2nd Grow, Indoor/Outdoor, shooting for 2 harvests this summer

[GrouchyOldMan]

@MrWizard

Don’t think I can pull off the lights out trick for the back two, they will need more than a day or two. I guess that after I chop the front 2 I will have to move the back 2 outside to finish so that I can use the tent for a controlled Dry.

That’s a tough spot Mr. Wiz. No easy choice, especially when you consider your daylight hours outdoors.

In Washington DC (close to you) the day length is still only 14 hours. Your flowering plants have been getting 12 hours I assume.

If I remember correctly, 14 hours is right on the edge for outdoor plants to remain in veg-state. It probably won’t matter since you are only putting them outdoors for a couple of days, but that might be enough to cause them to start re-vegging.

Worth consideration.

-Grouchy

[MrWizard]

@GrouchyOldMan

, 14 hours is right on the edge for outdoor plants to remain in veg-state. It probably won’t matter since you are only putting them ou

They are autos so I think I may safe in that regard???

[GrouchyOldMan]

@MrWizard

They are autos so I think I may safe in that regard???

Of course you are right about that. My bad, carry on…

[MrWizard]

Bud Porn…

Still not quite ready…

[MrWizard]

Trimmed a small bud and speed dried it on top of the LED. It got me plenty stoned so I am comfortable in chopping the 2 in front in a few minutes. Lights are still out from last night, will chop, rinse in a H2O2 solution, then fresh water, and hang with humidity set at 45% for next 24 hours, then will adjust Tent humidity to 64% and 70f for remainder of dry. Will experiment with an Extech Moisture meter to see if I can get good moisture readings off of the stems.

Since I have to convert the tent from Flowering to Drying environments, the back 2 girls are going to have to go outside to finish up. They have maybe a week to go.

[MrWizard]

Converted the tent from Flowering to Drying, dropped the light, changed out equipment.

Hung them both whole as they are smallish and not dense.

Gross weight (- rootball)

Whorrly (left) = 213g
Typical (right) = 203g

These are from the same pack of seed as as my 1st grow and they are about 1/3 the size. 1st grow was over 600g gross. That 600g plant yielded about 90g of cured bud.On the 1st grow I trained the plant heavily, on these hardly any training. The other difference was the 1st grow was hydro and this was soil. Pretty much all other environmental variables were kept the same. If the 15% gross to cured ratio holds the same then these 2 will yield a tick over an oz each, although I think the ratio will be better as I suspect there will be more bud less trim (ratio wise) this grow. Other observations are that the buds are bigger and prettier on the 1st grow. So I am concluding that the training had a significant benefit to yield, but I am sure the hydro did too. Need to to run two plants in hydro training vs LIFTA and see what happens.

[MrWizard]

Going to keep it here for 24 hours. I did wash these 2 plants since they spent a little time outdoors. Didnt get enough off of them to make it worthwhile, they were clean. Dipping them in water made me nervous about mold though so I shook them off good and turn the Exhaust fan on 50%, will let em ride like this for 24 hours, then bump humidity up to 64%.

Ambient humidity here is 90% so that dehumidifier is doing a good job, especially consider I have the airflow turned up. Usually I run it outside the tent as it keeps that corner of the garage dry enough during veg/flower. For drying I put the thing inside the tent and ran a drian hose outside.

[MrWizard]

Holding a good stable drying environment so far.

The 2 plants I had to put outside arent happy though, its been nasty the last 2 days.

[MrWizard]

Well, Murphy, and his wife BOTH, visited me this week.

So, last weekend I chopped 2 of the girls, and put the other 2 outside.

There has not been a single day of sunshine since they have been out there, and looks like there wont be until Sunday. It fact it has been rainy and windy the whole time. They survive, but they havent shown any development at all since moving outside.

The two I chopped were very small, maybe an oz each of cured. I targeted a slow dry at 70f and 65% Rh. Yesterday I checked on them and found something really weird. The buds all felt dry and “about right”, but the stems (even the smallest) were all still bendy, zero snap anywhere. Nonetheless the buds felt ready. So I snipped a couple buds, put them in a small jar with a Rh Sensor and let it sit an hour. Sure enough they were at like 67% so I trimmed and jarred them up. Not a very long dry but at least I think I caught it before the moisture got too low. So now I will burp the jars until I get down to 63% and then put them in grove bags to finish.

In analyzing the situation I think my problem was that I put the dehumidifier inside the tent (see pic). Previously I kept outside the tent as it kept that corner of the garage dry enough. Will have to go back to that when it comes time to dry the last 2 girls.

The dehumidifier does give off some heat, however the Tent temp was fine, right at 70f. Turns out the dehumidifier exhausts through the top which created a warm air current blowing directly up and over the drying plants but after the current diffuses the tent temp was fine. So the outside got dried faster than the stems.

Anyway, only got 1 oz off each of the 2 plants, rather disappointed. No large colas either. My first plant was 3 times this big, same pack of seeds. Fortunately they smell good, I dont think the fast dry ruined it.

[GrouchyOldMan]

Good plan for cure.

A couple of zips of Craft Canna ain’t bad Brother.

Treat yourself to a taste and give us a report.

[MrWizard]

Did get some nice kief from the 150u trim bin screen.

Still a lot of contaminants, but it smoked just fine. Same creeper profile as the first zKittelz I grew. Three hits of this kief, wait 5 minutes, realize you are wondering what day of the week it is, but dont really care.

I have 3 more screens coming to refine this further next time. 180 tumbler, then 150, 120, & 90u flat screens underneath the tumbler.

