Blackberry Kush - Platinum Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HPS

[Far East Buds]

Good stuff! Yah I only do root drenches in flower unless I am in real trouble...lol



FE

 

[DankestBuds42]

Hey TheFertilizer, glad to see your flower room in full swing! Your girls are really starting to fill in. Your veg area is looking awesome as well. I have a question about your cfl's. What's the wattage on those bad boys? I just started my first cfl set up. Noticed yours are pretty far away from the plants (maybe it was just the photo angle). Won't that cause extra stretch? Everything looks awesome bud. Top notch.

 

[Twox]

I think the light seems high because it's over his cloning chamber. Clones don't really need to much light while they're rooting. If the light is to close the clones start to turn yellow.

 

[Far East Buds]

I think the light seems high because it's over his cloning chamber. Clones don't really need to much light while they're rooting. If the light is to close the clones start to turn yellow.

Hafta find the sweet spot based on the light... too close and yellow too far and they take forever to take... at least just what I have noticed...



FE

 

[TheFertilizer]

Hey TheFertilizer, glad to see your flower room in full swing! Your girls are really starting to fill in. Your veg area is looking awesome as well. I have a question about your cfl's. What's the wattage on those bad boys? I just started my first cfl set up. Noticed yours are pretty far away from the plants (maybe it was just the photo angle). Won't that cause extra stretch? Everything looks awesome bud. Top notch.

They're rated as 100 watts but I'm not sure what the actual draw is. They put out about 20,000 lux right at the light.


Well I'm not sure if they're done stretching or not, I think one of them might have got a little too stretched out, but I'm still seeing only about 4" between nodes so I think I'm okay. Some of the leaves are showing some pH issues, I think perhaps the neem drench did it because I forgot to pH right. I only took it to 7 because I am so use to doing that for foliar feeding.

Anyway, they're doing pretty well, I put the HPS in, they're showing some pretty nice little preflowers, I should get booms by the end of the next week. I'm trying to decide what to feed them next, I have this new Growmore granulated stuff but it's NPK is 20-20-20 and I'm not sure that's a good ratio for pre-flower stage. I need something with nitrogen in it but I think that's still a little high, but the budding stuff I have that is 5-17-50 doesn't have as much nitrogen as the Flora Nova so I think I will just use the grow stuff and Crystal Burst for the PK boost.

I ordered another ballast, I am hoping that it will fire up the Ushio super HPS that I bought. if not I suppose I will just return it or keep it around as a backup. It's probably a good idea to have backup equipment around since none of this stuff seems to be particularly well made in terms of longevity.

Anyway, thought I'd put some pics up, they're really filling out the tent, glad I only went with 6. The Platinum Girl Scout Cookies is more tempermental as usual, kind of regretting not just making a full tent of Blackberry Kushes. Still no roots on the clones, and one of them looks like kind of a sickly cut so I'm probably going to have to take at least one more.

Been doing some supercropping too. I think I might just end up lollipopping a lot of these little lower branches since they're not getting crap for light, but I am going to keep some of them around to see what kind of buds they make because I still have the Black Cherry soda pollen I'm going to try to make some seeds with.

I think next time around I will probably FIM these after the second or third node.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well I've got some pretty good blooms going so I think i will begin the flowering count today How fitting, that means I will be harvesting sometime around Christmas lol

I fed them all 1/4 tsp per gallon of both the Growmore Bud and Bloom and the All Purpose plus 1/4 tsp gal ArmorSi. It came out right around 350-400 PPM, I wanted to make sure there was still some N transitioning into flower but keep the P and K ratio higher. The Growmore stuff isn't really as potent as I expected it to be, but it still seems like it is going to lead to less buildup than Fora Nova, but I will still probably alternate. However I don't think I am going to use Crystal Burst this round because the bottle I have of it seriously stinks, the Vitamin B1 in it has gone bad I'm sure, and I just don't wanna risk it. I don't think there's any magic happening from that stuff that I will miss out on.

The BlackBerry Kush plants respond really well to super cropping, and the light penetration on them is pretty nice too. The Platinum Girl Scout cookies is kind of the opposite, it gets all branchy and clustered and is going to need a lot more training. Plus it's already droopy with pH/over-water problems, just overall a more tempermental strain than the Blackberry Kush.

 

[smokers420]

Nice grow you have going. I have some Girl Scout Cookie Auto's. going myself.

Mind if I pull up a chair?

