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Started using paper towel method on the afternoon of 11/11. A decent sized tap root had already emerged so I placed the germinated seed in my veg hydro rig on the evening of 11/12. A little more than 24 hours is faster than I am used to for a good tap root to come out. Seedling / early veg rig is a two gallon bucket with a lid, a top feed pump and a single air stone. Nutrient levels are very light. PH is around 6. The light used is a 12W LED bulb on for 24 hours per day. The air pump is in the tent with my current plant in flower. The line is split right after the pump and part of it feeds 1 of 2 air stones in a the main tent. The other part of the split runs out of the tent into the veg hydro rig which is next to the tent. A little funky, but this set up allows me to not devote my whole tent to a seedling that is less than 6" for the first few weeks of its life. The plan it is to leave it in the seedling / early veg rig until I can put it in the big reservoir in my tent after I harvest my current plant in flower. She'll be in the veg rig for at least 3 weeks.
After 3 days, she's a little stretchy. Last time I struggled to use a fluorescent bulb for the first week or so of the seedling stage. This time, I used a 12w LED bulb and I think its working better. This 12w LED bulb probably wouldn't work on a pant in full veg but I think its fine for the seedling phase. So long as she stops stretching, I think she is a viable plant that I plan to grow all the way to harvest.
On Day 5, she has 4 leaves. I'm still a little concerned that she is stretchy but I moved the 12 W led light from 20" to ~14". I'm hoping that the stretching stops and her leaves continue to develop. She already has a little root coming out of the bottom of the plastic grow net she is in. It isn't in the reservoir yet but it should be later today or tomorrow. Other than her slight stretch, I'm happy with her progress.
On Day 6, it looks like she's not stretching anymore and she has a root in the reservoir. I think 14" from the plant is the right height for this Tao 12w LED bulb. I'll keep her in m seedling rig for the next 2-4 weeks until the plant I have in flower in my tent is harvested and the tent is freed up.
On Day 13, she has exploded with growth. This rapid growth is why I use top fed hydroponics. To her credit, she germinated and had a root in the reservoir in less than 5 days which is at least a couple days faster than I've ever experienced before her in my 10 or so seeds germinated. Only 9 days after she had a root in the reservoir, she is growing fast and has filled out noticeably more every day. She still has at least a couple more weeks in my little veg hydro rig before the tent and 10 gallon reservoir are available but she seems to be happy and seems to be doing well to me.
On Day 19, she has continued to explode with growth. She had enough root mass in the reservoir that I felt comfortable taking out the top feed pump. I also topped her. I don't know if I'm going to do a real manifolding technique or my own spin on one. I topped below the fourth, and trimmed the first so I'm left with the second and third nodes. I'm excited to see what the stretch brings. For now, I think I'm going to wait for these four growth tips to get a little bigger and then take these 4 fan leaves leaves off. These fan leaves are some of the oldest growth on this plant. They are curling up because of how close I had the LED light bulb. The old leaves will get chopped once these 4 growth tips grow a little.
On Day 20, she doesn't appear to have minded being chopped yesterday. Look at the difference between day 19 and day 20. In only 24 hours, those little wilty looking growth tips have perked up and grown significantly. She is still vibrant and growing fast.
On Day 22, she was still growing fast so I took off the old fan leaves so only the 4 growth tips remained. Then I tied them down to get them to grow as horizontally as possible. She is still growing fast and seems happy to me.
On Day 27, she is doing fine. I did her first reservoir change today. She is filling out again after I took everything off other than the four growth tips. Not much to report. My other plant in flower will be done a week or so and then she'll get moved into the big tent with the larger reservoir and light. Until then, she is content.
On Day 31, she was looking a little bushy so I decided it was time to set up my manifold. I chopped her back to her first node on her two shorter branches. This left two growth tips on each of the two shorter branches. I also chopped her at her third node on her two longer branches and removed the growth from her second nodes. The second nodes were growing top and bottom of the branch which is not desirable when the branch is growing horizontally. One of her longer branches has growth nodes that aren't at the same place on the branch. I left 4 growth tips on either side though so I think it'll be fine. All in, two growth tips on both of the short branches and four growth tips on both of the two long branches gets us to twelve growth tips total. This might be excessive but I'm experimenting and can cut some off in early flower if something is not working. As long as its done early enough in flower, it should be fine and not stunt her or really impact yield. I'm going to transfer her to the big tent this Saturday and then give her a week or so to acclimate and then switch her to flower.
On Day 33, I harvested my plant in flower so I moved her into the tent with the big light and big reservoir. The little seedling veg rig worked exactly as I'd hoped. If I had this plant in my big tent for the first few weeks of her life, she'd be taking up the whole tent, using 10x the energy on the big light and in a ten gallon reservoir which she clearly didn't need. As she was getting established and especially since I'm manifolding her, this little 2 gallon bucket and 12w LED bulb are perfect. She is not as big or developed as she'd be under a bigger light, but that's okay because I'm a month ahead of where I'd be if I didn't use a separate seedling and early veg set up. I left her grow net in the top of the two gallon bucket as that is how she is tied down.
On Day 34, she appears to be doing fine now that it has been a few days since my second and final series of topping. She seems happy in the bigger space. I'll veg her for another 4-7 days and then switch her to flower. I'm excited to see what she stretches into.
On Day 38, she recovered quickly from her latest series of topping and her manifold was established so I switched the light to flower. Otherwise, not much to report. She looks healthy and happy to me.
On Day 41, not much to report. She looks healthy and happy to me. This is the very beginning of flower and she is just starting to stretch a little.
On Day 48, she looks healthy and happy to me. All is as it should be. She is praising with her leaves nicely so I think my environment is good. I saw the beginning of buds today. She is in stretching nicely and I'm hopeful that all her colas are at approximately the same height. I ended up culling on of her colas from my twelve cola manifold so she has eleven. Eight of those eleven are just about at the same height. I tied one of them to the side to slow it down. I hope the other three don't fall too far behind.
