Farm Life With Snype!

[Snype]

At least the past 6 years ive had this dream of living on a farm with beautiful land and getting rid of most of my technology that wasnt related to grow equipment. A land where I can have various animals and turn into my own world far from other humans in the ant farm.

Ive finally found my dream. I've been on the farm for a couple weeks now and it is so peaceful. Nothing at all to worry about and plenty of room, in and out. Views of mountains from all angles and lots of wild life as well as horses, cows, chickens, and a few others.

There is no TV, car or phone. My supplies come every week or 2 containing vairous grow supplies and food. There is no fast food at the farm. 5 star meals are made every day. Food and cooking is a way of life and not a hassle. All food on the farm is wild caught fish and meet with no chemicals or hormones and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Life is very relaxing for once.

Everything just feels right for this next step in my life. Looking back at the past, i realize that ive been in training for the past 20 years. It was a good ride with some good times and bad times. The bad times were neccesary to learn those lessons. I wouldnt take anything back with how everything in the past went down. I am now in my future.

This thread will be my portal to civilazation. It will feature various pictures and views of my life as a grower living a much different life from living in big cities my whole life. I will be documenting some of my work here as well as my testing. Many strains will be germinated on the farm and many seeds will be made from plants that I believe to be special to me. I have a lot of old seed stock that dates back to 1973 and goes up to last year. Ive been saving it all for the right time and place.

This is a very exciting venture for me. Most of my grows are RDWC but there are also indoor soil and outdoor. Plant counts always stay under 100 and I wont be talking about wattage that i dont personally state. Some of the plants are grown with reflectors and some also have additional vertical bare bulb lighting. I have a testing room with 7600 watts of HPS with a combination of vertical bare bulb and horizontal reflectors. That room is dedicated to side by side experiments that i will document here.

This thread will be a journey that will last many years. I have finally found paradise! Stay tuned...

 

[willyweed]

good luck snype,looking forward to reading the updates on this thread.willyweed

 

[DabSnob]

Im in, Your livin my dream man.

 

[Bigj15971597]

Sounds great. A dream of mine as well. Hope to see this place some time.

 

[Snype]

On the farm, my main strain is my ChemdogDD that ive been doing for almost 4 years. Nothing else so far has come close to it. I'm still searching for more selections.

The first strains that I have in testing are 6 pheno's of Motorbreath, 2 pheno's of Stardog and Kyle Kushmans Stardog Cut that took 2nd Place in The San Francisco Cup. It will be interesting to see how these compare to my ChemdogDD. They are all rooted clones that have been transplanted to a mix of Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil on August 5th. This morning and last night, they were all transplanted into 9"x9"x10" containers of FFOF and 1/4 Perlite.

Stardog #6 is the one that stands out the most in VEG and seems to grow the fastest with a great sturdy branch structure. KK Stardog also stands out in VEG with perfect forest green leaves which show no sensitivity but is not the perfect structure like #6. The Stardog #9 has the same structure as the #6 but her branches are thinner and grows slightly slower.

The Motorbreaths all seem Chemdog like. The #2, 3 & 5 are the most sensitive. They all grow slower than the Stardogs. None of them so far are really interesting to me but that could change. Motorbreath #7 seems to be the least sensitive showing no poor signs.

No pictures for now.

 

[willyweed]

are those chemdog dd clone only? thanks willy weed also the others sound good too !

 

[Snype]

are those chemdog dd clone only? thanks willy weed also the others sound good too !

My ChemDD is my clone only that I sprouted from Rez Dog seed almost 4 years ago. She was the Number 8 seed out of 10. A couple pictures of her past:

Before I was lucky to get that pack of seeds from the Rez release that sold out very fast, i was testing loads of seeds for years and not finding anything close to this. Everything that I tested just couldnt pass all the tests that ChemDD8 could. Before this I was running my clone only Shiva Skunk from 1998 until 2006. It did very well for a while but i realized that i needed something more extreme to be able to last in this business for more years. I knew it would only be a matter of time if I kept the Shiva. I tested so many strains that were all just OK by my standards and then came Rez Dog!

 

[Mister_D]

Subbed

 

[mcsamuels]

Very cool Snype. Congrats on the farm

 

[DabSnob]

i would kill for a cut of that chemDD

 

[Snype]

Thanks for joining the adventure folks!

