m0use's FastBuds 420 - Blackberry

seconded time grow diary here and first time indoor grow. Hope all goes well. My goal of this grow is not to constantly be adding nutrients and be tweaking them. I'm aiming to add in nutrients at the beings of the grow and a few times after, I'v read about using Gaia and adding it in once and getting some good yields, with that info on top of Autos not wanting as many nutrients as photoperiod stains I feel this will work out well. I plan on adding a bit of 4-4-4 at the start and little bit more later on, then the power bloom of 2-8-4 when its in its second week of blooming. going to use a bit of LST and Defoliation on the plants when they are bigger. Using a custom soilless medium comprised of Pro-Mix Organic Veg, Worm Castings, extra perlite and Gaia Green Organic fertilizers. I've mixed in 60cc of Gaia Green All Purpose Fertilizer 4-4-4 into the potting mix. The pot size is about 7L All seeds popped up well and two plants defiantly have more vigour then the rest. I've had bad experiences with FastBuds in the past "Hermi, stunted growth, failed seeds and early flower at week 2" so I'm impressed with the outcome of this so far and I'm hoping it stays that way. Maybe I''ll reconsider them again for my grows after i use up all the seeds. My growbox is custom made using recycled materials "Styrofoam" from the local shoppers drug mart close to me, gorilla glue and miss tint paint. I did not want to by anything new as I don't know if I will continue growing indoors after this, this grow is a big test to see if its worth it for me. plus I fell better using recycled materials. The grow lights are Sunblaster's LED strip line up, these are the 18W 18" @6400k and 1950Lumens, I have 5 of them daisy chained together on a support rack with ratchet ropes. Ideally I would have done hydro for a indoor grow but with it being a test i find the start up cost to much for that. I think I covered everything

never added in a week 2 from the the start because I could not find my photos. This entry was made by the time week 11 was but wanted to add in something, so shout out to the brand and its imaging of the plants I'm growing. Mine will not come close to looking this good but lets pretend. My plants did grow a good amount in week 2 :)

little plants are plumping up. no signs of early flowering or problems. out of the 4 plants one is a bit stunted but still growing and I have no doubt it will catch up in the long run. White Roots starting to pop out of the bottom of the pot. Happy to see its going strong.

little ones are getting big, might have underestimated there size but time will tell. started some LST using bent bamboo skewers then stabbing them in the soil. They may mould after a bit and can replace with something else. still watering as needed seems to be every three days, soon to be every other and then maybe daily depending on its needs. going to leave the runt plant to its own and see what kind of yield I will get off of it vs the others I'm LST'ing quite happy with there size and growth, my plan of fertilizing at the start and adding worm castings is working out too. will see how long it lasts before i get some yellowing on the leaves. next grow I think I will get a hydrometer and monitor RH and PH of things. I know its a big mistake not to. but I feel it will be fine for this grow, again just testing to see if I like it or can maintain it at a basic state.

These little ones have exploded. I have underestimated the size and really should have stuck with only 2 or 3. Had a little bit of yellowing tips on the new growth with one plant and decided to give a bit of magnesium with its watering. up to about 1L every other day. It seems only one of the plants has a purple iridescent sheen under its leaves and the rest are all green, i hope this does not mean only one plant has a deep purple buds and bad luck with the phenotypes. only time will tell. smells like plants but not pot yet. Seen a few little stigmas emerge on them, preflowering has begun, flowering will only be a short time away :)

This week is the first week of flowering for my plants, they are developing quite fine. lot of nice flower nodes going on, I am no longer LST'ing them as the flowering has started. Will be happy to see how big they get now. about half way through the grow and I feel they are going to get mega smelly, just stated to have some odour coming off of them. nothing to bad basic stuff. one thing I forgot to say is kinda disappointed how unpurple they are, but maybe that will come later. Hopefully.

