During week 9 the flowering continued nicely and all plants developed nice flower crowns. Unfortunately I spotted some brown pistils on some plants and at this stage that only can mean they have been inseminated by pollen. Since I have no male plants around I thoroughly inspect the nodes of all plants from bottom to top. I am searching for hidden male pollen-sacks that have grown on my female plants and sure enough I find several ripe and open pollen sacks on three plants. This means those plants ARE HERMAPHRODITES, plants that have BOTH SEXES, they are female plants that also grow male pollensacks...my ABSOLUTE HORROR! The open pollen sacks have released pollen onto the female pistils around them and this turned the pistils brown. Where those fertilized pistils are, seeds will now start to grow inside the buds of my grow. 😢 After spraying water over the plants, in order to neutralize the free pollen inside, I carefully cut off the hermie-plants on the main stem right above the soil and immediately discard them far away from my grow-tent into the trash. Since I spotted the hermies early, I hope my grow will not be fully seeded, but only have a few seeds grow in some buds here and there. My fingers are crossed!
My 'CHEESE'-plant from BIG BUDDHA SEEDS has turned a little yellow and developed some dark spots on the leaves, which I attribute to the plant standing alone in a tray now. She seems to be overfed a little and getting too much water to the roots. I therefore take her out of the water for a few days, in order to let the medium dry out a little and let the roots get some air.
The SANlight EVO4-120 LED-lights work like a treat. They are now running at 100% dimm-level and are hung 30 cm above the top of the plants.
The BIO NOVA nutrients are still given at half strength of the recommended dose and some plants seem to be overfed...I have to keep an eye on them.