Pineapple Express Auto: Spring 22

Popped 1/31. I had to do a little surgery to remove the seed coat. I've had several beans do this now and have found it really impacts growth if it doesn't come off quickly. I haven't had this happen so often with other types of plants. I guess cannabis just needs a bit more help in this dry environment. I think I will add a soak step to my starting routine.

Temperatures were cool in the past week, so my seedlings spent several nights indoors. Thursday was 58 but felt much colder, so the seedlings had little time outdoors that day. This is the littlest seedling out of a number of different autos I am growing for spring. The seed coat was stuck tight on this little girl, and one of the cotyledons is a bit creased by my surgical removal. Cold temperatures and low light in the house isn't helping her spring back quickly as I want, but all is looking well. First application of half strength fertilizer applied on Saturday. The coming week is forecast to be warm, potentially up to the 80s on Thursday.

My littlest girl is coming along. We had great weed growing weather this week, temp in the 80s, sunny, gentle breezes. In checking the humidity for this entry (12%?!?), I realized why I'm so itchy and my lips are cracking :)

Moved up from the 4" starter pot to a five gallon Vivosun grow bag. I picked the taupe color because black can really heat up in the sun, which can be a real problem here in Arizona. Spinosad was used prophylactically, another nearby plant was getting aphids (maybe aphid? The insects are clustered and soft bodied like aphids, but the body type looks wrong.) Anyway, the Pineapple Express had no bugs, but trying to be proactive at heading off a problem.

This week we had some very chilly temperatures. I had some other stuff going on, so forgot to check the forecast before going to bed. Figures that it was the coldest night all winter, right? Anyway, I checked my plants at dawn and saw icy leaves (FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!) but I caught it in time and was able to move all the plants inside before any damage. All is well, but I'm not seeing much vertical growth this week. I did an application of Azomite by foliage and soil media, and continued with the normal routine of weak solution applied (almost) daily, we did get rain too. She looks happy in the new pot and I'm appreciating the handles!

Weather was great for growing this week, and the rest of my girls really took off. Not so much the Pineapple. While she certainly gained leaf mass, she is SHORT. She only gained a half inch while the other five plants of other varieties just blasted off in the warm weather. She's got very tight node spacing, just no room between the leaves at all. During the first weeks, I attributed her small stature to having a crimped cotyledon leaf due to some helmet-head issues with the seed coat. That's happened to me before, and a smaller, slower growing plant is the result, but the plants do catch up eventually. I know to be patient, but I'm beginning to worry for her. The upcoming week's weather is going to be cool again, low70s/high60s, and 50s/40s at night. This is chilly for Phoenix in March, and normally I'd be rejoicing cool temps....not so much with weed growing in the backyard.

Pineapple is still a shorty, and hard to sex because there's just no space between the nodes at all. Aside from the shortness (she's only five inches compared to other varieties planted and treated the same, hitting 14 inches this week) she looks very healthy. Looking for warm temps this week.

The shortest of short plants stretched a little this week, and can finally definitively say she's a girl. Still, at only 9 inches high, she's the runt of my spring grow. There's just no stem to speak of, the nodes are right on top of one another. I should probably pull her, but I only had one Pineapple Express seed and I'd really like to taste it.

Just rolling on this week, not much to report.