Ill_Evan

@Righteoussower if you're tempted to truly go down this path of mainlining/manifolding (advanced topping) then I would recommend that you start with just 8 main stems and get used to growing and training a plant to obtain that kinda shape. What you want is to first obtain this kind of shape, this is a plant I did early on when I first got into growing: You obtain this by first letting your seedling get like a solid 5/6 nodes above the cotyledons. You will then top above the third node from the bottom and you will end up with something like this: You will then train the branches to grow flat horizontally using ties, preferably soft ties so you don't cut into the branches. You will grow these branches until they each have grown 4 nodes. You will then top each branch after the third node again, and also remove the 2nd pair of branches each. You will only keep the first and third nodes of each branch. This is because the 1st and 3rd nodes will grow horizontally and not vertically like the 2nd node. Then you just keep training until you get something like the first picture above. Then from there you can decide when to flip. You will then end up with something like this: You can literally take this technique and shape your plant however you want. Extreme versions are like what @Naughty.Psychonaut has posted above. There are guys who can fill entire rooms doing this with only a few plants. Just know that it will take much longer to veg your plant to first obtain the shape, and then you will need to really ace your flower period. You don't want to put all that time into growing such a complex structure only for thrips or a deficiency to just chop you at the knees, so go into it with confidence. Good luck Padawan. Extra sauce

It's called a potentiometer, gawd *sassy

Seeing as "homeless" people are rocking casual C4 these days...

The spirits leaving the seedlings.

@Light It Up

I know thrips and such usually will go for the weakest of the plants first, or rather that's what happens in my experience. I could have a totally healthy plant but the one right next to it is another strain and chowed by thrips. Could also be wacky coincidence.

I would wait for another node to form then I rate it will be perfect.

No lime?

I decided to give the trimmed bud a weigh-in before I start taking cheeky samples. First bud of the year comes in at 87g of ZxP. I am going to update the original post with the dates of harvest as well as the weight per harvest as we go throughout the year.

Kinda messed up seeing as the Khoisan existed before these "cannabis laws". Even more disgusting how government can treat the true historical indigenous people like this. In fact it is every nation that stomps on their indigenous peoples, just look at the Native Americans in the States and Aborigines in Australia. I think these Khoisan that setup themselves by the Union buildings have been quite a headache to our government and government have been looking for any means to disrupt, annoy or harass these people without causing too much of a stir. Gotta love the Khoisan with an iPhone though. You know these guys have been camping at the Union Buildings for three years now!? Jitte.

I would give those plants a douse of Efekto Eco Insect Control and remove the most affected bottom leaves. I've tried white knuckling through thrips and it just didn't end up well. I now treat all my veg plants once they are mature with a douse of Efekto to keep the common pests away.

Can't wait! I've been just growing the ZxP for a long while. Kept the extractor the same, added the two new box fans on the ceiling so that air is always circulating the tops and bottom of the plants as they push air down and then lastly the dehumidifier.

I must've been smoking the wrong strain when I got sick! Or maybe it acted like a vaccine and prevented serious illness I think there is a will, they just want to squeeze out what they can of the embedded pharmaceutical industry first. Have you noticed a general attitude change towards big pharma as we get deeper into this 'pandemic'? I wouldn't be surprised that they want the reputation of big pharma to fall a bit so they can start introducing their "new and organic" range of cannabinoid health and medicinal products created at scale as means of propping themselves back up as the conscious heroes they are

Here is the flower tent, full at last after putting the Gorilla Zkittlez into their trays. The clones I have going in the veg tent that are supposed to replace the plants that are to be harvested soon are taking really long to root, and I might have missed the mark with regards to the timing... oops. So there will be an empty spot in the middle of the flower tent for a little while until the clones are ready.

I spent the rest of the day trimming a harvest I had drying for the last week. This was the first run I did in the AutoPots and consisted of 6x ZxP. I won't sugarcoat it (although there was still plenty of sugar), but there managed to be more bud rot again, but it didn't spread. I think it developed as far as it did while flowering and mostly stayed at the center of the buds most affected. I'm going to be honest and say I probably lost half the yield to bud rot. The buds mostly affected were the large, main colas () positioned at the tops of the plants. I don't think I had very good ventilation in the tent at the time. I've managed to save a good portion of buds so not all was lost, but we gotta get this shit pristine now. The unaffected buds are frosty and nice, I managed to get about 2/3rds of a 3 liter jar. I am going to log the weight of all my harvests for the year and present a grand total, try and set myself some baselines/future goals.

