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Germinated in a moistened roto rooter, and this time it sprouted 3 days afterward, which surprised me because it is usually 4 days afterward.
This is to replace a Gorilla Glue plant from another grow journal of mine that recently died in vegetative state. Its whole life its stem was very thin and weak, and I went out of town for 2 days and came back and it was dead.
I almost planted this seedling in its rooter in the same pot of soil, but when I was preparing it and dug beneath the surface some to make room for the rooter I noticed what appeared to be BEETLES surfacing, so I decided to use a new pot of soil instead, in case it was the beetles or whatever kind of bug they were that killed my previous plant.
Coming along! Not much to see here, but thankfully no problems. Added more soil on top so it's probably more like 4" or 5" total, but I measured it from the soil level.
Coming along.
Grew 1 inch in height from 4 inches to 5 inches, which is right where all my previous grows have been at weeks 3 and 4.
Great weather this week with no rain!
So far, so good. Week-to-week vertical growth from 5 inches to 7 inches.
Still feeding Silica Blast to strengthen the stem.
Good weather all week and no rain.
Grew 2 inches taller from last week, and some white pistols now emerging! Won't call it "flowering" quite yet, maybe next week.
About the same height as my other auto GSC was at week 5, so on track!
Grew maybe an inch taller from last week, which is on par with my previous MSNL Auto GSC grow.
No other noticeable or measurable changes other than the leaves around the pistols that grew a little more.
Disappointingly, the sun has reached a point where my house and the trees completely cast a shadow over the plants, so this is no longer getting any direct sunlight. Also, it has been overcast/cloudy outside ALL WEEK. So this week these plant looks almost exactly how it looked last week. But because it is an autoflower it is getting closer to harvest anyway.
Because of the cloudy weather, I moved the plant into my closet under 80 watts of CFL's, which isn't nearly enough, but might at least be better than complete shadow outside, and this way it isn't exposed to the outdoor elements like insects and mold. For a longer-term solution, I ordered a Spider Farmer SF2000 grow light for finishing the grow inside. I've simply gotten too frustrated with all the outdoor grow challenges, and am very disappointed with how short and thin my plants lately have gotten. Hopefully the grow light will at least give it some growth as it reaches the end of its life. I'll start my next grow completely under the grow light, and if the plants are still thin and short I'll then know that it's a seed genetics or soil/nute problem instead. The grow light doesn't get here till Friday, so unfortunately this will be stuck about 2-3ft under about 80W of CFL light until then.
Maybe because it is so small I'll be able to re-use all the soil after harvest for the next grow.
My grow light finally arrived, and I didn't realize that the standard hanging equipment made it hang so low, so it is currently only about 12 inches or less from the tops of all the plants, which is probably too close. Going to tinker with it when I get the chance to find out if I can drill some new holes in the ceiling, relocate the mounts, and raise it higher.
It's on a light schedule now of 18 hours on, 6 hours off.
I was sick all weekend and also hurt my back badly, so lately unfortunately I haven't had the chance to give my plants the daily care they've needed.
Have to say though there has been some noticeable growth between last week and this week, so even though this plant is tiny it's still progressing. Grew from 9.5 inches to 11 inches and is clearly flowering more.
HOWEVER, the upper stems are turning purple and the leaves are drooping, which leads me to believe there could be an issue with their watering, lighting, or heat. Interestingly though, none of the 5 other plants that I'm growing are having the same issue. I'll stop giving this silica blast and only give it straight water. Considering that it's in a 5-gallon pot of super soil, it shouldn't run out of minimum nutes any time soon.
Speaking of the 5-gallon pot, I ordered 2-gallon fabric pots to be used INSTEAD, considering how damn small this plant is, and when they arrive I might try transplanting it.
Absolutely explosive growth from last week! I'm completely shocked. Apparently the grow light is massively more effective than depending on the sun this time of year. And to think 2 weeks ago I was really disappointed and thought this was done growing. Don't think I'll ever depend on the sun again for growing.
