Hi Everyone - I recently finished a grow of AK-49 and Cotton Candy, and after leaving the plants (post-harvest) around for a few days, decided to re-veg them and see what happens. Assuming I'll be running my lights 24/0 for the next 6-8 weeks or so, I've thrown a SDA#2 seed in to an extra bucket, and will spend my time between now and its harvest getting the AK-49 and Cotton Candy plants back in good health and ready for another round of flowering. Here's a link to a gallery containing photos from the original grow: View attachment 6974 I don't use any meters to monitor the concentration of nutrients in my water or it's PH level, so there won't be many notes from me related to either. The same goes for temperature and humidity, within reason. I feed the plants 1-2 times a week, depending on where they are in their life cycle. Measurements of each nutrtient solution is measured, combined with water, and then added to each bucket. The buckets are then topped off to their normal water level. I don't perform any complete water changes in a bucket until I'm ready to perform a pre-harvest flush. Plants: 1 x Vision Seeds' AK-49 1 x Delicious Seeds' Cotton Candy 1 x Sweet Seeds' Speed Devil Auto #2 Environment: 1 x 63''x20''x63'' Milliard tent 3 x 5 gallon buckets w/ 6'' net pots, expanded clay pebbles and 2'' cylindrical air stones 1 x Reflector 144x3W LED panel 1 x ActiveAqua 240GPH air pump 1 x 4'' intake fan 1 x 4x8'' Phresh filter & 4x12'' duct silencer 1 x Hurricaine inline fan 2 x 8'' circulation fans 1 x ceramic pig Nutrients/additives: Gen Hydro Flora Series (grow, micro, bloom) Gen Hydro Floralicious Plus Gen Hydro Florakleen Gen Hydro Armor Si Gen Hydro RapidStart Advanced Nutrients Jungle Juice (2-part formula) Advanced Nutrients Bud Candy Advanced Nutrients Sensizym Humboldy County's Own Snow Storm Ultra The AK-49 and Cotton Candy plants will continue to use the GH Flora series nutrients, along with some Floralicious Plus and Bud Candy (just before 12/12 and then throughout flowering) and Sensizym on occasion, based on root health. The SDA#2 plant will use Jungle Juice instead of the GH Flora series nutrients. All plants will receive relatively low amounts of Armor Si throughout from start to flush. I've never added Snow Storm Ultra to a grow before, and have mixed feelings about products from Humboldt Country's Own, but decided to give it a shot since it doesn't contain any PGR's. If you have an opinion on the product, please share! Here are some photos, starting from a week after the original harvest up to a few days ago. I'll be taking some more photos later this afternoon, so I'll post them soon: 1 week post-harvest and there isn't much of the Cotton Candy left. AK-49 is showing signs of bouncing back after a week, with new leaves growing from the buds that were left behind: A week later, Cotton Candy is beginning to fill back in: SDA#2 in a in a rapid rooter plug, temporarily placed in to a 2'' net cup to help keep it upright. I germinate my seeds, directly in rapid rooter plugs, inside of a mini (really tiny - 6x3x3'' or so) greenhouse container and typically have great results: Once the radicle has descended and broken through the bottom of the rapid rooter plug, I place the plug in to the 6'' net pot placed over the 5Gal bucket it'll be calling home: You'll be able to view more photos from the grow here: View attachment 6989 Thanks for taking the time to look! If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. please share!
Here are some photos from a short while ago; SDA's roots have started to make their way from the net pot down in to the nutrient solution and a new set of leaves have started to grow: Cotton Candy appears to be recovering nicely with a lot of new growth showing over the past few days: The mini greenhouse from my previous post is in the background of this photo. It currently contains a mix of micro greens on a tiny hydroponic mat. I grow micro greens in 10x20'' trays in a separate grow area, but wanted to see what would happen if I used one of the greenhouses instead. AK-49 is coming along slower than Cotton Candy, but it was a larger plant and incurred more damage during harvest, so I'd assume that is to be expected: Some of the last calyxes on the plant are beginning to dry up and fall off, much like the remaining original leaves. I'll allow them to fall off on their own, and will perform a bit of a cleanup on the plant in the next several days.
