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Seeds were germinated with the paper towel method on 12/12/19. Less than 24 hours later, the seeds had popped and the taproot was ready to be planted. Seed was placed in an aerated solo cup with Fox Farms Happy Frog potting soil. Light mist of water on top after placing the seed. Depending on how quickly the cups dry out, I may end up putting the humidity dome over it. This will be an 18/6 veg and the goal is about a 3-4 week veg time and will include topping and LST.
Update: Plant broke surface on 12/15/19. Watered with about 1 tbsp on 12/18 19. Plant has been misted daily.
Watered with a few tbsp on 12/27/19. Transplanted on 12/27/19 from solo cups to 3 gallon cloth bags. Plant was fed on 12/31/19 .5 tsp of Fox Farms Grow Big, 1.5 tsp Fox Farm Big Bloom per 1 gallon of water and .25 cups of lime raked in via top feed. Plant was given about 1/5 gallon of water.
The structure of the plant is still a bit concerning. There is little to no node spacing despite trying to place the lights up to get some stretch. It looks healthy aside from that but it is very reminiscent of the GG from last grow that had a very similar structure and which I believed to have a boron deficiency due to using RO water. It was not clear to me that it would become an issue until 2 weeks into flower when its structure had not changed at all (see grow diary here https://growdiaries.com/diaries/30647-real-gorill4-2nd-attempt). Plant was watered on 1/3/20 as well as fed with 3 tsp Big Bloom and 1 tsp Grow Big per gallon. Runoff is quite high, sitting around 8 however plant is showing no signs of lockout. Plant was watered again with water pH'd to 6.1 on 1/7/20 in an attempt to lower the runoff however, the runoff was still at 8. I am unsure if this is because the lime was added as an afterthought and it takes time to seep in and take effectiveness. Plant was topped on the 5th node on 1/4/20 and an LST ring was placed on 1/7/20. LST began on 1/7/20. I will continue to water with pH 6.0 and will possibly flush depending on if I see any runoff improvement. The plan for the upcoming week is to defoliate in preparation for the flip to flower at the end of week 5. Veg has gone on a bit longer than I expected but for no reason other than I have not yet hung the HPS.
Plant was lollipopped on 1/12/20 followed by a flush of 1 gallon of water ph'd tp 6.2. Runoff still maintains at 8.0 and I believe it is heavily influenced and thrown off by the lime top feed. My concerns regarding a boron deficiency due to growth patters seems to be off since she shows no other sign. The genetics appear to just be very short and stocky, She may also being having some recovery issues from topping/lst/defoliation as she seems behind her garden mates. Additional LST was performed on 1/12 - 1/15. I notice no significant different after defoliation and lollipopping. I have decided to set back switching to flower until next week at the soonest. I'd like to wait 7 days post lollipopping. I may just swap the bulbs in the T5 and switch to 12/12 until the new light is installed. I am planning a final veg feed to be included either the tail ed of this week or early next week. She will receive the recommended dosing at 3/4 strength. Exhaust fan has been ordered and I anticipate installation next week. My biggest concern is half of the plants are nearly double the height as the other two and my T5 setup allows for me to accommodate that. I do not know how the transition from that to HPS would be so I guess the decision will rely on the install of the HPS.
Plant was watered with 2.5 tsp Grow Big and 4.5 tsp per gallon (3/4 dilution) Big Bloom with a pH of 6.2 on 1/17/20. Runoff still reading at 8 however there have been no signs of lockout. Additional LST was performed from the 17th to the 20th. Plant received about .4 gallons of plain watered pH'd to 6.2 with runoff finally dropping below 8 but still around 7.8. HPS was finally installed and plant was flipped to 12/12 and placed under the HPS on 1/20/20 (Week 6 day 3). Color may be slightly off in the day 3 pics due to the HPS still being on. She is definitely filling out a bit. I am begging to wonder if she was perhaps a bit nute starved for good growth as I had still been ramping up the nutes (last feed was diluted by 1/2). I do not think it is a coincidence that she filled out as much as she did 3 days post feed.
