Grandaddy Purps FAST: DWC Small Batch

Week 1: Day 1 Claiming the final bucket in the tent for this run will be another strain from Niagara's Own Seeds, this time, Grandaddy Purps Fast. "Grandaddy Purps Fast is the result of crossing Purple Urkle with Big Bud and a secret hybrid to impart the fast finish. It is a predominantly Indica F1 strain suitable for cultivation indoors and outdoors which finishes quickly and producing very high levels of THC." Started this baby off by soaking her seed in a glass of filtered tap water. She popped overnight. Moved her into a pete plug and into the root farm the next day. She's been sitting there under a T5 fluorescent light for the past week. Today, I moved her into a basket filled with hydroton and into a 5-gallon bucket filled with filtered water and a trace amount of nutes. Away we go. Thanks for checking in. ✌️

Week 2: D8 Old grandad is shuffling along. Rez change today with a slight increase in nutes. Roots are just starting to peek out the bottom of the basket. Ph meter went out of whack again so fell back on a liquid test kit I had kicking around. I’ll likely try calibrating my meter again but may just continue using the liquid. Seems so much more reliable, although slightly less convenient. Thanks for checking in. ✌️

Week 3: D15 Grandad is crusing along now. Out of the stinking seedling phase. Roots are established and her fan leaves are starting to fatten up. Keeping her nutes light. Lowered the light earlier in the week. All good beneath the hood. Until next week ✌️

Start of week 4: D22 Grandad is rocking. Feeding well and maintaining a pretty stable PH level throughout the week. Very few adjustments required. Opted to just top up the rez today with a slightly hotter juice mix rather than swap things out. Kind of digging this less is more approach. FIMed her on D18 - or, rather - attempted to. I pinched off more than intended. Dam my gorilla fingers! No biggy. I guess an effed up FIMing is simply a topping. 😆 Thanks for checking in ✌️

Start of Week 5: D29 Grandad continues to toddle on nicely. Grew nearly 7 inches this week and her roots are really starting to form a nice mass in the bucket. She's had a very good appetite; gave her a rez change about 5 days ago, raising her PPMs to just over 600 - that was down to 457 prior to today's change over. I upped her feed again today as we transition into flower. Light goes to 12/12 schedule today - her tent mate, the Skywalker, is dictating the schedule change as she's become quite a beast and has done all of the vegging she needs to do. The no haircut experiment continues. There may be some pruning of the lower branches in future, but I'm letting those fan leaves be. Thanks for checking in 👍

Week 6: D37 A little late with this week's update but things have been shaking in tent. After consulting with my green-guru, the wise and enthusiastic @NuggetPawn, I've decided to make some changes in the tent. I've added another Mars Hydro TS1000 and put in a SCRoG net. I still need to add something between the rear tent poles so I can pull the middle of the net back tighter but we're off to the races. Going to try handle feedings and rez changes with a manual transfer pump since I will no longer have the luxury of being able to move my buckets in and out of the tent. Hoping the changes will net me a better harvest and greater bud quality. The Grandaddy Purps grew about 5" since last week and is a solid plant but she still looks almost puny next to the Skywalker. She feeds and drinks really well and her PH is super stable; not a lot of adjustments to be made at all. She takes about 3/4 gallon of water with a little feed every other day. Happy girl. Thanks for checking in ✌️

Start of Week 7: D43 Grandaddy Purps is locked into her spot in the SCRoG and basking in the sweet beams provided by the extra light in the tent. She's grown about 5" in the past week, but is still about 6" shorter than the Skywalker sitting next to her (her bucket is boosted about 5" on a makeshift platform). With the plant locked up in the SCRoG, feedings and rez changes now involve a manual transfer pump. I can't say it's been too bad at all, but it's still something I'd like to automate for future grows. She's been feeding and drinking really well throughout the week, and I gave her a rez change today. I probably could have given her a little stronger dose, but I can top her up during the week if need be. She started showing signs of flower early last week, so away we go. Being a fast variety she's supposed to finish in 7 weeks. Keen to see how she does. Thanks for checking in ✌️

Start of week 8: D50 The Purps is looking great in her side of the SCRoG. Put on about 7" in the past week, gaining slightly on the Skywalker sitting next to her. Thankfully, I've had no need to super-crop this girl like I did with the Skywalker. I raised the lights in the tent pretty much as high as they can go now - crossing my fingers we'll have enough clearance to get to the finish without issues. She's drinking well - a little less than 1/2 gallon/day - feeding a bit less than past weeks. Topup feedings have been lighter with more bloom nutes than anything else. Cleared out a little bit of deadfall that had fallen from the lower branches - older fan leaves for the most part. Sticking true to the no defoliation challenge ✊ Her bud sites seem to been coming up nicely. Can't wait to see what she does in the coming weeks. Thanks for checking in ✌️

Start of Week 9: D 57 The Purps is doing alright. She finally stopped stretching, gaining another 3" since last week. Her bud sites are plumping up and stacking quite nicely. I've increased the bloom nutes a bit - her tent mate, the Skywalker, looks to have a phosphorus deficiency, so I thought I'd top up the Purps as well - just in case. Cleaned up quite a few leaves that have dropped off the plant through the week; also cleared out some of the scraggly lower branches that had no chance of breaking through the canopy. Almost halfway through her flower cycle - the next few weeks should be interesting. Thanks for checking in ✌️

