heres a basic medium mix a grower friend of mine suggested. to create 3cu ft of medium: 1 cu. ft. Canadian sphagnum peat moss 1 cu ft. mushroom compost 1 cu Ft vermiculite 3 cup Dolomite lime into mixture of this mix 3 cup kelp meal 3 cup alfalfa meal 3 cup Tom/veg/herb fert (Dr Earth HG is what I have available.) mix, water, and bag or pile for 1-3 weeks. now I have some experience in container vegetable gardens and wouldn't hesitate to use this mix there but this is for medicinal cannabis purposes. inasmuch I have a few specific questions. I was wondering what yall thought about it esp about mushroom compost. PH PPM salts etc... the next question is should 12 cups Granite dust be added during the initial "cooking" process or can appropriate amount be added just prior to potting? will adding 1/2 cu ft worm castings help the mix? TIA GS

2 of the lavenders bit the proverbial dust but one is looking surprisingly well the BDs are coming along as many 3 - 4 weekers should pics to follow shortly. thanks for the positive comments.

So we took down 6 plants this time. one PK one Gorilla Grape one Platinum OG and 3 Blue dream we totaled out with just over 49 ounces of med quality Bud. with the HQT from the GG, PK and P-og trim we made just under 2 pounds of budder and one pound of cocoanut oil. at 39g/pound which was stored or made into organic &/or vegan baked edibles from the 13 oz low quality trim we took out 9-10 grams total of 73.u and 45.u IWE. remaining is about 170 so grams of HQT combined w/ some left overs. This will be run into IWE Hopefully we will get 20g - 28g or so IWE that will be pressed into Hash or left as bubble Kief. the next run has entered the Flower room which at the present contains a PK plant that is in week 6 and 2 blue dreams and 3 lavenders all of which are in week 3.

the total weight for the 3 blue dream plants was 1014g of trimmed dried bud and 112g of high quality trim which will be used in an Ice water exaction process the pressed into Hash.

I was wondering if any of you had a good idea of the additional amount of water (expressed as a %) that one might add to a given minimum % that previously exists in a given absorbtive medium volume. so to say if I were to add 3 quart water to 17 quart absorptive medium or 18.5% to a minimum lets say 10% moisture level, I would have 30.72% of the volume of absortive medium in additional moisture (1.7 quart is already in the medium) total moisture. so 23.5% of the total volume is water ( basically 25% moisture) What you you think the minimum % moisture level is and the maximum amount (expressed as a percentage) What do you think (OR KNOW) the most beneficial amount of moisture (expressed as a percentage) for our given vegetation? What do you think the Maximum amount of moisture expressed as a percentage) is recommended? Basically e all know what "dry" is. would you care to make an educated guess on what range moisture % "dry" represents ? Im shooting at adding 15.56% of the absorptive medium Volume in water. DO you think (OR KNOW) adding this much to the "dry" range would be most beneficial ? We should express options in right now terms because many factors exist that the uptake of moisture (hence the "dry" % range and "most beneficial - maximum range questions) example: so if we know that an additional 33% moisture or 25% of the total volume was most beneficial and "dry" was say 10 - 15% then adding at least an additional 15% would be about right.

we just brought down another blue dream and it filled up the dry room Plus I ran out of cloths pins... we took just over 11 oz from the first plant so I figure #2 has got to be near 1lb dry there is way more herb here than the dry room pic on page 3 I know another quality problem. Bud pics forthcoming

we took down a single Blue dream plant but due to production constraints wet trimmed weights were not taken dry weights forth coming: below is a pic of the summer drying space where humidity can be more closely controlled. this space double as a nursery where clones are tended for their first few weeks. as you can see there are some substantial sized buds hanging here.

