Light Saber Bag Seed Grow

Growing a single plant of Light Saber from bag seed found while smoking through the mother plant bud. Mother was an 80% Indica-dominant hybrid of 27% THC. Gave me munchies pretty good, but tended to create a more alert and energetic high. Pretty easy to smoke a lot of it without realizing it in social situations because despite the indica lean, it hits lighter mentally while giving the body a nice, pain-reducing mellowness. I have pretty bad tennis shoulder right now, so a big fan of this strain as a more active, caffeine loving stoner myself. 10/05 A little worried about Light Saber seed germination – this is only the second good seed I’ve attempted to grow, and compared to the first (Mango Sherbet), the sprouting phase is taking noticeably longer. Germination occurred sandwiched in a paper towel wet with filtered water three days ago, on 10/02. It seemed to take about two days for the seed to split and the taproot to come out (which is what happened with the other strain), but after two days there was still no sprout (compared to the other strain, which sprouted the next morning after planting). I wasn’t too worried yet, but used a pair of tweezers to brush off some of the soil and take a peek at the seed in the early afternoon. It looked a bit thick and waterlogged, but had obviously been continuing to grow the root, so I put a thin layer of dirt back on top and left it alone. Because I have patience and self control issues, I couldn’t stop myself from checking on the seedling again in the evening, but was pleased to find that the cotyledon (those first, round leaves that appear after germination) had finally appeared. They haven’t started reaching towards the light yet and are still a bit tucked into the dirt, but they’re growing and looking good so far. 10/06 Checked in on the seedling this morning, and the color on the cotyledon has darkened a bit and there was some minor shifting overnight so the leaves opened a bit more, but not quite shooting out of the ground the way I came to expect after the quick growth of my other sprout. To be fair though, with the other seed I made the mistake of accidentally leaving in the dark for 12 hours after first sprouting when I forgot to adjust the outlet timer, and as a result the sprout’s stem experienced insane growth as it went searching for a light source. Maybe since there’s a better quality and quantity of lighting this time around, the stem stretch doesn’t seem as necessary to Light Saber. Update: After getting back from work and checking in, there’s been some definite growth! You can start to see the first set of “true” marijuana leaves forming in the center. About a centimeter of stem growth that I can see, so although this is only the starting line, I’m feeling really excited about the rate of growth displayed since switching to LED.

10/07 I noticed the cotyledon on Light Saber has been curling, which shouldn’t be happening at this stage. The color looks fine and the new leaves are slowly but surely coming in. Still though, the curling got me worried when I compared it to the flatter and bigger cotyledon on my other seedling (Mango Sherbet – different journal). After some research, I’m pretty sure the issue is plain old overwatering – something I’m probably doing with my other seedling too. I realized my mistake was in straight up watering them instead of listening to the thousands of growers on the internet telling people to spray them down instead lol. 10/08 I’ve been overwatering the plants consistently, and it’s starting to show through on Light Saber through increased stem growth (stress indicator when secondary leaves are not growing as quickly to match), and through the curling of cotyledon despite their color remaining within normal range. Been leaving it to dry out for the last day or so, only giving it a misting last night and this morning to keep up humidity and hydration. Seems to be working already, after checking on it this morning the secondary leaves are showing improved growth and the cotyledon seemed to have decurled a bit. I had the seed on a 24 hour light cycle the last few days to help provide the extra energy needed for leaf growth, but as of today I’m switching to a 20/4 light cycle during veg. The humidity outside increased quite a bit with incoming rain, so I turned on a small dehumidifier to help keep the humidity levels between 65% and 70%. It’s an ideal range to keep the three plants I’m housing together in different growth stages comfortable for now, though I may work on decreasing it to a solid 60% as the seedlings grow a bit. 10/13 I’ve been out of town for several days, and using an outlet timer left I Light Saber on a 20 hours of light/ 4 hours of darkness cycle, with misting twice a day from my house-sitter using plain filtered water I’d PH balanced. I have two small fans running (though one was plugged in to the timer as well, and was off when the lights went dark); one pointed above the plants and one pointed below for good circulation. Light saber also gets rotated in half turns 2-3 times a day to get a nice, even coverage of light all around. I left the dehumidifier on the entire time, which was definitely a good thing with how humid and rainy my city got during this past week. Even left on, the humidity level in the room stayed at about 66%-67% - which is about right where I want it right now, so it works out for now. Misting the sprout instead of watering made a huge difference, and the growth came through pretty strongly after only two and a half days of just misting. The cotyledons never de-curled, but they did get larger to compensate for the lack of light contact so I wasn’t too worried. Overall super pleased. Light Saber is growing up beautifully; the stem length isn’t too long or turning red so at least for now it isn’t stressed for light or temperature, the leaves are growing in big and well defined without odd coloring or texture, and in extremely exciting news the next set of leaves are already starting to grow out. Final note for this week before posting – finally got my grow tent (5ft tall, 2ft deep, and 4ft wide) this morning. Setting it up today, so week 3 posting will occur after a full seven day run with the tent. My other plant has been a bit slow to grow due to some mistakes on my part, but after seeing the kind of growth week 2 brought Light Saber without a tent, I’m insanely curious to see what kind of difference having one will make this next week.

