The Pheonix Project

[als_weed]

It’s been almost a month since the fire. We are still in refugee mode, but at least mobile with donated wheels.

Let me take this moment to thank folks for gifts that came from Atlanta, Berkley, London, Toledo, Boulder, and St. Louis.

I don’t know who you all are, but we appreciate your help.

I thought I would start this thread to document our rise from the ashes.

We have lost everything in the fire, but were able to salvage one cat and 93 strains from my Library and projects.

Some friends have made some space available for me to work in. I will document the process of setup as it progresses.

But first we must begin our rise with some propagation.

Here is our library and 128 cuttings of my greatest hits and best prospects from the recent Truffle run.

Shout out the Rescue Ranch giving me a room to save my work!

As always, your comments are welcome.

-al

[Tejas]

Glad to see you on the rebound!

[HomegrownVABudz]

Super happy you’re bouncing back! I read your post just after the fire, I got to the part about your kitty and started crying. I couldn’t bring myself to finish reading it.

Much love to you and your family!

[insaneyanish]

Man, glad to see you up and going after a rebuild. Keep your head up, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. I’m sure the people here will continue to do everything they can for ya.

[mota]

That’s the way you do it. Nothing deters you! It’s so great to see you in recovery and rebuilding mode! Phoenix indeed!

Thanks for keeping us all apprised and up to date!

[als_weed]

Week 1 Update.

Everyone is doing well here at the Rescue Ranch. All the plants in dirt are continuing their tea diet.

As for the cloners:

We are at about 80% with roots. Some strains will take a little longer, but no stem rot so far. They continue with our rooting recipe featuring Aero Tea.

We are working out logistics for our bloom space:
Blowin, Flowin and Glowin. The BFG of growing!

More details soon.

As for the refugees with legs - we got an incredible gift: Wheels!

She’s just over 200k with a few issues and plenty of character, but runs good and we are so thankful to have been handed the keys.

Trixie is doing well with her new friends:

Thank you all for your words and kind thoughts.

-al

[mota]

Awesome to see!

While it’s great to see your plants setting roots, what’s even better is you guys are getting stabilized with a few roots of your own.

[als_weed]

Mom Room Update

Everyone in dirt got a prune and a haircut.

We still have all the Truffle winners and Cream Pie crosses in dirt. I have started uppotting several moms that I will turn into giant trees for the soil side of the grow.

Our Aero plants have exploded after getting their first prune. I will soon add 2 more cloners and stage out 4 waves of plants for the bloom room.

We are getting our work rooms ready to accommodate both groups.

We are just a few short weeks away from going to bloom.

Trixie and her crew hanging out with me at the Rescue Ranch.

As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

-al

[als_weed]

Things have settled down a bit as we get into the routine of commuting to the Bloom Haus every day. It’s been three months since the fire, but things are still a bit unreal.

Here at the Rescue Ranch, I am busy preparing clones for the next round of dirt and aero plants. Our library of rescued experimental plants and reference varieties all still being kept in 1 quart containers and sipping on our teas. I hope to clone all the Cream Pie crosses in the next aero run. I still have the 18 first round winners of the Truffle crosses to confirm as well.

At the Bloom Haus we have 3 aero units humming with another coming online shortly.

We also have 20 plants in veg that were recently uppotted to 10 gallon containers. They are on a 100% organic tea diet.

Here’s a short video walk through:

Bloom Haus Update

It has been a tough couple months, but things are coming together, and getting all the plants staged up and running has helped my mental progress.

I will update this thread more frequently as things begin to get more interesting.

As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

-al

[Tejas]

Good to see you are back up and running now.

[Hemp]

Looks great.same here glad to see you going again. Amazing

[als_weed]

A fully operational Death Star.

The Pheonix Project finally has a full pipeline of plants ranging from aero monsters with 21 days left, to 6 inch clones in dirt.

Lets get started at the Rescue Ranch.

