Gorilla Cookies

Starting an early season grow with an expected harvest date around May. I plan to start a main season crop before this one is harvested. I wanted to have another crop of indica, which I'm running low on, to last me through the summer grow season. I also have a ton of seed that I plan to eventually make it through. Probably won't plant any more random mystery seed (see the middle of my seed collection photo) so I can work with some quality crop. This will be my first time growing and harvesting seed that I know what it is (other than my unfortunate male only Durban Poison grow) so I'm really excited about it. (these seeds are fem, so I better not end up with any males) I also don't plan on using any special grow techniques this time around, just a good nutrient balance. However, I will be growing outdoors so it will be 12-12 from seed. This time I might put up a lamp for the first few weeks of seedling stage which will take place indoors. Should provide a nice boost to early growth and development and hopefully get larger plants than my winter season grow. (Since I'm planting this week both Gorilla Cookies and Cheese diaries will have the same info, I want to maintain separate diaries though to better track differences throughout the grow.)

These seeds sprouted QUICK! After 3 days they all popped up. The day they popped they weren't under lights. So they got a bit leggy. I placed them indoors on a heating mat, and under an LED lamp and Fluorescent lamp both only a few inches away from the plants. To my surprise they continued to get even stretchier. So I moved them outdoors in an attempt to get them to stop stretching. I'm a bit sad by how much they stretched so quickly. I was planning on keeping them on an 18hr light schedule for a good week or so, but if they're outdoors they're only getting 10 hrs. I don't think I have strong enough grow lights to keep them going inside. I also don't plan on getting an indoor setup since I can grow outdoors. I might try to put them inside again and keep a close eye on them to see if they continue stretching. I really wanted to give these girls a good headstart. (Same comments for both strain diaries this week too)

So, I guess I messed up with these girls from the start. Got a bit too leggy. Probably shouldn't have tried to use my grow light. I have a really weak blue-red LED one that goes into a standard desk lamp. I tried to correct for it by putting the seedlings out in the sun last week, worked decently, tried moving them indoors again to avoid cold night time temps and they just got leggier. My best way to correct for the legginess was to plant them in larger cups, I think this was a pretty good solution but we'll find out. I also think the extra netcup and increased amounts of clay pebbles will enhance rooting, I'm hoping to see a sort of rootbinding effect. This is also my first grow using Rhizo Blast, so I'm expecting to get some nice root development. I plan to transfer the plants that are in the smaller buckets into larger buckets after the harvest of my mystery seed crop. Which is why the lids do not match the buckets they are in. My Gorrilla Cookies #1 grew a little awkward when it got leggy too, it was pretty much tipping over and cutting it's own root stem. So I'm a little worried about #1, I used some extra rockwool scraps to try and bind it around the damaged root stem. I'll be watching it in comparison to #2 to see if there's any lack in development.

Forgot to update last week. I harvested my other crop and transferred the seedlings from the small buckets into larger buckets. Now all plants are in the 5 gallon buckets. Since moving the plants outside, the growth has slowed tremendously, not longer vigorous shoots. I'm assuming the temperature and lack of light are slowing growth. However, I expect temperatures here to start rising pretty quickly, and each day gets more and more light. Hopefully these girls will be in good shape by the time they start transition.

Growth is a little disappointing in these Gorilla Cookies. The leaves look a bit thin, especially compared to the adjacent Cheese crop. Root development is also less than the Cheese crop. All plants have been given the same nutrient dosages and growing conditions so I think these are just differences in the strains. The Gorilla cookies look like the leaves might have additional color in them beyond green. The leaves also look like they may have been damaged a little bit. I had very strong winds for a day or two and I was not available to move my plants into shelter, so they could have been affected by that. Thankfully with their size, the wind shouldn't have had too much of a negative effect. I'm sure these girls will fill out and look much better soon. Temperatures are supposed to rise here and the sun is supposed to be out more than it has been.

I'm a bit disappointed in the growth on these girls. They haven't filled out, leaves are thin, curling a bit. Root growth also has not been very substantial. I wonder if these were affected heavily by how leggy they were as seedlings. They were also exposed to a lot of high winds outdoors this month. I did not feed them this week to see if they improve for next week. I might have to change the water out and do a flush. I don't think I over fed them but it might help to use just water for a week.

Still not looking too great after last weeks skipped feeding. Roots have developed noticeably since last week, but still dont' look great. I'm a little concerned at some of the darker coloring on them and less pure healthy white. I went light on the feed this week since pH and TDS were still at a good spot. I don't want to heavily feed them until I see some better development. As with one of my cheese plants, I think these were affected by their legginess as seedlings and high winds in my area for a few weeks. I'm not happy with how small these are at 7 weeks. Hopefully they don't try to start transitioning anytime soon with the light schedule since that would lead to a disappointing crop. It's interesting to compare these quality seeds and this crop to my random mystery seed crop at 7 weeks. I'm not sure what's changed so much, but this might end up being a bad grow overall. It's possible and maybe likely, that this period of time is actually the worst in my climate to grow in (right at the start of the new year). Or I really messed something up in this grow. This is the first time I've used Rhizo Blast but that shouldn't be causing growth to slow.

Skipped feeding anything this week. I was sick with the flu so didn't pay much attention to my plants. These Gorilla Cookies are really disappointing. Never grew much at all and they started to stretch this week. They're starting transition and sadly won't grow into much of a harvest at all. I was really looking forward to trying this strain out too. Kind of a bummer considering this is going to be my first harvest with quality seeds. I've been growing bag seed and had way better performance than this. Although I don't want to blame the genetics, I think this period of the year might be the worst for me to grow in outdoors. My theory is that increasing day length signalled the plants into bloom as quick as possible, never gave them a chance to veg. I also had really strong dry winds for the first few weeks of seedlings, which could have easily stunted growth. As well as letting them get way too leggy as seedlings before putting them outside. All those conditions combined must have been a bit much for the seedlings and stunted them quite a lot. I planted new seeds this week. One more of each Cheese and Gorilla Cookies. I was disappointed with these 4 so I wanted to try something different, I planted in soil and will be raising the new seeds with a root binding technique. Gradually increasing the size of the container after the roots have filled in. I wanted to try and get decent crop in before the summer, but the seeds I just planted will be ready to transition in about 1.5 months which would put me at around 13 hrs of light each day. Since that's not 12-12 I'm not sure if they will transition then or if I'll be waiting through the whole Summer. We'll see.

Flowers are showing this week. Still very disappointing sizes. Plants do look much healthier now though. My seed I planted last week has sprouted in the soil now. I added some minimal bloom nutrient and sweet raw. I'll add hydroplex at some point during bloom as well but I don't plan on adding much more nutrient to these tiny plants. I'll get whatever kind of buds I can from them. If the plants miraculously start taking off I might up the fertilizer but I just don't feel this crop is worth the investment sinking too much feed into it.

Didn't have much time this week. Only grabbed a photo for record.

Buds seem to be bulking up well. Still pretty small plants though they have gained a little height. The seedling in the soil is doing pretty well.

I skipped a week of documentation and didn't get multiple photos for this week. The Gorilla Cookies got much taller. About the same height as the big Cheese plant. I stopped the feed on this crop worrying about the discoloration and slow start they got.

The Gorilla Cookies really caught up in development. They have thinner leaves than the Cheese plants and more trichomes on the leaves where Cheese shows mostly just on the bud.

Gorilla Cookies look really good this week. Both plants starting to fill in and thicken. Lots of trichomes, all pretty cloudy. Should be a couple weeks away from harvest at this point. We'll see when they stop fattening and start showing amber trichs