By continuing to use the website or clicking Accept you consent to our cookies and personal data policy and confirm that you are at least 18 year old. For details please see Privacy Policy and Terms
I'll sprout the seeds using the paper towel method to start with. Then, I'm going to plant the seeds directly in the 10 gallon pots to avoid transplanting. This is my first time using this SCROG set up. I'm not entirely sure how many plants to put in. I'm going to try 4 and we will see if I come to regret putting so many.
TEMPERATURE: I need to sort out the high temperature in my grow room. I have LED lights, and two 4" inline fans plus two oscillating fans. It doesn't seem to be enough to keep the room cool. I'm hoping that with winter temperatures it will be a bit easier to manage.
GNATS: My last indoor grow (several months ago) was plagued by gnats. I used sticky fly tape and soapy spray but it wasn't enough. Fingers are crossed that this go round will be better. I'll be looking at using neem oil when I get desperate...
Just waiting on the Strawberry Cheese Cake to come out of the dirt. The Onyx has not shed her seed case... Northern Light and LSD are well on their way 😊
My girls are growing nicely in spite of humidity and temperature at less than ideal values. I have a pretty big light... MarsHydro II 1600 and it's heating my grow room up to 30C if I'm not careful. I still can't get my humidity up over 30% for any length of time. Today I spend time sealing up the interior of the room so that I could keep humidity in. I'm going to adjust my inline fans too. I currently have 2 inline fans but maybe it's too much. I'll turn one off to see if that makes a difference. I added a cool mist humidifier but I'm starting to think it's too small for the room.
Found two larvae in my plants... you can see they were munching on the leaves! I picked off the ones I could find and sprayed with insecticidal soap. Only two plants had signs of pests... the other two don’t have the bugs. You can see the Northern Lights Auto was not tolerating the heat, while the LSD Auto is perfectly happy.
The plants are growing well. The room humidity is at 40-45% depending on time of day. The room temp is around 28C with some upward fluctuations depending lights. Right now only the grow lights are switched on, not the bloom lights. I will need to bring the temps down a bit before we turn on the bloom cuz the temp jumps up to 30C when they are all fully powered on. Still some work to do there. I'm hoping that with winter bringing down the external temps, it will help with the grow room temp. I'm prepared to improve ventilation if needed.
Since I'm using a soil/peat/vermiculite mix, and since the plants are getting big, I have increased/doubled my nutrient concentration. We are only a couple of weeks from flowering. Very exciting!!!
The Norther Lights Auto show ZERO branching at all and a bit of leaf pigment abnormality. Weird.
Of the four plants Barney's LSD Auto is the most vivacious, with the Strawberry Cheesecake and Onyx only a week or so behind. The Northern Lights Auto is very disappointing with absolutely no branching...and some discolouration in the leaves. If she doesn't show some branching after topping, I'm going to pull her and grow a different plant. Real estate in my grow room is in high demand and I won't waste it on a dud plant :D
I pulled the plug on the mutant Northern Lights Auto. I'm going to start a new seed to replace her :D The LSD Auto and the Strawberry Cheesecake Auto are all flowering now. Nutrients have been swapped to bloom and I added a dash of Big Bud. The Onyx isn't quite there yet... she'll need a few more days. I LOVE the LSD Auto... she's huge with prolific buds. Her leaves are not as thick and waxy as the other varieties... not sure why... they feel papery or like felt... not smooth and waxy. The Onyx and Strawberry are looking super healthy and buds are starting to come in. All of the plants show plenty of branching and loads of bud sites.
They are full of blooms now, and looking really good. There are some early signs of CalMag deficiency, so I added a touch to their morning water today. Still struggling to keep the temps down... I don't want to cook off terpenes. The colder winter temps are cooling the house right down, and I have purchased a 6" fan and filter upgrade. Planning to install it this weekend. I'm going to put a new baby seed in to take the place of the mutant Northern Lights that was pulled out last week. New seeds are always so fun!! I have a lot of varieties to pick from thanks to GrowDiaries and the sponsors 😬
The buds are fattening up nicely now. The Strawberry Cheesecake Auto likes temperatures *over* 26C. When the temps go any lower she starts to wilt... I've never seen a plant do that before, but keeping the temp between 27-28C keeps her happy. The other two plants are not as fussy. I have pushed the limits for the amount of nutrients my LSD Auto will tolerate LOL... you can see a bit of burned leaf tips. I'll back off a bit now.
I'm happy with her growth...
I have changed the lights to 24/0 to keep the temp in the room more consistent. With winter here now in full force, the grow room is no longer over heating.
We have the humidity completely sorted out with the two (one small and one medium) cool mist humidifiers.
It's all smooth sailing now, and the buds are prevalent, and fragrant. I'm really happy with this grow.
These LSD Auto buds are already looking ripe! They appear to be two full weeks ahead of the other two plants that were germinated at the same time. I'm considering cutting some buds down this weekend... I don't like a lot of amber in my buds... maybe I'll keep a few colas up and only take a few down. Ack there isn't room in my SCROG for all 6 plants that are currently competing for space. The Onyx Auto is looking like a monster. I didn't expect that! She's a bit slower, but she's ALL buds. ALL over. The Strawberry Cheesecake is turning out to be fussy. She was looking for extra CalMag and she didn't like it too hot (also cuz of calmag) but you can really see the evidence in her top leaves. I have that sorted now but she was not easy like the other plants.
