Spring-Summer Second Run Mixed Strains

Just started the diary and trying to understand how to insert no standard stuffs (nutrients with grams, multi strains entries, ...). The height is a sort of average of the plants, while some of them (more sativa behavior) are getting higher very fast (HB 67cm, DSD33 59cm) . Small LST on one of the hulkberries, mostly to keep height under control and have similar heights (trying ...) in the tent. Defoliation at the end of 1st flowering week. Royal Gorilla and Jack Herer a bit behind in their growth, considering the potential.

Chronicle of the week The plants stretching a lot in this second week of flowering, still on grow nutrients for now. During next week I'll monitor the grow rate, which decreased a bit during the last days. Probably the change to bloom nutrients already during the week. The following is the comparison between last and this week heights: HB2: 56 cm --> 67cm HB:67cm --> 80cm RG:38cm --> 47cm JH:37cm --> 47cm DSD1: 59cm --> 71cm GK1: 43cm --> 51cm DSD2: 51cm --> 64cm TD2: 48cm --> 62cm GK2: 48cm --> 57cm TD1: 30cm --> 42cm 11R/G1 51cm --> 66cm 11R/G2 48cm --> 59cm WG:18cm --> 27cm The small LST to contain HB is not very effective (need to be done earlier). Decreased today the lamp distance, now 50cm from DSD1 and 40cm from HB (which seems doing very well). In general, during this week the plants stretched a lot, and at the same time the pistils increased noticeably.

Chronicle of the week During the first days of the week the plants continued to stretch a bit, but with less intensity than before. Since the support for growing is not needed like before, I decided to change nutrients in the middle of the week and go fully with the Bloom. During day 2 important defoliation to have a better air circulation and light access. Buds start to form, the change from last week is visible. Another change of the week is the weather, now constantly under 30 degrees and more constant humidity (50-65). This is the last update on plant heights: HB2: 67cm --> 74cm HB:80cm --> 88cm RG:47cm --> 52cm JH:47cm --> 53cm DSD1: 71cm --> 75cm GK1: 51cm --> 57cm DSD2: 64cm --> 69cm TD2: 62cm --> 71cm GK2: 57cm --> 63cm TD1: 42cm --> 43cm 11R/G1 66cm --> 72cm 11R/G2 59cm --> 63cm WG:27cm --> 34cm Depending on the strain and plant, still quite some growing at the beginning of the week, decreasing in the middle. Lamp: After the discussion (check my question) about the lamp's distance, I bought a lux meter to understand better the tools. Lamp specifics says "Mounting height >= 15.2cm" which seemed a bit too close (also the opinion of most commenters). Lumen range in flowering should be between 45k and 65k lumen, measuring around the higher plants showed values around 45k-50k (lamp distance 50cm), sensibly decreasing around lower plants. Lowering the distance (27cm from HB, around 35cm from DSD1) ends up with values around 57k. Since the reaction was very good, today I lowered the distance again (15cm from HB, 25cm from DSD1 and HB2, 30cm from the other plants). After some hours I can see no issues, also HB doesn't show signs of light stress for now. I'll continue monitoring the reaction and react accordingly. Homogeneous distribution of heights: This is not for experts with master SCROG skills, LST, and so on. Multi strain cultivation, both sativa and indica hybrids, is not easy and at some point it could be too late for a decent LST or a cut could be too stressy. A solution is to put some support (plastic boxes, rigid pots) under the lower plants, to have the tops at a similar distance to the lamp. It seems a very obvious solution, but you know, sometimes you just don't think at it. Nutrients: I'm following the suggestions from the producer (Talpa Substrates, from where I also bought the pre-fertilized soil) for this second run (first one was a bit a disaster, as you can see under my nickname, I'm a newbie, at least for indoor), which says to use the Grow during the pre-flowering. It makes sense because the plants need support for the high stretching, and also the composition supports a bit first flowering (15-30-15). The Bloom is 7-26-32 plus micro elements. Another point of confusion during the first run was the PPM/EC values, which I screwed up (as the Ph, and other stuffs), so with this run I decided to follow the producer's specifications (on Internet there is all and its opposite regarding the topic). During veg I started slowly and incremented to reach around 1.47 EC, everything went well. With Bloom I started with PPM 840, EC 1.6 (specifications EC 1.76). I also use Talpa Calcium Boost (in veg too) and after reading again the instructions (!!) I found out that the best way would be to use the NPK fertilizer till the required EC, then add Calcium. Did some tests, and Calcium added 220 PPM to the 680 PPM of fertilizer, with a total of 900 PPM and 1.8 EC (which is already slightly more than the specifications). Given my previous experience I want to avoid a block, but at the same time I want to use the nutrients to their max possibilities. The process is to increase to PPM 900, EC 1.8 for the first cycle, then increase the nutrients by 50 PPM. The upper threshold, if the plants react well, is EC 1.76 with only the NPK nutrients. Plants/Strains: TD2 All the seeds are feminized, but this plant was behind all the others in showing the female pistils. Right after germination, the leaves were deformed and it took a while to start the normal grow. At some point I noticed small suspicious bags, but decided to keep it and wait. After a while, female pistils showed up, and the plants developed well. During day 4 I did a close check and found still underdeveloped male bags, but only in some lower old branches. I'm not completely sure if this is hermafroditism, or the sex was not fully determined at the beginning (sounds weird, but the initial deformation suggests some genetic/seed issues). I'll check daily. 11R/G This experiment comes from my first run, where a hermafrodite golosa impollinated an 11 roses. Golosa is an indica dominant hybrid (80%), while 11 roses is indica. Both plants started to stretch vigorously during pre-flowering (the original strain are low size, small pre-flowering stretch), in a way that remind more a sativa behavior. The leaves also seem more on the sativa side. I did some research to understand from where this behavior come from, but there are too many possibilities in the parenthood. Anyway, nice experiment, curious to see the result. Conclusions: I'd say that the biggest lesson learned during this (and also previous) week, is "know your tools", whatever they are (lamps, nutrients, strains), and use what is needed to better understand them. This is important especially in case the used brands are not well known and documented. In my case lamp brand is mostly unknown and I had some issues in understanding the distances, the lumens and so on. The lamp is full spectrum, the specifications show the coverage, but the distance (15.2cm) appeared too close also for the more expert growers of the forum. For the nutrients I have been probably too much on the safe side, given the blocks of the first run. I'll keep testing both nutrients quantity and lamp distance, to get closer to the optimal values. This will definitely influence the next run.

