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Here we gooooo. Another diary and another FastBuds tester started. The fifth in the line, this one is described as, “ FF 5 - 42 days Mostly Indica.” My real joy!
I germinated in a peat pod in a container of HP Pro Mix and Myke Herbs and Vegetables mycorrhizae. I actually started on a heat mat in my clone box but then moved it over when it popped. This is day 3.
My lighting is a full spectrum 300 watt actual draw LED, with 1/6th of that housed in a custom 3D printed case directly over the seedlings.
Day 10 for the fifth of the FastBuds fast flower testers. I’ve struggled all week across the board with temperatures dipping at night and the basement just sucking the core temperature. All my young plants have nearly died. It has forced me to divert my furnace output directly into my tent, and I installed a secondary thermostat to my furnace to make it consistent. Hopefully root zone temps climb and I’m back in the game before its too late.
Day 17 for the FFT5 tester. Rough times, good times - a mix. It has taken some time with the consistent heat from my furnace, the bounce back has not been instant. It doesn’t help that I somewhat overwatered worrying about humidity. But it appears it has grown ever so slightly. Do I stay the course? Do I abort? I have to make a decision. Come on number five, please! 🙏🏻
Day 24 for the fifth of the FastBuds fast flowering testers. If you are just popping in for the first time there is plenty of information on my diaries of winter cold and my struggles to get consistent environment. This journey really set FFT5 back, and even though it is recovering I am nearing a place where I may move on. Pictures do reveal a bit more green. After fixing the heat issue I did overwater a bit so I tried hard and didn’t give any water all week. The seedling was perky and happy. I did need to water again and so you are seeing the droop again. I’m not sure if much will change.
Day 31 for the fifth fast flowering tester from FastBuds. A total swerve, a curveball this week. No, I didn’t murder the seedling, it actually recovered! What the heck, I thought struggling seedlings were done for! Now I’ll have to see it to the end. I’m not sure if it was primarily overwatering or underwatering as it looks similar. But at one point I tried a very dilute 18-18-21 Miracle Grow Tomato food with blackstrap molasses. It improved, so then I gave it less dilute 24-8-16 Miracle Grow All Purpose food, blackstrap molasses and Plant Prod MJ Spike (CalMag). I still can’t believe how green it has become.
Day 38 from seed for the fifth of the FastBuds photo testers. Everything is looking good as FFT5 recovers. Growth is steady and a nice strong green is developing. I will allow everything to continue with time and plenty of water. I transplanted this week to get a sense of the root structure and growth. My primary mix was: 10 parts HP ProMix: 5 parts worm castings: 1 part Fox Farms Happy Frog soil, and Myke Herbs and Vegetables mycorrhizae. Feeling really optimistic!
Day 45 for the fifth of the fast flowering testers from FastBuds. No changes for FFT5 as she just needs to veg. longer and show me more roots before I transplant again. Just absorbing amendment and green. I will continue vegging and just give time and water. Looks good so far, no? Great comeback.
Day 52 for the fifth of the FastBuds fast flowering testers. All I’ve done is top and defoliate. This week, I transplanted to a larger container. My mix was 10 parts HP Pro Mix: 5 parts worm castings: 1 part Fox Farms Happy Frog soil. It will be hit with some amendment now so all it will get is time and water. Everything is looking good so far.
Day 59 from seed for the fifth of the fast flowering testers from FastBuds. Good update this week as the growth has been solid and there is plenty of green. Where much of my tent has suffered with temperatures, FFT5 was actually further removed from the floor and suffered less. This means that I’ll have to give other plants relief and likely rotate this one down. Just giving water at this point.
Day 66 from seed for the fifth of the fast flowering Fast Buds tester line. I’m just giving water still at this point and allowing it to veg. I’ve moved some bigger plants out and am trying to open up light distribution. I think temperatures must be more consistent now. Just be patient because there won’t be a window to flower any time soon.
Day 73 from seed for FFT5, the fifth of the Fast Buds fast flowering testers. So many of my plants struggled this week. I feel like gradual deficiency hit alot of them as I am used to more growing room and repotted more frequently in the past. It could imbalance in general. I went away for three day this week and so I did not want to feed and not be around if something went wrong, so I waited and symptoms worsened. I have since fed 18-18-21 Miracle Grow Tomato Food, Plant Prod MJ Spike (CalMag), and Earth Alive Big Blue Wave. Its too early to see any progress or regression, so next week could be anything. I trimmed any badly damaged vegetation. First group shot is before defoliation this week.
