Dave's 3rd Grow: Pineapple Chunk in DWC w/fogger

pH went up to 6.08. Lowered it to:

pH:... 5.93
ppm:... 524

I believe that the pH going up since yesterday means she's taking in nutes. Water level is down. Also good. I'll give her some more H2O tomorrow. ppm is about the same. My work is done for the day.

Added at least a gallon and a half, which she drank during the last 2 days. pH was up to around 6.10 before adding H2O.

After adding water:

pH:... 6.05
ppm:... 375

Nice! She's been eating a lot of nute then. Added more nutrients and adjusted the pH:

pH:... 5.72
ppm:... 540

The buds are bulking up together in bunches near the plant's top now. And thankfully, the branches stopped stretching a while ago. I hope that she's turned the corner now health wise. I'll take some pics this weekend.

When I checked the pH this afternoon, I noticed that it dropped a lot overnight, from 5.72 down below 5.4. That suggests that the level of nutes that I gave it yesterday maybe was too high. That was only 540 ppm. So anyway, I diluted it down with a gallon or so of water. After diluting:

ppm:... 454
pH:... 5.37

Adjusted the pH:

ppm:... 436
pH:... 5.76

Looking back at my notes, a previous reading of 465 ppm appeared to be too much for her. But a few days later, 524 ppm was ok. The readings must not be very accurate, just a ballpark measurement. I'll try to keep it in the 400's for sure, maybe even the low 400's. I still trust the pH readings, since they've always made sense.

I gotta chop this plant down in 3 weeks. I hope the buds bulk up a lot more before then.

Today the pH went up slightly from yesterday, so I left the res water alone. Nute concentration was about the same.

ppm:... 454
pH:... 5.98

Here are some pics that I took today. Buds are still a little wimpy, but they're getting better.

Might have to give her a bit more time man.....are you giving her any molasses?

GunRunner said:

Might have to give her a bit more time man.....are you giving her any molasses?

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No, I don't add molasses. I just use Advanced Nutrients nutes and don't need to add anything else.
She's doing better.

02-13:

pH went up to 6.13 from 5.98. Good sign. Added water.

ppm:... 370
pH:... 6.05

Added more nute, water.

ppm:... 465
pH:... 5.61

02-14:

pH went up to 5.72. Good. Added water, adjusted pH.

ppm:... 459
pH:... 5.80

Later in the day:

ppm:... 440
pH:... 5.91

I noticed today that the water level in the res didn't change much from yesterday. Neither did the nute concentration nor the pH.

ppm:... 477 (was 440)
pH:... 5.92 (was 5.91)

My ppm measurements aren't very accurate, so I'll call it the same as yesterday.

The leaves are also really droopy and dry. So she might be on her last leg. I'll keep trying to nurse her along for a while, though, and see what happens.

Added some water to see if diluting the res might help.

ppm:... 396
pH:... 5.84

If she doesn't come around in a couple of days, I might just harvest what I got. Got a bunch of little buds and trichs, so it looks like there's some smokeworthy pot there. Next grow I'll monitor the ppm & pH better and get the nute concentration dialed in a lot earlier, before the leaves get damaged.

I think I'll break off a bud and dry it out tonight, so that I can try smoking it tomorrow... just to see how high I get from one of them.

Ouf....Wish I had some hydro experience to help you out here brother.....it would be a shame to harvest them this early...they sure look like they can use more time.....

Good luck! Hope some experienced grower can pitch in his experience here....

GunRunner said:

Ouf....Wish I had some hydro experience to help you out here brother.....it would be a shame to harvest them this early...they sure look like they can use more time.....

Good luck! Hope some experienced grower can pitch in his experience here....

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Thanks for the well wishes, but we'll have to see. I'll be happy if I only get an ounce or so. If she doesn't start growing more bud again, I might just make some hash or a tincture or canna butter from her buds.

I just read a useful article in Big Buds e-zine: Maximum Yield Medical Marijuana Harvest Timing Tips

One thing it says is that if the calyxes aren't shriveled or red, then it probably isn't ready to harvest. All of my plant's calyxes are still white, so I won't chop it down anytime soon.

