The green mean machine - Hulkberry auto

Decided to call her Maria. Just in the hope that she turns into Maria Maravilha, going in the direction of a she-hulk, but amazing instead of incredible. She seems to be a bit weak at the moment, but now on day 6 doing some progress, I guess planting directly in the medium did not help and next time I will definitely use a coco+peat pellet as that has some nutrients in, instead of a completely inert medium as coco. I am also trying to get used to the right distance and setting of the lights (they are currently drawing 35 W out of 150 W, although I had it drawing about 25W for the first 3 days and at 45cm and then 30 W from day 3 to 5 at about 35cm). I guess I did not get the distance right as she is stretching quite a bit, or maybe its just the sativa kicking in. I think she has some problem, as she is in her most fragile state at the moment, her leaves are too yellow, specially around the veins (did not find a diagnostic for the way she looks, (see day 5, although in real life its yellower) anyone has ideas?), but I am staying positive that as she grows bigger and forms more roots, that this will go away. I'm just hoping I am not stunting her already. I also made a feeding schedule with target EC values and Coco A and B ratios for the development. Of course that this chart is just a guideline, and the plant will be more important than the schedule if I see something is off. For those wondering Coco A is N+CalMag and CocoB is PK, hence the different ratios throughout. As coco needs a bit more of CalMag, during the times where I will be using more CocoB, I might add once or twice per week an additional CalMag supplement into the mix. The plateau starting around 18.04 can be extended depending on the stage of Maria (that should be full blooming phase). At the beginning its quite tricky to follow the chart as the ratios are quite low and Maria is still not getting full watering, so I pre-mix several days ahead and water down to right EC, however the ratio is slightly adjusted.

I think she could have handled a bit more nutrients than I gave her, and maybe also more light....but I am on the fence about the light...I want to stretch her, at the same time I want her to grow to her potential, its complicated....learning curve I guess. Lights are at about 30 cm, 40W output. Feeding schedule is slightly updated, I increased nutrient intake on this part of the grow, from roughly 0.6 mS/cm to 0.9. Plant seems fine with it so far...

So, this week I noticed that although my EC in was 1~1.1 mS/cm, that my runoff was around 0.6 mS/cm....I did not pay too much attention to it, and the reason why is that I was applying a foliar spray which had CalMag. Had I not applied it, I guess that I would had seen that she was needing CalMag.. .Just a theory though.

Well, still observing the EC out being way lower than EC in, still not doing anything about it. Probably what was causing the slow growth. Started training at day 23, noticeable difference to day 26. But she is so bushy and stout that it is very hard to place wires without damaging her. Did a lot of leaf tucking, also leaf pulling with wires to where I wanted her to go. Increased light input power to 70W. On day 28 saw the first few pistils on the main stem. She is now in pre-flower.

It was this week that I stopped the foliar spray, and "flushed" the medium to correct the damn EC in/out problem. I also noticed that I was underfeeding her because of the problem I had. I do not know if it was a water flow problem, but the runoff volume was inconsistent, and the EC being so low made no sense. So on day 30, I did something about that and I would say that it changed a lot, growth being more vigorous afterwards...although the plant started the stretch phase. I also broke a branch unfortunately, but taped it and it recovered.

She is growing much nicer now. I guess that finding the problem with the EC did help. The flower development is being quite slow...I cannot complain though, because it gives me time to make her fill out the space as much as I can with LST. I defoliate as I go, somedays I take 10 leaves, some days none, some days 2 or 3. Light output at 80~90W, had a little bit of light bleaching, a few times, but increased light height to 45cm.

