My first grow...have a few questions

[mimime1]

This is my first grow. I have a 5x5x80" tent. 2 1200 watt Maxsisun old style leds (blurples) with a veg and bloom switch and no dimmers. I am growing six Pineapple Upside Down Cake (Surfr Seeds version, not Humboldt's version) plants from seeds I luckily got from a dispensary eighth of the strain. Nutes: Botanicare Pro Grow during Veg, Botanicare Pro Bloom, Tiger Bloom, Organic Blackstrap Molasses during Bloom, plus I used a granular bloom booster for just one application when I switched to 12/12 instead of after each 3-4 weeks as prescribed. Each plant is in an 8 gallon pot. I have two levels of trellis supporting them and which I used to separate flowers and try to keep the bud sites at the same height to the best of my very limited ability. The entire grow I have had zero issue with temperature, humidity, ph, insects, mold, or anything else. When I pushed the Tiger Bloom one time as a test and got a few yellow leaf tips I immediately backed off. When my plants stretched too close to the lights and I saw the tiniest smidgen of "light burn" (not from temperature, from the amount of light hitting them - 2400 watts of 10 watt LEDs is a lot for a 5x5) I immediately tied them down lower or raised my lights. So all is good as far as I can tell with no reference points and having never done it before. I have had the ear, luckily, of two professional growers who I know, one in Oregon and one in Pennsylvania. They have answered many of my plethora of questions and I'm certain have had a positive effect on my grow. So that's all the background. I have attached some pictures from Day 50 of flowering. The tops of the buds are about 4.5 feet off the ground and about 18-20" from the lights. The sidelights are UFO 22 watt 12"x12" full spectrum light boards, which are there just to keep a little full spectrum in the tent once I switched the overhead main lights to bloom only. Everyone, including the manufacturer, says to finish your grow using both the veg and bloom switches on. My guru on the west coast told me to trust him and disregard that advice, and instead run it on both veg and bloom until about a month left til harvest, then switch to just the bloom lights to bathe them in red for the last month. I am very glad I took his advice, cuz my buds exploded when I did that. Thus the red lighting in the photos.

I am wondering how much bigger I can expect these guys to get considering today is day 51 of a 70 day flowering cycle (approximately) These buds are already pretty big, dense, and COVERED in trichomes. My trichomes are all clear, not one is milky yet and they are just starting to develop the "mushroom head" shape. They are stacking HARD to my eye. I have seven fans throughout and excellent air flow. So can anyone with experience offer their two cents on what I can expect for the rest of the time in terms of size gain?

Thanks!

Jon

[Gluteous]

They look amazing! No one can really know how much larger or fatter they'll get. Too many variables. Usually they'll bulk up in weeks 6-8,9,10 so they're gonna do what they're gonna do in your environment. The next time you grow this strain you'll be able to answer this question.

[AccidentalGardener]

This is part of the fun. Depending on how those seeds were pollinated, you might not get anything near what you pulled them out of, and your version might surprise the heck out of you, lol. You have a while, but not too long. Just long enough to drive you crazy. If this response has you shaking your head, wait till your second grow and then you'll understand. I'm in my second grow. The first one was bagseed that I pulled out of some high-end retail stuff. It turned out to be quite a bit better than the Irene Apricot jar it came from, and I grabbed clones so I'm growing it again in different conditions - the ones that are supposed to be happening from the beginning.
If I'd had this setup, my life would be easier. I'm in negotiations with Santa right now

They look fabulous!

[mimime1]

Thanks for your responses guys. I appreciate the positive feedback. I have researched the dispensary the seeds came from (by happy accident) and have found that they grow only from female clones. So I assume that any seed I found in the finished product would have to have been the result of maybe a light leak that only hit one bud, or a rare female pollinating a female at the end, not enough to show it but just enough to produce a few seeds that I got lucky and got? Regardless, it was a pretty safe bet the seeds were female, but I watched the plants like hawks fully expecting to not go 6 for 6. Again, I either got lucky or whatever, but they are fully female with not the slightest sign anywhere of hermie growth in the slightest. As far as what will be produced in the end, all I know is it's a reasonable assumption that the seeds came from good genetics, and the THC content on the bud the seeds came out of was 30.2%. The strain specifically is Golden Pineapple x Wedding Cake F2. It smells like pineapple cotton candy. I can't wait to see how it finishes!

[AccidentalGardener]

jeez, ya made me hungry, and I don't even like cotton candy or pineapple, lol. Yep, It's like pulling a golden ticket to get seeds in good bud!!

[mimime1]

Yeah the setup wasn't too terribly expensive. Topolite tent 5xx5x80", 2 1200 watt Maxsisun LEDs, 8 setting exhaust fan with 6" carbon filter, 5000 btu AC window unit attached to 8" inline fan for air intake. I built the lower trellis myself and got the stretchy upper one cheap. Seven fans. 2 Exhale 360 Co2 bags, 4 UFO sidelights, some ducting, a few extension cords and power strips, several kinds of clips and fasteners, some extra pvc, 6 pots, the soil, the nutes. Mason jars for the end product, a jewelers loupe, a thermometer, a humidity guage, a timer. Homemade keefe catcher/trim bin with 150 screen. The electricity to run it all. And of course you can't put a price on the stress of your first grow when you're totally into and scared of making every mistake and have zero reference points. Lol. But I'm good at research and had some good advice luckily. Didn't occur to me until today to join a forum. Duh. Keeping a detailed grow journal too. Anyway, all told by the time I'm done this grow will have cost me about $2500, but most of that expense is first time expense and I won't have to buy much of it again. I am fairly certain I will harvest enough that I will save $2500 in spending at the dispensaries from this grow, so to me it will pay for itself within a matter of months. The really funny part, and not to get political, but I am in a wheelchair paralyzed from the waist down. Other than help setting my tent and stuff up and moving my lights, I have done all the work on the grow. So it's been a fun challenge, especially when I have never actually looked DOWN on my plants. Lol. Anyway, I'm on disability and the only way I could afford this infrastructure at all to get started is because of the $1250 check I got because of the virus. So in a way, this is Covid Weed. LMAO!!

[AccidentalGardener]

DT also paid for my much smaller setup. Covid Canna! I'm asking Santa for a bigger tent. Maybe a bigger house,lol. A wheelchair might not be far off for - MS is like a can full of springy snakes - and it would be nice to get in there with the plants instead of dragging big containers out. I already have a chair without wheels. But it might take us a while to grow that much pot, lol. I keep looking at the box of empty jars to remind me I better do a good job or I'm never gonna get into a bigger tent. The money we save on weed can go toward buying a place out in the county. In a year we'll have a down-payment.