1st grow ever || Meet Mary

Hi folks,👋🏼 This will be my first grow ever (and possibly the last one for a good while). I’ve been enjoying the ganja for over 9 years now, so I decided now is the proper time for me trying to grow this amazing plant by myself, and save some money too. I’m so tired to pay so much money for something that was left by God on this Earth. I live in a country where MJ is still considered to be a high risk drug, though the CBD products have recently gone legal. That being said, I’m ready to face a 3-month window for bringing my hobby to life, though I’m expecting this to be a major stress considering the smell and the legislative framework. This won’t be easy. So I’ve been reading over and over again, over the past 2 months since the start of the COVID pandemia. Any MJ-related topic or article was warmly welcomed. Lights, soil, pots, nutes, schedules, LST, been through all of that. I’ve googled for some quality seeds and RQS’s website was in top of my searches. I don’t have any experience concerning the large number of breeders and their reputation, so I decided to go with Royal Queen Seeds. After surfing their catalogue, I stopped for the Green Gelato Autoflower strain. High THC, pretty easy to grow, 12week life cycle and warm temps requirements, this seems to suit me. About the setup: LIGHTS I’ve been reading a lot of interesting facts about growing MJ with classic household LED bulbs. So I bought a couple of Philips 13W, 15.5W and 19W LED bulbs and will carefully take the plastic covers off, for a better penetration. I’ve also aquired a 50W COB full spectrum grow light, just to make sure the growing conditions are as good as possible for a newbie. POT: Will start with a 1L classic plastic pot and will then switch to a 15L AirPot. Been reading so much about overwatering your plants, so I’ll try to avoid this by using a pot that is supposed to dry up pretty quick. SOIL: Canna Terra Professional, very goods reviews for growing MJ. Will also add a few punches of perlite to the mix. NUTES: I was surprised to see Advanced Nutrients available for shopping in my country. Very pricey, but let’s hope they will do their job. I’ll go with AN ph-perfect formula grow/micro/bloom and B-52 for its vegetative stage, Bud Candy, Big Bud and Overdrive for the flowering. + Sensi CalMag for any calcium or magnesium deficiency. SCHEDULE: 20/24, this is RQS’s indication for their autoflowering strains. TRAINING: My main goal will be to bend Mary round the pot and tie her down to expose those lower branches. Will start the LST by week3 and will adjust daily if needed. I won’t go for HST like cropping fimming or supercropping due to my lack of experience. And I’ve read that autoflowers may not like HST that much like photoperiods do. Will stick to the LST. So that’s about it. I’m happy I found out about GrowDiaries, it feels more comfy to have people with large growing experience around me. No doubt I’ll have a lot of questions in the following weeks and months =D I’m sooo eager to grow my 1st plant <3 hope this Green Gelato was the best choice for me, we shall see where this goes. Happy growing mates !💚 Cheers✌️🏼 ~~~ Day 1-7: Root developing, too little to see above the soil Day 8: Transplant in 15L AirPot

Day13: I’m such a dumbass. It seemed to me there were some little white lines on the leaves and thought this is a sign of leaf miners, so I sprayed a mix of neem oil & soap (waaay too much soap) on my baby and two of the leaves (3rd node) will suffer a slight tip burning&curling - will see pics from following days

Day 17 - the tips of the leaves curling up are visible affected by the soap bath, but the general condition and growth seem to be good Day 19 - starting to accept those tips of the leaves affected by the soap won’t recover, but there’s good general growth IMO. The bottom leaves (1st leaves) are however showing a slight yellowing shade. Any guess on what could that be ? LEDs are putting down at the canopy ~13000Lux

DAY23: So I left Mary all alone over the weekend and was very satisfied today when I saw the progress she made the past few days. We're currently at her 6th node. One of the leaves affected by the soap bath accident (10 days ago) seems to be almost fully recovered. I certainly didn't expect this to happen, I was almost sure the damage was permanent. ~15cm and almost 6 nodes developed, I think it's time to tie this baby down. LST is actually something new to me (like the entire growth as well lol), so I tied her down after a lot of googling. Any tips on the LST strategy would be highly appreciated :) DAY24: Going on with the LST as she responded very good. 2nd feeding, introducing B52 and some CalMag Also starting to give her only KANGEN WATER, ph ~6.2. Eager to see what’s her reaction to that, I’ve read so many about feeding your plants with Kangen

