Royal exotics

My new grow consisting of: 6 x seedlings of Kera Seeds Royal Queen Diamond, Spliff seeds Afghan, Spliff seeds Royal Thai & one of my own seeds produced from my last grow... my Widow Bomb regular photoperiod strain. None of the Ceres Skunk seeds sprouted, so I threw a few more in the wet towel tray. The seedlings sprouted using the wet towel method and are now in seedling pots. I have 12 pots and currently 10 seedlings have sprouted above the soil. A week into the seedling growth and the good performers are a couple of Royal Queen Diamond feminised seedlings. The “soil” mix is coir block, propagation sand, vermiculite, perlite and a bit of charcoal. I’m using water and Seasol fish & seaweed liquid compost concentrate mixed 10ml per litre in water, for hydration about every second day. Finally on the last day of Week 1, a CeresSkunk seed sprouted, so it is in a seedling pot and hopefully it will rise above the soil in the next few days....

So it’s the start of week 2. The Royal Queen Diamonds are doing well. Two RQDs have grown a bit since last week. The Afghans and Royal Thais just took their time getting up out of the soil and shedding their seed shells. I have 12 little seedlings in the front tray. 5 RQDs, 4 Afghans & 3 Royal Thais. They are nice and green and healthy looking. I have 2 other RQDs, an Afghan and the Ceres Skunk seeds in the back tray, but their growth has stalled. They have root growth but may be slow growers coming up to the surface. I’m not expecting much from these 4, but I have 12 good ones it seems. I have to keep reminding myself: “don’t overwater, don’t overwater!” Hahahaha...😉. I’ll post more photos later in the week to compare growth. Day 8: The seedlings are growing everyday. 11 are growing well, 1 is ok and the other 4 have just popped out of their seeds, but the leaves look pale, not a healthy green like the others. If all 16 get past the seedling stage, I’ll have to use both grow chambers as vegetation chambers. Day 13: the seedlings have grown quite a bit. The 4 slow growers have picked up and the 12 good ones are growing well. The photos show the growth this week. Some seedlings that just popped out of the soil on day 8 are now among the tallest seedlings.

The beginning of week 3. It could be week 2.5 because I think I started the clock too early. Do you count when they sprout above the soil? Or out of the seed? Anyway, I have 14 seedlings. Two fell victim to the fungus damping off, like my 2 smaller chilli plants have too. Just random because I bleached all the pots before planting and used new ingredients for the soil-less mix. Anyway good growth from the healthy seedlings... very hot and dry here today and it’s not even summer yet! Day 16 of vegetation and I transplanted 7 faster growing plants into 4.2 litre pots with a coir rich soil substitute mix. The other 7 plants went into 1.2 litre pots in the lower chamber.

The beginning of Week 4 & the 5th set of leaves have appeared and the plants are 80mm tall, even though I buried the stem a bit while transplanting. I’m happy with the growth. The stems are thickening up and becoming a nice light green colour. I’m adding perlite around the stem about 30mm deep into the coir(see last photo), to try to keep the stem light and airy, hopefully preventing fungus, gnat larvae and too much moisture collecting around the base of the stem, above the roots. While still giving support to the stem while it grows. Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on this? The first few photos are from the beginning of the week. The last few are later in the same week showing growth of the first set of 5 point leaves and branches starting to develop.

Day 32 for the plants and they have done a lot of growing in a week. A Royal Thai was topped and now two branches are growing well at the top. The leaf span is as wide as the pots now. Branches are forming everywhere. The Royal Queen Diamonds are growing the fastest, which is to be expected. The best 8 plants are in the top chamber. I get delivery of 4 new LED 100w floodlights today, 2 for each grow chamber, in addition to the lights already there. I started some Alaskan Purple, White Widow & Master Kush from Seedsman which I will log in another grow diary on here. :) I’ve topped a few plants.

It was LST week last week and also a bit of leaf pruning. The plants have responded well and a Royal Thai now has four main tips. The others I’ve topped in previous weeks, then topped the same tips again to have four tips as well, with the lower branches growing naturally. The 3 fast growing RQDs have the 4 main tips as well as the tips from the branches below pushing up, so they have 6 tips all at the same level. They are getting really bushy now. The aroma is getting stronger too.

