Olderfart does mixed grow in Sunshine #4, autopots, DIY lights, and DIY growdrobe.

Well peeps, I am back after shutting down the soil attempt. This grow will be in Sunshine #4 mix, in ~3gallon fabric pots in the XL Autopot trays. Pretty much the same setup as last winter's grow in my sig, except SS#4 instead of coco.

I will be running these:

Dinamed Auto Kush CBD - I will reverse a stud plant with CS to make pollen, and use the pollen to make seeds with a separate mother plant. The stud plant is now above ground on Day 2, the mother will hit the dirt later.

Seedsman Auto Strawberry Cheesecake - Also on day 2 above ground.

Mehisto Genetics Creme de la Chem x 3 Bears OG - This was a freebie from last year's Mephisto order. I germed two seeds, both are above ground today, I will grow out the best once they show their enthusiasm.

The auto strawberry and CDLC cross will be in the growdrobe, as will the mother of the kush CBD. The growdrobe may get a bit crowded, but the CBD plant should be modest sized, and I will top and trim the others to keep them under control. The CBD stud plant will be in a 2 liter pot to be finished elsewhere in the basement away from the growdrobe - loose pollen being such a nuisance.

I will also run a Seedsman Northern Lights Auto, but given it's regular refusal to auto, I will be doing it in its own jimmy rigged "tent" so if needed I can put it on 12/12 without buggering up the other autos. It will be in a 2 liter pot fed by an autovalve, the small pot size intended to speed it up and limit size. I am interested in this strain for sleep, which makes the extra mischief worth it to me. This one is also on day 2 above ground.

Given my somewhat inconsistent germination results during the soil attempt, I tried something different again. With one modification, I used the technique described on Cocoforcannabis.com:

1. light abrasion of the seed coat in a 220 grit sandpaper tube,
2. 2-4 hour soak in ~1.5% hydrogen peroxide, followed by a distilled water rinse (the peroxide soak is my modification)
3. placement in wet paper towel until tap root is ~10mm or so long (I did this in a vertical holder instead of horizontal - my reasoning being oxygen from both sides, less likely that the root will drill into the paper towel)
4. placement of the rooted seeds in peat plugs until roots appear outside the plugs,
5. transfer of rooted plugs into either an intermediate pot or the final one.

I have now done this with five seeds, all with perfect results. Every seed was ready for its peat plug within 36 hours of first soaking, and every one was above ground in the peat plug within 24 hours of placement there. All five are now in their peat plugs on day one or two above ground.

There are lots of ways to germinate cannabis, and I have tried many of them. There is logic behind the suggestions made at Cocoforcannabis, so for anyone interested in another take on the topic, the site is worth a gander: https://www.cocoforcannabis.com/germinating-cannabis-seeds-a-step-by-step-guide/

That will do for now peeps, photos in due course.

Update page for December 11 added under separate page title.

Ditto for New Year's update.

Update on seed run of Dinamed CBD Kush now posted.

January 23 update now posted on its own page.

Feb 4 update now posted on its own page.

Feb 12 update now posted on its own page.

Feb 18 update now posted on its own page.

Feb 28 update on Colloidal Silver results posted on the El cheapo CS generator page.

Mar 13 update on final results of Dinamed Auto CBD Kush seed run are reported on in a new page

Final grow results and weigh in posted.

So far, I have germinated six seeds as described in the overview, five as described earlier, and one more since then. All were day one above ground in a peat plug within 72 hours of the initial soak.

Although the peat plug approach worked perfectly, I am still not completely satisfied with it. I do not trust the synthetic mesh that holds the plug together to not distort or constrict roots, and cutting the bottom off as suggested on Cocoforcannabis.com is a pain in the butt. The thinking cap is on for the next round...


November 24 update.

All girls are progressing, including the recently transplanted Northern Lights.

Here they are as a group:



And here they are individually:


Dinamed Auto Kush CBD - this one will be a stud plant after CS reversal. Now on day 17, topped two days ago. She will be staying in the small pot to speed things up and keep her size under control. Good theory that.



Seedsman Auto Strawberry Cheesecake - Also day 17, in her final pot. Also topped two days ago, and soon to be on the reservoir.



