Fastbuds FF3 - Photoperiod Tester

Thank you Fastbuds for the opportunity to test these genetics! This tester will be grown indoors in a 2x4x8 Gorilla Grow Tent using an 8 gallon Current Culture Solo Bucket under California Lightworks 550 Solar System LED lights. I run the entire Cultured Solutions line of nutrients. Clay pellets used for grow media. Seed was soaked in water for 24 hours and then placed in Rapid Rooter. Rapid Rooter was placed in seedling tray and left in darkness for 30 hours. After those 30 hours, seedling had not only broken surface, but had all but leapt right out of the rooter. I had to slice the rooter lengthwise and nestle the seed and taproot back down inside. This chick is super eager to make her appearance! 1/10/2020 - Day 1 - first set of true leaves have shown themselves, I put some clay pellets around the rapid rooter to block out light. Day 2 - taproot had already grown through the bottom of the seedling tray and into the reservoir, so I decided to get her tucked into her hydro bucket. I planted this one center stage in the net basket. I haven't quite decided how I will be training this plant yet - top/lst/mainline - I'll see what mood I'm in when the time comes. I added full dose UC Roots to the reservoir. Current Light Settings - R39 W49 B99 Day 5 - started introducing nutrients a little late (whoops) so I had some pale green color creeping in. Added some 12ml Coco Cal and 2ml of both Veg A & B Day 6 - Color improving, added an additional 2ml of each Veg A & B Day 7 - She's perking right up. I offered my sincerest apologies for coming in late with the food. I think she's starting to forgive me.... No one wants to have to deal with a hungry woman. 😂😂😂 I created a program called "Step Veg" in my California Lightworks Solar System controller allowing me to gradually increase the Red and White light as we transition to full Veg settings.

Day 8 - Color improving, but not at the rate I'd expect or like, so I went ahead and gave her more food. I am feeling so hesitant in doing so, just because I've never had such a hungry baby, but I'm adding slowly over the course of the past few days to try my best to avoid nutrient burn. Day 9 - This girl is getting greener and stronger, but she's still on the pale side. I added 2 more mls of both Veg A, B, and Coco Cal - slow and steady. I'm hoping I can find her sweet spot soon. I'm starting to get that "I don't know wtf I'm doing" feeling lol 😂 Her environment is pristine - Ph is great, temp in the tent and water is perfect, I brought up the humidity to 48%, air circulation is on point... I'm not sure what else I could offer this princess.🤷‍♀️ C'mon little FF3, show me what you got! Day 10 - continued improvement in color, but not seeing what I want. I'm watching myself as to try to avoid nutrient burn, but she just seems hungry.... So far the more she eats the greener she's getting so, fingers crossed! 🤞added 5ml Coco Cal Day 11 - I think we've found our happy place. Her color looks much better, and she's growing happily. Her little mutated leaf has grown so fat you can barely appreciate its uniqueness anymore. Day 12 - added another half gallon of water along with 2mls of Veg A and B, as well as 4ml Coco Cal. Day 13 - I continue to keep feeding with hesitation, only because I've. Never experienced an eater like this before. Still. No signs of nute burn, but I do have continued improvement of color and gusto. 💪 Day 14 - Closing out a happily uneventful week. She's fat and happy, and that's all I can hope for at this stage. She really enjoys story time! 💜🤣

Day 15 - Good morning, gorgeous! This girl is rolling into week 3 of veg with grace and poise! Day 18 - her lower nodes are really starting to take off and branch out! Did a little leaf tucking to better expose lower growth sites. Day 19 - She gave me a wink of the slightest of color change this morning which told me she must be hungry. Added 2ml of Veg A & B, and 5ml of Coco Cal. By the evening, her was sitting pretty, lush and green. Her growth is really picking up speed! Day 21 - Getting a lot of horizontal growth. The fan leaves are getting super large. Still trying to decide how I'm going to grow her. I think I'm leaning toward a top at the 5th and lst out around the basket. My other option is to attempt my first mainline. 🤷‍♀️ What to do?

Day 22 - Rolling into week 4 looking mean and green! 💪 I need to make a decision on what kind of training I want to dish out to this lady. She's growing a bit faster than her tent mates. Day 23 - Always experimenting - today I begin my first mainline! I've already built the foundation by allowing the plant to grow to 6 nodes, as recommended by the tutorial I followed by the brilliant Miss Nebula Haze @growweedeasy. My next step is documented here in a video, as I take my lush, happy, healthy plant, and give her the kind of haircut that makes you want to storm out of the salon without leaving a tip. 😂 I even managed to get in my signature branch snap early in the game - being held together now with duct tape. 🤦‍♀️ In all seriousness though, I'm thrilled to be trying this out, despite the agony of cutting down my plant to nothing but a stump and antennae. I've seen some great growers create some serious masterpieces using this method, and damn it my curiosity is taking control! Here's to learning something new! Day 27 - Came home from vacation to find that my plant had hulked through the duct tape that held her snapped branch together... I guess she's doing well. ☺️ Over the course of the past few days her branches have gotten notably thicker! 💪 Day 28 - Now that each new main stem has grown out, I removed all the growth tips from below the 3rd node on each side. I left the fan leaves in tact to give plant access to extra energy as she pushes through this intense training. I softened the branches with my fingers, very slowly, to tie down my new main stems horizontally across the net basket. I took a sterilized x-acto knife to then top each of my two main stems at the 3rd node on each side, leaving me with a beautifully symmetrical base to my masterpiece.

