400oz to Freedom

Day 1 - December 1, 2023 Well, it took a while. I was getting nervous. 24 hours ago, none of them were visibly sprouted through the Root Riot cubes. Today, 22 of 24 of them are above ground. All 24 were transplanted into solo cups. We used exactly 400oz of recycled custom soil, amended with some mycorrhizae in the transplant hole, and some veg-friendly top-dressing ingredients. Day 2 - December 2, 2023 We are up to 23/24 success rate. Pretty good I think. I lowered the humidity for half a day, and then cranked it up to 75% to shock them. I got Seedsman Amnesia Auto to poke through. The other one, Fast Buds Forbidden Runtz has yet to show herself. I'm taking her out now though. Since I gave them a thorough drench when I transplanted, I didn't need to water yet today. About 6 plants in the center of the tent are slightly dry, but they can make it until tomorrow when I will mist them all. Today, I top-dressed each of the 23 solo cups with a sprinkling of Roadside Organics Green Mountain Veg, and then leveled them off with more soil. I let them be for a few hours, and then misted them with FOOP organic propagation mist to add some moisture and let them take up some nutrients through their leaves. Day 3 - December 3, 2023 Well, it looks like this experiment is going to get changed around already! Sweet Seeds Jack 47 XL Auto, a heavy yielder, is a triploidal plant! That means that it has 3 cotyledon leaves, and an extra set of female chromosomes. It is said that yield is increased with polyploidal DNA, so I think we'll remove her from this SoG, and transplant her into her final, much larger, pot before she notices. That puts this diary down to 22 nice looking plants so far. Day 4 - December 4, 2023 Okay, so we removed Sweet Seeds - Jack 47 XL Auto from this diary, and made a new one. It didn't belong in a sea of green scenario being triploidal. That brings us down to 22, and all seem to be doing fine in growth today. Purple Skunk is the smallest of them all, but it came up with a slight purplish tinge to its first set of leaves, and the darkest purple stem out of all of them. We got a few interesting specimens in here actually, and I'm looking forward to seeing the diverse jungle. Day 5 - December 5, 2023 I suppose I'll highlight the most interesting looking plant each day, until they all look interesting :) Today we have the most interesting plant because it is the only mutant. Pictured is 1 of 3 Fast Buds - Orange Sherbert Auto plants in this SoG. There's some weird fusing of 2 or 3 leaves going on here. I wonder if subsequent nodes will correct themselves! Day 7 - December 7, 2023 Today's highlighted picture is 1 of 3 Fast Buds - Ztrawberriez Auto. We picked it today because it is both the tallest and the most developed so far. It's 2 sisters aren't far behind.

Day 9 - December 9, 2023 Growth is starting to pick up. 2 plants are runts, one with a deformity, and the other, Purple Skunk, which has just been small from the start. A variety of different features is always interesting. Day 13 - December 13, 2023 Crazy explosive growth over the last few days. Things are getting interesting :)

