BC Sweet Skunk

Germed using paper towel. 17 /18 popped but I think I lost one Using home made veg tent until flower tent is available.

Had some major dryness issues. RH around 30%. Some Seedling’s leaves were twisted and deformed a bit. added humidifier and brought to around 50%. Instant improvements. Being a noob, By day 12 I realized the roots were drying out which was the main cause of the freak plants (weird thin pale leaves on some, twisting and deformities on others). I was watering very lightly and about once every 48 hours - to the point of almost complete dryness. Not the best for seedlings I guess. On day 12 I top dressed a handful of worm castings, and watered with 1:50 ratio of Marphyl phytoplankton soil conditioner giving a decent weight to the solo cups. Planning to switch to 12/12 at 3 weeks of veg growth to find and cull the males. Hoping after a week of 12/12 I will find the males / ideally identify females and remove the dudes. I am planning to add another shop light for this process (or ASAP) with fluorescent bulbs at 3000k or 4100k. To add a bit of warmth and a (somewhat) more orange spectrum to help trigger presexing. So that will be 2 x 5000K LED 2 x 41000K CFL Both 4 feet long in shop lights. Will it work? Will it take longer than a week to find the males? Not sure. But I will find out. Jan 14 will be the 2 week mark.

Got a second shop light and 4 CFL T8 “grow” bulbs. They have a blurple colour. Day 16 switched out 2 To of the 5600K LED T8 shoplight bulbs for the T8 “Gro-Lux Octron Ecologic” whatever that means. Broader spectrum and more red which is better for flower. Day 19: Fed 1/4 tsp Gaia Green 4/8/2 1/8 tsp Insect Frass 1/4 tsp kelp meal Water with Marphyl and Molasses In 2 days (3 weeks of veg growth) I will flip to 12/12 for at least 1 week to find and remove males. I hope the conditions allow for this pre sexing. We shall see

Day 21 Flip to 12/12 to try and find males. Day 24 - 3 days into flowering and the plants are showing some sign of nutrient burn.? Day 26 - 5 days in to flowering and I spot what looks like a male. Interestingly, the most stout of the group with the shortest internodes and almost crossed stipules. Day 28. 1 week of flower. 5 are showing as male. 5 are green / healthy unsexed. 5 are unhealthy unsexed. 5 Male: these plants are showing male parts. Bottoms are yellowing. A sign of a nitrogen deficiency / root bound in cup. 5 unhealthy plants: these plants were of the most vigorous and healthy plants from the beginning. This makes me think they are growing faster and had higher demand for Nitrogen for the early flower stretch and this demand was not met. Unfortunately the stunting as a result of this is a) keeping them from flowering or b) they are female and just haven’t shown yet. 5 Healthy plants: these were the plants who were stunted in the beginning due to under watering and dry conditions. As a result they are probably a bit behind and had a lower demand for nitrogen as they probably haven’t shot into early flower stretch and therefor are actually healthy looking. So my plan moving forward is: now at the end of week 1 of flower I will feed some tea brewed for only 7 hours. 2 TBSP per gal 7:3:1 bat guano 0.5 TBSP per gal 3:1:3 Insect Frass 1 TBSP per gal Kelp meal I will let flower carry on and see what happens, in the name of science.

Day 29. ( Day 1 of Week 2F): This is the 2nd week of my partial flowering period to find females, then top, repot and return to vegetative (18/6). Currently, the plan for this week is either continue to try and detect the Females or just give up and throw out the 5 males that I have detected last week, repot the rest and nurse them back to health. I would prefer to be 100% sure that what I am reporting will be only female plants as I do not have the real estate to waste time on potential males...time will tell.... Day 32. 6 Males removed. New shop light added for 6 T8 bulbs total. Day 32: Plants reported in 1 Gal containers. 4 Part Promix HP 1.5 Part coco coir 1 Part Worm casting 2.5 TBSP/gal Gaia Green 444 0.3 TBSP/Gal 7:3:1 Bat Guano 0.25 TBSP/Gal 3:1:3 Insect Frass *As expected, the early aggressive growing plants that suffered badly during flower were extremely rootbound in the solo cups. The plants that were slower had less rootbound issues but still are just floppy slow growing plants. Hoping to nurse the aggressive females and possibly remove these floppy green females due to lack of space. Although I fully expect them to come around as they mature now. Day 33: Topped at 3rd or 4th node for Main-Lining. I should have probably waited until the transplant stress was over but I have no patience. =======Lessons Learned======= =====early male detection====== *results may be specific to my situation/ strain: 1. at least in my case, with this strain, all the males show 70% males earlier than the females. 2. Any stress will hinder/ slow the plants growth therefore lengthen the time it takes to show pre-flowers. 3. Solo cups are too small and will increase the chance of plants becoming root bound and cause stress and stunted growth - major problems. 4. If done properly, this should only set vegetative growth time back by 10 days to 2 weeks (time spent flowering plus time spent reverting back) Luckily I had time to experiment as I am waiting for my proper grow tent to become available. Also the alternative, if I grew all 17 plants out and waited for pre flower I would have run the risk of running out of space.

