Hot Diggity's Lab

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 25
Day 4 of 12/12

Gave everything a nice good watering with lots of runoff today. The smaller batch may have been overfed just a bit so they got flush and feeding of about 0.7EC. I've decided to stop using PH Up and will be using Silica for a while (until I no longer need to PH up).

I broke the group into 3 different sections based on development and configured the lights accordingly. Some of the younger ones may have started to get burned and so I acted quickly before finding out the hard way.

The most advanced plants are under ( 8 ) QB 288's. They have been dimmed to their lowest level which is ~ 40 watts per board. I increased each of these ( 8 ) boards to 60 watts. Here is where we are with that:



478 micro moles is a bit aggressive but I think they can take it. I'll back it off at the 1st sign of stress.

Leaf temps at the canopy are relatively consistent - between 4 and 6 degrees F lower than room temp.


Super healthy so far. Nice compact development.


Here is the tallest one - Bodhi Appalachian Super Skunk.
I'll bet $50 this is a male. Even though there are no pistols or balls, I feel like I'm getting better and better at sexing plants just on appearance.


Notice how there are 4 dominant lower branches? I'll be removing these of course this round, but it's worth mentioning that in the future these can and will become the clone source. No need to hold mothers.

Oldest group






The Goji F2's are doing pretty well. I expect them to really explode over the next week and I can't wait to see how they start looking.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 27
Day 6 of 12/12

Started the side branch removal's tonight. Each plant is only averaging between 5 and 9 inches tall but I was easily able to take 8 clones per plant. I'm not actually going to be taking any clones and holding them, but my premise is sound.

Here is the 1st plant I did this to:





Why am I not taking clones during a pheno hunt? Funny you should ask, because that is a hell-of-a good question.
Here's why:

Clones taken 1/15/2021
Clones rooted 2/1/2021
Clones in full blown veg 2/15/2021

Here is my dilemma:
I don't expect this round to finish flowering until 4/1/2021.
Add 2 weeks for the slow dry.
Add 2 weeks for the pre-cure.
Add 4 weeks for the cure.

This puts me at roughly 6/1/2021 before I can send out all samples to my reviewers. Now we need to add 8 more weeks until all of the reviews are in. This puts me at 8/1/2021. I simply don't have the means to hold vegging clones for 6 months.

What I'm going to do instead is keep all of the flowered girls and once it's harvest time, keep some of the larfy stuff at the bottom and put them on 24 hours of light. It's going to take roughly 30 days for them to start growing again, vegetative. This buys me a bunch of time and puts me at 5/1/2021 when they start to reveg. Now I only have to hold them for 3 months instead of 6.

Here is my favorite Chem 91 so far:
6 inches tall and 13 inches wide!





Random shot of the larger group. Maybe half of them got their lowers removed tonight.


And finally, a shot of a Goji OG. These are coming on strong!

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 30
Day 9 of 12/12

6 plants have shown sex - 3 girls and 3 boys. All 6 from Bodhi Appalachian Super Skunk
The 3 males were killed this evening.

This update only has 1 pic but I do have some exciting news!


In one of the recent posts, I indicated that I would not be taking clones because I was not able to hold them for as long as I need.
My plan was to reveg every female at the end and just hope for the best.

The other night, I was searching google to see if there were any companies out there that will hold clones for a fee. I came up empty handed, but I did stumble onto this:

I spent several hours reading this as well as a few other posts I found and I am going to try it.
I ran to Home Depot earlier today and bought a nice mini-fridge.

My new plan is to take between 2 and 4 clones per female and put them into cold storage.
I'm sure I'll be experimenting with the method as well as the duration. I don't have super high expectations since I've never done this, but it is certainly exciting and worth a try.

And I always have Plan B, Reveg after flowering.

Talk soon

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 31
Day 10 of 12/12

Bodhi Appalachian Super Skunk are the furthest along from batch 1. 5 of the 11 were confirmed males and culled. 3 confirmed females so far. Hoping to get 5 females. 3 or 4 out of 11 just sucks.

