Jon's Experimental Single Sour Apple Autoflower Indoor/Outdoor Sunlight/LED Soil Grow

Thanks Bud Love! Peace to you and yours as well. So what do you think? The only downside I can see to budding in the sun like I described is the humidity factor. But I think I would have the buds nice and spread out with lots of air flow, just like Sadie, who has needed not a single leaf of defol for the buds to get light. And, I could put a large fan on the plant outdoors as well as I have the extension cord length to get that done. Between a big fan, lots of air flow, and the fact that buds prosper outdoors in hot weather all the time, I think it would work out ok. I have started researching strains that do especially well in hot weather, as it will get up to 95 in the day if I do this. The two that keep making every list are Amnesia Haze and White Widow. Ever grown either of them? I like the White Widow a lot, and she's a beautiful plant from what I've seen, and the Amnesia Haze is legendary. I have never smoked either one. How about you? Ever smoked those strains? They're pretty common, I'm surprised I haven't come across them yet.
Hey Jon
Yeah man , smoked em never grown .. Ammo as it’s called these parts. Been a very popular choice for growers around here for awhile. Nice smoke.
The white widow however, I haven’t seen since the 90’s early 2000’s used to love it. In fact , we travelled to the Dam just to get a smoke of it at one point when everyone was raving about it.... not a fruity one as I remember? Old school danky, skunky.
But hey, I’ve got trouble remembering 2 wk ago nowadays;)
Does Jack H like the sunny climate too. As, back in the day, I remember that was a nice one, my fave, in fact. :)
 
Hey Jon
Yeah man , smoked em never grown .. Ammo as it’s called these parts. Been a very popular choice for growers around here for awhile. Nice smoke.
The white widow however, I haven’t seen since the 90’s early 2000’s used to love it. In fact , we travelled to the Dam just to get a smoke of it at one point when everyone was raving about it.... not a fruity one as I remember? Old school danky, skunky.
But hey, I’ve got trouble remembering 2 wk ago nowadays;)
Does Jack H like the sunny climate too. As, back in the day, I remember that was a nice one, my fave, in fact. :)
JH is on my list. Under consideration. It's one of my all time faves too. Classic and legendary for a reason. And maybe more cup wins than any other weed.
 
Sour Apple Autoflower Experiment
Day 12


Posting today to show her new semi-permanent home. She's loving it in this spot and it's the first spot of the day to get sunlight. Don't have to move her until around 5 pm when the shadow from the landscape plant you can't see in the picture will start to overshadow her. Then she moves five feet til dark. Easy as pie. She seems to be loving the natural sun as I figured she would. She already is a proud looking plant I think. Working on bringing her roots out to the edges of the sour cream container. She has a while in this starter pot yet. Sure hope she takes her time and gets big and tall. Psyched to see this girl in all her natural glory. I will begin nutes with the next watering, and VERY VERY gently, like a quarter tsp. Big Bloom and an eighth tsp. of Grow Big. That's about as low as it's possible to go, so we'll start her there and see what she thinks. As she will spend much less time under LEDs than the last autos, my expectation is that I won't have to CalMag plus Iron her as frequently as I did in the auto grow, but we'll see. I am determined to grow this plant and to not ONCE have the need to "fix" anything on her. The goal is to maintain her in 100% health for her entire life. As is always the goal with every plant I guess, but this will be the first one I think I might know just enough to actually do it successfully. At night until we have an open tent she goes back to the bathtub and spends the night under the UFO panels and about 360 par. Should be fine for until she starts preflowering and I believe by then we'll have a tent opened up for her to finish in at night. So all good on Day 12, which by the way is roughly a sixth to a seventh of her whole life. Roughly. A significant amount of lifecycle time, so to look this good on Day 12 is significant for an auto I found.

A couple pictures:

Sour Apple new home daily in perspective.jpg


Sour Apple new home daily 2.jpg


Sour Apple new home daily.jpg


As close as I can get to her with the camera.jpg
 
Anyone who is watching this journal, please, I am looking for feedback. No right or wrong answer to this. Thanks in advance!