The cloners are full of plants ranging from barely rooted cuttings, to plants 3 weeks away from the bloom room.

In dirt we have the library of mothers and the next generation of trees ready to go to the veg tent.

Rescue Ranch Video Update:

Rescue Ranch Update - YouTube

We have 4 operational aero units!

Unit 4:

These are at 15 days of bloom. The burst of vertical growth is gathering steam and I have been busy pinching and pruning already. The explosion of growth will happen in the next week when flowering begins in earnest.

Unit 1:

At day 42 the stretch is done and its time to commence to chunkin!

Top of the trellis with 3 weeks to go:

Purpin and Terpin

Sherb Cream Truffle Number 4 is already fully purple and emitting it’s characteristic tart bad medicine perfume. These giant purple fans are still soaking up foliar nutes every 3rd day as we force feed them far into bud, like the pampered Wagyu girls they really are.

Dirt Girls get Flipped!

These just got a big prune and were flipped yesterday.

From the Other Side:

Bloom Tea Diet:

This is what they get in the new brew as we start the PK shift at the flip. In aero, we would wait to at least day 20. But dirt needs more lead time.

Bloom Haus Update - Full House! - YouTube

Thank you all for your attention.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

-al

[blendmedmedman]

glad to see your getting back at things, really good to see this

[als_weed]

It’s the first harvest time for the Aero Room!

We are cutting this down tonight.

Some bud shots:

The next generation is so vigorous it needs a coral!

The dirt room is starting to pop off at 3 weeks of bloom.

Here’s a short video update:

Time for the first chop! - YouTube

I’ll be sure to do some dried bud shots and buzz impressions in the next update. For now, here are some of my favorite shots that I will pass around:

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

-al

[blendmedmedman]

very nice to see, moving along Nicley.

[als_weed]

The Stork Machine in action!

-al

[als_weed]

[als_weed]

December 6 Update

I think I have the new Aero room figured out. Getting the clone size, pruning plan, even canopy management, and refining the diet are the primary goals. And it only took 1 rotation to get the data together.

Here’s the first Unit of the second rotation at 14 days bloom:

I plan on only thinning this and doing a medium defoliation. Of course leaving the lower leaves on to become foliar spray targets in flower.

I am mostly known for my Aero grows. Here’s a blast from the past:

But I am getting a chance to get dirty again and loving it!

Here’s a view of a couple tall girls getting close to 10 foot:

Side view:

These are only half done at 33 days bloom. Can’t wait for this cathedral of weed to finish!

As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

-al

[TeddyNuggets]

It’s really cool to see someone rocking the AeroFlo! I am a huge fan of the GH Aeroflo systems. The guy who first got me into growing over 20 years ago used to run the AeroFlo’s, so that’s what I more/less learned on. My first or 2nd grow was on an AeroFlo 20. Then I switched to the 60, then downsized to the 36.

I ended up eventually modifying my 36 slightly to run in “expanded” mode like the 60, with 3 tubes on each side of the reservoir (well, 3 on one side and the other 3 kind of sat on top of the reservoir facing the other direction) so I could run two 1000wt HPS lights over it.
I liked it much better that way because it gave space in between each row of plants. I used to only fill every other site and was always easily able to fill up the entire canopy

It’s a bummer general hydroponics stopped making them. Their rainforest system with the vortex sprayer was another great little system.

I am actually in the process of making my own Aeroflo. I have all the parts to make a copy of the AeroFlo manifold so I can use the screw-on Aeroflo spray lines I already have. I’ve been contemplating some slight design changes but we will see…

[als_weed]

I just love these antiques! I have modded my units considerably as parts are unavailable.

I have designed a version made for growing our favorite plant instead of lettuce in space! (If you didn’t know, Gen Hydro snagged their design from 70’s NASA tech).

Hopefully I get to build it next year. The spray lines are the hard part, but with modern low batch manufacturing it shouldn’t be that difficult.

So cool to find another Flo-head!

Send me some pix!

Thanks.

-al