Indoor Olderfart back at it again.

[Olderfart]

Well gro peeps, the annual winter grow is now underway, and I have decided to document it here. @Dale's Proper Bud, @Kyote, @BCBudlady and @Gone Camping might be interested in proceedings.

First, a note on how I will organize this. Each of my grow updates or descriptions of stuff will be threadmarked so peeps can just have a look without going through the comments, and so I have a grow record that works better for me later because I can find stuff. Hardly anyone bothers with Journals, and updating two spots so I can enjoy the commentary as well as have a good grow record is too much of a pain. A normal thread organized with threadmarks will be the compromise.

The grow will be in coco/perlite in ~4 liter pots, with automated top irrigation of Jack's 321. I will also throw in some solos for fun. Everything will be on the same reservoir, so keeping all the girls happy will be interesting.

Here are the pots I will be using:

These are about 4 liters. I picked them up locally for about $4.00 apiece, a fraction of the cost of real air pots, so I figured I would give them a try. Given that I got an average of around 50 grams out of each of my solos, I figured 4 liter pots should do the trick with coco. The cross bar is a bamboo skewer. It will support my irrigation ring later.

Here is the pot alongside the support bucket which will stabilize the pot and collect runoff. The large hole in the side of the bucket will permit removal of runoff with a shop vac. At some point, I may arrange drainage to a single bucket outside the 'drobe, but will not bother this run. The styrofoam ring velcros to the top of the bucket to support the pot. It is velcroed to save storage space later, when the ring is removed, the buckets stack as the second photo below shows, which would not be possible if the ring were attached permanently. A plywood ring would work, but I had more styro around than plywood. Always trying to reduce the pile...

The bucket has been shortened by being cut to height, and the removed top ring slid up over the bottom and glued in place. The re-positioned ring, and the holes in it, will keep the pot a bit lower for more headroom, and the holes I drilled in the skirt will assist training. My intent is to be able to move individual plants around to fit the space, or out of the 'drobe for training or pruning. I don't want to do a scrog because it prevents easy maintenance and adjustment, or moving plants out for working on them.

And here are the results so far:

The assembled large pot on the left has 3 Dinamed Auto CBD Kush in it, and shows how the irrigation ring is supported. The ring has holes on the underside of it, and will be how the automatic top watering delivers nutes. DIY of course. Had I been able to find the hydro halos for a decent price, I would have gone with them, but the online costs were excessive. Until, that is, I built my own, and then found them at a grower supply place not on Amazon. Sigh. It will be interesting to see how the girls get along in such a small pot. Gotta be worth a try just for giggles, right @Mossy? If this works out, it will be in honour of auntie, the multi-pot queen.

The larger five girls in the solos, from lower left are Mephisto Double Grape, Anvil x Witch Doctor, Anvil, then above on the right, another Anvil, and in the middle, another DG. I will likely toss the least happy of the duplicate DG and Anvil. The Anvils are reg autos, so I will need to wait for a bit to see if I have a female to reverse. The remaining three will be reversed with CS to make seeds with the same strains in larger pots. The seed mothers will just have a branch pollenated when ready. I will start them soon, as the reversal girls are getting close to a three week head start. I have some pollen that has been stored dry and frozen since last winter, and I will likely do a cross with the Anvil with it. If it works, great, if not, it will cost me one small branch. Why not eh?


The seedlings in the back row from the left are 24C x Auto PK from Oasis, Seedsman 30:1 Auto CBD Kush, Mephisto Cosmic Queen, and another Dinamed CBD Kush. They will be staying in their solos. The Dinamed is just one of the extras I germed for the big pot, but I didn't have the heart to bin it, so if room is there, I will see what she can do in a solo. The CQ is the last older seed I have of the strain, and it did not get off to a good start. It is still alive, but not going anywhere soon. Odds are that it is headed for the bin, but the jury is still out. The 30:1 is not far ahead, and may end up binned as well. I may add another solo or two later depending on how the rest of them go. The Anvil and WDA are likely to get big, so we shall see.

That pretty much brings us up to date for now. I will not be doing scheduled updates, I"ll just post when something bears reporting. Any questions, fire away peeps and I will try to provide a useful response.

Happy growing peeps, and welcome to the show.

