New Grower NLxBB & White Dwarf(?) Grow Journal -- Late Start Day 45, Pics From Seed, with a TWIST...

[n00b]

Day 93

Hey guys. It's been 3 whole months since my babies peeked out of their shells. I expected to chop 3 weeks ago lol. Or at least to have chopped the WD and let the NLxBB go longer since everyone says she's a 100 day plant. NLxBB is definitely not ready yet and still growing.

The white dwarf is turning a really pretty pink and purple. I wish I could capture her true colors with my cam. Both girls still have some white hairs and mostly cloudy trichs.

I'm feeding the NL just flora bloom and kool bloom dry with a dash of calmag. WD is being flushed as of Monday. Today is the second plain water feeding. I'll definitely give her another two weeks with plain water while she cannibalize and swells up [emoji1]

I clipped one lower off each, dried in paper bag for 3 days and now curing in a c-vault with boveda 62. After 4 days in the jar they're starting to smell amazing. Can't wait to chop and report!

Stay green y'all.

 

[Dazed]

Niiiice! :Sharing One:

 

[pop22]

Ya got some great looking bud there!

:Sharing One:

 

[n00b]

Few more pics.

Started another assorted Buddha and she's 3 weeks old today, 9.5" with a pencil thick stem [emoji1] She already sexed two days ago. Roots are going crazy popping out of the jiffy pot, going to plant in a smart pot today for an outdoor grow. I've been priming the soil mix getting the myco started and with all the extra roots growing from the air pruning this should be one healthy plant!

 

[Tdam]

Nice buds man! Well done. :Sharing One:

 

[hiking high]

Beautiful. I also have the northern lights going now shes on day 30 just started to flower im excited for this one.

 

[n00b]

Hiking, do you have a journal going?

 

[n00b]

Thanks for the compliment aykay! It's been one Hell of a learning experience but finding this site made it so much easier.

 

[n00b]

Just dropping in on day 96 with a pic-less update. I know, why bother, right? lol. The White Dwarf may be turning into a Red Dwarf! All her flowers are turning rosy pink and purple, I'm trying to grab my boy's SLR since mine is packed away while I move. I must capture those colors! NLxBB has foxtailed a bit at the top so I definitely could use more light next time. I thought about doubling up the T5s within the same fixture but decided to just put more CFLs in there. There's under 200W covering 3.75sqft of plants. Of course, lots of that CFL light gets wasted. The T5s don't look bright at all and they're literally 0.25" from the top and it's still foxtailing so I stuck another CFL up in between the two plants, up against the NLxBB main. I think I would have done better with just CFL reflectors and no T5s.

I've been flushing the W(R?)D for over a week. She's still drinking plenty. I started the NLxBB flush today. She's yellowing even when being fed so I'm sure she's ready to finish up over the next couple weeks. I'm interested to see how she reacts to diminishing nutes, compared to the WD who hasn't yellowed at all even during the flush this past week. She's always been super green. I know she's ready though, the buds are rock solid and now changing colors while she ripens

Flushing tip from a n00b: Use pH'd UNFILTERED TAP water. In fact, IMO you should never water with anything less than 200ppm or so. The minerals buffer the pH when the water hits the nutes. If you go in with low ppm water the pH will swing dramatically, and when you check your runoff you'll shit yourself thinking your soil is all out of whack. Not to mention the low pH will cause uptake issues. I made this mistake early on and figured it out when I attempted to drop some pH 7, 8ppm distilled water down to ~6.2. I put literally half a drop of pH-down and it dropped to 4. Ever since I've been using my pH 8.5 tap water adjusted with 2 drops of pH-down and it brings it to 6.4 every time. I initially thought the tap came out at 7 here, that's what was listed on our water report. When testing with strips it looked like it was a mid-7 but it's hard to tell exactly with those things. When I got my meter, calibrated it with 7.0 solution, tap is always 8.5. I'm assuming that the pH raises during transit from where they took their samples. I know when I bubble my water for more than a day the pH starts to increase a bit. No biggie

Lighting tip from a n00b: Don't waste your money buying big CFLs. Their efficiency drops exponentially and even with a reflector you're going to lose most of the light that isn't facing the plant. There's also significant variance between brands. Do the math when shopping for bulbs. The way to figure this out is by dividing the bulb's wattage into its lumen rating to get the lumens per watt.

Check it out:

250W 11050 Lumens, 4,000hr life, $39.75 per bulb
http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Horticulture-Compact-Fluorescent-Growing/dp/B00HG1J2PK

65W 3900 Lumens, 6,000hr life, $17.40 per bulb
http://www.lowes.com/pd_46931-75774-L65TN_1z10htl+1z11whs__?productId=3197521

23W 1640 Lumens, 12,000hr life, $3.50 per bulb
http://www.lowes.com/pd_302275-3-26963_1z10htl+1z11whs__?productId=3201759


So we take 11050/250=44 lumens per watt, 3900/65=60 lumens per watt, and 1640/23=71 lumens per watt. That's a huge difference in efficiency, and we won't even get into cost savings Watt for watt, the 23w bulbs would give you over 4600 lumens vs the big guy's 3900, and 17825 vs the big guy's 11050. Don't forget to knock off a good 30-40% to account for efficiency loss when figuring the total lumens that you want to hit the plant.

 

[Grateful Zach]

Hey man your plants look great, I don't think lack of light is causing the foxtails.. some strains just do that, my Haze is starting to do it as well as my RRF and they are getting pounded with light.. I personally love foxtails, I just think they look cool haha. Have you checked trichs on that beast yet? 96 days is a long time but you look like ya know what you're doing! Rep for the tails my man