Northern Light x Big Bud autoflower

Week 1 day 3 and 4 after germination. I keep **Dulcinea** under cold led light 24 hours straight, when the main lights are off, she gets light from a led Bulb 10 W that was placed 20 cm from her, the other lights are more than 1 m high. Thta's her permanent source of light. She looks good. When I look at her so tiny I really have to think of her size when I'd be harvesting her. One seed had geminated before this one but I saw her very weak and my intuition told me to get rid of her, so I aborted that seedling. Regarding the actual seedling, hope to have a good yield from her in the near future, that's the reason I chose this strain from Weedseeds Express, as they claimed her to be a high yielder. Plans that I have for her: topping, main lining and defoliation. Ideally, I would like to keep her indoors, but if needed I'll take outdoors if she grows big and/or I lack space. Regarding fertilization, I always go low on them, with any strain not only for economy's sake because I fertigate every day and the amounts add up and the expenses in the end are considerable, but also to avoid getting salts building up and ultimately burning her roots. She had some issues opening cotyledons after sprouting, I saw with the loupe that there was an adherence that prevented them from opening so the apical growth tip couldn't get light. She had been two days in that situation and I had to separate the coties in a surgical way using a sewing needle. I think the scar of the procedure can be seen in one photo. A challenging start with this one, for the record. Fertigation: twice a day until a young mature plant, then (preferably) once a day- the numbers are; Inflow TDS 310 ppm pH 58 run-off TDS 282 ppm (these numbers are the average of the two fertigation events of the day).

The lady is growing very nicely. I see she's very vigorous. Twice a day she has a fertigation with start fertilizer, Cal-Max and root excelurator. Inflow: 330 ppm. run off 330 ppm. She gets an adequate flush with fertigation solution every time. Friday, 14 02 2020 as usual, two fertigations a day, inflow is 350 ppm and I get the same number in the run-off . Dulcinea is a strong girl! Sunday, 16 02 2020 the difference in vigor between this specimen from the strain (NLBB) and other specimen ( Auto Pink Grapefuit, a different strain) is clearly seen from the pics of the day, APG im my reduced experience is strong and vigorous strain, but this one has surpassed her very well!

Today 24 02 2020 she was topped up to her third node when she had reached five nodes, the fertilizer was changed to another with a more appropiate formulation for growth, and she's responded well to the fertigation solution EC Inflow TDS is 350 ppm, a little flush wtih the fertigation solution until TDS in run-off is similar to TDS in the inflow solution. I see this way salt built up can be prevented well, and it's not more expensive if using small containers. 25 01 2020 she recoverd very weel from topping, today it was successfully transplanted to her final container, I know topping autoflowers is anathema to most growers, but since I'm having lately large plants, topping them if I see they're growing vigorously is mandatory. Besides, I've had bad results transplanting auto's in only few cases and growing in soil, when the roots ge damaged because of clay like soils. With coco/perlite this is usually not the case. Eventually I see she looks as she has never realized she was transplanted. Fertigation was changed from today on to one event a day. I started LST in order to make her lower shoots grow higher. Besides, the upper ones were too close to each otyher, so with LST I spread them apart and get two benefits in one move.

New week and I'm very satisfied so far with this strain because so far she shows great vigor and very promising final size for an autoflower, I hope she continues to grow at these rates! She's very tolerant to medium or moderate concentration (550+ ppm inflow, similar figures in runoff) and daily fertigation (coco coir/perlite). She looks a very healthy sturdy bitch, very tolerant also (and very well responsive) to topping and LST. 12/03/2020 she's curently on a fertigation solution containing GROW fertilizer, 0.5g/L (quite a strong concentration but she seems to tolerate very well) and inflow concentration 460 ppm. I removed some low little branches and left 4 main shoots in the manifold. I spray foliar fertilizer (350 ppm) because soon she'll be developing preflowers, and this foliar treatment is for transition. She's a powerful lady, I'm eager to see her buds. 14 3 2020 she's stretching nicely, soon She'll be showing her preflowers, I guess. 15 03 2020 A little defoliation, removing some leaves.

I was fertigating her too heavilty on N and I started to see the claw, not dark green colored leaves yet but the clawed points of fan leaves were themselves very explicit, so I changed the fertilizer to one more adequate (hig in N but suitable for flowering) since she's showing signs of sexual maturity, I guess she'll start her preflowers soon. She's growing very strongly so I won't wait for the flowering stretch, I'm doing HST right now because the two taller shoots are somewhat taller than the others. Also, I'm defoliating her a bit, she's got many big fan leaves that obstruct light to the budding tips. A couple hours after supercropping, and she's totally recovered.

