Thank you to everyone for following this journey! The results were nuts. Honestly, I would've been happy with 40g dry as this is my first grow. I DEFINITELY did not expect this outcome which is insane. This gives me so much confidence in my future grows and appreciation for the companies whose products I used.
So, now to the point - Dry weight - Top class buds - 176g, smaller buds - 32g, larf/leaves/scissor hash - 26g. To sum up - 208g of product you can smoke and 26g that'll go to edibles. First grow, 2x2 tent, 100w light, three-part fertilizer and cal
mag - that's insane, especially because I was expecting nothing more than 60g and like I mentioned, I would've been happy with 40g. I even thought my scale was broken or something went wrong, I still can't believe I pulled 208g of bud. It took 117 days from seed to smoke - that's disregarding the cure. Seed to flower in 42 days. Flower to harvest in 61 days. 14 days drying.
Thank you to FastBuds, I've sent them an email about the grow with some questions and got a speedy reply with some pointers towards the end of the flower. Also, I don't have anything to compare this grow with but I had 0 issues with pests which I was really happy about. I didn't have to spray anything on the plants, didn't have a single bug inside the tent. They mention on the website that NL is a very resilient strain so that might've been because of this specific strain. Spiderfarmer light did amazing too - 208g of bud from 100w light!. General Hydroponics did way better than I expected - there's so many companies with multiple bottles of nutrients that expect you to spend ridiculous amounts of money on their products while I got crazy results with just 3 basic bottles. Cal and Mag by Canna worked with no complaints.
Takeaways - seems like the runoff pH doesn't matter in coco - I could be wrong but I struggled with coco pH from the very beginning. Regardless, the outcome speaks for itself. Maybe the harvest would've been even better with an optimal pH but in this particular grow, I don't think it mattered much. Before starting this grow I've done A LOT of research and it looks like it most definitely paid off! I was panicking at first because of the slow growth. The plant also had some leaf deformities and the color wasn't as green as I've expected it to be. It was stressful at first, I think especially because I was constantly comparing my grow to someone else's. This specific LST method where I kept rotating the main stem clockwise every day or two paid off as well. The canopy was relatively even and new tops grew crazy fast.
The only thing left to do is to cure the bud. I had two 1.5L containers ready for cure/storing since I didn't expect to pull much but had to go acquire a few more "big boys" to fit all the product in, which is a good problem to have. I don't think that I'll be updating the cure here but the plan is to burp 2x/day for 15-30min each time for the first week and 1x/day for 15-30min the second week. After the first couple of weeks I won't be timing the burps. As of now, I've placed boveda 62% packs inside the containers to maintain a RH of at least 58% in the jars.
About the Northern Lights strain - the smell hasn't fully returned yet post trim, but it smells like sweet fruits with a hint of black pepper. You can still smell a bit of pine/grass but I think that'll be gone after the cure. Buds are covered with trichomes, they shine like diamonds when you take a better look. Also, the buds look a little airy but are still really dense when pressed. The smoke - It's a tasty, relaxing high. I get why people describe it as night time smoke but for me personally, it grounds me a bit and I can enjoy it anytime. Also, it burns white ash :))
P.S. This is a lengthy diary but I hope that people can learn some stuff from my notes shall they read them!
Thanks to everyone that followed the journey, showed support or just browsed through.
Happy Growing everyone!