ok, week 7 is here, the plants are a lot more fragrant now going into there second week of flowering. It seems only one of them is showing some real purple characteristics but maybe the rest will catch up once they mature a bit more. this was a theory of mine using Fastbuds that they will not be overly stable and have a lot more phenotype genetics. Tossed in some more magnesium sulphate for the yellow tipping on the leaves from before, have not seen any new ones but don't want to, so best to feed it a bit more as a preventative for it. Had a bit of an issues with some mould growing on the surface of the soil from when I mixed in the flowering nutrients. Was a bit surprised about this but first time it is showing. to combat this I have introduced some hydrogen peroxide into the watering mix. This will help control the mould colonies growing and keep them well within range to prevent an outbreak, its also great for the root system. Only set back is it will not distinguish the difference between a good microorganism and a bad one, so some of my other additives from the beginning will be getting hurt from it. However it does not eliminate it completely, in essence population control. I will be using peroxide for every other water to keep things in check. Not a big fan of mould growing on top of the soil and I have not over watered to much either to encourage it I feel. The other thing is the buds are starting to develop there resins. Just from moving my hand around in the growing environment to water them I noticed some sticky residue on my fingers. Sugar leaves are getting purple "on one plant" and sticky. all of the plants have seemed to have a growth spurt on their main colas, hard to LST it all down in a smaller environment. If I do a second grow indoor i want to get proper air filtration for dust and debris. one last note with the plants and in the one photo is looks as if its developing some male sacks on it, or pollen sacks. Hoping this is not that at all. But would not surprise me with this breeder.

so far so good, keeping up with the hydrogen peroxide water, mould on the surface of the soil is non existent now :) Lowered its concentration down a bit, was free eyeing it in the jug before guessing it was about 10ml @3% per Litre, put it down to about 5ml @3% per Litre. Reason was I noticed some unique burning on the leafs of one plant then started to see it on a second, figured it was a direct result of to much peroxide as it only started a few days after its first introduction. The burning seemed to look like what happens when water droplets magnify the suns rays on a leaf during a hot summer day, brown and dry crinkly spots, mainly on the top fan baby leaves. thought it could be the LED's but i have had plants growing 1" away from them and they don't burn like that. Funny thing happened as well where one plant lost some of its purpleness and another plant pick more purpleness up. Two of them are still green from day one, no sign of it turning anytime soon. green ones are in the back of the case, purpler ones in the front. Also decided to give it one more blast of Gaia Power Bloom, made a mistake on the first time I added this one, was only 30ml added per plant not 60ml, will go back and correct that now in the diary, wanted to match the 4-4-4 Gaia All Purpose input to the 2-8-4 Gaia Power Bloom. Had a fan malfunction, it use to keeping the tent as a steady 25c (77f), but when it broke temps went up to 35c (95f). I gave it a good hit and it started back up again. May die again before the grow is finished, not to worried about the increased temps if its only for part of a day. worst thing is it fully breaks and I prop the door open a bit. I feel autos do not like super hot or it can cause them to hermie or just stunt if its longer term. I think they do better in colder summer days in the 23c (73f) - 25c (77f) range, maybe a 28c (82f). but this may be more plant specific and have relation to its genetics. and with its higher temps I had to increase the watering for the day. got 50% more per plant per day. The smell is there but not over powering, I notice it after spending anytime out side of the apartment, but does not leak into the surrounding units or common areas. Had a plant from Royal Queen Seeds before "Fast Eddy" and it made my entire deck reek of skunky weed. It was only one little auto outside, would hate that inside. over all waiting for the buds to come into themselves more and get big, fat and sticky. Hoping this setup allows for that. Only time will tell or someone who really knows what they talking about could probably tell me right now lol :)

