In the Short Rows

 Only two GG4 Auto plants left in the tent. These two illustrate this grow, all the plants were from the same cultivar from same seed bank, started at the same time, and have had the same light and feed schedule but two different plants from fan leaves to flowers.

I'm looking forward to harvesting these last two so I can get on to prepping for next Fall/Winter grow. Most of the gear is in the shop still in boxes but once the last two plants are hung to dry it will come out to play. 

The big changes will be: The eight bucket DWC system will be replaced with a four bucket RDWC system. The AC unit will be moved to outside the tent.  A water chiller and a reserve H2O tank will also be added outside the tent. Smaller changes will be moving the AC power center from the back of the tent to the right side and routing the wires so there is little interference with the plants.

Maybe you noticed the change from an eight bucket system to a four bucket one. I've had a wrestling match with myself over number of plants for a couple of grow seasons. Bottom line while a heavy user, I do not use very much. While this is slowly changing, my go to method has been a bong and with a bong you use very little good weed. There's still a ½ kilo of weed left from the first grow after retiring and I waste a lot playing with making tinctures, infusions, and carts. BTW, the cart play is starting to work and as hinted above carts may become my goto method.

Anyway a long way around to I do not need the PITA more plants can be, four good producers should be enough for a year's supply plus some and if not retail Cannabis is pretty cheap.

One other appliance I expect to add is a small freezer, one that will go to -40C to use for a better quick wash extraction. As I noted above I'm moving away from smoking weed, whether bong or joints. Carts, gummies, and infusions are becoming prime so extraction tech is also gaining importance.   

Thoughts As I Near the End Of First DWC Grow

 First Hydroponics works to make big plants. But there are a few "Buts". Biggest is Root Rot if you are doing DWC. With DWC the plant's roots are always in water which works great unless they develop root rot. There are ways to prevent root rot such as using hydrogen peroxide or bleach to sterilize the water or adding "good" bugs like HydroGuard to fight the bad ones but I expect the only real way is with a water chiller or go to a system that is hydroponic but allows the roots to dry like a "Flood and Drain" system.  

One question not answered with this first venture into hydroponics is even though the plants grow bigger and faster than in soil or Coco Coir are they as, less, or more potent. In other words will a hydroponic plant make as much or more THC as a soil grown plant. I have grown GG4 Auto in soil and it tested on average low to mid 20's percent THC. This grow, even in Coco Coir, the GG4 Auto so far has not tested above the high teens for THC. The THC question is still a question. Is it the cultivar, this set of seeds, or is the low THC content because of hydroponics and the hydroponic feed (Ventana Plant Science) and schedule. The one thing I know is most of the low THC from some of the plants is because of root rot in the latter stages of growth and stunted finishing.

The answer for the next grow is still hydroponics but I will go to a RDWC v. DWC and adding a water chiller to the system. Because a RDWC system uses a central feed a water chiller should keep the roots cool enough to prevent root rot. If a cooler doesn't help with root rot and THC levels I might go to a flood and drain system and if that doesn't work then back to soil.

BTW, this grow started out as a test of hydroponics. The original plan was to grow four plants in a DWC system and four in Coco Coir and after harvest compare product. That got thrown out the window when the seeds didn't "pop" on schedule or make it past the seedling stage, in fact I needed 20 seeds to get 8 plants and ended up with only one of those in Coco Coir. 

Processing The Crop

 My Harvest SOPs are changing. Always before I'd hand trim the plant after a week or more of hanging whole, upside down, in a corner of the shop. It would be a loose trim with buds and sugar leaves going into bags or jars to cure and the trim going to a neighbor along with a few buds.

Additional processing equipment has changed almost everything. The plants are still cut down whole (for now) and hung to dry for a week or more but six or seven days into the drying cycle I trim off some of the lower buds and run 'em thru the Rosin Press. The GG4 Auto in Coco Coir just harvested produced 1g of Rosin from 9g of lower buds. A few days after trimming some of the lower buds I will run the rest of the plant thru the bowl trimmer recovering the top shelf bud and good amount of potent trim. The sticks go in the trash.

The current GG4 Auto grown in Coco Coir produced 80g of top shelf bud with 45g of good trim (I'll let the bud dry a little more before testing for THC content). From previous history the trim should give ~3000mg THC, good for 60 mg gummies or even loading a 510 cart. The bud is jared and curing.

I'l need to pick up my game if I plan on a kilo of bud out of this years crop. The first crop was a total bust so no help from it, the winter crop is OK but I expect no more than 150g/plant from the rest of the crop which would work out to ~750g or ¾ of a kilo.

Processing the trim will make up for the bud shortfall, with plenty of FECO to make gummies, 510 carts, and concentrate for vaping.  I think the new SOPs will work a treat.

