My Operation

Hey everyone!

(after having written this, its a little long -- feel free to scan through it)

It'll be 6 months monday since ive been growing, and i just wanted to disclose and see if there are any areas where i could improve.

In all honest, im pretty satisfied with everything so far. I've learned a lot over these past months, mostly from these forums!

I have about 30 plants in flowering now, and 30 more in their last week or so of vegging ready to be harvested.

when i start the seeds off, i put them in water for a day, then in a soaked paper towel for 2 days until the root start popping out, then i plant it, white stuff down, with around 1/4 inch of soil above it and maybe 3-4 inches below -- i plant them in solo cups. thats right, red party solo cups. i use a drill and make about 6 holes in the bottom to discourage root rot.

once they go in the cup, they go under the light. they veg for around 3 months. depending on their height, and the availability of room in the flower area. then once they go into flowering, i take the 1-1 1/2 foot plant from the solo cup and put it in a 12in/12in black plastic pot and it goes under the flowering light.

my flowering area is about 5 foot by 6 foot with 2-100 watt HPS lights on one side of the room and 2-70 watt HPS on the other side of the room the two six foot sides are covered in white cloth, and the 5 foot sides are open to allow air flow -- heres a little ascii visual aid:

now in the flower room, 20 of the plants are around 2 foot (2 are closer to a foot) and the remaining 10 are between 2-4 ft -- the larger ones are hugging the 100 watt wall, and the rest are evenly distributed in the remaining area.

(question -- are enough lumens being distributed for this area? by my estimates, i feel i am about 90% ideal lumens)

the vegging area is very similar, except there is one 100 watt HPS about 3.5 ft above the plants -- each plant is in a solo cup (with holed bottoms) and is about a foot or so tall, taking up about 2x3 foot. there is not cloth around this area -- free flowing air all around.

ive been moving plants from the vegging area to the flowering area as i discover males and room becomes available, so unfortunately there is very little organization to my operation, but im comfortable with judging them all individually based on their own growth (thats fine, right?)

oh - another thing i might mention, most of the seeds i have growing now came from weed that ive bought over the years. other than that, i have about 3 THC Bombs growing (10 seeds, 7 grew to maturity, 4 males), 2 ICEs (10 seeds, 4 grew, 2 males), 3 Afghan Mazaars (5 free seeds, 4 grew, 1 male), and a Crystal (free feminized seed) -- so i have a very diverse flowering room, which i LOVE.

and against my expectations, most of the randoms have grown into fantastic looking buds -- and of course the higher strains look and smell unbelievably fantastic. the only difference as i could tell was the size of the part of the plant the white hairs grows out of. aside from that, the trichomes are also very different: the ice is, of course, COVERED with HUGE trichomes. crystal has nice trichomes and a wonderful sweet berry scent, and thc bomb less than these two, but above and beyond the randoms.

so at this point, since ive been judging them individually, i have harvested 3 plants.

Since most of the light the plants receives comes from above, one top bud (#12) had about 70% amber hair coverage whereas the lower-brached buds were about 10% amber hair coverage, so i clipped the top bud off (3.3g) and started drying while the rest of the plant matured (which i think is ok??)

i did that about 2 weeks ago now, and harvested the rest of the plant yesterday (3.7g), which seemed unaffected by the harvested top; it grew about 10-15% of its current size after the first cut, and 80% of the hairs were amber (new growth areas were still white hairs).

once i cut the buds off the plant, i try to preserve as much of the stem as possible as a "handle" to use so i dont damage the trichomes (is that necessary?)

i laid the buds on a piece of paper with limited light and plenty of air for a week and then put them into a mason jar for two weeks, opening and airing the jar for maybe an hour a day.

I have only ever used water for these, which could have impacted my yield, and to test that ive recently started adding Miracle Grow Bloom Booster to 5 plants, once a month (i do half the recommended dosage: 1 Tbsp/gallon becomes 1/2Tbsp/gallon)

i have about 7-8 plants ready to be harvested in a week or so (most of the larger ones) and about that many females midway through flowering, and a few more than that not showing signs of gender yet.

ive attached a few pictures, which are unfortunately not organized -- the PSD_icebud is Ice, right before she was harvested -- and she weighted 4.5g right after being cut. there are also pictures of the babies and the males.

so thats about it. if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

souinds good , my only point to make is , you should be harvesting by the trichs not the hairs .
how was the smoke ?
btw pics aint showin

I don't see any pics....and I will have some input for you.....but pics would be helpful.

The one major thing I see is the wattage you have covering a 6x5 area.

So you know--lumens don't add. (i.e. If you have a 100w ight and add another 100w light right next to it the lux meter still only measures the 100 watts worth....2-100w lights don't make a 200w)
And as plants go it is all about PAR Watts....Humans see, and therefor measure light in lumens plants don't.

How dense are the buds? The only reason I ask is the way I figured it is you have a total of 340 watts over a 30 square foot area? right. That is just over 11 watts per square foot? Am I missing something?

As a general rule cannabis performs best at 40-50watts per square foot. (I use 1000watts and my flower space is only 24 square feet--6x4)

If the above statement is accurate then you may want to consider a lighting upgrade soon.

It is fine to flower as space becomes available--I date all my plants so I can monitor them more closely when they are ripening.....

Besides that it sounds like things are coming along....

Well I see the bud weight is wet weight? Sounds a bit light and fluffy.....we need to talk about turning those 4 lights into 1-1000w or a 600 over a 3x4 area....you will end up with more weight and higher quality buds in a smaller area like thateven a 400watt over a 3x3.

-OitW

i think i just added the pictures.

so about the lighting, where would you recommend purchasing a better lighting system? your neighborhood home depot/lowes only carry the 100 watt, in my area anyway...

and how much heat does a 1000 watt system generate?

and thank you both for the replies!!

What scoregreen said, that many plants you need to go with way more light. I'd say 600 watt and up but if I was really wanting to do 20 plants at a time I'd go for the 1000 watt HPS.

Other than that it looks like you read up and are doing well, I'd still skip the paper towel method though, just put them in soil one inch deep and let them sprout on their own. This is just personal preference, you get the basics down and then do the minor things the way you like.

we need to talk about turning those 4 lights into 1-1000w or a 600 over a 3x4 area....you will end up with more weight and higher quality buds in a smaller area like thateven a 400watt over a 3x3.

scoregreen said:

i think i just added the pictures.

so about the lighting, where would you recommend purchasing a better lighting system? your neighborhood home depot/lowes only carry the 100 watt, in my area anyway...

and how much heat does a 1000 watt system generate?

and thank you both for the replies!!

Click to expand...

If you don't have a local hydro shop then online may be your best bet for a 600 or 1kw light and ballast.

As far as the heat generated-it is significantly more than the 100w you have. It will be necessary to air-cool the fixture and exhaust your room air to maintain 74-78f temps. The dense, sticky nugs will be well worth the extra work.

go to ebay and search: 400 watt hps. I'd get two of them or a 1000.

awesome, thanks for all the posts, and i feel the 1000 watt is the way to go (for me).

i do have a few questions:

so 1000 watt in flower, is the 100 watt still ok for vegging?

and about harvesting by trichomes and not the hairs, is that just an eye assessment, or do i need a magnifying glass or microscope?

and should i expect 10x better buds with 10x the watts? or is it maybe 5x better? and would "better" mean denser, larger, heavier, or all three?

thanks!!!