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The first 3 weeks of life were establishing roots after cutting from mother.
4 cuttings taken from Heavyweight Fruit Punch, cloning in 11L DIY bubbleponics DWC cloner.
Clones were taken on Day 30V from mother growing in 11L DWC.
8 Days in cloner - Small bumps started on stems
12 Days in cloner - Small roots started poking out
16 Days in cloner - Roots getting longer, but still not reaching water fully. I moved the 2 strongest clones into their own DWC res in Hydroton, and filled each res up to 1/2" below the stem
21 Days since cut - Roots are in water now, new growth is starting
Starting to Count Week 1 Here...
8L water - Added Optimum Hydroponix Grow A (15ml), Flower B (15ml), Superman B1 (7.5ml)
Day 37 - 16V - Topped 4 nodes on each clone.
Day 41 - 20V - Topped 2 nodes on each clone again.
LST and keeping them sort of pruned throughout.
Pretty sure these are going to be beasts by the time the flower chamber is ready for them.
I keep pruning as need to keep growth fairly low. Not really tracking how many times i Top anymore.
I added General Hydroponics SubCulture B on Day 44 (22V) but it's causing PH to rise... and bubbles are forming, and roots are visibly browner, and there seems to be a kind of slime on them now?
I PHd down to 5.8 again, checking again in 4-5 hours.
5hrs later PH was 6.0
Next morning after lights back on, PH was 6.1, so I think it's stabilised now.
Day 46 - 25V - PH Back to normal (5.9)
Been trimming and topping every week so far - lots of tops now, so might super prune at some point this week.
Res' seem to have recovered from the SubCulture B last week, and I don't think i'll use anymore going forward.
Day 55 - Topped and defoliated. Trimmed some lanky branches as well.
Just keeping up with LST and pruning to keep them short until I have room in Flower chamber for them! Business as usual!
Day 65 - 44V - Changed Res/Nutes.
Day 67 - 46V - Business as usual.
Did more topping and LST. Now trying to keep them short/tied down until I can move them up to the Flower chamber next week.
Roots are massive!! and very clean and white!
Going to take 2 clones from each once they are moved to flower chamber!
Day 91 - 70V - Moved each into 18L res, starting Scrog training for a week. Added SubCulture B since Upper chamber gets warm (27c+), which causes res to get that warm, and I don't have access to Hydroguard where I live.
Will take clones once bottom chamber is free (Currently drying mother), then flip to 12/12.
Again, these clones were cut way too early, so the roots are massive, trunk is huge, and I've topped probably close to 10 times haha... I just keep removing entire branches when there are too many tops. Definitely a fun lesson is keeping them short for a long period of time!
Day 96 - 75V - Screen is filled enough for my liking now. About to flip to 12/12 and take clones.
...later that day... took 4 clones, scrogged and pruned, lights out for the first time in their lives. 12/12 has begun.
Day 96 - 75V - 11pm - Took 4 clones (2 from each), defoliated a bit, trained growth under scrog net, changed Res'.
Day 97 - 1F - 8am - First day after 12 hours without light. PH stable at 5.9. Humidity at 40%.
Stretch this week is insane - at least 1" per day, which is far more than the mother was... likely due to the mother vegging for less time, and also having 33 tops... while each of these vegged for twice as many days (if you count the day they were cut and cloned), and each of these has only ~20 tops.
I tied each top back down to the net using gardening wire, and with the give of the netting I don't anticipate any problems because of their thin-ness on the stems? We'll see.
Overall this round is going much smoother than the last, and each is drinking about 1-2L a day, so i've been topping up with PHd (5.8) water every other day; doing res/nute changes every 7-10 days.
Stretch is slowing down quite a bit - maybe growing about 1/2" every day. I've also been bending the stems down as certain shoots grow past the others to keep everything roughly the same distance from the light. I counted roughly 45 tops between the two, so about 20-25 tops on each.
Day 118 - 22F : These stretched a TON more than the mum did. 5" from lights worries me. So far they seem fine, and only about 1/2 of the tops are within 6-7", the rest are about 8-10" away. Stay tuned!
Day 122 - 26F: Moved lights up about 2" higher. Defoliated a bit more.
Day 127 - 31F - Changed res, defoliated about 1/3 of the fan leaves. About 7 hours after res change, PH went from 5.9 to 4.9 in left res, and from 5.9 to 5.6 in right res... PH upd both to 6.0, 1 hr before light's out. Both looking super healthy, not leaf issues or marks, highest colas thickening up quite a bit! super excited to see how these do compared to their mum, and so far they're so, so much better. It must be the extra veg time? That's the only difference I can think of - other than the first having 32 tops total, and each of these having a bit less with 20-24 each.
