GREEN GELATO - ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS

arnau96 The people at Royal Queen Seeds kindly gifted me 25 Green Gelato seeds to try out and track. Although it's been a while since I got them, I haven't had the chance to plant them until now. Better late than never, right? RELEVANT INFORMATION: -Indoors, 1.2 x 1.2 m -Fertilizers I will use: Root Juice, BioGrow, BioBloom, TopMax, and Bioheaven from BioBizz, and Micro Vita from Top Crop in substrate. -Substrate: 100L of All Mix from BioBizz and 50L of Coco from BioBizz. -Preventatives: Neem oil, phosphoric soap (not potassium!), BT toxin, and for extreme cases, Abamectin. - 25 Green Gelato from Royal Queen Seeds in 1.5L pots during the vegetative stage and in 6L pots in the last week of vegetative and throughout flowering. -Lighting: it's a self-built panel combining 10 Citizen COBs (400w) and a 250W Quantum Board. I usually have plenty of light, but there are always strains that can handle more and do better with that much light, so it's always good to have extra and use it if needed. The COBs and the QB are adjustable with two potentiometers. So far, the girls are doing great. They all germinated at the same time, and with just 1 week of vegetative, they've already grown quite a bit; they look like they have a lot of potential. I've only watered twice with two coffee cups of water that sat for 24 hours, and everything is running smoothly. I'm lucky to have water with a perfect pH and hardness never above 0.25-0.3, which makes things MUCH easier for me. Besides, using soil as a substrate means I don't have to overthink things, especially when using organic fertilizers. With 25 plants in the cabinet, I don't plan on doing any pruning, but I will do some LST and staking. I hope everything continues to go as well. Any questions about lights or anything else, feel free to ask. (Next week I'll post a photo of the panel) Thank you very much.

arnau96 Well folks, these girls are going full throttle. By day 10, I already saw them quite big for the small pot they were in, so I transplanted them to their final 6L pot with 1/3 Coco and 2/3 AllMix from BioBizz. I sprinkled each root ball with MicroVita from TopCrop and watered them all with 0.5L of water that had been sitting for 24 hours, arranging them evenly in the 1.2x1.2 cabinet. I’d like to switch them to flowering at around 30cm, which I think will probably be in the 4th week. I have the light about 40cm away, giving around 250w and about 15-20k Lux (I know it’s not the proper way to measure LED light, but from my own experience, I know roughly the Lux levels the plants need with these LEDs). They are now 14 days since germination, and they look really good. While you can currently see some structural differences between the different plants, they are quite homogeneous. Later on, I hope to clearly see some phenos.

arnau96 Hey buddies, the girls are going strong and just keep growing. While you can already see phenotypic differences in terms of structure and size, we can maintain a fairly uniform height. The cabinet is already well filled and on average they are about 30cm tall. That's why tomorrow, a week earlier than planned, I will do a low pruning, taking a cutting from each plant and removing the largest leaves that are blocking good light penetration and air circulation without doing excessive defoliation. The nutrition will change, and I will add Bio-Bloom, Top-Max, and BioHeaven at the necessary concentrations. I should also mention that about 4 or 5 days ago I did a spray with Delta9 thinking I would change the photoperiod next week. That hasn't happened, but it's all good. When I change the photoperiod tomorrow, I will do a second application, and in 10 days, I will water with Delta9. I've been using Far Red for the last 3 days for 10 minutes when turning off the lights to promote stem elongation, and it has been noticeable. Additionally, the lighting system also has UV diodes that I use during the last 2 or 3 weeks.

arnau96 Hey folks, here I am with the post for the first week of flowering. As I said, right after switching to flowering, I removed the largest leaves and sprayed them with Delta9. As you can see in the description, I've added to the water mix: Bio-bloom, Bio-heaven, and Top-max all from BioBizz at the corresponding dosage. I've moved the light a bit closer, about 10cm or so, and I’m going to gradually increase the power as the weeks go by until the plants can tolerate it. I’ll try to raise it gradually until week 3. There’s 1 plant out of the 25 that has shown a calcium and/or magnesium deficiency. It’s weird since they all have the same substrate mix and I water them the same. Anyway, in the last watering, I added CalMag to the water and I hope the problem doesn’t spread since it’s only on one leaf. The plants have stretched a little but not much; they still have some time left to make that final stretch.

arnau96 Well folks, the plants are doing perfectly in their second week of flowering. They've stretched a bit more and are already starting to show pre-flowers. I've increased the dose of BioBloom as the manufacturer recommends in the second week, and I'm watering them with about 1L of solution every 2-3 days. I've lowered the humidity a bit and I'm managing to keep it between 45-50%, which I will lower as the flowering progresses. For now, they hardly smell at all, it's very subtle. I had to "supercrop" one of the plants because it was getting out of control, but other than that, the canopy is quite stable. There are noticeable differences as I mentioned, but nothing alarmingly excessive.

arnau96 Well, here we are in the 3rd week of flowering. The plants have stretched a bit more, but it seems like they have stopped. The plant that I had to "supercrop" has responded perfectly, and as expected, it’s even more vigorous now. It was in this 3rd week that I took all the plants out of the closet and gave them a good haircut: I removed the lower 1/3 of the plant (lollipopping) and all the large petiolate leaves from the main stem except for the two pairs that are more airy, and they responded perfectly. Now the airflow through the bottom of the grow is much better, and the plants will appreciate it a lot. This way, we also avoid moisture pockets that could cause us fungal problems. I have to say that the quality of the photos is what it is, I know. Normally, I have a DSLR for this, and you can see in my other finished diary that the quality is usually not like this. Right now, I don’t have the DSLR, and until this confinement we’re in is over, I won’t be able to fix this issue, I’m sorry. Well, these girls have me very intrigued; they look like they have a lot of potential with their stature and the pre-flowers that are fattening up.

arnau96 Hey folks. The girls are doing great and they're eating more each day, plus they're starting to give off a characteristic smell. Not much has changed except for the nutrient doses as per the manufacturer's instructions. Both humidity and temperature are staying in good ranges; it has rained for 4 days straight and the humidity has increased a bit, but everything is under control. For now, I can't see any more phenotypic differences aside from the structure of the plants themselves. I have to say that while there are differences (2 phenos so far) in size and branching between the seeds, there aren't any in the shape of the leaves and buds at the moment. Let's see how this goes.

arnau96 Hey guys, this week I had to use CalMag because I noticed more than one deficiency point, I didn't catch it very early and the problem spread a bit during the beginning of the week which caused some issues with nutrient absorption. By the end of the week, the plants were already doing much better. LEDs usually make plants consume a lot more CalMag than other lighting systems, but it also depends a lot on the genetics you use, so you have to pay close attention to that.

arnau96 Hey buddies, now the plants are giving off a very intense smell; when I open the cabinet, the house fills with a very pleasant sweet aroma. They keep eating a lot of CalMag, so I’m still setting it aside, and the girls are recovering; they’re almost perfect. Now I’m starting to see phenotypic differences in the shape of the buds, and I can clearly see two very different types of structures. I’ll show you in detail in next week’s post. It has rained for 5 days straight, and the humidity has increased a bit, but everything is under control; it’s been something anecdotal.