Lowryder 2, Double Diesel Ryder, Smurfberry, Afghan Kush Ryder

Nearing the end of this past July, SWIM magically received 20 autoflowering seeds. He is growing them!

Nerdy details: 400 watt sunsystem 2 metal halide light

light cycle: 20/4

Plain potting soil

Liquid humic acid

tiger bloom (started once signs of flowering began, at 2-2.5 weeks old)

an NPK additive (4-3-3) that also had a bunch of beneficial microbes. This was used once by mixing into the top couple inches of soil in a light amount.

Molasses



It has been just under a month and the plants are pretty happy. SWIM didn't wash some leaves after nutrients splashed around, causing some leaf damage, but nothing tragic. All 5 lowryder 2's started flowering way before the other strains. This was annoying at first, because SWIM uses his grow room as a drying room. SWIM plans to build a small drying box so he won't have to chop anyone early.

In the pics, yellow is Double Diesel Ryder, blue is Afghan Kush Ryder, red is lowryder 2, green is Smurfberry. They are marked in these colors with little colored dots on the rim of the planters.

 

Honestly, those lowryder 2's are coming along great. They are healthier, flowered faster, have more nodes, and the strain is quite stable. They are at least as frosty as those Dutchman's Royal Orange in my other grow journal.

The other strains are o.k. so far but they are not flowering yet. It has been about 5 weeks, they should have already started. The plan is to wait them out and see when they show first signs of flowering.

Check out Mdanzig's Sour 60, he used Lowryder, Master Kush, DJ shorts blueberry and BOGS Sour Bubble. That'll be one to keep an eye on.

Updates will come shortly, need to take pics.

 

well, SWIM finally got off his butt and sent some photos to be added to the thread. there was some kind of damage that was never fully explained. It was either splashing nutrient-water on the leaves with the lights on or nute burn. Hell, it might be neither but the newest growth seems to be doing fine so SWIM isn't worried.

The lowryder 2's are looking pretty nice so far but will need a few more weeks yet. Not a single one of the other plants is flowering in the slightest. Seriously, it's been at least seven weeks.

SWIM added four 26 watt CFL's with a warm color to add some red to the lighting in the hopes it would make them want to flower more. It hasn't worked in two weeks, hehe. SWIM is gonna switch the lighting to 18/6, he'd rather speed things up than let them get enormous. If that doesn't do it after a couple weeks it's 12/12. By that time the Lowryder 2's should be hanging up anyway. Still, they are getting quite big and it will be a nice harvest.

Here's some pics SWIM took tonight. The tall, skinny ones with flowers are the Lowryder 2's. The rest are pretty homogenous, huh? They are pretty much very alike and SWIM really hopes the end products aren't so similar.

 

SWIM repositioned the Lowryder 2's so they are directly beneath the MH lamp. SWIM is doing this so the Lows will have a stronger finish. Once they are finished, the others will be moved to the center and it looks like they'll have to be switched to 12/12 to get them flowering.

 

This is the first time growing these strains. Dunno how it'll smoke but I'd bet SWIM'll find it stoney, lol.

Wow, that's great yours are flowering, poor SWIM's gonna have to put his on 12/12 to start them flowering.

 

The Lowryder 2's are hanging out to dry. SWIM fashioned a box and put some ventilation on it and it seems to be doing it's job very well. It's cool how the large leaves kind of hug the buds as the whole thing dries. SWIM will manicure later.

The rest have been on 12/12 a few days now. Still no sign of life from under their skirts. It's hard to explain the disappointment in having 14/19 plants fail to autoflower.

Those gnat like bugs are getting stuck in the buds! There were just a few now they are a problem. Gonna make a paste out of garlic and onion, then pile it around the soil. Then SWIM's gonna do that potato slice trick a few times to see if that reduces their numbers.

Pics are of the Lowryders after being hung up a couple days. The one plant is a Low before being cut down.

 

The Lowryder 2's are drying and should soon hit the jars for curing. They look good but kinda light in weight. They are surprisingly resinated however which is nice. Pics will be taken right before they go in jars.

