400oz to Freedom

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.