So Cal Outdoor All Coco: Lava Cake Week 8 and Marathon OG Week 7 5-15-20g pots
Progress:
Lava cake is about ripe with dark pistils, mostly milky trichomes, but limited sign of amber. Fan leaves dying off. Except the main colas, the buds are now mostly supported by the nets, as they’re just so dang heavy.
Marathon OG is ripening with about half buds almost ready and about half still with white pistils. Fan leaves getting purple. Trichomes are starting to get milky. The big OG is spread out with 40+ smaller colas and doesn’t need a net yet. Much different plant than the lava cake which is a lower count of straight up heavy top colas that needed support weeks ago.
I included a few pics of a purple push pop plant that recently took off. I almost gave up on her…
Nutes:
Flushing Lava Cake and tapering down Marathon OG. The 350ppm is just tap plus molasses. I flushed straight ph’d water 2 days and then reintroduced molasses
Pests:
Getting hammered by the cats; although I have had dozens of hits, the damage has been limited to 1-2 buds each hit and not the entire cola. But they did hit a lot of my good tops, so that’s disappointing, but expected at this location.
Talking about pests, no visits from the ghetto birds so far. They usually arrive Sep 25.
Wishing fat buds and sticky trichomes to all.
Im suffering from moth caterpillars too T_T. I go through my plants every morning and squash every caterpillar I can find, but they've taken out a lot of nice looking buds. How is your BT regiment working? I've never used or heard of it before your post. Is it safe to smoke plants that get sprayed with BT?
@Todzilla, Ya this is my first time growing outdoors, so I wasn't too familiar with outdoor pest and how to stop them. I've just been killing them by hand, but its so time consuming and those fuckers are hard to spot. Only when I see a brown patch on my buds is when I know there's a tiny fucker eating and shitting inside.
I'm going to get some BT asap. I thought I could stop them by hand but they've fucked up a good chunk of some nice tops. Time for the nuclear option.
Yeah, before my plants started budding, I was contemplating if I should wash or not. But after seeing all that caterpillar shit, I'm definitely going to give em a nice bath.
I'm out here in Whitter/City of Industry.
@CriticalBush420, I spray for caterpillars using BT every morning. I soak the buds good. Buy it at Home Depot in 8oz concentrate for $10.
My first time I lost 40% due to cats, that was about 8lbs…
Once I started spraying I got losses down to 10-25%.
In some grows, like in one city away, I see zero cats. In another I saw a 100% losses to cats. The cats love those top colas.
BT is approved for use on cannabis in CA. I’m guessing almost all commercial outdoor grows in ca must use this stuff.
Just understand that the cats will die only after eating the BT, this means you’re only limiting the cats from taking out the entire cola; you will likely still have losses, just a bud - and hopefully not the entire cola.
I wash my buds at harvest for contaminants. You should see what comes off … yuk. I suggest all outdoor buds be washed.
BTW what city/area?
Cheers TC
@Northern_Ent,thanks man, especially coming from a seasoned grower like yourself.
I saw some of your other grows and they’re ALL quite impressive. I’m sure I can learn a lot from you!
I’m in the SoCal Long Beach 🏝️
Looking good. You might apply BT in the evening rather than in the morning because it’s photodegradable. Using before dark gives it time to work. BT is a soil bacteria so it makes sense that it doesn’t appreciate direct sunlight. Cheers.