Caregiver Grow Report

Hi all,

I am beginning this caregiver grow journal for a variety of reasons. The first reason is to create a transparency of my operation for my patient. They are unable to visit my grow and I want them to be able to keep track of my progress. The plan is to add patients once the initial setub becomes more stabalized and I would, concievably point them to this journal as well.

The second reason is to have a location to log data that I have collected. I would like to continue to improve my grow by building a foundation of data that will create informed decisions for future success.

Along that same line of thinking, my third reason is to hear the feedback of other growers who might be able to offer thier perspective and knowlege to the data that I am collecting. This part takes a certain amount of humility on my part. I might not take all your suggestions, but I hope to learn from your observations.

The grow has already begun and this first post will attempt to bring the readers up to date to where I am now. The pictures are a bit random. However, they are reasonably comprehensive.

For background: I am able to grow up to 6 flowering plants for my patient. Rather than introducing clones from other grower's operations (assuming that I knew where to obtain them), I bought seeds and decided to begin sexing them by taking clones and placing those clones into flowering. I got seeds of Sour Diesel, Lemon Aide, White Widow, and some random seeds that were given to me by my patient (not too excited about the latter, but willing to compromise).

I put two seeds of each variety between paper towels in a tray with a seedling heat mat below it. I chose the best sprout from each variety and placed them in Rockwool. The Rockwool was placed in a netpot filled with expanded clay pellets. The resivoir is a 5 gallon bucket with an EcoPlus 396 Pump and a air stone. The nutrients are pumped through two drip emitters per plant and drain back to the resivoir via gravity. There are two 125W compact flourescents above the "mommas."

Only three of the four mommas survived (Sour Diesel, White Widow, 'Random'). After cloning and sexing, I learned that all three were males (damn). Conveniently enough, I had a backup plan already in action and was germinating new seedlings already. I quickly placed those new clones (of the new mommas) in flowering and have learned that the Sour Diesel is female, the random seed is male and the White Widow is undetermined (the White Widow clones didn't make the transplant.....I put them in a bit early and the issues I had with high heat dried up the two White Widow clones).

At the moment, I have 4 confirmed female Sour Diesel clones in flowering, 5 Sour Diesel clones cloning, 5 White Widow clones cloning, 1 momma Sour Diesel (confirmed) and 1 momma White Widow (unconfirmed).

I intend to place the new Sour Diesel clones into flowering once they are rooted. I will sex the White Widow clones around the same time, but since I can only do six flowering plants under law, I am only checking sex of the mommas and will kill them off whether they are male or female. Now that I have at least one confirmed female momma, I can begin production and introduce new varieties without sacraficing the potential for a full harvest.

The cloning is done using a 4" PVC tube with neoprene collars and spray nozzles between each plant site. The rez is a 5-gallon bucket with an airstone and a EcoPlus 633 (I originally had a 264 but it didn't have enough pressure to power the spray heads). The 633 might be a bit of a overshot, but whatever. The light is from 2-ea T-5 flourescent bulbs.

The flowering room is about 4' X 7.5' X 7.5' and is constructed of 2X3 framing and 1/4" Luan paneling. The doors are weathersealed and all interior joints are caulked to minimize unintented air movement. There is a passive 6" air inlet comming from a window to the outside, two growzilla reflectors (each with 1-250W HPS and 1-400W HPS) hanging. They have an active intake (270 CFM Canfan pushing air from the end), are connected together and vent into the room where both the clones and the mommas are in. Within the bedroom, there is a 440 CFM canfan connected to a Phresh 850 CFM carbon filter that pushes air out another window.

For a hydro system in flowering, I went with the C.A.P Ebb and Gro system. I've been pondering the efficiency of that system lately and believe that I would have been better off designing something different. However, I was focusing too much on the construction of everything else at the time and wanted something that wouldn't send me to the hardware store 10 times a day during setup.

Initially, I didn't have the 270 CFM fan pushing air through the lights. I thought that the passive air flow setup of the box would stay moving through the actions of the 440 CFM fan drawing air out of the room.....I was wrong. The temperatures in the box were reaching 95-100 degrees F. Now that the 270 CFM fan is installed, the temps are back down to 70-75 degrees F. The problem is that during the time of high heat, my res got a bit warm even though it is outside of the flowering box. There seems to have been some bacterial buildup. So, I changed the res water and split the air line from my clone air stone to add a stone to the res.

The air pump wasn't strong enough to push air to the bottom of the 55 gallon res due to the pressure and the res (although the temps were back to acceptable) got a bit smelly again. I added H2O2 at a rate of 5ml per 10L water (I forget the conversion) and it didn't seem to make a lot of difference either. So, I changed the res water again (by the way, I'm using an RO filter), bought an Eco-Air 8 24W air pump and added two air difussers to the res, added only H2O2 for the first 16 hours, added Great White Mycorrhizal additive afterwards. Later today, I will begin adding the nutrients. Hopefully I can prevent any sort of Pythium problems.

I'm using Technaflora's recipe for success nutrients. I may decide to change after this harvest, but I can't afford to go with a whole new nutrient line at the moment.

There are tons more bits of information, but I will start with this much and post some pictures. Feel free to ask questions and give suggestions. That's what we are all here for.

Regards,

Grenethumb

Hi all,

Here are some new pictures from moments ago. I will post details tomorrow.

Sorry about not updating the text with the new photos. The clones don't seem to be rooting. Very well in the cloner I built. They are hanging in 2" netpots with misting heads between every planting site (and one on each end). The water (plain RO water) pumps through every 20 min for 50 seconds. The res has a very active airstone in it. When taking the clones, I cut just below a node, trimmed of the set of leaves on that bottom node, and covered in rooting gel. The first set of clones that I took (now in the flowering room) took some time to root as well. I've grown in soil and taken clones with no problems. I've also had a similar setup as the current cloner (individual plant sights, but used net pots with the clones in a rockwool cube and the rockwool cube set amongst expanded clay pellets) and never had a problem cloning.
This is going to delay the second set of clones that I put into flowering to equal my 6 alowable plants.....arg. So, the day after I posted those pictures, I took a new set of clones, placed them in rockwool and put them in a black plastic tray with a humidity dome (keep it simple). If my cloning system has not been rooting, it is possible there is some pythium in the res and I don't want to just refill the cloner if that's not working properly. If the black tray system works just fine, I might just keep going with that for a while.....we'll see.
That same day, I noticed some male flowers on the White Widow momma (not yet open). I had seen this before but during a time of transplanting. So, the first time, I figured I couldn't call it confirmed male because it may be just stress. Seeing the flowers the second time and having stuff in flowering that is currently budding, made me decide that it didn't matter. Even if it was a stressed herme, seeing it do it again means cut it. I put another White Widow seed in paper towels and put it it in with the clones (under the dome).
I also transplanted the sprouted seed of the Lemon Aide into a rockwool cube and placed it under the humidity dome.
I changed out the momma res and still do 2-ea res checks per day to adjust PPM and PH.