AkatsukiVirtue - Liberty Haze

Hi Everybody, I go by AkatsukiVirtue, or Virtue for short and I have a treat for you guys. This journal is going to follow my experience growing Liberty Haze for the first time. A little about me, I’ve have had a few friends that grow with Soil or Hydro. I heard soil is good for its forgiveness, low cost, and less noise pollution from the air pump. However, my buddy said his first DWC was so responsive and fast growing that I should try it so now you guys get to experience the ups and downs with me. So here’s week 1 [8/31/18]: -1/5 Germination Success (Liberty Haze already showing toughness 💪🏾) -Placed Seed in Rockwool -Let Sprout for 2 days then placed under 24hr quantum Board 135w light dimmed to the lowest @ ~19w (No need to waste money right? 😉) -Seeds Cracked and Cotyledons showing -First true leaves developing very nicely and second set are developing well too. -Using Plain PH 6.0 water for the first week. -Container is a 3 gal bucket with 2 1.75in air stone and air pump delivering 127gph -Delivered 1 dose of super thrive (Only time I will be giving this dose through grow) -Temperatures have been decent at 80 - 82. I have a temp century control switch with turns my on 4in inline to vent the room. For breeze I have a tent fan blowing at low speed (Just enough to build the stem/branches). Plans for Week 2: -I will start using Blue Planet Nutrients Farmers Pride 3 Part Organic line. -Purchasing a TDS meter. -Purchasing new 3 gal bucket for weekly bucket change. Concerns* -The air pump’s hum isn’t too loud, but the pressure it delivers to the stones might be a little too much because the bucket is vibrating the enclosure. I want to turn it down but I think my baby loves it. Maybe I should turn it down for now since the roots aren’t that developed yet and over time I’ll keep increasing the pressure 🤔. I’m glad so you could join me!!!

Week 2 Update: I poured some water from my faucet into a 2.5gal bucket and let it set for 24hrs to dispel any chlorine. Checked the Ph and it was sitting at 8.64. This is to be expected as tap water here is is more basic. Purchased some CalMag yesterday to add to the nutrient mixture. The reason I’m adding CalMag is because I noticed a slight yellowing/light green condition on the leaves. I wasn’t really worried because I figured it was due to the fact the seedling is not really a seedling anymore and has most likely used up the nutrients it had in its reserve. Added Blue Planet Nutrients Grow/Micro/Bloom. PH’d the solution at 7.21. Added a little PH Down to knock it down to 6.46 and placed the lid back on. Thoughts: I’ve been doing really well so far. My baby’s height is short which is setting a good foundation for the SCRog screen in a few weeks. I have the Fan and Pump running 24/7, but this week I changed the lighting schedule to 18/6 so now the rest period should boost growth even further! The temperature outside is getting cold which means my temp controlled exhaust fan does not need to run as much which saves me money 😉. Also, my theory is that keeping the light on 24/7 for the first week allowed me to keep my baby short so when I add the dark period it won’t stretch as much. Changing the water really sucks so I’m thinking of purchasing a water pump. This will come in handy during flowering when I put the SCRog Net up and on future projects too. Stay tuned! Mid - Week Update: My baby is growing rapidly so I figured it was time to Top. We were up to the fourth node with the fifth emerging, but I took all that down so I can set the first and second sets of side nodes as my SCRog foundation. I left the big 2nd set fan leaves so growth isn’t completely stunted. This baby should bounce back by start of Week 3 which is also the week I’ll week double the nute strength. Check out the pictures!

Week 3, Liquid transfer pump has been purchased and it makes a huge difference! Now I don’t have to carry the bucket anymore and when I add the SCRog net, I don’t need to worry about damage. I’m very happy 😃. Got a Kill A Watt meter to test the current draw of my quantum board and found that I was drawing about 30w which isn’t bad, that’s like a current draw of less than 1 incandescent bulb, and the spread extends its reach. I’m very optimistic I’m doing this right, fingers crossed 🤞🏿. Old water PH at 6.75 which went up .30 since a week ago. I went from 2.5ML per Gal to 5ML per gal. This jump is because more roots are present and I know my baby will use them right up after the observation from last week. Got my new PPM meter and read my solution at 660 after nutrients were added for this week. The first half of this week is just my baby recovering from the topping and defoliating I did to her towards the end of week 2. The foundation is being set for four big pillars of bud generators and I can’t wait to start tying them down. Plans for Week 3: I am going to continue sculpting the canopy with some garden ties. Stay Tuned! Mid week update. My baby was experiencing some curled leaves and discoloration on the tips of leaves. I solved the curling by lifting the lights up to about 10in from 5in before and still at ~ 30w people! Brought out the garden ties to help bush out for the SCrog net.

