Big Nugs

Off to a rocky start, but coming along nicely now. She was in a smaller container but there was an incident with the tent light, accidentally leading to two days of mostly darkness. Serious stretch ensued. Repotted into final container so that I could bury the stem a bit. Seems like she is back on track now and much happier.

Need to decide on training method soon. Around the fourth or fifth node I'll either top or supercrop, undecided at this point. Leaning towards supercropping but still not sure :) Edit: Tried to bend/supercrop the main stem, but broke it on accident. Oops :) Decided to just top and start applying gentle LST so that the four buds are roughly the same height. Will then start more aggressive LST to stretch them across the container and train tertiary axillary buds.

A good week overall! Started out a bit rough, as I noticed some yellowing on the oldest leaves. Unclear exactly what the issue is/was. I'm using soil with organic fertilizers, so over-nutrient seems unlikely to me (very little readily available nutrients, all slow-release, only two waterings up to that point). But some folks on different forums think it may be nutrient burn. Alternatively, it could just be lack of light on these leaves (they are very shaded) and touching the soil. Regardless, while researching I noticed that my humidity was way down, hovering nearing 35%. The tent is in a dehumidified basement so this makes sense. Based on VPD charts this seemed non-ideal for the plant, so I added a small humidifier and a RH PID controller. Humidity stays around 55-60% now, which is a nice compromise between keeping humidity up in the tent and not fihgting the basement dehumidifier too much. I also drilled some holes in the container to help air out the soil faster... a DIY janky airpot :) Throughout the rest of the week, LST ties were adjusted and heavily obscured leaves were pruned off. I also started pruning off bud sites that were pointing downwards, in an effort to reduce clutter and wasted resources. All in all, she's looking pretty good. I'll probably flip in the next week or so. I would love to give it some more time to veg, but have a schedule I need to keep later this fall. This strain supposedly flowers in 6-7 weeks, so we'll see :)

Week four was low on photos, but high on vegetative growth! The difference between day 23 and 29 is huge. I had a pretty busy week, so I did a bit of pruning and LST at the beginning and then just let the plant recover for most of the week, in anticipation of flipping at start of week 5. LST tiedowns started to become numerous, was able to start tying down secondary branches in addition to the main four. Also pruned out a good number of the oldest, lowest leaves. Broke my heart to prune them since they all looked strong and healthy, but the growth of the plant had put them completely in shade and most were touching the soil. So out they go. Also continued to prune buds that were pointed directly downwards post-LST. Most of the longest branches have reached the perimeter of the container, making future LST difficult/impossible. In preparation for the flowering stretch, I strung up a quick SCROG net that I'll use to continue training the branches until stretch is over. Water uptake has noticeably increased, and no sign of nutrient excess/deficiency. I think the increased humidity has made the plant happier than it was last week. Still working off in-situ nutrients, the only external nutrient feeding was the single fish emulsion drench last week. Excited for flip! I have about 9 weeks before my schedule gets difficult, and this strain is supposed to finish in 6-7 weeks so I think I have enough safety margin.

Not a whole lot happened this week. Flipped to 12/12 schedule on Monday, and growth seemed to slow as the plant adjusted to the new schedule. Started to resume growth towards the end of the week. Several lower buds are starting to accelerate now that upper branches have been moved by the screen. I expect to start doing a lot more training next week as growth picks back up. They got a second (and final) fish emulsion feeding during the week. Back to regular waterings now, and maybe a bloom booster at some point if I think it's necessary. The slow release granules in the mix should probably be fine for a while yet. Re-adjusted the tent setup to center the plant a bit better. I have a flowering auto in the tent as well, which has been a bit of a special child due to weird circumstances. It will be finishing pretty soon and I wanted this plant to be centered properly. Won't be able to adjust soon once the branches are woven through the net