Mephisto Auto Creme de la Chem x 3 Bears OG - Day 15, also in its final pot. Not sure about topping yet, but possible. Soon to be on reservoir. Its slightly smaller sister was binned earlier. This one is becoming quite the stinker already.




Seedsman Auto Northern Lights - This at Day 9 is the plant I germinated to replace the stunted and distorted sister germinated earlier. She is from the third and last of the three freebie NL seeds I received with my Seedsman order. All were slow, although this one and the first one seemed healthy. I could have kept the first one, but it was in soil with gnats, so I got rid of the entire plant and pot.




And that, peeps, is all for this update. Happy growing all.

December 3 update

Time for an update. Here are the all current girls in a group portrait:



Seedsman Northern Lights Auto, Day 18:



Her first day on the reservoir is today.

Seedsman Strawberry Cheesecake Auto, Day 26:



This is the lady that had what I figured was a Calcium issue earlier. She seems happy now that she has been on nutes for a while. I cut off the three leaves that were buggered some time ago.

Mephisto Genetics CDLCx3Bog, Day 26:



She seems reasonably happy for now.

Dinamed CBD Kush Auto, Day 26:

This is my stud plant that I am reversing for pollen. She has had issues for some time now that I have had a hell of a time sorting out. She was a happy camper until I removed the panty hose that was on her earlier to avoid gnats (all gone, not a single one around in weeks). Turns out that she had lots of roots embedded in the nylon, and removing it ripped all of them off. After that, she showed symptoms of overwatering, underwatering, plus some sort of nute mischief with the lower fans, (either deficiency or lockout pH is good). I suspect that all problems were precipitated by the root damage, but maybe I just screwed up the watering. At any rate, I am now watering to ~10% or so runoff, and she seems to need it close to daily given the small pot. In this photo, she was starting to sag again, and I had just watered her again. She was on ~700EC or so for the last couple fertigations, but I dialed that back to ~550EC for this and a few more to see whether there is any lockout going on. I may just have to get her on higher EC later, but figured I should dial her back first. She is on about day five of CS spraying. I spray the entire plant from above and below just before lights out.

Anyway, she is alive, and I will likely get pollen, so ugly or not, maybe she will do the job.

Dinamed CBD Kush Auto, Day 2



This will be the mother plant for seed and some bud if I get pollen off her sister. So far, so good.

Happy growing peeps.

As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I am going to reverse my current Dinamed CBD Kush with colloidal silver. I made my first batch of CS with a small constant current voltage supply, but I overcooked it and produced amber-gold liquid rather than clear. I was having trouble with my multimeter reading current, and/or the current limiting function of the voltage supply was not functional. I will never know, because I inadvertently plugged the voltage supply in with reversed polarity, nothing happened for about half a second, and then I smelled the smoke. Yup, I fried it. And it can't be replaced before I need my CS.

So, back to the drawing board I went. Here is what I came up with, in schematic form (don't laugh too hard now ):



The power source is the battery from my rechargeable drill/driver set. I used 12 volts, anything from 9 to 24 or so would also work fine.

My multimeter is a cheapie I have had for years, any meter that will read in milliamps will suffice. Exactly how to connect for measuring small amperage varies between meters, but pay attention because the low amperage circuit is fused and limited to small amperages, usually something ~200-400 ma. And the fuses are not easily found if you fry them. My fuse now has tin foil around it as both fuses I have turned out to be dead, and again, no replacement possible before I need the CS.

The liter jar with the silver wire is the standard setup, lots of ways to do it, details not important here.

The tricky bit with this setup is the large plastic jar with water in it. Any non-conductive container will do, just as long as you can get the wires at least ~~3 inches or so apart. The water in the jar is used as a variable resistor which can be adjusted to attain the ~1 milliamp current ideal for producing colloidal silver. Adjustment of current is achieved by changing the amount of wire immersed in the water, and/or the distance between the wires - deeper immersion or closer spacing = more current. This is easily done if the wires are clipped to the side of the container with paper clips like the ones in the pic below. I initially thought that salt water would be needed to provide the needed conductivity, but it was far too conductive and did not permit milliamps to be lowered at all. I ended up just using my irrigation water at about 50EC. Any tap water would likely do the job straight out of the tap. If conductivity turns out to be too high, start with distilled, and add just enough tap water to allow easy adjustment of milliamps. In my final setup, the wires in the water were small gauge steel immersed about an inch into the water, and about three inches apart. This was just wire I had hanging around, pretty much any bare wire would do.

