07/2020 - Northern Lights

TreeFarmerCharlie Plants sprouted on July 11th and they have been growing very quickly so far. They are only on day 15, since sprout, and they already needed to be transplanted into 1 Gallon pots today. This is going to be an all organic living soil grow. The only nutrients I will be adding will be in the form of teas, and GD doesn't seem to have any way to track that, so I will just make notes in the weekly comments regarding when give the plants some compost teas. Soil being used will be a 50/50 mix of Elevation Summit Soils Base Camp and Nectar for the Gods #4 that I pre-amended with 1Tblsp/Gal of Elevation Organics Mountain Blossoms 7-2-3 Vegetation. I will be using the Mountain Blossoms fertilizer as a tea throughout the vegetation stage once a week. I will brew the compost tea with the fertilizer at the recommended 4-8mL/L of water and then will feed it at full strength each week in small doses (about 50mL of tea for every liter of soil). All 4 plants have been growing at similar rates but I do have one mutant in the bunch that was only growing on one side from the start. It seems to be starting to grow like normal now so I will need to keep an eye on her. All 4 plants had their root balls dusted with Xtreme Gardening Mykos Wettable Powder before transplant and then were drenched with a solution of molasses water mixed at 1 TBSP of molasses per gallon of water. Plants are currently still in my nursery tent and will be for probably another week or two until my other grow is harvested. So, for clarity, the plants are currently in a 2.5’ x 2.5’ tent under an HLG-65 light.

TreeFarmerCharlie All 4 plants are growing well, and the roots were already reaching the edges of the pots they were in, so I decided to transplant them into 1.75 gallon pots and get them into the large tent. Each plant got top dressed with 2 TBSP Mountain Blossoms vegetation fertilizer and then got watered with a 1:1 mix of compost tea and water.

TreeFarmerCharlie Plants are doing very well and were topped today. Tea is brewing for them now and they will get that on Tuesday. The cuttings from each plant went in the cloning box for a friend but I will probably take more cuttings for cloning further along in veg.

TreeFarmerCharlie The plants look great and have been growing well over the last week. I transplanted each plant into their final 10 gallon pots, drenched the soil with a diluted compost tea until they each started to get runoff, and then installed and dialed in the Blumat watering system. The end of each branch was topped again and the branches were pinned down to level out the canopy.

TreeFarmerCharlie I let the plants do their own thing all week and haven't touched them at all. I noticed today that the two plants on the right side of the tent are growing at a faster rate so I raised the brightness of the lights on the left side of the tent by 15% in hopes that it will help those two plants catch up. The plants are growing in a pretty bushy shape as it is, so I may not train them in the typical manifold style I usually do. I'm thinking about only lightly pulling down side branches, just to keep the canopy even, and then I should be able to flip them into flower a little earlier than I usually do. I mixed up some compost tea this morning and will feed it to the plants tomorrow following a 24 hour brew.

TreeFarmerCharlie The plants had a large growth spurt over the last week so they were lollipopped and flipped into flower today, raised the lights, and ramped them up to 100%. The will receive a dose of compost tea (1L to each plant at full dose) made from the vegetation fertilizer and molasses tomorrow and then I will start with a 50/50 mix of vegetation and flowering fertilizers next week.

TreeFarmerCharlie Plants each got 1L of compost tea made from 1tbsp/gal Veg fert, 1tbsp/gal Flower fert, and 3mL/gal molasses brewed for 24 hours. Plant #1 seems to be the runt of the pack. She's growing but is way behind the rest in the height department. Today I removed any branches that haven't made it to the top of the canopy and all bud sites below the top 8-10 inches of the plants. I usually go too light on the lower bud site removal, and wind up with a lot of lower larf, so I'm trying to be more aggressive with this grow to see what type of difference it makes. The aroma is getting stronger and the plants smell wonderful. Water consumption is continuing to rise with the stretch into flower.

TreeFarmerCharlie Day 15 of Flower (64 days since sprout) Plants each got 1L of compost tea made from 1tbsp/gal Flower fertilizer, and 3mL/gal molasses brewed for 24 hours. The plants have stretched a bit over the last week so I've had to raise the lights about 12" to compensate. I'm running them a little closer than I normally do in hopes that it will cause the branches that are closer to slow down their stretch and maybe help the shorter plant catch up a little. All of the plants look very healthy and the flowers are coming in nicely. All 4 plants will receive a top dressing of flower fertilizer tomorrow and I will also go through the plants and remove any lower bud sites that have sprouted over the last week.

