Milk and Qookies // Night Owl // RDWC

######################################### June 14 (Day 92) HARVEST ######################################### Grow Summary: Grown in 4x4 tent - but I only used 2x4 because of heater and dehumidification. Each plant had a dedicated light, MQ3 used the HLG 300 V2 Rspec and MQ4 used the CMH 315. It's not an accurate comparison of lights because both plants were sharing the HLG during veg. The plants were grown in hydroponics using a custom two-site PA hydroponics clone RDWC system with Advanced Nutrients and Orca for beneficials. ----------------------------------------------------------- Harvest ----------------------------------------------------------- I carefully chopped each plant individually. I kept plants separate and branches were cut where it made sense due to trellis and ability to easily hang on the dry lines. The smell of this flower on the plant was straight-up heavy, pungent funk. Trichomes are slightly amber, mostly cloudy and I’m overall happy with the trichome development. ----------------------------------------------------------- Drying ----------------------------------------------------------- Branches were hung to dry on burlap twine in a tent in complete darkness, branches upside down, with humidity dialed in at 65% for 24hr, 64% for the second 24hr. Then 63% for the third day. I then dialed down the RH each day by 1% until I hit 58% RH and hold. Exhaust and intake were on the lowest setting during drying. I pulled the branches to trim as they were ready but the average was about 7-8 day dry. ----------------------------------------------------------- Trimming ----------------------------------------------------------- I'll admit, I was in trim jail for several nights. I trimmed each stem as it was ready. I like to dry trim when buds were spongy like lightly stale marshmallows (although they were as sticky as melted marshmallows). I should note that MQ4 were ready first, around day 5 because they were smaller buds. MQ3 small buds were ready on day 6/7 and MQ3 big colas were ready around day 8/9. I was happy with the slow dry. All leaves were trimmed, including most sugar. I kept stems intact where it made sense to preserve the buds/colas. I like to trim tight for a quality product. I want buds, not leaves. The largest trimmed colas were the length of my forearm. ----------------------------------------------------------- Curing ----------------------------------------------------------- My small-town Ontario local stores were out of the 1L mason jars so I had to start with lower grade jars used for pasta and bulk goods - they have plastic threads on the lid. I added a mini hygrometer to each jar. The RH averaged 68-72% when trimmed flowers went in jars. I started by burping several times a day for the first week. Rolling jars wasn't working too well because the buds are so sticky. Sometimes, I had to gently remove the contents and re-pack loosely to avoid any chance of mold. Once the jar reaches 64%, I acquired 1L mason jars and loosely transferred flower to proper mason jars with a 62% two-way Boveda pack. I burped the jars daily for the next two weeks until hits 62% and holds the hygrometer - then it stays sealed and just rolled daily. The large colas stayed in the tall pasta jars to preserve their integrity. ----------------------------------------------------------- Final Yields ----------------------------------------------------------- Wet Product: MQ3: 85.82oz MQ4: 95.27oz Total Wet Product Yield: 181.09oz (11.3 lbs) Flower Product: **Measured 20 days after harvest at 62% RH in jar. ** Test branch not included in weight MQ3: 277g (mainlined) [Left in photo] MQ4: 179g (LST) [Right in photo] Finished Product Yield: 456g (16.28oz) Trim Product: **Measured 20 days after harvest MQ3: 80g MQ4: 55g Total Trim Weight: 135g = 4.82oz Total Yield: Flower: 456g (16.28oz) Trim: 135g (4.82oz) Total Yield Weight: 591g (21.11oz) Yield per Watt: 591g / 615w = 0.96g/watt ----------------------------------------------------------- Product Test ----------------------------------------------------------- On day 30 of cure, I tested the flower and passed some to a few friends for their input. Feedback was positive. Sticky, trichome-covered, dense, fire! The buds stick to the sides of the jars. Mostly dense buds - not airy. Smoke is smooth, no cough. White ash. The 60/40 (sativa/indica) is a blend that is on point. I can see this being a daily choice for me. It has a nice kick for an uplifting focus session. And long-lasting! Upwards of 2.5 hour noticeable head/body change. In regards to flavor and smell, it's not fully there yet. It doesn’t taste or smell like hay, but the flavors/scents are still muted. There are indeed creamy, sweet, sugary undertones in the scent that it is giving off. I’ll expect more flavour on day 60 of cure. I’m a heavy user for many years and only purchase AAAA craft outside of my own harvests. With bias, I’m going to say this particular harvest after cure is as good as anything in my jars from craft suppliers. ----------------------------------------------------------- Regrets ----------------------------------------------------------- Not topping MQ4. MQ4 was a lot of work on the defoliation weeks 4-6 and it produced less yield. MQ4 threw a pistil on day 23 so mainlining this pheno probably wasn’t an option, but I could have at least topped it once on day 18ish. Also wished I had added dedicated lights around week four. Oh! And I probably should have hooked up my top-off bucket to keep the water level the same but life got busy and I kept putting it off because I wanted to build a new stand for it. BlendingPH Perfect Coco grow and bloom on week 6. I won't do that again. After research, bloom has enough nitrogen and calmag for the stretch. ----------------------------------------------------------- Next Run Mods ----------------------------------------------------------- I’m going to try the Microbial Mass product in combination with Orca (which is seems to be more of a Myco Inoculant). I also may try adding GH RapidStart as well for more root growth. I was overall happy with Advanced Coco blend for RWDC. I went with Coco product because CoCo mostly like hydro and from research, the AN Coco line just has added Calmag to it. I didn’t really see any issues with the AN Coco line and it surely produced even though I pushed the nutrients a bit hard and got some toxicity in early flower. I also had an issue with the roots in the front of the buckets where the roots seemed to get a bit mushy and starting to rot. I may put a riser/elevator in the bottom of the bucket to allow water to flow under the roots. While the flow in my two-bucket RDWC system is adequate, I may upgrade the pump from a 250gph to a 400gph for better flow to combat that issue with roots in front of the bucket. I’ll be running 4 plants next run in the fall. Either (2) two-site systems in parallel with different strains -or- a 4 site single system with all same strain; undecided. ----------------------------------------------------------- Final Thoughts ----------------------------------------------------------- I’m super satisfied with Night Owl genetics in my RDWC setup. I also feel a dedicated light for each plant really helped put the improve the yield, nearly 1gram per watt. I feel if MQ4 was even just topped, not even mainlined, instead of LST technique, this grow would have exceeded 1gram per watt. Added the CMH about 10-14 days earlier would have likely improved yield as well. ----------------------------------------------------------- The End ----------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for checking out my diary! I typically journal in my notebook but I put some time and effort into documenting my grow on this platform in hopes it will help a new or experienced grower with their DWC journey. Any questions or suggestions are welcomed. Happy growing!