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One Banana seed has been started for the Zamnesia Spring Cup grow competition.
The Zamnesia fabric pot seems awesome. It has a membrane lining that prevents water from seeping out through the sides.
The seed germinated in 36 hours and was placed in the soil. The soil consists of Canna Terra Pro with 30% perlite and 75 grams of the slow release nutes provided by Zamnesia. The seedling was born 1 day after the seed was planted in the soil. It will be placed on my balcony with strong afternoon sun.
Day 7;
Everything is good. She's doing her thing and she looks happy. I water slightly every other day.
Day 9;
She's getting a bit of wind and that should make her stem nice and strong. I have some fungus gnats that I'll give some H2O2 soon, I just want her to get a little bit bigger first.
Day 12;
She looks healthy with good leaf colouring. I've added some sticky traps that have done a great job on the fungus gnats. Will see if I need to give it a H2O2 watering or not.
Day 16;
She's doing well. She's got good growth and good colour. She'll be quadlined in a few days. In preparation for the quadlining the new shoots at node 1 and 2 was removed.
Day 17;
She's almost ready at getting topped at node 4. Perhaps later today or tomorrow...
Day 18;
Today she was big enough that I could get the trimmer in and chop her top off. She was topped at node 4. I'll use nodes 3 and 4 for the quadline.
Day 19;
She's showing some discolouration on the lower leaves
Day 21;
Letting her four main shoots grow.
Day 22;
I'm letting her shoots grow long enough to start training them outwards.
Day 23;
The two lower shoots are big enough to put clips on them. The other two should be ready tomorrow.
Day 24;
The upper shoots are not quite big enough to put the clips on yet.
Day 25;
Clips are in place on the upper branches as well.
Day 26;
The lower branches got a second set of clips today. All 4 main tops are also being twist trained to prevent side branches from pointing downwards.
Day 28;
The upper branches got their second set of clips today. She's growing well.
Day 29;
I found some bugs on her today. I gave her a good spraying of Tec-Fort. Hopefully that will get rid of them...I've been thinking about using neem, but I've never got around to get some.
Day 31;
I don't see any bugs, but I still see what looks like black eggs. Will repeat treatment tomorrow.
The plant is being trained heavily. Another 2 clips were put on the lower branches, and some twist ties are holding the upper branches down. I removed some fan leaves from the 4 tallest side branches at the top to remove shading of the lower side branches. This will also slow down the 4 tallest side branches allowing for lower ones to catch up.
Day 32;
I'm letting her recover from the the training, and she can now grow freely for a while. She got the second spraying of Tec-Fort this evening. Hopefully that'll git rid of them all, but I'll keep an eye out for them.
Day 33,
The tallest 4 tops were bent down for height control with clips.
Day 35;
I'm happy with her structure, and I will only make minor corrections if needed. She can now focus on growing taller and start flowering.
Day 37;
She has started to stretch and it looks like flowering is near. I am very impressed by how the slow release nutrients work in veg. Hopefully it'll keep up the good work throughout flowering.
Day 39;
She's growing a few cm a day and she's a very happy lady at the moment. I'm doing some very light defoliation where it's needed.
Day 43;
I had to take her with me while moving houses so she had to sit in the car covered in a plastic bag for a few hours two days ago. Yesterday she had some drooping branches but today she all happy again. She's growing heaps and she starts to spread out. I am seriously worried about moving this girl in the car again after a month's time of getting bigger. I think I have to get a bigger car and do two runs and take a whole day extra just to move this girl back safely again.
Day 44;
The high temperatures makes her drink loads. She's getting a great shape on her canopy. If I can keep her happy I think we can expect some nice colas in a few months.
Day 48;
It is so hot and she drinks a lot. I have to feed her every second day.
I did a light defoliation today to promote the growth of the inner nodes
Day 50;
She keeps adding volume. She's now 60 cm tall and she keeps spreading. She's super happy with the feeding, and I couldn't wish for better grow in veg. I'm pretty sure I've trained her too big for the slow release nutrients I mixed with the soil, and I expect I'll have to feed her some more during flower that should start to happen soonish.
Day 51;
She got a light defoliation today.
Day 52;
She keeps preparing for flower and she's bulking up.
Day 56;
I gave her a good spraying of Neem. It was such hard work on my forearms that I ordered a better sprayer. I plan to spray her again when she's switching to flower.
Day 57;
She keeps adding mass, preparing for flower. I defoliate lightly every couple of days to get light and wind penetration throughout the whole plant.
Day 58;
Another light defoliation.
Day 59;
A heavy storm with very strong winds has hurt her a bit I think. She feels a bit loose and she's leaning a bit so I think the roots suffered badly. I will add some root stimulant to the feeding.
Day 60 - Flower day 1;
Today she started to flower. I'll change her feeding by tomorrow.
Day 61 - Flower day 2;
I gave her a heavier defoliation. Will spray her again with Neem tonight. Last spraying.
Day 8 of flower;
She's doing extremely well. I'm stoked by the performance of the Monster Bud Mix. Understandably she needs a bit more nutrients now, so I've started to give her a little.
Day 11 of flower;
I'll start putting the girls under roof at nights. The night dew is bad and white powdery mildew has been a problem in the past. Tonight they'll also get a foliar spraying of cinnamon.
Day 16 of flower;
Bug attack! I sprayed her with Tec-Fort. The photo is from another plant that was more affected.
