Let's get Critical

If I'm being completely honest, I had no business starting this run. I currently have a tent full of photos and obligations that are going to have to make me shut down my grow for a spell starting midsummer. I've also been leaning away from autos and into photos for the freedom they afford for experimentation and lengthier veg cycles. In a way, I suppose all of that came together to form a bit of an itch to squeeze in one more run of autos before I wind things down at the end of July. As I said, my tent is full and I don't have space for another so it also satisfied my desire to do an outdoor run without having to rely on the full cycle of the season to kick the plant into flower. Hence. I dropped this little bean. 😊 She's off to a great start and enjoys the spring weather here. I'm supplementing with a 400W MH on cloudy days and at night but dont have another proper grow space so she will have to hang out in the garage when indoors. I should note this is really more of an experimental/hobby run; the photoperiods currently occupying my tent will hopefully provide the weight I need to weather my grow's coming downtime. So, I am not looking for a big yield from this auto since she will probably have sub-optimal lighting and weather conditions. I just want to see what I can accomplish with minimal effort outdoors, applying only LST and good organic nutrients. Thanks for following along! Do me a favor and click "Like" if, indeed, you like what you see here. Cheers! 🌱

Not much to report this week. She's still getting off the ground. Hit her with a dose of light BioBizz and recharge as this soil was previously used and flushed with Florakleen so it could be reused. That said, the nutrients likely needed to be replenished. Thanks for following along! Do me a favor and click "Like" if, indeed, you like what you see here. Cheers! 🌱

This week I began aggressive LST (bit of an oxymoron I guess) because why not?? 😃 I have to say this cultivar takes to it particularly well. She has a pliable stem even where it is thick and several days old. It made it pretty straightforward to get her started growing into a spiral shape. Thanks for following along! Do me a favor and click "Like" if, indeed, you like what you see here. Cheers! 🌱

LST continued this week as I trained the apical meristem around the edge of the pot, keeping her growth horizontal while letting lower and side branches catch up. Again, she takes to this treatment like a champ. That said, into week 5 and I have yet to see any preflowers. I'll be interested to see if the photo genetics end up dominating and forcing me to manually push her into flower. Thanks for following along! Do me a favor and click "Like" if, indeed, you like what you see here. Cheers! 🌱

This week progressed along nicely! She is still taking to the training quite well. Usually within 2-3 hours of pinning her down and directing the apical meristem perpendicular to the ground, I return to find the last two inches or so of growth turned up toward the sun (or HID, depending). She spent quite a bit of time in the garage this week as the weather here was shite and there was no sun for several days. Having a spare light and an insulated garage, I can't help but bring her in on days where she is bound to receive next to no light. I did some very light defoliation to propmote light penetration to the newly exposed side branches. Mainly fan leaves that were blocking light over wide areas. I continue to feed her at every watering but do so after thoroughly saturating the soil with plain water until I have > 20% runoff. I immediately follow with a gallon of fertigation solution to push the plain water out and replace it with good organic nutrients. I backed off the Grow this weeks and did just Fish Mix and Bloom. I wanted to get one last dose of good nitrogen without overdoing it before she flowers so I opted for the Fish Mix. I finally saw some pistils emerging on a few nodes so I'm hoping she will kick over into flower over the next week.. That said, I've had an auto go photo that did the same thing (presenting preflowers but never progressing beyond) so I'll be watching this one closely in case I need to manually flip her. Other than the late flower, I can't say enough good things about this cultivar. She is healthy, vigorous, and takes to training very very well. Looking forward to her yield. Thanks for following along! Do me a favor and click "Like" if, indeed, you like what you see here and let me know what you think in the comments. Cheers! 🌱👊

Week 7 was awesome! She finally took off into flower and has started to put on visible inflorescence. This was a great development as I was afraid I was going to have to manually flip her. This means I can finish the run outdoors as planned and wont have to contend with fitting her in the tent with the photos who are currently finishing their run. I continued some light LST this week and it looks like I wont be able to train her into quite as pronounced of a spiral as I had hoped as she is going to need to have her apical meristem turned up to follow the lower branches that have now surpassed it in height. This is not a big deal though as the canopy still looks great and I am happy with how she turned out. I think she is set up for a nice finish. She continues to exhibit strong growth and a hearty resistance to outdoor conditions here that can often take weaker genetics of any species down in a heartbeat. I'm not sure if it is typical for this cultivar to flower so late in the run but I can't say I mind it that much. The extra veg time will make for a strong harvest, I think. I've been most impressed with Dinafem's gear so far. Definitely top notch. I'm already most the way through week 8 and can't wait to show you guys what she's done in the next update. Keep following along and please click "Like" below if you dig what I'm doing here. Cheers! 👊🌱☮️✌️

Week 8 saw the plant stack on some very nice starter buds. I can already see where the colas will stack and fill out to form lovely nuggets by the end of the run. They look to be dense already which is always a great sign! Weather here in OK has been vacillating between overcast rainy days and full sun not-a-cloud-in-the-sky weather so she has spent an equal amount of time under an HID as she did the sun since the last update. Usually she is outdoors from 11am to sundown and then I move her inside under the HID for night hours. She gets a four hour lights off in early morning before setting her back out in time to catch the noon sun. It seems to have worked pretty well splitting her time in this way and I feel a lot better about it than if I just let her spend 24/7 outside. I feel her auto genetics would not benefit from the extra dark time associated with a pure outdoor run. She already doesn't get full sun for the entirety of her time outside due to trees and other houses blocking sun during certain parts of the day. This seems to be a nice balance but I realize it doesn't qualify as a true outdoor run. Still doing daily checks for aphids and other undesirables as Oklahoma has lots of them that can devastate a plant in a matter of days if not monitored closely. I keep her a good distance from my other outdoor plants and she never touches the ground. So far so good. I did lollipop her toward the middle of this week and proceeded the next day with aggressive defoliation to open up light penetration to the rest of the mid-section. As always, the cultivar responded well to my interference. I am seeing some rusty spots on otherwise green leaves and some very light yellowing of the plant overall. I hit her with another dose of nutrients and some recharge to hopefully correct. Not sure what the rusty spots are; hoping just some pH flux that will be easy to correct. Any insight from those who might have it, is welcomed! Thanks for following along and please click "Like" below if you dig what I'm doing here. Cheers! 👊🌱☮️✌️