 

[Olderfart]

The pollen girls are nearing the big reveal (female or no), soon to be dosed in CS daily. The Double Grape seems to have shown her pistils today at Day 23, but I will leave the jury out for another day or so to make sure that I actually see what I think I am seeing.

Since the pollen girls are each moving to their own new isolation chamber, a new design for me, this update will show what I am up to.

Here are two chambers now occupied by the DG and WDA, now occupied and the lights turned on:

The third chamber is waiting for the Anvil plant to show sex. Fingers are crossed. The holes in the top allow air circulation, more on this later. The two lights are two ~14watt 5500k screw in LED's with the globes removed, the same as I use in my main 'drobe. The 5500k rating is deliberately intended to keep plants compact due to the high portion of blue in the spectrum. I don't want large plants, just big enough to make pollen. The wires are mounted to the lights by using a standard ceiling receptacle which I trimmed by removing most of the skirt.

Here are photos of the pollen girls in place, first the DG, then the WDA, both happy and healthy:

The bamboo stakes are anchored inside the solos, and allow me to easily lift the plants out of the bucket for trimming, treating with CS, or whatever.

Here is the inside of the chamber showing the solo support hole in the bottom of the bucket:

The hole in the bottom allows the solos to hang down so that the entire height of the bucket is available for headroom. The holes in the side allow air to get into the bucket. I will not be using fans, the plan is for the heat of the two LED screwins to generate a gentle chimney effect, moving air out the top through holes in it, while drawing air in through holes in the bottom. I am hoping that the moving air will be sufficiently gentle to not move a lot of pollen out of the chamber. I do not care about yield, as long as the plants make male flowers, all is good.

And here is a view beneath the shelf supporting the chambers:

This shows how the solos hang through holes in the shelf. The solos drain into jars attached beneath the support shelf, and the jars drain into a common drainage bucket.

She is a work in progress, no doubt a few lessons remain to be learned. Happy pollenating peeps.

 

[Olderfart]

Time for an update peeps.

The 'drobe in all its glory:

The new seedlings Double Grape, WitchDoctorxAnvil, and Anvil, all at Day 3.

DG and/or WDA may turn out to be multipots. The jury is out, snip, or no snip, choices, choices. Anvil is regular, so the wait continues until the two of them sex.

Next up, the Dinamed Auto CBD Kush multipot at Day 16, and the Oasis Genetics Auto PKxMephisto 24C at Day 14:

The CBD Kush is looking a tad hungry, so nutes are edged up today. PKx24C seems to have monster status on her mind. and she looks all indica.

Next, front left Seedsman 30:1 CBD Kush at Day 15, front right Cosmic Queen at Day 12, left rear Double grape pollen plant at Day 27, right rear, Anvil pollen plant at Day 27:

CQ has finally decided to get on with life. She came pretty close to being binned. CS soaking starts today for DG. Sadly, it looks as though the second Anvil pollen contender is also male, so feminized Anvil seeds are likely off for this grow. I may do some auto regs, dunno yet. I find regs a bit of a pain.

Next up, front left DMK at Day 16, front right WDA pollen plant at Day 27:

Miss DMK was the seedling I couldn't bring myself to bin. It's sucha bitch when all the extras shine so brightly. CS soaking starts today for WDA.
That will do for now peeps, happy growing all.

 

[Olderfart]

Well peeps, it seems that the auto irrigation system is now functioning as intended, so here it is. @Dale's Proper Bud, you asked about this stuff.

The setup starts with a ~60 liter plastic tote used for a reservoir:

The photo shows the pump, a submersible sump pump, pretty much only plastic other than a tiny amount of exposed stainless motor shaft and a few screw heads. The pump sucks nute mix in around its base, and outputs it to a hose that exits the tote through a hole in the side.

This view shows the filter setup:

The hose from the pump exits the tote and goes into the filter. The mix exits the filter to a tee fitting which goes to two valves, one leading to the grow drobe, the other back into the tote. With the drobe valve closed, and the return valve open, leaving the pump on stirs and aerates the nute mix during mixing, testing EC or ph. In this picture, the valves are set up to pump to the 'drobe.