Noticed some of the fan leaves started to turn pale green or lime green from dark green, so I'm thinking it could be light burn, nitrogen deficiency, or just regular aging. This is in a 5 gallon pot of Fox Farm Happy Frog soil, which is already nutrient rich and probably an overkill size pot for an auto, so I'm thinking it's NOT a nitrogen deficiency, but just to be safe I started adding Fox Farm Big Bloom at 1/4 the recommended strength every other watering.
GSC continues its explosive growth. Grew from 8 inches to 11 inches in height. Tempted to LST since it seems to be re-vegging after changing the light source to the grow light, but not going to since it's technically in the flowering stage. Pistols are all still white, so plenty of growth to go.
What's interesting is how much this has grown at week 11 compared to my other grow where I didn't introduce the grow light till much later. May have mentioned this in a previous post, but I don't think I'll ever bother trying to grow using just the sun as a light source ever again!
Added CalMag at the recommended dosage (once per week) in case nute deficiency (not just light burn) might be contributing to the yellowing leaves.
Over the weekend a herd of ladybugs made their way through my front door, and others were hanging out on that side of my house, so I captured about 10-20 of them in a mason jar and set them free in my grow room since they're supposed to be relentless spider mite eaters. Hopefully they don't eat each other instead! At least a handful of them are still alive though and seem to be congregating on top of my grow light (photos attached).
Definitely some noticeable growth from last week, but not as much as weeks prior. May have gotten taller, but I forgot to measure today.
I plucked off some of the drooping yellow/brown leaves because all they were doing was blocking the rest of the plant from getting light.
Still quite pleased with GSC's grow progress. May have not branched out as much as in weeks before, but buds have been thickening. 99% of pistols still white, so doesn't even seem close to harvest time.
Planned to measure new height, but forgot again!
Continuing to grow really well!
Pulled some yellowing leaves off earlier in the week.
*** 12/21 EDIT ***
Main cola had bud rot so I had to chop it off. Hopefully the rest of the plant and my others in the grow room aren't also infected.
Main cola got bud rot, so I chopped it off. Hopefully the rest of the plant survives and there's enough to still harvest. Stems are purple-ing and leaves are getting some brown spots, but it's probably close enough to harvest to not worry about that.
There has been a hard freeze almost every night this week, so I convinced my wife to let me temporarily bring the plants and the grow light inside. With a less limited space I was able to raise the grow light to be much higher above the plants, so I also turned the light intensity up from 50% to 100%. Not surprisingly, they seem to love warmer temperatures and lower humidity, and haven't noticed any new pest or mold problems ever since. Whole house smells like weed, so will have to kick the plants back outside in the next couple days.
Leaves still browning and stems still purple, but this plant is still hanging on! More pistols are turning amber so getting closer to harvest time, but trichomes still all milky white or clear. As a reminder, lost the main bud a week or two from bud rot, so hoping to be able to still harvest at least something.
Shout out to my wife for letting me keep the plants indoors for another week, despite the hard freeze in the area being over!
The only buds that are left are basically leaning way over now, the stems are getting even purpler, and the leaves are getting yellower, so I'll probably harvest this soon. Hate to do it with a lot of the pistols still white, but the plant is clearly sick and hanging on for dear life. I put napkins down on either side so that the buds wouldn't be just laying in the soil.
In good news, I got a grow tent this week, which should help a lot with my next grow: specifically with preventing insect and bud rot issues which I haven't seemed to escape yet.
Growing this was satisfactory, considering that for the first half of its life it only had fall sun, and the second half it had a grow light. Had it been grown with the grow light completely I'm sure my yield would be higher. AND it got a nasty case of bud rot where I had to chop off the main bud which made up at least 50% of the plant, and this is all that I could salvage. I typically only smoke about 0.3g at a time of 15-19% THC bud, so if dry weight only ends up being about 3.7g and the THC clocks in over 20% I'll be happy!
It was sticky harvesting, which I'm guessing is a good sign.
*** 1/20/23 UPDATE***
After a week and a half on the drying on rack, dry weight is 3.9g.
DegenMJ