To operate the setup, I adjusted the depth of immersion to get ~1 ma, and periodically reduced immersion to get amperage back to 1 ma. The key here is that as silver builds up in the solution, conductivity and amperage gradually rise. If you let the amperage get too high, the size of silver particles produced goes up and effectiveness of the end solution goes down. So, you need to adjust the wires periodically to keep the amperage in target range. I found that starting at ~0.9 ma allowed me to re-adjust after a couple hours. The CS solution was done in about 8 hours. At least I think it is... There might be just the tiniest visible amber tint to it, the ppm meter reads ~25ppm (silver ppm will be ~~twice what the meter says) and the laser beam visibility is strong. Amperage was never more than about 1.5 ma, so colloidal silver should be good. We shall see.

Here is what the rig looked like in operation, absent the water and CS solution:




And here is my fresh jar of CS:



And may the laughter subside before ribs are damaged.

Fire away with questions if interested in this mischief.

And before someone rags on me about the shorted out fuse, no it is not a good idea, but risk in this low voltage/ low amperage setup is low if handled with care. Shorting the circuit would just instantly kill the meter, and since I needed the CS now, I took the risk. This old meter is nearing retirement anyway. But not there yet since it continues to survive and function in spite of me.

Happy CSing peeps.

And lest anyone doubt the results, here are her balls a few weeks later:



And, here is the first seed I found in the lady fertilized by pollen from the above reversal:


The seed was in the one flower base I could not resist checking when I chopped the non-pollenated colas today. I am sure there are many more, but they will be staying where they are for a while yet.

Bottom line is that the CS from this generator arrangement works well. Given the modest cost of the silver wire, and the volume of solution it can produce, making your own solution is a no brainer IMHO.

Here are all the ladies in a group shot:

Seedsman Northern Lights Auto:

Progressing nicely at Day 26. Still no sign of sex yet.

Mephisto CDLC X 3Bog:

Also progressing nicely, but at Day 38, apparently a lady, but not shouting it loudly yet. She looks headed for a haircut at some point soon.

Seedsman Strawberry Cheesecake Auto:

Stretching now, Day 38, also apparently a female but early on that, and also headed for a haircut.

The Dinamed Kush CBD Auto to be used as a pollen donor:

And just because she/he is so pretty, another view:

She-to-be-a-he has been on once daily spraying of my CS for 15 days now. Some of the flowers are swelling into likely boy parts, but the jury is still out. Once she gets serious with the boy stuff, she will get moved elsewhere in the house until I get the pollen I need. It will be a shame to bin such a pretty plant, but with luck her sister will be bigger and just as pretty.

And last, at Day 9, the Dinamed CBD Kush plant that will be partially pollenated later:

She is now in her final pot, still on top watering for a while yet. She has been a slow starter, but seems to be picking up her skirts lately.

That's it for now peeps, happy growing all.

Been a few changes since the last update. Things were getting a tad crowded, as expected, in the growdrobe, so miss Seedsman Northern Lights has been shifted to her final home, a diy el cheapo "tent" with her very own diy screw in light array.

Here she is, at Day 34, in her new home:



The "tent" consists of some scrap plywood, a couple 2x4 studs, a free lumber wrap from the local lumber yard, and a new diy screw in array. Total cost including light less than $100 Cdn. I had the hangers in the junk pile, they came with a kayak rack. The tent is vented to the growdrobe through a bit of dryer hose, so the extraction fan in there does both grow spaces.

And here is Miss NL up close and personal:



Also moved from the growdrobe is the Dinamed CBD Kush. She was starting to grow balls, so she was banned to the storage room in the far corner of the basement. She will finish off there until I get pollen, and then, sadly, she will be consigned to the snow outside - stray pollen being a bit of a nuisance... Here she is in her final home:



A bit closer up:



All blossom clusters are male flowers, more commonly called balls around these parts.