TreeFarmerCharlie Day 21 of Flower (70 days since sprout) Plants each will get 1L of compost tea tomorrow made from 1tbsp/gal Flower fertilizer, and 3mL/gal molasses brewed for 24 hours. The plants stretched about another 6" over the last week but I think they are done, or close to done, with the stretch. Lights were raised to the top of the tent on Wednesday and the plants look very healthy.

TreeFarmerCharlie Day 28 of Flower (77 days since sprout) Plants each will get 1L of compost tea tomorrow made from 1tbsp/gal Flower fertilizer, and 3mL/gal molasses brewed for 24 hours. the smell is coming in nicely now and these plants really haven't skipped a beat. I've been just letting them do their thing and have been staying out of the tent most of the week. The only maintenance I did with the plant over the last week was top dress each pot with flower fertilizer and mix it into the top 1"-2" of soil.

TreeFarmerCharlie Day 36 of Flower (85 days since sprout) Plants each got 1L of compost tea today made from 1tbsp/gal Flower fertilizer, and 3mL/gal molasses which was brewed for 24 hours. The leaves were getting really crowded in the center of the plants, and some of the smaller leaves in those crowded areas were dying off, so I removed all of the large fan leaves from the middle of the plants and some of the largest fan leaves at the top of the canopy today. The plants have all been drinking a lot of water over the last week, more than they have since they started, and the buds have fattened up quite a bit over the last week. The terpenes are really starting to come through and the flowers smell amazing. The breeder timeline shows these should have about 4 weeks left and that seems about right based on how the flowers look.

TreeFarmerCharlie Day 42 of Flower (91 days since sprout) Plants will each get 1L of compost tea tomorrow made from 1tbsp/gal Flower fertilizer, and 3mL/gal molasses brewed for 24 hours. Everything is still going well with the plants, and I haven't really touched them all week, so there isn't much to this update. Humidity is still a little higher than I would like, but it is coming down to the 60% - 65% range, so I'm not worried about it.

TreeFarmerCharlie Day 49 of Flower (98 days since sprout) Plants will each get 1L of compost tea tomorrow made from 1tbsp/gal Flower fertilizer, and 3mL/gal molasses brewed for 24 hours. The humidity has still been higher than I'd like but the plants seem to be doing fine and I'm thinking it's due to me ramping the air circulation up to full power to keep the air flow moving through the tent quickly. The buds are really starting to tighten up nicely and the pistils are getting that classic orange color that really give the buds a nice look. Plant #1, the runt of the pack, is lagging behind the rest with ripening. All of the pistils on that plant are still white so I'm hoping it catches up to the others soon so I don't have to leave it in longer than the rest. The rest of the plants seem to be pretty much on track to be ready to harvest on schedule with the breeder recommendation which will be 2 weeks from today.

TreeFarmerCharlie Day 56 of Flower (105 days since sprout) Plants will each get 1L of compost tea tomorrow made from 1tbsp/gal Flower fertilizer, and 3mL/gal molasses brewed for 24 hours. The fall colors started coming in this week and the buds have put on a ton of weight. These are going to finish pretty much right inline with the breeder's estimation and I will be harvesting them a week from today. Plant #1 (the runt) is still behind the rest, but I'm going to harvest it at the same time due to space limitations. Temp and humidity was much more in line with where I want it during this stage and the plants are smelling amazing.

TreeFarmerCharlie The plants virtually stopped consuming water all together since yesterday so I harvested them today. Plant #1 has pretty much caught up to the others. It isn't completely where I like them at harvest, but it's close, so I harvested it to make things easier on me. I stripped the plants of all long fan leaves and hung them whole this time since the humidity has been a little lower than normal this week. I have no way to weigh the whole plants for a wet weight so I will update with the final weight, and terpene info once the bud has finished drying. It definitely has a nice pinene and sweet candy smell to it currently, though. Updated November 7th: Just finished trimming the plants and I'm very pleased with the results! Plant #3 was the winner when it comes to yield and quality. Plant #2 had some buds that had some mold, so those buds were trashed, but the rest of the plant came out great. I tried a small amount from each plant and it tastes and hits like the Northern Lights I've grown to love.