Bean's HSO Grow

Growing 6 strains from seed. Growing method is organic living soil. This grow will utilize the Mars Pro II Cree 128 for a grow light (LED). Plants are started in a soil mix, even parts Roots Organic and Coast of Maine, with no other additives. After 3 weeks, they'll be transplanted into super soil (composed of the prior two brands, plus amendments). These girls will feed exclusively on spring water, organic aloe vera from build-a-soil, and Recharge by realgrowers. Strains are as follows: HSO: Amherst Sour Diesel, Blue Dream, 707 Headband, Purple Trainwreck (one HSO Bubba Kush seed failed to germ and will not be included this run) DNA Genetics: Chocolope Seedsman: Original Skunk #1 Wish me luck! beanbean

Girls are all still growing strong. The slowpoke, Original Skunk #1 (by Seedsman), finally sprouted and will hopefully catch up to the rest. Some twisted seedling leaves on the Blue Dream and the Purple Trainwreck...the internet says it could be anything from A. windburn / fans too strong in tent, to B. Some blue and some purp genetics apparently exhibit this "feature". They look otherwise healthy, so we'll see. Been giving them a feeding of spring water, aloe vera (1/32tsp per cup), and Recharge (1/32tsp per cup), and they seem to be taking well to it. This will be their regular feeding through the course of the entire grow (debating whether or not to cut off the Recharge in flower...right now I'm torn between lightening the nitrogen or going for insane root development). I won't be taking PPM or PH measurements during this grow. As I'm depending on the bennies in the soil to keep things consistent for the girls.

Recap: Transplanted to the bigger pots this week, set back up the LST, and also did some supercropping! I think now I just need to let my girls go and not bug them too much...hoping the transplant and the Super Soil really pump out the veg for me from here on out!

Removed taped, supercropped and added garden staples for flattest possible LST. Girls seem to be responding well on the lower chutes...I think the low RH is slowing my veg, but nothing I can do currently to keep it higher. At the least, I'm pretty much guaranteed to be mold and bug-free, so that's a benefit. Lot of growth towards the end of the week. Looking towards a good yield, here's hoping!

Week 4 saw good growth spurts on most of the girls. The Blue Dream has taken off and is the clear winner for fastest veg; PT is not far behind, and the Choco is making extreme headway to vie for #3. The rest are growing more slowly, but just as surely. Adjustments made to LST on all the girls throughout the week to maximize canopy spread; the result has been a LOT of tops developing . 3 more weeks of veg to go and then I'm putting these girls into flower.

Sheesh...there's so much DANK on this site, I started looking at bud porn for 30 minutes and forgot I was trying to post...shout-out to all the FIRE GROWERS on this site doing their thing! Anyway, not much to add this week. The girls are coming along strong. Same feeding program (water, aloe vera, bennies, every 3-4 days), same rotating plants once a day, same LST (a lot of the girls have a good "circle" going now and have really started to fill out). UPDATE 1: I've done some defoliation on one of the girls, to see how well she responds. If she takes well, I'll likely do the same to the rest of the girls. Pics included on the Blue Dream defoliation. UPDATE 2: Took the plunge. Defoliated all the girls. 14 days left of straight veg, as well as a few weeks of stretch, so they should recover fine. Let's see if this helps or hurts, but I can say I already see a bunch more hidden bud sites, especially on the Blue Dream and the Skunk #1. The Amherst Sour Diesel did NOT take well at all, and the 707 Headband was also finicky (similar genetics, similar response?).

This is the 2nd to last week of veg. As stated last week, I decided to due some defoliation. There were definitely moments where the girls seemed extremely stressed, regardless of me trying to be as careful as possible in the process. HSO's Amherst Sour Diesel does NOT like to be defoliated, she has and continues to respond the worst to the procedure (even when she's "happy", she's usually a little droopy, I've heard a lot of anecdotal evidence about Sour being a picky plant, I think this backs that up). Others seem to have completely flourished with the defol and I see a whole new set of tops coming in that likely would have been larf otherwise. One last round of defol was done yesterday (no pics yet), and from here on out, I'll let the plants cruise, no more defol, and definitely not going to defol in flower (though I may still take off sucker branches that fail to catch up, despite the defol, to limit as much popcorn bud as possible). So cruise control from here on out for the rest of veg. Enjoy the pics, more to come! -beanbean

