The twins, Dolly and Daisy.

As labelled premium USA seed by Royal Queen Seeds I figured some American names weee in order, welcome Dolly & Daisy Dukes, aka the Twins.

The twins are coming along well. They are a little closer to the light than mane I’d like but I was trying to avoid them stretching, I’ll lower them next week. Dolly has one tiny tip with some yellow on the end but I’ll monitor it over the next few days. The first few nodes have started coming out and I’m still deciding weather to top them or not. It didn’t seem to hurt Sprouty my first grow too much and I’d like to try doing it twice and giving them 4 main colas and trimming back the rest. I’ll ponder it a bit more as I have about a week to decide.

So at the end of week 3 I’ve given the girls a hair cut topping them on the 4th node. They are already starting to fan out and I’ll be evicting their older sister at the end of this week to give them more space. Will likely start some LST at the end of the week. I’m following the same nuit schedule as I did for Sprouty which I’ve added. Hopefully they will keep growing.

So at the end of week 4 the girls are starting to fill out. I just took out their older sister Sprouty so they have the tent to themselves now. But with a lot going on I haven’t paid them a lot of attention this last couple of weeks. I’ll do a bit of lite defoliation this coming week. And I have a pair of more powerful 50w 5000k led lights to put in too which will up my total watts by another 40w (replacing two 30w). Just this week left in veg then I’ll switch to flowering nuits. 🤞

It’s been quite hot here, temps hit highs of 42•c in the twins tent. But the fans kept the air circulating and they didn’t show any signs of heat stress. I expected days like these and chose a Stavia strain for that very reason. After her topping And defoliation daisy is reaching for the sky, while dolly has remained squat and bushy after just a top. I am curious to see if there is a big yield difference, this between the two. I suspect they will begin to flower as they enter their 6th week since germination.

So I’ve split my strategies with the twins, dolly was the slower of the two so I topped her along with daisy at about day 18 on the 5th node. Since then I have left her completely to her own devices. Daisy has since been defoliated twice most recently at the start of this week when I took out a bunch of fan leaves and some lower smaller branches. The flowering on dolly is now slightly ahead of daisy and she has caught up height wise (so I guess pruning does stunt their growth for a short period). Only another 4-5 weeks left till we see the results.

So the twins are fully stretched out now. I have no more head room to lift my lights so I hope they stop growing. They are already starting to show a little bit of light burn in the form of yellow tips on the ends of the upper leaves. My experiment with defoliating daisy and not dolly has yielded some unsurprising results. Daisy is straighter, a tiny bit taller and very much concentrating her buds on 6 main colas. But she’s a few days behind dolly on her development of her flowers. Dolly on the other hand is very bushy down low and then has 4 main colas reaching up as high as daisy’s. But they look much more developed than daisy. I’m wondering if in another 3-4 weeks come harvest time if there will still be a noticeable difference. Either way they both look in good health and although they flowered later than the easy bud I did before, they look more fruitful than the easy bud did two weeks in.

So, I thought these two were done growing but seems I was wrong. RQS say they rarely grow above 1m indoors and I am about a day or two away from breaching that height with daisy now at 96cm, dolly is about 10cm shorter. They only have 13cm till they hit the lights and I can’t hoist them any higher. Anyway, they are good and healthy that’s for sure. The buds are beginning to fill out. Dolly’s are a bit thicker. I have 4 weeks left on my timeline for them so I’m pretty excited with where they are at the moment. Based on my last experience I’d expect these girls to yield 2 ounces each. We’ll see I guess. What do you guys and gals think?

Week nine complete the girls have only one more week before flush and they are looking good. Daisy’s growth has slowed, thank god, as she is now only 9cm from the lights. Dolly is still ahead flowering wise, her pistols are starting to turn amber. Daisy’s are still all white. I am leaning towards staggering their harvest with dolly going first, though as she is at the back of the grow tent it may be difficult without damaging one or both of them. We will see where they are in a weeks time.

So we had a summer heat wave this week and things in the tent took a turn for the worst, Daisy’s main colas all topped over on top of dolly and had to be held up with wires. A number of her lower nodes yellowed and both plants wilted quite a bit. The heat also highlighted another issue which is gnats, there were piles of dead gnats in the floor from the heat. So I’ve ordered some neem oil to try to address this issue as I don’t want the roots disturbed in what should be the final couple of weeks of flower. With the heatwave dolly has slowed her development to a near standstill and her pistils are changing to amber. Daisy’s 4 main colas, after propping up have continued to fill out nicely and contrary to what I had originally thought she looks like she will be the big producer of the two, albeit 5 or so days behind Dolly in bud ageing/ripening. I got myself a jewellers loupe to keep an eye on the trichomes which are all still clear for now. With more heat on way my best efforts are now focused on keeping some air circulation going, cooling the tent when I can and making sure they get enough fluids. I think I’ll begin to flush dolly this week and hold off on daisy for another 5 days or more. Rather than go straight to water I’m going to halve her nuits week one then go straight water week two. We are getting to the home stretch now and I thought being Sativa these girls would handle heat but I will have to do my best to keep them in top condition before harvest.

Wooo wee! It’s been a hot week, been trying to keep my ladies cool. Hard to believe the week ahead is the last one before harvest, I’m almost tempted to give them perhaps one more week but I think 6 weeks in flower is good. I don’t want them to go over. Plus the responsibility of daily watering is wearing a bit thin after two grows back to back. I’m gonna take a little break and enjoy the fruits of my labour. So I’ve massively cut back on the nuits this week, basically a soft flush. This week they will get water only. And this time next week they will be harvested and wet weighed. I think we will come in somewhere around 4 ounces dry weight. This has been an amazing grow, the difference in results to the two different methods I’ve employed is quite something. Ultimately I think this strain likes topping and defoliation. Daisy has reacted well to it and probably produced nearly double what dolly has. Dolly was topped once and that was it. Daisy was topped twice and defoled 3 times right up to week 5, just before flower. Can’t wait to taste them too, the smell is sweet and piney and very moorish. I find myself sniffing the back of my hand a lot after I’ve been rummaging around in there. Big thumbs up for the Hulkberry👍

So my circumstances at home are now subject to change and I had to pull the trigger a week or two early on these girls to ensure everything was kept in the covert manner it’s run so far. I hope my next grow will be able to run the full stretch as I know I can do better but i had to harvest when I did. I would say my tent which is a 0.8x0.8x1.6m is too small for two of these. Daisy who was topped twice and defoled 3 time towered over Dolly in the end who stayed squat and the results show how that affected Dolly being less than half the yield of Daisy. I also (not included in my weights) took an ounce and a half off daisy and an ounce off Dolly in popcorn buds for making infused vodka. So the end total is more like 180+ grams dry weight. In a tent that size 1 plant would have filled it given the opportunity. I think I’ll have to invest in a bigger tent.