RS11 - Barney’s Farm

MistaOC 14.09. D7 Chapter 1 – Week 1 The first week is in the books, and RS11 wasted no time showing what she’s capable of. After breaking the surface on September 9th, the next few days were all about settling in and building momentum. By September 14th, Day 7, the little girls were already reaching around 10 cm and starting to develop their first proper sets of leaves. Still small, still innocent, but the direction is clear: they’re ready to grow. For now, I’m keeping things simple and letting the plants do their thing while the roots establish underneath. There’s not much to interfere with yet – just watching closely and seeing which phenotypes start to reveal themselves as the first real differences begin to appear. This is only the beginning, but the RS11s have officially left the starting line. Now let’s see where they take this

MistaOC 18.09. D11 Chapter 2 – Week 2 Week two started quietly, but RS11 clearly had other plans. Between September 18th and 20th, the difference was impossible to miss. What were still small plants at the beginning of the week are now starting to look like they mean business, with the tallest reaching around 15 cm. The structure is getting tighter, the leaves are spreading out, and that fresh growth in the middle is becoming more and more noticeable. Looking at them now, it feels like the moment where the story starts to change — they’re no longer just seedlings waiting to become plants. They’re becoming plants. The setup is also starting to look different as the girls settle into their pots and the whole room slowly fills with green. There’s still a long way to go, but the first signs of personality are beginning to show, and I’m already wondering which one is going to surprise me the most. Two weeks in, nothing has been decided yet. And that’s exactly what makes the next chapter interesting

MistaOC 27.09. D20 Chapter 3 – Day 20 At first, everything looked like it was going exactly the way I wanted. I started with five RS11 seeds, expecting the usual waiting game. But only two decided to show themselves. That wasn’t quite the start I had in mind, so I gave it another shot and popped five more. This time, all five came through. Seven plants in total. From those seven, I picked the four that looked strongest and most promising, and that’s where the real story began. Twenty days later, I have to admit that the picture is getting more complicated. Barney’s Farm describes these F1 Precision Seeds as something special, with exceptional quality and a high level of uniformity. But when I look around the tent, uniformity is not exactly the word that comes to mind. Two of the four are developing in a very similar way and are looking solid. Nothing that makes me stop and stare, but definitely healthy and promising. Then there’s another one that has taken a completely different path, with noticeably longer internodal spacing and a growth pattern I simply don’t like as much. And then there’s the one I really didn’t see coming. She was the first to crack, had the strongest root from the beginning and seemed to be winning the race every step of the way. She was the one I would have put my money on. Now she’s the one struggling. The leaves are showing clear damage, the plant seems to be having trouble taking up what it needs, and suddenly the early frontrunner has become the biggest question mark in the room. What makes it even more interesting is that the environment hasn’t changed. The other plants are dealing with exactly the same conditions, and they’re moving forward without the same issues. So at this point, I’m finding myself asking a very different question than I did at the beginning: is this simply one difficult phenotype, or am I starting to see the real level of variation hiding inside this pack? Yesterday, on Day 19, I opened the Autopots. That means the plants have now entered a completely new phase, and maybe this is where the story takes another turn. I’m not ready to judge the RS11 yet. But after twenty days, the promise of exceptional uniformity has definitely given me something to think about. And the plant I thought would lead the pack? She’s currently the one I’m watching most closely

MistaOC 03.10. D26 Chapter 4 – Day 26 For a while, I honestly wasn’t sure what was going to happen with this run. The plant that started out as the clear front-runner had turned into the biggest question mark in the tent, and after the last update I was watching her more closely than the others. But something has changed. She’s still different, and she’s definitely not following the same script as the rest, but she’s fighting her way back. The damaged leaves are still part of the story, yet the new growth is telling a completely different one. And while she was busy trying to catch her breath, the others didn’t wait. They pushed hard. After topping, the structure opened up and suddenly there are shoots everywhere, turning what was once a group of young plants into something that finally looks like a proper canopy. It’s almost strange to look back at the photos from only a short time ago and realise how quickly the whole tent has changed. The differences between the phenotypes are still obvious, but for the first time I’m not looking at them and thinking about what went wrong. I’m looking at them and wondering what each one is going to become. And that’s when I made a decision I hadn’t originally planned on making this soon: tomorrow will be the last day of veg. They could probably use a little more time, but something tells me this is the right moment to stop waiting and let the next phase reveal what these plants are really made of. The early doubts are still there, buried somewhere in the back of my mind, but the tent doesn’t look like a disappointment anymore. It looks like a question waiting to be answered. Tomorrow, I turn the page

