White Widow Auto

👉The sprout has emerged from the media on 1/6 and is looking healthy. No stretch so far and it should become a nice stout bush. I fertigate 2x a day with 1 liter of seedling mixture (see fertigation analog log pic for the specifics). I will switch to the next step in the recipe mix in a couple of days (when the current seedling batch is out).

👉Days 10 thru 16. The week has been slow motion as the plant slowly gains traction. I switched to the week one early growth mix on day 13. My plants are normally this slow at the start. This never lasts long and by the end of the week I can see that the plant is beginning to take off.

👉The start of this week was the start of the claw on the plant. Possible excess N and possible lockout. I have done a few low EC fertigations, but the EC stayed higher than expected and the pH of the run off also was lower than expected. I was still doing one liter per event when not doing a low EC. I reduced the Nitrogen content of the nutrient mix by cutting the Flouricious plus in half. I also kept with the 2x calmag in the mix. There was no change in the plant and the claw continued. Starting tomorrow I will change it up and do a high volume ultra-low EC fertigation to get more of a thorough rinse of the media. I may do thins until the run-off is more balanced. I will keep the F+ in half and will go back to 1x calmag and will increase the volume to 1.5L per event. Humidity has been low. I have avoided using the dehumidifier because it can suck up the water. I can use tap water but there is so much stuff in the water it can ruin the dehumidifier with the build up. I may just bite the bullet because more cold weather is coming and the humidity wont be getting much higher for a while.

👉This week started with the plant looking scrawny and clawing as if it was a tortured being. Looking like it was toxic with nitrogen I made some adjustments to the nutrient mix, but nothing drastic, just reduced the Floricious+ in half and the Cal/mag to normal (was 2x). The pH of the run-off was trending to 5.2 and dipped to 4.9. This is unusual for me so I began some ultra low irrigation followed by a regular strength fertigation event. It took a couple days but the pH finally came up to 5.8pH by the end of the week. All the extra liquid hasnt hurt the plant any, and may have improved it because even though it has exploded in growth over the last two days. Nice stout main stalk and branches and the food factories are beginning to get fat and look healthier. I dont think the plant has fully recovered. But It seemed to enjoy the higher volume of solution and low/ultra low events, so I will continue till I stop seeing the pH in the run-off drop so low and stabilize like it usually does in all my past grows.

👉The plant has really taken off. Its doubled in height and has become a nice shaped dome of cannabis plant food factories. The pot must be pocked with roots as the root tops have been poking out all around the pot. The plant has presented pistols on Day 35 and once that happened it kicked into overdrive. The volume of solution applied has increased as the run-off has decreased. I did a few low EC irrigations and finally got the pH in the run-off to be stable and not constantly trending downwards. The EC of the run-off has also started to be consistently lower than the inflow.

👉Today is day 47 total and day 12 since first pistols appeared. After a slow start the growth explosion continues and the plant is 23" tall. Not only is it a lush bush of leaves, the main stalk and all the branches are getting nice and strong. I have taken a few branch-lets from inside the dome as well as a couple of leaves from around the bottom that were getting damaged from me having to pull them aside to water them. The leaves are basically forming a shell around the plant. 👉 The flowers have formed all over the plant. Oddly enough the Queen cola isnt the tallest, there are two branches with taller colas. It has also started to give off that distinctive yet generic green cannabis aroma. I have only done one low EC event in the last week. The run-off EC has not been climbing at all, in fact its consistently much lower than the inflow. The volume of solution required has almost doubled as well. With up to 3L 2x a day to get 20-30+ % run-off the plant is thirsty. Some of has to do with the 35-40% RH, but its been that way since day 1. The low humidity hasn't seem to hinder the plant at all.

