Sour Stomper

01/02/23 Happy New Year!!! And it's a great beginning of the new year for this little one. I left her doing her thing on her own and left the town skiing with friends for 5 days. The first set of true, healthy green, leaves greeted me upon arriving back home. And she's off to a good start. I lowered the light a bit to keep it at 20 DLI for now and watered with the usual dose of Bud Candy for some added energy. 01/04/23 Things are looking great, her leaves keep developing and there are no signs of abnormalities. There is still enough water in soil to last another 3-4 days and nothing needs to be added at this point. 01/07/23 Fed 1L of water with Bud Candy and Great White. She reached her second week and shows no signs of slowing down. I also added humidifier to the tent to moisten currently dry environment and changed the light schedule to 20/4.

01/11/23 The second week of veg began this Sunday. During the past view days, she’s been growing extra leafs and extra surface area to get the most of the light. She also started to give out a bit of a skunky smell, which I don’t think I ever smelled when this early in grow, and no sign of blooming, yet - she might be a stinker, a new carbon filter might be needed. I adjusted my light to 30 DLI and watered lightly around her main stem with plain, filtered, water.

01/14/23 She ended the second week of veg with indica lush and healthy color. I top-dressed her soil with Gaia Green 284 at 15 ml/gal and watered with a mix of Bud Candy and Great White. I'm on a fence if I should do LST or Topping - it's a fast strain so I might stick to LST only. 01/15/23 This is it, she's topped! I did it! There is no going back. I never did topping with auto, so it's my fist and I think this experiment is worth a try. She should have enough time to recover before transitioning to flower but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed. 1/17/23 No sign of slowed growth and she didn’t seem to mind topping a couple days ago. I still hope she’ll transition into flower without noticeable delay. I watered with plain, filtered, water and a usual dose of Bud Candy mixed in.

01/21/23 She's getting into her first week of flower and she's doing just fine. Topping didn't seem to slow her down and I don't see any signs of deficiency. She's starting to show sativa features but other than that there is nothing else to report. 01/24/23 Humidity dropped this week to 35 but she doesn't seem to mind and keeps on stretching. Watered and adjusted LST to keep her even. No signs of problems so far.

01/29/23 She's in full bloom and looks a lot like sativa. Nothing else to report.

02/04/23 The 3rd week of flower and I guess she's fine. She looked a little droopy for a few days but organic Big Bud brought her back to normal self. I'll keep feeding her Big Bud every watering just in case for now. 02/09/23 She's looking gorgeous and seems to have no signs of deficiencies. I did light defoliation of dead looking fan leaves. Watered with the usual light dose of Bud Candy and Big Bud.

02/12/23 There is a noticeable slow down in stretching and buds are starting to gain weight. The temperature in the tent was up to 85F this past week, when the light was on, but she seems to have enough ventilation for a healthy grow. SolarXtreme 250 is a good light but it generates a lot of heat when I compare it to other LED lights. Thankfully humidity is low, otherwise I'd have to pull out my Mars to continue.

02/18/23 She seems to be almost ready for harvest, maybe a few more days. The occasional amber dots poke through the field of mostly milky trichomes but some are still clear, waiting to be filled with resin. The terpenes of this strain are something I've never smelled before - it's a sweet, grape-like aroma with somewhat light citrusy freshness. I'm familiar with other stairs from Mephisto but this one is a lot more fragrant than those I grew before, makes me want to be extra diligent during drying and curing process.

02/26/23 
With the right amount of amber and overwhelmingly cloudy trichomes, she looks ready for harvest to me. I switched to 48 hours darkness before her chop, on the 66th day. I don't have a lot of experience as a grower, but this strain has been the easiest one to grow, although, conditions in my tent were close to ideal this time. She starts as indica and by week 4 there is an apparent sativa stretch. She wasn't offended when I topped her, she seemed to like being trimmed in the right places and definitely didn't mind some LST. Overall, I thing this is the most successful grow I had so far. 
This week and hopefully some of the next week, if humidity allows, the drying process will go flawlessly and she'll retain her rich aroma to go into the curing jar. I'll try to post yield info later, although, it wasn't my priority at all. Thank you all who followed this grow and shared their knowledge with me.