Acapulco Gold 01 - Kind Soil, Organic

Started in a jiffy pod inside a germination dome. Transferred to a 5gal fabric pot with 5lb of Kind Soul on the bottom, and the top layer is Coco Loco.

Exhausting hot air out of this room now, temps will drop to a better level than last week. It is growing slower than its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same 4x4 tent. Each have their own light and grow journal.

I think she finally hit the Kind Soil as growth has sped up quite a bit. I just wish that I could get my CO2 higher, but in order to keep my temps down I have to exhaust air out of the room. It should be okay though, since there is a constant flow of fresh air. Day 20: Topping day. I'm following a manifolding (mainlining) tutorial, and this first step is a bit scary. But I'm giving it a go, and we'll see what happens. This is called Nebula's Manifold, and step 1 is letting the plant grow to 6 nodes, topping at the third node, and defoliating everything beneath it. If I have enough time with the Kind Soil's life, I will eventually create 8 main colas in a very short time this way. Let's see what happens. Credit: Nebula's Manifold from GrowWeedEasy by Nebula Haze, https://www.growweedeasy.com/manifold

EDIT: I am going to be doing Nugbuckets'Mainlining instead of Nebula's Manifold. I've been doing research on other journals, and the time loss is negligible if at all. Credit: Mainlining by Nugbuckets: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets Old comment: I'm only using the Recharge water every third or fourth watering. The manifold structure is coming along (see previous week's comment). The reason why I am going with Nebula's Manifold over Nugbuckets' Mainlining is because Nebula's is supposed to shave off about 1-2 weeks' veg time. If I end up with a lot of time left to the 2&1/2 month mark, next time I will do Mainlining. 2&1/2 months is the recommended veg time for a 5 gallon pot with Kind Soil. I try to update at least every other day with new pics throughout the week, so keep checking back. Nebula's Manifold, by Nebula Haze: https://www.growweedeasy.com/manifold

Everything is going as planned. She is a slow grower, but very strong, and doesn't need a lot of water. I also only use a little Recharge water every fourth watering or so. The 8 growth tips should be up above the upper fan leaves soon. I'm following Nugbuckets' Mainlining method to get 8 even colas, and so far so good. https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

She is a slow grower. Super strong and still a beautiful green, so I don't think she is unhealthy. Along with the stress of multiple toppings for a manifold, I have read that some plants in Kind Soil stop expanding their roots when they feel like they are content slowing down growth. So I stopped watering it for a few days to encourage the roots to start rooting around for water, hopefully causing them to stretch into the hot soil. It seems to have worked because she popped up about an inch+ the third day after not watering. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining method to get 8 even colas by symmetrically topping through the weeks, and it is going very smoothly. I'm done with the topping now, so all I need to do for a while is let it get taller. I have roughly 4-6 weeks of hot soil life to go until the recommended time to switch to flower. Hopefully she will start growing faster since she won't be stressed as much with the topping now. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs

Still growing slowly, but surely. Still strong and a nice solid green. She doesn't need a lot of watering. Topping is finished, so now it is just about vertical growth until there gets to be a point where defoliation is necessary. I decided not to use any Recharge this last week and a half since I want to let the Kind Soil do its thing without any interference, and plan to go another week and a half without it. If growth stops, then I will Recharge again - very sparingly. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin (the faster and better grower of the two) in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining method to get 8 even colas by symmetrically topping through the weeks, and it is going very smoothly. I have roughly 3-5 weeks of hot soil life to go until the recommended time to switch to flower. Hopefully she will start growing faster since she won't be stressed as much with the topping now. When the Blueberry Kush gets to be a good height, I will switch to flowering even if this Acapulco Gold is not as high as the kush since the gold is supposed to have a lot of flowering stretch. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal (updating tomorrow): https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining method: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

Still strong and a nice solid green. Growth has picked up quite a bit and we're getting somewhere now. Even had to do some more LST spreading to keep the manifold colas from crowding each other. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining method to get 8 even colas. I have roughly 2-4 weeks of hot soil life to go until the recommended time to switch to flower. When the Blueberry Kush gets to be a good height, I will switch to flowering even if this Acapulco Gold is not as high as the kush since the gold is supposed to have a lot of flowering stretch. Although, her veg stretch is starting to catch up. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal, top right of the sidebar or: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining method: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

Added a tomato ring, but actually took it off after the last pic because I want the colas to get higher first. Not as much growth as last week, but I'm okay with it because I'm not really in a hurry. Still spreading out the colas when they get crowded. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining method to get 8 even colas. I have roughly 1-3 weeks of hot soil life to go until the recommended time to switch to flower. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining method: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

