Winter is Coming...

1. Winter is coming. I'm not sure how well my tent will hold heat, so I'm growing seeds that I've accumulated locally. They cost me little, so if the grow goes south then I won't have wasted my expensive, smuggled seeds. 2. I've made several changes to my grow space to ensure that I have adequate heat for this grow. First, I moved the tent away from a drafty door, and an outside wall. Secondly, I insulated the floor of my tent because it sits on tile. Third, I changed the light cycle so the lights are on at night. This will keep the heat higher during the cold desert nights. Finally, I installed a tiny heater and placed it in front of my oscillating fan. So far the temperatures have been in the low 80s during the day, and dropping down to the mid to high 60s during the dark period. 3. This round I will be using Happy Frog due its microbial richness, and Ocean Forest to keep my stalks nice and strong. I will be using recharge to keep my microbes happy. I will feed with AN nutrients. I will only use Recharge and Sensei Grow P. 1-2 for veg. 4. I will be topping at the 5th node, then mainlining down to the 3rd node, removing all secondary growth. I will train those 2 tops out to create the manifold. I will keep nodes 1, 3 and 5, pruning nodes 2 and 4. Finally, I will top the 2 main tops into 4 main tops at node 5. I'll let them recover, prune the lower canopy nodes, defol, then flip to flower. I'm using basically the same method as I found on https://www.growweedeasy.com/mainlining-nugbuckets and https://www.growweedeasy.com/manifold. 5. My goal is to increase my yield per plant and to practice some training methods that I haven't learned yet.

1. The horde was transplanted on Wednesday. 2. They were watered with filtered water and fed half strength Sensei Grow A+B, and full strength Recharge. Recharge has an interesting claim. I provided pictures to let you judge for yourself. Of course, I think most of the benefits of Recharge will be in the roots and unseen. 3. All of these plants will be mainlined when they reach node 5. Currently, node 2 is emerging. I'm thinking another week of growth before they are topped, pruned, and trained. 4. I took out the humidifier when I transplanted. There wasn't enough room in the tent, and it didn't seem to change the humidity levels that much one way or another. My thinking is that a tent full of growing plants would be a better source of humidity.

1. Strong Growth this week. One of the plants already has leaves that span the entire diameter of the pot! 2. Increased nutes slightly this week. I will be at full strength for AN next feeding. 3. All plants will be mainlined over the weekend. I'll provide before and after photos in next week's post. 4. Due to the size of the plants, I will have to scale back my ambitious mainlining experiment. Two of the plants will be topped back to node 2 due to their size. All 5 will be topped and pruned. However I will keep node 1 and top node 3 once the initial topping and pruning has been done. That will give me 4 bud sites on each side of the manifold. The plants are growing too quickly, and the pots are too small to carry it out farther.

1. The horde has recovered. Several of the plants are already at the 3rd node in development. All are at the 2nd node. 2. I'm not seeing as much vigorous secondary growth yet. Perhaps after I top the secondary tops it will stimulate growth. Or it will pick up as the new tops develop. 3. I'll be trimming off the giant fan leaf that was left from topping. I think there is sufficient amount of leaf mass to keep up with the demands of the plant. I am going to keep trimming to a minimum unless it is necessary. I'll do a major trimming when I top at node 3.

1. I found a way to cull the horde. BS3 started showing male anatomy and had to be removed. I didn't know that they could show their sex that early, but I checked and rechecked the growth to make sure it was male. I provided a picture, but I don't know if it will be detailed enough. 2. Plants 1-2 are showing long, finger-like leaves and longer branching. I'm guessing Sativa or Sativa hybrid. They are much easier to train. 4. Plants 4-5 are both showing short, fat leaves. They are more difficult to train because the branches are thicker and shorter. 5. All plants have been topped at the 3rd node. Currently I have 6 tops on each side. I'm keeping node 1, but I'm unsure about node 2. I might keep it because I topped at node 3 instead of node 4-5. That will give me 12 tops instead of 8. 4. I'll continue training all bud sites out to the sides of the pot. I might start attaching ribbon to the sides of the pots to help train them out. The method I'm using now could be more effective. 5. Once all bud sites have grown to the 3rd node, I'll prune/defoliate them completely. Once they have recovered, I'll flip them to flower. That will bring out the rest of the males. I'm hoping to lose 2 plants. I think my 3x3 tent is the perfect size for 4 heavily trained plants.

