First Grow - 4 different strains

Lurch88 Once they sprouted taproots of about 8mm long, I planted them into their potting mix and covered them with plastic bottles to keep them nice and humid. For now I won't be adding any nutrients until around the 3rd week of Veg as the mix has a good amount of base nutrients, i'll keep an eye out for deficiency's and adjust if I need to. Day 3 - All 4 up and out , getting their first set of real leaves. Day 6 - Im taking the plastic bottles off and dimming the light to 55% and moving it to 32cm height. Growing a bit every day.

Lurch88 Slow and steady week 2. Im keeping the lights on 24h to make up for the power outages(Load shedding) that happen every so often, outages last for about 2-3 hours and can happen any time during the day/night. Even though I have been slow on the water, there are signs of overwatering so I am going to give it another day or two before watering again. Still on PH 6.4 water, nothing else. The critical needs some help to stay upright, it looks like it grew sideways but im hoping it will stay strong and find it's feet soon.

Lurch88 Friday 11 June - First day of the new week. I watered them last night after 2 days of no feeding. Wednesday 17 June - The last couple of days saw some great growth, decided to top and train all of the plants. The WW and PM is getting the FIM, CC and AH Topped. The PM is the only one not looking super strong but Im still going to try FIM, this is the first grow and I want to learn as much as possible. Day 15 - The White Widow seems to have a problem and the leaves are twisting in and are getting very brittle. All of the plants are getting the same amount of water at the same time, so im not sure why it's only happening to the White Widow. Day 20 - Leaves look better, gave her a FIM. Starting some training soon. Day 15 - Critical Churchill is recovering from the stem/base that grew skew, Im keeping the support a little longer though. Day 20 - The CC is looking the best right now, fast growth and the base is stable! I'll introduce additional nutrients in the new week.

Lurch88 Took the risk and did high stress training on all 4 plants last week, the difference in genetics and the smallest of grow conditions definitely show. Very happy I did it,I am seeing the difference between ''Topping'' and ''Fimming'' first hand and learning a lot from this trial. Im also tying the plants down to keep the new grow sites open which worked better with the topped plants, the fimmed plants seem to have grow sites right at the top where i did the cut. I hope it also helps with space because im starting to realise that 4 plants might be a bit too much for my small grow space and 300w light. The girls are still looking strong after recovering from the High stress I put them through this week, apart from normal PH adjusted water I decided to wait until the end of a month's growth before I start adding any nutes to this mix. Day 22 - Still under stress from the Topping and Fimming, not a lot of growth in the last day or so. Day 28 - It's getting cold in Cape Town so I decided to put the heater in to regulate the lights off temp, it's working nicely for now but my tent is getting cramped. All of the plants starting to bush out, the WW and CC are still leading the race. The Mars Hydro has been on full blast now for the last 3 days.

Lurch88 After the topping and training, all four of the girls are showing some nice growth. At day 31 I did the first nutrients feeding, starting off slow with 0,5ml/L water for each plant, ill see how things go and adjust according to what each plant needs. The Critical Churchill started flowering and the other 3 are on the brink!

Lurch88 After the first week of introducing nutrients 3 of the 4 plants are well into flowering, the Purple Merkel is still a bit behind but is showing a lot of promise. The Critical Churchill is showing signs of Calcium deficiency so I added CaMg+ to the nutrients mix. Im mixing 5L with the ratio above which gives 450ppm and an adjusted PH of 6.3. I'll be giving nutrients every other feeding and keep it simple with PH adjusted water in between.

Lurch88 Big changes happening this week with a lot of growth. Having to individually monitor, diagnose and treat each strain under one light is getting harder and more time consuming each day but I am learning loads so im taking it in my stride. Each plant is taking up the water and nutrients at their own pace(obviously), so i'll have to water/feed when they do/don't need it, so much for my schedule feeding all 4 at the same time. The White Widow started looking droopy around the 3rd day of the week after feeding nutrients, when it stayed droopy I decided to skip the next water feed, the last day of the week it started looking better so I think it was just overwatering. The Amnesia Haze and Critical Churchill both have yellowing leaves, new and old growth. It does't look too bad but I don't want to let it get out of control so after doing some research I have decided to to test the runoff and do a flush with ph 6.5 water to get it back to a healthy medium. I got myself a real PH pen and TDS meter, so no more ballpark figures when feeding and watering. The Purple Merkel is growing big, she is still in early flowering and showing beautiful purple hues. The cold is getting pretty bad so I got some crates to lift the plants off the ground, I keep a small oil heater with a thermostat on during the really cold nights to ensure the temp doesn't drop below 20'C.

