Pheno Hunt

A little late to the game, but glad to be here! I recently found this website and figured I'd write what the hell I'm doing and maybe help someone else along the way through my mistakes. I've been trying to take as many photos as I can daily to document on my phone, but this seems a hell of a lot more organized and fun. I'm currently on my second grow with my setup besides the few changes I have made since my last grow. I have added pictures as far back as I have saved, but this is where I'll actually be starting the journal. Backstory on set up: I had initially bought one 600w equivalent led light from Viparspectra for my first grow and quickly realized I would either need to add another light, or add two smaller lights to even out the light across the canopy. I went with the latter, but also needed to raise the lights significantly because the light stress and foxtails from the leds was really noticeable as well. I have the lights up as high as they will go and had to remove them from the adjustable height pulleys and zip tie them to the top of the tent. On a side note, I often wonder if it would have been better to have bought the two 600w led lights because they have the ability of independent veg and bloom light switches while the two smaller 300w ones I bought do not. I have yet to get a par meter as they are really pricy, but suspect there's now more than enough light for my tent and would be nice to be able to test both on veg and/or bloom only and find that efficient sweet spot. I could have also just got three 300w leds and would have most likely obtained plenty of dual spectrum coverage for less money. But, I digress. For ventilation, I have an 8 inch adjustable exhaust fan and carbon filter. There are a total of 9 plants (3X3) in the tent under a home made screen. Plants are in 3 gal hempys for simplicity and they are watered every ~2-3 days. I also switched to all Botanicare Pure Blend Pro nutrients and supplements. I had used GH Maxi series on the last run and I was not a fan. I tried the Pure blend Tea and Cal-Mag Plus when I noticed deficiencies and loved the results. So, I ditched GH and the girls and I have been happy thus far. Approaching week 4, they are filling in pretty nicely. The cold weather had the humidity a little low last night but doesn't seem to be affecting the plants too much.

Today officially starts week 4 of flower.. - The best part of my day is waking at 530am to open my tent and get a big whiff of that beautiful aroma. MMMM. Gave the girls a good watering this morning and picked out some dying vegetation from under the canopy to keep things clean. Humidity is still a bit low, but with all the vegetation in there I don't mind. I'd literally cry if I got bud rot or some crap like that. - I noticed that the critical kush stems seem kind of of flimsy compared to the other strains. No doubt it smells amazing, but as she puts on more weight it's likely to become a problem. Maybe I should consider silica on the next run.?! Of the 3 kiwi skunk phenos, only one seems to be producing any significant tricombs or smell. The other two look as though they will be good yielders, however, I seriously doubt any real potency. - Of the 9 plants I currently have growing, I would expect I'll probably only keep 3, maybe 4. There's no point wasting time on mediocre bud. - I think the pheno hunt is the best part of the growing process. Every seed is like having a new child. Sometimes, they grow up to be such beautiful creatures. Other times, you can tell their clock ain't ticking right. You can end up with fat high powered coals or those small, no good popcorn buds. And, at the end of the day, unlike kids and wives, you can throw them away and not feel sorry for ordering new replacements online when you get tired of their BS. - - - I love that my tent is right next to my desk. It's the best view anyone could ever ask for! 😍 - Went through today and pulled out a small bit of water leaves to increase airflow from the bottom up to the top, as well as to allow the light to reach deeper in to the canopy. I don't get too crazy with the plucking. Only if its covering another cola or overlapping causing moisture to build up on the leaves. It works well, in my case, to keep the humidity down and limits places for any potential pests to hide while flowering. I usually pull out a handful every other day or so. - - Switched my center light (600w) down to 50% (flower spectrum only) on the 28th. With all of my lights on full spectrum, there's more than enough light for the plants (~1200w eq). I noticed new pistils emerging that shouldn't be and I fear it's causing light stress and/or foxtailing to the critical kush, which is directly in the center of the tent. Since it happened on my last grow with the blue dream and it's not inherently genetic, I'll err on the side of caution this time around.