Day 132 - 36F - PH issues since res change 4 days ago... took 3 days for PH to stabilise... kept dropping down to 5-5.4 range after 5 hours, every time i adjusted PH back up to 6.0... Subculture B must be affecting it.
Day 138 - 42F - PH issues still. every morning PH is around 4.6-5... use ph-up to get it back to 6.0, but it goes back to 5.0 after 3-4hrs.
Also, I defoliated a ton. Most huge fan leaves were removed to allow more light to lower nodes. Still lots of sugar leaves on each cola, so I think it'll be fine? I defoliated the left plant much heavier than the right, so we'll see how they each turn out.
PH Has been steadily low - 4.8-5.5 after adjusting to 6.0 and waiting 4-8hrs. I've tried changing the res, same problem every time for days. after 4-6 days, the PH seems to stabilise, but I can't stop using subculture since my res temps are often around 23-25c. I don't have a chiller, but i might have to come up with another solution soon...
Day 147 - 51F - Changed Res and used less Subculture B (1/8 tsp in 13L water). Trichs on the calyxes are about 75% cloudy, 20% clear, 5% amber. Thinking another 2 weeks before harvest.
One of the main colas has minor bleaching from the LEDs, which I knew was likely based on how much they stretched compared to their mum! I think since their mum had more colas, it grew shorter? Something to keep in mind for next round!
Day 152 - 56F - most of the colas have started to swell quite a bit, slight foxtailing as well. Checked trichs on 5 colas (from calyxes) and i'm around 90-95% cloudy, 5% amber, and a few clear randoms. Was planning on harvesting in 2 weeks, but might harvest earlier depending on the next few days! Visually looks ready.
Day 158 - 62F - Trichs are about 5% clear, 10-15% amber, and rest are cloudy. Harvest window is now open. Just waiting for a few hours of empty-house to take em down. Been topping up res with PHd water and no nutrients for the last 5 days. Stay tuned for harvest pics in the next week or so!
Day 159 - 63F - Power went out last night. Woke up to a house that smelled delicious, but exhaust fan caused cabinet to reach 41C and 95%RH, and water siphoned into my airlines. Luckily plants are ready for harvest, otherwise that could have ruined my grow. Got the exhaust fan working again, and going to set up a UPS for the air pumps and some supplemental LED strip lights.
Need to gut the cabinet now and clean/dry all the walls and re-wire everything in a more efficient and easy-to-fix configuration.
All part of the learning process!
Had a lot of issues with PH in reservoirs, and I think with the amount of tops and their height blocking a lot of light, caused more larfy/popcorn buds to form, and only the top-most colas were dense.
Either way, it''s my fault, not the strain, and overall I''d recommend Fruit Punch by Heavyweight seeds to anybody! Breeze to grow in terms of resilience to topping and training, not super pungent smelling (great for stealth), but the stretch is quite explosive, so height can be a definite factor.
I''ll be growing this strain for a long time.
Wet Weight - Left Plant - 447g Buds, 269g Popcorn/Trim, 715g Wet Total
Wet Weight - Right Plant - 407g Buds, 233 Popcorn/Trim, 640g Wet Total
Wet Weight - Total - 854g Buds, 501g Popcorn/Trim, 1,355g Wet Total
Dry Weight - Left Plant - 79g Buds, 11g Stems
Dry Weight - Right Plant - 72g Buds, 8g Stems
Dry Weight - Total - 151g Buds, 19g Stems - 5.4oz
Dried in cabinet @ 25C, 55%RH for 5 days.
Lessons Learned...
1) Harvest top of plant first, bottom after another week or two. I had SO much popcorn, which really surprised me, but didn''t really realise it until after i cut the plants down. Less colas = more light reaching all bud sites = higher yield/better quality (for a tall strain).
2) Flip when less canopy is full. I flipped when most of the canopy was covered, making it difficult to train through the net, and control the height of the plants above the trellis.
3) Monitor and correct PH/Temp issues in DWC Reservoirs. I think this is the biggest reason I ended up with less final quality/yield than I expected, which was partially due to lack of attention to detail on my part, and trusting only the visual inspection of how the plant looked while growing. No real visible issues, but after harvesting I can tell nutrients were a factor, as well as PH and Res temps, from what i''ve researched after the fact.
