CBD Farming

Hey now, This diary is going to dwell heavily on CBD stuff. The good folks at FastBuds have seeded me with various elements of their CBD library after I insisted on testing their US shipping systems with questionable success. While I didn't want to make too many diaries in this area, I decided I'd make one big CBD diary for indoor stuff (this diary) and separate diaries for things I also grew an outdoor version of... like CBD Crack. I plan to grow 4 varieties of CBD herb here to compare indoor growing. CBD Crack is a CBD 1:1 variety. FB36 is a 2:1 CBD animal in test state, and FB37 is supposed to be a purple version of the 20:1 CBD specialty I hope I got going. I have an extensive supply of (Seedsman) Cream & Cheese CBD 1:1 which I grew last year for comparison purposes. Where I eventually want to go is to be able to test flower and compare things like CBD as a home user. The technology is close to being there.

While the CBD Crack and FB36 Testers jumped out of their seeds, my 20:1 CBD varieties have been putting up something of a fight. I got one of the straight 20:1s going but I'm going to have to give the purple version another try.

The CBD Crack and FB36 varieties are moving right along, perhaps a bit further along in actual growth than the outdoor versions. The 20:1 variety is now growing stable but still tiny, and I'm pretty sure a purple version of the 20:1 (FB37) looks ready to poke her head out as of this morning. April 12 -> So a purple version of the 20:1 (FB37) poked her head up this morning... Happy Easter baby! Finally figured out how to use some of the macro features on my fancy Sony camera today too. Fun. She's the last of 4 to grow for this diary and she's a couple weeks behind the earlier girls.

Seems that the girls growing indoors have a leg up on the outdoor batch at the moment, and I can only assume this is due to the 18 hour cycle on my lights, where the outdoor girls only get about 14 hours of visible light from the sun presently. One significant difference is that the CBD Crack and FB36 indoor girls are showing pre-flowers now whereas their outdoor counterparts are not. Everybody started getting some veg nutrients this week. The height listed for the diary is for the tallest plant in the group, which is FB36 right now. Lowered my lights from 36" to 24". Still a couple babies in the tent. April 20 >> Repotted both germinated FB37's into 3 gallon fabric pots.

Well... this group is quickly getting all over the map in the height department. Story of my life. Gonna need to start constructing things to lift various girls soon. The FB36 has exploded vertically, up to 18" now, and that's significantly larger than any of my outdoor girls... but these girls go thru unpredictable growth spurts sometimes. She is however controlling where my lights hang and I had to move them up a ways today. This will probably be my last Veg nutrient feeding with the bigger two girls here as they can probably be considered flowering now.

I suppose the biggest difference between the indoor and outdoor CDB girls is that the tallest OUTDOOR girl is CBD Crack (21"), and INDOORS it's FB36 (27"), which is leading the way in the growth department overall and controlling the height of my indoor lights. CBD Crack and FB36 are certainly flowering indoors but the 20:1 varieties are a couple weeks behinds those other girls and still vegging. There's a strong possibility that all the 20:1 girls will get kicked outdoors to finish off so I can make room for the start of my non-autoflower summer crop.

Well the time has come to start the seedlings for my REAL summer (photoperiod) crop, so I'm kicking the 20:1 CBD girls out of the tent to finish off outdoors. That will leave a CBD Crack and a FB37 to finish off indoors for comparison with an outdoor version. The growth leader of ALL my plants at the moment (indoor OR out) is the indoor FB36 by a couple inches, but she only grew an inch last week (thankfully - as she controls the height of my lights in the tent). I do not cool my backyard grow room (or my house for that matter), and this environment really cooks on hot days like we've the last 3. Next year I may move my tent into my garage to keep it cooler when we get these strings of 90 degree days.

Most of the farm is now outdoors, with only an FB36 and a CBD Crack indoors for comparison purposes. The FB37's, especially the smaller one, took on a purple tint pretty quickly after moving outdoors - but they are SUPPOSED to be the purple CBD 20:1 pheno.

Getting close to the finish line with at least a couple of these girls... at least the indoor versions. Trichomes are showing mostly cloudy at this point and things are getting sticky. I think the CBD crack and FB36 are further along slightly than their outdoor sisters, but I'll be taking a closer look this weekend. Plan to flush the indoor girls Monday. The high CBD versions are a week or two behind the other two varieties.

Not quite clear to me why the indoor girls finished up faster than the outdoor girls... but it might have something to do with the number of hours of light. Indoor girls got more hours and finished faster - outdoor girls get better quality light from differing angles and grow fatter - need a little more time. June 8 >> Trimmed this baby today. Ended with more shake than buds in this batch - 19 grams of buds and 42 grams of trim. The trim on this stuff is covered with resin in a lotta cases. Was difficult keeping my scissors clean. Not gonna bother trying to taste this stuff until it cures at least a month.

This turned out to be weird strain. The indoor version (this diary) turned out to be the largest of my FastBuds spring collection - the outdoor version turned out to be the smallest (and she was showing some purple). June 8 >> Trimmed this baby this afternoon. Heavy coating of resin on this plant kept me cleaning my scissors frequently. Lovely smell. This was my larger indoor plant grown this spring. It weighed out to be 41 grams of buds and 36 grams of trim. Won't be taste testing this stuff anytime soon - and I'm in the process of procuring some test equipment so I can measure THC and CBD levels in the final product. It'll be a couple weeks before I get going on that stuff.

Winding down now, but the 20:1 girls were always a week or more behind the others. June 2 >> Flushed the straight 20:1 CBD girl. Gonna wait a few more days before flushing the purple 201:1's (FB37s). Those babies are starting to show some more intense purple now. I was beginning to wonder. June 5 >> Flushed both FB37's today. Getting close to the finish line. Took a look at the trichomes on the bigger girl and thought they looked kinda weird. Instead of round globes of resin they appear spiky like a dandelion... or maybe a virus... or maybe I just shouldn't invoke such an image. I'll try to get some pics to show what I'm talking about.

We'll probably be ready to harvest the remainder of these girls in the next week. The purple versions are starting to show more purple, especially the smaller one, which is only half the size of her taller sister of the same pheno (FB37).

This plant came out pretty nice but it's my first foray into pretty much pure CBD plants. I've only experimented with CBD in ratios of the 1:1 variety CBD:THC... and I grew a couple of those this spring for comparison. I'm procuring some test equipment from tCheck so I can measure what actually came out the other end of this whole process. The overall plan is to be able to make some CBD stuff on my own and be able to give it to friends. No plans to taste this very soon - every time I try something like that it just reminds me what harshness can taste like. The indica/sativa slider also has no use in a CBD diary. I'll be back to update after trimming and whatnot. June 22 >> So I ended up with 25 grams of buds and 20 grams of trim, which is a testament to the quality of the buds, but I was also trying to save as much of this as I can because it's a pure medicine experiment. Test equipment is still in da mail.

This version of the 20:1 CBD species had a slightly larger node spacing than the non-purple version, so I could get in and grab more fan leaves of her this morning once I turned her upside down... but overall I did very little last minute pruning on these CBD babies. Pretty sticky... but we'll run some tests in a couple weeks to see what we gots. June 22 >> Finally got around to trimming these girls. The smaller version barely had any yield at all... about 8 grams... but the 2 plants together yielded about 27 grams of bud and 24 grams of trim. Definitely purple in the final product. Still waiting for my tCheck test equipment. No plans to taste this stuff right away. No need. This is for my medicine cabinet.