Grow in progress_Glueberry, Big Devil, CBD OG Kush, Cookie Wreck

[ZigZag]

This is my current grow. Its now about 10 days after the change to 12/12 and the Big Devil is just starting to show those first two little pistils. Always an exciting day!
Anyway here is the pertinent information_

Strains:
Glueberry OG_ breeder: Dutch Passion
Heritage: Gorila GluexOG x Blueberry

Big Devil feminized (non auto)_breeder: Sweet Seeds
Heritage_Big Devil elite clone

CBD OG_breeder: CBD Crew
Heritage_OG Kush, CBD enriched

Cookie Wreck_breeder: CanaVenture Seeds
Heritage_ Cookie Wreck CV x Cookie Wreck CV


Medium: coco (aeration), perlite, pumice, grow stones ( 2”grow stones in bottom), with 60% coco (aeration mix), 20% perlite and 10% pumice, 10% combined mix of worm castings & boiled rice hulls. This drains very well, so well that you need to make sure you replenish the nutrients with every watering, but I never have any issues with root rot or nutrient lockout.

Nutrients: Advanced Nutrients Grow and Bloom part A & B for coco (PH perfect), with the additional supplements (Ca/Mag, B52, Voodoo, Piranha, Water preparation_fill a 10 gallon container with tap water and let it sit with an aerator in the bottom for 24 hrs or more until the chlorine gas has dissipated.
Lights: two Fluence VPPRx 320 watt lights. Extremely even, efficient and adjustable PPFD in a 3.5 x 5’ grow area.
Security lighting: two 175 watt outdoor lights daylight balanced, connected to a timer which is plugged into a UPS so if we lose our electric power then I have a backup light source for over 8 hrs. We loose power at least once a month.

Hydro System: AIT, air injection technology. individual buckets with air injection pumps, similar to those used for hydro but they work with soil or similar mediums. i’ve used this system twice and it works best using a very porous medium because it provides more “pathways” for the air to travel up through to the surface. This system works best for my grow area/environment and personal schedule. Since each plant is in its own bucket it is “closed” system as long as the issue is restricted to that one plant_ like nutrient issues due to different genetics or tolerances.
I don’t have to worry about concerns that more traditional hydro setups can experience if there is a loss of power or contamination of nutrient supply. The air pumps supply oxygen to each plant individually from the bottom up through the medium. If the pump(s) fail its ok, they do fine without the pumps because the medium drains very well yet holds moisture for days.

Background: The objective was to grow four different strains, two with high THC and two with close to 1:1 THC/CBD ratios. We picked strains with similar seed to harvest times with the hope that all of them might reach harvest within 2 weeks of each other...."hope" and "might" are key words here!

Calendar:
JAN 18_Put germinated seeds into rapid rooters
JAN 22_Transplanted Rapid rooters into 16 oz cups
JAN 29_Transplanted from cups into 4 gallon pots
FEB 5_Topped above 5th node, except the Cookie Wreck which was not doing well after it was transplanted into a larger container. A fairly advanced case of damping off was taking over and I didn’t want to stress it so didn’t top it. No LST because It would have just fallen over it was so unsteady. I sprayed the base of the plant and the rapid rooter with Serenade once and then again 5 days later. It took about a week but the plant started to recover quickly.
FEB 7_Began LST_ started slowly and adjusted daily to get good spread.
FEB 8-20, LST adjusted every two days, Once the two main stems grew they were LSTed out to the sides to help keep them even with the canopy. defoliated as necessary to expose new growth. Branches below the toped node are now catching up to help keep the canopy even.
FEB 22_First major defoliation and pruning_pruned the lowest branches from the trunk and some lower growth nodes on branches as well, trimmed any leaves blocking potential growth sites or that were shaded on the interior and any large fan leaves. Opps, well… as Nebula has pointed out defoliation can have negative consequences if you’re not careful….I just defoliated an entire branch as I almost took a nose dive into my CDB OG plants. With shears open I caught myself but the shears closed and there went the branch. Would have been great video! I guess the positive aspect is now I have a little more room to LST the rest.
FEB 23_ No signs of stress from the day before. YES!
FEB 24_Did a little more defoliation in the morning, by evening no signs of stress. Flushed with plain water to help clean out the grow nutrients.
FEB 25_Switched to 12/12 photoperiod. Flushed again.
FEB 26_Watered with full strength Flowering nutrients and supplements. Pruned and defoliated
substantially, adjusted LST.
FEB_27-28_rest days.
MARCH_1_rest day. recovering very quickly. Watered sparingly with 1/2 strength nutrients.
MARCH_2_ Watered well with 1/2 strength nutrients, removed fan leaves and pruned small lower branches as necessary.
MARCH_3_Watered sparingly with ph 6.0 and cal/mag only. Taped the junction of the small CBD OG that was starting to split where two main stems where topped_probably from two extreme LST. Plant looks healthy, but reinforced the “break” with some gaffers tape anyway.
MARCH 4_ Rest Day
MARCH_5_Added Big Bud to nutrients, full strength, 1/2 gallon each. Defoliated largest of the fan leaves that were covering grow sites at the canopy and ones lower on the plants that weren’t getting much light, as well as some from the interior. Also removed some of the smaller branches in the interior that didn’t have much potential as new colas.
MARCH_6_ Rest day. All plants are doing well. Once again two plants of the same strain and identical medium, lighting, nutrients, etc. are growing at different rates and have different inter-nodal spaces. The taller one is getting substantially larger. The Cookie Wreck seems to have recovered well. Yesterday I removed the fan leaves from the main stem around just below the FIM. Hoping the lower branches will catch up a bit and help even the canopy. Tomorrow I will start removing lower branches since its looking strong and fully recovered.

