420 Magazine's Official Girl Scout Cookies Comparative Grow By Emilya

Mum was a dancer, and she worked for Hugh Hefner for a while as a choreographer until later she went into journalism. The musical talent definitely takes after that side of the family, and I being more like my Dad in many ways, was skipped. I got the brains however and have always excelled academically. I received several scholarships during my college years, starting off with a full ride to an electronics engineering school right out of high school. After earning my first BS degree, I changed my major to Business Administration and Marketing at a new school, and over the next 4 years earned my MBA and Marketing degree. During that time, I was able to do 1 year as an international exchange student, and was able to study at the University of Glamorgan in Cardiff to work on my accent. By the time I graduated, I had fallen in love with Economics but found that I was not satisfied with the limits put on females in the banking industry, so after working for a few years at a couple of banks, I reapplied to a graduate degree program and negotiated a private grant to pay for most of the cost, based on my previous grades and my ever increasing handicap. It took me another 3.5 years of hard work until I finally earned a doctorate in Economics. Today, I am the assistant CFO for a major pharmaceutical company's midwestern division, and have been doing this for the last 6 years. My plan is to retire at 45, being fairly well set financially, and simply grow pot, fish and enjoy life and the time remaining with my Dad, for the rest of my years. Some day, if the world settles down a bit, I may travel a little, and maybe look for a nice place to retire with my sweetie somewhere in Europe.
Wow.. what a girl❤️ Well out of my league anyway..;)
Although… mmmmmm. I am a sweetie and I am in Europe. (Was in Europe:()
❤️
 
Veg, Day 64
Day 2 in the Wet/Dry cycle
Day 12 of the 2 week feed cycle
Day 2 of the SNS foliar application

Today is one of those in-between days, when there really is nothing to do in the grow room. This right here is why I love soil, because there are times when you can literally walk away from the grow for days at a time, and they just continue on, getting bigger and sucking up more and more water.

The plants remain in full transpiration during most of the daylight hours, with the leaves all pointing upward toward the light. Even though we are 2 days from the end of the feed cycle, there are no deficiencies to be seen on these plants. Earlier we saw a small indication on a couple of plants of a magnesium deficiency, but after treatment with a minimal dose of calmag, that problem has not progressed. None of the other plants have shown any problem of any kind.

The bugs continue to decrease in numbers and I think only a couple of the plants are having a problem at the moment... the @Sierra Natural Science SNS 209 is definitely slowly reducing the bugs desire to be in these plants. It is very good to know that this level of control can be achieved totally naturally. I can see now how this has to be a consistent thing and has to be applied proactively and from the beginning when a problem is known to exist. I plan on using the SNS 209 from the beginning of every grow, from now on.

The plants are massive, but we still have room for them to double in size, if they must, but I don't think we will see that amount of stretch out of them. We will find out soon, as we will be flipping in two more days. At that point I will officially declare that we are in the state of Transition, for the 7-10 days that it takes for the buds to start forming. This next feeding will be the last VEG blend that we will give them and I suspect that by the end of this next feeding cycle they will be craving more than the VEG blend is giving them and will need to move up to the BLOOM formula.

On this next feeding I will get up close and personal with each plant, carefully checking for pistils on all the plants. At this moment it is obvious on some of the plants and almost impossible to find on others but going into bloom I need to make absolutely certain that we only have females in here.

Tonight for my picture display, first I will show you the two highest points in the room, and the plants that we will be watching carefully as we get into stretch.

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Then a couple of shots of some beautiful plants that have gotten up to the front of the room, just to give you a better idea how wide these plants have gotten.

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The plants are massive, but we still have room for them to double in size, if they must, but I don't think we will see that amount of stretch out of them. We will find out soon, as we will be flipping in two more days. At that point I will officially declare that we are in the state of Transition, for the 7-10 days that it takes for the buds to start forming. This next feeding will be the last VEG blend that we will give them and I suspect that by the end of this next feeding cycle they will be craving more than the VEG blend is giving them and will need to move up to the BLOOM formula.

Good morning, Emilya.

Why are you going to feed your plants VEG if you're flipping them in 2 days? I'm planning on flipping next Thursday in order to time it to their feeding day and had planned to feed them BLOOM.

Other than that, they look wonderful and I truly love your tomato cages and wish we had the same kind here for a reasonable amount of money.
 
Good morning, Emilya.

Why are you going to feed your plants VEG if you're flipping them in 2 days? I'm planning on flipping next Thursday in order to time it to their feeding day and had planned to feed them BLOOM.

Other than that, they look wonderful and I truly love your tomato cages and wish we had the same kind here for a reasonable amount of money.
Thank you HashGIrl! I was waiting for someone to ask that question! #GirlPower!

