ReikoX's Workshop 2017

doams said:

lol luke looks too much devastated at the end.

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Yeah, he's probably whining about going to Tosche Station to get some power inverters.

doams said:

are those Cinnamon Candies medicated?
I wonder how I add some thc into them i.e. in what form hm..

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Yes they are medicated. Notice the reference to Green Dragon, it's an alcohol tincture. I used the Green Dragon I made with rosin in this post.

The autoflower beans have cracked. I put them in the peat pucks and on a seedling mat. I think that I will run these in my storage cabinet since that will be empty this weekend. Clearly nothing happened to my order in transit.


The Bubba Kush S1 is doing great. She's already at five nodes and I was faced with two choices, either lower the pot or top her. So she was topped to the third node. I just put the top in water for tonight, I will try to clone tomorrow.


She sure loves to branch out. That bottom node is actually big enough to clone. Tomorrow is clone day, so I will try to clone the top and both those bottom nodes. I will give her a few days to recover before moving on to the next steps after that.


I ordered a new pH pen. I use the cheap ones that only last about 6-moths, but it was cheaper than just buying the calibration solution, and it comes with it to boot. So my old pen was about 0.5 too high, so I calibrated it and put it away as a spare. The new one was dead nuts on, $11 well spent.

The yogurt challenge is on! These little guys are a total mystery. I have been having issues getting some seeds to germinate so I grabbed a few from my mixed seed stash. These could be anything from commercial Mexican to an S1 found from the dispensary. I tried to grab the four biggest seeds that all looked similar. These were simply dropped into the yogurt cups and watered in. Since these are total mystery, they will simply be referred to by their flavors, Peach, Strawberry, Blueberry, and Cherry.


The capillary mat is working pretty good except one cup, Blueberry, was getting dry. I changed the "res" and watered the dry cup. I'm trying synthetic nutrients for these guys. A sort of "hydro" setup. I have very little experience as I prefer to use organic based nutrients. So they got a nice light mix of Superthrive, Shultz 10-15-10, and SM-90. I then adjusted the pH to about 5.8. They are getting a spot around the 150W CMH bulb. They will only get a few weeks veg time until the screen is nice and full, then they will get flipped with the rest of the cab.

The Bubba Kush S1 was topped at the third node and the branches at the first node were removed. That was three days ago and she is already fully recovered.


Today I removed the branches at the second node as well as the foliage. The two main branches were tied down.


Look at this, she has already given me five cuts. Let's see how many I can get to root.


Next up are the Holy Grail 69 girls. They were all trained back to the screen with garden wire. These girls don't stretch much at all, so they will need to completely fill the screen before being flipped.


Finally I'll update the yogurt cups. They got a bit of stretch on them. Blueberry is still drying out faster. Looks like more perlite in that one for some reason. Correction: There is no Cherry, it's Vanilla.

Nice LST on that Bubba.

Tbonegrower said:

Nice LST on that Bubba.

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Ha ha there is nothing Low Stress about that Training! Topping, pruning, and tying. But thanks, this is the best attempt at mainlining I have had.

This week's harvest looks pretty good to me. We have from left to right, Delicious Candy, THC Juanita, and Tahoe OG. I think Juanita came out perfect. I wish I would have recorded her height.

Since I just harvested a couple good sized plants in 5 gallon smart pots, I had quite a few roots to play with. I still have root oil that I made to use for topical recipes, so I decided I would ferment them and use it as a root stimulant. I cleaned most of the soil out of the main root balls, but didn't rinse them as the microbes are useful. I weighed them at about 90 grams, and then shoved them into the growler. Next, I added to that 45 ml of molasses and just enough water to cover the roots. Finally I added 1 ml of lactobacillus culture and put the air lock on. This will ferment for a week or two, then the liquid will be strained and used as a soil drench at about 1 tbsp per gallon. I currently use a homemade fish hydrolysate, cannabis leaf FPE, and lactobacillus culture for veg. I plan to make a bloom recipe with banana, squash, and papaya to try out on the screens. You can learn more about making your own fertilizers at the unconventional farmer dot com.