02-16:

ppm:... 398
pH:... 6.03 good, this is up from 5.84 yesterday

Adjusted pH ->

ppm:... 412
pH:... 5.70

I trimmed off some of the lower leaves and some small buds that were on skinny branches. Saved the buds for making canna butter.

Last night I picked off a couple of small nugs and let them dry a bit inside my cabinet. I'll see if I can smoke them later tonight. While picking off the buds I noticed that some of the big ones are a lot denser than the buds on my LSD plant were. When I was trimming I also noticed a kind of lemony fragrance that kind of smelled like pineapple.

Tried a small bud through my vaporizer last night. Even though I could barely see any vapor, I got pretty high from it. I was already sitting and pondering by the time I finished. That's a really promising sign.

Some slightly encouraging news today. When I opened the cabinet I got a good whiff of plant fragrance, which I hadn't noticed lately until today. Then when I opened the cover on the res I could see that the water level was down a bit. So she drank up some water & nutes during the last 24 hours... unlike the previous day. Another good thing is that the top colas aren't stretching any more, so I can keep them away from touching the lights simply by bending them away and sort of weaving their branches through other branches.

Gotta do another smoke test tonight, to make sure that my impressions from last night were accurate. All in the name of science. ha ha

When I checked for ppm & pH, before doing anything to the res water, this is what I got:

ppm:... 435
pH:... 6.09 (up from 5.70)

Then I added some water.

ppm:... 318
pH:... 5.98

Only had enough for one hit left over from the stuff I dried out yesterday. Just toked it through my vaporizer. I feel a really nice, pleasant buzz. I'm even getting a mild rush through my legs. It's not kicking my ass, but I'm definitely high and feeling good. Taste was pretty bad, but not half as bad as yesterday when it wasn't completely dried out yet. But if I'm getting such a good high from only one hit of this bud that isn't even mature yet, it looks like it's going to be fuckin great when it's mature. Wow, the rush is getting stronger and so is the high. I might not need to smoke anymore tonight.

Took some photos tonight, so hope to be able to post them later on tonight. Well, maybe tomorrow.

This was kind of like a Rorschach test when I looked at these last night. I was high at the time. The first one here looked like a queen wearing a white crown and a huge ballroom gown. Queen Calyx:



A closeup of the queen:


And here's the penguin king. The leaves sticking out looked like penguin beaks to me.


This one just looks like a coral reef:


And here's King Neptune waiting for his queen (with a huge woody ):

haha no joke i see some of that in those pictures!!!

just a tip i havent grown hydro yet but ive been doing a good amount of researchand with the AN nutes sometimes you get a Cal/mg deficiency so you can try adding Sensi Cal a/b about 2ml/gal and see if that helps, maybe that was the defeciency in the beggining?
anyways its looking great man and those photos look tasty, if you can get a microscope, the trichs are a great way of telling wether or not its time to harvest.
if you want a more uppy high harvest when theyre about 10-20% cloudy and when you have a good amount of amber on there, for a more stoney high wait for more amber trichs cant wait for harvest pics!

daveroller said:

Only had enough for one hit left over from the stuff I dried out yesterday. Just toked it through my vaporizer. I feel a really nice, pleasant buzz. I'm even getting a mild rush through my legs. It's not kicking my ass, but I'm definitely high and feeling good. Taste was pretty bad, but not half as bad as yesterday when it wasn't completely dried out yet. But if I'm getting such a good high from only one hit of this bud that isn't even mature yet, it looks like it's going to be fuckin great when it's mature. Wow, the rush is getting stronger and so is the high. I might not need to smoke anymore tonight.

Took some photos tonight, so hope to be able to post them later on tonight. Well, maybe tomorrow.

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Hey man, glad to hear she is getting back on track and sucking up all them tasty nute smoothies ^^

I can imagine this bud is going to be stellar once it's done!