Finally back to vegetative growth. They are growing fine but not used to these super short node spacings. Leaves are all up on top of each other! Towards the end of this week I see the old skinny leaf syndrome is back. Also see signs of what seems to be nitrogen deficiency... which makes little sense. Still going to go against common sense and blast them with a nitrogen tea. A important thing to note is that my source water is 9.03 pH. It comes from an artesian well and no matter how many times I use pH down to bring it to a decent ph, it keeps going back up (if I let it sit with the aerator for a few hours - I tested this). But!! I have found a new source of spring water which I have tested to 8.03 so I will try that as a water source for a few weeks and see what happens. Performing second topping at end of week.

Ran over phone with snowblower. No progress tracked. Had some funky smell coming from pots. Put them up in racks but smell remained... kind of musty, like old wet laundry. Some of the plants started going with the super thin stringy leaves again. I blame my ph. From the source it’s 9.3 and very hard to bring down. Just keeps going back up. So I switched to tap water and this hurt my mother plant, which had adjusted to this water. Oh my

Still no major changes. No pics and no journaling / no tracking since I would do everything on my phone. So the soil smell started to dissipate after maybe 3 weeks. At least it has seemed to. And strangely when the RH shot up yo near 70% due to using the room as a dry room as well (humidifier in room)... Environment and H2O is never ideal and plants pay the price. Over time I expect things will improve.

So phone is back and girls are growing. Finished flowering and drying in good tent so now I can move these girls to the proper grow tent this week hopefully. On week two of switching to tap water (very high lime and Ca) pH 8.3 from spring water pH 9.3. I’ll give it 4 weeks and see the change. Already a week in but hard to tell b/c of other factors.. (lower temp higher RH) due to drying in same room.

=March 5 is 10 is the start of week 10= =====Feeding==== Top dressed 1TBP Gaia green 4/4/4 and a bit of insect Frass . =====PH problems==== I do regret moving to tap water as I know the tap water here is loaded with Calcium. It clogs shower heads and kettles and literally leaves chunks of beige coloured deposits in a matter of months. The instability of pH was a problem last grow (first grow) and now I still haven’t fixed it. I should get a conductivity (“ppm/TDS”) meter to give me an idea of what’s in the water. Again pH 8 at the tap but loaded with Ca and 9.03 from the artesian well and clean (does not leave anything in the kettle)... the 3rd option , the other local spring is 8.03 but I can’t find it with all the snow. Hard times

Potassium deficiency due to excess Calcium / Lime in tap water. Results: Purple, woody stems, spots on leaves, fading pale leaves with dark veins, tips burned, tips clawing downward, and most importantly very Stunted and slow growth As a beginner grower I am still leaning and sorting out my grow. The results due to my lack of knowledge, mistakes, and my experimentation, should have no reflection on the Breeder or Genetics, which are high quality. Good news is I did find a new water source, a natural spring with a ph of 8.03. I would like an electrical conductivity meter (a.k.a PPM / TDS) so I could test the hardness, but it’s got to be better than the tap water, which I should have never used in the first place. I ordered some Real Growers Recharge and just started watering using this spring water. I will repot in a weeks time (when I travel to the city to get perlite) which I expect should help. I’ve taken some “before” pictures today and posted them for this week. I am calling them “before” as I expecting (HOPING) using Recharge will sort out the ph issues; especially where I am growing organically (at least trying). Also expecting that using this new water source and a transplant will make a big difference. I never water to runoff so there is probably a lot of accumulated garbage in this soil...