So the little Sour Apple has hit that gear I first noticed doing the autos in the other grow. It starts about 12 days in and goes for the rest of the time. They just take the hell off. This girl is following that pattern. By tomorrow she'll be working on her fifth set of leaves (I'll post in the morning). So soon she will be ready for transplant into the five. I have an Air Pot (never tried them before, seemed like the perfect opportunity) ready to go for her and instead of using the soil mix I first posted, I am going with what worked really well last time - 40% Happy Frog, 40% Ocean Forest, 20% Mother Earth perlite #3, and mycorrhizae in the hole on transplant. (I got some more Happy Frog, I was out when I started this journal and only had Ocean Forest, thus the original mix post).

Now that she's so close, maybe a week away, I'm starting to think about the goal - MINIMAL manipulation of the plant, just pulling branches to the side, to see what she'll do naturally if left basically alone. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't do SOMETHING to keep those branches to the side and all that good stuff. You know....yield.

So I was thinking TOMATO CAGE. One of the ones that's smaller at the bottom and bigger at the top. I think it would fit in the pot perfectly. And the plant could grow naturally right up the middle. BUT....rather than having to tie branches and all, maybe I could just run the extra growth branches (like the two branches coming out of the first node, for example, and all the others as they get long enough) up the OUTSIDE of the tomato cage as they got long enough to reach. That would keep the extra buds that will appear to the outside of the cage altogether (except what never gets long enough to reach the outside, which I think will be minimal) and the main stalk and cola up the middle. Branches spread perfectly effectively. Easy to move. Easy to do. I am trying to find a downside to this idea and so far I can't.

Surely someone has done this before, probably TONS of people. If anyone has some input I'd love to hear it. Anyone who has done this before it would be especially great to hear from you! Thanks so much guys.
 
Anyone who is watching this journal, please, I am looking for feedback. No right or wrong answer to this. Thanks in advance!

So the little Sour Apple has hit that gear I first noticed doing the autos in the other grow. It starts about 12 days in and goes for the rest of the time. They just take the hell off. This girl is following that pattern. By tomorrow she'll be working on her fifth set of leaves (I'll post in the morning). So soon she will be ready for transplant into the five. I have an Air Pot (never tried them before, seemed like the perfect opportunity) ready to go for her and instead of using the soil mix I first posted, I am going with what worked really well last time - 40% Happy Frog, 40% Ocean Forest, 20% Mother Earth perlite #3, and mycorrhizae in the hole on transplant. (I got some more Happy Frog, I was out when I started this journal and only had Ocean Forest, thus the original mix post).

Now that she's so close, maybe a week away, I'm starting to think about the goal - MINIMAL manipulation of the plant, just pulling branches to the side, to see what she'll do naturally if left basically alone. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't do SOMETHING to keep those branches to the side and all that good stuff. You know....yield.

So I was thinking TOMATO CAGE. One of the ones that's smaller at the bottom and bigger at the top. I think it would fit in the pot perfectly. And the plant could grow naturally right up the middle. BUT....rather than having to tie branches and all, maybe I could just run the extra growth branches (like the two branches coming out of the first node, for example, and all the others as they get long enough) up the OUTSIDE of the tomato cage as they got long enough to reach. That would keep the extra buds that will appear to the outside of the cage altogether (except what never gets long enough to reach the outside, which I think will be minimal) and the main stalk and cola up the middle. Branches spread perfectly effectively. Easy to move. Easy to do. I am trying to find a downside to this idea and so far I can't.

Surely someone has done this before, probably TONS of people. If anyone has some input I'd love to hear it. Anyone who has done this before it would be especially great to hear from you! Thanks so much guys.
Don’t have any experience in the cage method but Im thinking it should work just fine? Looking forward to hearing what the experienced growers have to say. Good luck Jon.

NTH
 
Sour Apple Autoflower Experiment Update
Day 21
New Digs!