10/16 Been misting 2-3 times a day and keeping temp and humidity a little on the high side. Developing well and has a nice steady grow rate with the stem/leaf ratio. Keeping an eye out on the stem thickness too in case Light Saber isn’t able to support her own big beautiful self. 10/17 Okay, so ran into a small issue – I accidentally tripped into my grow tent and knocked Light Saber over with enough force to almost completely spill out of her container. I took the opportunity to transfer Light Saber into a 5 gallon pot; first by fluffing and wetting the new dirt to get it fluffy and aerated as well as moist but not soaking wet. I created a hole in the pot’s dirt where I put Light Saber, but first added Mykos brand mycorrhizal inoculant to help root growth after the shock I gave her today. I planted Light saber and gave her a light watering around the area with the inoculant, but just misted in the immediate area around the stem. 10/18 Some spotting showed up on Light Saber overnight, but I’m not seeing signs of insects and I tried to ensure the dirt wasn’t too wet when I repotted – so I’m wondering if it’s either from the shock to the roots or nutrient burn somehow. I debated on flushing the soil, but for now I’ll wait and see how things develop before I make a move. 10/19 The spotting faded in color a bit but otherwise hasn’t gone away – luckily it doesn’t seem to have spread either. The edges of the leaves seem to be warping a bit but not changing in color while the new leaf growth coming in seems fine so far. Hmm. 10/20 Did some research, and I’m thinking that after the shock to the roots, the plant’s having some issues with nutrition and water sensitivity. I’m using the same Ocean Fox Farm Soil as before but it’s fresher and full of easy to access nutrients that may feel overwhelming to the poor root system. I don’t want to dry out the roots but also haven’t wanted to water them either in case it’s water sensitivity she’s experiencing, not nutrition. I’ve just been misting the dirt around the plant twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. It just occurred to me that the inoculant I added to the dirt around the root system may be holding on to extra moisture and nutrients too right now, which in hindsight may not have been the best thing to add to a transplant-shocked plant. I’m a bit worried about root rot being the cause of these new issues, but for now all I can do is wait and watch for whether she gets better or worse.