Transplanted into 5 Gal 2021-03-21 ==Transplant from 1 to 5 Gallon=== —-70/30 ratio 444 x 284— —-4 gallon of medium—- 2.5 perlite 1.5 worm 3 coco 11 soil 7 TBSP 444 3 TBSP 284 0.8 TBSP frass .333 TBSP guano ================= Plants are looking a bit better since the move from town tap water and adding recharge. No big miracles but they do look better.

Going along well now. Repotting, Recharge, better quality water, and defoliation seems to have helped. My feeding schedule is planned as follows. ===2 Week Prior to 12/12=== ==Transplant from 1 to 5 Gallon=== —-70/30 ratio 444 x 284— —-4 gallon of medium—- 2.5L perlite 1.5L worm casting 3L coco 11L HP soil 7 TBSP 444 3 TBSP 284 0.8 TBSP insect Frass .333 TBSP high N guano ================= ===Week 2 Flower —-50/50 444x284 top dress ====Week 6 Flower 30/70 444x284 top dress

Flipped to 12/12 2 days into this week. Plan to let plants stretch for about 1 to 2 weeks then install scrog net and keep training till it’s full (week 3 I assume)! After 4 days they have accelerated in growth and producing some giant fan leaves. Dark green in colour from the worm castings. Happy so far. Looking forward to installing the net

Day 6: Into week two of stretch (technically day 6) and they are stretching like crazy, stems are fattening, and fan leaves are growing huge. Considering the shape and canopy I’m starting to think using a scrog will help but the benefits may not outweigh the risks. Risks being watering issues where I can’t lift the pots, annoying that I can’t move the pots. Also they may stretch so much that they are just too tall for a proper scrog, in which case I could use a trellis for some spacing and support. Anyways, put the scrog net in! Day 9 of flower: Just Working the scrog. Ended up snapping a beautiful top by mistake. Have the feeling this scrog was started too late and maybe will reduce my yield. But I could be wrong and they may just be getting over the stress and will continue to stretch and fill it in nicely. Time will tell Day 12F plants are looking a bit stressed out. I did a lot of bending and tucking and put them through a lot. A lot of big fan leaves were tucked under the screen. Like a tonne and they are all layered on top of each other under the screen. Not sure what would cause less stress... to cut them or layer them.. I’m assuming the latter

At exactly 2 weeks of flower, One side of the tent is still not healthy -two plants affected but only one part of each plant. So Big concern there. Besides that they are looking ok not great but ok. Did a major much needed defoliation on day 14 as well. Defoliation again on day 15 and day 16 and day 17. Defoliating on the reg. They seem to react well to it.

Week 17

Starting off the 5th week of flower. Buds seem to be filling out well. Day32F - some minor trimming of larger leaves blocking bus sites. Watering 2L about every 3 days. Wish I could lift the pots. Add recharge about once a week. Final feeding will be Gaia green 284 bloom treating the plants as 2 or 2.5 gallon rather than 5 since pots are over sized. maybe add some high phos bat guano and a little worm casting and kelp. All top dressed

Starting week 6 already! I imagine she will push to 11 weeks so I shall see. Day 36 - Top Dressed -5 TBSP Gaia Green 2-8-4 -2 tsp 0-20-0 bat guano -8 TBSPworm castings As I was breaking up the topsoil for the top dressing, my hand felt something wet. It was a big juicy worm!

Buds fattening up and pistols turning orange. Some floral, skunky, diesel smell but nothing crazy, which is nice. Looking at the trichomes at Day 45, 4 weeks before planned harvest, they are looking milky. Which is weird. Maybe I’m wrong?

Stop giving recharge now. Just plain water from here on out. Still concerned they are seeming to finish early but I’ll let them continue on… seeing purple stem trichomes now… After some good advice / reminder from a friend - “rely only on the bud trichomes, not leaf”, I snapped some bud close ups. Now I see some clear and no amber. So I shall let them go for another couple weeks and stop worrying :) Actually now that I look I notice a whole new set of pistols coming in. All long and spindly like spaghetti!!!

Day 63 that’s 9 weeks. 1 or 2 to go. Keep watching those trichomes

Easy grow. Sold no fuss strain. Big buds. This is probably my favourite strain for consumption. Very head high but powerful. One of the few strains that has absolutely 0 after effects. No hangover. No stupids. The larff and shake made excellent coconut oil for Nanaimo bars.