👉The flower stretch is going full speed. The plant has added almost an inch a day and is now 31". Solid stout branches and a sturdy trunk are supporting a lush bush of leaves and a multitude of flowering bud-lettes. The plant has been very thirsty as the plant requires about 5L a day. The run-off EC has remained surprisingly well below the input with only two low EC fertigations. The EC hasn't exceeded the inflow at all this week and only got close to the inflow when I only provided enough solution to get 10% run-off instead of the normal 20-30+% run-off. I haven't seen any nutritional issues but have a feeling one is about to raise its ugly head if I get to cocky.

👉At my last update I suspected some sort of nutrient issue would crop up. Sure enough, a possible slight magnesium deficiency was showing up in some random leaves mostly midway height and below. Some yellowing veins and slight yellowing in the space between the veins (I think its called lamina). I did some low EC fertigations and it seems to have been kept at bay. I have also increase the Cal/mag to 1.5x the recipe and have intermittently added a pinch of Epsom salt to my mix. 👉The flower stretch is over and the flowers have begun to bulk up. There are four branches that grew mostly vertical and were taller than the queen cola. When they stopped stretching the Queen had a little more to go and it is now the same height as all the rest. This is great because all the tallest colas will be the same height and more even light applied to all. Ive already decide that when its harvest time I will harvest in stages, perhaps over the course of several days, from the top down. 👉Then spring months are here and with mild temps the HVAC doesn't run inside the house. This can cause the tent temps to soar past 80 if I dont monitor it closely. Lately I have turned on the A/c in the day to keep the tent cool enough. I routinely check my tent temps while at work by accessing the tents wifi cam that is pointed at the tents thermometer. My lights are on individual smart plugs that I can access and control on my phone. I can then turn of one or two of the lights if it is getting close to at at 80F. My wife can adjust the a/c for me if I text her, and when the temps return to 78F or lower, I turn the lights back on.

👉Day 70 ttl Day 35 Flower 👉The buds are now fattening up all over the plant. The plant has slowed a tiny bit on its solution consumption, and the run-off EC has begun climbing instead of staying below inflow levels as it did in the veg stage. The nutrient issue this week is possible light stress. I had the lights at 18" at the beginning of the week, and have moved to 24" at mid week. Also some possible potassium deficiency is some leaves, mostly around the top. Tomorrow I will do a high volume low EC rinse, followed by the week 9 mid bloom mix on the General Hydroponics Drain to waste mix chart for the Flora series. I will increase the level of Flora bloom to enhance the potassium levels. I will probably do a couple extra low EC rinses during the coming week. I have taken off a few leaves around the lowest levels just to enhance my access to watering the plant.

👉The plant spent the week plumping up the buds. The leaves show a potassium deficiency so I doubled some of the nutrients that had potassium. The run-off from the fertigation events has looked good pH wise, but the EC would climb very quickly. So I have been giving a low EC fertigation several times, more than usual. I rotate the plant 1/3-1/4 turn at each fertigation event. Ive begun removing any fading leaves and leaves that showed nutrient issues and were fading slightly to yellow. The plant is thick with leaves. I love fan leaves...I hate the sugar leaves on the flowers if they are numerous. This plat has far to many sugar leaves for me. Not only is this a pain the ass for trimming, the plants Ive grow of this phenotype (lots ad lots of sugar leaves in the flowers) have ended up with cured buds that would loose their flavor and taste like hay way faster than the other pheno's. I'm hoping that I'm wrong because I am in no way an expert of the density of sugar leaves and how they may adversely affect the end results. I'm not a fan of removing leaves until the plant is completely done with them. This plant has way more than average, so the next week I be culling leaves around the main colas and a few around the plant. I always feel weird pulling off food factories that are still making some food, but there are plenty and I probably wont be shorting the plant of any food. 👉 Next week I will be starting what I call trichome hunting. I use a small powered microscope that connects to my phone and can take pix. Its sort of a pain, have to to turn off all the fans and sometimes one or more lights, and the field of focus is so thin its hard to get good pix. Any movement of the scope or the plant just blurs everything out. So I try to pick an area that is shaded from the lights and just get a good overall view of the state of the trichomes. This is a sativa dominant plant and I love uppy sativa, so for this plant I plan on harvesting when the trichomes are mostly cloudy, few, if any, amber. This plant will get a staged harvest, only taking buds fit the criteria. Most of my plants finish fairly evenly, except for the lower most branches. I have ever tried it, so I will stage the harvest starting at the top and going down. taking the time to observe the state of each branch and take when it is the mostly cloudy state. I am also trying to avoid a trim purgatory that looks to be 4hrs minimum. Staggered I may spend the same amount of time, but it wont be all at once. but I ramble.