Not much change this week besides a little bit more height and new growth. Kind of found my groove with the watering routine towards the end of the veg here. A little late because I’m still a noob figuring things out, but next time will be a lot better in that regard. I was hoping for more height out of this strain, but either got a stunted pheno or it isn’t as sativa as one would hope. Still looking forward to the final product though. It also doesn’t help that I shocked her by topping frequently to form a manifold. I’ll be better with that activity next time as well. If you compare the height between now and last week it looks like it hadn’t grown much, but that is because I had to pull down three of my colas to even them out with the rest of the crew. With Nugbuckets’ method of mainlining, he recommends to keep the top of all of the colas at the same elevation. I did start to see a calcium deficiency in a couple leaves, so I added calmag to the watering routine. The Kind Soil was supposed to not let that happen, but upon reading around in forums online, I found that calmag deficiencies seem to happen frequently with the combination of Kind Soil and LED lighting. Besides also using Recharge, I also started adding a dab of Mammoth P near the end of the week. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge and now also Mammoth P. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining method to get 8 even colas. Next week will be my last week of veg because I think I’ve almost plateaued with the veg height on this pheno, and it is also around the recommended time to switch to flower with Kind Soil’s recommendation for max veg life to still have enough nutrients to last through flower. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining method: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

This was a pretty good week, growth picked up, I’m doing better with watering, and I switched from 18/6 to 16/8 to prep for the switch to flowering. Each cola on this girl grew two inches, and with this being organic, I’m pretty satisfied with that. Honestly, both of my plants seemed to like 16/8 better anyway. I may consider actually doing that a few weeks before flowering next time because of their performance this week. This Acapulco Gold is also doing better now with calmag in the routine, and she is just about ready for her tomato ring as well. On the last night of the week I switched to 11/13 on the light schedule. According to some research, 11/13 brings out the individual profiles and terps of plants much more than 12/12, and there really isn’t much evidence to prove that this hurts yields as well. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, and now also Mammoth P and Camg+. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

I put up the tomato ring this week, but it still could have been too early as this plant is a slow grower. It is hard to spread out the colas without letting one get higher or lower than the others due to the width of the ring. Oh well, it’s all good, I might not get a large yield from her, but the buds will be covered with trichomes - even the fan leaves have been very sparkly with crystals the last few weeks. They will be some pretty buds. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, and now also Mammoth P and Camg+. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. My flowering light cycle is at 11/13 to bring out the individual characteristics of the plant. 11/13 has also been proven to accelerate the flower cycle. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

Did some defoliation this week due to the shading on lower parts of the colas. I probably should have done it the week before flipping to reduce shock during the flower stretch, but it’s okay because the plant responded really well anyway. The stretch was a little stronger this week which was nice. Buds are forming and she is looking pretty. I am looking forward to comparing the performance of this girl compared to the Blueberry Kush beside her - this Acapulco Gold has all 8 of her colas, and the BK has only 6 because of a wind burn accident. Yet the AG has shorter colas though. So it will be interesting to see which has the better yield. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, and now also Mammoth P and Camg+. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. My flowering light cycle is at 11/13 to bring out the individual characteristics of the plant. 11/13 has also been proven to accelerate the flower cycle. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

This week was okay, the buds are growing, and she smells like an xmas tree. The flowering stretch is still going, but I feel like it will be slowing down soon. Every single leaf is sparkly, especially the sugar leaves. I have been watching a lot of grow videos lately, and those that I watched from the Green House Seed Co. (who always have monster yields in their videos) stated that you can increase yields by letting your plant go dry after the 16th day of flowering for 5 days, then again at 28 days, so I thought I would give it a shot. Well, I broke down and gave her a sip of water after 2 days, and then fully watered on the 4th. The droopiness was too scary. Next time I will probably only go 3 days max with a sip on the second day, although this strain seemed to be relatively okay without water. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, and now also Mammoth P and Camg+. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. My flowering light cycle is at 11/13 to bring out the individual characteristics of the plant. 11/13 has also been proven to accelerate the flower cycle. I am looking forward to comparing the performance of this girl compared to the Blueberry Kush beside her - this Acapulco Gold has all 8 of her colas, and the BK has only 6 because of a wind burn accident. Yet the AG has shorter colas though. So it will be interesting to see which has the better yield. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

The buds are growing, and the flowering stretch is done I think. The smell is much like when you get pitch stuck on your hand from an evergreen tree. So now not a lot is happening besides me watering and ogling the plant. A little recap of my grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, and now also Mammoth P and Camg+. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. My flowering light cycle is at 11/13 to bring out the individual characteristics of the plant. 11/13 has also been proven to accelerate the flower cycle. I am looking forward to comparing the performance of this girl compared to the Blueberry Kush beside her - this Acapulco Gold has all 8 of her colas, and the BK has only 6 because of a wind burn accident. Yet the AG has shorter colas though. So it will be interesting to see which has the better yield. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

The smell is becoming a deeper pungent earthy pine smell. The stems and structure of the plant are very robust, I might not even need to support the colas, but we will see in the next two weeks. In the beginning of this week I did another two dry days to see if it really does increase yield (h/t to Greenhouse Seed Co. grow videos) - I kind of had no choice anyway since I had to go out of town Fri-Sun. The buds are getting larger, and I’m hoping that some of the internodal spacing on the thinner colas will fill up in the upcoming weeks. The photos look a little washed out this week because I was experimenting with the camera brightness on my phone. I don't think I'm going to be doing that next week. The plant is less yellow looking in person. A little recap of the grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, and now also Mammoth P and Camg+. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. My flowering light cycle is at 11/13 to bring out the individual characteristics of the plant. 11/13 has also been proven to accelerate the flower cycle. I am looking forward to comparing the performance of this girl compared to the Blueberry Kush beside her - this Acapulco Gold has all 8 of her colas, and the BK has only 6 because of a wind burn accident. Yet the AG has shorter colas though. So it will be interesting to see which has the better yield. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

