Gorilla-ish AutosMaking Feminized Pollen

Temporary accommodations for the three seedlings as I’m making hash out at the farm this week. 😎👍

Back at home in the Mars-Hydro 4x4 tent under the FC-4800 light. www.mars-hydro.com

Feb 2: all 3 plants are progressing nicely. The two Beasts are a bit bigger than Harambe at this early stage. Using city tap water with a bit of apple cider vinegar. Not checking pH yet but will start that again soon. I love the Mars-Hydro light and tent. Very nice and definitely recommended. Light is still at 25% but I’ll start increasing that soon along with some fertilizer. Using a small ceramic heater to keep the tent a bit warmer than my basement. Humidifier is essential here as the air is so dry in the winter. Feb 4: first weak dose of fertilizer. Feb 6: second time with a weak dose of Nature's Source. Humidity shows as low in the photo as the humidifier was empty but trying to keep it around 70%. Feb 8: fertilized again. Plants look good and are starting to grow quickly. Using 1 gallon pots to limit the size of these soon to be ‘male’ plants. Will start the female plants soon, and prepare a batch of colloidal silver. Mars-hydro.com

Feb 10: setup extraction fan and carbon filter last night. I didn’t know how awesome the app was that went with the AC Infinity and specifically I didn’t quite realize the data logging was so great. Very cool. The Mars-Hydro FC-4800 is perfect for their 4x4 tent so that setup is pretty great and highly recommended. No wonder these 3 week old plants are so much bigger than most of my outdoor ones last year. I probably still need to up the temperature a bit with the space heater. Anyway fun times doing my first serious indoor grow. Cheers. Feb 13: soon to be male plants are looking good near 4 weeks and now starting four different gorilla autos to cross. See otherGorilla-ish diary for details.

Feb 18: looking good. In tiny 1 gallon pots but looking pretty strong. Will raise soil level to give them more to work with. Male plants don’t need full size pots. Leonweed does his SoG grows in 1 L pots so I’m sure 1 gallon will work for me. Still absolutely love the Mars-Hydro light and tent. The data logging provided on the AC Infinity Cloudline T4 is very cool if you’re into that sort of thing. They make it way easier than most of the stuff I see at work. Allowed me to see my temp and humidity varied quite a bit and my setup should likely be modified. Mars-Hydro.com where to go for the awesome FC-4800 light and 4x4 tent. Both are great and I’m very impressed with my first indoor setup. Makes me realize outdoor growing is way harder in some ways. Feb 20 CS Day 0 first silver spray. Will continue for about 15 days. Removed a single upper fan leaf on each plant and bent a bit to expose more buds to light. Harambe is definitely bigger than the two beasts which are very sturdy plants. Harambe seems more amenable to a tie down which I might do. Making colloidal silver using electrochemistry which is easier for me than the silver thiosulpate method. Starting with distilled water, the TDS was reading 65 ppm pretty quickly (6 hours) probably because I’ve been using the same jar and the residual silver contributed. Anyway, 12 V power supply from some old forgotten computer, pure silver electrodes (last forever essentially), distilled water, keep in dark. Clean the accumulating black oxides off the electrodes every few hours and check TDS. Oxide builds up faster as TDS increases so check more often later on. After about 6 hours there was some oxide showing but TDS was already high enough at 65 ppm. I know, not measuring silver colloids exactly but measuring something. Last year it would take 12 hours to reach that point. Anyway, the silver concentration should be high enough. Spraying silver on all three plants at all bud sites, approximately three times a day for 15 days. The first time I tried this I sprayed for about five weeks and it didn’t work. So, I now stick to just two weeks as recommended by the RQS blog. Mars-Hydro.com

Feb 23 Day 36 CS 2 ‘Males’ look good if maybe a bit Mg deficient. Been foliar spraying with Epsom salts last couple days which helps. Don’t quite have the hang of indoor watering and trying not to over do it. Continuing to spray three times a day with colloidal silver. Feb 24 Day 37 CS 3: decide to tie down the Harambe to help break apical dominance. This plant is flexible enough that a tie down is a good option. Normally I’d likely have topped these, but I’m doing this for seed and the plants don’t need to be maximized. I do want them to be fast so I’m not topping them. Feb 25 CS 4: defoliated lower parts on all three plants. The two beasts are starting to differentiate a bit, and Harambe is definitely bigger. Still tying down the main stem for a few more days. Feb 26 CS 5: need more silver spray and this batch is taking longer to make. Last batch took only four hours to each 65 ppm which is too fast. This batch is taking 12 hours to reach 20 ppm so much different. Likely previous batch had some silver coming off of the container. This batch should be better. Feb 28 Day 41 CS 7 The one Beast has suddenly grown taller than Harambe. I think to water these a bit more often than I do. Mars-Hydro.com love the light. 👍

