Purple Kush, Organic Coco Run

I started these in a dome kit that was structured with coco hair (yuck) under a simple florescent lamp. The seedlings were a bit leggy after a few days. After moving into my tent and under the LED, I had hung my lights too close (18 inches) which seemed to dry out the first node of leaves as they came in (one cracked when touched). There are a couple spots on one leaf as well. So, I decided to move light to about 2 1/2 feet and transplanted into solo cups to help them along. I burried part of the leggy stems during the transplant, using full veg stage nutrients in the solo cups which seems to have burned the plants a bit. Was not sure at what height or power level to use on the Mars Hydro TS 3000 for the seedlings, as documentation online for seedlings under LED lights is not very easy to find. While they have been over fed, and dried out a bit by the lights in the first week, they are eagerly growing through these issues. Next run I will use coco and worm castings only for the seedlings and hang the light two to three feet away. Eager to top, but will wait another week. I did do some very light LST to the seedling stems to toughen them up, as they were leggy in the starter dome. Will do some light squeezing of the stalk only to help toughen them up before transplanting into pots.

Topped on the Monday, and transplanted straight to 5 gallon pots Wednesday. Root structure in solo cups was throughout the available area, but not as dense as I was going for. PH and EC tester have arrived. Have started adjusting PH from tap water's 8 to 6.5, using less than a cap full of white vinegar. Canadian Tire, where I would buy PH Down, requires all your personal details to use their curbside service, so I have decided to simply not shop there. (I regularly avoid leaking my personal data, so this is actually normal for me!) I am not sure how much water I am giving the plants, but am watering every other day, roughly 200ml.

My need to blast the plants with too much light is something I need to correct. Raised light to 90cm and 55% power after seeing some canoeing on a few leaves. A few days later sthose leaves no longer feel dried out but they are a little misshapen. I'm not going to worry about it, these things are tough.

Lost 1 of 2 branches from topping one of the plants due to a failed attempt to LST too early. Both branches almost broke off, but one has fully recovered. I don't like the asymmetry, so I have decided to try and mainline this plant as an experiment (bottom left in photos). Hopefully it will not fall too far behind the other 3 plants.

Girls are looking good! Looks like the main-lined plant will be about 1-2 weeks behind. May flip them to 12/12 in 2 weeks. If I hadn't main-lined I think I would flipped to flower at the end of next week. I know since I am using dry nutrients and a little heavier base than pure coco, I don't really need to consider feeding/watering multiple times a day, but I did fully saturate them a day ago after top dressing with worm castings. This allowed me to test some run-off which measured TDS of 1100 ppm. Seems about right, so I am thrilled! A day later they are still pretty damp, so multiple feedings seems like it might harm the plants more than help.

Bottom Right keeps growing faster than the other 3. I've removed some of its massive fan leaves to make space for its sisters. Bottom Left (the mainlined plant) seems to be growing vigorously finally. I think 1 or 2 more weeks, then I will flip to 12/12. Plan to top dress with about a litre of Worm Castings and both Veg and Flower nutrients in a couple more days. I am surprised to see how much the coco has broken down. When I water there are visible pits in the material. I do think I have a small insect infestation, as some fan leaves are turning up with holes or chunks missing. Seems very minor. There is no visible evidence of any bugs, so I guess I may need to inspect with loupe or a microscope.

Getting ready to defoliate once more and flip to flowering. Research I have done has me confused. Lots of places suggest I need 20% run-off and specific TDS values, but my understanding is that my grow is actually organic, but simply using coco in place of soil. Mycorhize being added along with perlite and worm castings are the base of this grow and I am using only CalMag and organic dry ammendments (no salts), and therefore TDS can go piss up a tree! Any experts that want to weigh in, please leave your comments. I don't have the exerience to verify the pros and cons of this method. I have noticed in the days immediately after adding ammendments, that my leaves are going super dark, with a weird coppery glow, but after a couple days of watering this goes away and the plants are thriving all the time. I will take what I haved learned here and contine to try and improve my veg stage development next time around. I've applied for a medical license to grow, so I can actually keep a mother plant and make legal cuttings. Hope that all works out. 🙏

These Purple Kush plants are looking pretty happy! Decided to switch them to flower. I'll slowly increase light intensity over the next week as well (5-10% / day). They have been vegging with the Mars Hydro TS-3000 2' above the plants and about 50% power. I had to remove about 6" from my tent's height to fit it into my room, so I really can't grow them very tall. These plants were all topped a couple times at least and have many branches. I am a little worried there may be too many actually. I made myself a scrog net frame out of 1/2" PVC pipe and elbows. This will help keep the walls of my tent from sucking inward (since I shortened the tent poles). I bought a 5'x15' chunk of netting, and lacking cable ties, used 2" twist ties to attach the net to the frame. Its very snug, so I think it will work out. I will need to top dress these again in another week or two. I'll watch for any changes in the leaves, but I did feed them the Gaia Green Powerbloom 2-8-4, All Purpose 4-4-4, and worm castings about 2 weeks back. These nutrients should be ready for the plant to consume, since I am simulating a living soil using worm castings and mycorhize. The theory is the organic nutrients I add do not build up as salts like liquid/synthetic fertilizers used in hydro grows, and there is no need to constantly flush with the 20% run-off rule. That means the nutes are still in there, and I need to let the plant consume them or risk over feeding. I will get better are judging these quantities in the future if I stick with this growing method. I removed the spray end of my cheap Vivosun pump-sprayer to reach the back of the tent now that the net is in place. I wish I could water a bit faster, but the plants are being watered accurately and the water is being distributed evenly throughout the pots, which is great. I have been watering about a +- a gallon to each plant every other day for a while now, but I think I will have to start watering daily in the coming weeks. Turns out, I LOVE gardening. I hope I can get these all the way through to harvest! 🙏

