With a Little Help from my Friends

1. This will be grow #4. I was lucky enough to get a regular seed from our local Apothecary. White Fire is an Indica leaning hybrid from what I've read. The seedling is certainly leaning towards Indica. It is short and squat, unlike its brethren in the tent. 2. I'll be using Recharge for Microbes and Advanced Nutrients for the overall grow. I am going to try to do a full mainline grow. My goal is to keep the energy focused on a few buds. That means I'll have to cringe and prune off all those little lower buds and nodes.😖😖😖 I've noticed that my yields have been lower in past grows. I attribute some of that to not properly pruning the lower canopy. 3. This is the last of my winter grow series. I've changed the light cycle, added a heater, and insulated the tent in order to keep the temperatures high enough to grow. So far i am averaging 83 degrees when the lights are on, but the temps. do drop to 65 during the dark cycle.

1. Wednesday White Fire was transplanted into a 3 gallon canvas smart pot. 2. I watered with filtered water and fed half strength AN grow nutrients and full strength Recharge. 3. Recharge has an interesting claim. I have photos to compare. I'll let you be the judge. 4. So far this strain is short and very Indica-like. I see that the stems are a bit red. I'm thinking that might be temperature related. The plants are too young for any deficiencies. 5. I will be topping this plant when it reaches node 5. I'll prune it back to node 3 then prune all of the growth except for fan leaves and secondary branching from node 3.

1. WFOG is killing it! It is at node five today. I will be topping and mainlining this plant over the weekend. I'll provide before and after photos in next week's post. 2. AN nutes are being fed on a schedule of Feed-Feed-Recharge. I'm feeding at roughly 3/4 strength on the AN nutes. I'll increase it to full strength next week, after mainlining. 3. This plant is ready for the mainlining stage. I will top the plant at the 3rd node, keep the 3rd node's secondary growth as the new tops, keep it's fan leaf for energy production, then prune/trim off all the other growth. It will be gruesome. I wouldn't eat before looking at the photos.

1. WF is growing into a dense shrubbery. The leaves are fat and thick. Their stalks are like little branches! 2. She is a bit hard to train. Her stem structure is so thick that she pulls the stakes out of the soil! I've had to make my hooks longer so they stay in the ground. I might be switching to something that attaches to the pot instead soon. 3. She is easily finishing her 2nd node. I'll top at 3 and train the bud sites out. I'll probably flip in 2-3 weeks. 4. I will continue feeding at 75% strength. I have a feeling she would like a stronger dose (nutrient junkie), but I'm going to give this dosage a few feedings.

1. OG fights back! She already has a burly trunk and stems! It requires 2 anchors to keep the branches down for training. 2. I will need to come up with another method of training. She pulls the anchors out of the soil. I will try attaching ribbon or the training wire I use to the side of the canvas pot. I could probably use a binder clip, or heavy duty paper clip as the anchor. 3. The weather has been cold for the last week or so. WF hasn't been drinking as much. I'm using the same quantities, but instead of every 3-4 days, I'm watering/feeding every 5-6 days. 4. At this rate of growth, I should have all budsites grown out to the 3rd node in 7-10 days. Then I will defoliate/prune all secondary growth so the plant can focus on the 12 budsites. Once she has recovered, I will flip to flower.

1. I am quickly running out of room! All of my branches have reached the edge of my fabric pots. Luckily, I am almost at my growth goal My plan was to flip to flower when the 2 topped, tops are at 3 nodes. Currently, I pruned off secondary growth from the 1st node. The 2nd node is close to being ready to prune. I'll do a last defoliation/pruning when that top has a well developed 3rd node then flip when she has recovered. I'm guessing another weekish. 2. WF is currently receiving full strength feedings of Sensei Grow and Recharge.

1. A little late posting this week. My winter grow tent was on a dark period for flowering. Lights went out at 1PM on Thursday and didn't go back on until 7PM Friday. They just finished day 1 of their 12/12 light cycle. 2. I stopped doing LST when I did my final defoliation prior to flipping the grow. She has grown several inches due to that. I expect another 12 inches or so on the stretch. 3. I will continue feeding veg nutes until I see true flowers. Then I'll gradually switch over to Sensei Bloom A+B and Bud Candy, Big Bud, and Overdrive at the appropriate times.

1. WF is a robust plant! She is making a fast transition to flowering. I'd expect buds by the end of the week. Pre-flowering pistils are everywhere. I tried to take a few photos, but alas I only have a phone camera. 2. I am giving her veg nutes until buds show. I'll change over to flowering nutes at that time.

1. We have flowering! WF shot up in the last week or so. She is the tallest plant in the tent. She finally showed her buds 2 days ago. 2. I've defoliated quite a bit in the last week. As the stalks start to stretch, I'm trying to keep everything in the light. The tent is really full though, so its difficult. 3. WF received her final veg. feeding this week. I'll do a recharge feeding the next time I water then switch over to flowering nutes. 4. WF is only taking water about every 5 days. I'm hoping that will pick up now that she is in full flowering mode.