Today I transplanted the girl into her new home, a five gallon Air Pot. First shot with the Air Pot. See how they compare to fabric. Anyway, does indeed hold five gallons, actually about 5 1/4. The soil mix is 40% Fox Farms Ocean Forest, 40% Fox Farms Happy Frog, 20% Mother Earth perlite #3. I dusted the hole well with mycorrhizae before dropping the plant in. Her roots reached all the way around and all the way up and down the whole starter pot, none being too tight. Picked the right time to transplant, she was clearing a pot in about 30 hours. Root ball stayed together perfectly just like it's supposed to. It was about as stress free a transplant as is possible, and the pictures are two hours after I did it. Not really wilting or anything, so hopefully she'll really take off in these new digs. That's what I expect. I have been nuting her for a bit now and now have her on week five of the FF feeding schedule. Every five days is a week to her, so she's in the beginning of week 5 relative to the feeding schedule. For this girl, that looks like 2 tsp. Grow Big/2 tsp. Big Bloom/1 tsp. CalMag plus Iron per gallon of tap water. Her ph is around 6.4-6.6 so far, which is okay. None of the other environmental factors need be mentioned, except that outside it gets up into the 90s every day and she doesn't seem to mind in the slightest. She gets about 14 hours of natural sun a day. At night, until today, she was going into the bathtub under the low level LED panels. Now she's too big for that so now she will hit the tent with the Sadie from 6 pm to 8:50 pm each night and she will go to sleep after that until 6 am. So her light schedule is roughly 15/9, with most of that being sunlight. I can't give her more light that that under LEDs right now cuz 9 pm is when Sadie goes to bed for the night, thus the removal and bedtime of 8:50 for the Sour Apple. So at night during sleep she is inside the house at 76 degrees and 60% rh. And that's about it. She is as healthy as an ox. Every single moment of her is exactly the right shade of green. She grows pretty quickly. Humboldt says she is a 75 to 90 day auto, so she has a long ways to go.

Enjoy!

Sour Apple June 10 New home.jpg
 
Sour Apple Experimental Update
Day 25
Four days post transplant

Standing proud and healthy at 25 days. Man I hope she gets a lot bigger before she decides to start budding. I'm on the lookout now for signs, and it appears she's beginning to consider starting to bud sometime soon. She's a handsome plant I think.

Sour Apple June 14.jpg
 
Sour Apple sounds yummy... bet you can't wait!
Funny you say that cuz that's one of the biggest things I have learned between my first and second grow....you gotta' chill. I've actually developed enough discipline to not even go into the tents on an off watering day except a morning check and bedtime check to make sure the light didn't fall down, lol. With this girl, I WANT her to take forever. Humboldt says she's a 75 to 90 plant, so I'm hopeful for her. I also find it amusing that so many people want to say Humboldt genetics have a tendency to go hermie. This is simply not true. Plants with genetics on the level that Humboldt creates don't just "go" hermie. You screw something up and THEN they go hermie. Not the genetics. The grower. As always, imho. Every plant I am currently growing is Humboldt genetics and they're basically spectacular.

But all that aside, yes, it's my first plant that is supposed to have terpenes that will give me an apple smell and flavor, and yes, I am rather excited about it. It's a 20-24% thc plant as well, so I'm also hopeful of an auto that will actually break through my tolerance. Of my first nine, to be honest, although all of them smell and taste good, only the Cinderella Jack packed enough of a punch to actually get me stoned. The rest is maintenance weed that I am going to turn into wax.

Thanks for following and chiming in Emilya. It is always appreciated.
 