*=UPDATED=* Not to much to add this week, I plucked a lot of the lower leaves off to prevent them from getting to close to the growing medium and having some disease issues, plus increases some air flow. Also plucked a few of the top fan leaves that where blocking the lower buds from the light. Don't think this is proper defoliation so I did not check it off as a grow technique. The plants are really starting to smell more and get a lot of trichomes on them. When I'm in the case and smell each plant, they all have different terpene profiles. one is very lemon and pine with a hint of sweetness, one is quite sweet and berry like with lemon notes "my fav", another is just more so woodsy pine smell and the last one is mildly sweet smelling with something else I could not pinpoint. one setback is the case fan I was using died out, i think the heat inside the tent and operating for so long got to it, it was an older fan to start off with so not overly surprising. It started to have a hot electric smell to it, like wires or rubber getting to hot. I manage the case heat by propping its door open on a angle. still keeps temps at 25c (77f) Other then that I don't think they grew to big vs last week, one plant is starting to get some more purple in it, I like purple colour on buds. maybe the leaf plucking set it back a bit, can't imagine the plant would enjoy that happening to it. Trying to post little fly over videos every week of the case to give better idea of plants and what they are looking like. will try and get a macro lens closer to trichomes and see what they are doing in terms of clear cloudy and amber for next week, may give me a hint as if ill harvest week after that. *=UPDATE=* I didn't want to wait till next week to post trichomes so took some photos with a clip-on Macro lens for my phone, not the best but looks pretty cool. mostly all cloudy from what I can tell. one plant has a bit of amber on its sugar leaves but not its bud.

So its been about the same, Some new growth coming in and flowers are getting thicker, just waiting till that stops and then harvest time. Trichomes still mainly milky vs clear or amber so good indicator its not ready yet. I do feel one of the plants will be ready before the others though. It took the hardest hit with the first peroxide watering and i think i shocked it. it does not want to grow so much like the others. The best plant out of them all is the one I just left alone with no LST, wondering if its because the others I ran out of room to keep LST'ing them properly. o well, nothing much will change i feel till harvest. so hopefully that's in a few weeks. Then get in a nice 3 week cure and test it out with my friends.

*=UPDATED=* looking about the same again, nothing much is changing other then the new flower growth has slowed and some of the trichomes are turning amber. the one plant has thick buds and the rest are average. Harvest maybe next week or the one after if I get the time I need, I want to first take off all the extra fan leaves "half ass'd defoliation?" and let it sit in darkness for two-three days, help it breakdown some of the chlorophyll and should make the cure much nicer. first time trying this, may leave one plant in normal light and hang dry it to see if it makes a big difference. Had a bit of powdery mildew on some of the lower bud sites and baby leaves on one plant, I believe this was because the fan in the case was broken and not replaced. Corrected it by spraying the area with a peroxide mix and increasing airflow. *=UPDATE=* the one video I uploaded for this week was not working. So retrying it again today.

This weeks journal is a bit off, I wanted to keep this grow going till the end of this weeks cycle, it goes from tues-tues for this grow, but I noticed some of the powdery mildew came back, so I decided to start the harvest a bit early and pick off any other mildew spots I found before it got worse. The last three days in this weeks journal the plants have been in complete darkness. I wanted to wait to do this late next week, but o well, 7 days early is not too bad. I chopped it down today and it is starting its dry. Before this all happened I plucked all the extra leaves off the plant, left the sugar leaves and maybe some extra baby fan leaves I missed. Then gave it a watering with half the amount I normally do. At this point there was no powdery mildew that I spotted, but I feel I may have aggravated some rouge spores and restarted the cycle as noted above, or shocked the plant by my actions and its immunity weakened for it to reemerge. Either way, it’s done. Was no real need to get rid of all the extra leaves I just wanted to. The forced darkness for three days was to help the cure, from what I’ve read the plant starts to break down its chlorophyll after 1 day and it reaches a good point at the end of day two, day three is not much better but I like odd vs even numbers. Some of the pics are before the chop in its pot, and some are from after the chop hanging upside down in the tent. not pictured are the dishes of water I have on the tent floot to boost humidity while drying. my house is at 35% RH so trying to keep the case in the low 60's% RH Its smell died the first few days in the darkness and now its coming back a bit after the chop. Next week is harvest, hoping to get min 1oz per plant, will see how well I did. may take a bit to dry can say for sure I will update it on the Tuesday like other journal entries.