Plant was flipped to HPS and a 12/12 schedule on 1/20/20. Plant was watered on 1/23/20 with 2.25 tsp Big Bloom and 1.5 tsp Tiger Bloom, followed by 1 gallon plain water feed on 1/26/20 which actually turned out more like a mini flush accidentally as I would have preferred not to have as much runoff as I did (around 50%). After comparing the difference between the 3 days I am seeing a little less green. I did not do an extra feed as it was not even noticeable until they were side by side. I will keep my eye on this to make sure it is not actually light bleaching. Continued with LST but this is the point where I am going to let her begin to stretch as opposed to spreading it out and keeping it wider. She is finally starting to get a little height to her from her stretch but it is still so minimal that almost all of it can still be tied down to the LST ring. Plants appear to need more water than previously as I think they would have been better off two days apart as opposed to 3. I notice that the substrate is not holding water very well and I think between the increase temps in the room and the stronger light, they are drying out much quicker than I anticipated. Next feed will be a full strength flower feed and I am anticipating a 2nd defoliation at the end of week 2. In terms of the runoff previously reading so high, turns out the pH pen has been having issues jumping between reading in the 6 and reading in the 8 range. For example, I had to calibrate it twice in one watering session alone. This is concerning in terms of knowing what the actual pH going in was however, I have seen no signs of issues of lockout and so I believe the pH out was the only thing reading off. The runoff from the 1/26/20 watering was around 6.7.
I had initially wanted to defoliate around week 3 but as I was watching the buds develop and I evaluated the bushiness and leaf coverage of a lot of buds, I decided to go ahead and do the final defoliation at the beginning of week 2. I have read that it is better to wait so that it does not take away from that early bud growth due to the stress. But my thought was, how will many of the buds get growth anyway without getting proper light. So I went ahead with the defoliation. Only way for me to know is to diary this experience and try a week 3 defoliation next grow for compare. A few grows ago I had an issue due to over defoliation so this is something I am still honing in on with my craft. She did not need the defoliation as much as her garden mates however, I decided to do them all at once. I saw no stress from defoliation. Watered with Tiger Bloom (2 tsp/gal), Big Bloom (3 tsp/gal) and Grow Big (2 tsp/gal) on 1/29/20 and again on 2/1/20 with plain water both times pH'd to 6.4. She shows a little color change after the feeding. Although she is in stretch, she continues to be the shortest of all the plants (some of which are twice her height). For the next grow, I will consider less significant LST so that she can grow more vertically. Some LST done but not much was needed. All of the FastBuds plants have a significant flower size compared to garden mates. She has not had any obvious recovery time from any of the topping, LST and defoliation. Speaking of pH, I had to go invest in a $40 pen from a grow store (probably half that on Amazon) because I was having to re-calibrate the old one around every 20 min and I could not take it anymore. The new one seems to stabilize on the numbers better so I am hoping I am now getting true readings.
Watered and fed with 3 tsp Big Bloom and 2 tsp Tiger Bloom on 2/5/20 pH'd to 6.4. She continues to get droopy by day 3 of no water. Stretch finally started getting her some height. It was difficult to keep her on the same height level as the other plants. She has to be propped up but even then can not reach 15 in between light. I think she maintains more like 17. She was rotated through out the week but I try to keep her in the center of the footprint so that she gets the maximum coverage being further from the light. Watered and decided to feed again on 2/8/20 with 3 tsp Big Bloom, 2 tsp Grow Big and 2 tsp Tiger Bloom pH's to 6.5. I was unsure if I wanted to do a 2nd feed in a row but decided to try it and see what happens. I should have waited for week 3 defoliation because it is as if I never even defoliated. Very light LST done as the structure is pretty set and all the growth is now vertical.
