The Coughie House

So it was highlighted in the CBanana thread that there's something funny going on in this current run, and it's something I've noticed since I switched over to 315w CMH from 600w HPS.

The guys in that thread thought it might be some sort of nutrient lock out issue, which I didn't immediately dismiss, as I had topdressed this soil at the beginning of this run, so, ya never know I suppose.

But further investigation leads me to believe it's the light and not the soil. The issue at hand is some weird foxtailing that's going on, along with some plants having what can most easily be described as "stunted" flowers.

So, to get to the bottom of all of this, I think I'm going to buy a laser temp gun and a light meter, so I can measure the temperature of the leaves and how much light they re receiving. I'll probably make a grid on the trellis for light measurements.

If I'm right, and it is the light, then I can raise the reflector up about 6-8 inches... if that's not enough, I might have to switch out the big 150 gallon pot for several smaller pots.

If I'm wrong, and it doesn't appear to be the light, I can take soil samples to my local Ag extension office and get both pots tested.

Ambient temperatures in the tent are low to mid 70s with the lights on, relative humidity in the mid 50's.

I'll be back with pictures tonight, the eight CBanana ladies are on day 65..? I think..

i'm with ya man ... i have a infra red laser temp gun for checking the actual surface temps of the plant at canopy height ...you would be surprised at the discrepancy’s you will discover...peace i though your CBs1's look pretty good btw , maybe small, but still good

like the thread, that some journey, you are on.
Happy growing

Hi Coughie, been following your thread. Very interesting work. Looks like you're almost ready for bar coded pots connected to a trait scoring system in your database.

~star~crash~ said:

i'm with ya man ... i have a infra red laser temp gun for checking the actual surface temps of the plant at canopy height ...you would be surprised at the discrepancy’s you will discover...peace i though your CBs1's look pretty good btw , maybe small, but still good

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Bout to pull the trigger on the laser temp gun, life keeps kicking me in the chops and running away from me lol.

I keep thinking the last run through though, and comparing it to the "good times" / better runs... I watered so haphazardly last run, that going back to how I used to water is making it feel like I'm watering all the damned time! So thats part of it, for sure..

And on CBS1 #1, in particular, a couple of the top colas were actually crunchy when I harvested - which is what triggered the lack of water thoughts.


So I'm still going to order the temp gun... but I'm trying to see if I can find a lux or PAR meter that will give me information accurate enough to use..

I've got this 315 CMH in a Magnum XXXL reflector using a conversion kit, and I'm curious what kind of numbers I'm throwing, using my trellis as a grid. People are so adamant about 315's only covering a 3x3, that I need the numbers off my system to see for myself.

But a lux or PAR meter will also help me decide whether the light needs raised, the pots need lowered, or both, to provide more room between light and plant. It's ~15-16" above the canopy, on average, now. Might need to bump it up to 20-24", wont know without a meter.

9DRAGONS said:

like the thread, that some journey, you are on.
Happy growing

Click to expand...

Zeez said:

Hi Coughie, been following your thread. Very interesting work. Looks like you're almost ready for bar coded pots connected to a trait scoring system in your database.

Click to expand...

Thanks for popping in, guys!
Always appreciate more company!

If I could run larger numbers, barcoding would definitely be useful. Hopefully in the future, at some point.

I'm going to try the database system with both the CBanana S1's that I'm ramping up to flower for a second time - if this last one, #7, would root!! - as well as some Mazar x Guerrero F2s that I just popped.

It might need some tweaking, or some additions, but this will make for a decent trial run of the database system

Coughie said:

Bout to pull the trigger on the laser temp gun, life keeps kicking me in the chops and running away from me lol.

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i hear that! ...btw i figure the temps of the leaf/bud tops give me a decent indication of how hard the light intensity is in that spot( it varies when i take readings ,but usually within a few degrees of my canopy target range temps )

For what it's worth, I think you should do the soil samples first, double check your calcium levels. I'm not entirely sure what mix you use, so I'm only offering supposition but in my experience (not just cannabis, mainly glasshouse grown flowering plants) if your nutrient uptake isn't perfect nothing else will fix the issues and calcium is one of the most overlooked micro nutrients. Anyways, best of luck man and your name is what brought me here, even though it should be spelled 'Coughee' lol

How is your ventilation? Just tent to room circulation? Or Tent to fresh air exchange? I have seen many tents struggling in just a room full of air. Bring in fresh if you're not already.

~star~crash~ said:

i hear that! ...btw i figure the temps of the leaf/bud tops give me a decent indication of how hard the light intensity is in that spot( it varies when i take readings ,but usually within a few degrees of my canopy target range temps )

Click to expand...

