Paradise Ice Cream / 250W MH

[Gelado`]

18 days since flip! The shortest plant is now around 14". The tallest is around 2 ft 3 in and still stretching daily.

Here they are under LED. I switched off the HPS for a few to move the LEDs up. If they keep stretching I may have to reserve the LEDs for side lighting! Trippy huh? 100W of LED is a lot more powerful than it sounds. If I look in the tent for a minute and look away, everything looks green. LEDs are no joke.

I found a few nanners on the skunk. One had opened, but no signs of any pollen. If I end up with seeds, I'll know what happened. None of the Ice Creams have balls. If the skunk produces too many I'll remove her.

My mom is seriously rootbound. I considered removing her from her pot, trimming her roots and then transplanting her back into fresh medium, but I can't be bothered. I flushed her with pHed water, and then added an extra 2" of soil on top of a handful of castings, threw on a little high P guano (for both the roots and buds) and then watered it through. I also removed the roots from the bottom of the Smartpot. Hopefully removing the tap root will cause the roots to look sideways and even vertically!

 

[Gelado`]

I decided to remove several side branches and fans to give each plant as much light as possible, so it can focus on a nice, healthy central cola a la SOG. While they have much less overall vegetative mass now, they should rebound VERY quickly since they have healthy, well developed roots. That and since they're in one gallon pots, they may well have ended up rootbound by harvest because they just wanted to GROW. Now the roots should be adequate to take them all the way through flowering (I hope so anyway).

They were growing into each other and the bottoms of the plants were shaded. Perhaps I removed too much--time will tell! With the plants receiving light all over and lots of air flow, it should slow the stretch and prevent budrot. Will it impact yield? I don't know, but budrot sure does! Let's see if I get some (botrytis-free) solid shit on a stick colas!

Next time around I should try staking them apart and removing lower growth instead of entire branches (lollipopping)...but this will be interesting and I believe I'll still have lots of good smoke come harvest time. They're less than three weeks in and took eight days to show sex, so around ten days since first pistils.

 

[Gelado`]

Everything looks fine today, and definitely a lot less crowded. All of the tops were basking under the HPS. One of the females I didn't mess with shot up another inch. Hopefully the girls that got a trim will be putting out new growth and pistils by tomorrow!

I only removed branches and fans that were touching other plants or the walls of the tent--based on the health and vigor the plants have shown me so far, I expect them to do just fine. From now on I'll only remove branches and leaves if absolutely necessary.

This is what I'm gunning for:

 

[Gelado`]

As expected the plants took the pruning right in stride--new budsites everywhere on all of the plants, including the three I didn't touch at all! I should have let them get to 3ft height since I have more height than surface area. Let's see how these phenos (Ice Cream and Skunk) handle single-cola style.

I plucked off the start of new buds at the bottoms of the plants. These buds yield the least and also are often the first to mold because they're close to the medium. Looking forward to seeing how these girls do! I had the light 14-15" above the tallest plant, but I moved it down to 12" now that the stretch appears to have stopped. Here's hoping they fatten up beautifully!

I took some cuttings when I pruned the plants about a week ago and they've rooted amazingly quickly. Worm castings are basically good for every stage of a plant's life. I took some skunk cuttings a few days ago; let's see if they root as quickly as the Ice Creams!

 

[Gelado`]

Smoked a healthy chillum and took a shot of rum to freshen up before I head out. This should be fun.

 

[b8man]

Keeping a detailed diary there Gelado - nice work.

Wise move with the pruning. I liked Ice Cream but the thing that annoyed me was how many little twigs were in the buds. Needed to find them all with tweezers in the end. One big cola is def the way to go.

And I've grown both Satori and Beyond the Brain. Satori wins it for me mainly because of the flavor and more consistently early finish times. Both are nice, relaxed sativas.

 

[Gelado`]

Thanks b8, I'll check out your Ice Cream thread now! I would have liked to have let the plants do their thing, but there simply wasn't enough room in the tent for all of the tops and major branches. An oz per plant would be good...fingers crossed!

