Sweet Seeds Femme Fatales

***Timelapse Video: https://youtu.be/A-UGv4MEafs*** Harvest: Gorilla Girl XL Auto Gorilla Girl XL Auto may not have been as tall, but not as top heavy as the others, and loaded all the way down. The best yield must be between her and Cream Caramel Auto but I can’t guess yet which is top. The leaves really were a state by the end of it – main colour: autumn brown. Without (some of) the leaves you can really see the flowers, as well as the supports I had to add over the last couple of weeks as the sidebranches started sagging. The flowers have swollen and ripened all the way down, and the sidebranches look just as good as the main stem, just not as fat. Gorilla Girl XL Auto has a potent odour, smelling strongly of pine and earthy tones. There’s a hint of lemony citrus but it’s not very fruity or sweet at the moment, however these flavours might just be overpowered while it’s fresh, and some more sweetness might come through in the cure. I’m not sure if the buds are quite as dense as the Cream Caramel Auto or Ice Cool Auto. They might be, I’m mostly assessing by eye though, as I don’t like to handle them too much. Maybe they are, but even if they aren’t quite, they more than make up for it with the thick covering of trichomes. Until I came to it, I wasn’t sure she would quite be ready, however looking closely I was satisfied. There still seems to be a fair few clear trichomes developing, but there are many cloudy, and many brown or amber ones all over the plant. The three plants are hanging up now. The Gorilla Girl XL Auto and Ice Cool Auto are hanging in the tent, and I have hung the Cream Caramel Auto outside. I’m trying to keep it at about 20-21°C. The last couple of days with the lights on in the tent but no additional heating, the canopy was between 19°C and 21°C and the room was only slightly colder with a low of 18°C. Once I switched the light off on Saturday, the temperature dropped over the following 24 hours to a low of 16°C which is too cold, and could lead to budrot. I don’t want a repeat of a couple of years ago, where I lost a whole Crystal Candy Auto and the best part of a Mohan Ram Auto to grey mould at this stage. I found out recently that whilst the latin name is usually given as Botrytis cinerea, an old alternative is Botrytis fuckelania – nowadays a name that’s (I’m not making this up!) just used for the sexual anamorph, when it's more commonly the asexually-reproducing type which ruins our plants. It was actually named after the German botanist and mycologist Fuckel, but Botrytis fuckelania was very similar to what I said when I finally realised what was going on. I do have a diary of that if you want to re-live my pain :ouch: This time I don’t want to be caught out like that, especially with these ropey leaves, so I put the underfloor heating back on, and the oil filled radiator, to bring it back up slightly. Over the past few days since I did this it’s usually 20-21°C, with maximum of 22°C and a minimum of 19°C. Humidity has been between 40-46%. Dark Devil Auto is basically dry, she was very crispy on the outside today and some of the stems are brittle. I took her down today, 7 days after she was hung. I cut her up a bit, not completely but into long stems, and put these in a shoebox just to even out any remaining moisture. There’s hardly any wetness in her still, the buds were not dense but I won't put her in a jar quite yet. Final Reflections on the Grow I’ve been busy the past few weeks and the buds have had a chance to begin to cure. They’ve not quite had as long as ideal but I’m up against the end of the contest, and after a month or so in the jars there is a bit of difference versus freshy dried buds. I’ve written some vape reports based on the little samples I’ve had over the past couple of weeks, and taken some pictures. I will have to add a drink report when I get a chance to have a proper sample, unfortunately this weekend it is just not possible. First, the yield. The Dark Devil Auto was the lightest as expected, at 55g. The Ice Cool Auto did a bit better giving 68g. I said it was difficult to guess between Cream Caramel Auto and Gorilla Girl XL Auto which was more, and they both measured at 92g. So, all in all 307g. That does include some stem, and a little bit of leaf because my trimming is not thorough, I’d expect it adds up to 5-10% if you saved it all up and measured it. I just vape the leaf anyway, and the stem is good for poking etc. It’s OK, but it is significantly less than I can get from the tent. There are understandable reasons why, and I did expect the yield to be down on previous grows from the outset. I did not train the plants, which is really the first time ever I haven’t. I’ve always LST’d since I first started growing photoperiods, but since I was making the video, and since I never had done it, I thought I would experiment with allowing them to grow vertically but controlling the height with pinching and supercropping only. I knew I wouldn’t get as good side growth and canopy shape to fill the tent. The next reason was a knock on effect from the lack of training, which resulted in the plants growing too close to the light and suffering damage. I’m a bit annoyed at myself still, because I knew 30cm was too close really, but I didn’t have many options and I thought I would just leave it and see what happens. I won’t make that mistake again. When I did move the light, I was surprised just how much of an effect on the airflow round the tent it had. Before, with a decent space above the lamp, the whole space was more even and warm throughout. When I’d moved it up just a few inches and the air couldn’t circulate above it so well, there was a pooling of heat at the top of the tent, and a drop in temperature lower down. I have to remember that is partly because the canopy filled up, but I am convinced the space worked so much better before I had to move the light. My lesson is learned and I will train my plants next time, it is essential with my limited headroom. I’ve been inspired by some of the things I’ve seen here this year so I have more ideas how to do this, without it being a too much of a problem for watering the plants, moving them and draining the runoff whilst using fabric pots. The schedule worked well but it was not perfect. It was good at the start I think, despite my slightly overwatering them at times during the first few weeks. Later, in flowering the plants faded quite quickly, perhaps the feed at the end was not so well suited. I don’t know if I should make the switch over later, or perhaps use the intermediate 1:1:1 ratio for a bit longer? The Gorilla Girl XL Auto in particular I think could have had a bit more nitrogen and then gone another week or two. All four strains are ones I potentially would like to grow again. The biggest reason I might not is simply that I can only grow a limited number of plants. I already have a good stock of seeds including several varieties I haven’t grown but would like to, and I see Sweet Seeds have added several new autos to their catalogue this year including some very special sounding strains. Bruce Banner Auto and Runtz XL Auto continue a theme I like a lot, and have both gone straight to the top of the want list. Red Strawberry Banana Auto looks like a chance to try something like Red Poison Auto again, hopefully with more success. I am not sure what I will grow next time. Hopefully I will be able to share a diary with you. Thank you very much for looking at my diary, pictures and videos.