Week 4 LS Notes 10/21 Light Saber seems like she’s doing really okay actually. The weird twisting on the leaves seems to have stopped, and the discoloration hasn’t spread to the newest growth (which has been coming in nice and strongly). Five tipped leaves are coming in and the stalk is getting nice and thicc. I gave the soil a watering today since it’s gotten fairly dry outside of the immediate area around the plant and roots, and hopefully we’ll continue to see her move past what I think may have just been a case of root/transplant shock after all. 10/22 Light Saber’s resilience is impressing the patootie out of me. The issues that popped up during those initial days after my accidental assault on her hasn’t spread anymore, and cute little leaves are popping up on branches while fast, healthy af leafy greens are continuing to come through up top. I noticed that the stem seemed a bit thicker from the cotyledons on up, but the stem seemed to even out and get uniformly thicker all the way through overnight. (For anyone who doesn’t know or forgot, the cotyledons are those first, round little set of leaves that appear when your seed’s germinated and sprouted). Seems like we’ve managed to leave troubled waters for now and at least until my next error comes up I hope it’s not naïve to think it might be smooth sailing now. 10/23 Light Saber has three nodes and is working on the 4th right now – which I intentionally used the fimming technique on. It was a clean one cut process, and I watered after before putting her back in the tent. She’s just barely tall enough for me to start training, but I’m going to wait for her to get just a few more nodes and a little more recovered from the repotting before low stress training. Probably next week? I really debated on whether to fim or top, but ultimately with Light Saber I thought the ironically less stressful fim would be better after her recent tumble. 10/26 I went ahead and set up Light Saber for low stress training using some gardening wire, just on the stem. To help increase the amount of light exposure, I also tucked some of the bigger fan leaves. 10/27 Light Saber’s growth is looking really awesome, the sites exposed to sun have gotten fuller and are coming in really quickly. She’s not quite as pristine looking as my other plants in the leaf department due to the shock to the roots after knocking her out of the pot and having to do a transfer, but this latest batch of new growth looks gorgeous with no spotting or warping of the leaves, so I think she's finally had a chance to properly recover. I’m honestly not sure yet if the FIM was successful – I’m worried I clipped a bit too high up. There’s new growth coming in from the area I clipped, but I’m not sure if that means I was successful in creating new main colas. Guess it’s back to sitting and waiting for her to let me know lol. Another note – I went ahead and got a few gender tests to use on Light Saber and Mango Sherbet (another journal). This morning I cut off one of the cotyledons, crushed it on the test pad to get the plant’s DNA in there, and put the sample in an envelope. Super easy lmao, I’m pretty pleased. I’ll mail the tests to the lab for testing, and when they have the results they’ll email me back. (For reference, the company’s name is Delta Leaf Labratories, and they can test for all the other stuff like strain genetics, THC, terpines, etc. I just wanted the gender testing and bought a pack of ten because the more tests you buy at a time, the cheaper each test is. In my caseI got each test for ten USD each. If I’d gotten a greater number the price would have been cheaper, but I only need this test for bag seed or reg photos so it wasn’t worth it to do more at this stage. It’s also totally possible to just get one or two tests, but I think the price is 12 USD for each test if you buy less than nine). I’m honestly not sure if I hope Light Saber is male or female anymore. I live in an area where weed is not only legal but there’s a surplus, so I can get it pretty cheap too. Light Saber is showing some dope genetic strength, so if it’s actually a male then it could be really interesting to test the little dude’s pollen on the cola tip of another fem strain or two. It’s a little mad scientist to just randomly start a breeding project like that, but I have the benefit of having the room and freedom to play a little and still get my weed if things go sideways so I kinda of want to take advantage of that. If Light Saber is male, then I might keep him in veg and stop with the training to keep him smaller while I figure out how I want to make use of the pollen. If female, then I’ll just keep on working to get Light Saber big and full before switching to flower so I can at least enjoy a decent crop.