[ZigZag]

Here are some more photos between Feb 20th and today.

[alltatup]

They look wonderful, ZZ. I will be interested in the smoke report on the CBD OGK.

[ZigZag]

These are from Feb 23th and 24th_

[ZigZag]

These are from Feb 28th_continued...

[ZigZag]

This is from march 5th_I just saw the first tiny pistils starting to emerge from the big Devil!.
The foliage in some of these photos looks pretty yellow but they are really green_ must be my phone...Or maybe me?
Was in a hurry and no time to do any corrections.
Cheers and will report on progress soon...

[Campesino]

Nice looking plants. Will be fun to see them mature

[ZigZag]

I'm anxiously waiting to see how they progress. Going to look at the Big Devil and see if I can see any more pistils_ will take some pics when I can tend to them this afternoon. Cheers.

[ZigZag]

MARCH_7_ adjusted LST and watered with 1/2 strength nutrients, Light defoliation on all plants except the Glueberry which was opened up on top. Many of the larger leaves and smaller branches below the canopy were pruned as well to open up some space for colas.
This plant will look like it did in the “before” photo in 2 days.
How do you decide how many colas are best to get the optimum reward? Should you prune the plant so it has 6-8 canopy colas or 12-16 ?
Anyone got suggestions?

[Campesino]

I really like the manifold with 8 main colas. Depends on so many factors. I started with 8 main but there are numerous secondaries. I think in terms of coverage when deciding how to prune in the stretch (how many secondaries to keep). You have just topped once right? and then LST... so you are thinking of the number of branches coming off the main stems or topping more?

[ZigZag]

yeah I just topped them once. But after doing that a bunch of the branches below grew up to the same height as the two main ones, so now they have very similar size stems. I usually try to go for 6-10- dominant branches, however that turns out. I just use LST, defoliation and sometimes super cropping if necessary. It seems to give me the best combination of shortest time to harvest and good quantity too. But who isn't interested in finding something that works better? I always seem to be trying to meet a specific schedule and am concerned how much the manifold would put me behind. I'm going to try it next time and only grow three plants_ my space might get too tight for more than that! The plant I'm most concerned about_ the Cookie Wreck- says it "can take over your grow space" cuz its so bushy_ maybe I shouldn't have topped it but to late for that now. I'll just do what you suggested and try to pick those with the best potential and clean up the others so there's a bit more room to grow. Thanks for the suggestions_if she looks good this morning then I'm going to do a bit more latter today or tomorrow. cheers...

[Campesino]

Sounds like a good plan!
I really haven't found the manifold to slow them down too much. The first topping obviously, but you did that anyway. The second topping doesn't slow them down at all. Not recommending in this case but for future ref. I think you have a good plan and it think topping the cookie wreck was the right decision.

