Whiskey Zulu Auto

General info - This girl (and a couple others) are grown mostly under SpiderFarmer led lights. Once the weather here (somewhat northerly) is warm and sunny enough, the girls get recess outside. I have two 100W and one larger 200W lights hung from the top of a garment rack. Lights on around 6am and off at midnight. While indoors is always a bit on the dry side, this year has seen some exceptionally low humidity days (as low as 20% outdoors). The first two weeks I sprayed the soil surface with enough water to moisten, avoiding the leaves.

The girls got their first time out in the sun. Note, height is approximate for the time the photo was taken (if one) or at a specific time of the week. I began including nutrients this week - nitrogen, cal mag and silica all by TPS. Roughly five days between waterings.

WZ is about 8 1/2" at day 20. Grow setup has been moved to garage where she can chill with some CBD and auto friends. Temp generally 70 or below indoors. The girls all got recess a couple days at the end of the week, outdoor temps were low 80s. Two waterings this week.

WZ (and one of her other auto friends) has really taken off even though early part of the week has been indoor due to cold/damp outdoor weather. She did get about six hours in the afternoon two days so far. I'm quite impressed by the rapid growth. Second watering this week will be at day 29 and will be the last with extra nitrogen. Will dial it back to 1ml/gallon as well as I expect she's headed quickly towards flowering stage. Weather is prone to thunder the next few days so will end the week indoors. So the big question is ... how tall a girl will she be? At this point, 30" looks easy but I'm thinking in the 40s after stretch phase, maybe more! The rapid growth of WZ (and Mexican Airlines) creates the need to put risers underneath the other auto and my CBDs to maintain a roughly 14-16" gap between top of plant and the lights. Even though they are independently adjustable, I don't like to have too big a difference between lights. This weekend the entire garment rack will be raised by placing on milk crates or cinder blocks. I did not mention earlier, but I do not bother with LST. At some point I expect I'll need to add support once she flowers. I also have two smaller lights which can be mounted vertically to provide side lighting to make sure her interior gets enough light.

Well we are nearing the end of the week but not quite. Photos are at day 30 and 32. Growth has been fairly close to 2" per day. Last night (day 33) she was just shy of 28". This is crazy fast growth and I am worried that any big stretch is going to push my lighting setup! The girls have gotten some outside time, 6-8 hours a few days but rain has them back inside a few days too. They were watered once so far (Sunday) and will be check again today (Thursday). Indoors is a little easier on the water uptake. WZ is showing signs of flowers but not quite yet. Her auto-cousin Mexian Airlines is blooming and was germinated at the same time. For that reason I stopped the TPS N-Primer and moved on to the Bloom which still does include some nitrogen. MexAir seems fine with it which is good as sativa's generally don't like a lot of extra N. Makes watering easier!

She's was a little over 30" on 6/3 (measurements based off current soil surface. About an inch of soil was added a week or so ago to top off the buckets a bit). Buds are starting to spring up along with more growth. Taking a few days break so needed to make sure room to grow; lights raised to 20" away from top foliage. That may slow growth a little bit initially, speeding up as she grows closer!

Was out on vacation for not quite two weeks. Had a friend checking in on WZ and her auto sister Mexican Airlines. She grew tremendously while I was away and had to be pulled back from the lighting as she was only about 8" away. I use a garment rack to hang the lights (it is all metal so won't burn should a light decide to go up in flames) and already have it on three cinder blocks.

Growth has maxxed out at 54" and buds continue to develop. Estimate another two to three weeks before chop. Will try to get her a few days outside in the sun when skies are mostly clear rather than "partly" sunny - just too many clouds to make the effort worthwhile.

Week 9 under way and a happy 4th of July to all! Unfortunately it was a touch breezy and late in the day when I took these so highish ISO. Will try for a few more under better conditions. In any event, I sense the end is near for her, but not too near. Two weeks? She's a big girl to put outside and move around with the sun/shade but doing the best to give her those quality days ;)

As she enters week 10 the main objective is to fatten her buds as much as possible. The weather looks to co-operate with forecast of next 10 days at least 6 or 7 days will good sun. So WZ will get plenty of outdoor playdate time with her auto-sister Mexican Airlines. She is definitely showing signs that her time is nearly up; some leaves have dropped and/or have begun to yellow. My last closeup look at the trichomes saw many cloudy but few if any were amber. That should change this week! Expect harvest time will be in 7, maybe 10 days. Day 74 Update: A lot of yellowing leaves, cut many off. Harvest time may come sooner than thought!

So... went into panic mode when her auto-sister was found to have aphids just before she was to go into the dark room for 48 hours. WZ did not have any and though I planned to push her another week, I immediately defoilated and then began to chop. However, realizing about half way that the lower branches needed at least a few more days, I stopped about half way and put her back outside in the sun for about another 8 or 9 days. Dry time was only about 5 days which is kind of short, was limited as no a/c but did have in room that was about 69/71 with humidity around 55-60%. She has very ill defined flowers. Not like an afghani indica for sure. But she is super, super sticky. I had to stop myself from cutting very small sugar leaves which normally I trim automatically as under a loupe they were covered with trichomes. As such, she is not a pretty trim which bothers me a bit as my friends might make fun of it. I guess no worries as it is all personal consumption so who cares if the presentation is subpar? I did do a sample vape from a couple buds pulled a week prior to chop, the buzz was quite good. She'll need a good long cure I think to mellow and probably will always smoke a little harsher than other better trimmed stuff. I mostly vape so not really a big concern.