New Grower Sour Diesel Auto: Low-Budget/Stealth - 1st FEMINIZED Seed Grow

[Tracer Productions]

Thanks for the encouragement, man! I'll take all of it I can get haha. I'm super stoked she's just flowering at all.

People are being so bitchy on other sites about the fact that it's a Solo grow with no nutes/fertilizers & cheap lights... Just glad this site is full of people who are focused on learning from your grows instead of d!cksizing. That's what makes it fun, y'know?

 

[MickJ]

I love cheap, I'm doing a journal to grow a plant for $75 including all equipment lol.

Thanks for the encouragement, man! I'll take all of it I can get haha. I'm super stoked she's just flowering at all.

People are being so bitchy on other sites about the fact that it's a Solo grow with no nutes/fertilizers & cheap lights... Just glad this site is full of people who are focused on learning from your grows instead of d!cksizing. That's what makes it fun, y'know?

Sent from my comfy chair.
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[E Grower]

Welcome to AFN (again) @Tracer

Windburn...just put your fan on low and not pointing directly at your gurl. Keep checking, she will tell you what is too much.

Because I don't work I get to check my Gurls every 1 - 2 hours after performing a task on them and they can react that fast!

Good luck! I'll be watching

 

[Tracer Productions]

WEEK 5

Flowering has begun! Pistils, pistils everywhere. Never thought I'd be so excited. I've changed the lighting schedule to 18/6 and added the LEDs for 6 hours of that time to help illuminate the side growth. The watering schedule will now include 4x weekly waterings with no more foliar misting to help bring down humidity levels & prevent bud rot/mold.

Here's a pic of my current setup:


Ghetto fab. 84 watt CFL + 20 watt LED.

The nitrogen problem is still present, so I'll be applying more grass clipping tea all week along with the Tetramin ("fish food") solution. This should provide a nice boost of nitrogen, phosphorus & potassium as well as B-vitamins & other goodies to fuel growth. Fish food seems like a weird choice but it worked well on my last plant. I've heard of using aquarium water but there's no way for me to obtain it without my dad finding out so this is the best I could do.

Holy fuck, guys. The grass clipping tea smells so bad I'm gonna have to abort mission. I did one application and now my entire room smells like 100 rats died in it. I guess nitrogen is just a smelly compound? Nah, it's gotta be something more than that. Grass should never smell this awful. The plant seems to like it but I can't stomach it so I'm tossing it after 2 applications. Next time I won't leave it for more than 2 days to steep (even though the recipes said to leave it for 2 weeks). On the plus side, my plant seems to have loved the nasty stuff. I've now got pistils developing on other bud sites besides the main cola, which is super cool. I've got a grand total of 13 bud sites counting the top one!


After 2nd application of ROTTEN-smelling grass tea.

Her leaves seem to go through the same phases every day: droopy & sad in the evenings & perky/pointed upward in the mornings & afternoons. Not sure why that is exactly. I turn my lights on at 3:00 a.m. and off at 9:00 p.m. This is all manual since I have no timer. The drooping happens whether I water that day or not.


End-of-day droop.

Autos are definitely more finicky than the photos I toyed around with in my youth. Anyone growing them should be advised not to freak out if they don't look 100% perfect all the time. My leaf tips have been burnt/crispy for a long time despite not using ANY chemical or concentrated nutes whatsoever. There doesn't appear to be a clear cause & it's not spreading so I've stopped worrying. Same with the droopy leaves. At the end of the day, she's still growing & developing as she's supposed to in less than ideal conditions. I've checked other growers' Week 5 pics on GrowDiaries.com & their flowers look similar to mine, so I'm pretty stoked about my progress so far.

I went ahead & cut the two biggest remaining fan leaves off since they were totally covering the middle bud sites & restricting their ability to grow upward. Didn't wanna remove them yet but the stems were purpling anyway so I figured the plant would be better served by having more light on those buds. I left them as long as I could. There are two undeveloped bud sites at the very bottom that got clipped the other day too. But beyond that every other potential site is developing nicely with the help of these $10 LEDs.

Got some teeny roots poking out a couple of the bottom drain holes in the cup. Amazing how they find their way out such tiny spaces. My girl has officially hit that pubescent growth spurt. I had to remove several of the notebooks that were propping her up as she was growing up into the lightbulbs. I sure wish my camera didn't suck, then you could see all the smaller bud sites & pistils that are poppin' off below the top one.

More pics from throughout the week:


May 12th


Bottom bud sites: snipped!



Before fan leaf trim...


