Glueberry... Why not GorillaBlue?

Last grow never got past the seedling phase. Bummed I put growing on hold for a little while but now I'm back... Summer grow has begun. This diary features a cross of two of my favorite strains Gorilla Glue and Blueberry. This is also my first Dutch Passion grow. I dropped my seed in a cup of RODI water for 24 hours. Once it sank to the bottom I placed the seed in a damp paper towel with another one placed on top. This was placed in a metal container that was then placed on top of my rice cooker. Within 48 hours the taproot was out a decent length so I planted. The grow will be a hempy bucket, so I start the seeds in a hempy cup. The cup is a red solo 16oz cup with a hole about an inch up. The hole is made with a philips screwdriver that was heated up. Inside the cup is a layer of Growstone GS-1 up to the hole. On top of that is a layer of Coco Loco with a 1/4" of space left at the top for when I pour water in. The idea is that what doesn't get absorbed by the coco will settle into the bottom of the cup creating a reservoir for the roots when they reach it. Any overflow pours out of the cup through the hole created at the bottom. I place the seeding in the grow space with the Quantum Boards turned on and placed high over them (24"). In 2-3 weeks the seedling will get transferred into a 5 gallon hempy bucket with more of the same grow medium. This is a 11 week grow according to Dutch Passion so I should be harvesting around start of September.

Ok, so I started noticing that this Glueberry just wasn't happy. I thought it was the lights at first, so I did some research. I thought maybe it was too much light since the last grow I just put the seedlings in a window. I looked up recommended light levels and everything pointed to about 7,000 lumens, so I bought a light meter and some dimmers for my Quantum Boards. I was at a whopping 23,000 lumens without the dimmers and the lights at 24". After putting on the dimmers I was able to get them both down to 7,000 lumens without a problem. By the end of week 3 my plan is to get up to 10,000 lumens. This helped but ultimately the leaves were still drooping and I wasn't seeing much growth. I did some more research and figured it was possible I was over watering, so I stopped watering the plant for almost the entire week. I was super nervous about the roots drying out too much and losing the plant. Sure enough after 4 days I found the plant no longer drooping. Like a dummy I was over watering. I added more water after drying it out, but this time it was just enough to get the coco moist. I needed to ease it back into full watering. The coco itself still has the Oregonism XL that I fed early on, so I haven't added anything additional beyond purified water. I normally use my RODI water but I didn't want to replace the filters from my previous grow. Instead I used Walgreens brand Nice Purified water. The PH is close to 6 and the TDS is 003, which is lower than my current RODI levels. I will probably keep using it for the first few weeks and gradually shift the plants over to my RODI water.

The plant spent its last week in the red cup before an end of the week transplant. The plant seems to be doing really well. I've had zero issues. The leaves are starting to reach the end of the cup and usually that is a good sign it's out growing the cup. I know most people say don't transplant autos BUT I've never had an issue if it's done right. I watered twice this week with just purified water. Store bought water is fine as long as you make sure it's purified water and not spring or distilled water. I always measure the TDS of the water to be positive it's pure and in this case it's 003 TDS which is great. I don't water too close to the end of the week because I know I'm going to transplant to a 5 gallon hempy bucket and I want the plant hungry for water when it goes in. My process for transplanting is pretty simple. I start by preparing the buckets I'm going to use. In this case I'm using the buckets from my previous grow so they already have the hole about 2" from the bottom of the bucket. The hole was made with a hot screwdriver pressed into the bucket. I removed the bucket's handle just to make life easier since the space tote everything is going in can be a tight space towards the bottom. The first thing I put in the bucket is Growstones. This will create a reservoir at the bottom of the bucket when I water the plant. That layer of GS-1 fills the bucket so it's just covering the hole on the side. The next thing to go into the bucket is coco coir. I only use Coco Loco. I've had great results so far and it's only $20 for a giant bag. I fill the bucket until about an inch of the top. I then dig a hole in the center where I'm going to place my plant. I size the whole up with my red cup so it's at the right size and height. I like the plant to rise up out of the coco slightly almost like it's at the top of a small hill. Once the coco is ready I cut up the red cup so I can transplant. This is the trickiest part since the coco the plant is in can easily fall apart. I like to cut the bottom off first to expose the roots. Once the bottom is off I will start to cut the side but not all the way. I place the cup inside of the hole I created in the coco then finish cutting the side while it's in the hole. Simply slide the red cup out of the whole and just like that the plant is in the bucket. I'll water shortly after so the coco settles and usually it will settle .5 - 1" inside of the bucket. I've increased the lights to 10k lumens by end of the week to provide that extra punch of light to assist in recovery from the transplant. Usually within a couple of hours if done right the plant will be super happy and standing taller than before.