Day 28: She is responding really well to the training so I’ll continue that till she stops growing, probably round the middle of her flowering. I’ve had some strange leaf formation on some of her blades, it looks like if the main vein outgrew the leaf, or the leaf didn’t grow along the vein. It’s pretty odd, can’t really tell what those are, I thought the the conditions were too hot but 27C degrees and 47% shouldn’t be that much of an issue. Light burn neither. Considering the general canoeing should be overfeeding, so for now I’ll stop giving her any nutes at least for 5-7 days. I’m thinking of a N tox maybe ? So I’ll just give her today about 1L of 6.2PH Kangen water and wait to see what happens in the next couple of days. DAYS 29-31: Seems to be thriving. She started drinking a lot of water, about 2L every 1.5-2 days, I can’t tell if this is normal or if its because of the slightly nute burn (N), I know nitrogen toxicity could cause her to drink more. Been constantly giving her 6.2ph Kangen water and she really seems to like it. Just a bit of Root Juice in the mix, no other nutes, thought I could somehow decrease my N level. It’s rather strange not all leaves have it, but you can clearly see the Claw on some, and some are new grown leaves. I will continue the plain watering for at least 2 more waterings before adding nutes again. In fact, for tomorrow watering I will try watering her twice to 10% flush and see how it goes. Oh, I accidentaly broke one of the leafs blade while LSTing her. 2 days later, brown spots and yellow tips start appearing on that leaf, and on that leaf only. Guess those are the first signs of one future dead leaf. My main problem is the temperature I have in my room. There are 29C degrees and it’s not even July-August lol. I guess those decapped bulbs and the 2 COBs are putting down some heat out there. I already have 2 fans but they absolutely don’t cool down the air, just helping with air movement. I’ll consider using 3-4 2L frozed water bottles around her to see if it helps to cool air a bit. I am pretty sure however I’ll need an portable AC machine to cool down the room, expecting much higher temps as she’ll reach flowering. That will probably rip off some bucks out of my pocket. Anyways, despite of all these issues, she seems to be growing well. In fact she seems to be thriving in her veg stage right now. No signs of preflowers yet though, it’ll probably just take a bit longer. Main goal atm: decrease nitrogen levels. Day32: I think she’s showing signs of preflower, will wait for a couple more days Day 33: Last time to water before starting to feed her nutes again. ~4.5L 6.2PH Kangen Water to flush. Day 34: She’s starting to flower 💚 Gonna keep LSTing her and try to bring to light those small tiny branches at the bottom. The tip will be looped around the airpot. Gonna see where that ll get me.

Days 36-38: Surprisingly things got a little bit messy in the past few days, since she started flowering. Due to the heat waves + led lights, there have been 30+ Celsius degrees at the canopy. Basically the top leaves have this razor-sharp edge look, it doesn’t seem normal to me. They are cupping somehow downwards. This issue can be seen ONLY on the top leaves near the bud sites. Meanwhile the lower and older leaves edges are slightly curling insides, pointing a definite heat stress. As far as I ve google it can only be nute burn, heat stress, light stress or humidity stress. -Humidity is at 50-55% so that shouldn’t be a problem. -Nute burn? Flushed her today with 20L 6.2ph Kanger Water and added some nutes at the final 1.5L of water. -Light stress? Would make no sense since she has been perfectly happy in her veg. The problem occured when she switched to flowering, a couple of days after. -Heat has been a pain in the ass since the beginning. But I guess it would make sense why it didn t show any stress in seedling/veg stage since they can standnto heat better than flowering. I already ordered a portable AC machine to get degrees down, should arrive by tomorrow and see if that makes any difference. I’m almost certain this will blow off my electric bill :< Also some of the new leaves stems have a purple-red color, I don t know if that’s a real issue or it s just genetics. Day 42: Last day of the 6th week, she did stretch quite good the past few days, buds developing nice.

Day 43: Beginning of Week 7 So far so good, the temperatures have been under control in the past few days, reaching a top of 28C. Will be starting today the flower nutes. Micro/grow/bloom, CalMag, B52, Bud Candy and Big Bud. Now drinking about 1L of water per day. I think she had a N deficiency as some older leaves have yellowed and I had to rip em off. This might have occured after I flushed her last week. Day 46: All the sick bottom leaves have been ripped off, might have been a CalMag def combined with low light, but despite this she seems to feel very good.

Day 56: So this is the end of Week 8 and I gotta admit I entirely missed it as I was away on holiday. A friend of mine took care of my baby, I left for him all the mixes ready for watering in 5L bottles so basically all he did was to water her. Considering this is my 1st grow (and probably last, at least for a good while), I feel pretty proud of myself. So so many bud sites, all that LST did make a big difference for sure. She developed nice while I was gone and grew up to 60cm. I think that was it with the stretching, from now on hoping to see some nice bud development in the next final weeks. Will slightly increase the flower nutes dosage and see how she reacts. ~60k lux at the canopy

Days 56-63: Bud sites getting fatter, though this seems to be happening pretty slow. I think we’re facing at least 4 more weeks until harvest. Damn she’s a beauty 💚

Day 65: So we’re now in Week 10 and probably around 20 days from harvest. Damn time sure flies when you’re having fun lol. That portable AC I bought is pure magic, temperatures are not an issue anymore. Buds are getting thicker and thicker, I’m won’t rush her for the harvest, gonna wait patiently to reach her maximum capacity. Will feed her BigBud for 1 or 2 more waterings and will then start with the Overdrive for the final push. Sooo in love with this girl 💚 That’s all for now, have a great week guys✌️🏼

Day 72: Buds are putting some good weight and I think I’m about 2 weeks from harvest. Might have fed her a little too much, that AN SensiCalMag has sooo much N in it. Got some serious tip burn out there, but buds are looking great anyway. Will be careful though for the next watering to decrease the dosages.

