New Grower First grow - Zamaldelica Express, Double Grape, Creme de la Chem
- Thread starter terp182
- Start date
Day 67 for the DG/ZE and Day 66 for the CDLC
After some clearly amber trichromes growing in number in my pics (see below), I stuck the Double Grape in the dark for 48 hours tonight. She also wasn't drinking as fast any more or stacking bud volume on. Her fan leaves got more yellow toward the end, something which I could never correct. And the amber-ing trichromes speak for themselves, I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong!
The ZE and CDLC continue on, with much less amber in the trich pictures I took. They also both appear to be drinking quite a bit and bulking up still, despite a couple days at higher PPMs of 570ish causing a little nute burned tips and some wilting on the edges of the fan leaves (I think? - see the red circled CDLC leaves below). I corrected PPMs back down to 530ish, hoping these two have another week or two of bulking left on them. Though there is a pic with a few amber trichromes on the CDLC already.
So my initial plan of a synchronized harvest is out the door. I'm now planning to very roughly trim down the DG, leaving as many buds on branches as possible, and sugar leaves intact, and dry in single layers in paper grocery bags. I need to research this method more, but I'm hoping to keep humidity outside the bag around 55 and temps around 69-70, and get it out to 5 or 6 days (or more!) and 68ish RH before going into the cure boxes. I’m improvising this part so any pro tips are welcome!
Any ideas on the time left on the ZE and CDLC? I saw very few Amber trichromes on the CDLC, and hardly any on the ZE. Both pictured below. I've put these plants through some hell in my learning curve, and they're resilient as fuck. Can’t say how impressed I am with them despite my blunders.
Please, anyone with insight on when to harvest the ZE or CDLC, I'm all ears. I’m planning to dry both in the tent at 55ish percent RH and about 69-70 temp. I’m looking for growing amber trichromes, greater than around 10% as the cue to go dark and then chop. If this is dumb or a bad idea, please let me know!
After some clearly amber trichromes growing in number in my pics (see below), I stuck the Double Grape in the dark for 48 hours tonight. She also wasn't drinking as fast any more or stacking bud volume on. Her fan leaves got more yellow toward the end, something which I could never correct. And the amber-ing trichromes speak for themselves, I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong!
The ZE and CDLC continue on, with much less amber in the trich pictures I took. They also both appear to be drinking quite a bit and bulking up still, despite a couple days at higher PPMs of 570ish causing a little nute burned tips and some wilting on the edges of the fan leaves (I think? - see the red circled CDLC leaves below). I corrected PPMs back down to 530ish, hoping these two have another week or two of bulking left on them. Though there is a pic with a few amber trichromes on the CDLC already.
So my initial plan of a synchronized harvest is out the door. I'm now planning to very roughly trim down the DG, leaving as many buds on branches as possible, and sugar leaves intact, and dry in single layers in paper grocery bags. I need to research this method more, but I'm hoping to keep humidity outside the bag around 55 and temps around 69-70, and get it out to 5 or 6 days (or more!) and 68ish RH before going into the cure boxes. I’m improvising this part so any pro tips are welcome!
Any ideas on the time left on the ZE and CDLC? I saw very few Amber trichromes on the CDLC, and hardly any on the ZE. Both pictured below. I've put these plants through some hell in my learning curve, and they're resilient as fuck. Can’t say how impressed I am with them despite my blunders.
Please, anyone with insight on when to harvest the ZE or CDLC, I'm all ears. I’m planning to dry both in the tent at 55ish percent RH and about 69-70 temp. I’m looking for growing amber trichromes, greater than around 10% as the cue to go dark and then chop. If this is dumb or a bad idea, please let me know!
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Hey man, things look good. About the amber, I've read ( I AM NOT A PRO) that with auto's you don't really wait for amber, just full cloudy. I don't think it would hurt to wait, but I guess some don't get that far? Hopefully an OG will check in and an answer a little more of that.
Thanks Bill! The DG is in sleepy time and getting chopped tonight (the whole plant is on the way out, in addition to the ambers I saw) but I’m checking the other two daily. I just reduced ppm to 420ish for their likely final res fill. Not going to flush, but just dial down the nutes a tad before dark and cut for the CDLC and ZE. They’re still drinking and chonking up so I’m happy to let them go!
First Grow Wrap Up
This first grow, while being extremely "educational", ended up surprisingly well. I got 7 oz from 3 plants. 2 from the Double Grape and Creme de la Chem, and 3 from the Zamaldelica Express. The Zama just got taken out of a 5 day dry today at 62% for a rough cut, and we'll manicure and longer term cure tomorrow. She ended up going 79 days and despite all the initial issues I'd had with her, turned out beautifully. She's got a bit of the purple pheno in her, and is absolutely covered in fine crystals, dripping with diamonds. The CDLC went 74 days, could maybe have gone a few longer, but also turned out super high quality, if not quantity. Super solid nuggetroid crystal golfball buds that are stank to all hell 5 days into cure, and large municipal water-reservoir tower shaped trichromes everywhere. The smell at harvest was of old industrial rubber bands from a forgotten warehouse, which my girlfriend found aggressively offensive, a tragic development given that this is my favorite of the three. And the Double Grape, which went at Day 69 since it looked like she was going downhill, still turned out super frosty and smelly, despite some paper bag drying a little faster than planned. The initial drys all ended up right around 63-66%, and I'm curing each in a large 4 oz-ish size jar.