When I first came to the farm, i brought plenty of rooted ChemdogDD's in 1.5" Rockwool Mini Blocks. I learned this lesson from my last move 4 years ago. I had awful water and it took me almost 2 years to figure out where my problems were coming from. I never knew how important my water quality was until that. When I moved to the farm, i brought plenty of bottled water for the first crop or 2 while I do some testing.

Now that everything is set up and flowering with my bottled water, i have started my tests with my tap water that comes from the land. My first tests are in my EZ Cloner. My tap water comes out at 100 PPM (500 scale) and the pH is 7.8-8.2. Highest pH that I've seen personally.

Before adding any cuttings to the cloner, I gave my Erythromycin treatments for 6 days. In my last grow location, I had very bad infestations of Cyanobacteria muliplying like wild fire. Chlorine wouldnt kill that specific strain possible due to a resistance to chlorine in that specific city.

After completing my Erythromycin treatments, I cleaned out the cloner with Physan20 and replaced all tubing and neoprene. Then I filled up one of my 60 site EZ Cloners (which holds 10 Gallons of solution) with:

40 mL General Hydroponic FloraMicro
60 mL General Hydroponic FloraBloom
40 mL Technaflora Thrive Alive B-1 Red
6 drops Clorox Bleach
21 mL General Hydroponic pH down

That brought my pH down to 6.0. I always stay in a range between 5.8 - 6.2. I usually get roots to start in 4 days but this took a little longer with my new formula and water. Here is the data:

8/21 - 90F - 6.0
8/22 - 91F - 6.4 (added 8 mL pH down to 6.0)
8/23 - 87F - 6.0
8/24 - 87F - 6.0
8/25 - 89F - 6.0
8/26 - 84F - 6.0
8/27 - 89F - 6.0
8/28 - 89F - 6.0 (added 6 drops Clorox Bleach)

It took 5 to 6 days to see the beginning of root growth. It usually takes me 4 days so I will have to do further testing to figure this out. By the way, in my cloner I use 4 airstones and an air pump rated at 40 Liters per Minute and my cloner uses 37.9 Liters. Lots of testing went into those calculations.

 

[Treetroit City]

Curious why you let the temps get into the upper 80's in your cloner?

 

[Snype]

Curious why you let the temps get into the upper 80's in your cloner?

I would love to be at 75F but thats impossible in the middle of summer. Bigger pumps also add more heat to the equation. Because my grow is run on a studio generator, it costs much more money for my electricity because of diesel fuel. Because of this I had to make decisions on which rooms will have air conditioning and which rooms cannot. Once the summer fades away, i can use an inline duct fan to draw in cold outside air. Until then my temps have to stay pretty warm. Ive tested my cloners up to 95F with the use of Chlorine and bigger air pumps with much success.

 

[DabSnob]

Curious why you let the temps get into the upper 80's in your cloner?

upper 80's is a bit high but i believe the clorox stops any form of fungal development in the cloner allowing higher temps. But I do believe the higher temps is whats causing the delay of rooting. those roots in that beast are still loooking mighty fine though snype!

 

[Treetroit City]

I would love to be at 75F but thats impossible in the middle of summer. Bigger pumps also add more heat to the equation. Because my grow is run on a studio generator, it costs much more money for my electricity because of diesel fuel. Because of this I had to make decisions on which rooms will have air conditioning and which rooms cannot. Once the summer fades away, i can use an inline duct fan to draw in cold outside air. Until then my temps have to stay pretty warm. Ive tested my cloners up to 95F with the use of Chlorine and bigger air pumps with much success.
View Image

Good to know, thanks.

I am using an aero cloner for the first time. I have it in the house so I can keep it cool. My veg room in my barn runs at 87 in the summer.

If I can keep it in the veg room I would prefer to do that. I'll let this first batch do it's thing inside though as I don't want to risk anything going wonky on me.

Oh yeah, congrats on the farm. I love country living. Here's my chile patch.

