Beginner's Big Bud & BCN Critical XXL

Hello everyone!This is my first grow from an autoflower seed which I ordered online and it safely arrive by mail in 8 days! I am using coco coir mix 50/50 with perlite. I can't find any of the fertilizers like Advanced. GHE and so on, so I've decided to try mixing my own nutes via recipes found by other growers and so far (I've tested it on my outdoor plants) it's working good. Have not started nuting the seedlings yet, probably in a day or two while trying to maintain the PPM below 400 & PH below 6.5 Will put in more photos once I have it,wish me luck! 😁

Week 2, Day 10: all 5 seedlings has emerged from the coco that I've prepared.Most of them are between 6-9cm tall and 4 true leaves has appeared. Been feeding my self made nutrients equivalent to the GH main 3 Floral Series. The coco that I have bought is from a 5.5kg block which i buffered with Calmag solution of 150% strength and left overnight for 8+ hours. The girls seems healthy and happy at the moment however I have read some reviews that these 2 strains BCN Critical XXL & Big Bud XXL are not hard to care for and mostly forgiving on the nutes. I always ensure that my PH levels are within par of 5.5-6.5 & the recommended PPM according to the feeding schedule of GH label instruction which is between 300-400 ppm. The other 3 plants are Landrace Sativas which I grew earlier and 2 has been given LST (Low Stress Training) back 5 days ago and I noticed that the smaller leaves are thriving into bigger fan leaves and thicker branches! I overdid the 1st plant which seem to be slightly overbent including the main stem which quickly recovered and healed overtime. these plants are really amazing to watch them grow. I will be transplanting the 5 autoflowers into a 5 gallon pot in another day or 2,until then happy growing! 😸

Day 20 Did some LST on the Landrace as the smaller shoots are racing up. Nute them Veg and looking good. Measured the runoff it was 183 ppm and PH at 6.2 The 5 autoflowers are ok no sign of deficiency except for 1, its still on its 2nd node growth while the others are o n the 4th node now. Anyone can advice what I should do to make its lilleaf to sprout out?

Its been Day 28 since seed for the autoflowers, they seem to be fine & growing bushier everyday. So far the 2 autos that I LSTed seem to be growing faster in term of new leaf development and size, in comparison to the plant that was left alone without any Training applied. I have only LSTed and the 2 plants that look like mainlining was an actual growth from seedling forming a Y-fork during node 2. The landrace on Day 50 seem to have been growing immersely and you know these babies will grow into a 12 foot bush if grown outdoors. The undergrowth seem to have taken over the top which I place under LST and I can see potential cola growth there.

Its Day 33 and the autos have already showing pistils on the side of the new growth mainly starting from the top colas. I am still waiting for the rest of the 3 landrace to begin showing signs of flowering, they are wild grown seeds after all and I don't think the changes in light schedule to 12-12 will trigger its flowering. Everything looks good the leaves are healthy, except for slight nute burn on 1 of the autos. I have also started the mycorrizhal fungi feed into the coco of the 4 autos just to experiment with it. probably by the time the fungi inoculate with the roots it is already week 3 into flowering. I just slowly poke in 4 holes using a chopstick, slowly insert it into the soil approximately 3-4 inches away around the main stem, then unload some of the fungi into the holes,cover in back and just lightly water around it. I have also been using a DIY Co2 generator using sugar + yeast. Does anyone here use it and yield better results? I don't have an air ppm device so I won't know how much CO2 was generated...to be continued

Day 44 and its flowering time babies! most of the vegetation growth is slowing down although these 3 days i seem to have recorded approximately 2-3 inches upwards growth and 1 has already reach 30 inches tall. I'm trying to control the temperature between 73-86 F just to experiment with its end yield. 1 plant born with 2 colas which is the BCN XXL is showing much potential, so far there is around 16 bud sites developing. meanwhile the landrace are still vegging to my despair, will continue to monitor them closely once their sex has been determined.

Day 54 I finally found the bugs! it was a small group of Springtails that invaded my grow tent. found them lurking below the pot pans,jumping mad when i was trying to remove them. Initially I thought they were fleas but after some research, yes those are indeed Springtails. Everything is doing fine for the girls, they are not showing any signs of deficiency, the runoffs are pretty reasonable showing 900PPM which I am happy, the plants are being fed well, healthy. Next is to boom the bloom within these 3 weeks 😸

Day 60 For all the autos growing well, buds are getting thicker, trichomes are forming on the sugar leafs. I would give it another 21 days to maximise its bud growth. The PPM for my nutes are at 500-650 each feed(every 2-3 days), while the run off has been quite consistent at 750-780 PPM. Experiencing no nute burn or any other problems. Growing weed takes a lot of patience and attention, and during this pandemic of Covid 19, one will need to have these virtues to keep sane as well. I'm lucky to have a hobby during lockdown or my sanity would pose a challenge if not for these plants.

Day 67 Some of the pistils are browning, don't have a magnifying glass to verify the trichomes color. Will go for browning of pistils at least 80% before final flush and harvest.

Are they ready for harvest? The calyx are browning around 50%, the trichomes are still clear,not cloudy or amber yet. May need to wait another 1-2 weeks, commencing flush for 14 days