All 11 Chem 91's are doing fine and these are all female.
None of the 9 Goji OG's have sexed yet but they too are doing really well.

I expect to have everything sexed within a week and then it's time to bring the watering system online. Being my first time, I'm a bit scared.

Wanted to share a bit about my LED strategy. At first I thought I went way over board and positioned these boards way too close and basically just spent a ton of money and labor that I didn't need to spend. I think this is partially true. I do think I could have increased the spacing a little bit. But I have to say, the numbers don't lie and I'm super happy with what I have.

All of the plants you're about to see are under (12) QB 288's. Half of them are 4000K and the other half are the 3500K RSpec's. They were running at their min wattage (with the drivers I'm using) which was ~ 41 watts per board. They are now at exactly 60 watts and my meter is showing between 420 and 500 micro moles. The plants closet to the walls or in the middle are on the higher end.

Just using my eyes and my experience, there is no way that two 600W HPS could even compete with this. The plants are basically in a 9' x 3' configuration at the moment.

Lets talk about color.
The 288's on the far wall are an even mix of 4000K and 3500K RSpec.
The left wall is an even mix of 3000K, 4000K and 3500K RSpec.
The right wall is 100% 3500K RSpec.

Those of you that have followed me for years know that I like the blue spectrum and this love was realized flowering with Eye Hortilux Blue Metal Halide bulbs. I've mostly stuck with the 4000K boards from HLG and my results have been great. But I feel like I need to start experimenting with the others....less blue's.

So...here is my dilemma:
Should I flower on the right wall using 100% 3500K RSpec's?
Or flower on the left wall using an even mix of 3000K, 4000K and 3500K RSpec's?

Right wall.

Brettman said:

Right wall.

Click to expand...

That's what I was leaning towards. Thank you!

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 33
Day 12 of 12/12

Things are going great. I let my new dorm fridge run for a few days and I kept taking temps of the inside. It has a temp dial from 1 to 10 with 10 being the coldest. I've settled on using 2 as my setting to hold clones. I have to keep them away from the back wall cause that's the coldest spot and I've seen 32F even at the low setting of 2. I don't really know what temp I want - but the front 1/2 is a stable 36 and that seems pretty good to me. I lightly misted the clones once I put them into the ziplock bags. I did not seal them but I did fold the top over a little. I'll probably check on them weekly and give them a little air exchange and if they need a little misting, I'll mist them. First time trying this so I have no idea what I'm doing...lol.

Here is the little 4.4 cubic foot fridge I bought with a bag of clones. I did (4) Appalachian Super Skunk and (4) Chem 91 tonight. I'll get the rest done over the next few days.


All of the Appalachian Super Skunk have sexed - 4 females out of 11 plants. Was hoping for 5 females but 4 is certainly better than 3.
All 11 Chem 91 are alive and doing fine but half of them are small and just dragging their feet.
Several of the Bodhi Goji F2's have exploded and are now about as advanced as the Appalachian Super Skunk's which were planted a whole week before. I haven't removed any Goji material and won't until they show sex. I expect half of them to show within the next 3 days.

Here are some group shots from right to left






As you can see in some of these pics, I was very heavy handed with my branch removal. A bit more aggressive than I've ever done. Small risk of over doing it but like I say, you never know where the line is until you cross it. We'll see in 3 weeks.

For any late joiners, we're going for a top cola and that's it. No larf. No smaller stuff under the canopy. All of the plants energy into the top cola. All of it.

Plan for the next 2 days is to move all of the plants to the right wall. The right wall is all 3500K RSpec Quantum Boards and that's what were going to be flowering under. After that, we'll start preparing to auto water. Fingers crossed on that

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 34
Day 13 of 12/12

I moved all of the plants over the right wall which is all 3500K RSpec.
Thank you @Brettman

I had all of the boards that were on running at 60 watts each. Figuring they are getting bigger, I adjusted the right wall to 65 Watts per board. When I took PAR readings, HOLY SHIT. Now we're averaging 630. Low of 590 and high of 700. That's a huge jump. Are these boards this much brighter than the 4000K's? I'm going to monitor closely and may need to dial them back a bit.

