Northern Light

This is something for me to fill the space vacated by my autoflowers. This girl will grow inside initially under LED lighting and be moved outdoors to finish outside this fall.

At present this girl has been getting about 4 hours of LED lighting per day as part of her 18 hour cycle. She's probably acclimated by now... I'm just deciding how I'm going to finish off my autoflowers and make space in my tent for this girl to veg for awhile. Staring to grow nicely, but still very fragile. June 19 > Decided to leave this girl under full-time LED lighting starting today. Tired of moving plants around 3 times a day.

Things are really starting to take off in the veg department. Moved the plants a little closer to the lights. At the moment she's only being fed some Azospirillum for root development.

The girls are really starting to veg nicely. I noticed there were roots at the base of the pot so I decided to transplant them in to roughly 2 gallon containers just for a week or two to veg a bit more in the tent. Eventually she will be moved into a larger fabric container that I won't want to move as much and moved outside for the remainder of the summer. Eventually I'll put a proper tag on this girl and remove the "s" which is not actually present in the strain name, just my imagination. 😁

Weather has been nice and moderate this week. Daytime temps in the mid to upper 70's and evening in the mid 50s. Nice. The girls are enjoying their new temporary containers. We'll be moving her outdoors and into her permanent container in a couple weeks. Not growing quite as quickly as my Cream & Cheese but she looks equally happy under the LED lights.

Things are starting to take off so I thought I'd throw the brakes on and top these girls (both Northern Light and Cream & Cheese are on the same schedule). Made a fairly clean top on this girl and measured her afterward - she's 10" tall now and grew about 4" last week so she's enjoying that new container she received. She'll be repotted again and moved outside permanently in about a week. July 15 -> Decided it was time to repot this girl into her final home - a 10 gallon fabric pot. Only had time to repot one today and I'll get the Cream & Cheese tomorrow.

Northern Light seems to have settled into her new 10 gallon home nicely. She seems a bit more photo sensitive than my other cannabis plants in that she turns more dramatically toward the light - even before the sun comes up... she knows which way she should be turned and she beats her sisters in the race to capture sunlight. I have her on a dolly but that mainly to make things easier for pruning and just moving a few feet about the patio. Nice fairly stable weather. Foggy mornings and highs in the upper 70s... lows upper 50s. Yummy. Most of the rest of the US is burning up... but things be nice in this part of California.

Things are moving along nicely. Temps have spiked upwards a bit for a couple days in the 90s. No problem with the 10 gallon containers. Currently only giving this girl about a gallon of fluid a day, using 50% of the recommended nutrient levels. Much like her Cream & Cheese buddy, she stretched like crazy growing about 10" in a week outside in her new home.

This will probably be the last veg week as I believe we have the first signs of preflowers coming in. She's growing almost as fast as my Cream & Cheese. About 9" last week. I had a minor accident moving plants about and broke a small branch, and then repaired it with a twig and some ductape. Cannabis is very resilient and she'll eventually be fine.

Things are moving along nicely. She grew about 8" last week and turning into quite the bush. Wide indica fan leaves are very large. She seems happy.

This girl is flowering nicely now. Very sturdy in the stalk department - pretty sure I won't have to worry about providing any additional support for the buds later this fall when things might get windy. It was very hot this week but she withstood a couple 100 degree days nicely with some extra fluid. She tends to consume less than 2 gallons of fluid per morning on a normal basis.

This girl is starting to produce some pretty massive flowers, and her stalks are quite sturdy. Vertical growth seems to have slowed to almost a halt with 1" last week but she's plenty tall already as far as I'm concerned. She looks like she's going to provide a nice yield when the time comes.

This girl is really starting to fatten up. She looks great out with the morning dew glistening on the flowers. She's at 52" and that will probably be the last time I need to measure anything as she only grew an inch, vertically anyway. It's not quite clear whether she will need any extra support for her buds because she's a lot sturdier than my Cream & Cheese nearby, but the lowest rung branches seem to have the same problem. They're getting quite heavy. What a shame. 😁

A cool and windy day with fog all day long. This girl occasionally gets blown over slightly so I added one support to cut the wingspan down a bit. She's looking great. No sign of any amber trichomes but it will be time for flushing soon. September 9 > amber makes an appearance in trichomes. Might be the cooler temps. Leaves are starting to show a little fall color. Nothing but straight water going forward. I will flush before the week is out but Cream & Cheese gets the water first. She’s within a week or two of harvest... before the end of the month.

Not far for this baby to go. Already been flushed. She's plenty close enough to harvest but I need to make some space after harvesting my Cream & Cheese and I think she'll last a few more days. She's huge though and will need a significant amount of drying space - I may even hang her up outdoors once the threat of rain passes on Monday. Been very hot and dry lately. 90's for a few days and about 30% humidity. Desert stuff. Will help drive resin to those buds. September 16 > Mother Nature decided to give my girls a bath this morning before dawn. About 5/8 inch of rain - first we've had in my locale since spring. One of the lower branches on this girl had rolled over on herself due to the water weight so I shook her off and provided a new blue steel support rod. I basically went around to all 3 girls on the patio and shook every branch to shake off the excess water. Now I"M covered in water. I've never had any girls receive this much rain before. Shouldn't be a problem as the sun came out before noon and the wind will be up this afternoon... so the girls are mostly dry again by early afternoon. But quite the bath. Thanks Mom... I think that's all of that we'll need. 😳

I'm a little surprised at how big this girl got, but I ain't complaining. Structurally she was plenty strong enough to take care of herself under windy conditions, which seem to be getting worse every year. Mother Nature threw a little water at her this week and that prompted some of the buds to roll over but no problems. She also ripened a little quicker than I expected. It will probably be another week or so before this baby dries out enough to further process and weigh. Harvest was completed on Friday morning September 20. She will be de-budded and hung in my circular hanger later this afternoon September 24 to make room to harvest Amnesia 7 tomorrow morning. I haven't been having great success with the dry trimming using TrimBag so I want to let this stuff dry a little more... but each strain is different. We'll see. September 27 > I'm somewhat amazed at how much better the Trimbag performed on this girl than other attempts so far (two exactly). In the end, the amount of trim created by the bag was roughly equal to the amount of trim created by hand afterward for Northern Lights. When I processed Cream & Cheese last week, the Trimbag only generated 1/4 of what I ended up doing by hand. Part of that may be drying conditions - NL had two 100 degree days during drying and C&C had two days of near rain (very unusual). The buds on NL are larger and denser too so it's easier to bang them around inside the bag for the friction trimming - so part of it is plant structure. I feel I probably would have started hand manicuring the NL about two days sooner in the past but I wanted to give the Trimbag another chance because it clearly needs dry product - glad I did. I was done trimming Northern Lights COMPLETELY in less than 4 hours - and generated over 11 ounces of buds. I easily spent more than 6 hours trimming C&C for a few ounces less buds. Those 2+ hours NOT spent in 90+ degree heat while your brain is melting is worth a few buckeroos on my planet. I just hope the Amnesia I've got hanging up will dry as quick and process as easily, but things are cooling off. Final weights came in as: Trim from Trimbag - 144 g Trim by hand - 162 g Final bud weight - 319 g