Lurch88 Overall a good week in the tent, great for the Purple Merkel, Critical Churchill and the Amnesia Haze but not so great for the White Widow. WW - The girl just never fully recovered from what most likely was over watering. I made some holes at the bottom and sides of all of the fabric pots to help with the drainage, even with the exact same mix of soil this girl just clogged up and didn't drink as much as the others, her growth is stunted and her buds look significantly smaller. CC and AH - Flowering is in full swing, both of them are showing brown pistils. Most probably the last week of nutes, the yellowing leaves are a bit concerning but they aren't out of control, I should have added some epson salts earlier into flowering. PM - This lady is looking for height! Multiple grow sites have just starting popping up, these buds will be a lot longer than the other three. Im trying to fan them out and train them so they don't get burn damage from the light.

Lurch88 Flowering is taking some strain on the top fan leaves with most of the plants turning yellow. I have added some epson salts into one watering and cut back on the nutrients apart from the bloom. The White Widow is making a comeback, showing signs of growth and good bud development. The Purple Merkel is still taking over the space and reaching all of the place, I'm training her branches outward to ensure that most of each branch can get to the light. The Amnesia Haze and Critical Churchill are ahead in terms of harvest date, trichomes and brown pistils all over, no amber yet but Im sure this will change in the next week. Slowly Defoliating the plants every so often before regular watering to clear the bottom leaves and bigger fan leaves blocking bud sites.

Lurch88 Nearing the end! All of the plants are getting closer to the final chop, the two topped plants (Critical Churchill and Amnesia Haze) are the closest of the bunch with close to 10% amber in the trichomes if I had to give my best estimate. Ill give those two another day or two before flushing. The White Widow still has a bit to go, the pistils are only starting to turn dark and the trichomes are mostly milky with a few going darker/amber. The Purple Merkel's leaves turned red/yellow very quickly and some of the leaves are dying and falling off, it's hard for me to gauge how far to go from the pistils that are still white and the trichomes that look fairly milky. Ill give her another week before considering a final flush and then harvest.

Lurch88 Nice and busy week, all four plants needing their own special attention. I have decided to harvest sequentially and will do all plants official harvest report once they have been completely trimmed. Critical Churchill -I used FloraKleen to flush 3 days before harvesting the tops of the 5 main Colas as their trichomes were becoming very amber. The rest of the plant is still under the lights and will be harvested when ready. White Widow - Still some time for this lady before we harvest, definitely stunted and at least 10 days under developed. I kept giving more bloom nutes while the buds need to develope. Amnesia Haze - Still looking great and getting close to the harvest, I used the Florakleen on the last day of the week so I should be able to harvest the tops at the start of the next week. Purple Merkel - She finally stopped growing and the buds are filling out, the colours are still super strange and the trichome development is so different from the other plants, hard to really know when to harvest, I asked someone at the local hydroponics store and he said if I think it's ready, give it another week, so ill go for that.

Lurch88 All and all it was a great grow and the first plant to get harvested out of the 4. Still need to get some people over to smoke/taste the bud for quality control.

Lurch88 Second plant harvested. Both of the topped plants finished ahead of the FIM plants. Very similar to the Critical harvest, did it sequentially to make sure I get amber thricomes all over. It did however turn some of the leaves darker brown which gave it a filthy look, but at least I know it's ready. Might do things slightly differently on the next grow.

Lurch88 I was surprised with the end result and not disappointed at all, out of all of the plants she produced the best looking buds out of the 4, once cured we will see if its the best tasting bud.

Lurch88 The easiest to grow out of the 4 plants, least problems with regards to CalMag and deficiencies in general, I had to nurse the others throughout the grow while she just did her thing. Very happy with the overall grow with this plant.