 

[TheFertilizer]

More the merrier

I went at the supercropping and lollipoppping hard today. Seriously, quite adventurous, I supercropped the mainstem on two of the tallest ones to bring the canopy level. I'm basically trying to get rid of any popcorn growth and get better light distribution for all my tops. I removed any branches that didn't have more than 3 bud sites clustered at the end ( where a nice cola will form ) and would only have one single popcorn bud. The ones with a cluster of 3 or more on the end, I made sure to remove any smaller popcorn buds closer to the mainstalk. I'm leary about removing all these bud sites but I know that they just rob resources from the larger colas, and because I also know Blackberry Kush packs its colas super dense I think this will work out in my favor. The popcorn buds just end up really wispy so if I keep any it will be to try to make a Black Cherry Soda cross.

Kind of thinking I chose the wrong plant for clones. Speaking of which they are not coming along very fast. It's been about a week and I am just now starting to see some little nubs of roots forming on the stalks right above where they enter the rockwool. I'm hoping that means there's more down below I can't see. Oh well, if they don't take I will just have to take some off of them at the end of flower.

In other news, I bought a second ballast to trouble shoot my light troubles. Well, the Ushio bulb still wouldn't light up even with the separate ballast, even on two different circuits, so I think the bulb was just defective. However, I finally found which outlets in my grow room were on a separate circuit, so now when I have my fan plugged in and operating and the ballast switches on it doesn't fail to ignite the HPS. Before I had to have the fan on a timer and shut it off right before the ballast kicked on to get the HPS to light up. I'm not really sure why they don't play well on the same circuit, the Apollo ballast says something a bout "power fluctuation" protection so maybe the fan is doing something funny to the frequency on that circuit, but I don't really suspect the fan to be poorly wired or something since it's ETL/UL listed. In any case, I now have it running on the other circuit in the room and don't have to worry about the HPS not kicking on. I sent the Ushio bulb back, debating on whether I want to try another one

Anyway, I am really glad I didn't try to do more than six plants, it's really filling up in there. I will have to avoid doing any more training for a while, all the supercropping and pruning will probably stunt them a bit, but holy cow those blooms set in fast so I'm not really sure how much it will really slow them down.

 

[TheFertilizer]

I think the supercropping looks promising... Except the Platinum Girl Scout Cookies is stubborn, it wants those branches to go straight up. So not much use for training, but maybe the wisdom about that knot holding nutrients and stuff will hold true..

 

[TheFertilizer]

Crossed some Black Cherry Soda with the Blackberry Kush today. Not sure the pollen was viable though, so we'll see what happens with that.

My clones are starting to put roots out finally, although it seems like they're mostly coming out at the base of the stems where they're entering the cubes, kind of concerns me a little bit.

The blooms are looking pretty nice now, trichomes are starting to build up on the fan leaves even. I think it's only been about a week since these really set in. 3 since the flip to 12/12... I'm not really sure what week of flower to call this.

The Platinum Girl Scout Cookies is looking pretty crappy as usual. I don't know, I'm sure there's something I'm doing wrong with it, but it's kind of annoying dealing with it when everything is going so great with the Blackberry.

 

[Twox]

Looks good. They are getting big fast.. I'm not sure what's up with your gsc. It almost looks like a nitrogen toxicity but the texture is off.. I usually use plant wires to hold my super cropped tops down until the heal because the do try to grow straight up.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Looks good. They are getting big fast.. I'm not sure what's up with your gsc. It almost looks like a nitrogen toxicity but the texture is off.. I usually use plant wires to hold my super cropped tops down until the heal because the do try to grow straight up.

It's weird they're starting to look like cal-mag deficiencies but the leaves are definitely doing the N claw. I think the Blackberry ones must have tolerated that heavy N dosage I gave them all better. They really seem to swallow the nutrients. I guess I will try flushing out the GSC pot with a few gallons of water and give it a little reset dose of Flora Nova Bloom (just enough so the soil isn't barren) so it can get its bearings again. But I would kind of hate to do this as I bothered to put Mykos in the pot when I transplanted and that's just going to wash away whatever soil ecology is going on.

At least the Blackberries are doing awesome. I am thinking my little cross took, so that will be exciting if I get some seeds out of that. Blackcherry Soda x Blackberry, should be pretty interesting.

My clones are rooting too, though I am a little concerned about the ones that sprouted above the hole in the rock-wool, they're now going down into the cube from up above and the root is exposed. Trying to think of something I could put over the top of it to cover it up, almost just thinking of soil but the happy frog isn't really fine enough I don't think.

 

[Far East Buds]

Just cut up small pieces off a trash bag to cover the tops of the rockwool. The roots popping from the top was happening to me as well... brown stem down deep in the rockwool and the new roots would pop close to the top of the stem at the rockwool surface. It lead me to believe that they were too wet and could not breath down in there.. Heck though if you got roots then that is all that matters... once they have started usually they will all be good from here...