Chronicle of the week The week started with lowering the lamp distance: after 7 days of monitoring no signs of over illumination. I increased the amount of nutrients: - previous week was around 900PPM - increased twice by around 50PPM - first increase didn't show issues, but the second one (around 1000PPM) depicted some slightly over-fertilization on some leaves of the Hulkberries. A second round with 1000PPM showed that also most of the other plants started to suffer a bit. - I will go back to around 920PPM during the next week, depending of the results the optimum amount could be around 950PPM I think that one of the challenges, with respect to nutrients, is to find a balance in multi-strain cultivation. There is different resistance from different strains, different heights and dimensions, and different flowering periods: all of this contributes to have different needs (same could be applied to the light). Checks to find hermies continues, unfortunately I found GK1 to be hermaphrodite, somehow advanced. - taken out of the tent - tried to remove the male parts and evaluate what to do - day after I found new stuffs, too many, and decided to cut it - the hope is that the pollen did not spread, especially while taking it out - deep checks on TD2 as well, found something but manageable for now. It seems some pre-flowering behavior that might stop Overall, the plants are flowering very well, the smell increased, the buds are growing. There are differences though, in the development: - both Hulkberries are a bit behind in buds dimensions, which is normal because of the longer flowering period - Royal Gorilla and Jack Herer are also slightly behind (with respect to DOD SI DOS 33 and Glookies for instance), more on the pistils (still all white) than in the buds dimension

Chronicle of the Week - Decreased a bit the PPM to find the optimum value. It seems that 940-950PPM could be ideal for most of the plants. Still some sign of over-fertilization on the HBs (did some cycles with less PPM), but not increasing, so hopefully the new quantity is ok. - H2O needs to be tailored a bit more to each plant. Some of the smaller (Jack Herer) have signs of too much water. - Total check to look for herms, overall it seems manageable now The buds are growing, it is a pleasure to look at them day by day. The heads are building up very fast, at least for the plants with shorter flowering period. Most of the plants follow a similar period. The two Hulkberries (65% sativa) are sensibly behind, buds are building up but there is a lot to go. The Jack Herer shows long whitey pistils and growing buds. Also here more time required. The small Wedding Gelato, with all the initial germination issues, grew up with two main branches, which are slowly becoming single buds with rocky consistency. Finally, the experiment with the 11 Roses crossed with Golosa. The plants grew in a similar way, but they are now showing different colors and possibly periods, one very greeny, a bit behind in flowering, and other more orange and faster flowering.

Chronicle of the Week This week the H20 has been tailored to the needs of each plant (following the very good advise "listen to your plants"): the bigger Hulkberry got 1l (2 days cycle); the Wedding Gelato gelato got 0.6l; Jack Herer, Royal Gorilla and Tangeringe Dream #1 got 0.8l; all the other 0.9l. Checks for herms ok, it seems that there is no "real" herm. Only concern now is bananas, which are difficult to catch (I'll try anyway of course). The buds start to weight, I had to apply some supports, the big Hulkberry in particular has some long and thin branches that risk to break without them. In general the tent is well fit (even too much), which means that the plants support each other to some extent. This week the weather changed a lot here, with rain and decrease of temperature. Humidity increased in a very sensitive moment of the cycle, but overall air circulation is very good, also in the lower parts. Temperature decrease could play a role in the last weeks and harvest, which lead to the next topic. Some plants seem to be closer to the end of the cycle. Wedding Gelato, in particular, shows already some full amber thricomes (only few though), she is probably ready for the final flush (during next week or start of the next one). Dos Si Dos 33 #1 and 11Roses/Golosa "orangy" also show some "amber points" inside some thricome (just few). To be monitored closely.

