Fade to Blackberry

==================================== WEEK ZERO ==================================== THURSDAY 10/18: My beans will arrive on 10/19, and I'm ready for them! I've come to believe that with so few total days that an autoflower will live, it's an absurd waste of time to sprout them in paper towels and then transfer them to media. From my best guesstimation, I'm wasting 2-3 days time with each seedling while they acclimate to new media..plus I've had some catastrophic penetrations of the paper towel by the tap root that led to failures to emerge from the soil. I'm gonna try a little experiment with rapid rooter cubes and grodan rockwool cubes this time around. I'm planting 2 x Blackberry, one in each starter media and germinating in an enclosed tray. Once I start to see roots, I'll open up the vents on the chamber for a day, then plant them in 3 gallon fabric pots. FRIDAY 10/19: 1 pair of Blackberry seeds are soaking! SATURDAY 10/20: Both seeds sank. SUNDAY 10/21: Both seeds sprouted and were planted. 👍 I have the 75w blue/white LED panel about 18" above them, and the 730nm far red light kicking on for an hour, every 6 hours. MONDAY: Nuttin yet.. TUESDAY: Both seedlings emerged! WEDNESDAY: Looking good.👍 ============================================= WEEK ONE ============================================= THURSDAY 10/25: Both seedlings had taproots at least an inch out of their cubes, so I planted them. FRIDAY: I didn't soak them well enough yesterday and wasn't able to check them til late today...suffered a casualty 😪 I dropped another Blackberry seed into purified water...an expensive mistake that will also be a pain in my ass to manage...I'm such a dumbass.. SATURDAY: The Blackberry survivor is the strongest of my new seedlings...but the replacement bean I floated yesterday hasn't sprouted yet..😐 SUNDAY: The replacement seed sprouted and I planted it in a rockwool cube. The survivor looks great, but she needs a sister...😟 MONDAY: The replacement seed has yet to emerge, but B1 is looking great!👍 TUESDAY: B1 keeps asking when her new baby sister will arrive... WEDNESDAY: I can see the new sprout just beneath the surface..she's opened up but hasn't stretched for the sky yet. The original survivor(B1), now known as "Beatrice," looks excellent. I fed her about 32oz of ph'd water with nutes today...her first taste. If the baby emerges, she shall be called "Brunhilde."

THURSDAY 11/1: Beatrice put on some size after her first feeding yesterday. She's the prettiest seedling in the tent. I sure wish I hadn't accidentally killed her sister.. The sub-surface sprout(Brunhilde) still hasn't made it to the light of day, but I can see a lot of green in the hole...maybe tomorrow... I've decided to try a 20/4 light cycle for this crop to see if it helps with keeping my foliage intact a little longer through the season...plus, I want my average tent temps about 4-5 degrees cooler this time to see how much it helps with terpene production/preservation. I will continue supplementing with 4 Exhale bags in an effort to keep PPM's above 1300, even when the exhaust is running..that and the addition of silica in their diet should help mitigate the higher temps they'll experience from time to time...it's a very mild winter thus far, so it's hard to maintain consistent temps. I'll veg them at 24/0 until I'm seeing pistils poppin on the majority of them, then change to 20/4. FRIDAY: Beatrice is very happy and healthy. Brunhilde half-assed sprouted the other day and opened up, but it seems like she's a dud...not standing up straight. SATURDAY: Beatrice is the lone Blackberry survivor I guess..I fed her about 32oz of ph'd early veg nutes and foliar fed her as well. Brunhilde still isn't standing up and it's too late to plant another...good thing she promises to be heavily laden with loads of massive buds.😁 SUNDAY: Beatrice is such a beauty. I foliar fed her once, and misted her with spring water a couple times today. MONDAY: Just gave her about 16oz of ph'd water today, foliar fed and rotated her. TUESDAY: I fed her 32oz of ph'd water with full strength veg nutes and moved some lights much closer to the canopy today. WEDNESDAY: D-day (Daylight) I put her into overdrive and kicked on the 1500w light at about 30" and left the blues on her at 8" to 12" and all the cool white side lights...grow baby grow.