This morning I potted up 6x Gorilla Zkittlez to go into the empty space in the flower tent tonight after the pots have dried a bit on the deck. I am still playing around with what's the best height to grow the plants in the veg tent before transferring into the flower tent. Previously I got the plants to about no more than 80cm before transferring and they didn't stretch much and only ended at about a meter in height come harvest. With these Gorilla Zkittlez I've gotten them to a solid meter already before transferring into the flower tent. I think this will result in some bigger plants, which means bigger stems, which equals more food for bigger buds! There was a lot of space left in the ceiling of the tent for some more growth, so I am hoping to fill some of that space up with this batch. I also like to at this time remove the last of any lower branches that will definitely not be going through to harvest. I count 5 branches from the top and chop anything left below that. I hover between 4-5 branches depending on how big the internodal spacing is or how much stretch I think there is going to be. Then in the first week in the flower tent I will check how the lowest branches perform and if I like what I see and the vegetation isn't overwhelming the branches will be kept. If not, they get the chop. I like to make these decisions slowly because once you chop, it's decided.

It's literally raining once every second to third day here in the Highveld my dude it's the first Summer in the last 7 years that it's rained this much according to my memory. Usually it will piss down in the first few weeks of Summer and then chill out to like once a week or so. My RH is at least sitting at a constant 50% inside the grow room now but I was a bit late in sorting that out to prevent any rot on the flowering plants right now. These flowers are on exactly week 8 of flower now and I've just finished a flush, so I'll be harvesting what's survived within this week.

Good start is to let us know what setup you got or what you want to get, or even just what your rough goals are. After that, start a diary and the guidance shall commence

..and here we have some lekker bud rot, courtesy of the rains. This current batch has been struggling with bud rot in its attempts to flower this Summer. The batch before was almost perfect except for the deficiency at the end, no bud rot though I've been keeping a really close eye every evening to chop any bad buds. I've picked maybe 6 buds so far. Bit of an eish but at least the entire batch isn't lost. I don't think there was saving these buds in-time with the recent purchases to reduce humidity. The real test will be from here on out during this high humidity period

Dude we'll be like Simon and Oscar spinning and hitting rocks while being completely blasted on ganja

That dude is power. Good on him. What was the real goal? Or was it another simple financial repercussion of the war on drugs where they had a budget, a good salary and didn't question anything