Chronicle of the Week: The week has been dedicated mostly to end of cycle management, which is not that simple for multi-strain cultivation. In particular, it seems that the decrease of the temperature affected sensibly the end of cycle. I already started flushing the plants closer to harvest (day 45): - Wedding Gelato - Dos Si Dos 33 #1 - 11Roses/Golosa "Orangy" Today (day 49) started flushing of: - Tangerine Dream #2 - Dos Si Dos 33 #2 Some plants start flushing during next week, probable candidates: - Glookies - Jack Herer (this one needs additional checks, flushing could be delayed a bit) During the week (already started the previous one though) I have seen some brown leaves in the plants closer to harvest (check my recent question). The answers I got so far are inconclusive (some say start of botrytis/but rot possible, some natural end of cycle fading). I tried to check closer the bud (they are very dense and rocky, not easy), I did not see anything worrying, although I'm not an expert on that. It seems that the brown part stops at the visible part of the leaves, the connection of the leaves are green). I added some picture of the brown leaves, taken with the microscope (not sure if it is possible to derive something, the quality is what it is). I decreased a bit the PPM by decreasing Calcium (since it takes some time to be effective, it is probably no longer needed, with the exception of the HBs) I'll probably harvest the first 3 plants this coming weekend (Wedding Gelato for sure, check again the other 2).

I must say that after the initial issues with the seed, I decided to keep her just to see what would happen, and I'm glad I did. The plant looks like having two big main branches, with very compact buds, forming two big colas. I will report later about this little monster, after the drying and curing period.

Chronicle of the week Day #51, harvest time for 3 plants: Wedding Gelato, Dos Si Dos 33 #1, 11Roses/Golosa "orangy". I must say that I didn't take into consideration an ealier harvest, which will happen for all the plants at the end (from 1 to 2 weeks earlier with respect to the "normal" cycle). I initially wanted a longer flushing period (6 days here), but anyway, the plants where ready ... The nuts have been decreased a bit (around 870/880PPM), mostly due to the Calcium reduction. The main activity of the week has been the trichome's check, to decide the start of the flushing period (or harvest). At the beginning still 7 plants on nuts (5 flushing), while today only the Hulkberry is going through the last(s) cycle of nuts.

This plant shows amazing colors at the end of the cycle. The cycle has been shortened a bit with respect to the normal one. Probably there are many causes, but I think the sensible decrease of temperature, after a hot summer, could have played a role, and told the plant to finish earlier. On day#58 harvested the second Do Si Dos. She shows quite different colors with respect to the first one, different phenotype? I will complete the info here after drying.

Chronicle of the week The week started with all plants but the Hulkberry in flushing. On day#59 started the flushing for the her too. On day#58 harvested Dos Si Dos #2 and Tangerine Dream #2. On day#63 harvested 11 Roses/Golosa "Greeny" and Glookies #2 Bananas: found some developing on Hulkberry #2, but given the close end of the cycles it doesn't really matter. Next appointment for harvest is probably day#65 (or 66) for 4 plants (living only Hulkberry for few days): - Royal Gorilla - Tangerine Dream #1 - Jack Herer - Hulkberry #2

This is one out of two plants started as an experiment, after a Golosa herms impollinated an 11 Roses. I already went to the ancestors before, to understand some growing pattern which I did not see during the previous run, in particular the differences with the other plant. Well, there are too many and the research was inconclusive. Probably some answers after drying and caring. On day#63 harvest of the second one, the 11Roses-Golosa "greeny". Looking at the growing and flowering patterns they seem different fenotypes.

Very curious to try it. This plant was at risk at some point due to dome male bags, which fortunately was only temporary. Tangerine Dream #1 didn't pose any particular issue for the whole cycle. I will update later both here and in the smoking section

This plant grew very compact, with the buds forming a big cola. Still thinking of her sister, that I have to cut because too much herms. A lot of resin, the small leaves like sugar, very sticky. Now dry and cure, come back with the results.

As for the other plants, just some "big" leaves trimming and then in the dry room. At the end she didn't grew tall, but the resulting buds are sticky and compacts.

Jack Herer has a lot more potential for growing than what I achieved. This is the problem of the combination of a newbie grower and multi-strain cultivation, where plants have different growing patterns. Nevertheless, the result is a tiny version of a very beautiful plant, with compact and sticky buds. The harvest arrived on day#65, after 9 days of flushing.

Chronicle of the Week On day#65 harvested 4 plants, Tangerine Dream #1, Royal Gorilla, Jack Herer, Hulkberry #2 Hulkberry is now alone in the tent, but just for another 2 days: planned harvest on day#72 During the week Hulkberry has been flushed with water with Ph 6.2 Today last 12 hours of light, then 2 days of dark before the harvest.

Hulkberry has been in my head since the beginning, when I decided to go for multi-strain, because she is the most sativa-dominant of them, and with bigger height potential. The decision to go for flowering depended on them (both plant), they started to grow very fast, I did some small LST on one of them but at some point I was scared that the pre-flowering would have taken them too close to the lamp. The buds are less compact with respect to the indica-dominant sisters, but bigger. Hulberry #2 harvested on day#65 Hulberry harvested on day#73