Week 8, final week of veg. This is truly a "do nothing" week where I will let the girls settle in, destress, and prepare for 12/12 at the end of the week. All of the girls are showing preflowers at this point. Though I haven't mentioned it much before, this tent is STINKING! Really encouraged by having such strong scents coming from all the girls while still in veg; methinks me made good choices with these genetics! The tallest girl (ASD) is only 6 inches at her tallest point. Averaging a 5 inch canopy all around. REALLY hoping this limits my stretch and promotes ROCK HARD NUGS, but we'll see. -beanbean

First week of flower. We've had some bone-chilling days in my locale, so I've been battling low temps, fairly successfully. The low humidity, however, I have not been able to raise, hoping it doesn't turn into too much of a detriment. Flipped the lights to bloom for 12/12, and just going to let the girls adjust this week, see how much they stretch, try to keep them happy, and just be patient as I head into flower. -beanbean

Been a busy week with the holidays, but now I'm back in action! The Amherst Sour Diesel looks like she's going to be the Comeback Queen of this grow. Was by no means the largest or most vigorous at any point before the flip, but since then she's been taking off! Extremely healthy vegetation and a "decent" Sour smell thus far (anyone know the genetic backstory of this strain? Is it an S1 of the clone)? Seedsmans SK1 also impresses, it's been stacking on super thick, not tall or stretchy at all, so I think she will make some dense rocky nugs. The Chocolope has apparently taken Sour's spot as the unhappy, finicky plant of the bunch. She just seems really sensitive to nutes. Can't tell if she's burning slightly, or getting deficient and yellowing too fast, but she's been yellowing, spotting, and drying out at the bottom-most fan leaves, underneath the canopy (I think it's burn because I first noticed 4 weeks ago when I topped off all the pots with a little more soil). I am hoping it's really just resource adjustments and her being picky in early flower, as the tops of all nodes still look lush and green, she's stacking on wonderfully, and doesn't seem too bothered otherwise, but I'll be watching her to make sure. Funny thing is, she is DEFINITELY the most frosty of all the girls at this stage, even showing trich formation on her fan leaves! Maybe it's correlated, maybe she's just going extra hard for that dank of the year award? The Blue Dream has an AMAZING smell. Blueberry muffins on the nose, it's insane. I am honestly anticipating her flavor more than the others so far. She's the healthy perky girl she's been her whole life cycle. And her pistils are coming in purple also, so bonus! Speaking of purple pistils, the Purple Trainwreck is doing the same. Her fans are also blackening out more each week, which could be indicative of her purpling out completely, we'll see! The 707 Headband remains pretty consistent. No fancy colors or other hoopla, she's just greening out and budding out. Her stank is actually MORE Sour than the ASD, and heavily so, pretty excited about that as well. I had to go out of town for new year's weekend, so I set up some Blumat Juniors to auto-water for a few days. They afforded me three days and when I came back, the girls were not hungry or stressing. I may continue to use them, depending on how lazy I get, but it's good to know that there are emergency options to handle watering when going out of town! Lots of pics going up, if you guys have any feedback or anything else you wanna know at this stage of the grow, lemme know. -beanbean

The girls have stopped stretching and are starting to pile on the hairs. The Purple Trainwreck is starting to purple out a bit of her fan leaf. The Chocolope has lost some of its pukey spoiled fruit smell (thanks goodness) and is now balanced out by a more floral, even sugary smell. She's frosting up like hell as well. The 707 Headband as well is frosting out and continues to out-Sour the Amherst Sour Diesel, in both frostiness and smell. Skunk #1 is doing a lot of cola-fattening in the udner canopy, so much so that I was pretty much forced to defoliate her a bit in the center, as I don't want to risk mold with such thick foliage. All in all removed about 20 leaves and she didn't seem the least bit bothered. Lastly, the Blue Dream continues to impress, overpowering all the others scents in the tent with her sweet berry muffin smell. This entire week the girls have received only water. The Chocolope had some accelerated fan leaf loss in comparison with the other girls, so decided to start this week water-only as a precaution and see what happens. They seemed more than happy with the results, so I'm sticking with it. I'll likely do one or two more feeds with Recharge, but nothing past week 6. -beanbean

Continuing the trend of water-only for the girls this week. Had another exceptionally cold winter storm where I couldn't heat my house above 65 degrees, so pretty sure the girls suffered as least one extremely cold night. The strongest stinkers are #1 Blue Dream, #2 Chocolope, #3 707 Headband. The Purple Trainwreck is purpling out more and more. The Skunk #1, though developing nicely and promising to have some thick chunky buds, is producing next to no resin compared to the other girls (all frosty), so that's extremely disappointing and hopefully it changes. Continuing to chug along and constantly watching for hermies (nothing spotted yet). -beanbean👌