Started the week off with a watering of the plant on 2/12/20 with 1 gallon. pH'd to 6.4 with runoff around 6.3 and up to approx. 30% runoff. Followed up with a feeding on 2/16/20 with 3 tsp Big Bloom, 2 tsp Tiger Bloom and I decided to vary from the recommended Grow Big feeding and only did 1 tsp rather than 2. I am starting to wonder if I should have gone with the extra tsp of grow big because she is showing signs of nitrogen deficiency and it seems a bit early for it to be flowering stage fade. The final feed for the week happened after a 4 days with no water which I estimate she needs every 3 days so she may look a bit droopy on the 2/16/20 pics. Runoff was again around 6.3 pH. Her counterparts in the garden have similar showings of fade but I have to remember these are a fast flowering genetic and should be finished 10-15 days earlier than the rest. This is very clear in her bud production as she is stacking and gaining some bulk. With that said, the fade could be very on par with typical late stage flowering fade as that would technically put her 2 weeks ahead. Alternatively, the yellowing started on the bottom middle and this could just be a calcium deficiency. I do not believe I will give her any cal/mag in the next week as I think I will instead adjust the next grow to do a supplemental feeding of it sooner. Also some light defoliation of yellowed leaves as well is anything blocking on the top of the canopy. Her height has really picked up this last week on her main colas and she is at a similar height to her garden mates but she still remains the short and stocky one of the bunch.
This week began the beginning of a family emergency that caused some spotty care during week 5. Plants were watered on 2/21/20 with1 gallon water & 3 tsp Big Bloom, 2 tsp Tiger Bloom, 2 tsp Grow Big pH'd to 6.6 Runoff was low around 6.1. There must have been a watering somewhere between the 2/16 and 2/21 however it is not noted. Light defoliation of a few fan leaves that were blocking light. Plants were rotated under the light footprint. Nothing else of note due to my absence from the plants.
Week 12 was also a week of spotty care due to family emergency. Plants were watered on 2/24/20 with 3/4 gallon of water with pH'd to 6.5. Runoff was 6.4. Watered again on 2/27/20 with a full gallon. I have halted all nutrients as it the plant should be harvest ready by week 8. Plants were rotated under the footprint. Nothing else of note.
My family emergency pulled me out of state and completely prevented me from even being able to do spotty care. Luckily my fiance was able to water for me on 3/4/20 and 3/7/20. I had to walk him through how to pH the water. He was aiming for 6.5 pH both times and used 3/4 a gallon on 3/4/20 and a full gallon on 3/7/20. Light fading noted by him which I told him was likely late flower fade. Continuing with flush as the plant should be ready next week.
I finally returned home long enough to give about a week of care before having to leave town once again. I likely would have harvested at this point if not for having to leave town again. I wanted to make sure I was supervising the entire dry as to not miss any cure windows. My RH tends to be low around here (30's) and so things often dry a lot faster than I would like. Her fade is looking good and she seems to have used up all nutrients. Flushed with 2 gallons pH'd to 6.5. I would have liked to do a much larger flush however, the current pandemic has really limited my access to distilled water so I used what I could get. She had another water during my absence on 3/14/20 of 1 gallon pH'd to 6.5. For the first time ever she had to have spring water as there was no other bottled water available to get her by until my return. I believe that next grow I am going to test the theory that flushing is "bro science" and that it in no way removes excess buildup. I have always flushed and have never even considered not doing so however, one of my Facebook grow groups currently has a very heavy conversation on the science of the flush. Continued to remove any dead foliage. Trichs are all milky and ready to be chopped upon my return. I generally like to aim for about 10% amber especially in an sativa heavy plant however, others prefer a much more heady high and so I said I would give a full milky little to no amber harvest a try! The one thing I have noticed and should note is that each of the FastBuds testers in the garden (FF6, FF9) could have easily used another week as noted by the continued white hairs. FF3 is the only one who appears to be "ready" based on hairs. The following week from this will include harvest as well as the trich pics, but it will not be completed until after the drying and curing process is finished so that I have a chance to sample.
