Cannabis Growers Anonymous

[RogersTowell]

17 hours ago, zapperman said:

Thought I would update with my first grow. Will try and paste a pic but not sure if it will work. Got a lot of good advice from @luckylager so thanks for that! I threw up an ad hoc cover over them last week before the rain based on the advice that purple kush doesn’t like to get wet! They seem to be thriving well. And being my first time, I didn’t do any pruning or training so I just have Christmas trees. Lol. It’s been a lot of fun. My daughter and I named them in the solo cups so you’ll see I cut out those names and stapled to the fence :-). Looking forward to the harvest and getting the family involved. Has been a fun hobby to learn in these strange times, but man, the more I learn the more I realize how little I know. Now to read up on how and when to harvest...

Nice job on your grow.  Those are some nice dense looking colas and I'm digging the purple colours you are getting.

[RogersTowell]

On 9/24/2020 at 8:53 PM, luckylager said:

 

@RogersTowell, your greenhouse will be a big help in allowing them to finish, or be really close before everything gets moldy. Even though you have cover the condensation from big temp swings is a budrot breeding ground.

I've just learned to live with it and remove buds as needed, treat the surrounding area with hydrogen peroxide on a q-tip.

We get all kinds of funky weed rot on the Island even in greenhouses. Bud rot, branch rot, powdery mildew, random black patch leaf mold. 

 

For your future grows I'd recommend topping or FIMing so you have more main colas and larger colas on your branches. You can even just tie down your main top in mid june and you'll increase the number of large colas.

 

Plants left to grown straight up focus most of their energy on the top bud and if that one big ass bud happens to go to mold... it's painful.

Thanks for the tips, especially the q-tip/peroxide.  I've been removing the odd bud and a bit of the surrounding area just to be thorough and once or twice prematurely harvested a twig or two stragically.  I'll certainly be looking at topping/FIM/LST next time around.  For this go, I really wanted to just see the shapes the plants grew in on their own and wasn't concerned with maximising things too much.  Next time around I'll try a few things differently.  A lot of the information I've gleaned from you and stawns here will be incorporated.

It's Saturday night now and it was a pretty good day.  Mix of sun and clouds and only a sprinkle or two.  The humidity wasn't too bad and the molds and related 5th kingdom saprophytes have been fairly low key.  I'm pumped as we go into better weather over the next week and hope I've weathered the storm on the bad weather for a while.

[luckylager]

47 minutes ago, RogersTowell said:

Thanks for the tips, especially the q-tip/peroxide.  I've been removing the odd bud and a bit of the surrounding area just to be thorough and once or twice prematurely harvested a twig or two stragically.  I'll certainly be looking at topping/FIM/LST next time around.  For this go, I really wanted to just see the shapes the plants grew in on their own and wasn't concerned with maximising things too much.  Next time around I'll try a few things differently.  A lot of the information I've gleaned from you and stawns here will be incorporated.

It's Saturday night now and it was a pretty good day.  Mix of sun and clouds and only a sprinkle or two.  The humidity wasn't too bad and the molds and related 5th kingdom saprophytes have been fairly low key.  I'm pumped as we go into better weather over the next week and hope I've weathered the storm on the bad weather for a while.

It's a fun adventure no matter what. I've got a friend who has been growing for over 20 years and never goes further than LST. Dude doesn't even prune, ever. In the 25ish years we've been growing I've always laughed at his lack of creativity and desire to improve, but you know what, he always pumps out massive plants with big yields. 

When we share seedlings his end product isn't as nice as mine but his yield is almost 2x.

He grows massive plants. Huge mother&^@#ers.

He has a lot of land and literally just plunks seedlings in piles of compost in late march/early April every year, ties the tops down in June and that's it.

No further training or pruning.

 

So nobody's rules are all that. Every grower finds their own groove and works within it.

Plunking your crop down and watering it does work. I think you get better quality if you dote on your plants, but at the end of the day considerable effort may not make a considerable difference.

[stawns]

Harvested 4 plants last night.......big, dense, sticky buds and no evidence of mold or bud rot........so that's a relief.  

 

Normally I'm a wet trim guy, but we just bought a Tom's Tumbler, so we did minimal wet trim and will let them dry well to use in the tumbler.  It should be here by Thursday and I'm pretty pumped!