Whoa this one is very strong and grows a lot, and I fear she may stretch like hell as soon as she starts flowering. She's already in transition, so I'll see if I dont have to take on any severe measure to prevent her from reaching beyond-the-lights heights 🙏 Since I use this grow room for early vegetation and autoflowering plants, She's having a 24 /0 light schedule in this way: 18 hours 400 W, 6 hours 100 W. I hope this one starts to flower soon and that she won't take over the room before stopping flowering stretch. With these autoflowering plant I did almost all techniques together (Except FIMming and ScroG)

12 04 2020 I moved her to the grow room I use for photoperiodic plants, since she is very big and I have trouble keeping her in her original tent, throwing shadows on her little sisters i keep there. I'm positive she'll be better here in this new room. I see the onset of Nitrogen deficiency, for some leaves show the dreaded claw, despìte I think it's the strain that causes the dark green coloration of the leaves, since I always saw her this dark color. Though, I also see she's susceptible to daily fertigation with those low amounts of fertilizer because of the occurrence of the claw. I put the solution strenght to 460 ppm (inflow) and I'll keep it for a week or two to see if there's any visual difference. On the other hand I don't want to go very low on nutrients since she's in flowering and I dont wanna risk the bud size for underfertilizing her.

I like this strain, so far she's shown herself a strong ( and smelly ) girl, I started to fertilize her with a lower strength solution (463 ppm) and as I have doing with her since she got to be a big Mrs., I fertigate her evry other day.

22 04 2020 Buds are ripening fast and covering themselves with delicious trichomes, at the bare eye some of them look frosty. I'm guessing that in a few weeks, say 4 +/- 1 weeks , she'll be ready (btw, I never had a keen eye for working out harvest time). I had pinched the top of some buds and I see a difference in the shape and fattening of those that I pinched, compared against those that I didn't. I added some pictures where one can see that and judge from him/herself, pinching bud at first hurts but it is rewarding if one does it at a proper time. 24 04 started fertilization with added PO4. The plan is to use PK boost for two weeks, every other day with fertigations.

Buds are ripening real fast, most thricomes are still transparent but I see that some of them are already getting cloudy/translucent. On thursday it'll be one week from starting PK boost, and I intend to go on with this treatment for one more week and then the final flush (2 weeks, luckily). The seller says the flowering time is 60-65 days and I don't think it will take any more than that to be ready. Buds are incredibly coated in thricomes, and they are incredibly dense as well. I love this rock hard nuggets! pinched busd outstand from non pinched ones, but I dont know whether pinching the main nugget of the shoot fattens that particular one has effect or not on the lower buds.

Last week pf PK boost, this shit has done pretty well on the fattening and the packing on weight of buds, which look astonishing, the densest buds I've had for a while. I really love the yield and aspect of buds.

I started flushing on Tuesday 5. I intend to flush for at least a week, just plain tapwater pH 7,4. Buds won't get any more weight, they're solid rock and perhaps most thricomes are still not ready yet but I won't delay harvesting, because buds are very dense and the weather is humid,so there's always risk of last moment infections and pests...since this strain seems a little prone to fungus, I'll speed up harvest before I get bud rot or something that spoils these absolutely awesome thick buds. I've seen traces of powdery mildew ocassionally and removed that material, even a little bud wihich was in contact with the white powdery sh*t. 13 05 2020 I see powdery mildew occurring seemingly randomly on leaves, I've been removing the infected material, tomorrow I'd have flushed for a week so I'll start cutting off and putting to dry. 14 05 2020 Harvest! (before powdery mildew takes over those beatiful buds, I saw that leaves were being day by day increadingly infected by the powdery sh*t) 16 05 2020 buds are drying fine and so far since the powdery mildew was very incipient, there's no sign that it may have infected the big buds (although there had been a couple lower buds that were starting to become taken over by the fungus and I threw the away.

I've had a very good experience with this strain. The plant may require topping for it shows a tendency to become quite large for indoor tents. She's not a heavy feeder and may show toxicity to nitrogen/nute burn so it is advisable to go low on nutes. I observed that she has a tendency to develop powdery mildew in mildly humid environments (50-70 % RH). She responds very well to high stress training, topping supercropping and of course LST. The ratio bud/leaves is awesome the very best, for those who dislike trimming a little bit, this is the strain! Definitely I'll grow her in the future.