👉The wonderful aroma that washes over my face as I open the flap o the tent is one of the many benefits to home grow cannabis. The aroma of this plant has gotten very intense. Its sweet floral citrus with a hint of stank. All the buds are super frosty and getting very plump. I have been trying to closely inspect as many buds up close as I can. Mostly with my eyes, then some close up inspections with a hand held magnifying glass and finally spot checks with the USB microscope. The plants trichomes are mostly clear all over the plant. The upper buds have more cloudy, and surprisingly the lower level buds are not that far behind. 👉I have been plucking leaves from around the plant, mostly leaves that are either fading yellow or had some nutrient issue residual. I am not 'de-defoliating' but I have plucked some of the larger healthy leaves that were inside the dome. I also have plucked some of the fan leaves that grow out of the colas. Normally I avoid taking healthy leaves but this plant has an over-abundance. 👉The plants fluid consumption has gone down and the run-off EC has been climbing quickly. I have given several low EC fertigations (always followed with a full strength solution). The run-off pH has been consistent and in 'range'. I will feed nutrients up to harvest day. Beginning tonight I switched to the Ripen mix of nutrients from the General Hydroponics Flora Series drain to waste mix chart.

👉I continue to fertigate full strength solution, but the run-off has started climbing quickly so I have been giving low EC irrigation followed by a full strength fertigation. I continue to pluck leaves around the plant. There are soooo many its almost disturbing. The structure of the cola's is very dense, and packed with leaves. Its hard to see calyx's there are so many sugar leaves. I dont normally like plucking healthy leaves and it's fun to see leaves fade, but harvest time is looking very tedious (I like doing a wet close trim). This pheno has freakish numbers of fan and sugar leaves so I am gradually taking off as many leaves as I feel comfortable with. 👉I have a leaf Bud off the main stem...shows the plants preference for leaves. 👉Very close to finishing. Super frosty and super strong aroma that can me smelled outside. The trichomes around the top colas are mostly cloudy with a couple amber on the calyx's. The sugar leaves are mostly cloudy with many amber on some of the leaves. Looking around the plant the state of the trichomes is as expected, the lower you go the more clears. This is my motivation to try a staggered harvest, stating at the top and work my way down. I will start harvesting possibly tomorrow night.

👉 I started the week thinking I would be harvesting a branch or two a day. I planned on starting at the top with the Queen and just work my way down a little at a time every day or so. This was to allow the lower levels of branches more time to mature to get an even result from top to bottom as far as bud 'ripeness'. 👉So I did start with the Queen. The trichomes looked perfect for what I wanted, mostly cloudy. This Queen cola was not 'typical' when compared to most Auto flower plants Ive grown. It wasnt even the highest of the colas on the plant. It was about the size of a pine cone and frosty. I did a close trim in it and hung it on my drying rack to dry. After one day the cola was placed in a paper bag and hung until its weight was 25% of the original wet weight after trimming. That took two more days and last night it was placed into a jar with a hygrometer. 12 hrs later the hygrometer was at 91% so I opened the jar lid. I will leave the lid open probably all day, may even take the bud out of a while and put on the hanger. It will repeat the process till stable at 62%. 👉 What I found at trimming was that perhaps the flower could possibly pump up a little more. Also it has so many leaves it made me start to hate leaves. I that made me conflicted because leaves are why everything happens...food factories. I could see the issue before I got close to harvesting and I am happy I didn't go on a massive defoliation campaign. That wouldn't have helped the sugar leave issue. I have been taking leaves for a few weeks now even though it may be hardly noticeable. It took a long time to do the type of trim I like. I avoid snipping calyx's as much as possible and will snip as many sugar leaves as close as I can. The rest of the harvest of this plant is going to be penance for just a few of the thoughtless or stupid things Ive done in the past...a trim purgatory that is going to be close to trim hell. But if the end result is as good as the white widow Ive had in the past, it will be pain worth enduring...if its a dud that tastes like grass because of all the leaves then I will learn how to make extracts. Almost always a bright side with cannabis. 👉So I will continue lots of pre-trimming any large sugar leaves on colas around the top and work my way to the bottom. I will also continue nutrient laden fertigations and get a little more plumpness of the flowers to offset the leaves. The plant is still thirsty and I see new calyx's on all the buds. I'm going to mix my nutrients between the late bloom mix and the ripen mix, with extra Flora Bloom, and extra KoolBloom.