...After fan leaf trim


Top view; late Week 5

I'm digging all the advice. Thanks so much! I've turned my fan on oscillate so it's not pointed directly at the plants, E Grower. They were definitely getting too much wind in the beginning. Looking forward to the next few weeks. We shall see if these buds fatten up or remain spindly.

 

[MickJ]

You're doing great, late day droop is normal. Grass tea will smell like cow shit after two weeks lol.

Sent from my comfy chair.
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[Tracer Productions]

WEEK 6

This week's off to a good start: the plant is looking much sleeker after the removal of those bushy fan leaves AND I'm starting to see some frost forming around the lower buds! At least I hope that's frost, lol. Pretty sure it is since I'm keeping my room dry as a bone & the whiteness is only forming around the flowering parts. I'm a total hypochondriac so of course I'm Googling "powdery mildew" as I type this.

This week I'll be bumping the LED schedule up to all day long...or at least all the hours I'm awake. They get kinda hot so I don't feel good leaving them on constantly but I want my buds to bathe in their blurple glow as much as possible. Will just be giving plain water this week since I bombarded her with weirdo experimental feedings last week.

We got a dog so I've had to be extra careful to keep her out of my room, though she's managed to nudge her way in a couple times. Good thing she isn't badly behaved or it could've been a disaster. It's actually afforded me some extra privacy--just saying "I don't want the dog peeing in my room" is all the excuse I need to keep my door CLOSED so my dad doesn't peek in again, haha. We watched 'Weeds' together but I still doubt he'd be cool with my mini-grow effort.


Starting to smell!


'Nuff bud sites

My room smells like STRONG chlorophyll any time I move the plant. The buds themselves have a mild skunky, diesel scent up close but still don't stink of weed from a distance. I'm realizing after some research this grow might take a few more weeks than anticipated. I planned on 10 weeks total but it appears 11 will be the minimum with 12 more likely if I want truly ripe buds. That's okay by me as long as I get something. This seems like a paranoia-inducing strain so I plan to let her get nice & mature before chopping to offset some of that.

My leaves have been drooping less & "praying" to the light more lately, for whatever that's worth. Doesn't seem like a bad thing. I switched my CFL reflector around where the bulbs are hitting the plant at a 90-degree angle (like an upside down "L") instead of just wasting one bulb off to the side. Maybe that's helping. Although I am seeing a bit of taco'ing on the upper leaves nearest the bulbs, so I'm taking measures to bring the temperatures down. Kinda sucks how hot these CFLs get, but it only takes about 15 minutes of 'O' time to cool them back down so no biggie. Don't want my main cola baking!


Pistil 'fro

I'm hoping to see some trichs forming in Week 7. She's pretty dry for now except at the very top. The pistils are so cool though. Looks like alien hair. Got some more feedings scheduled for next week that will hopefully kick up the potassium & calcium levels a bit.

Here's another pic from late Week 6:


End of week shot

 

[Tracer Productions]

WEEK 7

Week 7 is here. I am doing a potassium feeding using banana tea this week to hopefully boost bud size & trichome production. I used a solution of about 3:1 banana tea to plain water. She's looking mighty happy the following day! I mostly used the actual fruit rather than the peels since the peels are covered in nasty pesticides like chlorpyrifos. The fruit is higher in potassium anyway. I made the tea by smashing up the banana chunks, microwaving them in a bowl of water for 6 minutes, cooling to room temperature for a few hours, straining & applying with my scheduled watering. Nothing too fancy.

Here's a pic of her after feeding:


18 hours after banana tea

The top bud is pushing out tiny trichomes on the thin upper leaves now. They're totally not visible with my shit cam but I can see them when I look up close. How exciting! I'm impressed with how all the buds are coming along actually. Lots of healthy pistils & calyxes. Could be looking a lot worse, all things considered.

Someone on another site told me my 20 watt LEDs were "stronger than my whole 84 watts of CFL". Hmmm. Kinda confused by that statement. Others have said they were completely useless & probably didn't even put out 20 "true" watts, whatever that means. I've started aiming them more at the middle buds since it's clear the lower ones are going to be larfy no matter how much light they get. Hopefully they're adding something to the grow.




Early Week 7

Did a 2nd banana tea feeding from the bottom this time & she's looking perky as ever with even more visible trichomes. Just gonna use plain water for the rest of the week. My leaves are looking a lot more yellow & crispy than usual, which is kinda concerning since I still have about 4 weeks left. I will definitely be looking into bottled nutes next time around because this natural stuff is exhausting! Every time the buds get plumper & more filled in, the leaves look more raggedy.

