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4/25 The seed that didn’t pop from last grow was still in the coco pot that I pulled, so I figured it was at least worth saving by throwing in a shot glass with water.
4/27 No movement after 2 days so on to pop a new seed.
4/29 Well the new seed has sank to the bottom of the shot glass and hasn’t moved at all. For now, I’ll leave it in the shot glass but will also start another one with hopes of actually getting this strain started. I’ve never had two seeds of the same strain fail to pop one after the other, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.
4/30 Just so I’m not wasting any more of my time than necessary I went ahead and threw my last seed into some water. I’ve never had this much of an issue popping beans before. None of the seeds I’ve tried to pop have popped yet.
5/2 I switched over from shot glass to paper towel method to see what would happen. Go figure I now have 3 Cali Octane’s that have popped and are now in solo cups. I only wanted one, but I suppose now I’ll have some options.
5/4 So far, I have 2 that have visibly popped up from the solo cups. Both are only just barely breaking the surface, so I’ll wait another day before I decide when day 1 will be.
5/17 Day 12 of veg. Transplant day. I rigged up the new DTW setup and transplanted two of them into 3 gallon airpots. The third will likely be given away since I don’t think a 3x3 tent and 3 plants is a good idea. After the res was filled up I ran water through both pots until I got the runoff to about 1.4 EC. Lights are set to 300 PAR / 19.4 DLI.
5/27 Day 22 of veg. It was time to top today so both got it done. The one on the left is a good step ahead of the one on the right but is also growing a bit differently. The bottommost node has already stretched up the top of the canopy, whereas the bottom node on the one on the right looked very small and likely had no hope of ever catching up. Considering that, I topped the left one leaving 5 nodes and trimmed the bottom node off the right one leaving 4 nodes. This means I’ll have 18 tops, which is actually pretty appropriate. Light adjusted to 440 PAR / 28.5 DLI.
5/31 Day 26 of veg. I used some LST clips to move some branches around a bit, as well as a very light defoliation. Honestly the Octane has been very hands off so far, it just knows the best way to grow it seems.
6/2 Day 28 of veg. I removed the LST clips and did defoliation all around on both. There was light discoloration in some spots that I attribute to my pH pen being out of wack and needing a recalibration. Everything is back on track now though and everything looks great. Lights adjusted to 550 PAR / 35.6 DLI.
6/5 Day 31 of veg. Growth has been perfect, exactly as expected. I did defoliate a bit more today to clear things up but I think the flip to flower will be very shortly, maybe even as soon as tomorrow.
6/7 Day 33 of veg. With everything looking good in the tent, I decided to change the light schedule to 12/12. I wish I knew how much stretch I’ll be getting, but anywhere from doubling to tripling in height will work out fine. Better to be cautious with smaller plants than huge plants that grow into the lights. Light adjusted to 570 PAR / 24.6 DLI.
6/8 Day 1 from flip. I added in the trellis net and got everything spaced out nicely. Also did some defoliation to make sure everything is getting light and to improve airflow.
6/14 Day Day 7 from flip. Everything has been smooth. Growth is good and I continue with occasional defoliation and tucking branches with the trellis net. Light adjusted to 715 PAR / 30.9 DLI.
6/20 Day 13 from flip. There’s noticeable bud formation beginning on number 2, and number 1 isn’t very far behind. I still gotta work on getting the canopy even but I’ll still likely get a bit more stretch before we really settle in. I raised the light up higher to make more room and adjusted it to about 730 PAR / 31.5 DLI.
6/22 Day 15 from flip. I did more work spreading everything out with the second trellis net. So far everything is great with this grow, not a single bad thing to say. The Cali Octane is obviously a very grower friendly strain and I appreciate that.
6/27 Day 20 from flip. The stretch continues and everything looks great. I have the dehumidifier running regularly now to keep levels down. Light is at 790 Par / 34.1 DLI.
6/30 Day 23 from flip. I don’t think I saw any stretch from yesterday to today, so they may have finally maxed out. Honestly the size is about perfect for the tent, continuing the trend of everything just working with this grow. I also moved the light up to max height to make as much room as possible and set it to 880 PAR / 38 DLI.
7/3 Day 26 from flip. It was too good to be true. I found some pollen sacks and nanners on number 2, so it’s again more herms for me. Hard to know if it’s already too late or if I should murder it to save the other one. I suppose we’ll take a risk here and see what happens.
7/6 Day 29 from flip. I’ve been checking the plants every day for pollen sacks, and I just keep on finding more and more. At this point the whole grow is likely trashed, but to come this far we’ll just see it out. A real shame since this was a super successful grow up until the herm. I don’t really have an explanation as to why she hermed. The grow was bang on across the board, some of the healthiest and best growing plants I’ve ever had. The VPD was pretty much perfect, and I watered every day just to make sure root zone EC was kept in check and we never got too dry. I blame most of my previous herms on high EC from the autopots, but that doesn’t apply here. Best guess is that this is a new strain that has not fully bred out the risk of random herms. A real shame.
