YOLO’ing Carribean Queen
Tent
AC Infinity
Grow Tent
Indoor
Room Type
Tucking
weeks 3
12-12
weeks 3, 6
Topping
weeks 4
LST
weeks 4-7
Defoliation
weeks 4-7
HST
weeks 7
19 l
Pot Size
Start at 7 Week
G
Germination2mo ago
Nutrients 1
All Purpose
3.91 mll
Keef_Moon This one should be interesting. I held off for a while to look for intel and didn’t find much. A couple pioneers on Reddit offered some tips. So here’s the plan… dial in Barbuda as best as I can. You get to enjoy the success or the failure. The environment is the easy part. The light schedule is hypothetical???
I was alerted that I’d need to veg at 12/12 by a redditor. This gave me pause and then made complete sense. Its core is feral equatorial crossed with stabilized strains a bit. And after watching the documentary, it’s clearly being pheno hunted in Barbuda. Which unless the planet’s axis has changed, it’s vegging in 12/12.
The doc is a beautiful watch, here’s the link. https://youtu.be/M1zRqE2RoGE?is=mUfMhIeAbpp0GSi0
What I’m in the middle of now is a taper down. I throttled at 24 hours for a few days after germ. I went to 18/6 for a few more. I’m holding here at 16 hours for now. It’ll be subjective but the end game is to be at 12/12 by node 5-6. With each step in time however, I’m adjusting to keep the 20 DLI for seedling. Where my DLI will settle for the remainder, once it’s up on plane, remains a mystery. I’m assuming there’s a cap where it just cruises because the days won’t change like a hybrid. So I’ll probably aim for a ball park and use time lapse to find their night time droop as the signal.
This is day 7. using a cannakan to germinate shaved days off conventional methods. I’m not an affiliate but I am now a big fan. Also 2 of these plants are gifts.
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Used method
Other
Germination Method
1
Week 1. Vegetation2mo ago
14 hrs
Light Schedule
26 °C
Day Air Temp
65 %
Air Humidity
18.93 l
Pot Size
45.72 cm
Lamp Distance
Nutrients 1
All Purpose
3.91 mll
Keef_Moon I feel like I’ve found a cheat code. I’ve never had growth this fast. I’ve been eyeballing tray2grow for a while now. However I was fighting the idea of coco coir. I wanted coco hydro mechanics without the coco chemistry. I did a test run with some black widow on the T2G and did some tweaks. Straight promix was a bit too swampy for it so I added 20% pumice for this run. Just mixing it, I could feel it was right. These results are definitely remarkable.
These are ACI 1/2 gal nursery bags (cheap and porous). After seeing air pruning on day 12, I’ll just simply drop them into their forever 5 gal. No root binding and they just continue on. They’ve tapered to 14 hours 20dli. Node 5 will be 12/12 and observe.
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2
Week 2. Vegetation1mo ago
14 hrs
Light Schedule
26 °C
Day Air Temp
65 %
Air Humidity
18.93 l
Pot Size
45.72 cm
Lamp Distance
Nutrients 4
2.113 mll
1.3 mll
All Purpose
3.91 mll
Keef_Moon Up potted to 5 gallon with my Gaia mix. I add chelaters and transplant support at this stage and at top dress. They are listed above. There was lots of lateral air pruning up the sides of the 1/2 gal bags so it was time to move along. I spaced out on getting a picture of that. I’ll keep 20 DLI and 14 hours of light for a few days and assess the bedtime droop. The 2 closest queens to you on the previous entry were for a friend and have left the building.
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3
Week 3. Vegetation1mo ago
12 hrs
Light Schedule
26 °C
Day Air Temp
58 %
Air Humidity
21 °C
Night Air Temp
18.93 l
Pot Size
45.72 cm
Lamp Distance
Nutrients 1
1.3 mll
Keef_Moon It’s a lot of real estate for the 1/2 gal bags to populate so I top watered them in and then alternated sides up top as needed. I filled the tray2grows and shut them off until they emptied to ease the roots in. I did this twice and they are now on constant. The front left plant air pruned so I went for it. One watering I gave some ‘recharge’.
The two on the right unfortunately HAD to lose a few leaves. Other than that, some specific tucking all around.
Dropped to 12/12 at 30dli. I’m gonna bump and keep bumping til they tell me. Tomorrow I’ll try 32 and watch the camera. Again, when I see a droop at 60 ish mins left, I will pull back and let em ride it out.
