Nirvana Northern Lights and Blue Mystic feminized 600w Soil *2nd Attempt*

I've read that the leaves that grow like that are the result of a mutation a good bit of the time, and the Blueberry strain is known for having some funky mutations in the leaves. I've seen some mighty strange looking Blueberry seedlings.
 
That growth on the preflower spot is a pain in my ass though, it seems to always appear at 4th or 5th node on each Blue Mystic plant that I have grown. There are two of them every time, one on each side of the stem by the branches, I took a pic of the bigger one though, the other one is tiny so far and hard to see. What I really can't figure out is that the preflowers above that spot always appear to be just normal female preflowers. The problem happens about a month into flowering when just a few super tiny ball sacs start growing by those strange leaves, and then I start noticing that some of the buds on the Blue Mystic and plants surrounding it are producing tiny baby seeds. I removed the leaves and the tiny ball sacs on the last few plants but it was too late, as some pollen had already managed to escape and seed up a few of my plants. I'm just concerned that if I do remove this growth earlier, that the ball sacs will just pop up somewhere else and maybe it will be a spot where I can't see it, then I'll have tons of seeds again.
 
I haven't let a Blue Mystic completely finish flowering because of the seeds, and I really want to see what this strain can do if allowed to go full term. Something tells me that for this to happen, I'm going to have to buy new seeds. These seeds are from a bad batch apparently because I can't find anyone else having this same problem with the strain. Some strains are more hermie prone than others, but I really think that the problem is this particular batch of seed. I got 5 seeds, and I ordered 5 more right after the first ones sprouted so there is a good chance they are from the same batch. They all looked about the same size and color.

 

Eight days of flowering so far, plants are filling out and branches are getting a little bit longer. I try to bend leaves around so that the lower branches get some direct light throughout the day. They look healthy so far, I haven't noticed any other questionable flowers on Blue Mystic yet so that is good. I very gently cut the two leafy stems off a few days ago, I hope that things don't go bad again.
 
I also threw on a top dressing of the really dark black dirt that was left in my yard from utility work and they both absolutely love it. There are little root tips poking out of the soil all over the place in both buckets.
 
I'll get some pics when lights are on next, they go off real soon and by the time I get the camera and everything it'll be shutting off.

 

Made a quick trip down, got some nice pics I wanted to share...
 
First up Blue Mystic-

A shot of the BM's main stem with some sexy preflowers:

 

Last but never least is Northern Lights-
 

 
This plant has great big thinner fan leaves, some of the lower ones look a bit droopy, don't know what the deal is with that but the plant keeps growing steadily and is keeping up nicely with the BM. This plant is still like two inches shorter, but BM likes to grow with a pole for a main stem while NL is more compact in the space between nodes. The one thing I will say about this plant is that it has a hell of a wingspan, it measures over 2 1/2 ft across horizontally from leaf tip to leaf tip.
 
I'm already noticing a lot more sugar on the uppermost leaves. Good sign. Now if only the BM can abstain from growing large nut sacs then I will be in for a super dank treat a few months from now. I found a little ball of hash I made from the last go around in my closet the other night, it was super dry from sitting there for months and it smoked wonderfully.
 
Usually if I see a leaf that is blocking a lower bud site from a whole lot of light, I'd snip it but this go around I have been only bending and thinning out certain leaflets that really block a whole lot of branches below. I'm trying to rely more on bending this time to get light coverage to the lower spots. I know I should have white walls around my light to maximize the lumens but at this moment I don't have the flowering space completely finished. I'm getting it there slowly though.

 

Here is Blue Mystic on day 11 of flowering:
 

 
Here is Northern Lights on day 11 flower:
 

 
They are looking good, nice and healthy. I had a bit of a scare with the really nice rich dark soil I collected from my yard (utility company fill that I collected the day they put it out). I had another regular plant down in my basement that I covered the top of the soil with like I did with these plants. Two days later it dropped dead. I don't know why it died, but these plants seem to really like the soil top dressing, there are loads of tiny little fuzzy root tips growing all through the tops of the pots. I haven't noticed any adverse reaction to the bud plants yet, hope they are okay. I don't think the dirt was treated with anything, it shouldn't have been because they planted grass seed out in my yard and when you plant grass you aren't supposed to treat the soil yet because the chemicals could harm the grass seed if you treat it before the grass is estabilshed.
 
