LET THE FUN BEGIN!
I am so excited to grow together (again) with all of my SAFC Growmies!
I just got my seeds today! Noting like cutting it close!!! The first delivery got held in customs, but LSC did what it took to make sure that I got the seeds on time!
I plan to grow one of each of the official strains! It will be fun to have four plants again... I used to grow 6 at a time, but am growing only 2 in the NYGC... It is really hard to remember how 6 plants fit in the tent - I am a little nervous now about 4 😉
Plan is to train them as I normally would, which is a Mainline or Manifold - Top two or three times and train for 8 equal mains. I am giving myself 24 days to do the toppings - if they are not done at 24 days they will just have to be what they are.
It'll be fun to see how each of the four does. I am partial to one of them now, but I don't want to say which - for fear that she will turn out to be the runt 😉
Germination Plan - Going Aggressive - be very careful if you follow me in this strategy... 🙂
I normally would have taken my seeds out of the fridge a couple days ago to signal them that it was the start of the warmer season... However, my seeds were still in London at that point - so they have stayed warm and "ready".
Step two in the "aggressive" plan is to gently scuff the seeds. I am using 300 grit sand paper. I just roll a tube with the grit on the inside and shake a seed in there for like 5 shakes. Not too much or you could damage the seed. The idea behind scuffing is to roughen the surface slightly to allow water to penetrate the seed casing quicker.
Step three is a cup of water. We have about two hours now until the seeds hit the cup of water. I just turned the heat mat on and I am about to put the cups on it to get them to temperature. With scuffed seeds, I am only going to soak them for a couple hours.
Step four is paper-towels in a sealed Pyrex container on my heat-mat regulated to 85f. I simply pour each little cup of water onto the paper towels and try to get the seeds near the middle. This is the step that I have to be careful to keep the labels with the seeds or I will lose track of who is who!
Hopefully by this time tomorrow - or early Sunday Morning, I will be ready for step 5 which is transferring the little sprouts to Jiffy. - After that I plan to follow my own Seedling tutorial 😉
This is going to be a fun Challenge! I really look forward to seeing how the strains do compared to each other and compared to other grows! I hope that everyone has great grows and has fun Growing Together!
Grower Love
Alright, so 24 hours in and they all have tails!
For some reason I did not take a Pic of the Think Different, but she looks just like her sisters 😉
I will certainly take 4/4 in 24 hours 🙂
I decided to let them be for a couple more hours to grow out a little before going into Jiffy. The Jiffy is warm and ready. This is fun!
Hope everyone is POPPING!
Grower Love
Alright we are moving right along 🙂
I thought about transferring them to Jiffy last night around hour 27, but it was 3am and I was tired. By Hour 34 they all had very decent tails and were in the perfect state to transfer. Here is my Colorado Cookies 🙂
The transfer went well and I was able to bury the roots and leave the seeds just at the surface. I took some pics at the time, but they came out blurry. So, I just went back to take a better pic and I swear they are already growing up! 🙂
Loving it!
Grower Love!
I am really having fun with these little seeds! They are on FIRE!!!
48 hours in and both Night Queen and Colorado Cookies have shed their shells.
Glueberry OG looks mere moments behind... Think Different apparently wants to stay in the saftey of her helmet a while longer.
But they are all growing like crazy already - This is fun!
Grower Love!
68 hours in and the girls keep cruising! All four are opening their cotyledons 🙂
I thought Think Different might have the hardest time with her helmet, but she shed it all by herself and is the cutest of the bunch so far 🙂
P.S. We are working on getting the Day Counter to work properly - This is Day 3!
P.P.S. Grower Love
Quick Update today...
Finally got the day counter correct going forward. And I got My strain tags 🙂
Girls are doing great! They will go into prefertigated coco when I get home tonight...
Speaking of coco - I got my Coco! Damn do I have coco... Royal Gold sent me some "Samples"... they were shipped to the local hydro store where I went to pick them up yesterday... It was an entire Pallet!!! Barely fit in my car 😮 . I'll have to take a pic of what I got... Quite a lot of Tupur! Hmmmmmmmmm
I will be gone teaching all day...