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Used techniques
12-12
Technique
Tucking
Technique
4
Week 4. Vegetation1mo ago
12 hrs
Light Schedule
26 °C
Day Air Temp
No Smell
Smell
58 %
Air Humidity
21 °C
Night Air Temp
18.93 l
Pot Size
45.72 cm
Lamp Distance
Nutrients 1
0.65 mll
Keef_Moon As I progress, I think I’m on the right track with this 12 hour veg. The leaves are talking and seem content. Mid week I topped at the 7th. I was originally warned about this for general control and LST.
We are at 30 DLI still because each of them had to lose some GIANT fans …and it was a lot of lumber. Big enough that I thought the biomass would need a recovery time. So ‘recharge’ it was as well and they haven’t barked at all. If it was one plant in there I’d have kept my hands off because it was super impressive. Time lapse showed the fans rotating like the ISS to try to give the lowers some love. This is the shit I geek over.
I’ll try 35 DLI tomorrow and watch the time lapse for droop time. This is where mystery lies and if I succeed at all. Apologies if I’m long winded or aloof on this. I’m a rogue with only one live person in the hobby around me to bounce stuff off of.
I suffer for my art now you get to 😉
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Used techniques
LST
Technique
Defoliation
Technique
Topping
Technique
5
Week 5. Vegetation23d ago
12 hrs
Light Schedule
28 °C
Day Air Temp
No Smell
Smell
58 %
Air Humidity
24 °C
Night Air Temp
18.93 l
Pot Size
45.72 cm
Lamp Distance
Keef_Moon At this point in a typical hybrid, I’d definitely see evidence of flower. It’s now up to them and a lot of speculation from me. **crosses fingers and hopes that 4’ is mid button onset**
I bumped to 33 DLI and they started to pale. That supersedes the daily leaf droop that I was looking for. So I’m gonna park at 30 DLI- 700 PPFD for now. If veg stays manageable this way, I’ll maybe consider playing with bud development intensity. If it goes sideways and it’s controlling monsters, I’ll consider a dip even. But hopefully it all stays the course of static DLI because I have a bias and kinda want that outcome 😆.
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Used techniques
Defoliation
Technique
LST
Technique
6
Week 6. Flowering14d ago
12 hrs
Light Schedule
28 °C
Day Air Temp
6.5
pH
No Smell
Smell
60 %
Air Humidity
26 °C
Night Air Temp
18.93 l
Pot Size
45.72 cm
Lamp Distance
Keef_Moon This week marked the turning point in my educational Queen experiment. This’ll cap these long updates because flower is here and up til now was the focus. Now the loooong burn.
After more than 6 weeks under 12/12, the first female preflowers finally appeared. What surprised me wasn’t when they arrived—it was everything that happened before they did. Rather than showing the abrupt transition from veg to flower that we often expect, these plants spent the entire time steadily building their framework. Branches lengthened, structure matured, and the canopy continued to evolve without any obvious “switch” being thrown. Kinda like they were in ‘stretch’ from launch.
That has become the central lesson of this grow so far. Instead of thinking in terms of a plant being either in veg or in flower, these equatorial genetics seem to operate more like they’re always moving toward flowering while continuing to build their architecture until sexual maturity catches up. The first pistils didn’t signal the beginning of growth—they simply confirmed what the plant had been working toward all along.
If there’s one takeaway from this, it’s that Caribbean Queen has challenged almost every assumption I had about the timing of photoperiod flowering. Instead of asking, “When does flowering start?” I’m finding myself asking, “When does the plant decide it’s mature enough to show me?”
I’ll save my training stuff and height breakdown for next update.
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Used techniques
LST
Technique
12-12
Technique
Defoliation
Technique
7
Week 7. Flowering7d ago
12 hrs
Light Schedule
28 °C
Day Air Temp
6.5
pH
No Smell
Smell
60 %
Air Humidity
26 °C
Night Air Temp
18.93 l
Pot Size
45.72 cm
Lamp Distance
Keef_Moon Another week and the girls continue to write their own story. The two on the right are most similar. Front left is just gonna be a short weirdo. They’ve all gotten the same love. I would have liked the back right one to be in a 10 gal and given the whole tent. Just let it ride. Maybe next time if I like it.
Stretch hasn’t stopped, but it feels like it’s easing off. Instead of racing for the light, they’re beginning to settle into the canopy they built over the last several weeks.
This grow continues to challenge what I expected from a typical indoor flip. There was never an explosive transition into flower. They simply kept adding structure under 12/12, slowly stacking branches and leaf mass while maturing at their own pace.
The environment has become almost boring—in the best possible way. Around 30 DLI still appears to be their sweet spot. They let me know pretty quickly when I pushed harder, so I’ve stopped trying to force the issue and started listening instead.
Now it’s mostly a waiting game.
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Used techniques
LST
Technique
HST
Technique
Defoliation
Technique
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