And here is a closeup of some of her boy parts:



Balls are not opening yet, but it will not be long. These photos are at Day 42 since peeking out of the dirt, and ~22 days of once daily spraying with the CS solution I made with the rig shown in my other page here. CS was applied to the entire plant once a day before lights out for ~3 hours so that liquid on the leaves could dry. I used lots of solution, the total will be ~2 liters of it by the time balls start to open, at which point I will stop. The whole plant is reversed - it is balls to all walls. I will have more pollen than I can use, all tucked away until the mom is ready to receive.

And here are the other girls still resident in the growdrobe. The mom to be Dinamed CBD Kush to the rear left, the Mephisto CDLC x 3Bog front and center, and the Seedsman Strawberry Cheesecake to the right:



Here is the CBD Kush at Day 17, soon to have her noggin chopped off. She is still on top watering, but will be onto the reservoir before long:



The CDLC cross at Day 42:



And lastly, and furthest advanced, the Strawberry Cheesecake at Day 42:



Since the beginning, both the STCH and CDLCx have had droopy new growth, possibly a result of the autopots keeping them a bit damp, or maybe this is normal. Nonetheless, they keep growing, and the leaves seem to perk up as they age, so I may just watch to see how it goes unless I see more serious signs of mischief. OTOH, I may yet try turning off the reservoir periodically to let them dry out more than they do under normal valve operation. Bit tricky with the variation in plant size and no individual cut off valves. The layer of the pot that is flooded by the autovalve is >50% perlite, so it seems to me that it should be ok. We shall see. Coco did not do this, so the behaviour may be a result of the peat mix being a bit more prone to sogginess.

That's all she wrote for Dec. 19 peeps, happy growing, and happy holidays, merry Christmas, or whatever cures your bud. Oh, and stay safe out there, Covid is a long way from done with us yet.

Here they are, first the three in the growdrobe, the CBD mom on the left, cdlc cross in center, and Strawberry Cheesecake on the right:



Up closer, the CBD mom at 31 days:

The CDLC cross at 54 days:


And the Strawberry Cheesecake at 54 days:


And here is the Northern lights at 46 days in the diy "tent" (what do you know, she is an auto after all):


Sadly, the oldest two plants, the CDLC cross and Strawberry Cheesecake are having issues, and I suspect that the Northern Lights is not far behind - it is younger than the two older plants, and has been looking great, but I can see the mischief beginning. More details on the issue are in my thread in the infirmary section. To be brief, I think I have been chasing overfeeding lockout when the plants are actually running out of nutes in the Sunshine #4. I will see what the infirmary gurus have to say.

Happy growing all.

Well peeps, as a few of your may have gathered from my infirmary posts, this grow has run into issues. The bad news is that two of the four plants I intend to harvest have been seriously buggered by nute screwups. The good news, or at least part of it, is that I seem not to have quite killed them, and buds continue to at least pretend to mature. I may get something off them yet.

The other bad news a few days ago was that the miss Northern Lights showed symptoms of heading in exactly the same direction as the two buggered plants. As a result of her symptoms, namely what looked to me to be clear deficiencies of both potassium and phosphorus, I concluded that miss NL was hungry, and this pushed me to conclude that the problem all along with the two problem plants was that I starved them since initial symptoms were pretty much identical to what started with Miss NL, and they showed up more or less at exactly the same state of plant development. Anyway, the two problem plants were headed for doom if I didn't do something, and the other two looked to be headed the same, so I had to make up my mind which way to adjust the nutes.

So, I moved the two problem plants to ~1400 EC, i.e. almost double what they were getting earlier, and the other two to ~1200 EC, double or more than what they were getting earlier. It was likely a kill or cure move. If the problem plants were locked out, this would finish them off, and would worsen trends with the other two if the same process was going on with them.

It now appears that I moved in the right direction with nutes. Symptoms on the problem plants are not continuing to get worse, initial symptoms on miss NL seem to have halted progression, and so far, no obvious problems have shown up on the CBD mom. The last bit of good news is that it appears that the stud CBD plant has produced pollen, even if not a lot of it, so I should get some seeds later. Perhaps a good thing given Dinamed's legal problems of late. Loss of their genetics will leave a big hole in this hobby.

Enough with the words, here are the pics:

The three girls in the 2x4:


The Seedsman Auto Strawberry Cheesecake at Day 64:


Not dead yet, and no worse than a few days back, so maybe I'll get some decent bud yet in spite of my screwup.

