Bloody Skunk

Week 1: They all sprouted and mostly look healthy. One has oddly shaped leaves. I watered once, about .5-1 liter spread around the 4 plants. Then I left for 3 days and I just got back. I have gradually increased the light intensity. The light is at about 45% power and it is 45cm from the plants. So far, so good!

Updates: Lights are on about 45% at 45cm from the plant. I watered 2L of water once during the week. I added a layer of fresh worm castings from my worm bin directly to the top of the soil. I also added some more biobizz light mix to cover the castings and fill up the pot. I put a layer of rice husks on top as a mulch layer. I didn't add more water right away so I think that after the next watering it will leach into the soil more. The Good News: Overall, things are looking good so far. The 3rd node is coming in on all plants. The one that sprouted last is still a little smaller. They have grown vertically only a little, but the new nodes are coming in. The Bad News: 2 of the plants are showing discolorations on their leaves. I see what I think are signs of thrips on the leaves. Apart from the discoloration I notice what look like tiny snail trails on the leaves. I had thrips once before and it looked similar. I sprayed with a mixture of potassium soap and neem oil to hopefully kill them (or whatever might be there).

Week 3: Growth seemed a little slow at first and the started to pick up. The 4th and 5th nodes are coming in. 2 of the plants are noticeably bigger and more vigerous. The 2 plants that showed leaf dicoloration are smaller, but they are still growing nonetheless. I watered 2L of water at the beginning of the week. In retrospect it was too much. 5 days later the pot still feels heavy. I would like to start adding nutrients, but I need the soil to dry out a bit first. Some of the leaf tips are curling down. I think this might be from the nitrogen in the castings that I added, so maybe they don't need anything extra yet. I sprayed the plant 2 times with a mixture of neem oil and potassium soap. Hopefully this will kill the thrips and anything else. Hopefully it works. I will keep spraying occasionally until flower. I started doing a little lst. I tied the tops down away from the center of the pot to keep the plants away from each other a bit. I only did it on 3 of the plants. The last one is really much smaller than the others, so I'm just letting it grow for now. I'm quite happy with how they are growing. I'm still not expecting them to get too big since they are sharing the same pot, but for day 19 they're a decent size.

Day 25: This week the growth has really started to take off. They are growing upwards and sending out a lot of branches. 2 of the plants are clearly different from the other 2. Why? Maybe because they are 2 different phenotypes, maybe they really did have thrips like I thought and this stunted them, maybe their roots were outcompeted in the pot, I'm not sure. Anyway, it's interesting to watch. 2 are very small with lighter colored leaves, and if I had only grown 1 plant and it turned out like that I would have been disappointed. The other 2, however, are growing nicely with darker green leaves. I thought that having 4 plants in the pot would get out of control, but so far it's been okay. I know they still have another 2 weeks of stretching to go, so we'll see what happens. It looks like the yield should be decent. I watered 2 times with 1 liter of water, not wanting to overwater again. Then I watered 2L again the last time, since the pot was light already. I added biobizz bio grow and acti vera to each watering. I continued to do a little LST by bending the main stem down and away from the center. The side branches I have only pushed down with my hands for the moment. Soon I'll probably tie them down too. I haven't sprayed the plant recently, so I'll do that during lights off. At the end of the week I watered 2L again and did some lst on a few side branches. The tallest plant is 30cm tall after doing lst. I can see the first white pistils appearing now.

Week 5: We're flowering and the stretch is on! She continues to grow upwards, although I have been doing some light LST. I have another 10cm of vertical space to let her stretch a bit more. The 2 tallest plants are 40cm tall and I have tied them down a bunch. The smaller ones I haven't tied down and they are still not quite as tall. Space is getting tight, but it's manageable. The short plants have very thin branches and I don't expect their flowers to get huge either. The taller ones are looking more promising. The flowers are dark on all of the plants. I started adding in flowering nutrients now: Algamic, Bio Bloom, and Top Max. I added a tiny bit of calmag 1 time. She is drinking a lot of water. It seems like I am giving her 2L every other day at the moment. I sprayed her with potassium soap and need oil again. This will be the last week of this spray. I switched the lights. I turned the bloom lights on and the veg lights only a little. It's at about 60% power now. I'll start slowly increasing it now. Update: She keeps shooting up, and I keep tying her down. Some of the stems feel a bit stiffer, so hopefully she's almost done stretching.

