Ninja Smash and Strawberry Starburst

I've taken everything I've learned so far and thrown it at these girls during veg. Defoliation, multiple toppings, cover crops (12 seed blend from build-a-soil), LST in the form of pulling the branches outwards so there more light in the center of the plants, and pruning branches that weren't getting light or would later on end up colliding with a branch or blocking a budsite. I only tied down most of the a few were left as they were because I felt it wouldn't be needed in their case. Now we're are in week 1 of flower and today is day 2. We have decided to switch to living soil, hence the cover crop. We ended up going with Gaia Green nutrients. We mixed them 50/50 on the day of flip and added 3 cups of organic worm castings per 3 gallon pot to refresh the soil. They've been in these pots for a few weeks and since I didn't transplant to bigger pots that was the best compromise I feel. This will be my first experience with Gaia Green and I'm excited to see how it goes. See y'all on the next update!

Day 12, the plants have stretched noticeably and I have begun to weave them into the net. Leaves look a healthy green and no signs of deficiencies. Next week they will get another dose of Gaia Green to prepare for bud formation and stacking. Lights are at 75% until the end of stretch and then I will turn them to full power.

Stripped and lollipopped most of the plants this week and will finish the rest tomorrow. Ninja Smash and Strawberry Starburst #3 seem to have the biggest caps and may yield the most, but we will see. The Gaia green seems to be working great and I will give them their final top dress on the next watering in a couple days. Lights were turned up to 100% at the begging of this week and readjusted them to 18 inches above the canopy so I don't get any bleaching or burning as they stack and bulk. That's it for now.

Update for 9/24. Day 28 of flower. The Ninja Smash and Strawberry Starburst #3 look to be the biggest yielders so far in terms of the cap sizes. The Gaia Green has been working beautifully and I'll definitely be doing living soil from now on. I gave them their last mid-flower feeding of power bloom, worm castings, and cal-mag on the 20th and from now on they will only be getting dechlorinated water until harvest.

Update for 10/1. Day 35. Sorry I have been busy and should have posted these sooner. This will be an end of week 5 update. The #1 Pheno is starting to move along quickly and is looking the 3rd best. The Ninja Smash and Strawberry Starburst #3 are still the stars of the show. The #4 still looks lackluster and low yield, but i'll reserve final judgment until I see it finish and smoke it. Unless the yield comes up quite a bit I will be cutting it first for sure. I only need 2 phenos to run again and really would just like to keep 1 unless both keepers are of the same level and I can not decide. Seeing some orange hairs and tips, but nothin fully covered so that's a good sign. On auto pilot now just water until finish and watching each strain to see which will get run again and which will not. 🎃

Update for 10/8. Still giving just dechlorinated water until harvest. The middle of the tent has started to fade from a lack of cal-mag. I have been going back and forth on when to cut off the cal mag so it still flushes out. I recently bought some oyster shell flour instead of liquid calcium so maybe I will top dress a tbsp or two at week 3 or during the mid flower feeding to see how that goes on the next run. Other then that the tent is looking and smelling great.

Update for 8/15. End of week 7, Day 49. Everything looks good and the fade has started throughout all plants. The Ninja Smash is looking great. It's pistils have more of a bright pink tint to them rather then the orangish/tangerine color that the Strawberry Starburst has. Of all 4 phenos of Strawberry Starburst the #3 is looking the best yield wise, has some purpling barely coming through on the edges of the leaves, and looks pretty frosty. I will wait to mention smells until harvest and reupdate at the end of the dry after I trim for the final update. In terms of yield the plants go as follow: SS #3 Ninja Smash SS #1 SS #2 SS #4 Frost: SS #4 Color: SS#4 SS #3 SS #1 SS #2 & Ninja Smash (Both no color on leaves yet) Easy to clone: SS #1, SS #3 and Ninja Smash - Yes SS #2 and SS #4 - Moderately easy; mothers were slower growers

Day 56. The plants are fading more and some dead leaves are popping up, as well as some more color, so I have been picking them off today as I see them. We decided to keep the #2 and #3 phenos of Strawberry Starburst because of yield, color, and structure primarily. They may be ran in the future to determine a possible keeper, but for now I will keep them both. Ninja Smash is definitely a keeper with its bubblegum pink/light pink hairs. I have decided to throw out my Ninja Fruit clone to make room for Ninja Smash. It has a unique smell which I loosely describe as a soapy, flowery, fresh water/crisp smell. Gonna plan for a 10 week harvest and start checking the trichomes at day 63.

