Skunks & Kush

This my 3rd grow here. Week 1 and these are the seedlings that have sprouted out of the soil. 3 Mango Skunk, 2 Master Kush and 2 Super Skunk seeds, all from Seedsman. All seeds are regular seeds. They were germinated using the wet paper towel method. I Improved on previous germination attempts by keeping the seed tray warmer this time. The soil mix is 80% coir, 10% perlite, 10% propagation sand. The lighting is 4 x 50w white LED floodlights. They are bright and add a bit of warmth to the grow chamber. They are sharing the lower grow chamber with 3 mother plants from my Royals & Exotics grow. The 8 plants in the top grow chamber are just about to go into Flowering.

Week 3. The seedlings now have 6 or 7 nodes and a tip. The tallest one is 130mm with a leaf span of 160mm. The shortest one is 50mm. These are growing really fast and strong. The photos tell the story. Branches are starting to develop....

Week 4 for these fast growers. I topped 5 of the 7 veg plants. Master Kush, Mango Skunk & Super Skunk regulars from Seedsman. Seedsman got my order correct first time, delivered in less time than quoted🤙🏼👍🏼 & offered some bonus feminised seeds too. Very reliable service. The germination rate of the seeds was very high & tap roots formed overnight. These are the tallest plants for the number of days that I have ever grown, so I’m quite excited for this grow.

Week 5. I’ve topped the two main tips on the taller plants and also topped the side branches below them. Lots of healthy growth this week and they are fast growing and recovering quickly from the topping. They are sharing the growspace with some Mother plants and a couple of clones.

I transplanted the veg plants into larger clear plastic pots. The root development is quite good with clean white roots clearly visible on the outside of the soil substrate. I topped them up with fresh coir, perlite, vermiculite and propagation sand mix. As the plants will stay in these pots for a while, I started a few LST ties to pull the main branches down to the horizontal, and pruned a few leaves.

The plants have responded well to the transplant and LST ties. I've been adjusting the ties during the week and they always adjust to the light within hours. I've been topping the tips as they appear during the week, as they responded well from the first topping a few weeks ago. I've pruned a couple of leaves and the LST might slow them down for a bit.

The 200mm diameter clear pots enable me to keep an eye on the health of the root systems of the plants. They seem to be growing very rapidly and many roots are visible at the side of the pots. The growth after the LST is quite fast and strong growth development of the stem and branch systems. I've topped the larger tips during the week. The plants seem to bounce back after the topping. New tips grow quickly. Now, after setting up the structure of each plant, I just let them grow.

Unfortunately these plants have all perished. We had a really hot and humid couple of weeks and the fungus gnats just went out of control. I accidentally over fed them once, so a bit of nute burn occurred, then the gnats just went berserk. As these were the smallest plants in the lower grow chamber, they were an easy target for the gnats. They were growing well. As a last ditch effort to save them, I switched to flowering, but they were too far gone. The germination rate of the Super Skunks were disappointing, but the growth of the plants were great.I'm trying the Master Kush and Mango Skunk again as I have a few spare seeds I kept.