Six Clones. First Grow!

Hello and welcome to my first grow! For the most part things went well, however a spider mite infestation in the flowering phase slowed everything way down. My heavy-handed spraying of soap and oil eradicated the pests, but the growth of the buds suffered greatly. In the end I harvested 12.3 oz of dry bud from the six plants. It smells great, smokes well, and is of average potency. The Sweet Cherry Pie and Snowman were potted (3.5”) on 2/18/18, and are the two oldest clones. The rest of the clones were potted on 3/16/18.

I am using a 1:1 soil mix of Fox Farm's Ocean Forest and Frog. During week 1 of veg growth I only used Big Bloom. I have cut all concentrations in half, as the Fox Farm feeding chart is too hot for most indoor growers (so I've been told), and because the soil mix already starts with nutrients. Will add the other nutes as I progress through the weeks ahead. I am using LEC lighting, aka CMH (ceramic metal halide) lighting. Watered/Fed on Saturday and Tuesday. Adjusted pH to keep outflow in the 6 range, and out of the 5’s.

I did some fimming earlier in the week and topped one branch on the reaching Snowman. I also removed just a few of the lower fan leaves on a few plants. The plants were fed and watered on Tuesday and Saturday. All look very healthy and the presence or pistils can be seen in the axillary buds, confirming that they are all females (and all are in the 'pre-flowering' stage of development). The pH is 6.8 with nutes on the way in, and pH reads 5.8 on the way out (drained water). I will increase pH slightly next time I feed. Fed again on Weds and increased the pH. There is currently rapid growth!

This is how the plants look on day one of week 4. Two of the six plants are one month older (SM and SCP). All is going well. I plan on flipping to flower in 1-2 weeks. Today/Friday: with just a couple of days left in the week, I elevated my lamp up to 30”. This will cast a greater footprint of light. and allow more room for vertical growth during the bloom stretch.

Elevated lamp and shortened time to 12:12. The two oldest clones and the LK are sativa in phenotype and rather thin and leggy.

My tallest plant is the Lemon Kush, which was cloned on 3-16. It is now 30” tall and has eclipsed the 1 month older plants. It is, however, slender and spindly. The second tallest, also very slender, is the Snowman. If I were to grow either of these strains again, I would consider growing them outdoors or with much more aggressive trimming. FWIW: all along the Blue Frost has stood out as a nicely shaped and vigorous specimen. I sure hope the clone I took from her takes.

All is going well, though yesterday I noticed that my lemon kush has some leaf tips that are yellow. Nothing obvious from afar, but something to keep an eye on. UPDATE: seemingly overnight my beautiful plants are INFESTED with SPIDER MITES!!!

So, just 4 days ago I discovered that my plants are infested with spider mites (the two-spotted 'Borg' variety)! I pulled them all outside and gave them a spray down with Trifecta (all organic, yada yada). Afterwards, around 30% seemed to survive, and could be seen crawling around. I washed them over- and under-leaf. The next day I used Green Cleaner on them, which is a soapy solution. I used the maintenance concentration of 1 oz per gallon, thinking it was the infestation-appropriate concentration of 2oz per gallon. The Trifecta turned the white pistals amber, but the next day they were all mostly white again. The Green Gleaner, turned them all amber/brown, and they are still that way! Will they recover and continue to develop? Time will tell. The day after the GC, no living mites were found, although their eggs are still there! What else have I done? I've reduced the grow room temp to 65. After drying out the buds (to prevent mildew/mold) with a dehumidifier, I allowed the room to climb in humidity again. Will shoot for around 60% RH, which I hope is enough to discourage rapid mite reproduction, while not enough to get bud rot...I hope! This bathing of the plants while in flower is rough on the plants it seems. Perhaps a Doktor Doom pyrethrin bomb (organic) would be better? It would tackle the entire room at the same time. Thoughts?

I have sprayed (organic only, alternating spray contents) for spider mites 4 times in the last week. Now, I see very few signs of them. The leaves have greened up, but the Lemon Kush was the most affected, and it's leave still show signs of past injury. The buds took a hit from the alcohol content of the Green Cleaner wash, but now show new and healthy growth. It's hard to say what the infestation cost my plants in bud development and plant health, though things are looking much more optimistic at this point and continued bud growth is expected.

Fortunately the spider mite infestation is currently under control with no signs of living mites. Keeping my eyes peeled for a possible return, as they are known to do. At least the plants, with the exception of the Lemon Kush which got hammered, are all looking green and the bud growth has returned. The smell of the room is getting very strong!

Over the last couple of weeks I have had quite a few leaves changing color and dropping. My pH seems to be in a normal range, and I don't think I'm having a nute deficiency of any type, as my well water is mineral rich. I suspect nutrient lock-out. Though I've done some flushing in the past, it has seldom involved more than 1-2 gal of water, which I think is probably a grossly insufficient volume. I am beginning week 8 of flower today, and so I should have some trichome activity--for these strains--very soon. Currently none of the trichomes are opaque.

I believe the discolored leaves are due to nutrient lock-out, with phosphorus taking a hit. All stems are purple now. I have flushed, but probably not enough. Next time.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to harvest the Lemon Kush. This poor individual plant has struggled from the start, and then it was the worst hit by the spider mites. Still, it has harvestable buds that are now cloudy with some amber trichomes.

Okay, here's my synopsis of Lemon Kush. This pheno started out as a tall, skinny, clone. Earlyin flower she acquired spider mites. The rapid fire sprays I performed were an emotional reaction, and while they appeared to kill the spider mites, all the flower pistils (of all my plants) turned brown and halted the growth considerably. Later she would experience nutrient lock-out as well. So, this plant yielded a mere 1.8 oz of newbie-over-dried bud. There is a silver lining however, and it's that the uncured buds I've smoked so far are of a potency equal to that of what I get at the local dispensaries. Very The aroma will knock your socks off!!! 😀 Very nice lemon flavor with this one.

I was disappointed in the yield.

One of my better yielding plants. The phenotype of my plant was robust, bushy, vigorous in its growth. Unfortunately, it acquired spider mites, and then I got carried away with consecutive pest spraying. This stressed the plant during flowering, from which recuperation was slow and arduous. Despite this, it was a bountiful plant. The high is mellow, but without couch lock. Middle of the road potency. Perhaps curing will bring it up some.

This strain doesn't smell good. It's more like bad breath with hints of horseradish. But...it's a nice sativa-leaning hybrid. :-)

I won't be growing this one again.

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