MistaOC 08.10. F5 Chapter 5 – Day 5 of Flowering: The Real Test Begins Five days into flowering, and the tent is starting to tell a very different story than the one I expected when this run began. Remember the plant that had me questioning everything? The one that started out like a champion, only to stumble when it mattered? Well, she hasn’t disappeared from the story just yet. Looking at the tent now, you’d almost forget how much doubt surrounded these four plants only a short while ago. The canopy has filled out, the shoots are reaching into the light, and the whole setup has taken on a new character. Topping has done its job, opening up the structure and giving the plants room to develop their own personalities. But that’s also where the differences become impossible to ignore. Two plants still seem to be reading from the same playbook, growing in a remarkably similar way. Another has her own ideas about structure and spacing, while our former front-runner is slowly finding her feet again. She’s looking better than before, but I’m not ready to call it a comeback just yet. I’ve grown enough plants over the years to know that a good-looking canopy doesn’t tell you the whole story. Sometimes the most promising plant disappoints you, and sometimes the one you nearly write off ends up surprising you. Right now, I’m keeping an open mind, even if my confidence in the F1 Precision promise has taken a few hits along the way. The switch to flowering was the next big decision, and now there’s no going back to the comfort of veg. The plants have crossed that line, and the coming weeks will show whether their differences are merely cosmetic or whether they’ll translate into something much more significant. I’m particularly curious to see how the struggling plant responds as flowering progresses, and whether the two more consistent phenotypes will continue to develop along the same lines. For now, the plants look vigorous, the new growth is pushing forward, and the tent is finally starting to look like a run with real potential. But I’m deliberately holding back on the victory lap. Barney’s Farm sells these seeds with a promise of exceptional quality and uniformity, and that promise is still something I need to see for myself. So far, this run has given me more questions than answers, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise just because the latest pictures look encouraging. The first five days of flowering are only the opening scene. The real character of these plants is still hidden somewhere ahead, waiting to reveal itself. And after everything that’s happened so far, I’m more interested than ever to find out which of these four will actually deliver

MistaOC 14.10. F11 Chapter 6 – Day 11 of Flowering: The Calm Before the Storm Something is changing inside the tent, and this time it’s not just the calendar telling me we’ve entered flowering. The plants are beginning to show what they’re made of. Eleven days into bloom, the stretch is underway, but it’s happening with a restraint I didn’t quite expect. No wild explosion, no sudden race towards the light. Instead, the four RS11 phenotypes are quietly building their positions, each following its own rhythm. The difference in height is becoming more obvious by the day, and the canopy is starting to look less like a uniform group and more like four individual stories unfolding under the same light. The front-left plant is currently setting the pace. She has climbed from 40 to 52 cm, adding a solid 12 cm without losing that healthy, vigorous appearance. The others are stretching too, just at their own pace, and I’m genuinely curious to see where they’ll end up once the flowering stretch reaches its peak. There’s something fascinating about this phase: from the outside, everything can look calm and predictable, while underneath that green canopy, the plants are making decisions that will shape the entire run. Branches are reaching out, new growth is pushing forward, and the future bud sites are beginning to establish themselves. The tent is looking increasingly promising, but the real question is no longer whether these plants can grow. It’s which phenotype will turn that growth into something special. And then there’s the plant at the front right. If you’ve been following this run from the beginning, you’ll remember that she hasn’t exactly made life easy for me. While the others seemed to settle into their rhythm, she struggled after the AutoPot system was opened, and her leaves told a story that didn’t quite fit the picture I had in mind. My suspicion is that her root system simply wasn’t developed enough at the time to handle the transition comfortably. Too much moisture around a root zone that wasn’t ready for it may have contributed to the setback. That’s still a theory, not a confirmed diagnosis, but the progress since then gives me reason to believe she’s finding her balance. Her root system has had more time to develop, and she’s looking considerably better now. Even so, I get the impression that she’s not entirely comfortable with the constant moisture of the AutoPot setup. She’s recovering, but she’s doing it on her own terms. And honestly, I’m rooting for her. Not because she’s the strongest plant in the tent, but because these are exactly the moments that make a grow interesting. Anyone can celebrate the obvious winner; watching a struggling phenotype fight her way back is a different kind of satisfaction. For now, the plants look healthy, the environment remains steady, and the transition into flowering is progressing without any major surprises. But I’m keeping my expectations in check. The stretch still has room to surprise us, the differences between the phenotypes are becoming harder to ignore, and the first real clues about their eventual structure are only just emerging. The easy part of watching them grow is over. Now comes the part where they have to prove themselves. And somewhere among these four plants, there may already be a favourite in the making — or the biggest surprise of the entire run. I’m not ready to call it yet