Welcome again!
Before I get to today's update and pics I would like to talk about how I will be staggering my harvests this year to make up for having to keep a male for breeding purposes. My current Medical Marijuana plant and product limits are the statewide baseline of 6 mature plants
OR 12 immature plants
AND 8 oz. ( 1 half-pound ) of finished product.
Right now I have maxed my immature plant limit. My plan is to keep a total of 5 females and 1 male, which will keep my mature plant limit maxed for the outdoor season.
The other thing you need to understand is the way I grow outdoors. The last couple of years I have force flowered my outdoor plants by keeping them about three feet tall or less and
moving them indoors during the flowering stage. I have done this with plants from seed and with clones, which are obviously much more efficient and worthwhile.
The reasons I do this are numerous. By getting my smaller plants flowered and harvested in late July instead of mid-September I avoid the brunt of the things that can plague most outdoor growers; things like:
- Severe bug infestations
- Rain, storms , and cold snaps
- Bud rot and other mold issues
- Waiting 5-6 months from seed to harvest
- Theives (Plants are locked up inside at night - I sleep like a baby all the way to harvest time.)
Now this piece of mind comes at the cost of having to spend about 5 five minutes every day putting them out in the morning and five minutes bringing them in at night for a total of 10 minutes a day during the flowering stage. Personally, I do not mind doing this but I am sure some people must think I am nuts. And obviously if you are growing commercially you probably don't want to bother with doing this.
Now I will be force flowering again, except this time I will sex everything, and then put one of the female Purps plants back on a longer light schedule and do a second transplant into an eight gallon container. I will let it grow and flower out normally. This female will obviously get much bigger and will yield more. My harvest plan is as follows:
4 Females flowered early, harvesting late July - approx. yield: 8 oz.
1 Female flowering naturally, harvesting late September - approx. yield: 4 oz.
1 Male destroyed after collecting pollen
Now, because I will have gone through a good portion of the first harvest by the time the second comes in,
I can get 12 ounces instead of 8 ounces from this grow and stay legal at the state level.
I know this is a bit of reading, but I wanted to let you know why I am doing the things I will be documenting in the coming months.
*************
And now on to today's update:
I increased their water again today because it is HOT. I also raised the lights another half-inch. Everything looks fine, a couple of the seedlings have some deformed leaves but they should grow out of it. As you can see in the first picture, the White Russian on the left are much further ahead than the Purps. The two light fixtures I am using are slightly different, so I switched them today and maybe the Purps will catch up. I had to turn the fan off for a couple of minutes when I shot the pics so the temp spike up to almost 88 F.Here are some pics from earlier:
Here is one of the deformed Purps. It isn't too bad though:
Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!