Thank you for this! Really cool stuff, i have been thinking about the efficacy of this and never seen it done, definitely subbed up and anxiously waiting to see what happens
Thanks for following along, [member='ChronicProblem']! Assuming all goes well, we'll be able to make a lot of comparisons using photos, dry weights, flowering times and more. A comparison wasn't the reasoning behind this though, and I will be adding some different nutrients this time around, so it won't be an apples-to-apples sort of thing. That doesn't matter though; I can't wait to see how this goes! I have a bunch of photos of my first successful grow of SDA#2 too, so it'll be fun to compare them with how this plant does. I've had problems trying to grow the strain in small 6L containers, and I'm sure the issue was related to a lack of distance between the medium and reservoir causing root rot. I had one plant snap in half at the crown early in flowering but don't think I'll run in to a problem like that with the bucket. We'll see soon enough!
Day 10 for SDA#2 and she's looking good. It looks like the primary root has made its way out of the bottom of the net pot and in to the reservoir, and a few secondary roots aren't too far behind: Cotton Candy is recovering well and continues to fill out with new growth: Bit of a Bonsai plant vibe going on here; I wish I could put this plant on my desk! There's a photo of the back of the plant in the gallery. I'm a little bit concerned with Cotton Candy's roots as they seem to be a bit dark. They feel and smell fine, though, and Floralicious Plus can stain roots a bit so I'm pretty certain that is what's going on here. I'm going to keep a closer eye on the roots for the next few days, but don't expect there to be a problem. AK-49 is looking great, too. There's an updated photo of the plant in the gallery if you want to check it out. I'll likely trim away some of the taller sets of leaves when I perform a bit of a cleanup on the plant, mainly to keep everything at a uniform height. Not only as preparation for flowering when the plants are ready, but to also help keep the LED panel low enough for the other 2 plants in the tent. There'll be plenty of time for new growth to come in before finishing SDA#2 and flipping to 12/12. Check out some of the photos I managed get of the older growth, from before re-veg, dying off as the plant re-absorbs nutrients and replaces them with new growth. The transition from flowering back to veg, visually, is a lot more interesting that I thought it would be: This last photo is particularly nice; I like how it includes the older growth on the left alongside the new, fresh growth on the right:
I just took some photos of both AK-49 and Cotton Candy from the first grow cycle of the plants. They have another 2 weeks of curing before I'll consider them ready to be enjoyed, but sampled Cotton Candy last night: Out of the jar it has a fresh, almost floral scent. It's very sweet with a hint of berries in the background. The closest thing I've smelt like it is some blue dream I got about a year ago. Since I wanted to get the full taste on my first try, I decided to use a wide mouth straight tube bong that I have with big 29.2mm joint and bowl. I filled the entire tube before clearing it, and just figured I'd be coughing a bit in a few seconds. Nothing; it was amazingly smooth and the sweetness remained in my nose for some time. I sat back, watched Prometheus, and went for a bit more a little before the movie was over. It wasn't until I stood up that I realized the effects were still very much active, even close to 2 hours after my first hit. I finished the bowl and had the best sleep I've had in about 2 weeks. In retrospect, I'm starting to realize (as I write this post,) just how cerebral of an effect Cotton Candy had on me last night. I spent more time thinking about the themes of the movie and if the scenario could, on some scale, be reality; at least until the Juggernaut explodes mid-air and crashes; at that point I was like, "Whoa, that's a lot of colors." I'll be giving the AK-49 a go tonight: The AK-49 has a very strong scent, much stronger than Cotton Candy. It's also very spicy; I'm pretty excited to give it a shot.
Day 21 of re-veg and the plants aren't showing any signs of trouble: AK-49 encountered some very minor light burn on a couple of leaves -- I completely forgot to raise my LED panel after some new leaves unfurled from a bud site, standing about 2'' above the canopy of the plant. I'm planning on trimming away any branches that aren't producing new growth, and some of the topmost growth on Monday. The goal is to reduce the height of the plant, both to decrease the distance between the plants and the LED panel and begin to bring AK-49 & Cotton Candy to similar sizes before 12/12. Between the plant's ability to bounce back from extreme defoliation and the amount of available time, I'll be moderately aggressive while being sure to err on the side of caution. I keep reminding myself that these plants have already been harvested once and are in the process of reverting back to a vegetative state, so their behavior may not be what you'd see from a straightforward, single, grow cycle. Reverting back to a vegetative state seems to be taking longer for AK-49, likely due to all of the buds that were left on the plant post-harvest -- there's probably something related to levels of hormones left behind, or whatever. I'm still seeing the occasional, new, pistil along with new growth, but it looks like that'll stop in the next few days. There's some new tertiary root growth too: Cotton Candy didn't have any buds left on it post-harvest, and all of the new growth is as you'd expect it to be on a plant in a vegetative state: I'll be taking this plant out of the tent for a while on Monday, after trimming AK-49, for a closer look and possibly a bit of trimming. I'd like to top it a couple of times and do a bit of training between now and the flip to 12/12. SDA#2 is beginning to pick up a bit of speed and the main stem is beginning to increase in girth: Things are looking nice in the reservoir, too: I'll post my next update after trimming AK-49 and will be sure to take some before and after photos. Until then!
