Bubblelicious Auto by Nirvana

For this season we are going with Bubblelicious Auto from Nirvana seeds. We've grown this one before, and enjoyed the feel and taste. We are hoping to have some good success based on what we have learned from our first season using this setup and equipment. Setup: Vivosun 27"x27"x60" Tent AC Infinity 4-inch in-line 205 cfm fan (exhaust) Growneer 4-inch booster 73cfm fan (intake) Holmes 6" clip fans x2 (circulation) 2-gallon pot Foxfarm Ocean Forrest soil 75W Rapid LED (Cree CXB3590) This diary won't be getting updates every day. The plan is twice a week at max. Day 1 and Day 4 photos. This will allow for a nice even spacing and make life a little less stressful. Day 1 - The plant has cleanly broken the surface and shed all signs of its shell. Approximately 1" tall. Day 4 - We have the second set of leaves starting to push out already.

Week 2 - This will be the week of the first nutrient feeding. She was watered yesterday and is still doing fine today. So probably tomorrow or the day after, but I'm thinking tomorrow. Day 8 - She looks healthy so far and is working on pumping out another node. Color is good, and growth rates seem on par with other Bubblelicious grows I've seen. Day 9 - Nutrients were made and fed. Silica was first and sat for several hours in the water to fully dilute and mix in before adding the other nutrients. All nutrients were run at a quarter strength to the suggested amount. They will not exceed half strength. Day 11 - She's growing up. You can see two sets of laterals are growing. The third set is kind of hidden by the next node pushing out, but they are there. Just have to wait for her to grow up some more so she can start her LST training.

Week 3 is here. We have started the LST training as the 5th node is pushing out. We have also upped the nutrients for the new week. The FFBB was upped to 10ml which is roughly a third of the suggested dosage. The FFKR and FFMB were done at their full strength. The FFGB was done at half strength. Mammoth P was also added. Day 15 - What a nice amount of growth we have seen out of this plant so far. There have been no signs of water issues or nutrient issues. The plan is to keep it slow and steady to finish this race strong. The LST should really allow for these branches to take off and become competing tops. Day 18 - I would say that she is responding well to the training and has enjoyed it. We're shooting for a total of 9 tops with season. The 4 pairs that you see and the main stalk. From this point forward however, the main stalk grows it grows. We will be pulling the other 4 pairs down and around the pot to give them all some real estate to breathe as they grow. There have been some minor anchor adjustments made in the last few days. Mostly though the main technique that I try to keep enforcing is tucking. These fans leaves just want all the light for themselves though. What's up with that?! Blocking all the lovely flower sites. How dare they. 😀

It is week 4 and flowering is almost upon us. Pistils are starting to develop around the different flower sites at nearly the same rate. We should have some nice growth and development with all the different flowering sites that are being exposed. Tucking is becoming difficult to do to promote as much growth as possible and let as much light as possible penetrate the canopy. There may be some defoliation at the end of the week. Can't say yet, depends on how bushy she gets. Day 22 - On the last day of Week 3, the plant broke. I was adjusting a stake and SNAP! The reaction was definitely 😱! I tried to save her and tape her back up, but she said 💀 to the top going back on. It's okay though because she is not showing any signs of caring that she was unintentionally topped. I'm selecting topping as a technique even though I didn't do it on purpose. If things go really well though I may have to do this on purpose in the future to see if these genetics can handle topping every season. The misses let me know everything would be okay and kept me from panicking. Plants break in nature all the time and keep growing. Day 25 - We almost have full area coverage over the soil. The laterals are making laterals and becoming main tops themselves. There are a lot of flowering sites that are going to be fighting for dominance during the final stretch. That's good though because that means more medicine. Tucking is becoming rather difficult to promote as many flower sites as possible to develop. They are twisting and fighting each other every chance they get it seems. It's all good though, she'll be getting defoliated during week 5 to help get some more light down there and get all those little sites growing. We also have a new toy in the tent, a Vivosun 6" 90-degree oscillating fan. I've been wanting to get this to help create some nice airflow across the entire canopy. The only negative thing I have to say so far about the fan is I feel like the power cord could have been longer. Due to the length, I have the fan a little higher than I would have liked, but that is okay. It will serve our purposes nicely, I've already seen the branches dancing since putting it in. This should promote some bigger branches and flowers with all the airflow and movement.

Week 5 is officially the first week of flower. Stretching is happening in a big way, pistil production is increasing, and calyces are forming. Super excited to see what happens at this rate. Best LST job by far for all seasons. Day 29 - So we are in week 5 and she has been given her first defoliation. There may be a second one several weeks from now, but we will have to see what happens before deciding anything. The growth rate has been beyond expectations and she is thirsty, my goodness. All good signs though, I have yet to see any concerns with nutrients or anything else. I really think having the oscillating fan moving air above the tops is really helping. We are going to develop some hardy branches to help hold up all this weight. Some of the flowering sites are secondary laterals, so the hardiness will be needed in these branches. The up-close flower shots do not correlate to the branch shot, they are the last two tops and the branch shots are the next node down. Nutrients in a day or so. Day 32 - We have a smell that is getting a little stronger each day. The shape of the plant is beautiful and she has responded really well to being opened up. All major defoliation is complete. There may be some small defoliation on Saturday to have it be the last day for defoliation until maybe week 8. Because starting week 6, let her go and grow.

