Sour Stomper / Blue Light Special / 4AM

First grow - I've waited 18 years for the opportunity to do this! Feel free to leave comments and suggestions 3 plants in a 32" x 32" x 63" Vivosun grow tent (hoping this won't be too many plants for the space). Mephisto Genetics - Sour Stomper and 4 Assed Monkey Night Owl Seeds - Blue Light Special Chose these three strains because they will be short (60-90cm) but have high yields Growing in coco coir 70% / perlite 30% in 3 gal fabric pots (rinsed and buffered coco overnight with calmag, rinsed perlite well) Lights: Spider Farmer SF-2000 202w LED Air: AC Infinity 6" inline fan, Phresh 6x24" carbon filter, AC infinity ducting Nutrients: Just RO water for this first week. Later weeks will be using Greenleaf Nutrients Mega Crop, Sweet Candy, Bud Explosion, Real Grower's Recharge, Blue Planet Nutrients CalMag. Water: Aquatic Life RO Buddie 3 stage system - fairly cheap on amazon and easy to connect to our utility sink faucet 3/6/2020 - Started germination of seeds using Mephisto method (seeds in moist paper towel in dvd case, placed in warm area) 3/7/2020 - Seeds placed tail-down in moist rapid rooters, in jiffy germination tray 3/10/2020 - 4AM seed dampened off, so I re germinated another one 3/12/2020 - looking good, helmets off

Feeding this week at 1g/gal Mega Crop (1/8 tsp), 1 mL/gal Cal Mag, 1 feeding this week had 1g/gal Sweet Candy and 1g/gal recharge (1/8 tsp) 3/17 - Basement room has 30% RH, so I added a humidifier to bring it up to 45-50

On 3/23, I noticed the Sour Stomper had very slight yellowing between the veins, purple stems, slight clawing. I am thinking this might be a magnesium and/or other nutrient deficiency, as my feedings have been fairly low to this point (1g/Gal mega crop + 1 mL/gal calmag) and pH was a little low for good magnesium absorption (5.5-5.8). In addition to that, coco coir grows are known to need extra calmag. I was only using 1 mL calmag per gallon, and since it was RO water my ppms were very low to begin with. Adding 2 mL calmag to a gallon of RO water brings it up to 110 base ppm. I changed up my feeding after this to 2-3g/gal mega crop, 1g/Gal sweet candy, 2.5 mL calmag. Will feed recharge once this week at 1/2 tsp per gallon. I was also concerned about light stress since my Spider Farmer SF2000 was at full factory power and only 32" away from the plants. I dimmed it down to 2/3 power and raised it slightly. 3/28/20 update - It looks like the extra megacrop, recharge, calmag, and raising the lights helped with the issue I was having. Plants look much greener and happier. Started LST today on Sour Stomper and Blue Light Special. Going to wait a few more days on the 4AM. I'm hoping the LST isn't going to make the plants too wide as I'm working with 3 plants in a 32"x32" tent. 3/31/20 - Plants looking great health-wise and I'm amazed at the effects of LST and leaf tucking after just a few days, looking like they'll have nice flat canopies. Feel free to leave any suggestions or comments on my LST job

4/2/2020 - Plants responded really well to the first round of LST a few days ago. Took some time today to pin them down again and do more leaf tucking. * Blue Light Special is looking very robust. Green and bushy with broad leaves and thick stems. When bending one of the larger main middle stems for LST, I snapped it a bit halfway across the stem - hopefully that will recover. * Sour Stomper is training really nicely. Branches bend easily and I feel like the canopy is going to be really even with a lot of tops. * 4 Assed Monkey is healthy and LST has been easy so far. Still a bit smaller than the others since it was 4 days behind. I'd like to get some airflow on these plants, so I am having someone 3D print a grow tent fan bracket for me (someone designed and posted the 3d files last week on reddit) The subreddit where I found someone to 3d print the part: reddit.com/r/3dprintmything The thingaverse link for the 3d printed grow tent fan bracket: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4236270 The bracket was designed for Holmes 8-inch lil blizzard oscillating fan, but I think it would work for some other brands. 4/5/2020 - Plants looking good overall, starting to grow faster as they move into pre-flower.

4/7/2020 - Letting the coco dry out a bit more between watering. Still feeding with 3.5g/gal MC, 1g/gal sweet candy, 2.5 mL/gal calmag, and pH adjusted to 5.9-6.2 ish. Plants seem happy and are putting on more growth. The tent is starting the smell slightly skunky and gassy when opened. Finally installed the 3D printed fan bracket to get some oscillating airflow. The subreddit where I found someone to 3d print the fan bracket: reddit.com/r/3dprintmything The thingaverse link for the 3d printed grow tent fan bracket: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4236270 4/9/2020 - Lots of growth this week. I did some very light defoliation, just a few fan leaves per plant. Mainly leaves that were covering bud sites near the top, and a few leaves close to the coco coir. Also did a small amount of LST on each and the usual leaf tucking every day. 4/12/2020 - Just normal light leaf tucking the past few days. I am happy overall with the cola spacing but the plants are really really bushy. I have a fan oscillating on them now but I am thinking I might need to defoliate a little to help with airflow once the cola's start growing.

