FastBuds - FFT#9

3/3: I watered them today with about 1/2 gallon each, including cal-mag, armor si, bembe, terpinator, signal, and a little beastie bloomz. I didn't have much time, so I couldn't do many glamour shots..I'll try again when I feed them in a few days. Soooperrunt is still stretching!! OMG, that's a 600% increase in height from the moment I decreased her photoperiod (8" to 48") This has been a painful lesson, but one I'm glad to be learning! From my observations with the fast flowering photos, the only real difference in their growth rates versus the growth rates of autoflowering plants, is during their transition from veg to bloom. They have vigorous vegetative growth and rapid flowering, once they do start. With the correct strain selections, it is feasible to run 5 crops of them per year if you strictly adhere to a policy of vegging for no longer than 21 days from their first set of true leaves. When you look back at my fast flowering photo diaries at the ends of week 3, they all seem too short to start flowering, but all of them either tripled in height or more (500% - 600% in some cases) during their stretch. so they'd probably have all finished at around 36-40" or so. Also, I think that my first foray into exploiting the Emerson Effect in order to flower them under 14 hours of light caused an extended transition period and more stretch than they'd have normally done. My thinking is that there wasn't a dramatic enough difference in my plant's photoperiod for them to begin flowering as quickly as they normally would have under 12/12 because I was vegging them under 18/6. Next time I flower under 14 hours of light, I will first veg them under a minimum of 20/4 so that they "notice" the change more quickly. Choosing strains with an estimated 42-50 day flower time and vegging for a max of 21 days allows you to harvest in roughly the same time frame as an average autoflower plant, plus you save on the electricity expense in flower, and get to grow strains with higher potencies than autos. Seems like a no-brainer, but only time will tell. If I can produce similar yields with these fast photos, I'll probably transition to growing mostly photos, like the old days... 3/4: My new 14,000btu portable a/c was delivered today. I'm replacing the window unit in the bedroom where my closet is located with it so that I can roll it over to the closet and chill the girls out really well for the next couple of weeks. I can aim it at the door and just leave it cracked open and it's keeping the temps at about 75f during the day, just running on low.👌 I'm just hanging a piece of mylar over the door to keep the light in and have the exhaust set on "8" and to come on when temps exceed 75f, so it's pretty stable now. At night, I'm disconnecting the exhaust fan once it gets down to 60f and only have the intake fan pulling cold air in from outside if the temp exceeds 62f. I've determined that I'm gonna have to get another AC infinity fan controller at some point. I hate having to remember to unplug a fan and change the settings at night. I forgot to switch things this morning before I crashed, and was awakened at noon-thirty by the sound of the ac infinity high temp alarm going off...I had it set on 90f!!! If I had a separate controller for the intake, I could really dial it in and not have to remember to change settings... 3/5: I finally found a seller of BioTabs BoomBoom Spray (in Great Britain) that sells to and ships to the US for not-such-ridiculous-prices!! I ordered a 250ml bottle so I won't run out for a while! I'm almost out of Bembe and I've heard good things about Humbolt's Secret Sweet & Sticky, so I ordered a quart to give a try. 3/6: I fed them about a half-gallon of pretty much everything today. Again, I didn't have time for a full-fledged photo session, but I added a backdrop and photography lighting equipment to my cart at amazon...will pull the trigger on it soon! 3/7: Fixed up a new batch yeast and sugar for my diy CO2 generator. 3/8: Beautiful weather today, so I spent the afternoon getting ready for the spring grows (indoors and out) That's it for week 11-