*=UPDATE=* Smoke report in, bout one week earlier. *=UPDATE=* I only had 5 LED strip lights not 6, so watts changed from 108, to 90. Don't know how I messed that up. updated my formula at end of this entry below. OK so harvest is here. Smoke Report and effects to follow after cure, Feb 7th ish. This was my first ever indoor grow, and I feel I nailed it by my standards :) Did not do to bad, just under the 1oz a plant in bud I was hoping for. Got to 92% of my goal, and that's good enough for me. The growing tent was a bit tight for me to really get some proper LST going “I feel” and I believe that hurt the yield of the plants I did that to, as the plant I left alone yielded the highest. The tent its self was homemade and not proper in any sense, and the pot size was rather small for my liking, this would have stunted growth a bit. Tent Measured L,W,H, 78cm (30.71"), 49cm (19.29"), 111cm (43.7") I hung the whole plant to dry upside down in the tent with the lights removed, this was seen at the end of last weeks log. They were in darkness three days prior to the chop, and then all dark while drying. I purchased a Thermo-Hygrometer “Mondi Mini 100” and it was measuring the temp while drying between 17-19c “62.6-66.2f” and the RH hovered between 55-68% the first few days. I opened up a little vent I had covered and it normalized RH down to 60-63%. I added a small usb fan in the case and 4 dishes of water on the bottom to keep RH high as my place is dry af. I thought it was going to take at least another halff week to dry by the way it was looking, but when I went to test it out the branches where dry and bent a bit, they did not snap and the buds where dry but not crispy brittle were they just shatter. My previous grows I always mess up the dry and do it too fast. This one I feel was on par. As for the yields they are as follows. I grew 4 plants in a square pattern, bottom right was plant 1, bottom left was plant 2, top left plant 3, top right plant 4, Plant 1 - 23.2g Bud, 6.4g Trim (0.82oz,0.23oz) Plant 2 - 23.4g Bud 5.7g Trim (0.83oz,0.2oz) Plant 3 - 30.6g Bud 7.6g Trim (1.08oz,0.27oz) <Highest Yield Plant 4 - 26.1g Bud 8.3g Trim (0.92oz,0.29oz) =Overall - 103.3g total bud, ave 25.83g a plant. 28g trim ave 7g a plant. Total plant material 131.3g (4.63oz) I’d like to include my trim in my yields as I use it as much as my buds but that does not seem to be how this site works. :( I got my roomie to help me describe the smells we picked up off the buds when they were in their jars. In no particular order our combined results. Plant 1 - Pine, Grape, Berry, Sweet. Plant 2 - Crisp, Clean, Earthy, Citrus. <my fav smelling one> Plant 3 - Berry, Earthy, Sweet, Pungent. Plant 4 - White Wine”grape?”, Diesel, Acidic, Pungent, Citrus <roommates fav smelling one> The different phenotypes from smells above also reflected on the plants themselves. Plant 1 - Most purple out of them all and the shortest plant, had nice density and thickness of buds. Plant 2 - 2nd most purple plant and was ave height tied with plant 4, its buds where just as dense as plant 1 but not as thick. Plant 3 - tallest plant in the group and greenest plant as well. Hint of colour but overall looks green. Dense and thick buds, had the biggest ones out of all of them and even its popcorn nugs where well formed. “Photos show a good amount of purple but not seen the same IRL” Plant 4 - mostly green and tied in height with plant 2, its buds were not that dense and not overly fat either. I have a grams/watt ratio of 1.14 or 0.285grams/watt/plant. However I'm not a huge fan of that ratio as it does not account for time. I made a breakdown of my own below. If you care to view it all my works listed below. In short it cost me 17c in lamp electricity alone per 1g, this is not without its flaws, does not account for fans, water cost, house heating cost, fertilizer, seeds, but it was electricity I was directly using for it alone and nothing else. Other then that this is the end of my first indoor grow and harvest, I will come back once the cure is done and give a smoke report and update on the aromas from the jars. I expect them to evolve and change a bit as time moves on, I do a 3 week cure as long as humidity is stable. I don;t smoke but my roommate will provide me all the details. I will however be making some of this into a tincture and can comment on that when it done. Ave THC 23% Ave CBD 0.8% Found