Zkittles - Day 58
Gorilla Glue - Day 53
Zkittlez is coming along beautifully, bit of a shame about the mutated buds, i've heard they're pretty bad to smoke, which is fine for me as I prefer edibles over smoking. I'm also pretty interested to cut one in half once dried, i'll be sure to post a picture of a cross section, haven't seen any online so i'm sure people will be interested, maybe anyway.
I've been pushing her a bit with light intensity, theres a some slight 'tacoing' going on but nothing terribly bad. I'm definitely noticing a difference between upper and lower bud maturity though, and may need to stagger my harvest but we'll see how she goes. Looking at harvesting somewhere between day 70 and day 75. I've checked trichomes with a microscope phone attachment thing and they're already 70-80% milky (even lower buds). Aiming for 70% milky 30% amber, which is way longer than id usually go for, trying something different this time. Obviously if she starts foxtailing or any other signs of "please harvest me" then ill yeah, harvest.
What else... oh yeah, i flushed her yesterday, day 57. put a few litres through i'd say. PH of the run off was 6.0 which is great, although my ph meter probably isn't very accurate. but it matches (almost) the ph of the water i've been using, which has been between 6.0 and 6.5. No more nutes obviously, just water till harvest. I was surprised that she didn't react negatively to being flushed, no difference other than looking thicker lol.
My yield guesstimate was 50-55 grams dry, but im now thinking it may be closer to 70 (2.5oz). fingers crossed huh :)
Lastly, her smell still isn't very strong, she's nice and frosty but yeah not a lot of smell, that is until you move or touch the plant. Totally fine by me, makes it easier to keep stealth. And the smell from touching is beautiful.
Gorilla Glue.
She has recovered nicely from being stunted, i think she may have had a nute lock, because after i flushed her she was fine a few days later, then complained, then i fed her some nutrients and she's been happy ever since. The genetics on this strain don't seem to be great, the stems are quite 'straggly' and the main cola is just... weird, to be fair i haven't grown gorilla glue before, i haven't grown much at all. So for all i know this could be how this strain grows. I had to defoliate quite a bit today, which i wasn't really happy about doing because she's in proper flower now, but it was getting way too dense in there, needed more airflow. In the picture i'm pointing at the main cola, as its kinda hard to figure out lol, definitely a mess.
This plant has been a learning experience, i'm not worried about yield, but if i had to guess i'd probably say she'll be a 1 ouncer. who knows though i might get lucky.
What i've learnt from growing her, is that i much prefer my own method of "LST", which is just opening up the canopy and defoliating the insides so the plant has great airflow and gets light to all buds. I've only grown like 3 plants so far, im a newbie, but i've done that style of training with each of them and they were each a success... so yeah, ill probably keep doing it that way. if i can average 2-3ounces per plant im happy... im just a hobbyist grower that makes edibles, so 2-3 oz goes a long way :)
Oh, i almost forgot. i've undone all the tie downs on Zkittlez.
Also, i haven't really got a plan on when to harvest Gorilla Glue, but she's looking a good 2 weeks behind Zkittlez so im guessing 20-25 days, which would make her 73-78 days old, pretty on point.
EDIT: Forgot to say, Gorilla Glue already has more of a smell than Zkittlez, thought that was kinda interesting.
Hey there friend. Would you be alright with me offering some pointers? So cannabis plants LOVE heat and humidity. It is the buds that hate it. In veg we want to take advantage of this fact to help our plants grow along much quicker and more vigorously. In veg we can look for temps of 79-84 MAX with lights on & no more than 9 degrees less with lights off. If we allow for too much temperature swing between lights on and lights off while the plant is still growing vertically up to day 20 of flower, We will cause the plant to stretch ALOT which we do not want. So in veg & early flower, Keeping our temperature gaps nice and close between lights on and off is key. Utilizing humidity in our rooms during veg will also help out a lot with more rapid growth but we must introduce it properly. In our rooms we have our temperature and humidity set-points, But when we combine those 2 it forms a third set-point which is the most important & that is called VPD, Vapor pressure deficit.
I strongly recommend every new grower or old grower who has not learned it yet, To study and understand it & implement it into your room, Logging your numbers daily.
https://cerescann.com/importance-of-measuring-vpd/
For soil, We generally want to go for a PH of 6.1
This website does a GREAT job of illustrating it with a nice graph & very good detailed explanation for soil.
https://autoflowerseedshop.com/cannabis-ph-chart-guide/
As we briefly touched on before, During veg & early flower we want our temperature gap's nice and tight to avoid stretch. Why exactly our plants stretch in response to this is a genetic trigger being activated by the environmental stress essentially telling the plant the end of the season is closer than it really is. In veg & early flower the plant is still in its first stage of development which is to grow up wide and tall so when it produces seed, It can cast them out nicely. Remember, Whether we are growing our plants for seed or bud their genetic responses do not change as they gh sidedo not know any different. Once the plant has finished that first stage of growth by weeks 4-6 of flower with most strains, It is by day 20 of flower. Autoflowers you have to watch for it, But once the plant has finished this goal its new mission is to focus 100% on producing nice big flower clusters & to get very sticky so it can attract pollen to it successfully.
So once that vertical growth is finished, We actually now want to begin to expose our plants to larger temperature swings between lights on and lights off. This will help activate that genetic response and allow us to draw out the most potential from the strain utilizing the plants genetic triggers to environmental stresses at the right times. We can also take this a step further with doing light deprivation in the last 2 weeks using less light to simulate cloud cover. Very cold feed temps on the last flush is very good too. If you do not have them already, Get yourself a good PAR meter & thermal laser temp gun to monitor your plant top temperatures & optimize how much light your plants are getting. We are currently in the middle of producing a very comprehensive tutorial series for everybody to learn from & understand how to grow the highest level craft cannabis all on their own. If this interests you please check out our youtube and subscribe. The first 2 episodes are out the next one is coming in a few days. If you should ever have any questions or need any help, Please feel free to follow my profile and shoot me a DM. I will gladly help you with the pull down & make sure you get the best quality harvest possible as it is the most important step of the entire process. I really think you would benefit from our tutorial series on youtube, Our channel is linked off our main grow diaries profile. We just put up week 3 of plant life care so you got time to subscribe and catch up before the next episode is out! I look forward to seeing you over there and hearing your feedback to better help me shape the tutorials
Happy growing friend!
@LegacyMarketFarm,
Hi friend, thanks for your comment and tips, i appreciate and welcome any and all constructive criticism, tips and suggestions :)
Unfortunately there's not a lot i can do about the temperature swings at the moment, it's winter where i live and my grow space is in the garage (which is very cold and has no heating). I could run a heater/invest in temp control systems but to be honest i'm just a hobbyist grower, not too keen to spend any more money. Plus the garage has flooded before, so i don't feel comfortable running any sort of heating down there. The lights are only off for 4 hours, and the tent only gets down to the low temp of 13-14degrees Celsius for around an hour or so, i checked at about 2 hours into 'lights off' and the temp was 16.5degrees.
Node spacing seems to be pretty good so far, there's a lot of bud sites and she's (zkittlez) is growing about an inch a night.
So yeah, im fine with how it is at the moment :) and once winters over and things start to warm up a bit ill give photoperiods another go, until then its autos at 20/4 :) thanks again for your input.
@VertiGrow, thanks :) its a pretty popular strain apparently, personally its far from my favourite though, although that could be because of my stressed plant growing quite airy buds, still trying to unlock the solid nug achievement lol