Tom's corner, a traveller's journey

[tomGT]

Hi OG!

I have growing for a while always looking to learn how to improve, and because I did learn most of what I know from the internet I thought time is due to share a bit of my experience a what I gathered during my trips!

I travel quite a lot and was able to bring back home a few seeds from some places I liked: I have those seeds from Ghana for 8 years in the fridge so it will soon be time to pop them! I ran a few of those in winter a few years ago a they were looking quite similar to the one you can see on Cannabiogen picture, so I am eager to see what can come out of the remaining seeds, and hopefully be able to share some with you.

I am now finishing a run with some more recent US genetics :

Left is CannaRado / Nila Wafer
Center is Cannarado / Cookie Dough Sundae
Right is The Plug / Lots of Zkittlez.

It is now the start of W10, they could be staying there a bit longer but the leaves are starting to yellow , they are seeded ,I am running out of stash , and the next run is getting ready so they will be chopped very soon.

Next run is not going to be those Labadi Beach seeds, but first I want to check how I can handle those Sativa genetics indoor.
First try two years ago didn’t go so well : who thought you can reveg a Haze by up-potting them a couple weeks into flower

A few weeks ago I sowed 3 ACE Golden Tiger, and 3 Zamaldelica: I have now clones, the Zamadelica are sexed (one male has been discarded) but I am not exactly sure about the GTs, one is looking to be female but so far no sign of preflower on the two last ones, even on the remaining of the seed plants not used for clones I tossed in the flower cabinet!
The goal is to have about 9/12 clones to put in the tub to flower!

My goal being to be able to leave the grow unattenuated as much as as possible, I ended up tweaking a “Swedish” cabinet to my needs:
-LED for the heat management
-Blumat for auto-watering
-Water Only / Organic / Recycled to make it as autonomous as possible

Because of the size of the tub (120L) which I found a better solution than smaller containers for a living soil, and after seeing the vigor of the last grows I fear a little bit the stretch and hopefully I will get some help from you to go through it!

Next I will go through the cabinet itself, the re-amendment of the tub and the new clones!

Cheers!

[LemonadeJoe]

Wow! That is great usage of available space!

[TheShowMeHomie]

Welcome to Overgrow awesome set up you got there a fellow member @spaceman recently gave out a golden tiger cross to the community look forward to watching you work

[Gpaw]

You are doing some interesting beans and have a great setup so I’m pulling up a chair for the show!

Cheers
G

[tomGT]

The cabinet is now the 3rd version extended and improved over the course of the years.

I need it to be stealthy, so I went for a swedish cabinet since the beginning: I started 10 years ago with a 125W CFL in 50x50cm cupboard and now I have this space:

100x50cm for flowering

300CFM squirrel cage fan in the box with matching rate carbon filter. The speed is controlled by a transformer mounted on the top of the cabinet so it is very quiet.

For lightning there are:

• two LED panels ( 2 x 308xLM301B @3500K) that I run on the same driver for now up to 150W.
• two side bars with 4 red/white PCBs each running around 15W per module.
  all together running around 250W, so I can keep the cabinet temp around 3°c higher than ambient temperature. I also run light ON during the night (cooler in summer, and warmer in winter).

• two small far red PCBs that I run 15min around light off

-air movement is done by an array of 12V Fans:

Timers and part of the drivers or mounted on the side:

The remaining is mounted on the top to avoid to much heat in the cabinet:

.

It is a constant work in progress, so it is likely I will try to raise a little bit the fan box before the next grow, I might need a few extra centimeters!

Next, the watering system and the veg side!

Cheers

[Gpaw]

Nice setup @tomGT!

Glad to see I’m not the only one with a home-built fan box.
Are you using a variable or multi-tap transformer for controlling the fan?

Thanks for the walk-thru of your setup. I’m ‘overly interested’ because I’m in the planning stage for a large DIY cabinet myself.

Thanks and Cheers
G

[tomGT]

@Gpaw I did not build the fan box, I bought it already setup with the fan inside. I changed the fan after a few years but I guess I might keep the same box forever. I have a backup in line fan supposed to be silent but it is not quieter than the squirrel cage fan dimmed down in the box.

I am now using a 5 step transformer: the old kind with a coil.
At first I used a controller commonly found in grow shop with a potentiometer to set the default speed and a temperature threshold that when crossed will run the fan to the max power.
Those are mostly using a triac which is said to change the output waveform and the fan could generate some extra noise. So when the first one stopped working, I switched to what was said to be a better solution: a real transformer.
To be honest, I have not really noticed much noise related to the kind of controller used, most of the noise is the wind noise in the vent and when the temperature threshold was crossed and the fan started to go full rpm.