Good work man, Keep it up

And yeah, that does look like a penguin

D.Medicated said:

haha no joke i see some of that in those pictures!!!

just a tip i havent grown hydro yet but ive been doing a good amount of researchand with the AN nutes sometimes you get a Cal/mg deficiency so you can try adding Sensi Cal a/b about 2ml/gal and see if that helps, maybe that was the defeciency in the beggining?
anyways its looking great man and those photos look tasty, if you can get a microscope, the trichs are a great way of telling wether or not its time to harvest.
if you want a more uppy high harvest when theyre about 10-20% cloudy and when you have a good amount of amber on there, for a more stoney high wait for more amber trichs cant wait for harvest pics!

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's good advice about the amber-ness of the trichs. The other night I got mostly a head high and it only lasted for about an hour or two. I'm after a more stoney high, because I use this stuff for medicine. The more CBD in those trichs, the better for me (more pain relief). I won't pretend that I don't like getting high, though.

About the Sensi Cal, AN's web site says that you should only need to add it if you're using cheaper base nutrients. They say that if you're using their own base nutes, you really don't need it, because theirs have all of the Cal/Mag that your plants should need. Of course that's coming from the company and you don't know how much of that is just hype. But they do seem to make high quality stuff and I've never heard of anyone having a Cal/Mag deficiency from using AN products, at least not in my limited experience here at RIU. Anyway, I know from monitoring the pH and ppm closely that my plant was suffering from nute lock (over saturation of nutes, preventing her from absorbing any more). She only got better when I lowered the ppm down very low (low 400's or less) and kept the pH in the higher range of 5.7 - 6.1 most of the time. I think that to make up for the low nute concentration, this plant just drinks it up faster, along with a lot of water.

Finished jarring up the dried bud, after removing as much stem as possible.

Total Bud Weight: 54.4 grams

Then I filled 2 big jars full of popcorn, i.e. small buds and sticky leaves. I'll use those to make canna butter for making cookies.

Better than I expected after having so much leaf burn. Gotta prevent that next time around. Also have to take into account that I used fluorescent lights.

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Smoke Report:
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This Pineapple Chunk stuff is really strong. I let it dry in my cabinet for 2 weeks while I was away on vacation. When I came back I checked the nugs that were hanging and they were really dry on the outside, but not crumbly at all. I think that the resin holds all the flower parts together like glue. If I would drop one on the floor, it would probably bounce. Also, when I broke open a nug it felt wet inside, but the wetness was from resin not water. I never had such juicy buds before!

Anyway, I put some through my vaporizer. It tasted kind of like Lemon Pledge to me. Nothing like pineapple or cheese. Kind of like pine tar, but lemony. The effect was awesome. After the third hit I felt a strong rush through my legs and started to feel happy inside. When the full effect hit me I had a good head high at first, but then got overwhelmed by a strong body stone. Sat and pondered stuff for a long time until I caught myself. I was so wasted from 4 hits that I almost lost my balance a couple of times. It wasn't long before I was falling asleep. Even though I normally have trouble sleeping, I slept soundly for a good 7 hours. Good for me, because I use this stuff as medicine. Works better for me than Ambien ever did. I also use it to treat pain. Last night my nerve pain flared up real bad. I normally would have taken a couple of Percosets, but decided to try some of my herb instead. The pain went away within minutes of toking the herb. (Percoset usually takes an hour to work.)

So besides getting me super stoned, this stuff is the best I've tried so far for treating pain & insomnia.

Most excellent news my lord!

That's like 2 ounces of prime bud and then some!

So cannabutter the rest?
Not making the hash?

GunRunner said:

Most excellent news my lord!

That's like 2 ounces of prime bud and then some!

So cannabutter the rest?
Not making the hash?

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I'd like to make hash, but haven't tried it yet so I'm a little scared to. Sometime in the future I'd like to try it. But not with butane. I try to stay away from petrochemicals if possible and don't want to suffer the same fate as Richard Pryor. I'd probably use ice and some of those bags with screens in the bottom.

I know how to make canna butter and it's really easy. There are some very good YouTube videos explaining the process. And I know from experience that cookies made from it create an awesome high.