Week 9 concluded with great progress and minor issues! She continues to stack on inflorescence and is frosting up nicely in the heat of the summer sun here. There hasn't been rain here for some time and the days are well into the 90's Fahrenheit. She spends most of the day outside and still comes into to bask in the 400W HPS while it's dark out. I try to give her a 4 hour lights-out immediately after bringing her inside for the day. I'm seeing leafhopper damage here and there but inspections haven't turned up any culprits recently. I saw them daily back in the spring when she was in veg but they seem to have moved on. I've ordered some spinosad soap in case they continue to damage the plant. As always, I overfed N during flower and she's clawing up a bit on me. Since then, I've been hitting her with plain water only to try and flush out some of the excess. Following manufacturer recommendations for nutrients always seems to bite me. Especially since all say not to stop with Grow, Part A, etc.. once flower begins. Clearly, I'll need to dial back the amount in the future. She seems to be progressing nicely in spite of these few issues though and overall I'm very happy with the genetics Dinafem has lovingly created. Thanks for following along and please click "Like" below if you dig what I'm doing here. Cheers! 👊🌱☮️✌️

Week 10 in the book and all is going well. She is putting out a lovely fade as she senescence begins taking it's toll. A heavy but necessary defoliation was executed to ensure good airflow and proper light penetration. She bounced back quickly and the results are already apparent. She is also extraordinarily frosty; I can only imagine how she will look after a few more weeks of veg. Dialing back on the nutrients now and hitting her more often with plain pHd water. She doesnt seem to mind at all. The smell of this lady is strong and aromatic. An earthy yet spicy, sage or sandalwood type smell, with a background of classic skunky cannabis scent. She is a treat to inhale already :) Thanks for following along and please click "Like" below if you dig what I'm doing here. Cheers! 👊🌱☮️✌️

Greetings, friends! Apologies for the missing photos for certain days this past week as my time was focused between work and harvesting the two photoperiod diaries I had going (update to those coming as soon as the dry weight is in!). The little kush lady is looking nice as she edges closer to the finish line! Mark with @DinafemSeeds hit the nail on the head when he said she is about 11 days from the cut as of this of this update! She spent two days out of last week inside my grow tent as it was very overcast outside and there was hardly any sun to be seen. Since my photo girls were no longer cramping up the tent and hogging the LED I figured I'd let her soak up some of it instead of the HPS she's used to in the garage. The tent has a much more stable environment anyway. On that note, the environmental conditions recorded for this week are from the time spent indoors. I hit her with another light dose of Recharge and Boost yesterday that should finish things out nicely. Her essence is just lovely at this point; I cant get over the spicy woody scent she puts off with that classic kush background. 👌 Thanks for following along and please click "Like" below if you dig what I'm doing here. Cheers! 👊🌱☮️✌️

Greetings, garden family! This little Dinafem kush auto made it to day 81 before finally giving up her life and inflorescence to the cause of supplying me with potent homegrown medication. 🙌 To be honest, she went a little longer than I would have normally let one go but I've been busy with a few other diaries I had going and was not scoping her trichs daily like I should have been. Luckily it's not much of an issue as she was only partially amber (as you can see in photos) and most trichs were still milky white. She will make for excellent evening and late night dabs. 🔥 She produced a beautiful fade toward the end that presented with a lovely purplish red hue near the top of each cola. Some of my close grower friends mentioned seeing similar colors out of their kush cultivars. She really was a beauty to behold, even in senescence! Since she was so far along before I realized, I didn't have time to strip her leaves and let her go without water and light for 48-72 hours. She simply got the cut the next morning, was trimmed/manicured wet, and is currently hanging in a 65-70F dark room @ 50-55%RH for a 5-6 day dry before being jarred for the cure. That's all for now. I'll provide the final harvest update this coming weekend with dry weight, pics, etc.. Thanks for following along! Please click "Like" below and subscribe to my diaries if you dig what I'm doing here. Cheers! 👊🌱☮️✌️

I was super impressed with the genetics Dinafem has offered up with their Critical Kush + 2.0 Auto. As I mentioned early in this diary, I was not growing her for a heavy yield but instead to see what I could produce from a (mostly) outdoor run using nothing but LST and good organic nutrients. I could not be happier with the results! She was a breeze to grow and handled the heat, insects, and sometimes humid conditions without experiencing any adverse effects. She was pretty low key on the skunky scent so I could give her a good recommendation for someone looking to keep it stealthy. I could have probably done more to get her buds to stack more on the colas but Im not at all displeased with how she turned out. The buds she gave me are very dense and produce a very potent effect. Kudos to @DinafemSeeds for their top notch genetics! I will provide more updates, with pics of the rosin these flowers produce, once she has finished curing. As always, thanks for following my work! If you liked this grow, please click "Like" below and follow my other diaries. Cheers! 👊🌱☮️✌️💪