[ZigZag]

Thanks Campesino_ good to hear_ especially about the second topping. I'm going to do that for sure next time. Like you said i'm hesitant to top them again this late since they've been trained to fit the "umbrella" I'm trying to achieve and i'm just about to enter my 3rd week of 12/12 in a few days. itty bitty pistils starting to show so I don't want to slow anything down now!

[PaganRich]

I haven`t heard of some of these so it`s exciting to see how they`ll pan it...looking great so far, mate

[ZigZag]

Then I'll keep on this and post something every few days, time permitting. when I pick strains I often look for ones I've never seen in a dispensary but have proven genetics or traits that sound good to explore. Sometimes this means getting first generation seed stock and that can be somewhat unpredictable_especially with all these newer CBD/THC strains that are striving for specific percentages in the 7-15 range for both. I like those for edibles especially. But then again there are always those with 18-25% THC which are pretty attractive too, especially for flower or other concentrates_ so I like a few of each!
My favorites from the last two grows are the Chocolate Mint OG, Blue Cheese and Midnight Mass.
The Wonder Dawg made great edibles. Looking forward to these present ones_ especially the Glueberry and Cookie Wreck which have potentially interesting genetic lines.
Time will tell_Cheers!

[PaganRich]

Midnight Mass...what a great name

[ZigZag]

Yeah, that was part of why I decided on the "Midnight Mass"_ plus of course the genetic profile was attractive too. earthy/ musky taste, and hits hard.

[ZigZag]

These are pics from yesterday afternoon. I have been working through my last major defoliation over the past three days and everything has been looking good_no signs of stress. Removed a lot of small branches and leaves yesterday _ there's a 5 gallon bucket full of trim from the last few days in the corner! They are now in the transition between the second and third week of the switch to 12/12. Don't want to do too much else in the way of removing branches and growth tips but will continue to prune leaves when necessary.The canopy is evening out, including the Cookie Monster that I was concerned about. Best of all now all 5 plants have their first set of pistils emerging from calyx's! photos follow.

[PaganRich]

Very nice girls you`ve got there, mate

[Campesino]

Nice pics and nice work. Looks like a good balanced defol - and excellent use of space! Should produce nicely

[ZigZag]

I've seen some photos of plants that people have taken considerably more from and had great success but I've never gone that far and have found that leaving enough leaves as possible without blocking buds seems to produce well. I try to keep it open enough so see light on the coco beneath. But I haven't been able to bring myself to chop them much more. I'm still waiting for those tiny bud-lets to show themselves...won't be long.

[Campesino]

Agreed, I did a pretty severe defoliation on the grow that is at harvest now. Now thinking I may have taken it too far and plan to scale back and approach with different philosophy on current grow.

[Bartholomew]

Very nice! Looking at your plants it really pains me that I shoved 20 of mine in a 2.3m x 1m space.

[ZigZag]

Wow, how did you get 20 in that space...thats not much more space than what I'm working with. Two of these plants are only 18" tall and are sitting on risers so their canopies are within 1/2 ft even height. One of the other three is growing more and faster than its suppose to and since its the tallest I'm going to have to try something more precise_so I don't end up increasing the diameter of the plant_ so I'm going to try and super crop the four tallest colas and see what happens. I've never used that training technique ...so wish me luck_think I'll try it in the morning.

[Bartholomew]

Yeah super cropping is scary at first. But it Gets easier once you get The hang of it. BUT NEVER GET TOO COMFORTABLE WITH SUPER CROPPING!!!!
That’s when you start making mistakes, typically breaking off nodes and stems.
What you want to look out for is tearing of The skin on stems. Pinch hard not just one spot on The stem But 3-4 spots next to each other so that a longer Area of The stem is pliable. When pinching DON’T rub your fingers, accidentally might break off something.
Once The stem is pliable keep pinching one spot while slowly with The other hand bend The stem down pulling from The top of The stem.
If you manage to break a stem half way, you can use tape as a bandage. If you manage to split a stem, don’t Sorry, splitting doesn’t seem, to slow growth.

You can see in one of my Pics I have a super cropped 90degrees main stem that split. A large hole in it. Didn’t even faze The growth.

[Campesino]

Agree with Bartholomew ! Supercropping is primarily about pinching. You should never feel like you have to apply pressure when "folding/bending"... it should come down largely on its own as a result of pinching.
Also, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I highly recommend grafting tape, it is far and away the best choice for taping up plant injuries.