Grow Room Micro Auto Adventures with Mr. Sparkle

[Mr.Sparkle]

Thanks Greenskell, these are the smallest spaces i've grown in, but they work well.

Weekly update:

Bogan is moving along, will be taking out the older dark devils in a week by the latest, have now collected around 420+ seeds off them, but mainly waiting for the one to finish probably a good 50+ more seeds on it, i did a second later pollination on it so it's those seeds that aren't quite done yet. The think differents are now into full flower mode so they will be bulking up, and the new seedlings are progressing, the trifoliate is most likely gonna have some purple hues as the under side of the leafs show some pigment, and the one green seed dark devil seedling might get plucked to make room and i'll just leave the other one as it's doing better, But that's because i'll be starting up 6 seeds of Nirvana-AK48 that i've had for awhile but haven't run yet, but as soon as those are out of Bogan ill be starting up some F2 Dark Devils.

Ashla is fair, i need to do a general cleaning and scrub the tray as there are a lot of root remnants, also the last watering cycle it seems i possibly forgot to kill the reservoir aka "adding bleach" so i have i minor algae bloom for what's left in the reservoir, its almost empty so i'll give it a scrub down when i start switching over to the new COB's which arrived the other day, they would be in already but they're gonna take a bit to put in, as the old COB's are thermal epoxyed to the heatsinks, so i'm gonna have to chisel them off and sand the heat sink flush and drilling and tap some holes for the new COB's which will be screwed on for easier replacement in the future, that and the heatsinks are glued to the roof of the case, so i have a feeling i'm gonna probably break them free, so they will need to be reglued aswell, so its gonna take a bit of work and i'll do it on a free day.

The blueberry's have maybe a week left, and the c99 clones are just at the almost done stretching starting flowering stage so they will fill out, the critical kush and purple kush are being ungainly monsters in the back corner, but they are starting to bulk up, 3-4weeks left for them maybe a bit more, but we will see.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey, mate. While looking at Ashla, I suddenly realized that, even though you have more plants than I do in a space that seems to be about the same as my box, yours is much less crowded, then I understood why, you have heavily defoliated all your plants, I see no fan leaves whatsoever in there. I got increasingly frustrated by the crowding of my box lately but now I feel that this might be a great solution.
I wonder, do you feel like this brings your yields up or down? Do you do it mainly for light penetration and moisture control, any other reason? When do you start defoliating? Do you feel it helps in controlling plant height?

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Hey, mate. While looking at Ashla, I suddenly realized that, even though you have more plants than I do in a space that seems to be about the same as my box, yours is much less crowded, then I understood why, you have heavily defoliated all your plants, I see no fan leaves whatsoever in there. I got increasingly frustrated by the crowding of my box lately but now I feel that this might be a great solution.
I wonder, do you feel like this brings your yields up or down? Do you do it mainly for light penetration and moisture control, any other reason? When do you start defoliating? Do you feel it helps in controlling plant height?

Pretty much all those reasons, First i'll say i don't pluck fan leaves if i don't need to but i'm also not afraid to strip them, and the current C99 clones on the left are proof of that, but i'm half doing that as a test of a few things, but with running so many plants things do get crowded, main issues that start to compound are as follows, the plant tend to grow bushy with throwing out fan leaves, these crowd and compete with the other plants fan leaves which make them feel crowded and causes them to stretch and fight for the light, which is a disadvantage in our situation and due to all those fan leaves perspiring it can cause a very high humidity area under the main canopy, as for example in the past i've had the walls dripping with humidity a half a day to day after a good watering, but with selectively plucking fan leaves the majority of the above issues are mitigated somewhat, and truthfully if my case is full tray wise its gonna be over crowded either way but i just try to work with it, so it's actually better if i don't run my cases completely full, and it makes moving things around easier as well, also the selective plucking does help with getting better bud lower down the plant too.

There is a balance to it thought, just takes time and experience, and even still i probably pluck too much.


Also got the new COB's in today, messed up one hole but just shifted the COB and drilled a new one, it looks a bit brighter and i think the cooler spectrum will also help with reducing some stretch that happens under warmer spectrum light, we will see how it turns out.

Here's a pic.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Wanted to share a couples photos almost midweek, as these were taken yesterday.


First here's two shot of how the new mothers were and are doing with a before and after shot, i could of took a ton of clones if i wanted but they just needed to be trimmed back, i really only trim back this harshly if i know i don't need anything from for a while, but they will be exploding again in a week or two anyways, also trimmed off the crud on the revegged cherry bomb.