The Bubba Kush S1 has recovered nicely from her last round of torture. After this picture, I removed the two large bottom fan leaves and removed the wire holding the main branches down. This should encourage vertical growth. In a day or two, I will top both sides for four main growth tips and again give a couple of days for her to recover. So far, I believe this technique has added about three or four days of veg. It's not too bad if it works out, also the roots get a chance to really grow out with a longer veg. More roots, more fruits


After a bit of struggling, it seems like the Seedsman Lowryder competition is a go! I've had a hard time germinating some seeds for the competition, but sometimes the simplest solution is the best. I simply put them into the peat puck and one is up, the other looks like it may come up in a day or two. The other varieties are also auto flowering from the same order. I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong with the order, so tested germinating some other seeds. A larger grow area will be free in a couple of days, so I am going to run 6-8 of the ones that come up in 2 gallon smart pots in my storage cabinet. Though there will be other varieties in there, we will be focusing on the Lowryder.


Next, a one week update on the yogurt cup challenge. Strawberry was horizontal when I checked up on them, so I propped them up with some bamboo skewers and twisty ties.



I am finally getting up to speed with my Arduino board. I got my starter kit and quickly worked my way through the dozen or so examples. The board is programmed in C/C++ so there was no issue learning the language or syntax. With the parts I had, basically a few resistors, buttons, and LEDs, I realized I could easily make an ART-DNe cycle timer. So I wrote up an object that uses the system clock and has all of the features of the ART-DNe. Next I ordered up a datalogging shield, this has an SD slot as well as a real time clock and a small amount of NVRAM. I updated the ART-DNe to read from a config file on the SD card, so that parameters could be changed without flashing the firmware. I still need to update the code to use the real-time-clock.

I also ordered a temperature/humidity sensor and then wrote a simple "weather station". Basically every couple of minutes the firmware will read the sensor and record the temperature and humidity to a log file. I also ordered up some soil moisture sensors and a relay board. I would eventually like to create an automated watering system for the yogurt cups.

Sweet, looking healthy and you'll have the arduino up and running things in no time

This has been fascinating to read. My thanks to Terpene for the link to your thread. Do you do all of this grow engineering in your spare time? If you read the book The Martian, I'm guessing you loved it. 5 star thread rep.

Mr. Sparkle said:

Sweet, looking healthy and you'll have the arduino up and running things in no time

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Thanks, these little things are cheap enough that I can automate my whole house if I wanted to.

onavelzy said:

This has been fascinating to read. My thanks to Terpene for the link to your thread. Do you do all of this grow engineering in your spare time? If you read the book The Martian, I'm guessing you loved it. 5 star thread rep.

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Yeah, I have a lot of free time I guess. I don't watch much television and only have my daughter every other week. I do some thinking and sketches while I attend meetings at work. I attend a lot of meetings.

As promised, I am also making some banana, squash, and papaya bloom fertilizer. I weighed out 300 grams of each then mashed it all in the blender. The mash was added to the growler and 900 grams of brown sugar was also added. The mixture was mixed well, then the lactobacillus culture was added and the airlock put on. This will ferment for a week or so, then will be strained. I spent less than $10 USD for the fruits and sugar.


You don't even need the airlocks, you can easily use balloons with the same effect. Here I am making the garlic ginger immune boost recipe. 90 grams of ginger was chopped up and added to to a bottle with 90 ml of cheap red wine. The same was done with the garlic in a separate bottle. They will soak for 24 hours, then I will add 90 ml of molasses to each bottle and allow it to ferment for a week or two. After that alcohol is added to arrest the fermentation and finish the extraction. Finally they will be combined at the end and used as a boost for sickly plants, or as an organic pesticide and fungicide.


