-Drewberry - Gen Hydro vs. Dutch Master Battle of the Blooms - been flowering 2 weeks

7 days till the girls get

THE CHOP

Dum da dum!!! I think I might swap out the weak nutes I gave them last thursday with just straight water for this last week... definitely want the smoothest smoke possible! Somebody (I'm to lazy to flip back thru posts, aight!) suggested turning the lights off the last few days and using ice water to flush? Anyone know if these are valid techniques?

Jig and Sens, whats your choppin style? Then from what I gathered I need to leave them hanging for 3-4 days to dry then they go into jars which I burp twice a day? Then after a week or two in the jars they're about done, right? So excited... it smells crazy up there. Will definitely be hard to part with any but I do have to say the capitalist in me is getting excited, too. I don't smoke much so it would be a waste to have a couple ounces just sitting around drying out. Man I am stoked.

Oh and next up I think we're gonna do a run of Heavy Duty Fruity. Dude did a run with that and got some beastly football sized colas so I wanna check it out!!!

No idea about the ice water thing. I've heard about shutting off the lights, but in my grow the humidity climbs when lights are off and I wouldn't want to leave them in high humidity for days on end just to get an extra little bit of resin. They are frosty enough and mold would be a killer.

I trim things very slowly because I'm so picky about the job I do. So I cut a branch or two off, trim them up. Cut a couple more and repeat till things are done. I've been cutting things down in my closet since Monday I believe and I'm probably half way done. The rest is still growing/ maturing. I trim them strait after chopping them, I don't dry them first. People say you get a smother smoke from drying them all together (not trimming the sugar leaves), but I find it a real pain to trim when dry. Once they are trimmed I just put them in a cabinet with no air flow. I open it a few times a day to put more branches in and check things. You don't want something air tight though. I used to use cardboard boxes and hang them. Lately I've just stacked them up, this round I'm standing them on their stalks. They take around 5 to 7 days to dry for me, it's different depending on where you put them, the amount of heat they have, airflow, humidity. Slower dry is better in my mind for smoothness of smoke. I wait till the stems crack when you try to bend them... as opposed to just bending. You can feel the buds too, if they are getting crispy that's way dry enough.

Then I cut them off the stems and put them in jars. It's amazing what curing does. Even a 24 hour cure completely changes the smoke. Open them twice a day. The moisture will seep out from the middle and sorta remoisten the outer parts of the buds. So depending on how squishy or how crispy they feel that will say how long to leave the jars open. If they are kinda squishy, leave it open for a while (30-60 mins). If they are crispy 5 mins will do. I give it a shake before opening to make sure no buds are stuck together.

Cure time is up to you. 2 weeks is what co-ops say is minimum for you to donate to them (no way for them to check, but that's their preference). I think 30 days is a good cure. Either way, I start smoking them as soon as they are dry, and what you are smoking just gets better with time.

I just posted pics on my thread of me trimming a branch and everything drying in my cabinet if you want to check it.

Oh... and when I trim, I go through once and remove all fan leaves with little to no trichs on them. I toss those in the trash. Some people keep to make butter (for cooking). Then I go through and cut off all the sugar leaves, the ones that are 50% to completely covered in trichs and save those for sure. You can make all sorts of goodies with them. Hash and the like. That stuff you leave out to dry as well, but I don't think it's important how you dry them. I just put the stuff in a paper bag, or box and leave out near my heater. You are only going to be smoking the trichs and I don't think a slow dry matters with that stuff. When it's dry, just store it how it's convienient. Freezer bags are good. I leave them unsealed so no mold can grow.

I think that about covers it. Oh, I use wax paper, or parchment paper to trim things on. It get's sticky just laying the branch down for breaks, so don't do it on a table or something. Newspaper works ok too, but I worry about ink getting on my stuff.

Hope that helps, lol. Lots of typing there. It's really not that involved, haha. Check my journal for pics bro.

peace

For the smoothest smoke you need to deprive them of nitrogen at the end of flower and you need to cure them in the jars as long as possible... definitely recommend straight water as long as it's not adversely affecting your plants other than leaves yellowing. the longer you cure the smoother and better the taste usually, and the potency will increase over time. Two weeks is the minimum you'd want to, 1 month is what most people go for (the most increase in potency and taste in the least time) and at least 2 months is what people say for best potency and taste. I've never heard twice a day just once, but I'm going to be re-reading up on curing and drying techniques as it gets closer to flower and get up to date and see if I can't improve quality over what I did previously.

Never heard of ice water before that guy who posted it... as far as in the dark, I vaguely remember trying it before and not seeing a big difference -- those who are opposed to it say the extra 3 days under a light would be the better option. I will probably try it at some point.

I have heard good things about heavy duty fruity -- sure you'll be happy with it. Never grown it personally

So psyched for you wish I were a week from the chop... next 6-7 weeks is gonna kill me waiting. Not to mention I'm running out of space due to too many females still... I guess I should be glad I didn't get too many boys but it's getting kind of ridiculous how many girls I'm getting now and how few boys (only 2 so far with 2 left to sex) -- i popped seeds based on a 50-50 rate so now i have tooo many unless the other 2 turn out to be boys.

Any results of which nutrient company seemed to work better? Awesome thread/idea!

Jig and Sens: Thanks for the tips guys! Jig I'm glad to see someone else is as OCD as me.. at the rate of 1 hour per branch trimmed it must take you days and days to trim a crop... but the finish product looked awwwwesome! Sens most people would be stoked to have to many females! Just get creative... nail a few to the roof!

Wesmoke: Aloha friend! The dutch master by far was better during the veg stage, however for flowering its under the older/weaker LED so the Gen HYdro buds are actually looking bigger. They are the ones with my hand in the pic above. The Dutch Master nugs definitely feel pretty dense, tho. What I'm going to do is keep things seperate thruout the trim and compare final yields. Stoked to maybe do the Nute-off experiment maybe one more time then once I find what I think is the best can't wait to make an awesome reservoir like Jigs crazy two-tier contraption so i only have to measure out and swap one kinda nutes a week.

sounds like a good plan to me. I'll keep updated with your thread to hear your results.

As a question (first time grower here), do you think I should bump up my nutrients from just Flora Bloom, Micro, and Grow next time to the other GH, more advanced nutrient mix?

wesmokedat: this is my first foray into the realm of gardening so I'll be 100% upfront in saying, I am just following the nute schedule I was given, and it seems to be working. That being said, I think it's safe to say that it's working pretty well, and that it seems like GHydro knows what they're doing. So, granted, some of the products might be there to boost sales or whatever, or might be beneficial only at certain times or under certain conditions and could therefore be considered extraneous, but I think for the most part unless you overfeed the plants, more nutes aren't going to hurt.

So if you can afford it I say go big or go home I'm sure someone around here can tell you exactly what those additional products do, but it certainly isn't me. Good luck and thanks for stopping by!

Ill post my schedule on here when I can find the pic I took of it... it looks pretty hilarious after 4 months of inevitably having nutes and water splashed on it every week.

Found it:



originally we had intended to do 3 plants, but it worked out just fine with two, so we didn't do the earth juice elements.

Mmkay, well, if things go according to plan the plants are getting chopped tomorrow. What do you think guys, are they ready?























Blammo! They look and smell awesome. Tomorrows gonna be a big day! I got some good tunes planned, gonna watch some of my namesake show, maybe some crazy kung fu movies or some giant fighting robots (anime) grab some beers and get ready to get crystallized as we trim these mothers down.

Hmmm. Don't mean to disappoint or rain on your parade, but they don't look ready to me. The pistils are still a high percentage white and haven't started to recede into the calyxes. In my opinion if you cut now you'd be giving up weight and potency. My guess is another week and they'd be ready. I feel bad even saying it because I know how excited you must be. If you can find it in you to keep them going I think you'll be happy with the results.

The second picture in the post you just made, that bud looks near ready, but the others don't to me.

That being said, I wouldn't say you are 'screwing up' harvesting tomorrow. Just wouldn't be optimizing things.

I second what jig says in that last one you are holding in your hand I bet it is too big to hold in your hand if you give it another week+

They look like they are at the start of when you'd want to consider cutting them but they'll be better and heavier if you wait. I bet the trichs are milky with no or almost no amber yet

Well definitely not the resounding hell ya buddy! I was looking for, but I definitely value your guys's opinions. I was pretty bummed out last night but then I remembered what I read in one of the first grow books I read, about growing beasty bonsai plants under a ton of flouros: regardless of what happens in your grow, do not get sad when things go wrong, which they will. Just remember that you are blessed enough to be part of this beatuiful plants' life and that at least your in a situation where if your crop fails, your family won't starve this winter. I am paraphrasing, but that's what I took away from it. And nothing even went wrong, I just have to have PATIENCE, and that's one of the hardest things for me. I snagged a couple more pics this morning with just the flouros on, what is confounding to me is this. Some of the lower down buds seem to be there, like jig said that frosty pic I posted last time is allmost all orange, but on the two monster nugs, and the entire top of the biggest bud, its all white/new hairs. See:




But heres the frosty one again, it looks about right, right?




I'm still a total newbie so I'm just trying to get a feel for things. I guess what I'm looking at is, do the nugs mature at different times? If so, can you do two part harvests? Like cut off all the lower pretty much all orange buds and leave the bigger beasty ones till they orange out?

My buddy did come over with his 60x scope last night and said he saw trichs that were clear cloudy and amber. I looked and saw some crazy looking little mushroom hair lookin things but I didn't really know what I was looking at. I guess the plant is kinda spread out in terms of development from the HPS?

Anyway, I'm okay with waiting a week. This whole grow I've been trying to give the plants the optimum environment to maximize yield, at least thats what I'm telling myself as I go to the grocvery store sunday nights to buy distilled water every week... so if I've come this far theres no point in rushing it.

Sens: You mentioned earlier that an early harvest gives you more of an uppy high? I know this is an indica strain so it'll be more heavy high and I'm a fan of the uppy, but you think that is still a week away?

Anyway, TLDR, but thanks again and I guess I can just drink beer and listen to music without trimming if I gotta!


More pics...

I'd say go ahead and chop some of those more ripe looking buds. Have a little fun trimming. If you are seeing any amber trichs at all they should be alright as far as potency. If you keep the buds from this week and next separate you will be able to compare how they smoke and effect the head and body. I just finished my harvest a few days ago and did it over a week. Absolutely no problem in my book doing things in a staggered manner like that. So my vote is go ahead and snip a few buds that have that orange look to them.

I'm proud of you for not cutting it all down today though. Patience is a virtue not many first time growers (or even long time growers) have.

Jig beat me to it once again... if you're a fan of the up buzz go ahead and take the one that looks closest to done -- the one in 2nd pic looks closest to me. As far as 2 harvests YES! BUT you have the order wrong. What you do is take the big top buds first, then give the bottom buds another week or two to fill out under the lights. You'll end up with the top buds being the more up high and the bottom being the more couchlocky. As far as when to harvest for the up high, as soon as almost all the trichomes are cloudy and before the amber's start coming on. The more amber trichs, the more couchlocky/stoney it's going to be. You don't want to wait til they are all amber either as by that point it's probably just putting you to sleep

The ones with the thick white pistils that haven't changed color are the ones that need to go longer. You can't go by just pistil color though as those change (for me usually) around the time the trichs start going cloudy, so still on the early side usually to harvest if you just see red/purple dark pistils. Some strains are also just notorious for those colored pistils too

things going good! smells sooooooo goood! still gloved so cant type much, molre later. Jig and Sens thanx for copiloting!

Congrats bro. Mrs. Jigfresh says good job. We're all stoked for you over here.

Yup congrats Ron just don't freak out when the buds lose their water weight and shrink up

Allllllrighty friends. The Dutch Master came down today. Gonna chop the remaining four main colas off the Gen Hydro plant tomorrow.. and they are beasts. So I got some cool harvest pics. First of all, my best friend, and the fuel for a marathon trim sesh:




Next my girl outside her natural habitat:







Close-up crystal shot:




All naked!




Blam! We chapped two smaller branches last week that seemed done so they are not pictured but here is what we got from 1 dutch master hydro plant.




Pretty dense nugs, I am pleased with the results from an LED. Thoughts about my next grow are definitely brewing up in my head allready and I definitely think that even if I can overcome the heat issue with an HPS I'll still have LEDs in there, I like!

More bud pics:
















All hanging ready to dry!




And finally all the loose stuff in boxes n bowls ready to dry, along with my trusted feline friend. Hope he didn't plan on running for President!





So ya, I grew some weed. *nods* Sweeeeeeeet. It smells really good, I swear it smells like grape skittle but my GF insists I'm trippin. Its got some stank to the dank thats all I know, it doesn't smell like hay, and that's what I wanted to avoid. I hate hay weed.

Anyway I anticipate a pretty good yield once thats all dry so I'll post up some numbers there. The smaller nugs from the Gen Hydro plant weighed out to about 24 grams dry so I anticipate the monsters I'm trimming tomorrow are gonna weigh in pretty good.

I like this hobby

I see you finally came up for some clear air and made an appearance on RIU Now that you're harvesting we may not see as much of you... looking really good. Interested to hear what the final dry weight is after a few weeks curing -- they will still lose some weight after the first few days of drying. Freshly chopped weight is pretty much useless since they shrink so much. Well done for your first grow my friend!