Autoflowers, LEDs & Bubbles, Oh My!

Saturday – Day 87 from seed, day 45 of bloom…

Yesterday as I was opening the the tent to inspect the plants I noticed a piece of debris on a leaf of the frontmost plant. On closer inspection I realized it was a dried, fully bloomed & detached male flower.

I carefully extracted the pollen factory with a drop of soapy water & a cotton swab. At all outward appearances I couldn’t find any signs of male flowers on any of the plants. A few seeds starting on Low-Right (one of the small sativa-like ones), but not much else. If you see one male flower there are others! But where?

Sunday – Day 88 from seed, day 46 of bloom…

Sadly this morning, during the reservoir change, my girlfriend discovered that Top-Right, the second sativa-like plant was spotted with seeds throughout its right side. Though I could find no male flowers on her, or any of the others, I decided to pull her. I theorized, based on the seed disbursal pattern as the plants on the left showed seeding only on 2 clusters (the two nearest Top-Right), that Top-Right was the pollinator. It’s really sad because she was the most trichome coated of the group and was just at least 3 weeks out from primetime.

As to the others, best we can hope, based on a close inspection, is that they are fine.

Most of the buds on Top-Left appear nearly mature, a week, two tops to harvest, trichomes are clouding up, there are a few seeds on 2 smaller tops.


Low-Right, lanky a sativa-ish, small, but resin coated, with a Berry-on-Steroids aroma. Low-Right has obvious seeds forming, not too bad though, she’s still 3-4 weeks away from harvest.


Low-Left is dwarfed by her sibling, but is sweet & sticky! She's plugging away, doing the best she can with her cramped space, no seeds found on her. 2-3 weeks tops till she’s prime.


Top-Mid is the quiet one of the bunch, with a soft sweet aroma that I look forward to getting to know better. She consists of 1 main top, 1 smaller top and small lower clusters, 2-3 weeks tops till she’s prime.


Top-Right was my favorite all along (she was the runt of the group), but I had to cull her as she was seeded & most importantly, I believe a pollinator.

I hope you all have a great week! Be happy and well!

"Top-Right" the hermaphrodite - chopped, manicured & dried.
Total yield – 16 grams ±
E.S.R (early smoke report) - Neutral taste on the inhale, with a very thick body & honey/floral notes on the exhale. She hits fast & hard.

I put her in the jar, though she won't be around long enough to cure
Scratch that, I did stash away a big nug...


And I know the manicure job is kind of leafy, but they were so coated with trichs, I left them.

Greetings my fellow RIU'ers,

I hope this day finds you well!

Here we go...

• Trichomes are still mostly clear on 3 of 4 plants.
• All growth in the giant Top-Left has stalled, nearly all red hairs, no new whites, even down lower.
• Low-Right has begun sporting up new white hairs and little new spikes of calyxes, all the while maturing a few seeds.
• Low-Left and Top-Mid are nearly identical, one single main cola with ping-pong ball sized buds on a few lower branch tips, not noticing much new growth.
• Nutrient consumption is on the decline as is water uptake.
• Even weening back the nutrients, everything is still green and showing no signs of “old age,” just that darn phosphorus deficiency on old fan leaves creeping back up.

I keep telling myself, "any day now...," but the girls and their trichomes say otherwise. I figured might as well just let them go, I can cut them at any time. Once i cut, there is no putting it back.

Be well everyone!

Greetings!

I hope everyone is doing fine!

Well, here we are at week 9 of 12/12.
Top-Mid and Low-Left got the chop today, Trichs on them started changing last week, and exponentially every day since. The timing seemed right, so after re-checking them, It was go! A quick cut and rough trim and into the box to dry.

The remains of Top-Mid and Low-Left.

The last two Blue Mystics remain…
Top-Left and Low-Right are the two that made the most of their spaces early. No new growth on TL, her trichs are mostly clear, but the change seems to be kicking in. Low-Right is really close as well, but just may be adding a list-ditch effort to procreate, as I noticed several new white hairs popping up on some of the main buds. The one seed she has (that I can see anyway), is nearly ripe as well, but it's all about the trichomes!

The Remaining two Blue Mystics heading into week week 9 of 12/12.


Top-Left form the back-side, or the "dark side of the moon" as I sometimes call it.


Nothing remarkably massive, but there are quite a few of these little tops.

As eager as I am to start my "Sativa Challenge" grow, two of the best pieces of advice I got when starting out growing was:
1 - Don't over water/over feed
and
2 - When you think it's time to harvest, wait 2 weeks!

Hmmm... Maybe just a lil'bit longer.

Greetings,

Life has thrown some challenges into the mix offer the past few weeks, so this past weekend, after a close inspection of trichomes the decision was made to chop. (Actually my Girlfriend had to make the decision, I'm too emotionally attached to them to be rational)

Harvest Morning...

Low-Right has really begun to smell. Not just in the mornings, but reeking all day and night too. Her trichs were a mix of milky, dotted with amber & clears.

