SCCA Grow Journal

I’ve decided to journal one of our grows in the hope some of you will benefit from our experience. i have been growing for almost 15 years, this room belongs to one of my students. he has grown a few times before but was still a bit clueless when we started this. we are getting ready to harvest our next crop this week so i thought it would be a good time to start a journal.

our setup consists of a 6‘x8‘ veg room and a 8‘x10‘ flower room. the veg room has a 600w hps, a 400w hps, and a few cfls for cloning. the flower room has a 4‘x10‘ tray under 2 1000w lights. a MH for early flower and a HPS for late flower. Veg room has a 6“ vortex exhaust fan, passive intake. a small radiator keeps the room above 65*F, day temp is 75*F-80*F. Flower room has a 6“ exhaust, don’t recall what brand but it moves more cfm than the vortex, and a 4“ active intake. Day temps run between 75*F and 80*F, this last week has been a bit cold so temps got down to 45*F for a couple nights. turned our plants purple.

this is my first run in this space so we have a couple kinks to hammer out. we have an other radiator going into the flower room on saturday. we also plan to get an a/c for each room. we have been on a very tight budget, running solely on donated equipment. luckily O.G.R.E. is a retired electronics engineer and was able to fix up 2 ballasts to get his veg room going. we are going to get conversion bulbs for the veg room when we can.

we are running a few different strains and O.G.R.E. is participating in our breeding project. We are about to harvest some Black Domina, my first time growing this strain. it didn’t bush as much as i would have liked but we will try again with a bit different growing style. Behind that is Blackberry Kush, it looks nice but a little lanky. the clones we bought sucked and we had to veg for an extra week to get them to the right size. all future crops will hopefully be from our own clones. we have a 3 plant trial of Grandaddy Grape coming 3 weeks after the BD. We have 16 GdG in veg to be transplanted about a week after the BD is harvested. we have Purple Kush and Kings Kush moms waitng to be propagated.

the breeding program is a Twilight x (Hawiian x Sour Diesel). we are still working on identifying desirable phenos. i will create a separate journal for these babies once this project progresses a little. i have never grown twilight so if anyone has some info im characteristics i would be very grateful. currently we have 12 plants in flower and 60 more beans to sprout at some point this year.

We are using Roots organic potting soil and fox farm nutes. i use the fox farm a bit differently than they recommend. i use grow big through the whole grow, i feel their 3 part has enough p-k but lacks nitrogen. i use full strength grow big for veg and cut it to half strength during flower. the BD and GdG are in fox farm ocean forest because the hydro store was out of roots for a few weeks. the FFOF is too gummy for me i like the Roots better, whenever i use FFOF i have problems getting enough oxygen to the roots and end up having to use H2O2 to prevent over-watering. we flower in 5g pots.

Pics will be up in a bit, ill start with the BD in veg about a month before thanks giving and progress to shots taken today.

1.the BD, KK, and PK in veg, they were different sizes so had to go into different size pots
2. & 3. Closer shot of BD about a month later




the BD about 2 weeks into flower


BD at 4 weeks flower


BD at 6 weeks flower, i think the one in the first pic was mislabeled


GdG at 4 weeks flower


BbK at 2 weeks flower, purple from cold temps

Feel free to post any questions or comments. i dont know where that last pic came from but its the BD at 2 weeks flower.

Here's a simple shot of the veg room. as you can see we still need to paint the walls and finish installing the drainage system.



here are a couple shots of the Twilight x (Hawiian x Sour Diesel)

at a week old or so


About 3 weeks from germination, transplanted into 3g pots


i dont have any pics of them currently. they were topped at about 12" and given about two weeks to recover and bush out. O.G.R.E. kept 6 and transfered them into flower at about 6 weeks from seed, the other 6 went to an other member to grow out. ill get some shots this weekend of their progress.

its been an interesting week, iv been really busy and haven't had the time to monitor the grow as closely as i would have liked. the Black Domina had some magnesium deficiencies, but was no worse for the wear. we harvested and yield was a bit lower than i expected, not horrible. Still waiting for it to finish drying, then ill post a harvest report. im guessing about 1/4 lb from 5 plants.

one of the BD plants is taking longer to finish, but should be cut in a day or two. im certain i was right about the plant that was mislabeled. the buds are much longer and pointier. it has at least 2 more weeks, but is looking great.

