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Super excited to see how far I can actually take her in just this 16 oz cup. Torpedo Auto Fem. Was planted on July 18th and sprouted on the 22nd. Just using pH adjusted RO water. Used what I think is a .25L net pot filled with perlite, coco coir, a little dash (<.25 tsp. blood meal/bone meal and .5 tsp of worm castings with some cinnamon lightly mixed in.
Constructed my Hydro cup using a 16oz clear cup and punched a hole about 4 inches from the top. I bought a plastic 1/4" O.D./ 3/8" O.D. and screwed into hole. Then I cut the bottom off of a small tupperware container and taped it to the top of the 16oz cup with duct tape. I cut a hole in the bottom fastened to the top of the cup just big enough to hold the net poy from falling in. This was then all flex sealed and dried. A hole was punched for the air line and stone. A resivour was constructed also but is still being patched with flex seal. Should be fully functional, closed loop in the next week or so. This should be fun! Much love to all!
Hopefully this magnesium deficiency is coming to an end. There has been no signs of any deficiencies in the new growth which is awesome. Really neatly shaped leaves with her, noticeably quick growth as well. I've been removing fan leaves as they come, slowing down vertical growth, sending more auxins to lower branches which is visible. No topping with her, just going to let her go. Beautifully clean root system, every time the water got low I just switched it completely out instead of just refilling her. Also finally hooked up my homemade resivour to her cup. The manifold leaks a little but I compensated by punching a few holes in it's lid.
Still battling this hell of a cal/mag deficiency, so I begun using a light foliar spray at lights out during the last week. It seems to be making a difference, as the new growth and upper leaves are a very nice green color and have little to no spotting or chlorosis. Flowering is beginning or has already begun for a week or so already, pistils are very visible and calyxes are forming at major nodes and she's stretching for sure. Roots are fitting well in the cup so far. If root pruning is necessary I will attempt to do so! When I change the water I try not to pull the roots completely out of the cup because they are forming in a circle and I don't want to tear or lose any space.
As the second week of flower comes to an end, budding has really exploded. Lots of pistils, very long pistils, so large calyxes? The smell for being a small plant is quite pungent (it smells up my whole upstairs and it's in a tent but no filters). I noticed what I think is either nute burn, slightly on the tips of leaves, or what could also be a side effect of the rust fungus I believe she has? I only have her venting back into the house, didn't want to fire up the big fan for just this plant. Also it's been a challenge to keep her hydrated, I have her on a top feed timer and have still been checking to make sure she has water even with ten settings at 2 min a piece. If I set it any longer it floods over the basket. So if I were to do this again for a gorilla grow I think rock wool or clay pebbles would be a better media. Anyways should at least give me some dank in the end despite the contest!
I can't believe how big she has gotten for surviving in just a solo cup! Kinda opens doors in my mind on ideas for gorilla grows at low cost (only takes 1gal to run vs 3+ in a normal dwc bucket). I'll be honest and admit I've made the biggest rookie mistake and overfed, I knew I was really pushing her and wanting to see how far I could actually take her and burnt her tips in the process. The new growth is still green at the tips by the buds which is promising. I lowered her nutrient uptake slightly by 1ml for each base nutrient and gave a little less than 1/8 tsp of bloom booster. She got pretty tall and therefore top heavy, so the one afternoon I checked her and she was tipped over but no breakages, which was awesome. I tied her to the ceiling of the tent and now she is going nowhere. Been removing lower leaves and small growth that isn't showing sex yet. Once the colas have pre-flowers I remove all lowers that don't to help send energy upwards. I'm still seeing evidence of what I believe is rust fungus, though its growth has become much less noticeable than a few weeks ago.
I can't believe how big she has gotten! It has been becoming increasingly difficult to keep her hydrated, her roots occupy most of the available space in the cup that is below the drain. I increased the length of each time the timer turns on the pump in the reservoir. Her budlits are filling in slowly but steadily so I cut out bio-cozyme so she can focus on flower production. Seeing some purple tones in there too! For smell all I can say is wow, 'lil Torpedo Auto here smells pretty much identical to like "Big League Chew" bubble gum. For battling rust fungus I am pretty proud that she is still alive haha. Because of this I treat her with a neem oil/cinnamon oil/peppermint oil/geraniol mix at lights out every other day. There is absolutely no sign of any pests which is amazing, or any other disease/deficiency, so as long as I can keep this rust crap under control I think she'll be a strong finisher!
Nothing much has changed, but she did have quite the eventful full week. Our local Public Service had scheduled an electrical outage for Tuesday from 4 A.M.-11 A.M. (Torpedo's lights turn on at 6 A.M. and go off at 9 P.M. but her air pump is constantly on so her roots have oxygen) so I borrowed my grandfather's generator and woke some neighbors up a little earlier than they had planned lol! She's came too far, there was no way I was about to mess up this little experiment now from just a power outage. Then I noticed that her cup is leaking from the bottom! The only thing I can think that happened would be that because the roots continue to grow, they expanded so much that they cracked the cup. It holds water for about 3 hours, by then the plant has drunken the majority of it and the rest escaped out the bottom into a Tupperware I placed there. I'll just have to be on top of keeping her roots wet!
Once you think the hardest parts are over, BOOM something else happens. In this case I heard this awful screeching/alarm like sound and ran up to my grow tent to find an ocean so to speak. My timer had malfunctioned, (it has a countdown setting where it has a timer and when it hits 0 it turns on) and therefor pumped all the nutrient solution out of the reservoir until it was empty, burning out my water pump from running dry. Also, my air pump that goes to the plant's container also burnt out from backing up with water in the solo cup. This then hydro-locked the air line to the roots so air couldn't travel through at all, I tried blowing through it and couldn't. I tried to replace the line, except the air stone was so entangled by Torpedo's roots that there was absolutely no way possible to remove it or the line so I cut it off as short as I could and shoved it down in the cup, placing a new line through the hole in the cup with just an open end because with a new air stone on the end of the line was impossible to submerge in the nutrient solution to function. If I would have used a more porous substrate for my media in Torpedo's net basket it would of been able to absorb the nutrient solution quicker instead of flowing over the top of the cup. I will be watering by hand from here on out 'til her end.
Flushing time is finally upon Torpedo's beautiful flowers. In the last week I've been slowly decreasing nutrient levels for less stress on her. The crack in the bottom of the cup is now pretty big from the roots expanding and when I flush her the water basically comes right out the bottom of the cup into a Tupperware I placed to catch it. First runoff ppm was 500 and the final being 300. She's sure got some color to her and a very unique odor. I can't wait to indulge!
She grew and auto-flowered just as expected, which was a relief due to a time crunch. She contracted rust fungus early on but was still strong enough to complete her entire life cycle. This phenotype's plum and ruby tones were a wonderful surprise, for Torpedo Auto is advertised as being more of a golden/yellow color. Super smooth smoke that first hits your shoulders and then the rest of your body. About half way down the joint my head feels like a balloon about to float away from my body haha (I'm baked). Very nice hybrid!
What a fun, but yet stressful experience this was. This grow in particular has opened up my mind with all sorts of possibilities for gorilla grows. Not sure that this was the highest yielding strain for the job, but at the time it was the strain with the shortest expected grow time in my collection, and I am sure ecstatic about her! 😎 Lots of tasty joints to come in my future, thank you Grow Diaries for provoking such a thrilling experience. I own two more seeds of Torpedo Auto and I can not wait to see what they have in store for next time!!💪
The_Chef_420