Day 147. No pics from today though; I can't find my camera's charger! AK-49 As planned, AK-49 has been trimmed. Quite a bit of the "transitional growth" has been removed, along with branches that hadn't grown any new vegetation. Here's a photo of the plant just before being trimmed: A day later and a lot of the new growth is more visible than before. The plant is about 2'' shorter now, too: I'll be giving the plant a few days to recover from the trim, and then I'll be removing some more of the older growth, particularly the remaining abnormal leaves from the very beginning of the re-veg process. I'm tempted to try super cropping one of the least productive old branches, and may choose to do so after the next trim. There isn't much risk in doing so, but I'd like to make sure the newer growth a bit further along before messing around. COTTON CANDY There's now enough new growth that some of the branches can be tied down to help ensure light is hitting some of the lower areas of the plant. 3 branches have been pulled down, opening up an area towards the rear of the plant. That area had the least amount of vegetation post-harvest, so hopefully exposing it to more light will help with new growth and give the plant a bit more of a symmetrical shape: Cotton Candy is also continuing to produce a lot of new roots. A significant amount, probably 20% or so, of the old roots have fallen down in to the reservoir and began to decompose, so I performed a small water change to get them out of the system. Debris began to build up on the existing roots, and I didn't want them the be affected. SPEED DEVIL AUTO #2 SDA is looking good, and has been picking up the pace on both root production and growth above the crown: After noticing that the leaves were a bit droopy, I decided to increase the amount of air being supplied to the bucket and have noticed a positive change in the past 24 hours: Outside of the increase in size, I also observed 2 things worth noting. There appears to be a tiny amount of nutrient burn on a couple of leaves, and I'm not terribly surprised. It's my first time using Jungle Juice, so I anticipated having some trouble at first. The other item is an abnormal leaf on the plant. I've seen other abnormalities in the past, but not one where the leaf stalk splits in 2 at the base like this: Anyone seen a leaf like this before? I don't think it's a sign of an issue (I'm guessing it's just an average abnormality like webbed toes or hypermobility is in humans,) but if anyone out there sees as this as reason for concern, please let me know. Thanks in advance!
Day 151 overall / day 29 of re-veg and things continue to look good. I found my camera's battery charger, and purchased a spare battery, so hopefully I won't miss out on taking any more photos. The small container of micro greens is gone; I used them on a sandwich for lunch today. Smoked turkey, Swiss, avocado, tomato and micro greens. Fucking delicious. AK-49 Defoliating this plant back on day 145 has definitely helped control growth and allowed a lot of the new branches to begin to fill in with new leaves. The plant's response was so positive, that I decided to strip additional growth away on day 148: Considering how well this plant has recovered from harvest, I figure it would take quite a bit of effort to cause significant damage and I still have another ~4 weeks until flipping to 12/12, which leaves plenty of time to recover from mistakes. AK-49 isn't looking terribly happy in the photo above, but 24 hours can make a world of difference: With AK-49 and Cotton Candy growing back and SDA#2 beginning to grow taller, I'm starting to realize just how constrained of a space this tent is. I'm not replacing it, so I've decided to defoliate AK-49 a bit more, to buy some space/time for SDA#2 to grow and Cotton Candy to, more or less, catch up to AK49 -- especially after finding the last bits of old/dead growth: Cotton Candy Tying down some of the new growth and making some space for light to penetrate towards the center of the plant paid off quickly: With all of the tied down branches beginning to grow upright again, I tied the branches down again, about an inch away from before, and removed some additional leaves -- much like the last time around: She's looking a bit rough at the moment, but I'm sure that'll completely change over the next couple of days. SDA#2 Speed Devil is doing well; although I did have a minor problem in the tent that resulted in some minor leaf damage: I accidentally spilled a few drops of Floralicious Plus on to the plant (you'll see the damage at the lower right-hand corner of the photo above) and didn't notice until the next day. I add nutrients to each bucket with syringes, so I must have put some pressure on the plunger while kneeling down; no biggie.
