Starting another Sea Of Green with my MAC 1. Vegged her longer this time to 18 inches. Flowers started showing on day 6. This should be a really good grow because the clones were really healthy and uniform in size.
I am running them under my HLG 650R and using House and Garden nutrients. I wont be using the Top Shooter this grow. It caused foxtailing and reduced trichome production. I really like the rest of their line though and will continue using it. You can see my last MAC SOG on my sister site here: MAC 1 SOG HOUSE AND GARDEN GROW – 420 GROWER
MAC 1 is a clone only strain. She is the perfect plant for a sea of green because of her narrow upright profile but she is not an easy plant to grow. She is a very slow vegger for one thing. She needs a ton of CaliMagic to grow right too. Her buds are rock hard and caked with trichomes. I think a plant that produces buds of her quality is worth the extra trouble.
I have a review of my nutrient line up here: HOUSE AND GARDEN AQUA FLAKES REVIEW – MY FLOWER CYCLE – How To Grow Weed Indoors (420dotcom.com)
Sea Of Green Clones Set In Day 0
Contents
So the clones were set into my flood and drain table. There are 21 in 6 inch net pots. Growstones with the clones themselves in a small coco plug in the center. A bit of droop from the transplant but they will pick up fast.
MAC 1 SOG The First 2 Weeks
Growth has been explosive. I removed a lot of lower branches and bud sites. This will focus growth on the buds up top that get the most light. I hate trimming small larfy buds so I do all I can to eliminate them early in the grow. I really have not had to do a leaf stripping on these girls because all buds are getting light.
GROWING THE MAC WEEK 3
Week 3 in my sea of green is looking good. Buds are starting to size up and frost is showing up too. Thanks to aggressive branch and lower bud removal I do not need to leaf strip these girls. I removed a few fan leaves that were directly on top of buds though. In the next few weeks buds should really start to grow.
GROWING THE MAC I DAY 28
I love sea of green growing and I love growing the MAC 1 in it. It has the perfect structure for SOG because it grows as a narrow column. Not a lot of branching but what there is grows close to the main stem and is pretty upright. So on day 28 I did a res change. I dropped the Power Si Bloom and went with just the Aqua Flakes A+B, Bud XL and Top Booster. I had really good results with the Top Booster last time. I ran it earlier and longer than their feed chart says and my buds exploded in size. Hoping for the same result again.
I will not run the Top Shooter again. It promotes foxtailing and seems to reduce resin too. It is the only product in the House and Garden line that I dont like. Here are a few day 28 MAC 1 pics:
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DLI ANYONE? DAY 35 DIMMING THE LIGHTS?
This is a lower bud on day 35. It is much frostier than my upper buds that are getting full light. Which leads me to wonder if my plants are getting too much light. I am running my HLG 650 R and it puts out a lot of light in that small space.
Are you familiar with DLI? It stands for Daily Light Integral and it is often used by greenhouse growers to calculate how much supplemental lighting to use. There is a formula that measures the amount of photons a plant gets each day and different plants have different light levels. Cannabis requires a lot more than most crops.
I am not going to get real technical here other than to say there can be too much of a good thing. In practical terms there are 2 ways to adjust it. One is dimming the light levels and the other is to shorten the time lights are on. Some growers routinely run 11 hours on and 13 off in flower. It generally does not hurt yield and can make them finish a bit earlier.
I measure my light with a par meter and keep my par levels under 1000 which is the max weed can use without CO2. Sometimes a few taller plants can get a bit more though. LED light can be pretty intense and it wont burn your leaves. In extreme cases it can cause bleaching and high light can cause other leaf issues and even stunting.
All my MAC 1 buds are frosty but I want all my buds to look like the above picture. So I am turning my lights down a bit to see if there is any affect and will wait a few days to see if there is a difference. I noticed my lowers are getting about 400 micromoles which is half what the top is getting. Some strains dont like as much light as others. Some will foxtail if they get too much light but some wont do this as this trait is more linked to Sativa genetics.
DAY 42 AND 11/13 LIGHT CYCLE
So I changed my light cycle from 12/12 to 11/13. DLI is an important factor to consider. I used to just monitor my par levels but I have learned sometimes that is not enough. This is especially true with high powered LED lights like the HLG 650R.
Plants wont show heat stress like you would with HPS but too much light can also cause stress. On my MAC 1 the lowers were much frostier than the uppers. While they have not caught up I do see improvement of the trichomes.
MAC 1 SEA OF GREEN WAS HARVESTED DAY 63
The lighting change seemed to bring a bit more trichome coverage and I dont think it will affect yield. I debated taking these girls 70 days but I have plants backed up and ready to go in.
They are done but I wanted a bit more fade. They are not really drinking and white hairs are gone. Trichs are cloudy which is how I like them. There are some really nice purple highlights on the buds and they look really good. Here are some pics:
Here is a video from Instagram since YouTube wont show them anymore.
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