Well... lets talk about what happened after the plant was being trimmed. I started to see seeds dropping as I trimmed and my mind was simply blown. Granted she went slightly longer than the suggested time (49 days suggested,58 days in age) due to my family emergency AND she was cared for by my fiance (not even a beginner) for the last 4 weeks of her life. I would have never even imagined that she would have self pollinated. I saw absolutely no nanners which I usually catch if it happens and not one sign of stress that would have led me to believe caused it. It wasn't even just lightly seeded. The lower buds hold the majority of the seeds but they are everywhere. Just make sure if you want to try for some amber trichs you should keep an eye on what she is doing beyond day 49. If I would have been paying better attention, I potentially could have caught it early enough to at least prevent some. I believe with future grows of this strain I could easily improve the amount I can pull from each plant. For this strain in particular, the changes that I will make next time, I will let it go longer in veg and have less plants in the garden but larger size plants overall (i.e. grow 2 monsters as opposed to 5 small ones).
Plants were harvested on 3/18/20. She was hung completely intact, no leaves removed. In retrospect, I am going to start removing all fan leaves before hanging. They can still get a slow dry from all the other plant content but A) they are so much easier to remove wet and B) I think they actually hindered the dry too much. They had last been watered on 3/14/20 so I expected them to be prime in terms of water content. Drying conditions were near perfect RH wise. I remained between 45-50 which is a huge improvement from my last dry. Normally my RH is on the very low end (30s) so I used a humidifier to keep the room even. The temp in the room however was dropping down to 60. I did not want to run the heater because my goal was to achieve the slowest dry possible. I thought things were going great. I had made it to day 7, the longest I had ever gone when I started to get some concern regarding how slow it was actually going with those temps. It was day 7 and it still felt like it could be 4-5 days. I had not encouraged the best airflow and so I decided to open the room up to allow the temps to equalize and to encourage the airflow. I placed my fan in the next room and aimed it at the wall before the actual room to keep it from aiming directly on the plants. This helped bring the plants to a point where they were ready for cure within the next day, day 9 (which I did not love because I then began worrying about missing my cure window). Flower went into the jars on 3/26/20 fully trimmed. RH was just slightly high at 66% and so the jars were left open a few times to lower RH. RH stabilized to 65 and a Boveda pack was added to help keep them in the zone.
Now lets talk about the weight. As I mentioned in the review of the HPS used, I was a bit disappointed with the performance on this first grow with HPS. I would have expected to double my weight in harvest going from T5's to HPS. The return was about equivalent if not less than my last T5 grow. I know Fastbuds is quality genetics and so I do not believe it is the fault of the plant. Every single plant was a disappointment weigh wise.I think my unexpected absence affected the overall performance.
The quality of the smoke is outstanding and I personally would gladly take some seedy buds of this rather than some of the other garden mates. The smell is an overwhelming fruity scent which I love and the taste matches the smell. This was a nice uplifting and relaxing smoke with a quality high. At this point we are on week 2 of cure and I think with a couple more weeks in the jar she could easily be my favorite strain i grew of five (FF9 & FF6 also in the garden).
Thanks for updating. My FF3 is one week behind you. And this week I’ll feed her with boron additive to see.
On the other hand, your FF3 leaves seem green enough. However, I am used to Sativa. And Sativa has lighter shade if green.
@Med_in_Tropic, the smell was weak but did indeed have a skunky sort of smell to it. This only started in wee 4 however. I have not notice any smell of significance from FF3 but I will double check her and update with this weeks post!
Hi @Jayann, how was the smell on GG4 during vegging?
Mine FF 3's had week berry smell when they were inside.
Just curious to narrow down the possible genetic. It could be important in deciding what to feed them and by how much.
@Jayann, same issue on size mate.
During Veg FF 3 is small compare to my FF7 and FF 10.
Comparing to your grow, my height is okay but leaf size is not. Could be the light and nutes.
Although I have spider mite issue with one plant.
Roots are okay. And your idea GG4 is the most plausible so far.
Think I’ll experiment with different feeding to see if that is it.
@Garreweedlover, That is possible actually. First time running 1000 w HPS. I had it 16 " from the plants and used a lux meter but that doesnt mean things didn't get to hot. I did not run an exhaust due to it being winter and so the highest it would get in the room was 77 but aside from all that, the light just very well could have been to close. Something to keep in mind for the future for sure!
@Garreweedlover, Thank you! No males at all and in a pretty sterile indoor environment but I still blame it on myself for letting her go so long. Happy growing!
Jayann