Day 154 of reveg, 26 for SDA#2 and there's nothing significant to make note of. No news is good news, right? Things are getting a bit cramped, so I'll be re-positioning Cotton Candy during the next watering to give SDA#2 a bit more room, and can tie AK-49 back a bit to do the same on the other side, if necessary. AK-49 Not only did this plant bounce back from the latest round of defoliation quicker then previous times, but it's considerably more dense than it was too: Defoliating the plant every few days is helping me manage its size, or at least keep additional vertical growth to a minimum. I really don't want it getting much taller than it is now prior to flowering, and will likely chop another 2'' off of the top if I need to. The good news is that it has barely had any vertical growth, so I think I'm on the right track. Depending on just how dense the plant is around a week before I flip to 12/12, I may strip away some of the less productive-looking branches to help with airflow and reduce stretch a bit during flower. I have some other things I plan on doing around that time, but will wait until later to go in to them. Cotton Candy Cotton Candy is continuing to fill out in the spaces that were bare just a few days ago, and is becoming much more symmetrical in shape. Like I mentioned before, I'll be re-positioning it slightly, so the side with more growth won't get quite as much light, so I'm hoping that'll help it regain some symmetry as well -- mainly to help ensure an even canopy once flowering begins. SDA#2 Speed Devil is finally beginning to grow vertically, and considering that it's day 26 it's likely beginning of the stretch so I'll be keeping a eye out for other signs of flowering over the next few days: This is the first time I've grown SDA in a 5gal bucket. Most of my previous grows were performed in a tiny cabinet that I commonly reserve for herbs; basil, sage, chives and some other stuff with just a 6L container -- and those were surprisingly good considering the amount of space, so I'm really looking forward to see how this goes. Here's a shot from a past SDA grow from the small cabinet: View attachment 155098 (click to enlarge) That plant yielded just under an ounce; not bad considering it was only about 16'' tall and grown in such a small space. One last item -- here's an updated shot of SDA#2's roots: I've posted the roots for this plant a few times already, so I figured I'll do the same for the rest of the grow. Anyone have any suggestions or ideas on how to continue to control the growth of AK-49? Any ideas are appreciated!
Day 155 of reveg, 27 for SDA#2. SDA#2 is just beginning the flowering phase of its life cycle: Definitely, [member='ChronicProblem']! Here's to hoping they're even more generous the second time around! I've been getting great feedback some of the AK-49 I gave to a few friends. 2 out of 5 thought it was my best crop yet, while the other 3 thought it came in second to some Blueberry Headband (a personal favorite) I grew last summer. I still have some of those seeds around, so I think there may be one in my next grow. I tried some of the first crop of Cotton Candy in a small spoon-style pipe last night and it was really, really good. I'm not a fan of small pipes, but got a bit nostalgic after having it around and gave it a shot. A friend recently moved out of state, so I inherited his Helix bong and the spoon-style pipe. It wasn't till I got home that I realized that I gave the pipe to him years ago, after coming across it in a box of stuff from college. I lit up, not expecting to really like the taste from the pipe, but I was so wrong.The taste brought me WAY back: It is so close to the overly-sweetened fruity taste of the Mario Bros. cereal, and brought me back to childhood for a minute. I may have been staring out at the stars for a few short while afterward, but it felt more like watching The Real Ghostbusters on a Saturday morning.
