White Widow * Big Bud 63W/100W run 5

This run I'm having 4 different strains and so I'm dedicating a diary to each, in this case FEMALE SEED's White Widow x Big Bud. The seed was put in water for 24 hours and then planted in soil. After 3 days it broke soil and 1 day later it opened its first pair of true leaves. Water wise the party cup wasn't watered except when the seed was planted, at which time the soil was thoroughly soaked. I'll water with a first dose of cal-max in a day or two. The SETUP ------------ Grow Space. 57 cm * 37 cm * 97 cm (1.87' * 1.21' * 3.18') = 0.2 m³ (7.22 cubic ft) 6 x 6500K 10.5 watts Philips LED Bulbs for veg 3 2700K Solstrips driven at 100 watts Exhaust: Noctua A8 FLX 1 gallon fabric pot

Let's see. at day 10 I started feeding with cal-max, for a total of 100 PPM. At day 14 I transplanted to a 1 gallon pot and also topped the plant to the 3d node

The plant is loving its new home and the week was spent growing the new main tops. All other 1st and 2nd node tops were removed, so to grow only 2 tops. I want to see how growing less tops will go.

We are fast approaching to the end of the veg phase, 1 or 2 more days and then I'll switch to 12/12, which should put the height at 8 inches or so.

I was away for a couple of days with my family and so I could not take the usual pictures that signal the end of the week. I changed the lights to the 100 watts strips and increased the light distance to 16 inches, with the increased light distance I have noticed a few thing: (i) the leaves are real big, (ii) There's no purpling of the stems. I also increased the EC to 0.4 (cal-max only); next feeding I will start some grow nutes to power the stretch and maybe some bloom nutes.

Everything is going great, I expect some minor stretch in the following weeks. I really like how tight the bud sites are in each top. No burn signs, nice light green colored leaves.

It's been a really long time since I've grown a white widow, so I'm quite looking forward to this one been done. The buds are starting to form along the 2 main colas. I hope I can finally get those big ass colas that so far have eluded me. This is the hungrier plant out of the 4 strains I'm growing, the one that showed the PK deficiency first.

Stretch is done, now the flower are starting to take shape. This week sported a moderate magnesium deficiency and so as this week ends, I'm changing cal max for epsom salts and bio-bloom for Grotek Solotek Bloom. We will see how it goes. This is the first time I have a magnesium deficiency. I'm following a tip I read somewhere that at this stage I should change from cal mag to epsom salts due the increased need of magnesium to form buds and decreased need for calcium.

At the end of last week my Biobizz Bloom run out and I decided to try some other bloom nute. I'm used to biobizz giving me low Ca and / or mg deficiency which i get over by using cal max, but this time the mg deficiency was a lot more serious, see the picture of the leaf that I uploaded. I got Grotek Solotek Bloom, we will see how it works.

Last week ended with a rather strong feeding of 2.26 EC and there were signs of over feeding; since I do not know this line, I need to dial my feedings, I believe I'm seeing potassium (K) excess, which in turn resulted in calcium / magnesium deficiency. At day 40 of flowering I gave the plant plain pH'ed water, since at this point I prefer to let the plant consume the excess nutrients in the last 3 weeks that I expect are left to go. I've plucked 1 or 2 leaves in order to open the path for the light to reach lower buds along with some more LST as needed.

The plant has been receiving only water since day 40, much sooner than what I usually do, but then again, most of the times my harvest are much too green when the time to harvest comes, so this time I decided to start early. This is no flushing mind you, I just started giving the plant plain pH'ed water and letting the plant slowly consume every nutrient in the soil and stored in its foliage. The buds have fattened quite a lot this week. I expect to be done in 1 week, 2 at most. Having less tops per sq ft has allowed the plants to develop big fat colas, which is something I had not been able to accomplish before in my previous grows, currently I have 1 ft long (30 cm) colas which is something I'm really proud of. I don't know on which diary I saw this, but thanks to whoever mentioned using binder clips with fabric pots to do LST.

Sorry for the lone picture, I was planning to harvest at the 56 flowering day mark, but at day 53, I spotted a tiny bit of bud rot in the atomic and so I took everything down and is currently hanging to dry. I have a ceramic lamp heater (25 watts) to keep the temperatures warm and so prevent RH from rising. Fortunately the loss is minimal, although I'll have to look into a way to heat the grow box during lights out next time I grow regular strains. Once everything is dry, I'll post pictures of the whole buds.

White Widow * Big Bud I got 1 gpw on this strain. The buds were a thick and a ft long. I really liked the fabric pots; no root circling whatsoever, none at all. Downsizing from 3 gallons to 1 gallon pots, really helped to keep the plant size in check. Aiming for 4 tops per square feet, finally allowed me to get those big colas everyone else seems to get except me. The less dense canopy also helped keep the moisture in check (somewhat). I do not know if I mentioned this in the diary earlier or not, but binder clips are awesome to use with fabric pots to support twist ties. I got a 25-watt ceramic bulb, which emits pure heat in order to keep the grow box dark, but warm enough to safely dry the hanging buds, it worked like a charm.