1-Gallon Blackberry Auto

ExcessDope After seeing my Instagram posts of my Green Crack solo cup grow, FastBuds was kind enough to offer me some seeds in exchange for documenting some of their newer strains via Grow Diaries here. I gladly accepted. Thanks again, FastBuds! That said, I thought growing this strain in a cup would be great practice for my next official round of the #autosolocupchallenge. I get to learn about how the strain behaves, and also get to sample at least a little bit of the flavor profile. Oh, and of course show off how well the genetics do, even under more extreme circumstances. I think it's a win-win-win! I'm really looking forward to seeing some purple buds in my tent, and I've always enjoyed Blackberry flavor. So stoked to see how she does. 😁👍🏻 Added some more soil to fill up the rest of the cup and support the young stem. I think I nailed it. The soil is almost right up to the cotyledons. Should be a great start. 😉

ExcessDope I added a bit more soil on day 7 to fill up the cup. That brought her height back down a bit, but I had planned for that. 😉 And now she's off. Time to sit back and see what happens. Still undecided if I will top or train this one. I kind of like the idea of an all natural grow again, just to get a good idea of her 'natural' structure. That said, she's really stretched this week. I may top her yet, just to keep her from getting to top heavy. 🤷‍♂️🏼

ExcessDope Swapped all my plants around on day 15. Flowering plants that are about to get harvested have moved to the smaller tent. Once they are done drying in that tent, these solo cup autos will move back. For now, they're sharing with some photo plants in veg. So far, so good. She's a little stringy, not sure why. Other than that, I'd say she's doing fine. At day 17 she's looking a little droopy. I attribute it to the much more powerful led lamp in this tent. I have it set to 180watts, up from the 100w from my other tent. She seems to dry out a bit quicker too, so hopefully it doesn't slow her down much. 😬 Well, on day 18 I 'promoted' this little one from her solo cup home into a larger one-gallon Honor bag! I'm not sure what got her so sad looking, but she does seem to have recovered after the transplant. Hoping she continues to improve. 🤞🏻

ExcessDope She still looks super sad after the transplant. 😭 I gave her a teeny pinch of MegaCrop with her water, but she may be a bit too wet now. 😬 I'm having all kinds of trouble, but I still think she'll push through just fine. Especially once she gets settled in to the one gallon. 👍🏻 Time will tell. 😁 She's been moved and stressed a lot, don't let her poor shape fool ya, it's all my fault. 😅 I plan to let her finish either way, but I would normally just toss this attempt and start again, if I'm being honest. I made a few mistakes early on and gave her a pretty poor start. I think she deserves better. Please don't judge the strain too harshly based on MY results so far. 😅

ExcessDope I don't think this plant is suffering from overwatering anymore. I assume there is some sort of root rot happening or something, but I still plan to let her finish up. She's already flowering and is still growing somehow, so maybe she'll surprise us all. 🤷‍♂️🏼 Day 33 has her still looking sad, but continuing to bloom. Her color is showing on and around the budsites already. Can't wait to see what she does, even with her sad state. I'm totally convinced that this one was just a bum bean. I don't think I've done anything different to this one than my other solo cups, but it just doesn't seem to want to come back.

ExcessDope She's still plodding along. Leaves are still curled, as always, but she's not looking any worse. 😅 She's been getting plain water and only every so often. I'm just waiting for her to finish at this point. I still don't really know what her deal is, but she keeps on keeping on.

ExcessDope She's been getting only water again this week. Still no sign of change, good or bad, in her condition. I am at a loss what the actual cause of her issues are. She's had the same treatment as my other autos. Either way, she's growing and swelling still. Hope she finishes up with enough to at least give me a small sample of the strain. That was the whole reason for this tiny grow anyhow. 😁👍🏻

ExcessDope She still looks like crap, but she's still slowly swelling up. Hairs are beginning to turn and I can kind of smell her now. She's got an earthy fruity stink, but it's subtle. Kind of just waiting for this one to end, honestly. I'd like to try this strain again, I think I juts got a dud. From talking around, it sounds like that may be fairly common for this strain. A shame, really. Oh well, maybe next time.

ExcessDope She's finally getting close to finishing up. Honestly, I'll be glad to see this one go. I'd love to try this strain again someday though! I'm not really sure what went wrong. It got the exact same treatment as all my others, just went sour and refused to come back. No biggie, I'll still get to try a small sample of the strain, and that was my main goal all along. 😉👍🏻

ExcessDope From the beginning, this plant had issues. After speaking with other growers, this seems to be fairly common with this strain, and that sucks. That said, from the little bud I did get from this run, I really enjoyed it. The flavor is sweet and earthy and very enjoyable. The high is comfy and relaxing, but not insanely heavy either. It's a great evening weed. I'd like to try this one again for a better result, but the horror stories and sad mutation or whatever kind of puts me off popping another. We will see. In the meantime, there are lots of other FastBuds strains to try. 😁👍🏻 Thanks for the chance to grow the Blackberry autoflower.