This is an easy variety to grow. She was very fast from seed to harvest. Her flavour is one of my personal favourites... pine and lemon and sweet. The buds are frosty with lots of amber. The yield was good in spite of the fact that I took her down a bit early to avoid any chance of couch lock. This harvest results in bud with an energetic and fun high along with a fun body stone. It's a creeper too. You don't notice at first but then it settles in nicely. I will grow this one again. I think on my next plant I'll let her ripen up a week more to tap into the body stoned aspects of the variety.
This is an easy plant to grow. She was quick from seed to harvest. The vibe creeps up on you so watch out! She's dried now and set to cure in brown paper bags for a few weeks. This one is a winner.
The Strawberry Cheesecake remains difficult to please. I suspect she is not tolerating the radiation from the lights... the Mars II is intense, and she is growing taller than I was expecting/hoping. The buds look healthy but the leaves are struggling with moderate burns. I'm going to have to LST to pull her down out of the light, and I will also see what I can do to lift my light up. I think I have around 5" of space between the light and the rafters. The Onyx on the other hand is growing like mad. She's perfectly happy and her buds are blowing up right now :) I have love for Onyx that I didn't realize I would have. This is a blooming love affair 😍
These two ladies are ripening up in spite of over exposure to light radiation LOL. I have raised the light as high as it will go in my crawl space, but the plants grew a bit too tall. The leaves show signs of heat stress but the buds are fattening up nicely nonetheless. I have been harvesting Strawberry Cheesecake little by little (around 50 g wet so far representing about 1/4 of the plant) and we vaped a tester last night. She's a kickers indica dominant strain with amazing aroma and flavour. Can't wait to get her all cured up! I'll be harvesting the rest of the Strawberry Cheesecake Auto this week. Stay tuned for a harvest post. The Onyx is still ripening... she need a week more at least.
Wanna know what light burn looks like? Well, here you go :) The grow room is officially under renovations after this grow is done. I need to fix the radiation problem. This plant will be harvested this week. The Strawberry Cheesecake was harvested this week. Stay tuned for her harvest entry...
This is our new favourite variety!! It took a long time to find a variety that I prefer over Purple Kush (did I even say that out loud?). The plant was easy to grow with respectable yield, and a quick flowering time. She did suffer some light burn, but this doesn't seem to have had a bad affect on the finished product. She is a resilient variety based on my experience. Overall this was an easy growing plant, with an average yield, but an amazingly fun body and mind buzz that starts out a bit energetic and then fades to a super relaxing stoned feeling.
This is our new favourite variety!! It took a long time to find a variety that I prefer over Purple Kush (did I even say that out loud?). The plant was easy to grow with respectable yield, and a quick flowering time. She did suffer some light burn, but this doesn't seem to have had a bad affect on the finished product. She is a resilient variety based on my experience. Overall this was an easy growing plant, with an average yield, but an amazingly fun body and mind buzz that starts out a bit energetic and then fades to a super relaxing stoned feeling.
I harvested this plant in two main batches to allow lower buds to ripen up a bit more. It was my first time using this approach and I was happy with the result. The buds dried nicely over the course of two weeks. I have put them aside to cure in paper bags after that I'll set them up in mason jars with humidity packs. I won't be sharing this one... it's all for me :D
I have two more seeds and I can't wait to grow them ASAP :)
It's not super strong... and it's a well balanced hybrid. Easy to grow. Good yield. Flavour is mello and earthy and not sweet. The bud has been properly dried and is off to cure now.
Gnats don't seem to be a problem so far... looks like I have that side of the equation under control. Now it's just the temp. I installed a cool mist humidifier which is actually really needed cuz my room is dry at the moment (30%). It's a double edged sword really... dry is good to get rid of gnats, but I want to get the humidity up for the seedlings... I'm going to turn down the temp in the house... particularly at night. We can get away with a cool house when we are sleeping or at work. I'm striving to get down to 27C.
@CRiSPrGrow, yup. I got a too-small cool air humidifier... but I'm going to upgrade this week if I don't see better results... I'm still suck at 29C amd 30%... but we are adding a DWC which might add humidity to the room... stay tuned! Also we changed the way we are ventilating. My air filter was not hanging from the ceiling... so I'm going to raise it. Also, my cool air was dumping in from an inlet that was too high up in the wall. I'll monitor this week now that those changes have been made.
Gnats spawn when the soil has not been sterilized/steamed (horticulture grade) or from excessive humidity so the main thing you can do against gnats is just let the soil dry out and get better dirt ... Hope this helps !
