Fastbuds FF7 Indoor

Seed was started as an afterthought to my already popped seeds so she is about 3 days behind all garden mates. I thought it would be interesting to do a comparison of this strain both indoor and outdoor so I started 2 seeds, 1 of which will be transplanted outdoor on week 3. I have not run an FF7 yet so I chose it based on it being a mostly indica strain as I had quite a few hybrids and sativas chosen initially. She also has a 45 day flower so my goal this season is to avoid boytryis this summer on the outdoor. Planted in a solo cup with Happy Frog soil. Plant was misted as needed.

She was transplanted just shy of the 3rd week when I would normally like to do it but I was transplanting the entire garden so she went along with them. Watered with approx 2 tbsp as needed and misted as needed. Transplanted into 5 gallon smart pot with Great Lakes Water Only soil. Lightly watered after transplant.

Plant took very well to transplant and thrived in the new pot. Dichotomous earth was place on the top soil on 5/26/20 and a sticky trap was placed as well. I do not believe that there was any actual bug issue. I am just super sensitive to fungus gnats after having that issue on a couple grows and I THOUGHT I saw what looked to be a gnat sized bug. The sticky trap has caught two bugs and while they potentially could have been fungus gnats, I certainly would have expected to catch more. Or perhaps I just got at it early enough to prevent the real issue. Unfortunately, the soil should not be in a state that it should be attracting fungus gnats anyhow. I just was not entirely sure how wet the initial transplant soil ended up being and I would rather be safe than sorry. That initial moisture however was enough to carry me from 5/24 to 5/31 without watering. Watered with plain distilled water pH'd to 6.5 on 5/31/20. Because it was the first time running any water through the pot fully, it took about .4 -.5 gallons before I actually started seeing runoff. Plant looked as if she had to much by the end as seen in the last pics. Week 4 will introduce an inoculation tea and will be my first time using AACT's so I hope I do not mess it up! She was topped on 5/28/20 at the 5th node. I certainly intended to give her more time to recover from transplant but I guess my clippers got itchy and just had to give it a go 4 days post transplant. No noticeable stress from either the transplant nor the topping so soon. LST hooks introduced on 5/31/20 which may have also affected her appearance post watering. She is about 1.5" tall so I have not introduced the LST ring yet but will soon.

Unfortunately, my grow software that I use for tracking my watering, LST, etc. is currently not functioning and so all that I have to go by are my images. Week 4 for FF7 seems pretty uneventful. She is slightly behind the other two in the garden and so her weeks are off from theirs. I can only assumed I watered on 6/4/20 ph'd to 6.4, water only. Again, all of these notes I can only base on the images. I am not sure why I do not have more images from this week other than I started to see signs of fungus gnats and so I was definitely letting the soil dry out as much as possible. According to the notes from week 3, she was last watered on 5/31/20 so it would make sense that she would be watered on the 4th and not again until week 5.

LST ring was introduced on 6/8/20 and actually helped a lot as some of the lower branches were starting to get to strong for my yard staples to keep a grip in the soil. I made sure to get the longer pieces to the outer side of the ring because that causes it to grow at least a little more horizontal. Plant was given an inoculation tea on 6/9/20 consisting on 2 cups great lakes worm castings and 2 tbsp unsulfured molasses in 5 gallons of water brewed for 24 hours with air stones and ph'd to 6.4. The 5 gallons was shared among 8 plants only 3 of which are thriving so the outdoor ones did not get as much. I would say she was given about 1 gallon of tea to herself with about 30% runoff. She tends to be a very thirsty girl and will let you know she is unhappy as seen in her image on 6/13/20. Watered again plain water on 6/13/20. Aimed at 6.5-6.5 ph due to runoff being low around 6. Plant had really impressive growth from the 6/4/20 through to this week especially after the tea. So far I see no signs that plant needs anything other than what it has. I will follow up with another tea in two weeks. I have yet to decide how far I want to go with veg but based on my timeline of defoliation plans I am thinking this will be an 8 week veg. The first time I have gone that long. I actually am still considering pushing that out a bit further and going 12 weeks.

This girl just continues to thrive and continues to get so upset with the dry periods I am trying to maintain. With that said, I know she looks miserable in the third image but I promise you this is just her yelling at me for lack of water and she immediately perks right back up within about 20 min of her watering. She is just very "expressive" lol. Light defoliation done on 6/18/20. It was very light because I was not confident that I would be going to flip the following week so it was just a very light trim to open up some areas. The signs of fungus gnats picked up slightly post tea but after another application of dichotomous earth I have stopped seeing any signs of new gnats on the sticky trap. Watered on 6/18/20 with water ph'd to 6.5 in an attempt to raise the run off. Raised slightly to around 6.1 and runoff was about 10%. Training is essentially done at this point aside from needing to tie down the occasional branch to keep the middle open. There is really no more room for controlling horizontal growth so we are now growing vertically!