 

Looks like nice warm weather in the OK for the next 10 days or so..... Possibly getting close to 30 and staying in double digits overnight.  This is the weather is hoped for last year.  I've got 6 about a week or so away and that would be fantastic if I can finish those outside.  Still think about 10 will have to finish under lights.

 

[stawns]

with harvets upon or us, or just around the corner, and after buying a tumbler I'm curious as to what growers here prefer for trimming.........dry trim or wet trim?

 

As I said in the last mesage, I am genereally a wet trim guy. I think it's easier to get a nice manicured look on the buds with a wet trim and it's just easier, in general to work with if you hand trim.  I find when I dry and then trim, it's hard to really get them looking nice and presentable.  However, when i wet trim I really have to place close attention to the drying process because it's very easy to let them over dry and get crispy.  I like the drying process better when I hang them up raw, but the trim is a hassle.

 

What's your preferences?

[Petey Castiglione]

Thanks for sharing everyone!  Have learned lots and look forward to learning more.  Keep up the good work, love the pictures!!

[luckylager]

8 hours ago, stawns said:

with harvets upon or us, or just around the corner, and after buying a tumbler I'm curious as to what growers here prefer for trimming.........dry trim or wet trim?

 

As I said in the last mesage, I am genereally a wet trim guy. I think it's easier to get a nice manicured look on the buds with a wet trim and it's just easier, in general to work with if you hand trim.  I find when I dry and then trim, it's hard to really get them looking nice and presentable.  However, when i wet trim I really have to place close attention to the drying process because it's very easy to let them over dry and get crispy.  I like the drying process better when I hang them up raw, but the trim is a hassle.

 

What's your preferences?

I prefer a wet trim but I don't manicure wet bud.

Basically I trim them from a hanging position and remove all leaf that has it's stem showing. If the stem is buried in bud I just leave it.

 

That said, if a few plants happen to ripe at the same time I never have enough time to trim to satisfaction before they dry and end up having to over trim a lot of dry bud to make it look good.

 

Here's a pic of one of the Purple Papaya colas trimmed for the drying rack, which is how I prefer my buds to look before drying, it just doesn't always happen. My dry room is relatively cool though, about 18degrees, so that keeps them from getting crispy and still having a longish dry at 8-10 days.

 

I also never waste time trimming bottom $&!# that will either be cooked or kiefed

[luckylager]

Bad news today- the big ass Grapefruit Kush has spot mold on several branch junctions.

I treated and wrapped the spots but in my experience I'll be losing those branches pretty soon.

 

3 branches and one of my main cola branches are affected. Bummer, but I'm uses to it.

&^@#ing mold and rot this time of year.. always happens. 

I always tell myself I'm sticking to early finishers next year but never do.

Oh well, it's Island life.

[RogersTowell]

36 minutes ago, luckylager said:

Bad news today- the big ass Grapefruit Kush has spot mold on several branch junctions.

I treated and wrapped the spots but in my experience I'll be losing those branches pretty soon.

 

3 branches and one of my main cola branches are affected. Bummer, but I'm uses to it.

&^@#ing mold and rot this time of year.. always happens. 

I always tell myself I'm sticking to early finishers next year but never do.

Oh well, it's Island life.

I think next year I'll try to find some Early Maroc.  It's supposed to be ready to harvest by the end of August.

[stawns]

50 minutes ago, luckylager said:

Bad news today- the big ass Grapefruit Kush has spot mold on several branch junctions.

I treated and wrapped the spots but in my experience I'll be losing those branches pretty soon.

 

3 branches and one of my main cola branches are affected. Bummer, but I'm uses to it.

&^@#ing mold and rot this time of year.. always happens. 

I always tell myself I'm sticking to early finishers next year but never do.

Oh well, it's Island life.

That's rough, my condolences.

[stawns]

The ten day weather forecast for the north okanagan.  F*** yes

[luckylager]

Just now, stawns said:

That's rough, my condolences.

Comes with the territory.

The Grapefruit I trained more aggressively and the Blue Dream are unaffected at this point, Cinderella99 isnt either but continues to get just &^@#ing nailed with powdery mildew.

