Blackberry

This grow is going to be testing my coco based auto watering setup. The plants will eventually be going into 2.5 gallon airpots which I cut to be very tall and narrow which I hope will give great performance for this grow style. Nutrient solution will be pumped from a 5 gallon bucket to halo-style drip emitters 6 times a day for 5-10 second intervals. I am going to try to use inline flow control knobs to dial in the watering and allow for slight runoff every fertigation. For lighting I am using my HLG 100 watt lights, one per plant. I am a big fan of these quantum boards, they have given great performance in the past! Thanks for reading! 🌱👍 May 13 day 1: the Blackberry breached after germinating in a rapid rooter for 2 days. I am impressed with how quickly this seed popped! It had no issues with stuck seed casings, which I find is the main downside of germinating in rapid rooters. I am excited about this one! May 16 day 3: Auto watering drip emitters are set up, and I am testing them to dial in the amount of runoff it produces. I also planted the seedlings/rapid rooters into 1 litre grow bags and began feeding nutrients. They are still under the humidity dome for now for the time being and seem to be doing well. Day 4: seedlings doing well, they are staying under the dome untill they grow their next set of leaves, then I will take them out and run a humidifier.

After a week of growth, the Blackberry is out of the dome. It was overgrowing it, so I just transplanted it into its final autowatering pot for simplicity. I normally go seedling pot to 1.5g pot to 3-5 gallon pot, but this very tall 2.5 gallon airpot will be a first for me. I think the benefits it will receive outweigh the cons. I am now running a humidifier at 60 percent RH, and will be watching the plants carefully throughout the week as I dial up the nutrients and ensure a good VPD for the plants. The Blackberry is a bit more vigorous and healthy than the Blackberry Kush by Dutch Passion growing with it. I hope the Kush catches up, but I am very pleased with the Fastbuds at this early state. Thanks for reading, and stay safe everyone! 👍🌱 Day 10: started adding silicon and rapid start (and a little pH down) and upped the trio slightly. In case anyone is wondering if there is any perlite, there is! It's just chilling under layer of pure coco. Right now there is 3l of perlite per pot, with the highest concentration lowest in the pot. The Blackberry is growing very well at this point, and definitely does not mind the earlier transplant! Day 12: I lowered the light height by 8in, down to my more usual vegitative height, to ensure maximum light exposure for this vigorous plant. The Blackberry is doing well, and will definitely get topped after it gets another node or so of growth. Day 13: I am running low on calimagic as a cal mag source, so I switched out to Greenleaf nutrients cal-mag pro that I have a bag of (that will last forever!) It has a bit more nitrogen, which is good for the current plant stage, so I can save the calimagic for flowering if the plants don't mind the switch. I mix about .5-.6 EC worth of Cal mag, which is about .625tsp per 5 gallons of the Cal mag pro. I will have this reflected on tomorrow's diary entry.

As of day 14, the Blackberry is growing well! The growth is vigorous and pretty healthy, so I am going to just keep doing what I am doing. I am temporarily using dry cal-mag crystals to the same ppm/EC (.5-.6) as calimagic hasn't caused any issues yet. I can make my way through the bag I have before buying more calimagic, and not be wasteful! The Blackberry will be ready to be topped this week, so that will definitely be updated when the time is right. Happy growing, and stay safe everyone! 🌱👍 Day 15: plant has been FIMed! Day 17: the plant is continuing to have healthy vegitative growth. I am waiting for slightly longer branches, and then I can start training the plant. Day 19: good, bushy growth 👍

As of day 21, the Blackberry plant is doing well! It is growing vigorously and will need to be controlled as it increases in size. The FIM has already helped a little, but I have started some LST with the Atlas plant trainer to start making the canopy wide and flat. A few of the newest leaves have the very start of yellowing in their tips, so I think this plant is maxing out at 1.1-1.2 EC. I am going to keep it around 1ec for the rest of vegitative growth, as EC can drift upwards in the reservoir very slightly while the airstone is running. Runoff, PH, and other parameters are right where I want them! I have a new gallon of Calimagic coming, so I am switching back to it this week in preparation for early flowering. Thanks for reading, happy growing, and stay safe! 👍🌱 Day 24: LST continues, the plant is growing quickly and is very lush. Outside of removing a few low growth tips that will never develop, I am going to try to leave as many leaves as possible. If this maxes out my humidity I will start taking a few lower leaves, and those that are too tightly squeezes in the center of the plant. Considering the plant's size as of day 24, I am hoping the flowering stretch isn't too strong or I will have to really work to contain this plant! Day 25: earliest signs of flowering. Day 26: runoff quantities were edging towards being too low as the plant has more foliage to transpire through, so watering adjusted to 5x per day, 15 second intervals. This is an increase from 60 seconds per day of watering to 75, and should accommodate the needs of the plant as it continues to grow.