Day 15 - December 15, 2023 Quite a few of them started showing sex today. Welcome to flower time! #11, Seedsman - Strawberry Cheesecake Auto, fell over a few days ago, and refuses to stand after being propped up. Likely cause: stem rot. Humidity has been high and I must frequently water these small cups as they dry out extremely fast when the light is on and temperatures are optimal. This one just couldn't take it. That brings us down to 21 total. #7, MSNL - Do-Si-Dos Auto, has a small bit of mite damage on its fans. We'll fix that. #16, Ganja Farmer Seeds - Devil XL Auto and also #19, Fast Buds - Gorilla Punch Auto, are getting a little rusty. I wasn't expecting that so quick. We are going to top-dress with bloom amendments now that we are approaching flowering, so I'll try to account for that deficiency too. And let's not forget our new oddball in the tent. #14, Fast Buds - Orange Sherbert Auto, the one with the weird-looking deformed first set of leaves early on, well...she somehow turned into a triploid! She now has 3 tops and I didn't touch her. I get the weirdest results with autos, I swear. Even though they just started showing pistils yesterday, we will be top dressing tomorrow, as I want to let them dry out a bit more first. Day 19 - December 19, 2023 Today was a sad day for #17, Fast Buds - Gorilla Punch Auto. Her stem became too constrained in the starter plug, due to not burying it deep enough. That's okay, because we planted 3 of this strain, and she was the smallest, with the least potential. We have two more with us. This death brings our garden down to 20 solo cups. I moved them all closer together today, to get them to fight a bit. I have also been moving plants around a lot, according to how they look and if they need more direct light. I have been doing this for this week, since about 90% of them starting forming beautiful stigmas and were ready to stretch. This is a very interesting and fun experiment so far. You should try it sometime if you haven't, growing a bunch of autos in solo cups. I learned a lot, and probably could have saved some of the 3 plants that died so far, because it is difficult keeping them happy in such a small container. My soil is doing some of the work, but it is still a lot of manual upkeep from me, and trying to understand what each plant is trying to tell me, on an individual basis. Because, it doesn't matter how consistent my environment or technique is when dealing with a variety of genetics, with many different needs. Day 21 - December 21, 2023 Please don't fire me for the crooked framing from yesterday's picture. I guess I was a little stoned because it looked good to me at the time. A couple of them have fluffy flowers forming. Some are still working in their stretch and trying to beef up their structure from some light defoliation I've been doing. They are all drinking a lot more now. I drench the solo cups fairly good until runoff, and the next day they are light as a feather. I like it when plants drink fast. Having wet soil sit around is one of the main ingredients for everything bad that has happened to me. This new soil recipe I am using, actually contains coarse perlite and is no different than what I am using in larger 3-7gal containers. I am not making special arrangements for smaller plants, as my soil building process is still being refactored and streamlined into being more efficient, as it involves a lot of ingredients and time. Most of the plants are doing great without any leaf symptoms. There are a few that I can see we have some magnesium issues, that are causing a slight bit of chlorosis and stunted growth, but, that's mostly just genetics or the phenotypes being exhibited by this consistent growing environment. I am not too worried, because I expected half of these to fail in some shape or form by now, but, we only lost two runts that just couldn't get situated from the start.

Day 27 - December 27, 2023 It's been a while since the last update. Holidays and all. Some of these girls stretched almost a foot since the last update, and are well into making little hedgehogs everywhere. A few days ago, I replaced their two 150W quantum boards with 6x 15W bar LEDs. These things run cool, but at just a few inches above the canopy do the trick well, with good PPFD. I got these lights because this tent is coming down within the next week due to being dilapidated, and I will be building two custom grow spaces with 14 bar lights, along with another area for one of the 150W quantum boards. I am tossing the other quantum board, as the driver is starting to flicker, and the dimmer has never worked to begin with. It was the first light I bought going into this hobby, and good riddance I say. Nothing but issues. The new veg space should be visible in next week's update. I'm just waiting on the last of the supplies to arrive here tomorrow, and then we'll spend a couple days building, and moving these girls into their new home.