On Day 55 from seed, day 17 since the switch 12-12, she looks healthy to me. I did my last defoliation last night. I might have gone a little overboard with the defoliation but I think its early enough in flower that she'll recover. The last time I did a manifold, I allowed a bunch of little stems to grow off the main colas. The little stems ended up robbing energy from the main colas. I wanted to avoid that this time so I chopped almost all the little shoots and stems off. In terms of uniform cola height, she's doing alright. There are a few colas that are taller than the others that I am tying to the side to slow them down from getting too far ahead of everything else. I'm pretty happy with her structure for now. I'm excited for the next couple weeks!
On Day 61 from seed, day 23 since the switch 12-12, she looks great to me. She has recovered from my last heavy defoliation a week ago. Her flowers are starting to develop. I'm thrilled with her general shape. Of her 11 colas, 8 of them are at just about the same height and 3 are maybe three inches lower than the rest. I think she's almost done stretching. I'm excited because I think she is about to get sticky, stinky and delicious!
On Day 69 from seed, day 31 since the switch 12-12, she is starting to get frosty and a little smelly! I'm happy with her general structure and my manifold. I think that as she puts on weight, she is going to be able to mostly hold her self up not and need much support. I did a little light and very selective defoliation earlier this week to remove fan leaves from the middle of the plant that were blocking light from any colas. She is maturing nicely and I'm excited for the next 4 weeks or so. My environment has been good as it is winter here in NorCal and I'm using cool air from outside to keep the tent cool.
On Day 75 from seed, day 37 since the switch 12-12, she continues to get frostier and frostier! There is not much to do but keep changing the reservoir every 7-10 days and watch. She smells great but not strongly. I'm very happy with my 11 cola manifold. I'm excited to see her put on some more weight. If she finishes in 56 days like the breeder says, she has around 3 weeks to go.
On Day 82 from seed, day 44 since the switch 12-12, not much to report. She is maturing nicely. She smells great but not strong. Based on the breeder's recommendations, she has a couple weeks to go. I'm excited for the harvest.
On Day 89 from seed, day 51 since the switch 12-12, she is very steady and not much has changed in the last week. I'm still very happy with her structure, her smell, the appearance of her harvest, etc. She has been stable and reliable throughout my grow. She smells great but not strongly. I could harvest her now but I plan to let her go one more week. Otherwise, she is looking great, she smells amazing, and she looks delicious.
On Day 96 from seed, day 58 since the switch to a 12-12 light schedule, she is done! She was probably done 2 days ago, on day 56, just like the breeder said but it wasn't convenient to harvest that day so I'm chopping her today. This will be last update before harvest. She was great in flower. I don't know what my yield is yet but my 11 cola manifold worked out pretty good. She needed some support later in flower to hold up her bountiful harvest. That also allowed me to support the few colas that didn't grow quite as fast as most of the other ones. She wasn't too smelly with my carbon filter until I started handling her; then the smell was strong and sweet and amazing.
This is a great strain. She is resilient and easy to grow. Even when you're not an expert grower, the harvest is bountiful, potent and beautiful. She smells amazing and tastes even better.
Considering I manifolded this plant, and slowed her down a little in the process, I wish I would have vegged her for one more week. Also, I had her under a very weak 12w bulb for the first 4.5 weeks of her life so even though I vegged her for 5 weeks, weeks 2 through 4.5 would have resulted in more growth if I was using a real light. If I were to do it again, I'd train her exactly the way I did but give her another week under the real light to get bigger and stronger. Not a huge regret but I can see that I didn't get everything out of these genes that was there to he had.
The smoke is delicious! It is definitely night time smoke though.
It was a good harvest. She was ready, stinky (in a good way), and gorgeous. I wish I would have vegged one more week. Otherwise, she was a beast and created a beautiful and potent harvest. 00000
@TheBudWhisperer, I'm hoping you're right that she recovers fast. I chopped her a second time to set up my manifold last night. I chopped her pretty good. I'll do a journal update soon but I hit her hard so I hope the DWC and the fact that she's well established help her recover. Good luck to you!
@NorCalCloset, oh no doubt. Your also on dwc so gotta imagine the next week or two will see some serious growth. Might try a version of this setup myself at some point so interested to see how this turns out👍
RE: removing all the little ones around the bottom. I think you did the right thing, I now regret not having the courage to do that to mine (I'm still pretty new). Also, I'm really glad I found this diary, as I had been struggling with how to HST/LST and keep the top-heavy colas stable in the last couple of weeks. Those orange bars look like a great, simple solution so thanks my friend! 👏
@TheBudWhisperer, That's what I call mine too! Haha! The boss tolerates the occasional smell when it's late in flower, but not without complaint. I think we'd come to an impasse (meaning I would be told no) if I told her that I needed more space to properly support and then access my latest plant. Someday when I win the power ball, I'm building a greenhouse so she can't tell me no.
@Tried_and_Tested, Thanks! I'm curious too! In terms of volume, this is one of my smaller harvests but I'll bet its comparable in weight with my other larger-volume harvests. I tend to get 3-4 ounces with my setup and a 5-7 week veg. I'll bet this harvest is right in that range for weight when it dries out because of the denseness of the buds. I tend to grow hybrids with a fair amount of sativa in them so I tend to get some fluffy buds.
@@hydrohippy, thanks! Higher temperatures are usually my weakness and it is winter here that is helping me keep my tent cooler. Thanks for your comment!
Everythin going well here, the longest process is going on. When you have to wait for these buds to enlarge and get mature. It is soon there, it will smell so good soon :)
NorCalCloset