Light Saber Notes Week 5 10/30 – midweek check in I’m blown away by Light Saber’s growth the last few days, she looks like a completely different plant now with the crazy number of new bud sites coming in. I’ve been checking on her twice a day to rotate under the light or do small adjustments to the wires as she grows out. The branches are getting super thick and sturdy too. One note though – I’m seeing a couple roots poking out from the bottom of the five-gallon bucket she’s been chilling in. I’m wondering if that means I’m kind of forced to send her to flower soon or risk her getting rootbound. 11/01 I think what I’ll do is repot Light Saber in a 7-gallon fabric pot and give it another 2-3 weeks to veg before flipping to 12/12 light schedule for flower. I’ve seriously procrastinated on sending the test samples to find out the gender, but I’ll make sure to get it done tomorrow. I guess either way I’ll commit to flower, but whether Light Saber ends up male or female will affect how and where I set up my grow space to accommodate this next phase. Evening Update: I went ahead and took the time to really get Light Saber spread out and tied down for maximum light exposure to the bud sites. I ended up using a lot more wires this time now that there are more branches and bud sites to manipulate, and made sure to tuck some of the fan leaves as well. I’m pretty happy with the job actually, I may be starting to get the hang of this which is super dope. I want to replant Light Saber in a 7 gallon fabric pot over the next day or two to avoid letting her get root-bound, which unfortunately means I’ll have to redo the LST setup I just did lol. 11/02 Fuuuuuuudge. I messed up again – big time. Just finished repotting Light Saber from a five gallon plastic container to a seven gallon fabric pot, and in the process managed to let the dirt fall apart and rip the roots in a major way. I’m so sad lol. What a bummer man, I’m honestly not sure Light Saber can survive this one. I finished the job and got Light Saber in the new pot with some fresh dirt and a watering before leaving her in the tent. This is definitely going to shock her badly at the very least and make the next week really uncomfortable while I watch and try to figure out if she’s dying or able to push through the shock. Light Saber was doing so well too; I’d even call her the one with the most potential out of the strains I’m growing. If she pulls through then all I can say is how grateful I am that Light Saber is a photoperiod lol, because this next round of root shock I’ve managed to inflict is probably going to push back my plans to flower by another week or two – if this hasn’t permanently stunted her growth, anyways. 11/03 So far so good, at least for now lol. I’m not seeing leaves drooping or spotting that didn’t already exist on some of the leaves after the root shock a few weeks ago. No browning or turning crispy, though I guess it could just be too soon to tell for some of this stuff. Light Saber has been such a fun one to work with so far that I’ll definitely be bummed if she isn’t able to survive my latest shenanigans. This next week will probably let me know one way or another lol. If you happen to read these notes, I just want to mention the pictures in this week’s entry; I didn’t want to be lifting Light Saber up and down so I just took the end of week pictures under the LED. She’s looking a little scraggly, and between the incredible growth coming in from the LST this last week and me trying to make the growth a little more obvious with some fan leaf tucking, she looks a little rough lol.