1. I think she is finally ready to get busy making flowers. Stretch is mostly over and buds are really starting to form on the bud stalks. 2. She looks real spindly from the side, but the tops are looking great! There won't be a ton of buds, but they will all be really good size since they are all about the same distance from the light. 3. I've switched over to flowering nutes. I am feeding at 50% strength for the next 2 feedings. I will probably skip the 75% stage and go right to 100% for the next round of feedings. This plant is a bit of a beast when it comes to anything.

1. She is looking great this week! Buds are starting to fill up the stalks. 2. She is now getting full strength flowering nutes. However, she is only receiving water/nutes 1x a week. 3. I've stopped defoliating for the most part. I'll trim off a leaf that is blocking a bud, but otherwise I'm trying to leave her alone.

1. She is developing nicely! Nice bud formation at the top, and the stalks are filling in nicely. I doubt they will fill in completely though, too much competition. 2. WF is getting full strength Bloom, Bud Candy, and Big Bud. 3. The only defoliation I'm doing is to keep bud sites clear. I'm barely pulling leaves at this point. I can't wait to see how this girl turns out. She has potential!

1. WF is getting pretty top heavy! She is starting to lean. I had to put supports in and move her to a different part of the tent so her budstalks don't fall over! I tried to modify a tomato cage, but I did some minor damage to a smaller budstalk. Hopefully it will be okay. Otherwise, this will be my first taste! 2. She is getting full strength flowering nutes. I think she could feed more often. I might've let her go too long between waterings and that is why she was leaning so much. 3. The tent is getting pretty crowded as these plants mature. I don't think I can really pull them all out for watering/photos. The end of this grow might prove challenging. That'll teach me!

1. She is chugging along. Buds are still developing. Pistils are starting to turn orange, and trichomes are starting to really form. She is starting to get frosty! 2. The branch that I almost snapped in half has completely recovered. There is a nice green knuckle there now. 3. She is about half way through flowering I would imagine. I will stop using Recharge and switch to plain water on non-feed days. I might feed w/Cal-Mag. I'll see how she is doing. 4. I switched out Demeter's Destiny for Sensei Cal-Mag Xtra. I wanted to stay with the AN line as it has Magnesium, Iron and some trace elements that could be beneficial. Demeter's Destiny is straight Calcium. 5. I noticed that AN's Cal/Mag really drops the pH. I would think it would raise it because of the Calcium. Irregardless, I had to add pH up to my feeding formula to get the pH up to 6.2.

1. WF is filling out nicely. My little mishap with the branch is long forgotten. 2. I've replaced Recharge with Sensei Cal-Mag Xtra. At this point in the grow, the plants need more Cal/Mag than they do Root/Growth Stimulators. 3. This is the last week of mid-flowering nutes. The next round of feedings I will reduce Sensei Bloom and Bud Candy to 75% and replace Big Bud with Overdrive. I will use that formula for 1 round of feedings then reduce Sensei Bloom and Bud Candy to 50% for the last round prior to flushing. 4. My flushing schedule will be 3 waterings of 2l with filtered water and Flawless Finish. Then, hopefully, a final flush prior to my harvest routine.

1. We are getting close to the end! I'm hoping 3 weeks. It may be sooner. Trichomes are looking clear to milky. 2. Of my manifold practice. This plant is the only one that really kept the 8 main bud stalk concept. The other plants grew at varying heights. Its pretty wild in the tent! I know I need to work on this technique if I hope to see any benefits from it. 3. This next feeding round I will reduce Sensei Bloom and Bud Candy to 50% and replace Big Bud with Overdrive. I'll do that for 2 sets of feedings then I'll start thinking about flushing.

1. This is the last week for WFOG. I did the final flush today. I'll give her a few days to dry out in the tent, under the lights, then I'll put her in the dark room for 3 days to finish out. 2. It was almost a disaster pulling her out of the tent for the final flush. I didn't realize what a jungle I had inside the grow tent. The plants were all inter-mingled, and giving each other support. Once out of the tent, I had to create supports for the bud stalks. They were falling over from the weight of the buds. Alas, poor me!

This plants was part of the winter experiment. I'm sure there were some issues with cold, but they appeared minor. I know they slowed their growth a bit when we really hit a cold spell, but otherwise they came through fine. This girl was also manifolded. That produced 8 major bud stalks. Unfortunately she almost doubled her height in stretch and the bud stalks became these willow sticks! I had other plants that helped support her, but in the future I will need to account for that prior to starting. Overall, I think this was a successful grow. I'm sure I could've had a better yield if I would've changed a few things. Winter was minor. Having 4 other plants in the tent was a huge difference. My Manifold structure also needs a bit of work. Another grower is experimenting with a more circular manifold. I'm going to try that out next grow.