Indoor Army of Dankness - Bruce's Blueberries

[DCLXVI]

Hey Bruce,

Sometimes a washing machine drain pan can be quite inexpensive. Might fit your size and possibly available locally at a home Depot. Avoid shipping on such a large item.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@Mañ'O'Green

I was considering using an actual drip / flood tray when I first started. But, between price and finding something just the right size for a 2'x4' tent, I eventually gave up looking.

Where'd you get your tray? What was it sold as / called? I may have just been using poor keywords in my google searches...

I got mine here (I think).

Active Aqua Premium Flood Tables, Inside Dimensions - White

Buy the Active Aqua Premium Flood Tables, Inside Dimensions - White at Hydrobuilder.com. Shop the entire line of Active Aqua products along with thousands of hydroponics supplies on sale now.

hydrobuilder.com

 

[Bruce Campbell]

- Day 63 - #1 came out of the flood a few inches shorter than #2 and droopy, for whatever reason. I had to tie the colas together to keep them from falling over, which I don't like doing. We'll see if they recover after a few regular waterings and a milk crate for some extra light. #2 is doing great.

- Maturity-wise, they look to be similar to where my last grow was around this time, so they'll probably go ~90 days.

- Switched them over to my bloom formula this week. Here's how it compares to the veg formula:

	Part A (g / gal)	Part B (g / gal)	Sweet Candy (g / gal)	Epsom Salts (g / gal)
Veg	3.9	2.5	0	0
Flower	2.0	1.7	1.6	0

	N	P	K	Ca	Mg	S	Cu	Fe	Mo	Zn	B	Mn	Si
	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L	mg/L
Veg	153.90	53.96	222.40	125.50	64.91	75.22	0.31	3.09	0.10	1.03	0.31	0.62	0.72
Flower	96.04	77.48	208.80	85.34	37.52	51.25	0.16	1.59	0.05	0.53	0.16	0.32	0.37

Note: Numbers above do not include extra Si or K from pH adjustment (typically ~4-6 mL/gal of Silica Boost as needed).

 

[Bruce Campbell]

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- Day 74 - Getting droopier, but hanging in there.

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- Close-up of cola on #1. Should probably start scoping trichs next week.

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- Canopy view. Starting to have some yellowing on #2. Could just be due to me reducing N. Regardless, probably won't do anything about it and just let it go.

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- #1 As-Supported - #1 started drooping earlier, but both are now drooping. I now have a 4-ft stake in each bag to tie together the top of the plants. Ran into same problem last grow, so not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong, if I'm just growing them bigger than the genotype is used to, something I can fix, or just something I'll have to deal with in my set-up, etc...

-​

 

[Bruce Campbell]

- Big thanks to @Green Hornet for his input on this strain! He grew some Blueberry autos recently, and didn't see much amber on them either. He also had some drooping / support issues same as me. So, I'm gonna call these done. The pistils are pretty much all brown, and I think this is about as amber as they'll get.

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- Chopped #1 today. Will chop #2 next weekend. Had some withered leaves by the end, and the yellowing was starting to get into the buds/sugar leaves a little bit. Not sure how much was due to cutting N, and how much was due to me getting lazy and skipping a watering or two.

- Was going to take a picture with it all splayed out after untying...but as soon as I untied it, the entire container just fell over to one side. So, I just chopped it all at once and hung it for trimming.

- Overall, it trimmed up pretty well. So far, seems a bit less aromatic than last grow, but definitely more 'blueberry-ish" - full of swole purple bracts.

- Weight-wise, seems on par with last grow, but I'll post final dry weights next weekend. It'll hang at ~65-70F / 60-65% RH for 4-5 days, then into grove bags.

 

[Bruce Campbell]

- Chopped #2 today - 95 days.

- #1 is dried and bagged. Final weight = 180g (dry) buds / 90g (wet) larf. Not a huge fan of the aroma for this grow - very heavy diesel for some reason without the normal berry / citrus. Hoping it will round out a bit during cure.

- Next batch is on its way - about 10 days old so far.

 

[Bruce Campbell]

After disappearing from the forums for a few years, I now have about 6 grows / 13 plants on this regimen and am ready to switch strains. So, I figure I owe y'all an epilogue of final results and conclusions.