7/8 Day 31 from flip. I keep checking for pollen sacks and while I have found one I think I missed from before, I don’t think any new ones have been forming. At least that’s the hope since they can be real hard to spot sometimes. My Mandarin Cookies grow had pollen sacks everywhere without me ever seeing one until harvest, so I know how elusive they can be. In an effort to rule myself out as the culprit of this yet again, I did a long hard look at all my processes to see if any mistake was made. I came to 2 potential sources of issue, the lights being a touch aggressive throughout the grow and my NER perhaps not at optimal ratios. With both however we’re talking about minimal changes to be perfect so I’m still fairly skeptical this is somehow my fault. Apart from all of that though, buds continue to form and the frost is already being packed on impressively. Other than the herm issue this strain does seem to be everything you’d ever want. The smell is evolving as time goes on, currently sitting at something like creamy rubber. It’s a pretty hard smell to describe so I hope that’s helpful.
7/11 Day 34 from flip. Buds are adding mass like crazy and frost is everywhere. If I reach into the tent my entire arm is sticky when I pull it out. Happy with that. I did find one more pollen sack but again I think it was an older one I may have missed. I have not seen any new ones growing anywhere so maybe it sorted itself out. Measuring light at the highest point of the canopy I read about 930 PAR / 40.2 DLI, and if I go down to a more average height for most tops it’s around 850 PAR / 36.7 DLI. I’d love to pump it up even higher, but I know I gotta be close to the upper limit so it’s probably safest to just leave it alone for now.
7/19 Day 42 from flip. More autopilot, more frost, and more size. That’s about all that’s been happening. I’m so thankful this has turned out to be a mostly pain free grow with everything on track. I’ve been watering once a day until runoff still. Runoff EC has crept up a little lately, hovering around 1.5 – 1.8 EC. In a perfect world I’d be watering twice a day to keep that in check, but it takes me a while to mix up water and I’ve been struggling to keep the res level up. Even if I plugged into a timer, there’s no guarantee I’d have the appropriate amount of water to keep up with it. There are no signs of issues with the plants though, and the one that hermed even stopped making pollen sacks (as far as I can see at least). I stupidly nudged the dimmer a touch higher several days ago and was around 1020 PAR, and that was just a touch too much. There are some subtle signs of light burn, so I reset the light to about 950 PAR / 41 DLI. So for now it’s just continue with autopilot.
7/26 Day 49 from flip. Buds keep getting fatter and frostier. I did leave these two with more leaves than I usually do, thinking I should be trying to reduce stress more. But with these buds getting real fat I think it’s prudent to cull some larger fan leaves to improve airflow. So, both got a light haircut and I took out some of the more heavily damaged leaves in the process. The light burn issue has still been lingering so I’m lowering the lights down to about 835 PAR / 36 DLI.
7/30 Day 53 from flip. So obviously both plants turned out to be different phenotypes. Number 2, which is on the right, is a little more light sensitive than number 1. Its buds are pointier and seem to be of a more conventional size, but also packed on the frost early and is still adding more. The best description of the smell I have for this one is just offensive, something between a hockey puck, burning tires, and grapefruit. Number 1, which is on the left, is a totally different story. It handled all the light I threw at it admirably, with only slight signs of light burn. It’s buds are bigfoot sized chonkers that just keep expanding each day. The frost isn’t quite as impressive as Number 2, but it’s still right there with any of the best strains you’ll see. It’s the smell here that really separates it from the offensive Number 2. It’s much more of a creamy grapefruit smell, with a bit of that hockey puck vibe in the background. Pretty much across the board Number 1 is looking like a real winner here. I very much prefer that creamy fruit with rubber smell over the all rubber, all the time smell. And the buds on 1 are just stacking weight. It’s also been more resilient than number 2. So, with this strain it seems you can expect variance from seed to seed, but man this grow has got to be my best yet. I will absolutely be buying more of these seeds once I can verify the end product is fire, which it certainly appears to be.
8/3 Day 57 from flip. No real changes other than some buds starting to lean a bit due to the weight. HSC says this strain really gets dense towards the end so I may end up tying some buds up if the leaning gets too bad. Number 1 really has a more grapefruit like smell to it now and number 2 is just as funky as ever. I’ve been watering twice a day, once in the morning and once at night for awhile now and it seems sufficient. The light burn on number 2 continues to be an issue so I decided to drop the lights again, this time to 765 PAR / 33 DLI. I’ve wanted to experiment with lowering the lights in late flower at one point anyways so this is a good chance to try it out. Number 2 really has been the oddball here with the herm issue, light burn issue, and the really offensive smell. I’d love to redo this grow later on with hopefully two stable plants. Best guess right now is potentially 2-3 weeks out from chop day.
8/11 Day 66 from flip. Well this is advertised as a 60 day strain, and with about two weeks spent in transition to flower that means about 1 week is remaining on the advertised harvest time. I know if anything those times are fairly conservative, so instead of a full blown flush I’m going to change the water to more of a half flush. Silica has been removed, calmag was cut in half, micro went from 9ml to 6ml, no change to bloom nutes, and humic acid was removed. EC was .8
8/19 Day 74 from flip. Today marks 60 days in flower, and unless anything messes my day up it’s also chop down day. The trichomes are fairly mixed, with number 1 being mostly cloudy with some clear and a little amber. Number 2 is mostly cloudy, a little clear, and more amber than number 1. Ultimately though, I am concerned I’m mostly growing seeds at this point and don’t see any point in going further. I clipped off a little bud the other day to speed dry and test out, and ripping into it found a perfectly formed seed. I did have the herm issue with number 2 and, like always, should have just tossed it. Of course I didn’t. It’s gonna be depressing if it’s all seed, but on the bright side the test smoke was actually pretty good.
Dmars