Week 4, Hello followers! Sorry I did not update on time like I normally do. Obligations filled my schedule, but this week I wanted to save time in changing the nutrient solution. I decided to go to my local grocery store to fill up my gallon with the filter water. I ended up spending less than 50 cents and got 2.5gal I’d filtered water. This decision actually turned out to better because the PPM is way lower than tap water obviously and the price is not bad since I only have one plant. Wow, my baby is going to be a stealthy beast! So I messed up you guys...I forgot that the filtered water had a lower PH than my tap water, but I still put the same amount of PH down. When I PH’d it, it was at 3.28 😱 so I tried to salvage what I could and add tap water to bring the PH back to 5.8. Hopefully the nurses are enough. The humidity is VERY high in the box and I can see condensation on different spots which is not good! I purchased a 100 cubic feet cordless, rechargeable dehumidifier in hopes of bringing it down. The grow space is about ~28 cubic feet so hopefully this is enough. Finally, I continued to tie down branches as you can see in the photos. There are going to be so many sites that will fill up the SCRog screen. Plans for Week 5: I might be switching to flowering next week depending on how the humidity and growth rate goes. Stay Tuned! Update 1: The passive dehumidifier is not working and there is still a lot of condensation around the space, I purchased an active dehumidifier to help so hopefully it makes a difference. Also, my mess up with the PH did not seem to affect her because she bounced back super quick! Update 2: Lowered Temp controller threshold to help get excessive heat out faster and lower humidity. I tied down more branches to help slow vertical growth and give more light to lower branches. My SCRog net is going to be loaded with all these sites! I am definitely going to start flowering Week 5.

Week 5: Hey Guys, I switched to the 12/12 this week. Increased my nutrient amt based on BPN line flowering stage. I super cropped some branches so they can grow strong with buds (see pictures). I also created my SCRog frame and WOW it looks sweet! Fingers crossed I yeild high! I purchased a carbon filter and it has already started doing wonders. Not saying the smell was bad before, but I’d rather only smell it when I open the space. I also got a new fan to blow over the branches. We’re looking good 😎 Stay tuned! Plans for Week 6: I’ll continue adjusting and filling up the SCROG net with sites as I keep it short. Going to also take cuttings soon for next cycle. Update 1: SCRog net installed! Update: Wow the SCRog net is reqlly filling up with sites. Noticed consumption of 1.25 gal per 3 days. I assume this demand will only go up. Introduced a silica nute temporarily at 5mil per gal to help strenghten damaged branches and make them stronger Update 2: OMG the SCRog net has fully filled out and I’m running out of space!!! I hope vertical growth stops very soon otherwise I’m screwed....kinda. I also notice that for about 1 or 2 days mechanical timer’a pegs were out of wack. This is probably due to such a packed space and the ease of knocking a peg down. Luckily I found it on time so hopefully it doesn’t do any damage! Also I trimmed up under the canopy and took clones from worthy side nodes. The clones are sitting in a cup of plain water with a drop of superthrive in it. I’m hoping to keep the clones like this for as long as possible.

Hello Friends, I’m sorry I haven’t updated you guys with information on the grow for this week. I have been seriously busy and on top of that I had left for a 2 day vacation only to find that my baby has stretched into the light 😱 This is really terrible because I lifted the light thinking the stretch would stop this week, but no! I am almost completely out of space so fingers crossed 😬 it will stop stretching by the end of the week otherwise I’ll have to take measures that will hurt yield. Also, I have been reading up on other people growing this strain and they were saying that it takes longer to flower than listed. So far no buds have started forming so I’m thinking that there should be the initial buds starting during the 5th week based on other journals I’ve seen. I have been changing my nutes slowly to bloom nutes. I purchased a new bigger fan to help tackle the heat atop of the canopy. This has helped reduce the humidity drastically to 50-60%. It is also getting cold here in my area so the temperature has been more controlled. I have also noticed water is being used at a rate of about 1 gal per day so I have to utilize my liquid transfer pump to put more water into the reservoir often. At a point I noticed some leaves were getting slightly discolored. To combat this, I started delivering half nutes per gal and so far it has helped a lot! Stay tuned to see what happens next! Update 1: Looks like she is starting to slow down on stretching *fingers crossed*. I haven’t done any pruning or shaping. Just been bending and rearranging. I think I am going to try redirecting the angle on my LED lamp so I can hit bud spots that otherwise wouldnt have gotten any love. Hopefully this will make up for any los in yeild from stretch. I’m planning on redirecting the light every other day so each side can soak it up for at least 2 full days!

Hello friends! Just completed the 3 week of flowering and the WOW this strain really loves to stretch! If I had more room that would not be a problem, but this is still a microgrow so I decided to take a drastic step... I cleared out the leaves and branches under the SCRog net and afterwards remove the net and rearranged all the branches underneath. I’m not going to lie, I lost some branches in the process, but I figured I have so many tops, it should not be affected that much. If anything, I’m more worried about the plant bouncing back. This strain takes longer than expected to flower so I figured I still have time to recover. We’ll just have to give it a week and see! The nutrients have stayed the same the last 2 weeks. My water frequency is still 2 days. I installed a passive intake booster fan to help reduce humidity and so far it has been working great! Than you all for staying tuned! Catch you mid week!

