Matanuska Thunder

Welcome back my friends! Here, I'm going to be testing out the famous Matanuska Thunder from MSNL. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 PROGRESS UPDATES 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 She popped up without any problems in the light coconut coir. We'll let her roots develop for a few more days and then up-pot her into her final home. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 LINKS 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 🔗 https://www.marijuana-seeds.nl/matanuska-thunder-seeds

Day 11 - September 14, 2023: She's outgrown her thimble of a pot. I'll transplant this one into a 2-gallon pot tomorrow.

Day 16 - September 19, 2023 It took me a little longer than I wanted to transplant her, so she is slightly pale. I was waiting for a larger pot to get freed up, but that never happened, so I am growing her in a 2 gallon with not the greatest soil since I'm saving the good stuff for my 6-gallon pots until I re-up. We'll make do with what we've got, and I'm sure this grow will go just as well with some careful amending of her nutrition along the way. Day 19 - September 22, 2023 3 days later, we can see that she likes the added feet room.

Day 23 - September 26, 2023 Her top growth is green now. I think I brought her back from a near death experience with some dolomite limestone and another dose of top dressing. Maybe she'll start growing at an acceptable rate now.

Day 30 - October 3, 2023 Ok, I couldn't let another day go by watching this plant suffer. I should have never sowed it into my evil soil mix that has ruined every plant thus far. I removed most of the surrounding mud from its very small root system as carefully as I could without damaging much, and I sowed it into a completely dry blend of my new soil mix (worm castings, peat, and perlite), in an even smaller pot (1 liter). I didn't add any nutrients yet. I want the water logged in its roots to absorb into the surrounding soil for a couple days before I do anything else. One step at a time, and we'll see how it goes. At least it's not an autoflower. I ❤️ photoperiods.

Day 39 - October 12, 2023 So it's been about a week and a half since I transplanted her and let her chill out under my low-wattage LED tube germination light. It took her a while but she's finally responding to food. I am seeing new green growth, as well as leaf tip burn telling me she didn't like being so close to even the germination light. Today, we transplanted her again, from a 1L pot into a 2gal pot. We also moved her back into the veg space, with 2x150W LED fixtures hanging overhead, with a DLI around 24. My hope is that now that her roots seem to be propagated, she will flourish above ground now with the new feet room and additional PAR light. Do you know what my favorite thing about growing is? It's not really the end result. That's expected and easy to acquire once you get organized and dialed in. What I like the most, is taking care of plants. Particularly interesting to me, and I actually find it very therapeutic, is taking care of sick plants, and trying to rejuvenate them. I've had a lot of practice doing this with all sorts of plant varieties, cannabis especially, and while it doesn't always work out, it is still worth all the extra effort. Does growing make you happy, or does it seem like work to you? Plants are wonderful. Take care of a plant and it might take care of you. Day 42 - October 15, 2023 I fim'd her yesterday. Let's see if we can get her to grow out more. We'll transplant that long stem if we have to.

Day 43 - October 16, 2023 It looks like she's responding to the FIM cut. I can see 4 new tops forming, along with 3 nodes below for a total of 10 main stem branches. Day 45 - October 18, 2023 Amazing at what just a couple of days can do. Now that she has more foliage on the top, the rest of her is flourishing. We can see we have 4 new perfectly even tops that we'll let grow out for a while now. Eventually, we'll transplant her into a much larger container and keep her lower to the ground with some training. As a bonus, she showed us she's a she today. We can see white pistils protruding from a couple of the new tops. Day 47 - October 20, 2023 I'm liking the rate of growth we're seeing now, and the nicer shade of green she's taken on in the last few days. I think my emergency surgery was worth it.

Day 50 - October 23, 2023 Unfortunately, the diary ends here. This one is a real stumper. She got white mold overnight, in a very dry growing environment, with dry soil that should have been watered yesterday. The infection is pretty bad on the lower main petioles and on the entire lower half of the plant's stem. I have no idea how this occurred, as it has been overly dry here lately, and the grow room sits around 78F/45% with a lot of airflow and good ventilation. Additionally, 9 other plants do not have any problems. I dunno...but moving on to the next! Day 51 - October 24, 2023 I did some research to figure out what I was dealing with, given my observations and the external factors like environment and water quantity this plant has endured for the last week. I found out about Sclerotinia, a fungus that can cause what is called "white mold" when infections are severe. This usually shows up as STEM ROT. And that is exactly what we see above. The humidity INSIDE the stem is not okay. This must have been caused by overwatering, or some nutrient lockout disguising it as such. Lesson learned. https://cropwatch.unl.edu/plantdisease/soybean/sclerotinia-stem-rot https://cropwatch.unl.edu/plantdisease/soybean/sclerotinia-stem-rot The above article says: ...but they can also infect through injured plant tissue... The day before, I broke a top in training. Stem rot + broken stem = spore release. The stem was rotten for weeks, from when it was in the tiny pot with bad soil. The last few weeks were just a waste of time, but it could have been a longer waste of time if I didn't break that stem.