VERY disappointing: males. So that leaves SWIM with: 4 AKR, 1 Double Diesel Ryder, 2 smurfberry. Only 2 seeds didn't germinate so that means out of 15 feminized plants (non-lowryder #2), 7 are female. 5 turned male. 1 male AKR, 2 male DDR, 2 male Smurfberry.

I can honestly say that SWIM won't purchase seeds from Sagarmatha again (the double diesel ryder and smurfberry, which had the worst results. World of Seeds' Afghan Kush Ryder did NOT autoflower for SWIM but those are going to be very productive SWIM predicts so it's not a total loss.

After all that extra room was freed up SWIM moved the CFLs so they hang to the sides of the plants. So there are two CFL lamps on either side of the plants with that light going horizontally under the canopy. Hoping to boost lower bud growth. SWIM has been using 1/2 strength Tiger Bloom with good results.

The tallest one is the AKR, It's got a little rope supporting it from above because SWIM crimped it and it fell over. oops! Won't be crimping it again for flowering and it was done mostly to slow it's upward growth, the thing is big for the space

 

Well, the Lowryder #2 dried and someone called SWIM to ask for bud. SWIM only had the Low #2 so he explained it wasn't cured and he hadn't even tried it. They tried it anyway and loved it! It smoked well, had an uppy dreamy buzz, and was very potent. The buds even look awesome. SWIM is most pleased with the Low #2's except on yield. SWIM ended up with 16 grams after the harvest dried. That's out of 5 plants. Not good. At least every gram of that 16 is of a good quality ISO. Also, the taste/smell is quite nice. One had a nice fruity smell that reminded SWIM of berries.

SWIM will eventually be upgrading to having seperate flower/veg areas so he won't need the particular qualities of autoflowers. However, it'll take a couple more harvests to get to the point where he won't need auto's. After this grow completes, SWIM will get more autoflowers, he plans to revisit Low #2. Easy Ryder fem from joint doctor and maybe Sour 60 too. SWIM will not be acquiring seeds from the vendors who did not autoflower. The joint doctor is the only one in SWIM's experience who actually delivered SWIM a feminized autoflowering strain.

 

That's around 4-5 grams on the book there. All SWIM has left lol.

 

new update on the girls. flowers are developing nicely. well, that is for the ones that haven't turned hermaphrodite. SWIM is down to 5 plants, four Afghan Kush Ryder and one Smurfberry.

The only good news in this story is that the 5 plants left are solid female and quite large. The largest is almost three feet tall and SWIM is actually worrying about it's height. At the very least, SWIM should get 3-5 ounces.

SWIM would like to record for posterity these few words. One, the Sagarmatha seeds he received were unfit for anything but food. Two, Autoflowers are very easy to grow if one is very very picky about the breeders they choose to buy from. That's nice if one is growing for personal use and doesn't have a flair for connoisseur cannabis. SWIM will not be returning to autoflowers because he feels he can overcome the obstacles of his growspace better with other methods and not sacrifice so much in yield and quality.

SWIM will still report on these remaining plants but he has a feeling those afghan kush ryders are gonna be slow flowering. Who knows what that smurfberry is gonna do. For all SWIM knows they could all turn hermie overnight and grow beards! Bah! What a waste of a grow!

 

SWIM had taken one of the giant AKR being mere inches from a 400 watt MH (about five feet off the ground, making that a 3.5 foot plant or a little over a meter) but the pic keeps failing to upload.

Here's the pics:
those CFLs are warm white and normall on. SWIM shut them down for quick pics.

this is the top of the largest AKR:



this is the smurfberry

 

Ah, Peril is afoot....


Due to landlord issues, SWIM is closing this grow and stripping his closet clean until things clear up. Risk is still minimal, SWIM is not worried. But he must tear it all down and has no safe option other than destroying his very pretty girls. It will take a lot of careful cleaning and stashing and such but all is not lost, SWIM plans on doing a better grow next time (without splashing nutes on precious leaves). It was hard for SWIM to take the news that he would have to shut down and behave like it was no inconvenience whatsoever, but he got it done.

SWIM still thinks those AKRs would have been huge and only had about three weeks or maybe four to go. Too bad, so sad.