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These are 3 seeds from Nirvana seed company. They are feminized Amnesia Haze. The seed selector wanted me to specify auto-flowers, but these seeds are not autos.
I received them with a large order 2 years ago that included Original Glue, White Widow, Amnesia Haze and Girl Scout Cookies. I Have grown all of them at this point and all have been pretty good genetics. I rarely have had a seed that didn't pop.
My ultimate plan is to back mix some of these old school genetics with new school strains to make my own personal mix, and hopefully train a strain to adapt more readily to the cold and dryness of my Michigan house.
These AH seeds are pretty vigorous. I started germination on the night of Dec 11, 2022 and had seeds popped by the next afternoon. To germinate, I simply placed in wet paper towel, folded the paper towel and placed it in a baggie. I then put a few folded bath towels over the bag to warm them.
Dec 12: Seeds popped and already grew a sizable tail in a little more than 24 hours. I placed the sprouted seeds in a solo cup filled with Organic Pro-Mix.
Dec 13: The seeds broke through the ground already overnight. These are fast growing! I placed them 2" under a t5 grow light.
Dec 14: Transplanted from the solo cup to my main 3x3 living soil grow box. Placed barrina grow light at 26" at 50% strength, per the manufacturer guideline.
Dec 15: Seedlings are a little leggy, but seem to have a good trunk forming. Turned light up to 75%.
About my soil box. My tent is 4x4 and has a 3x3x1.5 grow box that is made of felt and plastic tubing. I don't remember the name of the brand, but they can be found online, especially when searching indoor living soil.
I placed 3 rosemary plants in the box as well. They are propagated from a large plant I have. I usually also throw some ground cover such as clover to help invigorate the soil.
When a plant is finished growing, I cut it at the base and leave the roots to decompose and re-release held nutrients back to the soil. I amend the soil with only organic ingredients. I amended with coffee grounds 3 weeks ago in preparation for the plants. I also added a decent amount (around 1.5 cups) of blood meal. I also added a quarter cup of langbeinite and rock phosphate. Before adding the plants, I turned over the first couple inches of soil, making sure that these ingredients were mixed well before heavily watering and allowing the nutrients to leech further down into the soil. The organic pro-mix I used as seed start will also let the roots grow in more neutral soil.
When I created the box, I placed a lot of compost, worm castings and amendments at the bottom. I then put more of a neutral mix (coco coir and premium organic soil) with lobster, kelp and similar in the middle. The top layer, I add mostly bagged soil, sand, clay pellets and coco coir. The purpose of this is so that the top will dry out quickly preventing fungus gnats (my ultimate enemy). But also, so that the plant will progressively find more nutrients and stronger nutrients as the roots grow downward. The large size of the bed will ensure that the root mass stays warm and hydrated, even if the top layer is dry.
I have done one other grow in this box of White Widow and Original Glue. Both came out alright, but I wasn't able to get the environment perfect. The buds were large, but not enough terpenes. For this reason, I am using the heater and humidifier.
I am growing in a basement that gets a few degrees colder than upstairs, and remains teetering around 67-68 and dips to 65-67 at night in winter. For this reason, I have the heater on basically to boost the tent to 72 degrees. It shuts off at that temp, so it only needs to run periodically when the tent is zipped up. Current relative humidity fluctuates between 62-72. Next week, I will dial it down a little. Considering that my basement is extremely dry, keeping the tent properly humid is a challenge.
The tent is alright, it is what I have. I have added blankets to the top of the tent to help insulate. It does have small light leaks and is not greatly insulated. The fact that I am growing in my basement makes light leak less of a problem because the dark time starts when the basement is pitch black.
I also have an AC infinity S6 exhaust fan it is set to "3" on the dial. According to a rep from AC Infinity, below is the CFM outputs for each speed on the fan:
44 / 88 / 132 / 176 / 220 / 264 / 308 / 351
Calculating the tent space (in feet) as 4x4x6=96, I set it to the 3rd place, which should be more than adequate to replace the air.
Update: 12/15/22 - Day 3
Regarding the stretching of the seedlings, I did 2 things to correct it. First, I straightened the flaps of the grow light to create a more even distribution of light. After this (and also setting the light to 75%) the seedlings stopped stretching and have now begun to grow correctly.
