Sorry was a little pickled this morning, but yeah like honey. They are starting to get more and more orange hairs. So i think i can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. Thank God!
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NP. … i go through the same… thats THC degrading if its turning a honey color. I’m sure you know this. I wonder what exactly causes the THC to degrade and if there’s a way to slow it down without harming any growth.
Well these things are filling out quite a bit. I see them up close, and the grape ape is getting slightly bigger, but mainly more dense. Which,as of yet, is rare for the grape apes. Its just genetically disposed to lighter, airy, but much larger buds. That proposition goes even more so for the bay 11’s. They do not produce big buds. Just a lot of ok sized buds. These are different these buds are pretty big, and quite dense. I think they are a little behind the grape ape, but, in my observation, these are going to be some pretty fat, dense, yet a little leafy, buds. That concludes week 17. I think i will push these to 20 weeks, so we have 3 weeks left probably. Might be time for some uvb.
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They’re going to be monster buds in 3 weeks!
What will the UVB do?
The most potent natural weed always came from the Hindu Kush mountains. Mountains being closer to the sun, get more UVB light, which damages plant cells. So its postulated that marijuana started producing thc as a sunscreen to protect it from UVB rays. Its said to increase thc by up to 20%. However its supposed to decrease yield by 10%. Its a trade-off. There are videos of it on youtube. Its just one more behavior of the plant to try to exploit.
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Thats right, i remember watching those vids now. You run them for 4 hours at a clip right? I actually thought about getting a pair to give it a go but i read theres no concrete evidence it really works though. So im up in the air about it.
Well these things are swelling like crazy. The calyxes on the them are looking like bundles of cottony grapes. May only be a couple weeks left.
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I may not do the uvb this time. It can be a pain. I only have one uvb flourescent bulb. Of course i paid 80 bucks for it. I probably should use it.
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Every time i look at these plants, my opinion changes. Its like my previous opinion keeps getting cancelled by new observations. Right now i look at these and see that it looks like flowering almost started over. There are new flowers coming in. And i am back to looking as these tops as not a group of budlets, but a group of tops with their own budlets. I just dont know how much longer the grape ape can survive. The dying leaves on it just keeps going. However there are still a lot of sugar leaves, and plenty of new white pistils. These things are practically just bud and sugar leaves now. But they keep swelling. The bay 11 is still mostly white pistils, and just keeps expanding. I have one bud on it that is dense as hell, but looks like its just getting started. I dont know if i can harvest separately, but i may have to figure it out. The interesting thing about the grape ape is that buds were not that dense before, but now that they are starting to swell, they are not really increasing in size, but the voids are starting to get filled in, and making them dense up. If my big bud denses up significantly, its going to weigh at least an ounce and a half by itself. Its about 3 and a half inches wide and would stretch from my elbow to the tips of my fingers. At any rate, i have to conclude that 16/12 works. It takes a long time, but it definitely increases bud size by an overwhelming amount. Whether its worth it is up to the grower i guess. But for novice growers, having huge buds would be very satisfying i would think. I would say before drying, right now these would fill at least 3 or 4 buckets of 5 gallons. After drying, it would probably be close to 2-5 gallon buckets. That should be around 4 pounds. Its the best way i can figure how to estimate my yield.
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Sounds like its worth a try to me… i doubt i will do 16/12 this grow but down the road i may. I am wondering how it will be after dry and cure. I noticed that my first harvest, it is lacking odor and flavor. I dried at 60 degrees 60 RH but i believe it was because of my lights being to close to the buds and tent temperatures running too high that destroyed alot of the terpenes…not saying this is your case at all. I am just concluding that lights play a critical role in terpenes development and I’m curious it it affected yours with the 16/12 schedule.
The Girl Scout Cookies had been affected from heat. They would have been really strong smelling, but during vacation, the tent was completely closed, so the fan had no intake. That made the fan heat up as well as the ballast on the light. The caretaker just didnt know what he was doing. Ater that, all the trichomes on the leaves were completely amber. After that, there was very little smell. The cure brought a lot of smell back. Its still must be a really good smoke. The 2 plants in there seem unaffected… they have good smell. I love the bay 11. They smell almost like fruit loops.
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The final count on the GSC was 7 ounces of smokable bud, and about 4 ounces of squish.
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The maximum that i should have gotten from the GSC’s was between 6 and 7 ounces, based on the space it consumed. I dont know if those maximums are total bud, or smokable bud. Either way, i was right at the maximum, according to breeders.
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That had to be what happened to my last grow. The heat index destroyed alot of odor and its not very resinous either. The buds are very dry not sticky at all…
I am keeping a better atmosphere inside my tent for this grow right now to see if this will better the funal product.
That was a nice harvest from the GSCs. 7 oz of quality smoke is pretty good. You mentioned you had some loose or larf buds. I had alot of that also. Mostly all the lower branches that weren’t getting much light. It tastes awful…such a waste. I am training my plants this run for sure.
I wish i could tell you whether or not it tastes bad or not, but i dont endulge. I just love growing it. But im just squishing the larf to get rosin. Its cured,so the rosin is darker, and not a pretty golden color, but i want to put it in a cart for my wife to use.
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Week 18: thinking of starting the flush. There is still have quite a bit of swelling to go, but it seems to start at the bottom and work its way up. Not too much different though.
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It really seems like it restarted the flowering process. I still have a lot of white pistils, and i still believe the colas of these are just a cluster of mini colas. I think that another week of 16/12 would have revealed that further. I do think these will still need 3 weeks at least. One thing i hate is picking out the little popcorn buds that i thought would turn into usable buds. That, and having a to break up a large bud into smaller buds after they dried and shrank. I would much rather have less bud and have to trim less. But if i can have one large bud to trim up, that is much more preferable to me. It takes days and days for me to trim up a pound. Its going to take me weeks to trim up 3 pounds, so the more these buds blend together, the better for me. I really think i will just have about 200 to 250 tops to trim, and thats it. Even though each top is going to be really hard to trim all of the leaves out of it.
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Those look really good. They are healthy looking. I hear you on the trim. The fist major trim took me 12 hours straight! I forgot to wear latex gloves and by the 12th hour i was almost heaving i was so high! Hahahaha! I’ll never make that mistake again.
Im inclined to think that one of the main reasons these are taking so long is that they are rootbound af. These are in 10 gallon pots, but they are the better part of a year old. Im guessing once these are done, im going to pull out the rootball, it will be hard as a rock. I wish i could have started the flower earlier. I put a good dusting of muriate of potash in there and just did water for the past 4 days, and the leaves are yellowing already. These things have nothing left in the soil. I am going to have to feed these to the end i think. Like i said earlier, next time im going to do 24 hours to let them stay small and bushy. Then im going to switch to a 14/10 schedule to let them stretch out. Then its back to 24 hours to let the branches stack up. Then it will be to 16/12 or maybe even right to 14/14. We all try to learn from our mistakes and successes. I think this is what im learning, and we shall see on the next grow. But im obviously all about manipulating light schedules to try to grow the most weed i can. While everyone else focuses strictly on LST or HST, and lollipopping, etc. Im going to focus on atmosphere, and see where that gets me. Ill still do those other things, but i feel like the idea of sculpting your plant through light is a new frontier.
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Sounds interesting and ill be following along to see the results with you… the light schedules have me curious.