La Niña: Indoor Grow Journal

[Scrog]

La Niña
(Winter 2010)​

Specifications


Grow Room Size:
2' x 3' x 5'

Lighting:
250W MH (Veg) 400W HPS (Bloom)

Soil:
2 cu.ft Promix Ultimate Organic soiless mix (omri)
1 cu.ft organic low-nute topsoil (omri)-whatever is available locally
8 qts Miracle Grow perlite-washed thoroughly before use

Potting:
9oz. Hefty Cups (Seedling)
6.5L Rose Buckets (Veg)
11.4L Utility Buckets (Bloom)

Nutrients:
Foxfarm-Grow Big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom
Advanced Nutrients-SensiCal Mg Bloom Mix



Nine seeds were started on November 7th in 9oz Hefty Cups with promix ultimate organic soiless mix. In 3 days, all 9 seeds had germinated. I wish I had taken some pictures because all were very stretchy and emerged from the soil with the casings still intact. I'm not sure if I let the mix get too dry or planted the seeds too shallow but I was eventually forced to remove the casings by hand. I hated having to do it but I waited as long as I could before intervention seemed necessary. One seedling was lost in the process.

8 left.

After about 1-1.5 weeks in the Hefty Cups I transfered to the 1.7 gallon rose buckets with the soil mix described above. One seedling was last in the transplant.

7 left.

Plants recovered nicely from their stretchy seedling phase after being transplanted into the rose buckets and are currently looking very homogenous.

Vegetation continued for 20 days with an 18/6 photoperiod.

At this point I had still used no nutrient solution. Just water. The small amount of nutrients in the topsoil and perlite seemed to be providing the plant with all it needed.

 

[Scrog]

Here is another picture before sex determination.

After converting to a 12/12 photoperiod on November 27th it took roughly two weeks to show sex. At this point I started a very light nutrient regiment at around 150-200ppm. As you can see, I was lucky to get 5/7 show female preflowers.

Girl in the middle got a little droopy from letting her dry out too much.

 

[Scrog]

So believe it or not here is a picture of the same girls 6 days after the last picture with the droopy center and 4 day post transplant into the 3 gallon utility buckets. Nutrients are being applied around 300ppm with Ca/Mg being applied with every other watering. Quite vigorous if you ask me.

You'll have to excuse me for the poor quality of the pictures. I have a terrible camera and I was playing with the exposure trying to emphasize flower formation.

Close Up

This brings me pretty close to update. Will continue with more updates as time permits. Any constructive criticism or comments on how to make this a better grow and journal are more than welcome. In turn, I'll try to answer any questions as well.

 

[Japanfreak]

Kind of like spoken charades

 

[Scrog]

Wait a sec. Are the pictures not showing up?

edit. I copied the BB Code from my album but it was set to private. Maybe thats why there was an issue with the pictures.

edit 2. When I was looking at it at this as a guest the pictures didn't show up for me either. Guess it was the "privacy" setting. Everyone should be able to see the pictures now. Let me know if you can't.

 

[Doobz]

I can see the pics mate.. Nice grow so far.. Looking forward to the updates

 

[Scrog]

La Niña: Day 30 of Bloom

Here is your 30 days of bloom update. I had a very minor but consistent problem with leaf tips "clawing down". This along with leaf darkening suggested nitrogen overdose so I lowered by ppm a bit. Also had a fan fall on a plant and break off a secondary bud branch (poor girl). On top of that, I had to interrupt their dark period for about 1 minute to fix it. Rough couple of days but plants are like dogs. You can beat up on them all day long but if show them a little love, they are very quick to forgive you.

Going to either figure out how to make miracles with my camera or buy a new one that can take a decent picture. These pictures don't really do these lovely plants justice. Here are a couple flower close ups. They seem to grow 5-10% per/day.

Here is a representative photo of what the shape of all 5 plants look like when pulled out of their home. Extremely homogeneous! If someone where to pull them out and mix them around, I wouldn't know one plant from the other.

Once again, I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. I'm doing the best I can with what I have at the moment.

 

[vajra]

Hi Scrog,

I do hope you keep us posted on your LN's. This line is gathering momentum--many of us are itching to pop some LN beans.

