Got a couple or a lot of weeks left in your flowering stage? Starting to worry if you're going to have enough days to get to the harvest before it gets too cold?
Welcome to the unpredictable world of New England weather...
This weekend brought the first real break in an otherwise long and continuous stretch of very hot and near unbearable levels of humidity. However that also meant dangerously low evening temperatures. Some parts of New England saw well into the mid-40's.
While that's not going to kill your crop. It's not going to help move things along much either.
Luckily the temperatures in the greater area appear to be coming back into the 60's and 70's.
Courtesy of https://www.news10.com/weather
If our crop was a football team (go Pats btw), we'd be looking at a hail Mary toss right about now to get to the endzone (i.e. Harvest). Case and point, we're about 2-4 weeks in of a possible 8-12 week flowering cycle. And the temps have started to drop below the 50's.
We're hoping for mild couple of months into late October. But who really knows. We read the farmer's almanac, which if accurate said something about a cold winter. But we don't need to get to winter...just to middle fall.
We aren't going to be creating any outdoor palace for these ladies. It's just fingers crossed and hope for the best.
How's everyone else managing things around dropping temperatures?
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Here is a quick and easy guide for turning your kief into hash. The process is quite simple, it is safe, and does not take very much time. You can get this completed in just 5 steps and using about that many items.
What Supplies you will need:
kief
clothes iron
wax paper / parchment paper
paper towel
optional items:
tape (to help hold the wax or parchment paper in place)
scale (to compare starting weight of the kief and final weight of the hash)
razor blade
Total time: ~ 45 - 90 minutes(depends on how long the hash is allowed to cool during step 5)
So, lets get started turning your kief into Hash
Step 1:
Carefully pour your kief onto the center of a sheet of wax / parchment paper. You do not need a large amount of paper. You want to ensure that there is enough paper to fold around the pile of kief.
For our example approximately a 12" square sheet of wax paper was more than enough for our 1 gram of kief.
Note: kief can be stubborn coming out of the contain it is being stored in. To get the last bits out of our grinder and help position the kief on the paper we used a razor. This is completely optional, and be careful if you choose to use them. They can cut the paper, the surface you are working on and even you if you are not careful.
Step 2:
Once you have the kief centered on the paper. You need to fold the paper around the kief. It is best to create a square or rectangular pocket within the paper. And then fold the excess paper around that pocket.
This can be a little tricky.
Just be careful as to not spill your kief as you are working to create the folds and the pocket out of the paper. Once you get past the first couple folds the kief will be locked in place.
Step 3: Heat, Press (flip), & Repeat
After you have folded the paper, one or two pieces of tape are helpful at holding the paper in place.
Next we wrap the wax / parchment paper in a damp paper towel. This is very important as it will help prevent you from damaging your clothes iron.
Take the hot iron and firmly and evenly press down. We like to start by doing this for a couple of seconds, then remove the iron and flip the kief so you can press the other side.
We like to do this for at least 5 minutes of each side. It is likely not necessary to heat and press for more than 10 minutes on each side.
Oh and don't forget to turn off the iron once you are done!!!
Note 1: You are working with a very hot iron. Make sure you are working on a surface that is safe for this type of heat and that you have cleared the area. Always be careful working with a heat source, so as not to accidentally burn yourself or things in the area.
Note 2: While you are pressing the kief, monitor the wetness of the paper towel. If it appears to be drying out, stop heating it and make it damp on both sides again.
Step 4: Chill Out
Again friendly reminder. Don't forget to turn off the clothes iron.
Now onto the easiest step: put your freshly heated and pressed kief bundle into the freezer.
Possibly a slightly less easy step: wait 30-60 minutes.... (perhaps smoke a little to pass the time)
Cooling the hash will harden it and make it a little easier to handle when you unwrap your kief bundle.
Step 5: Unwrap and enjoy (and storing tips if applicable)
Once the kief bundle has properly cooled. Carefully unwrap and remove all the layers (i.e. paper towel, the tape, and inner paper).
Once you get to the hash, it should be hard enough now where it will come off the paper will very little effort.
At this point you are done. The hash is ready to be enjoyed.
Note: For storage, we recommend putting your hash in an airtight container and keeping it out of direct sunlight. It can store for a good long time for those who are able to ration out usage.
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Day 53 into the flowering cycle and half of the plants are starting to show signs of sickness. Possibly due to nutrient imbalance. Unfortunately this has been going on for sometime now. But we didn't realize it was not going to self-correct.
Most of the indica plants appear to be thriving. Leaves are green to dark green. But as you can see in the photos the sativa plants have light green and worse yellow green leaves.
The Sativa were transplanted somewhere around 20 - 30 days into the flowering period. They went from a 1 gallon smart pot to a 5 gallon smart pot.
Aside from that they have received the same low stress training, topping and feeding as the indica.
Damage Control:
We're trying to figure out what is needed to bring these beauties back to the healthy dark green color range.
History:
All plants are being fed on an alternating schedule. Nutrients then the next time is plain pH balanced water and then back to nutrients. Both nutrients and water feedings are pH balanced to around 5.5 - 6.5.
On nutrient feeding days the plants receive, MaxBloom and CalMag. We were trying to keep things simple and not use too many supplements.