Day 78 from seed for FFT5. This is the fifth of the fast flowering Fast Buds testers. This is an experimental course, after my tent had a rough couple of weeks and I really desperately wanted more room, I decided to cram a few more into flower. This goes along with trying to downsize the plant size in general and find a more medium between large plants and sea of green. This one is quite small as you can see. I want to see the bud size. Of the vegging plants, this one has had five weeks to use up amendment, which I had gone light with in general. So, expect some stretch and lets see what this smaller plant can yield. I have taken two FFT5 clones and so I am fairly confident the line will be continued without having to burn another seed.
Day 87 from seed for the fifth of the FastBuds fast flowering testers. One week of flowering completely, about five weeks to go? That can’t be right .... right? They are called fast photos, but that would be absurd. We shall see. Because of the apparent rapidity, and the early signs of pistils, I have started flower food. I only gave food today though. 0-10-10 Alaska Morbloom, Plant Prod MJ Spike (CalMag), and a popsicle stick dip of blackstrap molasses.
My flowering tent is 6’ x 4’ and is the same hung mylar as my vent. The main light is the same, a 300 full spectrum LED, but I have two in flower. I also have 96 watts of yellow LED bulbs to supplement the spectrum. I have two, 50 watt mixed spectrum pods that are custom made and 3D printed so I only have an approximation of spectrum.
Day 94 for FFT5. Two weeks of flowering complete, about four weeks to go. I am in disbelief at the projection for this tester. We shall see if it will be a bud in four weeks! No doubt flowering is accelerated. It got water yesterday, so it will have to dry a bit before any more feedings. I got rain recently, and I’m flushing other plants, so the humidity is quite high today.
Day 101 from seed for FFT5, the fifth of the fast flowering FastBuds testers. Three weeks of flowering complete, about three weeks to go. I can always extend things if I please. I can’t imagine that it will be complete so soon. Remember, my projection is really the start of the window, the minimum flowering time Fastbuds gave. I recently fed 0-10-10 Alaska Morbloom, a popsicle stick dip of blackstrap molasses, and Plant Prod MJ Spike (CalMag). Interesting so far ...
Day 108 from seed. Four weeks of flowering complete, two weeks to go. Obviously I’ll keep it going a bit longer. Clearly, the subpar health going into flower hurt. But perhaps FFT5 isn’t great for small sea of green anyway. Tiny little buds that do in fact look like a breed of autoflower. I also am examining my feeding schedule as I still believe I am poisoning my plants, too much molasses and thus iron. Sort of a citrus, fruit smell, but not as sharp as FFT3.
Day 115 from seed for FFT5. Five weeks of flowering complete, about one projected to go. I am going to extend at least another week. Not an impressive first go by me, which would be typical, but something nonetheless. Just two main buds. About five days ago I fed 0-10-10 Alaska Morbloom, with a popsicle stick dip of blackstrap molasses, and Plant Prod MJ Spike. I will be giving water here on out, time to flush. I won’t get much yield but maybe an idea of taste.
Day 122 from seed for FFT5. This is the start of the projected window. I am going to leave it for most of this week, for one more week, and push it a bit longer. I’m just flushing with water. Most of my fast flower testers have been poor attempts by me so far, so its hard to say what I really learned here.
Day 127 for FFT5. This is extending the window of flower a bit for this fast flowering photo tester. I have flushed during the week and have harvested as of typing. This is just the last look as I was flushing, with the smaller plant size I can actually use a sink. I looked back, the plant was certainly green going into flower, slender, but tall (for a sea of green). I dunno. I have two clones of this plant on the go in veg. so I’ll allow them to get bushier.
This is FFT5, the first FastBuds fast flowering photoperiod I get to review. Overall, my first foray into the testers was hampered by winter conditions and other struggles, not a great start. I am also trying to ease myself into more effective plant sizes, experiment with sea of green, and so forth. This plant was never meant to be a massive yield.
Growing was simply, it seems to shoot up easily, was one of the first of the testers to recover/look good, and it seems lanky and capable of stretch. I really stripped the branches to ensure total focus on the two main buds (one topping). The plant was young, small. but green going into flower. I am somewhat surprised by how little it bulked up. The buds were thin, not bulbous.
The smell during growing was non existent, or overpowered, and after drying it doesn’t get much strong. Just a sort of subtle cannabis smell. This strain would be primarily used for effects over taste.
The effects are for sure indica, and nice and strong. I gotta say I really enjoyed when this was mixed in the background of other strains. I found it was hard to consistently overcome the indica drain. Lovely!
I would prefer more dense buds, FFT5 was slightly stringy, but very visually nice. The trichome production was really good!
I did get some clones, and have further FFT5 on the go, so I will try to build them up larger next time.
Harvest was super easy given the small plant size, two main buds. I wet trimmed, budwashed, and then hung to dry. For washing, first dip and swirl in a container of baking soda, lemon juice, and water; second, dip and rinse in just water. I give a dark period before chopping the plant.
BeanswithPork