we took down a single Platinum OG plant and after a fairly close trimming and drying it produced 199g (7.107 oz) of high grade organic bud. pics to follow plant dried bud

aint nature great nice work guru... happy smoking ghost

Sorry to have been away from the keyboard . to report we took just under 2kg of wet material with after hanging and removal of remaining stems garnered approx 10 .5 oz of bud. I should really look back upon the last time we took down these two strains to get a more specific comparison. but I am confident that we took down 2oz more than last time. yes these two produced 58g more dried flower than last harvest. which equates into about a 25% increase in flower production. here are some pics from trimming / curing process

Final Indica Growth Pics PK Gorilla Grape Harvest tomorrow pics and weights to follow

sounds like an interesting twist . we also wait 4 days . I suspect that the composition of the media has something to do with it. we co not use coir at all but a fair amount of peat vermiculite and perlite.

well no pics this week I'll get back with them next week when we start to bring the BLD girls down. But suffice it to say that the indica colas continue to swell and are now the size of cucumbers. The flush featured a null to the high ppm reading during the first flushed gallon of moisture through the medium to a low 350 ppm for the last gallon moving from 6.9 pH to 7.2 ph . during the next week I will continue to monitor the pH and the further turning of the leaves but don't feel the need for aggressive flushing beyond a cursory final flushing in 4-5 days where again the ppm in and ppm out will be taken and noted. I wish we have the ability to further control the room especially night time temp in an effort to get the leaves to turn their beautiful purple tones. but with supply air running the the lower to upper 90F it tis difficult to maintain low optimum night time temps. ironically root wad temps are running nearly optimum between 68f -72f so growth is not really effected. although I believe P uptake is still vigorous ( which I believe allows the plant to produce inflorescence for a longer period ) . furthermore extremely low humidity levels of the supply air (15% relative) have produced astounding trichrome development. noted more so on the statia dominate and significant strain plants but also a quite noticeable relative increase on the Indica dominate BLD strains. The P- OG is not comparable to the last run the buds are so much larger which I attribute to both added veg time and an more aggressive feeding cycle. as well as further enrichment and maturity of the media it self. There is some noticeable turning of the P-OG leaves. and it is my assumption that these will hit the ground before the 70 day mark. The Blue Dream buds are basically nugs the size of a mans fist and the main colas are more or less the size of 24oz beer cans. the BD still have very few amber hairs (pistle) the vast majority are cream colored. Although the buds are no where near mature they are literally encrusted with thrichromes of which some are cloudy and mostly clear glands. I will have ample opportunity to keep an eye on these beauties in the upcoming few weeks.

I dig the fabulous furry freak brothers . especially Phineas and Fat Freddys Cat classic stoner comics from Austin Texas I grew up near there in the 70's isnt it funny that smokie's nose is a giant spliff?

one third is a bit high I suspect. I find that 20% or trimmed weight is often really close. at 450g you will have 16oz of dried product. by my reckoning you will get about 460 ish grams of smoke-able reefer. which is one big bag of kick ass natural. regardless enjoy the heck out of it.

well tomorrow if the first of two flushes for the indicas . we will use 10-20 gallons of water to flush these 2 plants in approx 1 ft3 of medium 5-10 gal each we use 0 EC r/o water PH adjusted to 6.3 - 6.5 pH after adding a prescribed dose of Clearex from Botanicare. the process is to add 1 gal to each plant and let that soak in . then add 1 more gal to get the juice flowing then slowly add the remainder 1/2 gal at a time. at this point pH and EC reading will be taken of the effluent to determine the amount of additional flushing that may be required. the last gal of water will get a prescribed dose (40ml) of molasses based product and a mag / iron/ cal supplement, of course the final flush wont contain neither of these two supplements but will have the flushing agent just to make sure the last bit of salt build up will be swept away. even w/o adverse EC and pH reading this final flush will be made to some extent. then the plants will be allowed to finally mature under a drying regimen where little or no moisture will be added to the medium. and then my (OK second) favorite part of the process chop chop chop YEEEEEaahhh..