Next we have some shots of what's left of the dark devils, the small one i chopped yesterday, and the other i'll wait till the end of the week as even though i already have 200+ seed from that one it still has a good 50+ more to give up if i just wait a bit.

Here are the Think Different's, gave them a light trim on their insides to open things up a little but the one of the right is kinda a half mutant, i like the one on the left better, structure and plant wise but they are what they are.

Here's the trifoliate, and its sister plant which isn't the best but is moving along, notice the trifoliate and the sister plant has a bit of mutation, which would make sense for the original plant it came off of and my expert breeding skills at the time lol

Then finally two of the four Dutch Passion Blueberries over in the other box, which are just finishing up, there starting to be decently odorous but in a musky, skunk type way, so who knows how these compare to real Blueberries, so far i'm a bit skeptical, and Dutch passion hasn't quite impressed me with their genetics, as their Auto Mazars were absolute junk, or the ones i got at least, the orange bud was alright, but underwhelming, and the think differents aren't really mind blowing just a decent growing plants, that doesn't really have any exceptional qualities, at least to me.

Also pulled off 50 seeds of a C99 x Dark Devil Cross i did just to play around, and knowing full well some will be autos and some will not be, just wanted to see what the cross might yield.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Decided to chop the Blueberries today, could of went a couple days longer but they were right at the end anyways, haven't had Ashla this empty in a while, but the second from the right is the one that appeals to me the most so i kept the lowest section and threw it in Bogan after a good flush and quick scrape of the old roots on the outside of the bag, it will stay around till we have some dried and cured bud to give a test of.

Don't mind the tip burn, also kept the trim off this, i'm thinking of doing an ethanol extraction on my surplus bud, as i have quite a bit.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Here the Remnants of the Dark Devil that i've already deseeded, well most of it for those who are following, but it will get a dry and then picked through for it last bit of seeds, then off to possibly make hash or something out of.

Definitely would not let it go this long normally, at 11 weeks from seed when she seems to be a 8 to 8.5week strain, but because seeds i didn't care about getting some bud in the end, shes really dense and still smells good and i have no qualms about just smoking her straight, i've been dabbling in a bit of the other dark devil and can say it's quite nice.

As for seeds we have to be in the 500+ range, ill get a final count once this ones plucked through, but we didn't even saturate the plants they came off of, so saying that and using pots a tad bigger than your typical can of soda/beer/whatever and only really pollinating 2ish plants i think we can say we were rather productive.

A weekly update will come shortly but here's a pic of the somewhat deseeded darkdevil.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

So weekly update:

Everything is looking a bit barren and isn't running anywhere near full capacity but that's fine as it allows me to kinda reboot and have a partial fresh start.

Bogan:
We have 3 mother plants soon to be bulking out, with a potential fourth if i like the dried product of the one blueberry from the last run, the Think Different's are getting bulky we have two to three weeks left on them, and a sole dark devil seedling from a green seed of this last batch of seeds, i plucked the other green seed one as it was having issues.

But that leaves a bit of space to fill so i'm planning to drop some regular ak48 seeds shortly, and decide what else after that, just need to plan it out.

Oh and looks like the soil sensor failed or was giving false readings, so i ripped it out and will be upgrading it to the current stainless steel version i have in the other box.

Ashla:
Quite barren as well, i moved those two FJM's over today, and we have the 4 C99 clones i'm running some pruning tests on which are 4 weeks out and the purple and critical kush plants are about 3 weeks out.

Also added a bit more programming to the arduino code of this box, which was a bit more complex than i expected, but i decided to have the Reset button which was already wired out to act as a watering bypass button, it now allows me to water with a button press or easily empty the reservoir when i want too. I'll be adding the code to the other box once i know everything is running normally.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

So sifted through all the seeds today getting rid of the potential duds "Seeds that easily crush between your fingers" and i have to say my initial estimate of around 200 seeds was a bit off, In total were looking at just over 600+ seeds with a bit over 550 Dark Devil seeds and another almost 50 seeds of a C99xDark Devil cross, and a small vial of pollen.

So were well stocked for the future, also started 6 AK48 seeds like i was planning, and upgraded the sensor in Bogan, with the new programming as well.

 

[A-Train]

Cool stuff you're doing in here man..

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Cool stuff you're doing in here man..

Thanks for stopping by A-train, i appreciate it, as its nice to see other members checking out this "small" section of the forum that don't normally frequent it that often.