After a couple of hints and even giving a spot for @GeoFlora Nutrients to comment on this, I decided that my reasoning was sound. I base my decision on three things.

First, going into this grow @GeoFlora Nutrients asked us to describe our grow, container sizes, length of veg, number of plants, and then they sent us the appropriate amount of VEG and BLOOM. It puzzled me at first why I had gotten twice as much VEG as BLOOM, especially since the largest containers (hence amount of feed) would be used in bloom. After thinking about it, I realized that in an 8 week bloom, and not feeding on the first and last 2 weeks, we only fertilize 3 times with the BLOOM formula. When calculated in this way, the amounts of product that were sent to me made perfect sense.

I have always believed that bloom does not begin at the flip. At the least there is a transition period of 7-10 days where the plant stops sending out new green growth from the tips, and converts to developing flowers. I however believe that the needs for extra nitrogen, i.e. vegging, still does not cease even at that point, because then there is at least another week of stretch, where gobs of new plant mass up top and down below in the roots is still being rapidly developed. Until this stops, there is still a heightened need for Nitrogen. It may not be "vegging" per se at this point, but the nutritional needs seem to be very similar.

Thirdly, I have noticed something over my years as an amateur online plant problem diagnostician. The very most common time for someone to come to these forums, trying to diagnose a new to their grow deficiency, is in the 2nd week of bloom, right as veg stops and bloom actually begins. The moment the focus of the plant is not on building and stretching, the needs of the newly developing buds takes priority. So, right on time, I start giving the BLOOM formula. This timing seemed to work when I made targeted teas for my organic supersoil grows, and it seems to be working with @GeoFlora Nutrients too. This big grow will conclusively show me if what I have said here is correct. If in the next 2 weeks I see common bloom time deficiencies I will know that I am wrong. The next experiment after this one logically would then be in giving half and half on this important feeding, half BLOOM and half VEG product.

We can't know until we try, and in the name of science, it is a good thing that we document these grows in an amazing place like 420 Magazine. I would not be me if I didn't try to conduct at least one ground breaking experiment in this highly visible comparative grow, and one that will help further the science of growing this weed.
 
Thank you HashGIrl! I was waiting for someone to ask that question! #GirlPower!
After a couple of hints and even giving a spot for @GeoFlora Nutrients to comment on this, I decided that my reasoning was sound. I base my decision on three things.

First, going into this grow @GeoFlora Nutrients asked us to describe our grow, container sizes, length of veg, number of plants, and then they sent us the appropriate amount of VEG and BLOOM. It puzzled me at first why I had gotten twice as much VEG as BLOOM, especially since the largest containers (hence amount of feed) would be used in bloom. After thinking about it, I realized that in an 8 week bloom, and not feeding on the first and last 2 weeks, we only fertilize 3 times with the BLOOM formula. When calculated in this way, the amounts of product that were sent to me made perfect sense.

I have always believed that bloom does not begin at the flip. At the least there is a transition period of 7-10 days where the plant stops sending out new green growth from the tips, and converts to developing flowers. I however believe that the needs for extra nitrogen, i.e. vegging, still does not cease even at that point, because then there is at least another week of stretch, where gobs of new plant mass up top and down below in the roots is still being rapidly developed. Until this stops, there is still a heightened need for Nitrogen. It may not be "vegging" per se at this point, but the nutritional needs seem to be very similar.

Thirdly, I have noticed something over my years as an amateur online plant problem diagnostician. The very most common time for someone to come to these forums, trying to diagnose a new to their grow deficiency, is in the 2nd week of bloom, right as veg stops and bloom actually begins. The moment the focus of the plant is not on building and stretching, the needs of the newly developing buds takes priority. So, right on time, I start giving the BLOOM formula. This timing seemed to work when I made targeted teas for my organic supersoil grows, and it seems to be working with @GeoFlora Nutrients too. This big grow will conclusively show me if what I have said here is correct. If in the next 2 weeks I see common bloom time deficiencies I will know that I am wrong. The next experiment after this one logically would then be in giving half and half on this important feeding, half BLOOM and half VEG product.

We can't know until we try, and in the name of science, it is a good thing that we document these grows in an amazing place like 420 Magazine. I would not be me if I didn't try to conduct at least one ground breaking experiment in this highly visible comparative grow, and one that will help further the science of growing this weed.
Didn’t need to ask.. male intuition told me that you where right on the money;)
 
Good morning, Emilya.

Why are you going to feed your plants VEG if you're flipping them in 2 days? I'm planning on flipping next Thursday in order to time it to their feeding day and had planned to feed them BLOOM.