Unknown, possibly Purple Kush, at 7 weeks


The Granddaddy Grape are filling out beautifully. the buds are thick and extremely smelly. they have a strong fruity scent with a mild spicy almost hashy undertone. they are at 5 weeks flower, and haven't really started to swell yet.




Our 12 Twilight x (Hawaiian x Sour Diesel) have shown sex. the 6 we put into flower showed 3 males and 3 females. the 6 we gave away are still in veg but are showing female pre-flowers, for a total of 9 females and 3 males. the plants are fairly uniform having large leaves and medium internodes. 3 of the females are shorter and a bit more branched, the remaining 6 have a fairly large stature and the largest leaves and have little to no branching along the stems.

all of the males are large like the six females, also with minimal branching. one is a bit wider with closer internodes and more branching. im going to take some cuts and flower them before i decide which one to keep. i still have a couple dozen beans so a better candidate may pop up down the line.

i am going to take cuts from the 9 females and run them as a mixed batch to get a general idea of how they flower indoors. i will probably keep a cut or two of the smallest bushiest female and the best looking of the larger ones to cross with the male to see what results. im waiting to see how these babys do in flower before i make any further plans.

here are a few pic of the 3 females we still have ill take some of the males and other females get them posted later today or tomorrow


later this afternoon ill post some shots of the veg room and how the Grandaddy Grape is doing in the 1g pots. unfortunately i had toss out our Kings Kush, Purple Kush, and Grandaddy Grape moms because of a spidermite infestation. they probably could have been saved, but its safer for us to throw them out and get new ones. i have 10 GdG rooting into 4" pots that ill turn into moms and im looking for a nice strain for a new mom.

Time for a bit of an update!

Everything is going very well lately. we have (fingers crossed) eliminated our spider mite issue. Azamax is some pretty potent stuff. a combination of that and Pyrethrin bombs in the veg room did the trick. it was sad to lose our moms though.

we harvested the Granddaddy Grape trial plants. it has beautiful bud structure and a great smell! will give a weigh out when its dry. the Black Domina yielded a measly 5.5 oz from 6 plants. it has a nice mellow high with little couch lock. Its been in the jar about a week and the hashy sweet smell hasn't come back yet. the two unknown clones yielded about 1.5 oz total. the strange purple one has a great taste and smell, waiting on it to cure a bit before a smoke report. the other had crappy spindly buds that im just going to make some butter with.

Here's a pic of the GdG, a bit blurry. ill get better ones once its dry.



the Blackberry Kush are looking wonderful. 5 weeks into flower they have nice full buds. they stretched about 50% during flowering. the stems are a bit thinner than i'd like and are having trouble supporting the buds. Bamboo stakes and Green garden tape are wonderful!



We put a full run of GdG into flower today. Im looking froward to a full crop of this stuff. it's one of the better Grape strains i'v come across.



We have decided to name the Twilight x (Hawaiian x Sour Diesel) for simplicity. We are calling it Sunset for now. the female and males we kept are bushing out nicely. the round of clones i took from all the females is not doing too well. unfortunately i wasn't able prep the moms like i normally would. whenever i don't, i have poor success. im hoping this is why they aren't taking and it not that the strain is difficult to clone.

Guess i should explain how i prep my mothers. when im ready to take cuttings and the mom is bushy and healthy i give it a decent flush and stop giving it nutes. once every day for a week i spray the plant heavily with plain water at 6.5 pH. when the plant needs water again i give give it a carbohydrate supplement (molasses). i try to take the cuttings 2 or 3 days after the giving it the carbs so they have time to build up in the stems. when i do this i have 95%+ success, if i don't i have about 60% success or worse.

looks very good there SCCA. would like to see a recent update if you got the time! very nice journal as well, very professional.

Thanks for the interest littlegrower! I have been extremely busy lately getting things ready for spring. Between my landscaping business and preparing outdoor gardens, i have been going pretty much non-stop. Luckily Ogre was able to keep me updated through pictures and e-mail.

The grow is coming along wonderfully. no sign of spider mites or other pests, we are keeping up weekly spraying with axamax because mites are so prevalent in our area. Unfortunately, Ogre didn't adjust the pH of the spray on this last round and the plants had a bit of an adverse reaction. It was simply a matter of spraying them down with pH balanced water to correct them, but the damage was done. we lost a few older leaves and had some curling leaf tips. still a bit of the claw on the older leaves but the new growth is just fine.