Current Counts:
(11) Chem 91
(4) Appalachian Super Skunk
(3) CBD Strain

1 Goji F2 is a confirmed male and was killed tonight.
1 is a confirmed female.
7 left to sex.







I'm giving them a ton of space right now. Once we get further along, I'll bring them a bit closer.

I'm still hand watering but I will reconnect the watering system very soon.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 36
Day 15 of 12/12

I decided to back the wattages down on the 3500K's. Better to error on the side of caution. I dropped them from 65 watts each down to 55 watts each. They were very unhappy on the 1st day but now they are loving life again. I plan on gradually increasing but slowly. The oldest ones are in full blown stretch and the ones furthest along are averaging about 2 inches in height growth per day. The tallest plant is an Appalachian Super Skunk and she is 20". I'm going to predict she will be 42". I took a bunch more clones over the last 2 days and my fridge is getting pretty full.

A few of the Goji OG's are now as far along as the Appalachian Super Skunk's which is really impressive considering they were planted a week later. I'm also happy to report that I got incredibly lucky. 8 of the 9 Goji OG's have sexed, and 6 are confirmed females. The last plant that has not sexed is almost certainly a female despite not showing a pistil yet. That's 7 out of 9. Wow...I never have luck like this.

The 2nd wave of Chem's that were planted a week late are still lagging but they are doing well. Hoping they kick it into high gear soon.
I've been very aggressive with branch removal so far and I'm nearing a point where I should consider continuing with some and stop with others.

Still hand watering and still using Blue Planet Nutrients. As soon as I've collected clones from the smaller Chem's and the last remaining Goji, I'm going to get the watering system up and select a few candidates to be the guinee pigs for my DIY nutes.

All in all, things are going really well.






Some home grown romaine - aka corona cabbage

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 37
Day 16 of 12/12

Wasn't planning on updating tonight so this will be brief. Just wanted to share what the furthest plants along are starting to look like at the top. All the fan leaves present. All the lowers removed.





I was able to take 16 clones from this plant. And I can easily take 2 more but I'm going to leave these as is for now.
Not that I needed to take 16, but just saying.

The top is starting to form like I hoped. I figure she's got another 2 weeks of stretching still so we'll see!

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 39
Day 18 of 12/12

The girls are doing their thing but I've got a bunch of Chem's that are being little bitches. This is really bad news because the main objective is to find an amazing standout from one of them. Other than that, they are in full blown pre-flower and doing great. The Goji OG's are just jamming.

Starting to prep for the watering system. They seem to really like the temps above 80 so I'm running mostly low 80's during the day. Peaking at 84. Night temps gradually go down to about 72. I can't keep the RH in line with what VPD charts say but I'm doing okay. Able to maintain close to 60% during lights on.

The finicky chems are back in the far corner in the 1st pic.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 42
Day 21 of 12/12

Chem #3 had 2 minor male formations appear. Not bad enough that I think I need to kill her but certainly worth noting.
Average height is now 27 inches.
Tallest award goes to Appalachian Super Skunk #1 coming in at 36 1/2 inches.

Some of the lagging Chem's are on that far wall on the right. Pretty disappointed in them.
Everything is a bit taller than I anticipated but it's part of the game - just have to adapt.

The next 2 weeks are probably going to be on the boring side. I'll keep posting but things won't start to get exciting until the latter part of Feb.

Looking great!