The pump is controlled by a digital timer programmable to seconds. This is the one that I am now using:
Timer Outlet, Nearpow Multifunctional 7-Day Cycle Programmable Plug-in Digital Timer Switch for Appliances, Extra Large LCD Display, 19 Programmable Settings, Seconds-Interval, 15A/1800W, Lighting Accessories - Amazon Canada As recommended by Cocoforcannabis.com, you must have a timer programmable to seconds. Most are only programmable to minutes.

After testing the setup, reviewing what I did with solos last year, and seeing how the plants respond, I have set it up to fertigate once every four hours, six times per day.

The feed from the pump splits to feed two manifolds which feed individual plants, this is one of them:

The aluminum clamps reduce flow to the solos, the unclamped tube goes to the one full sized pot currently on auto irrigation. The fittings on the manifold allow easy removal of the tubes. If a plant needs to be on different nutes for a while, the tube is removed and a plug inserted to the manifold while manual fertigation takes over.

By first setting how long the pump stays on, fertigation of the large pot is adjusted to ~20% or so runoff. Once the large pot is adjusted, solos are then set by adjusting the valves. At this point, the pump comes on for 30 seconds each time, which nicely fertigates the large pot through the unvalved line from the manifold. The valves on the solo have kept flow to the solos to ~10-20% runoff without difficulty. So far, it works a treat. I was not sure that it would be feasible to combine both solos and larger pots on the same pump, but it works.

Here are the results as of a couple days ago:

The photo shows the lines to the pots from the manifold shown in the earlier photo. Note well that the solos have been elevated, they are not sitting on the drobe floor. The irrigation rings must be higher than the highest water level in the reservoir, or the reservoir will siphon into the drobe.

Happy nuting peeps.

 

[Olderfart]

Time for an update. Past time actually, I lost the last update to the ether satans, and gave up after wasting an hour and a half.

Anyway, here we go again, this time with regular backups. There are a few aspects to touch on, so I will cover different ones in separate sections.

1. Bucket isolation chambers - Initial results with the male Anvil plants that I hoped to make feminized auto seed with were not encouraging. RH in the bucket was too dry, and temps too high initially, maybe both. At any rate, plants survived in there ok, but wilted pretty heavily. Maybe no biggie for pollen plants, but not what I had hoped. I am not sure whether I will stick with the current design or not, a modification that keeps plants happier might be in order. The two remaining pollen she-males have to go into isolation shortly, so I will see how they do in the buckets, and decide what next after that.

2. Fertigation setup - At this point two solos and one large pot are on auto fertigation (once every 4 hours for 20 seconds each time). With adjustment of the tube clamps, both solos and the large pot can be supplied with nutes to the right runoff. However, in my solo grows to date, once the plants mature, they can become so root bound that nutes penetrate very slowly after top watering. In fact, so slowly that fertigation for 20 seconds may result in some nutes being lost to overflow. The jury will be out for a bit, but if I end up with overflow, I will have to extend the fertigation period to longer, and that will require valve control on the lines to large pots, which so far has not been necessary.

3. Pollen reversals - Both of my candidate pollen Anvils turned out male, and hermaphrodite, so they have been both binned. Here is how to tell a hermie male:

Male plants do not grow pistils... If this was a reversed female, there would be no problem other than incomplete reversal which is unimportant, I think, but this is a male plant, not a reversed one, which is bad news. I might have kept pollen for regular seeds, but not from hermie males, so Anvil seeds are a bust this grow.

4. State of the 'drobe to November 27 - The 'drobe is a tad chaotic at the moment because there are a bunch of plants in there destined for the bin once the gender reveal is complete. Here it is as of today:

I won't do detailed photos for some plants at the back, so I will comment on them here. Far back left solo on the floor is a Blue Microverse X Sour Hound from seeds gifted to me by a gro buddy. There are two more out of sight. One will be selected for finishing out either in a solo, or, depending on what happens with genders in a couple large pots, a large pot. A couple of the BMSH are in transplant solos, so they can go into a large pot fairly late if needed.

The large pot in the center has a Stone Dragon Pheno 6 Day 8 in it, gender to be determined, and the far rear right large pot has 3 Stone Dragons Pheno 1 at Day 10 in it, gender also uncertain. The two solos at the very back on the shelf are also SD's. I hope to get a female of each pheno, select for black leaf and indica structure, and pollenate a branch of each pheno with 24C pollen I kept from the winter grow last winter. The pollen is bone dry and frozen, so it might still be alive. I might keep a male SD and make some reg pollen to keep for the next grow, but I am too late for making SD seeds this round the way I do it. I might also reverse a BDSH to keep fem pollen from it while I am at it. No shortage of grow mischief options.