The leaves below were pulled off one of the sativa plants shown above. We are not sure at this time if this is a nutrient, light, wind or even ectoparasite issue.
Name that sickness
Seriously we would love to know what the issue is and how to correct it.
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Just rolled past day 50. Plant pistils on many of the indica plants have changed from bleach white to red and curled. Trichomes are being monitored daily for consistency changes.
Two ways to tell when the plants are ready for harvest.
Pistil colors:
<50% darkened pistils the plant is not ripe and the harvested flowers will possess lower amounts of THC.
Many experts will say that THC concentrations have peaked when 60% - 70% of the plant pistils have darkened.
>70% darkened pistils the CBD concentration will start to climb and the high will be more couch-lock in effect.
Trichomes:
When the plant is not ripe the resin will be clear like glass. As the plant ripens the trichomes will become cloudy and then transition to amber color.
Clear Trichomes = unripe flowers, that are still building in THC concentrations
Cloudy Trichomes = highest levels of THC
Amber Trichomes = waited too long to harvest
Using both of these methods in combination is the best way to gauge when your crop is ready to be harvested.
Day 50 - Northern Lights.
Day 50 - Super Silver Haze
Day 50 - Super Hash Plant
So do you think these are ready for harvest?
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With this being our inaugural grow. We have been very pleased with the quality of the seeds as well as the growing equipment. We unfortunately learned that one of our best plants had turned into a hermie. This most likely occurred sometime between weeks 2 and 3.
"Hermie" short for hermaphrodite. Meaning that the plant has both male and female flowers. This has both genetic and environmental origins.
Genetic - meaning your seeds or clone came from a plant that was a hermie as well.
Environmental - there are many see below
- changes in the photoperiod. Such as exposing the plants to light during the dark period of flowering
- too much heat
- harvesting too late
- mechanical stress from over training and pruning during vegetative and flowering stages
- over-fertilization
We definitely did not control against all of these factors and are lucky that only one plant went hermie.
Now what to do with a plant that expresses male flowers on only a small area of the entire plant. Most people would suggest tossing the plant because the pollen from a single plant could pollenate the entire crop. We decided to remove the pollen sacks and isolate the plant to the smaller vegetation tent. We are hopeful that the pollen sacks were removed early enough that the other plants were not seeded. And by isolating it to a separate tent the plant will be able to grow without seeding in the future. That tent was currently housing early flower clones that we are attempting to re-veg for the next round. More on monster-vegging at another time.
The isolated plant is now on a 12/12 cycle under 108 watts (12 9w 60w equivalent uncapped LED bulbs). It's interesting to note that the solitary plant appears to be progressing through the flowering cycle more quickly than those under a 600w HPS bulb.
Below are photos of all the plants at Day 33 of flowering. This is day 108 from seed.
Hermie plant photos (under 108w LED system):
Plant photos under 600w HPS system:
Comparison between the two plant set-ups:
Again 600w HPS tent:
Thoughts about the HPS tent.
We are having a little issue with the plants on the right side of the tent. Notice the light green color in the leaves. We aren't sure if this is a natural occurrence as the plants progress through the flowering phase, or if they are low on Nitrogen. We have been pH balancing the water and nutrients. So we aren't sure why only a portion of the crop is experiencing this nutrient deficiency.
And the 108w LED tent:
Thoughts on the LED tent.
This plant appears to be very healthy. It also has a number of hairs turning from white to red/brown. We are using a jeweler's loupe to look at the trichomes. But we aren't very good at telling if they are cloudy. With cloudy being the ideal level of THC.
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Twelve days have passed since the sativa on the left were FIMm'ed, and the 4 indica plants on the right were super cropped.
Our initial feelings...
Sativa plants - We don't feel that FIMming was the right option. Only one of the three sativa plants bushed out. The others are still displaying strong apical dominance. As a result we decided to top all of them today. This should force them to bush out rather than continue to grow tall.
Indica plants - Super-cropping on a whole seems to have really worked for the indica plants. We are noticing that the left two indica plants are moving slower and are not as large. The top right indica has really responded well to the super-cropping, has a patch of yellowing leaves. And lastly the bottom right indica is stretching out horizontally rather than bushing out.
Here is a picture of the sativa plant that best responded to being FIMmed. Nearly all lower growth areas started growing after the cut. We had read that FIMming isn't perfect. And since one of three turned out good, we would suggest topping if you aren't experienced with this technique.
Indica with lots of horizontal stretching. We are not sure why this plant is becoming so lengthy, but hopefully this will mean a lot of flower sites once the vertical growing kicks in.
Best super-cropped plant to date. Aside from a yellowing patch of fan leaves dead smack in the middle of the plant, it has really opened up the number of potential flowering sites. Last count was in the high teens.
Next Move Sativa's - We are going to pull the three sativa plants out of the tent and put them back under the LED lights. They will continue to be trained and filled out for the next grow cycle. That space will allow the indica plants to keep growing before flipping to flower
Indica's - As mentioned above the plan is to continue to veg out the four indica plants until they have expanded to fill most of the canopy. This should be done in about two more weeks. Then the lighting will be switched over to 12/12
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