Bomb Seeds Bomb Seeds - Berry Bomb
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how did I not think of this?
Thanks, I'll give that a shot. Made it all this time without bovedas.
Thanks, I'll give that a shot. Made it all this time without bovedas.
Some of the take-aways and lessons learned from this grow.
- It's not worth it to transplant autos, just pop 'em in the final pot.
- Reusing coco is plenty doable, just flush it well before re-using it and make sure you get the run off to < 300ppms.
- Flushing coco is tricky. I noticed that running water through and measuring tds of the run off would show a decline in ppm but it would bottom out at ~400 I think, but if I let it dry out and flush more, it'd be back up high and come down to that same (~400ppm) point again. It isn't definitive but I suspect this could be a combination of build-up from the previous grow but also calcium carbonate in my tap water. Flushing with RO water seemed to do a better job of bringing the ppms of the run off down to < 300.
- 3 Gallon pots worked fine for me again but I felt like I was doing a lot of watering. I had previously been treating the coco a little more like soil and letting it dry out some between waterings. Well this time I chose to keep up on watering daily and never let the medium dry. The theory is that by keeping it wet, you're not so much keeping it wet as adding oxygen regularly. I felt like with the 3 gallon pots I was not getting as large of a root system to make the size of pot necessary or justifiable. So all my fuzzy logic aside, I'm trying smaller, taller pots next to see how they perform by comparison. I expect to have to water a little more frequently.
- Regular feeding at 1/2 - 3/4% strength still resulted in apparent build-up in the medium so I was flushing(rinsing) regularly to try to keep the build-up down. It didn't seem to have an adverse affect but it's an observation I made and I want to play with it a little to see if I can increase efficiency. I've adjusted my process to include a plain watering with calimagic to run-off everyday then a full strength feeding afterward to run off. The theory here is to saturate the coco with all it needs to be satiated then watering just enough feed to give the plant what it wants and run off ppm stays low and build-up won't happen. Follow my photo thread to see how this works out for me.
-Cool temps do a great job of bringing out color but I allowed a pretty broad swing in temps from mid-high 50's up to 80ish at any point through the cycle. I didn't have consistent results across all plants in the tent and that is one of the things that I think could've been a factor. I don't know if I had a cold spot but I did find I had better growth in the back of my tent so I tried to cycle the plants around for a bit but that was unmanageable. This time around I'm attempting to keep the temps more consistent and with less spread. I've read recommendations about temps staying around 80 in day and 70 at night or at least not being allowed to swing more than 20 degrees between day and night. I'm not sure if there's a need to have different temps between day and night or if it's just a common thing given the relationship between heat and light but I'm hoping I've got my temps set to hover between 70 and 80 degrees 24 hours a day so the temps will swing 10 degrees but max at 80 and bottom at 70. Hopfully this will be advantageous.
- low humidity continues to prove to produce high frost. I've never endeavored to hit humidity points in flower aside from avoiding humidity of 70% or higher. At that point I can't control odor or keep things discreet enough.
- keeping the pots elevated above the drip trays so that all water always runs straight through was a winning test.
- multiple strains flowering simultaneously can add difficulty if the plants requirements change.
Drying has been kicking my butt. There is no replacement for a quality hygrometer, or 10. I've been successfully drying so far I think but I stress over it so hard because I don't want to screw it up. I keep thinking that everything is too dried but then I'll steal a little nug and chop it up and notice it's still plenty moist inside so I just need to keep burping and sealing still I think. Problem is knowing how high the humidity is getting and whether or not burping is necessary. If I could keep 'em sealed up worry free, I'd be a lot happier.
Any good tips? Does anyone out there in forum land have thoughts on how picky or particular or cautious I should be or thoughts on how careful you are? I've read that a cure is so important but that people think they're curing when they've over dried their product and the "cure" they think they're getting isn't really happening at all? Is there actually a magic dryness? Is there a range that would afford some wiggle room in the process? I don't personally see how you could reach a point of being 'too dry to cure properly' because the "cure" is a breakdown of chlorophyll and a maturing of turpenes and CBN to THC or something along those lines so would that require moisture? I can understand drying slowly but that's a separate process isn't it? I've read posts to no end and now that I've gone through the process a few times, I'm trying to reconcile experience with research and disinformation. I'm finding I have more questions than answers!
- It's not worth it to transplant autos, just pop 'em in the final pot.
- Reusing coco is plenty doable, just flush it well before re-using it and make sure you get the run off to < 300ppms.
