Transplanted the plant to a one gallon pot filled with 1250 grams of semi-moist
Happy Frog organic potting soil. The plant made good progress the last week
and is now at 6" above the rim. The 12 hours daily under the LED light has
really made a difference.
When the current grow (#12) is harvested on 7-18 the photoperiod will be
reset to 18/6. This plant and the two Berry Kushes will be permanently transferred
to the flowering chamber and allowed to vegetate until they are at least
12" tall. At that point the photoperiod will be shortened to 12/12 and the
plants will begin to flower. In about 10-14 days the plants will start to
show their sex and the males will be discarded.
July 11th: Vegetation (Week 10)
Added 1.5 inches this last week.
7-14: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy
(2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive Grow bringing the container to 1250 grams.
7-17: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy
(2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive Grow bringing the container to 1250 grams.
July 18th: Vegetation (Week 11)
I just realized that I do not need to maintain two separate chambers ...
the LED lit chamber can be left on an 18/6 photoperiod and those plants that
are ready to flower just need to be removed at 6 pm to a dark chamber until
morning to meet the required 12 hours of darkness that flowering plants need
each day.
This allows the not quite ready plants to continue their vegetation
under the best light. Seedling and clones can still be started under fluorescents
in the former vegetation chamber until they are ready to be transferred.
Now that Grow 12 has been harvested the photoperiod in the flowering chamber
was reset to 18/6 and all of the remaining plants transferred over to continue
their vegetation.
7-21: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy
(2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive Grow bringing the container to 1250 grams.
7-24: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy
(2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive Grow bringing the container to 1250 grams.
July 25th: Vegetation Week 12
Now
that the plant is nearing 12 inches in height it was topped at the uppermost
node in order to increase the number of active growing tips. It will continue
to vegetate for another 2-3 weeks or until the plants in Grows #'s 14 and
15 are also near 12" tall. At that time the photoperiod will be reset to
12 hours of darkness and all the plants will be forced into flowering
7-27: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy
(2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive Grow bringing the container to 1250 grams.
7-31: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy
(2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive Grow bringing the container to 1200 grams.
August 1st: Vegetation Week 13
The plant is in the last row on the right. A week ago
it was topped and now the two new terminal nodes are making good progress.
I've learned that plants recover best if they are topped several nodes down
from the top where the side nodes already have a good start.
8-3: Added additional potting soil to bring the level within an inch of the rim of the pot. Gave the plant 1 cup of pure RO H
2O bringing the wet weight to 1350 grams.
8-7: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy
(2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive Grow bringing the container to 1350 grams.
August 8th: Flowering (Week 1)
In order to force the plant into flowering it was removed to the vegetation
chamber which goes dark at 6 pm increasing the photoperiod (darkness) to
12 hours. This will be done every evening for the next two weeks or so until
it shows its sex. If it is male it will be discarded. If not it will continue
to be swapped back and forth until the other plants, now vegetating in the
flowering chamber, are themselves ready to be flowered and sexed.
8-9:
The plants from Grows #13 and #14 have been in total darkness for 36 hours
as I had read that would better prepare them for the change in photoperiod.
This morning they were reintroduced to the light. Notice how the centers
of the growing tips have lightened turning yellow green and begun to spread
apart so that the future flowers can get more light.
8-10: Plant was given 2 cups of RO H
2O with a heavy
(2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive Bloom bringing the container to 1350 grams.
8-12: Plant was given 2 cups of RO H
2O bringing
the container to 1450 grams. Apparently it needed the extra 100 grams over
the previous feedings as it was beginning to droop this morning. The new
wet weight for this container will be 1450 grams.
Keeping my fingers crossed that this plant is going to be female - noticed
what appeared to be just the beginnings of female pistils forming at the
junction of the nodes and the stem.
August 15th: Flowering (Week 2)
No question about it - this Pineapple Express seedling grew to be a female with double pistils showing at each node.
Here are side by side images of sexed plants ... the Pineapple Express is
on the left. Notice the yellow white thread like pistils emerging in pairs
just above the stipules at the node where the calyxes (ovaries) form. On a
male plant, instead of pistils, clusters of little football like pollen sacks emerge.
Already 18" tall and continuing to stretch it is growing lanky. Obviously
a strongly sativa dominant phenotype more suitable to an outdoor grow. Many
sativas will double their pre-flowering height ... in this case that would
result in a plant 26" tall.
This plant is being trained on the horizontal in order
to reduce its height by hanging soft aluminum wire fence ties from each terminal
branch. By laying the growing tips over on their sides the auxins (growth
hormones) that were formerly concentrated in the tips are now distributed
equally to all the side nodes as well resulting in equal vertical growth
of each flower - like a candelabra.
The bamboo support was cut back to 10" in order to fit under the wire grid which will be positioned
over the tops of all the plants further restraining vertical growth. This
style of grow is called a ScroG or Screen of Green and is used along with
several other techniques to decrease height and increase bushiness and the number of resulting
flowers.
8-16:
Plant was given 2 cups of RO H
2O with a heavy (2 tbls p/gal) feeding of BioThrive
Bloom bringing the container to 1450 grams.
8-19: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy (2 tbls p/gal) feeding
of BioThrive Bloom. Since the
plant has grown through the overhead wire grid and can no longer be easily removed
for watering it was fed in place. In order to prevent excessive draining
it will be fed only 1 cup of nutrients every third day as will all the other
plants in the flowering chamber.
8-21: Plant was given 1 cup of plain RO H
2O.
August 22nd: Flowering (Week 3)
The plant is well covered in initial pistils ... right rear. Its lankiness
is being restrained under the screen and it will gradually fill all of the
open spaces in the grid in its corner.
8-24: Plant was given 1.5 cups of RO H
2O with a heavy (2 tbls p/gal) feeding
of BioThrive Bloom. It was a bit droopy and should be watered every 3rd day for consistent growth.
8-27: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy (2 tbls p/gal) feeding
of BioThrive Bloom.
August 29th: Flowering (Week 4)
Plant is now beginning its fourth week of flowering - not a lot of change
at this point but the centers of the flowers beneath and to the right of
the thermometer in rows 1 through 3 are clearly larger and more dense
with yellow white pistils than in the previous week.
8-30: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H2O with a heavy (2 tbls p/gal) feeding
of BioThrive Bloom.
9-1: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H2O with a heavy (2 tbls p/gal) feeding
of BioThrive Bloom one day early as I will be out of town tomorrow leaving before sunup.
9-4: Plant was given 1 cup of RO H
2O with a heavy (2 tbls p/gal) feeding
of BioThrive Bloom. Additional organic potting soil was added to top off the container.
September 5th: Flowering (Week 5)
The grid continues to fill with flowers albeit somewhat unevenly given the
different heights of the plants when flowering was initiated. The taller
plants were topped which doubled the number of their flowers. This plant
(right rear) is a sativa dominant strain and didn't take well to being topped
and trained prostrate under the screen. It basically stopped growing concentrating
on just filling out the existing flowers.
9-6: Plant was given 1.5 cups of RO H
2O this afternoon
as it was wilting and the moisture probe showed almost dry. This is the weakest
and most spindly plant I have grown so far.
9-10: Plant was given 1.5 cups of RO H
2O with a heavy (2 tbls p/gal) feeding
of BioThrive Bloom as the plant was almost totally wilted.
