Orange Hill Special - Mars Hydro SP 3000

After the disaster with germinating the expert seeds Gorrillas, I was a bit disheartened, was so looking forward to them. But we just follow up strong by planting a Dutch Passion Skywalker Haze instead. Will be starting that diary this week, lets hope she germinates. And it looks like we might be lucky, one tiny seedling came up from the 5 expert seeds, looks like a bit of a runt now and doesnt grow as fast as the Dutch Passion Orange Hill Special. I wil put another Orange Hill in the tent if this doesnt work out. Last week was a hot week and rising temperatures inside and out of the tent, I decided to to remove the driver from the SP-3000 and put it outside of the tent. This light looks even sleeker and sexier this way. Also a dream to deinstall, 5 minutes. But my victory last week was my invention of my custom top down oscillating fan. Which comprises of a standing oscillating towerfan, hung horizontal by just making a little hole in the foot and hanging it sideways. It works like a charm. The tower has optional oscillation so I can choose to just cool the light or sway through the entire tent. Very happy with that and still very happy with the light by @MarsHydroLED, thanks so much. Dont forget their End of Summer Sale: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/911997108/ huge discounts at the moment if you are in the market for a tent or a light!

Whats not to like about Orange Hill Special, excellent strain, look at her go in just two weeks. She is awesome and loving the Mars Hydro SP-3000 that we got to try out. Thanks again @MarsHydroLED, we are loving it. Another week and we might put her in the hotter soil. For now just water, bit of ph- thats it. But she does well. Things I learned this week: - Dont let your soil sit in the garden for too long after making it ( I still had to clean the growroom). But some kind of fly seemed to have nestled in it and now we fighting them. They are getting less though. - Buy only great seeds at great breeders - Make an inert toplayer to prevent flies and other nasties. Thabks for following and see you next week!!!

It was a week of balancing. Some yellow leaves and battling flies. Something is not optimal with either my climate, the amount of light, or the seeding soil. My PH meter is broken so I'll have to order a new one. I've been giving un PH'd water just, for now, my best guess was my water and soil combo was too acidic and this seems to alleviate the problem. So after a period of stress, we lost some weeks of growing, which I will add to the total growing time, as it looks now at least another couple of weeks before flowering.... But.... Due to my problem with germinating the gorilla's my other plants are way behind. I'm going to have to check and foresee uneven growth again. Where I'll have to find a middle ground between all plants since I have only one grow space. I bought a tripod and already had a gimble which make for nice steady shots and can do time-lapses, overviews but also, make photos and films while I work to make the diaries a little more interesting! Still very happy with the SP-3000 by @MarsHydroLED, amazing how cool she runs and the amount of light she puts out. So cant wait for flowering and getting her on full blast. Be very careful with this light when your plants are young. It is easy to underestimate the sheer amount of light the SP-3000 puts out. Remember that they still have an end-of-summer deal with discounts of up to 20% at the factory global outlet on aliexpress! To conclude I totally underestimated the growing speed of the roots and they had already rooted in the super soil in the grow bags that I have in the room already to aclimatize. So its time to put them in the supersoil next week. - Things I learned this week: - Get a good PH meter - Citric acid and controlled drought work well against gnats - Seeding soil must not be too acidic - Peat soil seems to make everything more acidic - A FIM can lead to stress when conditions are not optimal - Place the seedling pot on a plate or tray, so the roots do not go into my super soil before I want them to. Thanks for checking this week and see you next week!!