4/14/2020 - Adding Bud Explosion this week, starting out with less than 1/4 tsp per Gal and will work up to 1.5g per Gal. Mega Crop is being fed at 4g/Gal for now. 4/17/2020 - Due to the negative pressure in my tent, the sides were sucking in causing me to lose like 30% of my space. I bent some thick coat hangers onto the side poles of the tent and opened up the air intake a bit more. Problem solved. I'm really happy with the growth and bud formation this week. Tent is starting to smell great 😍

4/20/20 - Happy Holidays! 4/22/20 - Dropped the MC from 4g to 3.5g / Gal. Now adding 1-1.5g / Gal bud explosion and 0.8-1 g / Gal SC. Since I'm making this solution with RO water, I find I need about 10 drops of pH Up to bring it to 6.1-6.2 pH. If I add Recharge I find that I don't need to change pH much, if at all. 4/24/20 - Up until now I've only taken a few leaves from each plant every week. Today I decided to do some moderate defoliation to open up the plants and let airflow and light lower into the plant. I have seen some heavy defoliation recommended by some on Youtube, but since this is my first grow I decided to go a bit easier. I took maybe 20-25 fan leaves and small bottom branches from each plant, mainly from the bottom 1/3 of the plant, and some bigger leaves near the top that were blocking light that would go to a bud site. 4/26/20 - Buds and leaves starting to get some frost!

4/29/20 - The trichomes have been spreading up the leaves and buds are getting bigger. Plants are still growing in height but starting to slow. Blue Light Special has had the fastest flower growth with significantly larger buds at the moment compared to Sour Stomper. 4 Assed Monkey is 5 days behind and looks about the same density as the SS, though the Sour Stomper is the tallest and widest plant of the three.

5/8/20 - Buds are getting bigger and denser every day and building lots of frost. I'm guessing anywhere from 2-4 weeks left until harvest Sour Stomper has a strong sweet grape candy scent that dominates the tent. Pretty much exactly as others have described it - red grape and sour patch kids 4 Assed Monkey is supposed to smell grapey but not getting that yet. Something like lemon pledge citronella and pine. Since it was started five days behind the others, 4AM still has a little catching up to do. Hoping it's ready for harvest around the same time as the others Blue Light Special has an awesome gassy blueberry smell, and some element that reminds me of durban poison and jack herer. This plant continues to have the fastest/largest bud growth of the three. In the past week, I've noticed a blue/purple color forming on the bud tips and bud leaf edges

5/14/20 - Buds are getting bigger on all three plants and the tent is getting pretty packed. Pistils are about 25% orange now and I'm starting to see a few amber trichomes here and there. Blue Light Special (Night Owl Seeds) - Continues to be the healthiest, fastest growing, and has the biggest buds of the three. The colas are huge on this plant, at least soda can circumference at this point. Getting less durban poison smell now with stronger blueberry and fruity notes. 4 Assed Monkey (Mephisto) - Starting to smell a little different recently. The citrus/pine is still there but less intense and now I'm getting something like ripe melon and grape. Buds have fattened up on this plant a lot this week, but it still has some catching up to do since it was started 5 days later than the other two. Sour Stomper - The grape candy terps on this plant are ridiculous, it smells so good I can't wait

5/20/20 - Probably going to harvest some time this week, Blue Light Special and Sour Stomper are ready for the chop today but the 4 Assed Monkey needs a little more time. Since I'm going to be drying in this tent, I may end up harvesting the 4AM a bit early. Discovered some purple trichomes along the leaf edges on the Blue Light Special. This plant has some really cool looking buds, can't wait to see how they look after cure. I've read conflicting things about flushing so I'm going to take an intermediate approach my first run and just taper the nutrients. Past few days I have been lowering ppm from ~750 to 500 and I'll water with ~300 ppm today until chop.

Harvested on day 71 (this plant started 5 days behind the other two). I would have let it go another week but the other two plants were ready to chop. I'll probably get a separate drying tent set up in the future to avoid this problem. 4 Assed Monkey was easy to grow and the buds filled in a lot during the final two weeks. Smells like pine and citronella, limonene, kind of skunky. Final dry bud weight was 104g / 3.7 oz

Harvested on day 76. Blue Light Special has an awesome gassy blueberry smell, and some element that reminds me of durban poison and jack herer. Definitely the healthiest and fastest growing of the three strains in this grow and had really nice fat colas that were easy to trim. The most mature buds had a dark blue/purple color on the bud tips and bud leaf edges which leached into the trichomes near the end. Total dry bud weight from this plant was 124g / 4.4 oz.

Harvested on day 76. Really great smelling strain - strong red grape and sour patch kids scent dominated the tent throughout the grow. The colas were dense and frosty, and were easy to trim. Total dry bud weight from this plant was 141g / 5 oz