Light Saber Week 6 Notes 11/04 Light Saber still doing alright as far as I can tell – not getting crispy, drooping, yellowing or spots. Dirt is still damp, so won’t water today and potentially tomorrow. Still holding back from LST for today, but I’ll keep an eye on Light Saber and potentially put it in place in the next few days. My concern is that by exposing the budsites and doing the LST, all the growth hormones that should be working on rebuilding the roots might slow or stop to redirect to the bud sites, thus resulting in a weaker and less healthy plant down the line. From what I’ve researched it seems like LST should be fine as long as I’m careful not to put too much strain on the stem, but I’ll still hold off another day or two to be on the safe side while I look into it some more. 11/05 Went ahead and put the LST in place with some garden wire, but it definitely took a while with how many new bud sites have popped up. I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, but if Light Saber is actually able to make it through then she might be a really awesome yielder. The dirt is still damp, so holding off on watering for probably another two or three days. Evening Update: Noticing some yellowing and areas of the leaves with a white-fade to them, pretty consistent with side effects of root damage from what I’ve researched. The effects aren’t coming in quite as fast as I thought they would though; I’ve heard of some people seeing a completely shrivelled plant the next morning. So far all the new and newer growth is till solid and looking healthy, it’s just the older fan leaves that are showing signs of distress – and even that is more contained than I could have hoped for. We’ll just have to wait and see I guess, lol. 11/06 – midweek check in I’m seeing some sign of growth in the branches and the younger leaves are still looking good, but the fan leaves are continuing to show more yellowing at a slow fade. Even though it’s continuing, the rate that it’s happening is still slow enough that I have hope Light Saber will pull through. I made a few adjustments to the wiring to spread out the fan leaves some more so Light Saber can have the chance to absorb as much as possible right now. The dirt is still damp enough that I’m a tad worried about root rot setting in, so I’ll try to keep an eye out for that as well. 11/07 I’m still seeing continued yellowing in the older fan leaves, while the newer growth still seems untouched for now. I debated taking off the yellowing leaves but they happen to be the largest on the plant too. As far as I understand it, Light Saber is able to absorb most of her energy from the light that way so taking them off doesn’t seem like a good idea yet, even if it makes her look sickly. I’ll water her tomorrow, but for today I just adjusted a few leaves to increase air flow through the canopy and redirected an extra fan into the tent. There was a noticeable reduction in dirt moisture today, but it’s still a hair damp. I really want to avoid root rot in the areas I damaged, so I don’t want to water too soon. 11/09 Didn’t do anything with Light Saber except rotate under the light and comb through the jungle like, tangled mess that’s been the canopy the last few days. Also watered yesterday with water and cal/mag. I ended up taking out a few mid-sized leaves that looked like they weren’t getting a chance at light anyways, and it really freed up spaced to get the branches spread out and all the new growth in contact with light. Since Light Saber responds almost too well to LST, I decided against bending down the main cola for now. Every time I do bend it down, the new growth comes in explosively and it’s definitely getting tougher to control. I may have to flip to flower sooner than I thought, if the growth so far has been any indication then the flower stretch is going to be impressive and possibly problematic. Not that I can be that mad though – having my weed plant get unexpectedly large is not too terrible a problem to have in the grand scheme of things lol. 11/10 – End of Week The work I put in yesterday seems to be paying off already; Light Saber looks like she’s doing awesome and growing out nicely. I’m a lot happier with the increased airflow through the canopy right now with how tightly clustered the growth is. Also pleased to report that she seems to be drinking faster now and will probably need a watering in two, maybe three days.

Light Saber Week 7 Notes A lot has been happening with lockdowns going into place and trying to prepare for some of the shortages and difficulties my area’s already starting to face going into winter, so I didn’t have the energy to write up notes for any of my strains this week to be honest lol. Just a quick overview of this week – Light Saber has officially survived my repotting shenanigans and seems to be doing really well. I don’t think I mentioned it in a previous post, but unfortunately someone broke into my car during the night a few weeks ago and tore open the envelope I had of the genetic samples for Light Saber so I could send it in and get confirmation of the gender. The samples had been handled and touched among other things, which unfortunately contaminated them. The timing and type of leaf I use for testing is pretty specific, so I wasn’t able to get another sample for the original batch of strains I wanted tested. Humongous bummer, because I’d pre-paid for the tests too. Not the worst thing in the world though lol, I’ve come this far so I’ll take the opportunity to break from planning everything out and just enjoy the mystery and surprise of the genders. I’ll just need to be extra vigilant about pollen sacs growing in and potentially reconfigure the timing of my flowering phases. I put in a bit of LST about midweek once I felt pretty comfortable that Light Saber was doing alright and kicking back into vegetative growth. With the light defoliation I did the shape got a little funny, but between LST and moving her to a different spot in the grow tent so light could hit the skinnier sides a bit better, she’s filling up evenly again. I’m thinking I may be ready in the next two weeks to flip to flower – in the last day especially, she’s really poofing out and gaining some height.

