Magnum Auto

I didn't think this girl would see the light of day. She spent 9 days in the paper towel and did nothing. As a last desperate attempt before throwing the seed away I gave her a squeeze with the edge of my thumb nail and amazingly cracked the seam a bit without breaking or squishing the seed. Next day she had a tap root and now she is a week old from breaking soil :)

Things seem to be going well. I love those fat indica leaves compared to my amnesia auto. My A/C isn't working properly at the moment which has been causing some heat issues, but hopefully it will be fixed before the weather gets too warm. I've tried putting a couple of frozen water bottles in the tent which brought the temp down a couple of degrees, but didn't last very long.

Growing nicely with very short node spacing so far. The plants all seem to be loving the LED light, which means I love it too 😃, though truth be told, I am still kind of figuring out the best light distance. The manufacturer's advice is pretty broad, so going by trial and error. So far I haven't had any burns or bleaching 🙏, but some "reaching up" of the top leaves 🙌.

She almost doubled in height this week, but no sign of flowers yet. As described in my Amnesia Auto diary, there have been problems with temp and RH this week, mostly due to a broken A/C. Hopefully fixed soon. The other big problem this week is that the Amnesia has grown bigger than expected (my naivete more than anything) and effectively kicked the Magnum out of the nest. So, for the last few days the Magnum has been on a shelf unit under the 150w CFL. I have a new LED arriving in the next day or two to replace the CFL and I am going to look into maybe getting a bigger tent before the end of month. Was thinking about starting some LST, but the lateral branches are rather stiff and I was a bit worried about causing a break, so I will let them grow a bit longer first. Noticed some heat stress on the top leaves today so raised the CFL a bit.

Heat and humidity issues persisted through the week, clearly causing some stress with wrinkly twisted leaves, but the A/C is now fixed and temp/RH are back to normal. Big stretch this week, almost doubling height. I did two sessions of LST (days 30 and 33) and tied down some of the shade leaves on day 35. Here's a question. This plant is now 5 complete weeks old without showing any flowers, so clearly the breeders advice of 55-65 days is likely out the window. So, at what point do I say to myself "Maybe this isn't an autoflower after all" and switch it to 12/12?

Stretch continued this week and on day 36 I saw the first flower. On day 40 I tied down the main shade leaves further. I haven't removed any leaves.

All the nodes have big preflowers and flowers are starting to appear on all the bud sites. Vertical growth continues and I think she has gotten a bit too close to the light as the top leaves have started to canoe and twist. Also seeing some signs of nute burn, so cutting back a bit on feeding. Days 45 and 47 I removed some of the lower shade leaves.

After a bunch of house hold disasters (as touched upon in the amnesia diary), I finally can post another entry. The magnum has grown quite a bit since the last entry. I have been having problems with the top leaves curling (tacoing) as I believe they were getting to close to the light, so today I have set up a new rig and have the lights higher. I have taken a number of lessons from the amnesia which I am applying to the rest of this grow, most notably dialing back the nutes. In week 9 I only gave her ph'd water.

This week, after raising the lights, the upward cupping/canoeing of the leaves continued. I did have a large fan blowing and yesterday I turned that off as the plant is not in an enclosed space and airflow is fine. I will see if this helps. Also, after the little bit of nutes I fed last week, the signs of nutrient burn flared up again. This week she got nothing but ph'd water, including a 4 litre flush. I did some defoiliating to let the light get to the lower and inner flowers. This really brought out her natural corkscrew growth pattern. If rotated while viewing from above she is like a big green drill bit 😵. Buds are starting to build up nicely, lots of them and I notice that all top buds from top to bottom of plant are pretty much the same size.

Buds are continuing to stack, looks like at full potential this plant can be a real producer. There is now a weak weed/hashy smell, but no real sign of trichome production yet. Removing the big floor fan and watering more often seems to have helped with the cupping leaves, though not 100%.

It really seems to be slow going with this plant, dunno why, but she is still chugging along. Grew another inch and a half in height which I didn't think they do in flowering. I am wondering if reducing to maybe 15 or 16 hours of light might help.

This week most of the side branches were starting to hang almost perpendicular to the main stem so I tied most of them more upright. One of the bottom branches broke in the process, but it didn't have much on it. About 25% of the pistils have turned brown, but new pistils are still forming. Trichomes are tiny, almost invisible to my eyes, but got some pics with the macro lens. Resin heads look about 98% milky. Gave one last feed of Bud Candy and Big Bud hoping to fatten the buds up a bit. The main cola is long, but scant. I am hoping to be moving at end of month, so will likely have to chop this girl at that point no matter where she is at.

This week there has been significant increases in trichome production and bud-fattening. The cola is filling in more. I flushed using 4 litres of ph'd water.

She grew tall and spindly with lots of side branching and bud sites. Lateral branching is in a corkscrew pattern. Branches need supports in flowering stage. Trichomes didn't really appear on bud leaves until last couple of weeks and remained sparse. Long main cola. Smell was weak. She was sensitive to nutes and humidity. Buds are medium density, stringy and mostly small. I am pleased with the harvest which I did a bit early as I prepared for a house move. 26 grams of buds and a rather scant 5.7 grams of trim to go in the hash stash. My best grow so far 😃