Does not compute - pc grow

[v12xjs]

So today was the 2nd day without nutes for this one.
It feels maybe just a little early but the smell is so good that I want to be certain there's no chemicals in there to mask or taint the final flavour.
Of course that can be improved further by forcing the plant to burn up the mobile nutrients and sugars so I do prefer a longer final flush, but in all honesty I never found a signal to tell me exactly when to start it. 
There's still a dark green deep into the canopy so she'll be fine under her own steam for a while at least.

 

Visually I'm seeing around 50% orange hairs and there are odd signs of amber trichs already so another 7 or 8 days should deffo land me in the ball park.

It's a bit annoying really and it nags at my OCD that I don't know exactly the best time to start this.
Wish I could just SSH and sudo into her to check the logs

 

I can be certain that my redcurrants will be ready in the 1st week of June and the blackcurrants will be 2 weeks after that, so I know that plants flower/fruit to a very rigid timetable and my insatiable curiosity will make me search for the trigger.
It will be an experiment for next time now though I suppose, but I think I might already have some tools to help.

I spied my almost unused bluelab pH and EC pens today while I was rooting around for some Serious 6/7 seeds for outdoor and remembered that the EC pen measures on 4 scales. Just from memory it does TDS 500, TDS 700, EC and another one, but they all measure something slightly different.
If you understand the power of big data then you will know how informative 5 data points can be (4 electrical + 1 ph).

But for anyone who couldn't care less about any of that, here's some bud porn
The leaf just below centre that's reaching out in the last pic is the one with the most amber. Takes a minute to see how much there actually is:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MindSoup]

Looks lovely mate, I think its fair to say you've made full use of the space . 

[v12xjs]

Thanks @MindSoup. PMSL

[v12xjs]

Hmm.
So I don't know if anybody is kind of following along with the nerdy side of this grow.

 

FWIW I looked into those 4 data points and it's actually just EC with a conversion formula, so the bluelab only measures total electrical charge with no distinction of how that may be made up. I thought ppm 500 would actually measure nacl levels for example.
Ruined my bright idea in a stroke when I learned that!
Made me feel a bit underwhelmed with my Bluelab purchase as well knowing it is bullshitting me in 3 different languages!

 

But then I looked into what chemicals I might be interested in measuring specifically and I think I found what I was looking for.
It seems that at some point in the cycle the plant will stop taking up all nutrients except potassium and once it has enough of that it will stop taking nutrients altogether.
That would explain why we get higher readings in the runoff than we do from the nute solution we add later on in the grow cycle.

 

So I think I might have found my trigger after all, and it looks like we could start the final flush based on the plant uptake of potassium.
Unfortunately it turns out that potassium testers cost about the same as league 2 football players though

 

Equally interesting, the research indicates that when the plant stops taking food it is prey to osmosis from the medium. So if the medium has less nutes than the plant, then the plant will dump its stores back into the soil to balance things out. And that of course is far from ideal.

Gonna take a while for me to justify buying a football player and to then figure out how to determine the EC of the plant itself, but it will keep me out of trouble for a bit while I work it all out.
Be good to compare notes if anyone else has tried anything along these lines.

 

In the meantime and on the basis that it might make no difference at all, I'll just keep this plant on the standard starvation diet.

[v12xjs]

I had a quick check on the plant yesterday. 
She stinks the house up in seconds when I take her out for pics now so I have to be really careful. CF is a must with this one, there's no way my little Lexus filter would deal with it.

 

As she starts to run out of steam you can see the extent of the damage from the week of neglect. I suspect it was the worst possible week for such stress but it's always a risk in a hand watered system.

While the bottom leaves are slowly being eaten and dropping off, I'm only seeing the stress damaged leaves turning lighter at canopy level and there's still lots of deep green up there.
Looking at how dark they are I can be sure there's ample energy available for a week of further development if necessary and it looks like another week might just be needed. 
I'm therefore thinking about taking a few more strategic leaves off for a bit more light penetration.

 

I really wanted LED to be better than CMH but right now I don't think it is.

 

Oh and maybe I owe Serious an apology. It's hard to notice with all that deep red being reflected and pinging everywhere but I'm sure there's some subtle purple colour starting to show right at the tops.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

On 18/05/2022 at 1:30 PM, v12xjs said:

Hmm.
So I don't know if anybody is kind of following along with the nerdy side of this grow.

I am following, mate. Like you diary and the way you thinking and posting the ideas .

[v12xjs]

Thanks @Canna Denfour20 glad to hear that

 

Last of the pics for this one then. Harvest is going to stink the place up big time so it's going to be a smash and grab job with no time for selfies.
Might even watch a few of those Australian sheep shearing competitions on the tube before I start to maybe pick up a few tips

 

I've already taken 3 colas that were ready to come down and that's given the lower buds some welcome light. It's all medicine of some sort of course but hopefuly some of the bumfluff will be a little bit better for the direct light.

 

Those purple hues on the flowers have really come on a bit in the last couple of days too, although not all tops have it.
Doubtless that's helped by starvation but it does tie in with the idea that they take up potassium last and this plant is displaying that excess.