Day 157 of reveg, 29 for SDA#2. I woke up this morning and decided the first order of business was to give AK-49 and Cotton Candy a trim. The re-veg process has happened a lot faster than I expected, so as I've mentioned in past updates, I'll be defoliating and training them as necessary until SDA#2 is more or less ready to be harvested -- and that's about 4 weeks away. AK-49 Here's a photo of AK-49 after trimming leaves and some under-productive growth away: Given how many rounds of trimming I've performed so far, I think it's safe to say that the only way I'm going to ruin this plant is to hack it apart with a machete or something. I also cleared away most of the new growth from the base of the plant: AK-49's roots are continuing to fill the reservoir and are looking good. Despite being a bit stained from Floralicious plus, they look pretty healthy to me: Cotton Candy Cotton Candy has managed to fill in well, and is pretty close to what I've been aiming for with the training and leaf removal I've noted in previous posts. In an effort to tidy up the tent and give SDA#2 the space it needs, I've trimmed some of the large, older, leaves away and topped it in 3 places. Here is a photo of CC just after removing it from the tent: And here's a photo, post-trim, after being placed back in the tent: It looks like a completely different plant now, and will likely bounce back over the next few days. SDA#2 Speed Devil is continuing to stretch, and is a couple of inches above Cotton Candy now. I've removed a few of the oldest leaves, which had some damage, mainly to prevent overlap with the other plants. The pistil I managed to take a photo of a couple of days ago was likely the very first sign of actual flowering, so I don't really expect to see much more activity for a few days: All in all, I'm very happy with the way everything is turning out and I'm excited to get SDA#2 completed so AK-49 and Cotton Candy will have space to do their thing during flowering. In the meantime, I guess it's all about growth control and being patient. I'm thinking about starting another, smaller grow, which I'll detail in a moment, but first -- one last photo of the tent post-trim: OK, now on to my thoughts for another tiny grow: I currently have a bunch of seeds, some of which were freebies and others were bag seed, and I've been wanting to find a way to use them. I'm not willing to plant non-feminized seeds in my tent, since I have such a limited amount of space, but do have a tiny cabinet that will be empty in a few days. The seeds I'm willing to use for the grow are Hawaiian Skunk Haze and Pineapple Blue Dream. HSH was a freebie and I have about 10, PBD is bag seed and I have around 100. I've grown some PBD plants from this batch of seeds with success in the past. The soon-to-be-empty cabinet is about 3' tall, 18'' wide and 9'' deep (I used it to grow the SDA#2 that is pictured in the previous post.) It's one of those "automated" cabinets you see on sale for $350 with the claim of amazing (bullshit) results. It was a gift from a friend a couple of years ago, and really isn't suited from growing cannabis. It came with a 6L reservoir with 6 2'' net pots, a few CFL lights and some repackaged Miracle Grow in plastic bags for use as nutrients. It's essentially a recipe for failure for anyone who thinks popping 6 seeds in and following the directions that were included will yield amazing results. The cabinet is normally used for growing herbs and small flowers, and I'm about to harvest the contents in a few days -- a couple of different herb varieties that will be dried and used for seasonings. Given that we are entering Spring, I'll be moving related grows outdoors. Since getting my hands on the cabinet, I've retrofitted it with 2 75W LED panels, upgraded intake and output fans, along with misc hooks and fittings that allow me to strategically place 12'' fluorescent tubes and additional fans as necessary. I can even mount a webcam in it, but I won't be doing so -- not for this grow. I also managed to get my hands on the exact type of container that is being used as the reservoir, so I have several container tops that have holes cut in them for different configurations. I'd like to grow 2 plants in the cabinet -- removing all branching growth and topping each, once, to hopefully result in nothing but 2 large colas per plant. Winding up with 2 Females would be awesome, but 1 Male and 1 Female would be fine too -- particularly if I plant one of each strain. If I end up with 2 Males, I'll just chop them down and start over. So, what do you think? I'm not concerned with yields; this is more about messing around and seeing if I can get these plants to grow the way I want in such a tiny space. Should I go with one of each strain, or just plant 2 of the HSH? Please let me know your opinions, even if you think the idea should just be skipped altogether; if I decide to move ahead with it I'll start a 2nd journal in parallel to this and we'll see what happens!