Day 30 - Zero stress noticed since the last strip and top. Her leaves are green and healthy, and she has given me no complaints post trimming! Day 32 - Checking out her top sites, she's looking really good! Another day or two I'll start training the branches out and top them each one more time. Her fan leaves are huge and gorgeous! 😍 Day 33 - Introduced some handcuffs to the game. 😉 As the two branches on each side begin to grow out, I want to guide them horizontally away from each other. I threw some ties around each new branch, anchoring it to its adjacent fan leaf. By doing this, I am using the anchor point to help guide the growth while the branch is still new and bendy - this should hopefully lay me down an easier foundation to work with as we move toward the next steps. Now that each new branch has grown just past its first node, I will be making the last round of topping later today. I'll be putting it all together in the next video in my Let's Mainline Series on IGTV, so stay tuned because I'll be sharing that here as well! ✌️💜🌱 *** went ahead and topped each of my 4 branches at their 1st nodes. Re-anchored them down with plant ties. This girl is a beast! 💪

This week I've been focusing on continuing to bend each secondary branch into its final position. I am doing this slowly by making small daily changes, pulling each of the secondary branches away from its adjacent partner. As the tertiary branches grow out, I'll be guiding them out around the net basket. I am in awe of the strength of this plant! 💪 Day 41 - Shaping the Canopy! Our 8 branches have grown out a bit, and it's time for us to take the next step in the mainline! Today we're bringing back the handcuffs 🔗 for a little more bondage action. 😉 Using the same technique as before, I am attaching all the new branches to its adjacent fan leaf in an attempt to gently begin guiding our canopy closer to its final shape. I'll stop back in after a day or 2 to re-anchor all the branches once more, making sure that they're nice and spread out and level with one another. Thanks for following along, growmies! This has been so much fun! 🤓😁💜

Day 44 - Today it's time to say sayonara to the undergrowth as I clear away a lot of the fan leaves and make room to further shape the canopy. I took each of the 8 branches that I previously cuffed off to fan leaves, and tied them down into their final resting place - rounding out the final shape of the plant. Day 47 - Defoliation ✂️ - over the course of 3 days, this lady bushed out like woah - causing me to dive back in the the scissors. Ermahgerd! 😱 She showed me a ♥️!

🌱 🤓 Spent this week keeping up with hefty defoliation and canopy maintenance. Two separate rounds of defoliation occurred this week, the last round included the removal of any branches that were growing. In the underbrush who had not yet made it to the surface of the canopy. Branches that hang out in the underbrush contribute to poor air flow while simultaneously sucking energy from the plant. I don't want my plant wasting energy on poor producing branches, so they gotta go! I also made sure to try and remove the same branches on all new mains as to keep the plant as symmetrical as possible. ✌️💜🌱

More haircuts this week! I am very aggressively trying to keep up with the canopy growth. I'm continuing to remove the small branches underneath the canopy - more or less stripping the undergrowth, while defoliating around the growth sites that have made it to the canopy surface. I'm unsure of how much more growth to wait for before I send her into flower. Maybe next week? Who knows! Not me! Hah! Happily accepting any advice from any experienced main-liners out there! 😉 She's been super thirsty - I have to add a gallon every few days to keep up! I also started adding some p31 Microbes to the reservoir to see what I can see. 😎

Day 64 - I've been patiently waiting for the time to come, and it's finally here! Changed the lights over to 12/12 to send the tent into flower. Current light settings R99 W99 B50 as suggested by California Lightworks. I did a full reservoir change - switching over to bloom nutes. I also added some Si28 and P31 Microbes to the reservoir to test out this new product that I was fortunate enough to receive samples of. I've seen the results of others with crazy booming root growth.... Let's see what happens! Day 65 - I swear, it's like she's been waiting for me to flip the light cycle. I kicked one plant out of the tent so now there's even more room for improved air circulation and light distribution. This plant is a serious beast! Day 67/ Day 3 of Flower - Last massive round of defoliation before I sit back and let her do her thang. ✌️

Little white pistils crawling out everywhere! This girl drinks a LOT! Every other day I add a gallon of water to her reservoir. Today is Day of flower. I added a gallon this morning but I can see she could take more. I'll most likely end up adding an additional gallon tomorrow, just to keep up with her raging thirst. I've minimized the aggressiveness of my defoliation practices as to not overly stress her out as she transitions. She's gained a few inches in height since the flip! The structure of this plant is awe-inspiring! 😍 Literally every time I look at her, I get lost in the beauty of her symmetry. This has been such a fun run!