- Flushing coco is tricky. I noticed that running water through and measuring tds of the run off would show a decline in ppm but it would bottom out at ~400 I think, but if I let it dry out and flush more, it'd be back up high and come down to that same (~400ppm) point again. It isn't definitive but I suspect this could be a combination of build-up from the previous grow but also calcium carbonate in my tap water. Flushing with RO water seemed to do a better job of bringing the ppms of the run off down to < 300.
- 3 Gallon pots worked fine for me again but I felt like I was doing a lot of watering. I had previously been treating the coco a little more like soil and letting it dry out some between waterings. Well this time I chose to keep up on watering daily and never let the medium dry. The theory is that by keeping it wet, you're not so much keeping it wet as adding oxygen regularly. I felt like with the 3 gallon pots I was not getting as large of a root system to make the size of pot necessary or justifiable. So all my fuzzy logic aside, I'm trying smaller, taller pots next to see how they perform by comparison. I expect to have to water a little more frequently.
- Regular feeding at 1/2 - 3/4% strength still resulted in apparent build-up in the medium so I was flushing(rinsing) regularly to try to keep the build-up down. It didn't seem to have an adverse affect but it's an observation I made and I want to play with it a little to see if I can increase efficiency. I've adjusted my process to include a plain watering with calimagic to run-off everyday then a full strength feeding afterward to run off. The theory here is to saturate the coco with all it needs to be satiated then watering just enough feed to give the plant what it wants and run off ppm stays low and build-up won't happen. Follow my photo thread to see how this works out for me.
-Cool temps do a great job of bringing out color but I allowed a pretty broad swing in temps from mid-high 50's up to 80ish at any point through the cycle. I didn't have consistent results across all plants in the tent and that is one of the things that I think could've been a factor. I don't know if I had a cold spot but I did find I had better growth in the back of my tent so I tried to cycle the plants around for a bit but that was unmanageable. This time around I'm attempting to keep the temps more consistent and with less spread. I've read recommendations about temps staying around 80 in day and 70 at night or at least not being allowed to swing more than 20 degrees between day and night. I'm not sure if there's a need to have different temps between day and night or if it's just a common thing given the relationship between heat and light but I'm hoping I've got my temps set to hover between 70 and 80 degrees 24 hours a day so the temps will swing 10 degrees but max at 80 and bottom at 70. Hopfully this will be advantageous.
- low humidity continues to prove to produce high frost. I've never endeavored to hit humidity points in flower aside from avoiding humidity of 70% or higher. At that point I can't control odor or keep things discreet enough.
- keeping the pots elevated above the drip trays so that all water always runs straight through was a winning test.
- multiple strains flowering simultaneously can add difficulty if the plants requirements change.
Drying has been kicking my butt. There is no replacement for a quality hygrometer, or 10. I've been successfully drying so far I think but I stress over it so hard because I don't want to screw it up. I keep thinking that everything is too dried but then I'll steal a little nug and chop it up and notice it's still plenty moist inside so I just need to keep burping and sealing still I think. Problem is knowing how high the humidity is getting and whether or not burping is necessary. If I could keep 'em sealed up worry free, I'd be a lot happier.
Any good tips? Does anyone out there in forum land have thoughts on how picky or particular or cautious I should be or thoughts on how careful you are? I've read that a cure is so important but that people think they're curing when they've over dried their product and the "cure" they think they're getting isn't really happening at all? Is there actually a magic dryness? Is there a range that would afford some wiggle room in the process? I don't personally see how you could reach a point of being 'too dry to cure properly' because the "cure" is a breakdown of chlorophyll and a maturing of turpenes and CBN to THC or something along those lines so would that require moisture? I can understand drying slowly but that's a separate process isn't it? I've read posts to no end and now that I've gone through the process a few times, I'm trying to reconcile experience with research and disinformation. I'm finding I have more questions than answers!
What I found is that it's easier to suck it dry than make it wet. Now of course for most here that is not a new revelation but it informs my way of curing. I just hang it in the tent and keep the humidity at 16-17g/m³ and let it hang there for a few days or week. Then into a jar with a boveda pack and forget about it for at least two weeks.
That worked wonders for everything I didn't smoke right off the plant
That worked wonders for everything I didn't smoke right off the plant
Well, picked up a new box of jars and ordered a couple boxes of bovedas. Hopefully this makes the process dummy proof and removes my concerns. Thanks for the tips Druid. I had previously heard not to rely on bovedas but after researching the past couple of days, I'm ok with giving it a shot.
