Budzilla 2.0 - Smoothie Auto

Growing some seeds I won from Diary of the Month here on Grow Diaries!!! I'm so grateful and excited for another learning experience doing what I love! Thank you, FastBuds! 🙏 Seed was germinated directly in Rapid Rooter placed in a seedling tray. I put her in darkness for 48 hours and then in a sunny window. Three days later, the seedling's little head poked up and the next day she showed me her first true leaves - calling this day 1. I kept the seedling tray in a sunny window and brought her outside for lunch on my sunny deck with me for the rest of the week. Given the heatwave we were having here, I got her settled into her net basket sooner rather than later so that she could have a more stable environment. This plant will is being grown indoors in an 2x4x8 Gorilla Grow Tent using an 8 gallon Current Culture Solo Bucket under California Lightworks 550 Solar System LED. For grow media I am using clay pellets and I use the entire Cultured Solutions line of nutrients. I will be showcasing this plant in a grow tutorial over on my YouTube channel and IGTV where I am going to show a detailed walk through of how I grew my original "Budzilla" plant. Unfortunately, I don't have a grow diary for her, but she is featured on my IG account. The technique I use I created after harvesting my first grow. I had used low stress training on an autoflower and achieved beautiful results. I took notes the entire grow and conducted a postmortem. I sincerely advise doing this for EVERY grow - especially when you are learning. It provides you opportunity to figure out what went right, what went wrong, what could have gone better, and what ideas you think you can toss into the mix to try to improve on the places that need revamping. I did this and I came up with the hypothesis of starting my plant off-center in the net basket, and then growing it low and in a spiral around the outside. In my head, I thought something like this could really push the limits of low stress training, especially when used on an autoflower where we have a limited time of vegetative growth. I didn't realize, at the time, JUST how effective the technique would be, but when the grower community on IG exploded over the sight of my plant, I started to get a feeling a did something right. As I was still only growing my second plant in my entire grow career, I was completely oblivious to the fact that I had pushed the normal boundaries of an autoflower.... I had nothing else to really compare it to. Nearly a year later, photos of my Budzilla are still being shared around social media in the grow community and I still get asked regularly about how I grew her. And with that, we start here on the journey to attempt the recreation of my former masterpiece. But I'm taking it one step further and giving you a detailed, step-by-step guide so that even the newest of growers can follow along and learn how to push an autoflower to its beautiful edge. Plus.... It's really freaking cool to bonsai a plant 😎. Anyway, please feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel! The link is in my bio! I am updating as I go along! Thanks for growing with me! ✌️💜🌱🙏

Gave Smoothie a small dose of nutes. I gave full strength UC Roots and Coco Cal and 1/2 recommended dose of Veg A and Veg B. This week, training began! Using twine and zip ties I created an anchor to support my stem and then began bending the plant to initiate the start of my spiral. For more detail and the step-by-step breakdown of the training, check out Budzilla Tutorial Part 2 and 3 over on my YouTube channel! 🔗 Link is in my bio! ✌️

Continuing to work my way, segment by segment, around to form the beginning of my spiral. So far, Smoothie is being a real team player! With every little tug and tie, she pushes back asking for more! Nothing but good vibes going into this masterpiece! 💪 Feeding nutes at full strength UC Roots and Coco Cal, and 1/2 strength Veg A&B

Continuing my way around the net basket, and I have to say, Smoothie Auto has been a real partner throughout this vigorous training! After allowing her to stay fairly bushy for the majority of vegetation, I went ahead and dealt her a massive defoliation as she appears to be moments away from fully going into flower. I am really happy with how she's training. I'm working hard to even out the canopy, which was something I never thought to take into consideration the first time I cultivated this spiral technique. This is the one difference between the original Budzilla plant, and this. Budzilla 2.0. I'm adding a photo of my original plant for reference. Anyone interested in following along with the video tutorial, please visit my YouTube or IG! 🔗Link in bio! ✌️💜🌱

My spiral is complete! I repositioned some twine and evened out the canopy as best I could. I don't think she looks half bad! I had to hoist her up on my stool so she could reach the light better, so now my butt has nowhere to sit when I work, but it was a small sacrifice. She has been a super bushy plant, so I have been defoliating a lot. The training I've put her through has most certainly delayed her rolling into flower, but now that she's had a near week of me leaving her alone, her pistils have started to shine.

Hanging tight with this kiddo... If one thing is for certain, she is dedicated to her life as a bushy Betty. Having to so often defoliate has stressed this lady out. Despite that, she is surprisingly still hauling strong. I have to say, in my experience Fastbuds genetics really take a beating. My cycle with her goes something like, bush out, defoliate, stress, bounce back with full on bush, repeat.

Creeping along slowly, but surely. I cleaned up the bottom a little bit and took a moment to appreciate the extreme bondage. Her bud sites are starting to look more healthy and less like a herd of donkeys trampled on them.

Pretty uneventful week. Giving her time and space to forgive me for all of the torture. She is coming around. She can't be mad at me forever, right?

Bush-zilla is filling out some more. I've ceased any more aggressive sort of defoliation in favor of not completely annihilating my yield with my Edward Scissor hands. ✂️✂️

Smoothie is packing on bud weight like a happy little clam cake and her buds are beautifully dressed in a nice coat trichomes! Her nodes are stacked tightly together. She has an odor of sweet smelling fruit.

Sweet little Bush-zilla getting the flush! I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by the bud quality despite the stress I dealt her. You would have no idea that she was tortured for 12 weeks haha. Her buds are dense and coated with trichomes. She smells super sweet. 😋 I'll be flushing her for 3 days and giving her 36-48 hours of darkness before giving her the chop. ✂️✂️✂️

This plant was a real champ throughout our time together. This was the first time I went into a grow with a predetermined training goal in mind and I have to say it partially backfired. While this plant had wonderful resilience to stress, she was just such a super bushy lady that her genetics were working hard against my selected grow style. Nonetheless, when I had to dive in and get dirty - doing what felt like hacking her to bits, removing massive undergrowth - she surprisingly bounced back, brushed the dirt off her shoulders, and kept on. Because of all that, I'm also very surprised by how dense the buds were come harvest. Dense, almost hard nugs. As I stated above, this strain doesn't vibe well with my anxiety - but I will be turning her into oil for cooking, so this darling will not go to waste! *** Post Mortem *** Environmental stress, as well as training stress were dealt out hard to this lady - if I could do it again, what I should have done is abandon the spiral once I realized she was a Bush-zilla. Doing some basic LST across the net basket would have suited her better. The super tight internodal spacing made shaping her very challenging. Another thing I could have done way better - which may have preserved the spiral better - was I should have removed the undergrowth way earlier in the game. I think acknowledging the stress I was already dealing made me shy away from taking more drastic moves earlier - which actually would have ended up saving me later on. These are lessons I will keep in mind with future runs. In my opinion, it's always better to choose the style based on what each plant will be a good candidate for, vs deciding the style and forcing it upon a plant. This was an interesting grow. Many lessons were learned here. Thank you again Fastbuds for the opportunity to grow these genetics!