Grow Journal - Big Bomb Cherry Bomb

[D.A.A.S.69]

Yeah like 147, seems like you caught on quickly about letting them dry out before watering -feeding them, that's hard to do for new growers ,they want to always water to much an to often,
Your plants look fine, nice.

[Canuck147]

You're right DAAS - I've always had the impression from newbies (and myself) that the more water and more nutes you give em the faster and bigger they will grow. Which is not the case.

[Canyon Grower]

quietlybinary , these look really great !!!! You have something most beginners, and many old timers, lack-- you have patience! Which when it comes to growing cannabis, is a virtue for sure. Keep us all up to date.

[quietlybinary]

HI Everybody,
Thank you for complimenting me on my patience. I enjoy the process even more than the end result.... maybe? During the week I decided to switch from my cabinet to a tent. My cabinet was purchased on sale for about 50 dollars. It was great for its rigidity and the back of it was a hard cardboard which made it easy to punch holes into for ventilation (I used 'S' pipes to keep the light in). With the wooden cabinet it was easy to mount things with hooks and the structure. The limitation of the cabinet was the size. With a depth of 10" I noticed my little ones getting pretty cramped. Also, I had many light leaks at the doors! Even using velcro was not helping me to seal it and keep it shut. So, I got a tent and put it together this morning. I think the benefits compared to the cabinet will be: more elbow room for the plants to breathe and grow and a cooler temperature. I am also now able to mount my t5 horizontally! One downside to this particular one is that there are little (none) mounting bars that lay horizontal. Everything is mounted using pipe cleaners and plastic ties. It took me exactly one hour to assemble and transfer the plants. My LED light is sitting 1.5 feet away from the buds - too close? Just wanted to give a quick update about my setup change.
Have a great day GWE,
QB

[D.A.A.S.69]

Morning QB, your plants are going to love it in your tent, especially if you can keep the temps an humidity right.
18 inches ought to be about right for your Mars. Good job, an good luck with everything.

[Canyon Grower]

As with all fluorescent lights, you should have them as close to the plants as possible, with two caveats. 1) make sure you are not so close that light coverage suffers. Shouldnt be a problem with our long T5s, which should cover all your plants nicely. 2) if leaves actually touch the lights they can be burned. General rule of thumb is that if you can comfortably keep your hand at canopy height, its not too hot for your plants. Good luck with you new tent !

[quietlybinary]

Morning GWE,

Personal Update
I hope everyone had a great week and that yo are finding sometime to unwind this weekend. The past couple of weeks have been tough for my mental health and while trying to sort things out I came to the decision that this will be my last grow for a long while. I have been anticipating a follow up grow but realized that what I need is to make things more simple for myself and my lifestyle. There have been risks and stressors that have come along with the pleasure of growing. While I do not think many of you are probably not interested in the details of this you can prpbably guess and come close to what has been taxing for me. This has not even been the main thorn in my side and splint in my mind lately but a break will allow me to focus my energy on other areas... just like defoliating.

Grow Update
That being said, we are coming to an end of week 5 in 12/12. Great smells starting to come up especially when my hands pass through the branches. There is a significant amount of density in the more mature and larger plant. While topping the soil with guano a couple weeks ago, it formed a crust over the soil and drainage was super slow, so I just cracked the soil crust with a plastic spoon and it seemed to help. It looks like the plant on the left will have to flower a week longer than the more mature plant.

I have had some mixed feelings about the grow tent. I am glad that it is collapsable since my decision to take a break from growing. it takes up a bit more space than I imagined it would. Also, while my former cabinet was smaller, I would choose to veg in my smaller cabinet due to the cab sides being closer to the plant, my theory is that the plant draws more reflected energy from the walls that are closer to the leaves.

Regards,
QB

[quietlybinary]

Good Evening GWE,

I hope everyone is having a safe week wherever you are. These plants are coming to the end of week 6 in a 12/12 light cycle. The larger plant on the right just started to show some orange hairs. This made me realize in that the other strains I have grown, plants showed oranging much earlier than the Cherry Bomb. I am not sure if it is only the strain that accounts for this change. I am also anticipating that these will be the most dense buds that I have produced and I think that is directly related to the Big Bud genes in these plants.

In trying to anticipate the question of the hour, "how long more?", I looked up the info from the seed manufacturer and it gives these 8-10 weeks to finish. I can imagine the stronger plant still having a bit more than 2 weeks left to flower and the less strong plant on the left a bit more than 3 weeks left on it. Earlier in the post I stated that the smaller plant is 5 days behind in growth, but when I compare growth in buds it is about 8-9 days behind in development from the larger plant. The buds on the larger plant will ultimately be bigger too I think because they had more gains in veging. Planting two seeds has shown me how much the amount of light can grow and it also shows me that I could have done a better job vegging and LSTing in the past to get a much better yield. But having two plants this time around has worked well for me.

[quietlybinary]

Good Day GWE!
Trichs on the Bigger Plant
My two plants are coming to the end of week 8 in 12/12. I took the larger plant of the two out of the box to check out the trichs under a loupe and to take some photos. I find it hard to determine clarity under a 30x loupe but it is what I am using for now. About 70 percent of the trichs look cloudy from what I can see but it is hard for me to determine. I saw some amber trichs but I think those were around areas that were stressed or bumped around a bit more (ie sugar leaves). I am not wanting a high percentage of amber so it will not be long until I cut this one down. At the beginning of the week, I tied some yarn around the plant to keep the branches from falling down and it is working well.

Smell and Smoke
The smell of these plants are skunky and sweet. As this is my first two plant grow, the smell of the plant is much more prominent. I am not using a carbon filter but I have access to good ventilation. The Cherry Bomb strain has been skunkier smelling than other strains I have grown. A smaller branch snapped so I was happy to dry the bud over a few days and smoke it up in an 18mm bowl The potency was great and the flavor was also sweet.

FIM vs TOP Recovery and Outcome
I did not include photos of the smaller plant which was topped. The plant in the 2 gallon pot was topped and the plant in the 3 gallon pot was fimmed. The recovery of the topped plant was slower however the stretch has one of the colas rising above the canopy of the larger plant. Also the size of all the colas are more balanced on the topped plant. Even though recovery was behind on the smaller plant, the yield appears to be similar between the plant in the 3 gallon and 2 gallon pots. While the fimmed plant has a dominant cola in terms of girth of the bud, the topped plant is much more balanced in its growth. In the future if I could foresee something like a time restrain, I will fim but for a balanced plant I will choose the topping method.

Anticipated Time to Cut
I will give the plant in the photos another week at least to finish up and the plant that it is not shown, another 2 weeks at least. That will bring the plant in the 3 gallon pot to a 10 week 12/12 period and the plant in the 2 gallon pot to a 11-12 week 12/12 period. I will not feed the plants anything else from now on. I fed the plant in the 2 gallon pot a small amount of Bloom nutes last week and only ph'ed water for the larger plant since then.

Hope everyone is having a solid week.
QB

[Vapo69]

Great grow with great results dude........good job

[D.A.A.S.69]

Yeah ,nice job, pretty plants.