Top-Left's trichs were strangely clear till the last two days or so, then bam! I would liked to have let her go a little bit longer as I wanted an amber heavy effect, but decisions had to be made and testing shows she couch-locks very well as is. :smoking:

A down & dirty cut (almost whole stocks & branches), rough manicure of all non sugar-leaf, then hung to dry at 75ºF, 58% RH.

My apologies for not photo-documenting the harvest or manicuring, but life was crazy, and my hands were really, really sticky. Too sticky to touch the camera, then a fellow friend and care-giver gave me her tip of using non-latex gloves. When done, put the gloves in the freezer and in a few hours the accumulated resins flake off the glove material.

Between Monday & Tuesday the buds were removed from the hangers, trimmed proper (well, the way I like it anyway), and packed into jars to equalize moisture content.


Top-Left: 70+ grams prime in cure, with an additional 10g of small (fingertip size), fluffier buds that are so resiny, they were saved from the shake bag and currently line the bottom of the med box.

Low-Right: 34 grams of amazing stuff curing. She has a lower calyx to leaf ratio than any of her siblings, but is so sticky I didn't mind. Loses bag appeal to some as it is a bit leafy, but the powdery residue or trichomes collecting at the bottom of the jar is testimony to her true essence. Between the scissors, fingertips, pans, screens & jar bottoms we managed to scrape, rub & press just over .5g of wicked-awesome hash off her alone.

I lost track of which buds of Low-Right had seeds. I did stumble across two gorgeous little buggers, that weren't the ones I'd been tracking, so "Bonus Prizes!"

My fave blanket seemed the perfect backdrop...

I love my stainless jar because it makes for cool pics! (and I can drop it with out shattering)

In terms of a better dry/cure than the bubblelicious grow, these finished flowers are leaps ahead in quality. I took a page or two from others on the subject of curing and adapted my process to it.

If you haven't seen Irish Boy's tips for curing, I suggest it! This is a repost of the original...A simple process for curing...



Well, I'll offer up early smoke reports and the official weights in coming days.

I really would like to thank everyone (here and at all the other forums we all cross on as well)! Without the tips, knowledge and support offered up from everybody, I'd still be in the dark-ages regarding growing properly.

If anyone wants to know more about stuff I used in the grow(s), feel free to give me shout! Cameras, nutrients, any questions about the Pro-Grow Series of LED Grow Lights that I can't answer, I'm sure Ben at Hydroponics Hut would be happy to! Same for the Bubbleponics set-up , If I don't know the answer, I'm sure I know someone who does!

Over the next week, my GF and I are adding a new, slightly larger tent and getting ready for the next grow... 2 - Sativa Dominant Blackberry from seed, a tent & an LED lamp (260watts worth maybe?)...

Going though the first jar, the lower, airy buds that hadn't had time to cure, I was marginally impressed, at best. Great on effect, short on visual and olfactory appeal. Biding the past few weeks on a dwindling med supply purchased at the Farmer's Market, with exception to daily burping, we let the jars be. Earlier this week we tapped into jar 2, happy to discover it has begun to hit its stride...

My girlfriend nicknamed Top-Right "stink-berry" and Low-Right "mystery".
When broken up or ground, Top-Right's flowers produce a pungent, acrid, berry aroma that envelops the room, and berry taste on the exhale (berry intensifies when smoked in a water pipe). Low-Right, by far the stickiest, some buds can smell and taste earthy/neutral while others from her are hash/fruity, hence the name mystery, as you don't know what you're gonna taste.


Both hit very hard as their Indica dominant heritage would dictate.

Top-Left is the better one if you need to remain upright and function. Nerve & muscle pain reduction is noticeable & adequate. Munchies are minimal.

Low-Right is perfect for heavier pain days, needing to get to sleep, or for a little weekend recreation on the couch with the Wii. Munchies - (Buy stock in Cheetos & Ben & Jerry's) Seriously though, great for stimulating appetite.

If these seeds are any indication of what the true photoperiod Blue Mystics are capable of, I can highly recommend them (the non-auto) and look forward to trying them in the future.


Side notes...

From Low-Right's airy buds & the bottom of the manicure pan, we garnered a total of 13 mature seeds. I'm sure there will be more, but we've not found any in the samples from the cure jars (yet) and none on Top-Right.

I did some loosely manicured buds (only the tightest sugar-leaves were left) and some connoisseur-manicured buds (nearly no leaf left) and jarred them separately to see if there would be a difference in curing. BIG DIFFERENCE - The leaf-less buds look smell and smoke FAR better than their leaf covered counterparts, I'd venture to say it'll take another week or two for the cure on leafier buds to catch up. But that is just IMHO.


Again, Thank you all, for thoughts, tips, questions and all else!

Be well everyone! :wave2:

Nice grow. I have a pack of reg Blue Mystic beans hat I bought a while ago. Can't wait to try it out.

