Northern Lights / Tangerine Dream

First week , nothing special here just little seedlings happy to be alive. Easy germ, light watering every day or two. The taproot of the seeds did get white fuzzy shit I thought was mold, but the plants all turned out fine except for one that lost one small starter leaf. She’s been fine since!

Week two has been nice and steady. Some of the plants are growing much quicker than others - not totally sure why. I did use some duck shit soil from my yard on a few at the beginning, maybe those did better. They’re all good though, and a few have been transplanted to 5galbuckets. The runts are still in small pots. Also upgraded their growing zone with Mylar, etc.

Alright this week was a crazy one. I noted early signs of some sort of issue, but I had yet to fertilize or PH anything so with the arrival of my pens that process began. I dosed all my plants with a weaker fertilizer solution ~900ppm then recommended and tested the runoff to find it at ~3300PPM. I checked the soil bag I used and saw it was soil + fertilizer. I spent all night flushing the plants with ~6.75PH water until most were around 1200ppm and the smaller around 700ppm. After a few days I’ve seen some cupping and yellowing on a few of the leaves as you can see in the new photos, but I watered them 1 Gal each to runoff last night (~72 hours since incident) with 7Ph water and the runoff of all was about 6.5PH . The PPM I got off the initial runoff of each was inconsistent, with the highest measuring 1660 and the lowest at 700. The average of all was about 970, and I didn’t mess with them in any way besides to water each fully. Despite everything they’re growing a ton and I applied LST to the few biggest. They’ve all responded really well to it and have bounced back And are showing new sites. Hoping to see improvement in the new leaves with the last plain watering!

Week 4 was an easy one! Kept the plants off the nutes just on plain water, and adjusted LST on all of them periodically. They're starting to smell up the room and are growing super fast. One of them has popped pistles too! The runts are starting to catch up finally too, glad to see that.

This week has been fun, most of the plants are starting to stretch a ton. I’ve been keeping up with the LST, unfortunately found one of my ties had been too tight on a plant and snapped off what would’ve been the main cola, essentially topping itself - interested to see how that one turns out lol. The TD plants are all more sensitive and seem to have some sort of nute issue, I started with some cal-mag , think the rest may need some too.

Week 6 was smooth and steady. Balanced out their nutes and ph, they seemed to respond well and get some good green color back. Defoliate a few times here and there to expose lower sites, the plants bounced back really well afterwards and are growing so fast. Hype to see those buds developing, hoping they get nice and dense by the end of this.

Week 7 went without any incidents. The slowest plant is now in preflower, but all the others are on their way in the process. The earliest to flower are getting dense and stacking significantly, as well as getting nice and frosty. Such awesome looking plants Been feeding them at ~1300PPM, nute schedule calls for higher readings but I’m giving them full doses and would rather be safe than sorry. The PPM in the week description is the average of all their runoff throughout the week. Fingers crossed these buds all get nice and dense!

Week eight was easy with almost no incedent. I noticed yellowing on one single branch of a plant. The next day I went to investigate the stalk and upon moving it, the entire branch fell right off. Upon inspecting the base where it had broken, I noticed the stem to have a woody brown core. I believe maybe the branch was tied down too tightly and it caused a split, which dried from the inside. Haven’t seen it on any other plants Besides that they mostly take care of themselves and need water every ~3 days. I’ve noticed some color differences between the northern lights, with one plant yellowing significantly - but growth remains strong. I’ve fed them according to FF trio schedule and always with calmag. Trichomes are mostly cloudy with some clear. I want to give these as long as I can to fatten up more, hoping to have two more weeks till harvest. Any thoughts from the trichs? Or when to flush?

-plants are holding up strong, only a couple experiencing discoloration. They all are running low PH, slowly correcting with higher PH water. Putting ~6.42 in and getting avg of 6.12 out. Buds are thickening up and have a subtle, but dank smell. They’re getting nice and dense though. Trichs are still cloudy/clear with no amber on the two biggest as you can see in the photos. Thinking one more feed this week before those two start getting just plain PH’d water for the last couple weeks. Got a big dehumidifier for the grow and am now keeping RH around 50. The slower to mature Tangerine Dreams are all huge now, towering over the northern lights. The runt of the group stretched to become the tallest and is stacking nicely now. Guessing 2-3 weeks on all the northern lights, and maybe 5 or so for the Tangies. Can’t wait for harvest but hoping for as much time to thicken these nugs as possible

Week 10 was solid, buds are continuing to thicken and the two farthest along plants still have no amber trichs but are mostly cloudy. I lowered their feed this week, and won’t be feeding the two largest any more nutes. Rest of the plants are still on 3,2,2+calmag. The tangerine dreams are finally starting to fill out and have really nice, tall bud structure. Guessing they will easily take 3 weeks or more. All of the plants were running a super low PH and a few of them had crazy high nutrients in their runoff. I’m making sure to water till there’s a lot of extra runoff now.

Stopped feeding the two largest nutrients now. Buds are all swelling up really nicely. Some of the younger plants are getting mondo it’s so sick to see giant colas in there. Pretty much 0 amber trichs on the buds themselves as you can see in the photo. Just on the leaves. Thinking a week or so more. The tds and ph you see above is for the two biggest. Rest of the plants average around 1600ppm. Trying to raise the PH on the tangies cause they’re all low, but besides that and a little nutrient buildup all is well. Getting close!

Harvested one of the 3 Northern Lights this week! Trichs were mostly cloudy with little amber, but the buds were begging for the chop. Gorgeous plant, and potentially a nice amount of herb. Was an easy grow, much less sensitive than the tangerine dreams in there! Held good PH and encountered only slight deficiencies. Off to the dry and cure!! Update 1: buds have been trimmed and are in for the cure. 110g of smokable bud and about 56g of trim/larf to be made into wax! Not bad for the first plant! Update 2: second northern lights is in for the cure too! 83g of bud, and 74g of larf/trim ! Definitely wasn’t s dense as the other northern lights, but got some descent buds out of her. Update 3: third plant also in for the cure. 83g of bud and 96g of larf/trim. This plant smells especially strong and gassy compared to the others, excited to see how it cures. Other plants going strong, will harvest the other NL in the coming weeks. Tangies seem to want longer.

Harvested another one of the Northern lights plant, got it hung up to dry - only one of those left now! First northern lights also went into jars for the cure! Rest of the plants are doing well, the tangerine dreams have definitely developed strangely. The two that were stunted exploded in growth during early flower, but seem to be making a bunch of popcorn nugs rather than big colas. One of them is looking large and normal.

Getting close to the end here! Chopped the last northern lights, got that up drying. The three tangies are left, hoping some of the nugs get denser in the next week or so before chop. One of the tangies has super dense popcorn nugs everywhere instead of big full colas, another one has larger bud structure but lots of it feels airy, not very dense. And the last one that does have some pretty chunky dense nugs has so few trichomes on it!! They’re big nugs but not frosty at all. Overall my expectations for these tangies are pretty low, time will tell how they turn out!

Finally pulled down these tangies around day 110. From early on in the grow these guys gave me troubles and were extra sensitive compared to the adjacent Northern Lights. Two were stunted early on, but all grew tall into flower. Only one of them had big colas, while one of the others had more popcorn nugs, and the third wasn’t very dense with a lot of larf. Waiting on the dry and cure to see what the buds are actually like. Was constantly dealing with nutrient buildup and ph issues that the Northern Lights never had. I’m sure these affected my overall end product. Buds are trimmed and in for the cure! As I feared there was lots of larf, pulling a total of 360g trim/larf from the 3 plants. Still made out with a nice haul of real buds I’d say. Will update with smoke notes!