Slow and steady is the m.o. for this plant. There's been a level of reliability to this plant that I love. No issues watering or with the light. It's directing in front of an intake fan, which hasn't caused any issues. I've begun my feedings with nutrients. I use Emerald Harvest product line since I've had great results in the past and they are really easy to use. My plan is to water with nutrients up to 2 -3 times a week. The roots probably haven't hit the reservoir yet, so there is no need to water a couple of times a week and until I really see the demand it's probably going to stay at twice a week for a little while. When I feed I like to keep my water at room temperature and PH 6.0. I find that keeping everything consistent will only help your grow. I water from the inside (closest to base of plant) to the outside. I try not to disturb the soil too much. I have 12" drip trays which are pretty good at holding the run-off. I am still using purified water that is store bought. I buy in 1 gallon jugs so I just need 4 a week, which is about $4 per week right now. The lighting has been increased to 10K lumens, which will only increase as the plant grows up towards the light. I'm glad I switched from a 3000k quantum board to a 4000k quantum board because the growth has been good. I'm excited to see what happens when the roots finally hit the reservoir and the explosive growth starts to hit.

SUNDAY - Nothing MONDAY - Nothing TUESDAY - 1 Gallon Purified Water w/Nutrients PH 6.0 Wednesday - Nothing Thursday - Nothing Friday - Nothing Saturday - 1 Gallon Purified Water PH 6.0 Some solid growth this week as the plant has shot up another 3" by the end of the week. Clearly this plant is loving the extra space, The color on the leaves are pretty great, which makes me believe this is a very healthy plant. This week continued the introduction of nutrients along with an increase of lumens from the quantum boards. My feedings this week consisted of one with nutrients and one without. For the first few feedings I like to introduce the nutrients at lower levels than recommended to prevent nutrient burn. The nutrient feeding this week would be the third in a row, so I will follow it up with a just water flush. I usually won't push it to four feedings with nutrients in a row until the plant is in the early stages of flower and gets very hungry. As the plants have shifted out of seedling phase I've increased the lumens to 15K. As it grows taller the amount of light it's going to get will increase, so I won't be dropping the lights down yet. It's super helpful having dimmers on these boards, so I don't have to worry about constantly adjusting the height of my lights. Next week I will turn on the side lighting to give an extra punch in the amount of lumens and to make sure the lower leaves are getting some light. Next week I will also start doing some low stress training. This plant is pretty dense, so pulling it to one side should open it up to more light and hopefully more bud sites will come out of it.

SUNDAY - Nothing MONDAY - 1 Gallon Purified Water w/Nutrients PH 5.8 TUESDAY - Nothing Wednesday - Nothing Thursday - 1 Gallon Purified Water PH 5.8 Friday - Nothing Saturday -Nothing Another week down and the smell of this plant is starting to come in along with some serious height. We haven't reach flower yet and the height on this plant is pretty significant. It's also pretty packed together. The last grow I had a plant that was pretty dense early on and it ended up having a very high yield but the buds really didn't get to solidify because circulation became an issue. In times like these you have to start some LST to get her to open up. I like to use plant tie downs for LST. The roll of tie downs I bought are Shintop 328 Feet Garden Plant Twist Tie which can be found on Amazon. These work really well if you are smart. You can run into issues later on if you aren't careful because as any stem grows it will grown around the tie. When it comes time to cut the plant and pulling the ties it becomes a pain. This time when adding a tie down I make sure to leave a decent sized loop. I drill holes going around the bucket that I loop the tie downs through and tie off. I've decided to add an extra step by adding soft tie hooks at the end to hold each stem. This should prevent the stems from growing with the tie downs embedded in them. I watered twice this week with nutrients both times. Went to a full on vegetative feeding dosage on all of my nutrients before I start increasing my watering schedule next week. I've noticed less runoff this week with my watering which is usually a sign that a plant is getting thirstier. Next week will be 3 feedings a week. By the time I get to flower I will be at a feeding every other day. With increased nutrients comes a higher TDS. It's a good idea to look for signs of nutrient burn and nutrient lock out. An autoflower getting full nutrients suddenly can sometimes react negatively, so any signs of stress will let you know if you need to back off on nutrients a little. Increased nutrients along with the normal growth cycle has started to awaken the smell of the plant. I've decided it's time to turn on the carbon filter fan. My temperatures have been pretty high with the highest hitting 85 degrees. I have two AC Infinity AXIAL 1238 fans which bring in fresh air and circulates the air in the grow space, but don't impact the temperature drastically. The carbon filter fan will definitely bring down temperatures to a reasonable range. For the fan and filter combination I use a Hurricane Inline Fan along with a Phresh Filter. This is the second grow I've used this combo for and get fantastic results.