I think it could just be attributed to the seeds growing quicker than other strains I have seen.
Day 5 / 19 December 2022 :
The plants are going well. After turning up the lights on day 3 to 75%, they stopped stretching and the leaves began growing larger. All three plants now have pretty big leaves. All 3 are also beginning to grow their second set of leaves.
Day 7 / 22 December 2022: Added 1 TBS of Fox Farm "Bushdoctor Wholly Mackerel" fish-based organic input fertilizer with 1/2 gallon of water around the outer rhizome of the plants.
January 3, 2023 :
Happy New Year!
The plants are doing well and steadily growing. They are getting tall enough that I will top them.
I had 2 fungus gnats in the tent 5 days ago. I applied a generous amount of organic food grade Diatomaceous Earth to the top layer of soil. I haven't seen any further activity other than a few dead ones.
The two plants on the right are doing great, while the one on the left is a little stunted looking. I adjusted the lights, moved them a few inches away and turned the intensity down a bit on Jan 2. The plants seemed to respond well.
On day 20, I topped all three plants.
Day 29 : January 13, 2023
Plants are getting bushy after topping. The two on the right are still doing well, while the third is still looking like a bushy runt. I may end up cutting one down so that I can get a more even screen growing the other 2 sideways.
Plants have started to smell, terpenes that are sour and notes of pepper.
Most of the nutrients used were clearance organic fertilizers I got cheap at the end of the season. For weekly feeding, I add half the recommended amount of agrothrive, sustane flourish, wholly mackeral and molasses. Water is applied to the root rhizome.
At this point, I am watering less often, but more deeply, to penetrate deeper in the root zone and help the top soil dry out. This will help prevent fungus gnats.
I did have a few fungus gnats a couple weeks ago, but a sprinkling of diatomaceous earth over dry topsoil helped kill them all.
The plants are doing well. I am going to take a few clones this weekend and flip them next week. Although I might do a light application of neem oil and organic insect dust one last time, to ensure that any pests are killed before flipping to flower.
I have been lightly training them by slipping branches under the netting and letting the plant spread out more. I will lolipop them a few days prior to the flowering stage.
I flipped the plants to flower 2 days ago. Plants seem to be healthy overall. There are 3 plants I labeled A, B and C and took a clone of each. Clone A and B pretty quickly rooted to the pro-mix without any use of rooting inoculation or special procedure (except that I put a cut in half 1 liter bottle over the cups to increase moisture).
Specimen C unfortunately flopped over and died as quickly as the other 2 rooted. The plant that is the "C specimen" has been the least genetically vigorous of the 3. For example C-plant grew too tall and skinny immediately after germination and then upon growing to a decent height, became bushy and uncooperative in training. Basically, this plant had a tendency to grow in a really stiff and confined manner, making it difficult to spread the colas out, because it seemed like the plant went into stress when I tried to correct the problem.
I want to breed the best characteristics I can out of a small pool of genetic material, so I will probably not continue with C anyway, unless the weed is really good. I took a second cutting from C which is currently rooting.
The A-Specimen is the exact opposite of C. A-Plant grew a perfect height immediately and grew outward in a steady and healthy way. B-Specimen also grew well, but not quite as vigorously as A.
I gave the plants a really deep watering after flipping. Next week I will also add some more Rock Phosphate and Langbeinite to the soil as dry amendments to feed the plants during late flowering. Most of the other nutrients the plant needs will still be bio-available in the soil as a result of regular replenishment of dry nutrients after growing that feature an NPK profile. I don't have any brand of fertilizer I am loyal too. I usually buy whatever is the best organic fertilizers available at the end of the summer season, because local plant nurseries and hardware stores here liquidate their stock before winter.
I also cut the plants I harvest at the base, allowing the roots to decompose in the soil. This has a dual benefit, first the roots will provide nutrients back into the soil and also that the rotting roots would create a honeypot trap that will attract fungus gnats to the decaying roots rather than the healthy plant roots (generally pests go after sick or rotting material before healthy plants). If I were to get fungus gnats, this would give me more leverage to handle the problem without the gnats immediately attacking the roots of the healthy plants. Fungus gnats are my enemy when growing and almost every grow I have to eliminate them. The best advice I can give is to check your plants every day and if you see even a single gnat, take immediate action. Any type of pest in a grow tent will quickly proliferate and ruin the product potentially. My action to prevent gnats is: use organic diatomaceous earth in a thin layer over the soil. The shape of D.A. is such that it is like a giant burr that gets stuck to crawling/flying insects and kills the insects as well as their larvae. But at the same time, it is generally recognized as safe for human and animal consumption.
