By continuing to use the website or clicking Accept you consent to our cookies and personal data policy and confirm that you are at least 18 year old. For details please see Privacy Policy and Terms
Some potassium deficiency due to the cold causing brown spots. Turned up the heat and increased the nutrients to the middle of their recommended value, and minor nitrogen toxicity now evident... Can't win in this weather!
Reduced the feed strength a bit more as there were signs of excess nutrients
Not much sign of bud formation at the end of the week :( Temperature outside has plummeted again
Back to sub-zero outside temps, although the girl is shooting up at nearly an inch a day. Google suggests this is the stretch phase, so quite normal. Still worrying as the grow tent is only limited height, so can't keep this growth up for more than 3 weeks.
No sign of significant pistils yet, but they are starting to form, I'll hope it's just the cold slowing her down a bit.
Increased the feed slightly.. Still only half of the minimum recommended by the feed company :-
It took weeks to find the level where the leaves weren't clawing... At least for my second grow it'll be fairly spot on for the nutrient levels from day 1.
Did some mild defoliation to remove manky lower fan leaves and micro-bud sites from the lower 6" of the plant, and removed 2 big fan leaves from near the top that were blocking some of the higher bud sites
It's almost at the point where I'm not getting run-off from 2l of water. I might up the watering to 3l per 2 days as it gets bigger
Nice buds forming at last :-)
The vicious growth also seems to have abated somewhat, towards the end of the week
Increased the watering to 3l every 2 days as the runoff at 2l was minimal.
Reduced the nutrient strength slightly, as leaf tips were curling down. Think I have it pretty much dialled in now for strength.
Buds are thickening up nicely..
Very slight upwards curl appearing on the upper leaves. I can safely say it's not heat! doesn't look like Mg deficiency either. Possible slight nutrient burn, as it's been borderline that way for most of the grow.
Upwards growth has stopped completely now
One of the lower fan leaves, a really old gnarly one, is showing signs of phosphorus deficiency, but as it's only the one leaf I'll put it down to the flowering
Bud is fattening up nicely compared to the same time last week
I have tweaked the feed down slightly, as it's still showing signs of over-feeding. Will see how that goes this week... I put it back up to 1ml/l for the second feed of the week..
Added 1ml/l of PK Spike to the feed on Friday
Next week will probably be flush... then harvest :)
Week 7 of flowering, although it looks a long way off being ready to harvest. Basically no orange pistils yet. The top bud has an orangey hue to them under certain light, but I think it's because it's closest to the bulb. No other bud has any sign of orange yet
Sensi say flowering is 6.5-7 weeks, so I'll put the slowness down to the cold..
Speaking of which, another week of sub-zero temperatures :-
Week 8 of flowering for a strain supposed to take 6.5-7 weeks. The first few pistils on a few buds are starting to turn brown now, but it's only 1-2% of them so far.
I really want it to hurry up so I can germinate its successor!
Week 9 of flowering! I've dialled the nutrients back a bit, probably in line with the strength I'll feed the next grow throughout.
I've also upped the heating slightly - it was maturing so slowly I think it needs the heat. And we're forecast snow again next week. Awesome..
On the plus side, the pistils are slowly turning orange. Some of the smaller buds are now 20-30% orange.
I've just got a jewellers loupe with a 60x magnification, and I can see the trichromes are all still clear.
A lot of the leaf tips are curling up at the ends, even those that have clawed down due to overfeeding early on..
It's definitely not heat stress. They're getting plenty of Cal-Mag, and show no other magnesium deficiency signs. I'm at a loss...
So, it feels like week 98... But it's actually just week 15.
I raised the light up the final click on the ratchet pulleys, as the top leaves are showing a bit of light stress, and the top of the cola is just sprouting new white pistils.
It's also flush week!!!
A really good inspection through the magnifying loupe shows a few of the trichromes on the side buds are going amber, and most of the rest could be cloudy - but I've got no real experience yet. The main cola seems mostly cloudy, there could be some amber lower down, but I'll keep an eye on it over the next few days.
The pistils are also mostly light orange on the sides of the main cola, apart from the very top, which is doing its best to mislead me by staying bright white. I think it's been just a tiny bit too close to the light.
I'll flush it for at least 3 days, maybe more, see how it goes, and maybe harvest towards the weekend all being well
This is all as the Russian weather appears, bringing overnight temps of -6c, which is about 20f I believe.. Going to be difficult to dry her out. I might end up with a giant sticky frozen lollipop.
5 days of drying has yielded 67g of dry weight. 27g from the cola and top buds, and 40g from the small buds and popcorn...
It's just about dry enough to smoke, but definitely on the damper side of dry.
Still, that's a good 2oz of nice dry weight :-)
Apart from the cola, the smaller buds are all very airy.
