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First grow!
EDIT: I've given each plant their own diary, to make it easier for me to flip through, but will still be updating this one every day!
All plants are in Great Lakes Water Only super type soil. Watering with 6.15ph, runoff is around 6.8. My plan is to just plain water them, LST them, and hit them with a great big pile of light.
Backdated all plants to be starting on the same day, even though they were staggered by several days during planting and germinating.
Started with a 125w wall draw Blurple that called itself 1000w. Ordered a 3x 63z 3590 Cree Cob kit while running the blurp.
Sour Crack #1 - Came up out of the dirt like a rocket and chugged along with no issues.
Sam's Crack #1 - Ditto for this one. All I know about these seeds is that they are a cross between Mephisto's Sour Crack and Samsquanch OG. My hope is that it grows like a Sour Crack and bulks like the Samsquanch. :-D
Sam's Crack #2 (Mandy Capable) - She came out missing about 1.5 of her cotyledon leaves. What came out of the dirt was sort of blackened and sort of twisted. I worried that she wasn't going to make it and germed another Sam's Crack, who is officially named #1 because why not confuse the issue. She took a long time to get going but is now blasting off, as later pics will show.
3 Bears OG #1 - She came out of the ground and shot up to three inches tall in something like three days then started screaming sativa dominant pheno? She's been pleasantly boring and hasn't given me any surprises apart from showing more sativa than expected.
Apart from the long recovery time that Mandy Capable went through everybody was doing fine. Was fun to see the differences between strains. The Sour Crack is wrinkly and jagged, the Sam's Cracks are more orderly and geometric, and the 3 Bears is skinny, willowy, and tall.
I seem to have avoided the most common noob problem of watering them too often, and we're mostly out of the seedling woods with these guys so now it's just blasting the lights at them, watering when the thingy says "1", and doing nothing particularly stupid.
Mandy Capable, Our Intrepid Underdog, has been a blast. In the last couple days she's bulked up and made very clear that while she may not place, she showed the fuck up to the race. Still hoping that her Samsquanch genes give her a few extra days to grow, over her Sour Crack Genes, so that she may not be a full on stunted mess. If I can get 1oz out of her I'll feel like a real winner.
Sour Crack #1 is responding happily to LST!
Something I'm coming across is the fact that hitting these gals with so much light has created a scenario that includes wide, *extremely bushy*, short plants. Getting half inch spaces between nodes. So I decided to run the lights at around 60% of full for about six hours out of the 21 on their schedule. Seems to be giving me a little more room to fuss around.
Another first! Sour Crack #1 enters her first week of flower! She'f fat and sassy, and is getting a dose of P/K with each water, along with a little bit of Bio Root as well. As the week continues this is where I expect to see maybe a tiny bit of her first frost? We'll see.
Day 34 - Things are starting to look rather lush in the old tent. Sour Crack #1 is getting into the personal space of the other girls. Had to add platforms to raise the smaller pots up so they don't get choked out. Sam's Crack #1 is right next to her and only a couple days behind. These things make me happy.
Day 36 - OH NO! (It's okay) I has been keeping a duct vent hole open on the tent to let air in, rather than one of the screened in windows. Little did I know that Blair the kittycat was not only able to motivated to climb through the four inch hole and into the tent! There were four fan leaves damaged and a bunch of dirt moved around. She has since been banned from the room and the proper flap in the tent has been opened. No permanent damage apart from an undocumented 16 day old losing a hunk of fan leaf that she seemed to bounce right back from. Pic of Blair included.
Day 40 - Everyone recovered just fine from the Cattack. Have had a nitrogen deficiency in Sam #2 Mandy Capable. Gave her some regular old Miracle Grow Plant Food because it was too cold to go anywhere and my car battery had died. Luckily the battery charger fixed the car overnight, and the Miracle Grow fixed Mandy as well.
Day 41 - My Great Lakes Water Only soil is a little nitrogen poor. Water has been PH'd to 6.15 at all times, runoff is slightly less than 7. Plants got General Hydroponics Bio Roots for two weeks, then just PH'd water until flower, and one week of Canna P/K 13/14. Myco Blast at the beginning as well. I am moving everything over to Iguana Juice Bloom when they flower as it has more nitrogen in it.
Day 43 - Sour Crack #1 is showing signs of calcium and magnesium deficiencies. Oldest tops are turning yellow between veins and there are a couple brown splotches. Doing a foliar spray to act fast, because she's at least another day until watering. Hopefully this helps as she only has another 12 to 17 days and it'll be hard to tell deficiencies and general dying because she's old apart soon. She'll also get a full dose of GHE cal/mag in her next watering.
Day 44 - Flushed Sour Crack #1 with eight gallons of 6.15ph water and threw one gallon of cal/mag at her. She seems to be much happier now. 12 hours later she's got a little more green and a lot less yellow going on. She's 44 days old in a 55-60 day grow cycle, so I may just stick to watering for the rest of her grow, to avoid any further incidents.
Day 47 - The tent is getting really, really packed in! Sour Crack #1 got raised up so she can get more flower power, because she's much shorter than her neighbors. All of them were watered and feed, excepting her. She just got PHed water and will do so until the end. She has 12-13 days at most at this point and I don't want any further issues. :-D
Day 49 - Sam's Crack #1 is on week seven and bulking up her flowers! Sour Crack #1 is still meating up her flowers and looks to be in the home stretch.
Sour Crack #1 - Day 50 - This is her last week, or ten days! She's yellow on top, green on the bottom, and THICC for a little gal. Gonna start checking her trichomes on day 55 to see if she's ready and depending, will check again on 58 and 60. She will likely not live past day 60 because she's real close.