The Granddaddy Grape trial weighed in at 3.5 oz from 3 small plants. It has a wonderful sweet smell, a bit like grape candy. when you break open a bud there is an instant fruity, rose-like aroma. followed by the rich grape smell. the smoke is sweet with a lingering aftertaste of flowers. Definitely a keeper, i may try to work this baby into a few crosses in the next few years.

Our breeding project has been put on the back burner for now. We were hoping to have more space to work with but one of members became ill and decided to scale back his plans. I tossed out the two males we had been keeping, but we are going to save the three females we selected to be moms. Ogre is going to start spraying them down with plain water on Wednesday. they were watered with plain water yesterday and will receive some carbs with their next watering. i will be taking a large round of cuttings from all of our moms the following week. we did end up with two rooted cuttings from the first, failed round of sunset. im not sure which plants these came from but im going to grow them out a bit and either put them outdoors or into the flower room with the next crop.

We have decided to change our indoor growing style for the summer to help keep plant numbers down. We are topping and tieing four Granddaddy Grape clones to fill in the same space as our normal sixteen plants. i actually prefer growing larger plants but we have severe height limitations in our flower room. luckily i was able to find 10g pots that are the same height as our current 5g.

We are going to be doing a few small outdoor plants this year at Ogre's place. well, small for me anyway. we cant allow them to get much more than six feet tall and six feet wide. we can do four in the ground that size, we are also going to do six in 25g containers. i also want to try three in a blue kids pool. the container plants are only going to be about three feet wide and maybe five feet tall with the container.

Several of our other members have been looking for space to grow this year. I have been searching high and low but have only come across a few people that are willing to make their land available. Because i am a firm believer in not pushing the limits too far, we ask our members to avoid having large gardens. Last year our largest garden was 25 plants outdoor maintained by 5 members that formed a co-op. most were 3-10 plants managed by 2 or 3 people. Unfortunately, this means that we have to find several people with space they are willing to let us use rather than one person with a huge piece of property. If anyone in the Sonoma, Lake or Mendocino county areas is interested in helping some patients in need and growing your own medicine send me a pm.


Now its time for some pictures!

Here's a couple overall shots of the flower room, the GdG have been thinned since these pictures and are budding up wonderfully. the first few bud shots are a week old but i have a few updated ones to post also.




Here are the most recent shots of the Blackberry. i talked to the guy i got the clones from and he said it is Blackberry not Blackberry Kush. He also said to let it go 10 or 11 weeks. Because of our schedule i cant let it go more than 10, so its coming down next Friday.



This is a shot of the GdG, now 3 weeks into flower, this was taken at 2 weeks.




I will post some shots of the Blackberry in better light during harvest, i cant describe how purple this stuff is. the calyxes are mauve with deep purple stripes and the stems are a bright almost neon green. im sure it would be better suited to a sog or outdoor if you have a long season or maybe a tall greenhouse. the buds are big and beautiful but a bit loose.

yeah both those purps looks great! too bad about losing the space for the breeding. i hope one day i can move up north and do a true outdoor grow, for now i get to grow about one plant and only a few feet in my garden as long as it stays hidden. that smoke report of the grand daddy grape sounds delicous, are those turning purp from the genetics or from you dropping the temps? ive got my GDP going on week 9 and still am waiting to see the hue of purp come in before it gets the chop. i crossed it with some pollen from a buddy of mine that claims it to be some hawgsbreathe cross of some sort so that should be fun to see what comes out for the first generation. i would be stoked to follow along on one of your outdoor grows if you find some time to post a journal when the time comes. about what month you aiming to start your outdoor planting? keep up the good work SCCA, everything looks tasty!

Im pretty sure the GdG were purple from temps, we will see in a few weeks when the ones in early flower start to ripen. The Blackberry are definitely purple from genetics. the difference in the way the plants purple is amazing. On the GdG the tips of the leaves and calyxes had a deep purple hue but were green overall. The Bb has solid purple calyxes that are really beautiful in contrast with the green stems.