Finally, the mid-sized solo next to the rear right large pot is the Cosmic Queen at Day 26 that was nearly binned. Still has not shown sex yet, but is healthy although slow and small. She had a rough start to life, and it shows in the size.

On to the details. First up, the multipot DMK:

3 plants in the pot, no dividers between the roots, all plants kicking ass other than a bit of clawing so nutes are now cut back to ~1200EC. I have done some removal of lower leaves, and four or five LST sessions. The tie down holes around the bucket collar work a treat for holding branches down. I ran out of holes in some places though. The pot is going to produce if I don't manage to screw it up. This pot and the two solos I will discuss below have been on bloom nutes for about a week, and will go back on 321 mix shortly. I got a bit of tip claw with these plants at ~1350EC. so have backed off to ~1200. The usual story though, other plants want stronger feed. Sigh.

Next up, solos with 24Cx Oasis Auto Pink Kush and Seedsman Strawberry Cheescake:

The STCH at Day 25 has been slow and fussy about something, but is starting to stretch and fill a bit anyway. She will produce a bit of bud. I like the aroma and flavor of the STCH, so even a bit of nice bud from this girl will be a fine thing. The 24C x Auto PK at Day 28 is the best of the solos so far, very vigorous, with lots of buds starting. If the bud turns out good, I will need to grow a full sized one of these next grow! This cross has excellent sleep time potential, which is why I made the seeds. Both of these girls show a bit of clawing same as the DMK multi pot, so their nutes have also been cut back to ~1200EC.

Next up, the two pollen she males, DG on the left , WDA on the right, both Day 41:

DG is starting to put on the frost. The leaves on DG don't look very indica to my eye, so the jury is out why this structure is so dramatically different than the sister in the large pot. The WDA pollen plant is bigger, slower, and fewer buds than DG, but getting there. I am a bit surprised at the lack of balls at Day 41, but we shall see. I haven't dug up timing on my other reversals, so am not sure whether these are really late yet. This would be the first time in quite a few strains that CS did not do the job for me.

Next up, the Anvil and WDA big pots, 2 Anvils at Day18 on the right, WDA at Day 17 on the left:

No gender on the Anvil yet, but it may happen soon. If I don't get a female from the two plants in the pot, my Anvil grow will be a bust. Fingers are crossed. WDA is hungry and Mg short. She is getting foliar Mg, but it is not doing the job so far. She was on clone nutes until a couple days back, so time will tell whether going back onto 321 mix will help. She may just insist on stronger grub, in which case I may have to fertigate her manually at least some of the time.

Next up, the DG big pot at Day 17:

She is also hungry and shy of Mg, and still waiting to see how she does back on 321. She seems headed for monster territory.

Well peeps, that should do unless I have forgotten something or someone has questions.

Happy growing all.

 

[Olderfart]

Time for an update peeps. The drobe in total:

Front left is WDA, front center solo, 24CxAPK, front right, DG. Center right Stone Dragon pheno 1. Solo next left to center right is CQ. There is a BMxSH hiding behind the front center solo. Far right is Anvil. Far center solo partially hidden behind CQ is Seedsman CBD Kush, and far left is DMK.

Next up, some photos of individual plants. First, the queen of the show, the Dinamed Auto CBD Kush at Day 44:

She is bulking up nicely, maybe three weeks or so to go. She has an interesting color pattern emerging in which the center colas seem to be fading earlier, or hitting some sort of deficiency or lockout. The colas around the perimeter look healthy, but the centers are not quite right to my eye. This is a 3 pot, and it will produce far more than any other pot of DMK I have grown. The aroma is intoxicating to me, super pleasant spicy scent sort of like cloves, not a hint of a raw edge or funk anywhere. A spectacular CBD strain that will likely stay as my standard.

Next up, Anvil x Witch Doctor at Day 31:

She seems to be intent on becoming the biggest girl in the 'drobe. She is heavily trained and trimmed already, but will need some thinning out before flowering gets serious. She showed the first pistils today.