Grower Love
Been a BUSY week - You will see what we have been up to soon enough 😉
I am way behind in getting through all of the rest of the journals - but I finally have a little bit of time tomorrow - so I will probably spend it all in the forum and chat 😉
SAFC four-Pack is doing great. All working on their second nodes and not causing any fuss.
I decided it was time for some close-ups - Sadly Think Different's came out blurry...
They went into Coco on day 5 and are now up to 550 EC for their next feeding which is as soon as I finish this.
So far they seem to be happy with the new coco - I am happy with it too. I am keeping CalMag dose pretty low - 3ml/gal prior to dilution. If the seedlings never get CalMag issues I will be sold. I am going to watch carefully. Glueberry has been the best grower so far (not by mush they are all pretty equal) - but she looks like she might be trying to tell me something. I am so suspicious of CalMag issues though - so far so good!
Hope All your seedlings and plants are doing Awesome!
Grower Love!
Girls are doing well - growing up 🙂
Glueberry is the most interesting. She has grown the most, but also has the "grumpiest" leaves. I suspect she is flirting with Ca issues, but was doing well otherwise, and then she started to fall over. Being cautions of damping off in the peat - which has never been a problem before and I don't think is behind this. Hopefully just a little too much vigor. So she got a splint - and rather than shove it into the seedling bag I just lashed it to the outside of it 😉
Roots have been popping out of the seedling bag on Think Different and Glueberry for a couple days now. The other two are just starting to pop. I think they all should be ready for transplant in a couple days time. I am not in a big hurry - I like giving them a little time in the seedling bags, and it usually works out well to keep them in em until the little plants are really on their third node.
Up to full strength seedling blend, but EC is only 800 because I used only 3ml of CalMag in my test of the coco. So far I would say that the coco has passed the early tests. Glueberry and maybe the rest could probably benefit from a little more, but I really was going light with only 3ml to begin and then diluting for EC. I will mix up some early veg nutes next and I think I will go back to full strength CalMag for at least a gallon.
Twice daily fertigations and my pH is up at 6.2 to 6.3. All going very smoothly 😎
I wish all of your seedlings the very best!
Grower Love
Alright things are going well 🙂
Three of the four graduated from seedlings and went into their 1/2 gallons on day 12 - I let Night Queen stay in the seedling bag until today, and I think she benefited from it. 14 days is still a great pace - 12 is awesome. I am very happy with the seeds/genetics and with my new coco.
Gleuberry OG is leader of the Pack. She along with the rest are working on side branches. The focus isn't great, but you can see the little tips here
They are all still in my dome - which helps maintain temp and rh. I can blast the fan on the CFLs only if the plants are protected in the dome. The vents are open and there is a lot of air blowing across the dome which kind of makes the ideal climate for seedlings. But these girls are getting too big. At this rate they will no longer fit in the dome by Sunday - maybe tomorrow.
So I am really happy with the pace and quite sure that my training plans will be possible within the time allowed. They are all on their fourth now - will be on their fifth by tomorrow or Sunday and they will get decapitated when they get to 6. Once they are decapitated they will probably fit back in the dome. It will be another week at least until the tent is available.
Much Grower Love!
Well Space is still the biggest problem I am facing with this grow. Glueberry in particular was growing into the roof of the humidity dome, so I had to slide some bamboo across the bottom tray to prop the dome up a little higher. This creates a small gap, which greatly reduces the domes effectiveness - but it was really too effective anyway. With cold temps in the room I can manage everything. When it gets hot then I need to turn the fan up on the CFLs and that drops the RH pretty low even under the (now raised) dome. But they are happy right now - and I may be fussing over them too much - they seem vigorous 🙂
Here is Glueberry the biggest of the bunch
She and the others were also getting a little "Bushy" so it was high time that I do the first step in Manifold/Mainline training: Removing the growth tips from the first two nodes! I always leave the leaves at this stage because they are powering plant growth! 🙂
Here are the lot of them after ... well it wasn't a "Haircut" - let's call it a shave.
