DroEZ_Fem_Sour_Strawberry_Diesel_Grow

Since this is a phenotype hunt and evaluation grow I won't be focusing on yields. Plants will be grow in 1 gallon grow bags, I usually use 2 or 3 gallon. I'm also initiating flower at about 30 days from seed. My goal is to find something unique and tasty for myself and to see how the phenotypes pan out. I did a grow of some freebie m/f strawberry diesel seeds from Brothers Grimm. The had a lot of sativa and I didn't like the tall lanky plants, There were a few tasty diesel types, nothing sweet, nothing strong. I didn't like the plant structure and yield. Here are my ladies at about 2 weeks under fluorescent light. The thing I notice is how uniform the seedlings are, they look like an stabilized strain. This is a great sign, so far they look AWESOME!!! They have even growth and best of all they exhibit 'hybrid vigor', growing faster than both clone parents.

Here we are at 19 days from seed under fluorescent light. I normally use use LED 5K full spectrum so they would be even larger. I've never grown female seed this uniform in appearance, ever. There are 2 that are a little smaller, but they are all about the same in all ways. all 11 look like siblings so far, this works for me! I also notice excellent branching on the lower section. It will be easy to take clones and grow in SCROG setup as I like. The genetics behind these females is impressive, so far so good!

we are approaching week 4 in veg. They were transplanted to 3 cup grow bags last week. The plants are starting to show their differences while still looking very uniform. There are a few that are getting larger, a few smaller, but most about same height. They're all within 2 inches or so of each other and continue to produce excellent branching and inter-nodal length. I think these are beautiful plants with some nice smells from stem rubs. One plant is 'stinkier' at this early stage, so she called stinky. I'm about to transplant to 1 gallon in about 8 days or so and then flower.

I apologize for the 'sad' looking plants, they got stressed from some high heat last week and they were just transplanted. They'll bounce back quickly once they adapt to the new soil mix. I use my own modified version of Souls Super Soil filling the bottom 1/3 with it and then plain Roots Organic to top it off. I do use Earth Juice Sea Blast in the smaller 3 cup grow bags and once after transplant. There's enough nitrogen in the Super Soil to get things growing fast. I will use Flower Fuel in alternate watering from now and stop last few weeks of flower. I've never grown in 1 gallon bags, but I have 11 SSD females to fit into my 3 x 3 space. I'm also growing a Bruce Banner #3 diesel female along side for comparison, she's the mother of SSD.

The ladies have greened up nicely and are about D6 of flower. All 11 show female pre-flower with no male flowers visible. The branching is excellent with many stems for making clones available on lower section. I'm going to let these grow natural as they don't seem to stretch much and stay short and bushy. 2 females are larger and 2 are smaller. I don't have any 'runts', but one smaller female has a narrow stem, the other 10 have very thick and stout stems. They still look very similar and I can see these are EXCELLENT SCROG plants, in fact they look like self-SCROG plants with the growth pattern. I'm loving these ladies so much. I may of got lucky with this cross. I haven't labeled any yet other than 'stinky'. We'll see how much they stretch over the next week or two.

The buds are filling in nicely and plants odor is getting stronger at D10. I've decided to use LST training for the 2 taller branches of each lady to create a better canopy. The lower leaves have greened up and the plants seem to be doing well in 1 gallon bags. At D19 there are a few plants that are producing resins. I'm able to detect the familiar diesel smell on 2 females. I have the original mom to use as comparison growing side by side. She was used for clones and then used for this grow, so she was quite defoliated, but recovered quite well. I plant on re-vegging any keeper moms instead on taking clones early. It's kinda hard to detect the special ones this early. I can usually tell by D40-45 which female is the best and tastiest by resin rubs. Early test samples at 45-50 days, dried in microwave is the verification, usually. This time I'm going to dry small bud tops at 50 days to choose so I know which female to reveg and not cut plant.

D23 and the plants are budding up and producing resins. I've been able to detect several Diesel phenotypes and a few that are sweeter odor. It's still a little early to tell but the diesel genetics are definitely passed on in at least 7 of 11 females. There are no hermaphrodites, but one female has single pollen sacs at several nodes. I was going to pull them but decided to let it go and see how much 'seeding' happens. Bud development is usually stunted on hermaphrodites plants, and the plants are shit, these are full on female. Having an awesome female that produces a few male flowers is no deal killer. As long as you are aware and able to control it. I'll be able to look more closely at all 11 females during bud trimming to see how many have male flowers. I know there is at least one female with a few male flowers. Buds are growing evenly across all ladies, even the smallest plants buds are about same size as others. So far so good, I'm continuing to alternate between plain water and Flower Fuel at 1/8 tsp/G. All leaves are green and healthy and I'm liking the smells coming from this grow!