For our outdoor crops i like to plant the first week of may. we start the plants indoors a few weeks to a couple months before moving them out. if i can grow them big i start early and grow them to fill 5g containers. this year we will probably be planting 3g plants in the ground and 1g in the containers. in fact i am going to be taking cuttings and starting seeds in two weeks for this years gardens. im still up in the air on which strains in going to run this year. i know we will be running 4 GdG, 3 Sunset one of each mother pheno and a few plants from seed at ogre's place. a few other members have requested the GdG and Sunset, i will also have a few Black Domina cuttings available. i have some seeds that im going to sprout and grow out in 5g pots. the last few years i have started extra seeds and given away the ones i am unable to keep after they show sex. Last year i gave 8 purple kush hybrid plants to a patient who had gotten screwed by the folks who were supposed to be growing for her. she paid them 500 dollars and allowed them to use her rec, in exchange for 5 pounds at the end of the season. as soon as the check cleared they disappeared. she took the plants i gave her and planted them in her veggie garden. with a bit of help from an other more able bodied patient she was able to harvest 6 lb that lasted her the whole year. she was so grateful, this year she made her garden available to two other patients in exchange for labor. Damn, this Blueberry x Sweettooth is making me ramble

For the seeds im going to sprout, i have to chose from an Afgooey hybrid, a Grape Ape pheno called Goofy Grape x Blue Dot, an Orange Crush open pollinated hybrid, some seeds from an incredibly strong sativa from SoCal, and a hybrid from Oregon that is supposed to produce some incredible bud. i may just sprout them all and see what comes up but i dont think i could find homes for that many plants.

the sounds of that strong sativa seems like a winner to me! good smoke with a good yield is always a plus. that is some bs what happened to that lady patient but im glad you were able to hook her up and she ended with a nice amount of bud. some good karma going your way thats for sure. do you still use FF line of nutes for outdoor? any specefic ground preparation you do, such as tilling in some manure?

Nice journal. I look forward to following.
Daniels

Thanks for stopping by Daniels! Hopefully things will start to get really interesting this spring.

littlegrower, i do use grow big outdoors, but mid season i switch to Maxsea acid fertilizer at half strength weekly, i continue to foliar spray with a high nitrogen food. the last couple years i have used a few different products. i think im going back to the powdered seaweed from my local hydro store. i used Liquid Gold last year but the fish emulsion is too stinky for me. for site prep it greatly depends on the soil. for heavy clay soils i totally remove and replace it. the soil in Ogre's yard is fairly well draining with a bit of clay in it. we are going to use green compost from the local landscape supply mixed with a few bales of peat though i may use coco. We are also going to add a few bags of worm castings and some guanos. we dig out the bed, about three feet down more of we have machinery, then we line the hole with chicken wire to keep out moles and ground squirrels. we amend the soil bit by bit as we put it back into the hole. a layer of fiberglass weed cloth followed by a layer of chicken wire tops off the bed. each plant is planted with a solid berm and basin around it. ill definitely post more details at planting time.

seems like you trully believe in the use of foliar feeding. ive never used any foliar spray other then mite and PM prevention. sounds like you have the outdoor down solid! that sound of the maxsea acid fertilizer is scary haha but im sure if you use it, its some good stuff. i agree with trying to stay away from stinky products, the humboldt nutes i have smell terrible and stinks up my room when i use them, luckily i dont use them very often any more cause i hate and suck at soil haha. i would hate to dig three feet deep in a good size garden without a tiller to loosen up the dirt first, would be some major work and some sore hands at the end of that day. do you ever use any blood or bone meal?

i try to avoid blood and bone meal because they may be contaminated. you can achieve the same effect using guanos and wood ash. whats so scary about the Maxsea Acid? its a 14-18-14 with iron and zinc, i use it 1/4 to 1/2 strength. with the water around here the pH comes out to a nice 6.5ish, if i need more nitrogen then ill use a dose of grow big or an other high nitrogen fertilizer. i really feel outdoor plants need a more balanced food throughout the season than indoor plants. when the plants are flowering i switch to the Maxsea Bloom at half to almost full strength, with a supplement of nitrogen every couple weeks. once the plants have really started budding up i stop foliar feeding but continue with BT because bud worms are an issue around here. once the moths have passed and aren't laying anymore we stop the BT and switch to a finishing fert. the last couple years i have used 1/4 strength Cha Ching with 1/4 strength Grow Big, and i was very happy with the results. i use the same mix indoors with a bit less Cha Ching.