The Mephisto Auto CDLCx3Bog cross, also Day 64:

Not quite as sad as Miss Cheesecake, but close.

The Dinamed Auto CBD Kush, at Day 40:

No signficant signs of mischief yet, and she is starting to color up. Looks like I may have dodged the bullet with her.

And last, the Seedsman Auto Northern Lights in her own DIY 2x2 at Day 56:

Symptoms are stable, so she may stay on track now.

So peeps, the summary is two sad but not dead, and two apparently doing ok after I adjusted nutes.

Happy growing all, and try to stay safe.

Well peeps, we are getting close to pollen time...

Here is the Dinamed CBD Kush stud at Day 64, 5 days ago:


An hour or so later:

And here are the harvested balls from the final cut, now finished drying in a mason with silica gel, and soon to be ground and sifted:


Pollen from harvest of a few colas earlier, mixed into some baked rice:


I will start application of collected pollen to the CBD Kush mother plant soon. Here she is now at Day 46:


And a couple colas up close:





She is getting close, the watercolor brush is waiting.

As mentioned earlier, I tried using peat plugs for most of the seeds germed in this grow, mostly because Cocoforcannabis recommended them, and they seem to know what they are talking about.

When I chopped the stud CBD Kush, I had a careful look at root development to see how it worked out. I was initially concerned that the synthetic wrap on the plugs might interfere with root development, so I wanted to see whether there was any sign of that problem.

Just before planting the peat plugs, I cut and removed the wrap from the bottom of the plug, so once the plug was planted, the girl developed with the sides of the plug still covered, but the bottom open.

Here is the end result:


As can be seen in the photos, there was abundant root growth through the wrap material left on the sides of the plug. I removed the wrap to check whether there was any sign of root constriction where roots grew through the mesh, and could find no hint of a problem.

I conclude that peat plugs work just fine with cannabis, and that the mesh does not interfere at all with root development. I have read criticisms here about the pH of these plugs, but in my germinations here I saw no sign of that sort of problem. Emergence from the plugs was immediate, and initial growth healthy and vigorous.

Bottom line is that peat plugs will remain in my repertoire. At this point, planting the tap rooted seed in a transplant cup rather than a peat plug is the only other approach I remain interested in.

Happy growing peeps.

Here they are on January 23.

First, the Seedsman Auto Northern lights in her personal 2x2 at Day 71:

She seems to be doing reasonably well, and the pistils are just now starting to darken slightly. She auto'ed ok, but she is going to be quite a few weeks yet. Should be productive if I can keep her growing.

Next the other three girls in the main 2x4:


The Dinamed Auto CBD Kush at Day 56:

She is progressing reasonably, and the two lower branches that I dusted with pollen are showing browning pistils finally, so perhaps she will produce seeds as well as some CBD bud.

The Mephisto Auto CDLCx3Bog at Day 77:

This poor girl is the second saddest girl I have grown. Still not sure what happened, but it seems that it is not fixable. Nothing I tried made a bit of difference once she started downhill. Either the problem was not nutes in the first place, or I was so far out of line that damage was already extensive. Looks like I'll get some bud anyway.

The Seedsman Auto Strawberry Cheesecake at Day 77:

And this sad looking mess is my worst girl yet. It looks like I will get some bud, but not pretty is an understatement. She went down at the same time as the CDLC cross, only worse and quicker. Again, no idea what the problem was. I will be checking roots once she is chopped.

Speaking of bud, here is a bit of porn I took to check trichomes on the Strawberry Cheesecake:

Bottom line is that she is getting closer, but not there yet. I want to see some amber. Should not be long now. Yeah, I know about the hair.

Happy growing peeps.

Believe it or not, all four are still alive, although arguably not by much in one case.

The Seedsman Auto Northern lights in her personal DIY 2x2, at Day 83:

She is doing fine, and packing on the bud. If I can keep her pointed more or less in the right direction, I think she should produce well.

The mother Dinamed Auto CBD Kush at Day 68:

A bit of nute mischief going on, interpreted as high nutes rather than otherwise, flushed with ~1100EC mix a couple days ago as a result. She is heading to the finish line, but not for a couple weeks or so yet.

