Emmie's Recycled Organic Soil, Acapulco Gold, Retro Grow, 2016

[Timmo]

Watching with great interest, as I am also trying to learn LOS.

I burned some seedlings in my current bunch by putting them into organic soil that was too hot. Mine were a bit bigger than yours when I repotted them, and they got way crispier than yours did, but, like yours, they're now pretty much exactly the same size as some others that I started two weeks later. I'd never nute burned a plant of any kind before, so I didn't even think about it before that first repotting. I sure think about it now.

When my dad taught me how to ski a bazillion years ago, he told me, "If you're not falling down, you're not trying hard enough." Same thing here. Losing two weeks of growth is a bummer, but the learning experience is worth it.

I have no intention of disappearing once I figure out LOS. Learning and teaching are both way too gratifying.

 

[Emilya Green]

The flower tent is just about finished up, so in another week or so we will be moving all the girls to the big room and up-potting them to their final containers. Our gold twins will be doing an experiment comparing no till to a container filled with freshly cooked super soil and new base soil.

LST has been going well after the one pinch at the top and the girls are spreading out nicely. We are going to get some decent production out of these girls yet!

We are about a month away from flower.

 

[Stinky Snid]

Looking great Emmy, I bet you're super soil takes the cake. So all you've done for training is pinching the tops? Very effective if have to say... Keep up the great work, a month is going to fly by in no time. Good luck...

KiG cheers

 

[Spydr]

Sure are growing fast. Nice work Emmy.

 

[Emilya Green]

Looking great Emmy, I bet you're super soil takes the cake. So all you've done for training is pinching the tops? Very effective if have to say... Keep up the great work, a month is going to fly by in no time. Good luck...



KiG cheers

Thanks! Not just super soil, but spikes too! And yes, all my plants in veg have only been pinched once so far, the rest of this has been done with LST techniques. As I get them transferred into the final 7 gal containers though, we are going to start pinching all the top nodes, turning 6 into 12, and 12 into 24... and by that time it should be time to flip the switch.

Sure are growing fast. Nice work Emmy.

Thanks Spydr, lookin good now for sure.

 

[Spydr]

24! See this I can't wait to see. Everyone has there own techniques and styles. They all are interesting.

 

[Emilya Green]

24! See this I can't wait to see. Everyone has there own techniques and styles. They all are interesting.

I hope that you enjoy watching mine. I have heard it named all sorts of things, I just call it intelligent and aggressive LST and soft topping or pinching.

Acapulco Gold #2 just got put into her final 7 gallon smart pot, and she has chosen the no-till way to go while her sister will be getting fresh soil under her. Number two here would like to show you how laid back she has become here in Emmie's garden. I count 10 nodes right now... soon 20, then... who knows... it gets crazy at some point.

 

[Emilya Green]

Here is Acapulco Gold #1... she has just come to the tent sporting brand new 5 month baked super soil in her bottom half and some regular once used base soil mix to fill in the edges. We are looking to see if the fresh soil makes any difference when compared to no-till. This girl also got the same spikes that the others have, the only difference is the fresh living soil in the bottom. For reference, the Super Iced Grapefruit has just gotten the same treatment, and they will be the only two plants in the tent with fresh supersoil underneath them.

 

[Emilya Green]

A few more shots of the room and our AG stars... we are getting them spread out very nicely now. They seem to be settling into their new containers very nicely, and we are still waiting for them to need another watering. I am now starting to aggressively pinch the dominant nodes on each branch and using strong LST techniques to spread out the middles to the light and air. Nothing is going to be allowed to rise above the present level vertically.

 

[Emilya Green]

After a week, our two golds are settling right into the 7 gallon containers and the 12-1 lighting. I am aggressively trimming the top growth node when there are two below it and splitting the active nodes as fast as they appear. The aggressive LST has spread them both out to get air and light to the middle of the plant, making room for creating a massive plant to eventually move into flower. I am shooting for no less than 3 oz per plant on these two beauties, so the goal now is to widen them out without letting them get much taller. So far, so good!

You might wonder about the splotches on some of the leaves... blame your gardener. It got messy in there with the AACT on this last watering, and a couple of times, it sort of went everywhere. Oops... I think i will spray it off next time that happens.

