Black Banana and MAC 1 in a sea of green. There are 36 plants, 20 Black Banana and 16 MAC 1 in a 2 x 4 flood tray. Pots are 5.5 inch. Clones were vegged in small pots of coco and then buried in grow stones. Lighting is HLG 650R and nutrients are House and Garden Aqua Flakes. Training is called one node and flip and developed by the Jungle Boys.
Black Banana And MAC 1 Sea Of Green Day 14
Plants are doing really well. The MAC will be shorter than the Black Banana and seems to require lower light levels. So it is in a block on the end of the tray and seems very happy there.
At this point my HLG 650 R is partly dimmed down and over 3 feet away from all plants. My par levels are about 500-700 and plants seem good with it.
Daily Light Integer Or DLI And CO2 Levels
I have been doing a lot of research on DLI or daily light integer. With a LED like the 650 R it is very easy to oversaturate your plants especially in a small space. DLI is simply a way to measure how much light a plant gets in a day. Cannabis is a very high light plant but there are limits to how much light it can use. This is directly dependent on how much CO2 it has available.
As an example a plant at 400 micromoles gets by fine on 400 ppms of co2 which is an ambient level. But at 500-600 par it needs about 800 units of co2 and at 1000 about 1400 units. If its not there the plants cant use all the light they get.
I was always told a par of 1000 was all a plant can use without co2 so that is what I aimed for. Turns out it can cause problems like fox tailing and reduced trichome production. I am not running co2 at this time. So for this grow I will be dialing things back and my plants look much happier. I will probably raise levels later in flower and go from 12 to 11 hours on though.
Leaf Stripping Day 18
Plants were leaf stripped on day 18. The Black Banana makes really large leaves and they needed to come off. Air circulation is very important for plant health, especially in a closet grow. Five days later you would never know any leaves were removed.
The MAC 1 did not require a stripping although I did selectively remove a few larger fan leaves. I am seeing trichomes on the larger leaves after adjusting my DLI. Usually only the bud and the small sugar leaves were heavily frosted. I actually expect better trichome coverage after lowering it.
If you are interested in learning more about DLI here is a link to a video from Wolverine Grown on YouTube https://youtu.be/iTgbckgb1Dg
Day 18 Leaf Stripping
I decided to leaf strip these plants. Black Banana makes really large fan leaves. I wanted light to get to all the bud sites and I also wanted to make sure air could circulate through the grow.
The MAC 1 really did not need to be stripped. I did remove a few selected leaves here and there. I also removed some lower bud sites that had regrown.
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Day 28
After leaf stripping light and airflow have been enhanced by the leaf strip. The girls never skipped a beat and by day 21 you could not tell they had been stripped.
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Black Banana And MAC 1 Sea Of Green Day 49
Everything has been going well, in fact better than expected. The MAC 1 was flowered smaller than I usually do but the buds dont seem any smaller. The Black Banana has stacked really well and buds are large and well shaped. This is a strain I have grown for years and this might be my best crop ever.
I removed some fan leaves to allow more light to the lower buds and I had to put in a second trellis net because the Black Banana colas were starting to fall over because of their weight. I think the leaves were actually propping them up.
So I would attribute the differences to applying DLI to my grow. The MAC 1 has more trichomes particularly on the larger leaves. I think it is a lower light plant. The BBC stacked better and the bud shape is different. More conical whereas before the tops were flatter and showed signs of foxtailing.
DAY 49 BUD SHOTS
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Black Banana and MAC 1 Sea Of Green Day 61 Harvest Time
Because I am running a 11 on and 13 off flower cycle plants will generally finish a few days earlier than normal. So the leaves were purple, a sign of a good flush. The plants were not drinking much which is another sure sign the end is near.
Checking the trichomes showed they were cloudy with a few amber. I like to harvest at this point because as the amber increases the THC begins to drop so this is the perfect harvest time for me. Some like more amber but I dont want weed that couchlocks me.
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