Ganja Farmer Gelato Auto (and Light Experiments)

This was how Chlorothilda looked on Oct. 2nd. Her sister to the left about twice as big, although still ridiculously small. All that under 250 W of light in her nursery, not at my place. Feeding and other conditions are unknown. She did get some fertilisers, but that’s all I know.

One week later, Chlorothilda finally showed her will to survive. Although still a lot behind her sister, she became really bushy after topping.

Next week, she started to show preflowers.

Chlorothilda finally moved into my home. I cleaned everything, rearranged the chaos and, because I am much more into taste than pure THC and there is no clear opinion available – some say it’s nonsense, some say it pushes buds and terpenes –, I installed a set of MarsHydro Adlites. Of course I won’t be able to prove anything from this setup, so it’s just for personal curiosity and results will be purely subjective. Currently I add 15 minutes of red overlapping with the main lights for sunset and sunrise. During the peak times, UV will be on for 1 or 2 minutes each hour over a period of 6 hours. Because she was situated in a 3.7 pot only, I dared to move her into my 20 l air pruning pot. She survived it very well and I can see in timelapse video she continued with some bud growth. Maybe I should have done it right at the start to avoid double stress, but I put her under the scrolling net and removed blocking leaves and hopeless buds on Oct. 29 – her 3rd day here.

What I experienced last week is the slowest stretch I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen already two before! No, honestly, Chlorothilda is extremely underperforming in my eyes. She might have gained 2 or 3 cm in a full week (the shrinking in her cms because first measurement was done unscrogged, so maybe let her be like 50 cm tall. Buds are tiny (but huge compared to her sister who looks completely different, much taller and oversewn with hundreds or absolutely tiny buds, but extremely fragile and thin in her overall appearance). Even worse, the neighbour who pre-grew her found seeds in his last harvest, and the tiny pre flowers in sister’s nodes look weird. Female in a way, with the requested two white hairs, but hanging downwards. Chlorothilda shows similar ones too (so tiny they escape my phone camera), so honestly I don’t expect much from this grow. Experience if it works out best. It’s hard to tell what might be the causes. Stopped root development, being planted lower twice, different water and fertiliser, frequent placement changes, quality of seeds … I don’t know. I could maybe compare if I raised her continuously. Lowest leaves are already starting to get yellow. It might not be your fault, Chlorothilda, but I feel some disappointment on my side. Nov 8th: Some lower fan leaves look like being nutrition burnt, but all she got so far was mostly root complex. Still no growth worth mentioning. But a very interesting strong new root growth above the soil (so it’s green), spreading very far. To me this looks like she does not like the soil she came in that much and tries to reach the new soil beyond. Have you ever seen this? Watered her, this time with all of Hesi flower fertilisers, but reduced dosage.

One week later and not much change to see. I'd predict something about 20 g harvest max. Might still be worth it; the buds look really great with trichomes densely down to the fan leaves, but … whatever happened to her, it will be disappointing in volume.

Nov 18th: Maybe it is the fact that I added about one hour of additional Far Red to her high noon, maybe Hesi helped or she has finally recovered from being transplanted. Maybe a combination of all. Anyway, comparison with last week shows Chlorothilda is finally gaining some buds worth mentioning. Which are already very sticky and have a great, fruity-citrus like smell to the tender touch.

Week 11, and not much difference in size. In maturity yes. Pistils are turning orange, lower fan leaves mighty yellow, so my estimation would be 10–14 days until harvest. It won’t be much, so I hope the quality will make up the missing quantity somehow. Will give them a final round of fertilisers and only water afterwards. I turned up the Far Red phase during her midday to 2 hours and extended the UV phases to 2–4 minutes hourly over six hours of their day.

Skipped a week as not much happened, and as you can see in the picture what happened was that I let her run dry unintentionally which made Chlorotilda throw most of her leaves. Buds have grown just a bit, but microscope says she wants to have another week. Just giving her RO with a bit of tap water now.

Time to say good bye: Microscope tells me buds are on their peak, with most trichomes being cloudy and a few amber in color. Chlorothilda stayed a dwarf – to her right is a 1 month old photoperiodic girl that was nursed under Sansi LED light outside the grow box, and the moment she was placed in the tent she started to grow those big, deep green leaves you see. But her buds are the best I could harvest so far. Dense, moist and putting a smell on each touching finger that lasts for half an hour or even longer.

As already stated: These are the best looking buds I produced so far (in all my countless three grows). This is the tiniest lady I ever raised. But I don’t know who to blame, so I won’t. Might have been the seed quality (Her sister is a complete mutant with about zero usable harvest), might have been the treatment she received during her first weeks.