I'll bullet out the lessons learned as a first time grower, some of which I'm sure are inaccurate or not quite right, but for any future growers using this forum in particular to try their first grow with MegaCrop and autopots, here they are.
Lessons Learned
1. Don't go heavy coco/perlite, and then add ~25% soil. It was a high-dea I had at the last minute, and ended up fucking me up as to what to aim for pH-wise with the MegaCrop, I think. Overall I treated it as a hydro grow with the pH being around 5.9-6 thoughout and they all turned out well enough, to be honest. Next grow will be all Roots Organics original with 25% perlite, with airpots in a 5 gallon fabric pots.
2. If using the DIALING IN MEGACROP thread and you've got a new batch of MegaCrop, realize the first 50ish pages are about previous versions of MC. It appears that straight, unamended MC (August 2020 version) is plenty sufficient through flowering. (It took me over a month to figure out this simple fact, hence the boldface). I got nute burn at 600 ppms, and better results at 550 ppm and under. The next all-soil grow will instead be pH 6.5ish Megacrop alternating with water (I think), ramping up to 500ish ppm or so.
2a. DON'T ADD CAL-MAG to the new MC. At least not at first. Their instructions for dosing are good but I'd watch going over 550ish ppm total. Next grow, I'm sticking to stock MC, 300ish ppm starting ~2 weeks in top watering, and turning on the autopots with 400ish ppm ~3 1/2 weeks in.
3. It occurred to me late in the grow that my MARSHYDRO SP-3000 light was stressing out the tops of the plants when used per their specs, and also responsible for the stress I saw in the upper leaves. The next grow, when at full power I'll keep it 26"+ from the tops, possibly 3 ft. This light puts out plenty.
4. Twice, I had to "flush" my pots. I "flushed" each time with 500 ppm MC, so it wasn't a true all water flush, which sounds super stressful for the plant. The lesson I learned was that multiple flushes will compact your medium and result in yellowing/browning. Next time, I'm staying with soil, minimal nutes and NO FLUSHING. I'll also up the soil volume from ~3.5 gallons to 5 gallons in each fabric pot, and multi-pot a couple seeds as an experiment on LST, yield, and quality affects.
5. I didn't flush with 2 weeks of water toward the end, and don't intend to ever, however I did reduce the MC ppms in the last two weeks of the Zama's life (she went last) and she seemed to respond very well. First I went from 550 to 400, then to 250ish for the last 10 days. Seemed to provide enough stress to frost her up nicely.
6. Reach out with specific, pithy questions in the forum when you run into issues; there is a finite set of variables to deal with and the happy path is wider than it appears. Even if at points the plants look unhappy, after adjustments they bounce back incredibly well.
7. Paper grocery bags worked decently enough in a pinch to keep humidity up a bit for the initial dry, but avoid laying big buds flat on the bottom, and if so, move more than once a day or they could flatten in spots. The buds slow dried at in the tent at 63-65 F and 55% RH turned out so much nicer than the paper bagged ones, I intend to hopefully do that from now on.
That's it! I really appreciate everyone who read and especially replied to this thread and the DIALING IN MC thread with advice. I never thought I'd harvest 7 oz my first attempt, and 5 of those ounces are better than anything retail in WA. I can't wait to start the next grow - the seeds are in paper towels above the warming tent and moist pots as I type this. More to come...
This first grow, while being extremely "educational", ended up surprisingly well. I got 7 oz from 3 plants. 2 from the Double Grape and Creme de la Chem, and 3 from the Zamaldelica Express. The Zama just got taken out of a 5 day dry today at 62% for a rough cut, and we'll manicure and longer term cure tomorrow. She ended up going 79 days and despite all the initial issues I'd had with her, turned out beautifully. She's got a bit of the purple pheno in her, and is absolutely covered in fine crystals, dripping with diamonds. The CDLC went 74 days, could maybe have gone a few longer, but also turned out super high quality, if not quantity. Super solid nuggetroid crystal golfball buds that are stank to all hell 5 days into cure, and large municipal water-reservoir tower shaped trichromes everywhere. The smell at harvest was of old industrial rubber bands from a forgotten warehouse, which my girlfriend found aggressively offensive, a tragic development given that this is my favorite of the three. And the Double Grape, which went at Day 69 since it looked like she was going downhill, still turned out super frosty and smelly, despite some paper bag drying a little faster than planned. The initial drys all ended up right around 63-66%, and I'm curing each in a large 4 oz-ish size jar.