I'm seeing different harvest estimation times on different websites ranging from 60 days to 75 for this strain, though I was gonna shoot for about 84 days. Might have to chop early if the yellowing doesn't slow down. I spotted my first brown pistils today so perhaps we're nearing the final stretch!


Old Yeller

The yellowing has become endemic now, having spread to about 70% of the plant. I'm not convinced it's a simple nitrogen deficiency based on how fast it set in after using the banana tea. I will be doing a thorough flush with pH'ed water followed by a balanced nitrogen-containing fertilizer (thanks, Rolling_Along!) later this week. Then I'll raise her grow lights a bit & hope for the best while she dries out & recovers. I'm pretty sure something got disturbed by the banana tea--whether it was pH or some other factor, I don't know. Best course of action is to flush it out & start afresh since the yellowness is still creeping in.


May 24 (Left) vs. May 28

On a positive note, she's trying super hard to preserve the bud sites, and the buds themselves are looking frostier than ever. It's amazing the things this plant can withstand! I still fear I'll have to chop her early...perhaps WAY early if this doesn't stop. Either way, the plant porn is about to get less sexy in the coming weeks. Say a little prayer for Old Yeller, AFN.

 

[Tracer Productions]

WEEK 8

Well, here we are at Day 56. My leaves keep yellowing & drying up at a worrying pace. There aren't very many left. I did a big flush with 1.5 times the volume of the container of plain water followed by a top dressing of some cheapo tomato fertilizer I got at Wal-Mart for $6. I've never done a flush and it felt so wrong. Really hope she doesn't drown in all that water. But a ton of dark yellow crap came out, so perhaps it's what she needed. (It was definitely not normal looking runoff & had to be something caused by that damn banana soup). I covered the soil with another layer of Black Gold dirt since it contains worm castings, which are a rich nitrogen source.

So now she's sitting under her CFL, which I've moved up a notch like it says to do after a flush on the Grow Weed Easy site. (And of course the lamp drooped down while my back was turned, landing on the top cola & squishing it a little--but DAMN did that bud smell nice when squeezed!). Got the fan blowing gently with the closet open to help dry out the soil faster. Won't be watering again for a long time!

My plan for the rest of the week is to trim off her most dead, crispy leaves & do an Epsom salt feeding after she's good & dry. But for now I'm staying as hands-off as possible. It's out of my control whether she lives or dies, but I have to give this strain props for surviving this long. The buds are still thriving in the midst of this holocaust. Even the bottom sites are starting to frost up now.


Immediately after flush...



She's still alive today after the flush. Some of the flowers have "hidden" bud sites producing pistils under the bigger ones that I never noticed before... guess it's just part of the fattening up/maturing process. Not complaining! There doesn't look to be any damage where the lamp fell on her head last night, lol. Can't wait to get these ugly leaves off so the buds will look more prominent but I'm gonna let her suck out all the nutrition first. Just wish my camera could take detailed closeups so you could see the pistils & trichomes better.

I'm feeling optimistic about her chances of pulling through. The buds are bursting with growth 24 hours after the flush. I clipped 2 of the clawed up leaves & will take more off later. I don't think the growth spurt was quite over in Week 7 either because she's now too tall to sit on the box without touching the light. I'd like to try growing in a 1-gallon container next time & think even a little extra room could make a big difference in yield. I'm still amazed at how well she's done in this crappy little cup.

Took my first look under the bright lights with the magnifying glass, and WOW the trichomes are really starting to multiply! Still shocked how great the buds look--even up close, there's no mildew, bugs, webs or real yellowing to speak of. The trichs are definitely getting that mushroom shape...can't tell the color but the pistils are still too white & immature for harvest so I know they're not ready. This cheap lighting setup has been perfect for my one small plant. All the branches are pretty well covered even though I didn't do any training. (Yep, this is me trying to be positive despite the massive chlorosis nightmare).


My attempt at a closeup trichome shot, lol.


Washed out

My pH strips arrived the other day. I tested one in my water & it came out with a reading of 7, which is the same reading my saliva got. Not sure if that's good or bad, haha. Will be interesting to see what my runoff pH is after all this craziness. The leftover banana tea tested at about a 6, for whatever that's worth. Still need to play around with these strips to see how accurate they are. They cost like $2.

Been slowly introducing more light back to my plant as she recovers. I think the downtime did her some good. Now using the LEDs in the evenings again for a few hours. The buds are continuing to frost up more each day. Some of the middle ones are looking like rock candy--covered in crystals! The trichs are now big enough to see the color with my crappy magnifying glass (still clear). Could end up with some potent smoke yet. I haven't smoked weed w/ THC in almost a year so it will be interesting. I touched a bud & was instantly hit with a strong lemon-lime skunk smell. The plant itself still doesn't stink like weed unless you touch it, which is GREAT for stealth but kinda weird as I always heard that flowering ganja plants smell like weed.


