FastBuds Sour D Auto in FoxFarm Mix

Day 1: Started with a 50/50 mix of FoxFarm's Coco Loco & Ocean Forest soils. I decided to do this because the Ocean Forest was SUPER expensive due to the COVID lockdown, but Coco Loco seemed right. Hopefully between the two soils, there's enough nutes to keep everything fed for a while. After that, I planned on using the FoxFarm liquid nutes and fertilizers. Everything is inside a 43"x24"x60" tent with 2x Parfactworks RA1000W, I planted a single seed in a 5 qt fabric pot about a 1/2" in and pinched the soil closed on top of it. With the 2 lights and 4" inline fan from Vivosun, I'm only pulling about 300w. Lights will be left on for the first week and then switch to a 20/4 schedule. Day 3: I noticed the temperature was rising - almost hit 85 one day. I increased the power on the inline fan, added a small fan inside the tent, and opened up a vent to get the air circulating a bit better. To help with germination, I lightly covered the pot in plastic wrap - hopefully that helps move things along. I stuck a dehumidifier in the tent, but it's not on yet. I also stuck a personal hygrometer in the pot and it's currently reading: 77% @ 84.5F Besides that, I'm only adding non pH'd water right on top of where the seed was planed when the soil looks dry. Now I'm playing the waiting game... Day 5: We have sprouts! Day 7: After a week, looks like we're off to a good start!

At the start of Week 2, I realized my light's timer was set to "Always On" instead of using the timer - now we're set to a 20/4 schedule. So far, nothing has changed in my schedule except that one of my 3 plants (the Critical Kush Auto) didn't germinate. I'm probably going to reuse the the soil in that pot to fill the pot up as a top dress on the 4th week. I'm still using pH'd water only with no additional nutrients. I added a small oscillating fan to circulate air a bit better.

Wow - she is getting HUGE! Not sure if I will wait until week 4 to start LST - she's almost ready now! I'm starting to water more thoroughly about 1-3 times per week, but besides that, I lightly water the plants as they appear to drink from the soil. I've been checking under the surface of the soil and picking up the pots to judge the weight to see if they need water. Started LST at the end of 8/20 - Day 16. A little early, but I wanted to make sure there was plenty of time to train her. 8/23 - I can already see the benefits of the LST. She's really responding well. 8/24 - Did a light feeding with a 1/2 tsp of Fox Farm Grow Big to a gallon of water and made sure the pH was around 6.5. I also moved around some branches and fan leaves and loving the results so far!

Compared to the 'Glue in the same tent, this Sour D is really starting to stretch. She takes daily training to make sure she doesn't go too crazy and looks like she's got a lot of nice tops coming along. It's been a while since I've grown and I've never grown autos before since they were considered unstable back then, so I kind of just want to let this go naturally without any pruning. Since she's in a mix of Ocean Forest and Coco Loco, I am only giving her .5 tsp/gal of Grow Big. It really looks like she's eating it up! 8/28 - Day 24 - I think she has actually started to flower today. I'll try to update photos and this comment later if my suspicions are confirmed. (EDIT: Looks like she's already flowering, but I can't tell if it's just new growth reflecting the light. Should be able to see more in a few days. Day 24 from planting, but about 19-20 from sprout) 8/30 - Definitely flowering! Kinda surprised that happened so quickly. I plucked a few fan leaves and moved some branches around for better air circulation and light.

She actually started flowering half way through last week. Lots of nice bud sites developing and I definitely am smelling a bit of "the funk" as I like to call it. The smell has been managed so far by a 4" carbon filter, but we'll see if it's up to the task in the coming months. Regarding autos, I was reading that they should start a growth spurt before they stop growing to let the buds develop and swell. I hope that happens soon because she looks like she can keep stretching for a while and I'm not sure I have the room for her to keep going. I started moving some of the trained branches so the canopy fills out a bit better. I think it's still going to take another week of moving everything around, but I should end up with a dense, wide, even canopy. I started feeding her by using the lowest recommended feeding with the Big Bloom (1 TBSP/gal) and Tiger Bloom (1/2 tsp/gal) fertilizers from Fox Farm and feeding ever other watering. If I notice any nute burn, I'll water twice before feeding again. 9/4 - I actually decided to try to give her a bit of a stronger feeding next time - 3 TBSP of Big Bloom, 3 tsp of Tiger Bloom, and 2 tsp of Grow Big. Might be too much, but wanted to see if i could get a bit extra out of her before it's too late

