros for a 50 litre bag.
got it in local hydro shop.check out plagron website gonna use the bat mix version after xmas for next grow.
the blue cheese is a nice plant but is around 1.5 inch smaller than other to and is really only starting to push on now.was a bit worried at start as it was always smaller than other two and it took the longest to show its sex....its very strong smelling as u know. [got the seeds on a trip to holland from barneys farm also see website]........im delighted i invested in carbon filter it works lovely expensive but def worth it. will try to get some pics up soon
thanks again for feedback really enjoying the journal keep up good work

 

[psyte]

You're welcome.

Yeah, I think you'll do just fine with the 5-5-5. If everything is going well then you can add in some bloom nutes a little later into flower, but check this out first:
https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-plant-problems/158144-never-ending-abuse-phosphorous-bloom.html

I want to try slow release again eventually, but I'm going to wait for at least a few more grows. I think with slow release it really helps to be able to read the plants and know if they're deficient in something so you can supplement. My first plant was in regular Miracle Grow which has slow release nutes. About 3 weeks into flower my plant totally crashed because I didn't know how to properly read that it was telling me it needed more nitrogen. The problem with having everything it needs for 6 weeks is that a lot of times you're already in flower at that point and when you're new it can be hard to determine what exactly the plant needs since it's undergoing a big change. That was my experience anyway. But who knows, if I started out with regular soil without slow release I may have fucked up the first plant in some other way.

Let me know if you start a journal on your next grow, I'd like to see how it goes.

 

[treklane]

hi
i take ur point bigtime when you say.......... The problem with having everything it needs for 6 weeks is that a lot of times you're already in flower at that point and when you're new it can be hard to determine what exactly the plant needs since it's undergoing a big change...............
this makes sense to me even as a newbe.a mate also said this which i will duly take on board. you say that i cud add some bloom nutes later in flower.is this along wit my 5.5.5 fert?.........will most def start a journal on next grow around 2nd week in new year. have purchased some red diesel,tangerine dream,and utiopa haze.
i love blue cheese and if this plant is a sucess will throw in one as well.dont have the facilites to clone yet and dont know 2 much about this tech so all will be started from seed again.
thanks for advice pyste and thanks to ev1 on rollitup who have helped me on my 1st grow

 

[alotaball]

Trek just take a leap on the cloning.. you will be amazed how much time it saves and how easy it is... but if you can afford to do seed plants.. I always loved how they look compared to clones.. so symmetrical

 

[treklane]

Trek just take a leap on the cloning.. you will be amazed how much time it saves and how easy it is... but if you can afford to do seed plants.. I always loved how they look compared to clones.. so symmetrical

hi would not rule out cloning maybe on my next grow.gave my friend a g13 haze clone and a blue chessearound 3 weeks ago while mine were veg.have not seen them
yet he tells me there comming on fine.i really just want to keep it simple at min and learn. really enjoying watchin my birds come on.will put up some pics soon.
do u clone alot

 

[alotaball]

yes sir constantly ..

 

[psyte]

I'm torn on clone vs seed. I also really like the symmetrical nodes from seed, makes it real easy to top for 2-4 colas. I don't like all the maintenance of cloning under a dome and I'm also not very efficient at cloning, averaging about 3 weeks just to see roots. At that rate, seed gets me bigger plants in the same time. But I probably have trouble because I get ahead of myself do a lot of experiments with cloning.

But when you find one of those great keeper plants, cloning is the only way to go (or deal with trying to backcross, but that could take a while and would require some cloning of the original female anyway). Also, unless you're making your own seed, you're wasting a shit ton of money buying them.

I'm planning on building an aeroponic cloner for the next round. Looks like it's the easiest most foolproof way, doesn't have the hassle of a dome, and is not much more expensive than buying all the supplies for cloning in something like rockwool or rapid rooters.

 

[psyte]

you say that i cud add some bloom nutes later in flower.is this along wit my 5.5.5 fert?

There's a lot of different ways to do it and I'm still experimenting and trying to figure it out myself. Give that thread a read (the one I linked earlier) and you'll have a much better understanding of what cannabis needs during flower. Then you can decide what you want to try in your garden. It's hard to go wrong with the 5-5-5 as long as you're giving enough so you could always stick to that for this grow and research how you want to do it on your next grow. Sorry I'm not giving very specific answers but I'm still a beginner myself and everyone's garden is different, so I don't want to tell you the wrong thing. I am doing a lot of research all the time though, so if there's anything specific you want to find out more about I may be able to dig up some good links for you.