Sour Apple Auto Experimental Update
Day 26


Sorry for posts on consecutive days, but worthy of note is that there is now no doubt. The girl has decided it's time to begin budding. What I was hoping was bundles of leaves packed tightly and popping was indeed bud. So here we are, day 26 budding. If this is indeed a 75 to 90 day plant that sure leaves a long time for her to generate some weight. However, in looking closely at this plant, what I see is likely to happen is that she is going to make one GIGANTIC cola up the middle and all I can see for side branching/other bud sites is the two branches at the first node. I *think* all the others are going to grow straight up the stalk and join into the massive cola. I could be wrong, maybe they'll grow out laterally as the first node branches are, but so far no. In theory, this should produce a giant cola and two massive side buds if I am right. We'll see. I have included a picture for scale today so we can see what she does in the stretch. In theory once again, the stretch should be on right now. She's, let's say, 14 1/2 inches tall. I highly doubt she will make it to 28 inches, which would be doubling in size. But again we'll see. Since I haven't TOUCHED this plant in any way regarding any training of any sort, and since she's growing in natural sunlight for the most part, I have to think it's a safe assumption that this is simply how this strain grows. I know one plant is not an adequate test in reality, but for now we'll go with it. This prompts a change in her nutes as now I will begin to add Tiger Bloom and molasses to the mix and she will begin to be flushed every third watering or so. I have found that consistent flushing allows me to pack in the nutrients with more abandon, as I know they will be cleaned out periodically and never be given the chance to lock up the plant. The timing relative to transplant is pretty good. Since transplant this girl has not yet had a whole pot soaking, but by her next watering in a few days she should be ready for that. And off we go! She's happy and healthy and set up nicely to produce a fine end product. So far so good.

So here's the pics, and if anyone has an alternate opinion that this plant is NOT budding, please let me know and why? Thanks!

Photographs:

Day 26 Sour Apple
Closeup lower bud sites
Closeup top cola
Picture for scale to gauge vertical stretch

Day 26 sour apple.jpg


Budding day 26.jpg


Top cola day 26.jpg


Scale shot day 26.jpg
 
That looks like blooming to me!
I am very curious to compare a sunlight stretch to an LED only stretch. I know what the latter looks like. Wonder if it will be any different?
 
Addendum Post on the Sour Apple Autoflower
Sorry. I had to wait til the evening to get the picture.


So here is the Sour Apple and what she does at night from around 6 to 9 pm. I have taught my babies how to share. Sadie doesn't seem to mind the company, it gives her someone to talk to. And the Sour Apple (now entertaining names, she's a solo plant so she needs a name) appears to be loving it in there with her. She's in the corner getting hammered with approximately 1250 par and she's STILL asking for more. It astounds me that the lady's leaves are praying up when she is getting hit with so much light, but there you go. Another light whore. Lol.

Sharing.jpg
 
Addendum Post on the Sour Apple Autoflower
Sorry. I had to wait til the evening to get the picture.


So here is the Sour Apple and what she does at night from around 6 to 9 pm. I have taught my babies how to share. Sadie doesn't seem to mind the company, it gives her someone to talk to. And the Sour Apple (now entertaining names, she's a solo plant so she needs a name) appears to be loving it in there with her. She's in the corner getting hammered with approximately 1250 par and she's STILL asking for more. It astounds me that the lady's leaves are praying up when she is getting hit with so much light, but there you go. Another light whore. Lol.

Sharing.jpg
Sadie and Sue Anne. Has a nice ring to it in my humble opinion. No matter what you name her she sure is a proud girl. Can’t wait to see what she does.

NTH
 
Sadie and Sue Anne. Has a nice ring to it in my humble opinion. No matter what you name her she sure is a proud girl. Can’t wait to see what she does.

NTH
SUE ANNE it is! I agree, nice ring to it together. She has a name. Thank you NTH!
 
Sue Anne Sour Apple Auto Update
Day 34


This plant is doing great. She continues to grow as if she will basically be one unimaginably large cola and two other buds on the two side branches. Maybe not but the buds on the center stem all appear to my eye to be growing up to join what's above it rather than growing outwards and developing separate buds. We'll see. Anyway she's real healthy and loves it in the tent with Sadie. The par at 1360 is also no issue for this auto, she seems to love it. Since she's getting less light per day than most give their autos due to the parameters of the experiment, to my eye she is taking her time more so than if I gave her 20 hours of light a day instead of 15. But she is in perfect health and that's the bottom line I care about.

She's only grown to about 19 inches since our last measurement at 14 1/2. I'd say that is minimal stretch. Not sure if she's done or not with stretching but she seems to be.

Here she is with scale photo and cola top.

Sour Apple profile June 23.jpg


Sour Apple height shot June 23.jpg


Sour Apple cola top June 23.jpg
 
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