This week could not have gone any better. Shiba Inu went through the roof, as it should. 'Dog coins is greats', we all know this by now and should be the only logic when selecting crypto's. Then came another nice surprise: My 6th place price for best diary came in. @FastBuds had already sent it, thanks to Heather and the Fastbudsteam. What a great company they are and can't wait to try the free seeds they send me too. I selected Mimosa Cake, Bruce Banner, Forbidden Runtz, and since they didn't have the t-shirt in my size (that's right, big boy here), I was allowed to select an extra strain: Green Crack. Thanks again to all the people at FastBuds for being an awesome company! 😘 Well finally I have fixed all the stress, what they needed was apparently some good old BioBuds Super Soil love... You guys need to check out my recipe on the germination page. This is some awesome shit even for younger plants. I think I nailed it with only European ingredients, to match Master Mark and Subcools recipes. You can clearly see how the transplant only made them better instead of further stressing the plants. I'm so happy. With one or two weeks delay, finally, we are underway. The FIM I did last week did not hold so fimmed her again, I think I might have been too careful. But now the light (still many thanks to @MarsHydroLED, hook 'em up for a great discount on your SP-3000 or other light) and the soil are proving to be a great team in even recovering stressed and hurt plants. The climate in the tent could be a little moister but for now, I'll mist just the plants to keep the gnat problem at bay. The gnat problem seems over by just spraying all the topsoil with a solution of 5 tablespoons of citric acid in a liter of water. Just a fine mist covering most of the topsoil kills the larvae and sticky traps and a bowl of vinegar with some dish soap did the rest. Thank you for check-in in this week, to find a happier BioBuds after last week's struggles. See you on the next one and happy growing.

What a beautiful strain Orange Hill Special is, nice and bushy, great internodal spacing, sturdy and healthy. Happier and happier with how this grow is going. The less beautiful parts on top are my doing, my blind as a bat FIM destroyed half the top of the plant. More patience next time... The super soil is still performing great and I´m pushing up the dimmer to get the ladies used to more light, very carefully because leaves are folding every time. Some of you might be happy to find my European recipe/shopping list for super soil. I tried to make it with widely offered products throughout Europe. Feel free to use it and elaborate on it. If one product is not available in your country, please check the brands at the bottom, which might be available in your country, and substitute. The only thing one could add to the recipe (which I did but forgot in the shopping list) is some Epsom salt. Fed them again with my permaculture tea, all seem to flourish and smells are starting to come from the plant, with that same distinct dankiness I had in earlier grows with this tea. See the germination page and other diaries for more info on my Perma tea. Now they were big enough, some might even say too big, to start the real training. I always love to give them a little bend the week before, to get used to the idea. With some sterilized bamboo sticks I pushed the plants down to expose their sexy undersides. Let them become forests of buddy bush. Thats it for this week! Thanks for following and happy growing!!

Great to see you and I missed you, I had some time so I created a video to thank our lovely foster company, who were so kind to let us try their light in return for a review. Now, most of you don't know I'm also into making music, mostly Techno but I also love HipHop and Gangster rap, mainly 90's Westcoast, although I'm fond of East Coast and a little dirty South, so this was an excellent time to showcase one of my tracks. So please check my Autumn-themed, not commissioned, or approved by Mars Hydro, visualization video in thanks for @MarsHydroLED. The grow has been going great! If you don't count the about a thousand fungus gnats I have been fighting. I'm manually manifolding and training the girls, into the desired shape, which is a bit hands-on but I see it as a collaboration more than a 50 shades approach to training. You can't just bust out a rope and domination on girls like that. We ease it in there, going to the limit every time, making them stretch and curl underneath the touch of our tender but firm hands. And when they are used to a little groping and fixation, we might bring out a few ropes here and there to spice it up a little. Anywaaaays.... I'm getting carried away here, back to the grow. I had bought some coco-peat, after leaving none for the top layer as I suggested to all of you in the previous weeks of my grow (if you missed it, click one week back for a full recipe (the yellow image) for everyone in Europe) left me with enormous amounts of fungus gnats. Its seems to alleviate the problem already. As it did with my previous grow the Gelato 33 Golden Canopy from Heaven. In the meantime I notice my temperatures going down so Im trying to fix that too. All in all it had been a good week and this Orange Hill Special is promising to become something special! Thanks for visiting again, see you soon!

They are going slow but steady. Holding back on watering to help fight the gnats. They were with too many last week. Some yellow points because of an 'on the limit' foliar feed. Nothing to worry about. Still very lush greens. I'm thinking the main reason for their slower growth, is the fan that is on high. My mission from the start s to get thick stalks and branches, to facilitate larger buds. Also, I'm pushing the SP 3000 to its max for the age of my plants, they don't have to reach for the light, resulting in shorter, bushier plants. I don't mind, I think the flowering stretch will make up for that and fill the tent. Still very happy with the SP-3000 from Mars Hydro, a much more constant and manageable climate in the tent, a dream to work with. I made a thank you video for @MarsHydroLED, of course, to also show off my music. I'm thinking one or two more weeks before resetting the light schedule for flowering. I'm already late and if another week will deliver bigger and more buds, I will give them what they need. For those living in Europe, wanting to try super soil, see my recipe in the images. Thank you for following and your likes and support! It really keeps me motivated. Big Hug Bud