Week 6 has started and we are now on to flowering nutrients as well. We've added FFTB this time around into the mix. The current ratios on the three main FF nutrients will stay that way for most of the season going forward. Up to this point, the plant has only received one dosing of those levels each week. FF says that the ratios they suggest for soil could be done twice a week, but I'm not going to do that. One reason is cost, the second reason is time. While it's not hard to make nutrients, it's time I don't have currently to consider doing twice a week. Day 36 - That one branch just decided to take off at some point last week and leave all the other branches beneath it. It will be interesting to see how it does on overall growth given its slight height advantage. I've also seen what was worth keeping and getting rid of based on the first defoliation. As long as things don't get out of hand with blockage, I'll wait until week 7 or 8 for another defoliation. If things look like they aren't going to work the way we want, targeted defoliation will occur. I don't see targeted defoliation being an issue either as branches and leave break all the time in nature. Day 39 - The smell is definitely increasing now that we are further in flower and the flowers are starting to swell. We really like the development we are seeing on all sites. What I'm curious to see is how much weight the highest cola puts on compare to some of the lower colas that are already fatter. One of the most enjoyable sites has started happening more and more now also, the raised leaves after a recent feeding. It's like the plant is trying to funnel all nutrients and light to the flowers.

Week 7 is going to be a good week. Size is increasing across the board on all front. Smell is picking up as more and more trichomes are being produced. We would say that things are going better than planned. The light is going to be kept at about 18 inches from here on out, not to be lower than 16 inches. Day 43 - Now that the day numbering fixed all I can say is wow. 43 days in and we feel this is impressive looking and are happy to see what the end product looks like. We won't necessarily base anything off of the Breeder's information and stick with the pistil/trichome methods to determine when she will be ready. I think that there could have been more defoliation looking back at it, but things happen and this is where we are at, still an impressive grow. So to me, that is still a win. Hope everyone else feels like they are winning.

Week 8 is the week where we start to see pistils turning orange in color across more sites. Last week some pistils were seen starting to turn orange, but only a couple on random flowers. Now more of the pistils on more flowers are beginning to change. Day 50/53 - The only thing I can really say this week is that we are pleased with the growth that we are seeing. The pistils are turning more and more every day. The leaves are starting to lose their color in the tips, so nutrient pulling is starting to happen. We'll have another flush coming soon and then go from there. May to have cut a piece off next week to exam the trichomes under the USB microscope.

Week 9 started out with a flush. We are getting close to the end based on what the breeder states. Soon we'll clip a piece off to check what the trichomes are doing. Since this strain is an indica, we have to decide how much amber we are okay with. I'm not saying like 50% or anything that crazy, but we aren't shooting for highest THC levels with full cloudy. Last time when we finished up we did not do a wet weight to dry weight comparison. We'll have to consider doing that this time to see how much we lost to have a better idea on output with this light.

Today is the start of the official flushing process for this run. We will see what trichomes look like at the end of this week and see how things have progressed. We will try for a two-week flush, but it may not have the time. We can't say at this point in time. What can be said though is that the weight on some of these stems has us more than pleased with the grow so far. The scariest part for me will be the drying and curing process as it has been something we/I have struggled with for a while. Fingers crossed this season's harvest goes well.

Week 11, the FINAL WEEK! At the end of this week, the harvest will occur. The plant has been pushed as far as we are okay with, probably more me than the misses, but it's okay. As can be seen from the photos, we are getting some nice fade action on all the fan leaves that are still attached. The flowers have put on some serious weight in the last week alone that is like wow 😃. There won't be a second update for this week. Things are on cruise control as we finish the journey. The journey has felt long, and it's not even a full three months, but close enough. I look forward to the harvest and posting the results of wet weight vs. dry weight and so forth. Thank you to those who have followed and liked along the way.

Finally, 12 weeks later! We are all done with the grow for this season. Breeder says that this plant should be ready around 9 weeks, for where we wanted the amber in the trichomes to be, it meant 12 weeks. Started the flush at the end of Week 9 and got a nice amount of fade. I didn't expect to see so much purple come through, so that was a nice surprise. The wet weight of the entire harvest was 21.4 ounces. That is the flowers and their branches. We are estimating at 75% loss in total weight, this means flower weight combined with stem/branch weight. Those estimates are projecting a final dry weight of 5.35 ounces. If that is true or even close to it, give or take 1.5 ounces on the negative, then this light was on point for projections. I estimated the light to produce about 5ounces of viable material. The data used for the calculations were based on the numbers provided by Optic LED for their Optic 1 (54W) and Optic 1XL (100W). Those lights are estimated to yield 3.5 ounces and 7 ounces each. This light from RAPID LED uses the same driver and a 75W variant of the CREE CXB3590. *Update* So the plant has fully dried, maybe a little too much, but it's cool. 3.2 ounces on the scale for the flower. 0.8 ounces on the scale for the trim. 4 ounces of total viable plant medicine. The trim is going to be ran through an Ardent Lift Decarboxylator to activate all the THC, then it will be ran through the Ardent Lift again with some grape seed oil to infuse it to the oil. That oil will be used for capsules and mixed into coffee. The flower will be vaporized exclusively, no combustion for us. The best part about vaping the flower is that we can then save the AVB (Already Vaped Bud) to make more oil for infusion. It will be ran through a french press also to help clean it for taste. For anyone that has made oil with decarbed flower, I'm sure you know what I mean about the taste, like a bad oil used for frying. In regards to the total dry weight versus what we were hoping for, not upset at all. The grow came out as a success built upon the lessons of the previous season. I'm still confident that the light is capable of growing 5 ounces, it is just a matter of figuring out how to get there. All that growth that was at the base of the plant did not help. That was an unknown amount of energy being diverted to flowers that couldn't even be used. The lesson learned was to defoliate a little more. I think that if that growth had been able to develop it wouldn't have been a problem, but it was hidden for a long time. Thumbs up to Nirvana for the genetics. 👍