Jon's New Pared Down Setup Soil Grow: 3 Photo & 1 Auto With New Dedicated Auto Rig

[Jon]

Sour Apple Harvest/Trichome Watch
Day 76

I was right not to take her the other day. She is still fattening up. I was able to get much better trich pictures today without the triple espresso and a steadier hand on the microscope. Heh. Sativa and espresso first thing in the morning can sometimes make me just a tad jumpy. Anyway, what I see in the trichome pictures today versus two days ago is WAY more fully white, filled up trichomes, and far fewer clear ones. Nice. And god, this entire plant is just blanketed in them. It's by far the most trichome covered plant I have ever grown, auto or photo. And having grown this strain before, I have to go back to the Sohum. It's the only significant difference between this Sour Apple and the others I have grown which were not nearly as frosty. In the sun in the morning this plant looks positively silver-green. It's pretty badass I must say.

So now I feel like I can take her any time I want. Her THC is probably maxed right now, and there's a big part of me, the less mature Jon part, that says take her, take her. But the older, slightly more mature Jon says if you take her now you'll miss out on the body part of the buzz and it'll be almost all head high. Wait a couple more days for some more amber to come in. So that's who I'm going to listen to and what I will do. Lol. This will also give the white and orange hairs that are still a bit unruly to work down into the bud and tighten them all up. I'm thinking two or three days. I may let her go four more just to get to 80 days on this strain for the first time. My OCD side likes 80. It's a round number.

By the way, I haven't mentioned it much, but this plant smells so damn strong I'm glad it's outside now. The odor is sweet and fruity, much more candy-like and pungent than past versions of this strain, which I assume comes from the Magic Melon parent, but it also has the dank odor from the Humboldt Sour Diesel parent. I think maybe this is a pretty good representation of what Humboldt intended this strain to be. I can't WAIT to smoke this girl. And, this plant is the first time where my end product looks pretty much exactly like the pictures in HSC's own advertising. Pretty cool.

So here's the decent, all trichome porn today. One cool thing you can see in these that I noticed is that even the smallest, thinnest orange hairs are all covered in trichomes too. You can see it really well in the third picture on the thin shoot going off to the right side of the photo. I dig that.

Enjoy!

 

[Nine Toed Hippie]

Sweet! Almost there!

NTH

 

[Jon]

Sorry, I can't do it justice with a picture but I bet many of us can relate to this, maybe not.

I just went out to check on the outside girls and I looked at the silver green beauty of a Sour Apple out there, and I got really scared/upset for a second. It looked as if my entire buds all over the plant suddenly, in the space of like 10 hours, developed SEEDS! On first glance I saw seedy buds from a short distance, and man was I mystified and upset for a second. So obviously I look way closer, and guess what? They ain't seeds. They're gigantic swollen calyxes that are suddenly appearing EVERYWHERE on these buds. Many of them have already popped either orange or white hairs, and I swear they cluster and swell and look exactly like seeds on a glance. When I got close and realized what I was seeing, first I got way psyched. Then I started wondering what the hell is going on? I have never seen this before. Little smatterings of it, sometimes underneath buds or at the base of the plant where I'd check to see if they were seeds. But not like this. It's as if suddenly the buds are just becoming dense masses of swollen calyxes. I guess this is just how a properly raised plant can develop in late budding? Cuz this is crazy.

Any thoughts out there on this? Can anyone relate to this? I'd love a little insight if anyone has any. Thanks.

 

[Nine Toed Hippie]

I had that happen on one of my plants. Scared the pistils out of me. Curious to see how she finishes. My plant just kept going and going. Look ready to harvest and then open the door to see new green growth. She will smoke great regardless. Beautiful plant.

NTH

 

[Emilya Green]

Sorry, I can't do it justice with a picture but I bet many of us can relate to this, maybe not.

I just went out to check on the outside girls and I looked at the silver green beauty of a Sour Apple out there, and I got really scared/upset for a second. It looked as if my entire buds all over the plant suddenly, in the space of like 10 hours, developed SEEDS! On first glance I saw seedy buds from a short distance, and man was I mystified and upset for a second. So obviously I look way closer, and guess what? They ain't seeds. They're gigantic swollen calyxes that are suddenly appearing EVERYWHERE on these buds. Many of them have already popped either orange or white hairs, and I swear they cluster and swell and look exactly like seeds on a glance. When I got close and realized what I was seeing, first I got way psyched. Then I started wondering what the hell is going on? I have never seen this before. Little smatterings of it, sometimes underneath buds or at the base of the plant where I'd check to see if they were seeds. But not like this. It's as if suddenly the buds are just becoming dense masses of swollen calyxes. I guess this is just how a properly raised plant can develop in late budding? Cuz this is crazy.