Yeah, I hear you - the lux or PAR meter may be somewhat unnecessary, but I'm still on the fence about it.

Brother Nature said:

For what it's worth, I think you should do the soil samples first, double check your calcium levels. I'm not entirely sure what mix you use, so I'm only offering supposition but in my experience (not just cannabis, mainly glasshouse grown flowering plants) if your nutrient uptake isn't perfect nothing else will fix the issues and calcium is one of the most overlooked micro nutrients. Anyways, best of luck man and your name is what brought me here, even though it should be spelled 'Coughee' lol

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The mix is Coot's original mix.. it's listed on the first page or two of this thread, and my topdress had crab meal and oyster shell flour in it, as did the original mix. Ca should be there.

I'll probably still get the soil samples, but I might put it off a little bit until I'm ready to get some outdoor samples taken too, to do them all at once.

mushroombrew said:

How is your ventilation? Just tent to room circulation? Or Tent to fresh air exchange? I have seen many tents struggling in just a room full of air. Bring in fresh if you're not already.

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The tents circulate in the room, but they're aimed at the door that is always open. That door is at the bottom of a stairway, so the warmer tent exhaust leaves the room and goes up the staircase with the air from the level the grow is on, filling the room through the bottom of the door.

It's actually a pain in the ass to sweep out of the doorway, because the air current blows everything back into the room lol.

Temp gun came in..

Temps at the top of the canopy are the same as ambient temps, in the 70's.
73-74F


With the temp gun, came some smart pots..

So, when it was pointed out to me that something was funny, I started thinking - like most growers would.
They have a point, but what it is? Pretty much everyone suspected the soil, and I did for a minute.

But as I mulled this over, over a period of a month now, I started asking myself questions. What was I doing? Why was I doing it that way? And finding some answers, or light bulb moments

Stress testing a massive amount of seedlings, is what I've been doing.
Testing different lines, looking for that "mmmph" that makes special plants special.

This led me to:
1 - Watering haphazardly, to see how these seedlings handle over- or under-watering
2 - Smaller containers, to see how they handle being rootbound or confined
3 - Transplanting yellow/rough plants to flower, to see how they handle the stress, if they herm, and to do a terpene check.

I was checking plants for terpenes first, effect secondly... Yield and bag appeal were at the bottom of the list.

And I did find a couple plants, but just a couple.

A side-note, a bit of a revelation: being this mean to my veg plants, it's no wonder I've had a hard time with the clone strike rate; they just aren't healthy.

Thinking back further, I started thinking about how different rounds finished based on the size of pot I was using in veg; larger pots meant larger root systems, larger plants, healthier plants, and healthier plants make healthier flowers.

I've since lost all my pictures, but my memory works just fine. So I've transplanted into these 150-gallon smart pots that I have in flower, everything from half-gallon size pots, like what I've been doing, up to 5-gallon pots. The number of plants fluctuates based on the size of the pots, to keep the canopy full. (Keeping the canopy full gets hard when the clones dont strike though, mmhmm, sure does)

Half gallons are what I've been doing, and they work if timed right - to the health of the plant - so that they dont lose vigor waiting to get flipped to flower.

2-gallons are okay, but it takes about 8 of them, transplanted into the 150, to fill a 4x4. Not a large number, but it's a decent chunk of the 4x4 that I have for veg... A lot of plants flipped at once, with a bad strike rate, leaves one or the other tent empty periodically as clones grow. So I get a rough crop, then a decent crop, another rough, and another decent.

5-gallons are amazing, when theres four of them transplanted into the 150. Absolutely gorgeous. But I only have access to the front side of the 4x4's, and I have a bad back, so getting those back-two 5-gallons transplanted is enough to put me down for a few days. Can't do that any more, even though the canopy fills out lusciously and the flowers turn out picture perfectly.

All these different size containers were done with the 600w HPS though, and not the 315w CMH. I haven't tested the 2's or the 5's with the 315w CMH, because of what I already know about them with the 600w HPS; I can see the gradient, the relationship between pot size and plant size/health.

So what came in the mail, is some 3-gallons. I figure they should yield a little better in the end and provide healthier plants in veg, for longer, allowing for a better clone strike rate, as well as picture worthy flowers. They also wont be as heavy as the 5's, so maybe they'll be okay to transplant into the back of the tent. And maybe it'll only take five 3-gallons (I've got 10 right now, for the two tents), where it took four 5-gallons or ~eight 2-gallons.