D36 of flowering and I am so excited. The buds are filling in on all 11 females and all have resins. There was some pollination from male flowers, I can see the withering pistils, but it isn't a 'heavy' seeding. This will also help them mature a litter earlier, I'm pheno hunting so I need to find me a good mom. I've been able to detect 2 females with a sweet diesel smell, it really helps having the original Bruce Banner #3 mom growing along side her children. She's really potent with a strong diesel flavor. I'm able to compare the resins to see which lean more to the diesel side. I have the 'stinky' female her smell is sweeter, less diesel and doesn't seem as strong odor. There is one female that has a really strong diesel smell, more than her parent which surprised me. This one may be special, but you never really know until dried and smoked. I'll start sampling bud at D45, but it looks like I have 4 females labeled as potential keepers. The other 7 females have varying levels of diesel resin, nothing that perks my nose. Since I'm re-vegging I will need to identify keeper mom before chopping, so I'll take bud samples at D50 and dry in 3-4 days to smoke

We are D43 of flowering and I've smoked microwaved samples of all 11 sour strawberry diesel females. I keep a few Tylenol nearby for the headaches soon to come from smoking green weed. Eleven samples are a lot too, so I smoke 4 samples at a sitting, then take a break and do another set. I choose the samples that tickle my nose and give immediate effects, the exhale will reveal the taste. This is my method for predetermining the best females and hasn't failed me in 35 years growing. I'm smoking green weed and the lesser quality females tend to taste bad, really bad!It's easy to isolate the bad ones, however the best females will be enjoyable to smoke green and you get a sense of the taste and potency. Sometimes there are late bloomers that will improve in taste some, but overall it's the same at 40-45 days with strains that mature under 60 days, that's been my experience. This fem cross from Bogs Sour Strawberry and Bruce Banner #3 is off the chain, the best female seeds I've grown so far!!! I got lucky and blessed. I've identified 4 phenotypes that are possible keepers. 4 other females have a decent taste, the last 3 are not good at this early time. If you grow out 10 feminized seeds you should be able to get the prized phenotype. It's still too early to tell which is the best, but I have 4 females I've selected as possible keeper. Pheno #1 and #2 are very similar with the sweeter diesel taste. They both hit me about the same with #1 tasting a little better, I like them both. #3 is the one that stands out, it has the most diesel taste and smell, but there is a strong sweet diesel taste on exhale, different from #1 & #2. #3 is the best tasting and most potent at D45. It has the most frost, a beautiful growth pattern and is a little larger than #1 and #2. #4 is the 1st plant I labeled as Stinky before flowering. It had the strongest odor before flower. It's still quite tasty with a shorter stout growth pattern and probably a nice keeper too, but doesn't have much diesel taste. The sour strawberry finishes at 58 days, the bruce banner #3 at 62 days. It looks like these will finish earlier, maybe 55-58 days, the 4 keepers look about 10-14 days from finish.

D50 and we are getting close to finish, about 6-7 days left. All 11 SSD females have similar plant and look like a stabilized strain. There is 3-4" difference in size from smallest to largest. I'm also growing a BB#3 (diesel mom) for comparison, it's a really strong smoke with straight up diesel taste. For me it's an evening smoke, a little too strong for daytime. I've taken samples of 4 phenotypes, I'll label them #1-4 for now. SSD#1 is the one I've been interested in, it's the most diesel pheno and is expressing some purple at finish just like sour strawberry. She has a better leaf-bud ratio than her mom and an excellent plant canopy with tying a couple branches down. The taste test has impressed me, it has the strong diesel taste, but a sweeter exhale with berry tones. I can feel the immediate effects and it's pretty strong I'm really liking this one, it has excellent frost too. It takes slightly better than the BB#3 sample IMO. SSD#2 and SSD#3 look like twins with not much difference between them. SSD#2 has more sour strawberry taste, there's not a lot of diesel in this pheno. I'm tasting a sweet Kush like taste and effects are felt on exhale. The leaves express some purple as she finishes like her SS daddy. This is looking like a nice tasty pheno. SSD#3 seems to be the best 50/50 with equal part sour strawberry and diesel, it's sweeter than SSD#1, but doesn't hit me as hard. It has a nice diesel taste, but not as strong as #1. This early test helps me know which SSD gets regenerated, I didn't take clones. SSD#4 is another 50/50 leaning more to diesel in taste. This was the 1st plant I noticed doing stem rubs. It had the strongest smell and I called it 'Stinky'. It is the shortest of the 4, but has a tighter inter-nodal length. It's will probably yield the same as the others, it's a nice looking plant and packs a little more punch than SSD#43 but not as tasty to me. So far I like all 4 and don't mind smoking them green, they will be so much better when finished. In the remaining 7 females there were 2 that didn't taste too bad, both with diesel taste, but they didn't hit me hard enough. The others made me gag, nothing good. I've been using plain water the last 3 weeks, the leaves are starting to yellow or turn purplish depending on pheno. The real test is after drying finished plants! The best phenos taste pretty good even early, the throwaways usually make me gag. 4 tasty phenos out of 11 plants is pretty good IMO.