She's a little stinky, but not much has changed so far. Did a bit of defoliation and was thinking about aggressively trimming off some of the smaller nodes and buds, but decided it was probably too late. Now, I'm going to let her bulk up. She's really drinking the water up - I use about a gallon each feeding and with the Coco Loco mixed in the Ocean Forest - it seems to last a while.

Started a heavier feeding with the liquid FoxFarms nutes. Just like the Glue grow, I really hope she bulks up too. The cheaper LED lights I bought off Amazon (parfactworks RA1000w) have been doing GREAT so far, but they weren't expensive which makes me worry. There are a lot of buds on this gal and I'm hoping they don't end up light and airy. There seems to be good airflow and light penetration, but of course the light can't get everywhere. I think I've removed enough fan leaves where the light can get pretty deep, but I guess we'll see how she ends up. I've stopped the LST and defoliation, but I am removing the dead leaves under the canopy. I lowered the light for a few days to about 10"-12" hoping that the middle would fill out more ... it seems to have worked. The canopy is much more even and filled out. I noticed some of the white hairs starting to turn orange, but it feels a bit early for that to start happening - I expected the buds to thicken up much more. I purchased foxfarms beastie bloomz and cha ching and hope that will help. If these buds don't get bigger, it will be a very disappointing harvest

Waiting for some extra nutrients to arrive so I can keep feeding her, but she's still looking healthy! I wonder every day if I should snip some of the lower, smaller buds off, but I don't since the general consensus is "don't mess with autos - just let them go." I ordered some of fox farm's extended line, so we'll see what that does. UPDATE: I couldn't help myself snipped off most of the super tiny airy buds that will obviously never get what they need. I also took a few of the branches that were pretty much below the canopy just wasting space. I added Kelp me Kelp You to the last feeding and my Glue Gelato in the same tent is dealing with a cal/mag deficiency. I'm going to add some cal/mag to the next plain-water feeding since I'm seeing signs of what I think is a cal/mag deficiency. Next week, I'll add Beastie Bloomz and maybe some Flower Fuel to the feeding schedule and hopefully bulk these gals up.

Few more hairs turning on this girl this week, but nothing really too crazy. Some of the buds look like they're filling in a bit more too. She's not showing signs of deficiency like the Glue Gelato in the same tent and I'm feeding her the same way, so that's good, however, her buds also aren't as thick as the other plant. Overall, it's looking nicer and nicer every week. The reason I grew this strain was because I read how others who grew this were finished in 10 or less weeks, but I think it's going to be 12 or so weeks (if not longer) until it's ready.

She just got a flush today. When she's ready for another feeding, I'm going to give her some cha-ching and molasses for one week before switching off to plain water until she finishes. Based off of the trichs, I think it looks like she *really* only needs another week or so, but I was planning on letting her go a bit longer. Got her last feeding on 10/10 and from here on out, it will just be plain pH'd water.

Just feeding her plain, ph'd water now and letting her finish up. I'm leaving on vacation for a week, so I set up an automatic watering system that pumps from a reservoir outside of the tent. It's set to start pumping in 4 days. Then it should pump for 4 mins every 3 hours. Hoping this works and these beauties will be looking great when I get back!

