Fast Buds Big Bud Auto <3

This is my first time trying Fast Buds genetics, I'm pretty excited... keen to see what all the fuss is about :) its about 5-6 days old as of 29th of December. Unfortunately I'm still flowering another plant so have to use HPS as opposed to MH, I'm contemplating going back to LED though. It'd probably be fine without it but I've got a DIY humidity dome over it for the first week or so, it's my "tried and true" method hahah. Pretty impressed at how fast it exploded once germinated. I had it under a wet paper towel for a night or so, then into soil in a small pot (didn't have room for the big one at the time), it stretched to like 2.5-3 inches in a couple of nights. I repotted today and buried it a bit to minimise the stretch. The repotting was pretty straight forward so hopefully it wasn't disturbed too much. Pot is a 3 gallon Air Pot. I won't be doing any training this time, haven't had much success and I'm feeling lazy lol.

Day 12ish Pretty happy with how fast its growing, go fastbuds huh :) Had a thrip issue really early on :-/ applied some neem, checked later that day and the damn thing was back already hahah. Diatomaceous Earth seems to have done the trick though, I was pretty liberal with it hahah. Cleaned up the tent, got a new extractor fan too - AC Infinity T4. It's amazingly quiet. Probably a little under-powered for the size of the tent but I'm happy. My old fan was driving me nuts with how loud it was.

About 20 days old. Super impressed by how fast shes growing! averaging about an inch a day now. Already starting to flower, pre-flowers popped out at around day 14 I think, pretty early but judging by how big she already it's gonna be a good plant :) Having trouble with thrips again :( I squished 3 while taking these photos. After the photos I brushed diatomaceous earth over the whole plant, hopefully that will help. There's a decent layer on the top of the soil too. I don't get it, there's plenty of other plants (peppers, mint, stevia, basil) in the tent for them to attack but they go straight for cannabis, very frustrating. Gave it a tiny tiny feed of some nutes, not really worth logging. EDIT 15th Jan My new light arrived, 250watt LED using Philips Lumileds 2835 diodes (not to be mistaken with Samsung 2835's). I wanted to try something different to the norm (samsung), should be interesting. I'm pretty sure it's a no-name brand from china (even though it says GHP on it), should be fine. cleaned the tent up a bit too. I made a mixture of diatomaceous earth and water in a spray bottle and sprayed the plants, wish i didn't :( looks like someone splashed concrete over it, pistils are burnt, and the worst part is that it's not even stopping the thrips! ridiculous. Ah well, it's still growing fine and fast so hopefully it'll still produce good buds... and grow out of the markings.

Day 26-ish. Not quite 4 weeks but almost. Fed her first dose of nutrients, 1ml of both Cali Pro Bloom A & B. I'm a bit gutted that she started flowering so early :-/ hopefully she keeps stretching and growing more bud sites, she's 14.5 inches and still growing, seems to have slowed down a little bit though. The stuff on the leaves is some husks that contain predatory mites, I got them in an attempt to get rid of the thrips, fingers crossed!

Day 33ish She's coming along nicely, albeit small. Growth is slowing down at 16.5". I blame the super early flowering. Ah well. Will be a nice main cola at least, and I'm pretty impressed at how far along she is so early. I've noticed the temps are getting lower too, which is strange cause we're in the middle of summer here and it's been getting really warm. Looks like I'm winning the war on the thrips too, I'll definitely be ordering more of the predator mites, as a preventative measure this time. I've been feeding her most/all waterings, she can definitely take a lot of nutes. Hoping some new growth will start soon, leaves I mean, cause the current fan leaves etc are stiff and pretty fucked by thrips and diatomaceous earth.

Day 41 She's officially stopped growing, peaking at about 17inches. Not a huge plant, nor will she yield much. But regardless the buds look quite nice, not much smell yet but i'm sure that will come. I've been battling humidity issues, 70% is way too high for flowering... So I've reinstalled my HPS light, running it at 250watt. Pretty much instantly fixed the humidity issue, with it now resting at about 58% and 28-30degrees Celsius. I'm a bit gutted about having to use HPS again to be honest, I went with LED again to get power cost down. So, because of this, I have the HPS on a timer 10pm - 10am (my schedule is 2pm - 10am), so it's only going on at night time. Makes me feel a bit better lol, that and it'd probably be too hot for it during the day anyway. Big Bud is doing okay, despite everything. Feeding her every 2nd watering. Cut a couple of old fan leaves off, they were like sandpaper, doubt they were working all that well. Oh yeah, thrips are back in the tent again :-/ I've ordered more predator mites.

Day 48 I've changed to having both lights on for the same length as each other, 18/6. I've dimmed the LED down to 200watts though, and have flowering plants on the HPS side and veg/seedlings on the LED side. Chugging along nicely, thrips are down to a minimum thanks to predator mites, unfortunately I got some of the grain they come in stuck in sticky buds lol, ah well, no biggy. main colas pretty big and chonky - 6.5", and the other colas are getting to a decent size. Might get an oz, just (but probably not). I'm looking forward to eventually moving away from autos, the small yields are getting to me lol. Smells nice, sweet. I'm not super impressed with the strain, like, it's nice and all but seems to be lacking a bit of character ya know? maybe that will come out as it gets closer to harvest. I've stopped using nutes, just water from now on. I've noticed some of my previous grows have been harsh and I'm suspecting it's because of using nutes till the end and/or not flushing.

Day 55 I'm pretty amazed at how fast this has grown, 55 days! crazy. Trichomes are nice and milky with scatterings of amber. I've taken off the tie downs and it seems like shes starting to bulge out of the side colas, so I'm going to keep her going... see how much more bulk she'll get. Could harvest now based on trichomes but I'm not in a rush. No more nutes, just water. I let her get a bit too dry the other day, and you could really tell, droopy lifeless leaves etc. It looked like she got some extra "stress trichomes" lol. She definitely looked a bit frostier after the stress from no water. I'm probably seeing things but I'd like to think i'm right hahah.

Day 59 (Harvested yesterday) Decided it was time, I had planned to let her keep growing to see how long I could push it, but trichomes were around 70/30 and I didn't really want any more than that. Crazy fast grow from seed, wish I had grown 4-6 instead of just 1 but hey that's life. Nice smell, really nice trichome development (hard to show in photos). The Calyx's turned purple :) for a second there I thought it was mold lol 80-ish gm wet, pretty shitty yield, I'm gonna guess it'll be 20gm or so dry. Unlike most of my grows, this won't be going to edibles or concentrates. Keeping this for a decent cure and smoking. I'm quite sure the thrip invasion played a role in the small yields. I'm just glad it produced anything. Will report back in a few weeks after drying and curing.