Hello all! This journal will note the progress of my first full clone run. The plants pictured below served as the mothers for this run (specifically the front left plant in the 4x4 here), and were my NYGC plants grown from Seedsman seeds:
I flipped these clones to flower on 4/14, so this first post will serve to update us to where I am now in the grow.
The clones were first taken on 1/31. They took quite a while to root, but once they did, they developed some very strong roots. First pic is cloning day, 1/31, then the root pic is 2/15, followed by the pic of them in their mini air pots on 2/22:
I had 4 original plants growing, and I took clones of each to be sure I'd have enough to do another run of 4 of whichever plant I judged to be the best growing one. I ended up culling out all but 2 of each of the front left and back left plants from the NYGC pic above. My next run after this one will be another set of Jack clones, but on that run, all 4 will be the front left plant.
The following three pics are about 5-6 days apart as I got them growing. First pic was 3/1 while they were still in their mini air pots, then the next pic is after the transplant to the 2gals on 3/7, then the next is a progress pic from 3/12:
Once i had made the decision on which plants to keep, I culled the others and got the grow down to the final 4 that would go into the flower 5x5 tent after the NYGC Pineapple Express were harvested. The next three pics are from 3/16, 3/21, and then 3/27 after I moved them into the 5x5.
Here they are from 4/3, 4/14 (flip day), and then after the trellis was installed on 4/15:
Final two pics get us caught up to today. Fist is from 4/21, and the last is from today. Tomorrow, 4/28, marks 2 weeks from flip:
Just so everyone knows who didn't follow my previous grows, I'm growing in coco/perlite with an auto water system fertigating 4x daily and using the GH nutrient schedule here on this site for all of my growing. This schedule is what I'm currently using, always using the max recommended cal-mag to avoid issues with that. I mix my nutrients strictly according to the methods outlined here on CfC, diluting down to the EC levels recommended on this chart:
I have gone over the photos of my NYGC Jack Herer grow which can be found here:
The plants looked perfectly healthy and happy with no signs of nutrient issues up until 3/27, when I first noticed some very slight tip burn. I had started the "Mid Bloom" section of the above GH chart on 3/23, before any hints of the tip burn started to show, and from 3/27 to 4/4 it became more obvious.
The changes in the feed schedule from "Early Bloom" to "Mid Bloom" where the tip burn changes started to occur are a slight reduction in Micro from 2.5 ml/g to 2.25, from 1.0 ml/g to 0.5 of Gro, an uptick in Bloom from 2.5 ml/g to 3, and the increase of KoolBloom from 1 ml/g to 1.5.
These changes seem relatively minor in their totals, but it seems that this transition is where this Jack Herer started to have its issues. Overall, the issues don't seem overly major, but the tip burn has gone along with an overall drier feeling to all the leaves as well, and some yellowing on a few of the smaller sugar leaves on the flowers as in this pic below:
There are only a handful of flowers showing this issue, and mostly on one of the plants.
I have been using the "Early bloom" portion of the schedule on this clone run since 4/23 (9 days after flip), and have yet to notice any issues. By around 5/8 I plan to switch to the mid bloom per the suggestion on the GH chart to stay on "Early bloom" for two weeks, but I'm looking for suggestions on that step. Should I stick with the "Early bloom" portion for a bit longer than suggested? Or should I change at the two week mark as suggested but reduce the changed from what is suggested on the chart to a more mild shift? The current JH grow I have ongoing from the NYGC was flipped on 2/21 and they aren't ready yet, which means I'm looking at 8 weeks or so post-pistils for them to be ready if my guess is correct. If that's correct, then sticking to the GH schedule puts me at the end of week 7 when it says to go to flush, so that would seem to add up and give me a few days to flush and then harvest.
Anyone with some advice on this, please let me know what your thoughts are.
My goal for this grow and journal is to track down whatever is causing the issue and adjust my feeding accordingly, and learn from this going forward. Reading the plants and correcting issues on the fly is something I am not yet comfortable with, so hopefully this will help me gain some experience in this area, as well as build my own formula for the JH plants that I know works and I can stick to as I continue to clone it.
Thanks for reading and following along!
Updated pic for today! So far looking pretty healthy and happy. These plants were not mainlined or had any special training outside of supercropping and spacing out in the net, so they are a bit wilder than their mothers. It's a handful, but I'm managing it. Might need to selectively prune as the leaves are bunching up on each other quite a bit.
Thought I'd post an update on the EC chasing issue and add some details on what I've done to get it under control. In this grow I have 2 clones of one pheno of JH, and 2 clones of another pheno. The two clones in front of the tent are the ones that do have the tip burn, and the other two do not. Obviously same conditions, fertigation amounts and input EC.
Here is a photo of one of the flowers from today which does have a bit of the tip burn:
And one of the back plants which do not have it:
So I did a normal fertigation event at 1.2 EC and measured the runoff in each plant. The back two which are not showing the problem had runoff EC's of 1.2 and 1.3, almost no difference from the input of 1.2.