If I had to update the cabinet now I would go for the same fan but look more into the VFD/frequency inverters which are looking more common nowadays.

Cheers

[tomGT]

I grow in a soil that I re-amend mainly with worm casting, guano, and a few other organic inputs. This is the end of the 4th run in this living soil, all I need to add is water.

For that I use tap water left for a few days in bottles that I pour in a 25L tank located in the left part of the cabinet with a tubing going through the side panel into the flower .

And then and then gravity and blumats complete the job:

You can see the watering loop around the tub and the the very important leak pan able to recover the content of the water tank in case of excessive runoff.

I did not want any water on top of electric parts and I needed to have the water tank high enough to have enough pressure for all the spikes so I had no other solution left that to set the veg part on top of the water tank.

It is also in the exhaust path, so the hot air from the flowering side is blown into the veg side and then extracted on the top by a pair of large 12V fans.
That helps to reduce to wind noise, also to heat the veg side in winter but makes things dry quickly when the weather is hot especially when keeping plants in small pots.
Lighting is done by another LED panel running dimmed down to 30W: I don’t need much as it is manly used for starting seeds, cloning and keeping a few plants to get cuttings.

Talking about cuttings, I am quite happy: the next ones left the cloner a few days ago, they are rooting in small pots now. I will have to check again their twins I have in the flower cabinet to see if they are sexed by now but I fear one is going to be very late

Time to clean the flower cabinet and give the little ones a few days to make some roots.

[beacher]

Awesome setup there. I’m wondering why your just run the far red lights at the end of the day instead of all the time?

[ReikoX]

The far red for 15 minutes after lights out is supposed to help the plant “fall asleep quicker”. In fact I heard that 15 minutes before lights on is supposed to help the plants “wake up quicker” too. Something to do with more IR in the AM and PM.

[tomGT]

From what I gathered on the internet, there is two different effects:
-red and far red during the day are linked to Emmerson effect, inducing more stretch apparently.
-far red at the end of the day is suppose to manipulate phytochrome state Pr/Pfr to put the plant to sleep.

According to the manufacturer, there is already some deep red and far red in the side bars I use and as I mostly deal with sativa hybrids and never faced a case where I would need more stretch, I don’t mess with it during the day.

I only use them at night to put the plant to sleep faster: it is supposed to shorten the flowering transition, finish the cycle faster…
I have no real data to compare (same clone to run with or without Far Red) so it is hard to say what is the real effect. I hope one day I can run a side by side and have some real data.

I don’t run it before light ON as I am not sure it will wake up the plants. The info about that part of the process are not so easy to find as the ones about night time.

[Gpaw]

Ok, that re-triggered an earlier question I had (so now I have to ask it). Are all your lights on a single timer or are you setup individually?

Cheers
G

[tomGT]

I have only two timers, one for the day light (the two boards and the two bars) that I run normally 11 ON 13 OFF and the second one is used for the Far Red which is ON only 15min at light off. Mechanical timers are perfect for that as they don’t drift apart!

Cheers!

[ShiskaberrySavior]

@tomGT

, they are seeded

@tomGT nice stealth build you’ve got there. I’d be interested in Canna Rado if possible?
Have a great night looking forward to a smoke report when your done.

@tomGT

Left is CannaRado / Nila Wafer
Center is Cannarado / Cookie Dough Sundae
Right is The Plug / Lots of Zkittlez.

[tomGT]

Hi @ShiskaberrySavior!

It is my first time growing this kind of cookie hybrid or Cannarado seeds . I live in EU and don’t have access to cuts, I wanted for a while to taste again this kind of smoke I experienced when I was in the US so I chose those seeds because they were easily accessible and supposedly contain the said genetics.
It is not always easy nowadays to know what is really inside the seeds you buy! So many fakes and name changing now !

I will do do a complete report in a few weeks, no problem.
So far what I can tell you is that I had no issue germinating both strains: 2 seeds of each Nila Wafer
and Cookie Dough Sundae.
I wish I could have vegged them longer until showing sex or running cuttings instead of the seed plant but COVID messed my plan and I had to start flowering them after topping a couple of time:

They stretched a little bit, here they around 20 days:

The cookie dough is faster (9/10 weeks), the Nila Wafer could/should have gone at least one more week so it maybe 10/11weeks for this one.

Both produced nice dense flowers, the Nila Wafer getting darker on the end.

