cam’s only as good as the lens.
Yanno, clip off a bud, microwave the fucking thing or whatever, and fire it up.
you can cure the rest of the buds later. yeah, curing is so important, I think.
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I don’t recommend the microwave idea. But I clip a small bud and let it on my rolling tray. After about a week it’s worth a smoke to test. Now if you clip a bud every couple days you can get a “progress report”. Even when I harvest I’ll clip a tester and let it sit out.
I just smoked my tester last night from when I harvested last Wednesday. The smoke is harsh due to no cure, but the high was very nice.
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Make it 2 votes for no microwave, lol… did that in highschool once… definitely let it dry naturally and give it a shot, you’ll be way happier 
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It didn’t taste as good as the final cured product obviously, but I took a small bud, folded some paper around it and left it on top of a computer that was running, the minor heat had it dried and smokable in like 1.5-2 days.
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I have, many many times in my life, trimmed smaller popcorn buds, or cut up larger ones, put them on a screen in front of a fan on high and smoked em the next day. Desperate times call for something something 
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I have been consuming dispensary weed for my entire weed consumption life (like…9 years). And a lot of that has been like shitty dispensary weed, some of it just straight up shake.
So while it’s not “brick weed full of dead animals” level shitty that I’ve seen mentioned on here, I’m definitely not above some form of rapid dry situation.
Literally anything homegrown will likely be better than the vast majority of what I’ve had.
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I don’t really shit on dispensary weed as I have gotten plenty of good bud, but what happens behind the scenes scares me and everything I ever grow is just better. And obviously the cost!
But as a youth, it was brown bricks. Always very seeded and compact. It was headache city, but dumb 16 year old boys like me at the time would just ask each other “are you feeling anything?”
We were not lol, but sometimes we thought we were.
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Now that might just be a better idea than my microwave idea. I just was kind of fishing for you guys’ comments and solutions for a fast test of new crop of nugs. I think i might still try microwave one time, for a very quick test, yanno. But yeah, you guys really offered better solutions. Thanks. I’m not even doing this, C_in_CT is doing it. LOL I’m just the rooting section, and i sure as hell don’t want to call in a bad play for C either.
Yup, that was us too, only we were dumb 18 year old boys. Haha.
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Well, a bad news / good news update about my root abatement efforts:
Bad news: As I started to dig out the hydroton, and opened up the root guard, the siphon was displaced a bit, and the guard had shifted upward, so there was more water in the bottom of the bus tub than there should be.
Good news: Other than the extra water, the siphon continued working flawlessly. Also, the doubled pot and the plant trivet worked, even with water up against the bottom of the pot! So no new root issues. I removed the extra guard from both, because it’s not needed.
Plant 1
Plant 2
Haven’t shown a picture of the clones in a long while, so here they are. They’re the tops I cut way back. Used Dip ‘n’ Grow, shoved them in the tiny skinny weed cloth pots, and put them on a separate half-strength flood and drain system. The extremely cheap “came in a kit with the seedling tray/dome” light is on ~50% I think? I’m shooting for “surviving, not thriving”. If they get too tall, I’ll top them again and root that top.
Clones
I’ve been keeping the humidity in the tent around 55-58, including on the meters in the middle of the plants. Temp is ~73 with lights on, 68 with lights out. Today is day 23 of 12/12.
And now to the actual plants. Overall shots first:
Glad I moved the light
Plant 1
Plant 2
And some close-ups of the tallest buds (same bud on plant 2 that I did the close-ups of with the other camera).
Plant 1 Tallest Bud
Plant 2 Tallest Bud
These were taken with my phone. Once the plants are “bud shot” worthy, I’ll play around with various options to see what I like best.
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I tried to see if I could eke out a bit more time from the same batch of nutrients in the original 30 gallon reservoir fill, topping off one last time. Turns out, I couldn’t! Everything is fine, just showing a bit of deficiency in the leaves. Pictures are after one feeding an hour and a half earlier, and one extra feeding immediately prior, so they’d recovered a bit.
