I jumped the gun a little to make sure the plants I wanted to follow germinated and sprouted. I'll primarily be journaling my F1s that I simply labeled as "Z" (an arbitrary designation for no purpose other than the grow journal category).

Here's what's going on in the veg tent today.

Starting with the back row from the left: Romulan x Grape God (Next Generation Seed Company), the starter next to this plant is a Kilimanjaro (fingers crossed, I've gone through 2 packs of 10 seeds and only got 2 beans to pop, this one looks like it may sprout) Z, another Z, then my fan.

In the middle row from the left: Romulan x Grape God, the 2 starters in the same tray are Purple Goji Candy (Radical Roots), Z and another Z sharing a tray with 2 starters containing Prayer Pupils (Mass Medical Strains) 1 of which looks like it's not going to sprout, then Hulk Pebbles Auto (Southwest Bakery) that will stay in the veg tent.

Finally, the front row moving from the left: Z sharing a tray with Romulan x Grape God and a starter with Kilimanjaro (World of Seeds) that doesn't look like it will make it, another Hulk Pebbles Auto, then a Five Star (Mass Medical Strains) and 1 last Z.

Whew, there's a lot going on there. It's going to get very crowded in a few days, which means I may have to murder a couple for space concerns. The 5* is the only feminized plant (other than the autos) so I will have males to remove, but that won't happen until after the flip.  The Rom x GG in the back corner will get up potted 1 more time (into a 5 gallon fabric pot) and transferred to the flower tent in 7-14 days.

It's on. Here are 3 of my challenge plants at 2 weeks from germination. They look a little nitrogen deficient, which is leaving me a bit puzzled. They're in new water-only soil with some amendments so there is plenty of nitrogen in the media. The only thing that I think makes sense is that the nutrients aren't available yet. I started a plan to address that by top dressing with worm castings yesterday and I plan to add a top dress with some Recharge tomorrow. It's

possible that these plants are genetically predisposed to express a light green color, but that'd be a deviation from the parents.

The grow is looking pretty good. Since my last post I top dressed with worm castings and Recharge and up potted a bunch of plants. These three grow challenge plants all went from their 1 gallon nursery pots to 3 gallon fabric pots. I probably should have up potted a day or two earlier, but I was waiting to get some 3-gallon fabric pots with velcro closures to facilitate the next transplant stage. Transplanting out of fabric pots sucks if you can't open them up. The move out of the plastic pots will probably help quite a bit with moisture management. I'm pretty good at judging water needs for plants in fabric pots, but I have a hard time maintaining the right balance in plastic ones.

Here's what my veg tent looks like today. The back left is a Hulk pebbles auto, next to that is my Zoo City Nightcap (Z). The middle row (from left) #1 is a five star & a prayer pupil (both from Mass Medical), #2 is two Zs, #3 is a Romulan x grape god (Next Generation Seeds), #4 is a Z & another Romulan x grape god (I'm debating if that plant is worth keeping of if I should kill it now). The 2 plants in 1 gallon nursery pots are purple goji candy (Radical Roots). The front row (from left) is a Z, another Z, then one last Romulan x grape god. I had to move another Hulk pebbles auto into my flower tent this morning to make room.

It looks like I'm getting a little nutrient deficiencies on a couple plants, but I'll get that sorted soon. The veg tent is just moving into the topping stage. We'll see how everyone responds, but if all goes well I may start moving some plants into the flower tent in a couple weeks. Here are some of my Z cultivar and a shot of the whole tent for perspective.

Things are moving along pretty well, everything is growing quickly, and I've been thinning the herd of stragglers. Here's some pictures of where everything is today.

Every grow is a new adventure. At the risk of jinxing myself, this has been an extremely smooth grow. My last run was 1 challenge after another, this time I'm just trying to stay out of the plants' way. I started this run with about 20 seeds on a staggered germination/planting schedule spread over the last 2 weeks of December. Four of those seeds never germinated, 2 never sprouted once dropped int he soil, and I cut out 2 that exhibited deformities I wanted to eliminate from the garden. The remaining 12 have been growing vigorously and I've been up potting them every 5-10 days. I still have 3 hanging out in their 3 gallon containers, but they will be moving up to 7s by the end of the week. For this run my final pot sizes are 5 and 7 gallon fabric pots.