 

[Timmo]

I was under the impression that AACT on your foliage was a good thing.

 

[Emilya Green]

i had also added a strong dandelion growth extract... not just your average tea.

 

[Stinky Snid]

He Emmy, looking great in here as usual. I just dropped and popped an Acapulco gold seed to replace my two day old dead seedling. Can't wait to get it going, it's an epic strain for sure. Keep up the great training and...

KiG cheers

 

[Emilya Green]

Well, we have made it to the day before flower, and today we pulled all the girls out of the tent one by one to inspect, trim and generally clean them up. It is clear we are going to have one monster Gold plant and one slightly smaller, but the health on both plants now seems to be excellent and they have easily adapted to their 7 gallon containers. Water use still has not accelerated and it looks like we are still on an 8 day wet/dry cycle across the tent. I expect that to dramatically begin to change with this next watering, and by the end of the 2 week stretch, I expect that we will be down to a more normal 3 or 4 days between waterings. As this happens, the watering methods will change, and instead of teasing out new roots to grow, we will be seeing how much water we can get them to take as we move into full flowering.

Here is what they look like today... note the good coloration, spread and density. This genetic beauty is beginning to strut her stuff!

 

[Emilya Green]

(flower, day 9)

I have to tell you that I have the most amazing thing going on in the flower tent... holy cow!

Here is the best I can isolate one of the Acapulco Gold's tonight, and please excuse the HPS light. I have decided to go all HPS this time to see if I can see a difference, having been once again convinced by a master grower that plants really do like the HPS light. I am running 600w full time with a new bulb, and then 4 hours each day of an additional 600w HPS Hortilux bulb.

The roots are still growing... water needs are still at least 4 days between waterings, maybe 5... and I am brewing up a strong flowering compost tea for this next watering. The last two waterings have been my natural organic nutrients only, concentrating on natural fish hydrolysate, cal-phos-mag+ and dandelion flowering extract. The compost tea coming up is made up of kelp meal, alfalfa meal, bone meal, 5-5-5 all purpose fert, high N bat guano, seaweed extract, molasses, fish hydrolysate and fresh earthworm castings.

Growth has been amazing and I suddenly have a very full tent. For the first time in my organic grows I am in the stretch with absolutely NO yellowing, the plants are ridiculously healthy and happy. All of the plants are now taller than I have ever allowed in my tent, coming in at a very scary 37 inches in the middle of stretch. I have moved my lights up to about 3" from the top of the ratchet hangers, and if I had to, I could get another 4 inches or so above that. This could be a challenge... but I am up to it.

I read something a couple of weeks ago on one of the breeder sites, talking about how a plant never took off until it was allowed to veg to about 24". That is what I did... monster plants have resulted. Egads, gadzooks and all that stuff. Oh my.

I think I am going to see some yield this time... I hope your garden is doing this well.
Blessings from my garden to yours,
Em

 

[Emilya Green]

(flower, day 14)

Here is the garden this morning, right before lights out. Stretch can stop at any time... the top of the canopy now being owned by the two Acapulco Gold's, with absolutely no discernable difference between the one in fresh soil and the one having been plopped down into a no-till situation. That is slightly surprising to me, but thank you SweetSue... you have taught me a great new trick!

Note the Gold's in the bottom left and back right.

I will note that despite what your eyes are telling you in the ugly HPS light, there is no yellowing. Except for a few sloughed off leaves at the bottom here and there, there are no complaints coming from these happy plants. This is new to me. I usually am seeing nutrition problems at this point, sometimes worse than others. This time, things are going well. It is either the well cooked soil finally kicking in or the organic natural nutrients... or both... but something is working.

So these two golds have really taken off. I am hoping now at the 2 week point that stretch is mostly over and the plants are now some of the biggest I have ever grown. Timidity was thrown out of the window with this run, and me, keeper of small plants, actually said screw it... let's see what happens. I have gone wild folks... although some would say that they saw these tendencies all along and that this recent helter skelter attitude was inevitable. Oh well, it is a burden I will try hard to overcome.

Here are a couple of closeups. Again, sorry for the lack of color balance... someday I will put a photo light in there.