Mar 2 CS 9 Harambe and one Beast are of similar size and pheno and the second Beast is a bit shorter and stockier. Looking good but I likely could have started the females a bit sooner. Will still work but the pollen might be ready before the females are ready. Mar 7: Day14 of colloidal silver spraying but I will go another four days cuz I don’t think my first silver batch this year was good. Mar 9: watered with Mega Crop for first time and continue occasional foliar spray with Epsom salts to provide Mg. They’re starting to show some deficiency (Mg?) as they’ve probably used what’s available in the ProMix HP soil to begin with. Mars-hydro.com for awesome light and tent. Love it.

Mar 11: final spray of colloidal silver was done this morning. 16 days at three times a day should do it even if my first batch of silver wasn’t quite up to spec. The flowers are showing the right kind of distress so I’m pretty sure it has worked. Now to wait a bit for the feminized pollen to form. Mar 12: foliar spray of Cal-Max for first time. Plants had been looking a bit deficient and this should help. Mar 15: it looks like the deficiency is Fe/Mn/Zn which often occur together. I can’t believe that it’s Mg deficiency because I have been foliar spraying with Epsom salts (MgSO4). Suggested fix is a foliar spray with chelated minerals so I did some Mega Crop and soluble kelp extract tonight. Used a few drops of Dr Bronner’s peppermint soap as a surfactant. Mars-hydro.com for the great light and tent.

Mar 17: still going. Deficiencies might be simply due to pH swings and my pH meter is broken. I’ve been doing without this grow but I need to replace it. Mar 19: male flowers are now showing on all three plants so the silver spray almost certainly worked which is a relief. Added worm castings as a top dressing and watered in. Should also have some of my own compost ready soon now that the hard winter freeze is easing up. AC Infinity Cloudline T4 is a very good product. Auto mode can keep the humidity in the tent at the right level, it provides VPD data, and the Data logging makes it even better. Great unit and I am very impressed. Mars-hydro.com for the great light and tent. You should buy their stuff and start the best hobby in the world.

Mar 24: male flowers are progressing nicely. Now have a good pH meter so hopefully those deficiencies will clear up, or at least not mess things up. Mar 26: culled the smaller Beast plant ‘male’ as it didn’t seem very impressive and I need the room. One Harambe and one Beast male remain, and there are four nice Gorilla-ish Auto females starting to flower. 😎 Mar 27: so I finally figured out that it is a potassium deficiency, but it likely doesn’t matter at this late stage. Starting some banana peel tea and should be ready in about a week. Mar 29: added banana peel tea, Azomite and Epsom salts as a 700 ppm TDS foliar spray. Banana peel tea was about 1050 ppm TDS and I used 4 mL/L in the foliar.

Mar 30: male flowers are starting to open and are basically ready. The corresponding female plants are a bit too young still but they’ll be ready soon. Mar 31: took one flower from each male and ‘dabbed’ it on the female flowers that are forming. A bit early but will keep doing this over the next week or two to maximize seed production. Apr 1: another round of male flower dabbing on the female buds. These are just for feminized pollen, but both ‘male’ plants smell really good and Harambe in particular is nice and sticky. Moved two trays of peppers and tomatoes out of the tent. Apr 2: a big all round watering as I think I’ve been a bit short again. Adding banana peel tea at 4 mL/L in water along with calmag and Natures Source. Apr 4: pollen is now clearly visible when the flowers are shaken. Another round of dabbing male flowers onto the female gorilla glue autos. Even though I’m quite sure this will work, it’s hard to be sure. Apr 5: flowers on male 2 (Beast) seem pretty much fully mature. Have continued dabbing male flowers onto the Gorilla Glue auto females. Seeds are showing on the females so it seems to have worked. Phew.

Finished ‘male’ plants in time to pollinate some females. Cutting it close but timing works for the feminized seeds to be ready in time for outdoor season. Assuming 20% of weight wet, these plants would produce a decent yield considering the small pots and no training. But these are strictly for pollen only as they have been sprayed with silver which would be very, very bad to smoke.