Mango Smile

She's off to a great start! On day 8 she already has 2 nodes and I can see the third ready to come in. She is a little taller than it looks in the pictures. She was looking a little wobbly in the wind from the fan, so I added more soil to her base. I watered her for the first time on day 8 with 1 liter of water and Activera. I moistened the soil before planting, so there was plenty of water already in the soil. I started with the light on about 15% and have now upped it to about 25% power, veg lights only. These lights have cobs and also some red and blue lights. I had more pictures from the beginning of the week, but don't have access to them at the moment. Eh, all plants look pretty much the same at this stage anyway. The humidity with my exhaust fan on normally is around 35-40%, but I left it off most of the time this first week and it has kept the humidity in the tent around 55-60%. Occasionally I turn it on for a bit to get some fresh air in there. There is also an oscillating tent going all the time in the tent.

She's still growing, but it seems to me that she's growing a little more slowly. I'm not sure why. The leaves are small and the stem is thin. The leaf color is good though. Branches are forming in the nodes. At the end of his week I added a layer of worm castings and covered it with rice hulls as mulch. I watered 2 times once a liter and once 2L. It's already feeling lighter. I've kept the light at 50cm with about 35% power. Now I will increase it to 50%.

This was a good week of steady growth. I topped her on day 17, so that's why the vertical growth wasn't too much. I have limited vertical space and top to control the height of the plant. I cut the 6th node off, so she is left with 10 side branches coming in. The side branches have grown noticeably since topping. Some of them even appear to have little branches forming on the branches :) The stem has gotten thicker and the leaves are growing bigger. The color of the leaves is beautiful. I gave her 2L of water twice during the week. This week I started to add biogrow at 50% strength. The tips of some leaves might be curling a tad. I'll keep an eye on it. The light is on 50% strength (veg light fully on and bloom light off). I haven't adjusted the light and it is about 47cm from the plants now. I am going to let it grow until the distance is 45cm and then try to keep it there.

This week she started growing much more quickly. The side branches grew a lot and the branches grew some new branches too😁. I cut off the bottom pair of branches, because they were growing very slowly and they were very thin. I might have gotten a few buds from them, but it would probably never be much. There are still 8 main side branches growing. I also cut off the bottom set of leaves, because they were sitting in the soil. I started LST also this week. My tent isn't that tall, so I try to keep the plants from stretching too much. So far I've only had to tie down the top 4 branches, but the others are catching up quickly. She hasn't shown any signs of flowering yet, so I might have another week of veg and then the preflower stretch to deal with. This strain can get pretty big from what I've seen. I'm getting really excited! I let the light get to 45cm from the plant and have kept it there. I watered the plant twice with 2L of water each time. I'm continuing with the same nutrients as last week. The leaves have a beautiful color and no new leaves are showing any clawing. The leaves are also a bit thin, thanks the sativa heritage I suppose.

Finally some really strong growth!. This week she took off in all directions. She continued to grow sideways and her secondary branches are growing upwards. She grew taller as well, but nothing crazy. I noticed her first flowers in the beginning of the week. I think she still has another week or 2 to continue stretching more. The trunk isn't particularly thick. I haven't needed to adjust the LST ties at all this week. The canopy looks decently even too. She's starting to bump up against the walls now. Today, at the end of the week, I switched my lights from 100% veg and 0% bloom to 10% veg and 100% bloom. The lights are cobs, but there are some red and blue lights as well and the red and blue are what changes. I'm not sure how much difference it makes really. The light is still 45cm from the plants. I've been adjusting it every few days. At the end of the week I also introduced bloom nutrients: Biobloom, Top Mas, Algamic. And I continue to use biogrow and activera. I follow the biobizz feeding chart, but use 50% the dosage. Temps have come down slightly this week and humidity has risen as well. The weather here is the reason. We're at the end of summer, so the heat is finally starting to fade.

Streeeeetch! Sometimes growing cannabis is just so beautiful to watch and easy to do. She has shot up this week and continues to grow upwards. I think she still has 1 more week of stretching left. A couple of the branches in the corners are a bit taller than the rest, but otherwise the top is relatively even. The flowers are just starting to grow and I can see small clear trichomes forming around the flowers. I gave her 2L of water with nutrients 3 times during the week. She's drinking a bit more than before. I have kept adjusting the light to keep it at 45cm. I also slightly increased the power. It is up to about 70% power now. I'll keep increasing over the next week. Other observations: There are a couple of bottom leaves that are yellowing. I also see very tiny yellow tips on many leaves. I'll keep an eye on this as I adjust nutrient levels in the future.

Well it looks like the stretch is over. I haven't seen her get any taller in the last few days. The flowers are beginning to form and the sugar leaves are beginning to glisten with the growth of young trichomes. I can finally notice a faint scent coming off her. The branches are very stiff. Some lower leaves continue to yellow and fall off. I upped the nutrients slightly in response. Otherwise she looks healthy. I raised the light a couple cm and increased the intensity to 100%. With it's thin sativa leaves the light reaches all the way to the bottom, and I'm hopeful the lower bud sites will also develop good buds.

Things are going okay still. The buds are just starting to fatten up a bit now. The smell coming off the plants is still weak but noticeably stronger than last week. It smells fruity and sweet. There are more yellowing lower leaves that dry up and fall off. I tried upping the amount of biogrow to increase nitrogen, but it resulted in some slight clawing of some leaves, so I decided to back off. I'm not really sure what else to do for her. It's not terrible so far. Many people defoliate a lot more leaves that what have fallen off. I guess a positive way to look at it is automatic defoliation. However, I would love to know what is causing this. Anyway, the light is up to 100% and I also increased the light schedule from 18 to 19 hours. I increased the nutrients following the biobizz chart, but giving only 50% of the amount.

On the positive side, the smell is getting stronger and it smells fruity and delicious. My partner said it reminds her of passionfruit. The buds are also starting to look at little frostier :) On the other hand, the yellowing continues to spread and a couple leaves fall off each day. I'd like to think it's just fade, but I doubt it. Increasing the nitrogen caused clawing, so I'm just gonna continue as normal with the nutrients. There are only 3-4 weeks left anyway; I think she'll make it. The buds seem on the small side still. I'm hoping they will bulk up quite a bit more. The weather is getting cooler here now. I increased the light schedule to 20hrs today. She continues to drink a lot. I've been giving her 2L of water with nutrients every other day. More coming soon... It's still midweek.

Coming soon...

I'm feeling more optimistic this week about the grow. The buds have continued to fatten up, and the trichomes are starting to get milky. They're still more clear than milky though. New white pistils are coming out in many places and even the bottom buds are developing. You can see a slight purple fade on some of the leaves. The temperatures have been a little lower, and I think the cob lights bring it out too. The smell has changed a bit. Before it was totally fruity, but now it is a fruity smell with some funk too. I enjoy it. She is drinking less water now. I think I gave her 2L every 3 days. I haven't given her anything in 3 days now and the soil is still moist. I PHed the water using test strips. It came out between 5 and 6, and I added ph up to make it between 6 and 7. More fan leaves continue to fall off, but she's looking alright and I don't think she'll go for more than 2 more weeks.

The last week! I gave her water twice, the second time without any nutrients. I was checking on her daily and she could have come down any day this week. I am about to chop her down today, on day 82. The trichomes are looking totally cloudy, even down on the lower buds. The pistils are 95% brown and the leaves have faded. Most of the fan leaves have fallen off by now. She's smells fucking delicious! It is a fruity tropical smell, not unlike a mango. I can't wait to try it in a couple weeks...

I'll grow this strain again soon!