Sweet Seeds Femme Fatales

Sidebranching & Budsites Formation (update 8 February) The plants have begun to form budsites, where the calyxes develop in clusters, which will go on to swell and develop into the sticky resinous flowers we love. I took some pictures on Saturday and Sunday. The Dark Devil Auto is the youngest, but good to illustrate the process since (as I hoped) the calyxes are dark red/purple. She also shows how the sidebranches are developing very well, since the supercropping. The Dark Devil Auto is taller than the others, and I have pinched the stem a few more times in different places, and bent her over again on day 24, as I was getting a bit concerned. As a result she’s looking a bit crooked but she’s growing great. The Red Poison Auto has even nicer looking colour, perhaps more striking because of the contrast with the pale leaves. She also demonstrates nicely how the plants are moving over from symmetrical node development, where leaves form in pairs at the early stage, to alternate node formation that we see at plant maturity. Leaves (then pistils, and sideshoots) form on one side of the plant, then the other alternatively up the stem. She’s still pretty sparse but still looking very interesting, and very pretty. I’m happy to keep watching her closely when she looks like this. The pick of the crop remains the Ice Cool Auto. It’s really filled out and made a canopy now. The sidebranches are very vigorous and have really filled it out into a dense bush, a great scaffold to start producing some buds on. There are sidebranches creeping through the tent like vines since supercropping. The Cream Caramel Auto's doing great, a lovely lush green, and I like the way she is staying very short. I’ve done the supercropping earlier than before, I’d only really experimented with it later in the grow when the plants were already big. I’m really pleased with how it’s stimulated lateral growth, including right down to the shoots coming from the first true leaves. The Gorilla Girl XL Auto is doing fantastically too. She’s got many sidebranches sneaking up and out as well. One job in the tent at this stage is tucking – getting those sideshoots up and over the larger fan leaves, so they can get direct light. I think she might benefit from the extra space at the end of the tent, or perhaps from not being moved about like the others. It’s a close call between her and the Ice Cool Auto as to which has most foliage. I don’t have a video update this time, but I have a shot set up which I hope will look good if I leave it for a while. I set up the huge Mountain Air filter on Friday, before they really start to smell, and I also added another air circulation USB fan. I thought this would add a bit of pressure on the fan so increased it very slightly (it’s only around half power). However I was surprised it seemed to have the opposite effect, airflow seemed easier and the tent seems to run a lot cooler since. I can't really explain it. Between Wednesday and Friday, before I added the filter, the tent was hovering around 25°C and 45% humidity with the lights on (max 27°C). I put the filter in on Friday, turned up the fan only a little bit (there’s no scale, but perhaps from 50% to 55%) and left it to settle. Hours later, with the lights on, the tent remained only a degree warmer than the room (21°C in the tent). I turned the fan down again now, below where it was before, maybe to 45%. The temperature is 2-3°C above the surrounding room now, so it’s more like 22-23°C. The minimum has been 20°C, with the lights off. Humidity is staying in the low 30s with the lights on typically. Since my last update the maximum has been 54% and minimum 29%. It's a bit dry still but the plants seem very happy so it's not a problem. The plants have all been on a 48 hour watering cycle, with nutrients at EC 1.2. The older ones are on day 30 today, so will be watered again tomorrow on day 31 as planned. They are definitely ready for it – I considered moving to daily watering for them yesterday on day 29, but I thought they’d be alright for one last time after having a good check. Beginning to Flower (update 11 February) The gang have been very eager to burst into bloom, so I have a quick update with a few pictures of them from this week I wanted to share. No mistaking they are female, but I am looking closely every day to make sure they are completely female. No balls so far! A few more from Wednesday - incredibly quick development and wonderful colour on the Dark Devil Auto: They are just bursting out with new growth. They look bigger every time I open the tent, and the smell is getting more noticeable – a nice green waft of air greets me when I unzip it now. I measured them today too. In height order: Dark Devil Auto – 60cm (day 30) Ice Cool Auto – 50cm (day 33) Red Poison Auto – 46cm (day 32) Cream Caramel Auto – 45cm (day 32) Gorilla Girl XL Auto – 40cm (day 33) There is still some room to grow, but the size already of the Dark Devil Auto is a bit concerning. She’s getting tall, and also throwing her branches out wide. I squeezed and bent her over near the top again today, giving a good look at the colour on the underneath of the leaves. The environment has been stable, if a little dry. It’s been very cold outside but I’ve made sure the room stays nice by adjusting the oil filled radiator, especially cranking it up for lights off. I have read that a big temperature drop with lights off will encourage stretch, whereas keeping the temperature as close as possible during the night to daytime will keep plants short and squat. Since my last update on Monday, the temperature has remained between 20°C and 24°C always, and usually 22°C, lights on or off. Humidity has been between 26% and 36% – normally I find the hygrometer reading 30% but it gets a bit higher when it’s cooler, and lower when warmer, as expected. The older plants have been on a 24 hour watering cycle since day 30 as planned. The Dark Devil Auto seemed to be a bit more thirsty. On Tuesday it was day 29 and I had to water it rather than leave it for the final planned no-watering day, meaning that it really moved to a daily cycle from day 28. They’re all now on EC 1.2, and still on the 3:2:1 Grow:Micro:Bloom ratio, since they are still growing a lot of leaf and stem tissue. I’ve been spraying every four days with Epsom salts solution, they were due this yesterday but I decided to stop this since the buds have started to develop. I do not want to damage them or cause them to go mouldy, so foliar feeding was only for the veg stage. Thank you for looking at my diary .