I do recommend this with a caveat though: D.E. is basically a powdery substance. As soon as it becomes wet, it no longer kills the insects. It is therefore best to apply this over soil that is dry at least an inch into the soil. I don't use D.E. during flowering stage if possible, because the fans and inline exhaust fan in the tent will pull the particles of D.E. over the buds and contaminate the end product unless you wash the buds. I haven't read that D.E. is unsafe to smoke, but based on what it does to insects, it also isn't something that I want piling up in my lungs. It is okay to use during veg in my opinion, because once it is hydrated it gets damp and clumpy and decomposes into the soil.
Plants have had a major trim and defoliation. I gave them some holy mackerel fish fertilizer along with the previous dry amendments mentioned. I kept a lot of the trimmings and placed them in a jar of water to see what grew quickest. I also noticed that the clover is finally growing back! With the canopy it probably has not enough light, but we will see.
The plants are doing well and beginning to grow pistils and buds. The smell of the plant is very sour now when if you brush a leaf. I gave it the final supply of nutrients calculated based on half the recommendation on the box. I used the following :
1/2 measuring cup of Espoma Organic Flower-Tone
1/2 Cup Terp Tea Bloom Booster
2 Cups Down to Earth Azomite
1 Cup Seabird Guano
1 Cup Langbenite
1 Cup Rock Phosphorus
1 ashtray full of weed ash
After which, I thoroughly soaked the soil and pointed a larger box fan at the bed to help give oxygen the mycorrhizae.
Apologies for anyone who is regularly reading my journal if anyone is. I missed last week! So I am actually in Week 5 of flower rather than week 4. And these pictures of from day 37. So far I am just in the "waiting and watching" stage.
My buds are bulking up, although the canopy is not as even as I would like, but oh well, there is always something to complain about, right? I turned off the heater and turned up the inline exhaust fan. This is to decrease the humidity, which has now fallen to a steady 45-50% humidity level. My worry was that the heat would too drastically drop from removing the heater, but it seems the plant itself sealed in the tent is generating a bit of extra heat, so the temp has stayed at 68-69 F (~20 C).
I wanted to turn the heat off because I plan to buy a co2 bag to place in the tent during the last 3-4 weeks of flowering and I didn't want excess co2 in the same tent as a space heater. Perhaps I am a little crazy to use a space heater, but I found that if I use a piece of sheet metal (an old computer case door) to deflect and help radiate the heat, combined with the fans creating a cycle from the radiated heat, that it would be safer and healthier for the plants. I do have smoke detectors, co2 detectors and fire extinguishers in my house. I also work from home so in almost any case I would be aware very quickly of a fire. Nevertheless, it is a consideration and for that reason I try to use the heater as sparingly as possible. Once summer comes, it is easy because I can simply use less air conditioning to increase the heat.
But thanks to everyone who commented on my posts and encouraging me! I am still at it and I will try to keep my posts more regular at this point!
The plants are getting bigger now! This is week 6 of flower. They have been getting watered around twice a week. I haven't added any fertilizer. I might feed them once more with some soluble organic flowering nutes (terp tea).
The plants are growing in line with the original seed characteristics. The one in the right corner has remained steady growing and healthy. And although it is not stretching and growing as much as the other two, it is growing nice fat buds while maintaining a steady canopy. Now I just have to keep waiting. Waiting is the hardest part...
Il lollipop è consigliato farlo al termine della seconda settimana di fioritura ma rimuovere qualcosa che già siamo sicuri non produrrà molto non fa male! Sennò vedrai che al termine della seconda di fioritura avrai le idee ben chiare! Buona fortuna amico!!!
@Maryjane23, Thanks for the advice! Training and trimming are definitely two things I've been working on improving. I had plants before that took up the whole tent haha.
Green_Wizard