At the beginning of this week, I have been fighting the gnats, which are less and less now. Just some watering and gradually lowering the light and going to full power. The Orange Hill Special has been filling out great and I must say, she is a pretty plant. With some manual bending and super cropping, I'm bending the longer stalks sideways and we are off. What I actually do is more of an intuitive hybrid between mainlining (where I bend the whole plant 90 degrees at the third week), LST (where I bend branches outward slightly, without tying), HST / Super crop (where I bend the stems 90 degrees with the clips or manually), after which I keep bending outward to SOG and, put the net over to end in SCROG. This same method gave me the canopy in my prize-winning Gelato 33 grow. Check it out if you haven't seen it, it was my first experimental accident that led to beta test of Super Soil mixture 0.7, now we are at Alpha version 1.00 and testing great so far if I say so myself. I haven't seen such lush greens in my own grows, only outdoor. They seem uber-healthy and resilient, with very sturdy stems and leaves. Way more resilient than previous strains I tested in the beta soil. The light is performing, the natural color of it makes everything pop. Mars Hydro has a winner with the SP-3000. Check out their site: www.mars-hydro.com Thank you @MarsHydroLED for letting me test it, hook them up for a great deal or info on their products! Halfway through this week, I took the clips out, AND...... we switched them to go into flowering. After a day the stretch is already visible. I had to bend them again after a couple of days. Now we have almost a tent filling foundation for a maximum result canopy of buds. I was wanting to amend the soil with flowering additions (see recipe in yellow image), but I'm holding it off for two reasons. A/ The leaves are still so green and lush, I think there is an abundance of nutes. B/ @Haoss mentions his suspicions on his OHS grow (@#CannapediaProGrowersCup Orange Hill that very sadly went hermie on him) that nutrition in this phase could have had an influence, after asking what happened to him. I would have loved to see that grow to full harvest. But it makes me a bit cautious. if Haoss (whom I consider to be one of the star growers here) couldn't prevent this, what chance have I? I'm waiting until the girls start asking for nutrients. They'll show me what they need in their own time. For now this soil is the shizzle (also quite literally) and Im happy with how everything is going. I remember much more hassle and steering in the last grow. This grow, even the Gorilla runt seems happy. I now water them 3 liters of water / Perma tea mixture every 4 days, every 3rd watering I don't do the tea. This makes for fewer gnats and this soil seems to hold water nicely, also due to the hydro corn. What I like is there is always some unforeseen circumstance, a tilt of the tables, some battle to be fought which delivers in big harvests or, in worst case, no harvest at all. It makes it more exciting, when your heart is at stake, we pour a lot of love and attention in the ladies. So with hopes, but not too high, we go into flowering. Thank you all for joining me again in this Orange adventure! I hope you all had great weeks, germed seeds, extreme growth and buds bursting with trichomes!! See you next week! Hug Bud PS Sunshine made her first appearance, as she promised on the Gelato 33 grow. She is still a bit camera shy, so her digital alter makes an appearance first, if you all want to see more of her and my other helpers, let me know in the comments. Sunshine will make a real appearance if yall are real nice to her.

It was a week with a lot of activity. First of all, she had her first full week of flowering and did a bit of a stretch. Also I switched her to the left side of the tent, to space the plants more evenly. We are getting to a canopy, although one of her roommates probably is male and will be removed. More about this when I update my Xtrakushh Diary. Also had time to fit the scrognet. It fits way better than last grow, much tighter. We had some problems with the lighting. I probably hit my timer with one of my sausage fingers, making my lights turn on in the middle of the night, thank god I found it out in time. They maybe had an hour or two of light for one night. Still something she really doesn't need with this strains tendency to hermie under stress. She still looks happy. Did some gentle leaf tucking, some LST under the net, and a little defoliation. The branches might be short but they are very sturdy and should be able to carry large and heavy buds. And we had won the @Sweet_Seeds Halloween give-away and got to choose three of their legendary strains: Tropicanna Poison, Red Hot Cookies and Runtz XXL auto!! Thanks guys!!! We shall see where it leads... Thank you for checking in again and don't forget the Black Friday Superdeals on https://www.mars-hydro.com!! See you at other diaries or next week! Hug Bud and Sunshine