Other than that, they look wonderful and I truly love your tomato cages and wish we had the same kind here for a reasonable amount of money.
HashGirl, my 2 cents, I continue to feed veg until stretch is done, usually about 2-3 weeks after flip. Cheers
 
Veg, Day 65, the day before flip
Day 3 in the Wet/Dry cycle
Day 13 of the 2 week feed cycle

Day 3 of the SNS foliar application

Here we are, at the end of our last 18 hour day of light in this grow. When the lights come back on in the morning at 7am, they will only run for 12 hours. Suddenly, the 11.5 KWH of energy I have been using per day will reduce to 7.68 KWH, with the @NextLight MEGA coincidentally using exactly the designed rating of my solar panels in the back yard, 7.68KWH. So essentially, in bloom here during the summer months, the energy to run the lights for the rest of this grow is going to be free energy from the sun.

Here is one quick picture of the girls this evening. They look excited and seem to know that their big day is coming up. Tomorrow when I get home from work, each plant will be fertilized with its 2 week application of @GeoFlora Nutrients VEG and lightly watered to let it start working. The plants were all still pretty heavy this evening... lets see what another day does for them. I measured them today when I was asked how tall they are right now... they range from 24 inches to 29 inches, from the surface of the soil. They could double in size and not cause too much trouble... but I don't think they will. I suspect that a lot of that fight has been whack-a-mole'ed out of them. We are about to find out!

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Thank you HashGIrl! I was waiting for someone to ask that question! #GirlPower!

Didn’t need to ask.. male intuition told me that you where right on the money;)
lol, male intuition? In my experience male intuition goes as far as saying, "hold my beer," before doing something a little crazy. At least this intuitive move to protect this vital fluid allows most of them to never spill a beer! :laugh::rofl::laugh:

Thank you for believing in me though. :surf::slide::battingeyelashes:
 
lol, male intuition? In my experience male intuition goes as far as saying, "hold my beer," before doing something a little crazy. At least this intuitive move to protect this vital fluid allows most of them to never spill a beer! :laugh::rofl::laugh:

Thank you for believing in me though. :surf::slide::battingeyelashes:
In all honesty,, I thought I’d made that up.. didn’t think there was such a thing as ‘ male intuition’ not words often seen together anyway.
I think what your talking about are nob heads
Peace an luurve girl..
 
Transition, Day 0
Day 4 in the Wet/Dry cycle
Day 14 of the 2 week feed cycle
Day 4 of the SNS foliar application


The girls did not disappoint me and today they actually needed watering! From 10 days the first time down to a 4 day wet/dry cycle! That is some amazing root growth since transplant!

Today the plants all got their next feeding of @GeoFlora Nutrients VEG and they drank an amazing amount of water! The room took 16 gallons of water, so roughly 1.5 gallons each. I have great confidence that we are going to be able to reduce the wet/dry cycle down to 3 or maybe 2 days by the end of stretch, with this room drinking around 30-50 gallons of water a week!

As I filled my 55 gallon water barrel this evening, I did NOT put another set of mosquito dunks in. I am convinced at this point that they are no longer needed, since the @Sierra Natural Science SNS 209 seems to be doing the job naturally, and now that I am going into bloom I would be happy to stop using the pesticide in the dunks.

Another rearranging within the tomato cages is due soon too. Now that they have gotten a little taller it is becoming more and more apparent where the 3 levels of horizontal restraint need to be in order to give the proper support while still allowing the center to widen out a bit to allow air within the canopy. During stretch we will probably be tweaking, adjusting and tying down various branches, setting up the final shapes of the plants. I created this mess of buds, and now it is on me to follow through and manage this jungle, or things will quickly get in each other's way, quickly reducing the final yield.

As I fed and watered this evening I also looked to confirm pistils on each of our plants and I am now confident that we have no males in the room. Each of the plants took a new position on the floor and were rotated to a new orientation with the light. Time ran out on me in the middle of all of this though, so I had to finish the job and take pictures with the green lights going, so please excuse the light quality this time.

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I see you have a stubby of your own propped up on a crate :green_heart:

Your journal is looking cool beans, I shall take some time reading & digesting nuggets of information.


Mmm flowering should be interesting :thumb:
 
I see you have a stubby of your own propped up on a crate :green_heart:

Your journal is looking cool beans, I shall take some time reading & digesting nuggets of information.


Mmm flowering should be interesting :thumb:
Stubby was an interloper... not part of the GSC family, and wasn't talked about in this journal. It was a rescue plant that a friend asked me to "fix" for her, so it was a bit behind the GSC girls, and would have been leaving soon anyway. This problem went away about a week ago, when it was revealed that it was a he. We made tea out of him, and that was the end of the need for that crate.

