Black Cream Auto

I have doubled my lighting compared to previous grows, up to 200 watts of LEDs, by running 2 HLG 100 QB lights. My goal with growing Black Cream Auto by Sweet Seeds is to get a decent yield of dark, colorful flowers. I have always been amazed by black nugs, and by growing two of the plants hopefully at least one will exhibit those genetics! Further into the grow low stress training will be essential. It is a small 2 x 2 x 4ft tent for 2 plants, so I will definitely be bending with plant ties. I will continue to update this week as the plants sprout June 26 - Began in-soil germination of seeds in an amended, lightweight organic mix. The soil was watered before planting 1cm deep, and typically the 5 gallon pots hold moisture well over many days. The top will be misted as needed. June 29 - Both seeds, Plant A and B, sprouted into seedlings and seem healthy. July 3 - Both seedlings growing well, with nice purple red stems due to genetics. Plant A is a little quicker than Plant B, but no complaints so far! As they are planted directly in their adult 5 gallon grow bags, they are recieving small, center waterings daily to keep their soil always moist but never soaked.

Entering into the second week of growth, both plants seem to be doing alright. Plant A has a more unusual pattern of growth, with fatter more twisted leaves. Plant B seems more typical, but is slightly slower growing so far. It has gotten very hot in the greater Toronto area, so my tent has crept up to a high of 34 degrees. I don't think this has caused any issues yet, but I hope this is the hottest it gets! 🔥 Later in the grow I will definitely be performing LST on the two plants to keep them nice and short. I am also debating topping them if they are growing well. Any thoughts on topping autoflowers as opposed to only training them? EDIT: July 9th, heatwave has improved and plants are still growing strong regardless of possible heat stress. EDIT: July 10, day 12, plants growing well enough for me to risk FIMing one. Hopefully I will get a good comparison of of LST vs LST + FIM to help with future grows of this strain. I chose plant B for the FIM because it is showing more typical growth so far. This is the first time I have attempted any higher stress training so I hope it goes well!

At the two week mark, growing is going decently. Plant A continues to have some odd growth but is definitely not stunted at least. Plant B is recovering from the FIMing but is taking it well, and does not seem to have any issues with it's growth. Both plants are very short and bushy, which I am fine with considering my limited grow space. I have started providing a pretty dilute dose of Megacrop during my waterings. I ammend my soil heavily with earthworm castings, compost, glacial dust, etc., so heavier doses are not needed. My tent has been very hot, peaking at 34c during the day under the lights, so I slightly raised my light distance and swapped my dark period to midday for better heat management. If I have issues during flowering I will move an AC into the space. July 13 edit: I have been getting abnormally high heat readings because I was mistakenly measuring radiant heat at the canopy level instead of the air temp. Supposedly plants are much more resistant to radiant heat, which is a relief! July 15 edit: I might have incorrectly performed the FIM on plant B, if so I am just leaving it and not reattempting it. No point in risking a stressed plant! July 17 edit: Vegging is taking off, should end up with some pretty bushy plants over the next few weeks.

Finishing up the third week of growth, both the plants are doing well! No signs of nutrient burn, the runoff pH is a comfortable 6.4, and the vegging is strong! I have started performing LST using plant ties attached to each pot's platform. At this rate, keeping the canopy low, I expect the two plants to totally fill in the 24x24in grow space. The soil has developed a sizable colony of springtails, which is fine by me as they will keep breaking down the soil and compost for my plants. There is also a jumping spider living in the tent, probably feeding on the springtails. The more spider the better, as I would rather have them than mites or other pests. Plant A and plant B continue to exhibit their different phenotypes, with plant A having more unusual leathery leaves but still growing strong. It will be interesting to see differences in the buds between the two plants, as I would like to get purple/black flowers on at least on of them. I will update more throughout the week. Thanks for reading! July 22 edit: changed week to flowering due to pistils.

Finishing up week 4, both plants seem to be doing well and getting fully into flowering. I am slowly dialing in nutrient feedings, as it's hard to predict how much the plants are still drawing from the peat / pearlite / earthworm castings / compost / blood meal / glacial dust growing medium which has kept them going well for the past month. I am going to see how much bud growth I can get with just Megacrop and a hint of molasses during feedings, although I will be using a little bit of Thrive Bloom as a PK/flower booster. I am not seeing any dark colors taking hold on the buds yet, although a few may be exhibiting some early stages of darkening/purpling. I will just have to be patient and keep waiting to see what's going on phenotypically. Going to🤞for healthy growing and dense buds from here on out!