THURSDAY 11/8: I watered her and foliar fed her a few times throughout the day. I added a 100w CXB3590 today at about 30" from the canopy. If temps stay manageable, I'll add another one tomorrow. FRIDAY: Beatrice is still the most beautiful plant in the garden! I'll FIM her tomorrow. I added a 100w bridgelux COB and kicked the blue/white panels up to a 45 degree angle so they aren't blocking the primary light. SATURDAY: I fed her about 40oz of ph'd tap water with full-strength veg nutes. She had already unfolded her most recent set, so I'm waiting to FIM her until tomorrow. She's growing about an inch per day now. SUNDAY: I FIMed her today and foliar fed a few times. MONDAY: She was completely unaffected by her haircut yesterday..grew another couple of inches! I foliar fed her a few times and rotated her. I'm really thinking about pulling the trigger and ordering a Chinese Fluence knock-off. They've actually got better average PPFD and uMol ratings than the Fluence, have 10 bars instead of 8, and run at 800w instead of 660w...but just $462 (with built in dimmer) instead of $1,500. The only downside is the $170+ shipping cost: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Customized-full-spectrum-hydroponic-greenhouse-5_60777399872.html?spm=a2700.icbuShop.12549.2.63975277q0xTTc TUESDAY: I watered her today with about 32oz of ph'd water and a little boomerang and bud candy. I also foliar fed her a few times. Her lower branches are growing well. I did some leaf tucking to keep them exposed to the "sunshine." I added another 40w 5000k daylight bulb in a dim area and reconfigured my ventilation. I'm exhausting the tent much quicker now, so the temps are considerably lower, but at the cost of lower co2 ppms..😕 WEDNESDAY: She grew more than 2 inches last night! 😵 She's over a foot tall with under 4 weeks of growth. No pistils yet. Her lower branching is almost perfectly symmetrical., and her trunk is getting thick! I love this plant!

THURSDAY: I fed her about 40oz of ph'd water with full strength veg nutes and started increasing Terpinator and Bud Candy. She started flowering today (day 21). Pistils poppin' all over her. She's had such vigor that I anticipate she'll more than double in size during flower. No worries....plenty of time left to grow some bigass budz. 👍 FRIDAY: I foliar fed her a few times and positioned her under more blue light. She's really stretching now. SATURDAY: I gave her about 40oz of ph'd water with a little calimagic, bud candy, and terpinator. Photo session- SUNDAY: I foliar fed her a few times and daydreamed about her possible outcome.....🙏 I'm ordering a new 800w Fluence knock-off tomorrow which should be here in time for her last few weeks of flowering...I really think she's gonna like it 😇 MONDAY: I fed her about 1/3 gallon of ph'd water with full strength veg nutes...this was her last big dose of nitrogen. TUESDAY: I added another 220w of light to the tent today..a 120w 3000k quantum board and a cxb3590, plus I changed out all the blues for reds(panels and miracleLED's, and floods) Beatrice is about 12" below the quantum board..and loving it!😇 WEDNESDAY: I rearranged the garden a bit and foliar fed a few times. I noticed some slight light burn, so raised the lights a few inches.

THURSDAY - 11/22 (Thanksgiving Day) I was out of town all day, so didn't spend any time with the girls...but I monitored them throughout the day with the nanny-cam...technology that I am thankful for. 😁 FRIDAY: I watered her today with ph'd water, some boomerang, calimagic, bud candy, and terpinator. I foliar fed a couple times and rearranged the garden. I swapped out my 1500w blurple light for the 2000w blurple light....so now I'm pushing 1000 actual LED draw watts in the 4 x 4...kinda ridiculous, but in a good way.😎Tomorrow I'll swap out the 60w 3500k COB with a 100w Citizen Clu048 to fully overpower the remaining visible purple light with white light. Temps are about 90f by the end of the day and drop to 74f for the 4 hours of darkness she is now getting. SATURDAY: I foliar fed a few times and added the extra 40w of white COB light. Moved the fan and put my 4th Exhale bag in the tent..it's almost used up, so time to order another. Took some photos. If I didn't already know this strain was prone to purpling stems and branches, I'd think I had some kind of Molybdenum deficiency or something..purple...very cool. SUNDAY: I slowly fed her about 48oz of ph'd water with the full regimen of bloom nutes and foliar fed a few times. The 4th bag of Exhale really bumped the CO2 PPM's up nicely..if I keep my exhaust fan on about 50% and it's a cold day, it works out great and the high reaches about 84....but sadly, if it's not a cold day, I'm pushing 90f for about 8 hours..but very rich in CO2..... Bottom line is that I think I'm running too many lighting watts in this tent if I can't maintain a more consistent air intake temperature. I'll probably go back with the 1500w blurple because it runs a few degrees cooler than the 2000w, so that will put me back to about 925w actual draw watts...at least until we have another cold spell. MONDAY: I foliar fed her a few times and rotated her today...it was cold as hell, so tent temps stayed quite nice today. TUESDAY: I foliar fed a few times and spun her around. Tucking her big fan leaves is futile..she straightens them back out within an hour, every time. WEDNESDAY: It was a good week for her. She put on a few inches and her buds started bulking up a little. I watered her today with about 1/3 gallon of ph'd water, bud candy, terpinator, and extra calimagic. I foilar fed a few times and plucked off some older necrotic leaves.