Ok, lets get this wrapped up!
Mason jars + the 62% bovedas are an undeniably effective way to cure in my opinion. I'm documenting this here in hopes of helping someone else since I had a hard time really deciding on a method that would give a high chance of success. This has been my weakest area of performance in the growing process to date and I'm happy to say that I'm feeling MUCH more comfortable with it now.
The process I'm following now is as follows. I hang in a separate tent that is vented with a fan and filter. I keep a humidistat in the room and try to keep it in the 40-50% range while things are hanging in there. I'm able to adjust the humidity slightly by adjusting the speed of the fan. I have been hanging whole plants with the leaves in place since my humidity has been on the lower end. Once the fans are dried up I snip 'em off. After another week (around 10 days total if my humidity has stayed at 55 or lower), when they are starting to feel crispy on the outside, I'll trim em up and lay them in a smaller rubbermaid tote (10 gallon maybe?) something that'll fit the herb in a mostly even single layer. I lay a piece of parchement paper in there on the bottom. Then I'll let 'em dry a little more in there, burping every day. This is the point where I was never sure how to proceed because I have found my hygrometers to be completely unreliable. Trying to monitor the RH rise in the containers til they "don't cross 60%" as most suggest hasn't worked because of my crappy hygrometers so I think I let 'em get a little more dry than intended. Nonetheless, breaking them down into small nugs and separating them out into mason jars that hold 1oz of measured herb with 1 8g Boveda has brought them back into perfect humidity for curing and the blue dream is snapping beautifully from the center, the trichs are thick and the smell is exceptional when they break open.
In the end, Blue Dream [HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] produced about 27g's, both Berry Bombs produced under an ounce [HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] was around 19g's and [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] was around 1oz. The Candy Cane finished just shy of 4oz and Blue Dream [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] was right around 3oz.
I'll be back with 1 more post of pics and smoke report.
Mason jars + the 62% bovedas are an undeniably effective way to cure in my opinion. I'm documenting this here in hopes of helping someone else since I had a hard time really deciding on a method that would give a high chance of success. This has been my weakest area of performance in the growing process to date and I'm happy to say that I'm feeling MUCH more comfortable with it now.
The process I'm following now is as follows. I hang in a separate tent that is vented with a fan and filter. I keep a humidistat in the room and try to keep it in the 40-50% range while things are hanging in there. I'm able to adjust the humidity slightly by adjusting the speed of the fan. I have been hanging whole plants with the leaves in place since my humidity has been on the lower end. Once the fans are dried up I snip 'em off. After another week (around 10 days total if my humidity has stayed at 55 or lower), when they are starting to feel crispy on the outside, I'll trim em up and lay them in a smaller rubbermaid tote (10 gallon maybe?) something that'll fit the herb in a mostly even single layer. I lay a piece of parchement paper in there on the bottom. Then I'll let 'em dry a little more in there, burping every day. This is the point where I was never sure how to proceed because I have found my hygrometers to be completely unreliable. Trying to monitor the RH rise in the containers til they "don't cross 60%" as most suggest hasn't worked because of my crappy hygrometers so I think I let 'em get a little more dry than intended. Nonetheless, breaking them down into small nugs and separating them out into mason jars that hold 1oz of measured herb with 1 8g Boveda has brought them back into perfect humidity for curing and the blue dream is snapping beautifully from the center, the trichs are thick and the smell is exceptional when they break open.
In the end, Blue Dream [HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] produced about 27g's, both Berry Bombs produced under an ounce [HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] was around 19g's and [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] was around 1oz. The Candy Cane finished just shy of 4oz and Blue Dream [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] was right around 3oz.
I'll be back with 1 more post of pics and smoke report.
Just checked this thread out. Looking good. I grew BlackBerry 3 years ago and have a few buds left. I rolled one up last night and it is a good smoke. A bit of acough on the second haul. Mine were grown inside under CFL bulbs so it was a bit warm. I never got much blue color. You should enjoy this.
OK so I didn't get all the bud shots together that I was hoping for but I will give my 2 cents on the smoke from this run.
Candy Cane:
This girl came out the buggest putting out about 16oz of sticky sweet goodness. It is more noticably indica in effect than my past Candy Canes but it was also the frostiest and is still a little peppy. I still like to get stuff done when I smoke it but this run felt like it has a little more "relax" in it.