I moved the chosen 3 Mother plants to the lower grow chamber. They are a Spliff Seeds Royal Thai that has grown from seed into a four pillar, solid, fast growing plant. A Spliff Seeds Afghan that is quite bushy and leafy, and a Kera Seeds Royal Queen Diamond grown from seed into a good, working example of a few Low Stress Training ties. It now has 6 main tips all at the same canopy level. I hope this grows into a 6 pillar bud monster. The RQDs have proven to be fast growing, quick to bounce back with new growth after a light leaf pruning, and responsive to LST techniques. In the top grow chamber are the chosen 8 plants to occupy this space until harvest. They have 3 distinct flowering periods among the 3 different strains. 2 Royal Thais, 2 Afghans & 4 Royal Queen Diamonds. There were a couple of runt slow growers that weren’t up to scratch, but these 8 plants are forming my tiny sea of green. Maybe just a rockpool of green. The leaves are filling out and I’ve LSTd them to the edge of the pots, so now they just have to grow up. 2 RQDs have the same 6 tip structure of the RQD mother plant which will hopefully continue to grow strongly into 6 pillars of flowering bud. The Afghans and Royal Thais have either 2 main tip or 4 main tip structure, allowing an element of upward growing apical dominance that is native to those strains. They have developed the longest branches on the lower nodes (under the canopy) so far. I also have a couple of Master Kush, Mango Skunk & Super Skunk seedlings in the lower grow chamber. I might start another grow diary for those...

Over the past week I have just continued to “top”, prune & LST tie the 8 plants in the vegetation chamber in order to shape them for maximum bud site potential. I have read a lot of very good advice from the members on this site, so thankyou! 👍🏼🤙🏼 I top the plants to increase the number of tips & branches on the plants. I prune some leaves in order to promote growth in other areas of the plants. I tie the branches down so it grows horizontally until it reaches the edge of the pot, then I allow the branches to grow up, forming pillar type shapes. In the middle are all the secondary branches getting light and growing straight up to form more pillars. Hopefully the end result is pillars of buds getting heaps of light, air movement and room to grow! I have increased the number of branches forming pillars. I will let them grow for one more week to recover and bush out a bit, then I’ll flip them over into a flowering schedule. The 3 mother plants in the lower chamber have about 6 tips ready to clone. I’ll do that next week as well. 👍🏼🤙🏼

Week 9. I took 7 clones from the Spliff Seeds Royal Thai Mother plant. I’ll flip the veg plants in the top chamber to flowering light cycle soon. The Mother plants are in the lower grow chamber with the new plants and the 7 clones. They will remain on a vegetation light cycle of 20/4.

Week 10. I’ve removed the LST ties and have started the 12/12 flowering light cycle. A few tips are stretching already. There are multiple branches and tips on each plant, so I’m hoping for a great flowering stage. I’m keeping an eye on the 4 regular plants as they show their gender. 3 plants are feminised.

The tighter bud formation is just starting to appear on the potential bud sites. Some plants are stretching a bit. As the plants reveal their gender I have discovered I haver two male plants, one Afghan & one Royal Thai. I put the Royal Thai male outside and left the Afghan male in the flowering chamber to produce seeds on some females. I removed a feminised Royal Queen Diamond and put it in the lower chamber with the Skunks & Kush for flowering in a few weeks.

There are plenty of white pistils appearing on the plants now a few weeks into flowering. The Royal Thais & Afghans generally have a longer flowering period, so I've read. I hope they mature nicely with age :)

The plants are flowering with plenty of white pistils in tight groups on the top half of the branches. The plants have various numbers of bud sites ranging from 6 to over 12. Some plants are reacting differently to others from the organic liquid fertiliser, rain water and tap water applications. I'm watering more often as the plants get more thirsty.

The flowering is going along quite nicely. The days are not quite as hot as previous weeks but still 30 or 32 degrees celsius during the day. The fans are doing a good job on the ventilation. The plants are healthy and flowering and developing really well.

The buds are growing. Each week the growth is quite good, the buds are filling out, growing bigger and have become quite sticky. Not too much odour either. This is my best grow yet in terms of number of buds per plant and the size of the buds, so I'm happy with my efforts. I am limited in space in the two grow chambers and can fit 8 x 4.2 litre pots in each chamber, so the plants won't grow huge, all I can do is leave them there for longer until the buds stop growing. :)

I'm just in maintenance mode now. Keeping the fungus gnat population down, watering, feeding and leaving them alone to do their thing. The buds are growing steady, bushier and more sticky.

It's getting close now. The buds have grown just about as much as they are going to. They aren't the biggest plants or buds ever, but due to the limited space in concealing this grow, I'm limited to 4.2 litre pots, but there are lots of buds. They feel really sticky and have a lovely aroma.

This Royal Queen Diamond strain from Kera seeds is the best performing plant under limited space and difficult conditions, as I have to keep the grow stealth. The germination rate of the seeds was very successful. The seeds sprouted quickly, the seedlings filled out quite quickly, they responded well to LST bending and ties, trimming, topping.

Easy plant to grow, once germinated and seedling is established. Ok to trim and LST tie, but not too much. It responded to small amounts of cultivation, but slowed when trimmed or tied too much. It responded really well to topping & multiplied in branches and buds. I removed the LST ties during flowering and it stretched upwards and the bud growth was good. This strain would grow even better with larger pots and more space. Very happy with this strain.

The Afghans grew tall, the buds were large and bushy. My lesson learnt is these plants are best left on their own to just grow without too much LST or leaf trimming.