To recap, these grows were using a Blueberry Autoflower strain from a random seedbank in a peat / mineral salt regimen at set elemental ppm levels. I used target nutrient levels from research performed by the Israeli Institute of Health, University of British Columbia, and others that determined optimal levels for photoperiod cannabis. I wanted to verify whether these would also work for autoflowers or needed adjustment. I also wanted to see how much variance yields had over multiple harvests while on the same feed regimen.

During veg, I used a 160 ppm-N / 60 ppm-P feed with as close to a 4:2:1 ratio of K:Ca:Mg based on what fertilizers I had available. For example, that resulted in a 240 ppm-K / 125 ppm-Ca / 65 ppm-Mg using MegaCrop 2-part.

During bloom, I would then typically reduce N and keep P about the same. The exact bloom formulation varied between grows depending on various hypotheses I wanted to test - e.g., one grow was performed without reducing N to see what the effects would be on final yield & quality. Overall, bloom formulations typically ranged between 80-120 ppm-N / 50 - 90 ppm-P. I allowed the K:Ca:Mg ratio to deviate more during bloom, but it can ultimately be kept in better balance by including epsom salts in the formulation.

I also got lazier in my grows over time, specifically with controlling temperature and RH. The first few grows were in a closed tent exhausting to the lung room with ventilation / humidification as needed to generally stay within typical ranges. By the later grows - open tent and no ventilation to simplify things. Then, of course, there was the occasional missed watering, power outage, etc over the course of six grows.

But, by then, the objective was mainly to evaluate yield variance based on a 'standard feed formula / lazy farmer' approach - i.e., to see how many things I could not pay attention to during the grow and still get 'decent enough' yields.

See next post for results:

 

[Bruce Campbell]

Final dry weights are below. Conclusions are in next post.

Note the following for the tables and figures below:

1) Between shaking, variance in locations, and difficulty in deciding 'cloudy vs. amber', judging when to harvest based on trichomes was impractical for me. So, I typically just ballparked when to harvest for the first grows (which were decent enough' and then harvested at set ages for the later grows.

2) One of the grows includes no reduction in N (although I forget which one at the moment). Grow #4 was to evaluate the effect of harvesting way too late.

3) As far as potency, THC/CBD ratio, etc - I wasn't sending samples off to a lab so all I have is qualitative / anecdotal data.

4) 'All Grows' includes results for all grows. 'Outliers Removed' eliminates the earliest and latest grows. 'Most Recent Grows' is Grow #3 and #5.

 

[Bruce Campbell]

So...what did we learn:

1) Yes - the 160 ppm-N / 60 ppm-P formulation for photoperiods works sufficiently well enough for autoflowers.

2) There is too much variance in the results to make any really definitive conclusions between trials. Combined with the difficulty of harvesting at a set level of maturity (e.g., based on trichomes) and wasn't paying for laboratory potency tests, that means a home grower would need to spend too much additional effort and need too many repeat trials (IMO) to find statistically significant differences in feed regimens, etc.

3) IIRC, Grow #1 was without reducing N during bloom (but I'd have to dig through logbooks to verify). I remember convincing myself that the yields were higher, but I did not like the final quality. I would attribute that to the plant continuing to put on mass and, therefore, less resources on flowering (as you would expect). I'd need more trials to be sure, but not worth it given the variance from other sources.

4) Grow #4 was an extra long grow to evaluate harvesting way too late. It achieved extra weight but quality/potency was significantly affected (as you would expect).

5) All grows were decent enough and smokeable enough to justify 'being lazy' in other areas of the grow (RH, lighting, training, etc) - with respect to how consistent I was / how strictly the other parameters were controlled. Meaning that novice growers (i.e., results across the site) should get decent enough results with a standard nutrient formulation without having to worry about / optimize every other little aspect of the grow.

6) Overall, I would say that we (i.e., the AFO community) should recommend that new growers use this as a 'standard starting regimen' for their first grows. But, that's an entire new grower's guide that I'd need to write-up and, as you can tell, all my posts are tldr enough already.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

That is a lot of work. I have done similar with hydroponic nutrition. Due to the lack of scientific tools I settled on just looking at my plants to determine the efficacy of the nutrient ratios being used. I have become fairly proficient in reading my plants. There are so many variables in a single grow that it is not possible to account for them all in the home environment. Well at least for me. Thanks for your efforts and posting the results here.