Relatively uneventful week. Continued to tuck under the net as she stretched out. Also increased watering schedule as I noticed wilting on a few occasions. We're up to about a gallon every three-four days. Hit her with an application of balanced/general purpose fertilizer at the beginning of the week, from here on out I'll be pulling back on nitrogen a bit. Towards the end of the week, I noticed some of the more advanced tips were starting to stack alternating flowers. I will probably stop tucking branches after this week and just let the plant finish it's stretch. Being my first real grow, I'm not sure how much more stretch to expect. The two weeks of tucking did a pretty good job of spreading out and exposing bud sites. The middle is now very empty, and I'm hoping some of the lower buds will grow up to fill it nexty week (otherwise I'll have a big hole heh). Temperature and humidity have continued to be killer. Managing to keep daytime temps around 77 with plenty of airflow and ventilation. Humidity is staying around 60% for now, to limit the amount of heat the dehumidifier is dumping into the air. When temps cool down a bit, I'll probably drop the RH to around 50%.

Apparently, I forgot to take photos this week. Oops :) Colas are starting to stack nicely, stretch has pretty much stopped. I've been consistently pruning under the net and the underside is pretty clear now. Removed old or obstructing leaves, and pinched off flowers that aren't likely to get much light. I left a few in hopes that they will poke up through the net and give a little cola. Towards the end of the week, I noticed that the sugar leaves are starting to get trichomes. We're getting there! Three weeks of flower so far, supposedly takes 6-7 weeks based on the breeder. So we're nearing the halfway point. Smell has definitely picked up a few notches as well. No sign of tip burn, all leaves are a nice pale green. Looks like she's doing well with regards to nutrients. Lastly, picked up a few replacement bulbs for my lighting setup. We're probably up to around 350w now, need to grab my killawatt to check.

Buds are continuing to fatten up, and starting to get nicely frosty. It's hard to appreciate from the photos, but some of the fan leaves are starting to yellow noticeably. Looking from this main angle, itt's not entirely obvious... but if you look at the plant from the other side it is clear that the entire plant has begun to yellow, not just the fan leaves. Some leaves still have a nice green color, but the overall hue has shifted towards lime green. I feel like it is too systemic to just be the plant cannibalizing nutrients for the flowers, and too early. I'm going to check pH (which I haven't been doing so far), give the plant a good flush and up the nitrogen dose a little bit. I may just be under-feeding the plant across the board, since it's heavily in flower now. I'll get some close-up shots of the yellowing next week. Otherwise, I think the plant is doing pretty well. Just need to nip this deficiency (whatever it is) early so that it doesn't continue to cause problems.

As mentioned last week, I spent the beginning of this week trying to improve the health of the plant. I started with a flush of the soil (~5-8 gallons, lost count). At first I was concerned it was a nitrogen deficiency given the general yellowing of the plant. I waited a few more days to see if the leaves would keep yellowing uniformly or not, and saw that it was more interveinal chlorosis rather than complete yellowing. So my theory is magnesium or sulphur, given the location and presentation. I was also a big worried about calcium, since I started to see some necrotic spots on leaves. But in retrospect I think these are just burns from where I've touched leaves with my fertilizing funnel. :) I prepared a feeding with: - Half-dose of fish emulsion, for some longer-acting nitrogen source. And to help help out the soil microbes after the flush - Tablespoon of sulphur granules, dissolved. This also includes some calcium, although not the fast-acting variety - Tablespoon of gypsum for fast acting calcium, also contains a bit of sulphur - 4 tspFF Tiger Bloom - Gallon of water, pH'ed I'm not really a fan of bloom formulations... pretty sure they are marketing gimmicks by companies. But after the flush I wanted to rebalance the available nutrients, and the low nitrogen was fixed up by the fish emulsion. It also contained a good helping of magnesium which is mainly what I was after. Finally, I added a top dressing of some Plant-Tone granules, for longer-acting complete fertilizing (including calcium, magnesium and other micros). Few days later and the plant is looking much better. Greening back up, and the interveinal chlorosis is starting to recede. Think I dodged a bullet with this one :)