The smells are coming on strong. All of the girls are still healthy and still pushing out bud production. Seeing dense nuggage on all main colas and nothing airy, save some larf on some of the bottoms I'm not really counting. Environment stays between 74-78 degrees, but on rainy days my humidity will jump as high as 65 (most days have been cold and dry and I've been steady in the 40s), though this has only happened about 4 times thus far, and no ill effects. Just really riding out the next 3 weeks. Some may be ready by then (8 weeks), some a week after (9 weeks), but the way these girls are looking, I don't think any of them will need to go 10 weeks, but we'll see (all 8-10 week strains). -beanbean

Life's been hectic for me lately outside of this grow, so not a lot of time to take pics or even tend to the girls this week. Not paying attention and too many things on my mind means I've been slipping up. Ran out of water last week and didn't have time to hit the refill station, so I just grabbed some jugs from CVS without even paying attention to the fact that it was purified water; think I locked my girls out after a few days of watering with that, so I went back to watering w/ beneficials on days 40 and 42 to make sure my soil life wasn't adversely affected. Just really restless due to other things and hoping I can get through these next 2-3 weeks without killing my girls. Will be gone all next weekend and I'm depending on my brother to water for me (not good). Always sucks when you work so hard on something, but hey, that's life...we'll see how things go. -beanbean

In the final stretch, only a few weeks left! Buds swelling and girls putting on their last few pounds. The Amherst Sour Diesel is probably the frostiest and oiliest now, and neck-and-neck for stinkiest with the Blue Dream. Checking thoroughly for 'nanas everyday, so far so good, but wouldn't be surprised if there's a nanner or two hiding deep within some of the fatter buds. Feminized seeds, it happens. Most of these girls are 9 week strains, the the Purple Trainwreck probably closer to 8 and the Amherst Sour Diesel closer to 10. At the end of NEXT week I'll start checking the girls more diligently; as of now, there's still a lot of clear, a good amount of cloudy on all, but still very very little amber, I'd say less than 2% across all strains. -beanbean

Week 8 has come and gone and we are definitely in the final stretches! The girls were fed only water and aloe vera for the past 5 waterings; they received their last dose of water on Day 56. If I were to pull them all today, I'd be completely happy with the Blue Dream, and the Amherst Sour Diesel, especially. Both these girls have exhibited the classic bud swell for the past week and a half (2 for the ASD) and are fat as hell. Both are around the 10% amber range, which is where I like it the most. The BD ranges in smell from Blueberry Muffin to straight Bubble Gum. The ASD definitely doesn't LOOK like straight sour, but her smell profile IS like straight sour, it's amazing. Bottommost budsites are through and through mature on these girls, so these last few days will be "icing on the cake" for them. The Chocolope, our earliest frost monster before being overtaken by the ASD, surprises me. According to DNA, she's definitely within her timeframe (8-9 weeks), but she just looks the least "done" of them all...still pushing new pistils, maybe it's the sativa in her. She's about 5-6% amber and maybe the same clear. She could go a little longer, so she'll prob be the least mature of the harvested bunch. Hope these next few days really give her the push she needs to finish. The Purple Trainwreck has the shortest flower time listed of all these breeds and I'd say she's spot on for the finish (started her budswell about 6 days ago). Though her nugs are not huge by any means, they are absolutely ROCK HARD compared to all the other buds. Really think she's gonna be those small super weighty buds that PLUNK when you drop them on the tray, if people are familiar with that type of dank ;) The 707 Headband...similar to the Chocolope, she seems to be JUST on the shy side of finishing, so may be taken a bit early as well. She's always been the skinniest of the bunch, so I was excited to see her finally swell out. She's the least amber of them all, at about 5% (they're all showing less than 5% clear trichs at this point, trying to stay as close to 100% cloudy as possible). Funny thing is, her lower budsites are so insanely frosty....pretty sure she'll be good for the finish with these last few days. Finally, we have the SK1 from Seedsman. I've considered this the least dank and least exciting of the bunch since the beginning of the grow (keep in mind I originally popped an HSO Bubba Kush that failed to germ, so the SK1 was a throwaway in my eyes). Man oh man how this girl has grown on me...you can definitely see the "technological differences" between her and the others, as her 80's genetics are just not nearly as frosty as all the new age stuff I'm running. But man oh man, talk about a smell profile...since forever I can only describe her as "pepper-smelling" when you whiff her, and "doublemint gum" when you rub her. She smells SO GOOD. What got me the most excited was when my mom came to check out my grow. She hasn't smoked in over 30 years. Smelled all the girls and as SOON as she sniffed the SK1, without even knowing what it is, she mentioned "Wow, this smells exactly like the stuff we used to smoke." So that got me PSYCHED about this blast from the past weed! Next week is all darkness for them to finished up. They'll be pulled from the darkness and hung on Day 61. Until then, enjoy these dankshots! -beanbean