Week 5 has come so fast. At this point, I don't know which is more exciting; having a decent size harvest or passing off genetics I dont like to my friends and starting new strains from my little seed bank. - I also discontinued the pure blend tea this week as nearly every ingredient is identical to the pure blend pro, with the exception of worm castings that is only in the tea. I've noticed that the pure blend pro series base nutrients are pretty strong as well and can easily burn your plants if you're not careful. - I love that my setup doesn't require much oversight and only need to water every other day or so. I'm not going to add any boosters, hardeners, sweeteners, or any other additives to my nutrient mix. If it ain't the tasties without all that nonsense, I ain't even gonna mess with it. I'm not growing for profit. I don't care if you think my shit's dank or not. My only goal is to have an unlimited supply of weed that I love. I don't want that brown dry vacuum sealed outdoor bud nor do I want to pay 60+ FKN dollars for an 8th! 😂 All I want is a few extra large mason jars filled with what I would consider my own cannabis cup winning strains without all the hassle of having to deal with anyone. 👌👌 - It has begun to heat up already here in sunny California, thanks climate change. Starting with the next watering, I will begin to reduce the nutrients by ~50% and each subsequent watering there after. There's only a few weeks left and It's time to gradually flush these girls out. Also a note for the next flower phase to lower strength of the Pure Blend Bloom as I noticed a small amount to nutrient burn on the tips of the sativas. The indicas don't seem to mind but a slight reduction in nutrients wouldn't hurt either.

week 6 starting this week, I once again lowered my nutrient levels to about ~5-8 ml/gal with ph adjusted to 6. By the next watering, I will no longer add nutrients or adjust the waters ph. - Looking at possible modifications to the screen for the next run. I need something more durable that doesn’t allow the tent to flex in so much with the negative air pressure, which allows the trellis to have slack leaving the buds to lean on each other. Luckily, I’m around enough throughout the day to move them, watching for moisture buildup. I’ve seen a few ideas on the interwebs with PVC, hooks, and string that should be relatively cheap. The humidity also dropped too which is an added bonus considering that I’m nearing the end of the flower cycle. I am also going to start the screen about 6" lower so that the buds can grow longer and bigger - As of now, it’s looking as if only 3 or 4 will move on to the next round of the pheno hunt. - -- Kiwi Skunk has been an utter disappointment. Of the 3 phenos, only one has any tricombs and to me, No frost = No Good. I’ve had a few friends tell me that “even with no crystals, it’ll still get you high…” Yeah, but so will brick weed, if you smoke enough of it. I am giving away the moms of those strains to friends just want to grow one plant for funsies. If they can keep it alive, I doubt they’ll know the difference. -- HSO Blue Dream is doing awesome and is the most resinous out of all of them. It’s filling in nicely and the aroma is amazing! tsssss! There’s a good reason that this is a popular strain. I would say the only downside is the flowering time (~75 days), compared to something like the critical kush (~60 days). She’s a keeper tho. -- Critical Kush is currently using every plant around it for support. The buds are solid and uniform and smell good.. By looks alone, this one is a definite keeper to the collection provided she’s good. She’s well covered with tricombs, but I’ve been fooled by deceitful looking bud before. The only thing I do not like is the flimsy stems which should be alleviated by installing a new trellis support system. -- Pineapple Chunk has surprisingly underwhelmed me. It was the only survivor out of 5 seeds I ordered. They either didn’t pop, or never grew past a sprout before they died. It carried over from my last grow and I’ve given it out for others to grow, but I dont think it’ll go much further than this. It grows spectacularly well, is robust, and moderately resinous. For me, It lacks punch. It has the bag appeal and a musty tropical smell. I dunno, maybe for the casual smoker, its decent, but now that I’m using new nutrients, I’ll have to wait until cure to find out if she’s a keeper. -- Kush Cookies. This one is another undecided strain. I have another pheno in veg which I grew on my last run and one that mysteriously began to flower under 24hr T5, but was not able to fit her without first tossing out others to make room. I’ll probably run them side by side through the next cycle and decide what to do with them unless she turns out to be booty. -- True OG. I have yet to try this one, and after watching it grow, I’ll pass. Don’t get me wrong, she’s mean looking with plenty of trics, but not willing to waste my time on such a small yielder. --Granny Panties. I got this seed from a friend who said this strain from a friend of a friend, is amazing. Everyone always says they got 🔥 but only harvest and cure will tell…

So my phone died early in the week and I lost all my my update pics. On the plus side, I have a brand new better phone that takes better pics of my ladies. (The only reason to have a phone) - I’m still only giving the girls plain water and letting them use up the last of the nutrients in the leaves. I’d say there’s still ~12 days to harvest for the indica dominate strains and a week or so beyond that for the rest. - I’ll be taking clones in about week with an aero cloner I borrowed from a friend. That, will start a new diary from the beginning. I’ll flower the moms I have now and I will also pop some new seeds for the grow after that one. I’ll be posting more closeups soon.