this information on leafly and fatsbuds webpage. Smoke Report Got my roomie to smoke some of plant number 4. It was the most uncharacteristic version of all the Blackberry very diesely and pungent. It got him high with over three quarters of the joint to spare, lots more for later use. High class product comparable to that of the dispensaries around here. Even though the dispensary weed is more dense and crystally it got him just as if not more high according to him. Big fan over all and only complaint is the weed gave him dry mouth. Said the paranoia is normal for high THC strains tends to go away after a bit. Comparing this bud to the trim he smoked all week the taste is different and the high is much more potent. I prefer the smell of the other plants and I'm sure they will result in some berrylishious tastes and aromas. Will make and tincture or two out of a half ounce of buds and gift the rest away. On inhale and exhale there was some coughing but over all a very smooth smoke, smoother then what he was expecting. The high is mainly body with some cerebral effects defiantly kushy and heavily leaning to the indica side of things. He reported that plant 4 has a caramel and woody taste to it but this was not found in the shake witch is more reflective of the average from all the other plants in this harvest. The ash was a mixture of lighter grey and darker spots. The joint was sealed by licking and may have had an impact on how hot it burned but still did the trick. :) Over all roomie rated the weed as 9.5/10 m0use +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Cost + Time Analysis Of Growing Cannabis. m0use’s Breakdown +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Just a FYI, my Math is not the best, I may have made an error below, if u notice it let me know. Light Schedule === 18h on 6h off 5am-11pm-on 11pm-5am-off Cost of kwh with on-peak "20.8c", mid-peak "14.4c" and off-peak "10.1c". === 5am - 7am -- 2hr @10.1c/kwh off-peak 7am - 11am -- 4hr @20.8c/kwh on-peak 11am - 5pm --6hr @14.4c/kwh mid-peak 5pm - 7pm -- 2hr @20.8c/kwh on-peak 7pm - 11pm -- 4hr @10.1c/Kwh off-peak this all boils down to a nice 6hr in every peak period. 6h @10.1c/kwh 6h @20.8c/kwh 6h @14.4c/kwh Lights === LED’s I use are 18w each and I have 5 lamps on an aray. 18w*5 = 90w | 90w/1000 = 0.090Kw Using the previous c/kwh numbers above I can find out the daily cost of the lamps in the 3 peak periods. 6h x 10.1c/kwh = 60.6c/kw * .108 kw = 5.45c off-peak 6h x 20.8c/kwh = 124.8c/kw * .108 kw = 11.23c on-peak 6h x 14.4c/kwh = 86.4c/kw * .108 kw = 7.77c mid-peak The "h" hours and "kw" kilowatts cancel out and we are left with a value of "c" cents per peak period add all the peak periods up and you get your cost of running the lights in cents per day c/d 5.45c + 11.23c + 7.77c = 24.45c/d My grow took 12 weeks and 5 days, or 89 days. almost 13 weeks total. "had a few days of darkness before harvest chop" 89d * 24.45c/d = 2,176.05c ÷ 100 "100c in a dollar" = $21.76 the "d" days cancel out and we are left with a total cost of the lights for my 89day grow. 18h/d lights on * .09kw lights hydro use = 1.62kw/d not too bad for just lights. 144.18kw for the entire grow. Using the regular calculation of grams harvested divided by watts used is not accurate to me, it does not account for all the time the lamps are on, the length of grow to the over all cost. The calculation that makes sense to me is this, harvested dry weight of usable cannabis buds/trim/keif/whatever in grams divided by total kw used. Could also combine it with grams per total single use costs “anything you used only for this grow and wont reuse in the next, or fractions of multi use items like fertilizers if they ½ full” and see how much you’re investing per gram. "kw" ÷ "g" = kw/g "$" ÷ "g" = $/g I have harvested 4.63oz or 131.3g on 144.18kw, this includes buds and trim in mycase. 144.18kw ÷ 131.3g = 1.098kw/g of usable cannabis. I’d still try and aim for under 1kw/g. $21.76 ÷ 131.3g = $0.17g The other ratio would have been, 131.3g to 90w = 1.45g/w about a quarter over the 1 mark and I could go above still with more experience, but where's the cost of hydro? A 90w input vs 1000w would be a whole different ball game.. So in total, it cost me 17c per 1g I grew in electricity alone. Not to bad. legend, kwh = kilowatt per hour kw = kilowatt w = watt h = hour c = cents $ = dollars d = day LED= Light Emitting Diode