"Here...take my little hand"


Blue-green buds

Gave a small shot of Epsom water last night, which she seemed to like. Next week will look identical to this week in terms of feeding. Wanna give enough NPK to sustain her through harvest before switching over to brown sugar/molasses in Week 10 and then plain water in Week 11. No more crazy concoctions for this gal!

 

[MickJ]

Hard to tell but pH going in should be 6.5 , your pH is not miles off so I would say it's a general nute deficiency. Did you get your general nutrients yet? They will need them asap. Add nutes to water then pH test the water. Use backing soda to raise and lemon juice or vinegar to lower.

Sent from my comfy chair.
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[Tracer Productions]

WEEK 9

Captain's log; Day 63. She's still alive & kickin'. Keeping things simple from now until harvest. Just hoping to maintain healthy bud sites & keep fattening them up for the big chop. I figure if I harvest on Week 12 & add a week for drying & another 2 weeks for curing, they should be ready to smoke about 6 weeks from now (July 18th). That feels like an eternity, lol.

But the pistils are darkening up right on schedule. There are just so MANY of them on this strain. They look like pasta or alien hair. I swear more just keep popping up all the time. I'd love it if she'd fill out more to where the buds would "run into" each other on the main stem & converge into one big cola, but maybe sativas don't get that plump. She certainly has a sativa smell about her. Very citrusy & antiseptic with hints of skunk & grapefruit. (And a bit of a pee smell, which I didn't want to mention since I used the urine ferts on her in Week 3 & people are so sketched out about that, lol. But it's the typical cat pee smell that many buds have). I suck at describing terp smells so forgive me.


Her biggest cola


Under the lights after feeding

I fed her some more of the cheap ferts tonight with her watering & threw some Tetramin in for good measure since it's her last real feeding. It's a good source of phosphorus & various other nutes and she responded well to it before in Week 5. Gonna start using the supplemental LEDs more hours per day from now until harvest to hopefully boost her potential yields.

The remaining fan leaves are in seriously sad shape, lol. One of them is curled up in a "fist" but not quite dry enough to fall off when touched. So I'm leaving 'em on. It's gonna be down to the wire. I'll be shocked if any are still hanging on by Week 12. I see now why they say not to over-prune your plants--if something goes wrong & you lose all your leaves, the bud sites will have nothing to feast on.

I looked at the Grow Weed Easy page that talks about CFLs & yields. Pretty sure I'm gonna fall short of my 0.25g-per-watt potential, haha. (That would be 21 grams since 84 watts x 0.25g = 21). But honestly I'll be happy to get "A" gram off this cutie considering the bargain basement methods I used. No real investment & all the work was fun. (Not counting my chickens before they hatch...my dad could still stomp in here & rip her up before harvest or something. Just daydreaming a bit).


Full body shot

After getting curious about her origins, I asked the seed vendor (whom I found on an auction site) whether she was derived from a Sour Diesel or NYC Diesel & was surprised to find out it's the latter. She definitely SMELLS more like the citrus, grapefruity NYC version but I was under the impression she was a Sour D from the Chemdawg family tree. (NYCD is the child of a Mexican x Afghani. Totally different strain). I still don't know exactly which auto version I have--there are many--but it's cool to know for sure what the main strain is. I absolutely loved NYC Diesel the time I tried it back in the '00s. So it's official: She's a NYC Diesel Auto! (Too bad I can't change the title of this thread lol).

The top & especially middle portion of the plant is starting to look mature with lots of dark pistils while the bottom offshoots are still 100% white & immature. I can't really see the trichomes very well with the magnifying glass...at least not well enough to judge clear from cloudy from amber. I can see their mushroom shape but that's about it. So I'm gonna have to judge from the pistils & good ol' intuition. This is when it would be nice to have a decent camera so I could get feedback from the peanut gallery. I've read that most autoflower harvest dates are projected a bit early by the breeders, so I'm still going to shoot for a Week 12 harvest since most estimates for NYC Diesel & Sour Diesel Auto are in the 9-10 week range. If I end up with some sleepy CBN smoke, I suppose that's alright with me.


Side bud


Late Week 9

Oh yeah, it looks like the flush & ferts did some real good. Check out how much green she has now compared to just last week! Thanks again for the advice, @Rollin_along!



Week 8 vs. Week 9