Lets discuss defoliation Sure we all trim off the odd leaf here and there however some folks trim much more and earlier than others. I was discussing this exact topic with a newbie med grower of mine who seems to be fairly averse to doing so especially in the canopy of the garden. I however take a more hands on approach with most of my vegetable and flowering crops both indoor and out. Personally I remove many leaves that I feel interfere with fruit or bud sites in the way of shading. In fact I am much more likely to cut (or simply pinch) off leaves that basically get in the way. (please be aware that I have been growing vegetables and flowers for literally as long as I can remember (one of my first jobs ever was selling seed packs door to door for like 1 or 2 cents each at like 7 or 8 years old.) And though admittedly not any sort of "horticultural expert" I do seems to possess the proverbial "green thumb" IN an effort to increase the learning curve of all of us med growers, rec growers or simply gardeners in general I would like to open the forum by fist asking a general question. That is: how many , in what way, in what area, and for what purpose do you trim otherwise health leaves off your plantings and more pointedly during the mid to late flowering phase? Thanks in advance GS

Ok we went with about a 20-25% defoliation limited to the lower branches and sparse defoliation of giant leaves among the upper and we have been producing nicely. there has been some dried up leaves and premature branches among the lower which were also taken off and our bud production seems more than satisfactory. our subjects are by no means compact with the sativa hybrids topping over 60 inches from soil to top of plant and indica's running about 32-36" this is by no means a critical study but this level of defoliation seems to be by no means overly detrimental to the plant.

40 -80 watts per foot square seems to be a good commercial metric. 40 w/ft2 seems to be the cut off according to most horticultural design specs ive seen. we use a bit less in our flower room up side of around 35 w/ft2 and seem to produce OK weights per cycle. I prescribed more but the patient didn't want to go there because of equipment and power costs. but we do use supplemental light as seen in my thread its kind of rudimentary at this time( 2 4ft - 2 tube T12 strips) but I have purchased a couple 1x4' 4 tube t5 VHOs which may be used for that purpose . it seems like your in the proper realms and could expand w/o having to install more or upgrade. 3x3 or 3x4 should be OK 4x4 may be a bit under powered but not extremely so. PS make sure to burp those jars often you dont want mold growing in those curing jars . thats the worst fucking thing imaginable.. I mean its just soul crushing.

yeah take her to flush. run like 2 times soil/medium volume. you can use a low EC pure water or if you wish employ a flushing solution (i uses clearex) let her dry out good and keep the humidity low 30-40% no higher. in a week/5 days they should be really ready to cut and cure. looks like fantastic smoke Im going to nurture this strain in a garden soon.

I have found that 20% of trimmed harvest weight can be counted on by the time they go into jars for the curing process. sometimes a bit less. furthermore mold problems can be countered by tweeking the atmospheric conditions and keeping the room humidity between 40% during the dark cycle and 30% during the light. if you reside in a humid environment De-humidifiers should be employed during the late stages of flowering. being here in the desert SW of the USA we mist to bring the humidity up just before cutting the lights off and again first thing. by 2 hours or so into the light cycle the humidity has fallen considerably . it seems the moisture in the soil keeps it just over 30% except on days where we have let it totally dry out. (usually prior to feeding or flushing) PS it looks like you cut some really nice bud there guy . Enjoy "smoking your own" as nothing much beats it. peace out Ghost

Blue Dream plants and colas another 3-4 weeks out note: Platinum OG plant right front of pic 2 to get an idea of how differently these two hybrids mature. clones were taken and pants were placed in flower room at the same time. nutrient feed through life cycle were exactly the same schedule. but note how many more rusty hairs P OG has on it in comparison. In a much I have prescribed the P OG to enter flushing stage at the end of week 9, 1 week prior to Dreams which I woundn't dare to start flushing prior to day 70 of flower cycle.

Platnium OG bud pics

purple Kush Bud gorilla grape branch gorilla grape Bud purple Kush Bud & Plant gorilla grape Plant Gorilla Grape Buds

more pics from week 8 upcoming.