Cali Octane HPA

Me- Welcome to my XL closet grow. This journal is hella incomplete, it will show what I happened to have pictures of. Started this journal in week 5 flowering so, some of this is a retrospective. Going forward I will try to log more progress. Genetics- I originally popped 2 of the 5 seeds a while back. This Journal consists of two clones of those same phenotypes. I was surprised to find the 2 pheno's (p's) are similar but certainly not the same. Probably not the most stable genetic. I came away with a clear favorite with p1, but I'm giving p2 one last chance to prove her might in a better environment. Lets see how it shakes out! Method- This grow is a lil different than most. High pressure aeroponics currently running 95psi at 3 seconds on, 4 minutes off. 2x 19 gal. containers with 1 plant each. ScrOG, sort of, this strain in combination with HPA is really hard to train. Veg is real fast, I'm still learning how to deal. It may look like I need to defoliate, but I promise you I just did in most of these pictures lol. WEEK 2-2.5ish - p1 is in the back, p2 is in the front. p1 clones and vegs faster clearly. p2, much bushier tight internode length, thinner leaves. p1 stretched immediately, p2 on a smoke break, back in a week for maybe a stretch.

p1 stopped vertical growth, already fattened up just beyond hairball size. P2 mostly caught up vertically, shes still putting a bit of energy into veg. If you look closely in the back you can see p1 getting a bit roasted on top. More on that and more in week 4!

P2 caught up to p1 just about. Shes stopped vertical growth and on her way to catching up on mass. About this time in the grow, I realized my light was a bit to close, and the nutrients were a hair to high for the tall girls in the back. I don't think I did anything about the light for another few days, but the nutrients got fixed right way. Still dialing in what they want exactly and its not easy having two different phenotypes feeding on the same source. Still, they are mostly happy.

Continuing to tack on mass, girly in the front is still firing off pistils like its going out of style. She will fill in...eventually. Included some pictures of the initial training down low. you can see why p2 is so hard to control. Every shoot is like a celery stock down there. The light burn still paying dividends, but the fan leaves are mostly healthy. Backed off nutrients even more down to a steady 1.5 EC. I could definitely be doing more defoliation here in retrospect. Always learning. Vertical growth was more than expected, next run will use 2 trellis or less veg time. Ties going up on the heavier flowers.

Week 6, phenotype 1 is getting close to finished. 50 days and she has about 50/50 cloudy-clear trichomes. Starting to see some ambers come in. The tops are about beer bottle size now. Phenotype 2 is starting to fill in a bit, still 100% clear on it.

week 7.5, p1 is slowing its exponential flower growth, still putting on mass and trichs, but slower. p2 is throwing up 1.5' baseball bats, but still maintains a trich deficit compared to its frosty sister. cooler temperatures at night giving some of the sites a nice purple tint. There is a ridiculous grid of wire holding the canopy up at this point. Looks like one more week on p1, that would put it about 4 days short of Humboldt's 65 days suggested flower.

reporting from 60 days flower (8.5 wks) - p1 is about 30-40% amber on top, I'll probably start flushing 0 EC today. 3 days of flush. P2 is frosting up, but still looks like it needs 2 more weeks. Both are taking a bit longer to mature this run, probably because they are healthier overall. At this rate, p2 will probably be phased out, not interested in 10 week flowering times unless the terps are very good. Her internodal spacing is very good, the entire plant below the colas is a massive ball of flowers. Very hard to keep up with. She still has time to impress, we'll see.

day 63 - nobody seems to bothered about not having nutrients yet (2.5 days). The big tops are dark purple, dark green, light green and more frost than flower, very nice. The flowers on the bottom of both plants are nearly as chunky as the tops. good genetics, good lighting, maybe aeroponics helped a bit too. I plan to let them flush another day or two with p2 maybe going another full week tops if I have the patience for it. Stay tuned for a few more pics this week. day 64 - Its chop day for p1, the tops measure just over 1.0 standard banana units with a deviation of .3 as pictured. Its gonna be a long day. p2 finally noticed there were no nutrients. Interesting to see her top leaves being used as reserves. 2-3 more days for her. She has a slight purple tint to now. 5-10% amber. Harvest update soonish

Finally got it all jarred up and cured well enough to test. No surprises here for me really, I've run both of these before, but this run the quality stepped up a bit. For those following, there will be no surprise that "p1", or phenotype 1, came out as the clear winner. P2 is nice and has some advantages, super tight nodes, more robust branch network (both grows) but ultimately it wanted to flower way too long. It also has a more citrus terpene profile with light gas whereas p1 is heavy gas and light sweetness. The yield was a bit more than expected. I have 12x 32oz jars and 6x 64oz jars. With both plants I ran out of jars, used a few more curing bags and still had some for fresh frozen hash and the trim. I got a weight in the jars, but then realized all the jars weigh vastly different. Its probably north of a lb. Very good christmas gifts for the friends this year! They are already enjoying a bit early 😍 Anyone considering this strain, definitely give it a shot. As I said in the strain review, there may be some variation as with all, but in only 2 seeds I got a good example of what was advertised. Heavy delta 9, beautiful bud structure, gassy terps and good production. Anyways, I've pictured the clear winner for now, I may circle back and post some more pics with the FF bubble hash results to. Happy holidays to all. Big shoutout to my 2 followers. Haha, my heart and soul. 🙏