Next up, Mephisto Double Grape at Day 31:

She has recently had her bondage adjusted, and hasn't quite sorted it yet. She also seems headed for large size, but maybe not as large and WDA. She showed pistils a couple days ago.

Next up, Anvil at Day 31:

She is fresh from bondage adjustment, and looks it. She showed pistils today, the only female of the four Anvils I germinated. She is really compact so far, and does not look headed for the size of the WDA or DG.

Next up, a late addition to the menagerie, a Blue Microverse x Sour Hound at Day 19:

This is one of the three BMXSH I germinated. Originally, this pot held a Stone Dragon 6, but it was male so I binned it. Since the full sized pot was empty, I transplanted one of the BMxSH solo plants into the large pot. The solo was a transplant setup - split bottomless solo inside an external solo with drain holes. The transplant went quite well even though it was done later than I normally do. She showed the first pistils today - a lot quicker than the other 'drobe-mates.

Next up, the Stone Dragon pheno1 pot:

This is a 3 pot, originally intended to have the males snipped, but all three are females, so I will leave it as a multi pot and pollenate part of one plant with 24C pollen from last grow. Or maybe one branch of each... I'll think on it.

Next up, Mephisto Cosmic Queen at Day 40:

CQ has turned into a beautiful solo, the photo doesn't do her justice. She will produce a couple ounces of really nice bud. This was my last CQ seed, otherwise I'd have made more seeds. Damn shame that. I really like the CQ strain.

Next up, the Seedsman Auto cbd Kush at Day 43:

She has been the weirdest one of the menagerie since the beginning. The fans have been curled and droopy no matter what I have done, but she is going to produce some cbd bud. This was just a test of the strain, and so far, I prefer the DMK.

Next up, the Mephisto 24CxOasis Genetics Auto PK:

This girl started out as the most vigorous solo by far, huge number of pistils and strong growth. Sadly she threw a bunch of nanners about a week ago. I removed them, and have been searching carefully every day, none have shown for several days, so maybe she is done with that mischief. No doubt there will be a few seeds in the bud, but the risk to the rest of the grow is minimal so far. Maybe this strain is just a bit too sensitive to put up with solo status, or maybe something I did to it was a bit too much change. I may try the strain again in a full sized pot if the bud turns out nice, but not otherwise.

There are a few other plants out and about from the 'drobe. The two pollen candidates WDA and DG were complete busts for CS reversal, my first and only failure. Since two different strains both failed completely, I assume that I buggered the CS treatment somehow. The most likely problems may be not running the CS generator long enough, or maybe I didn't start treatment soon enough. Dunno, and probably won't find out. I may go to STS as a result of this experience. In any case, I am going to let the two plants finish up outside the drobe under my germination light, and when the plants are pretty much dead, I'll comb the buds for selfed seeds. The bud itself is buggered with the CS, so possible seeds is all the two plants are good for. I also have 1 male Dragon 6, a male Dragon 1, and a BMxSH in the pollen isolation buckets. I'll collect pollen from the two males, and try to reverse the BmxSH with CS. Most likely the Dragon pollen will just be collected and stored until the next grow. If I get pollen early enough from the BMxSH, I may pollenate a branch of the big sister in the 'drobe.

That will do for now peeps, happy growing all.

 

[Olderfart]

Greetings gro peeps. Got bored with the cold weather, so took a few photos.

Here is my Mephisto Cosmic Queen solo at Day 47:

And here is one of her colas:

Just a few pistils on that girl. Buddage on the way.

And here is her strange 'drobe compatriot, the Seedsman Auto CBD Kush at Day 46:

And one of her colas:

She is putting a bit of a fade on, but has a ways to go yet. She is quite similar in aroma and color to the Dinamed, but a bit more leggy structure.

And just for something extra, here is one of the colas of the DMK multipot:

Another week, another week, another week...

Happy growing peeps.

 

[Olderfart]

Here is my Mephisto 24 Carat x Oasis genetics auto PK at Day 52:

She is short, but those colas are dense, she will produce a couple ounces or so. She is not quite ready yet, but getting closer. I think the cross will produce well in a full sized pot. She threw some nanners, but not lately. I'll assume for now that I stressed her too much with the combination of solo pot and other mistakes. I'll try a full sized girl next grow if the bud turns out ok.