I'll bullet out the lessons learned as a first time grower, some of which I'm sure are inaccurate or not quite right, but for any future growers using this forum in particular to try their first grow with MegaCrop and autopots, here they are.
Lessons Learned
1. Don't go heavy coco/perlite, and then add ~25% soil. It was a high-dea I had at the last minute, and ended up fucking me up as to what to aim for pH-wise with the MegaCrop, I think. Overall I treated it as a hydro grow with the pH being around 5.9-6 thoughout and they all turned out well enough, to be honest. Next grow will be all Roots Organics original with 25% perlite, with airpots in a 5 gallon fabric pots.
2. If using the DIALING IN MEGACROP thread and you've got a new batch of MegaCrop, realize the first 50ish pages are about previous versions of MC. It appears that straight, unamended MC (August 2020 version) is plenty sufficient through flowering. (It took me over a month to figure out this simple fact, hence the boldface). I got nute burn at 600 ppms, and better results at 550 ppm and under. The next all-soil grow will instead be pH 6.5ish Megacrop alternating with water (I think), ramping up to 500ish ppm or so.
2a. DON'T ADD CAL-MAG to the new MC. At least not at first. Their instructions for dosing are good but I'd watch going over 550ish ppm total. Next grow, I'm sticking to stock MC, 300ish ppm starting ~2 weeks in top watering, and turning on the autopots with 400ish ppm ~3 1/2 weeks in.
3. It occurred to me late in the grow that my MARSHYDRO SP-3000 light was stressing out the tops of the plants when used per their specs, and also responsible for the stress I saw in the upper leaves. The next grow, when at full power I'll keep it 26"+ from the tops, possibly 3 ft. This light puts out plenty.
4. Twice, I had to "flush" my pots. I "flushed" each time with 500 ppm MC, so it wasn't a true all water flush, which sounds super stressful for the plant. The lesson I learned was that multiple flushes will compact your medium and result in yellowing/browning. Next time, I'm staying with soil, minimal nutes and NO FLUSHING. I'll also up the soil volume from ~3.5 gallons to 5 gallons in each fabric pot, and multi-pot a couple seeds as an experiment on LST, yield, and quality affects.
5. I didn't flush with 2 weeks of water toward the end, and don't intend to ever, however I did reduce the MC ppms in the last two weeks of the Zama's life (she went last) and she seemed to respond very well. First I went from 550 to 400, then to 250ish for the last 10 days. Seemed to provide enough stress to frost her up nicely.
6. Reach out with specific, pithy questions in the forum when you run into issues; there is a finite set of variables to deal with and the happy path is wider than it appears. Even if at points the plants look unhappy, after adjustments they bounce back incredibly well.
7. Paper grocery bags worked decently enough in a pinch to keep humidity up a bit for the initial dry, but avoid laying big buds flat on the bottom, and if so, move more than once a day or they could flatten in spots. The buds slow dried at in the tent at 63-65 F and 55% RH turned out so much nicer than the paper bagged ones, I intend to hopefully do that from now on.
That's it! I really appreciate everyone who read and especially replied to this thread and the DIALING IN MC thread with advice. I never thought I'd harvest 7 oz my first attempt, and 5 of those ounces are better than anything retail in WA. I can't wait to start the next grow - the seeds are in paper towels above the warming tent and moist pots as I type this. More to come...
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:smoking: 
terp182
www.cocoforcannabis.com
Scroll down to see the other par test figures.
I couldn't get a straight answer from Tina about testing and other things, but I told her their recommendations were off.
26in is probably a little too high. I finally settled on 23in
Mars Hydro SP 3000 Field Test & Review - Coco For Cannabis
Coco for Cannabis & Migro grow light testing. Mars Hydro SP 3000 Review, Video, PAR map, PPF & PPFD, Efficiency, Hanging Height, Harvest Estimates
www.cocoforcannabis.com
I couldn't get a straight answer from Tina about testing and other things, but I told her their recommendations were off.
26in is probably a little too high. I finally settled on 23in
No problem! It's a pretty powerful light. If the turds in DC throw the peasants some bread crumbs, I'll use those crumbs to throw another SP3000 in my 4x4. That's an easy 2lb tent. Take a look at the PPFD chart of two lights in a 4x4. Crazy even coverage. I'd pull back a little from his canopy height a couple inches to see how the girls take the light and sneak up on optimal while watching VPD.
With the Roots, you might want to get a small pack of yucca. I did have some dry pockets come up. I doubt if it was my watering, but I won't rule it out. Doesn't take much. When making up my last batch of media and re-amending last grow media, I added a little yucca to my water, along with molasses, when watering the media for cooking. A little bit goes a long way!
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