The Mephisto CDLC x 3 BOG at Day 89:

She was hit pretty hard with the lockout, but is still packing on the bud. The first phase chop should start in less than a week, maybe just a few days.

And the saddest of the bunch, the Seedsman Auto Strawberry Cheesecake, also at Day 89:

Damn near killed her, and she is still trying hard. She would have been quite the plant were it not for my screwups. Initial chop likely in a few days.

That's it for now peeps, scissor mischief will be the next report.

Well here they are on Feb. 12.

The three girls in the 2x4:

Miss CBD Kush, Day 74:




Miss CDLCx3Bog, Day 95:



Miss Strawberry Cheesecake, Day 95:

She has had maybe ~1/3 of the most mature colas harvested so far.

And the rest of her is getting close:


The harvest so far:


And finally, Miss Northern Lights, Day 89, coming along nicely:


She is going to produce some bud!

That's all she wrote for now peeps.

Hello again Peeps, time for an update. Misses Strawberry Cheesecake and CDLCx3BOG are chopped, and Miss Northern Lights is moved into the vacated space in the 2x4 growdrobe.

The remaining ladies in the 2x4:


Miss CBD Kush at Day 80:


Miss Northern Lights at Day 95:


First chop of Miss Strawberry Cheesecake, 3 days into the cure:


Drying second chop of Miss Strawberry Cheesecake, plus all of Miss CDLCx3BOG:


The single row at the back is the remainder of Miss Strawberry Cheesecake, the front two are Miss CDLCx3BOG. Likely another day or two before jarring Miss SC, bit longer for Miss CLDCx3BOG.

Well, the seed run is completed.

First a quick review.

- The strain was Dinamed Auto CBD Kush
- The separate stud plant was started ~3 weeks before dropping mother plant seed.
- The CS solution was home made, produced as described in the page on the el cheapo generator elsewhere in this blog. Note well ye who buy their CS online in 30ml bottles - I used about 1800ml of CS solution on this reversal, and according to the information I dug up on making this stuff, my solution was fully saturated with colloidal particles. I very much doubt that the tiny supplies of CS sold online would be as effective.
- The stud plant completely soaked down with hand sprayer once a day at lights out until male flowers were well established, but not until pollen was evident.
- The stud plant was finished in its own grow space elsewhere in the house, and the mother plant was moved to the stud location for pollenation.
- Once pollen was evident, I collected balls, dried them, ground them in weed grinder, and sifted them to get rid of most of the bud debris.
- Pollen was applied to mother plant with a Q tip,
- Pollen was applied only twice, to two lower branches, one with a cola maybe six inches or so long in total, the other maybe four inches.
- The mother was sprayed down with water to kill stray pollen and left for a few hours before moving her back into the growdrobe with the other plants.
- Most of the mother was chopped for CBD bud a month or so after pollen was applied to lower branches.
- Pollenated branches were harvested ~8 weeks after pollenation.
- Only 10-20%, at a rough guess, of pollenated flowers produced seeds. The harvest on these two small branches could have been lots higher.

And the results are:


A total of 230 good seeds, one seed rejected for small size and light colour. Thus far, I have not found a single seed on any other branch of the mother plant, or on other plants in the same growdrobe, so doing a couple of branches on a mother plant can be done safely as long as the stud is isolated, and pollenation is done in isolation.

Next time around, I will do a couple things differently:

1. I may cook the CS solution just a bit longer until the amber color begins to get a bit more noticeable and the EC reading gets up to 40 or so.
2. I will continue CS application all the way until I see evidence of pollen instead of stopping after male flowers are well established. I suspect that stopping the hormonal affects of the CS earlier may reduce pollen production. Just a theory mind you...
3. I will apply pollen more times over a longer time period to try to get more flowers pollenated.

If I do a germination test, I will update this later.

Happy seed making peeps.

And, the grow is complete. Final tally:

Dinamed Auto CBD Kush - 232 seeds and 55 grams of bud

Mephisto CDLC x3BOG - 69 grams bud

Seedsman Auto Strawberry Cheesecake - 68 grams bud

Seedsman Auto Northern Lights - 106 grams bud

I kept some trim, but didn't weight it.

And here is the bud, NL bottom four, CDLCx middle left two, StCh middle right two, CBD top three:


And, the seeds: