Losing My Virginity. Growing For The First Time.

Sativus

Active Member
It's day 60, or 8 weeks and 3 days of flower. Some leaves are beginning to yellow/brown up and die. At first I thought it was a N deficiency or a ph imbalance, but I am beginning to think that it is just the plant finishing up by using what it has in storage. I think they are almost ready to harvest. I am going to leave them until at least sunday night, we will see how they look then. I will be watering them tonight and I will take some pics to see what you all think. Humidity has been pretty stable at 40%.
I didn't report much on the sample. It was great. I preferred it over what I had in my bag and smoked maybe 3 joints of it. And that was just a small under developed branch that could not really get any better considering its location on the plant. I am sure the cured buds will be delicious. I am going out on saturday so last night I snipped a slightly better sample which I will be bringing with me. I will let you know if it is even better, which it should be.
So what do you think about the yellowing/browning leaves? The strain information I found about the Blue Domino says its a 6 week strain, and I am past 8 now, so I am thinking it is just a natural sign that the plant is close to ready.
Looking at the plants, I still have absolutely no idea about yield. But I know for sure I need a better light setup next run. And I have a few ideas, but we will wait for that.
 

WubWubWub

Member
Are you going to get pics of the harvesting process or just get before and after? I am kind of curious how you go about the slaughter.
 

Sativus

Active Member
I am going to take a few pics along the way, but my intention was simply to snip a branch and trim the fan leaves and do a light trim on the tric covers leaves then hang the whole branch to dry. I am smoking it myself, not selling it. So there is no need for me to go super crazy with the trimming. I am looking forward to making hash though, so I will trim a fair bit. It is also my intention to do this in one sitting, be it 6 or 24 hours I dunno.
I can't wait for my first BT of scissor hash ;)
 

WubWubWub

Member
I agree! Time to harvest, though I am an impatient sort and I am ready to see the fruits of your labor! (I know nothing about the harvest time, just want to see how much you get!)
 

Sativus

Active Member
At this point, I am not ready for my next grow. There are many things that I would like/need to do to my growing area before I will be ready.
What I know is that I will be growing from seed, I will alter my light set up, I will be using proper nutes from the beginning. My growing medium will probably be coco, I will be using larger square pots to flower in, I will veg longer and I will be scrogging. I am thinking of ordering a couple of seed from a couple strains getting myself an male and female of the same strain to reproduce seeds. I will probably start out with germing 2-4 seeds and seeing what sex's I end up with. If I could have 1 male and 1 female in my box I would just let them stay together and the seeds would be my benefit rather than the weed, but I could still smoke it or make hash from it after the seeds are removed. Likely that I would make hash from everything that is not seed. 2 males and I will have to build a smaller box to move the strongest one to, and start again. 2 females, then I grow them out and try again next time. Something along those lines...
I just got back in since yesterday morning. I turned the lights on for a sec to have a look since that is literally the longest I have ever left their side. I am developing either a deficiency or a toxicity whether it be related to the plants natural life cycle or not. I would say that 15% of my leaves are yellow and dying away, but 85% of everything else looks great. I may be chopping them down tonight. They have begun to "look" ready. I will see how I feel tonight when the lights come on. I am very excited, but I have been able to keep it in check by smoking a lot of weed. lol I just hope I didn't wait to long considering that 6 week strain trait I found a few pages back. I am sure all is fine. I am wondering though. What sort of reaction could I expect if I trimmed all the fan leaves off at this point and tried to lay down all the tops to the exact same level and put the light as close as possible for a few days or so? Tonight I am at 62 days, and I had it in my head that I was willing to go a full 10 weeks for flower. I think tonight I will have a good look at the trics and decide to chop or to do a week of super trim/prune + absolute max light exposure. But would that just stunt the plants so the next week would be useless anyways?
Any further watering will consist of water only.
What do you think of that? Or should I really just chop them now?
I just feel like if that are not quite ready, then I will be missing out on some very crucial days for development. I hear everywhere that the last 2 weeks or so are the most productive and I don't want to loose out on those days.
Thanks so much for all your guys help and inspiration throughout my first grow. I can't wait to share my further experiences with you guys.
 

mijola3

Active Member
show us a pic and i'll tell you what I think lol, but yes its amazing how they change in the last week -10 days.......
tough to say without a pic but from your description i'd say u should give them 2 more days and then harvest.
goodluck man
 

Sativus

Active Member
I went down and snipped a branch and did a easy trim. This happened to be the very first branch that was ever developed by this plant. Would have been at the very bottom if the plant was not LST'd.
Here are some pics. They are not the best, I smoked a joint before I did it. Let me know what you think.








I can see the color difference between the top 75% of this branch and the bottom 25%. The top is darker. I could snip the ready bud off, but does that really work? or is it going to stress the plant and make it stop budding for the last week of it's life?

Maybe I should (because I don't have the supplies I need to do what I want) re-veg these plants just to see what happens. It will buy me time since those lights I have are good for veg anyways,,,. I'll need soil, pots and ferts to re-veg. Nothing else until re-flower.
Any opinions on that?
 

kush fario

Well-Known Member
i think there ready to chop! the trics look milky but not clear and not ambber but im just looking at those pics do what ever feels right man :D
 

mijola3

Active Member
looks to me like its time, and about taking the main tops and leaving the rest for a week or so, it does work i do it all the time. the bottom popcorn buds fill out at least 25-30 percent fatter.
always done that becuase i chop the top then move the remains up close to the light. the last grow i harvested the main tops then left the popcorns and they turned super pink/purple and looked so much more dank than the first harvest, i was kinda sad i didn't leave the tops!
anyways goodluck and that looks dank NICE JOB!!!!!
 

SimplySmoked

Well-Known Member
Kush you must have some pretty special eyes if you can see the trichs are milky..... I have to use a 30x-100x scope. Nice fluro grow, man.
 

Sativus

Active Member
I chopped one down. Holy shit. By far exceeds my expectations. Some pics will follow shortly.









I would be surprised of there was less than 50 grams dried, we will see.
I scraped the one shot trim deal. Too tired, going to sleep.

Let me know what you all think! Are they ready or give them a few more days?
 

WubWubWub

Member
Thats awesome! That does have me wondering... How "bad" is the smell while they are drying/curing? I am thinking about leaving the drying/curing area of my box out so I could possibly fit 6 plants. If I do, I will probably use an open area in my desk to do the drying.
 

WubWubWub

Member
They were probably like "Daddy, we are so glad to see you! Are you going to feed us well today and talk to us again?"

*WHACK*
 

Sativus

Active Member
LOL
The smell is a little better I think. Hard to tell atm cause there are still 5 plants growing.
I recommend no more than 4 plants in our boxes. Next grow, I think 2 plants in a scrog with a nice veg would give me the same crop as these 6 did...
Re-vegging the plants may not work well with these plants because they were LST'd and had a lot of the bottom 1/3 cleaned off to increase airflow under the canopy. I do have 1 or 2 that still have a little potential for a re-veg though. If I could re-veg 1 and scrog it it would give me something to look at while I update my growing conditions. I'll let you know what happens with that, but all opinions are very much appreciated!
 

mijola3

Active Member
nice job man congrats, i love the smell of freshly trimmed juicies!
hats off to you sir, that looks like an easy ounce.... maybe 2! looks dank too...
dont forget to let us catch a glimpse of them when theyre all trimmed up!
 

Sativus

Active Member
Trimming is complete. I will take pics tomorrow to show how it looks.
I had 3 plants that still had some small popcorn buds very close/on the stem and a few leaves that I have decided to stick back under the light 24/7 for a week or two to see if they will survive or if they will just die. A nice little re-vegged 1, 2 or 3 plant scrog would be nice to help pass the time until I am ready to give it all a real second go. I will be re-potting them into larger square pots with fresh soil as well as trimming the bottom 1/3 of the root system off if the plants survive. The roots were not too bad at all, not nearly as bunched up as some of the pics I have seen on here. But If I want them bigger next time, I need larger pots to grow them in.
The room is set to 30% RH, but never gets below 40% and a temp of around 28 Celsius. I will leave the buds hanging in there for 6-7 days before they go into glass jars for curing, where they will basically remain until smoked getting better with age like a fine wine of bottle of whiskey.
If the plants survive and are re-vegged, I will consider it as part of the same grow and simply continue to post in this thread.

Thank you all for all your help and inspiration! It is amazing how a little "looks good!" or "nice job!" or "Sounds good to me" can really help a guy out, so again I want to say thank you to everyone who helped in any way. And a special Thank You to Kitty for taking the time to encourage a virgin and share some of her wisdom.

I'll return with pics tomorrow after they have dried a little bit over night.
 
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