Thank you for taking your time to digest what I present here. Intentionally I have left some very interesting ideas in this journal, for I have very astute and eager to learn readers who have been asking the most excellent questions, and hopefully in my answers I have given much food for thought to my readers as I reveal the hows and whys of everything I do in the garden, while also trying to give a full demonstration of the effectiveness of my watering methods in a very public thread that over time, I think, is going to get a lot of views.

Enjoy your time here Mr. Duck, and please feel free to ask about or comment on anything you like. :love::hug::circle-of-love:
 
Veg, Day 62
Day 10 in the Wet/Dry cycle
Day 10 of the 2 week feed cycle

Day 4 of the SNS foliar application

Today was a big day for the girls. They successfully used up the water that was left, even after watering around the edges a little bit yesterday. Here is that growth spurt that I was looking for. They went 10 days after transplanting before needing to be watered, but I would bet that 4 days from now, when it is time to give them some more Geoflora VEG, they will be just about ready to be watered again. Today I gave them the usual 8ml/gal of @Sierra Natural Science SNS 209 in their water, along with a light dose of organic calmag, since I have seen a couple of leaves in the room with a suspicious spot on them. It certainly isn't a crisis and you have to be pretty sharp eyed to even spot the couple that are doing it, and I have no doubt in the @GeoFlora Nutrients VEG to get me through this watering to the next. I also sprayed the last of my SNS 203 on the plants, because it really looks like the stuff put a big hit on the bugs with that last spraying. I will load up my sprayer with SNS PC next time, and they won't stand a chance. The goal is to go into bloom, bug free.

I am loving how I can position these 11 plants in 7 gallon containers perfectly inside the 5x5 footprint of this insanely bright @NextLight MEGA and even though it is quite high above them at the moment, the plants seem to be loving the light and are not trying to stretch into it. I also love how efficient this light is making my solar powered grow at this period of the strongest sunlight of the year. With just the MEGA going, I am just about breaking even on my energy while growing 11 plants! It makes me giddy just thinking about it.

Here were the plants as I walked into the room today:

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Here they were after watering and spraying and rotating and moving all about.

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I have learned that the back of this room, with reflective Mylar on 3 sides, gets a lot more light. Plants on that back row always grow bigger and get done faster if I leave them there... so these days, even though it is a chore, when I water, I try to randomly scatter the plants to new places under the light, and rotate them so they have a totally new orientation. I have an idea about how to put up some hanging Mylar dividers on the front of the room side of the light, to make that end also very reflective, but still easy to get to the plants and them able to enjoy good air movement from the wall fan. I have a plan, and plenty of Chewy dog food boxes, tie wraps and Mylar to work with. Let's see what I come up with.

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You’ll get 5lbs out of that, I’ll be surprised if you don’t. Lush as usual.
 
Transition, Day 2
Geoflora Feed, Day 2
Wet/Dry Cycle, Day 2
6 Days since last SNS Foliar, SNS 209 given on each watering
Total time in the Grow, 9 weeks / 5 days


The girls look amazing! Already the stretch has begun and in the last 2 days everyone has noticeably grown, some as much as 3 inches! Things are about to get very intense in here!

Here is a two photo pan shot of the top of the canopy. Note the very tall ones in the center of the jungle... these are our troublemakers. I gave them the word "supercropping" to think about overnight, and I showed them how to sign it in ASL. Hopefully they got the message.

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Next, lets center in on this sprawling little beauty. She will need to be reined in a bit later, but for now, we let her reach.

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A couple of fun shots next... one from soil level up close and looking for any deficiencies, and the next from mid level.

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To finish out, lets track the growth tips as we move through transition, and try to spot that day when we can determine that we have entered into the bloom phase. We are at the second day of transition, and from what I can see, it still looks a lot like veg.

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Transition, Day 3Length of Grow: 9 weeks / 6 days
Geoflora Feed, Day 3
Wet/Dry Cycle, Day 3
7 Days since last SNS Foliar
SNS 209 given on each watering

Tonight I got home too late to take pictures in the bright light, so I resorted to flash pictures. The quality isn't quite the same, but it does give us another perspective as to the color, and of course the progression of the transition over to bloom. Even the fastest plants take 5 or 6 days to get things going, but more typically we see a 7-10 day conversion, the longest of course in the longest running sativas... or at least that has been my experience so far.

Tomorrow is my work at home day, so I will be doing some of that work up in the grow room. The plan is to give each plant at least a watering around the edges, a final spraying of the SNS 203 just to use it all up, and a general straightening out of the shape of the plants within the tomato cages, adjusting and tying where necessary.

Here is the room about an hour and a half into their night, and already hunkered down:

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And here are some shots of growth tips, soon to transition over to buds. Note how the leaves in the new growth are getting thinner, starting to twist, and how the tips are starting to be cannibalized.

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