Hello Friends, I must say this strain has been full of so many surprises. I went drastic last week and removed leaves and re-tucked all the tops. It looked really ugly, but I thought “There’s no way this plant could stretch back to what it was before.” However, I was wrong! The stretch continued and now I’m at the same point I was last time still trying to keep the tops below the light. It just makes me think that if I hadn’t went drastic last time, I probably would have ran out of space. So far I’m still keeping it contained and the hairs have finally started showing. I am at the last tier on my line for nutes and it will be at this NPK ratio for the rest of flower. My local store gave me a sample of bud sweetener that I have slowly been adding as weeks pass. We’ll see if that helps. I might have to re-tuck again, but i don’t know yet. Hopefully it stops stretching. Stay tuned! Mid Week Update: Looks like stretching is finally slowing down/halting. 😪 I’ve had to be creative in trying to lift the light as much as I possibly can so hopefully she’ll give me a break and just start fattening up. I’m still slowly using the bud booster and patiently awaiting for trichomes to show up!

Hi friends, I’m still at war with this flowering beast and I’m winning! Every other day I’m coming up with new strategies of keeping it under the lights and short enough to not stretch out of control. Base Nute amount is still the same and I increased the Candy booster to 5mil per gallon. Enjoy the photos!

Hi Friends, This week, I took some time to redistribute my branches so that they receive steady light coverage across. I found out that there were many fan leaves that had died within my canopy so it had a high risk for causing mold! I immediately removed them and cleaned up the grow space. After removing the fan leaves, I redirected my fans and tied down any branch that might be too big. The trichome production is really starting to take off and I can finally smell some of those sweet tones that is spoken of with this strain. On the bright side, growth seems to have really slowed down! There has definitely been a lot of stress with this plant, but I have learned patience and resilience so hopefully in 6 more weeks I’ll be harvesting my beautiful big colas! Nothing has changed in the watering schedule. Enjoy 😉

Hi Friends! It looks like stretching has finally stopped 🛑 !!! I am so happy with this! This has been a long road and I’m so happy to see the end coming about. At 7 weeks into flower everything is looking good and the trichome production is going fully. The nutrient solution has stayed the same for these past few weeks, but I have boosted the bud candy x2. Now It’s just a waiting game. One thing I’m starting to get concerned about is humidity. It seems humidity is rising when I wake up in the morning. I think it’s because the exhaust fan isn’t running on a constant loop and is only dependent temperature sensor. This means that when the temperature reaches the threshold it turns off even though the humidity might still high. I think I can fix this problem by introducing a new timer the works on a loop. Enjoy the pictures and a new video 😉. Till next week!

Hello Friends, Thanks for tuning in! This week there wasn’t much that needed to be done except keep the water level at a good elevation. I have done other maintenance activities like picking out dead leaves and separating branches from each other to promote air flow. These babies smell absolutely strong and fruity! So wonderful, but it made me find a way to reduce the smell drastically. What I did was reset my fan timer to 2min on 10mins off so the fan is running an extra min to help bring the smell down further by scrubbing through the charcoal filter. My next purchase is going to be a microscope 🔬😉. Hope you enjoy!

Hello Friends, I bought a pocket microscope to help me view the trichomes as I enter into the last few weeks of flowering. I think I have about 3 weeks left (hopefully) but every thing is looking good. I have really been trying to keep up on the maintenance of removing dead leaves because I don’t want to give mold any reason to start especially after what we’ve been through. Close up shots coming soon! Hope you enjoy!

Hello Friends, I hope all your grows are going well 🙂. There really isn’t much to update for this week. Liberty Haze is coming to the end of its life cycle and I’ve been closely watching the trichomes with the new microscope. Looks like the ratio is Cloudy/Clear right now, and I’m waiting for it to be Milky/Amber. I have also started reducing the nutes to half strength so I can complete the grow with a simple 1-2 day flush. Smell is very strong right now, very citrus and lime like. It makes me smile, but for purpose of stealth, I increased the output frequency of my odor neutralizer dispenser. Hope you enjoy!

Hello Friends, I hope all your grows are going well 🙂. This week is harvest week!!! I’m so excited, I’ve been carefully watching the trichomes and most of them are cloudy/amber. The smell is off the charts! I’ve stopped giving nutes as of 3 days into this week so only water until I harvest in 4-5 days. Stay tuned for the harvest report and thank you all for following me through this journey! I have a few strains I’m considering for my next grow which will be starting next week. Can you guess which? On a side note I’ve decided to take 3 lower branches from the bottom of Liberty to try to re-veg and preserve this is pheno. I know it’s late in flowering, but I’m hoping it works out! I’ll keep you all updated. Hope you enjoy!

Hello Friends! Did you think I was going to leave you hanging without an update? Heck No! 🙂 Here’s my results, I harvested about 4 Oz from Liberty, the remaining trim I used to rest to create some really good hash, about an once worth so in total 5 Oz harvested off my baby! It has fully dried now and is in curing. The smell is very sweet with a pine like tone similar to a nutty cake and funny enough, a lil bit of farts. Haha Anyways enjoy the pictures and thank you all for sticking with me on this.