Welcome to the thunderdome, boijies. In this diary I will be recording my grow for the year 2022, blunders, wins, alas. I have recently made some very nice improvements to my overall setup since my last diary and I think equipment wise there won't be much else to upgrade, so from this point on the focus is going to be on refinement of the setup, efficiency of the process and perfecting the strains in my stable. Speaking of strains, my stable/veg tent currently consists of the following strains which I have collected over the years: Zkittlez x Purple Punch - Ripper Seeds (ZxP) KmintZ - Ripper Seeds (KM) Gorilla Zkittlez - Barneys Farm (GZ) Aurora Indica - Nirvana Seeds (AI) Grand Daddy Purple - Blimburn Seeds (GDP) Tortoni F1 - Totemic (T1) Wedding Cake - 1000 Hills Nursery (WC) A solid seven strains. At the moment if I wanted another strain, I would try my best to swap it out rather than accommodate it. The space in the veg tent is comfortable enough to hold at least one mother plant of each strain, enough plants for the next round in the flower tent, and also enough unrooted clones to replace the plants that go into the flower tent. It's called perpetual growing, china. The veg tent is a 1.2mx1.2mx2m LiteHouse LITE grow tent with a 120W QB LED (set to 80W) at about 1.2m high from the ground, light schedule is 18/6 from 6pm to 12pm. I have found this to be the sweet spot all year round for all the veg plants, mothers, clones, they all good. I can get my plants to a nice 1m height before popping them in the flower tent. In addition, I also have a 59W 4 inch extraction fan set on low which exhausts air from inside the tent to outside the room through a window. The window has a custom fitted duct port which allows the room to remain sealed even with the exhaust venting outside. Lastly I have a 425W heat panel which I fixed to a wooden frame to allow it to sit upright at the back of the tent. This heater is connected to a Sonoff switch which is connected to the WiFi and regulates the heat within the tent automatically at a minimum of 22C. The average currently is about 25C (mid Jan) but sometimes, especially with the rains lately, the temp can dip but it will never dip below 22C in this tent. Humidity sits at an average of 70%. The flower tent is a 1.2mx2.4mx2m LiteHouse LITE grow tent. I have also upgraded to AutoPots. From what used to take me 1-2 hours every 2-3 days to water my plants by hand now takes me 20mins once a week. This has been an absolute gamechanger as I can now really focus on timing my veg tent and perfecting the strains going into the flower tent. Not getting absolutely sticky with resin every time I water is a nice plus too I have harvested 6 plants (ZxP) once already about two weeks ago as a test run using the AutoPots. I have another 6 plants (ZxP) currently going which are due to be harvested by the end of this month and I have also just recently planted 6 more ZxP which are the younger looking plants to the left of the flowering plants. First impressions have been fantastic. Compared to using fabric pots, I can see all the benefits and more. I have also installed each AutoPot with an airdome and I pump fresh warm air to the root zone for 12 hours a day following the same time as the light time schedule. I can see the same kind of growth that I used to see back when I grew using DWC. When I investigated the roots after the first harvest, the airdomes were just smothered in healthy white roots. Very nice. Unfortunately, I recently discovered that my pH pen was whack and I fear the last harvest may have been deficient during the ripening stage due to incorrect pH of the feeding nutrient. This will be one area of focus going forward to improve the overall grow. I have also invested in two new 35W Sansui Box Fans which I have attached to the ceiling of the flower tent. I had a few spots of bud rot due to the fokin heavy rains in the Highveld this Summer so improvements needed to be made to make it through humid times. I obtained a 450W GMC 26 Litre Dehumidifier that I keep running within the grow room outside of the tents. From these upgrades, my flower tent humidity has gone from 70%+ to sub 49%. I can also run my 62W 6 inch extraction fan on low (same setup as veg tent i.e. exhaust outside via duct in window) just to simply move stale air from inside the flower tent to outside and slowly bring fresh air in via the gaps in the door to the room through negative pressure created from the flower and veg tent fans exhausting air outside. The lighting power is three 240W QB LEDs (set to 160W) that I pair with 6 plants each on a 12/12 light schedule from 9pm to 9am. Initially when I transplant into the flower tent I will start at about 60cm from the canopy and over a week or two move the LEDs closer to about 30cm to the canopy. I find this enough to give the plants used to the higher light intensity without having to change my wattage settings every time I do a transplant. The idea is to grow and harvest in sets of six. Each set of 6 AutoPots have their own 46L reservoir containers so I can regulate the food to each set of six independently, which allows me to do plants at different stages and also different strains. Harvests are also only 6 plants at a time and not a solid 18 at a time. I am still getting the timing right to get a harvest consistently timed between each other, so that will be fun also to figure out. Something like once a month or so would be hot. The flowers have gotten big enough in the last few harvests that they flop around like big 'ol dicks, so I will be adding a net across the tent after I have harvested these last 6 plants and have planted new plants into all the empty AutoPots. Tying up the buds has been a mission so I'm hoping the net will help in that regard. I haven't gotten a chance to fully utilise the nets yet so that will be a first. In the empty set of six AutoPots I have at the moment I will be doing a round of Gorilla Zkittlez. To replace the current 6 flowering ZxP that will be harvested soon I have 4x KmintZ which are being grown for the first time from seed and are the latest addition to the stable. I will also substitute 2x ZxP plants to total that set of 6. The KmintZ are a supposed 'upgrade' to the lineage associated with ZxP, so pairing them shouldn't be a problem. I just recently took another batch of ZxP clones to replace the Gorilla Zkittlez when those harvest. After that however, it's a roll of the dice. Maybe we decide together what comes next from the stable, maybe I throw a dart on a board, who knows. Whatever is decided, I need to take those clones in at least 3 weeks time from now in order to be ready to plant into the flower tent come harvest time. I'll have a good idea of how to really time everything perfectly as we go so that as I harvest I already have a batch ready to go to replace those plants. Right now, taking at least 6+ clones every 3 weeks has worked out quite well. When I have things dialed in, I will write up a rough formula for all to enjoy! Or perish! It's ya boi. ***Harvest Dates - Weigh-Ins*** 2022 05 January - 87g ZxP 18 January - 136g ZxP 28 February - 257g ZxP 04 March - 173g GZ 12 April - 65g ZxP 12 April - 159g KM 06 May - 188g ZxP 12 May - 215g WC 06 June - 168g ZxP 27 August - 796g ZxP 21 October - 377g ZxP - 80g WC - 135g OMG 28 November - 827g ZxP

This was a good watch. Good discussion on the topic of landraces. I wonder with regards to the topic of licensing strains as mentioned in this series, if the landrace strains are registered in the name of the local populace, what then happens with the Exodus and Sunset Sherbet strains they are growing? Wouldn't they technically need to then pay a license fee to Green House Co just as Green House Co would have to pay them for the landrace strains? Knowing Mzansi, a system like that will be exploited. Also sad to know that our government were spraying poison so haphazardly for 18 years. Where's the commission on that?