THURSDAY 11/29: I foliar fed a few times and did a photo session. Beatrice has given me no trouble at all. I am now a true believer in silica supplementation. I've never had plants with such excellent stalk turgidity. She is strong enough to support truly massive buds. FRIDAY: Beatrice is gonna be a buxom gal! She's stopped growing and is spending all her energy popping pistils now. Love it. I foliar fed her and rotated her. SATURDAY: FIMing is so unpredictable..but I like surprises.😁 Her third cola isn't catching up with the other two....looks like they will possibly all merge into one massive bud. I'll spray her with ph'd spring water for another day or two to rinse off any residue and discontinue foliar feeding on her now. I watered today with ph'd water, bud candy, terpinator, calimagic, and a little boomerang. She's directly under a 660nm spot and the 3000k quantum board..no sign of light burn, so I'm lowering it another couple inches and monitoring. SUNDAY: She's been very vigorously growing, she was fast to flower, she's got a really nice fragrance, and her structure allows all of her buds to get good light, but I'm a little disappointed that she hasn't shown me any of those special colors I see on other FB Blackberry diaries at week 6...😟 MONDAY: She was still plenty moist so I'll hold off for another day on nutes. I rinsed her with ph'd spring water again today a couple times. No worries...humidity has been below 30% for a couple days now and airflow in the tent is awesome. TUESDAY: I fed her a tiny dose (8oz) of ph'd water with some Fox Farms bat guano, calimagic, and boomerang, and misted her with ph'd spring water.

THURSDAY 12/6: I didn't update yesterday, so...as a reminder to myself..I gave her about 1/2 gallon of ph'd water with nutes on Wednesday.. She's actually pretty needy..she shows signs of N deficiency already, but there's not much I can do about it this late in the game. Hope she's got the energy to finish strong!🙏 FRIDAY: I watered her with about 1/2 gallon..until she had about 20% runoff. Calimagic, terpinator, bud candy and armor si only. SATURDAY: I did some rearranging and took a few photos. SUNDAY: I fed her about 3/4 gallon of nutrified agua with extra terpinator and also added bembe. MONDAY: Evidently I should have calibrated my PH pen...damnit! I really PHukt her up good..and all the others plants. That's 2 fucking crops in a row... It looks like I'm having a terrible boron deficiency and that they were badly overwatered, but I know better...@#!$%^ TUESDAY: She stabilized a bit, but to be sure, I flushed her today with about 2 gallons of 6.2 PH'd water including Sledgehammer, Calimagic, and Boomerang. On a good note, I moved Beatrice into the big tent with all the other bloomers. They were surprised to find that they had almost 25% more available PPFD across the whole garden (my new light was finally delivered!)

