FastBuds FBT2203 test

Pictures are day 15 from seed. Used humidity dome during this week to help seedling establish. Lights started at 50% and are now 75% power hung at 30 inches. I am using a living soil and inorganic nutrient regime. The living soil is established and maintained with NPK RAW Bloom Micros, Kelp and Cane Molasses bi-weekly. I used NPK regime before establishing seeds in soils and start of week 1. This grow will use a 5:1 light schedule instead of 20:4. I am growing in an uninsulated shed where temperatures can reach -15 C (5 F). A shorter dark period will reduce the chance that temperatures spike below 17C for long periods. This will also shorten the time that a 600W heater needs to kick in. My exhaust is recirculating air to keep room warm, so I set up a simple fermenting bucket to help keep CO2 levels up. Might not do much, but there you go. In short, I will test a more truncated light cycle and push the limits of my grow room in a below freezing shed without vastly increasing energy consumption with heating during the dark period. Let's see what happens.

Pictures are 21 days after seeds started and seem to be doing great. I used a very weak foliar spray of Flora Grow and a weak feeding to get them started. I have my lights set to 75% power and I am misting daily. Happy so far

Pistils and pre flowers showing this week, she doubled in size at least this week. I did a light feeding and light foliar spray. I adjusted the fans to evenly circulate heat in grow space and lights are at 75% of max output. PPFD is around 700 umol. This will inherently increase as the plants grow closer to lights. Will adjust the height of lights to hit about 1k PPFD when the stretch ends. Going great. Pictures are end of week 3. Day 28

Pictures are day 35 from seed. This week I focused on LST and spreading out the canopy. FBT2203 has moved into full flowering. I gave balanced nutrients and will be upping the Bloom nutrients over the next few weeks. Might be having a cal/mag issue and will try to figure this out as I move forward

Had to make an adjustment to better manage temp and humidity. Had a humidity spike to 75%. I moved the exhaust outside grow room, but this dropped Temps too much. Soil temp hit 10 Celsius one day. Turned off exhaust and now I am running at 20-25 Celsius and 55-60% RH. The canopy spacing is great and I think the flower stretch is slowing down. This plant is looking good. Pictures are day 42 from seed

This has been a super challenging week. Outside Temps fluctuated between 8C to -15C, which means the shed grow room was between 15 and 30C. I have been constantly adjusting exhaust and decided to put it on a 15 min on/off cycle to balance between high humidity and reasonable Temps. I also installed a dehumidifier to help. Regardless, FBT2203 seems to be doing great. Pictures are 49 days from seed.

No real issues this week. Flowers are developing nicely on FBT2203. Light levels were 1000-1200 umol, a bit high but no problems so far. Helps keep Temps reasonable. Pictures are day 56 from seed and nearing the end of week 4 of flower.

This was a pretty good week. The buds of FBT2203 are looking great and are taking on some nice colors. It seems a little early for the fade so I made sure that this week I gave a little more nitrogen and Bloom nutes to help push these plants through another 3 or 4 weeks. Pictures are day 63 from seed and ending near the end of week 5.

Pretty happy with this plant and surprised how it is growing under an old Blurple. The trichomes are mostly clear so she needs some time. She faded fast so hopefully can still see some decent bulking over the next week or two

Nothing but water to finish this one off for most of this week and the following week. Realized that leaves were discoloring because of light burn and possibly low nutrients, thought it was all in the upper canopy. The lower leaves started fading and she will be chopped down this coming week. It was fun and I am very excited to try this one. Smells great, looks great, no trouble growing, could have fed a little more during veg and early flower. Pictures are day 71 to 73

187g dried They dried a little too fast on the branches, 4 days, then I bottled them for 18 days and aired them occasionally to maintain RH and aid in cure. FBT 2203 Grow conditions: Light Cycle was 20L:4D, but this was broken into 4 cycles of 5L:1D Soil was Fox Farm Ocean and HP Pro Mix in a 7 gallon pot Nutrients were General Hydroponics Flora Series with Cal Mag, Floralicious Plus and Kool Bloom. I also used RAW Bloom microbes, kelp, and cane molasses. Light source was Viparspectra VA1000 set at 50-75% power and hung at 15-30 inches with spill over from Viparspectra XS1500, P1500 and Mars Hydro TS1000 Goal: The aim of this grow was to push myself and these plants to grow in a very challenging environment and show how the versatility of autoflowering cannabis combined with strong genetics can ensure a successful grow when limited to a less than ideal grow spaces. Newer growers, such as myself, may not have the luxury of growing in our houses due to family constraints and space limitations. By proving how versatile FastBuds plants are we can attract a new growers and show them that an amazing product can be grown in challenging and less than ideal grow conditions. Grow Room: I built a 4x8ft grow room in a completely uninsulated shed and wanted to determine if the heat generated from the grow lights combined with adjusting the cycling and location of the exhaust fan would be sufficient to keep temperatures and humidity within an acceptable range. I live in a fairly northern climate with winter temperatures between -5 and -15 Celsius during the majority of this grow. I also wanted to test how auto flowers would respond to a 5 hour light and 1 hour dark cycle, which was critical for maintaining acceptable temperature levels. Balancing temperature and humidity during the dark cycle was the greatest challenge during this grow. A dark period of 2 or 4 hours would result in temperature spikes below 15 Celsius if exhaust was left running or a spike in RH above 60% if the exhaust was left off during the dark period. For the most part, the plants stayed within 20-25 Celsius and 55-65% RH during the veg stage and 20-30 Celsius and 40-60% RH during the flowering stage. I had two different days where temperatures spiked to below 15 Celsius and this was during a period where I was trying to manage RH by adjusting the intake location and on:off cycle for the exhaust. Outcome: Despite all of the challenges associated with managing the physical variables, FBT 2203 performed amazingly well. The first three weeks were vegetative, with pre-flowers appearing near the end of week 3, and by week 4 flowers started showing up. This plant responded very well to Low Stress Training over the next two weeks, which resulted in a very nice and evenly spaced canopy. The majority of flowering stretch happened between weeks 4 and 7 and then the colas started bulking up substantially during weeks 7 through 9. I fed her water for the remaining two weeks and harvested just before the end of week 11. This plant produced some amazing colas with an absolute ton of trichomes. I trimmed a small bud during week 10 and slow dried it over two weeks. I finished this bud over 4 sessions using an Airizer Air 2 and was pretty happy overall. It has a sweet and fruity flavour, which actually reminds me of watermelon Hubba Bubba (I think) and overall gave me a pretty relaxing stone. I think that the larger and more developed colas containing more amber trichomes may produce an even better experience, but I will have to complete the cure over the next few weeks. Issues: I ran into two issues while growing this plant. I believe that I had a combination of light burn and overfeeding P and K. I had to keep my lights on 100% power for a few of our coldest weeks in early flower to maintain temperatures and I ended up toasting my upper canopy a little, but this was limited to the fan and sugar leaves. However, this may also have been due to over feeding P and K or nutrient lockout for Manganese, which resulted in the upper canopy turning yellow and purple before drying out completely. I am hoping to grow this and all the other testers again this spring/summer and aim to avoid these issues and produce an even better product.