Strawberry Cough from seed by Hazeman

My second grow is on! I like what Ive read about the breeder Hazeman and his gear, and his prices are reasonable, so I decided to run Strawberry Cough, which is normally run from clones. This appears to me to be the best current option for Strawberry Cough (non-auto) seeds. I popped all 12 and they all germinated and were put into Solo cups with coco coir. They will be moved into 4-gallon hempy buckets, so I got those built. I did some playing around with drip irrigation and automating and managing drainage, and my intent is to fully automate this grow but for now I'll be hand watering/feeding. I'm using GH Flora series nutes and their drain-to-waste feed schedule. Gonna add some Ca-Mg too, but for now they're getting tap water. I'm also trying a little experiment to see if there's anything to the internet lore that sex of plants can be foretold by seed morphology, where you identify the seeds with the "round volcano" structure on the plant end of the seed as likely females.

Disaster occurred when I dropped the tray with all 12 seedlings in solo cups. Nine will probably survive. Damn cold New England weather made me want to bring them in for the night (been vegging outside). Oh well. Random selection I guess.

Nothing much happened during weeks 3 and 4 when I didn't grab any pictures. I vegged the plants outside and we had a cold, damp late spring in MA so they din't grow very quickly. I transplanted them into 4-gal hempy buckets and moved them into my tent as soon as my new grow setup was completed. Before I started manifolding, I waited until most of the plants got big enough for me to top twice for 4 colas per plant. I topped the main stem at the 3rd node, and if the plant was big enough I topped it again at the 4th or 5th node. After a couple more days of veg I'll top again and re-train for 8 colas on the larger plants. At this point 6 of the 9 plants appear similar and are larger and greener than the other three. I'm feeding them about 750 ml every 2 days using GH DTW late veg growth nute schedule.

At the end of Week 6 I continued mainlining and training the plants. The 6 larger plants have been topped 3 times for 8 colas. The 3 smaller ones have been topped twice, and there's some asymmetry going on with two nodes on one side of the manifold and one on the other. Of the 9 plants, 6 are Indica dominant, larger with very stubby and broad leaves. Three plants are smaller and have thinner leaves and looked like weaklings, but they have all responded well to the addition of Ca-Mg to their feeding regime a couple weeks ago. I'm new to coco coir and these plants are growing slower than I expected, probably due to spending their first month outside in chilly late spring weather. I'm feeding them about 750 ml every two days, and I estimate about 30% of that is drained to waste. I still have less than 5 gal in my waste reservoir after a couple weeks. I think they'll finally be ready to start flowering soon.

Finally, the last week of veg. I really only wanted to veg for a short while but the mainlining really requires a lot of extra time. Given how Indica leaning most of these plants look, I think topping for 8 colas per plant was too much and they probably only should have been topped once or twice. Oh well, this grow is a mainling practice run for when I start growing haze hybrids next time around. I’m still a newb and am learning to dial stuff in. The clones I took have all rooted, so I’ll see if I can get them to start growing in coco coir and then gift them to local Strawberry Cough fans.

The plants are doing well and starting to show sex after their first week of a 12/12 light schedule. A couple males and females have revealed themselves. The first girl to show was #11 (fromt right), which is nice because she one the the three more haze-leaning plants. I'll compare the results to the predictions in Week 1 in next week's post. Odors from stem rubs are mostly just that of a green growing plant but two plants are showing some berry smells and one smells mildly of shit, quite funky. Stretch has not been bad at all...mainlining is definitely a good way to control plant height, and I'm really doing this to practice for my next grow which will be a 50% haze. I'm pretty sure I'll have plenty of headroom left in the tent throughout the flower cycle, too much in fact, I think the Indica dom phenos only needed one or at most two toppings...I'm probably going to leave some yield on the table this grow because the plants won't get big enough, but we'll see. The clones I took have all rooted in my bubble cloner so my first attempt at cloning yielded a 100% success rate. :) I planted the clones and will grow them out to see what happens, although most will be culled. If any of the males look interesting (lots of early trichomes or a nice smell) them I'll flower them at my friend's house and collect the pollen and make some F2s.