Start of Week 10: D64 Pretty smooth week for the Purps. She continues to bulk up and has already starting to put on a colour show. She's starting to smell much stronger - sweet with citrus and pine - and there's a nice frostiness setting in on her. PH has been pretty stable since I adjusted EC to be around 1.4-1.5. So far I'm very impressed by this fast flowering strain. The next 2-3 weeks should be fun. Thanks for checking in ✌️

Start of Week 11: D71 The Purps is jamming along nicely. Some moderate PH fluctuations during the week, although nothing as dramatic as what the Skywalker was experiencing a couple of weeks ago. She got a rez change today; it's probably been at least 10 days since her last one. Lowered her EC to around 1.3 from around 1.5-1.6 where she was sitting during most of the past week. Her buds are super sticky and fragrant - some strong berry and citrus notes. Her purple colours and really coming through strongly now and her buds provide some nice visual contrast compared to the softer green tones of the Skywalker's buds. Lower bud sites starting to plump up more but still have a ways to go. Did some more cleanup and removed a few lower branches who's canopy dreams would not be realized and took out another handful of dead leaves. Hoping for another relatively smooth week and a strong finish. Thanks for checking in ✌️

Start of Week 12: D78 The Purps should be finishing up in a week or two - maybe closer to two by the looks of things to me. Things below the canopy have a little ways to go but she's looking pretty swell overall. Frosty purple buds with lots of red hairs showing now. She's very sticky and has a fairly strong citrus-pine scent. She got a rez change yesterday; running about 1.3 EC. Pretty steady most of the week other than one big PH drop prior to the rez change. Humidity in the tent at night has been awful; 70-72%. I'm hoping my airflow is good enough to stave off any mould problems or bud rot. I did more lollipopping and cut away more lower branches. I also added in an extra fan beneath the canopy in addition to the two fans that are near the top. Looking forward to harvesting this girl. Won't be long now. Thanks for checking in ✌️

Start of Week 13: Flower D50 Final days for the Purps. Started her on the flush yesterday on FD49. Her buds are super frosty and seems like they should be quite tight and dense. Trichs are mostly cloudy throughout the plant now with some amber starting to show on the tops. I'll likely harvest her mid week - perhaps a little later. She's definitely the most fragrant plant in the tent and although she has a subtle sweet berry scent, her fragrance is predominately citrus and pine. Looking forward to sampling her soon 😋 Thanks for checking in ✌️

Harvested old Grandad yesterday after a 6-day flush. True to her name, she produced gorgeous, sticky purple buds. She's very fragrant; along with the sweet berry and citrus scent she also smelled a little peppery as I trimmed her. Can't wait to taste her. I have her hanging to dry in a cardboard wardrobe moving box. There's a small fan in there to circulate the air along with a little dehumidifier. Full harvest report once she's dried and trimmed. Thanks for checking in ✌️

Harvested the Purps 5 days ago and she's been drying since in my handy wardrobe moving box since. I did most of the trimming when she was wet - I find dry trimming to be sooooo tedious. It is what is is. We all love trimming right? Her buds turned out dark and frosty (actual purple buds!); very fragrant. Although the dry weight of this harvest was right around my average, the quality of the buds is superior; less fluffy and more substantial than most of my previous grows - stickier too. I also harvested a good amount of popcorn buds and sugar leaves that will be used to make a tincture - I didn't include that stuff in the final weight but I'd guess that would add another 14-28 grams. For this grow, during week 6, I added an additional light to the tent along with a ScrOG net. I think the addition of the extra light made a big difference although I had problems after the stretch as I couldn't really maintain as much distance between the light and canopy as I would have liked; suffered some heat and light stress as a result. We'll be moving things into a taller tent for the next run. It was my first attempt at a ScrOG and I think it worked out fine for the most part. I didn't decide to do it until later in the game and I think I could have organized things a bit better if I started it a couple of weeks earlier. I'll likely try it again for my next run so I'm hoping to improve. The big thing that held me back about trying a ScrOG with previous grows was doing rez changes/feedings and checkups. Turned out to be not a big deal at all. Initially, I used a manual transfer pump to both empty and fill the buckets for rez changes, but after a couple of changes I found that it was far easier to add feed back to the bucket by simply sliding the lid over and pouring the water back using a a small pail. For checkups I just use a turkey baster to draw samples for testing. So much tech in my garden! I stuck to the no defoliation challenge issued to me for this grow by @NuggetPawn (thanks again for your suggestions & advice🙏). I cut a few branches but I took no leaves. The plant dropped plenty of leaves on her own as she progressed through her life cycle without my intervention. During mid to late flower I was picking out a few hand fulls of dead leaves every day. I filled 2/3 of a 5-gallon with large fan leafs when I trimmed her after harvest. I've plucked leaves a plenty in the past. My reasons for doing so were to: 1) open up lower bud sites to light 2) keep humidity levels down With the whole point of the ScrOG being to stretch things out and expose more nodes to direct light, the stuff beneath the canopy suddenly becomes less important. However, like I said above, my bud quality was the best I've harvested to date and I ended up with a significant amount of sugar shake and popcorn buds to be used in my butter machine. Humidity. It was terrible. As high as 80% at night. Typically, around 74%. I only recently got a hydrometer that gives my daily highs/lows so I can't compare this to previous grows where I defoliated heavily. However, as worried as I was about mould and bud rot, I had good airflow in the tent so that was huge in keeping things healthy. Anyway, I'll need to invest in a more robust dehumidifier at some point. The little one I was using in the tent was not up to the task at all - it worked great in my drying box though. That's a wrap on this grow Looking forward to the next run, learning more and improving. Thanks for tuning in ✌️