Plant was watered on 6/22 plain, pH'd to 6.5-6.6. I once again was aiming for the higher end since the runoff has been pretty consistent at 6.0. This girl just simply can not wait for water like everyone else. I guess she is going on a separate watering schedule than the others because by day 3 she starts getting depressed. By day 4 she is beyond depressed, just curled up in a little ball in the corner crying for her mommy. Image on 6/22/20 was after 4 days. Image on 6/26 was after the tea and a very light watering to hold her over until tea time. You can see just how expressive she really is by the stark difference of the 2 images. I would like to say she perked up that nicely right after her tea but that is not the case. She was already so mad at me by day 3, I knew she wasn't going to wait until tea time so I gave her less than a 1/4 of a gallon to hold her over on 6/25/20. A tea was brewed on 6/25/20 and applied 6/26/20. Tea consisted of 2 cups castings and 2 tbsp molasses.. Castings that were used to brew the tea were put around the stalk. Big big error during tea time. I did not pH the tea. I was freaking out once I realized but I do not believe it was any significant high end because runoff became perfect at around 6.4. Post tea, gnats picked up again so more DE was placed after tea on 6/26, used very generously and I surrounded her by sticky traps. They caught a few more than the last time but so far only 6 gnats on traps and no signs of any root issue No signs of pH fluctuation either due to my mistake. I will consider buying some Nematode SF if it keeps up. That has been my go to treatment in the past and it has been incredibly effective. Still undecided on when I am going to flip because I am quickly approaching week 8 and so I did a pretty significant defoliation on 6/22/20 as well as a lollipop on about the bottom half of the plant. Left anything on that had already hit the canopy height so this girl managed to keep one of her really low stems. Removed large fan leaves, nothing from the tops of the plant other than 1 or 2 that were covering it's own nodes. She continued to grow vertically, very quickly I might add so I believe that is going to push more towards the flip pretty soon. Week 8 was in initial goal and she has already been prepped for it.

So I recently read an article that gave a mathematical equation on how much water to give living soil based on your gallon container. So I did my math (not really I copied the equation for a 7 gallon when I am actually in a five gallon because... math) and realized I was giving about twice the amount of water the math had suggested I give. Now granted it was able to go longer between waterings, the guide did not agree with that. It said give x amount every 2 maybe 3 days. X amount being 64 ounces or about .5 gallons. This girl appreciated it because even at 3 days in between she gets too damn sad. I think she is going to be getting every 2 days regardless and perhaps it may come to once a day if she wants. I am kind of being overly generous on drying the dirt out due to fungus gnats (which ARE getting better I might add) but I read that my microbes do not appreciate that. Another thing of interest is that my local grow store said I was going to have to supplement with amendments with this soil simply because it only truly works in at LEAST a 15 gallon. This is on top of my teas. So, plant was watered on 6/30/20 with plain water pH'd to 6.5. She was LST'd in almost a wreath fashion trying to get her stalks to go around the ring slightly before going up. This may have worked better with HST but it slightly worked none the less. Even though I defoliated on the week before flip, I did some on 7/2/20 because I wanted to make sure nothing was hindering light penetration. I watered and fed on 7/4/20. Plant was given 1/4 cup of organic bloom blend which consists of (will insert this info here as soon as I get my details from the bag. On 7/5 I went in and did even more LST because I wanted to open up that center and did a bit more lollipop for obvious buds that were never going to make it to the canopy. Perhaps a little too much but I may just be able to skip my 3rd week defoliation that I was planning on. Next week I will apply my first bloom tea.

Used Nematode FS inside to eliminate fungus gnats. Dampened the soil on 7/10/20. Nematodes and dichotomous earth led to a successful elimination of the fungus gnats. First bloom tea started. I will include the recipe ion the following week where it was applied.

Watered on 7/13/20 & 7/16/20.

2nd bloom defoliation done on 7/20/20 including a lollipop. Watered with plan water on 7/23/20 and again on 7/26/20. Used a bloom feed as a top dressing before the 7/26/20 watering.

Plain water feed on 7/27/20. Bloom tea feed recipe is 1 cup worm casting, 5 tbsp organic unsulfered black strap molasses, 5 tbsp liquid kelp & fish, 1/2 cup alfalfa meal, 2/3 cup Peruvian sea bird guano and 2/3 cup high phosphorous bat guano fed on 7/30/20. You guys see these super staiva looking leaves right? It's not just me?

Watered plain water on 8/5/20 & 8/8/20 pH'd to 6.5. Plants continue to be rotated under the footprint.

Watered with 1/4 tsp CalMag. I know fade should be in progress but I started to really worry about the availability of the calcium and magnesium. I figured they have at least 2 weeks left on them so it would not hurt for a small CalMag water. Maybe I am wrong ;)

Plants were watered with plain water on 8/21/20. As of 8/23/20, trichs are all milky with about 5% amber. Looking at recommended flowering time of 45 days. That would mean we are on about day 56. It says the strain is "mostly indica" LOL!! Have they seen the leaves on this thing? Most sativa looking leaves I have ever grown! Fade is taking place as expected.

I continue to keep a close eye on trichs while using nothing but small flushes during waterings. Being that she looks to be 100% sativa, it does not surprise me that she is lagging behind the other 2 plants. These images still show some clear and I am aiming for 20% amber. Watered on 8/24 and 8/27 plain water ph'd to 6.5. Her fade is looking like perfection in my eyes. Bigger flush coming soon however.