Any thoughts out there on this? Can anyone relate to this? I'd love a little insight if anyone has any. Thanks.

Someday when you have nothing else to do, separate out a pile of those empty seed pods, those special areas of the plant where all that seed building goodness was slated to go, and play with it a bit. I find an extraordinary amount of trichomes around those areas and was tempted to separate some of this out and see how it smoked. In the middle of that project I learned the true meaning of the word kief, which instead of shake, actually means the outer hulls to those unpollinated seed pods. Smoke a little bit of that pile you make of this stuff and see how powerful it is.

 

[Nine Toed Hippie]

Someday when you have nothing else to do, separate out a pile of those empty seed pods, those special areas of the plant where all that seed building goodness was slated to go, and play with it a bit. I find an extraordinary amount of trichomes around those areas and was tempted to separate some of this out and see how it smoked. In the middle of that project I learned the true meaning of the word kief, which instead of shake, actually means the outer hulls to those unpollinated seed pods. Smoke a little bit of that pile you make of this stuff and see how powerful it is.

That’s no joke. I loaded a bowl of some kief awhile back. Once it’s lit it doesn’t seem to want to go out so I smoked the whole bowl. Swear I woke up a week later.

NTH

 

[Jon]

Someday when you have nothing else to do, separate out a pile of those empty seed pods, those special areas of the plant where all that seed building goodness was slated to go, and play with it a bit. I find an extraordinary amount of trichomes around those areas and was tempted to separate some of this out and see how it smoked. In the middle of that project I learned the true meaning of the word kief, which instead of shake, actually means the outer hulls to those unpollinated seed pods. Smoke a little bit of that pile you make of this stuff and see how powerful it is.

Um....how many empty seed pods does it take to make a bowl? Lol! I joke. Good call. I'll have to take a scope look.

 

[Jon]

Phototown Update
Photograph Only
Grow Day 76
Stretch/Flower Day 6

1. Phototown, September 30, Day 76, Stretch Day 6, Front Canopy Perspective
2. Front Overhead Perspective
3. Back Perspective
4. Closeup of the Center of the Three Plants Showing All Three Strains Beginning to Show Preflowers
L - Ghost Train Haze/Middle - Slurricane/R - Hulkberry

 

[Jon]

Sour Apple Trichome Pictures
Day 77
So Close!!

Ok, so 30 hours later since the last trichome post. Here's six more pictures. What I see is that in about half the spots it looks like I should take her as there is the appropriate (for me) amount of amber showing strong. Then in the other half of the spots there's virtually no amber but everything is a blanket of milky white.

This plant is as strong a high as she's ever going to be right now. I am taking her tomorrow on Day 78. She will then go into 36 hours of uninterrupted darkness. She will then get the axe!'

That'll be 1 plant of this grow down, with 1 auto (Chunky) and 3 photos (the girls in the tent) in flower left to go. Heh.

I think the very last photo of these is completely insane.

 

[Bill284]

Sour Apple Trichome Pictures
Day 77
So Close!!

Ok, so 30 hours later since the last trichome post. Here's six more pictures. What I see is that in about half the spots it looks like I should take her as there is the appropriate (for me) amount of amber showing strong. Then in the other half of the spots there's virtually no amber but everything is a blanket of milky white.

This plant is as strong a high as she's ever going to be right now. I am taking her tomorrow on Day 78. She will then go into 36 hours of uninterrupted darkness. She will then get the axe!'

That'll be 1 plant of this grow down, with 1 auto (Chunky) and 3 photos (the girls in the tent) in flower left to go. Heh.

I think the very last photo of these is completely insane.

Congratulations Amigo.
Well deserved.
Stay safe.
Bill

 

[Jon]

Congratulations Amigo.
Well deserved.
Stay safe.
Bill

Why thank you sir. You stay safe as well. Hope your life continues to improve. Need you back growing asap.

 

[Jon]

Phototown Stretch/Flower Update
Grow Day 77
Stretch/Flower Day 7
Training Demo Continued - Training During the Stretch Part 1

Ok so today is not only a lovely round date, October 1st, it's also exactly one week today into the stretch. These things have been bursting at the seams but are very well anchored, and so I guess for that reason, and since they were so evenly spread to begin with, the stretch so far has been very very even. If I wasn't fanatical I could just let it go as is and still make out like a bandit. But of course you don't come this far to get lazy at the end.

