Candelarios' crop

Well, Im not noew to growing but certainly, I am a newbie in many aspects. But much of the fun is in learning, right?

I enjoy growing other stuff also, ranging from tomatoes to corn. So I aquired a bit of agricultural knowledge, and some day a friend decides to give me a little seed as a birthday present. It was a Micromachine auto, indica dominant hybrid. Got the gift knowing that I refuse to buy pot (dont want to finance the drug traffickers that plague my region) and that If I smoke weed, id rather be homegrown. So, my experience with growing kicked off with this plant a couple of years ago:



So I smoked this beauty whole. I grew informally a couple of bagseed sativas later (one of them an hermaphrodite, useless, and got a female tree that almost lands me in trouble) but one good day, being stressed out by engineering, I decided to buy some good seeds.

I got myself some Female Seeds C99 strain and Philosopher's Seeds Afghan White.

THE JOURNAL

So I kicked off with a couple of plants. One C99 and one Afghan.

I used soome soil I bought from a trusted seller. Said It was good soil. he lied. Both plants kicked off with some bad nitrogen deficiency and growth wasnt helped either because rain season was just about to start and cloudy 12 hour days really dont help much.



Tragedy struck: the Afghan died, and I barely managed to save the first Cinderella.

Here she is, sick (also in my improvised grow box, later on that one):



So I decided to investigate a little bit, and also to invest. Since I live in the tropics and I got almost perfect 13/11 or 12/12 hour days, I decided to built a modest grow box that served me two purposes: to kick start young plants and to keep them from flowering by giving them an additional 6 hours of light per day. Most of the illumination would be natural (I wake up at 5:30 every morning anyway) and I havent woken up at such hour to get them on the roof, the whole circuit is rigged to a timer that starts at 4 am and shuts down at 10 pm every day. The lightning consists in 3 CFL's, one big assed 50W 6500k bulb and two smaller 23W 6500k bulbs for side illumination.

Ventilation (yes even CFL's can get damn hot) is provided by a couple of 8x8 Fan Coolers hooked to a PC power supply, also rigged to the timer circuit. They create a nice air draft in the box and keeps the CFL's cold enough to grab them and keeps my plant happy and with fresh air (the fans also strengthened her stem considerably)



So, operation Cinderella started (also Afghan, I planted a new seed on better soil)

Here she is, yellowed, stunted, and with a purple stem (not visible) due to Nitrogen deficiency



I got myself some good black earth. Mixed it with about 40% dry worm castings and some very fine stone for drainage. I transplanted my Cinderella to a new pot with the new soil mix, buried half of her overly-stretched stem and hydrated her a little bit. I also transfered into the pot a large earthworm colony that was living ong the previous pot. This little friends help to aereate soil with their little tubes & caves and also give away natural castings. I then proceeded to do some foliar feeding (experimenting) because I didnt wanted to shock her with full fetilizer yet. Foliar spray composition was:

NPK 25-5-15 diluted to 1/3 of the original solution strenght (maiden solution being about 3 grams per liter), distilled water, some liquid worm castings and a trace of natural, neutral ph soap (to avoid drops forming). Sprayed her good and soaking, and let off a prayer. SHE KICKED OFF!

Here she is, reacting to transplanting and foliar feeding in about a day:



About 3 days later I fertilized the ground with the same undiluted composition: NPK 25-5-15.

Here she is, 5 days after fertilization, as of today:





I will keep you guys posted. Soon, pictures of my baby Afghan will be available

Kudos.

Well I took another pic today of my C99. She is still reacting pretty good to fertilizing. Also, a picture of my 5 day old Afghan White. Unless her dead counterpart, this seed sprouted in a day and in about 3 days she was already displaying her tiny cute cotyledons (I count 5 days since she popped off the ground, From seed she is about 10 days old)

C99



White Afghan

Its possible that I am a little bit over-exited and no one reads this journal anyway (maybe because the lack of bud porn) but here is her daily shot. Oficially a week since fertilization took place. She is growing good!

So today, 10 days after rescuing the Cindy, and averaging 8" inches of height. I topped her, following original recomendations by Mr. Soul to top just after the 4 node. Took a surgical blade and cut her right after the 4th node.



And here is my little Afghan White. She is growing pretty

So 2 days after topping my Cindy has been reacting greatly. Her grown wasn't stunted very much; side branches already elongated farther than the main canopy and the top little branches just below the cut have been growing nicely. (Brown tips are not from nute burn, but from "growing right into cfl" burn.



Heres the plant JUST AFTER topping (side shot):


And here she is 2 days later. Note the two top branches growing and side branch elongation can be somewhat seen. I've never topped a plant before but Its going great:



And here is a shot of the baby girl, my Afghan White, 8 days since sprouting. Already transplanted her, looking good!:



Feel free to comment and contribute!

