Humboldt Sour Diesel Auto (Humboldt HSC) — Box, Coco, LED

For now, she's getting all the sunlight during the day on window sills, and during night I place her below the main plant in the tent, where there's some light, but not too bright.

She's doing well. I've been feeding 1.5x of recommended nute dosage from early days basing on the fact that she has 1.5x plant mass and leaf surface area for her age / node count. She's been taking it well and sprouting really quickly. Transferred her to the box as soon as it was cleaned after the previous grow. For this grow I have revised and updated most of the grow setup systems.

Have some leaf problems. The dry tips are only present on one specific node level, and I think this has more to do with the funky genetics than with feeding and whatnot. Something on other leaves, too. I think I know what it is, but I will post a question later to inquire with a broader audience. Judging by results, I have corrected the problem successfully.

Tri-symmetry continued all the way up on the central stem (trunk), which was 7 or 8 nodes at the time I topped it. None of the side branches had the tri-symmetry, as far as I can remember. They are just normal bi-plane two leaves per node, quickly evolving into staggered leaves after 2 or 3 two-leaf symmetric nodes. Geometry wise, she was a bit of a challenge to plan and route in a square tent.

Instead of straight topping, I decided to try something else this time. If the goal to maximize photosynthesis capacity at any stage of a plant's life, then why would I chop off the leaves above the cut line? And why would I cut off extra branches at this stage? Now, for the branches, there could be a reason in that culling weaker or unwanted branches (according to a canopy shaping strategy, if you have one) would stimulate the plant to redirect all energy to expanding main planned cola branches. But if we assume that a sucker branch/unwanted branch is a net-positive energy producer — meaning that it has enough leaf surface to generate more energy that it consumes on whatever processes are going within it — why would I want to rob the plant of this extra energy this early in the lifecycle, where the canopy is nowhere near big enough to properly capture all cast light? The benefits are exponential, so the later I cull extra branches (read, leaves), the more energy (and, as a result, plant mass) the plant had a chance to generate until then. So maybe a good strategy is just clipping unwanted budlings and keeping the rest, including a (bent and guided) central stem. This time I decided to perform what I called "Branch-Stop" on the plant. It probably has a proper name in agriculture, but I had not gotten to researching it. What I did was basically clip any child branches at their origin node if I didn't want the plant to continue growing in that direction/area. At the same time I kept the leaves at the same node junctions, where it was physically possible to separate them. To give you an easy to understand example, if my plant was on [central stem] node 7 and I would normally top above node 4, this time I would clip all child branches above node 4, but I will keep the leaves, recursively. Effectively, I would top a lot of young-generation nodes. A logical continuation of this idea is to not top any branches at all, just make sure that no unwanted bud sites are allowed to develop, to limit the number of colas and reduce larf/popcorn. Obviously, this method is risky, at the very least because many cuts means much larger total cut surface, much greater risk of contamination of any kind (including inviting unwanted insects), and probably more stress to the plant. On the other hand, leaf surface loss is negligible, and the plant should have enough energy to recover quickly. This can also be done as a steady repeated procedure, removing only a few tiny young branches at once. I made sure that my instruments were sterile, I used clean gloves and I made sure my environment was also clean. Would not recommend it for outdoor at all (too risky), but indoor it worked better than I expected, in the sense that the plant did not show any signs of stress, and continued growing a massive trunk.

One week later, you can see the results of "Branch-Stop" canopy shaping technique that I explained previous week. The plant recovered very well.

Steady progress. Installed the ScrOG screen this week, lazily guiding branches through in the general direction. Not trimming down sucker branches yet as I explained earlier the week I did Branch-Stop (BS) shaping. This only makes sense if you add side and/or bottom lighting so that all those leaves can get meaningful amounts of photons and be net positive producers of energy for the plant. If it's dark below, I don't think extra leaves are of much use. I'm not a real botanist though, so dyor.

