Bitch Slap x Bruce Banner

I got these seeds from a friend who crossed Bitch Slap and Bruce Banner (both from Dark Horse Genetics). This will be my first attempt at a photoperiod, as well as my first time using nonfeminized seeds, so it should be a pretty different experience from my last grow.

Things are going pretty smoothly so far. The plants were transplanted at the end of this week, as they were starting to outgrow the 1 L pots. I made a last minute decision to go with coco+perlite rather than soil+perlite for the larger pots, as I've heard it's a forgiving medium for beginning growers.

I'm surprised how quickly they grew after repotting; there's a massive difference between day 14 and 21! The one in the back is growing a bit slower than the one in the front, but they both otherwise look healthy. I put in some irrigation lines to make watering a bit easier, but they aren't working as expected so far. When watering, most of the water shoots out of a couple of the emmiters, and the other ones have next to nothing coming out of them. I'll keep reconfiguring them until I find something that works. I'll be starting LST in the next couple days and should be ready to top them sometime next week.

I decided against LST for now. They're both growing nice and wide, so I'll just do it on some of the side branches as time goes on. I topped them both on day 23 from germination, cutting just above the 5th node. This is my first experience with topping, so I'm not sure if the top shoots are coming along as they should. It looks like the growth has slowed down a bit, but I'm guessing that is to be expected with this technique.

The two shoots from topping last week have really taken off. I've started doing a bit of LST to try to make an even canopy prior to switching the lights in the next week or so. Many of the fan leaves are overlapping for the two plants, so I'm glad I didn't try to squeeze another one in my 2.5'x2.5' tent. These are looking way more healthy than my first grow, so I'm pretty happy how thing are going so far.

I think I fed the plant at the front of the tent a bit too much, as there is some nutrient burn on the tips of the new leaves. They both got a good flush to wash out any salt build up, so hopefully the new growth will be healthy. The lights were switched over to 12/12 today (Day 42). They're both a little over a foot tall, so there should be more than enough room to accommodate the stretch that they'll be experiencing soon. I've been waiting in anticipation since germination for this stage, as I'll finally be able to sex them once some preflowers pop up. Here's hoping for two females!

All the zoomed in pictures are of the plant closest to the front of the tent. I'm 90% certain this one is a male, but I'm going to wait a few more days before chopping to be sure. Unfortunately this is the plant that had the most impressive growth of the two . The silver lining is that the tent was getting pretty crowded, so at least the other one will get some more room in flower.. The growth that looks to be a pollen sac (Day 44 picture) popped out only a day after switching the lights to 12-12. From what I understand, this is pretty early to see any preflowers, so there's a chance it may be an oddly positioned shoot? The plant in the back isn't showing any signs of preflowers yet, so I'm hoping I'll see some pistills on that one over the next week or so. Edit: Later in the day, I noticed a calyx form on the plant in the back of the tent. Once I could compare the two, I was able to 100% confirm the other plant was male.

I got to say, I was pretty disappointed when I found out the big bushy one was a male, and I've been keeping the female further away from the light throughout veg. She's really picked up growth once I gave her room to widen out, and I'm hoping I can still get a decent yield from her. I'm also surprised how quickly calyxes are forming at the bud sites, although my only growing experience was an autoflower, so I'm not sure if this rate is typical. My goal over the next couple weeks will be to help here widen out by tucking the stems under the netting. Now that I have all this space, I might as well utilise as much of it as I can.

We've hit the 2' mark! I can't put the light too much higher, so I may need to cut down the draining stand the pot is on to give her a bit more vertical space. I've been following the nutrient concentration schedule from FoxFarm, but I may make some changes in the coming weeks and decrease the nitrogen concentration. This week had a nitrogen concentration of 215 ppm, and the remaining weeks until harvest will hover around 260-290 ppm. This seems a little high to me for flowering and slowing down the vertical growth wouldn't hurt, in my opinion. If anyone has advice on ideal nitrogen concentration in flower, I'd be happy to hear what you think 😊

I cut a couple inches off the stand the pot is sitting on to keep her away from the light. She shot up nearly half a foot this week, so I may need to get rid of the stand all together soon. Other than that, thing's are going smoothly. The fragrance is starting to be expressed now, so I bought an Ona block to put in front of my exhaust ducting as a precaution. The smell isn't detectable outside the tent, but I've been working in a cannabis production facility for a few years now, so I'm not the best judge of smell at this point 😄

I had a light in storage (Oppolite 300W LED) and set it up in the tent on Day 71. She seems to be responding very well to the additional light in the tent (just take a look at the same bud site from Day 70 last week and Day 75 from this week to see how much weight was gained over 5 days). Shortly after adding in the extra light, her watering needs jumped from ~1.25L/day to 1.75L/day! I'm happy to see her start to bulk up and excited to see what the next month will look like with this new light source.The lights are set up side by side, so it'll be interesting to compare buds from each side of the tent before harvest. More good news, it looks like the stretch has finally come to an end. I was quickly running out of vertical space, so this is a big relief for me.

Not too much new this week. I think this plant is beginning to take on the appearance of its Bruce Banner lineage, with a few swollen calyxes occupying the bud sites, rather than many small calyxes forming the flowers. At this rate, I'm hoping to harvest in early January, as that will put me at around 70 days of flowering.

I got a new light as an early Christmas present (SpiderFarmer SF-1000), and switched out my two blurple lights. I can't really tell if this one is better than the two previous LEDs I had before, but working in the tent is now much easier. After switching over the light it became very apparent that the tips of the fan leaves had signs of nutrient burn. I may start flushing weekly rather than biweekly for the rest of flowering to control this.

A few new buds sites popped up this past week, with most of the new growth being on the left side of the tent. It looks a little off having buds at different stages of maturity, but I'm hoping the further along buds can wait for the other ones to catch up before harvest. Still looking to harvest early to mid January, as that would put me at around 70 days of flower. The upper fan leaves are taking on a dark purple colour, which visually looks great. I'm just hoping that it's related to the genetics of the plant, and not some major deficiency 😊 Nutrient burn on the tips of the leaves don't seem to be getting worse, so it looks like a combination of weekly light flushes and dialling back the nitrogen concentration is helping.

I found that the new growth on top of the buds was likely caused by light stress, as the foxtailing was much more prevalent on the side of the tent with the bright blurple light from a few weeks ago. This explains why the buds stopped fattening up, and put it's energy to making small leaves out of the bud sites. I also came across a few bananas this week :(. I plucked out all of the ones I came across, but there are likely more hiding. Because of this, I've decided to cut her down a bit earlier than I was hoping. Some of the buds look ready, but there are quite a few newer ones that are still immature. I'll be cutting her down today, so I'll be able to give a final update in a week or so.

Very airy buds, but is to be expected as I cut her down earlier than I would've liked to. This is my only real complaint I have, as I would've liked something with a bit more density to it. Quite a high sugar leaf to bud ratio, as I got just under an ounce of trim for about 2.6 Oz of bud. About half of the harvest was trimmed after 6 days of drying and the other half on day 7 of drying. Some of the buds feel pretty brittle, so I'm hoping I can rejuvenate the dry ones by curing them all together in a bag. Still debating if I should toss in one of those large Boveda 62% packs in with the curing bag. Update - One week of Curing: So I definitely dried the bud too long and/or at too low a humidity. The RH% maxed out at the high 40's in the curing jars, so I don't know if the taste will improve much more. A much more skunky/diesel smell was expressed during curing, with almost no hint of the original sweet smell. Not bad, but could've been much better if I dried properly.