Not changing the ties any longer...trying to get her to fill the space as much as possible. The underfeeding on weeks 2 through 4 made her much smaller than I expected at this point. Still, I'm happy at this stretching point. She continues to grow like she wants to prove something!! I am hyper happy that she has not changed gears into full flower yet, and is still in a kind of very early flowering stage, giving me as much time as possible to make things right. Yes, it will take longer overall, but I find that comforting. Lights at 100W. Day 47, she seems to be growing faster (I finished the previous batch of CocoA:CocoB 1:1.2 and yesterday already gave her a 1:1.4, and she seems to be thriving.) HELP! At day 49 something happened! Plant suddenly wilted, all new growth is just drooping, without any feed, anything being done! I always fertigate 2x per day, last 7 days I give 900mL per fertigation. I never ran into overwatering in coco+perlite! Plant is on a raised saucer with holes. Fertigation today was done with a mix I prepared yesterday and I did not notice any problems during the whole day, until now. She actually seemed to be growing, it seemed like she grew almost 3cm from morning to about 17h Is this Pythium? Is my plant dying, suddenly? What should I do? Flush with a "lowish EC"? This is really troubling! Checking the bottom of the fabric pot there are all these root tips coming off of it and they are all looking fine. Through the side of the pot, and digging a little bit I could not discern any bad smell from soil.

She has been growing at an average of 2.5/3cm per day in height. Lots of bud-sites showing up, and I am hoping that she keeps this vertical growth and bud-site production for at least 5 more days until finally slowing down. Would be amazing if little Maria-SMASH! final height would be between 60 and 70 cm. Smell is starting to increase day by day. Did a small defoliation on day 53. Lights at 110W.

She basically stopped growing from one day to the other, after growing basically 2cm+ per day for more than a week, she decided "Nah...gonna fatten up now!". Doesn't seem to be gaining more height, stopped at 54cm...just a few centimeters shy of my goal of 60! But who cares, Maria is putting on weight now.. I was also hoping for a few more flower sites, but I cannot complain...she is looking really nice! Day 58: medium defoliation Day 60: I notice the start of trichome production Day 61: started adding Silution to the feeding mix (did not have it before...hoping that Maria will love it!) She is needing another defoliation but I will be waiting for 3 more days (a full week after the last) to do it. I will be doing a much strong defol that time.

So, did quite a big defoliation on day 1 of week 10. But not so big for many people standards, still quite big for me. However she is quite bushy once again and I am wondering if I should defoliate again, because my fan isn't so strong and she has a lot of foliage. She is just TOO healthy and bushy. 😬 She filled out the tent better than I expected! She is basically a 65ish cm diameter plant, Started adding a small supplementary CalMag, as she is in coco and I am under-delivering CocoA, just as a preventative measure...its currently at 2/5 of the recommended strength from BioBizz, so nothing much, just a small supplement. She has not stopped growing!!! 2 branches grew to be the same size as the main cola, and seem to still be growing a little tiny bit. The tallest is actually slightly towering above the main one now and is a proper nice cola, I hope will fill in nicely. She has different branches at slightly different development times...not sure if that is my fault or just a natural response. Getting quite frosty...trichomes appearing everywhere! I am really wondering if I should defol one last time or even cut down a few branches (I already did cut 2 that reached the level point of the canopy but I felt were interfering too much with other better developed branches). I am worrying now for botrytis as she is soooo bushy and I do not have a proper RH control method, but have been managing to stay between 40 and 60%. Also if in the end I would prefer more yield with higher percentage of larf, or cut down a bit of the yield and ensure more evenness....decisions, decisions.... Light at 135ish W.

Lights at max power. She is putting on weight and getting frostier every day. Still feels like she is developing slower than expected, but cannot complain. Maybe 4 to 5 weeks to go? QUESTION: Regarding the question. I first thought this was because of brusing. I sometimes pinched "strongly" some of the first leaves that had trichomes to get an idea of the terpene profile. And sometimes I would move the branches by pinching on sugar leaves and it seemed that the only affected tops were the ones where I actively grabbed the leaves, or rustled against while looking for problems. Because the pattern does not seem even: some of the tops show this, some others do not and it does not seem to do with light distance. There are several tops with no problems that are higher than some that show a slight discoloration/dead spots. I would like some expert opinion.