Berry Bombs:
These plants were both small and disappointing in yeild but I'm pretty sure that was all my own fault. They were quite different in appearance and smell but both were clearly indca smokers. The very blueberry looking one was a nice easy relaxing smoke, not too heavy and very pleasant but not too potent. This is the plant that "topped" itself and produced all of about an ounce. The other had a LOT of tops and had some very distinct and potent frangrance. It was very skunky while growing, especially toward the end of life, so much so that every time I pulled a nug out (even still) to bust and roll up the wife could smell it 2 floors up and would comment within a minute. After curing it took on a sort of black cardammom scent when freshly busted and the smoke was much more potent than the other. This is also the first time since hearing the description that I've experienced the "fresh bread" smell from herb. After that black. It is very relaxing and all body effect with virtually no cerebral effect. This strain also helps almost immediately with my indigestion/acid reflux issues. I'm also really enjoying the relaxation and pain relief. This is one of my favorite smokes to date. I think I outlined my irrational blueberry search at the start of this thread and these bombs have reassured me that I'm on the right path and I will happily hunt though more of these beans, however, the femmed seeds as opposed to the autos I think. More on that below.
Blue Dream:
This was my first experience with the Blue Dream and I was VERY anxious to try it. I expected a lot more yield out of these girls than they produced but the end product was good enough to keep me from being too disappointed. The bud is fresh and thick but not too thick. It has the same physical effects as the berry bomb although a little more understated but the addition of the behind the eyes, head buzz from the haze. It's definitely as described, very much a daily, daytime smoker.
Closing thoughts, none of these are particularly hard hitting or potent. I can't say for sure if it's me or the herb so I should really take some to get tested. My gut suspects that this may be an Autoflower thing and that was the second part of this experiment. I ordered Berry Bomb and Blue Dream Autoflower AND feminized seeds so I can try them side by side. I'm now thinking that I should take a nug of the Auto Blue Dream and have it analyzed alongside the feminized cousin and see how they compare. It's not really a completely fair comparison but it's not too out of control; light source and feed will be about the same. That said, I'll come back and report on the difference between the two once I'm smoking the fem's.
Thanks for following along folks.
Candy Cane:
This girl came out the buggest putting out about 16oz of sticky sweet goodness. It is more noticably indica in effect than my past Candy Canes but it was also the frostiest and is still a little peppy. I still like to get stuff done when I smoke it but this run felt like it has a little more "relax" in it.
Berry Bombs:
These plants were both small and disappointing in yeild but I'm pretty sure that was all my own fault. They were quite different in appearance and smell but both were clearly indca smokers. The very blueberry looking one was a nice easy relaxing smoke, not too heavy and very pleasant but not too potent. This is the plant that "topped" itself and produced all of about an ounce. The other had a LOT of tops and had some very distinct and potent frangrance. It was very skunky while growing, especially toward the end of life, so much so that every time I pulled a nug out (even still) to bust and roll up the wife could smell it 2 floors up and would comment within a minute. After curing it took on a sort of black cardammom scent when freshly busted and the smoke was much more potent than the other. This is also the first time since hearing the description that I've experienced the "fresh bread" smell from herb. After that black. It is very relaxing and all body effect with virtually no cerebral effect. This strain also helps almost immediately with my indigestion/acid reflux issues. I'm also really enjoying the relaxation and pain relief. This is one of my favorite smokes to date. I think I outlined my irrational blueberry search at the start of this thread and these bombs have reassured me that I'm on the right path and I will happily hunt though more of these beans, however, the femmed seeds as opposed to the autos I think. More on that below.
Blue Dream:
This was my first experience with the Blue Dream and I was VERY anxious to try it. I expected a lot more yield out of these girls than they produced but the end product was good enough to keep me from being too disappointed. The bud is fresh and thick but not too thick. It has the same physical effects as the berry bomb although a little more understated but the addition of the behind the eyes, head buzz from the haze. It's definitely as described, very much a daily, daytime smoker.
Closing thoughts, none of these are particularly hard hitting or potent. I can't say for sure if it's me or the herb so I should really take some to get tested. My gut suspects that this may be an Autoflower thing and that was the second part of this experiment. I ordered Berry Bomb and Blue Dream Autoflower AND feminized seeds so I can try them side by side. I'm now thinking that I should take a nug of the Auto Blue Dream and have it analyzed alongside the feminized cousin and see how they compare. It's not really a completely fair comparison but it's not too out of control; light source and feed will be about the same. That said, I'll come back and report on the difference between the two once I'm smoking the fem's.
Thanks for following along folks.