 

[Scrog]

La Niña: Week 5 of Bloom (Bud Porn Begins)

Here we are right smack in the middle of week 5 of bloom. So far the plants have done great. Flower growth was slow to start but once started they seem to swell daily.

Technical Notes:

I'm still not sure what the new mother is behind this strain since Haze B died. Mullumbimby Madness or some magical haze?...Perhaps M.Madness is, in fact, a magical haze. I'm not a strain historian so I'm sure some of you are much better suited to answer those questions.

What I have noticed that may help others when growing this new selection of the La Nina is:

1. This plant has been a light feeder. I have stayed under 300ppm of foxfarm nutrients for the duration of the grow. The second I went over 300, they started not liking me. So for me, less has truly been more.

2. I've played around with watering each plant a little differently to find out what they like and it seems to me that they enjoy their soil to dry out a bit between waterings/feedings. The soil has actually dried out enough between waterings for the soil to pull away from the side of the container a bit...and they love it.

3. From my VERY SMALL selection, I have seen 2 pheno's.

Phenotype 1 seems to lean towards the hazy side. They stretched much more than the others, have less bud weight and have those long and thin sativa leaves. I'm pretty excited about these to be honest.

Phenotype 2 seems to express more indica characteristics. A bit shorter than pheno 1, thicker leaves and bud weight has increased more quickly.

So far both phenos smell...earthy. Sometimes I swear I get a faint hint of coffee. Sometimes it almost smells skunky. My vocabulary is very poor at describing scents.

There may be more phenotypes present in this strain but this is what I see. Don't take any of this as gospel as I'm a rather novice gardener.

So without further ado, here come a couple picture posts.

 

[Scrog]

Week 5: Bud Porn Continued

Welcome to Scrog's Garden!

Please continue...

 

[Scrog]

....More

The haze-leaning girl

 

[Scrog]

Week 5: Bud Porn Continued

More up-close shots of the "Final 5"! (yes, that was a Battlestar Galactica reference)

I apologize for the poor photo quality as usual. I'm going to try and borrow a nice camera to take some better photos as we get closer to the finale.

 

[mtman]

Wow beautiful ladies my friend. Your plants look great. Good skills man.

 

[Ronin]

LN and BSG - two of my favorite things.

I miss Starbuck. I watched the "final 5" episodes of Caprica last night on SyFy. It seemed like it was just starting to get good and it is canned.

Things look good.

 

[Cernunnos]

Hi Scrog,

I do hope you keep us posted on your LN's. This line is gathering momentum--many of us are itching to pop some LN beans.

Nice lookin plants Scrog.
Yep, I've got the itch too after finding out about the Mullum line in LN. It's gonna be my next grow If I can score the beans.

 

[Scrog]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

 

[vajra]

Hi Scrog,

your plants are so beautiful that I cannot help myself. I think I will pop 5 LNs today. I may even try 12/12 from seed on these just for the sake of experimentation.

v

 

[Scrog]

Hi Scrog,

your plants are so beautiful that I cannot help myself. I think I will pop 5 LNs today. I may even try 12/12 from seed on these just for the sake of experimentation.

v

Hey Vajra,

That sounds awesome. I had considered the same. My plan was to veg what females i found for a couple weeks and then put some more seedlings in there at the beginning of 12/12 to compare. I just had too many females and ended up with no space. (not a bad thing ).

Looking forward to watching your progress.

 

[Scrog]

Week 6: Swelling and Trichomes

Here is an update for the conclusion of week 6.


Technical Notes:

Need to update my assessment of Phenotype 1 from my previous post. I had noted previously that it seemed to be a haze-leaning plant. While it definitely expresses more sativa than phenotype 2, I'm no longer sure about the haze comment. To be honest, I have no practical experience with haze hybrids...that I know of. I based that comment on what I've read about them so I'm going to reserve judgement until it's over. Then maybe you guys and gals can help me assess my two phenotypes.

Expected changes occurred in week 6. Buds are swelling and trichomes are becoming more dense and spreading to the leaves.

 

[Scrog]

Week 6: Swelling and Trichomes cont.

Secondary cola. In the words of a great toy...

REACH FOR THE SKYYYYY!

A couple main colas.

A semi-macro of trichome production

Thanks for stopping by for this weekly La Niña update