The front two, however, had 1.4 and 1.6 runoff EC. The 1.6 plant is obviously showing the tip burn the worst, and the 1.4 slightly less. Normally being within .3 EC of input is considered acceptable, and only the 1.6 plant is out of that range. So I did a flush as Doc outlines here in his article CFC Flushing Article . This flush entailed using the normal nutrient solution that would go in at 1.2, but diluting it down to a half-strength solution of .6 and doing a heavy fertigation event. I will again measure the runoff EC after a normal fertigation to ensure this flush did the trick and update later.
My thinking is that this pheno just wants to be fed with a more mild EC, and even the 1.2 input is a bit higher than she wants. The one thing I am not sure on is why the runoff EC in these two plants is so much higher than the other two when they are fed exactly the same with similar runoff amounts as the other two which did not have the buildup. Is the increased buildup in salts versus the other two a result of the plants using less as the solution passes though, and therefore more builds up in between events?
For the record, here's an updated pic of the overall canopy.
Update on the clone grow:
I dug back through the pictures of the original NYGC grow of the Jack Herer plants. Here is a photo from week 7 of flower. Note that the front left plant is the one that is cloned for this current grow:
And here is the current pic, taken today (also week 7), of the clones of that front left plant:
Given the modifications to the Koolbloom additive (basically, I've cut it in half for the clones), as well as lowering the EC overall by .1, there appears to be a lot less tip burn and the plants look healthier overall to me. There was some leaf curling in the original grow, but I think that was due to the HLG550v2 being too close for a period of time. Also keep in mind that the current grow is under the Fluence Spyder 2x, so the light is gentler overall as well.
Welp, this one is harvested! Here's the last pic I took of it before I took it down:
I believe Doc nailed the problem with the last grow, that being too heavy on the liquid Koolbloom. I did still get tip burn as you can see in the picture above, but it was certainly minimal compared to the last grow, and the run that is coming up behind these is in week 3 and has no tip burn as yet. I did get my Co2 tank/regulator settled and am sitting at 800ppm now while the lights are on, so we will see how that affects the next harvest. Next post will have post harvest pics and weights.
Here are a couple of post-harvest / pre-trim pics:
This harvest was a bit disappointing compared the last one, as not only was the weight less, but the buds themselves were much less dense than the previous run. It's not quite an apples to apples comparison as I will get into below, but I did expect the results to be a bit closer than they were.
To review, here are the differences between this harvest and the last:
Light: This grow was under the Fluence Spyder 2x, which at 345w, was obviously not as powerul as the 480w HLG55vs RSPEC from the last grow.
Plants: This grow consisted of two clones one on pheno, and 2 of another of the Jack Herer from the first round. The first round was from seed, and obviously 4 different phenos. The plants I selected for cloning were the two heaviest yielders from the seed plants.
Feed: This grow I reduced the liquid Koolbloom called for on the CFC GH chart by 1/2. I also lowered the overall EC by .1 throughout the flower cycle.
The first grow from seed netted me 18.66oz, and 3.5ozof larf I used to make butter. The weight without the larf put this grow at 1.1 grams/w.
This grow netted 8.12oz of good trimmable flowers, and 3.75oz dry of larf/popcorn. It also yielded 16.24oz of flowers that I removed the day before harvest and froze to use to make hash. Because of this, I can't really get an accurate measurement of grams per watt. I'm just not sure how you would fairly calculate this harvest. If you just counted the 8.12oz of dried and trimmed flowers, then the grams per watt would be .67 grams per watt. I don't really think that's a fair assessment of the grow or a direct comparison to the last grow given the yield from the fresh-frozen flowers and what they will provide in hash form.
The biggest takeaway I think I got from this grow was that light horsepower matters! I ran the numbers using Doc's light calculator on these two lights, and the yield differences were as obvious as those numbers would suggest they would be. The biggest difference between these grows was the overall quality of the flowers themselves. The buds grown under the Fluence were far less dense and was immediately noticeable as I started trimming. The best flowers under the Fluence in terms of size, shape and weight weren't even in the ballpark of the average flowers from the HLG grow.
Big "DUH" conclusion: 480w is better than 345w! There were some other variables, no doubt, so I can't say with absolute certainty that the light was the biggest factor, but it certainly does appear to me to be the case. I will have far better data and comparisons with my current grow, which is 4 clones taken from this grow, but back under the HLG light, so when I harvest those plants, it will be far closer to a direct apples-to apples-comparison.
For my next grow, I have ordered teh light in the link below. The Fluence will be moved to the veg tent, leaving the new light and the HLG as the two flowering lights.
Here is the current pic of the newest generation of the Jack Herer clones:
I will be making a separate journal to track what I think will be my final JH grow.