Tuesday is clone day. I didn't have very good results with the 50/50 perlite vermiculite mix, so I reverted back to 100% perlite. I just need to be more diligent with waterings. My mothers got hacked back to 4" again. My garden has a new baby in the green pot on the right. Her name is Zak Haze, and she has a special story. I'll share that story in just a bit.


I don't need any clones this week as I still have plenty to keep the coliseum going for a couple more weeks. But I could have had a good 20 or so viable clones this round. These bonsai moms sure can produce cuttings.

Zak Haze

Zak Haze

Zak Haze is a very special plant with a very special story.

Killer Haze(Killer Queen x SSH) x
Strawberry Cough = Zak Haze

This strain is dedicated to one of our dear family members that is no longer with us, Zak Hayes. Zak, was a dear friend, committed cannabis activist, and a true believer in the healing powers of medical cannabis. Being a cystic Fibrosis patient with an inherited life threatening disorder that damages the lungs and digestive system never got him down, never slowed his enthusiasm and never ever, became a crutch or an excuse. The fact that he knew he had a short ride ahead of him never dampened his vision of the future. In fact, it fueled his passion and drove him to become a well respected member of the New Mexico medical cannabis industry. In his short career, Zak worked with several of New Mexico’s finest producers and was well liked and loved by his co-workers and managers alike. He made an impression wherever he went. Zak has been part of Organtica’s family since the very beginning and was there every step of the way.

Many of us in the community were devastated at his passing and as we struggled to find sense in it all, we wondered what Zak would have thought about it.

The answer was pretty clear; we needed to develop a strain and dedicate it to our friend and, thus, the Organtica strain Zak Haze was conceived.

The funny thing about Karma is, it works both ways. In this case we developed a great strain that came in with a respectable THC count of 20.75%, and after sifting through test results we discovered a little secret. Not only was Zak Haze high in THC it also had an unusually high CBG-A content of 1.2%.

So What? Who cares about CBG-A?

If you are a patient, you do. The bottom line on CBG-A is this; it’s the magic ingredient that makes the cannabinoids work together as medicine. To put it in other words; Cannabigerolic acid (CBGa) is formed when geranyl pyrophosphate combines with olivetolic acid within the cannabis plant. It is thanks to CBGa that all other medicinal effects of cannabis are possible. Cannabigerolic acid (CBGa) can be thought of as the stem cell cannabinoid, which becomes THCa/THC, CBDa/CBD, CBCa/CBC, and CBG. It does this through different types of biosynthesis, where chemicals combine to form new compounds, examples being the THC biosynthase and the CBD biosynthase.

CBG-A is:
Analgesic – Relieves pain.
Antibacterial – Slows bacterial growth.
Anti-inflammatory – Reduces inflammation systemically.
Anti-Proliferative – Inhibits cancer cell growth through apoptosis.

To put it simply; This is a really tasty flower that is also great medicine that just happens to honor our dear friend.
Would you like to be able to grow your very own Zak Haze? Stay tuned, we have some exciting news to share regarding Zak Haze clones coming in the very near future.

Test Results

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ReikoX said:

Ha ha there is nothing Low Stress about that Training! Topping, pruning, and tying. But thanks, this is the best attempt at mainlining I have had.

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I literally tie my OG Kush stems in knots.... That plant wants to be a skyscraper... Looking good man!

These peat pucks I used suck. I said last time I would never use them again and I got lazy and used them again. They are too stiff and the roots have a hard time with it. The Lowryder #2 seed was not able to turn itself around and the tap root was sticking out of the top. I had to do emergency surgery to flip it around. It seems to be ok, but a bit behind.

Lowryder #1 as well as the others were planted into the two gallon fabric pots. The pots were filled with 2:1 fresh to recycled soil. The peat pucks had their fabric ripped off and gently loosened a bit before being buried in the soil. They were then watered in with RO water and lactobacillus culture.