1. I am running out of room! This will be the last week of veg. I'll need to flip them next week. I'm hoping some of these seeds are male. Otherwise... 2. The horde is drinking at a rate of every 3 days. My schedule is feed-feed-Recharge. I am currently at full strength for both nutrients. 3. I pruned the 2nd node on all branches. I also trimmed off the majority of fan leaves. Finally, I reset the restraints so the branches would fill out the empty spaces. I will probably defoliate one more time, let the plants recover, then flip them to 12/12.

1. This week's posting is a few days late. The horde was put into darkness for about 30hrs then flipped to a 12/12 light schedule. 2. The horde has shot up like weeds! I stopped LST when I did my final defoliation prior to the flip. They took off when they weren't restrained. I expect a lot more stretch when flowering kicks into full gear. 3. 2 of the plants are a bit spindly. They could be male, Sativa dominant, or just poor genetics. I'll know in a week or so. Now that I'm letting them grow they should fill out and start looking more robust. If not, I could cull them from the horde. This tent really isn't big enough for 6 plants. 4 would be a much better number. 4. The horde is being fed/watered every 3 days now. My schedule remains Feed-Feed-Recharge. I'm using full strength Sensei Grow A+B, or full strength Recharge with 2l filtered water. 5. I'll switch to bloom nutes when I start to see true flowers. My thinking is that the plants will still need growth nutrients throughout the stretch then I can switch.

1. The horde is 1 week into their 12/12 light cycle. There has been a bit of stretch, but nothing outrageous. Pre-flowering pistils have formed. I'd expect true flowers in about a week. Bagseeds seem to take a lot longer to transition. 2. They are all still receiving full strength Sensei Grow A+B in 2l of water. Recharge supplements haven't changed. I will switch to flower nutes once they finish their transition. 3. For some reason they haven't been drinking as much. Normally I water/feed every 3 days, but I only watered once this week. I'm hoping they get more thirsty as they start to flower in earnest. 4. I removed BS5 from the tent. The tent is too crowded. I was having trouble keeping light on all the budsites. Also, this plant started really growing tall and wispy. The budsites did not look very promising. I might remove 1 more before flowering really takes over the tent. I might try a SCROG net to spread things out. It depends on how these plants develop in flowering. You gotta love mystery seeds!

1. The horde is taking its sweet time getting to flower. all 3 plants are showing flowers, but just barely. The whole tent acts like its on holiday!😴😴😴 2. They have stretched quite a bit. The tallest has grown over 10 inches in a week or so. The others have pretty much doubled in size. 3. I've had to keep defoliating the tent due to so many plants. Those giant fan leaves are constantly shading the smaller plants/buds. 4. This was the final week of veg. nutes. I'll do a feeding of Recharge next week then switch to flowering nutes. This might take awhile.

1. The horde is at 3. I lost 1 plant to maleness, and another wasn't really that healthy. Ideally, I should take out at least 1 more plant from the tent. It's too small to grow 5 medium-sized plants. 2. 2 of the Bagseeds appear to by a Sativa hybrid. They have long branching and narrow leaves. They are both the tallest in the tent at 26 inches. The other one appears more Indica dominant. It is only 17 inches tall and the shortest plant in the tent. 3. I did a lot of defoliating in the tent when I feed this week. The giant fan leaves block a lot of sun, and because of the number of plants, buds get lost in the shade. I'm trying to keep things trimmed back so all the budsites get an equal advantage. 4. I switched to flowering nutes at 50% strength this feeding round. I'll do 1 more feeding at 50% then a round of Recharge then kick it up to 100%.

1. Another week... 2. The horde is receiving full strength bloom nutes now. I've added Big Bud to the mix. I won't add anything different until towards the end when I'll swap out Bud Candy with Overdrive. I might have to do some Cal/Mag supplements. I've noticed my autos have some spotting on their leaves. I might not have the proper balance of supplements going. I used Demeter's Destiny on my autos. I might look into AN line of Cal/Mag, or just wait to see what happens with Demeter's. 3. I'm not overly impressed with these plants. I'm learning that using bagseed is a crapshoot at best. This tent is also really crowded. I don't think any more than 4 smallish plants would work in this 3x3 tent. Everything will end up fine, but I don't think I will even experiment with bagseeds again.