Stretch Training Part 1

All I do for training through the stretch is essentially keep everything as flat as I can in terms of canopy, and do as minimal defoliation as humanly possible, keeping in mind that the trade off of a leaf for a bud site getting direct light is always a no brainer - the bud site always wins. I did this training to all three plants today and you can see the results in the pictures. I maybe took 15 leaves total from the top canopies, and maybe 20 from under the canopies. Did a ton of tucking. Depending on the stretch, this part of the training can have varying degrees of difficulty. Here's a few issues that I find are always prevalent at this point:
Issue #1 is that the branches and bud sites are now so far beyond the edges of the pots that it's difficult or impossible to anchor a stick or bamboo anchor at the right depth and angle so that the cola lands where you want and it's well anchored. There's just not too much open dirt space with all the first posts hiding underneath. You gotta get a little creative now, or at least I do. Fortunately this stretch is so easily manageable I was able to simply adjust the depth of many of the existing tie-downs rather than have to insert more. My poor roots. Lol. At this point I don't at all worry about the vertical height as related to each other, I only worry about keeping the canopy flat across each plant. As long as you do that on each plant, you can easily adjust the height of the individual plants if necessary so that when you start seeing actual buds (just a few days away!!!!) all three canopies form one overall flat canopy across the plants. In terms of getting creative, I had to cut and whittle a few bamboo pieces so that they were nice and pointed on the end and nice and long overall, like 2 feet. They were also very thin bamboo, as thin as I have. There are maybe four or five of those. I found them necessary mostly for the main four colas on the Hulkberry, which were going nuts and trying to retake their dominance (don't let this happen, that's the entire point of what you're doing, to take dominance out of the picture).
Issue #2 is that now you start to get so bushy inside the plant that you really have to begin to ensure you have good airflow down there and keep your humidity low. I shoot for 45% at this point in budding in a perfect world, going down to around 35% by the end. I also am very mindful of pulling leaves from underneath which are getting no light, as it's all too easy I have found to get a molding leaf here and there when everything is so crammed together long enough. With my two AC units this will be easily controlled this grow, but with just one I have seen it before.

Other than that it's mostly a bunch of watching and waiting, and figuring out creative ways to water between 7000 sticks. Lmao.

So that's about it. This is Part 1 of 2 because in a week, on Day 14, I will repeat this exact step. And that will in all likelihood be the last training the plants see. From there we watch the show!!

Here's the three girls from overhead and a front and back canopy shot to show you guys the results of the training.
1. Slurricane
2. Ghost Train Haze
3. Hulkberry
4. Front Side Canopy Shot
5. Back Side Canopy Shot

Have a great weekend everyone, and thanks so much for checking out my journal.

 

[Jon]

Chunkadelic Flowering Update
Auto Same Strain Comparison Picture
Day 78

I have heard that really big autos sometimes take longer to finish. This certainly seems to be true for the Chunkadelic here. She is 40" tall and today is 78 days. The Sour Apple planted the same day is about to harvest. The buds on this Chunkadelic look like they are still forming before beginning to swell! Check out the white hairs on the tops (and everywhere really) and the bud top photos - these look like they have two/three weeks yet! I'm okay with a 100 day auto if that's the case. These buds are just getting bigger and chunkier and as you can see from the tops photo are beginning to take their finished shape, starting to come to points on the top and lose their round. They should start to swell now. The leaves that I bleached out as you can see are brown and crispy, lmao, but the buds look great! So we'll see how she finishes.

Today it's pouring so I put the Experimental Sour Apple in the @Mars Hydro rig for a day. Check out the picture of her side by side with the one that's finishing up. Two of the same strain. One grown in Sohum, one in used once soil with no amendments. One got 6.3 water plus MSA, one got only rain water. One entirely under LED, one the (Used Soil plant)half sun/half LED. Both trained in similar fashion. And for all those differences, look how remarkably similar they look in both size and structure. A tribute to Humboldt Seed Co. genetics. BTW, the spent soil plant is a bagseed that I generated myself.

Bonus (Awesome porn) - the last two pictures are a greenhouse picture and bud closeup from my Oregon Yoda's grow setup. The strain is Blue City Diesel. It's clone only unfortunately. Look how damn exotic this strain looks. Yoda says it stinks for miles outside. The shockingly neon pink hairs are nuts! This is Day 25 of budding. I rarely see weed that looks as cool and exotic as this, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy.

Photos:
1. Chunkadelic most of the plant
2. Bud closeup 1
3. Bud closeup 2
4. Tops only to show conical shape beginning to tighten up and the white hairs still praying away
5. Bud top closeup
6. Sour Apple comparison photo
7. Oregon Yoda's Blue City Diesel Bud
8. LOTS of Yoda's Blue City Diesel Buds

 

[Rexer]

Congratulations Jon!