Day 29 - December 29, 2023 In the first image, the back right plant there keeps stretching at least an inch per day. I have to keep raising my light just for her. In the second image, we take her out to get a closer look, and to read the name tag: it's Miss Bloody Skunk Auto, from Sweet Seeds. The node spacing on her is kind of ridiculous, haha. In the third image, we can see she has purple calyxes. In the fourth image, we can see her container is 5" tall. In the last image, we can see she is 19" above ground. Will she reach 4x her feet room? Day 34 - January 3, 2024 Well, welcome to the good part of the blooming process, where we really get to see those stigmas get engulfed by never-ending stacking sticking calyxes. To celebrate, I took a picture of each of the 20 autoflowers in this sea of green. I numbered them 1-20, with no names. These numbers do not line up with the numbers listed in the "G" week. It is a lot of work keeping up on these, and I am not going to list every single one. When harvest time comes close, we will get to see who they are. A few interesting things going on with these plants so far: - I neglected them for about 5 days this past week. I was so busy building another grow room, that I just never remembered. I was stressing over finishing a week long project. Out of the 20 plants in this SoG, 5 of them looked _extremely_ wilted when I found them. The other 15 though, looked perfect, and it is due to a technique I will share in a few. I watered them very good until drowning. The next day they were bone dry and I did my usual minimal watering as needed. The 5 wilted plants recovered fine, as all of the dead growth was what I was just about to lollipop away. And I did that, to all 20 plants. - Up to this point, I haven't really been talking much about how I am taking care of these plants, and why their leaves look so great, flowering under just 15W lights. So let me try to put this experiment into words better for you all. First, I never did a SoG before at all. I knew it would be hard. Second, I never ran to completion even a single plant in a solo cup, because I know how difficult it can be for even 4x that size (about 1L pots I use sometimes). I needed a plan, because the past told me that they dry out fast, and if over-watered, deficiencies come on sooner, like the typical late-veg rust spots of calcium or chlorosis from magnesium often accompanied with it. I thought about bottom feeding them the entire grow, but I turned that down for reasons that aren't important, mostly that it is boring, and it leads to other problems I didn't want to face. Instead, I wanted to try something a bit different and methodical. 1) At the end of week 2 they started to bloom and stretch. Up until this point, I was careful to water them with a mist, and not a steady stream. And multiple times per day. I wanted to keep them moist and not wet while in their fragile seedling stage. But, after week 2 when the stretch began, they needed to drink more. This is when I enacted a 3-part plan, with part 1 being, water until completely drenched and runoff. My custom soil blend is very aerated, so this is not as much of a problem as you may think. For the rest of week 3, they needed this drench once every 2 days. After 2 days, their soil was light as a feather and bone dry. I wanted this. Because of step 2. 2) I defoliate a lot usually. I also lollipop in early to mid flower, depending on plant. When I do, I work from the bottom, first removing very large fan leaves from the main stem, as I defoliate and prune other unwanted growth -- maybe 1 or 2 sets of large fan leaves every defoliation, with a couple days or a week between, depending on the plant. I did not do this, this time. I left those large fan leaves for much longer. Days turned into weeks for most, and today's defoliation resulted in a lot of the lower-most fan leaves being removed. Other, larger plants, did have a set or two removed before today, but again, they were removed more slowly than usual. The reason why, is because I think it is important to let the soil dry out between waterings when the plants are really stretching. It gets those roots moving and looking for moisture. Therefor, I wanted to apply more water less often, rather than less water more often. That meant that I needed to keep some larger fan leaves around for stored energy, in case the drought lasted a little longer, which it did, due to my forgetfulness of 5 days without water. 3) I apply my IPM as a foliar spray twice per week. It has some micronutrients that can be absorbed by the leaves, which helps when the soil is dry. Because of step #2 particularly, keeping those larger fan leaves for stored energy, the 15 plants that looked great after the 5-day drought, only had a very slight bit of chlorosis on _only_ these leaves. Everything else is still a lush healthy green, because the fan leaves were releasing those sugars. Those large fan leaves have served their purpose now that they have slight yellowing. They saved the plants. Sometimes you have to think if the leaves you are about to remove, even if they seem low and not receiving enough light, will be useful when the plant needs energy it cannot otherwise obtain, such as when growing in very tiny pots and the cultivator is not awake enough hours of the day to do a frequent watering, and too poor to provide an irrigation system. This is a "cheap" solo cup grow, so we used them cheapest solution for giving them nutrients: letting the plant give itself nutrients. I am very pleased with the result of this accidental drought I inflicted upon them. 75% of them showed practical no sign anything had happened. That tells me my soil blend is getting better, and that my plan to more easily maintain a healthy SoG has worked so far, for a first time SoG grower and a first-time tiny pot bloomer. If you don't know me by now, I like growing and experimenting more than the end result. This was a fun project so far, and I'm learning a lot. I am looking forward to next week, when the colas should really start bulkening up to show some form. Some of the plants already are quite stinky...a dank smell...and it is on all 3 of the purple plants above, although slightly different, and nothing pronounced enough to distinguish anything from them. Thank you for reading. As a side note, I am sad to say I will be leaving GrowDiaries after this harvest. I will rise again from the ashes some other time. I need to focus on me more. Depression doesn't go away, and I balance other hobbies on and off to manage with stress. I will still be growing on a smaller scale, but nothing public on my account.