The smell in the cabinet is what I would qualify as gassy with sweet dough but don’t quote me on that as my only reference regarding smell is my own grows.
The test bud I cut a few weeks ago is coming nice, the taste is the one I was looking for!

Now on the downside, they are seeded, unwanted this time
Not a lot, but I saw a few seeds, I found one in the test nug and I saw at least another couple ready to fall. Half of the plants (one of each strain including the Lot of Skittles) did grow male flowers during weeks 3 and 4. I snipped the one I saw, I may have missed some but for sure I saw a bit of pollen flying.
As I vape, I don’t mind a couple of seeds as long as it is just a few here and there: I will have a better look when trimming after drying.

I have a cut of each one, I will very likely run them again at least once to have a better look and see if they still show intersex issue from clone.

So far the one I like the smell the most out of all of them is not the cannarado ones but one of the Skittles cross, it is pure tart/acidulous fruit candy!

Cheers

[ShiskaberrySavior]

Thanks for the info on your findings , I wasn’t aware your seed making was unintentional sounds like a hermi /stressed situation sorry to hear that . Looking forward to your smoke report should still have some great smoke from the looks of your pictures. Covid has set the world on its side hopefully your run of the clones proves the genetics are solid .

[tomGT]

Time to re-amend the tub!

I run a worm bin that I feed veg/fruits kitchen scraps, egg shells, cardboard, and I also recycle stalks and leaves.

It is two simple totes with spacers in the bottom to allow to drain fluids in the bottom:

I turn it upside down to get the oldest layer out like you would unmold a cake but this time a layer of perlite in the middle made it a bit unstable and messy!

I spreaded a good amount of casting (and a few worms) mixed with some guano and some organic pellets, watered everything down
I just cut the stems of the previous plants, the root ball will disappear in a few weeks!

I try not to add to much, just to add back what have been harvested, but as I don’t have access to soil testing there is lot of guessing! I The last batch came out nice, the leaves stayed all nice until the end when they started to get a nice fade so I am repeating the previous recipe.

Hopefully there won’t be to much N and there will be enough food for the longer flowering time coming next!
I am a bit anxious: it is the first time I am going to run sativas like this indoor.

[tomGT]

Hi OG,

This is going to be the start of a new grow!

I sowed 3 seeds of Golden Tiger and 3 Zamaldelica from ACE a couple months ago.
It is the first time I grow those indoor, I grew them a few times outdoor on my balcony where the struggle was to keep them low.

It seems to be commonly admitted that clones should be easier to manage than seed plants so I took a couple of cuttings of the seed plants to flower and another one to throw in a cup of water in the flower cabinet to sex.

The Zamaldelica was the easiest to sex, I removed one male. The Golden Tigers in water wilted after two weeks in the flower cab without any preflower in sight: I had to use the remaining of the seed plant for sexing but those are struggling to show any sign of flowering. I wonder if those sexing delays could be because of the low light intensity going through the canopy down to the cuttings.
I suspect all 3 Golden Tiger to be female and will use them accordingly, I may have some surprises in a few weeks!

Here are the cuttings ready for next round:

Zamaldelica 1

Zamaldelica 3 (2 was a male!)
They show a copious amount of pre-flower just like the seed plant, I didn’t have to send this one to the flower side!

Golden Tiger 1

Golden Tiger 2

Golden Tiger 3

And some fillers I rooted just in case I need them!
SKZ2 is the pheno of Lots Of Skitllez that I really like last round, US1 is a bagseed from that was sold as Biscotti.

With the 100% success rate on cloning and the low number of males found so far I have more clones than expected, anyway I think I will transplant all 13 and start them straight under 11 or 12h of light.
It is going to be the first time I run I real sea of green so it may not go as expected! I hope you can help to identify mistakes if you find some!

Meanwhile, the top dressing is getting active, I wish I could wait a couple more weeks before transplanting but I am afraid of the clone getting to big. Hopefully the long flower time will compensate for the rushed start.

Cheers

[spaceman]

Great setup @tomGT, it shows a lot of experienced driven thought went into it’s design.

Question, where’d you get the Zamaldelica seed from?
It seems each time I have spare cash to throw at seeds, everybody is out of stock.

Are you planning any UVB lighting?
Aside from good genetics, UVB imo, is the single most important influence on potency.

[tomGT]

Hi @spaceman!

I did buy the Zamaldelica directly from ACE but it’s has been now 4 years. I checked and even on their own website this strain is sold out.

So far I did not really look into UV supplements , I just saw that a few LED panel manufacturer are starting to include them. Next step I guess but it makes sense, UV being the last part of the spectrum not really covered by LEDs.

Cheers