This strain is performing like crazy. My god, she just wants to go and go and go. See the difference with the previous week, it's going crazy in this tent. I had some space to fill because one of her roommates turned out male. More about this in my Xtra Kush diary. But fill up they did, I turned her around, for the change of scenery, but also to let the longer side branches fill up the space in the scrog. And did she. With all these bud sites, the rapid growth of flowers, this strain is having a good time. Very happy with how my soil recipe is performing (see the yellow image in earlier pages), none of the crazy stories of going hermie when stressed. Just some T. L. C. and this strain outperforms anything I have recently grown. But this SP-3000 is just a beast of a light and we owe much of this success to @MarsHydroLED, who was so kind to let us try their light. Check www.mars-hydro.com for the Black Friday deals! What I did to prevent this strain from going hermie: - No defoliation. Will start a little after the third week of flowering. - Little extra flower feed in the waterings, no amendments yet, I have no yellowing at all. - As little stress as possible - Reassuring them in their gender, be proud of your female qualities, no need to go all masculine on us. See you next week, thanks for checking in again!!

We have passed three weeks of flowering. I'm very happy with the results so far and considering we have 5 to 6 weeks to go, these buds have the potential to get huge. Started watering more, 4 liters every two days instead of every 3 days. Also after a full 3 weeks of flowering, we started the flowering amendments, 2 cups of worm castings, 1 cup of bonemeal and a cup of Micro life each. Just put that on top of the soil, watered with the Perma tea, to which I added some woodash, just two tablespoons and stirred. To 12 liters of this I added 60 ml of BAC Organic Flower, 20 mils of BAC Calmag and 12 mils of Top Max. They seemed to love it, they payed me back with enormous bud growth in the last week. Anyone still doubting the power of the SP-3000, look at this grow! This light is spectacular! Thank you @MarsHydroLED, check out their Black Friday deals on www.mars-hydro.com I have been sitting on my hands regarding defoliating. Because we had a full three weeks of flowering, I started some underside leafpicking and pruning the smallest branches with no chance of growing out. I kept it to a minimum and will gradually do more. The smells of orange and related citrus is amazing. It is a mixture of orange peels, lime, kumquat, grapefruit and those lovely little oranges they put in Earl Grey tea. The undertones are of a very dense funk, this is going to be a banger, I can tell already. Thanks for following me, all the likes and comments!! See you on one of our diaries! Hug Bud

This week I defoliated. Waited three weeks into flowering, to not stress them like I did last grow. She is rewarding me with some fat bud growth at many sites. I overwatered beginning of this week, but hey seemed to have taken it well. I did another amendment. The first one last week was a test, to see how they responded, they took it well. Just compare last week to this one. The amendment I did: - 5 liters of worm castings - 2 cups bonemeal - 1 cup wood ash - 1 cup microlife I layered this on top of my pots, covering this with bio-coco (pre fertilized) to ward of gnats. The gnats have been getting less and less. They don't like the coco that much, while humidity is just the same and last week higher since I did some more watering. I watered with the perma tea. While this is pretty acidic (PH 5), I can amend with more wood-ash, if you don't and follow this recipe, don't do too much wood-ash since it will kill off your micro organisms. I lowered the light diagonally since the outer right plant is longer and closer to it. The SP 3000 is still performing as you can see. Temps were a bit higher with the lights so low, so far the Orange Hill Special doesn't seem to mind. Im totally amazed with the results so far. Look for the great end of year deals at www.mars-hydro.com. Thank you for checking in on me again! Hug Bud