The claw sucks... Hard to see the pics of the bad leaves but recently spotting on mine i believed to be potassium deficient. I was not adding a supplemental potassium mix. Better pic maybe? I hate to answer cause I really am not qualified enough but will try if you do post more pics...



FE

 

[TheFertilizer]

Wellll that went a little rough. Flushed her with 6 gallons, the final being a mild pH'd nutrient solution at 200 ppm, and then got these pictures. Then after lifting her out of the sink I pile-drived her head into the ceiling and added another super-crop... Whoooops. Interestingly, she was already kind of lop-sided and didn't seem to want to stand up on her own before that. Seems like it was a really bad N toxicity but I haven't actually ever seen one.

I'm almost thinking about just taking it out of the tent, reveging it. It's not like the other 5 couldn't use some space in there.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well officially 4 weeks since I flipped to 12/12. The bottom leaves are starting to do some concerning things, but I think I am letting them get too dry and maybe feeding too much nutrients. I can notice just the slightest burn on the tips of the top leaves, and the bottom ones look all funky but I can't tell. I seem to always run into some kind of yellowing on the bottom leaves about 4 weeks in.

The bud I pollinated is definitively pregnant, I can see the calyxes visibly swollen up much more than adjacent bud sites. So that's pretty cool. This plant is going to be such a potent beast, even the stems are popping out trichomes.

Things aren't going too well on the cloning front. I think I have been letting them stay too wet, I have been seeing mold growing on the sides of the foil the cubes are wrapped in. I hit them with some hydrogen peroxide so hopefully that will keep it at bay. So far only 3 out of the 6 of cuts I took of my choice plant are rooting, I think I might end up taking them out and planting them pretty soon because I don't want mold/rot problems to cost me from keeping them in the tray. I think ultimately though I am going to have to take cuts off this girl and clone them, or perhaps reveg her. Wouldn't mind seeing how much she branches out after that either.

I am running a lot different nutrients this time around. Using the GrowMore Hula Bud and Bloom (5-50-17) but I noticed that it had no Calcium or Magnesium so I got some Cal-Mag. I may have used too much of that, mixed in 5 mL/ a gallon along with 1/2 teaspon of the Growmore and then another 1/4 ( yeah I'm stonned I can't add fractions right now ) until the mix was about 600 ppm. I measured the Cal-Mag ppm before adding any other nutrients and it was at 170-180 ppm. Otherwise the Growmore stuff has all the other micronutrients ( and a few less of the impurities ) of the FloraNova I had been using so I don't think it's a deficiency. I think I just used too much, or I have been letting them dry out too much or a combination of both since I know a thirsty plant will burn a lot worse. I'm not really sure how much Calcium and Magnesium is already in the soil as well so hopefully I didn't create a toxicity.

Anyway not too much longer to go! The Platinum Girl Scout Cookies is a loss. The thing wants to flop over at the base, I think the tap root is severed. Must have hit her harder than I thought. She's still making some popcorn but yeah, totally screwed the pooch on that one. Very tempted to just cut her out now to free up some room for better light penetration. I can make some hash or edibles with what's on her.

Even the fan leaves are oozing out trichomes...
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Normal bud...
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Prego bud...
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Leaf problems...
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Random pics...
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[TheFertilizer]

Well, this is kind of ironic. I plucked all the buds off the Platinum Girl Scout Cookies and decided to try reveg'ing her. I was wondering how 4 week premature bud would smoke, until I dropped them all over the floor and mixed them up with a ton of cat hair. I tried washing them like, a TON, but to no avail. I think I'm going to make hash with them. The funny thing is that the plant looks like it's doing better now...

I can definitely tell that my pollination worked. Look at these swollen calyxes...

Blackberry Kush x Blackcherry Soda coming up

Well actually I'm really wondering if this is Blackberry Kush or if it's just Blackberry, I feel like the Blackberry Twox has looks very similar, so who knows. Whatever it is, it's self-pollinated bagseed anyway so the genetics here are a real wildcard. Whatever it is, it's a potent ass strain, trichomes are just busting out everywhere.

I think I am having some CalMag issues... As I mentioned, I found the new Growmore stuff I'm using doesn't have any in it so I had to go buy some supplement. Overall I feel like It's going pretty well with these nutrients, and I kind of believe in keeping it minimal.

Anyway, I think it's going to help having 5 in the tent instead of 6. It already makes watering and cleaning the tent floor a whole lot easier, moving the plants around doesn't lead to any unintended training as in before. I am pretty pleased with the plant I chose to clone, I still kind of feel like I should have went with the yielder though. Meanwhile, my fattest looking cola is looking like it's going to form on one of the ones I hadn't paid much attention to. I can't even remember what other one I got cuts off of, but I saw trichomes bursting out of the fan leaves on it so I went "Yup, you're getting cloned."