👉 This is the first staggered harvest I have done. The highest parts of the plant were definitely ahead of each lower level of flowers. So it made sense to give this a try. Also, there were so many sugar leaves in the flowers I knew I was facing some major trim time. So I started at the highest branch of colas and that was the main stem…what I call the Queen cola, on April 4. I was also very busy with work and life so I spaced out each successive branch by a day or two…or so. To harvest I would cut each major branch from the top down. There would be one major cola ( and best specimen) on each branch. That cola was trimmed so it was still on its stem and then weighed. I recorded the weight of the cola then assigned it a letter, put on a clothes pin, then hung on a rack. I would weigh the cola over a couple of days till it had loss 75% of it wet weight. I would cut from the stem for the final weight, then place in a jar with a hygrometer. I would monitor the jars and if they were above 62% I would take off the jar lid, then replace when humidity was back down. When stable I put a humidity pack in some of the jars, but not all, just to see if I can observe a difference after the cure. 👉 My last trim penance was served on May 1. Almost a full month. The first cola harvested is already being tested. I did a close trim and removed as many sugar leaves as possible. I think I spent over 10 hours in total. So glad I chose to stagger the job. I trimmed any frosty sugar leaves over a trim tray with a screen for a bottom. I also scissored a bunch of the larf buds into small bits to add to the trim. I made a nice small wafer of just trichomes with no plant matter. Very nice, sweet stuff. I’m letting the large pile of trimmed sugar leaves dry out till crispy and will hand grind them over that screen and press the kief produced into pucks. It’s green and has lots of plant material with it…but its still sweet, and a very nice topper to a bong or joint. 👉 There were a lot of nice buds of what I call secondary flowers. Those were on secondary branch ends mostly. These buds were placed on a dry net. After 24hrs, I placed them in a paper bag. When they had lost 75% of their wet weight they were put into a jar with a hydrometer. Almost everything that wasn’t a branch end flower was put in the larf bin. Lots of larf. I didn’t weight any of it dry and just the wet weight from a couple of branches. I plan on making bubble hash and extracts (oil and tincture) with the larf. Of course planning and doing are two separate issues. I have acquired all the proper gear and done lots of research. I am also experimenting with the drying environment. In the past I was using a direct fan to oscillate directly on the buds for 24 hrs. At 24hrs the buds were put in bags and also kept them in direct wind. After a couple of branch sets I decided to stop oscillating the fan and make the breeze indirect. I still put the buds in bags after 24 hrs and kept the wind indirect. It took a few days to get to 25% doing it this way, as opposed to 2 days in bags with direct wind. The slower is supposed to be better, but risks moldy buds. I’m not doing everything the same way so I’m curious to see if there are perceptible differences in jar aroma and taste. To further complicate things to eye-roll status, The staggered harvest should have improved the lower level of flowers to the same ripeness. I can honestly tell buds from the same plants taken at different levels. The lower ones are noticeably weaker. I won’t start testing to see if there is improvement till the flowers are at least 4 months cured.