This week we encountered some problems and we lost a couple of days of growth. It was smooth sailing up to here and maybe a little too smooth. I saw that the buds didn't develop right after the previous post last week. After dropping a question and establishing possible reasons I did some interventions to let the plants recover. I raised the light which was real close and temps were too high. Next to that I watered with just some normal tapwater as I suspected some too low PH. I started ventilating more to disperse the heat a little. These actions seemed to have helped as last couple of days I see some real fattening of the buds. This SP-3000 is real powerful and cant be as close as my previous leds. Again props to Mars Hydro and a big thank you to @MarsHydroLED!! Let's hope we do the last couple of weeks with less stress for all of us! Sorry for not posting any Sunshine posts, I have a Christmas surprise in store for those enjoying the mixed reality shots. For those who didn't like it, it will be the last you'll see of her, so she'll say goodbye at the same time! Thank you for following and all the likes, everybody! Take care and stay safe!! Hug Bud

Another week has passed and this lady seems to have recovered from last week's sudden problems. I just kept feeding with clear water, I suspect low PH and my solution fixed it. I also raised the light a little more, this SP 3000 is a true beast of a light, and especially the Kush in the middle couldn't handle it that well. Thank you @MarsHydroLED I did some final defoliating, only bundled up leaves and leaves covering major bud sites. This Orange Hill Special is something else though, Im happy to grow this, she is pretty and sophisticated in all, almost majestic. The buds are speckled with orange hairs, the shape of each like a round ball of ice cream. She was pretty from seedling on and looking back, I would have loved some offspring of this pheno. She is a thrill and no signs of male parts on this one, although it can happen with this strain. So glad I have some more seeds and cant wait to put a tentful of this. Don't let its low score dissuade you, yes there is a chance she hermies but when she doesn't my my my... Check em out here @DutchPassion_Official She smells of orange and tangerine with a very strong hazy undertone. This combination promises a great smoke and frankly, I cant wait. Thanks for reading up on me and thank you for the comments and likes again! Hug Bud

So this final week the buds on this Orange Hill Special are filling out. They are getting rock solid and the calyxes are doing their final swelling. Also, the trichomes have started forming and up close, they are forming a white sticky film over the whole bud. The buds feel heavy and compact, although their size could have been bigger but not complaining with this amount of bud. I have just been feeding some perma tea and clean water since this soil is probably very high in nutes by now. I had some brown leaf points so just adjusted and all was fine. Now we go into the final one or two weeks. I did some final defoliation to expose some underside buds, they are swelling too. Removed some sticky underside larf, kept it in a box to gradually dry for a preliminary taste test coming days. Sunshine and me wish you a very merry Christmas (check our Christmas video) and hope we have more freedom next year instead of less and wish you all bountiful harvests! Special thanks and well wishes to @MarsHydroLED, you gave us an excellent gift that keeps on giving, thank you!!

The Orange Hill Special is finishing! She has compact and dense buds that have grown in. The waiting is on the amber trichomes now, which I'm giving her time for! There are some more faded leaves and she is clearly rounding it up. The smells in the room (and the house are getting very pungent and were happy we don't have many visitors in the coming days! We are beyond camouflage. She has some more space as I've taken out the Gorrila for darkness. That one was way more done, but this one needs one more week, I gather. Take care and thank you for following again!!

It was finally time to harvest her, what good times we had with her. Amazed with how beautiful this plant is, how easy to manage and train and how rewarding Orange Hill Special is. So we said our thanks and goodbye, thanked her for all the joy she gave while growing her. I realize more and more how I love growing them even more than the end-product. It takes my mind of all going on for a while, in my miniature jungle world in the attic. Im sure all of you just sometimes sit there and watch them, in wonder, dreaming away with a good buzz on, watching them wave in the wind of the fans. So with a heavy hart I apologize, play them their last music, sit with them and feel them and smell them, watch the glistening of the cristals. In the end we had 209 gram dried Orange Hill Special, I will know the total of the grow, in a few days, since the final big whopper still has to dry: my XtraKush, be sure to check the harvest of that one *in couple of days) and see a one-dollar seed outperform two 10 dollar seeds. I probably go over 500 grams for the total grow, which would be 1.6 grams per watt. Big success! Consider an SP-3000 for your next light, you won't be disappointed! Check www.mars-hydro.com for the latest discounts! Thank you @MarsHydroLED for letting us try out your light, it made this successful grow possible! Greetings and all the best! Thank you to our friends here, our followers and the whole Growing Diaries community for just being there. Big Hug, Sunshine and BioBuds