That title looks perfect beside your name
Chunkadelic is living up to her namesake and chunking up nice

That 2nd last photo is just beautiful

 

[Jon]

Congratulations Jon!

That title looks perfect beside your name
Chunkadelic is living up to her namesake and chunking up nice

That 2nd last photo is just beautiful

Thanks! And yeah she is! Yes, I want badly to grow it. That particular set of strains came from Dark Heart Nurseries, which is owned by my Yoda's best friend in Oregon. Nice for him. He says he'll send me some but I have my doubts about getting clones from Oregon in the mail to here....not cuz the legality but the viability. But I know nothing of clones so maybe that's not an issue. He says he has the cups with the LEDs in them for clone mailing and all that stuff. It's SO exotic looking!!

 

[Rexer]

Thanks! And yeah she is! Yes, I want badly to grow it. That particular set of strains came from Dark Heart Nurseries, which is owned by my Yoda's best friend in Oregon. Nice for him. He says he'll send me some but I have my doubts about getting clones from Oregon in the mail to here....not cuz the legality but the viability. But I know nothing of clones so maybe that's not an issue. He says he has the cups with the LEDs in them for clone mailing and all that stuff. It's SO exotic looking!!

Yeah I've seen the Licensed producers up here offering clones. Nope- not for this guy. Only reason is I've read of more then a few people dealing with pests afterwards. The tech is there for the viability of the plant, but make sure you've got very good pest management in place.
Might be different there for you if you know him, but thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[Jon]

Yeah I've seen the Licensed producers up here offering clones. Nope- not for this guy. Only reason is I've read of more then a few people dealing with pests afterwards. The tech is there for the viability of the plant, but make sure you've got very good pest management in place.
Might be different there for you if you know him, but thought I'd throw that out there.

I appreciate that, and I tend to have the same trepidation. There's really no point unless you want to do a dedicated, one strain bigger grow of something. At least I think. Or if you have space for a mother plant or something. My love is growing different strains every grow for quite a while and over a few years figuring out what ones I like the best and grow the best till I eventually have a preferred strain catalog.

 

[Jon]

Hey @Tokin Roll, @Rexer, @Virgin Ground, @Backlipslide, @Modest Grower, @Emilya, @Nine Toed Hippie, @Furcifer, @Bill284, @Michael Hunt, @Hash Girl, @oldmanjj, @Grand Daddy Black, @Thirvnrob and anyone else I forgot, if you guys have a minute or two to help me make a decision I would greatly appreciate your input.

Here's three pictures of the Sour Apple. Day 78.

Do I take her when it's lights out tonight?

Or do I wait a couple more days?

What would you guys do? You can reference yesterday's post if you wanna see trichomes but I was wondering what y'all think based solely on looking at the buds. Keep in mind I prefer a sativa high to a body indica high and prefer a stronger sativa balance by far in a hybrid, and also that my tolerance is as high as all you criminal's is.

Thanks guys!!!!!

 

[Nine Toed Hippie]

Hey @Tokin Roll, @Rexer, @Virgin Ground, @Backlipslide, @Modest Grower, @Emilya, @Nine Toed Hippie, @Furcifer, @Bill284, @Michael Hunt, @Hash Girl, @oldmanjj, @Grand Daddy Black, @Thirvnrob and anyone else I forgot, if you guys have a minute or two to help me make a decision I would greatly appreciate your input.

Here's three pictures of the Sour Apple. Day 78.

Do I take her when it's lights out tonight?

Or do I wait a couple more days?

What would you guys do? You can reference yesterday's post if you wanna see trichomes but I was wondering what y'all think based solely on looking at the buds. Keep in mind I prefer a sativa high to a body indica high and prefer a stronger sativa balance by far in a hybrid, and also that my tolerance is as high as all you criminal's is.

Thanks guys!!!!!

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today? Looks amazingly smokeable to me.

And just wanted to add that the new title under your handle is well deserved. You truly have been hitting it hard and your plants show it. Keep on rocking Amigo.

NTH

 

[Jon]

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today? Looks amazingly smokeable to me.

And just wanted to add that the new title under your handle is well deserved. You truly have been hitting it hard and your plants show it. Keep on rocking Amigo.

NTH

Thank you for your input sir! And thanks for the kind words, man, truly appreciate those. You da man. Your opinion is taken with a grain of salt cuz you have an ulterior motive that you happen to be alone in. Lmao!