Winter Grow 2017

Oct 1 - 7 The night before planting my seeds I put them in ph neutral water to soak. planted into peat pellets the next day. kept in a humidity dome with a heat mat. First seed (THC Bomb) broke the surface of the soil after about 40 hrs. Final seed (Bubblegum) showed in less than 72 hrs. After there was about 1/2" of root showing out the bottom of the peat pellet they were planted into Solo cups using Happy Frog soil made by Fox-farms. This is my soil of choice and I use it pretty much exclusively. Plants remained in the humidity dome with the heat mat all week. lights were at about 36" above the dome and I placed a piece of paper over the top to diffuse the light. At the end of week 1 sprouts were a couple inches tall with no true leaves.

October 8 - 14 Week 2 shows relatively slow upward growth as the plants form roots. First true leaves have come in with just a hint of the second set. Watered 75 ml water per plant twice this week. Plants remain in the humidity dome. I removed the shade and heat mat for the second half of the week.

October 15 - 21 Plants are in full vegetative growth and have nice thick stems. Forgot to balance ph last week. I have very alkaline tap water (8.0 - 8.5 ph) plants show ph burn on many leaves. Removed the humidity dome at the beginning of the week. placed an oscillating fan on low aimed high so that it isn't blowing directly on the plants. By weeks end plants are needing water (75ml) on a daily basis. Leaves are slightly faded so I added a feeding near the end of the week. Split 1 gallon water with 20 ml Botaincare Bloom between all 9 plants. Time to transplant...

October 22 - 28 Transplanted from solo cups to 4" pots (1 quart). roots were growing around the sides of the pot and were trying to get out the drain holes. They looked healthy and white. Sorry I didn't think to get pictures. cut off cotyledon, leaves that were very close to the ground and leaves that were most damaged from ph burn. All plants remain relatively short with thick robust stems.

October 29 - November 4 Plants are showing steady upward growth but remain somewhat squat. Watering 150 ml water per watering. Watering daily by end of week, No nutrients added. Happy Frog soil tends to provide plenty of nutrients for Vegetative growth so I usually only feed a couple times before flowering.. Still only using 315 watt Philips CMH light at about 24'. Time to transplant...

November 5 - 11 Transplanted into 3.5 gallon pots. this will be the last re-potting. Added about 1 tbs Myco-Fusion, Green 150 (Mycorrhizal Fungi) around the roots of each plant. Topped each plant. Removed weak lower growth and enough of the lower fan leaves to provide for good airflow around the stems. I'm planning on having 4 to 8 growing tips on each plant since I am putting so many plants into such a small space. Also I try to select branches that will be at a relatively even height when I turn them over to flowering. Since I will be using LST (low stress training) and Super-Cropping later I don't worry too much about this at this point.

November 12 - 18 Two waterings this week. Watering 1 was 1 qt plain water. Watering 2 was 1 qt plain water followed by 1 qt water with Botanicare Pro Grow. Growth has been strong this week and the different strains are starting to show height differences: 00 Seeds Bubblegum = 11" - 12" Strain Hunters Afgooey = 8" - 11" Bomb Seeds THC Bomb = 11" - 13" Aside from the feeding pretty standard week...

November 19 - 25 Super-cropping Thursday; After stuffing myself with turkey, I've decided that it's time to super-crop. I find that I have best results when I do this between waterings. I remove all side growth below and the node above where I plan on making my bends. Choose a place where there is a fair amount of space between nodes but not too far down. New growth tends to be delicate, crispy and tends to snap easily. Older growth is woody, difficult to crush and will break when you try to bend it. Pinch the branch between your fingers, gradually applying more pressure while gently rolling the branch back and forth. You will be able to feel the fibers inside the branch crush and separate. do this until the branch will lay over from its own weight. Don't force the plant to bend as this is how most breaks occur. If it doesn't want to lay over work your way up and down the branch a bit and it will. If I break a branch (and I do) I just cut the whole branch off and move on to the next one. I got lucky today and only broke one branch on nine plants. I have raised my light as far as it will go to reduce stress on my plants while they recover but will drop them back down to around 18" in a day or two. By Saturday Plants are beginning to recover nicely and I have lowered the light back to 18". At this point I will use twist tie to apply low stress training to the growing tips that are growing tallest. I mostly use this technique to maintain an even canopy. I have heard many people advise not to use wire twist tie for this because it can cut into your plants. I make sure to make large loose loops where it is wrapped around the branch and have never had any problems with it. Use at your own risk. If you aren't comfortable with wire use green vinyl stretch tape.

November 26 - December 2 Switched lights over to flowering on Monday. In preparation I removed all my plants from my tent, vacuumed it out with a canister vacuum then sprayed it down, inside and out with hydrogen peroxide. This works to sanitize and sterilize the grow area. When using sprayers with liquids make sure that all electronic devises are off and unplugged until they have dried completely. Liquids and electricity don't mix. Expensive equipment can be destroyed and shocks can be lethal. 👉The easiest way to deal with pests and mildew is to avoid getting them in the first place and the best way to do this is to keep your grow area clean always. I did a significantly more thorough cleaning to my entire garage immediately before starting my plants. Don't forget that cuttings sitting in a wastebasket are an invitation to pests and mildew. I am now running a 315 watt ceramic metal halide from 10:00 till 6:00 and a 600 watt HPS from 1:00 till 10:00. This gives a 5 hour overlap with both lights. I am running lights at night since my grow is in the garage and I prefer to avoid running the heat out there if possible. I continue to remove all new side growth and will continue to do so until plants have started the stretch. I get tired of trimming and try to avoid getting a bunch of larfy popcorn buds. Since I grow as a hobby and not for profit I don't mind a little loss in yield if it makes my life a lot easier at trim time. 😎 I also use LST on branches that grow significantly higher than others to try to maintain a relatively even canopy. I do this for each plant individually and put shorter plants near the center and taller plants to the outside. Be careful when tying branches back It is easy to forget the branch you tied down on the other side of the plant and the combined pressure can be enough to split the stem of your plant. On the first day of the flowering light cycle I watered each plant with a quart of solution mixed: 1 gallon water - 13 ml Botanicare Pro Bloom Soil - 1/2 tsp unsulphered Molasses. If using Molasses for the first time be aware that it MUST be UNSULPHERED BLACKSTRAP MOLASSES. Plantation is the brand of choice. I get mine on Amazon. I expect to do one or two more waterings this week with 1/2 gallon of plain water per plant per watering. Happy growing. 😀

December 3 - December 9 Plants are growing quite vigorously as they start the stretch. Nice knots have formed from the super-cropping. These knots will allow the plants to store, produce and move more nutrients than they would under normal conditions prompting stronger, more vigorous growth. I continue to remove new side growth early this week but after this will start leaving most of the new growth and will only remove growth which is noticeably weak. Trying to maintain an even canopy I continue to wire tall growing branches. As flowering continues the plants will become woodier and this will no longer be a viable option. I have noticed that one of the Bubblegum plants is growing viney and lanky. At this point it doesn't look like it will be much of a producer. Also one of the THC Bombs is growing quite slow and stunted. As space becomes tight in my grow tent these will be prime candidates for culling. For now I am keeping them though, as I have been surprised to have some of my of the poorest growing plants really take off later into flower.

December 3 - December 9 Easy week. Watered with a moderate strength nutrient solution. removed some foliage to allow for good air flow. At this point I have stopped removing new side growth. In a couple weeks or so I will remove some of the weaker growth but I have pretty much finished with the major pruning. I had a small amount of light burn on a couple of leaves so I raised the lights a few inches. Aside from this plants appear very healthy and green.