I don't know, I haven't seen anything bad happen and it has been a few days so I think they are fine. I noticed the day the other plant died these two were a bit droopy, but it was pretty dry and time for a watering, so I watered them and they perked up. I went ahead and flushed them out pretty good just incase, but I am holding out a few more days before I feed the plants their flowering food though. I don't want to overload the plants with (N)itrogen and stunt their growth or burn them. The organic flowering food that I have on hand isn't loaded with N, but it does have some. The Blue Mystic is usually the most sensitive to ferts, but this go around it seems that the NL doesn't like too much.
 
The NL still has the droopy leaves, it seems like when I spray the bottoms of the leaves with plain water the leaves uncurl a bit and look normal. If I don't spray them for a few days they curl up again. I tried to add some minerals to see if it is any kind of deficiency, but I don't think that it has made any difference. I read that too much Nitrogen COULD make leaves look like this, but it doesn't have any other symptoms of N toxicity. I'm just keeping an eye on it and trying to figure it out.
 
The plants should start throwing small buds up everywhere within the next 17 days or so, every day there are more small white hairs popping up.

 

Northern Lights is starting to produce a strong odor. I thought that if either one would reek this grow, it would be the Blue Mystic. But the Blue doesn't have any odor at all unless you rub a leaf or the stem. NL smells sweet, fruity, fresh, with a tiny hint of skunk scent hidden in there just like the last girl I had outside last summer from this same 5-pack of beans. Wow, was that some nice bud. Maybe the best I've ever grown inside or outside. The plant itself was more tall, lanky, and didn't have the thickest buds I've ever seen. I really didn't get that much off of her, but what I did get was really special. She leaned more towards Sativa, with really thin long leaves. This NL I have going now is more Indica, with many nodes packed into a small space.
 
Here is a group shot from today. I love weed.

 

I'm going to keep using the phone cam for the rest of this journal, the pics look better than my sony cybershot which the HPS makes look too red. I'm really liking the color in the last few pics.
 
I noticed that the girls were yellowing a little bit too early on the lower sections, and growth has slowed down a lot so I went ahead and fed them a few sprinkles of some 5-10-5 (almost a tablespoon- not too much). I'm not huge on using a lot of ferts because first off it takes longer to cure to get the taste out (when it can even be removed at all), some of these strains don't respond to ferts all that well in the first place (burning of the leaf tips and such), and I like to keep things as close to natural as I can(I let my healthy plants do most of the heavy lifting and just give them a boost every now and then).
 
Last couple grows I did, the Blue Mystic didn't respond all that great to ferts and burnt easily. This grow the NL seems more sensitive than the BM. This BM really likes its food, which might turn out to be a heavier yielder than the ones I've grown so far since it actually has yet to show any leaf burn. I think that this NL is going to throw me a couple oz's too. With less plants competing for prime light rich space under the light I might actually yeild more than I did on my last indoor run if everything goes good and I don't have any seeds. I'm also using a brand new HPS bulb, so it is nice and bright. I am going to follow the directions on the ferts, and hit them with some food again in 4 weeks.
 
NL is getting pretty stinky, last night I could smell her upstairs....so much for stealth! Now I'm nervous to have any visitors until they are done. Last spring my garden was the same way in here, and I had to keep my family away for a while. Looks like that will be the case again.

 

Today I also added a couple secret ingredients to kick off the flowering season: a small amount of women's one-a-day ground up multivitamin and a little dab of fish emulsion.
 
Why? To try to make sure going into the actual bud producing stage of flowering that the plants have enough nutrients to get them through this most important time.
 
I hate it when you get half way into budding and a nute deficiency creeps out of nowhere. Its like speeding right along and running into a brick wall that pops up out of nowhere. I hate to mess around with the setup too much at that point. It seems like if you add too much or too little to the mix sometimes that can have a negative effect on your harvest. I'm going to try to avoid that all together this time. I took it easy on the emulsion or multivitamin as not to cause any additional problems, I just did it for the trace minerals pretty much. Took about a quarter of a vitamin that was crushed up and sprinkled it on top of each bucket, then mixed up a squirt of yucky fish emulsion in a half gallon of water and gave both plants a drink.
 
I did some research into human multivitamins for plants, and generally the results are good. Ed Rosenthal says it can work but you are better off using formulations specifically for plants when relying on fertilizer, mainly due to price because human vitamins are far more expensive than plant food. I agree 100% but I am just using it for the trace minerals. I was checking into how to dispose of expired vitamins once long ago and the first suggestion was to grind them up and add them to your compost pile because they will help plants grow. Seems to be a great solution, better than wasting them. Surely some vitamins and minerals humans need for health can also be used by plants.
 
Fish emulsion is also a good source of trace minerals. I usually feed my plants a diluted fish emulsion twice in their lives: once in veg (usually the first or second feeding), and then once right before the plants actually start to bud in flowering.
 