 

The case definitely needed this shakedown, I found loads of little holes that would let light in and smell out that I've patched up now. 
Star of the show for me though is the little blower fan. It's kept the top of the lights at ice cold levels while churning out enough air to keep the grow mold free.
Probably got a bit lucky with that to be honest. It got pretty cramped in there in no time and anything less than very good airflow would have probably meant game over.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Great tips to harvest in few steps mate. Will do same tops first and all the way down ... Me too keeping blower on top of lights and three on the bottom. I am paranoic about mold as it's all goes for oil and tincture for cancer treatment... Someone mentioned me about magic anti mold spray during last days of veg and it's last till end of flowering ... Trying to get more info about this spray as I go for heavy defoliation and get less harvest ... 

[Oldman2.0]

@v12xjs Just finished the diary, savage read and info, blows my mind your growing in that 18x20x8 space and getting those results, i'm prob a full on addict now for micro grows  

Feck sake as i keep reading diary's trying to learn as much as i can before my first grow i'm all over the place with all the different methods/techniques of growing, it's a savage forum, fair play buddy, love that i came across this one, has me think'n now, and will be following any future grows, thanks & 

[v12xjs]

Hi again @Canna Denfour20  and thanks for your feedback. Is wonderful to hear you're helping people and doing all you can to avoid contaminating the medicine.
I hear you on restricted yields but I'd be cautious about using any sprays to combat the mold myself. I prefer a filter over the intake as a preventative measure.

 

Greets @Oldman2.0 thanks for looking and leaving such an awesome comment.
Hope you get a micro grow on after all your research, they are an amazing hobby and can be more productive than you might expect.

[v12xjs]

Got a final update for this grow then.
I got a yield of 83g dry which is a 100% improvement on previous harvests, although there was a bit of mold in the middle of all that lower popcorn. 
I had to discard about 10g to be sure I'd cut it out but all the tops were unaffected, so generally pretty chuffed with the harvest and the new light has proved it's worth in that respect.
I wasn't bowled over by the flavour by any means though. I'd hoped a lot of that fruity smell would be evident in the taste but there's hardly any.
It's just a general bland skunk kind of flavour.
No, not roadkill

But of course I want to know why, so I've been pondering that thought for a few weeks and think I might have an explanation now.

So we know that plants produce glucose for energy, but glucose is water-soluble so can easily be lost. This is why they further refine some of that glucose into starch which is not soluble in water and will always be available for use when required.
But plants don't produce any sugar in the dark, so they aim to create enough in a day to do all their growing, cover off all their night time processes and save a little bit for a rainy day as well.

 

One of the main things plants ultimately do with that rainy day starch fund is to produce their seeds and stuff them full of it to give them a good start until they can feed themselves, but we don't generally let them produce that seed, so when we harvest it is likely our plants are ram jam full of starch that the plant has been dutifully making and storing.

So I'm beginning to think that perhaps it's the high starch levels that have impacted on the final flavour of my buds.
Negatively.
Like maybe smoking potato kind of negatively.

 

So now I'm pondering how to get the plant to rid itself of the starch and that reminded me of the method we've all probably heard of where the plant is left in the dark for 2 or 3 days before harvest.
This now makes some sense to me because without being able to produce sugar, the plant would have to use up the starch to keep going.

 

Hmm. Might have to get a grow on to test this theory

[MindSoup]

Congrats on the harvest mate, quite an amazing yield for such a small space even with the loss to mould. 

 

By all means experiment for yourself, it's the only way to really know for sure, but personally I'm not convinced by the 48/72hrs darkness thing. Plenty of people get delicious bud without doing it and a lot of people that I've seen try it have found no benefit from it all. Personally I would say focus more on the curing process if your flavour isn't coming through. Some bud I've been pretty disappointed in after 3 weeks in the jar has become some of my favourite after 3 months in the jar... 

Edited July 26, 2022 by MindSoup

[Crow River]

@v12xjs, cracking harvest mate. Great effort in such a small space. 

 

I'd agree with @MindSoup that the cure is more important. If you can be patient and leave your bud in the jars for at least six weeks, the flavour and aroma really improve. The starches and sugars start to break down a bit and you get a smoother taste. It also seems to me that properly stored, weed only improves with time (probably up to a point, maybe multiple years would be a bit much). Think of it like wine - you wouldn't neck your home made plonk straight away after fermentation. You leave it in the bottles to condition for a while.  

[v12xjs]

Thanks for the input guys.

I would absolutely agree that a longer cure makes for a better and more flavoursome smoke, and this batch has only been in jars about 6 weeks so it will refine further.
But I think we are talking about different things.

 

Curing doesn't provide the chemical inputs needed to break down starch, so we are going to be smoking that no matter how long we cure for.

Maybe a better way to explain it is that eating the bud would provide a certain calorific value due to the carbohydrate content.
Well that carbohydrate content is the starch and I'd wager it would be the same after a 6 week cure or a 6 month cure, simply due to the fact that we haven't added any of the variables required to break it down.
I'd guess right now that it's the breakdown of the chlorophyll that unmasks more of the flavour and makes the smoke smoother.
That's not what I'm thinking about.

 

Funny thing is that while we've all heard about a 72 hours darkness cycle, nobody has ever actually explained why it might be of use and nobody has ever debunked it either.
That is a bit odd considering how many people are aware of it.

Well at least now someone has explained it. Happy to listen to anyone who can debunk it.

 

And this one should be fairly easy to check to be honest.
If I harvest and cure as normal but only take half the plant, then leave the rest in darkness for say 7 days to accommodate for the stress and also force the plant into keto  before taking a final harvest.

 

Ultimately I can't see a downside to getting another grow on.
Any excuse really

Edited July 26, 2022 by v12xjs
typo

[Smokey McBongface]

Seriously impressive for such a small space man