 

[Snype]

For the past few weeks I've thought long and hard about the idea of going medical in my state. I've reached my conclusion today to continue staying underground like I have been for the last 20 years. If there were better environmental conditions for outdoor, I may have gone full medical but these conditions are just way too poor. I've been testing my ChemdogDD outdoors to evaluate the situation. I see locals in the area growing outdoors and I'm not close to impressed with what I see. A big storm came through yesterday and really damaged some of the outdoor. Ripped a 1" thick branch right off of the plant. Some outdoor that I can see from the locals has Powdery Mildew. The humidity is crazy out here and can be in the 90's on a regular basis. There is no point in working on a big outdoor crop in this area so there's no point in going medical. Maybe I will just put a few plants outdoors just for laughs.

The focus will be indoors and focused around yields and quality. As I stated before, my electricity is much more expensive so I have to maximize my grows with short VEG times and as close to a gram per watt that I can accomplish. VEG times in flowering rooms will be a maximum of 10 days and VEG times in VEG rooms will be no more than 10 days.

The goal is 5 crops per room per year with very strict time schedules. Luckily for me I have mastered my RDWC techniques and get crazy fast growth rates. Since I started using my chlorine treatments, i havent lost an RDWC crop yet and everything has been going as planned. Let's hope this continues!

 

[DabSnob]

I dont see why you would go medical if you've been successful underground for as long as you have been. no need to pay the fees and re-new the card every year, I pray you stay under the radar friend.

 

[Snype]

The common day for a grower with a bunch of lights is not just winging the day and spending a few minutes in the grow room or rooms. Many growers are finding it much harder to succeed in todays market place. Competition is much more fierce than ever before. One who is always a step ahead of the market, lives much better. That has always been my view since 1991 when i was 10" shorter.

The work is easy but can be very time consuming. For example just calibrating your meters and making solution can take over an hour. Most of my grows are RDWC but all my MOMS are soil. Because of that theres always a mom or test soil plant that needs some attention. All MOMS and soil plants are weighed on scales to determine if they need to be watered and ive been doing soil for 20 years. Show me a grower who can hand weigh and be accurate to within 100 or 200 mL. There is no guessing being done in my grows. My grows are all pure data with nothing to think about and fuck up. Some of you may have an idea what I am talking about and some wont.

Every day all RDWC systems and cloners are checked for pH and nutrient strenth. Meters are calibrated every day and there is a back up meter for my meter for errors. I learned that the hard way a few years back.

Today consisted of checking systems, watering a few MOMS, Fixing an outdoor plant that someone poisoned, fixing a neighbors plant that got fucked up in the storm, making 3 batched of hash oil in the Tamisium, cooking a chicken alfredo from scratch and other various things around the farm. About 10 hours of work today but it is not work when you enjoy what you do.

 

[soursmoker]

Awesome thread! I will be stopping in here A LOT ! You are living my dream!

I like the idea of weighing the soil pots to check if they need to be watered... what is the equation for figuring this out?

 

[Snype]

Awesome thread! I will be stopping in here A LOT ! You are living my dream!

I like the idea of weighing the soil pots to check if they need to be watered... what is the equation for figuring this out?

Thanks for stoppig by Sour. I see you very active at IC.

I just cant believe I dont hear of more growers doing this. Weighing soil pots is so easy. My biggest indoor pots are 5 Gallons. My scale weighs 5000 grams which is enough because i also always add 25% perlite. I use Fox Farm Ocean Forest. We are not talking about coco or soiless. Those would be different equations that have to be used because of different variables.

Ok so here is what you do to find your equation. Whatever soil you use make sure to have enough perlite in there. 25% is pretty good for bigger plants. It helps get air in your meduim instead of slowly suffocating your plants. Anyway to get back to the process. Open your bag of soil and feel the soil with your hands. You dont want it soaked in the bag. Not all brands are consistant. If your soil out of the bag is too wet then dry it out. It wont take long if you dump it out or put it in a lobster pot with 25% perlite. When the soil is the dryness that you are looking for when your plant needs to be watered, then you transplant your plant into your new container and weigh it on a scale before you water. My transplanted plants in dry FFOF soil and 25% perlite weighs roughly 4,000 grams in my 5 gallon container. I place a sticky on the container with the dry weight. Then for the first time I put only half the water into the pot because the root needs to grow and you dont want full saturation of newly transplanted plants. I grow roots by making the plant look for water. After about a week is when i give a full water. I also check the run off of every soil plant once every week to check the PPM and pH. My run off stays between 6.2-6.6. If it goes below 6.2, i give my "charging your medium treatments" which can be found here:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=268343