Out of 12 seeds (a full pack) planted, I ended up with only three girls. After I lost three seedlings in Week 2, six of the remaining nine were males. Bummer. So I culled four males and put two outside for pollen production. Male SC#4 was selected because he was last to flower and the only male that was sativa leaning. Male SC#7 was selected based on its having the most pungent berry smell when the petioles were rubbed. The seed-based sexing experiment resulted in a dismal 40% prediction success rate, although I probably did mix up a couple labels when I dropped the tray of seedlings in Week 2. However, I still think it’s an experiment that bears repeating, so I’ll try it again. These plants are taking their time in flower…I’m predicting a full 12-week flowering cycle for this grow. The SC#6 and #11 runt plants still look like they’d appreciate a higher dose of nutes, so I’ll probably up the feeding next week. Temps in the tent are a bit higher than I’d like due to some hot and humid summer weather, but humidity is under control and I’m not buying an air conditioner for my plants.

My three Strawberry Cough girls are doing well after 3 weeks of 12/12 and are starting to throw pistils and develop buds. I gave the two pale girls and extra shot of nutes and they seem to have liked it. Looks like they are real heavy feeders. SC-1 has the best flowers and the best smell of the three. I got a real strong whiff of fresh strawberries off of one of the SC-1 buds but wasn't able to repeat it. Patience is needed as they should start developing smells and trichomes in the next couple weeks. They're feeding/drinking pretty heavily now, about 2-4 l/day.

I was away for a week but the plants were looked after and are doing fine. They are slower to develop flowers, odors and resin than I expected but they're making progress. The Indica-leaning SC#1 is putting on more bud and odor, but the sativa-leaning SC#6 and #11 are taking their time revealing their true nature. I anticipate this grow will go a full 12 weeks of flowering. Tent is warmer and more humid than I like, but there's good circulation in the tent so I'm not too worried. I'm now mixing up my nutes in 40-gallon batches and it's so much less effort than mixing a batch every day. Soon I'm going to start playing with the drip irrigation stuff I have and start working toward automation.

I removed a lot of lower growth from the plants earlier this week. Airflow should be improved and the plants will put their energy into the main buds. The wider-leafed girl, SC#1, looks and smells great, definitely a berry smell. The two haze-leaning phenos are starting to get berry smells on top of a leathery astringent smell. Resin production is improving along with the aromas. I can't seem to keep the two thinner'leafed runt phenos happy. They've been pale green all along, looking like they're hungry. At this mid-flower stage I'm feeding them 850 ppm and starting to get some brown spots on the fan leaves. The other girl seems happy at this nute level, and has been much easier to keep happy from the start. I'm definitely thinking these girls will go the better part of 12 weeks.

The Strawberry Cough plants are doing OK. The smells are nice, more berryish on SC #1 than the two haze-leaners, which are more astringent smelling. I'm not terribly impressed with trichome coverage yet for plants that are 7 weeks into flower, but the proof will be in how they smoke. I think the cause of the burned leaves I saw last week was wind burn...these two girls were right in front of my tower fan and the leaves on the opposite side of the plants looked fine. I forgot to take pics of SC #11, will try to edit and update. They are really taking their sweet time...while the more indica-leaning SC #1 may finish at 10-11 weeks I'm pretty sure the haze-leaning SC #6 and #11 will go 12 weeks.

After 8 weeks of 12/12 these plants still have a ways to go. SC#1 will be the biggest yielder, I'm pretty sure the two runts won't give me more than a few ounces between them. Trichomes are mostly clear with more cloudy on SC#1. I'm not very impressed with the resin production on these plants so far. Aromas are nice and the runts smell more like strawberries every day. Most of the damage from earlier overfeeding and ongoing windburn has been done. The plants seem happy with the nute levels they're getting now.

No major develpments, although I have spotted a few amber trichs on SC11. I'll be surprised if any of these plants flower less than 12 weeks. The yields are going to be pretty tiny from SC6 and SC11. Smells are light berryish on those and moderate berry on SC1. The clone I took from SC1 has refused to branch at all, and it has grown to 15" tall. I guess I'll top it and clone that. Maybe I'll be surprised,by the quality of the smoke but I doubt I'll want to make space to keep any of these three plants based on resin production.

Don't bother with this crap.