So my first grow was a bit of a learning curve... Some of the main points I picked up for next time:
- Don't overwater it as a seedling. It will stunt the growth.
- Move to a bigger pot sooner, as it gets root-bound in a little tiny pot very quickly
- Put it under a full strength light as soon as it's able - don't mess about with 15w bulbs for too long.
- Don't let the plant get cold! They don't like 20f temps..
- Only water when it needs it
- Don't put too much feed in.. if the leaflet says 40ml/10l, use about 10ml/10l, or less
- Use a PK booster from week 2 of flowering onwards
- A more powerful bulb would have been ideal in these temps. a 300w HPS for example.
- Don't flush it every day during the flush, every other day is fine
- Wear disposable gloves to trim it.. :-/00
@biggreens420, It'll be another seed of the same strain. This is my first grow, so I haven't messed about with anything, just let it grow naturally and pulled off a few fan leaves. Basically figuring out the basics, and learning what not to do!
For the next one I'll probably try topping and LST to see if the yield increases. I'll definitely feed it less, and try to defoliate a bit more. The weather might be on my side by then too.
Cheers, it's been a nightmare battling the -7c outside temps, and getting the feed balance right with the weird cold behaviour. She's growing upwards nicely now though
@biggreens420, I was trying to heat my shed with an electric radiator... the heat just disappeared. She started growing better when I moved the radiator inside the tiny tent, and turned down the fan extracting the heat. It stays really warm in there now, but there's just enough airflow to prevent condensation and mould.
That's in addition to a tube heater directly under the pot, which is raised slightly on some timber.
@Truro, My light is red spectrum. I vegged and bloomed with it. If I was going to run 2 lamps together, I'd use both red spectrum, as it would probably be the best option for yield. But for a small tent one 300w lamp should be plenty
My tent is only 0.8 x 0.8 x 1.6. With topping and early flowering it should be possible to keep the plant a lot shorter
I've got no problem with heat... I've got a 50 gallon water drum outside collecting rain water. It's frozen solid tonight! That's 50 gallons of ice! :-o I'm having to burn an 1kw oil filled radiator inside the tent to stop the poor girl from freezing
@Jerboa, it looks like its doing a fine job. your bud structure is top notch, getting really good penetration all round. what do you think about a small grow tent (0.5x0.5x1) with a 300W 6500K as well as a 300W 2700K CFL? Was wondering if having both veg and bloom lights on at once would help with yield. Im sure the limitting factor would be combined heat output but say that could be dealt with - reckon its worth a try?
@Truro, Since it stopped growing upwards, I've had the lamp about an inch off the top of the cola. Before that, it was 3-4 inches. My CFL is about 10 years old, so I'm highly suspicious of it's lumen output. Still, it's made some bud!
Looks beautiful mate. I hope you've read up on trimming and manicuring, you've got quite a job ahead of you with that many buds! Great growing, wish you the best of luck with the next one. I'll be doing Creme de la Chem after easter (;
@biggreens420, Thanks, I had my doubts over the bulb - it's at least 10 years old, and nobody seems to rate CFL over LED or HPS, but it's doing the business! I'll definitely use some bloom booster for the follow-up though.
I might see if I can get a small HPS to use for flowering next time, if the bulbs are cheap enough and fit my reflector.
@biggreens420, The next grow is germinating as we speak :-) I'll start the diary in a few days - going to fill the space with 2 plants this time, I hope
Starting to get that golden glow a bit, good luck on the flush. You going to wait to harvest till the plant starts fading as it eats itself? I think you have to keep the temps warmer for it to properly dry, I've read at least 60F, but with no experience myself I'll be watching to see how it goes for you, good luck!
@TheMachinist, I'd like to see a bit of leaf fading before I harvest, but the leaves are so dark I don't know if that'll happen.. We'll see in a few days I guess :)
I'm loving my cold temps, otherwise my 1000W running at 1200W would require an A/C just to cool the hood lol. Then again I have a whole insulated tiny house to put my grow tent inside, with baseboard heaters.
@TheMachinist, I'm considering some sort of tent insulation for my next grow. The problem I face then is sucking enough airflow to prevent condensation/mould, while keeping enough heat in to keep the heating bills low! The building it's in is a bit too big to retain any heat, but it does keep the frost off. Roll on the summer :-)
More light is an obvious solution too, more heat as a by-product is a bonus in this weather 👍 Paying for heat with no light is just wasted cash..
@420_liquidsun, True, more yield is tempting, but I'll see how this grow pans out, and whether it's enough to keep me happy... Which basically means whether it runs out before the next grow finishes ;-)
The CFL is really easy to manage, it's cool, no ballast, and I already had it so it didn't cost anything.
It is -2c out there tonight though, so some extra heat might not be a bad thing..
Jerboa