 

[b8man]

I did another grow of my selected pheno going all organic and I liked it a lot more. Still lots of twigs, but the stone was friendlier and flavor improved - not a complete day wrecker, but not motivational.

Enjoy man and grow on!

 

[Gelado`]

My grow's all organic too, but I guess a lot depends on the pheno! Hopefully it's good smoke since I have six going as well as three clones rooting!

I had a little resin on a bud leaf today on one of the plants--rubbed it and it smells GREAT. Not fruity or sweet though; more floral and exotic!

 

[smak]

great job Gelado..

yeah, ill run also single cola NL x uknown indica strain in SOG next few days in 2L bottles, soil.

Hope to get some nice buds one day

 

[Gelado`]

Hi Smak,

That sounds good. How many 2Ls do you run per square foot?

The tent is filling up again; new branches, new leaves and lots of new bud sites. It's also getting stinky, but the scrubber keeps the smell down very well indeed. With all the power I'm using up, I hope they yield well!

 

[Gelado`]

Today it looks like my control measures were just right; the tent is filling out again and they continue to gain height. The tallest is around 28" now. I think they'll be just the right height and width at finish without sacrificing too much yield or risking disease. Fingers crossed!

 

[Gelado`]

I let my tallest Ice Cream dry out too much: I was busy earlier and held off on watering her (I knew she needed it) and she was wilted and the very top burnt! I hit her with two quarts of pH water and she perked right up. I had to cut the top inch or so off the plant since the pistils had dried up and the leaves had gone brown.

I'm headed out of town again, so I'll be sure to give everything a good watering, top dress, and another watering before I put the Blumats to work. I'm really unhappy about the burnt top, but it's still early days, so it shouldn't be too big of a hit. Moral of the story: keep your plants watered!

 

[Gelado`]

I have a feeling I'm going to near 0.5g/W with this grow, even though more than 1/3 of the space in the tent is taken up by shelves. I'm thinking about removing the ballast, shelves and LEDs and just filling the tent with clones, SOG style, under the HPS/MH. Food for thought...

 

[wildgrow]

Doo eet!

 

[Gelado`]

I might as well--it's going to get cool and dry, so I won't need air conditioning. Might as well produce enough bud for all of 2014 lol.

About to spend five days without my girls...sucks.

 

[Gelado`]

Brought along enough White Russian for a few pinners...great to be baked while out of town. I'm a little worried about my original Ice Cream mother--hope she has enough water to make it through the next few days. Then again, temperatures have dropped at home, so that should make the rate of transpiration/evaporation from the medium slow down a little...

 

[Gelado`]

Just got home and went straight to my girls! They were doing great; some yellowing of the lowest leaves and the top bud on the skunk was very slightly burned because the knockoff Blumat didn't work! I should have tested that one before leaving them as I had a feeling it wasn't going to work. The other one worked a treat. Fortunately the skunk had only just started wilting, so I gave it a thorough watering. I may need to clip the top inch off though

As for the Ice Cream with the damaged top; it's put out two new tops where the damage was cut off! It's recovered well and the Ice Creams all have a nice indica skunky funk.

I'm going out of town (yes, again) in about two weeks, so I'll have to make sure the knockoff Blumats work before I head out, and hopefully they won't be past their peak while I'm out of town. That would suck!

 

[Gelado`]

32 days since flip. My second smallest girl:

The Ice Cream I had to clip the top off because it burned; now two tops!

I think this is my Skunk. I had to clip the top 1/2" off today because it was burned and I don't want to risk rot.

I swear all my girls look happier and healthier now that I'm home, and grew rapidly since last night when I checked on them. They all got a good water and feed today.

 

[wildgrow]

Looking good. Too bad you had to clip the tops. Ive had to do it and Im pretty sure it hurt my yield. Then again, whats a couple grams on a 2+ oz plant?

Seems like that skunk wants to be a yielder.