Day 18 of flower;
She's lacking nutrients and I'm increasing her feed.
Day 19 of flower;
No signs of any more bugs
Day 20 of flower;
She's starting to bulk up for really fat colas. She's also putting out some trichomes and she's starting to smell very nice.
Day 21 of flower;
I gave her another spraying of Tec-Fort.
Day 22 of flower;
She's starting to get large leaves. She's up for another defoliation shortly.
Day 23 of flower;
She got a defoliation today. She's starting to get sticky and she smells very good - very tropical smell.
Day 27 of flower;
She's happier now after the heavier feeding, and we start to get some pretty impressive buds.
Day 29 of flower;
I gave her another spraying of cinnamon today to keep the white powdery mildew at bay.
Day 30 of flower;
I'm LST'ing the buds a bit to grow fatter. I exercise them a couple of times a day. The buds are fattening up beautifully.
She'll get another cinnamon spraying tonight.
Day 31;
She didn't get the cinnamon spraying last night. Instead she got a Tec-Fort spraying today. I found what I think is spider mites on her.
Day 32;
She's looking happy after yesterday's spraying. I'll spray her again with Tec-Fort in a couple of days, and then I'll see if I can keep them away with cinnamon.
Her branches are getting very heavy, and when I spray her it seems as if they might collapse. Hopefully not...
Day 36 of flower;
Her buds are growing well, and she's getting sticky. She doesn't smell very strong, a soft fruity smell.
I still have problems with red mites, and tonight she'll get a spraying of Arac Nabis that supposedly is okay to use in flower. These little bastards are very hard to get rid of. The plant is huge and it's hard to spray everywhere...
Day 39 of flower;
We had some heavy winds and unfortunately one of her branches snapped right off. I ziptied and taped it and if I'm lucky the branch will stay alive until harvest.
Day 42 of flower;
The broken branch is sagging a little bit, but is live and kicking still.
The buds are starting to get heavy and some of them start to hang a bit.
Day 43 of flower;
DISASTER!!!
The wind in combination with the heavy buds made the whole pant collapse. I fixed her the best I could, but I'm pretty sure she won't be happy about this....
Day 44;
She looks okay today which means she's able to drink. That's good. She won't be moved anymore, and will have to suffer in the shade most of the day until harvest.
Day 46;
We have an oncoming storm from the bad direction. Banana would have got it full on so I moved her indoors for today.
I tied up the hanging branch that previously snapped.
She's holding up ok but she seems a bit unstable and wouldn't be able to handle much movements. The storm hit pretty strong. If she'd been outside still she would have been ripped to pieces. Chairs and brooms and stuff were flying around a bit.
Day 52 of flower;
She's doing very well considering her injuries. She's not getting much sun since I don't want to move her around anymore, and she stays propped up between the chairs.
Day 56 of flower;
She's still doing ok after her injury. I gave her the last feeding today and will flush her after this.
Day 59 of flower;
I gave her a good flushing today. I will chop her down by the roots in a few days and try to do a bud wash on her without breaking her to pieces. I want to hang her whole if possible.
Day 63 of flower;
The day before chopping. She's going down tomorrow.
This was a very productive plant to grow. She grew like crazy in vegetation. The Monster Bud mix worked amazingly well. I didn't expect the slow release nutrients to last until harvest due to extensive training and growth, and shortly after flowering started I had to start feeding her. She accepted the training very well until finally the strong winds broke her to pieces. She healed unexpectedly well and finished her flowering beautifully though.
She had to endure a couple of months with extreme heat. For a few weeks the temps were hovering around 40 C and I had to feed her 4 liters a day.
She got some pests and I had to spray her a few times, but she has managed very well.
This girl sure delivered. She produced loads of beautiful buds. The weight 350 grams is estimated. I believe she has yielded between 300 and 400 grams.
I believe in slow drying, and she's still hanging in my bedroom to dry since 2 weeks back. She'll be jarred during next week when a proper sample can be tried. So far I have only been able to try some quick dried uncured bud, but that little sample was very promising and I can't wait to try her properly.
@HazeyBobby, we're thinking alike, mate. I'll talk to my friends who own a van to see if I can use it. Then I'll just hope I won't get pulled over. The Police has road blocks quite often due to my home town being a gateway for drugs into the country.
@HazeyBobby, yes I'm lucky regarding the sun. We have some pretty intense sunshine here most days. The Banana has started to grow very well the last few days. I haven't grown any outdoor photos before so I'm not sure when she'll start flowering, but hopefully it won't be too soon. She needs a bit more meat on her legs before flowering.
@Ferenc, thanks mate. She needs another few weeks, so I hope she'll survive. Too risky to move her now, so she'll get less direct sunlight. Bummer! She was doing so great...
They look like aphids - my balcony grow always gets them and I've been using neem oil for the first time. Seems to have been doing ok but have not gotten rid of them - just controlling their population.
@HazeyBobby, yes I think at this stage the plant benefits from keeping all the leaves it has.
Those gnats are a never ending story for me. The H2O2 treatment got rid of most of them.
@HazeyBobby, cheers mate. I started a bit late, but we'll see how we go. I'm interested to see how the slow release nutes will do. If it works well, I'll keep using it for my outdoor plants. It costs near nothing and if I don't have to mix any more nute mixes I'll be super happy.
Nickeluring