Chop Week. The girls were given their last watering and last light cycle on day 56. Days 57-61 the girls were put in complete darkness. Starting on Day 60, I modified the room environment to dial in for the dry. Chopped all of the girls at 61 and they are now hanging in the tent. Environment of the tent and room is currently 60F/60RH and will remain so for the next 2 weeks while drying. Unfortunately I don't have the BEST pics of the chop, as I was trying to minimize light exposure of the buds. Can't say definitively whether the extra darkness at the end contributed to greater resin production, but they are all looking premo at the chop. Enjoy the pics, and check next week for harvest updates! -beanbean

The 707 Headband by HSO would be rated #3 out of the 4 HSO strains I grew, and #4 out of 6 overall. Decent yielder despite not responding as well as some of the other plants to LST. Very resinous and the strong lemony scent from flower carries over into flavor. Did not respond as well as others in supersoil, my guess would be she'd be a light feeder on a bottled nute regimen. Taken at about 5% amber, the high comes on quick and is very clear mentally, and just put me in a really cheesy mood. Would be good for wake and bake on a Monday morning before starting the work week!0

The Blue Dream was a star from start to finish. I'd rate her #2 of the 4 HSO grains I grew, and #3 overall. She took off from start to finish and I would say she'd be a heavy feeder on a bottled nute regimen. Smell was strong from early veg and transitioned from musky, to blueberry muffiny, to bubblegummy, to fruity and floral, almost like a berry herbal tea. The high made me very chatty and reflective. All in all a very good strain and a very easy strain to grow; she took everything I threw at her and not once complained.

In the end there can only be one winner, and for this round, it's the Amherst. #1 of the 4 HSO seeds grown and #1 overall. She was not an easy grow; transplanting to supersoil, LST'ing certain ways, watering too little or too much, she let you know sher was bothered at every corner. She was small until probably the last two weeks of veg and even then, didn't seem like she'd be the best going into flower. Then she exploded. And fattened, and purpled out. My pheno definitely seems to lean more indica though this is a mostly sativa strain. A big funky oily soury smelling purple plant is what she ended up as in the end, coming from behind to finish the race and finishing up right at 8 weeks. Even without a cure she is such a strong and immense flavor; think of drinking a sour diesel milkshake, the flavor is soury gas with a creamy, almost sweet top that is absolutely a pleasure to smoke. I'm going to muster all of my will power and hide this jar for at least 2 months. I need to see this one through to her full potential. Definitely a harder grow, but worth it, I would recommend it on strength of the end product alone. Definitely top shelf goodness. Well done, HSO!

I would rate the Skunk #1 6 out of the 6 plants grown. One of her greatest qualities is her insane likeness to doublemint gum with as touch of pepper, a scent and flavor that has carried on from flower through to the cure. She's pleasant to smoke and remind me of old school, a very relacing high. Thast being said, she isn't the most potent compared to the others, likely the least, and the high is short-lived. As well, she grew so thick in veg, almost feral, that I worried about extreme molding throughout the grow, but luckily was well ventilated enough to avoid it. For a freebie I'm pleased, and if there are better phenos to be found she might be worth growing again. If anything it was nice for the experience.

I really feel bad for the HSO Purple Trainwreck, rating her #4 out of the 4 HSO strains grown and #5 out of the 6 overall. She's got the yield, she's got the DENSEST of all the buds. She's got the weirdest baco-bits mixed with baby powder smell, that at first is alarming, but endearing in its uniqueness. And she does hit like a train, fell asleep to this the other night :) She just happened to be up against some tough competition with these other strains! The PT stands well on her own. If you're looking for an indica with a different flavor profile but a nice couchlock effect, this would be a good place to look. She does awesome with LST and grows thick hardy buds. But when lined up against all the other HSO greatness I've grown, she's just the last of this bunch. Don't let that stop you from trying and deciding for yourself!

It seems like the most challenging strains are also the most rewarding. Chocolope took well to LST and started frosting out extremely early. Her funk was unmatched until mid to late flower. But she did not like the supersoil. At some points she was dying out so fast that I was worried about her stress herming on me. In the end, all that energy got pumped into terps and flavs. Her smell is INSANE...graham crackers and burnt toast. Sweet flavor where the chocolately aroma really comes out. And the high is the raciest I've had in a long time. I've heard DNA does good work and this was my first try with DNA. I can assure you it won't be the last!