So, all in all,

- The canopy temps are fine.
- I've got my watering back on point.
- I'm increasing the pot size for plants in veg

All in an effort to unteach myself everything that I've been doing for the last ~18 months, in stress testing a ridiculous amount of seedlings. Results should improve.

Clone strike rates should increase
Overall plant health should increase
Final yield should increase
Flower size should increase

Pheno hunting will decrease


I've got a GG4 into one of the 3-gallons for a pot size comparison; will get the CBanana S1 phenotypes that are worth a second run transferred soon, as will the Elmer's Glue, the Boss OG, and the Jawa Pie #3 (keeper).

I have some Mazar x Guerrero F2 seedlings going as well, and they will get into the 3-gallons after the first batch goes into flower.


In the near future, I'll also be adding fresh earthworm compost, some powdered malted barley, and some fresh mycorrhiza to the 150-gallon flower pots.

And then when Spring really kicks into gear, I'll be ordering some predators for all three tents - one veg, two flower - as preventatives for anything that has overwintered in the grow, came in from outside, or came in from the mailbox.

Do you have a sweet tasting Cough Syrup strain?

Not yet? Lol
I like the name though..
Has it been used yet?

Thanks for popping in !


Edit:
Looks like there's a "Cherry Cough Syrup"..

Doesn't look like anyone grabbed that name yet.

The only one I knew of before today is the Strawberry Cough strain.

I can see the seed hacks running now.

Despite all the issues, Boss OG seems to be turning out decently:

Day 45




You can see some yellowing, and most of that is from all the veg abuse.
Things greened up and grew beautifully, once I popped them in the 150-gallon flower pots.


I've got a handful of plants vegging in the 3-gallon smart pots now,
I think they're going to work out perfectly for what I'm trying to accomplish,
So the bud porn should be increasingly improving over the next run or two as things get back to vibrant health.

good morning coffee

What a whirlwind it's been lately!

Posting those CBanana photos a while back, in the CBanana thread, sure stirred up a storm around here;

As if I was asking for it, days later, the power strip for my flower tents started to act up and began turning itself off mid-cycle. Got that replaced, then realized how old the bulbs were, and replaced those too.

After that came a topdress of EWC on both 150-gallon smart pots, and then the introduction of some beneficial predators to both the veg tent and flower tents.


Managed to reacquire one of my grail plants as well, Clackamas Coot's The One, a 1971 B.O.E.L. Afghani x 1976 B.O.E.L. Thai Stick bred in 1984.

And then started some seedlings, will post a picture of them once I get them transplanted from 2" x 2" x 2" starter cubes into either solo cups or half-gallon pots, I havent decided yet:

- Seed Junky's Wedding Cake F2
- Exotic Genetics Mint Chocolate Chip F2
- Mean Gene's Piña F3
- B.O.E.L. Oaxacan


Ideally, I would like to find the best couple of Wedding Cake females and pollinate them with the best couple of MCC males, so I can begin to fashion a "cookie line" to use as a pollen source. Both lines use Thin Mint for the mother, with respective pollen donors - (Animal Cookies x Sin Mint Cookies) for Seed Junky's and Green Ribbon Bx for Exotic - and crossing them together will give me pollen that I can then apply to the Thin Mint cutting one more time. This should result is a decent cookies line.

The Piña was popped to find a keeper female and make F4s, a numbers increase.

The B.O.E.L. Oaxacan was gifted by a generous soul, and I've only popped a few of them, because they're precious, but I'd like to sample the ladies and see if there's a male or two that I like enough to pollinate The One.

(B.O.E.L Afghani x B.O.E.L. Thai Stick) x B.O.E.L. Oaxacan
How could I not do it? Lol

Also heard whispers of a B.O.E.L. Afghani line, so that might come in the future too; (B.O.E.L Afghani x B.O.E.L. Thai Stick) x B.O.E.L. Afghani

And then here shortly will come the Mr. Greengenes Cherry Bomb seeds, to do a reproduction run with as many desirable individuals as I can find in the 20 seeds I have.


I think I about covered all the bases though.
I'll be back with some pictures when there's more to see.

cherry bomb and the one. I'm definitely ready for this!

I cropped these out of a larger photo, so sorry for the shoddy quality:


BOEL Oaxacan



Pi[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]ña F3

Wedding Cake F2 & Mint Chocolate Chip F2

Once these get transplanted one more time, I'll be starting the Cherry Bomb


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I can't wait to see those Cake F2's do their thing.

CBanana S1 #8

Day 56







Day 25




Different tents, different runs, same plant..