 

[Curly Beaver]

When you get those Acapulco Golds cured and gifted to your dad I'm thinking he's gonna think his daughter is pretty special (but I'm sure he does already)

 

[Emilya Green]

When you get those Acapulco Golds cured and gifted to your dad I'm thinking he's gonna think his daughter is pretty special (but I'm sure he does already)

Well, I think he is pretty special too. He deserves this and I have it timed for near our birthdays (both in August) so as to make it even more special.

Let's do an update while we are here... I tell ya, spare time has been at a premium lately... you would think I was an economist during a world wide recession or something. Last week I put in 79 hours... sleep is for the weak...

(flower, day 23)

I have changed the nutrients a bit after the stretch was seen to have ended. The next AACT will be a strong flowering mix, heavy in P and K, and inbetween they get waterings with 2 tbl fish hydrolysate, cal-phos-mag at 2 tsp and 1 tbl dandelion growth extract per gallon. Based on reactions to the watering tonight this mix may be adjusted, but before I study what happens compared to where it is in the tent and whether it is in plants in no-till containers or not... I am just not sure what I am seeing. At worse, it is a minor mag deficiency in 2 plants, one of them being one of our Acapulco Golds. Rest assured though dear readers... the damage is only down low on maybe two or three leaves, and it well could be as a result of a strong wilt that I produced twice as we moved through stretch and I was still teasing out roots. Tomorrow after seeing how they react to the nute mix tonight, I might declare this to be a non issue.
I am very impressed with these Acapulco Gold plants. Their structure is superb and they are going to be able to hold up a lot of weight without any extra help. They have stretched out well and on each of the plants, 6-8 of the top kolas are going to produce foot long bud structures. I have definitely learned a lesson in letting my plants express themselves, by allowing them to achieve the 2' mark at the end of veg. This indeed seems to be the sweet spot that I have been searching for, where after stretch they are right at the most intense part of the light pattern and the point of maximum penetration.

Here are a couple of shots of the top of the canopy, where you can see how the bud structures are setting up:

And then of course you want to see how the buds are doing, so here are a couple of closeups. Again, being in yellow light, I don't expect these to win any beauty contests... but at least you can see what the flowers look like.

That's all for tonight. Everyone please stay safe and report ANYTHING that looks out of place... the world is in trouble and we all need to start working together to fix it.

Blessings from my garden to yours.
Emmie

 

[Emilya Green]

(flower, day 38 of 80)

These two sativas are rapidly becoming the stars of my tent. Both plants are huge and are now starting to pack on some weight. Yesterday was the day to pull the girls out of their hiding spots, and add any support that they will need to make it the rest of the season. Both plants are now needing several plant stakes to hold everything upright, and string was wrapped around the outside to give them some shape and additional vertical strength.

One of these plants is definitely more complex than the other. Never having grown a true sativa dominant, I am fascinated watching these long bud structures forming and figure that by the end of this grow we are going to be looking at some beautiful 8-12 inch kolas. I don't really see any trichomes building up yet... it is too early for this tropical beauty... she has just started to build the buds in a convincing way.

Watering strategy has changed now that we are firmly in bloom and the wet/dry cycle settled down to 3 days or so. Now it is my goal to water regularly, never letting them completely dry out again. It is time to use those roots that were carefully developed in veg and early flower. At the moment, each plant is getting 2/3 gallon of water mixed with everything in my arsenal, every 3 days, and are producing run off. I expect that as the plants continue to mature, this water need will increase to at least 1 gallon per 7 gallon container every cycle. My arsenal consists of RO water, fish hydrolysate, cal-phos-mag, and dandelion growth extract. Once a week I am hitting them with a flowering AACT.

Lighting (except for last night when I took pictures) consists of 2 600w HPS lights, one running 12/12 and the other simulating noon and running 4/20, coming on in the middle of their virtual day.

Here are the pictures:

Here so you can get an idea what I do, is a picture of one of our golds before being shaped up with string and plant stakes. Compare this to the picture of the same plant up above, after her makeover.

Here is a look at the underside of this plant so you can see how she was trained to get this way.

 

[Emilya Green]

(flower, day 45 of 70)

AG is really starting to pour it on now, and I would say that in the last week the buds have doubled in size. By the time these plants are done they are going to be monsters, and I am anticipating close to 3oz per plant. There still is not a lot of frost, but it is still early for these sativa dominants... just a little over halfway through.