Tonight will be the 14th night that the light has been off, i can see the very beginning of some tiny buds. Blue Mystic looks like it will start budding a bit quicker than the NL

 

Last few BM's I grew the smell didn't really come out until after the cure, although they didn't have time to fatten up very much either so I'm sure that is part of the reason. I was hoping for a nice stealthy grow this time, but no way that is going to happen with this NL stank monster I got.
 
This NL pheno sounds really close to the "sweet cherry berry" Nirvana pheno that Shiva Blaster wrote about in this smoke report:
http://forum.grasscity.com/smoke-reports/1085414-smoke-report-nirvana-northern-lights.html
 
It smells like Heaven! Fruity, sweet, and very complex. The part where Shiva Blaster says that the plant wasn't branchy or stretchy at all it grew in a typical Indica pattern sounds like this girl 100%. She looks to be a whole lot shorter with tightly stacked nodes compared to the last few I've grown and the smell is just amazing.
 
I have two clones of this NL pheno that have rooted!!! Three of the four BM's I cloned are still alive but they may or may not make it. They look a little bit sick and roots were very slow to start on those ones, the NL rooted very easily.
 
I'm starting to get excited. I have the house to myself for the next two months, my wife is going to visit some family, and it couldn't have happened at a better time! Well, maybe if she'd go away for a few weeks after I was done drying and curing it might be better lol

 

Flowering day 16
 
Things are looking really good today. I gave the plants a sip of molasses last night and they really love it so far. Blue Mystic grew about a half an inch last night, and Northern Lights grew over an inch! She's almost caught up to the Blue Mystic now.
 
I can see a whole bunch of baby buds starting to grow on the Mystic, NL only has a few of these bud sites popping up so far. BM is going to bud faster, I think. 

Bad news with the clones, last night one of them looked like it had some black junk growing on its leaves and when I woke up today they were all laying down except for a BM clone. Its ok, I have seeds for the next run but one of these days I need to make a nice veg chamber. I just don't want to put it downstairs because then it will be more work lightproofing the flowering chamber. I don't know, I'm just pretty upset about it because I wanted to throw a couple plants outside this summer.
 
Here is a family shot:

 
Here is some Northern Lights, with a pic showing her tight nodes:


 
Blue Mystic, represent!:

 

I haven't seen much of a "stretch" from either of these two Indica plants, that is awesome! I'm used to seeing plants develop long spaces between nodes and reach for the sky during the first couple weeks of 12/12, but not these girls. The only parts of the plants that have stretched at all are the branches, there are some places with 1-2 inches between nodes on them. The plants are just growing right along like usual and not getting super tall.

 

 
Blue Mystic is a very good stealth choice. I'm on day 19 of flowering and you can only smell it if you put your nose right above the small developing buds or if you brush up against the plant and disturb it, even then it doesn't smell like your regular fresh budding weed plants.  Northern Lights is a low(er) odor strain most of the time too, but when you start budding it can get stinky depending on what side of the family tree it fell from. This one I got smells like a nice blend of all the strains that went into it, can't wait til she starts making some big buds. The buds she's making now are pretty small, Blue Mystic is budding much quicker so far. It just may be in a hurry to make some nugs then drop some nuts on me though, so I don't know.
 
Last spring I was doing NL, Blue Mystic, Papaya, down there along with Aurora Indica (1 female- sativa looking plant that didn't finish) and a bagseed plant that didn't finish. Smell was really bad, my wife was flipping out about it every day because we couldn't have company or anything. I think it was mostly the Papaya and A.I. that were stinking, no joke I had one Papaya plant that smelled like straight cat pee. It was repulsive, and it didn't taste that great either but it got me stoned. I wouldn't grow Papaya indoors again, although the Kush phenotype was pretty nice and made some fatter buds, most of the other buds were too fluffy.

 

Day 19 of flowering
 
Northern Lights looks good! Short, bushy, and smelly.

 
Blue Mystic looks even better! I just hope she stays a she and doesn't pop any nuts on my buds. Some of the middle leaves in the plant are turning blueish green already. Very cool, and that is why they call her Blue Mystic. I never had one that turned color in flowering, the others I grew had the blue hue in the middle of veg and then it went away.

 
Here is a shot of the top bud

 
I'm not very particular when it comes to what color my buds are, they all smoke the same! Right now around my city they are still stuck in that "purple or blue" phase. Just because a bud is purple or some fancy color doesn't make it smoke or taste any better. Heck, if I wanted purple buds I'd just turn the AC on down the basement and get it nice and cold down there during the last week of flowering. That stresses plants out pretty bad though, so I wouldn't do it.