Harvested The Coco Coir Plant

 All that is left to harvest of the 2023-2024 grow are five DWC plants. The Coco Coir grown plant has been "cut" and is hanging. In three or four days I will trim some of the lower buds to press into rosin. The rest of the plant will have a pass thru the bowl trimmer once it is "dry" with the buds saved for smoking and trim going to make FECO.

The last bach of gummies from FECO kick ass. They were made a couple of weeks ago stuck in the fridge and kinda forgotten about. Night before last I ate a whole one and ended up going to bed stoned out of my gourd because I wasn't functional. This morning tried half of one and it was a perfect day time stone, the world was a half bubble off plumb but I still functioned very well. I may try to find new gummy molds, the two I have are either too big or too small.

As this years grow finishes I'm planning changes for next. Once the tent is empty I will add the Solar System 550 to the Solar System 1100 with both as high in the tent as possible. The current DWC system will be replaced with an Artisun four bucket RDWC system. That system and the tent should work for either Photoperiod or Auto plants. Artisun also has a six bucket "ebb and flow" system that looks interesting. I can see where it would have some advantage over a RDWC system in Root Rot is less of a problem. It also has an out of the tent water reservoir to keep the "system" topped off. It would be nice if you could walk away for four or five days at a time, it would make my "Marijuana Widow" a much happier camper.  

I will try to avoid having "side" plants next year, any "extra" plants will be grown in Coco Coir and fitted around the RDWC system inside the tent. In addition to the tent I'm going to try an outdoor Auto grow timed to start Veg period the first of March. BTW, I still have two very small plants almost ready to harvest from this years outdoor attempt that started much too early. Those two plants prove just how hardy and weed like "weed" is they just would not die no matter how hard I tried to kill 'em. 

Back to this years crop and maybe counting the chickens too early but from the looks of the plants left to harvest I may get a kilo or more of top shelf smoking bud along with enough trim for a year or two of FECO. Not too bad for a totally legal crop, in fact from a few plants short of the max.

DWC v. Coco Coir

 I'm growing one GG4 Auto in Coco Coir alongside the six I have growing in a DWC setup. The first observation is the Coco Coir grow is much less work than a DWC grow. With Coco Coir you stick a finger in the pot first thing in AM and if it is damp leave it alone, if not, add a gal of pHed water with neuts if needed. Expect to repeat the dry finger work in a couple or three days.

DWC with disconnected pots like my setup is another story, everyday each pot needs checking for pH and EC plus water level. Everyday each will need adjustment. My new RDWC system will go a long way to leveling the workload v. Coco because it has a central 5 gal. "feed" pot so only one check and adjustment each day. Once this crop is harvested and I have access to the tent I'll set up the new system for show and tell. On to the real reason for this post:

I have two plants (GG4 Auto) born on the same day, one in a DWC pot the other in a 5 gal fabric pot with Coco Coir. Both are being feed Ventura neuts per Ventura's suggested feeding schedule.

The Coco plant has been a pleasure as described above, the DWC a PITA but as you can see from the photos it could be worth the trouble. Both plants are a couple of weeks or so from harvest, both starting to show some leaf changes, stigmas are turning brown, Trichomes mostly cloudy with a few hidden brown ones. Close but no cigar for another week or so.

The Coco Coir plant:

 The DWC plant:

As always, click 'em to big 'em.

As you can see from the photos the DWC plant is a good 6" taller. The Coco plant's Cola is thicker but from watching the other DWC plants mature I expect its Cola will thicken as it gets closer to harvest. You can see the Cola of a DWC plant that is about a week ahead of the one in the photo in the background of the top photo as an example. The tell will be the weight of smoking buds once the two plants are harvested. I'm going to guess just from looking as they grow the DWC plant will have about a 20% to 25% advantage.

Trim To Infusion

 I ended up with two full Mason Jars of trim, one from a hand trim, the other from the AC Infinity 19" trim bowl. I did a freeze and quick soak (15 min) of both jars producing ~800ml of tincture. The trim bowl tincture tested 12.3mg/ml THC, the hand trim tincture 9.9mg/ml.  

The Source Turbo can only handle 350ml at a time so I did three runs refilling the Crucible as it neared the end. The end product should have ~8000mg THC but I expect that number is high.  If the numbers are true then the infusion with 45ml of MCT would be 170 or so mg/ml, enough that a dropper full would work for all but the most hard core.

The infusion is being DeCarbed, in a couple of hours I'll take it for a test drive and see how close the numbers are.

BTW, most of the time I give a neighbor my trim. Up till now working with the trim was too much work for too little return. With the trim bowl and Source Turbo the equation may have changed.  If this works my workflow will become like a slaughterhouse where I use everything but the "moo".