So I guess the "quality control" problem with the Nirvana autos wasn't resolved? Or, it WAS, but not before you received your seeds? I'm not familiar with the background story.

xebeche said:

So I guess the "quality control" problem with the Nirvana autos wasn't resolved? Or, it WAS, but not before you received your seeds? I'm not familiar with the background story.

Click to expand...

These seeds were purchased the very same day that Nirvana had put the seeds back in stock, after the original issues with the breeder had been supposedly cleared up. Unfortunately the success rate of the auto trait in these was less than 10 percent, or so I heard.

After 6 weeks at 18/6 and no flowering we cut the lights to 12/12, They promptly bloomed, and going against the advice of many others who thought I should kick the lights back up to 18/6, stayed at 12/12 for the duration.

Nirvana gladly credited back my account, and has since remove all autos but their own "Shortrider".

Out of the 5 seeds, we got 3 distinct phenotypes, all of which were pretty stellar.

I think you'll be very pleased, keep us posted when you pop your seeds!

endive said:

These seeds were purchased the very same day that Nirvana had put the seeds back in stock, after the original issues with the breeder had been supposedly cleared up. Unfortunately the success rate of the auto trait in these was less than 10 percent, or so I heard.

After 6 weeks at 18/6 and no flowering we cut the lights to 12/12, They promptly bloomed, and going against the advice of many others who thought I should kick the lights back up to 18/6, stayed at 12/12 for the duration.

Nirvana gladly credited back my account, and has since remove all autos but their own "Shortrider".

Out of the 5 seeds, we got 3 distinct phenotypes, all of which were pretty stellar.

I think you'll be very pleased, keep us posted when you pop your seeds!

Click to expand...

So, the seeds you grew this time around are "auto" seeds that just don't "auto"? I thought maybe they just sent you fem beans instead of the autos. I guess I'm not too familiar with auto strains (never grown one). I'm def looking forward to growing the Blue Mystic soon. Will post a grow journal for sure. Congrats on the successful harvest. What's next up for you? Another auto?

I definitely see autos in my future, I'll probably stick to the Joint Doctor's stable of auto genetics though. I'm actually thinking about setting up several outdoors in a few weeks.

As to the next grow...

Here are some Bubblelicious that were grown & bloomed under the Pro-Grow X5



These are the same batch of Bubblicious cuttings as the previous post! Between the 2 Bubblelicious and 1 White Widow (all from Nirvana), totaled about 9 ounces in a roughly one square meter area.

peace - e.

So officially, the smallest plant, but fastest to harvest was the DinaFem Haze Autoflower. A unique & beautiful plant, I pegged her for about 30 grams at best. Fortunately I was a bit on the conservative side as the total dried & trimmed weight was over 42 grams.


Then the two Northern Light x Big Bud autos. Both plants were remarkably similar, showing the stability of the breeders efforts. The slight variations between the two though are worth noting.

• Plant #1 had thinner looking colas and was just a bit more lanky than #2, with gnarly foxtails and lots of purple coloring on the leaves and trichomes. Plant #1 also had a bit more of the Northern Light sweetness in the aroma, where as #2 had more skunky notes.
• Plant #2′s fat spear-tipped colas were something to behold. A slightly denser plant than her sibling, #2 kept packing on mass till the end (well they both did really). But #2 was also less finicky when it came to feedings, #1 took a bit of wrangling to keep her healthy.

The next big surprise was how close 1 & 2 were in final weight. I thought #2 would be substantially heavier on the scales, but in the end it was little more than a 3-4 gram difference between the two.


Totals
DinaFem Haze Autoflower: 42 grams
Northern Light x Big Bud #1: 52 grams
Northern Light x Big Bud #2: 55 Grams




There is one last plant under the Pro-Grow 260X, an autoflower Northern Light At week 8 from seed...


Live & be well!

The PG-260X afterthought... Northern Light Autoflower

This is from the last week of the Northern Light Auto under the Pro-Grow 260X as the deep rich green in her leaves gave way to paling & purpling. Calyxes were trichome coated and tinged lavender.

THis is week 10 - 11 from seed. I eat my words on the 2nd gen seeds taking longer to finish.

​

I so wish I could get cuttings off this one... I've ordered photoperiod Northern Light seeds and hope to find a matching or similar phenotype.


e.

About day 72 from seed and 58 days in to budding for the Auto Cheese.



Cheese Auto: (Dinafem)

Cheese Auto


Roughly Day 81 from seed, just before I cut the first buds off of her yesterday morning!

• Nutrients: General Organics
• Lighting: Pro-Grow 260X LED
• Medium: Grown in 2 gallons of soil, fabric pot.

Trichome Close-up!


All the upper branches are now set to dry. I let any lower "non-purple" buds stay on and go for another wek or so...


The Northern Light is the same age, and only half way through a troubled bloom. Pics of her to come soon...


e.

Oh looks nice, are you just doing auto seeds?
Would be fun to see how they behave, im on my first grow but i went for feminized only, i hope i get anywhere near 50% return on wattage input.