Heavyweight Fruit Punch is super easy to grow. I honestly topped, pruned, and trimmed it often, and it never seemed to care at all - just grew more branches and kept on truckin ... Stretch is kind of crazy (2.5x-3x from my experience), so keeping it pruned and tamed was challenging at some points. I used a net and weaved for 2 weeks straight following 12/12 switch - had to bend tops through to opposite side of the net/cabinet for them to be far enough away from the light. This created a lot more colas/branching than i wanted, which in turn created overall smaller individual buds. Live and learn.
I will keep this pheno going, and probably grow a different strain my next go around. I will also be using Hydroguard next time, as i think that might help with the PH issues and higher res temps (~26c).
Oh, also, I noticed that the Right plant had less tops but bigger buds on average (I had removed 2 before flip that I shouldn''t have). The Left plant had more tops, and more buds, as well as overall weight.
There was a substantial amount of popcorn buds, likely due to the number of branches and height of tops above the netting preventing light from reaching the bottom of the canopy. I thought I had kept the upper portion of the canopy trimmed enough to let light to the lower nodes, but i guess not - hard with the amount of stretch to prevent so many tops, though!
UPDATE****
made bubble hash using 650g of fresh frozen trim/popcorn (a bit from last harvest as well, but mostly this harvest). dry yield - 15.4g!
Thanks, errbody! If anyone has any suggestions for ways to experiment, seeing as I have 2 identical clones, in identical reservoirs, in identical conditions! I was thinking of maybe super-pruning one and leaving only 8 colas, and scrog the other as efficiently as possible,,, ideas? If I do decide to go this route, I'd probably wait until the last week of stretch, then choose the best 8, and clip the rest. Bad idea?
@thephalanx420,
Wow that is a really neat system. I would love to do something like that instead of lugging my 5 gallon buckets all over the house and not being able to scrog.
Sounds good on the experimentation. I'm experimenting on my third grow soon. Just for fun because no matter what I will have more than enough for myself haha. I'm also planning on doing an experiment with my Bubble Gums in dry trimming one plant and wet trimming another to see the difference for myself since there is no real definitive answer out there that I could find. Best of luck!
@Grimbol, Thanks for the kind words! To answer your question about changing the water - I have 2 access holes about 2.5" diameter in the lids, with a small "cap" to keep it covered. When I do a res change, I take the small cover off the hole, drop a small hose/tube inside, then put the other end inside an empty bucket, and use a turkey baster to start the siphon. While the water is draining from the Res (takes about 4 mins for 10-13L), I fill another bucket with tap water. I add my nutes, etc, and adjust PH. When the siphon is done and the res is empty, i use a small 10L bucket with a spout on the end of it to fill the Res back up via the access hole. I can also remove the reflective insulation on the front of the Res (held on with velcro) so I can monitor the water levels and top-up as needed, as well as see the condition of the res and the roots inside without having to take lids off or move the plant around. The whole res change process takes me about 20 minutes (10 mins per Res), and I change them once a week. During the week i simply top up with PHd tap water as needed.
I'm still torn on whether I should experiment this round, or wait until the next round. This is only my 2nd grow, so I'm still working out some kinks and seeing what works best and what doesn't, so I'll likely wait. That being said, I may still do some minor tweaking differences in terms of defoliation and nutrients/PPMs.
@thephalanx420,
First of all this grow looks excellent. Nice fill on the scrog screen and ultimate efficiency. I love it!
Second I was going to ask how you change your water out once you scrog the girls? I tried a scrog net but it was the biggest pain lifting it off and weaving them back into the net and then I couldn't even do that when they started to put on weight. What do you do?
Finally, I say experiment! There aren't enough experiments done in this hobby in my opinion. I'm doing an experiment myself right now and I think it adds a level of fun to it. We usually read stuff online and then take it as gospel but I want to know for sure and see the results with my own eyes.
Strong work man. Keep it up.
@BigDaddyK, my current schedule is 10 weeks - 9 for flower period, and 1 for drying. I could dry outside of the cabinet, but i like the convenience of doing it in there, and i do a full clean-up of the cabinet after each crop, so i'm doing the work anyway.
Once drying is done, I move the clones from the bottom chamber (Clone/Veg) to the top chamber (Flower), and take new clones for the bottom chamber at the same time for the next cycle.
Dude I love this set up. You are totally going to crush diary of the month in June. Saw you featured on the GD instagram and it got like 1k likes. Right on man.
@Grimbol, thanks! i'm loving it too - get to harvest every 9-10 weeks! last time (single plant/mum of these ones) got 6.25oz dry, and this round's looking even better! I didn't even realise they posted my setup on instagram! noice!
the nugs look dank tho man, too bad she wasn't a little smellier, but if the smell is unique i can deal with less pungency, that said i am on a mission for the least stealthy pheno this side of skunk