Here's the veg tent.

The two 7 gallons along the left wall are my grow challenge plants (zoo city nightcap--my cultivar)

The three 3 gallons from back to front are 2 puple goji candy (Radical Roots), 1 zoo city, 1 prayer pupil and a 5 star (both from Mass Medical)

The brown 7 gallon to the right has 2 zoo city's. You can see the difference being exhibited by this F1 cross in this container, the one to the back is clearly showing more sativa traits.

Here's the flower tent

There's a row of autos to the left that are just taking up space (mostly out of view)

The row up the middle from back to front is all Romulan x grape god (Next Generation). I just moved these to the flower tent over the past week.

The row to the right is all in the last 5-10 days of flower.

From back to the front:

Purple pineberry (Next Generation--this was supposed to be an auto, but isn't)

Maui wowie (Ocean Grown)

Sour melon (Mantis Genetics)

Everyone is moving along nicely and I'm starting to move some of my challenge plants into the flower tent.

Here's the veg tent this morning.

The doubled up plants in the back and the single to the left are the last of my Z waiting to be shifted to flower. They're moving a little slower than the others from this generation of seeds.

The prayer pupil and 5 star in the front right aren't doing great, but that's on me. I have those in a soil mix that's really heavy with compost, bad choice for those cultivars.

Here's the flower tent as of this morning.

My challenge plants are the two pots in the very center and the 1 in the front center. The one that in the middle row to the right is the super star of this generation. That plant is spreading out like a champ.

The front right is a sour melon that should be ready to chop in the next 4-8 days.

The middle left and back right are some really crappy autos that are clinging to life. As long as I have enough space in the tent they get to fight for survival.

I'm officially counting today as flip day. In the attached image the 2 plants in the back row are Romulan x grape god, the two in the middle row and the one in the tan grow bag in the front are my challenge plants, Z F1, and the one in the front right is a prayer pupil sharing space with a five star. The two pots in the front are showing signs of overwatering and/or magnesium deficiency. Trying to get that under control now.

There's not much to report when everything is moving along smoothly. I still have one laggard of a plant from the challenge hanging out in the veg tent, but everyone who made it into the flower tent so far is starting to show. t this point I'm alternating terp tea bloom, recharge, and plain tap for waterings and still top dressing with epsom salts and seaweed powder. Within the next few days I'm going to spot pollinate the two sister plants in the back row. The pollen donor is an outstanding male of the same cultivar from this run. The seeds produced will be F2s, but I plan to split the line. The plant on the back left is showing strong indica structure while the one on the back right is strong in the sativa force. I'm looking forward to seeing where these lines go.

Just moved the last plant from this cohort into flower. My challenge plants are a couple weeks in and really starting to look good. I pollinated the 2 in the back row to work on advancing some of the traits they're showing. I recently made a significant change that's really helping. I put lava rocks in the trays below about half of these plants and I've been bottom watering those since. The result is clear, they're looking better and taking more water than the ones I'm top watering.

Everybody is chugging along in the tent. Lots of tops and starting to see some frost. I'm happy to see the plants looking good during this awful cold and low humidity. My challenge plants are all of the ones with purple buds in the front and back rows as well as the one with white buds in the back.

It's been a couple weeks since my last update. When things are going smoothly it seems like I have less motivation to post updates. This is my flower room as of this morning. I've got a nice crop of seriously bushed out plants. I'm going to try adding another 1-2 weeks in final containers in the veg tent before transfer with this cultivar going forward. The cultivar with purple buds is the challenge plant. The front left is probably about a week from harvest, so that yellowing is normal senescence, the plant in the middle on the right (the droopy one) wasn't really ready to go to flower yet, but I had more important plants in the veg tent that needed the space, so it got kicked to the last open spot in the flower tent.

The flower tent is getting full. The purple buds are the challenge plants. I may start to harvest in a couple weeks. The age of the plants is staggered so it'll be a gradual harvest. One of the big changes I implemented in this grow that seems to have been a big win is to use a variation on the sub-irrigated planter for my plants in the flower stage. That worked so well that I'm implementing it with plants in the veg tent once they're in their final containers. I'll have to see if the strategy works as well in the summer once the humidity climbs, but it was a big plus for this winter run.