When I opened the tent, the smell had changed pretty significantly since sunday, it’s gone from “fruity greenery and some weed” smelling to getting a bit more of an edge to it. I am bad at describing smells, so at some point I will recruit my partner and a couple friends to get their thoughts on it.
Plant 1 bud 1
Plant 1 bud 2
Plant 2 bud 1
Plant 2 bud 2
Overall 1
Overall 2
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My nutrients have been kind of all over the place in this first run. I’m honestly surprised they’re doing as well as they are. I’m like 80% sure that I mixed my initial nutrient concentrate wrong, that I was using all the way through veg.
Then the concentrate I made last time, instead of doing 2 parts (A and epsom together, then B separate), I did all 3 separate. I noted the EC when I’d put that in, it seemed kinda high, but reasonable based on what I’d seen before.
This time when I went to get it out, Part A had gotten some mold (I think I wasn’t great about shutting the closet door to keep light out). I did straight from powder this time and the EC is lower than last time with concentrate. Not sure if that’s because something hadn’t completely fully dissolved.
So who fucking knows what my actual numbers have been at any given point! I certainly don’t! I’m fine with it, because it’s all still growing, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’ll try to do better next run I guess!
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Was it mold, or algae?
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Definitely mold, little fuzzy floating bits on top of the water. I have a suspicion that it’s at least partially because the epsom salt wasn’t in it to help counteract anything growing. Also I think my dosing method might have contaminated it? I will adjust for future runs to do things differently.
I also have a heated stir plate on my wish list. Because then I wouldn’t need to pre-make concentrate, and I wouldn’t have to shake or stir manually, gripping a stirring implement is one of the worst things for my hands 
it’s Real Fuckin’ Annoying!
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Could you use a handheld mixer or blender instead? I was thinking like the one with a hand crank or an electric one with just one beater in it.
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Quite probably, but I’ve been wanting a stir plate for a minute anyway, and now I finally have a valid(ish) excuse to buy one! 
Sometimes holding the handle on a mixer is a lot too. My hands really don’t like gripping things. It Sucks As Much As You Might Think It Would! Heating the water should let it go faster without requiring me to carry Yet More Water between floors. And the unattended stirring is a big appeal to me. I can pre-weigh packets of powder even, then just dump and putter around with other things while it’s stirring, and do that a few times and good to go.
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I would hate this so much!
I also like the idea of automating mind numbing tasks as much as humanly possible.
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Welp! Unwelcome but unsurprising news: plant 1 (the one that’s been the most stressed) has hermed.
Plant 1 succumbed to stress (probably)
Not sure how I missed them previously, but I also haven’t been suuuper closely examining everything this past week. Yesterday was the first time I’d opened the tent since sunday and I also turned the light up quite a bit recently, so it’s been running between 7 and 10, so that might have accelerated the development.
They are everywhere in the plant. maybe not every bud, but near enough.
So! Options I see are:
- kill it and just focus on the remaining one
- see if I can get the pumps needed to set up the other tent and swap it over immediately / asap.
- run with it and just let it seed the other one and not worry about it since I vape anyway it’s not really going to be a problem to consume seeded buds
- Maybe something else? Enlighten me!
What would you do in this situation? I’m only at day 28 of 12/12, and haven’t seen any pollen anywhere or anything, so I’m pretty sure that I’m not already past viability on some of the options.
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Those are some pretty significant herms, for sure - I can deal with nanners, but for my style that plant is dead to me. I also don’t like seeds in my flower though.
But as a learning experience I bet there is value, there is always honor in furthering science!! 
. So those couple I see that are most developed - they look like they have already opened. Do a careful check of the hairs - any start turning color a bit early in the area? Could very well be empty, who knows, but that is always my tell.
Cheers on the grow, it is a great read, I like your sincerity 
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Iv only delt with nanas too and since also vape just let them seed but I feel like a full blown hermie like that might do too much damage probably better coming out
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Agree with @BasementGardens and @Kiwigreen. A long time ago i had a herm that seeded my plants, it was so bad man like literally nothing but seed and some seed skins lol. Shake a branch and it was like maracas, seeds just pouring out.
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