[RogersTowell]

Lost a few really nice buds today to bud rot.  I'm going to give my Violator another day or so to see if the improved weather builds buds faster than they die (today it lost three big buds on the main cola ), but I might have to pull the plug.  One of my blackberry platinums is also losing a few buds, but it's too early to harvest that one - it's going to have to tough it out.  Ortega is still plugging along doing well.

[RogersTowell]

20 hours ago, stawns said:

The ten day weather forecast for the north okanagan.  F*** yes

We've got at least a good week coming up here on the Island.  I hope it's enough to start turning things around.  I've got mushrooms growing in my lawn, which can't be a good sign.

[stawns]

I've got three Moby Dick that are all going deep purple and have the tightest buds I've ever grown.  I stripped everything but the top 3 nodes of every branch and the result was a plant full of golf ball sized buds, all of them as hard as a golf ball 

 

They are all purple and smell like grape.  It's unreal.

 

Last year I bought Moby Dick from the same seed bank and got smaller, elongated buds and they smelled intensely of lemon.  The buds ended up being nice and tight, but smaller.  

[stawns]

My mother wouldn't stfu in the back ground.

[luckylager]

On 9/28/2020 at 6:32 PM, stawns said:

I've got three Moby Dick that are all going deep purple and have the tightest buds I've ever grown.  I stripped everything but the top 3 nodes of every branch and the result was a plant full of golf ball sized buds, all of them as hard as a golf ball 

 

They are all purple and smell like grape.  It's unreal.

 

Last year I bought Moby Dick from the same seed bank and got smaller, elongated buds and they smelled intensely of lemon.  The buds ended up being nice and tight, but smaller.  

Beauty! Looks so yummy

[luckylager]

On 9/28/2020 at 5:09 PM, RogersTowell said:

We've got at least a good week coming up here on the Island.  I hope it's enough to start turning things around.  I've got mushrooms growing in my lawn, which can't be a good sign.

It's the damp cool nights that feed the mold growth even when it's sunny this time of year. It literally happens to everyone I know. For whatever reason this year seems to be bad for powdery mildew among the growers I know. One if my buddy's got hit with the random branch rot which is &^@#ing with my Kush tree.

Back in the day when I was guerrilla growing largish patches we'd lose up to 50% to mold depending on the strain... occassionally lost all of a patch to raiders or cops. That always sucked.

Texada Time Warp and Afghan are good outdoor strains I havent grown since the early 2000's. Both finished around mid Sept and had pretty good mold resistance. I might try to revisit those strains one day.

 

Once you start losing a bud a day it's pretty tempting to just chop it down. One of the nice things about growing at home is you see them every day, it's not like they look close to ready one week, then the next half the buds are grey.

My advice - if she has some red hairs and covered in crystal you're probably ok to cut a bit early instead of losing too many buds. The high won't be as "couchy" but it'll still get you high and usually makes for great day weed.

[RogersTowell]

On 9/30/2020 at 5:46 PM, luckylager said:

 

My advice - if she has some red hairs and covered in crystal you're probably ok to cut a bit early instead of losing too many buds. The high won't be as "couchy" but it'll still get you high and usually makes for great day weed.

Thanks for the advice.  I have one plant that I could probably harvest by those criteria.  I'm not a fan of 'couchy' anyway.  The only downside to seeing them every day is that you don't notice how fast things are growing because you are exposed to the plants several times a day.

Edited October 2, 2020 by RogersTowell

[luckylager]

9 minutes ago, RogersTowell said:

Thanks for the advice.  I have one plant that I could probably harvest by those criteria.  I'm not a fan of 'couchy' anyway.  The only downside to seeing them every day is that you don't notice how fast things are growing because you are exposed to the plants several times a day.

A few years ago I picked up a handheld 20x-40x microscope for like $15 from Bolan Books (kids science toys). I use it to check the trichomes on my buds.

Clear trichs will have very little THC. If they're all milky with a bit of opaque it'll be okay but not potent. 

All milky with a few amber is kind of my sweet spot. The more amber coloured trichs the more potent and couchy your crop will be.

 

Without a scope I'd say when you're at 30-50% red hairs the trichs should be milky but with no amber. Generally speaking