Sour Crack #1 - Day 54 - Was told that Sour Crack #1 wasn't as far along as I thought. Will wait. Not super anxious about getting her done beyond how much space the tent has and how the younger plants are maybe getting crowded out a bit.
Sam #1 - Day 54, Sam #2 (Mandy) - Day 53, 3 Bears OG #1 - Day 50 - All three girls are looking chipper today! 3 Bears got the worst of the starvation but is getting shiny and vibrant again. The other two just got a little dull and pale, and they both perked right up with a good feeding. I have decided to go minimal from now on with nutrients and additions to my soil. From now on it will be Great Lakes Water Only Soil, Myco, PHed water and Bio Roots until preflowers show, say, day 25+ or so, then Maxibloom and not much else. I am experimenting with a Mammoth P freebie and may stick with it. I had too many variables going on and I want to create and effective but fairly simple grow method that is fairly consistent for my main grows. I'm still happy to experiment with different stuff on all my onsie twosie grows but for my mains, which will probably be Sour Crack, it will be the same thing for everyone, with more consistency.
Day 57 - Sour Crack #1 has amber on her calyxes and she's gonna get the chop this evening. Excited to see what her wet weight is! She's a small producer but my hope is getting in at over 1.5oz and I think I may have pulled it off, underfeeding or not. Pic of cut and trim tomorrow!
Day 58 - Sour Crack #1 - Due to other issues she didn't get the chop. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Busy busy busy = No time for love, Dr. Jones. However, she's early in the harvest window so there's no issue in waiting a couple days. Every day is better until every day is worse so no stress.
Day 57 - Sam's Crack #1 - Went underneath her hood and removed a bunch of tiny undeveloped buds. She's looking great, apart from a tiny but of nutrient burn on a couple tops. Kind of did a see saw with the underfeeding to overfeeding. Caught it quick, though.
Day 57 - Sam's Crack #2 - Mandy Capable - I have no idea what she's doing with this additional stratch, but she's shiny, happy, and growing. big buds all over.
Day 58 - First Grow. First plant. 272.16 Grams I dinged her up pretty good around days 35-40 or so, which were pretty crucial days in a 55-60 day plant, but it seems like the damage was primarily cosmetic as she came through with what seems to me like a whole lot of bud, that looks pretty good up close. Most of the damage seemed to have been to her fan leaves*, and all of those were still supple and looked good on the bottoms, so there was still some good action happening inside her. Her wet weight (With stems) is 272.16 Grams. I don't know how much they weigh, but my hope is to get 1.5 ounces out of her. I'm fairly certain that I'll get more than 1oz. For a plant with a claimed harvest of 30-60 grams, I am a happy camper for a first timer. I'll do better next time! This gal is about a week older than her sisters in the grow, and most of the worst mistakes I have made have been with her, so onward and upward! She's drying now, with most of her sugar leaves attached and a tiny bit of fan leaves hanging off of her to slow her dry. Our RH is in the 20s and 30s right now and it's hard to keep up so slowing down her dry is critical. She's in an 18x18x24 inch moving box. Some holes poked into the sides, hanging from some paracord. (She was so heavy I wanted 550lb test line har har etc.) So now we wait and watch her dry out. Will read more about drying and make sure her conditions are as optimal as they can be.
So basically I'M IN. This is a thing I can do and not get bored. Every step is interesting and I'm constantly trying to figure ways out to make thing easier and better. I'm an obsessive tinkerer and optimizer and this is one more thing that has nearly endless putzing around potential. My goal, after this full grow is harvested, is to go through my whole process (Was well documented) and cut out every dead end and mistake, and creating as simple a grow plan as possible. Things like learning that nutrients are an endless rabbit hole for salespeople to send a newbie down, how not to panic and make big, drastic moves. How to wait a couple days and see before acting. It's a good general patience training exercise. I've come out of the first grow having learned about 30 things to never do again, and still managed to come out with what looks like a damned decent crop, so yay me, and yay people here on Growdiaries, /r/autoflowers /r/mephheads and /r/microgrowery who were instrumental getting me through this with some dignity. :-D
I'll update the harvest when she's dry and I've tasted a lil' sump'n.
After giving her the pre-cut haircut we were kind of amazed at how healthy she looked underneath her beat up top layer of foliage!
Day 70 overall in the grow. Sam #1 is day 64, Sam #2 is day 63 so she'll be here tomorrow. We're coming in to the closing weeks of Sam #1 and #2 (Mandy). They are both very different girls, either due to nature or environment. Both have lots of bud, and look like corker yield girls.
Day 74 overall - Sam #1 got the chop the other day, of course. Sam #2 - Mandy is at day 68 and looking like she could go another week easily. 3 Bears OG is at day 65. 3 Bears had to get five ounces (wet) of popcorn chopped out from her underbelly. It was all bright green, pale, and not going anywhere. Her energy would be better spent up top. Also ripped out a cubic assload of fan leaves that were sitting at her bottom, doing nothing. She seems to be super happy about all of this.
She delivered the goods in 67 days! Amazing plant with a largish yield. 17.1oz wet, probably around 4-4.25 dry. (Just hung her today but using the typical 25% number.)
I can't believe how fast she was and I wish I had a whole lot more Sam's Crack seeds sitting around because I'd love to have more of her.
See her solo diary for more details!
Check her solo diary for all of her details. She had a hard start, but once she overcame her handicap, she came back with a vengeance and her yield seems to be only a little less than her sister, Sam#1, who was grown in a pot with double the volume!