Update for 10/29. Day 63 and we decided to chop the Strawberry Starburst and Ninja Smash as we needed flower and seen enough ambering starting to happen to justify harvesting. If I had enough flower to last me I would have taken them another week, but now I can see how they perform at week 9 and 10 and make my choice on flowering time from there. Trich pics are from day 60 of flower. So my assessment of the phenos was as follows. Ninja Smash - looks pretty frosty, has a unique smell like a floral/soapy/bubble bath thing going on at harvest. It looked to be a decent to high yielder compared to the others in the tent (3rd out of 5) even though it's a different strain. It had the perfect structure after being topped a couple times for the type of plants I'd like to grow. Another thing to note was this one had pink pistile hairs as opposed to the orange/tangerine pistils the Strawberry Starburst had. Only negative was it was completely lacking in color. It is a keeper for now and will take Ninja Fruits spot. Strawberry Starburst #1 - Positives: it had a good smell that was hard to describe, but was heavy on the body odor with maybe a hint of sweet fruit in the background. It had a good amount of color as well. Negatives - It had low-decent frost coverage. The 2nd lowest in the entire tent. It didn't have a great structure for my purposes. It and the #4 Pheno grew like a tumbleweed or desert shrub rather than a bouquet or tree shape. The yield was low as well (4th out of 5) and not worth the effort unless dialing it in could fatten the buds up more, but ultimately would have required too much time compared to the 2 winning Strawberry Starburst phenos. This pheno was not kept as a keeper. Strawberry Starburst #2 - Positives: this one was probably the best one at the end overall. Out of all 5 it looked to have the chunkiest colas and to be the best yielder out of all 5. It really filed in well at the end! It was the 2nd frostiest out of all 5. I believe this one also had the Strawberry Kiwi candy terps (Best smell, 1st out of 5). Almost dead on what I was expecting from this strain. And the structure was more tree/bouquet shaped and did well in my setup. Only negative was that it didn't show much color until after week 7. This Pheno was kept to run again and as a possible keeper. Strawberry Starburst #3 - Positives: This one had a lot of color. The 2nd most only outdone by the #4 Pheno. It was more of a Pink/Magenta/Purple coloring though. The yield was also the 2nd best. Nice Chunky colas that filled in nice at the end. The structure was great, bouquet/tree shaped and worked good in my setup. For 2/3 of the grow this one was the 2nd frostiest compared to the #4, but as it finished it quickly took #1 frost coverage overall. Negative: My only negative was this one didn't have a strong smell until the end of flowering. I believe it was more strawberry/watermelon/bubblegum similar to the #2. It was kept to run again and as a possible keeper. Strawberry Starburst #4 - this one had excellent color and in fact was the first to show color so I guess you could say it was 1st in the color aspect. Negatives: it was very frosty the first 3-4 weeks after stretch, the frostiest in fact. After that it slowed down and didn't seem as frosty as the end approached. In fact it was probably the least frosty out of all 4 phenos at harvest. The tumbleweed/desert shrub structure was also not ideal for my setup. I don't remember much about the smell of this one honestly so I will have to update after the drying and sampling😶‍🌫️. Either way it was not kept as a keeper. I will give a final update after the dry is done in 10 days or so and I start trimming some of the buds to get a better idea on smells. During trimming I can really smell them. Then I will sample each Pheno and see what I can tell about each one. Not the greatest at reviews, but figure I should at least continue to try so these journals are more thorough. Thanks for following along and see you in a couple weeks for the final update!

This strain was easy to grow. There were 2 phenos that stayed super short and wanted to bush out like a tumbleweed and 2 phenos that grew medium height and focused more on horizontal growth then bushing out. It took the nutrient schedule I gave it like a champ. No twisting leaves, burning, toxicities or deficiencies. Now for the smell descriptions: 1. Strawberry, Citrus, Lime - Strawberry Limeade 2. Strawberry Diesel - Very Gassy 3. Strawberry with floral notes - Strawberry perfume 4. Strawberry water/Strawberry gatorade In hindsight I should have kept #1 and 2, but #2 was the winner in the smell department. I must have sat there for about 5 mins amazed at the smell it had that gassy strawberry goodness. This strain is true to its name and all of the phenos I grew had some Strawberry to them with other smells mixed in.