Nice work. Seems like Chem is a problematic plant. I had problems with mine as well. My ph was all messed up. Very high and unstable.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 45
Day 24 of 12/12

Cruising right along. The stretch is real! Some of the tallest ones seem to be just about finished.
One of the cool things about how I have my boards oriented is that there isn't a ton of difference in light intensity between 2 feet away and 3 feet away. Very different than it used to be with HPS and MH. The other really important difference to note is leaf temps. Leaf temps consistently run between 3 and 6 degrees F lower than air temp....even when measurements are taken at the very top. LED's have no infrared to warm the leaf surface whereas HPS has a ton. This is my first ever grow with LED where I get the room temps up into the mid 80's. And holy crap are they loving it. I'm not able (or willing) to get RH as high as VPD dictates, but this is where I've been at lately:



The room will peak at 86 during the last 90-120 minutes before the lights go off. Once the lights go off, the humidifier also goes off and the temps slowly drift lower until they hit their low point of around 72 degrees. My basement temps are 51 degrees right now so its a constant battle in the winter. Trying to prevent odor, keep good air flow, and keep my temps and RH in line.

Here are a few group pics - they've gotten a bit taller than I expected but no worries.




Some of these are far enough along that I can envision what their top cola's are going to look like. To steal a line from Al Bundy, we're going to have some bigun's. Real bigun's I think.

A few posts back I was worried that I might have been too aggressive in branch removal. Turns out I was not. In fact, I'm now going to have to back track and remove a bunch more.

Final 2 shots are of some top cola development. Don't forget, this is only 24 days into 12/12.

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 46
Day 25 of 12/12

Just a quick update...

Did a major round of branch removal. No fan leaves, just side branches. They look a bit butchered but I will share pics of them in 3 days.
Here is the pile...



For each strain I'm running, I'm selecting a few that will be left with more side branches than the others. Not a great control, but it's better than nothing.

So far, I can say that the Chem's are absolutely willing to do the big top cola. The App. Super Skunk does not really want to do this. Nor does the Goji OG. They seem to really want to be branchy and stretchy. It's early though...things could change.

Until Saturday...

Chapter 9: The Pheno Hunt
Day 49
Day 28 of 12/12

Things are going great. The late addition Chem's that were super slow have finally started to grow. They're going to end up being quite a bit smaller than the others but that's okay.

About half of the Chem's are looking fantastic and growing just as I had hoped. The Appalachian Super Skunk's are kind of all over the place. One or two of them might end up developing a nice top but it's a bit early to know for sure. Kind of the same thing with the Goji OG's. Many of them just don't want to grow like this. Again...we'll see. I think we need 1 more week to really see how they will form.

I began doing a little reorganizing today. Still hand watering and still using Blue Planet nutes. Once the final 4 Chem's that were lagging finish their stretch, I'll do a final reorganization and then prep for automatic watering. This will likely include the switch to my DIY nutes. I'm a little scared but I just need to jump in with both feet.

Seems like it’s an art in itself running led’s. Do you find any negative effects from branch removal throughout flowering? Are you searching for top cola dom pheno’s? Hope you don’t mind me asking

Kp sunshine said:

Seems like it’s an art in itself running led’s. Do you find any negative effects from branch removal throughout flowering? Are you searching for top cola dom pheno’s? Hope you don’t mind me asking

Click to expand...

I def. don't mind you asking.
No significant side effects. I have noticed that some females will put out a banana or two when they get hacked up like this. But otherwise, nothing worth mentioning. And yes, I am searching for top cola dominant. Interestingly enough, in my experience, most plants will play ball and do the big cola thing. Those that won't are definitely in the minority. Of those that will, my pheno hunt begins.

Hot Diggity Sog said:

I def. don't mind you asking.
No significant side effects. I have noticed that some females will put out a banana or two when they get hacked up like this. But otherwise, nothing worth mentioning. And yes, I am searching for top cola dominant. Interestingly enough, in my experience, most plants will play ball and do the big cola thing. Those that won't are definitely in the minority. Of those that will, my pheno hunt begins.

Click to expand...

Did they throw bananas in the terminal buds by any chance? I’m running a gorilla Ghani that threw a flower in each terminal not long after lowers were removed in flower. I removed and nothing else occurred.
I have a appy pheno of Sunshine daydream that is top cola dom maybe from the Tres Dawg influence idk
Good luck