After fixing the problem she had throughout last week and beginning of this one, she immediately bounced back and, to my eyes, the day after correction she immediately started putting weight on the buds. Which leaves me a bit sad that I probably stunted the bud production for about a week, which will hurt my end yield and quality, but, lesson learned. What I believe happened, because I got too complacent with the watering, thinking that I was fertigating enough that would flush any salt build-up. So I was ignoring the run-off, and did not monitor the run-off EC. She was drinking a lot, but I just did not think that my 20% run-off was not enough, but it seemed that it was. There was some salt/bad condition build-up on the roots and she had a lockout. You can easily see how many tops got affected, and although her bud production was continuing, it was definitely slow. Nonetheless, this week she put on a lot of weight, the buds/colas got considerably bigger, although I am still a bit disappointed with their size at this point and she has a lot, but a lot of sugar leaves...way more than what I would consider a good bud structure...but it still does not matter, quite eager to get this grow done at this moment, and most of its problems were from grower's mistakes rather from the plants genetics. She is full of trichomes at the moment, some pistils are starting to turn bright orange, and she is developing a much nicer scent every day. Until last week, she had a quite generic weed smell, albeit sour, but now its turning more citrusy. I did a small defoliation to open up a bit the canopy and my hands were smelling of sour orange for hours. Still about 2/2.5/3 weeks to go I guess. Crossing my fingers that the buds will keep on filling and that the previous week was not a major major set-back. TIP: If you open the trichome images in a new tab, you can zoom in and see the hundreds of mushroom heads! 😎

Decreased nutrient mixture. Last stretch. I find it extremely hard to understand the difference between cloudy trichomes and transparent ones. Many pictures I find online and in this website of "cloudy" trichomes are just overexposed images taken through a cheap setup. That of course does not tell me if they are really cloudy, or just white from overexposure, as I find that the trichomes can bend light easily, and depending on the angle of the camera and light source, they can appear more as they are, or just too much light is being refracted and they over-expose any photo. I will take the comments from the question I did yesterday to heart and believe that Maria still has a week or so to go, also like my last thoughts. She has been wonderful in this last stretch, although she is starting to show a bit of foxtailing on a few tops, where some calyxes are "detaching" from the bud. She is smelling incredibly nice. There is some sourness but also some sweet bitter orange jam smell to it as well. Cannot wait for this to be over if I am being honest....

Just kept her going, seeing how things went. Im still finding it extremely hard to understand what is the harvest window. Smell is quite strong, even with the tent closed, depending on the air currents around the tent, some smell builds up around the tent, even the room where Maria is. Will harvest next week.

Decided to do a staggered harvest. She is so bushy that a lot of the bud in the middle is larfy, soft and underdeveloped. Will see if 2 to 3 weeks more will help these sites, so increased the feeding a little bit again. Got 520g wet weight from this first round of harvest (and also 60g of trimmed sugar leaves). But still left a lot of leaf on the buds. I think in the end, if we do not count stems, this will only be around 50g, the buds are very very airy, not dense at all. They are full of leaves. But at least she is very frosty. Judging from the volume, I cut probably about 60% of the good stuff. So, quite a bit left. Still left 2 big branches, and a few smaller ones that fell in the same category as the ones I harvested, I just want to see what are the differences if I leave them 5 more day on her. Will see how she further develops. Light is now lower, also a bit less power (around 100W).

Not much to say, roots were starting to die, it did not help that there was a heat wave at this moment :/ Still, remaining buds left maturing. Decreased the total EC to about 550µS/cm, sometimes just filtered water.

Sorry for the delay on the total yield and end harvest week. She was chopped completely on day 117. So, the first harvest yielded 108g, the second one, an additional 50g, but those were, in terms of bud structure, much inferior, and I cannot still say anything regarding potency, as I did not try it. Probably an additional 15~20g - if not more - of popcorn buds ended up in the trim pile. The trim, in total fills a 3L bag, will look into options to process it, although I'm leaning towards making only butter.