Light Saber Week 8 Notes 11/19 Alright, we’re now at about 2 months in on Light Saber as of this week which is pretty dope. I’m about ready to flip her into flower in another 2 weeks along with a Mango Sherbet strain I started at the same time as Light Saber. They have a nearly identical flowering period, so it works out pretty well. Dig some leaf tucking and touched up on LST today which really helped open up space close to the stem and contain some of the fluffy foliage she’s got going on. Despite the growth, she’s shorter than I would have thought at 2 months; I’m hoping the stretch comes in during flower. I thought about topping today, but when I was taking a look at the top of the main cola I just found a ton of new growth really packed in there, so I decided to ultimately just leave it. 11/21 Gave Light saber a watering doing just plain water last night, but forgot to PH balance it and woke up the next morning to a bunch of crispy leaves. I immediately flushed with a fresh batch of water that I doctored up with cal/mag and PH balancing, so hopefully that’ll fix it. 11/23 The flush seems to have worked and Light Saber is bouncing back. Gonna go ahead and do another defoliation tonight to get some light to the lower branches.

Light Saber Week 9 Notes 11/25 Gave Light Saber a light defoliation today, but it feels like it barely scratches the surface she’s so bushy lol. Dirt’s getting drier so I’ll water with cal/mag water in a few days. 11/27 Watered with a light dose of cal/mag, and that’s pretty much it. 11/29 Gave Light Saber another defoliation, pretty solidly this time. The new growth is coming in like crazy on the branches with every defoliation and subsequent exposure to light, it’s pretty dope to watch. After the defoliation I considered doing LST but it’s weirdly difficult with this particular plant because of how densely the leaves come in after. New branches keep off-shooting and spreading the growth hormones even more thinly through the plant, making it hard for the branches to thicken. I’m not sure what to do to be honest lol, so I’ve just been doing the occasional defoliation as far as training goes. 12/01 New growth coming in really nicely after defoliation, and I’m not seeing signs of stress or further breakdown in the previously affected leaves from my PH mishap last week. Been keeping an eye out for signs of sex characteristics forming – I haven’t switched to 12/12 yet but I did reduce the light from 20 hours a day to 18 and wanted to keep an eye out in case that was enough of a change (on top of the heavy defoliation) to stress a flowering reaction. Everything looks good after a week, so I’m switching on both bloom and veg switches on the LED lights in the tent as of today. After some research I’m finding it’s better to have both lights on during at least the veg stage, although there are mixed reviews on whether to leave the veg light on or off during flower.

Light Saber W10 Notes Defoliation has really been working for Light Saber due to her natural tendency to be really bushy. To date I attempted FIMming once but it was ultimately unsuccessful, some LST tie-downs with garden wire during the first month or so, the defoliation has been the main and most affective source of training I've done so far. I'm honestly not sure how else to go about it with a plant as bushy as this, being fairly new at growing still, so for this one I believe I'll just let her grow out during flower pretty untouched and use the time to study up on some methods to deal with this in the future. I'm working off a wing and a prayer that Light Saber is female, but I don’t actually know that for sure. If I send her into flower and she ends up being a dude, my plan is to send her back into veg and try to get a successful clone or two going to keep a smaller and more manageable version of him on the side while likely culling him. I'm considering the option of mainlining him instead, but with the amount of growth there's been it would be a pretty serious shock to the system, and considering the sensitivities the plant has shown in the past to physical shock, I'm not sure he'd survive. Ultimately I decided to with stripping the lower branches of growth up to the point you can see in the pictures, then did an LST tie-down while leabeving the top section alone for now.

Just waiting on an auto plant in the same tent as Light Saber to finish her last week and a half or so of flower so I can chop her down and get the tent set up for the switch to 12/12. It’s so hard to wait though, I’m beyond ready to get a move on with these guys already lol. I’ll house three photoperiods total in the space - Light Saber (gender unidentified), Mango Sherbet (gender unidentified), and Ghost Train Haze (female). I’ll keep a close eye out for sex characteristics on Light Saber and Mango Sherbet but the tricky part is that even if they’re both female, all three strains are bag seed (found them while smoking through bud), which means they may have hermaphroditic origins inherited from the mother plant. Males I’ll sadly cull, but females will need to be closely monitored throughout the two month Flowering period for the appearance of pollen sacks or seeds so they can be picked off asap. Overall, I’m pretty excited. I’m seeing some fungus gnats I’ll need to clap back at before they become an issue, but otherwise smooth sailing.