I will top them as soon as the growth tips from the third node are about the size as the ones on Night Queen's second node above. Could be tomorrow - I sort of think it will be tomorrow.
And then I will let them go for a few days - I am doing a live training demo next week on the Live show - and I plan to do the second topping then - it is usually 5-6 days between toppings - but these girls are growing fast!
NYGC girls are days into their flush and are eligible to harvest by Tuesday - I cannot harvest them on Tuesday though - I might start on Wednesday - Thursday is the last day of classes - Except for the class I teach on Friday - um - I will be still harvesting Friday and maybe even Saturday... Some Trimming may not be very wet... But the tent will be available for these SAFC girls before the Live show on Sunday...
Grower Love
I edited together a little clip of the operation... the "shave" 🙂
You got the before and after pics of Night Queen above - this is the "during" 😉
#Trimthetips #Leavetheleaves
Grower Love
I got so busy this week!
I am working on editing pics and will work on a good post here to bring everyone up to date - a lot has happened since last week 🙂
But that really does take me some time - so in the mean time - I can share this - which may be even better!
I did a live "Show and Tell" today on the "Growing with my Fellow Growers" Show. I cued up the video below to start at the beginning of my show and tell. You can see my plants and the whole set up.
GROWER LOVE!
I apologize for not keeping this journal updated more
And for not getting through other journals as much as I would like! The last couple weeks have just kicked my butt
But my SAFC girls are all doing great! No pistils yet - but they are starting to look suspicious
They are all done with Manifold training 🙂 Think Different was ready to be topped for the second time on 5/13 at 7pm The others took more than 24 hours longer and did not get topped until 2am on 5/15. So that was like the end of day 25 beginning of day 26 - kind of pushing it - but they are all doing great now and growing into their eight mains.
Think different is somewhat the exception. I supercropped her two branches down, but one of them was not supercropped enough. She tried to straigten it but it was held with a restraint. So she literally pulled her whole stem over to the side! In the process she practically ripped her other arm off because it was also held down. I noticed it the next morning and worked to fix her up as best as I could, but she now certainly has a strong side and a weak side.
They are on 3x auto-water. I plan to keep them there for the next couple days as I head down to San Diego to help my parents move. I will increase to 4x when I return.
EC in at 1100 - coming out at only about 1200. Colorado Cookies is the highest outflow EC, but she is fine at 1280.
Most of my teaching is done now - I am leaving for the weekend, but I will be around and working on the site a lot over the next few weeks. I expect the new redesigned site to be ready within a couple few weeks - developers have done most of their work - but there is a ton for me to do now 🙂 I am just happy that I will finally have the time!
With much Grower Love!
It is their one Month Birthday!
And They Popped their Pistils! 🙂
It was actually a pretty exciting day! I had to go down to San Diego for the Weekend and made it make last night just in time for the Live Show - but I missed seeing the plants. So it had been since Saturday Morning when I opened the tent tonight... I was impressed - they grew a lot in the two+ days 🙂
I broke out the APT for Think Different and Glueberry. I could have broken out the APT for the others too, but I figured they could also grow unrestrained for another day. Think different is recovered from her injury - she is lopsided but certainly still seems vigorous. She is also the most clearly sativa.
They are happy plants 🙂 When I mix new nutes tomorrow they will be early Bloom - or what I like to call "Stretch" Nutes.
Much Grower Love!
SAFC plants are doing well overall 🙂
There are a few stories at this point.
Think Different is different. She is Front Right and is growing like an actual weed. Very stretchy and light on leaves. I spread her out a little tonight because she was so much taller than the others, but she is pretty deep into flowering too, so I don't think she will keep up the stretch for long. Therefore, I will probably let her gain an advantage on the others before she quits.
And to bury the lead, someone is munching on Glueberry OG!
I think it was a drive by munching... I noticed it a fw days ago and there has been no new damage to any of the girls since. I imagine a cricket. I am prepared to battle it to the death if our paths should cross. But I am not stressing too much.
And here they are over the last 2 weeks or so... I moved the camera when I did the live demo in the CHG show a couple weeks ago... see above 🙂 so this Time Lapse starts just after that.
Grower Love!