Day 162 (40 of re-veg,) 33 for SDA#2. SDA is showing more signs of flowering, including some stretch. This plant is easily twice the size of my last few of the same strain (grown in a much smaller container,) so most of my time is going in to making sure it has enough room to grow. Once harvested, I'll give AK-49 and Cotton Candy a little bit of time to reclaim some space and flip to 12/12. AK-49 Despite being a bit cramped, AK-49 made a nice recovery from the last round of trimming: Given that it and SDA are so close to each other, I went ahead and performed another round of trimming last night and removed a lot of growth from the center of the plant. There's so much new growth on the plant that I don't mind being a bit heavy-handed with the trimming at this point: Cotton Candy Cotton Candy was trimmed last night too -- I removed most of the largest leaves to expose undergrowth and give SDA some extra space: The last photo in this post shows both plants post-trim. SDA#2 Speed Devil is still in the early stages of flowering, but has stretched to the point where it is around the same height as AK-49. The plant is looking really healthy and, as I mentioned before, is way bigger than any previous grows I've done, so I'm really excited to see how it ends up: Root growth has increased over the past several days: The majority of the root mass in the photo didn't exist 5 days ago. Despite hints of nute burn here and there on some of the older growth, SDA's looking nice. Even most of the original sets of leaves are still in-tact and looking healthy, not to mention huge: Here's a final photo, taken about an hour before this update was posted:
Day 171 (49 of re-veg,) 43 for SDA#2. Things are getting pretty cramped in the tent these days. SDA has grown well past my expectations and is now towering over the other 2 plants: Temps are rising outside, but things are staying nice and stable in the tent so far. We'll see if that's the case in the next few weeks, though. I'll be thinking of ways to optimize how I'm exhausting the tent over the next several days. Things became a bit more humid in it then I liked last summer, so I'd like to reduce the chances of it happening again sooner than later. Now that SDA#2 is well in to flowering, I thought it would be a good time to give my thoughts on AN's Jungle Juice vs. GH's Flora series bottled nutrients. All in all, it seems to be working well. I didn't have any issues with it during veg, but did have a bit of a magnesium deficiency to deal with while transitioning over to the Flowering part of the system. It wasn't a big deal, but makes me realize how much I prefer being able to adjust 3 separate components than only 2 - you certainly can get more granular with your ratios of each, and get the nutrients just right for your particular grow. Setting my minor flowering issue to the side, Jungle Juice is a great, low cost, bottled fertilizer and is a sensible choice for a first-time grower. I don't think I will use it for a cannabis grow again, but definitely won't be throwing it out either. I've had great success growing several herbs with it, including some Thai basil I let flower: AK-49 I've started adding Snow Storm Ultra to AK-49's reservoir, and I'm starting to see some signs of stress.SST does simulate heat stress, so this isn't a surprise. I'll be keeping a close eye on the plant over the next several days, and see how she reacts. If I'm not comfortable with how it is looking, I'll either decrease the amount I'm using or stop using it altogether. Cotton Candy Cotton Candy is feeling the "squeeze" from SDA#2 much more than AK-49, but is looking healthier. The addition of SST hasn't has as much as an impact, visually anyway, on the plant. She has a lot of new vertical growth right now, and I'll be trying to tie it down a bit over the next couple of days. The branches are still young and fairly pliable, so now's the time. SDA#2 This plant is HUGE compared to what I was expecting. It's easily more than twice size of any plant of the same strain I've grown before. Then again, this plant is in a much larger reservoir with more lighting than I've used with the strain in the past, so that's related to its size. Part of me wants to point to Jungle Juice as a contributing factor, but I'm still quite unhappy about the little magnesium issue I had. Either way, she's looking good: SDA's roots continue to look good, although there has been a bit of bacterial slime building up. It's expected when using SST, so I'm checking it on a daily basis just to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. There are a bunch of additional photos from the past several days in the associated gallery, so if you feel like checking them out, click the link below: View attachment 6989 That's about it for now. Until next time!
Day 179 (57 of re-veg,) 51 for SDA#2. A few days ago, I added a thin neoprene mat to the bottom of my tent, below the second, removable, floor to help dampen the vibrations from my air pumps and it has really made a difference! Before installing the floor, I managed to take a few photos while removing the plants from the tent. Here's what AK-49 and Cotton Candy look like without SDA#2 in-between them: Both plants are considerably taller than I want them to be, so I'm thinking about super cropping both to reduce their height and make more use of lateral space once SDA has been harvested. If the super cropping goes well, I'll give the plants a few days to recover, perform some defoliation and remove any branches that don't look like they'll be productive in flowering, give them a few more days to rest up, and then flip to 12/12. Both plants are a bit stressed and some of the lowest growth is in bad shape, but that's expected considering how SDA took over the tent. I don't have any concerns though; the roots and the bases of both plants, along with the majority of their growth looks great. AK-49's base has become pretty substantial: SDA#2 is coming along nicely. I've been removing fan leaves, one or two at a time, to help with airflow and expose some of the lower bud sites. Trichomes are just beginning to appear, so I'm getting anxious about seeing what sort of difference Snow Storm Ultra will make. Only time will tell, but I have a really good feeling about this.