We’re getting closer to the end, this could be the last full week or two thanks to the 11/13 light cycle. The crystals are covering the buds and sugar leaves prominently. The smell is a deep earthy, mossy, odd smell. In my opinion, it probably isn’t popular for its aroma, but it does look like it will have a high THC content. The leaves are starting to get more fall colors, and I’m even seeing a little bit of purple in the leaves. The purple coloring might only be because night temps are dropping. Recharge recommends to stop Recharging during the last two weeks, so I have discontinued its use - this is probably because of the molasses content. A little recap of the grow, which is also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, and now also Mammoth P and Camg+. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. My flowering light cycle is at 11/13 to bring out the individual characteristics of the plant. 11/13 has also been proven to accelerate the flower cycle. I am looking forward to comparing the performance of this girl compared to the Blueberry Kush beside her - this Acapulco Gold has all 8 of her colas, and the BK has only 6 because of a wind burn accident. Yet the AG has shorter colas and thinner buds though. So it will be interesting to see which has the better yield. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

This is the last veg week. The buds plumped up a bit this week, and I ended up having to prop up 3 of the colas. The aroma got better as well, it went from an acrid mossy smell back to the piney smell it had before and a hint of sugary sweetness. The crystals and resin are coating the buds and sugar leaves. I only have been using pH’d water and Mammoth P this week as well. The leaves are surprisingly showing quite a bit more fall colors than I thought they would. It is the only plant in the tent now since the Blueberry Kush in my other journal has been harvested . The harvest post for the BK is almost ready, just waiting for a final manicure pic, which should be ready tomorrow. A little recap of the grow, which was also growing alongside with its Blueberry Kush cousin in the same tent in my other journal: I'm going all organic with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, and now also Mammoth P and Camg+. I'm doing Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. My flowering light cycle is at 11/13 to bring out the individual characteristics of the plant. 11/13 has also been proven to accelerate the flower cycle. I am looking forward to comparing the performance of this girl compared to the Blueberry Kush beside her - this Acapulco Gold has all 8 of her colas, and the BK has only 6 because of a wind burn accident. Yet the AG has shorter colas and thinner buds though. So it will be interesting to see which has the better yield. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal: https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets

I will be improving my ventilation and watering system next time around. I learned a lot about topping, defoliation, and watering properly this time, so I am looking forward to using the experience I gained on this round for the next one. I think with synthetic nutrients, it could have been a better growing experience. This was an all organic grow with Kind Soil hot soil and a very minimal use of Recharge, Mammoth P, and Camg . I did Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique to get 8 even colas. My flowering light cycle was at 11/13 to bring out the individual characteristics of the plant. 11/13 has also been proven to accelerate the flower cycle. Compared to some other Barney’s Farm Acapulco Gold journal’s, the flowering time did seem to be faster. The trichomes were difficult to gauge - there were amber ones early on, a lot of mixed spots of clears/opaques/ambers, and there were still even a bunch of clear ones at the end, but since there were so many ambers at the time, I had to pull the plug. Compared to the Grower’s Choice Blueberry Kush that grew beside here, she did have a larger yield. Although, the Blueberry Kush had only 6 colas because of a wind burn accident where I had to remove 2 of them, and the AG had all 8 of hers. Yet the BK still had taller and thicker colas though. After some calculation of averages from what the BK produced with only 6 colas it would have actually had more, somewhere around 71.65g instead of 53.74g. Aside from all that, the Kind Soil for me isn't super fantastic. It works really well for some people, but I think maybe it lost some of its oomph being shipped to me. I also had a lot of negative pressure in my tent, so it kept things really dry, which also isn't good for living soils. So next time around I will install a better fan that has a temperature controlled variable speed. This will also help with my CO2 retention. I believe fixing these issues will help increase my yields. Also, for “grow room size”, the open space in my tent was much larger than the plant itself, so I think that it is unfair to rank the g/ft^2 size based on tent space, so I used the actual square area of the plant itself for grow room size instead. For example, if I were growing in a 20’ x 20’ basement with a plant that is only 1’ in diameter, it wouldn’t make sense to rate the plant’s production off of the 400ft^2 area. Also check out my Blueberry Kush journal (the clear winner of the two in taste, smell): https://growdiaries.com/diaries/17098-blueberry-kush-01-gcs Nugbuckets' Mainlining technique: https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets Stay tuned for my next grow! "The Church" by the legendary breeder, Green House Seed Co., and "Holy Grail Kush" by the powerhouse breeder DNA Genetics. It will be a "religious experience" - agnostically of course 😜 .