I know the current state of the art seems to be bubble bags, but I am choosing to pursue the dry sift method. The whole bubble thing is more labor than I want to take on. Hard on the back and whatnot. Plus the dry sift, i.e. more traditional method, just feels right. If I cant figure out how to get good quality from dry sift then I will reconsider, but first I want to see how good I can get with dry. For example, I will experiment with soaking/flushing whatever dissolves and floats out of this with distilled water and a Buchner Filter.

[GrouchyOldMan]

Magic Dust! I am intrigued by the dry sift method of collecting kief. Can you share more about your setup and how much you recover? Pics of your screen/tumbler?

Here’s an experiment to try:
Take a full gram of your dry sift Kief and dissolve it in an ounce of room temp Everclear… Instant Grouchy Cocktail tincture! Drop a ml of that in your beer, wine, scotch, orange juice or whatever.

1000mg(kief) x 15% THC = 1500 mg total
1500mg x 75% extraction = 1125 mg est. extracted
1125 / 29ml(one oz alcohol) = 38mg/ml (1ml = appx two droppers full)

So, 38mg/ml is a serious dose for most folks. Be careful amigo as you get to know your own chems.

Cheers,
-Grouchy

[MrWizard]

@GrouchyOldMan

Magic Dust! I am intrigued by the dry sift method of collecting kief. Can you share more about your setup and how much you recover? Pics of your screen/tumbler?

The kief above was obtained just from trimming using a Trim Bin with 150u screen. Lightly rubbed the material over the screen.

I have the tumbler shown below with 180u tumbler. I have the 75, 120, and 150u screens on order to complete the set. I have not worked out a process yet. My first attempt at using the tumbler taught me a few things. It is going to take some trial an error.

[MrWizard]

Chopped the “Runt” tonight, so far it is the heaviest, will yield maybe 1.25 oz.

Moved the Dehumidifier back outside the tent, maybe I can get a better dry this time.

[MrWizard]

Looks like I will chop “Stretch” tonight. Calling for bad storms the next few days, with high winds and hail. She isnt quite ready yet, but I fear she might not make it out there.

Sooooooooooo,

That means I can now start my second crop for 2022.

My tent is in the garage and once ambient temps get above mid 70s I lose control of the environment. Above 80f ambient would not even be worth attempting. I would need an AC and a chiller to run in the heat of the summer. I cant make that kind of investment at this time, other $$ priorities.

My second challenge is trying to work out grow cycles so I never run out of weed. I go through about an ounce a month. So figure +/- 3 months to grow , another month+ to cure, I am figuring I need to start with 5oz in my stash when starting a grow or I will run out before the grow is cured. My last plant yielded 3oz cured. I can see the deficit coming…

My solution, at least this year, is to grow my legal limit of 4 plants outdoors, and try to squeeze 2 harvests into this summer by using Autos.

I just harvested the 1st 4 plants, low yields but good smoke. I am now going to plant the 2nd round of 4 plants, this time totally outdoors after germination.

I reached out asking to buy some premium Autos to pull off the 2nd harvest.

In typical OG fashion, @GCBudz offered me some Memphisto Double Grape bxs and all he asked for was:

“Just give me a safe address and journal the grow for me. Tag me in when ya pop them.”

Well, @GCBudz , I am tagging you! Thank you for looking out for me, and for your generosity.

Going to germinate these in Rockwool cubes, it has worked well for me so far.

• Soak rockwool in some 5.5pH water for a bit, and drain off excess (rockwool has a very high pH until rinsed)
• Place cubes in a seedling tray with removable dome.
• Put a seed in each cube
• Cover with dome
• Place on seedling heater mat set at 75f
• Hang small LED above
• Wait for the magic…

Will place rockwool cubes in 5 gal fabric pots with a layer of 1/3 Ocean Forrest soil on the bottom and 2/3rds Happy Frog on top. My reasoning is that I have read that Ocean Farms is too hot for seedlings, but Happy Frog peters out towards the end. Figure by the time the roots reach the bottom 1/3 they will be ready for the extra nutes. Once seedlings are hardened off, outside they go… Coastal Virginia climate

[MrWizard]

@GCBudz , I have not found any grows for bxs of this strain. Do you have any info on what to expect from these? Are they Auto-Fems?

[GCBudz]

It’s on now! I think you’ll be very happy with this grow.

So, these are femanized auto S1’s from breeder stock, done by a buddy of mine @LoveDaAutos just recently. Here’s a pic of some bud he just harvested of these beans he made.

If your familiar with AFN, go there and search member Gone Camping and the thread Garage life with GC. You’ll find pics of this strain when I ran them once or twice. Among other stuff…

On auto’s… I hear it’s desirable to have a taller container vs a short wide one… but iv always done ok in 3 gallon fabric. One of these days I’ll compare the 3 gallon to a 5 gallon bucket. They say allowing the tap root to run deep is key to a larger plant and more bountiful harvest. But I’m not a expert by any means…

They also say to go light on the nutes, iv been running them at 5 to 600ppm. 20/4 but I know your running outside. I just added ac to my growage last summer…

[MrWizard]

Holy shit, you can hardly see the leaves through all of that fur…

[LoveDaAutos]

If II may I would like to suggest that in your 5 gallon fabric pot you run with 4 gallons of the fox farm soils and 1 gallon of medium sized perlite. The perlite helps keep the soil less compressed aiding in aeration / oxygen for the root zone. Good luck with your grow. I will be curious to see how these grow outdoors.

[MrWizard]

@LoveDaAutos

If II may I would like to suggest

Of course you may, I am all ears to what folks here have to say.

In this case though, I have already layered the pots and even watered them in once to settle the dirt.