Ran a bunch of plain, un-ph balanced water through the girls in flower to flush them again. There should be roughly 3 days till harvest for at least 4 of the plants. The rest still seem to need more time in the tent. I’ll know for sure when my new scope comes in the mail in the next few days. At this point, it’s all about patience. - Harvest time is like waiting for Christmas as a child. Endorphins rushing from excitement. Oh man. Anyways, the branches are leaning like crazy. Comes down to the poorly designed trellis I installed at the beginning, mainly because the weight, but I wanted to just get the girls flowering already. I’ll buy the stuff I need to do it right for this next grow. I also want to start the trellis about 6 inches lower this time, so the colas can get longer and fatter. With this in mind, I will probably need to make a double decker. I’m sure I’ll figure it out as I go along.

Harvested the True OG today (sunday). I knew it wasn’t going to be a yielder early on, which is the reason I chose not to continue that strain any further. Tricombs are about 15 percent amber at 60 days of flower. While cutting, I also noticed a few nanners (luckily under the canopy) and one poofed on me. I’m not worried about it tho as they’re all about to harvest at different times over the next 14 days anyways. I’ll just spray everything with water and wipe it all down before the start of the next flowering cycle to kill anything that may have blown anywhere. I hope that do not find any more on others. I don’t have a set drying space, so each time I just kinda make one with whatever materials I have laying around. In this case, I have a roll of 24” paper from my wide format epson printer that I’ll probably never use again. I basically doubled it up and taped it to my desk like a box. To keep the air fresh and circulating, I use the intake of my grow tent to pull the air and smell into the tent, maintaining negative pressure and passing through the carbon filter. The paper absorbs some of the moisture and the bud dries nicely in about 4-6 days. I’m not worried too much about light through the white paper, as its not very bright in my room anyways, but if you decide to do something similar, you could probably use black or something thicker like cardboard or poster board. I’m pretty lax with trimming, mostly just removing water leaves and tips. There’s no need for me to get over technical with trimming. It’s easy to snip off the big stuff before jarring and the small stuff when breaking it up to smoke. I don’t even waste my time with most of the small and airy nugs. I’ll just take the bigger colas and hang those, leaving the rest on my Raw tray to dry in my box for edibles. My hangers aren’t pretty, but they’re easy and help organization in a small space with multiple strains. I also started trimming the bottoms of the Kush Cookies, Critical, GP, and Pineapple before the lights went out earlier to get a head start because I plan to harvest those sometime around Wednesday. The three KiwiSkunk phenos and Blue Dream both need about 1 - 2 weeks beyond that to finish up. - I cut the Critical Kush down today (Monday). The higher yield obviously took more time than the True OG to trim and looks to be an ok harvest. It’s been really cold lately out of nowhere so it may add a day to the dry time, but i’m not concerned. The pineapple will be the next to go, most likely Wednesday, which will be day 63. - Cookies, GP, and Pineapple all came down today (wednesday). Cookies is a hardy plant, but seems average to say the least. We’ll have to see what a cure does. It will go head to head against the only other remaining kush cookies pheno in the next grow, but I hypothesize it will most likely end there for the so called “cup winning” strain. Granny panties smells the way i hope granny panties would smell like. she’s nicely frosted, but he buds are pretty fluffy. it also wasn’t a big yielder although it took longer for that one to hit the hempy rez. Either way, she’s safe for now and will move on to the next round. The last one to come out today was the pineapple chunk. another super hardy plant with nice stalks and strong branches. Has the potential to be a good yielder with longer veg time. The three remaining kiwi skunk phenos look totally different from each other and still need a bit more time to ripen up.