Here is my Cindy, 4 days after topping. She is already getting bushy. I like bush

View attachment 2675174View attachment 2675175

And here is my afghan growing nicely (I think she is about 17 days old):

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FEEL FREE TO COMMENT AND CONTRIBUTE!

Well my Cindy is getting even bushier! Already put her into flowering, a week after I topped her. As simply as taking it out to the roof.



Im doing some LST on her lower branches so they can get more sun. She grew somewhat in a cross shape, so im shaping branches a little bit so they can get full sun.



And here is my Indica, inside her "nursery"



FEEL FREE TO COMMENT!

So, yesterday, I noticed the first pistils on my C99! Took one picture but they are all over the plant so sexy.

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Here they are both. Indica (Afghan) is a baby yet.

yup...that's a girl....they are looking good

A little update and some bud porn! Its been 23 days since I flipped my Cinderella 99 to 12/12 and about 14 days since the very first pistils were noticeable. Here are some pictures of her current development!



And here is the current progression of my afghan. I put her to 12/12 a week ago because of space constraints. She has a little bit to mature yet I think, but sun is pretty hard-hitting here!

More bud development at 26 days into flower for my Cinderella 99. She is looking so pretty. Got some problems with leaf miners but Im keeping them at bay the best way I can.



And a picture of the Afghan. As an Indica dominant, she is quite sturdy and resilient to pests. However, she stinks!!



Feel free to comment

Update on my girls! Its been 31 days since flipping to 12/12 my Cinderella 99. She reeks of pineapple and its looking goood!



For my Afghan White girl, its been 15 days and she is getting into flower.

Wow, looking nice and happy!

Oh yeah. I just finished destroying a mite infestation and I think I got under control a leaf miner problem, tough critters they are. I also found a small caterpillar chewing on my leaves, he got whacked.

White Afghan plant seems to be a lot more hardier than Cindy!

Day 38 of flowering for my C99. Only 14 days to chop her She has been naturally yellowing as old nutrients get sucked up. For the last 3 weeks I have fed her nothing but molasses with worm castings tea. Today I cut off a whole bunch of already yellowed leaves so manicuring gets easier later on. Buds looking gooood! The smell is so fruity and fresh that you almost want to chew the buds off the damn plant. Smell is so pungent of pineaple you end up looking like a cat while smelling something (half opened mouth with teeth showing)



Least but not last, here is my White Afghan. She measures about 40-50 centimeters in height, and her flowers are blossoming nicely. Im still feeding her NPK 25-30-15 flowering nutes. Later onto flowering I will switch to worm castings and molasses for a while.

DoctorCandelario said:

Day 38 of flowering for my C99. Only 14 days to chop her She has been naturally yellowing as old nutrients get sucked up. For the last 3 weeks I have fed her nothing but molasses with worm castings tea. Today I cut off a whole bunch of already yellowed leaves so manicuring gets easier later on. Buds looking gooood! The smell is so fruity and fresh that you almost want to chew the buds off the damn plant. Smell is so pungent of pineaple you end up looking like a cat while smelling something (half opened mouth with teeth showing)

View attachment 2719478View attachment 2719481View attachment 2719482

Least but not last, here is my White Afghan. She measures about 40-50 centimeters in height, and her flowers are blossoming nicely. Im still feeding her NPK 25-30-15 flowering nutes. Later onto flowering I will switch to worm castings and molasses for a while.
View attachment 2719480

Click to expand...

Nice progress since the last pics!
Do you plan to drop your N that you're feeding?

Bakatare666 said:

Nice progress since the last pics!
Do you plan to drop your N that you're feeding?

Click to expand...

Thanks Well Maybe, this flowering nute is pretty high on Nitrogen. However, growth nutrient was 25-5-15 which was pretty low on Phosphorous, so this should compliment it nicely. However im still looking for a high P and low N fertilizer alternative, but where I live almost anything is imported or not easily found.

Oh yea. I forgot about availability of supplies, sorry.
As long as you knew the N was high for flowering.
That's what I was hinting at.

Bakatare666 said:

Oh yea. I forgot about availability of supplies, sorry.
As long as you knew the N was high for flowering.
That's what I was hinting at.

Click to expand...

Yes yes! I'll think that I will end up buying the phosphates and formulating the composition myself on the long run.

Cinderella 99, just 6 days until harvest. Smell is amazing. Im already drooling! I've been trimming leafs almost every day, mostly yellowing ones. She doesn't need them anymore!



And here is my Afghani girl. She is strong as hell, hasn't caught a single mite or strange animal. She was attacked earlier by leaf miners but nothing to write home about. She smells skunky, with hints of ground coffe. She will yield small, but since its going to be a personal, bed time plant, its just perfect.



Today my crop got visited by a most wanted guest. I hope he gets some lunch on the little critters that I haven't been able to get! here he is, posing in the tip of one of my maize plants.