Next time around I'm definitely going to do some more training in veg. I'm not sure if this is just not a particularly high yielding strain but I feel like I could probably get more out of it with more tops. I have also always wanted to try scrog. If i get through this without having to pull the pots out of the tent and leech the soil like I always do when using Flora Nova, I might actually be brave enough to try it next go around. Otherwise I think just FIM'ing them early on will do a lot for me.

 

[TheFertilizer]

So just to make a record of it, my Apollo HPS died yesterday. That's gotta be the shortest life-span of a HPS bulb anyone has ever heard of. At first I was convinced it must have been the ballast but I went down to the grow shop and picked up a new one and it's back up and rocking *phew*. Hopefully they didn't mind having to chill out in some weak blue sprectrum light all day. Just glad I didn't get rid of my CFLs so I didn't have to interrupt their light/dark cycle too much. They still got about 45 minutes extra dark than they should have :/

I'm hoping my light choice was decent. I went to one shop and all they had was the most generic looking GE bulbs for $20, then the other shop had "OptiLume" and they actually bothered to print their specifications on the back, and it was $18, so I went with the OptiLume. Something told me that GE was either going to be really great for the price or really bad for the price.

Kind of bummed that the bulb I bought is spec'd lower than my Apollo was, and the CRI is only 22. I think I am going to try to order another Ushio sometime down the line. Mid-flower now though and I don't really want to risk screwing with the light cycle anymore so I'm just going to see what I get off this. I guess starting out with a fresh light is going to be pretty helpful in its own right.

Also I dried and weighed the early harvest off the Platninum Girl Scout Cookies... I think I was right to call her. All I got was 5 grams, there was no way that plant was going to recover enough to make the waste of space and water in there worth it. But she seems to be doing pretty healthy on the reveg, healthier than she has in a while which is odd.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Welll I screwed the clones up. Got a thread going in FAQ... Oh well going to have to try to get this pheno again at the end of flower. Hopefully some of the other ones at least make it out a live so I can cycle with something instead of wasting some seeds. Then again, I guess it will give me a chance to try out the Blackberry Kush x Blackcherry Soda.

Flowering is going pretty well. It's the middle of week 5, I am starting to get some yellowing on the leaves. Bottom ones are withering up and dying off. I think I caught my cal-mag problem early and this is just the general die-off of leaves in flower, especially since I'm past the mid-way point. Previous grow my leaves were yellowing up pretty much before the start of week 4.

I'm about ready to start using some Fox Farm Cha-Ching. I don't know what it is or what it does, I just know that week 5-6 is when they reccomend using it. Supposed to be for essential oils and terpenes or something or other. All I know is that this Growmore stuff didn't really turn out as great as I had hoped. For one thing it's not very potent, so I'm still putting in as much stuff in powder form as I would be with Flora Nova. Then on top of that, it drops the pH so low that I have to add almost 250 ppm worth of pH up just to get it to 6.4.

Most previous feed

750 ppm, about 600 ppm of the Growmore Hula Bloom the rest in pH up and Armor Si. pH to 6.5

Each plant got a solo cup's worth. The day before yesterday they also got a solo cup full of CalMag mixed to about 200-300 ppm.

I am going to try to give them a solo cup worth every couple of days until next week where I will give them some nutrients again. I am hoping they will handle the 750 ppm feed, they are pretty deep in flower and stacking up bud material so I needed to up the P and K.

It's going to be an interesting ride to the finish.

 

[TheFertilizer]

I think I noticed a it of a sulfur deficency, looks quite a bit like one from what I have read and I noticed that the Growmore nutes I am using have no sulfur. So I fed with 450 ppm of Flora Nova Bloom. It has 2% sulfur in it so hopefully that's a big enough shot to give it what it needs of that without overdosing the rest of the elements.

My yield isn't really looking like it's going to be very big. I'll be surprised if I get much more off of these than I did with 12/12 from seed :/

 

[Far East Buds]

I think I noticed a it of a sulfur deficency, looks quite a bit like one from what I have read and I noticed that the Growmore nutes I am using have no sulfur. So I fed with 450 ppm of Flora Nova Bloom. It has 2% sulfur in it so hopefully that's a big enough shot to give it what it needs of that without overdosing the rest of the elements.

My yield isn't really looking like it's going to be very big. I'll be surprised if I get much more off of these than I did with 12/12 from seed :/

Your grow has me baffled why it is not performing better.... I have thought a lot about it and it is out of my range of knowledge. Sorry... But I am still here ...





FE