It worked out well only have seven seeds germinate as I don't think I could fit any more without blocking my intakes on the ground. They are Seedsman Lowryder #1, Delicious The Devil #1, Samsara Ultraviolet #1, and Delicious La Diva. Here they are basking under the LEDs. They are all the way up and only half the panel is turned on.


The next round of torture begins for the BBK S1. I cut the top two nodes from each side leaving these four nodes. These four nodes will grow out for a bit, then get trained down to form a 'H' as viewed from above. Finally those four nodes will be topped leaving me with eight symmetrical tops.

Your mainlining looks really good!

Tbonegrower said:

Your mainlining looks really good!

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Thanks, it is looking better than any past attempts. Check her out now...

The four shoots are big enough now to begin training the manifold. I'll have to hold them down more securely as they get bigger. After this training step will be one final topping. That should leave eight symmetrical tops. Hopefully one of the cuttings will root and I can throw it in the coliseum to make sure she's a girl. Then off to flowering she goes.


This week's harvest, Strawberry Blue at nine weeks on the left, another nice sized (THC) Juanita at ten weeks in the middle, and that crazy Deadhead OG at eleven weeks on the right. Last time I took her at nine weeks and she was a little racey. I need to get better at checking my trichomes under a scope. I let this one go a little longer hoping she would retract her pistils, but she just kept foxtailing and pushing out more and more pistils. She won't win any beauty awards, but did pack on the weight. I have two more I will take at ten weeks coming up.


It's been a while since we last looked at these girls. They were transplanted on January 10th, so they are just over a month in veg. They will probably get a other week or two, then put into flower. They also need a good trimming and some more training.


Here is my yogurt cup challenge update. They seem to be taking off. I like how they stretched, then started stacking nodes. They look like miniature trees. I took this picture to show that the roots have not grown out of the bottoms. I did prune a few small ones. I bought some GH 3 part fertilizer. Up until now they have been getting Superthrive, Schultz 10-15-10, and SM-90. I noticed some salt buildup on the surface so I top watered them real well.

That mainline is looking excellent man. That plant looks like it is taking it really well!

So, those four tops were tied down more securely and then those four tops were topped one final time. From here I am pretty much done except for keeping her healthy and happy. I will allow them to grow out from here and train them around a tomatoe ring to keep the canopy even. I lowered the pot another two inches and will continue to do so as she grows. I'm not certain how much stretch to expect, but not much based on her leaf structure. I would rather over veg than under veg, so we will expect 1x stretch.


The Seedsman Lowryder is finally starting to grow. I've had a bit of trouble getting them to adjust to the bright lights and watering properly in such large pots. They are adjusting now.


The others are doing well too. The soil was too hot, the lights were too bright and they were under watered. Now they are getting bigger and watering will be easier.


My mothers have all recovered from being topped back so hard. They should give me a good 12+ clones next week. Today was clone day, I only got about 50%, but I've got plenty to keep the coliseum running. None of the Simpsons Kush cuttings lived. They were not very healthy looking when I got them, and I didn't water them for a week. New clones transplanted directly to the tree pots? Check! Used mycorrhizae? Check! BBKS1 rooted? Check and check! I put one to pre-veg and the other went straight to flower in the coliseum. I'm sure she is a girl, but we will know for sure in a couple of days.

I am the worst at cloning! At what node do they need to be cut to root effectively?

Bassman999 said:

I am the worst at cloning! At what node do they need to be cut to root effectively?

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Rooting is easy if you give them plenty of time. I take very small clones, but it works for me. I describe my full process in this post.

Here are some general tips on cloning.

Take clones from healthy mothers. Clones have to live off their stored energy once cut off from the plant. If the mother is lacking in nutrition, it will have less stored energy.

Take clones from the top of mothers. The top leaves are generally more mature. The top is also where growth hormones are most concentrated.

Use a humidity dome and seedling mat. Warm and moist conditions are required for cloning. I like to leave my clones in the dome for a week, then slowly raise the dome to harden them off.

Other than that, patience is the only thing you really need.