Finally pruned her this week. Probably overdone it, cause she lost... visually — half of her leaves and plant mass? A lot. Basically, I cut almost every branch that was not in the 15-18 leading cola branches rated by their trunk width (not sure if a reasonable metric lol, just experimenting). I left a few branch-stopped (BS) branches simply to add more leaf surface area for the recovery period. I think I realized that I overdone it towards the end, when I put all of the lights on, and then I saw how many gaping holes there were in the canopy 😆 Looking back, I should have kept a few more branches for recovery, until remaining cola branches expand their canopies to cover the screen densely. This would have made it much less of a stumble for the plant. Meanwhile, I'm happy that I didn't stunt the plant earlier, and tried to give a lot of light for her leaves in the early stages. Stronger plant meant higher recovery chances, and higher potential yield bracket. No idea what's up with purple leaves — just genetics and/or cold, or stress, although I have my guesses based on a few visual guides.

After a brief pause and a generation of stressed fans (although I'm not sure this was their only stress, maybe it was the second event for them already) the plant looks to have continued strong, and the buds are now growing visible by the day. The smell is still very moderate compared to the Tangie I grew right before this one — that one was pretty stinky, although I think still far from skunkmaster genes, whatever they are. The buds are dense and solid. Trying to split them apart without damaging to improve airflow through the canopy. How many colas per ft2 is too many if they are fat like this? Can such fast mass gain compromise quality, if not contaminated and harvested when truly ripe?

All is reasonably well as far as I'm concerned. Colas are fat and dense and at least decently sticky. Will update later.

She's doing well as far as I'm concerned. Very late flowering, bud growth has almost stopped save for a couple smaller buds about the size of a plum each. Pistils are turning from pure white to bright orange with cognac tones. I like bright orange hair in my bud, so I'm happy with this. No less happy I am that I have apparently grown a significantly purple-ish plant, which would be my first time ever having access to purple-ish quality bud. I'm very excited to see how she turns out after curing!

I have started flushing with pH-adjusted Flawless Finish solution, expecting to harvest somewhere around the end of this week, although I will continue monitoring pistils and trichs. Upd: Added back 50% base nutrients and some flowering additives after researching some of the first responses to my flushing question. I learn every day. Even that which was scientifically proven true one day, might be even more scientifically proven absolutely false some time later (not related to flushing specifically). Thank you kings! Upd 2: Okay okay I cooked her with some cosmic rays or whatever those Chinese quantum bars emit — purple rays, I'll call it — that's on me. Turned them 30% down to see what's up. Light burn was not on my mind, because otherwise the leaves were not really curving that much, considering that this is 3 weeks overdue wrt advertised. Sorry about that, did not pay enough attention.

Few final day before harvest. Watered with tap water to help flush and metabolize any remaining nutrients. The pot looks like it needs more flushing still. Last two days before harvest will be no-watering days.

Chopped her two days into week 14. What else. Buds. There are a lot of them. And they are quite large. And they look like they will require little effort to trim. What more can I wish for? I am a very happy man. Upd 1: Trimming is SO SIMPLE! Not much sticking out to begin with, because of the amazing bud structure and me plucking most bud node fans. Solid nugs which are not bothered by anything, so pulling smaller sub-bud fans is very simple too, while the buds are what I would call moist. I'll call this Moist Trim 😄 ✂️✂️✂️ Went for the best trimming tools available on the market (well at least my research concluded so) and LOVING every minute of trimming with the B-500SRF. Why would I or anyone else use something less suitable or less comfortable for such a delicate and long job is beyond me, except if you cannot afford one right now, in which case I wish you to experience it one day. Fiskars are also very good in therms of the blades, coating and cutting ability and precision, but the spring is just too stiff, like way, way to stiff for something that is to be used for hours on end. One might argue that such spring force helps overcome resin buildup, but please just rinse your instrument regularly in an appropriate solvent (ethy, iso, whatever — consider you instrument materials as well) and wipe it after. Why would you let significant amounts of resin to accumulate on such a gentle and precise tool? Kinda defeats the purpose?