At the start of week 6, I am very happy with the progress the two plants are making. The buds are fattening up and making quick progress for day 36. I continue to be surprised at how fast these Black Cream plants are. Plant B in particular has started to show a lot of color and darkening which was one of my main goals in growing this strain! They are giving off a gentle herbal, caramel-y smell which is nice for a grow tent in my bedroom with no carbon filters. At this point I am just going to try to keep my nutrients well balanced and keep fattening the buds up. They seem to be responding well so I am going to continue my nutrient levels from last week. Barring any unforeseen disasters, I have pretty high hopes for this grow. I have to give a shout-out to Sweet Seeds for the really great genetics. These plants have been a lot of fun so far! Edit day 40: reduced Megacrop, increased biothrive bloom and added cal+mag.

Both plants are doing ok as they continue to swell up. I am currently trying to balance the feeding to support the bud development, while also keeping the PH balanced to prevent lockout. Right now the nutrient solution is going in at around a PH of 6. Being a newer grower, I am carefully monitoring a little bit of leaf yellowing and spotting to make sure it is a normal part of the plant's later stage of development and not a sign of error on my part. Other than that, the grow is going well! I upgraded my tent exhaust setup to keep the temps a few degrees cooler during flowering. While it is still too early to harvest, I am keeping a closer eye on trichome development as the buds continue to get frostier. Thanks for reading! Edit, Day 44: I raised my lights to limit light burn as a possible cause of the plants yellowing.

As of day 50, I continue to be slightly concerned about some yellowing and spotting on some fan leaves and the larger bud leaves as well. I am hoping it is just a result of the plant's age and time in the life cycle. To counteract other possible causes of the yellowing, I moved my lights to 14 inches above the canopy to prevent light burn. I continue to monitor the PH of my nutes and runoff so that should not be an issue either. The buds themselves are looking great, and are the fattest I have grown. Plant A looks slightly more advanced, even if she may be the lower yielder of the two. Trichomes are frosting up and getting cloudy, but I have yet to see any amber and the pistils are about 30 percent orange on plant A, and less than 10 percent orange on plant B. The plants are giving off a nice, sweet herbal aroma which gets very strong if I turn off ventilation of my tent. Altogether, I am just waiting for them to ripen a bit more (likely a few more weeks) as the buds are looking good, yellowing leaves aside. I am excited to try these plants and to see how the buds look after their eventual dry and cure. Thanks for reading! 🐕

At day 57, I think the harvest window has just begun. The Trichomes are mostly milky/frosty, and I am just starting to see an amber one or two when I am looking under magnification. The buds are quite large and many are fox tailing so the harvest should be sizable. While the leaves have gone yellow and spotted in parts, particularly around the buds, the buds themselves are in good shape, aromatic and ripe. I am tapering down the nutrients, and increasing the runoff when I water in preparation for harvest. I will be watching the buds closely, but at this rate I will likely harvest in a week on day 64 of the grow. Thanks for reading!

The plants were ready to harvest after cutting nutrients for the past week. The buds were huge and just starting to show amber as of day 64. Unfortunately their huge size had a drawback! A couple of the largest colas had some very early stage fungus in their centers which prompted my to immediately cut away the infected portions. They were just too large to allow airflow, and I should have done a better job defoliating. I have no experience with such large, foxtailing buds so lession learned! On the bright side, I only had to cut away about 10 percent of the total harvest. I am now drying most of the remaining buds. I am going to have a little more airflow than usual during this process because I don't want to risk any further mold/rot. I'm not going to be able to get an accurate wet weight, and I won't have my dry weight untill I post my complete harvest next week. But I can safely say that each of the two plants will provide 2-4 oz, possibly more. I lost somewhere around .75oz to the rot. Thanks for reading! Now I'm going to go back to mourning those buds who could not make it to the end 🌳⚰️

I have been very happy with this grow, despite a few setbacks. I ran into cal-mag issues later into flowering, and may have caused light stress as well. Despite good ventilation and proper humidity levels, I had mold in the center of the largest cola where there was no airflow. In the future if I grow buds this size I will defoliate much more aggressively. This may have lost 10 percent of the yield, but I still ended up with 145g of great flowers. I highly recommend Black Cream by Sweet Seeds, and I will definitely be revisiting it in the future! I find dark purple/black buds some of the most beautiful, and this strain ended up surpassing my expectations. Thank you to everyone in the GD community who offered advice and encouragement, it is greatly appreciated!