Here are some trich shots:

This cross is mainly of interest for sleep, so I'll let her try for more amber, but not for much more than a week, maybe less.

The Seedsman Auto CBD Kush solo is a bit later than this one, plus the three pot DMK is also getting close. In a week or so, the girls in the 'drobe will have a bit more elbow room. It is getting a bit tight in there at the moment. I'll do another full update once the 'drobe is thinned out a bit.

Happy growing peeps, and happy solstice.

 

[Olderfart]

Time for an update. First, the drobe in its thinned out glory:

Front left Anvil at Day 47, front center Blue Microverse x Sour hound solo at Day 34 , front right Stone's Dragon Pheno#1 multi-pot at Day 41, center BMxSH large pot at Day 34, rear left Mephisto Double Grape at Day 46, rear center Mephisto Cosmic Queen solo at Day 55, and rear right Witch Doctor x Anvil at Day 46. A much happier drobe now that the big DMK multipot, SDS 30:1 solo, and 24CxPK are outa there.

And, you might ask, where did the missing girls go:

That pile of DMK bud is bigger than it looks. Should be a nice harvest total when dry.

Here is a closer shot of the stumps:

The three plants differed slightly in final size, but not by a lot, and all three were productive and healthy. With this compact strain, there is little chance that I could have yielded as well with a single plant.

And this is where DMK and her other harvested sisters are hanging now:

Leaving the fans on is new for me, but it is a tad dry these days here, so I'll give them a while in the box, then do a partially dry trim to buds in brown bags. Starting at the front, the first four rows are all DMK. Row 5 is the Seedsman Auto Kush CBD 30:1, and the clothes pegged branches in row 6 is the 24 Carat x Auto PK cross I made last year. The two whole plants hanging in the corner are the two failed CS reversals of DG and WDA. I will dry them out and sort for seeds just in case a few happened. I don't plan on using the bud. CS and all that, but I may do some thinking on the actual risks before throwing the bud out.

This time around, the drying box is controlled by an Inkbird, so RH will be lowered by fan extraction whenever it gets too high:

At the moment, it is set to 50%, but that will get lifted to ~60% once I get the drying well started.

I had a look at the root structure I got in the DMK big pot. I had not used these pots before, and wondered how the plants would behave in them. They did rather well in my estimation. Here is the intact root mass of the three plants:

It seems to me that the side slots in the pot pretty much completely defeated pot circling of roots around the sides of the pots. The roots tangled densely in the very bottom of the pot, but not on the sides, so aeration of the medium continued nicely. I also checked inside the medium:

You can't see it in the photo, but the entire volume of medium top to bottom is infused with fine roots. Every cubic centimeter is tied together with them. You could shake these things, and not much would fall loose. I've never experienced equal root structure. I rate the pots as keepers for me.

And to close this off on a somewhat humorous note, this is one of the presents we unwrapped yesterday from the Dearest's American sister:

For the record, she sent it as a joke, but we will enjoy the coffee.

 

[Olderfart]

Greetings peeps, the 'drobe is getting crowded, so time for an update. The "drobe:

WDA front left Day 54; DG front right Day 54; solo between WDA and DG is CQ solo Day 63 ; next back from CQ solo is BMxSH in a full sized pot Day 42; behind her, BMxSH solo Day 45; Rear left SD pheno 1 three-pot Day 49; last but not least, rear right, Anvil Day 55.

Haven't killed any of them yet, but there is time.

Did a few solo portraits. First up, the best of the bunch, the Mephisto Cosmic Queen:

And the cola shot:

Next, the BMxSH solo:

And from the top:

She is not the biggest solo I have grown, but reasonably happy and will produce a bit of bud.

Next, her sister, the BMxSH solo that I have reversed. Successfully, unlike the earlier two failures this grow. Still don't know why...

And the obligatory close up of the she-male bits:

No pollen released yet, but I see one flower just starting to crack, so it will be happening very soon. If I manage to collect some before too late, I will pollenate a branch or two of the BMxSH solo. If not, I'll keep the pollen until next grow.

Happy growing in 2023 peeps, may yer bud be tasty, and yer harvests massive.