Day 79: Buds have stopped growing for a couple of days or so, they did push quite a lot over the past 2 weeks. Could be the Overdrive or could just be its natural progress, couldn’t quite say. Trichomes are now ~90% cloudy white/10% amber so it’s about the time :) I won’t be flushing since I’ve come up to some interesting facts about people preferring the unflushed buds during the blind tests. DAY 81: CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP DAY 💚 Drying conditions will be ~23C degrees and ~55%Rh, AC will be running 20/24h. Gonna leave the small leaves on the branches for drying, as I want the drying process to be slower. Will come back in about a week with the harvest results. Happy growing, cheers brothers ✌️🏼

HARVEST We are 6 days after cutting Mary down and now the branches almost snap, as the buds are well dried on the outside. Still some water inside but that’s ok for me, I’ll go for a 3-4 week curing with 2-3x 10min/day leaving the jars open (0.5L glass jars). The buds are so so sticky at the slightest touch! I decided to go for trimming the buds dry, as moisture was not a big problem for me, never went above 60%RH, and never below 52%RH.. Not the same to be said about the temps, that sometimes went up to 26C. Tried to keep them at 21-22C as much as possible, but I couldn’t have just left the portable AC running for 24/24 because that thing sucks a lot of energy. So here are the numbers on the goodies we got after harvesting: • 509g wet branches with all leaves on them 6 days later • 104g dry branches with all their big leaves already cut off on the 4th day of drying • 95g dry buds Spectacular results, I have never expected to have such yields when I decided to grow my own plant. That LST made the difference, BIG time. ASPECT: I gotta admit the aspect of the buds is not 10/10 because I decided to leave mostly all of the sugar leaves on them. Extra trichomes, extra THC, so sacrificing that aspect is not a problemo for me. Buds are hard but not rock-hard, and show some awesome quants of resine. SMELL: Very strong. Unique. Fruity. Sweet. Earthy. YUMMY! THE SMOKE: Wow. They did say 24%THC and it sure feels strong. A hybrid allright, but the sativa dominance is clear as daylight. Full energize for a while and then the indica kicks in hard. However, this strain doesn’t seem to affect my social skills, as it doesn’t blast my mind with a billion thoughts running over and over. It’s like a clear-mind high. Awesome. I might be subjective, but for me this green gelato is for sure among TOP5 strains I’ve smoked over the past 10 years. About the SETUP: - POTS The AirPot was amazing, those roots developed fast, strong and healthy, overwatering was never a problem. You do need however to keep on eye on not to underwater your plant, the pot dries up WAY faster compared to a classic plastic pot. - LIGHTS The lights worked great, if I knew those decapped household LED bulbs are so good, I would have never even bothered to buy those 50W COBs. If I will ever do this again, I would go for 2x light socket splitters with 5x 15W Philips Leds. That’s a total of 150W of LED light and it doesn’t ruin your pocket. - SOIL Not much to say about it, CannaTerra Professional sure is a good soil. However, I’d skip the nutes for >day 21, good amounts of Nitrogen already inside the soil, should be enough for 1 plant for the first 3 weeks. - NUTES Pricey, but it seems like they did their job. I really liked the way the buds have rippened while I was using the Overdrive. The ph perfect micro grow bloom is very good, but I’ve never used more than 70% of the recommended dosage. Those numbers are way too high for me. I’d also add some CalMag to every watering but watch out if your using AN’s CalMag as that one has so so much N in it. Overall, I’m very satisfied with the nutes. Just followed the recommended dosages at 50-70%. Not cheap indeed, but it was worth it. - and last but not least… THE SEED ROYAL QUEEN SEEDS // Green Gelato Autoflower Growing Mary was mainly easy, from the beginning to the end. Not a single disease, no pests, just some deficiencies / toxicity. She handled the pretty hot environment very very well, and she also enjoyed A LOT of light, some sites have fatten up big time while being put under ~75.000lux (that was the big advantage of individually handling the LED bulbs above the plant). She smells so good. She tastes so good. She’s so potent and smooth at the same time. 10/10 for me, certainly one of the best strains I’ve ever smoked. Period. So that was it. ~Thank you Royal Queen Seeds for the chance of growing Mary ~ ~Thank you guys, growers & Grow Diaries for the chance of having constant feedback and advise on our growing and sharing with the others our experience and skills ~ ~A special thank you to my darling girlfriend for daily helping me over the past 2 months~