Day 186 (64 of re-veg,) 58 for SDA#2. The weather is warming up outside, but thankfully temperatures are remaining fairly constant in the tent. All 3 plants continue to grow, and I'm anxiously awaiting for the time to harvest SDA to arrive so I can get AK-49 and Cotton Candy prepped for 12/12. Both plants are growing well, much better than a few weeks ago, and I've started supercropping in areas I can easily reach: Most of AK-49's branches towards the front of the tent have been supercropped, and new growth on them is beginning to point upward. I'll just continue to trim and manage as-is until SDA is done. Cotton Candy is till tucked away towards the back of the tent, but quite a few branches have grown tall enough to receive much more light than it has been. It's still pretty much hidden though, so getting a decent photo is tough. Here's a photo of the tent from several days ago, showing just how packed it is: Cotton Candy is just underneath the fan on the right side of the photo. Well, that's about it for now. One last photo of SDA, just because I thought it looked pretty cool: Until next time!
Day 195 (73 of re-veg,) 67 for SDA#2. AK-49 & Cotton Candy Both plants are doing well and are really growing around SDA now: Both plants have some growth that will have to be removed once SDA is harvested, but I'm sure they'll bounce back quickly. The real issue I face with them right now is their size; they've grown to be, including the height added by their buckets, half the height of the tent. They are now easily too large for the tent. Thankfully, the majority of the growth since the re-veg began is pretty flexible, so I don't think I'll have any trouble super cropping them to get them to a good height. I'll place a crate or something between both buckets, just in case the branches need a bit of support, and may even build a scrog screen to let them grow up in to. I think I have 7-10 days before SDA is ready, so I have a little bit of time to figure out what the plan will be. SDA#2 Despite having to deal with the simulated heat stress from Snow Storm Ultra and being in a cramped space, this plant is doing great: Considering the pace it is growing at, I think it's 7-10 days from harvest but I will let it go as long as it needs. I'll be looking for the majority of the pistils to turn brown and begin to recede back in to the plant, as well at roughly half of the trichomes to turn amber in color before doing anything. Once I determine a final harvest date, I'll be removing all fan leaves 3 days prior and then begin a 2 day flush using GH Florakleen, ending with the harvest. One last item; it's been a bit cooler out than normal during the evenings here, and I've been leaving windows open -- looks like we might be seeing a bit of purple: Until next time!
Day 200 (78 of re-veg,) 72 for SDA#2. SDA is a few days from harvest; most of the fan leaves have been removed and the majority of the flowers are being bathed in light now. There's even light hitting the bucket again, which hasn't happened in weeks; The majority of the pistils are beginning to darken in color and recede, and around 20% of the trichomes are now amber. 3 or 4 days of flushing, with full water changes each morning, and then it'll be harvest time. While nothing can be said in regards to potency until it's ready to be smoked, the trichome production on this plant has been considerably more than previous SDA grows so it looks like Snow Storm Ultra lived up to its promises. I'll be building a scrog net in the upcoming week, and will spend quite a bit of time trimming and training both AK-49 and Cotton Candy once space becomes available. A lack of space (the tent is literally showing signs of stress at the seams) due to the unexpected size of SDA combined with much more re-veg time than anticipated has led to both being much larger than I want. Without any training, both plants will be pushing up against my LED panel within a few days of 12/12. A good trim to remove dead/unwanted growth, some super cropping and the scrog net should get both plants down to a much more appropriate size. I'm thinking about taking a break, likely for a few months, from growing Cannabis once AK-49 and Cotton Candy are harvested. I'd like to take a shot at growing tea, specifically Camellia sinensis var. sinensis in a DWC setup, with a goal of an early harvest to produce silver needle tea. Back in the early 2000's, when I was in my early 20's, a good friend owned a tea house in NYC. I worked down in the financial district back then, about 4 blocks from the World Trade Center. Needless to say, working down there was stressful, both physically and emotionally in the aftermath of 9/11 and heading to his tea house after work was the perfect momentary escape from everything. Sitting down to a plate of homemade snow pea leaf dumplings and a hot cup of silver needle tea was the best way to wind down the day. While it may seem oddly nostalgic, considering the associated memories, I really want to be able to sit down to a cup of tea, knowing that I grew the leaves that ended up at the bottom of my mug. Anyway, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, I'm anxiously awaiting the day to harvest SDA and then get back to AK-49 and Cotton Candy. Until next time!