Week 6: She's done stretching. The canopy looks alright considering that there are 4 plants of different sizes. The purple flowers look beautiful. In the beginning of the week I couldn't smell anything, but by the end of the week I could detect a faint sweet smell after brushing against the flowers. I started giving her 3L of water every 3rd day and upped the flowering nutrients sightly. The calmag I only added once. This week has been cooler and more humid. Humidity in the tent got up to 70% at one point, but mostly has been around 60%. I added a second oscillating fan to improve airflow.

Week 7: What a beaytiful girl! Her flowers are starting to fatten and she has a weak smell, sweet with a hint of something skunky. I have been giving her 3 L of water with nutrients every 3rd day. 1 time only I gave her calmag. A few bottom leaves turned yellow on the bigger plants and I cut them off. Nothing has yellowed on the smaller plants. The weather has gotten hot this week. Temps are around 30C in the daytime. I switches to an 18/6 light schedule to keep the temps down in the tent, but I turned the intensity up to 100%. The lights are off during the hottest hours. I was playing around and popped some hangers into the corners of the tent. It gave me an extra 2-3 centimeters on each side and keeps the walls away from the plants.

The buds are growing and so is the smell, although it's still not very strong. It is a sweet berries/fruity smell and it's very pleasant. The buds aren't that big yet, but she's still has time to grow and bulk up. It's been hot here. Keeping lights out during the hottest time of day does a lot to keep it from getting too hot in the tent. Overall she looks healthy. I noticed some leaves are curling down and a few have burnt tips. At one watering I accidentally added double the amount of biobloom and I think that this is what caused it. The next watering I gave her was only water. It seems not to be getting any worse. I'll keep checking on her for signs of recovery or getting worse. The next watering I gave her nutrients again. A few of the pistils have started to turn orange.

Looking good. No problems to report. The smell is still weak but sweet with a bit of berry or grape candy. The buds are getting a bit bigger. The trichomes are a mix of cloudy and clear. Suprisingly, at least to me, all of the plants seem to be about at the same stage and look like they will all be ready at the same time. And just cause I like to tinker, I slightly decreased the amount of grow I gave and slightly increased the amount of bloom. I also lowered the light 5cm to be a bit closer to the plants. They started drinking water a bit more slowly and I am only giving 2L every other day (before I was giving 3L). Humidity also rose; for a few days it was around 60%. Now it dropped back down to around 50%. I think it's time to say it... 2 more weeks :)

I took photos with my lights off this week so that you can see the natural colors better. They're getting close... The trichomes are still a mix of cloudy and clear, but they are quickly turning more cloudy. I don't see any amber. I did see a few that look dark though, almost the color of the buds. More pistils are darkening and curling in. The leaves are turning more yellow and purple. Some fan leaves are drying and falling off. She's still drinking quite a bit of water. With the higher temps and lower humidity she's been thirsty. The smell is still pleasant, but mild. I don't know if the hot temperatures affect this at all. My last sweet seeds Jack 47xl auto was similar, with a delicious but mild smell. I grew that one in summer too, so it was also hot. Stoned rambling... I supported a couple weak outer branches with poles. I might add more. There are a couple big buds growing from this stems.

The last week! Chop time. Almost all of her pistils darkened. The trichomes are looking mostly cloudy. I didn't see amber, but some look purple. More fan leaves fell off. It was time. I chopped her on day 75. She smells mostly of berries, sweet with a hint of sour. On one plant I get a whiff of skunk occasionally, but it's a background smell at the moment. Overall, it's a great smelling variety, even though the smell is weak. I gave her only water the last few times, mainly because I didn't feel like mixing nutrients. When I harvested her I could see how weak the stems are. Next grow I think I'll add some diatomaceous earth again. Unfortunately the weather is dry and hot, so it's likely to be a quick dry. To slow the dry as much as possible I watered them the night before the chop, hung the plants whole, didn't wet trim, set the exhaust to 15 minutes on and 15 minutes off, and am not using any fans inside the tent. Starting temp and humidity is 28C/40%.

So this is the end of my multipotting grow. I don't know if I'll try it again. The yeild was almost certainly more than I would have gotten from 1 plant. The quality of the buds wasn't great though, and I wonder if multipotting affected this.