THURSDAY 12/13: I really blew it with this grow..the PH fluctuations last week were not well received by Beatrice at all. She'll lose most of her foliage over the next couple of days and I doubt she'll still have the energy to put on much more size on her buds...😫 FRIDAY: She's hanging in there..lost some leaves, but buds are still swelling. SATURDAY: She was still too moist from the flushing to feed her. SUNDAY: I fed her today with full strength bloom nutes and some extra boomerang. MONDAY: Beatrice is still recovering from PH fluctuations that made it seem as if she had a half-dozen different maladies at once..boron deficiency, overwatering, N toxicity, and light burn. Now I'm starting to believe I'm dealing with actual light burn! I think the new lights are just too intense for the distance I have them at...at least at this stage of flowering. I've dimmed them to 90% for now... TUESDAY: I fed her full strength bloom nutes, plus extra boomerang. In addition to the light burn issue, the new lights lower the RH in the tent waaay too much, so I've temporarily got a 4-liter cool-mist humidifier filled with ice cubes running for about 10 hours at a time before it goes dry. That's raised the average RH from 21% to 28% and lowered the average temps by a couple of degrees as well...still not good enough. So, I ordered a small evaporative cooler to put in the tent, up on the shelf. It holds a little over 2 gallons of ice water and oscillates. The new light is IP65, so a few drops raining down here and there should make no difference, but the added cooler airflow should really help to bring up the RH and lower my average temps. WEDNESDAY: The two new 85w individual OSRAM bar lights came in today and I hung them in the 1-foot wide area just below the shelf. Now I've got awesome coverage all the way across the 5 x 4. They put off some heat and I don't have any plants under them right now, so they are turned off. Love the spectrum they produce..the white is 3200k..but they just have 2 x red diodes every 12 inches of bar, whereas my 10-bar fixture has 3500k, but 6 x reds per 12 inches of bar. The OSRAM diodes are every bit as bright if not brighter than the Samsung LM561C diodes, but all those deep red Cree XPE's on the fixture give it a much better spike in the 660nm range. It will be awesome being able to independently lower the lights in a 1' x 4' section of the garden. When you have dwarves to deal with, it's so much better than putting them on buckets.. That's a total of 1010w actual draw watts at full power in my 4 x 5 tent...sweet...just gotta get the RH and temp under control. It would take a seriously full tent for me to even consider turning on the extra 100w of side lights...but they're there if I need them 👍

THURSDAY 12/20: Beatrice is still packing on the pistils, but it's a race between her buds finishing and all her leaves all falling off. I watered her today with just bembe, calimagic, bud candy, and terpinator. I'll give her Cha Ching in a couple days..and maybe again once before I start flushing her. FRIDAY: The new evaporative cooler is working pretty well in the tent. High temp was 84f with it running on medium and with ice in the reservoir. That's a win. I suspect that when I need to run the other two 85w bar lights it will be pushing 90f again unless I run it on high. RH is is staying between 38% and 45%, which is another win! SATURDAY: I fed her about a gallon of full-strength bloom nutes and extra bembe/terpinator and cha ching. SUNDAY: Photo session! She's getting closer now...I may start flushing her on next water day.😋

THURSDAY 12/27: I gave her about 1.5 gallons of water with bembe, terpinator, and bud candy. Next time it's nothing but plain ph'd water for her. She's hating the UVB lights...too bad. 😈 FRIDAY: She's swellin' like a melon.. SATURDAY: WOW..she's literally oozing resins on multiple buds. Close-up photos today revealed that she's got about 5-10% amber trichs ...flushing tomorrow.👍 SUNDAY: Flushed her with 2 gallons of spring water. MONDAY: ..not yet... TUESDAY: ..not yet... WEDNESDAY: ..she's dead and drying! Wow, she's got some serious stank on her!

THURSDAY 1/3: She's still dead and drying in a dark tent with 50-55% RH and the slightest breeze FRIDAY: Still drying... SATURDAY: She's still a little moist..

WEDNESDAY 1/2: Harvested SUNDAY 1/6: She's almost dry...will weigh her tomorrow and start curing her out.😋 MONDAY: Started curing but didn't weigh her yet.. TUESDAY: She's delightfully frosty and sticky and has a unique aroma. I couldn't resist and had to give it a taste....delicious, but not as potent as I expected. She weighed in at a meager 57g. UPDATE 1/15: For some reason I can't edit most of the diary values, so I'll do it here: It's more like 80% indica in growth and effect. After another week of curing, I'm definitely getting a mango aftertaste, which is always welcome! Initially, you get the berries flavor, but on the exhale, it's fresh mangos.😋 Also, I guess I was already too high to really get the full effect of this strain when I first tried it, because it fuks me all the way up if I take more than a few puffs at a time now. Intense rushes on big bong rips. Very relaxing and pleasant buzz. Final comments: Yield: 5/10 Potency: 8/10 Flavor: 9/10 Aroma: 8/10 Bag appeal: 7/10 Tolerance to abuse/maltreatment: 8/10 Overall, this variety is a solid 7-8. I had ph fluctuations and high temps for a few days and it still kicked ass. I can't wait to grow it again!