Left her for a week while I was on vacation with an automatic dripping watering system I bought on Amazon. I gave her a heavy plain-water feeding on Friday leaving the bottom tray full so she could replenish with that for a day or so. The dripper was set to delay for 4 days, and then run for 4 mins every 3 hours. When I got back, the soil was still wet and this girl and the other in the same time were still alive with no mold, nanners, or bugs (much to my surprise)! When I first got home, the tops were so heavy that they were drooping all over the place. I grabbed some hemp twine and tied the plant together to support the heavy colas. It seems to work and isn't affecting the buds. I'm hoping to harvest on Halloween, but if they're not ready, I'm sure she can go another week or two with the plain water flush. Now I'm watching her and the other plant in the same tent to see when they're ready. Ideally, I'll harvest them both at the same time, but we'll see what happens. To my surprise, it looks like she doubled in thickness, but it could just be because I haven't seen her in a week. Unfortunately, my phone decided it wanted to go for a swim in the ocean, so I had to use an older phone to take the photos and they didn't come out great... sorry about that! I plan to have some better photos next weekend.

Still feeding her plain water, but I stopped until she is harvested. Next update should be a harvest with dry weight. I started lowering the amount of light time towards the end to hopefully force them to finish. I really wanted to pull both at the same time (this Sour D and a Glue Gelato in the same tent). Starting from 20h on all week, I reduced light time to 12h for Monday night, 10h Tuesday night, 8h Weds Night, and 0h Thurs & Fri nights. I plan to harvest under the full moon this Halloween. She didn't get as thicc as the Glue Gelato in the same tent, but there are a ton of buds all over the place and they are looking tasty. Definitely starting to smell the funk coming from the tent and the trichs and buds are looking sexy. Feel free to try to guess the final dry weight!!

This strain was super easy to grow and produced a MASSIVE yield. Out of the 5.85 total oz, about 2 oz of that was light, fluffy, and unwanted, so it went into the hash pile and left me with about 4 oz to smoke. In hindsight, I should have pruned all of the bud off of the bottom half of that plant early since most of that didn't produce very well. Two weeks prior to harvest, I fed with water only in hopes to flush and reduce any harshness. The grow itself easy and I mostly followed a reduced strength FoxFarm feeding cycle after the 4th week. Unfortunately, the harvest turned out with very little flavor and smell. Buds smell a little gassy when you break them up or compress them and stick your nose in there, however none of that translates in flavor. I'm sure if it has anything to do with the light, soil, or nutrients, so I've opted to upgrade my light to a higher quality QB light, use less nutrients along with Recharge, and try different genetics. The buds are still potent and smoking them definitely gives you the same effect, it's just less enjoyable than if it would have had a sour & gassy smell/flavor. The buds did start to foxtail toward the end which wasn't really too bad, but it was annoying to see fresh buds growing on (almost) mature buds. I also found a few immature white seeds on the lower buds that went into the hash pile, but no pollen sacks. One must have slipped by me. The smoke is much more harsh and less fragrant (when burned) than the Glue Gelato grown in the same tent. When smoking the flower between the two plants, I normally opted for the Glue Gelato because it had a better flavor and smell (albeit only slightly better). The taste is almost hay-like. It's possible this dried out too fast. I had trouble keeping up the humidity in the drying room, so had to move this to large paper grocery bags. According to the hygrometer in the bag RH went from 78 to 58 over 7 days before being jarred on Nov 6. The hygrometer was salt tested and calibrated before going in the bag, so I'm fairly certain it was correct. The bubble hash is actually WAY more than I was expecting for a 31g run. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the 73u separate as bubble and press the rest, or combine everything together and do a low temp press, but I'll figure it out over the next few days. I'll most likely put everything together and press it. I tried pressing about an ounce of the flower, but only ended up with 1.7g of really dark rosin. It definitely made better bubble hash and I expect a better quality yield after pressing the rosin. Since both this plant and the other plant in the same tent came out similarly (little smell & flavor) - I'm fairly sure it was either the light, nutrients, or medium. Hopefully the next grow comes out more pungent. Regardless, this grow gave me a ton of bud to smoke on, a nice handful of bubble hash (soon to be hash rosin), and some good experience under my belt, so it's not all negative. Edit notes: Looks like the lights are miscalculated. I tried to fix it, but I think I made it worse. For clarification, I used the 115w RA1000 lights (which were supposed to be 1000w equivalent), so I guess that really comes out to 1.43g/w. The tent had two plants and they each had their own light, but I'm unsure if both should be in the grams per watt calculation or not..