1. The girls are cruising right along. The tent is crowded, but everyone is pretty happy. 2. Buds are still a bit small, but I'm comparing them to my other tent that is almost ready to harvest. Talk about unfair expectations! 3. Girls are getting full strength nutes in Bloom, Bud Candy, and Big Bud. If I see any of the Cal/Mag issues I saw with my autos, I'll add some Demeter's Destiny. 4. I turned the personal radiator back on. The tent has been getting colder at night that I'd like. It really slowed down their metabolism it seems. Now that I have it back on, the plants are thirsty for water every 3-4 days again.

1. Just another day in the grow tent. Girls are developing nicely. Tent is a bit too crowded, but they are doing alright. 2. Girls are getting full dose flowering nutes at the moment. They aren't showing any problems. My biggest concern is watering. They keep fluctuating between 4-7 days watering. This last watering, they were really thirsty. 3. This will definitely be my last bagseed grow. You have zero control over your seed characteristics. I have learned a few things though. First, i don't want to run bagseed. There are too many great strains out there to grow. Secondly, my experiment with a winter grow was a success. I was able to pull the little heater out of the tent this week. Thirdly, I know the limits to my tent. 5 plants is far too many. 4 might even be pushing it with the leggy Sativas I have going right now.

1. The horde is alive and well! I started with 5 seeds. 1 seed turned out to be male. Another plant was just plain weak and had to be culled. 2 of the plants are developing like a Sativa dominant. They might take longer to finish. One of them has big round buds! Very nice! The 3rd plant is smaller and seems to be more Indica leaning in size. Buds are rather small though. Hopefully she will develop by the end of the grow. 2. This was the last week to use Recharge. I also switched out Demeter's Destiny for Sensei Cal-Mag Xtra. The AN product gave me Mag, Iron and micro-nutrients. Demeter's gave me straight up Calcium. We'll see how it goes. 3. I won't be able to pull the plants out of the tent anymore. The 2 larger plants can't support the bud weight. I've been supporting them. The WFOG in the same tent can't really move anymore either. No matter. It's all about the bud shots anyway!

This grow was an experiment. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to grow in the winter so I mostly used bagseeds. Those genetics are a crap shoot to begin with, but they were free and good seeds can be expensive. I winterized my grow by putting insulation under the tent, moving it away from an exterior wall, placing a tiny ceramic heater in the tent, and reversing my lighting so the lights would be on when it was the coldest. I never really had any problems with the cold. It did get into the low 60s a few times, and I had some growth slowdowns I believe. Since I wasn't as concerned about the outcome, I decided to practice my mainlining/manifold technique. That was the fun part! 5 different strains all in the same tent is not a great environment for manifold practice. I learned a lot about the support needs of mainlined plants the hard way. By harvest time I had lost 3 bud stalks to breakage. Of course they did not go to waste. I also have several ideas about mainlining that I'd like to practice on my next photo grow. Overall I think the grow was a success. I'd have liked a lot more yield, but I gained a lot of knowledge this round.

1. Buds are developing nicely. BS1 has nice round buds! I wish I knew the strain. I like that bud formation. 2. I've stopped using Recharge. Instead I'm feeding Sensei Cal-Mag Xtra on non-feeding days. 3. I've decided to feed mid-flower schedule for 1 more session before reducing Sensei Bloom and Bud Candy, removing Big Bud, and starting Overdrive. That will be the beginning of the late-flower stage. 4. Once I hit the late-flower stage, I figure I'm about 3-4 weeks from harvest.

1. Of the 3 mystery plants left in the tent, I love how the buds have formed on BS2. They are all various sizes of balls. I was not impressed with this plant when it first started flowering. She almost became a casualty of a crowded tent. 2. I am on the last phase of flowering. I will reduce Sensei Bloom and Bud Candy to 50% and replace Big Bud with Overdrive. 3. I'm thinking 3 weeks until harvest. 2 weeks of feeding and 1 week of flushing.

1. The horde goes down this week! I gave them a feeding of Flawless Finish then I did a final flush today. 2. The final flush was quite the ordeal. The tent was a bud jungle! all the bud stalks were woven around each other. I had no idea there was that much going on in the tent! 3. One of the girls lost a bud stalk. The buds were so heavy, and the stalks so thin that it broke right off!