SUNDAY - Water w/Nutrients MONDAY - Nothing TUESDAY - Water w/Nutrients WEDNESDAY - Nothing THURSDAY - Water FRIDAY - Nothing SATURDAY - Water w/Nutrients This plant is on the verge of hitting some good vertical growth. It's been a steady grower. It's been fighting for space with the other plant in my space tote, but some LST will take care of that fight. I've been watering every other day with at least one day being no nutrients and just pure water. I've started switching over to flowering nutrients as the pistols have started to show. I've also started shifting this plant from store bought purified water to a mix of my RODI and the store bought water. The plant has been responding fine and hasn't shown any signs of stress. The lighting has stayed the same. The next week will probably see an increase in lumens. The aroma of this plant has steadily been increasing. The carbon filter is keeping that under control. It's definitely going into flower.

SUNDAY - NOTHING MONDAY - 1 Gallon Water w/Nutrients TUESDAY - NOTHING WEDNESDAY - 1 Gallon Water w/Nutrients THURSDAY - NOTHING FRIDAY - 1 Gallon Water SATURDAY - NOTHING Definitely in full flower. Bud sites are plentiful and at this point it's all about going full-blown bloom nutrients and making sure light is penetrating beyond the canopy. This week is stripping leaves, minor LST adjustments. In order to maximize light penetration I always do two things: LST to open up the canopy and strip fan leaves. The LST is the thing that is consistently done throughout the grow. This will ensure early on the light is penetrating and to be honest at this stage in the grow most of the LST heavy lifting should be done. I only do it now to open the plant up a little more and control vertical growth. The stripping is the trickier part. I pull any really large fan leaves that have thick stems. These to me are resource hogs. I try to pull leaves that aren't attached to bud sites. I start from the top center and work my way down and out. Unlike my previous grows I waited until flowering to start stripping leaves in the hopes this will maximize growth. I pull a handful now and in a week I will pull some more. Feedings are consistent to every other day. I will slowly stop feeding just pure water as the plant is typically nutrient hungry during flowering. The Emerald Harvest line of nutrients is very good and will get my plant everything it needs. Add in the silica and the stems begin to really stiffen in up in an attempt to be strong enough to hold up the bud. I increased the lights to full strength but decided mid-week to bring the lights back down a bit. It was too much of a increase at once and a gradual increase is the smarter move. Very excited to see what buds come in as this plant has really come into it's own.

SUNDAY - Nothing MONDAY - 1 Gallon w/Nutrients TUESDAY - Nothing WEDNESDAY - 1 Gallon w/Nutrients THURSDAY - Nothing FRIDAY - 1 Gallon w/Nutrients SATURDAY - Nothing Buds are coming in nicely, so this week was about feeding, leaf stripping, and lollipopping. First thing I did was try to clear the canopy a bit by removing leaves. I want to make sure the lower buds are getting plenty of light. I remove leaves from the bottom as well, especially if they aren't attached to any bud sites. Lower buds can be hit or miss so this is also a good time to lollipop. I remove any branches that have under-developed buds when comparing to anything midway up the plant and higher. It sucks to cut anything that can possibly yield something but the reality is they will probably be popcorn buds at best and suck up nutrients that can be used by the better buds higher up. Feedings at this point is about being consistent and making sure the plant is getting enough water and nutrients. No straight water feed this week but that will come later as pure water may not be what the plant needs right now. The TDS will soon climb as I plan on switching to a mid-flower feeding plan next week. The lights have been increased to full power, so the plants should respond well. Ideally the plant wants a minimum of 65,000 lux at this stage of flowering so I do what I can to make sure it's getting that.