luckily the area we are digging out by hand is only 8x16. i would love to use a small back hoe but cant get it to the area we are planting. Our original plan was to dig out the area and build a nice raised redwood box around it then line and backfill the hole. unfortunately we don't have the budget for the box as we need to build decent fence. the soil is fairly soft this time of year and the we do this sort of thing all day for work anyway, so its not that much of a strain for us. between 4 people we should be able to knock the digging out in 2 or 3 days, the amending in one and the fence in another two. a few weekends of work and we will be good to go.

sounds like the labor will equally be shared so that will be good. the acid part of the maxsea is what i meant, nothing about what was in it as i didnt even look it up. just that word acid for plants sounds scary to me but im sure its plenty fine and just another name. hope the starting of the garden goes well for you!

Ah i see, all the acid means is its intended for acid loving plants. At full strength it is a great seasonal fertilizer for Azaleas and other acid loving plants. i like it because it usually saves me from having to adjust the pH of my water. i do have to be careful though, if i use too much it drops the pH to the 4-5 range.

It was time to cut the Blackberry this last weekend. it was a bit of work but a lot of fun. The guy i bought the clones from told me to let them go 11 weeks. We harvested at 10 weeks and they were definitely ready. we should have picked a few days earlier, a couple of the plants sent out some nanners at the end of the donkey ears. i hope they didnt make any viable pollen. the trichs were a perfect 20% amber but some were still clear.

The main colas are pretty nice. a little fluffier than i would have liked, but sill a very good calyx to leaf ratio. the calyxes darkened and lost the cool stripes, but they are still extremely purple with green stems. i would definitely like to try this strain again in a greenhouse if i can find a better pheno. the lower buds didn't dense up at all, they are so spindly its a bit pathetic. indoors this definitely need to be grown in a sog.

the smell is pungent and leathery with an undertone of ripe fruit and gardenias. im not sure how the aroma will develop during cure. some of the popcorn buds were dry enough to smoke today, uncured the smoke is quite smooth and very sweet. im looking forward to the cured buds.

We are trying to thin our plant numbers for summer. for our next run we will be flowering 4 plants in 10g pots. they were transplanted from 1g pots to 3g about 2 weeks ago. while in 1g they were topped and super cropped, this weekend i tied them and and super cropped them again.

I took a huge round of cuttings, most of them are a continued experiment to find a cheaper cloning medium. after our last round of failed sunset cuttings, i decided to use a potting soil i had that contains a lot of peat. its almost the same consistency as the peat plugs we normally use. we also took some cuttings in peat plugs.

the moms were flushed, sprayed and given carbs for a few days before cloning. the Black Domina yellowed up a but more than i wanted but we took cuttings anyway. the Granddaddy Grape was perfect.

These are the Blackberry buds before we harvested them, the first one is kind of blury but shows good color.



this is a shot of the stem bleeding resin, when i first saw this i was a bit worried. i have never seen this before. after a few phone calls, i found out that it was the juices leaking out of the stem. it was sweet like honey, tasted like dank, and was super sticky



heres some shots of the trimmed buds. i think in going to have to go back over it and trim a little closer after it dries



this is about 1/3 of the buds, thought i took pictures of the rest but i guess i didnt. we are going to gut this closet and convert it into a drying cabinet. i still don't think it will be big enough for our outdoor harvest, but its a start.



I tied the 4 Granddaddy Grapes down and super cropped them. i took some pictures to show how i did it.

first i put holes in the bucket with a hot nail and tie a loop in a length of string. this time i used 25 lb fishing line because thats what we had, but i normally use hemp string when doing this. i prefer to use 2mm bonsai wire because it is sturdy, flexible, and doesn't usually cut into the stem. when i redo them i plan to use wire so i can leave the ties on until harvest.



These are the Sunset test plants, random surviving clones from unknown mothers. we gave the Sunset moms to a friend to clone and grow out, we will see what comes of it. these two are gonna go outside in spring, not sure where yet. id like to find some where to let them grow without too much toping if any.



The next generation

weird, the tieing shots ended up at the bottom of the post.oh well, you get the idea.