Day 15 - (video) went in and did a round of defoliation, focusing mainly on fan leaves, clearing out the underbrush to help improve air circulation. Despite this being my first mainline, I'm feeling pretty proud of my work so far. 😊 Day 16 - I've made it through the boring part of the flowering hump, and I now have little baby buds forming. 💕 I still struggle with deciding how much / how little to keep as far as undergrowth and side branches, but I am happy with how she's grown thus far! Her roots are ridiculous! I am having to add a gallon to my reservoir at least every other day. 💦 She's a tank! 😜 I took a few cuttings from this plant and very lazily used my own saliva as a rooting gel and tossed them in water in a window. All of them have rooted. These genetics are strong 💪💪 💪 . It's starting to smell a little happy in the tent too. 😉

Growth is a-boomin' and flowers are a-bloomin'! Gave this beast another hefty round of defoliation. I've been doing my best to optimize light penetration throughout the canopy and I'm very proud of how this lady is blossoming! I really have to take her out into the natural light to photograph her. The lighting inside just does not do her justice. The buds are all stacked so nice and close together, she's going to be quite a beauty to behold in the upcoming weeks! So the other night I got lit and cut another branch off my mainline to soak up its sister's secrets in the kitchen window. I felt bad about not being able to answer the question, "How long did it take to root?" in regards to my original experiment, so this time, I kept track and documented! 2 weeks from dropping in, I had visible roots showing, and you can see by the pictures, they grow pretty fast! Once again, I took a cutting, clipped it at a 45 degree angle, sucked on the stem (look for my new cloning gel - Blazin' Skywalker Secretion - hitting shelves soon!) and dropped it into a prescription pill bottle filled with water from the tap. I am 3/3 for cloning with this method! Oh yeah, she's still drinking a gallon a day/every other day. It's cray cray! 🤯

This week I decided to recruit my husband to get a proper look at this girl's roots. She's gotten so damn big that it's impossible for me to get a shot otherwise. Her root ball is massive. She's large and in charge. I went through and gave her another thorough round of defoliation. What I removed was any droopy leaves in the underbrush, as well as any fan leaves that were casting shadows and blocking light from my bud sites. When I was finished, I was able to stand over my plant, look down, and visibly see through to the base of my plant and grow media. Being able to do this suggests to me that my light source is also able to penetrate down throughout the plant as well. The removal of these leaves also contributed to improved air circulation and decreased humidity - both which are important as we progress through the flowering stage. This week I also caught my first whiff of this plant's sweet aroma. I'm excited to see how her terps develop over the upcoming weeks! 😋😋😋 I cloned another branch off this plant. Baby Tester FF3s are slowly taking over my house. 😂 Thank you for following along! This has been so fun! ✌️ 💜 🌱

A pretty uneventful week. I barely even photographed her. She's really due for a nice natural lighting photo sesh, but I really need to be in the mood for it or else the magic just isn't there. She still drinks near a gallon a day. Her leaves are super sticky. She has a nice sweet fragrance which I'm excited about! Now let's get those buds to fatten up! 🍆 💪 🍆💪🍆💪🍆

This fierce warrior princess is stacking like a dream and her colas are continuing to fill out. Went in and gave her a little defoliation.... This plant is SUPER sticky and smells incredibly sweet. The buds are dense and tightly packed. Still chugging along like a champ. 💪

This week I began to introduce the California Lightworks UVB bar to supplement my Solar System 550 LED. I initiated use by beginning with a 30 minutes on time in the middle of my day cycle. I have since been increasing by 30 minutes each day. This plant has a very sweet fruity fragrance. I smell an almost sweet and sour kind of fruit smell with pineapples - my sister smells more of a mango smell. I am really looking forward to see how this flavor profile develops as it cures after harvest! 😋 I was very fortunate that this plant topped out in height at EXACTLY the point where I can still maintain 36" of space from top of canopy to the lights. This should help me minimize light damage. 😎 This is literally the first time. I've gotten my canopy THIS under control! I'm pumped!!!! Here's to another good week! 💋

This lady is continuing to ripen under these supplemental UVB rays. The smell is so strong. Sweet fruit - but I'm still having trouble defining exactly which fruits. The buds are so very dense and super sticky. I cannot stop my hands from crawling up her skirt to pinch an under nug JUST so I can smell my fingers. 😋 Trichomes are clear and milky. Keeping a close eye on things! She's going to be a beast to harvest!

Just sitting back and letting her colas fatten up. The smell is delicious. Kind of a sweet and sour smell - like sour pineapples and cherries. I am adding a gallon of water to the reservoir every other day, sometimes 2 days in a row. Her trichomes are long and plentiful. Coming in on mostly cloudy with only few clear. Maybe a week left? Continuing with the UVB bulb. Current light settings are R39 W99 B99 for finishing. 💙

This exquisite beauty had another chillaxing week under the UVB fattening up her buds and trichomes with that good Voodoo Mama Juju. Her buds reeks of pineapple with cherry undertones that leave my fingers smelling incredibly delicious with every visit to the garden. She's got me acting like Mary Katherine Gallagher all damn day! 😂🤣😂🤣 I've more or less stopped feeding and have been just adding pHed water to the reservoir. Her trichomes are mostly milky, so we are approaching that sweet harvest window!