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".  

Plant #3 2024 Winter Grow

 The second plant (plant #3) harvested from the Winter 2024 grow. It is much like the #2 plant in none of the buds made large Colas but the buds are tight and there are bunch of 'em. I expect the weight of useable (smokeable) bud will be good.

 You have two choices when using a bud trimmer, dry or wet. Dry works best with tight buds but will break up loose ones. Wet will not break up the loose buds as much but after trimming the buds still need to be dried. One big time saver when using dry Cannabis you can just pull the branch thru your fingers to release the buds into the Trimmer instead of needing to cut each off the main branch. 

The Kief has been building up in the bottom of the trim tray, I recovered 4.09g of good looking golden Kief. 

I still have five DWC and one Coco Coir plants to go this grow season. From the looks of the remaining plants I expect a couple of weeks to go before the next harvest, after that there will be one a week or so till they are all gone. This has been a strange grow, a number of seeds did not sprout and I keep replacing with new seeds so all but the first three plants have different "born on" dates. While it has been a PITA juggling lights and nutes for what is in effect five different grows having a one or so plants a week to harvest instead of a half dozen makes the trim process much nicer.  

BTW, I have to question why it took me so long to get a bud trimmer. The bud trimmer makes the trim process quick and easy instead of a soul, shoulders and time destroying process.  

Bowl Trimmer

AC Infinity Bud Leaf Bowl Trimmer 19", Clear Visibility Dome with Sharp Stainless Steel Blades, for Twist Spin Cutting Leaves, Buds, Flowers, Hydroponics Plants

AC Infinity 19" Bowl Trimmer

I'm a convert. I had a early death plant, big with lots of buds but died early due to I expect "root rot". I got the bowl trimmer today, the root rot plant was dry with mostly air buds so what better test. After running the dried plant thru the AC Infinity 19" bowl trimmer it produced 38g of small but tight buds and 77g of trim. The big surprise was the buds tested 16% THC.  Fast easy pleasy, < 15 minutes to trim the whole plant with way more good buds than I expected.

I'm sold, the worst part of growing is the trim process. The bowl trimmer makes it a piece of cake, 15 or so minutes per plant and you end up with trimmed buds to smoke and a bowl full of trim to make into edibles. 

Moved Three Plants

 Moved the three smaller plants to the side of the tent. 

The tent is still tight to work in but much better.

Remember click 'em to big 'em.

The beauty of Autoflower Cannabis is you can move the overflow plants to the side of the tent. There are still five plants and a AC unit in the tent, the fifth plant is in Coco Coir so it can be moved when needed.

DWC and 5'X5' Grow Tent

 When deciding on a new 5'X5' grow tent it came down to AC Infinity v. Gorilla Grow Tents. While in many ways I liked the AC Infinity tent the Gorilla tent had one overriding feature, Eight foot tent height v. seven foot. I'm glad I listened to my head instead of my heart, this crop may even outgrow the eight feet.

  The three back row plants are in their 6th week and well over a meter tall, the two on the left are in their 5th week, the two in the middle the 4th week and the small one up front is a week behind that.

The next grow will span the winter of 2024-2025 and will utilized a Artisan Technology 4 pot RDWC system. TBD, I may add a couple or three Coco Coir pots to the tent but I expect with RDWC four plants will produce enough weed for the next year plus some no matter how much I waste playing around with Rosin and Eatables.

Sunday Jan 28 to Friday Feb 2nd

 The big sucker went from 22" to 36" in five days: 

The other two are just a couple of inches behind. I hope the tent is tall enough.

On a normal grow the plants will all be within a few days of each other. This time because of trying different ways of germinating the potting dates are spread over three weeks. It should work out ok but I expect the first three will be the best producers for no other reason than lights and feed have been optimized for them. The other four have been the red headed step child of this crop.  

ken