SUNDAY - Nothing MONDAY - 1 Gallon w/Nutrients TUESDAY - .5 Gallon w/Nutrients WEDNESDAY - Nothing THURSDAY - Nothing FRIDAY - 1 Gallon w/Nutrients SATURDAY - Nothing Low key grow week but a really good one for bud sites. There has been serious bud development which is what we've all been waiting for. I was getting slightly nervous since nothing was happening, but it's all coming in fast and furious. Feeding this week was on the mid-flower nutrient plan. Clearly the plant is loving the extra nutrients because the buds are looking good. I made extra water for my other plant on Tuesday so the excess water went to this plant. I decided not to water for 2 days to let the plant absorb what was available and give a little more time for the coco to dry. Friday I went back to normally water volume with nutrients. Lighting is the same as it was previously. At some point I may fire up my cob and add that to the mix since it's on the warmer end of the light spectrum and the plant would probably love it right about now. The aroma is very good on this plant. It has a sweetness to it that is fantastic. Looking forward to harvest in a few weeks and seeing how the aroma increases through cure.

SUNDAY - NOTHING MONDAY - 1.5 Gallons w/Nutrients TUESDAY - NOTHING WEDNESDAY - 1.5 Gallons w/Nutrients THURSDAY - NOTHING FRIDAY - 1.5 Gallons Water SATURDAY - NOTHING The trichomes on this plant are fantastic. It's really become quite sticky and frosty. Although I am a little disappointed by the bud development. The buds are small and there just aren't a ton. I expected a little better from a Dutch Passion strain, especially since they are really known for their fantastic genetics. Maybe it's just a bad seed as it did struggle in the beginning. Feeding has still been filled with nutrients since I want to see if leaving the plant up a little longer will result in the buds getting denser. I started the week with nutrients and ended it with just water, though I think the next time it gets water will be when I decide to flush and that's IF I decide to flush this plant for an 2 week cycle. For lighting I did add my 3500k cob to try and boost flower development. The quantum boards I have are more daylight balanced which is great for vegging plants but I find a little extra warm light is super helpful when flowering. Overall I think I can pull this plant in a week or two but I may let it go longer than that.

Started with one last feeding with nutrients but made the switch to pure water to start the flush. It's definitely harvest week. I decided to do one last day of feeding because in the last week the buds did put on a little more size. It did slow down by the end of the week but one more day of nutrients never hurt anybody. The rest of the week I went straight to water. There is no sense in feeding nutrients to a plant that isn't growing in size of plant or size of buds anymore. The idea is to flush with water getting rid of excess nutrients in the coco or reservoir. This forces the plant to burn up the nutrients still left in it. Some claim the flush helps get a better smoke with less harshness. I personally vape and find my vape to be far less harsh with a flush than without, but I'm sure it varies with everyone. I do turn off the lights on the last 2-3 days to force the plant to burn up nutrients still in it. I also want to make sure the trichomes are amber though I'm not pushing them all to amber. I really just want some amber because this is a hybrid that leans more on the sativa side. The lights being off helps that transition to amber, which will also continue when I cut the plant down. Although I'm not expecting a huge yield from this plant I do expect a great smoke with the spectacular aroma and really fantastic trichome production.

Growing was a breeze even with the stunted growth to start. I do think that this particular seed was not the strongest so it resulted in smaller airy buds BUT that didn't affect the potency. Two hits off the vape and I'm super toasted. Sure I wanted to get the huge yields and dense buds I've seen others do off this strain, but I'm not disappointed in the final product. Overall it was an easy grow. The plant never showed signs of deficiencies or nutrient burn. At one point the lights were a little too close but that was remedied right away. If anything I may do less LST the nest time around to give it the chance to shoot up a little more, but this is my last grow in a space tote, so space will be less of an issue, especially vertical growth space. I harvested the plant and did a wet trim before placing all the bud on a mesh cloth to dry. After 3 days the buds were dry enough to give a dry trim of any stems still left over before placing the buds in mason jars. Curing will go on for about a month. I like to burp twice a day for 10 minute during the first 2 weeks then switch to once a day for the last two weeks. Then I burp far less frequently. I also like to use 62% humidity packs after the first week to help bring the moisture to an equilibrium I like. This also helps with long-term storage. After the first week of curing the smell and taste is incredible. I will definitely look to growing more Dutch Passion strains and hopefully grow Glueberry OG again in the future. With a larger space I think I can push this plant to a 200g yield.