FastBuds FBT2205 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 22 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 @Fast_Buds genetics test

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. FBT2205 is spaced nicely and still has not fully shifted into flowering. I gave balanced nutrients and will be upping the Bloom nutrients over the next few weeks.

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, but it still seems to be in the early stages of flower. This plant looks like it may be a beast. Growing in an uninsulated shed sure is a challenge but they are doing amazing. 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. FBT2205 was under fed and slowed down on flower production. I gave it a small dose of nutrients mid week and she has taken off. Pistils getting slapped on all over the place. Pictures are 49 days from seed.

I thought FBT2205 was under fed but after messing around it looks like I was over watering, which was due to a lack of air flow around this plant. The canopy fan tilted and was not blowing on the plant. Fixed this and hoping things turn around. Very delayed flowering for this one. Pictures are day 56 from seed and nearing the end of week 3 of flower.

This week has been okay. Fixed the canopy fan and improved air circulation around FBT2205. Still showing signs of low nitrogen, so I gave a good shot of nutes this week. Both FBT2205 and 2203 sucked up the entire 4 litres of water so hopefully 2205 rebounds this week. Pictures are 63 days from seed and end of week 4 flower.

I decided to defoliate this plant a bit and take off any side branches that were not getting any light. It is starting to stack up and pushing out a bunch of new pistils. This is the largest plant in the room and is a bit behind on flower development. Pictures are day 65 from seed

Of the four @fastbuds testers, I have had the most difficulties with this one. I suspect that it was not the genetics but just a combination of errors. Low air flow around canopy with slight over watering and possibly light burn leading to me thinking it was under fed with nitrogen. Anyway. Definitely led to some delays in flower development but, all that aside, the flowers are developing nicely over the last few weeks. Hoping everything works out for the final weeks. Pictures are day 73 and 75 from seed.

So, this plant had some problems due to me making mistakes. Regardless, the colas are stacking nicely and new pistils are still pumping out during week 7 of flowering. I am sticking with water till the chop. Pictures are day 83 from seed.

Despite having a few setbacks due to temperature challenges in the winter, this plant has exceeded my expectations and performed quite well. The leaves have fully faded and this week saw a flush of new pistils. I know I could have gone a little longer based on new pistils and mostly cloudy trichomes, but needed to chop for personal reasons. Hope they smoke well. Dry cure for a week or two and then curing for two weeks. Update after all this. So, this has been a hit with all my friends. A few of my older relatives have said it was one of the better home grown buds they have tried and asked where they could get seeds. Pictures are day 90 from seed

149g dried and mostly cured. FBT 2205 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 xs1500 set at 50-75% power and hung at 15-30 inches with spill over from Viparspectra VA1000, 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: I ran into a few problems during this grow and this was likely due to the challenges associated with managing the physical variables in an uninsulated shed during the winter. The first four weeks were vegetative and by week 5 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. I believe I had some over watering during weeks 4-7, as the canopy fan was dislodged and air flow was greatly reduced. She drooped a bit in weeks 6 and 7 and this stress definitely slowed down flower production. Despite this the plant recovered, put out a bunch of branches and stretched nicely. The colas stacked and swelled nicely in weeks 9-11 and the fan leaves faded away by week 12. Without the above mentioned problems I suspect I would have harvested a week or two earlier. I sampled a small bud before chopping and was pretty happy. Will do a full smoke report after two weeks curing.