Plants were hungry this week showing small brown patches on a small number of leaves. A couple leaves showed yellowing on their edges near the top of one plant as well. Since I went straight from solo cups into 5 gallon fabric pots these plants have not had the benefit of being transplanted into new ammended medium, even once. This was a risk I thought I could handle by top dressing more than is recommended otherwise. I guess we're getting to the part where I find out if maybe this was a failed experiement. I think I will have to feed 2-3 times more before harvest, while watering daily with 5ml Cal-Mag Plus. There is a 5th plant hidden amongst our perennials outside in case I need cuttings to try again. 🤞

This week I defoliated to get my RH to +-50%. I removed fan leaves, low bud sites, and some branches that would not have produced. If anyone regularly grows around 60%-65% RH please let me know if you have run into any issues. After defoliating the roots still took nutes as if they had more fan leaves and now there is some burn on about 5% of the leaves and their tips, a couple days later. I expect this to stablize this week which I suppose is a benefit of growing organically.

Plants are looking happy this week. Bud sites are frosting up, and the plants are getting thirstier. After last weeks burned tips I decided to flush and measure pH and ppm. pH was at 6.2-6.3 pH for all 4 plants. TDS was high, but the plants seem fine. Whatever issue there was is gone. Fed them again with 5 tbsp of Power Bloom and maybe 10 tbsp of worm castings each. Might feed like this once more in 2 weeks if they seem to want it. 👍

Finally at the end of this week, and we're cruising along nicely. No signs of deficiency or excess. I took a TDS reading of some run-off from yesterday's watering (that sat for a while), and the PPM was > 7000 for 1 plant and 4000+ for the other. The cheap pen I have cannot read over 7000 ppm. Anyway, the plants are fine. Last night after I told the >7000 ppm plant everything would be OK, it whispered back to me, "Love you long time", so there's that... Scientific? Perhaps not - but convincing all the same. // Maybe you noticed the top right plant is a different phenotype from the other 3. Interesting to see the differences in growth. This plant has stayed ahead of the other 3 in height. It stretches more and has larger space between nodes. It was bottom right for the first 8 weeks or so. All of them are starting to get frosty. Most recent feeding hasn't seemed to do any harm. Still mid week...

Another week in the bag. I thought my light may have been losing brightness, but I may have just smoked too much weed. :)

Plants are cruising along. Everything is in check and I am starting to see the buds fatten up. They are suprisingly dense and sticky, but only a little bigger than golfball sized. I am seeing hints of purple in the buds but expect to see more. I can't really bring temps down at night without cranking the AC for the whole house, but I hope I get some nice colour in spite of this. The sativa like pheno, top right, seems to be the most dusted, but not likely the highest yielding, as the bottom right plant seems heavier than the others. So far my bottom left main-lined plant doesn't look like it will do any better than the others, but it is very healthy even though the oscillating fan is right beside it. It lost a week or two in veg when I broke off one of its branches and decided to main-line it. I think these will take 3 more weeks to finish, which would puts them in-line with what Crop King Seed's says they will take on their website. I have a feeling there are a lot of different purple (and pink) kush varieties out there, with a lot of different traits. I wish I knew more about the history of this particular one, and how other Purple Kush varieties have grown for others from CKS or another seed bank. What known pheno types are there with this strain? I have one outside that has branches every 2 inches throughout the whole plant - it looks crazy, but the point is I think there are a lot of phones with this variety and I wish I knew if I had one of the good ones. I did make clones, but didn't from which plant they came. In future "from seed" grows, I will very carefully take cuttings from all the plants I pop and try to preserve the best as a mother.

One my 4 plants hermied or grew a nanner I couldn't find. I wasn't able to find nanners or pollen sacs anywhere, so I decided to just chop the plant with the majority of the seeds that had developed. The other 3 plants are still growing and hopefully there won't be a lot of seeds. I think I have about 1-2 weeks before harvest. Maybe half of the trichomes are milky, with little to no amber. I am going for 20% amber or so. These will just get about 2-3 l of water and a bit of CalMag+ until harvest.

Buds seem to have stopped growing, but there are still almost no amber trichomes. Plants are starting to fade, and I won't be feeding them any futher. I have been smoking some of the herb from the seeded plant, and its quite nice. Better than the dispensary weed I had delivered. I even had a gram of finger hash, which was nice to smoke for a change. I hadn't smoked finger hash since Cool Steve hooked us up on the beach at the Sunset Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios. If you stay there he used to run the boat rentals on the main beach. :)

Overall I am pretty happy with the outcome of this run. I ended up with most of a pound (10.2 oz) of some great smoke after losing 2 plants to intersex issues. There are some seeds in the "good" buds I did harvest, but it isn't too big of a deal. I also suspect that the plants sort of stopped growing once they started producing seed, but this is more of a feeling than anything else. Seemed like I was waiting and waiting for amber trichomes to appear, and the buds just didn't keep growing... Its a little harsh on the second half of a joint, but the rosin tastes great. I think I over-fed following some confusing directions; we'll see if the next run is less harsh for this strain.