@Njanne, actually for store bought (unsterilized) soil best thing you can do is air it out in the midday sun : trapped insects fly away and the sun Burns the eggs ... Obviously you want to avoid that by buying "horticulture grade" certified soil which is steamed ... Ask for the lable in Canada I don't know what it is but I'm sure you have some sort of 'cert'👊🏻
@Njanne, I had some issue with them also in one of my grows. I am now taking preventative measures every grow. If your using air type pots it's a loosing battle with all the ways they can get in. Try a product called Mosquito Bits it contains Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis. I mix this with my entire soil mix then add some to the surface of the pots. www.arbico-organics.com/product/quick-kill-mosquito-bits-bacillus-thuringiensis-israelensis-bti-black-fly-fungus-gnats-culiseta-longiareolate/top-picks I do this then add another product around week 3 called Gnat Nix to the top inch of the soil it dries out faster than soil so they don't like to lay their eggs in it. Lastly yellow sticky traps work great and are a telltale sign if you have them or not. I've had no issues with them my past two grows.👍
Just a heads up if you are using the mars 1600 it’s not actually 1600 watts, on full spectrum with both buttons turned on should be around 630watts so if you change your light wattage on your harvest page to the true watts then your grams per watts should be higher and more accurate 👍👍 beautiful work tho so keep it up 🤘🌱
@Njanne, The manufacture says it’s “equivalent” to an hps 800 watt, before I use all my equipment,lights, pumps etc I hook them to a power meter reader individually so I can write down exact maximum wattage for each item that requires power.
Each spectrum is like 315 watts and combined around 630, lol when I first bought it I thought it was 800 aswell but it’s kinda good cause then we be using less power 😁👍
@KurbinTurbin, yup! Did you know that grow lights are now available in pick lists with manufacturers specs? The Mars II specs say 800W... and I'm not sure how accurate that is, but it populates automatically when I select the light from the list :)
I wish I could get trichomes shots like that! Those buds look pretty tasty. Yours look like they actually have a red strawberry color. I have been watching some grows on the strawberry cheesecake. I will definitely be grabbing some on my next seedsman order.
@Wicked_Stix, when you put the dried and (partially) cured buds in the grinder it legit smells like strawberry. It's awesome. I have to fix my lighting situation, but once I do, I'm growing two more of these sweet ladies ;)
About two days ago, I discovered that by peeling back the insulation in the attic, above my grow space, the temps in the room were reduced by as much as 8 degrees during daylight hours...and it's not even really winter yet....gotta remember to put it back before summertime, but it was an easy remedy. Last winter, I had to crack a window open in the room where my tents were so that the intake was pulling really cold air into the tents....just gotta seal off the room and maybe wear a jacket when you do your gardening..
Another inexpensive and effectual solution is to add a small evaporative cooler to your tent. It will lower your temps by 5-10 degrees and produces no heat to exhaust. Plus you can add carbon filter material to it's intake so as to also serve as an odor remover. The one I bought even has a built-in negative ion generator(Anion) for further odor control.
Regarding gnats, a half-inch layer of inorganic sand (like builder's sand or kids sandbox sand) on the top of your soil will at least slow them down, if not wipe them out completely. They lay their eggs in soil, and if they can't access it, they die off.
@Silverback_Guerilla, thanks for the ideas! I got a cool air humidifier yesterday... we will see how well this works. I have turned down the heat in the house to 21C but my grow room is sitting at 29C. I have more work to do on that front.
@Philindicus, I think I need to do this... currently the room is very dry. It's good to reduce gnats... I'll be at Canadian Tire today so I'll look at prices for these.
To avoid bugs put in ladybugs. With HPS lamps they would die if they fly against it. With Led I think it is safer 😁 also praying mantises, spinosadproducts. Sticky traps and neem oil are very good against those pests and bugs
I have the same scrog built and waiting for my next grow.😄 I made my squares 3" x 3" not knowing what size was the best and I was thinking the same as you with wondering about how many plants to go with. I'm glad I'm still some time away from scrogging so I can watch and see if 4 plants are a yay or nay...😜
4 Autos and a Scrog.... title of movie... 😵😂 I'm excited for ya!!!
Hi very new here. I have 7 Northern lights seeds and one is taking I did peat pods after water. Planting today in 5 gal pot. What is that screen for you have.
@doggiedeb, it's called a "screen of green" and a technique for flattening out the canopy to expose maximum area to the light and reduce apical dominance. easy to build and lots of options. anywhere from 2" squares to 4" squares works. you can get chicken wire from a hardware store, or just knot up some mason line like in this diary. You can attach to PVC piping, wood, the frame of your grow tent, etc.
Hey Anne, the trichomes look so milky! Have you grown this strain before? I wonder if a few more days would get the buds to fatten a bit more.
I'm growing a LSD myself right now from Barney's but it's the photoperiod strain, so I'm just asking for when the time comes.
Good luck with the harvest!
Tchau, do Brazil! =)
@amazongrow, this is my first go at LSD Auto. I'm going to harvest this auto is phases. I took off about 100g (wet weight) this week, and will take down a bit more this week as the lower buds ripen up. I don't like too much amber so I tend to harvest sooner than most growers do. It's my personal preference. This time, I'll have a range of LSD all at different levels of ripeness. It is a fun experiment.
Njanne