As of day 28, the Blackberry is turning into a jungle of a plant. It has dense healthy foliage as it transitions to flowering. It is exhibiting very rapid growth so I continue to bend branches and spread the plant out. The budding is in a very early stage, and there is no sign of darker colors yet. My main goal in the coming weeks is to keep the plant from overgrowing the tent. I am watching my humidity levels and will remove leaves if needed. I am trying to keep as many leaves as possible, but at the same time I do not want bud rot later in flower. I am transitioning the nutrients to keep them appropriate for this early flowering stage of growth. I will continue posting updates throughout the week, as things are moving quickly at this stage of growth. Thanks for reading, and happy growing! 👍🌱 Day 33: lots of healthy growth, but not much development in terms of bud size and color. But I am sure the plant will produce some big ones pretty soon 🥦

As of day 36, the Blackberry is growing large and really filling the tent in. I am going to have to keep LSTing it as much as possible to prevent it from growing into my lights. The buds are very early in development, and haven't expressed any color yet (and may never, we will see!) but the plant is growing well and is very vigorous. I man have to thin a few leaves out for circulation if it keeps getting denser. Thanks for reading, and happy growing 🥦👍

As of day 44, I have been at war with the height of this plant! It has totally filled the tent, and I have had to keep performing LST to bend the branches down. The light have been directly attached to the top of the tent as well. It has been so much work to keep this plant from crisping it's top buds that I will probably buy a taller tent before I grow two autos at the same time again. But hey, I am not complaining that this plant has been so vigorous! It's probably going to yield very well by the end. The Blackberry is starting to show it's dark colors, which is nice to see! As the buds continue to age, I am sure the colors will become even more striking! To combat high humidity some of the lower leaves were removed. Many low leaves have also fallen off on their own as the canopy is dense enough very little light is making it through. Happy growing, and stay safe! 🥦 Day 48: I think vertical growth has stopped, and just in time as I am out of ways to raise my lights. The plant is going to continue to flower just a little closer than I would normally want it. I expect this may cause some mild issues on the uppermost leaves, but the buds are developing just fine so far and I predict they will do alright. I will have to be careful with bloom boosters/EC to not worsen the situation though. I removed some bottomed branches and undid a lot of LST plant ties to open up the plant, and removed some dead and dying lower leaves as well. I have also dropped the hydrogen peroxide and will run enzymes for a little while as I feel like the coco and roots could use some help breaking down organic material.

The Fastbuds Blackberry has stopped any stretching as of day 52. It is having some minor leaf yellowing/Cal mag issues where the leaves are just a little too close to the lights. But the plant seems to be managing alright, and the buds are swelling well. I will post some magnified trichome photos soon. Thanks for reading!

As of day 59, the Blackberry is doing well! I don't think it's going to get dark/purple buds, but it is definitely pink and with the orange hairs starting to form it will produce something nice! I switched from liquid to dry Koolbloom, as the plant is entering it's last 3 weeks or so. It has a nice light berry and lemon smell which is quite similar to the Blue Dream'Matic I grew last cycle.

I have been very busy and missed a week of updates, but the plant has been doing well! The buds have kept swelling up, and with the start of amber trichomes I have begun the harvesting process. I had a bit of a photography disaster, when I attempt d to get the plant out of the tent and into natural sunlight for some final photos. Instead branches sagged in every direction and threatened to topple the plant. My tent is way too undersized for how big the plants I have been growing, so there are some massive top buds with tiny larfy buds further down the canopy. But this will be a very bountiful harvest, and I will have lots of photos of dried buds and trichomes soon! 👍

Still enjoying what's left of this bud 8 months later. I wish I hadn't gotten so busy around harvest time so I could have updated this journal at the time, and so I could have gotten more photos. I will update with some images of the cured bud.